To Lucius, on His Return from Exile

Cyprian with his colleagues to brother Lucius, greeting. And indeed but recently we congratulated you, dearest brother, when the divine favour constituted you, with honour doubled, both confessor and priest alike in the administration of His Church: but now no less do we congratulate you and your companions and the whole brotherhood, in that with the same glory and praises the benign and bountiful protection of the Lord has brought you back again to His own, so that the shepherd might be restored to feeding the flock, and the helmsman to steering the ship, and the ruler to governing the people; and that it might appear that your banishment was so ordered by divine providence, not that a bishop banished and driven out should be absent from the Church, but that he should return to the Church greater.

For in the three young men the dignity of martyrdom was not less because, death being frustrated, they came forth unharmed from the fiery furnace: nor did Daniel prove to be incomplete in his praises, because he who had been cast to the lions as prey, protected by the Lord, lived unto glory. In the confessors of Christ, martyrdoms deferred do not diminish the merit of confession, but display the great works of divine protection.

We see fulfilled in you what those brave and illustrious young men proclaimed before the king: that they themselves were indeed ready to burn in the flames rather than serve his gods or adore the image which he had made; yet that God, whom they worshipped, and whom we also worship, was powerful to deliver them unharmed from the furnace, and to free them from the king's hands and from present punishments. This we find now accomplished in the faith of your confession and in the Lord's protection toward you; so that whereas you were prepared and ready to undergo every punishment, the Lord nevertheless withdrew you from punishment and reserved you for the Church.

In your return the dignity of his confession has not been diminished in the bishop, but rather his priestly authority has grown: so that the high priest who stands at the altar of God may exhort the people to take up the arms of confession and to accomplish martyrdoms not by words but by deeds; and, with Antichrist threatening, may prepare his soldiers for battle not by the incitement of speech and voice alone, but by the example of faith and virtue.

We understand, dearest brother, and perceive with the full light of our heart the salutary and holy counsels of the divine majesty; whence that sudden persecution lately arose, whence the secular power suddenly broke forth against the Church of Christ and against the blessed martyr bishop Cornelius and against all of you: that to confound the heretics and beat them back, the Lord might show what the Church is, who is its one bishop chosen by divine ordination, who are the presbyters joined with the bishop in priestly honour, who is the united and true people of Christ bound together in the charity of the Lord's flock; whom the enemy assailed, and, by contrast, whom the devil spared as his own. For the adversary of Christ does not persecute and attack save the camp and soldiers of Christ. The heretics, once prostrated and made his own, he despises and passes by: those whom he sees standing he seeks to cast down.

And would that now the opportunity were given, dearest brother, that we who love you with mutual charity might be present there at your return, so that we too might ourselves receive in person, together with the rest, the most joyful fruit of your coming! What exultation there of all the brethren! What a running together and embracing of each one who comes to meet you! The lips of those who cling to you can scarce be satisfied with kisses, scarce can the very faces and eyes of the people be sated with beholding. From the joy of your coming the brotherhood there has begun to learn how great and how mighty shall be the joy that will follow at the coming of Christ, whose coming, since it will quickly draw near, a certain image has already gone before in you: so that just as John, his forerunner and precursor, coming proclaimed that Christ had come, so now, with the confessor of the Lord and priest returning as bishop, it may appear that the Lord Himself is already returning.

In place of our own presence, however, I and my colleagues and all the brotherhood send you these letters, dearest brother, and representing to you through this epistle our joy we express the faithful duties of charity, not ceasing here also in our sacrifices and in our prayers to give thanks to God the Father and to Christ His Son our Lord, and likewise to pray and beseech, that He who is perfect and who perfects may keep and bring to perfection in you the glorious crown of your confession: who has perhaps also called you back for this reason, lest the glory should be hidden, if the consummated martyrdoms of your confession had been accomplished abroad. For the victim who furnishes to the brotherhood an example of virtue and faith ought to be immolated before the brethren who are present. We wish you, dearest brother, always to fare well.