The Letters of Cyprian and His Correspondents

We have learned that the blessed father Cyprian has withdrawn, from Crementius the subdeacon who came from you to us, for a definite reason; and he has certainly done rightly, because he is a person of distinction. For the contest is drawing near, which God has permitted in the world so that his servants may wrestle with the adversary, wishing also to make this struggle manifest to angels and men, so that the one who conquers may be crowned, while the one who is conquered brings upon himself the sentence made manifest to us. And since it is incumbent upon us, who seem to be set over others and to guard the flock in the place of a shepherd, if we are found negligent, it will be said to us what was also said to our predecessors, who were such negligent overseers, that we have not sought out the lost, and have not corrected the wandering, and have not bound up the lame, and we ate their milk and were clothed with their wool.

Moreover the Lord himself, fulfilling what was written in the Law and the Prophets, teaches saying: I am the good shepherd, who lays down my life for my sheep. But the hireling, and he whose own the sheep are not, when he sees the wolf coming, leaves them and flees, and the wolf scatters them. But also to Simon he says thus: Do you love me? He answered, I love you. He said to him: Feed my sheep. This word we recognize as made real by the very act by which he withdrew, and the other disciples did likewise.

II. We do not wish therefore, most beloved brethren, that you be found hirelings, but good shepherds, since you know that no small danger then presses upon you if you have not exhorted our brethren to stand immovable in the faith, lest the brotherhood, rushing headlong into idolatry, be utterly rooted out. For we exhort you not only with words in this matter, but you will be able to learn from the many who come from us to you that all those things we have done and are doing with God's help, with all solicitude and worldly peril, having before our eyes more the fear of God and eternal punishments than the fear of men and brief injury, not deserting the brotherhood, and exhorting them to stand in the faith and to be ready to go with the Lord. But also those ascending to that which they were compelled to do we have called back.

The brotherhood stands firm in the faith, although some, compelled by terror itself, whether because they were persons of distinction or because they had been seized, feared through fear of men: whom indeed, separated from us, we have not abandoned, but have ourselves exhorted them and do exhort them to do penance, if in some way they may be able to receive indulgence from him who is able to grant it, lest, if they be abandoned by us, they become worse.

III. You see therefore, brethren, that you also ought to do this: that even those who have fallen, by your encouragement correcting their minds, if they are apprehended again, may confess, so that they may be able to correct their former error; and there are other things which rest upon you, which we have also set forth below: that if any who have fallen into this temptation have begun to be seized by weakness, and do penance for what they have done and desire communion, they ought certainly to be assisted—whether widows, or the bedridden who cannot present themselves, or those who are in prison, or those driven out from their dwellings—they ought certainly to have those who minister to them. But also catechumens seized by weakness ought not to be deceived so as to be without assistance; and, what is of the greatest importance, if the bodies of martyrs or of others are not buried, great peril threatens those upon whom this duty rests.

Whosoever of you therefore, by whatever occasion this work has been accomplished, we are certain will be reckoned a good servant, so that he who has been faithful in a little thing may be set over ten cities. May God, who grants all things to those who hope in Him, bring it about that all of us may be found in these works. The brethren who are in bonds greet you, and the presbyters and the whole Church, which itself also keeps watch with the utmost solicitude for all who call upon the name of the Lord. But we also ask that you in turn be mindful of us. Know moreover that Bassianus has come to us; and we ask you, who have zeal for God, to transmit a copy of this letter to as many as you are able, through suitable opportunities, or to make it your own, or to send a messenger, so that they may stand firm and unmovable in the faith. We wish you, dearest brethren, always to fare well.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons residing at Rome, his brethren, greeting. When the report of the departure of my good colleague was uncertain among us, dearest brethren, and doubtful opinion wavered, I received from you a letter sent to me through Crementius the sub-deacon, by which I was most fully informed of his glorious end; and I rejoiced greatly that, in accordance with the integrity of his administration, an honorable consummation also came to pass. In this I also greatly congratulate you, that you attend to his memory with so celebrated and illustrious a testimony, so that through you there was made known to us what was glorious to you also concerning the memory of your superior, and furnished to us as well an example of faith and virtue. For as ruinous is the fall of a superior to the downfall of those who follow, so on the other hand it is useful and salutary when a bishop presents himself to the brethren as worthy of imitation through the steadfastness of his faith.

II. I also read another letter in which neither who wrote it nor to whom it was written is expressly indicated. And since in that same letter both the handwriting and the sense and the very paper moved me, lest something of the truth might have been suppressed or altered, I have sent back that same letter to you in its original form, so that you may recognize whether it is the same one which you gave to Crementius the sub-deacon to be delivered. For it is a very grave matter if the truth of a clerical letter has been corrupted by some falsehood and fraud. In order therefore that we may be able to know this, examine the handwriting and your subscription, and write back to us what the truth of the matter is. I wish you, dearest brethren, always to fare well.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his dearest brethren, greeting. I greet you, safe through the grace of God, dearest brethren, rejoicing that I have learned all things to be intact with regard to your safety as well. And since the condition of the place does not now permit me to be present, I ask you, in accordance with your faith and devotion, to discharge there both your own duties and mine, so that nothing may be lacking either in discipline or in diligence. But as regards the providing of supplies, whether for those who, having confessed the Lord with a glorious voice, are held in prison, or for those who labor in poverty and want and yet persevere in the Lord, I ask that nothing be lacking, since the entire sum which has been collected there has been distributed among the clergy for cases of this kind, so that the many might have wherewith to minister to the necessities and pressures of each individual.

II. I ask also that your diligence and solicitude be not wanting in procuring peace. For although, brethren, dearest and most longed-for brethren, always fare well and be mindful of me. Greet warmly on my behalf the brotherhood which is with you, and admonish them to be mindful of us. Farewell.

Cyprian to Rogatianum the presbyter and to the other confessors, his brethren, greeting. I had already some time ago sent you a letter, dearest and most valiant brethren, in which I congratulated your faith and virtue with words of exultation, and now too our voice embraces nothing else in the first place than that with joyful spirit we may frequently and always proclaim the glory of your name. For what can there be greater in my desires or better than when I see the flock of Christ illumined by the honor of your confession? For while all the brethren ought to rejoice in this, yet in the common joy the bishop's portion is the greater: for the glory of the Church is the glory of its superior. As much as we grieve over those whom the hostile tempest has laid low, so much do we rejoice over you, whom the devil was unable to overcome.

II. We exhort you, however, through our common faith, through the true and sincere charity of our heart toward you, that you who have conquered the adversary in this first encounter may hold your glory with strong and persevering virtue. We are still in the world, still set in the line of battle, we fight daily for our life. Care must be taken that after these beginnings there may come also increase, and that what you have already begun to be with happy first steps may be brought to completion in you. It is little to have been able to attain something; it is more to be able to preserve what has been attained; just as faith itself and the saving birth, not when received but when kept, gives life. Nor does the attaining, but the consummation, preserve a man for God. The Lord taught this by His own instruction, saying: Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest something worse befall thee.

Think that He says this also to His confessor: "Behold, thou art made a confessor; sin no more, lest something worse befall thee." Solomon finally, and Saul, and many others, as long as they walked in the ways of the Lord, were able to retain the grace given to them. When the discipline of the Lord departed from them, the grace also departed.

III. We must persevere in the narrow and strait path of praise and glory; and while quiet and humility and the tranquility of good conduct befits all Christians, according to the voice of the Lord, who regards none other than him who is humble and quiet and trembles at His words, yet confessors ought the more to observe and fulfill this, who have been made an example to the other brethren, by whose conduct the life and behavior of all ought to be stirred. For just as the Jews have been estranged from God, on whose account the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles, so on the other hand those are dear to God through whose discipline the name of the Lord is proclaimed with praiseworthy testimony; so that, as it is written, the Lord forewarning and saying: Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. And the Apostle Paul says: Shine as lights in the world.

And Peter likewise exhorts: As strangers, he says, and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, having your conversation among the Gentiles good, that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, beholding your good works they may glorify the Lord. Which indeed the greater part of you, to my joy, takes care to do, and, made better by the very honor of confession, guards and preserves its glory with tranquil and good conduct.

IV. But I hear that some are tainting your number and destroying the praise of so distinguished a name by their depraved conduct: whom you yourselves also, as lovers and guardians of your own praise, ought to rebuke and restrain and correct. For with how great a shame to your name is sin committed, when someone lingers in drunkenness and wantonness, another returns to that country from which he was banished as an exile, so that when apprehended he may perish not as a Christian but as a criminal? I hear that some are puffed up and swollen with pride, whereas it is written: Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He spare not thee either. Our Lord was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer opened not His mouth. I am not, He says, rebellious, neither do I contradict. I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.

I hid not my face from shame and spitting. And does anyone who now lives through Him and in Him dare to exalt himself and be proud, unmindful both of the deeds which He performed and of the commandments which He delivered to us either through Himself or through His Apostles? But if the servant is not greater than his lord, let those who follow the Lord imitate His footsteps, humble and quiet and silent, so that each one who has been the more lowly may become the more exalted, the Lord saying: He who is least among you, the same shall be great.

V. What then of this, how execrable it ought to seem to you, which we have learned with the deepest grief and sorrow of our soul: that there are not wanting those who, even after confession, defile with their shameful cohabitation the temples of God and the members sanctified and illumined, joining their sleeping quarters promiscuously with women; when, even if the defilement of their conscience be absent, this very thing is a great crime, that by their scandal examples arise for the ruin of others. Contentions also and rivalries ought to be none among you, since the Lord has left His peace with us, and it is written: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and accuse one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

From revilings also and abusive words, I beseech you, abstain, because neither do revilers inherit the kingdom of God, and the tongue which has confessed Christ must be kept unharmed and pure with its own honor: for he who speaks peaceable and good and just things, according to the precept of Christ, confesses Christ daily. We had renounced the world when we were baptized. But now we have truly renounced the world when, tried and proved by God, leaving all that is ours, we have followed the Lord, and stand and live by faith in Him and fear of Him. VI.

Let us strengthen one another with mutual exhortations, and advance more and more in the Lord, so that when, in His mercy, He shall have made peace, which He promises He will make, we may return to the Church new and almost transformed, and our brethren, or even the Gentiles, may receive us corrected in all things and reformed for the better, and those who had previously admired the glory in our virtues may now admire the discipline in our conduct. And although I have written most fully to our clergy, both recently while you were still held in prison, and now again afresh, that whatever may be necessary for your clothing or sustenance should be provided, yet I myself also from my own small means which I had with me have sent you two hundred and fifty, and I had also sent another two hundred and fifty recently. Victor also, a deacon from the lector, who is with me, sent you one hundred and seventy-five.

I rejoice moreover when I learn that very many of our brethren out of their love are vying with one another to come forward and assist your needs with their contributions. I wish you, dearest brethren, always to fare well and to be mindful of us.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. Although I know, dearest brothers, that out of the fear which each of us owes to God, you also are there persistently engaged in continual prayers and earnest supplications, yet I myself also admonish your devout solicitude that, in order to appease and entreat the Lord, we should groan not with voice alone, but also with fasts and tears and every kind of supplication. For it must be understood and acknowledged that the turbulent devastation of this present tribulation, which has laid waste our flock for the most part and continues to lay it waste, has come upon us according to our sins, while we do not hold to the way of the Lord, nor keep the heavenly commandments given to us for salvation.

Our Lord did the will of the Father, and we do not do the will of the Lord, being devoted to wealth and gain, pursuing pride, given over to rivalry and dissension, neglecting simplicity and faith, renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds, each one pleasing himself and displeasing all others. We are therefore chastised as we deserve, since it is written: But that servant who knows the will of his lord, and has not obeyed his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. And what blows, what stripes do we not deserve, when not even the confessors, who ought to have been an example to others in good conduct, maintain discipline?

And so, while the swollen and shameless boasting of their confession insolently exalts certain ones, torments have come—torments without end of the torturer, without escape from condemnation, without the consolation of death—torments which do not easily release one to a crown, but rack for so long as to bring one down; unless someone, withdrawn by divine grace, has made progress amid the very tortures themselves, attaining glory not by the end of punishment, but by the swiftness of dying.

II. These things we suffer by our own fault and desert, as the divine judgment forewarned, saying: If they shall have forsaken my law and have not walked in my judgments, if they shall have profaned my justifications and have not observed my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod and their sins with stripes. We therefore feel the rods and stripes, we who neither please God by good deeds nor make satisfaction for our sins. Let us ask from the inmost heart and with the whole mind for the mercy of God, for he himself added, saying: But my mercy I will not scatter from them. Let us ask, and we shall receive; and if there be delay and slowness in receiving, because we have gravely offended, let us knock, for to him who knocks it shall be opened, if only our prayers, our groans, and our tears knock at the door—upon which it is fitting to persist and dwell, even if the prayer be unanimous. III.

For what more urged and compelled me to write this letter to you, you ought to know: as the Lord has deigned to show and reveal, it was said in a vision: Ask, and you shall obtain; and then a command was given to the people standing by, that they should ask for certain persons designated to them; but in the asking the voices were discordant and the wills diverse, and this greatly displeased him who had said, Ask, and you shall obtain, because the inequality of the people was at variance, and there was not one simple and joined harmony of agreement among the brothers—since it is written, God who makes those of one mind to dwell in a house, and we read in the Acts of the Apostles, But the multitude of those who believed were of one soul and one mind; and the Lord commanded with his own voice, saying: This is my commandment, that you love one another.

And again: But I say to you that if two of you shall agree on earth concerning any matter whatsoever that you shall ask, it shall come to pass for you from my Father who is in heaven. But if two who are of one mind can accomplish so much, what if unanimity were present among all? For if, according to the peace which the Lord has given us, all the brothers were in agreement, we would long since have obtained from the divine mercy what we ask, nor would we be tossed about for so long in this peril to our salvation and faith. Indeed, these evils would not even have come upon the brothers, if the brotherhood had been animated as one.

IV. For this also was shown: that a father of a household sat, with a young man seated at his right hand; which young man, anxious and somewhat sad with a certain indignation, sat holding his cheek with his hand, with a sorrowful countenance. But another stood on the left side carrying a net, which he threatened to cast so as to catch the surrounding people. And when he who saw this marveled at what it might be, it was told him that the young man who sat thus at the right hand was grieved and sorrowful because his commandments were not being observed; but that the one on the left was exulting because occasion was being given him to receive from the father of the household the power of raging. This was shown long before the storm of this devastation arose.

And we have seen fulfilled what had been shown, so that, while we despise the commandments of the Lord, while we do not keep the saving precepts of the law given to us, the enemy received the power of doing harm, and covered with the cast of his net those who were less armed and less wary to resist. V. Let us pray earnestly and groan with continual supplications. For this also, brothers most dear, know that it was not long ago reproached to us in a vision, that we slumber in our prayers and do not pray watchfully. And God indeed, who chastises him whom he loves, when he chastises, chastises to this end that he may correct; to this end corrects, that he may preserve. Let us therefore shake off and break the bonds of sleep, and pray earnestly and watchfully, as the Apostle Paul commands, saying: Be instant in prayer, watching therein.

For the Apostles also did not cease to pray day and night, and the Lord himself, the teacher of our discipline and the way of our example, prayed frequently and watchfully, as we read in the Gospel: He went out into the mountain to pray, and he passed the night in prayer to God. And certainly what he prayed, he prayed for us, since he himself was not a sinner, but bore the sins of others. So earnestly indeed did he make intercession for us that we read in another place: And the Lord said to Peter: Behold, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not. But if for us and for our sins he both labored and watched and prayed, how much more ought we to persist in prayers and to pray, and first to entreat the Lord himself, and then through him to make satisfaction to God the Father?

We have as advocate and intercessor for our sins Jesus Christ our Lord and God, if only we repent of having sinned in the past, and, confessing and acknowledging our transgressions by which we have now offended the Lord, we pledge ourselves at least henceforth to walk in his ways and to fear his commandments. The Father corrects and protects us, yet standing in faith and in tribulations and distresses, clinging firmly to his Christ, as it is written: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? None of these things can separate those who believe, nothing can tear away those who cleave to his body and blood. This persecution is a testing and an examination of our hearts. God has willed that we be shaken and proved, as he has always proved his own; nor yet in his probations has help ever been lacking to those who believe. VI.

Finally, to his least servant, placed though he be in many sins and unworthy of his grace, yet he has deigned out of his goodness toward us to give this command: "Tell him," he said, "to be secure, for peace is coming; but that there is a brief delay in the meantime, because there are still some who must be proved." But we are also admonished by divine graces concerning spare food and sober drink; lest, namely, the allurement of the world enervate a breast already elevated by heavenly vigor, or lest a mind weighed down by more abundant feasts be less wakeful for the prayers of supplication. VII. I ought not to dissemble these several things and conceal them alone within my own conscience, by which each one of us can be both instructed and guided. Nor indeed should you yourselves keep this letter hidden from those with you, but suggest that it be read to the brothers.

For to intercept those things by which the Lord deigns to admonish and instruct us belongs to one who would not wish his brother to be admonished and instructed. Let them know that we are being proved by our Lord, and let them not fail in the conflict of the present tribulation from the faith in which we once believed in him. Let each one, acknowledging his own sins, put off at last the conduct of the old man. For no one who looks back and puts his hand to the plough is fit for the kingdom of God. Moreover, the wife of Lot, who, having been delivered, looked back contrary to the commandment, lost what she had escaped. Let us attend not to the things behind, to which the devil calls us back, but to the things before, to which Christ calls us. Let us lift our eyes to heaven, lest the earth deceive us with its pleasures and allurements.

Let each one pray to God, not for himself alone, but for all the brothers, as the Lord taught us to pray; where he does not command each to pray a private prayer, but ordered those who pray to pray for all with common and concordant supplication. If the Lord shall see us humble and quiet, joined to one another, fearful of his wrath, corrected and amended by the present tribulation, he will shield us from the attacks of the enemy. Discipline has gone before; pardon also will follow.

VIII. Let us only, ceasing not to ask and with faith to receive, beseech the Lord with simplicity and unanimity, entreating with groaning and weeping alike, as it befits those to entreat who are placed amid the ruins of those who mourn and the remnants of those who fear, amid the numerous destruction of the sick and the scant steadfastness of those who stand. Let us ask that peace be restored more speedily, that aid be quickly brought to our hiding-places and dangers, that what the Lord deigns to show to his servants be fulfilled: the restoration of the Church, the security of our salvation, after the rains serenity, after darkness light, after storms and tempests calm and gentle weather, the pious aids of fatherly love, the accustomed great works of the divine majesty, by which both the blasphemy of the persecutors may be beaten back, and the penitence of the lapsed may be reformed, and the brave and steadfast confidence of those who persevere may be glorified.

I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well and to remember us. Greet the brotherhood in my name, and admonish them to remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors in Christ our Lord and in God the Father, perpetual greeting. I rejoice with gladness and give thanks, most valiant and most blessed brethren, having learned of your faith and virtue, in which our mother the Church glories. She gloried also recently, when, with confession persisting, the punishment was received which made the confessors of Christ exiles. Yet the present confession, the more courageous in suffering, is so much the more illustrious and greater in honor. The struggle has grown, and the glory of those who struggle has grown with it. Nor were you held back from the battle line by fear of torments, but by the very torments you were provoked more and more to the battle line, and you returned strong and steadfast to the combat of the greatest contest with ready devotion.

Of these I have already learned that some are now crowned, and others very close to the crown of victory, and all whom the prison has enclosed in its glorious company are animated with equal and like ardor of virtue to wage the contest, as it befits soldiers of Christ in the divine camp, so that neither may flatteries deceive the uncorrupted firmness of faith, nor threats terrify it, nor tortures and torments overcome it, because greater is he who is in us than he who is in this world, nor can earthly punishment do more to cast down than divine protection can do to raise up. The matter has been proved by the glorious contest of the brethren, who, having become leaders to others in overcoming torments, gave an example of virtue and faith, engaging in battle until the battle line yielded in defeat. With what praises shall I proclaim you, most valiant brethren? The strength of your breast and the perseverance of your faith—with what herald's cry of voice shall I adorn them?

You endured to the consummation of glory the most severe examination, and you did not yield to punishments, but rather the punishments yielded to you. The end of sufferings, which the torments did not give, the crowns gave. The more grievous examination persevered long for this purpose, not to cast down a faith that stood firm, but to send the men of God more swiftly to the Lord. The multitude of those present looked on with wonder at the heavenly contest, the contest of God, the spiritual contest, the battle of Christ; they saw his servants standing with free voice, with uncorrupted mind, with divine virtue, naked indeed of worldly weapons, but believing themselves armed with the arms of faith. They stood, tortured, stronger than those who tortured them, and their members, struck and torn, overcame the claws that struck and tore. The raging blow, long repeated, could not overcome the impregnable faith, although, with the framework of the inward parts broken, it was no longer limbs but wounds that were being tormented in the servants of God.

Blood flowed which might quench the fire of persecution, which might extinguish with its glorious gore the flames and fires of Gehenna. O what a spectacle that was for the Lord, how sublime, how great, how acceptable to the eyes of God in the sacrament and devotion of his soldier, as it is written in the Psalms, the Holy Spirit speaking to us and admonishing us alike: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Precious is this death which purchases immortality at the price of its own blood, which receives the crown from the consummation of virtue. How glad was Christ there! How willingly in such servants of his did he both fight and conquer as the protector of faith, giving to those who believe as much as he who receives believes himself able to take! He was present at his own contest, he raised up, strengthened, and animated the fighters and champions of his name. And he who once conquered death for us conquers always in us.

When they deliver you up, he says, take no thought what you shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. The present battle furnished proof of this. A voice full of the Holy Spirit burst forth from the mouth of the martyr, when the most blessed Mappalicus amid his torments said to the proconsul: "Tomorrow you shall see a contest." And what he said with the testimony of virtue and faith, the Lord fulfilled. The heavenly contest was displayed, and the servant of God was crowned in the contest of the promised struggle. That is the contest which the prophet Isaiah foretold beforehand, saying: Is it a small thing for you to contend with men, since God provides the contest? And, to show what this contest was to be, he added, saying: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel.

That is the contest of our faith in which we engage, in which we conquer, in which we are crowned. That is the contest which the blessed Apostle Paul showed us, in which we must run and attain to the crown of glory: Know you not, he says, that they which run in a race run all, yet one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain. And they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. Likewise, showing his own contest and promising that he would soon be a sacrifice to the Lord, he says: For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord shall give me at that day, the righteous judge, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

This contest, therefore, foretold beforehand through the Prophets, entered upon by the Lord, waged by the Apostles, Mappalicus promised to the proconsul in his own name and in the name of his companions. Nor did his faithful voice fail in its promise: he displayed the fight he had pledged, and received the palm he had merited. This most blessed martyr, and the others who share in the same engagement, soldiers and companions steadfast in faith, patient in suffering, victorious in examination—I both desire and exhort that you likewise follow them; so that those whom the bond of confession and the lodging of the prison have joined together, the consummation of virtue and the heavenly crown may also join; that you may wipe away with your joy the tears of our mother the Church, who mourns the ruin and death of many, and may also strengthen the firmness of the other standing ones by the provocation of your example.

If the battle line shall call you, if the day of your contest shall come, fight bravely, contend steadfastly, knowing that you contend under the eyes of the Lord who is present, and that through confession of his name you attain to his own glory; who is not such as merely to watch his servants, but himself struggles in us, himself engages, himself in the contest of our struggle both crowns and is crowned alike. But if before the day of your contest, by the indulgence of the Lord, peace shall come, let your will remain whole and your conscience glorious. And let none of you be saddened as though he were less than those who, having endured torments before you, came to the Lord by a glorious journey, the world overcome and trodden underfoot. The Lord is the searcher of reins and heart, he perceives secrets and beholds hidden things. To merit the crown from him, his testimony alone suffices, who is to judge.

Therefore both things, dearest brethren, are alike sublime and illustrious: that one more secure, to hasten to the Lord by the consummation of victory; this one more joyful, to flourish in the praise of the Church, having received after glory a furlough. O our blessed Church, which the honor of divine condescension so illumines, which the glorious blood of martyrs illustrates in our times! Before she was white in the works of the brethren, now she has been made purple in the blood of martyrs: her flowers lack neither lilies nor roses. Let each now strive for the most ample dignity of either honor. Let them receive crowns either white from works, or purple from suffering.

In the heavenly camps both peace and battle have their flowers, with which the soldier of Christ is crowned for glory. I wish you, most valiant and most blessed brethren, always to fare well in the Lord and to remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. I have kept my patience for a long time, dearest brothers, as though our modest silence might serve peace. But since the immoderate and abrupt presumption of certain persons is trying by its rashness to disturb both the honor of the martyrs, the modesty of the confessors, and the tranquility of the whole people, it is no longer right to be silent, lest excessive silence proceed to the danger both of the people and of ourselves. For what danger from the offense of the Lord ought we not to fear, when some of the presbyters, remembering neither the Gospel nor their own place, and thinking neither of the future judgment of the Lord nor of the bishop now set over them, do what was never done at all under our predecessors, with insult and contempt of the one set over them claiming all things for themselves? II. And would that they did not claim all things for themselves at the cost of the ruin of our brethren!

The affront to our episcopate I could overlook and bear, as I have always overlooked and borne it. But there is no place for overlooking now, when our brotherhood is being deceived by certain of you who, while they desire to be popular without reason in restoring salvation, rather harm the lapsed. For that the offense which persecution compelled to be committed is the gravest, they themselves know who committed it, since the Lord and our judge has said: Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me, him will I also deny; and has again said: All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies. But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation; and likewise the blessed Apostle has said: Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils.

He who withholds these things from our brethren deceives the wretched; so that those who are able, by doing true penance and satisfying God the merciful Father by their prayers and works, are led astray so that they rather perish, and those who could raise themselves up fall further. For whereas in lesser sins sinners do penance for a fitting time, and according to the order of discipline come to the exomologesis, and through the laying on of hands by the bishop and clergy receive the right of communion, now in this raw time, with the persecution still continuing, with the peace of the Church itself not yet restored, they are admitted to communion and their names are offered, and, penance not yet performed, exomologesis not yet made, the hand not yet laid upon them by the bishop and clergy, the Eucharist is given to them, though it is written: Whosoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. III.

But now those are not guilty who observe the law of Scripture less strictly. They will however be guilty who preside and do not suggest these things to the brethren, so that, instructed by those set over them, they may do all things with the fear of God and with the observance given and prescribed by him. They then expose the blessed martyrs and the glorious servants of God to ill will, and set them at odds with the priest of God, so that, whereas those, mindful of our position, have directed letters to me and have asked that their desires be examined at that time and that peace be given when our mother the Church herself shall first have received peace from the mercy of the Lord and divine protection shall have brought us back to his Church, these men, setting aside the honor which the blessed martyrs together with the confessors preserve for us, and despising the law of the Lord and the observance which the same martyrs and confessors enjoin to be kept, before the fear of persecution is extinguished, before our return, before almost the very departure of the martyrs themselves, communicate with the lapsed and make the offering and deliver the Eucharist, when, even if the martyrs, through the ardor of glory contemplating the Scripture less carefully, should desire something more, they ought to be admonished by the presbyters and deacons suggesting it to them, as has always been done in the past.

IV. And so the divine censure does not cease to chastise us either by night or by day. For besides nightly visions, by day also the innocent age of children is filled among us with the Holy Spirit, which in ecstasy sees with its eyes and hears and speaks those things with which the Lord deigns to warn and instruct us. And you shall hear all things when the Lord shall bring me back to you, who commanded me to withdraw. In the meantime let certain rash, incautious, and arrogant ones among you, who think not of man, at least fear God, knowing that if they persist further in the same things, I shall use that admonition which the Lord bids me use, so that they be for the present forbidden to make the offering, and shall plead their cause both before us and before the confessors themselves and before the whole people; when, the Lord permitting, we shall have begun to be gathered back into the bosom of our mother the Church.

Concerning this matter I have written letters to the martyrs and confessors and to the people, which I have directed both to be read to you. I wish you, most dear and most longed-for brethren, always to fare well in the Lord and to remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors, his dearest brothers, greeting. The care of our office and the fear of the Lord compel us, most valiant and blessed brothers, to admonish you by our letter, that by those who keep the faith of the Lord so devoutly and bravely, the law and discipline of the Lord may likewise be preserved. For, while all soldiers of Christ ought to keep the commands of their emperor, it is all the more fitting that you, who have become an example to the rest both of virtue and of the fear of God, should obey his commands. And I had indeed believed that the presbyters and deacons who are present there would admonish and instruct you most fully concerning the law of the Gospel, as was always done in times past under our predecessors, so that the deacons, going to and fro to the prison, would guide the desires of the martyrs by their counsels and the precepts of the Scriptures.

But now I learn with the greatest grief of soul that not only are the divine precepts not being suggested to you there, but that they are even being hindered; so that those things which are done by you yourselves both cautiously toward God and honorably toward the priest of God, are being undone by certain presbyters, who, taking no thought for the fear of God nor for the honor of the bishop (when you had directed letters to me, in which you expressed the desire that your requests be examined and that peace be given to certain of the lapsed, when, the persecution being ended, we should begin to meet together and be reassembled with the clergy), those men, contrary to the law of the Gospel, contrary also to your honorable petition, before penance has been performed, before confession has been made of the most grievous and extreme offense, before the hand has been laid upon the penitent by the bishop and clergy, dare to offer on their behalf and to give the Eucharist, that is, to profane the holy body of the Lord; whereas it is written:

Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

II. And to the lapsed indeed pardon may be granted in this matter. For who that is dead would not hasten to be restored to life? Who would not make haste to come to his own salvation? But it is the duty of those set over others to hold fast to the commandment, and to instruct those who are either hastening or ignorant, lest those who ought to be shepherds of the sheep become butchers. For to grant those things which turn to destruction is to deceive; nor is the lapsed thus raised up, but rather, through the offense of God, is pushed further toward ruin. Let them therefore learn from you what they ought to have taught. Let them reserve your petitions and desires for the bishop, and let them await a mature and peaceful time for granting the peace you seek. It is first necessary that the mother Church receive peace from the Lord; then, in accordance with your desires, the matter of peace for her children may be treated.

III. And since I hear, most valiant and dearest brothers, that you are being oppressed by the shamelessness of certain persons and that your modesty is suffering violence, I beg you with such entreaties as I can offer that, mindful of the Gospel and considering what and how great things your predecessors the martyrs granted in times past, how careful they were in all things, you likewise carefully and cautiously weigh the desires of those who petition, inasmuch as you are friends of the Lord and will hereafter judge with him; that you examine the conduct and works and merits of individuals, and consider also the kinds and qualities of their very offenses, lest, if anything has been promised or done by us rashly and unworthily, our Church begin to blush even before the pagans themselves. For we are visited and chastened frequently, and we are admonished that the commandments of the Lord remain uncorrupted and inviolate.

Which indeed I know does not cease even there among you, but that the divine censure also instructs very many of you in the discipline of the Church. But all this can be accomplished, if you moderate with devout consideration the things that are asked of you, understanding and restraining those who, showing partiality, either seek favor in your benefits, or hunt for the market of illicit trafficking.

IV. Concerning this matter I have also written letters to the clergy and to the people, both of which I have directed to be read to you. But this also you ought to bring to the attention of your diligence and correct: that you designate by name those to whom you desire peace to be given. For I hear that certificates are being made out for certain persons in such a way that it is said: "Let such a one communicate with his own people," which has never at all been done by the martyrs, so that an uncertain and vague petition may afterward heap reproach upon us. For the scope is wide when it is said "such a one with his own people," and there may be presented to us twenty or thirty or even more who are asserted to be kinsmen and relatives and freedmen and household members of the one who receives the certificate.

And therefore I ask that you designate by name in the certificate those whom you yourselves see, whom you know, whose penitence you observe to be close to satisfaction, and that you thus direct to us letters consonant with faith and discipline. I wish you, most valiant and most beloved brothers, always to fare well in the Lord and to remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the brothers dwelling among the people, greeting. I know that you groan and grieve over the ruin of our brothers, dearest brothers, I who also groan and grieve equally with you over each one, and suffer and feel what the blessed Apostle said: Who is weak, he says, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I burn not? And again he set it down in his Epistle, saying: If one member suffers, the other members suffer with it; and if one member rejoices, the other members rejoice with it. I therefore suffer with and grieve over our brothers who have fallen and been laid low by the assault of persecution, who, drawing with them a part of our very bowels, have brought upon us equal grief by their wounds; upon whom the divine mercy is able to bestow healing. Yet I do not think we should hasten, nor should anything be done incautiously and in haste, lest, while peace is rashly usurped, the offense of divine indignation be more gravely provoked.

The blessed martyrs have written letters to us, asking that their desires be examined. When, peace having first been given to us all by the Lord, we shall have begun to return to the Church, then the individual cases will be examined in your presence and with your judgment. II. I hear, however, that certain of the presbyters, mindful neither of the Gospel, nor of what the martyrs have written to us, nor preserving for the bishop the honor of his priesthood and his chair, have already begun to communicate with the lapsed and to offer on their behalf and to give the Eucharist, when it is necessary to arrive at these things through the proper order.

For, since in lesser offenses which are not committed against God penance is performed for a fitting time, and confession is made after examination of the life of the one performing penance, and no one can come to communion unless the hand has first been laid upon him by the bishop and clergy, how much more in these most grievous and extreme offenses ought all things to be observed carefully and moderately, according to the discipline of the Lord? This indeed our presbyters and deacons ought to have admonished, so that they might cherish the sheep committed to their care and instruct them by divine teaching in the way of seeking salvation. I know the quietness and the fear of our people, who would be watchful in making satisfaction to God and in supplication, had not certain of the presbyters deceived them by showing favor. III. Do you therefore govern each one individually, and by your counsel and moderation, according to the divine precepts, temper the minds of the lapsed. Let no one pluck bitter fruit before its time.

Let no one commit his ship, shattered and pierced by the waves, to the deep again before he has carefully repaired it. Let no one hasten to receive and put on a torn garment, unless he has seen it mended by a skilled craftsman and received it back cared for by a fuller. Let them hear, I pray, our counsel patiently; let them await our return, so that, when we shall have come to you through the mercy of God, with several fellow-bishops assembled, according to the discipline of the Lord and in the presence of the confessors and with your judgment as well, we may be able to examine the letters and desires of the blessed martyrs. Concerning this matter I have also written letters to the clergy and to the martyrs and confessors, both of which I have directed to be read to you. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, always to fare well in the Lord and to remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. I marvel, dearest brothers, that you have written nothing back to me in response to the many letters which I have frequently sent to you, since the advantage and necessity of our brotherhood is certainly governed in such a way that, instructed by you, we may be able to refine our plan for the matters to be done.

Since, however, I see that there is not yet an opportunity of coming to you, and that summer has now begun, a time troubled by continual and serious illnesses, I think we must come to the aid of our brothers, so that those who have received certificates from the martyrs and can be assisted before God by their privilege, if they should be occupied by some sickness and danger of infirmity, without waiting for our presence, may be able to make confession of their offense before any presbyter who is present; or, if no presbyter is found and death begins to press, even before a deacon, so that, with the hand imposed on them for penance, they may come to the Lord with the peace which the martyrs desired to be given in letters made to us. II. Cherish also by your presence the remaining part of the people who have fallen, and sustain them with your consolation so that they do not fail in faith and in the mercy of the Lord.

For those who, being meek and humble and truly performing penance, shall have persevered in good works, will not be abandoned by the help and aid of the Lord, so that provision may also be made for them by divine remedy. Let your watchfulness also not be lacking to those who are hearing, if any shall have been overtaken by danger and placed at the point of departure; let the mercy of the Lord not be denied to those who implore divine grace. I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well and to remember us. Greet the whole brotherhood in my name, and admonish and ask them to remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. I have read your letter, dearest brothers, in which you wrote that your wholesome counsel is not lacking to our brothers, that, laying aside rash haste, they may offer to God devout patience, so that, when we shall have come together through his mercy, we may be able to treat of all the various cases according to ecclesiastical discipline, especially since it is written: Remember from whence thou art fallen, and do penance. But he truly does penance who, mindful of the divine precept, being meek and patient and obedient to the priests of God, merits the Lord by his acts of submission and his just works. II.

Since, however, you indicate that certain persons are immoderate and urgently press for communion to be received in haste, and you have desired that a rule be given you by me in this matter, I believe I have written sufficiently fully on this subject in the recent letter sent to you, namely: that those who have received a certificate from the martyrs, and can be aided by their intercession with the Lord in their offenses, if they shall have begun to be pressed by some infirmity and danger, after confession has been made and the hand laid upon them by you in penance, may be sent to the Lord with the peace promised them by the martyrs. But the rest who, having received no certificate from the martyrs, create resentment, since this cause belongs not to a few, nor to the Church of one city or one province, but to the whole world, let them await the public peace of the Church itself from the protection of the Lord.

For this is fitting both for modesty and for discipline and for the very life of us all, that those set over others, meeting together with the clergy, with the people of the steadfast also present, to whom honor is likewise to be shown for their faith and fear, we may be able to arrange all things with the devotion of common counsel. Moreover, how irreligious it is and how harmful even to those who hasten, that, while the confessors, driven from their homes and country and despoiled of all their goods, have not yet returned to the Church, certain of the lapsed should hasten to forestall the confessors themselves and to enter the Church before them! If they are in too great a hurry, they have within their own power what they seek, time itself granting them more than they seek. The battle is still being waged, and the contest is celebrated daily. If repentance for what has been committed is true and firm and the warmth of faith prevails, one who cannot be delayed can be crowned.

I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well and to remember us. Greet the whole brotherhood in my name, and admonish them to be mindful of us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons dwelling at Rome, his brothers, greeting. Since I have learned, dearest brothers, that things which have been done and are being done here by us are being reported to you less straightforwardly and less faithfully, I have judged it necessary to write this letter to you, by which an account of our conduct and of our discipline and diligence might be rendered to you. For, as the commandments of the Lord instruct, when the first onset of the disturbance had arisen, since the people had frequently demanded me with violent clamor, thinking not so much of my own safety as of the public tranquility of the brothers, I withdrew for a time, lest through the shameless presence of our person the sedition which had begun should be further provoked. Yet absent in body, I was not absent in spirit or in action or in my admonitions, so that I might, according to the precepts of the Lord, provide for our brothers in what I could by my humble means.

II. And what I have done, the letters sent out according to the times speak to you—thirteen in number, which I transmitted to you; in which neither counsel to the clergy was lacking, nor exhortation to the confessors, nor rebuke to the exiles when it was fitting, nor our address and persuasion to the whole brotherhood to implore the mercy of God, as much as our lowliness was able to strive, according to the law of faith and the fear of God, with the Lord's prompting. But after torments also came, whether upon our brethren already tortured, or upon those still shut up that they might be tortured, our word penetrated to strengthen and comfort them.

Likewise, when I had learned that those who had defiled their hands and mouths by sacrilegious contacts, or had equally polluted their conscience by wicked certificates, were going about to the martyrs everywhere, and were also corrupting the confessors by importunate and flattering entreaty, so that thousands of certificates were being given daily without any discrimination or examination of individuals, contrary to the law of the Gospel, I wrote letters by which I might recall the martyrs and confessors as much as possible to the Lord's precepts by my counsel. Likewise, the vigor of the priesthood was not lacking in the presbyters and deacons, so that certain ones, less mindful of discipline and headlong in rash haste, who had already begun to communicate with the lapsed, were restrained through our intervention. We also composed the spirit of the people themselves as much as we could, and instructed them that ecclesiastical discipline should be observed.

III. But afterwards, when certain of the lapsed, either of their own accord or at the instigation of someone, rushed forward with bold clamoring and strove by violent assault to extort for themselves the peace promised by the martyrs and confessors, I also wrote letters about this twice to the clergy and directed them to be read to those people, so that, to mitigate their violence in the meantime by some means, if any who had received a certificate from the martyrs should depart from this world, having made confession and had a hand laid upon them in penance, they might be sent to the Lord with the peace promised to them by the martyrs. Nor in this did I lay down a law, or rashly set myself up as an authority.

But, since it seemed that honor ought to be shown to the martyrs and the assault of those who wished to throw everything into confusion ought to be checked, and moreover since I had read your letter which you had recently sent here to our clergy through Crementius the subdeacon, that those who after their lapse had been seized by illness and, doing penance, desired communion, should be assisted, I thought I must stand also by your judgment, lest our action, which ought to be united and in agreement in all things, should differ in any respect. Plainly I directed the cases of the rest, even though they had received a certificate from the martyrs, to be deferred and reserved for our presence, so that, when peace has been granted to us by the Lord and more of the bishops have begun to meet together in one place, having also taken counsel with you, we may be able to arrange and reform individual matters. I wish you, dearest brethren, always to fare well.

Cyprian to Moses and Maximus the presbyters and the other confessors, his brethren, greeting. Celerinus, arriving, has presented all of you alike and each one of you to our affections, dearest brethren—a companion of your faith and virtue, and a soldier of God in glorious contests. At his coming we beheld you all; and as he spoke sweetly and often of your love toward me, in his words we were hearing you. I rejoice greatly and abundantly when such things are brought from such persons as you. We too are with you there in the prison in a certain manner; we believe ourselves to share in the ornaments of divine condescension with you, who cleave so closely to your hearts. Your inseparable love binds us to your honor; it does not allow the affection of the spirit to be separated. There, confession holds you; here, affection holds me.

And we indeed, mindful of you day and night, both when we offer prayer with many in the sacrifices, and when we pray in retirement with private prayers, ask of the Lord full favor for your crowns and praises. But to render you a return, our lowliness is too small. You give more when you remember us in prayer—you who, already breathing only heavenly things and meditating only on divine matters, ascend by the very delay of your passion to loftier heights, and by the long course of time do not draw out your glories but increase them. The first and single confession makes one blessed. You confess as many times as, when asked to withdraw from the prison, you choose the prison by faith and virtue. Your praises are as many as the days; as many as the courses of the months, so many are the increases of your merits. He conquers once who is immediately put to death: but he who, remaining always amid torments, contends with pain and is not conquered, is crowned daily.

II. Let magistrates and consuls or proconsuls now go and glory in the insignia of their annual dignity and their twelve fasces. Behold, in you a heavenly dignity has been marked with the splendor of annual honor, and has already surpassed the rolling circuit of the returning year by the duration of a victorious glory. The rising sun and the coursing moon were illuminating the world: but for you, he who made both sun and moon was a greater light in the prison; and the brightness of Christ shining in your hearts and minds radiated with that eternal and brilliant light the darkness of the place of punishment, horrible and deadly to others. Winter passed through the alternations of the months: but you too, shut in, were measuring the seasons of winter by the winter of persecution. The spring mildness succeeded winter, joyful with roses and crowned with flowers: but for you, roses and flowers were present from the delights of paradise, and heavenly garlands crowned your heads.

Behold, summer is fertile with the abundance of harvests, and the threshing floor is full of grain: but you, who sowed glory, have reaped the fruit of glory, and, placed in the Lord's threshing floor, you behold the chaff being burned with unquenchable fire; while you yourselves, like purified grains of wheat and precious corn, already purified and stored away, reckon the dread of the prison's hospitality as an honor.

And the spiritual grace of the season is not lacking to autumn for the performance of its gifts. The vintage is pressed outside, and the grape destined to profit the cups is trodden in the wine-presses. You, fat clusters from the Lord's vineyard, and bunches already with ripened fruits, trodden by the harassment of worldly pressure, feel your wine-press in the torment of the prison, and in place of wine you pour forth blood; strong for the endurance of passion, you willingly drain the cup of martyrdom. Thus the year revolves among the servants of God; thus the succession of seasons is celebrated with spiritual merits and heavenly rewards.

III. Blessed enough are those who, passing from among you along these footsteps of glory, have already departed from the world, and, having completed the journey of virtue and faith, have come to the embrace and kiss of the Lord, with the Lord himself rejoicing. But your glory also is not less, who, still placed in the contest and about to follow the glories of your companions, wage the fight for a long time, and, steadfast with unmoved and unshaken faith, daily exhibit a spectacle to God by your virtues. The longer your fight, the loftier the crown. One contest, but heaped up with a manifold multitude of battles. You conquer hunger and despise thirst, and tread down with the vigor of your strength the squalor of the prison and the dread of the place of punishment. There pain is subdued, torment is worn away, and death is not feared but desired; which is indeed overcome by the reward of immortality, so that he who has conquered may be crowned with eternal life.

What spirit is now in you, how lofty, how capacious the breast, where such great things are revolved, where nothing is thought of but the precepts of God and the rewards of Christ! There the will of God alone holds sway; and though you are still placed in the flesh, a life is already lived not of the present age but of the age to come.

IV. Now is the time, dearest brethren, that you be mindful of me, that amid your great and divine thoughts you also revolve us in mind and heart, and that I may be in your prayers and supplications when that voice, illustrious by the purification of confession and praiseworthy by the unbroken tenor of its honor, penetrates to the ears of God, and, with heaven opened to it, transmitted from these regions of the conquered world to the heights above, obtains from the Lord's goodness what it asks. For what do you ask of the Lord's indulgence that you do not deserve to obtain, you who have so kept the Lord's commandments, who have maintained the discipline of the Gospel with the sincere vigor of faith, who, standing bravely with uncorrupted honor of virtue alongside the precepts of the Lord and his Apostles, have confirmed by the truth of your martyrdom the wavering faith of many?

Truly witnesses of the Gospel and truly martyrs of Christ, leaning upon his roots, founded upon the rock with a strong mass, you have joined discipline with virtue, have provoked others to the fear of God, have made your martyrdoms examples. I wish you, most brave and most blessed brethren, always to fare well and to be mindful of us.

All the confessors to Cyprian the Pope, greeting.

Know that we have given peace to all those concerning whom it has been established before you what they did after their transgression, and we wish this rule to be made known through you to the other bishops as well. We wish you to have peace with the holy martyrs. In the presence of a member of the clergy and an exorcist and a reader, Lucianus wrote this.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. The Lord speaks and says: Upon whom shall I look, but upon the humble and quiet, and him that trembles at my words? While we all ought to be such, those especially ought to be such who must labor so that, after a grievous lapse, they may be able to deserve the Lord by true penitence and complete humility. Now I have read the letter of all the confessors, which they wished to be made known through me to all my colleagues and to reach them—the peace given by them to those concerning whom it has been established among us what they did after their transgression. Since this matter awaits the counsel and judgment of all of us, I dare not prejudge it and claim a common matter for myself alone.

And therefore let the letters which I had recently sent to you be adhered to in the meantime, a copy of which I have already sent to many colleagues as well; who have written back that what we have decided is pleasing to them, and that it must not be departed from until, when peace has been restored to us by the Lord, we are able to meet together in one place and examine the cases of individuals. But also, that you might know what my colleague Caldonius wrote to me and what I wrote back to him, I have joined a copy of both letters to my letter. I ask that all this be read to our brethren, so that they may be composed more and more to patience, and may not add yet another offense to their own offense, while they are willing to serve neither us nor the Gospel, nor permit their cases to be examined according to the letter of all the confessors.

I wish you, dearest brethren, always to fare well and to be mindful of us. Greet the whole brotherhood. Farewell.

Caldonius to Cyprian and the co-presbyters residing at Carthage, greeting. The necessity of the times makes it so that we do not give peace rashly. But it was fitting to write to you, since those who, after they had sacrificed, were seized again, have been made exiles. They seem to me therefore to have washed away their former offense in that they leave behind their possessions and homes, and doing penance follow Christ. Therefore Felix, who served as a presbyter under Decimus, my neighbor in bonds (I have learned more fully about this same Felix), Victoria his wife, and Lucius, faithful persons made exiles, have left behind their possessions, which the treasury now holds. But also a woman by the name of Bona, who was dragged by her husband to sacrifice, who did not commit it with her own conscience, but because those holding her hands themselves sacrificed, began to say in protest, I did not do it, you did it; and thus she too was made an exile.

Since therefore all of them were seeking peace, saying: We have recovered the faith which we had lost, doing penance, and we have publicly confessed Christ; although it seems to me that they ought to receive peace, nevertheless I have sent them to your counsel, lest I seem to presume anything rashly. If therefore anything shall be decided by common counsel, write to me. Greet our people. Remember us. I wish you, dearest brethren, always to fare well.

Cyprian to his brother Caldonius, greeting. We have received your letter, dearest brother, which is sufficiently sober and full of integrity and faith. Nor do we wonder that, being practiced and skilled in the Scriptures of the Lord, you conduct all things cautiously and advisedly. You have judged rightly concerning the granting of peace to our brothers, who have restored it to themselves by true penitence and the glory of confession of the Lord, justified by those very words by which they had formerly condemned themselves. Since, therefore, they have washed away every sin, and with the Lord standing by them have blotted out the former stain by a stronger virtue, those who have been driven into exile and stripped of all their goods, and have raised themselves up and begun to stand with Christ, ought no longer to lie prostrate under the devil as though overthrown. And would that the rest also, repenting after their lapse, might in like manner be restored to their former state!

As for those who are now pressing us and wresting peace rashly and importunately, that you might know how we have disposed of the matter, I have sent you a book with five letters in number, which I wrote to the clergy and to the people and also to the martyrs and confessors; which letters, having already been sent to very many of our colleagues, have met with their approval, and they have written back that they too stand with us in the same counsel according to the catholic faith. This same thing do you also transmit to such of our colleagues as you are able, so that among all there may be one course of action and one agreement, according to the precepts of the Lord. I pray that you, dearest brother, may always fare well.

Celerinus to Lucianus, greeting. When I was writing these things to you, lord and brother, I was both rejoicing and sorrowful: rejoicing because I had heard that you had confessed so greatly for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, and had confessed His name before the magistrates of this world; but sorrowful in this, that from the time I parted from you I have never been able to receive a letter from you. And now a twofold sorrow has come upon me, in that, when you knew that our common brother Montanus was coming from prison to me, you did not inform me of your welfare or of what was happening with you. But this is wont to befall the servants of God, especially those who are placed in the confession of Christ. For I know that each one no longer attends to the things of the world, since he hopes for a heavenly crown. For I said perhaps that you had forgotten to write to me.

For, that I may also be called your brother or fellow, though of the lowest rank, if I shall be worthy to be called Celerinus, yet when I too was in so glorious a confession, I was mindful of my oldest brothers, and I remembered them in my letters, that their former affection toward me and mine was still present. I ask, however, dearest one, of the Lord that, if before my letters reach you in this world you shall have been washed in that holy blood, if you shall have suffered first for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or even now if they have reached you, you would write back to me concerning these things. So may He whose name you have confessed crown you. For I believe that, even if we shall not have seen one another in this world, yet in the world to come we shall embrace one another in the presence of Christ. Pray that I too may be worthy to be crowned together with your company.

II. Know, however, that I am placed in great tribulation, and, as though you were present with me, so do I remember the former affection day and night. God alone knows. And therefore I ask that you grant my desire and grieve with me over the death of my sister, who has fallen away from Christ in this devastation. For she sacrificed and provoked our Lord. Which seems manifest to us. For whose deeds I, on this day of the joy of Easter, weeping day and night, have passed and do pass my days in sackcloth and ashes, weeping, even until this day, until the help of our Lord Jesus Christ may come and His mercy through you or through those my lords who shall have been crowned, from whom you are to ask that they may have pardon for the wretched shipwrecked.

For I have been mindful of your former affection, that you grieve with all for our sisters, whom you also know well, that is, Numeria and Candida; for whose sin, because they have us as brothers, we ought to be watchful. For I believe that Christ, according to their penitence and the works which they have done among our colleagues as exiles, who came from you, from whom you yourself will hear of their works, will now, at the petition of you His martyrs, grant pardon to them.

III. For I have heard that you have received the ministry of those in more glorious estate. O how blessed are you, to receive the things you always desired, even while sleeping on the ground! You wished to be cast into prison for His name; which has now befallen you, as it is written: The Lord grant you according to your heart. And now, having been set over those very persons, the same minister of God has acknowledged it. I ask therefore, lord, and beg through our Lord Jesus Christ, that you would report to your other colleagues, your brothers, my lords, and ask of them that whichever of you shall first be crowned, they may remit such a sin to these our sisters Numeria and Candida. For this same Etecusa I have always called upon—God is our witness—because she counted out gifts on her own behalf that she might not sacrifice; but she appears only to have gone up as far as the Tria Fata, and to have come back down from there.

This one, therefore, I know did not sacrifice. Their case having now been heard, the superiors have ordered them to remain as they are for the time being until a bishop is appointed. But inasmuch as through your holy prayers and petitions, in which we trust, since you are friends and also witnesses of Christ, that you may grant pardon in all things.

IV. I ask therefore, dearest lord Lucianus, that you be mindful of me and grant my petition. So may Christ preserve for you that holy crown which He has bestowed upon you not only in confession but also in holiness, in which you have always run, always being an example of the saints and a witness, that you would report this matter to all my lords, your fellow confessors, so that they may receive help from you. For this, lord and brother, you ought to know: that not I alone ask this for them, but also Statius and Severianus and all the confessors who have come here from you, to whom they themselves went down to the harbor, and brought them into the city, in that they ministered to sixty-five and have continued to care for them in all things until this day. For they are with all of them. But I ought not to burden further that holy heart of yours, since I know that you work with ready will.

Macharius greets you together with his sisters Cornelia and Emerita, who rejoice over your glorious confession, and likewise over that of all the brothers, and Saturninus, who himself also wrestled with the devil, who also boldly confessed the name of Christ, who also there under the punishment of the claws boldly confessed, who also earnestly asks and begs this. Your brothers Calphurnius and Maria and all the holy brothers greet you. For this also you ought to know, that I have written letters to my lords, your brothers, which I ask that you deign to read to them.

Lucianus to Celerinus his lord, if I shall be worthy to be so called, his colleague in Christ, greeting. I have received your letter, most beloved lord and brother, in which you have burdened me so greatly that on account of your burden I nearly lost so great a joy, in that I exulted to read, after so long a time, the letters which I too had longed to read, in which you deigned to make mention of me, by the kindness of such great humility of yours, reading them as you wrote to me saying: If I shall be worthy to be called your brother by name, a man who in fear confessed the name of God before those of lesser account.

For you, by God's will, not only confessed but also deterred by those words and divine utterances—in the use of which I know you to live with the liveliness of one who loves the faith and is zealous for the discipline of Christ, as I know you—the very greater serpent, the forerunner of antichrist, and overcame him. Now, dearest one, already to be numbered among the martyrs, you have wished to burden us with your letters, in which you have made known to us concerning our sisters; for whom, would that it were possible to make mention without so great a sin having been committed! Assuredly we would not be burdened with such great tears as now.

II. You ought to have known what has taken place concerning us. When the blessed martyr Paul was still in the body, he called me and said to me: Lucianus, I say to you before Christ, that if anyone after my departure shall seek peace from you, grant it in my name; and moreover all those whom the Lord in so great a tribulation has deigned to summon, we have all by common agreement sent letters granting peace to all. You see therefore, brother, that partly on account of what Paul commanded me and partly on account of what we all decided together—we who were in this tribulation, when we were ordered according to the command of the emperor to be killed by hunger and thirst, and we were shut up in two cells, so that they might afflict us with hunger and thirst. But also the heat from the pressure of our confinement was so intolerable that no one could bear it. But now we have attained to that very glory.

And therefore, dearest brother, greet Numeria and Candida, who according to the command of Paul and the other martyrs, whose names I append below—Bassus in the examination under oath, Mappalicus in the interrogation, Fortunio in prison, Paulus from the interrogation, Fortunata, Victorinus, Victor, Herennius, Credula, Herena, Donatus, Firmus, Venustus, Fructus, Julia, Martialis and Ariston, who by God's will were killed by hunger in prison, of whom you will hear within days that we too are to be their companions—according to their command, I say, and our deliberation, let them have peace, their case having been set forth before the bishop and confession having been made, not these only but also those whom you know to be dear to our heart.

III. All my colleagues greet you. Greet the confessors of the Lord who are there with you, whose names you have indicated; among whom also Saturninus with his companions, and also my colleague, and Maris, Collecta and Emerita, Calphurnius and Maria, Sabina, Spesina, and the sisters, Januaria, Dativa, Donata. We greet together with their households Saturnus, Bassianus, and the whole clergy, Uranius, Alexius, Quintianus, Colonica, and all those whose names I have not written, because I was already weary. Therefore they ought to pardon me. I pray that you fare well. Alexius and Getulicus and the silversmiths and the sisters. My sisters Januaria and Sophia, whom I commend to you, greet you.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons residing at Rome, his brothers, greeting. After the letter sent to you, dearest brothers, in which our conduct was set forth and some account, however small, of discipline and diligence was declared, another matter has arisen which likewise ought not to be hidden from you. For our brother Lucianus, himself also one of the confessors, fervent indeed in faith and strong in virtue, but less grounded in the reading of the Lord, has attempted certain things, having long since constituted himself the authority of the ignorant crowd, so that certificates written by his hand were given in large numbers to many in the name of Paul; whereas the martyr Mappalicus, cautious and modest, mindful of the law and discipline, made no letters contrary to the Gospel, but only, moved by domestic affection, gave orders that peace be granted to his mother, who had lapsed; and Saturninus likewise, still confined in prison after his torments, issued no letters of this kind.

But Lucianus, not only while Paul was still in prison gave certificates written by his own hand in his name indiscriminately, but also after his death persisted in doing the same thing under his name, saying that this had been enjoined upon him by him, not knowing that one must obey a lord rather than a fellow-servant.

Many certificates were also given in the name of a young man called Aurelius who had endured torments, written by the hand of the same Lucianus, because that man did not know his letters. II. To resist this matter to some degree, I wrote a letter to them, which I transmitted to you under a previous epistle, in which I did not cease to ask and urge that the rule of the Lord's law and of the Gospel be maintained. But after I sent letters to them, so that something might be done more moderately and temperately, Lucianus wrote an epistle in the name of all the confessors, by which nearly every bond of faith and fear of God and commandment of the Lord and the holiness and firmness of the Gospel would be dissolved. For he wrote in the name of all that they had given peace to all, and that he wished this form to be made known to other bishops through me; a copy of this epistle I transmitted to you.

It has been plainly added, concerning those of whom it has been established what they did after the offence committed. This matter brings greater ill-will upon us, so that when we begin to hear and examine the cases of individuals, we seem to many to be denying what all now boast they have received from the martyrs and confessors.

III. And now the origin of this sedition has already begun. For in our province, in several cities, an assault was made upon the overseers by the multitude, and they compelled the peace, which they all cried out had been given once for all by the martyrs and confessors, to be immediately restored to them, their overseers being terrified and overcome, who were less able to resist by strength of spirit and firmness of faith. Among us also certain turbulent persons, who had scarcely been governed by us in the past and were being deferred to our presence, were kindled by this epistle as by certain torches, and began to burn more fiercely and to extort the peace given to them. Of these, I have sent you a copy of what kind of letter I wrote to our clergy. But also what my colleague Caldonius wrote to me in his integrity and faithfulness, and what I wrote back to him, both I have transmitted to you for reading.

I have also sent you copies of the epistle of Celerinus, a good and steadfast confessor, which he wrote to the same Lucianus the confessor, and likewise what Lucianus wrote back to him, so that you might know both our labour concerning all things and our diligence, and that you might discern the truth itself: how moderate and cautious Celerinus the confessor is, and how modest in humility and fear according to the manner of our sect, but Lucianus, as I said, less skilled in the understanding of the Lord's reading, and troublesome through his own facility in leaving behind the ill-will of our modesty.

For when the Lord said that the nations are to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and that past sins are remitted in Baptism, this man, ignorant of the commandment and the law, orders that peace be given and sins remitted in the name of Paul, and says that this was commanded to him by that man, as you will observe in the letters of the same Lucianus written to Celerinus: in which he did not at all consider that it is not the martyrs who make the Gospel, but that martyrs are made through the Gospel; since even Paul the apostle, whom the Lord called the vessel of his election, set down in his Epistle saying: I marvel that you are so quickly removed from him who called you into grace, unto another gospel; which is not another: except there be some who trouble you and would pervert the Gospel of Christ.

But though we, or an Angel from heaven, should preach otherwise than we have preached to you, let him be anathema: as we said before, so now I say again, if any one preach to you otherwise than you have received, let him be anathema.

IV. Opportunely, however, your letters arrived, which I received, written to the clergy, and likewise those which the blessed confessors Moses and Maximus, Nicostratus and the rest sent to Saturninus and Aurelius and the rest, in which the full vigour of the Gospel and the robust discipline of the Lord's law are contained. Your word greatly aided us as we labour here and resist with all the strength of faith against the assault of ill-will, so that a relief might come as if by divine provision, and before the letters which I recently sent to you arrived, you might declare to us that your judgment also concurs with ours firmly and unanimously according to the law of the Gospel. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brethren, always to fare well.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, brethren, greeting. Lest anything should escape your knowledge, dearest brethren, as to what has been written to me and what I have written back, I have sent you a copy of both epistles; and I believe that what I have written back will not displease you. But I also owed it to you to convey by my letters that, the matter being urgent, I sent letters to the clergy residing in the City. And since it was necessary for me to write through clerics, and I know that most of ours are absent, and that the few who are there scarcely suffice for the ministry of the daily work, it was necessary to appoint some new ones to be sent.

Know then that I have made Saturus a reader and Optatus the confessor a subdeacon, whom we had already long since by common counsel placed next to the clergy, when either we gave Saturus the reading once and again on the day of Easter, or when, as we carefully tested readers together with the presbyter-teachers, we appointed Optatus among the readers as teacher of the hearers, examining whether all things that ought to be in those who were being prepared for the clergy were fitting for them. Nothing therefore has been done by me as something new in your absence, but what had already begun by the common counsel of all of us has been advanced by pressing necessity. I wish you, dearest brethren, always to fare well and to remember us. Greet the brotherhood. Farewell.

Cyprian to Moses and Maximus the presbyters and the other confessors, most beloved brethren, greeting. The glory of your faith and virtue, most brave and most blessed brethren, I had long since come to know by report, rejoicing greatly and giving much thanks that confession of his name has prepared you for the crown by the singular favour of our Lord Jesus Christ. For you, made the foremost and leaders for the battle of our time, have moved the standards of the heavenly warfare. You have imbued with your virtues the spiritual contest which God has willed to be waged now. You have broken with immovable strength and unshaken steadiness the first onset of the rising war. From thence arose the happy beginnings of fighting; from thence the auspices of victory began. It has come to pass that martyrdoms are here consummated through torments. But he who in the engagement has gone before as an example of virtue to the brethren is joined with the martyrs in common honour.

You have handed over hither the crowns woven by your hand, and have offered the cup of salvation to the brethren.

II. To the glorious beginnings of confession and the auspices of victorious warfare there has been added the tenor of discipline which we have perceived from the vigour of your epistle, which you have just sent with solicitous admonition to your colleagues joined with you in confession to the Lord, that the holy precepts of the Gospel and the life-giving commandments once delivered to us may be held with strong and steadfast observance. Behold another lofty step of your glory, behold again a title of deserving God doubled with confession: to stand with firm foot, and in this battle-line to repel with the strength of faith those who attempt to break through the Gospel and, laying impious hands to subvert the commandments of the Lord—having already given before the beginnings of virtues, now also to provide the teaching of conduct. The Lord after the resurrection, sending the apostles, commands and says: All power is given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And John the apostle, mindful of the commandment, afterwards sets down in his Epistle: In this, he says, we understand that we have known him, if we keep his commandments. He who says that he has known him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him. These commandments you urge to be kept, the divine and heavenly mandates you observe. This is to be a confessor of the Lord, this is to be a martyr of Christ: to keep the inviolate and solid firmness of his voice in all things.

For to wish to become a martyr apart from the Lord and to attempt to destroy the commandments of the Lord, to use against him the favour which he has given you, to become in some manner a rebel with arms received from him—this is to wish to confess Christ and to deny the Gospel of Christ. I rejoice therefore in you, most brave and most faithful brethren; and as much as I give thanks to the martyrs honoured there for the glory of their strength, so much likewise do I give thanks to you also for the crown of the Lord's discipline. The Lord has poured out his favour in a manifold kind of bounty, and has distributed the praises and spiritual glories of good soldiers in copious variety. We too are partakers of your honour, we count your glory as our glory, we whose times so great a felicity has illumined, that it has fallen to our age to see the approved servants of God and the soldiers of Christ crowned.

I wish you, most brave and most blessed brethren, always to fare well and to remember us.

To Caecilius Cyprian, bishop of the church of the Carthaginians, Moses and Maximus presbyters and Nicostratus and Rufinus deacons and the other confessors persevering in the faith of truth, in God the Father and in his Son Jesus Christ our Lord and in the Holy Spirit, greeting. Among the various and manifold sorrows in which we are placed on account of the present ruin of many brethren throughout nearly the whole world, this chief consolation has come to us, that having received your letters we have been raised up, and have received remedies for the griefs of our sorrowing spirit. Whence we can now understand that the grace of divine providence has perhaps wished to keep us shut up so long in the bonds of prison for no other reason than that, instructed and more robustly encouraged by your letters, we might be able to arrive with readier desire at the crown appointed for us.

For your letters shone upon us as serenity in a certain storm, and as longed-for calm on a troubled sea, and as rest in labours, as health in dangers and pains, as bright and shining light in the densest darkness. So eagerly did we drink them in with thirsting soul and receive them with hungering desire, that we rejoice to be sufficiently fed and nourished from them for the contest of the enemy. The Lord will render you a reward for this your charity, and will present the due fruit of so good a work. For he who has exhorted is no less worthy of the reward of a crown than he who has also suffered; he who has taught is no less worthy of praise than he who has also done. He who has admonished is no less to be honoured than he who has fought, except that sometimes the accumulation of glory redounds more to him who has instructed than to him who has furnished himself as a teachable disciple.

For the latter perhaps would not have had what he practised, had not the former taught him.

II. We have received therefore, we say again, brother Cyprian, great joys, great consolations, great remedies, most of all because you have followed the glorious—I will not say deaths, but immortalities—of the martyrs with glorious and worthy praises. For such departures had to be followed with such words, that what was recounted might be told in the manner in which it was done. From your letters therefore we have seen the glorious triumphs of the martyrs, and have followed them with our eyes in some manner as they sought heaven, and have contemplated them established among the Angels and Powers and heavenly Dominions. But we have also in some manner perceived with our ears the Lord bearing witness to them before the Father, the testimony promised to them. This therefore is what also raises our spirit day by day, and inflames us to attain the steps of so great a favour.

III. For what more glorious, or what more blessed, can befall any of men by divine favour, than to confess the Lord God among the very executioners in the very moment of death, than amid the various and exquisite torments of raging worldly power, even with the body wrung and tortured and torn to pieces, to confess Christ the Son of God with the spirit, though departing yet still free, than to have sought heaven having left the world, than to stand among the Angels having forsaken men, than to present oneself already free in the sight of God with all worldly impediments broken, than to hold the heavenly kingdom without any delay, than to have become a sharer of the passion of Christ in the name of Christ, than to have been made by the divine favour of one's judge a judge, than to have brought back an undefiled conscience from the confession of the name, than not to have obeyed human and sacrilegious laws against the faith, than to have borne witness to the truth with a public voice, than to have overcome by dying that very death which is feared by all, than to have attained immortality through death itself, than, torn to pieces and wrung by all the instruments of cruelty, to have surpassed the torments by the very torments, than to have resisted with strength of soul all the pains of the mangled body, than not to have shuddered at one's own blood flowing forth, than to have begun after faith to love one's own punishments, than to count the loss of one's life as not having gone out?

IV. For to this battle the Lord rouses us as with a certain trumpet of His Gospel, saying: He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves his own soul more than me is not worthy of me; he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. And again: Blessed are they who have suffered persecution for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed shall you be when they shall persecute you and hate you. Rejoice and exult. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you, their fathers. And again: For you shall stand before kings and powers, and brother shall deliver brother to death, and father his son; and he who shall have persevered to the end, he shall be saved. And: To him who overcomes I will grant to sit upon my throne, as I also overcame and sat upon the throne of my Father.

But also the Apostle: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter; but in all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us.

V. When we read through these and similar things gathered in the Gospel, and feel as it were certain torches placed beneath us by the Lord's words to inflame our faith, we not only no longer shudder at the enemies of truth, but even challenge them, and have already conquered the enemies of God by this very fact that we have not yielded, and have subdued the wicked laws raised against truth. And if we have not yet shed our blood, but are prepared to shed it, let no one judge this delay of our postponement to be a clemency that hinders us, that makes an obstacle to glory, that defers heaven, that withholds the glorious sight of God. For in a contest of this kind, and in a battle of this kind where faith strives, the true clemency is not to have delayed martyrs.

Ask therefore, dearest Cyprian, that the Lord may arm and enlighten us more and more abundantly and readily with His grace day by day, and strengthen and fortify us with the powers of His might, and, like the best of commanders, may now lead forth into the field of the appointed contest His soldiers whom He has thus far exercised and proved in the camp of the prison. Let Him stretch forth to us the divine arms, those weapons that know not defeat, the breastplate of righteousness that is never wont to be broken, the shield of faith that cannot be pierced, the helmet of salvation that cannot be shattered, and the sword of the Spirit, which is not accustomed to be wounded. For to whom ought we more to entrust the request that he pray for us, than to so glorious a bishop, that victims destined for sacrifice should seek aid from the priest?

VI. Behold another joy of ours, which we cannot pass over in silence but must follow with the full testimony of our voice: that in the discharge of your episcopal office, although you have been for the time separated from the brethren by the circumstances of the time, you have nevertheless not been wanting; that you have frequently strengthened the confessors by letters; that you have also provided necessary expenses from your own just labors; that in all things you have always shown yourself present in a certain manner; that in no part of your duty have you faltered as though some deserter. But what has more vigorously stirred us to greater joy we cannot pass over in silence, but must follow with the full testimony of our voice.

For we have observed that you have, with fitting censure, both worthily rebuked those who, unmindful of their transgressions, had extorted peace from the presbyters through your absence with hasty and precipitate eagerness, and also those who without regard for the Gospel had with profane facility given what is holy to dogs and pearls to swine; since a great sin, which has spread with incredible devastation through nearly the whole world, ought not to be treated except, as you yourself write, cautiously and moderately, after consulting all the bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and even the lay people who stand firm, as you yourself testify in your letters; lest, while we wish to relieve ruins importunately, we seem to be preparing other greater ruins: for where will the divine word be, if pardon is granted so easily to those who sin? The minds of these persons must indeed be cherished and nourished until the time of their ripening, and they must be instructed from the holy Scriptures how great and above all things is the sin they have committed.

Nor let them be emboldened because they are many; but let them be the more restrained by this very fact that they are not few. A shameless number is not wont to avail for the lessening of guilt, but shame, and modesty, and patience, and discipline, and humility and submission, and having awaited another's judgment concerning themselves, and having endured another's sentence upon their own case. This is what proves penitence; this is what draws a scar over the wound that has been pressed in; this is what raises and lifts up the ruins of a cast-down mind, what quenches and ends the burning vapor of seething sins. For the physician will not give to sick bodies what belongs to healthy ones, lest an untimely food not repress but kindle the storm of a raging illness; namely, lest what could have been more quickly reduced by fasting should through impatience be prolonged further, fed by a lingering indigestion. VII.

The hands defiled by impious sacrifice must therefore be cleansed by good works, and the wretched mouths polluted by the abominable food must be expiated by the words of true penitence, and the mind must be renewed and consecrated in the secret places of the faithful heart. Let the frequent groans of the penitents be heard: not once only, but again and again let tears flow from faithful eyes, so that those very eyes which wickedly beheld the idols may blot out by tears satisfying to God what they had unlawfully committed. There is nothing necessary for diseases but patience.

Those who languish struggle with their pain, and hope for health only if they have overcome the pain by endurance; for the scar is untrustworthy which a hasty physician has quickly drawn, and the remedy is cut open at any shock; if remedies are not faithfully provided through the very slowness itself: the flame is quickly called back again into fire, unless the fuel of the whole fire, even to the last spark, is extinguished; so that men of this kind may rightly know that even by the delay itself their interests are the better consulted, and more faithful remedies are provided by the necessary postponements. Otherwise, where will it be that those who confess Christ are shut up in the squalor of prison, if those who have denied are without peril to their faith? Where will it be that they are bound in the circuit of chains in the name of God, if those who did not retain the confession of God are not without communion?

Where will it be that the detained martyrs lay down their glorious souls, if those who have abandoned the faith do not feel the magnitude of their perils and transgressions? But if they display excessive impatience and demand communion with intolerable haste, in vain do they hurl those querulous, invidious, and against truth wholly unavailing reproaches with petulant and unbridled mouth, since it would have been open to them by their own right to retain what they are now compelled to seek by a necessity they have brought upon themselves. For the faith which was able to confess Christ was able also to be retained in communion with Christ. We wish you, most blessed and most glorious father, always to fare well in the Lord and to be mindful of us.

Our Lord, whose precepts and admonitions we ought to observe, speaking in the Gospel and disposing the honor of the bishop and the order of His Church, says to Peter: I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it: and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven. Thence through the changes of times and successions the ordination of bishops and the order of the Church runs on, so that the Church is founded upon the bishops and every act of the Church is governed by these same rulers.

Since therefore this is established by divine law, I marvel that certain persons have had the audacity to write to me in such a manner as to make letters in the name of the Church, when the Church consists in the bishop and the clergy and all those who stand firm. For far be it, and let not the mercy of the Lord and His unconquered power permit, that what is called the Church should be said to be the number of the lapsed, since it is written: God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. We desire indeed that all may be given life, and we pray with our entreaties and groans that they may be restored to their former state. But if certain of the lapsed wish to be the Church, and if the Church is among them and in them, what remains but that they should be entreated by us to deign to admit us into the Church?

Those therefore who are mindful of their transgression and ought to make satisfaction to God must be submissive and quiet and modest, and must not make letters in the name of the Church, since they ought rather to know that they are writing to the Church.

II. But certain of the lapsed have recently written to me, humble and gentle and trembling and fearing God, and who have always labored gloriously and greatly in the Church, and have never imputed their work to the Lord, knowing that He has said: And when you have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do. Thinking on these things, and praying that, even though they have received a libellus from the martyrs, their satisfaction may nevertheless be admitted by the Lord, they have written to me that they acknowledge their transgression and are doing true penitence, and are not hastening rashly or importunately toward peace, but are awaiting our presence, saying that peace itself also, if they receive it in our presence, will be sweeter to them. How greatly I have rejoiced over them the Lord is witness, who has deigned to show what servants of this kind and character merit from His goodness.

Since I received those letters recently, and now read that you have written something different, I ask that you distinguish your desires, and that whoever you are who have now sent these letters, you append your names to a petition and transmit the petition with the individual names to me. For it is first necessary to know to whom I am to reply. Then I will reply to each of the things you have written, according to the measure of my place and conduct. I wish you, dearest brethren, always to fare well and to act quietly and tranquilly according to the discipline of the Lord. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greeting. You have acted with integrity and with discipline, dearest brethren, in that, by the counsel of my colleagues who were present, you judged that communion should not be given to Gaius the presbyter of Didda and his deacon, who, by communicating with the lapsed and offering their oblations, have been frequently detected in their wicked errors, and, having been admonished once and again, as you have written to me, by my colleagues not to do this, have persisted stubbornly in their presumption and audacity, deceiving certain brethren of our people; for whose welfare we desire to consult with all humility, and for whose salvation we look not with composed flattery but with sincere faith, that they may entreat the Lord with true penitence and full groaning and sorrow, because it is written: Remember from where you have fallen, and do penitence; and again the divine Scripture speaks: Thus says the Lord: When you have turned and groaned, then you shall be saved, and you shall know where you have been.

II. But how can they groan and do penitence whose groans and tears are intercepted by certain of the presbyters, who rashly suppose that communion should be given to them? Not knowing that it is written: They who call you happy lead you into error, and disturb the path of your feet. Rightly do our wholesome and true counsels avail nothing, while the saving truth is impeded by pernicious flatteries and blandishments, and the wounded and ailing mind of the lapsed suffers what those who are bodily sick and infirm also often suffer: that while they reject as bitter and repellent the wholesome foods and useful drinks, and seek those things which seem to delight and be pleasant for the present, they bring upon themselves ruin and death through disobedience and intemperance, and the true remedy of the skilled physician does not avail for their health, while the sweet allurement deceives with its blandishments.

III. You therefore, faithfully and wholesomely taking counsel according to my letters, do not withdraw from better counsels. Read these same letters also to my colleagues, whether any be present or shall arrive, so that, unanimous and concordant in fostering and healing the wounds of the lapsed, we may hold to wholesome counsel, treating all things most fully when we shall have begun to come together in one place through the mercy of the Lord. Meanwhile, if any immoderate and rash person, whether from among our presbyters or deacons, or from among strangers, shall have dared to communicate with the lapsed before our sentence, let him be excluded from our communion, to plead his case of rashness before all of us when we shall have convened in one place, the Lord permitting. You also desired that I write back what seems good to me concerning Philumenus and Fortunatus the subdeacons and Favorinus the acolyte, who departed in the meantime and have now returned.

In this matter I could not give myself alone as judge, since many of the clergy are still absent, nor did they think their place was to be reclaimed even late; and the account of each individual must be treated and refined more fully, not only with my colleagues, but also with the whole people itself. For the matter must be weighed with measured moderation and pronounced upon, so as to establish a precedent for the future concerning the ministers of the Church. In the meantime let them refrain only from the monthly allowance, not so as to appear deprived of ecclesiastical ministry, but so that, with all things intact, they may be deferred to our presence. I wish you, dearest brothers, always to be well. Greet the whole brotherhood, and farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons residing at Rome, brothers, greeting. Both common affection and reason demand, dearest brothers, that nothing be withheld from your knowledge concerning what is happening among us, so that we may have common counsel regarding the benefit of ecclesiastical administration. For after I sent letters to you, which only through Saturus the reader and Optatus the subdeacon, the conspired rashness of certain of the lapsed, who refuse to do penance and make satisfaction to God, wrote letters to me—it is fitting, as it were on behalf of the body of the whole Church, whose members are distributed through the various provinces, to keep watch. But even before your letter, the fraud of a crafty man could not be hidden from us: for when previously a certain standard-bearer of Privatus, Futurus by name, had come from that man's cohort of wickedness and was fraudulently endeavoring to draw letters from us, neither who he was remained hidden, nor did he receive the letters he wanted. We wish you to be well in the Lord.

To Bishop Cyprian, the presbyters and deacons residing at Rome, greeting. Although a mind well conscious of itself, and supported by the vigor of evangelical discipline, and made a true witness to itself in heavenly decrees, is accustomed to be content with God alone as judge, and neither to seek the praises of another nor to fear accusations, yet those are worthy of doubled praise who, knowing that their conscience owes itself to God alone as judge, nonetheless desire their deeds to be approved also by their very brothers. That you, brother Cyprian, do this is no wonder, who, in your modesty and the innate industry of your counsels, wished us to be found not so much judges as sharers, so that in your deeds accomplished we might find praise together with you while we approve them, and might be co-heirs of your good counsels, because also their affirmers. We all believe we have wrought the same, in which we are found all joined together in the same agreement of judgment and discipline.

II. For what is more fitting in peace or more necessary in the war of persecution than to maintain the due severity of divine vigor? He who has relaxed this must of necessity always wander in the unstable course of affairs, and be scattered hither and thither by the various and uncertain storms of events, and, as if the helm of counsels had been wrested from his hands, dash the ship of ecclesiastical salvation upon the rocks; so that it appears that ecclesiastical salvation cannot otherwise be provided for, unless those who act against it are repelled as certain adverse waves, and the ever-preserved principle of discipline itself is kept as a kind of saving helm in the storm.

Nor is this counsel newly devised by us, nor have these sudden aids against the wicked only now come upon us; but this severity among us is ancient, ancient the faith, ancient the discipline is read: since the Apostle would not have brought forth such great praises of us by saying, Because your faith is proclaimed in the whole world, unless from that time this very vigor had borrowed the roots of faith from those times; and to have been degenerate from those praises and that glory is the greatest crime. For it is less disgraceful never to have attained to the proclamation of praise, than to have fallen from the height of praise: it is less criminal not to have been honored with good testimony, than to have lost the honor of good testimonies: it is less to have lain unknown without praise, without the proclamation of virtues, than, made disinherited of faith, to have lost one's own praises.

For those things which are brought forth to someone's glory, unless they are preserved with anxious and careful labor, swell up into the reproach of the greatest crime.

III. That we do not say this falsely, our earlier letters proved, in which we set forth our judgment to you with clear exposition, both against those who betrayed themselves as unfaithful by the unlawful profession of nefarious certificates, as though they would escape the ensnaring snares of the devil—whereby they were held no less than if they had approached the nefarious altars, by this very fact that they had attested it themselves—but also against those who had made official acts, even though they had not been present when they were made, since they had made their presence effective by ordering that they be so written.

For he is not free from crime who commanded that it be done, nor is he a stranger to the crime by whose consent, even if the crime was not committed by himself, it is nonetheless publicly read; and since the whole sacrament of faith is understood to be comprised in the confession of Christ's name, he who seeks deceitful pretexts in excuse has denied, and he who wishes to appear to have satisfied the edicts or laws set forth against the Gospel has by this very fact already obeyed, because he wished to appear to have obeyed; and likewise against those also who polluted their hands and mouths with unlawful sacrifices, their own minds having been polluted beforehand, whence also the hands and mouths themselves were polluted, we showed our faith and agreement.

For far be it from the Roman Church to lay aside its vigor with such profane facility and to dissolve the sinews of severity with the overturned majesty of faith; so that, while the ruins of fallen brothers still not only lie but also continue to fall, remedies hastened too much are provided—remedies that will certainly not profit communion—and new wounds are impressed through false mercy upon the old wounds of transgression, so that even repentance is snatched away from the wretched to their greater ruin! For where will the medicine of indulgence be able to avail, if even the physician himself, with repentance cut short, indulges the dangers, if he only covers the wound and does not allow the necessary remedies of time to draw a scar over it? This is not to heal, but, if we wish to speak the truth, to kill.

IV. Although you also have letters of the confessors, whom the dignity of their confession has here still kept enclosed in prison, and whose faith in their already glorious confession has once crowned them for the evangelical contest, letters agreeing with our letters, in which they set forth the severity of evangelical discipline and called back unlawful petitions from the modesty of the Church. Had they not done this, the ruins of evangelical discipline would not easily be repaired, especially since none could more fittingly preserve the unimpaired tenor of evangelical vigor and dignity than those who had given themselves over to be tortured and torn to pieces for the Gospel by the raging, lest they deservedly lose the honor of martyrdom if, at the moment of martyrdom, they had wished to be transgressors of the Gospel. For he who does not guard what he has in that from which he possesses it, while he violates that from which he possesses it, loses what he possessed.

V. In which place we ought and do render you the greatest and most abundant thanks, that you illuminated the darkness of their prison with your letters, that you came to them, however you were able to enter, that you refreshed their souls—robust in their own faith and confession—with your addresses and letters, that, having followed their blessedness with worthy praises, you kindled them to a much more ardent desire of heavenly glory, that you urged those already inclined forward, that, as we believe and hope, you animated those who are to be victors with the strength of your discourse; so that, although all this may seem to come from the faith of the confessors and from divine indulgence, yet they may seem to have been made in some measure your debtors in their martyrdom.

But, that the discourse which seemed to have digressed may return again to that from which it departed, you will have appended the letters we also sent to Sicily: although a greater necessity of deferring this matter presses upon us, for whom, after the passing of the man of most noble memory Fabianus, a bishop has not yet been appointed on account of the difficulties of circumstances and times, who might moderate all these things and be able to deal with authority and counsel with those who have lapsed: although in so great a matter it pleases us what you yourself also treated, that the peace of the Church must first be sustained, and then, with counsel thus taken in common with bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and likewise with the standing laity, the case of the lapsed be treated.

For it seems to us altogether invidious and burdensome not to examine through many what seems to have been committed through many, and for one to pronounce sentence, when so great a crime spread through many is noted to have gone forth; since neither can a decree be firm which will not appear to have had the consent of very many. Behold nearly the whole world laid waste and everywhere the remnants and ruins of the fallen lying prostrate, and therefore so great a counsel is sought as the sin appears to have been widely propagated. Let the medicine be no less than the wound, let the remedies be no less than the deaths, so that, as those who fell fell because with blind rashness they were too incautious, so those who strive to set this in order may use every moderation of counsels, lest anything done not as it ought be judged as void by all.

VI. With one and the same counsel therefore, with the same prayers and tears, both we who seem thus far to have escaped the ruins of this time, and those who seem to have fallen into these disasters of the time, beseeching the divine majesty, let us seek peace for the name of the Church. With mutual vows let us cherish, guard, and arm one another. Let us pray for the lapsed that they may be raised up, let us pray for those standing that they may not be tempted even to ruin, let us pray that those who are reported to have fallen, acknowledging the greatness of their sin, may not desire a momentary or too hasty remedy.

Let us pray that the effect of indulgence for the lapsed may follow upon repentance, so that, understanding their crime, they may be willing to grant us patience in the meantime, and not disturb the still wavering state of the Church, lest they appear to have kindled an interior persecution against us, and it be added to the heap of their crimes that they were also restless. For modesty is most fitting for those in whose sins a shameless mind is condemned. Let them knock at the doors, but not break them down; let them approach the threshold of the Church, but not leap over it: let them keep watch at the gates of the heavenly camp, but armed with the modesty by which they may understand that they have been deserters.

Let them take up again the trumpet of their prayers, but one with which they do not sound the battle-call: let them arm themselves indeed with the weapons of modesty, and resume the shield of faith which they had cast away in denying, through fear of death, but so that, armed now against the enemy the devil, they may believe themselves to be armed not against the Church, which mourns their falls.

A modest petition will profit them much, a reverent supplication, necessary humility, patience not idle. Let them send tears as envoys for their sorrows, let groans brought forth from the inmost breast serve as their advocacy, proving the grief and shame of the crime committed.

VII. Nay rather, if they shudder at the greatness of the disgrace committed, if they truly treat with a physician's hand the deadly wound of their breast and conscience and the deep recesses of the sinuous wound, let them be ashamed even to ask; except that it is of greater danger and shame not to have sought the aid of peace: but all this in the sacrament, but in the very law of the petition, with a moderation made according to time, but with a submissive petition, but with a subdued prayer, since both he who is petitioned ought to be moved, not provoked; and as divine clemency must be regarded, so also divine judgment must be regarded; and as it is written, I have forgiven you all the debt, because you asked me, so it is written: He who shall deny me before men, I also will deny him before my Father and before his angels.

For God, as he is indulgent, so is he an exactor of his commandments, and indeed a diligent one; and as he calls to the banquet, so he casts out him who has not the wedding garment, with hands and feet bound, outside the assembly of the saints. He has prepared heaven, but he has also prepared hell: he has prepared refreshments, but he has also prepared eternal punishments: he has prepared inaccessible light, but he has also prepared the vast and eternal darkness of perpetual night.

VIII. Seeking here to maintain the moderation of this balance, we—many of us, and for a long time, and indeed together with certain bishops neighboring and near to us, and those whom the heat of this persecution had driven out from other provinces far away—thought that nothing should be changed before the appointment of a bishop, but we believe that the care of the lapsed should be temperately moderated; so that in the meantime, while we await in suspense the giving of a bishop to us by God, the case of those who are able to endure the delays of postponement should be held in suspension, but that for those whose approaching end does not allow their life to bear delay, after penance has been performed and the frequent profession of their detestation of their deeds, if they have shown by tears, by groans, by weeping the signs of a grieving and truly penitent spirit, when no hope of living according to human reckoning remains, then at last aid should be given cautiously and carefully—God himself knowing what he will do concerning such persons and how he weighs the scales of his judgment—while we nonetheless anxiously take care that neither may wicked men praise our too easy indulgence, nor the truly penitent accuse our severity as harsh cruelty.

We wish you, most blessed and most glorious father, always to fare well in the Lord and to remember us.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. What letters I sent to the Clergy residing at Rome, and what they wrote back to me, and also what Moses and Maximus the presbyters, and Nicostratus and Rufinus the deacons, and the other confessors held in custody along with them, likewise wrote back in reply to my letters—so that you might know these things, dearest brothers, I have sent you copies to read. Take care, as much as you can, with your diligence, that our writings and their replies become known to our brothers.

But also if any of the visiting bishops my colleagues, or presbyters, or deacons, are present or shall arrive, let them hear all these things from you; and if they wish to transcribe copies of the letters and carry them to their own people, let them receive the means of transcription: although I have also instructed Saturus our brother the lector to give to each one who desires it the ability to make a copy, so that in the ordering of the state of the churches, however it may be arranged in the meantime, one faithful agreement may be maintained by all. Concerning the other matters that are to be dealt with, as I have also written to most of my colleagues, we shall treat them more fully by common counsel when we shall have begun to come together in one place, the Lord permitting. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, always to fare well. Greet the brotherhood. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and to the whole people, greeting. In the ordinations of clergy, dearest brothers, we are accustomed to consult you beforehand, and to weigh the character and merits of each individual by common counsel. But human testimonies need not be awaited when divine suffrage goes before. Our brother Aurelius, an illustrious young man, already proved by the Lord and dear to God, still young in years, but advanced in the praise of virtue and faith, lesser in the quality of his age, but greater in honor, has here contended in a twofold contest; twice a confessor, and twice glorious in the victory of his confession, both when he conquered in the course and was made an exile, and when he fought again with a stronger struggle, a triumphant victor in the battle of suffering. As often as the adversary wished to provoke the servants of God, so often this most ready and most valiant soldier both fought and conquered.

It would have been too little to have engaged in combat before the eyes of only a few, when he was made an exile; he merited also to contend in the forum with more illustrious virtue, so that after the magistrates he might also overcome the proconsul, and after exile might surmount torments. Nor do I find what I ought to praise more in him—the glory of his wounds, or the modesty of his character, whether he is distinguished by the honor of virtue, or praiseworthy for the admiration of his modesty. So both is he exalted in dignity and lowly in humility, that it appears he has been preserved by divine providence to be an example to others in ecclesiastical discipline—how the servants of God might conquer by virtues in confession, and excel by their conduct after confession.

II. Such a man merited further degrees and greater advances in clerical ordination, to be estimated not by his years but by his merits. But for the present it has pleased us that he begin with the office of lector, because nothing is more fitting for a voice that has confessed the Lord with glorious proclamation than to resound in the celebration of the divine readings; after the sublime words which spoke forth the martyrdom of Christ, to read the Gospel of Christ, from which martyrs are made; to come to the pulpit after the scaffold, to have been conspicuous there before a multitude of the Gentiles, to be seen here by the brothers; to have been heard there with the wonder of the surrounding people, to be heard here with the joy of the brotherhood. Know therefore, most beloved brothers, that he has been ordained by me and by the colleagues who were present. Which I know you will both gladly embrace and desire that as many such as possible be ordained in our church.

And since joy hastens and gladness cannot endure delays, he has read for us in the meantime on the Lord's day, that is, he has made a beginning of peace while he dedicates his reading. Persist frequently in prayers, and assist our prayers with your prayers, so that the mercy of the Lord, favoring us, may quickly restore to his people both the priest safe and sound, and the lector who is a martyr together with the priest. I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well in God the Father and in Christ Jesus.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and to the whole people, brothers in the Lord, greeting. The divine benefits must be acknowledged and embraced, dearest brothers, by which the Lord has deigned to illuminate and honor his Church in our times, by granting passage to his good confessors and glorious martyrs, so that those who had sublimely confessed Christ might thereafter adorn the clergy of Christ with ecclesiastical ministries. Rejoice therefore and be glad with us at our letter, in which I and my colleagues who were present report to you that our brother Celerinus, glorious equally in virtues and in character, has been joined to our clergy, not by human suffrage but by divine condescension. When he hesitated to consent to the Church, he was compelled by its own admonition and exhortation in a vision by night not to refuse us in our persuasion. It was more powerful and compelled him because it was neither right nor fitting that one whom the Lord had so honored with the dignity of heavenly glory should be without ecclesiastical honor.

II. He was the first in the battle of our time, he was the standard-bearer among the soldiers of Christ, he who at the very beginning of the raging persecution engaged with the very prince and author of the assault, and while he overcame the adversary with the unconquerable firmness of his struggle, opened the way of victory for others—not a victor by the brief shortcut of wounds, but a triumphant conqueror by the wonder of a long wrestling, with pains clinging and persisting long. For nineteen days he was shut up in the custody of prison, in the stocks and in irons; but while his body was placed in chains, his spirit remained free and unbound. His flesh wasted away with the long duration of hunger and thirst, but God nourished his soul, living by faith and virtue, with spiritual sustenance.

He lay amid his torments stronger than his torments, greater than those who enclosed him while enclosed, loftier while lying down than those who stood, firmer while bound than those who bound him, more exalted while judged than those who judged; and although his feet were bound in the stocks, the serpent was trodden down and crushed and conquered. The bright marks of wounds shine on his glorious body, and the imprinted traces appear and are visible on the sinews and limbs of the man consumed by long wasting. Great and wonderful are the things which the brotherhood hears of his virtues and praises. And if anyone like Thomas should appear who trusts less to his ears, the evidence of eyes is not lacking, so that one may both hear and see what he hears. In the servant of God the glory of wounds made the victory, and the memory of scars preserves the glory.

III. Nor is this title of glories new or unfamiliar in our dearest Celerinus; he walks in the footsteps of his kindred, and is made equal to his parents and relatives in the like honor of divine condescension. His grandmother Celerina was already long ago crowned with martyrdom. Likewise his paternal uncle and maternal uncle Laurentius and Egnatius, who once served in the secular military camps, but were true and spiritual soldiers of God, while they cast down the devil by the confession of Christ, merited palms and crowns from the Lord by their illustrious passion. Sacrifices are always offered for them, as you remember, as often as we celebrate the passions of martyrs and their days with annual commemoration. He could not therefore be degenerate or lesser, whom the dignity and noble birth of his family so provoked by domestic examples of virtue and faith. But if in a secular family it is a matter of praise and renown to be a patrician, how much greater praise and honor is it to become noble in heavenly renown!

I do not find whom I should call the more blessed—whether those for so illustrious a posterity, or him for so glorious an origin. So equally does divine condescension return and pass between them, that both the dignity of his offspring illumines their crown, and the sublimity of his lineage illumines his glory.

IV. When he came to us, dearest brothers, with such great condescension of the Lord, made illustrious by the testimony and wonder of the very one who had persecuted him, what else was fitting but that he be placed upon the pulpit, that is, upon the tribunal of the church, so that, supported by the height of a loftier place, and conspicuous to the whole people in the brightness of his honor, he might read the precepts and the Gospel of the Lord, which he follows bravely and faithfully? The voice that confessed the Lord is heard daily in those things which the Lord has spoken. Let it be seen whether there is a further step to which one may advance in the church. There is nothing in which a confessor profits the brothers more than when, while the evangelical reading is heard from his mouth, whoever hears it imitates the faith of the lector.

He was to be joined in the reading with Aurelius, with whom he is also joined in the fellowship of divine honor, with whom he is united in all the marks of virtue and praise. Both equal, and each like the other—as lofty in glory, so humble in modesty; as advanced by divine condescension, so lowly in their own quietness and tranquility; furnishing to individuals examples alike of virtues and of character, suited both to conflict and to peace, the one praiseworthy for blushes, the other for modesty.

V. In such servants the Lord rejoices; in confessors of this kind he glories, whose manner of life and conduct so advances to the proclamation of glory as to furnish to others a model of discipline. To this end Christ willed them to be here in the Church for a long time, to this end he preserved them unharmed, drawn back from the midst of death, by a kind of resurrection wrought about them, as I may say, so that, while nothing more exalted in honor, nothing more lowly in humility, is seen by the brothers, the brotherhood's own manner of life might follow these same men. Yet know that they have been appointed lectors in the meantime, because it was fitting that the lamp be placed upon the candlestick, whence it might give light to all, and that their glorious faces be set in a loftier place, where, seen by all the surrounding brotherhood, they might offer to those who behold them an incentive of glory.

Moreover, know that we have already designated for them the honor of the presbyterate, so that they are honored with the same stipends as the presbyters, and share the monthly distributions in equal portions; they shall sit with us when their years have advanced and been strengthened; although in no respect can one seem lesser in the quality of age who has completed the age of glory by the dignity of glory. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, always to fare well.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and to the whole people, most dear and most longed-for brothers, greeting. It was necessary to announce to you, dearest brothers, what pertains both to the common joy and to the greatest glory of our church. For know that we have been admonished and instructed by divine condescension that the presbyter Numidicus be enrolled in the number of the Carthaginian presbyters and sit with us in the clergy, illustrious with the most brilliant light of his glorious confession, and exalted in the honor of virtue and faith; who by his exhortation sent before him a great number of martyrs, slain by stones and flames; and who joyfully beheld his wife clinging to his side burned together with the rest—preserved, I should rather say.

He himself, half-burned and overwhelmed with stones and left for dead, when his daughter afterward sought the body of her father with the anxious devotion of filial piety, was found half-alive and drawn out and revived, and remained unconquered among the companions whom he himself had sent on before. But the reason for his remaining, as we see, was that the Lord might join him to our clergy and adorn the number of our presbyters, desolated by the lapse of certain of them, with glorious priests. And he will indeed be advanced, when God permits, to a more ample place in his own region, when we shall have come into his presence under the Lord's protection. In the meantime let what is shown be done, so that we may receive with thanksgiving this gift of God, hoping from the mercy of the Lord for many more ornaments of this kind, so that, with the strength of his Church restored, he may cause men so gentle and humble to flourish in the honor of our assembly.

I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, always to fare well.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his dearest brothers, greeting. I greet you, dearest brothers, safe by the grace of God, hoping to come to you soon, so that the longing both of myself and of you and of all the brothers may be satisfied. Yet we must consult the common peace and sometimes, though with weariness of spirit, be absent from you, lest our presence provoke the ill-will and violence of the pagans, and we become the authors of a broken peace, we who ought rather to consult the quiet of all. When therefore you write that, matters being settled, I ought to come, or if the Lord shall have deigned to show it beforehand, then I will come to you. For where could it be better or more joyful for me than there where God willed both that I should believe and that I should grow? I ask that you take diligent care of the widows and the sick and all the poor.

Also provide traveling expenses to strangers, if any are in need, from my own personal funds which I left with Rogatus our fellow-presbyter. Lest that sum should perhaps already be entirely disbursed, I have sent to him through Naricus the acolyte another portion, so that the work of relief toward those who are suffering may be done more generously and promptly. I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well and to remember me. Greet the brotherhood in my name, and admonish them to be mindful of us.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. Although I know, dearest brothers, that you have been frequently admonished by my letters that all diligence be shown to those who have confessed the Lord with a glorious voice and are held in prison, yet I press upon you again and again, lest anything be wanting to the care of those to whom nothing is wanting for glory. And would that the condition of my place and rank permitted me to be present there myself now! I would readily and willingly fulfill all the duties of affectionate service toward our most valiant brothers in the customary ministry. But let your diligence, I pray, represent my duty, and do all things that ought to be done for those whom divine grace has distinguished by such merits of faith and virtue. Let more attentive watchfulness and care also be bestowed upon the bodies of all who, even if they have not been tortured in prison, yet depart by a glorious end of death.

For their virtue and honor is not less, nor are they themselves any the less numbered among the blessed martyrs: they have endured in themselves whatever they were prepared and ready to endure. He who offered himself to torments and death under the eyes of God has suffered whatever he willed to suffer; for it was not he who failed the torments, but the torments that failed him. Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven, says the Lord. They confessed. He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved, says the Lord. They endured, and bore the merits of their virtues uncorrupted and undefiled to the very end. And again it is written: Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. They persevered faithful and steadfast and unconquered unto death. When to the will and confession of the Name in prison and in chains there is added also the final limit of dying, the glory of the martyr is consummated.

II. Note also the days on which they depart, so that we may celebrate their commemorations among the memorials of the martyrs: although Tertullus, our most faithful and devoted brother, out of that solicitude and care which he bestows upon the brothers in every service of his ministry, who is not absent even there from the care of their bodies, has written and does write and signify to me the days on which our blessed brothers in prison pass to immortality by the departure of a glorious death, and let offerings and sacrifices be celebrated here by us for their commemoration, which we shall soon celebrate together with you, the Lord protecting us.

Let not your care and diligence be wanting to the poor either, as I have already often written, yet to those who, standing firm in the faith and fighting bravely with us, have not abandoned the camp of Christ; to whom indeed greater love and care must now be shown by us, because, driven neither by poverty nor prostrated by the storm of persecution, they faithfully serve with the Lord, and have also provided an example of faith to the other poor. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, always to fare well and to remember me. Greet the brotherhood in my name. Farewell.

Cyprian to Caldonius and Herculanus his colleagues, likewise to Rogatus and Numidicus his fellow-presbyters, greeting. I was greatly grieved, dearest brothers, upon receiving your letter, in that, whereas my constant purpose and desire has been to keep all our brotherhood safe, and to preserve the flock unharmed, as charity requires, you now report that Felicissimus has contrived many things wickedly and treacherously; so that, beyond his old frauds and plunderings, of which I had long since learned much, he has now also attempted to divide a portion of the people from the bishop, that is, to separate the sheep from the shepherd and children from their father, and to scatter the members of Christ.

And whereas I sent you as my deputies in my stead, to supply the needs of our brothers with funds, and if any also wished to practice their trades, to assist their desires with an addition of as much as was sufficient, and at the same time also to distinguish their ages and conditions and merits, so that even now I, upon whom the care rests of knowing all persons thoroughly, might advance those who are worthy and humble and meek to the offices of ecclesiastical administration, he interposed so that no one could be supplied, nor could those things which I had desired be discerned by diligent examination, and he even threatened our brothers who had come forward to be supplied first, with his wicked domineering and violent intimidation, that those who had been willing to comply with us would not communicate with him at the hour of death.

II. And when after all these things, moved neither by the honor of my position nor broken by your authority and presence, disturbing the peace of the brothers at his own instigation, he rushed forth with a great many, declaring himself with reckless fury the leader of a faction and the chief of sedition; in which matter I rejoice that very many of the brothers have withdrawn from this audacity and preferred to yield to you, so as to remain with mother Church and receive her stipends dispensed by the bishop; which indeed I know for certain the rest also will do in peace and will quickly withdraw from their reckless error.

Meanwhile, since Felicissimus has threatened that those who had complied with us, that is, who communicated with us, would not communicate with him at the hour of death, let him receive the sentence which he first pronounced, so that he may know himself to be excluded from us, since to his frauds and plunderings, which we have come to know with clear truth, there is added also the charge of adultery, which our brothers, men of weight, have reported that they have discovered, and have asserted that they will prove. All these things we shall examine when, the Lord permitting, we shall have assembled together with a greater number of colleagues. But also Augendus, who, with no thought for the bishop or the Church, has equally joined himself with him in conspiracy and faction, if he shall persist further with him, let him bear the sentence which that factious and reckless man has provoked upon himself.

And whoever shall have joined himself to his conspiracy and faction, let him know that he will not communicate with us in the Church, who has willingly chosen to be separated from the Church. Read this letter of mine to our brothers, and transmit it also to the clergy at Carthage, with the names added of those who have joined themselves to Felicissimus. I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well and to remember me. Farewell.

Caldonius together with Herculanus and Victor his colleagues, likewise Rogatus together with Numidicus the presbyters. We have withheld from communion Felicissimus and Augendus, likewise Repostus from among the exiles, and Irene of the Rutili, and Paula the seamstress; which you ought to have known from my record. Likewise we have withheld Sophronius, himself also from among the exiles, and Soliassus the sausage-maker.

Cyprian to the whole people, greeting. Although, dearest brothers, Virtius, a most faithful and upright presbyter, likewise Rogatus and Numidicus, presbyters and confessors and illustrious with the glory of divine grace, and also the deacons, good men and devoted in all their services to the ecclesiastical administration, together with the other ministers, provide you with the full diligence of their presence, and do not cease to strengthen individuals with continual exhortations, and also to guide and reform the minds of the lapsed with wholesome counsels, yet I as much as I can admonish and as best I can visit you by my letters. By letters, I say, dearest brothers: for the malice and treachery of certain presbyters has brought it about that it was not permitted me to come to you before the day of Easter, while, mindful of their conspiracy, and retaining those old poisons against my episcopate, or rather against your suffrage and the judgment of God, they renew their old attack against us, and once again revive their sacrilegious machinations with their customary treacheries.

And indeed by the providence of God, without our willing or desiring it, nay even while we were forgiving and keeping silence, they have paid the penalties they deserved, so that, not expelled by us, they expelled themselves of their own accord, themselves passed sentence upon themselves in accordance with their own conscience, and, conspirators and criminals as they are, in accordance with your suffrage and God's, drove themselves out of the Church of their own will.

II. Now it has appeared whence the faction of Felicissimus had come, on what roots and by what forces it stood. They were formerly supplying certain confessors with fuel and encouragement not to be in harmony with their bishop, not to maintain ecclesiastical discipline together with faith and peace according to the Lord's precepts, not to preserve the glory of their confession by an uncorrupted and undefiled manner of life.

And, as if it had not been enough to have corrupted the minds of certain confessors and to have wished to arm a portion of the broken brotherhood against the priesthood of God, they have now turned their poisoned deception to the ruin of the lapsed, so as to call away the sick and wounded and those who, through the calamity of their fall, are less fit and less firm for taking stronger counsels, from the healing of their wound, and, with prayers and supplications set aside, by which the Lord must be appeased by long and continual satisfaction, to invite them to ruinous rashness by the lie of a captious peace.

III. But I beseech you, brothers, be watchful against the snares of the devil, and, solicitous for your salvation, keep more diligent watch against his deadly deceit. This is another persecution, and another temptation. These five presbyters are nothing other than those five chief men who had recently been joined to the magistrates by edict to undermine our faith, to turn the frail hearts of the brothers to deadly snares by the betrayal of truth.

The same scheme, the same overthrow is now brought in through the five presbyters joined to Felicissimus for the ruin of salvation, so that God may not be entreated, nor may he who denied Christ supplicate that same Christ whom he had denied, nor may penance be taken away after the guilt of the crime, nor may satisfaction be made to the Lord through bishops and priests, but, the Lord's priests being abandoned, a new tradition of sacrilegious institution may arise contrary to evangelical discipline; and whereas it has once pleased both us and the confessors and the urban clergy, and likewise all the bishops established both in our province and across the sea, that nothing be innovated concerning the cause of the lapsed until we all assemble together and, having compared our counsels, fix a sentence tempered equally with discipline and mercy, against this our counsel there is rebellion, and all priestly authority and power is destroyed by factious conspiracies.

IV. What penalties do I now suffer, dearest brothers, in that I cannot come to you in person, cannot address each one of you individually, cannot exhort you according to the teaching of the Lord and His Gospel! It was not enough that there had already been two years of exile and the mournful separation from your faces and your eyes, the constant grief and groaning which torments me alone without you in unceasing lamentation, the tears flowing day and night, because it has not yet fallen to the lot of the bishop whom you made with such love and ardor to greet you, to cling to your embraces.

To this there has been added, upon our already wasting spirit, a greater grief, that in such great anxiety and necessity I cannot myself hasten to you, while, through the threats and treacheries of the faithless, we take care lest a greater tumult arise there at our coming, and, whereas the bishop ought in all things to provide for peace and tranquility, he himself should seem to have given occasion for sedition and to have stirred up the persecution anew. From here, however, dearest brothers, from here I admonish and counsel you alike not to believe rashly in pernicious voices, not to lend your assent easily to deceitful words, not to take darkness for light, night for day, famine for food, thirst for drink, poison for a remedy, death for salvation. Let not their age nor their authority deceive you, who, answering to those two old presbyters, just as those men attempted to corrupt and violate the chaste Susanna, so these men attempt to corrupt the chastity of the Church and to violate the evangelical truth with their adulterous doctrines.

V. The Lord cries out and says: Do not listen to the words of the false prophets, for the visions of their heart deceive them. They speak, but not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those who cast away the word of the Lord: Peace shall be with you. They offer peace now who themselves have no peace. They promise to bring back and recall the lapsed into the Church, who have themselves withdrawn from the Church. There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one Chair founded upon a rock by the voice of the Lord. Another altar cannot be set up, nor a new priesthood made, beside the one altar and the one priesthood. Whoever gathers elsewhere, scatters. It is adulterous, it is impious, it is sacrilegious, whatever is instituted by human fury so that the divine ordering may be violated. Depart far from the contagion of such men, and flee their words as a cancer and a plague, the Lord forewarning and saying: They are blind guides of the blind.

But a blind man leading a blind man, both shall fall into a pit. They intercede with your prayers, which you pour out to God with us day and night, that you may find favour with just satisfaction. They intercede with your tears, with which you wash away the guilt of the sin committed. They intercede with the peace which you truly and faithfully seek from the mercy of the Lord, and they do not know that it is written: That prophet or that dreamer of dreams who has spoken to make you stray from the Lord your God, shall be put to death. Let no one, dearest brothers, make you stray from the ways of the Lord; let no one snatch you as Christians away from the Gospel of Christ; let no one take the children of the Church away from the Church. Let them perish for themselves alone who have willed to perish; let those who have withdrawn from the Church remain outside alone. Let those who have rebelled against the bishops be without the bishops alone.

Let those alone bear the penalties of their conspiracy who long ago, according to your votes, now according to the judgments of God, have deserved to undergo the sentence of their conspiracy and malice.

VI. The Lord admonishes us in His Gospel, saying: You reject the commandment of God in order to establish your own tradition. Those who reject the commandment of God and strive to establish their own tradition, let them be firmly and steadfastly repudiated by you: let one ruin be enough for the lapsed. Let no one by his own scheming cast down those who are willing to rise; let no one prostrate more heavily and press down those who are lying fallen, for whom we pray that they may be lifted up by the hand and arm of God; let no one turn away from all hope of salvation those who are half-dead and beseeching that they may recover their former health; let no one extinguish for those wavering in the darkness of their fall all the light of the saving path. The Apostle instructs, saying: If anyone teaches otherwise, and does not assent to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to His doctrine, he is puffed up with pride; depart from such a one.

And again he himself says: Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. There is no reason why, deceived by empty words, you should begin to be partakers of their wickedness. Depart from such persons, I beseech you, and give heed to our counsels, we who pour out continual prayers to the Lord on your behalf daily, who desire that you be recalled to the Church through the clemency of the Lord, who pray to God for the fullest peace first for the mother, and then also for her children. Join your prayers and supplications also with our prayers and supplications, unite your tears with our tears. Avoid the wolves who separate the sheep from the shepherd.

Avoid the poisoned tongue of the devil, who, deceitful and lying always from the beginning of the world, lies in order to deceive, flatters in order to harm, promises good things in order to bestow evil, pledges life in order to destroy. His words shine even now, and his poisons are manifest: he promises peace, lest peace can be reached; he promises salvation, lest one who has sinned may come to salvation; he pledges the Church, while working to the end that whoever believes him may perish utterly from the Church.

VII. Now is the time, most beloved brothers, that both those of you who stand may persevere steadfastly, and may preserve with perpetual firmness that glorious steadfastness which you maintained in the persecution, and that if any of you, through the assault of the adversary, have fallen, you may in this second trial faithfully take thought for your hope and your peace; and that, in order that the Lord may pardon you, you may not depart from the priests of the Lord, since it is written: And whatever man acts with pride, so as not to hearken to the priest or to the judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die.

This is the last and final trial of this persecution, which also shall itself quickly pass, the Lord protecting us, so that I may present myself to you after the day of Easter together with my colleagues; in whose presence, according to your judgment also and the common counsel of all of us, as was once agreed, we shall be able jointly to arrange and settle what needs to be done. But if anyone, refusing to do penance and to make satisfaction to God, shall have gone over to the party of Felicissimus and his associates, and shall have joined himself to the heretical faction, let him know that he cannot afterwards return to the Church and communicate with the bishops and people of Christ. I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well, and to persist with us in continual prayers in entreating the mercy of the Lord.

Cyprian to Maximus and Nicostratus and the other confessors, greeting. Since you have frequently learned from my letters, dearest ones, what honour I have rendered to your confession and what affection bound to brotherhood I have preserved in my words, I ask you to believe and to give heed to this letter of mine, in which I both write to you concerning your conduct and your praises, and counsel you plainly and faithfully. For it weighs upon me and saddens me, and a grief of heart almost struck down and prostrated grips me intolerably, when I learned that you there had consented, contrary to the ecclesiastical order, contrary to the evangelical law, contrary to the unity of the catholic institution, that another bishop be made, that is, what it is neither right nor lawful to do, that another church be constituted, that the members of Christ be torn asunder, that the mind and one body of the Lord's flock be lacerated by a rending rivalry.

I ask that at least in you this unlawful schism of our brotherhood may not persist, but that, mindful both of your confession and of the divine tradition, you return to the mother from whom you came forth, from whom you came to the glory of confession with that same mother's exultation. And do not think that you are thus defending the Gospel of Christ, while you separate yourselves from the flock of Christ and from His peace and concord, since it is more fitting for glorious and good soldiers to remain within the home camp, and, being placed within, to act upon and provide for those things which are to be dealt with in common. For, since our unanimity and concord ought not to be broken at all, and since we, having left the Church, cannot go outside and come to you, we ask and entreat you with such exhortations as we can that you rather return to the mother Church and to our brotherhood. I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well.

To Cyprian their brother, Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, and Macharius, greeting. We are certain, dearest brother, that you too rejoice with us with equal gladness that we, having taken counsel, consulting rather the interests of the Church and peace, setting aside all other matters and leaving judgment to God, have made peace together with Cornelius our bishop and with the whole clergy. You ought to know most certainly through this letter of ours that this has been done to the joy also of the whole Church, and with the ready affection of all. We pray, dearest brother, that you may fare well for many years.

Cyprian to Maximus the presbyter, likewise to Urbanus, and Sidonius and Macharius the brothers, greeting. Having read your letter, dearest brothers, which you sent to me concerning your return and concerning the ecclesiastical peace and the restoration of brotherhood, I confess that I have rejoiced as greatly as I had rejoiced before when I learned of the glory of your confession and received with congratulation your heavenly and spiritual praise of service. For this also is another confession of your faith and praise, to confess that there is one Church, and not to become a partaker of another's error or rather wickedness, to return to the same camp from which you set out, from which you leapt forth with most valiant strength to wage battle and to subdue the adversary. For the trophies were to be brought back from the battle-line to the place from which the arms had been taken up for the battle-line, lest those whom Christ had prepared for glory, the glorious Church of Christ should not possess.

But now you have both maintained the course befitting your faith and the law of undivided charity and concord in the Lord's peace, and by your journey you have set an example to others of love and peace, so that the truth of the Church and the unity of the evangelical sacrament, which was held by us, might be bound also by your assent and bond, and that the confessors of Christ might not become leaders of error who had stood forth as praiseworthy authors of virtue and honour. II. Let others see how much they congratulate you, or how much each one individually glories within himself. I confess that I both congratulate you more and glory more than others in this your peaceful return and charity. For you ought to hear plainly what has been in my heart. I grieved deeply and was heavily distressed that I could not communicate with those whom I had once begun to love.

After you, coming forth from prison, were received by the schismatic and heretical error, the matter was such as if your glory had remained in prison. For the dignity of your name seemed to have stayed there, when the soldiers of Christ did not return from prison to the Church, into which they had previously come with the praise and congratulation of the Church. III. For, although tares seem to be in the Church, yet our faith or our charity ought not to be hindered, so that because we perceive tares to be in the Church, we ourselves should withdraw from the Church. We must only strive to be able to be wheat, so that, when the wheat begins to be stored in the Lord's granaries, we may receive fruit for our work and labour. The Apostle says in his letter: In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of clay, and some indeed are for honour, but some for dishonour.

Let us take care, dearest brothers, and let us labour as much as we can to be vessels of gold or silver. But to break the vessels of clay has been granted to the Lord alone, to whom also the rod of iron has been given. A servant cannot be greater than his master; nor can anyone claim for himself what the Father has granted to the Son alone, so as to think that he can either carry the fan for winnowing and cleansing the threshing-floor, or separate all the tares from the wheat by human judgment. This is the proud obstinacy and sacrilegious presumption which depraved fury assumes for itself; and, while certain ones always demand for themselves more dominion than mild justice, they perish from the Church; and while they insolently exalt themselves, blinded by their very swelling, they lose the light of truth.

On account of which we also, maintaining moderation and contemplating the book of the Lord, and reflecting on the piety and mercy of God the Father, after long and extensive deliberation among ourselves, have weighed with just moderation what is to be done.

IV. All these things you can examine thoroughly by reading the little books which I had recently read here and had sent to you also to be read out of common affection; in which neither is censure lacking to rebuke the lapsed, nor medicine to heal them. But our humble ability has also expressed as fully as it could the unity of the catholic Church. I am confident that this little book pleases you more and more now, since you read it in such a way as both to approve and to love it; inasmuch as what we have set down in words you fulfil in deeds when you return to the Church in the unity of charity and peace. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, always to fare well.

Cyprian to Fortunatus, Ahymmus, Optatus, Privatianus, Donatulus, and Felix the brothers, greeting. You have written to me, dearest brothers, that when you were in the city of Capsa on account of the ordination of a bishop, our brother and colleague Superius brought word to you that our brothers Ninus, Clementianus, and Florus, who had previously been arrested in the persecution and had confessed the name of the Lord and overcome the violence of the magistrate and the assault of the raging populace, were afterwards, when they were being tortured with severe punishments before the proconsul, subdued by the force of torments, and fell by prolonged sufferings from the rank of glory toward which they were pressing with the full strength of faith, and yet after this grievous lapse, undertaken not by will but by necessity, they had not ceased from performing penance throughout this period of three years. Concerning these you thought it right to consult whether it was now lawful to admit them to communion.

II. And indeed, as regards the judgment of my own mind, I think the Lord's indulgence will not be lacking to those who are established to have stood in the battle line, to have confessed the name of the Lord, to have overcome by the obstinacy of immovable faith the violence of the magistrates and the assault of the raging populace, to have suffered prison, and to have long resisted amid the threats of the proconsul and the clamor of the surrounding people, with tearing torments and long-repeated tortures; so that what in the end seems to have been overcome by the weakness of the flesh may be relieved by the defense of preceding merits, and it may be enough for such persons to have lost their glory, yet we ought not to close to them also the place of pardon and deprive them of fatherly kindness and of our communion; for whom we think it may suffice to implore the clemency of the Lord that for three years continuously and sorrowfully, as you write, they have lamented with the utmost lamentation of penitence.

Certainly I do not think it rash and hasty to commit peace to those whom we see, by the strength of their service, not to have failed in the fight before, and, if the battle line should come again, to be able to restore their glory. For, since it has pleased the council that those doing penance should be aided in the danger of illness and that peace should be given, those ought certainly to take precedence in receiving peace whom we see to have fallen not through weakness of spirit, but who, having engaged and been wounded in battle, were unable through the infirmity of the flesh to bear the crown of their confession; especially since, though they desired to die, they were not permitted to be killed, but the torments tore them, weary as they were, for so long as they could not overcome the faith, which is unconquered, but wore out the flesh, which is weak.

III. Since, however, I have written that I should treat this very matter most fully with a greater number of colleagues, and so great a matter requires a larger and more earnest counsel drawn from the deliberation of many, and now nearly all are staying at home with their brethren during the first solemnities of Easter, when they shall have satisfied the celebration of the solemnity among their own people and shall have begun to come to me, I will treat the matter more fully with each one, so that concerning what you have consulted us about there may be fixed among us and written back to you a firm judgment weighed by the counsel of many priests. I wish you, dearest brethren, always to fare well.

Cyprian to the people dwelling at Thibaris, greeting. I had indeed intended, dearest brethren, and it was my desire, if the state of affairs and the condition of the time permitted, to come to you in person, as you have frequently wished, and to strengthen the brotherhood there by whatever small measure of our exhortation I might offer in person. But, since we are detained by pressing circumstances such that the opportunity is not given to travel far from here and to be long absent from the people over whom we preside by divine indulgence, I have sent these letters in the meantime to you in my stead. For, since we are stirred and admonished rather frequently by the guidance of the Lord who instructs us, we ought also to bring the solicitude of our admonition to your conscience.

For you ought to know and to believe and hold for certain that the day of tribulation has begun to be upon our heads, and that the decline of the age and the time of antichrist has drawn near, so that we may all stand prepared for battle, and think of nothing but the glory of eternal life and the crown of the Lord's confession. And let us not suppose that what is coming is such as those things were which have passed: a heavier and fiercer fight now threatens, for which the soldiers of Christ ought to prepare themselves with uncorrupted faith and robust virtue, considering that they drink the cup of Christ's blood daily for this reason, that they themselves also may be able to shed blood for Christ. For this is to wish to be found with Christ: to imitate what Christ both taught and did, according to the apostle John saying: He who says he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk even as he walked.

Likewise the blessed apostle Paul exhorts and teaches, saying: We are children. But if children of God, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.

II. All these things are now to be considered by us, so that no one may desire anything of the world now dying, but may follow Christ, who both lives forever and gives life to his servants established in faith in his name. For the time has come, dearest brethren, which our Lord long ago foretold and taught would come, saying: The hour will come when everyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God. But they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you.

And let no one wonder that we are wearied by continual persecutions and frequently pressed by increasing tribulations, since the Lord foretold beforehand that these things would come in the last times, and equipped our service with the teaching and encouragement of his word, and his apostle Peter also taught that persecutions come in order that we may be proved, and that we also, following the example of the righteous who went before, may be joined to the love of God by death and sufferings. For he set down in his Epistle, saying: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial coming upon you, which is happening for your testing, nor fall away as though something new were happening to you; but as often as you share in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice in all things, so that at the revelation of his glory you may also rejoice and exult.

If you are reproached in the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the name of the majesty and power of the Lord rests upon you, which indeed is blasphemed according to them, but is honored according to us. Moreover the Apostles taught us those things which they themselves also learned from the precepts of the Lord and the heavenly commandments, with the Lord himself of course strengthening us and saying: There is no one who has left house, or field, or parents, or brothers, or sisters, or wife, or children for the kingdom of God, who shall not receive seven times as much in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life. And again: Blessed, he says, shall you be when men hate you, and separate you, and drive you out, and revile your name as evil for the sake of the Son of man. Rejoice in that day and exult: for behold, your reward is great in heaven.

III. The Lord willed us to rejoice and exult in persecutions, because, when persecutions come, then crowns of faith are given, then the soldiers of God are proved, then heaven is opened to martyrs. For we did not so give our name to military service that we ought to think only of peace, and to shrink from and refuse military service, since in that very service the Lord walked first as teacher of humility and endurance and suffering, so that he might first do what he taught should be done, and might himself first suffer for us what he exhorts us to suffer. Let there be before your eyes, dearest brethren, the fact that he who has received all judgment from the Father alone, and who is to come to judge, has already pronounced the sentence of his future judgment and knowledge, foretelling and declaring that he will confess before his Father those who confess, and will deny those who deny.

If we could escape death, we would rightly fear to die; but since it is necessary for a mortal to die, let us embrace the opportunity coming to us from the divine promise and grace, and let us discharge the departure of death with the reward of immortality, and let us not fear to be killed, since it is established that when we are killed we are crowned.

IV. And let no one, dearest brethren, when he has seen our people scattered by fear of persecution and dispersed, be troubled because he does not see the brotherhood assembled, nor hear the bishops treating of matters. All of them cannot be together at that time, those who may not kill but must needs be killed. Wherever in those days any one of the brethren shall be, separated for the time being from the flock by the necessity of the time in body but not in spirit, let him not be moved by the horror of that flight, nor be terrified by the solitude of a deserted place as he withdraws and hides. He is not alone who has Christ as companion in flight; he is not alone who, keeping the temple of God, is not without God wherever he may be.

And if a robber should assail him fleeing in solitude and on the mountains, or a wild beast attack him, or hunger or thirst or cold afflict him, or if, hastening over the seas in headlong voyage, a storm and tempest should overwhelm him, Christ looks upon his soldier fighting wherever he may be, and to one dying for the honor of his name on account of persecution he gives the reward which he promised he would give in the resurrection. Nor is the glory of martyrdom less for having perished not publicly and among many, since the cause of perishing is to perish for Christ. He suffices as witness to his martyrdom who proves and crowns martyrs.

V. Let us imitate, dearest brethren, the just Abel, who inaugurated martyrdoms by being the first to be killed for righteousness. Let us imitate Abraham, the friend of God, who did not hesitate to offer his son as a victim by his own hands, while he obeys God with the faith of his devotion. Let us imitate the three young men, Ananias, Azarias, and Misahel, who, neither terrified by their age nor broken by captivity, with Judea conquered and Jerusalem taken, overcame the king in his own kingdom by the power of faith; who, commanded to worship the statue which king Nebuchadnezzar had made, proved stronger than the king's threats and the flames, proclaiming and attesting their faith through these words: King Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. For there is a God whom we serve, who is able to deliver us from the furnace of burning fire, and he will deliver us from your hands, O king.

And if not, be it known to you that we do not serve your gods, and the golden image which you have set up we do not worship. They believed that according to their faith they could escape; but they added, and if not, so that the king might know that they could also die for the God whom they worshipped. For this is the strength of virtue and faith: to believe and know that God is able to deliver from present death, and yet not to fear death nor yield, so that faith may be proved more strongly. The uncorrupted and unconquered power of the Holy Spirit burst forth through their mouths, so that those things appear to be true which the Lord said in his Gospel: But when they seize you, do not think about what you shall say; for it shall be given to you in that hour what you shall say: for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

He said that what we may say and answer is given to us divinely in that hour and offered, and that it is not we who speak then, but the Spirit of God the Father, who, since he does not depart from those who confess nor is divided from them, himself both speaks in us and is crowned. So also Daniel, when he was compelled to worship the idol Bel, whom the people and the king then worshipped, burst forth with full faith and freedom to assert the honor of his God, saying: I worship nothing but the Lord my God, who created heaven and earth.

VI. What of the Maccabees—do not the grievous torments of the blessed martyrs, and the manifold punishments of the seven brothers, and the mother strengthening her children in their punishments and herself also dying with her children, bear witness to great examples of virtue and faith, and exhort us to the triumph of martyrdom by their own sufferings? What of the prophets, whom the Holy Spirit animated to foreknowledge of things to come? What of the Apostles, whom the Lord chose? Did they not also teach us to die when the just are killed for righteousness? The birth of Christ began at once with the martyrdoms of infants, so that those who were two years old and under were killed for his name; an age not yet fit for the fight proved fit for the crown: so that it might appear that those who are killed for Christ are innocent, the innocent infancy was killed for his name. It has been shown that no one is immune from the danger of persecution, since even such as these made martyrdoms.

How grave a cause it is for a Christian man to be unwilling to suffer as a servant, when the Lord suffered first, and to be unwilling to suffer for our sins, when he who had no sin of his own suffered for us! The Son of God suffered in order to make us sons of God, and the son of man is unwilling to suffer in order to persevere as a son of God! If we labor under the hatred of the world, Christ endured the hatred of the world first. If we endure insults in this world, if flight, if torments, the maker and lord of the world experienced heavier things, who also admonishes us saying: If the world, he says, hates you, remember that it hated me before you. If you were of the world, the world would love what is its own: but because you are not of the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the word which I said to you: The servant is not greater than his lord; if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. Whatever the Lord and our God taught, he also did, so that the disciple who learns and does not do cannot be excused.

VII. And let none of you, dearest brothers, be so terrified by fear of a future persecution or by the imminent coming of antichrist as not to be found armed for all things by the exhortations and precepts of the Gospel and by heavenly warnings. Antichrist is coming, but Christ also comes after him: the enemy rages and is fierce, but the Lord follows immediately to avenge our sufferings and wounds; the adversary is wrathful and threatens, but there is One who can deliver from his hands. He is to be feared whose wrath no one will be able to escape, as He himself forewarns and says: Fear not those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. And again: He who loves his soul will lose it, and he who hates his soul in this world will preserve it unto eternal life.

And in the Apocalypse He instructs and forewarns, saying: If anyone worships the beast and its image, and receives its mark on his forehead and on his hand, he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, mixed in the cup of his anger, and shall be punished with fire and brimstone before the eyes of the holy Angels and before the eyes of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torments shall ascend for ever and ever, nor shall they have rest day or night, whosoever worship the beast and its image.

VIII. Men are trained and prepared for worldly contests; and they count it a great glory of their honour if it falls to them to be crowned with the people watching and the emperor present. Behold a contest sublime and great and glorious with the reward of a heavenly crown, so that God may watch us striving, and, opening his eyes upon those whom he has deigned to make his sons, may take delight in the spectacle of our struggle. God watches us fighting and contending in the battle of faith, his Angels watch, and Christ also watches. How great is the dignity of glory and how great the happiness to contend in the presence of God and to be crowned with Christ as judge! Let us arm ourselves, dearest brothers, with all our strength and prepare ourselves for the contest with uncorrupted mind, with faith intact, with devoted virtue.

Let the camps of God advance to the battle-line that is proclaimed for us: let the unbroken be armed, lest the unbroken man lose what he has lately maintained; let the fallen also be armed, that the fallen man may recover what he has lost. Let honour provoke the unbroken to battle, let grief provoke the fallen. The blessed Apostle Paul teaches us to arm and prepare ourselves, saying: Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and princes of this world and of these darknesses, against spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the most evil day; and when you have accomplished all things, stand, having your loins girded with truth, clothed with the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace, taking up the shield of faith, with which you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the most wicked one, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

IX. Let us take up these arms, let us fortify ourselves with these spiritual and heavenly protections, so that in the most evil day we may be able to resist the threats of the devil and to fight back. Let us put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that the breast may be fortified and protected against the darts of the enemy. Let our feet be shod and armed with the teaching of the Gospel, so that when the serpent begins to be trodden down and crushed by us, he may not be able to bite and trip us up. Let us carry the shield of faith stoutly, under whose protection whatever the enemy hurls may be quenched.

Let us also receive the helmet of salvation for the covering of the head, so that the ears may be protected, lest they hear the deadly edicts; the eyes may be protected, lest they behold the abominable idols; the forehead may be protected, so that the sign of God may be kept unharmed; the mouth may be protected, so that the victorious tongue may confess Christ its Lord. Let us also arm the right hand with the sword of the spirit, so that it may stoutly reject the deadly sacrifices; so that, mindful of the Eucharist, which has received the body of the Lord, it may embrace him, thereafter to receive from the Lord the reward of heavenly crowns.

X. O what manner and how great a day that will be when it comes, dearest brothers, when the Lord shall begin to review his people and to examine by the scrutiny of divine knowledge the merits of each individual, to send the guilty into hell, and to set our persecutors ablaze with the perpetual burning of punishing flame, but to render to us the reward of faith and devotion! What glory and how great a joy it will be to be admitted to see God, to be honoured so as to receive with Christ the Lord your God the joy of salvation and eternal light; to greet Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the patriarchs and prophets and apostles and martyrs; to rejoice with the just and the friends of God in the kingdom of heaven in the delight of immortality bestowed; to receive there what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man!

For the Apostle proclaims that we shall receive greater things than what we here either do or suffer, saying: The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory that shall be revealed in us. When that revelation shall come, when the glory of God shall have shone upon us, we shall be as blessed and joyful, honoured by the condescension of the Lord, as the guilty shall remain wretched and miserable who, deserting God or rebelling against God, did the will of the devil, so that they must be tormented together with him in unquenchable fire.

XI. These things, dearest brothers, let them abide in our hearts. Let this be the preparation of our arms, let this be our meditation day and night: to keep before our eyes and always to turn over in thought and reflection the punishments of the wicked and the rewards and merits of the just, what the Lord threatens to those who deny him as punishment, what on the other hand he promises to those who confess him as glory. If, while we are thinking and meditating on these things, the day of persecution shall come upon us, the soldier of Christ, instructed by his precepts and warnings, will not be terrified at the battle, but will be ready for the crown. I wish you, dearest brothers, always good health.

Cyprian to Januarius, Maximus, Proculus, Victor, Modianus, Nemesianus, Nampulus, and Honoratus, brothers, greeting. With the deepest grief of our soul and not without tears we read your letter, dearest brothers, which you sent to us, out of the solicitude of your love, concerning the captivity of our brothers and sisters. For who would not grieve in such circumstances, or who would not count the grief of his brother as his own, when the Apostle Paul speaks and says: If one member suffers, the other members suffer with it; if one member rejoices, the other members rejoice with it. And in another place: Who is weak, he says, and I am not weak? Wherefore now also the captivity of our brothers must be reckoned as our captivity, and the pain of those in danger must be counted as our own pain, since the body of our union is one, and not love alone but also religion ought to urge and strengthen us to ransom the members of our brothers.

II. For since the Apostle Paul again says, Know you not that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? Even if charity urged us less to bring aid to our brothers, yet it was to be considered in this place that it is temples of God that have been taken captive, and that we ought not to suffer, through long delay and neglected grief, that the temples of God remain long in captivity, but to strive with all the strength we can and to act swiftly, so that we may merit Christ our judge and Lord and God by our service.

For since the Apostle Paul says, As many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ, in our captive brothers Christ is to be contemplated, and he who redeemed us from the peril of death is to be ransomed from the peril of captivity; so that he who stripped us from the jaws of the devil may now himself, who abides and dwells in us, be stripped from the hands of the barbarians, and he who redeemed us with his cross and blood may be ransomed with a sum of money; who for this reason permits these things to happen for the present, that our faith may be tested as to whether each one does for another what he would wish to be done for himself, if he himself were held captive among the barbarians.

For who, mindful of humanity and reminded of mutual love, if he is a father, would not reckon that his children are now there, or if he is a husband, would not consider with equal grief and shame of the marital bond that his wife is held captive there? And how great is the grief and anguish common to us all concerning the peril of the virgins who are held there! For whom the loss not only of liberty but also of chastity is to be lamented, and not so much the chains of the barbarians as the defilements of pimps and brothels are to be bewailed, lest the members consecrated to Christ and chaste in the honour of eternal continence and devoted in virtue be defiled by the lust and contamination of those who insult them. III.

Considering all these things there, according to your letter, and examining them with grief, our brotherhood promptly and willingly and generously contributed monetary aid to the brothers, always indeed inclined to the work of God according to the firmness of their faith, but now more inflamed to salutary works by the contemplation of so great a sorrow. For since the Lord says in his Gospel, I was sick, and you visited me, how much more will he now also say with greater reward for our work: I was a captive, and you ransomed me. And since he again says, I was in prison, and you came to me, how much greater is it when he shall begin to say: "I was in the prison of captivity, and lay shut up and bound among the barbarians, and you freed me from that prison of servitude," when the day of judgment shall come and we are to receive the reward from the Lord?

Finally, we give you the greatest thanks that you were willing to make us sharers in your solicitude and in so good and necessary a work, so that you offered us fertile fields in which we might sow the seeds of our hope, expecting a harvest from the most abundant fruits that come from this heavenly and salutary work. We have sent one hundred thousand sesterces, which have been collected there in the church over which by the Lord's indulgence we preside, by the contribution of the clergy and people residing with us, which you will distribute there according to your diligence.

IV. And we desire indeed that nothing of this sort happen hereafter and that our brothers, protected by the majesty of the Lord, be kept safe from dangers of this kind. If, however, to test the charity of our soul and to examine the faith of our breast, something of this sort should occur, do not hesitate to inform us of it by your letters, holding it for certain that our church and the entire brotherhood there both pray with entreaties that these things may not happen further, and, if they do happen, will willingly and generously provide assistance.

And in order that you may keep in mind in your prayers our brothers and sisters who have contributed so promptly and willingly to this so necessary a work, that they may always continue to contribute, and may render them in return the recompense of their good work in sacrifices and prayers, I have appended the names of each individual; but I have also added the names of our colleagues and fellow-priests, who, being present themselves, contributed something according to their means both in their own name and in the name of their people; and besides our own proper sum, I have indicated and sent also the smaller sums of those, of all of whom you ought to be mindful in your prayers and supplications as faith and charity require. We wish you, dearest brothers, always good health and to be mindful of us.

Cyprian to Euchratius his brother, greeting. Out of our mutual love and your sense of propriety, you have thought it right to consult me, dearest brother, as to what seems to me concerning a certain actor who, residing among you, persists still in the disgrace of his same craft, and as a teacher and instructor not for the education but for the ruin of boys insinuates to others as well what he has learned to ill effect, whether such a man ought to communicate with us. This I think is consistent neither with the divine majesty nor with evangelical discipline, that the modesty and honour of the Church should be defiled by so base and infamous a contamination. For since the Law prohibits men from putting on women's clothing and judges those who do such things accursed, how much greater a crime is it not only to take on women's garments, but also to express shameful and soft and womanish gestures by the instruction of an immodest art?

II. Let no one excuse himself on the ground that he has himself withdrawn from the theatre, while yet he teaches others to do this. For he cannot be seen to have withdrawn who substitutes deputies in his place and who provides more successors in place of himself alone, acting against the ordinance of God, instructing and teaching how a male may be broken into a female and the sex changed by art, and how the divine image, defiled by the devil through the sins of a corrupted and enervated body, may be pleased. But if he pleads the want of such work and the necessity of poverty, his need too can be assisted among the others who are sustained by the Church's provisions, if only he be content with more frugal but innocent food. And let him not think that he must buy himself off with a salary in order to cease from sins, since he renders this service not to us but to himself.

For the rest, let him seek as much as he will from that source—such gain as it is that snatches men from the banquet of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and leads them, fattened badly and perniciously in the world, to the punishments of eternal hunger and thirst. And therefore, as much as you can, call him back from this wickedness and disgrace to the path of innocence and to the hope of eternal life, so that he may be content with the Church's provisions, scant indeed, but wholesome. But if the church there does not suffice to provide sustenance for those in need, he will be able to transfer himself to us, and here receive what shall be necessary for his food and clothing, and not teach others outside the church things that lead to death, but himself learn in the church things that lead to salvation. I pray that you, dearest brother, may always fare well.

Cyprian, Caecilius, Victor, Sedatus, Tertullus, together with the presbyters who were present, to brother Pomponius, greeting. We have read your letter, dearest brother, which you sent through our brother Paconius, requesting and desiring that we write back to you what seems to us concerning those virgins who, having once decreed to hold their state continently and firmly, were afterwards discovered to have remained in the same bed together with males, one of whom you say is a deacon, while those very women who confessed that they had slept with men assert that they are intact.

Concerning this matter, since you have desired our counsel, know that we do not depart from the Gospels and apostolic traditions so as not to advise our brothers and sisters constantly and firmly, and to preserve ecclesiastical discipline through all the ways of benefit and salvation, since the Lord speaks and says: And I will give you pastors according to my heart, and they shall feed you feeding with discipline; and again it is written, He who casts away discipline is unhappy; and in the Psalms also the Holy Spirit admonishes and instructs, saying: Embrace discipline, lest perchance the Lord be angry, and you perish from the right way, when his wrath is quickly kindled against you.

II. First of all, therefore, dearest brother, both those set over the people and the people themselves must strive for nothing other than that we who fear God should hold the divine precepts with all observance of discipline, and not suffer our brothers to wander and to live according to their own will and pleasure, but faithfully to advise each one toward life, and not to suffer virgins to dwell with males; I do not say to sleep together, but not even to live together, since the weaker sex and an age still slippery must in all things be restrained and governed by us, lest occasion be given to the devil who lies in wait and desires to rage for doing harm, since the Apostle also says: Give no place to the devil. A ship must be vigilantly freed from dangerous places, lest it be wrecked among reefs and rocks.

A burden must be swiftly stripped from a fire before it is consumed by the flames coming upon it; no one is long safe who is near to danger; nor will the servant of God be able to escape the devil who has entangled himself in the devil's snares. Intercession must be made quickly for such persons that they be separated while they can still be separated as innocent, because they will not afterwards be able to be parted by our intercession once they have been bound together by a most grievous shared guilt. Finally, we see how grave are the falls of many that arise from this, and with the greatest grief of our soul we behold very many virgins being corrupted through such illicit and dangerous unions. But if they have dedicated themselves to Christ in faith, let them persevere modestly and chastely without any scandal, and so, strong and steadfast, let them await the reward of virginity.

But if they are unwilling or unable to persevere, it is better that they marry than that they fall into the fire through their sins. At any rate, let them cause no scandal to brothers or sisters, since it is written: If food scandalizes my brother, I will eat no flesh for ever, lest I scandalize my brother.

III. Nor let any one think that she can be defended by this excuse, that she can be examined and proved whether she be a virgin, since both the hands of midwives and their eyes are often deceived, and if she be found uncorrupted as a virgin in that part of her body by which a woman can be such, she may yet have sinned in another part of the body which can be corrupted and yet cannot be examined. Certainly the very lying together, the very embrace, the very familiar conversation and kissing, and the foul and shameful sleeping of two persons side by side—how much disgrace and guilt does it confess! If a husband coming upon the scene should see his betrothed lying with another, does he not grow indignant and rage, and perhaps in the pain of his jealousy even take a sword in hand?

What then does Christ our Lord and Judge do, when he sees a virgin dedicated to him and destined for his holiness lying with another—how indignant and angry is he, and what punishments does he threaten for such unchaste unions, from whose spiritual sword and the coming day of judgment each one of the brethren ought to take every counsel and effort to escape? And since all without exception ought to maintain discipline, it is far more fitting that those set over the people and deacons take care of this, who should provide an example and instruction to the rest by their conduct and character. For how can they preside over integrity and continence, if corruption and the teaching of vices begin to proceed from among themselves?

IV. And therefore you have acted wisely and with vigor, dearest brother, in suspending the deacon who had often stayed with a virgin, and likewise the others who had been accustomed to sleep with virgins. But if they have done penance for this illicit cohabitation of theirs and have withdrawn from one another, let the virgins meanwhile be carefully examined by midwives; and, if they be found virgins, let them be admitted to the Church upon receiving communion, yet with this warning, that if they afterwards return to the same males, or if they dwell together with them in the same house and under the same roof, they shall be expelled with a more severe censure, and such persons shall not easily be received back into the Church thereafter.

But if any one of them be found to have been corrupted, let her do full penance, because she who has committed this crime is not the adulteress of a husband but of Christ, and therefore, after a fitting time has been assessed and confession made, let her return to the Church. But if they persist obstinately and do not separate from one another, let them know that with this their shameless obstinacy they can never be admitted by us into the Church, lest they begin to make an example to others for their ruin through their sins. And let them not think that the account of their life or salvation stands firm if they have been unwilling to obey bishops and priests, since in Deuteronomy the Lord God says: And whatever man shall act with pride, so as not to hearken to the priest or to the judge, whosoever he shall be in those days, that man shall die, and all the people when they hear shall fear, and shall not act impiously even now.

God commanded that those who do not obey his priests and do not hearken to the judges appointed by him for a time should be put to death. And in those days indeed they were slain by the sword, when carnal circumcision still remained. But now, since spiritual circumcision has begun to be observed among the faithful servants of God, the proud and contumacious are slain by the spiritual sword when they are cast out of the Church. For they cannot live outside, since there is but one house of God, and there can be salvation for no one except in the Church. Moreover, that the undisciplined perish when they do not hear and do not obey wholesome precepts, divine Scripture testifies, saying: He who is undisciplined does not love the one who corrects him. But they who hate reproof shall perish shamefully.

V. Therefore, that the undisciplined may not perish and be lost, take care, dearest brother, to govern the brotherhood with wholesome counsels as much as you can, and to advise each one toward his salvation. Strait and narrow is the way by which we enter into life, but the fruit is supreme and great when we arrive at glory. Let those who have once made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven please God in all things, and let them not offend the priests of God or the Church of the Lord by the scandal of their wickedness.

And if at present some of our brothers seem to be grieved by us, let us nevertheless remain in our wholesome persuasion, knowing that the Apostle also said: Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? But if they obey us, we have gained brothers, and have formed them toward salvation and dignity alike by our word. But if some of the perverse shall be unwilling to obey, let us follow the same Apostle saying: If I were still pleasing men, I should not be the servant of Christ. If we cannot persuade some so as to make them please Christ, let us at least, as is our part, please Christ our Lord and God by keeping his precepts. I pray that you, dearest and most longed-for brother, may fare well in the Lord.

Cyprian to brother Caecilius, greeting. Although I know, dearest brother, that very many bishops, set over the Lord's churches throughout the whole world by divine condescension, hold to the rule of evangelical truth and the Lord's tradition, and do not depart from what Christ the master both commanded and did by any human and novel institution; yet, since certain persons, either through ignorance or simplicity, do not do in consecrating the Lord's cup and ministering it to the people what Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the author and teacher of this sacrifice, did and taught, I have judged it equally religious and necessary to write this letter to you; so that, if any one is still held in that error, he may, the light of truth being perceived, return to the root and origin of the Lord's tradition.

Nor should you think, dearest brother, that we are writing our own and human thoughts, or that we boldly take this upon ourselves by our own spontaneous will, since we always hold our humble station with modest and reverent restraint. But when something is enjoined by God's inspiration and command, it is necessary that a faithful servant obey the Lord, excused before all in that he arrogates nothing to himself presumptuously, who is compelled to fear the Lord's displeasure unless he does what is commanded.

II. Know moreover that we have been admonished that in the offering of the cup the Lord's tradition should be observed, and that nothing be done by us other than what the Lord first did for us, so that the cup which is offered in commemoration of him be offered mixed with wine. For since Christ says, I am the true vine, the blood of Christ is assuredly not water but wine. Nor can that which redeemed and quickened us be seen to be his blood in the cup when wine is absent from the cup, by which the blood of Christ is shown forth, which is proclaimed by the sacrament and testimony of all the Scriptures.

III. For we find that in Genesis this same thing was prefigured in the sacrament concerning Noah, and that the figure of the Lord's passion was present there: that he drank wine, that he was made drunk, that he was stripped naked in his house, that he lay recumbent with naked and exposed thighs, that the nakedness of the father was noted by the middle son and reported abroad, but covered by the two, the elder and the younger, and the rest of the things which there is no need to pursue, since it is enough to embrace this one point alone, that Noah, showing a type of the future truth, drank not water but wine, and thus expressed the image of the Lord's passion.

IV. Likewise in the priest Melchisedech we see the sacrament of the Lord's sacrifice prefigured, as the divine Scripture bears witness and says: And Melchisedech, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine. Now he was a priest of the most high God, and he blessed Abraham. That Melchisedech bore the type of Christ, the Holy Spirit declares in the Psalms, speaking in the person of the Father to the Son: Before the morning star I begot thee. Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech. Which order is indeed this, coming from that sacrifice and descending thence, namely that Melchisedech was a priest of the most high God, that he offered bread and wine, that he blessed Abraham. For who is more a priest of the most high God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered sacrifice to God the Father, and offered this same thing which Melchisedech had offered, that is, bread and wine, namely his own body and blood? And that blessing which preceded, concerning Abraham, pertained to our people.

For if Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, certainly whoever believes God and lives by faith is found just, and is shown to have been long since blessed and justified in faithful Abraham, as the blessed apostle Paul proves, saying: Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Know therefore that they who are of faith, these are the sons of Abraham. Now the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, foretold to Abraham that in him all nations would be blessed. Therefore they who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Hence in the Gospel we find that sons of Abraham are to be raised up from stones, that is, gathered from among the Gentiles. And when the Lord praised Zacchaeus, he answered and said: Salvation has come to this house today, because he also is a son of Abraham.

Therefore, in order that in Genesis the blessing concerning Abraham might be duly celebrated through the priest Melchisedech, the image of Christ's sacrifice goes before, established namely in bread and wine; which thing the Lord, completing and fulfilling it, offered bread and a cup mixed with wine, and he who is the fullness of truth fulfilled the truth of the prefigured image.

V. But also through Solomon the Holy Spirit, foreshowing beforehand the type of the Lord's sacrifice, and making mention of the slain victim and of bread and wine and also of the altar and of the Apostles, says: Wisdom, he says, hath built herself a house, and set up seven pillars. She hath slain her victims, mingled her wine in the bowl, and prepared her table. And she hath sent her servants, calling with a loud proclamation to the bowl, saying: Whoso is simple, let him turn in to me. And to those lacking understanding she said: Come, eat of my breads, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. The mingled wine declares, that is, by a prophetic voice it foretells the cup of the Lord mixed with water and wine, so that it may appear that in the Lord's passion that was done which had been foretold beforehand.

VI. Also in the blessing of Judah this same thing is signified, where likewise the figure of Christ is expressed: that he was to be praised and adored by his brothers, that he would press down with his hands, by which he bore the cross and conquered death, the backs of enemies retreating and fleeing, and that he himself is the lion of the tribe of Judah, and lies down sleeping in the passion, and rises, and is himself the hope of the nations. To which the divine Scripture adds and says: He shall wash his robe in wine and his garment in the blood of the grape. Now when the blood of the grape is spoken of, what else is shown but the wine of the cup of the Lord's blood?

VII. Moreover also in Isaiah the Holy Spirit bears witness of the same thing concerning the Lord's passion, saying: Why are thy garments red, and thy raiment as from the treading of a winepress full and well-trodden? Can water make garments red, or is it water that is trodden underfoot in a winepress or pressed out by the beam? The mention of wine is therefore set down so that the blood of the Lord may be understood, and that what was afterwards made manifest in the cup of the Lord might be foretold by the Prophets proclaiming it. The treading and pressing of the winepress is also noted, because, just as wine for drinking cannot be obtained unless the cluster of grapes be first trodden and pressed, so neither could we drink the blood of Christ unless Christ had first been trodden and pressed, and had first drunk the cup in which he would give drink to believers. VIII.

But whenever water alone is named in the holy Scriptures, Baptism is proclaimed, as we see signified in Isaiah: Do not, he says, remember former things, and consider not the things of old: behold I do new things which shall now spring forth, and ye shall know them, and I will make a way in the desert, and rivers in a waterless place to water my chosen race, my people, whom I have acquired, that they might declare my virtues. There God foretold through the prophet that among the Gentiles in places which had previously been waterless, rivers would afterwards overflow and water the chosen race of God, that is, those made sons of God through the regeneration of Baptism.

Likewise, again it is sung beforehand and predicted to the Jews, that if they should thirst and seek Christ, they would drink among us, that is, obtain the grace of Baptism: If they shall thirst, he says, he will lead them through the deserts, he will bring forth water from the rock for them, the rock shall be cleft, and water shall flow, and my people shall drink. Which is fulfilled in the Gospel, when Christ, who is the rock, is cleft by the stroke of a lance in the passion: who also, admonishing what had been foretold beforehand through the prophet, cries out and says: If any man thirst, let him come and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And, that it might be more manifest that the Lord speaks there not of the cup but of Baptism, the Scripture added, saying: Now this he said of the Spirit which they who believed in him were to receive.

For through Baptism the Holy Spirit is received, and so from those who have been baptized and have obtained the Holy Spirit, one comes to drinking the cup of the Lord. But let no one be troubled that, when the divine Scripture speaks of Baptism, it says that we thirst and drink, since the Lord also says in the Gospel: Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice; because what is received with eager and thirsting desire is drawn more fully and abundantly. As also in another place the Lord speaks to the Samaritan woman, saying: Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but he that shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall not thirst for ever. By which also Baptism itself of the saving water is signified, which is of course received once and is not repeated again. But the cup of the Lord in the Church is always both thirsted for and drunk. IX.

Nor is there need of many arguments, dearest brother, to prove that the name of water has always signified Baptism and that we ought so to understand it, since the Lord coming has made manifest the truth of Baptism and of the Cup, who commanded that faithful water, the water of eternal life, be given to believers in Baptism, and taught that the cup should be mixed by his own example and teaching with a joining of wine and water. For taking the cup on the day before his passion, he blessed it and gave it to his disciples, saying: Drink ye all of this. For this is the blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins. I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I shall drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father.

In which passage we find that the cup which the Lord offered was mixed, and that it was wine which he called his blood. Whence it appears that the blood of Christ is not offered if wine be lacking in the cup, nor is the Lord's sacrifice celebrated with its lawful consecration unless our oblation and sacrifice correspond to the passion. For how shall we drink new wine of the fruit of the vine with Christ in the kingdom of the Father, if in the sacrifice of God the Father and of Christ we do not offer wine, nor mix the cup of the Lord according to the Lord's tradition?

X. The blessed apostle Paul also, chosen and sent by the Lord and appointed a preacher of evangelical truth, sets down these same things in his Epistle, saying: The Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and gave thanks and broke it and said: This is my body which shall be delivered for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup, after he had supped, he took, saying: This cup is the new testament in my blood. Do this, as often as ye shall drink, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye shall eat this bread and drink the cup, ye shall show the death of the Lord until he come.

If therefore it is both commanded by the Lord and confirmed and handed down by his Apostle, that as often as we drink we do this in remembrance of the Lord as the Lord also did, we find that what has been commanded is not observed by us unless we also do the same things which the Lord did, and mixing the cup of the Lord in like manner do not depart from the divine teaching. But that we must in no wise depart from the evangelical precepts, and that the disciples also ought to observe and do the same things which the master taught and did, the blessed Apostle teaches more firmly and forcefully in another place, saying: I marvel that you are so soon removed from him who called you to grace, unto another gospel, which is not another, unless there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an angel from heaven preach otherwise than we have preached to you, let him be anathema.

As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you otherwise than that which you have received, let him be anathema.

XI. Since therefore neither the Apostle himself nor an angel from heaven can announce or teach otherwise than what Christ once taught and his Apostles announced, I marvel greatly whence this practice has been assumed, that contrary to evangelical and apostolic discipline, in certain places water is offered in the Lord's cup, which alone cannot express the blood of Christ. Of which matter the Holy Spirit is not silent in the Psalms, making mention of the Lord's cup and saying: Thy cup which inebriates, how excellent it is. Now the cup which inebriates is certainly mixed with wine: for water cannot inebriate anyone. Now the Lord's cup inebriates in such a way as Noah in Genesis was inebriated when he drank wine.

But, because the inebriation of the Lord's cup and blood is not such as the inebriation of worldly wine, when the Holy Spirit said in the Psalm, Thy cup which inebriates, he added, how excellent it is, meaning of course that the Lord's cup so inebriates those who drink it as to make them sober, as to bring their minds back to spiritual wisdom, as to cause each one to recover his senses from this worldly taste to the understanding of God, and just as by that common wine the mind is loosened and the soul relaxed and all sadness laid aside, so, when the blood of the Lord and the saving cup has been drunk, the memory of the old man is laid aside, and there comes forgetfulness of one's former worldly manner of life, and the sad and sorrowful breast, which was previously weighed down by the burden of sins, is released into the joy of divine forgiveness; which can then at last gladden the one drinking in the Church of the Lord, if what is drunk holds the truth of the Lord.

XII. How perverse and how contrary it is, then, that when the Lord at the wedding made wine from water, we should make water from wine, when the sacrament of that event also ought to admonish and instruct us that in the Lord's sacrifices we should rather offer wine. For because spiritual grace had failed among the Jews, the wine also failed: for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts was the house of Israel. But Christ, teaching and showing that the people of the Gentiles would succeed, and that we would afterwards attain by merit of faith to the place which the Jews had forfeited, made wine from water, that is, showed that the people of the Gentiles rather would flock and come together to the marriage of Christ and the Church, the Jews withdrawing. For that waters signify peoples, the divine Scripture declares in the Apocalypse, saying: The waters which thou sawest, upon which the harlot sitteth, are peoples and multitudes and nations of the Gentiles and tongues.

Which we perceive to be contained also in the sacrament of the cup.

XIII. For, since Christ bore us all, who also bore our sins, we see that in the water the people is to be understood, but in the wine the blood of Christ is shown.

Now when water is mixed with wine in the chalice, the people are united to Christ, and the multitude of believers is joined and coupled to him in whom they have believed. This coupling and joining of water and wine is so mingled in the cup of the Lord that that mixture cannot be separated from one another. Whence also nothing shall be able to separate the Church, that is, the people established in the Church, persevering faithfully and firmly in that which they have believed, from Christ, so that their love may always cleave to him and remain undivided. But just as in the sanctifying of the cup of the Lord water alone cannot be offered, so neither can wine alone. For if anyone offers wine only, the blood of Christ begins to exist without us; but if the water be alone, the people begin to exist without Christ. But when both are mingled together and joined to one another by a blended union, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is accomplished.

Thus the cup of the Lord is neither water alone nor wine alone, unless both be mixed together, just as the body of the Lord cannot be flour alone or water alone, unless both have been united and joined together and consolidated into the compactness of a single loaf. By which sacrament itself our people are shown to be united; so that, just as many grains gathered into one and ground and mixed together make one bread, so in Christ, who is the heavenly bread, we may know there is one body, to which our number is joined and united.

XIV. There is therefore no reason, dearest brother, for anyone to think that the custom of certain persons is to be followed, if any in times past thought that water alone should be offered in the cup of the Lord. For one must inquire whom they followed. For if in the sacrifice which Christ offered, none but Christ is to be followed, then assuredly we ought to obey and do what Christ did and commanded to be done, since he himself says in the Gospel: If ye do what I command you, I call you no longer servants, but friends. And that Christ alone ought to be heeded, the Father also testifies from heaven, saying: This is my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him. Wherefore, if Christ alone is to be heard, we ought not to attend to what another before us may have thought should be done, but to what Christ, who is before all, first did.

For it is not a human custom that ought to be followed, but the truth of God, since God speaks through Isaiah the prophet and says: But in vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men. And again the Lord repeats this same thing in the Gospel, saying: Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may establish your own tradition. But also in another place he sets it down and says: Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But if it is not lawful to break even the least of the Lord's commandments, how much more is it not right to infringe upon things so great, so weighty, so pertaining to the very sacrament of the Lord's passion and our redemption, or to change by human tradition into something other than what has been divinely instituted?

For if Jesus Christ our Lord and God is himself the high priest of God the Father, and first offered himself as a sacrifice to the Father, and commanded this to be done in remembrance of himself, then assuredly that priest truly performs the office in the place of Christ who imitates what Christ did, and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, if he so begins to offer according as he sees that Christ himself offered. XV. Otherwise all the discipline of religion and truth is subverted, unless what is spiritually commanded is faithfully preserved; unless perhaps someone in the morning sacrifices fears that by the taste of wine he may smell of the blood of Christ. So then the brotherhood begins to be held back from the passion of Christ in persecutions, while in the oblations it learns to be ashamed of his blood and gore. But the Lord says in the Gospel: Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed.

And the Apostle also speaks, saying: If I were yet pleasing men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But how can we shed blood for Christ, who are ashamed to drink the blood of Christ? XVI. Or does someone flatter himself with the thought that, even if water alone is seen to be offered in the morning, yet when we come to supper we offer the mixed cup? But when we sup, we cannot summon the people to our meal, so that we may celebrate the truth of the sacrament with the whole brotherhood present. Yet it was not in the morning but after supper that the Lord offered the mixed cup. Are we therefore to celebrate the Lord's Supper after supper, so that we may thus offer the mixed cup at the recurring Lord's days?

Christ had to offer toward the evening of the day, so that the very hour of the sacrifice might show the setting and evening of the world, as it is written in Exodus: And the whole assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel shall kill it at evening. And again in the Psalms: The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. But we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord in the morning.

XVII. And because we make mention of his passion in all our sacrifices (for the passion of the Lord is the sacrifice which we offer), we ought to do nothing other than what he did. For Scripture says: For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. As often therefore as we offer the cup in commemoration of the Lord and of his passion, let us do what it is established that the Lord did. And let him see to it, dearest brother: if any of our predecessors either through ignorance or simplicity did not observe and maintain what we are taught by the Lord to do through his own example and instruction, his simplicity may be pardoned by the indulgence of the Lord.

But for us pardon will not be possible, who are now admonished and instructed by the Lord, that we should offer the cup of the Lord mixed with wine, as the Lord himself offered, and that we should also direct letters to our colleagues on this matter, so that everywhere the law of the Gospel and the tradition of the Lord may be observed, and that there be no departure from what Christ both taught and did.

XVIII. To continue henceforth to despise this and to persist in the former error, what else is it than to incur the rebuke of the Lord reproving in the Psalm and saying: But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee. When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. For to declare the statutes and covenant of the Lord, and not to do the same as the Lord did, what else is it than to cast his words behind one and to despise the Lord's discipline, and to commit not earthly but spiritual thefts and adulteries, when one steals the words and deeds of our Lord from the truth of the Gospel, and corrupts and adulterates the divine precepts? As it is written in Jeremiah: What is the chaff to the wheat?

Therefore behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words every one from his neighbour, and cause my people to err by their lies and by their errors. Likewise in the same prophet in another place: And she committed adultery, he says, with stone and with wood, and in all these things she turned not unto me. We ought to take careful, fearful, and devout heed lest this theft and adultery fall upon us as well. For if we are priests of God and of Christ, I find no one whom we ought rather to follow than God and Christ, since he himself says most especially in the Gospel: I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Therefore, lest we walk in darkness, we ought to follow Christ and observe his precepts, since he also in another place, sending the Apostles, said: All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Wherefore if we wish to walk in the light of Christ, let us not depart from his precepts and admonitions, giving thanks that, while he instructs us for the future as to what we ought to do, he pardons us for the past wherein we erred in simplicity. And because his second coming is now drawing near to us, his gracious and abundant condescension illuminates our hearts more and more with the light of truth. XIX.

It is therefore fitting to our religion and to our fear, and to the very place and office of our priesthood, dearest brother, in mixing and offering the cup of the Lord, to keep the truth of the Lord's tradition, and to correct what appears to have been previously erred in by some, at the Lord's admonition; so that, when he shall have begun to come in his brightness and heavenly majesty, he may find us holding what he admonished, observing what he taught, doing what he did. I pray that you, dearest brother, may always fare well.

Cyprian to his brother Epictetus and to the people dwelling at Assuras, greeting. I have been moved with grief and sorrow, dearest brothers, because I have learned that Fortunatianus, formerly bishop among you, after the grievous fall of his ruin, now wishes to conduct himself as though he were intact and has begun to claim the episcopate for himself.

This matter has grieved me, first on his own account, since that wretched man, either wholly blinded by the darkness of the devil, or deceived by the sacrilegious persuasion of certain persons, when he ought to be making satisfaction and devoting himself day and night to entreating the Lord with tears and prayers and supplications, dares still to claim for himself the priesthood which he betrayed, as though after the altars of the devil it were lawful to approach the altar of God, or as though he does not provoke greater wrath and indignation of the Lord against himself on the day of judgment, who, since he could not be a leader of faith and virtue to the brethren, stands forth as a teacher of perfidy and audacity and rashness, and who, since he did not teach the brethren to stand bravely in battle, teaches those who have been conquered and laid low not even to pray; when the Lord says: To them ye have poured out libations, and to them ye have offered sacrifices; shall I not therefore be angry at these things?

Saith the Lord. And in another place: He that sacrificeth unto gods shall be utterly destroyed, save unto the Lord only. Likewise the Lord speaks again and says: They worshipped those things which their own fingers have made, and the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled, and I will not forgive them. In the Apocalypse also we read the Lord threatening his wrath and saying: If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead and in his hand, he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy Angels and in the sight of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment shall ascend for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image.

II. Since therefore the Lord threatens these torments, these punishments on the day of judgment to those who obey the devil and sacrifice to idols, how does he think he can act as a priest of God who has obeyed and served the priests of the devil? Or how does he think that his hand can be transferred to the sacrifice of God and the prayer of the Lord, which has been held captive by sacrilege and crime, when in the divine Scriptures God forbids even priests placed in a lesser offence to approach the sacrifice, and says in Leviticus: The man in whom there is a blemish and defect shall not come near to offer gifts to God. Likewise in Exodus: And let the priests also, which come near to the Lord God, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord forsake them. And again: And when they come to minister at the holy altar, they shall not bring guilt upon themselves, lest they die.

Those therefore who have brought grave guilt upon themselves, that is, who by sacrificing to idols have performed sacrilegious sacrifices, cannot claim the priesthood of God for themselves, nor make any prayer before him on behalf of the brethren, since it is written in the Gospel: God heareth not sinners; but if any man be a worshipper of God and doeth his will, him he heareth. Although the deep darkness of encroaching shadows has so blinded the minds of certain persons that they admit no light from wholesome precepts, but, once turned aside from the straight path of the true way, are swept headlong and over the precipice by the night and error of their own crimes.

III. Nor is it surprising if those who denied the Lord now reject our counsels or the Lord's precepts: they desire offerings and oblations and gains, upon which they formerly lay insatiably; and even now they gape after feasts and banquets, whose surfeit they lately belched forth day by day in living indigestion, now most plainly proving that they had served not religion but rather their belly and their profit with profane desire. Whence we perceive and believe that this censure came from God's scrutiny, lest those who persist in standing at the altar and handling it further should continue—the shame of the unchaste, the faithlessness of the perfidious, the irreligion of the profane, the divine things of the earthly, the holy things of the sacrilegious.

That such persons may not return again to the defilements and contaminations of the altar and of the brethren, we must keep watch with all our strength, and strive with all our vigor to beat back as much as we can the audacity of their wickedness, lest those who have been cast down to the extremities of death, and have fallen further than lapsed laymen under the weight of a greater ruin, still attempt to act as priest.

IV. But if among the insane an incurable frenzy shall persist, and, the Holy Spirit withdrawing, the blindness that has begun shall remain in its own night, our counsel will be to separate individual brethren from their deceit, and to keep them apart from their contagion lest anyone fall into the snares of error, since neither can an oblation be sanctified where the Holy Spirit is not, nor can the Lord profit anyone through the prayers and petitions of one who has himself violated the Lord.

But if Fortunatianus, either unmindful of his crime through the blindness of the devil, or made a minister and servant of the devil to deceive the brotherhood, shall persist in this his frenzy, labor as much as you can, and in this darkness of the raging devil call back the minds of the brethren from error, lest they too readily consent to another's madness, lest they make themselves partakers in the offenses of the desperate, but let them hold, unimpaired, the perpetual course of their salvation and of the integrity preserved and guarded by themselves.

V. But let the lapsed, acknowledging the greatness of their offense, not cease from entreating the Lord, nor forsake the Catholic Church, which is the one and only Church established by the Lord; but, persevering in making satisfaction and entreating the Lord's mercy, let them knock at the Church, that they may be able to be received there where they were, and return to Christ from whom they have departed. And let them not hear those who deceive them with a deceitful and deadly seduction, since it is written: Let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not therefore partakers with them. Therefore let no one accompany those who are contumacious and do not fear God and withdraw wholly from the Church. But if anyone shall be impatient in entreating the Lord who has been offended, and shall refuse to obey us, but shall follow the desperate and the lost, he shall impute it to himself when the day of judgment comes.

For how shall he be able to entreat the Lord on that day who both before this denied Christ and now also denies the Church of Christ, and, not obeying bishops who are sound and whole and living, has offered himself as companion and partaker to the dying? I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brethren, always good health.

Cyprian to his brother Rogatianus, greeting. I and my colleagues who were present, dearest brother, were gravely and sorrowfully moved upon reading your letter, in which you complained of your deacon, that, unmindful of your priestly station and office, and forgetful of his own ministry, he had provoked you with insults and injuries.

And you indeed acted honorably toward us and in accordance with your customary humility, in that you preferred to complain to us about him, when, by the vigor of the episcopate and the authority of the chair, you had the power by which you could have taken immediate vengeance upon him, certain that all your colleagues would have approved whatever you had done against your insolent deacon by priestly power, having the divine precepts concerning men of this kind, since the Lord God says in Deuteronomy: And whatsoever man shall act with pride, so as not to obey the priest or the judge, whosoever he shall be in those days, that man shall die, and all the people shall hear and fear, and shall not act impiously any more.

And that we may know that this word of God proceeded with his true and supreme majesty to honor and avenge his priests, when three of the ministers, Core and Dathan and Abiron, dared to be proud against Aaron the priest and to lift up their neck and to make themselves equal to the priest set over them, swallowed up and devoured by the gaping of the earth, they immediately paid the penalties of their sacrilegious audacity. Nor they alone, but also the other two hundred and fifty who were their companions in audacity were consumed by fire breaking forth from the Lord, so that it was proved that the priests of God are avenged by him who makes priests. Also in the book of Kings, when Samuel the priest was despised by the people of the Jews on account of his old age, as you are now, the Lord cried out in anger and said: They have not despised thee, but me have they despised.

And to avenge this, he raised up for them Saul as king, who would afflict them with grievous injuries, and trample and oppress the proud people through all manner of insults and punishments, so that the despised priest might be avenged of the proud people by divine vengeance.

II. But Solomon also, established in the Holy Spirit, testifies and teaches what the authority and power of the priesthood is, saying: With thy whole soul fear God, and sanctify his priests. And again: Honor God with thy whole soul, and give honor to his priests. Mindful of these precepts, the blessed apostle Paul, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, when it was said to him: Dost thou thus revile the high priest of God? Answered and said: I knew not, brethren, that he is the high priest. For it is written: Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. Our Lord himself also, Jesus Christ, our king and judge and God, preserved honor toward the high priests and priests even to the day of his passion, although they had preserved neither the fear of God nor the acknowledgment of Christ. For when he had cleansed the leper, he said to him: Go, and show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift.

With that humility by which he also taught us to be humble, he still called him a priest whom he knew to be a sacrilegious man. Likewise, under the blow of his passion, when he had received a blow on the face, and it was said to him, Dost thou thus answer the high priest, he said nothing insulting against the person of the high priest, but rather defended his own innocence, saying: If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil. But if well, why smitest thou me? All of which was done by him humbly and patiently, that we might have an example of humility and patience. For he taught that true priests are to be lawfully and fully honored, while he himself showed such conduct toward false priests.

III. But deacons ought to remember that the Lord chose the Apostles, that is, bishops and superiors, whereas the Apostles, after the Lord's ascension into heaven, appointed deacons for themselves as ministers of their episcopate and of the Church. If we can dare anything against God, who makes bishops, then deacons also can dare against us, by whom they are made. And therefore the deacon of whom you write ought to repent of his audacity, and acknowledge the honor of the priest, and make full satisfaction with humility to his bishop set over him. For these are the beginnings of heretics and the rise and attempts of schismatics thinking evil, that they please themselves, that they despise their superior with proud swelling. Thus one withdraws from the Church, thus a profane altar is set up outside, thus rebellion is made against the peace of Christ and the ordinance and unity of God.

But if he shall further provoke and exasperate you with his insults, you shall exercise toward him the power of your honor, so that you either depose him or suspend him. For if the apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, said: Let no man despise thy youth, how much more must it be said to you by your colleagues: "Let no man despise thy old age." And since you have written that a certain person has joined himself with your deacon and is a partaker of his pride and audacity, this man also, and any others who may have shown themselves such and have acted against the priest of God, you will be able either to restrain or to suspend: except that we exhort and admonish that they rather understand that they have sinned and make satisfaction, and allow us to maintain our purpose. For we prefer and desire to overcome the insults and injuries of individuals by clement patience, rather than to avenge them by priestly authority. I wish you, dearest brother, always good health.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and people dwelling at Furni, greeting. I and my colleagues who were present, and our fellow-presbyters who were sitting with us, were gravely moved, dearest brethren, when we learned that our brother Geminius Victor, departing from this world, had named Geminius Faustinus the presbyter as guardian in his will, since it was decreed long ago in a council of bishops that no one of the clergy and ministers of God should appoint a guardian or curator in his will, because each one honored with the divine priesthood and established in clerical ministry ought to serve only the altar and the sacrifices and to be free for prayers and supplications. For it is written: No man, being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular businesses, that he may please him to whom he hath engaged himself.

And since this has been said of all, how much more ought those not to be entangled in the troubles and snares of the world who, occupied with divine and spiritual matters, cannot withdraw from the church and be free for earthly and secular acts? The Levites previously maintained the form of this ordinance and religious observance in the law, so that when the land was divided and possessions were distributed among the eleven tribes, the Levitical tribe, which was free for the temple and the altar and the divine ministries, received nothing from that portion of the division, but, while others tilled the land, that tribe alone cultivated God, and received tithes from the fruits that grew from the eleven tribes for its sustenance and food. All of which was done by divine authority and disposition, so that those who were intent upon divine works might be called away from nothing, nor be compelled to think or act in secular matters.

This principle and form is now maintained in the clergy, so that those who are advanced in the Church of the Lord by clerical ordination may be called away from the divine administration in nothing, nor be bound by secular troubles and affairs, but, in the honor of the brethren who contribute portions, receiving as it were tithes from the fruits, may not withdraw from the altar and the sacrifices, but may serve heavenly and spiritual things day and night. II. Our episcopal predecessors, religiously considering and wholesomely providing for this, decreed that no brother departing this life should name a cleric as guardian or curator, and that if anyone had done this, no offering should be made for him, nor should the sacrifice be celebrated for his repose. For he does not deserve to be named at the altar in the prayer of the priests who wished to call away priests and ministers from the altar.

And therefore, since Victor, contrary to the form recently given in council by the priests, dared to appoint Geminius Faustinus the presbyter as guardian, there is no reason for an oblation to be made among you for his repose, or for any supplication to be offered in the Church in his name, so that the decree of the priests, made religiously and necessarily, may be observed by us, and at the same time an example may be given to the other brethren that no one should call away the priests and ministers of God, who are free for his altar and his Church, to secular troubles. For it will be possible to observe hereafter that this be no longer done in the case of clerics, if what has now been done shall be punished. I wish you, dearest brethren, always good health.

Cyprian, who is also Thascius, to Florentius, who is also Pupianus, a brother, greeting. I had believed, brother, that you had at last turned to repentance for having so rashly heard or believed against us things so unspeakable, so shameful, so execrable even to the gentiles. But now in your letter I observe that you are still the same as you were before, that you believe the same things about us and persevere in what you have believed, and that, lest perchance the dignity of your renown and martyrdom be stained by communion with us, you are carefully inquiring into our conduct, and after God the judge, who makes priests, you wish to judge—I will not say of me (for how great!)—but of the judgment of God and of Christ. This is not to believe in God; this is to be a rebel against Christ and against His Gospel, since when He says: Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?

And not one of them falls to the ground without the will of the Father, and His majesty and truth prove that not even lesser things are done without the knowledge and permission of God, you suppose that the priests of God are ordained in the Church without His knowledge. For to believe that those who are ordained are unworthy and unchaste, what else is it than to believe that the priests of God are not established in the Church by God nor through God? II. Or do you think that my own testimony concerning myself is greater than God's testimony, since the Lord Himself teaches and says that testimony is not true if anyone stands as a witness for himself, because each person naturally favors himself, and no one brings forth things hostile and adverse against himself, but sincere faith in truth exists when in our declarations another is the proclaimer and witness: If I, He says, bear testimony of myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness of me.

But if the Lord Himself, who will hereafter judge all things, was unwilling to have testimony concerning Himself believed on His own word, but preferred to be proved by the judgment and testimony of God the Father, how much more ought His servants to observe this, who are not only proved by the judgment and testimony of God, but also glory in it. But against the divine sentence and against our conscience, resting on the strength of its faith, there prevailed with you the fabrication of enemies and malicious men—as if among the lapsed and profane and those placed outside the Church, from whose hearts the Holy Spirit has departed, there could be anything other than a depraved mind and a deceitful tongue and poisoned hatreds and sacrilegious lies; and whoever believes these men must needs be found with them when the day of judgment comes. III.

As for what you said, that priests ought to be humble, because the Lord and His Apostles were humble, my humility is very well known and loved both by all the brethren and by the gentiles as well; and you too knew it and loved it, when you were still in the Church and in communion with me. But which of us is far from humility—whether I, who daily serve the brethren and receive each one who comes to the Church kindly and with goodwill and joy? Or you, who set yourself up as bishop over a bishop and judge over a judge given for a time by God? Since the Lord God says in Deuteronomy: And whatever man shall act with pride, so as not to hearken to the priest or the judge, whosoever he shall be in those days, that man shall die, and all the people when they hear shall fear, and shall not act impiously even now. And again He speaks to Samuel and says: They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.

And again the Lord in the Gospel, when it was said to Him, Dost thou answer the High Priest so, guarding and teaching that the priestly honor ought to be preserved, said nothing against the High Priest, but only clearing His own innocence answered saying: If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil. But if well, why dost thou strike me? Likewise the blessed Apostle, when it was said to him, Dost thou revile the high priest of God, said nothing contumelious against the priest, though he could have boldly asserted himself against those who had crucified the Lord and who had already destroyed God and Christ and the temple and the priesthood; but, although dealing with false and despoiled priests, yet thinking of the very empty shadow of the priestly name, he said: I knew not, brethren, that he is the high priest. For it is written: Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. IV.

Unless indeed I was a priest to you before the persecution, when you were in communion with me, and after the persecution I ceased to be a priest. For the persecution coming raised you to the highest sublimity of martyrdom, but weighed me down with the burden of proscription, when it was publicly read: "If anyone holds or possesses any of the goods of Caecilius Cyprian, bishop of the Christians;" so that even those who did not believe in God appointing a bishop might believe the devil proscribing a bishop. And I do not boast of this, but bring it forward with grief, since you set yourself up as judge of God and of Christ, who says to the Apostles, and through them to all rulers who succeed the Apostles by vicarious ordination: He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that heareth me, heareth him that sent me. And he that rejecteth you, rejecteth me and him that sent me.

V. For from this source schisms and heresies have arisen and do arise, while the bishop, who is one and presides over the Church, is despised by the proud presumption of certain persons, and a man honored by the dignity of God is judged unworthy by men. For what is this swelling of pride, what arrogance of spirit, what inflation of mind, to summon rulers and priests to one's own tribunal, and unless we have been cleared before you and absolved by your sentence, behold, for six years now the brotherhood would have had no bishop, the people no ruler, the flock no shepherd, the Church no governor, Christ no high priest, God no priest.

Let Pupianus come to the rescue, and pronounce sentence and credit the judgment of God and of Christ to his own account, lest so great a number of the faithful who have been gathered under us should seem to have gone forth without hope of salvation and peace, and lest the new people of believers should be judged to have obtained through us no grace of Baptism and of the Holy Spirit, lest the peace given to so many lapsed and penitent persons and the communion granted by our examination be dissolved by the authority of your judgment. Consent at last and deign to pronounce concerning us and to confirm our episcopate by the authority of your cognizance, so that God and His Christ may be able to give you thanks that through you the high priest and ruler has been restored alike to their altar and to their people.

VI. Bees have a king, and cattle have a leader, and they keep faith with him; robbers obey their chief with full submission and humility. How much simpler and better than you are the brute beasts and the dumb animals, and even the brigands, though bloody and raging amid swords and arms? There a leader is recognized and feared whom no divine sentence has established, but upon whom a ruinous faction and a harmful band has agreed. VII. You said indeed that a scruple was to be removed from your mind, into which you had fallen. You fell into it, but by your own irreligious credulity; you fell into it, but by your own sacrilegious mind and will, while you easily hear things unchaste, impious, and abominable against a brother, against a priest, gladly believe them, and defend the lies of others as if they were your own and private; nor do you remember that it is written: Hedge thine ears with thorns, and hear not a wicked tongue.

And again: A wicked man obeyeth the tongue of the unjust, but a just man doth not attend to lying lips. Why did the martyrs, full of the Holy Spirit and already near to the sight of God and of His Christ through their passion, not fall into this scruple—they who sent letters to Cyprian the bishop from prison, acknowledging and attesting him as a priest of God? Why did so many of my fellow bishops not fall into this scruple—they who either, when they departed from the midst, were proscribed, or, being seized, were cast into prison and were in chains, or who, sent into exile, set out to the Lord by a glorious journey, or who in certain places, having suffered punishment, received heavenly crowns from the glorification of the Lord?

Why did so many confessors from that people of ours which is with us and committed to us by God's favor, who were questioned and tortured and are glorious in the memory of distinguished wounds and scars, not fall into this scruple—so many chaste virgins, so many praiseworthy widows, and finally the churches throughout the whole world joined with us by the bond of unity? Unless indeed all these who communicate with me have, according to what you wrote, been polluted by our polluted mouth, and have lost the hope of eternal life by the contagion of our communion. Pupianus alone, whole, inviolate, holy, chaste, who refused to mingle with us, shall dwell alone in paradise and in the kingdom of heaven.

VIII. You also wrote that the Church now on my account has a portion of itself in dispersion, when the whole people of the Church is both gathered and united and joined together in indivisible concord, and only those have remained outside who, even if they had been within, would have had to be cast out, and the Lord, the protector and guardian of His people, does not permit the wheat of His threshing-floor to be torn away, but only the chaff can be separated from the Church, since the Apostle also says: For what if some of them have not believed?

Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid. For God is true, but every man a liar. And the Lord also in the Gospel, when the disciples were forsaking Him as He spoke, turned to the twelve and said: Will you also go away? Peter answered Him: Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life: and we have believed and have known that thou art the Son of the living God. There Peter speaks, upon whom the Church was to be built, teaching and showing in the name of the Church that, even if a contumacious and proud multitude of those unwilling to obey departs, yet the Church does not withdraw from Christ, and those are the Church—the people united to the priest and the flock cleaving to their shepherd.

Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop, and that if anyone is not with the bishop, he is not in the Church; and that those flatter themselves in vain who, not having peace with the priests of God, creep in and believe themselves to be secretly in communion with certain persons, since the Church, which is catholic and one, is not split nor divided, but is assuredly connected and joined together by the bond of priests cleaving to one another.

IX. Wherefore, brother, if you shall have considered the majesty of God, who ordains priests; if you shall have at some point looked to Christ, who by His own will and nod and presence governs both the rulers themselves and the Church together with the rulers; if you shall have believed concerning the innocence of priests not with human hatred but with divine judgment; if you shall have begun, even late, to do penance for your rashness and pride and insolence; if you shall have given fullest satisfaction to God and to His Christ, whom I serve and to whom with a pure and undefiled mouth I offer sacrifices unceasingly both in persecution and in peace alike—then we shall be able to take account of your communion, yet with the respect and fear of divine censure remaining with us, so that I may first consult my Lord whether He permits peace to be given to you and you to be admitted to communion with His Church by His own showing and admonition.

X. For I remember what has already been shown to me, or rather what has been commanded to a servant who is obedient and fearful by the Lord's and Divine authority; who, among other things which He has deigned to show and reveal, added this: "Therefore he who does not believe Christ making a priest, will afterward begin to believe Christ avenging a priest." Although I know that dreams are considered ridiculous and visions foolish by certain persons—but assuredly by those who prefer to believe against priests rather than to believe a priest. But it is no wonder, since the brothers of Joseph said of him: Behold, this dreamer cometh: now therefore come, let us kill him, and the dreamer afterward obtained what he had dreamed, and his slayers and sellers were put to shame; so that those who had not believed his words before might afterward believe his deeds.

But concerning what you have done either in the persecution or in peace, it is foolish for me to wish to judge you, since you have rather set yourself up as our judge. These things I have written in reply out of the pure conscience of my mind and out of my trust in the Lord my God. You have my letter, and I have yours. On the day of judgment before the tribunal of Christ both shall be read out.

Cyprian to his brother Quintus, greeting. Our fellow-presbyter Lucianus has reported to me, dearest brother, that you desired us to signify to you what we think concerning those who appear to have been baptized among heretics and schismatics. That you might know what we recently decreed in council, together with the fellow-presbyters who were present, I have sent you a copy of that same letter. For I know not by what presumption some of our colleagues are led to think that those who have been dipped among heretics, when they come to us, ought not to be baptized, on the ground that they say there is one Baptism: which is indeed one for this reason, that the Church is one, and Baptism cannot exist outside the Church. For since there cannot be two baptisms, if heretics truly baptize, the baptism belongs to them.

And whoever grants them this patronage by his own authority, yields to them and consents, so that he who is an enemy and adversary of Christ may appear to have the power of washing, purifying, and sanctifying man. But we say that those who come from thence are not re-baptized among us, but baptized. For they receive nothing there where there is nothing; but they come to us that here they may receive, where both grace and all truth is, because both grace and truth are one.

Moreover, certain of our colleagues prefer to give honor to heretics rather than to agree with us; and while, by insisting on one Baptism, they refuse to baptize those who come, they either themselves make two baptisms, by saying that baptism exists also among heretics, or certainly, what is more serious, they contend to set before and prefer the foul and profane dipping of heretics above the true and unique and lawful Baptism of the Catholic Church, not considering that it is written: He that is baptized by one that is dead, what doth his washing profit? Now it is manifest that those who are not in the Church of Christ are reckoned among the dead, and that one who does not himself live cannot give life to another, since the Church is one, which having obtained the grace of eternal life both lives forever and gives life to the people of God.

II. And they say that in this they follow the ancient custom, when among the ancient heretics and schismatics there were still the first beginnings, so that those who had withdrawn from the Church were there, and had previously been baptized here; whom nevertheless, returning to the Church and doing penance, it was not necessary to baptize. Which we also observe today, so that those who are established to have been baptized here and have passed over from us to the heretics, if afterwards, having recognized their sin and digested their error, they return to the truth and to the mother Church, it is sufficient to lay the hand upon them in penance; so that, since the sheep had already been one, the pastor may receive back into his fold this sheep that had gone astray and wandered.

But if one who comes from the heretics was not previously baptized in the Church, but comes as wholly a stranger and profane person, he must be baptized that he may become a sheep, because there is one water in the holy Church which makes sheep. And therefore, since nothing can be common between falsehood and truth, darkness and light, death and immortality, antichrist and Christ, we ought in all things to maintain the unity of the Catholic Church, and in nothing to yield to the enemies of faith and truth. III. Now custom must not be pleaded against reason, but reason must prevail. For neither did Peter, whom the Lord first chose, and upon whom He built His Church, when Paul afterwards disputed with him concerning circumcision, claim anything insolently for himself or arrogantly assume, so as to say that he held the primacy and that the newer and later men ought rather to obey him.

Nor did he despise Paul because he had previously been a persecutor of the Church, but admitted the counsel of truth, and readily consented to the lawful reasoning which Paul maintained; giving us, that is, a lesson both of concord and of patience, that we should not stubbornly love our own views, but should rather count as our own those things which are usefully and wholesomely suggested to us at any time by our brethren and colleagues, if they be true and lawful. Paul also, looking forward to this and faithfully consulting for concord and peace, set down in his epistle, saying: Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others judge. But if anything be revealed to another that sitteth, let the first hold his peace.

In which place he taught and showed that many things are revealed to individuals for the better, and that each one ought not to contend stubbornly for what he had once imbibed and held, but, if anything better and more useful shall have appeared, to embrace it gladly. For we are not overcome when better things are offered to us, but instructed, especially in those matters which pertain to the unity of the Church and the truth of our hope and faith; that we, the priests of God and set over His Church by His own condescension, may know that remission of sins can be given only in the Church, and that the adversaries of Christ can claim nothing for themselves with regard to His grace.

IV. This indeed Agrippinus also, a man of blessed memory, together with his fellow-bishops who at that time governed the Church of the Lord in the province of Africa and Numidia, established and confirmed by the weighed examination of common counsel. Their judgment, religious and lawful and salutary, consonant with faith and the Catholic Church, we also have followed. And that you might know what letters we have drawn up on this matter, we have transmitted a copy of them to the knowledge both of yourself and of our fellow-bishops who are there, out of common affection. I wish you, dearest brother, always good health.

Cyprian to Nemesianus, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus, Polianus, Victor, Jader, Dativus, fellow-bishops, likewise to the presbyters and deacons, and to the other brethren placed in the mines, martyrs of God the Father Almighty and of Jesus Christ the Lord and God our eternal Saviour, eternal greeting. Your glory indeed demanded, most blessed and most beloved brethren, that I myself should come to your sight and to your embrace, did not the bounds of the appointed place, to which I too have been relegated for the confession of the Name, restrain me. But as best I can I present myself to you, and to you, even though it is not granted to come in body and on foot, yet I come in love and in spirit, expressing my mind in letters, rejoicing and exulting in these your virtues and praises, counting myself a sharer with you, if not in bodily suffering, yet in fellowship of charity.

Could I be silent and suppress my voice in silence, when I learn so many and such glorious things concerning my dearest ones, with which the divine condescension has honored you: so that of your number a part has already gone before by the consummation of their martyrdom, about to receive from the Lord the crown of their merits, while a part still remains in the confinement of prisons or in the mines and in chains, furnishing through the very delays of their punishments greater examples for the strengthening and arming of the brethren, advancing by the tardiness of their torments to ampler titles of merit, destined to have as many rewards in heavenly prizes as they now count days in sufferings?

That these things have befallen you, most brave and most blessed brethren, in accordance with the merit of your religion and faith, I do not wonder, that the Lord has thus raised you to the lofty summit of glories by the honor of His own glorification—you who have always flourished in His Church with the tenor of faith maintained, keeping firmly the commandments of the Lord: innocence in simplicity, concord in charity, modesty in humility, diligence in administration, watchfulness in helping those who labor, mercy in cherishing the poor, constancy in defending the truth, censure in the severity of discipline. And lest anything should be wanting in you for an example of good deeds, even now in confession by voice and by bodily suffering you provoke the minds of the brethren to divine martyrdoms, showing yourselves leaders of virtue, so that, while the flock follows its pastors and imitates what it sees done by those set over it, it may be crowned by the Lord with equal merits of obedience.

II. Now as to the fact that, first severely beaten with rods and afflicted, you inaugurated through such punishments the glorious beginnings of your confession, this thing is not to be execrated by us. For the Christian body did not shrink before the rods, whose every hope is in the wood. The servant of Christ recognized the sacrament of his salvation. Redeemed by wood unto eternal life, he is advanced by wood unto the crown. What wonder indeed that vessels of gold and silver were given to the mine, that is, to the dwelling-place of gold and silver, except that now the nature of the mines is reversed, and the places which were accustomed before to give gold and silver have begun to receive it. They also put fetters upon your feet, and bound your happy limbs and temples of God with shameful chains, as though the spirit were bound along with the body, or your gold were stained by contact with iron.

For men dedicated to God and bearing witness to their faith with religious virtue, these are ornaments, not chains; nor do they bind the feet of Christians to dishonor, but glorify them unto the crown. O feet happily bound, which are loosed not by a smith but by the Lord! O feet happily bound, which are directed on the saving path toward paradise! O feet bound for the present in this world, that they may be forever free with the Lord! O feet for the time being slow in fetters and shackles, but soon to run to Christ on a glorious journey! However long envious cruelty or malice may here hold you in its bonds and chains, you will quickly come from these earthly sufferings to the kingdoms of heaven. The body is not cherished in the mines with a bed and cushions, but is cherished with the refreshment and comfort of Christ. The limbs worn with toil lie on the ground; but it is no punishment to lie down with Christ.

The members are foul, disfigured with filth and squalor for lack of baths; but that is spiritually cleansed within which is carnally soiled without. Bread there is scanty: but man lives not by bread alone, but by the word of God. Clothing is lacking to those who are cold; but he who has put on Christ is both clothed abundantly and adorned. The hair of the half-shorn head bristles; but since the head of man is Christ, whatever that head may be like, it must needs be fitting which is distinguished for the Lord's name. All this deformity, detestable and hideous to the Gentiles—with what splendor shall it be compensated? This worldly and brief punishment—with what reward of bright and eternal honor shall it be exchanged, when, according to the voice of the blessed Apostle, the Lord shall transform the body of our humility, conformed to the body of His glory?

III. But neither in this, most beloved brethren, can any loss of religion or faith be felt, that there the opportunity is not now given to the priests of God of offering and celebrating the divine sacrifices. You celebrate, nay rather you offer, a sacrifice to God both precious and glorious alike, and one that will greatly profit you toward the recompense of heavenly rewards, since the divine Scripture speaks and says: The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God will not despise. This sacrifice you offer to God, this sacrifice you celebrate without intermission day and night, made victims for God, and presenting yourselves as holy and spotless offerings, as the Apostle exhorts and says: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed in the renewing of your mind, to prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

IV. For this is what chiefly pleases God, this is that in which our works advance with greater merits toward meriting the will of God; this is that which alone renders back to the Lord the services of our faith and devotion for His great and saving benefits, as the Holy Spirit proclaims and testifies in the Psalms, saying: What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that He hath rendered to me? I will take the chalice of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. Who would not willingly and promptly receive the chalice of salvation? Who would not joyfully and gladly desire that in which he himself also renders something back to his Lord?

Who would not bravely and steadfastly receive the precious death in the sight of the Lord, destined to please the eyes of Him who, looking down from above upon us placed in the contest of His name, approves those who are willing, aids those who are fighting, crowns those who are victorious, rewarding in us with the recompense of His fatherly goodness and piety whatever He Himself has bestowed, and honoring what He Himself has accomplished?

V. For that it is His doing that we conquer and that we arrive at the palm of the greatest contest, the adversary being subdued, the Lord declares and teaches in His Gospel, saying: But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. And again: Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate before what ye shall answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist. In which indeed there is great confidence for believers, and a most grievous fault for the faithless, not to believe Him who promises that He will give His aid to those who confess, nor again to fear that same One who threatens eternal punishment to those who deny.

VI. All these things you have made known to our brethren, most brave and faithful soldiers of Christ, fulfilling in deeds what you had previously taught in words, destined to be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, the Lord promising and saying: Whosoever shall do and so teach, he shall be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Finally, following your example, a manifold portion of the people confessed together with you and was crowned together with you, bound to you by the bond of most steadfast charity, and not separated from their superiors either by prison or by the mines. Among their number virgins are not lacking, to whose sixtyfold fruit the hundredfold was added, and whom a twofold glory advanced to the heavenly crown. In children also, virtue greater than their age surpassed their years with the praise of confession, so that every sex and every age adorned the blessed flock of your martyrdom.

VII. What now is the vigour of your victorious conscience, most beloved brethren, what the loftiness of spirit, what the exultation in the mind, what the triumph in the breast, as each one of you stands toward the promised reward of God, is secure concerning the judgment of God, walks in the mines with body indeed captive but with heart reigning, knows that Christ is present with him, rejoicing in the endurance of His servants who walk through His footsteps and ways toward the eternal kingdoms? You await daily with joy the saving day of your departure, and now about to withdraw from the world, you hasten toward the gifts of the martyrs and the divine dwellings, destined after these darknesses of the world to behold the most brilliant light, and to receive a glory greater than all sufferings and conflicts, the Apostle bearing witness and saying: The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Plainly, because now your speech is more efficacious in prayers, and prayer is more readily heard for obtaining what is sought in tribulations, ask more earnestly and entreat that the divine condescension may bring to completion the confession of all of us, that God may also deliver us together with you, whole and glorious, from these darknesses and snares of the world, so that we who, joined by the bond of charity and peace, stood together against the injuries of heretics and the pressures of the gentiles, may rejoice together likewise in the heavenly kingdoms. I wish you, most blessed and most beloved brethren, to fare well in the Lord, and always and everywhere to be mindful of us.

Nemesianus, Dativus, Felix, and Victor to their brother Cyprian, eternal salvation in the Lord. You have always spoken with great sentiments suited to the condition of the times in your letters, most beloved Cyprian; by the constant reading of which both the wicked are corrected and men of good faith are strengthened. For while you cease not in your treatises to lay bare the sacred mysteries, you cause us thus to grow in faith and men of the world to draw near to belief. For whatever good things you have set forth in your many books, you have unwittingly portrayed yourself to us; for you are greater than all men in exposition, more eloquent in speech, wiser in counsel, more simple in patience, more generous in works, more holy in abstinence, more humble in compliance, and more innocent in good conduct. You know yourself, most dear one, that it is our earnest desire that we should see you, our teacher and our beloved, arrived at the crown of great confession.

II. For, like a good and true teacher, you first pronounced before the acts of the proconsul what we disciples, following you, ought to say before the governor, and sounding the trumpet of God, you roused the soldiers of God, equipped with heavenly arms, to the battle of the contest, and fighting in the front rank you slew the devil with the spiritual sword, and also marshalled the columns of the brethren on this side and on that with your words, so that snares might be spread for the enemy on every side, and the severed sinews of the corpse of that public foe might be trodden underfoot. Believe us, most dear one, that your innocent soul is not inferior to the hundredfold reward, which neither feared the first onslaughts of the world, nor refused to go into exile, nor hesitated to leave the city, nor shrank from dwelling in a desert place; and, since it gave to many an example of confession, itself led the martyrs first.

For it provoked others to the making of martyrdoms by its own example; and it not only began to be a companion of the martyrs now departing from the world, but also joined heavenly friendship with those yet to come.

III. Therefore the condemned give you, together with us, the greatest thanks before God, most beloved Cyprian, because by your letters you have refreshed our labouring hearts, healed our members wounded by rods, loosed our feet bound with fetters, made even the hair of our half-shorn heads, illumined the darkness of the prison, levelled the mountains of the mine to a plain, placed upon us flowers fragrant even to the nostrils, and driven out the foul odour of smoke. Moreover your ministry and that of our most beloved Quirinus has also accomplished what you sent through Herennianus the subdeacon, and Lucianus and Maximus and Amantius the acolytes, to be distributed for the supply of whatever was lacking for the needs of our bodies. Let us therefore be mutual helpers to one another in our prayers, and let us ask, as you have charged, that we may have God and Christ and the Angels as favourers in all our acts. We wish you, lord brother, always to fare well and to be mindful of us.

Greet all who are with you. All of ours who are with us love you and greet you, and desire to see you.

Lucius and the brethren who are with me, all of them, to their brother and colleague Cyprian, salvation in the Lord. As we were exulting and rejoicing in God that He had armed us for the contest and by His condescension made us victors in the battle, your letter arrived, most dear brother, which you sent to us through Herennianus the subdeacon and Lucianus and Maximus and Amantius the acolytes; upon reading which, we received in our bonds relaxation, in tribulation consolation, and in necessity support, and we were stirred up and more robustly encouraged for whatever further punishments there may be. For before our suffering we were provoked by you to glory, you who first furnished us the lead to confession of the name of Christ. We indeed, following the footsteps of your confession, hope for an equal grace with you.

For he who is first in the race is also first at the reward; and you who first took possession of that from which you began, thereby shared this with us, showing plainly your inseparable charity, because you have always loved us; so that those who had one spirit in the union of peace might have both the grace of your prayers and one crown of confession. II. Moreover there has accrued to you, most dear brother, in addition to the crown of confession, a recompense of works in abundant measure, which you shall receive from the Lord on the day of recompense, who both represented yourself to us in your letters, so that you might manifest that bright and blessed heart of yours which we have always known, and according to its breadth might utter praises to God together with us, not as much as we deserve to hear, but as much as you are able to say.

For by your words you have both adorned what was less fully instructed in us and confirmed it for the sustaining of those same sufferings which we endure, secure concerning the heavenly reward and concerning the crown of martyrdom and concerning the kingdom of God, from the prophecy which, full of the Holy Spirit, you pledged in your letters. All this will come to pass, most beloved, if you shall have kept us in mind in your prayers, which I am confident you do, as we likewise certainly do. III. We have received therefore, most longed-for brother, that which was sent from Quirinus and from yourself, a sacrifice from every pure work. As Noe also offered to God, and God was pleased with the odour of sweetness, and looked upon his sacrifice, so may He also look upon yours and be pleased to render you the reward of so good a work. I ask moreover that you cause the letters which we have written to Quirinus to be forwarded.

I wish you, most dear and most longed-for brother, always to fare well and to be mindful of us. Greet all who are with you. Farewell.

Felix, Jader, Polianus, together with the presbyters and all dwelling with us at the mine of Sigus, to their most dear and beloved Cyprian, eternal salvation in the Lord. We return your greeting, most dear brother, through Herennianus the subdeacon, Lucianus and Maximus our brethren, strong and unharmed with the help of your prayers; from whom we received in the name of an oblation no small sum together with your letters which you wrote, in which you deigned to strengthen us as sons with heavenly words. And we have given and do give thanks to God the Father almighty through His Christ, that we have been so strengthened and confirmed through your address, asking of the candour of your soul that you deign to keep us in mind in your constant prayers, so that He may complete your confession and ours, which the Lord has deigned to bestow upon us. Greet all who dwell with you. We wish you, most dear brother, always to fare well in God. Felix wrote. Jader subscribed. Polianus read. I greet my lord Eutychianus.

Cyprian to Sergius and Rogantianus and the other confessors, perpetual salvation in the Lord. I greet you, most dear and most blessed brethren, wishing myself also to enjoy the sight of you, if the condition of the place permitted me to come to you. For what could befall me more desirable and more joyful than now to cling to you, that you might embrace me with those hands which, pure and innocent and keeping faith with the Lord, have spurned sacrilegious observances? What more pleasant and more sublime than to kiss now your mouths which have confessed the Lord with glorious voice, and to be seen in person by your eyes, which, having despised the world, have shown themselves worthy of beholding God?

But since the opportunity to be present at this joy is not granted, I send these letters as substitutes for me to your ears and eyes, by which I at once congratulate you and exhort you to remain strong and steadfast in the confession of heavenly glory, and, having entered upon the way of the Lord's condescension, to press on with spiritual virtue toward receiving the crown, having the Lord as protector and guide, who said: Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. O blessed prison, which your presence has illumined! O blessed prison, which sends men to heaven! O darkness more brilliant than the sun itself and brighter than this light of the world, where the temples of God are now established and your members are to be sanctified by divine confessions.

II. Let nothing occupy your hearts and minds but the divine precepts and heavenly commandments, by which the Holy Spirit has always animated you to the endurance of suffering. Let no one think of death, but of immortality; not of temporal punishment, but of eternal glory, since it is written: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his just ones. And again: A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise. And again, where the divine Scripture speaks of the torments which consecrate the martyrs of God and sanctify them in the very trial of suffering: And if before men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality. And having been chastised in a few things, they shall be well rewarded in many, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace he proved them, and as a whole burnt offering he received them, and in due time there shall be respect had to them.

The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. They shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and their Lord shall reign for ever. When therefore you reflect that you are to judge and reign with Christ the Lord, you must needs rejoice and trample upon present torments with the joy of things to come, knowing that from the beginning of the world it was so ordained that justice should labor here in worldly conflict, since at the very origin righteous Abel was straightway slain first, and from that time all the just, and the Prophets, and the Apostles were sent forth. For all of these the Lord also established an example in himself, teaching that none reach his kingdom except those who have followed him along his own way, saying: He who loves his life in this world shall lose it. And he who hates his life in this world shall preserve it unto eternal life.

And again: Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Paul also exhorts us that those who desire to come to the promises of the Lord ought to imitate the Lord in all things: We are, he says, children of God. But if children, then heirs; heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. He also added a comparison of the present time and the future glory, saying: The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us. Thinking upon the glory of that brightness, it befits us to endure all pressures and persecutions, because, although the tribulations of the just are many, yet all who trust in God are delivered from them all.

III. Blessed also are the women who are with you, established in the same glory of confession, who, holding fast the faith of the Lord and stronger than their sex, are not only themselves close to the crown of glory, but have also furnished to other women an example of their constancy. And, lest anything should be wanting to the glory of your number, so that every sex and age might share in the honor with you, the divine condescension has also joined children to you in glorious confession, presenting to us something such as the illustrious boys Ananias, Azarias, and Misael once did; for when they were shut into the furnace, the fires gave way and the flames afforded them coolness, the Lord being present with them and proving that the heat of hell could accomplish nothing against his confessors and martyrs, but that those who believed in God would always remain unharmed and safe in all things.

And I ask you to consider more diligently, in accordance with your piety, what was the faith of those boys, which was able more fully to merit the Lord. For, ready for all things, as all of us ought to be, they say to the king: Nabuchodonosor the king, we have no need to answer thee concerning this matter. For there is a God whom we serve, who is able to deliver us from the furnace of burning fire, and to rescue us from thy hands, O king. But if not, be it known to thee that we do not serve thy gods, nor do we worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Although they believed and knew for their faith's sake that they could be delivered even from the present punishment, they were nevertheless unwilling to boast of this or claim it for themselves, saying, But if not, lest the virtue of confession should be diminished without the testimony of suffering.

They added that God could do all things, but that they did not trust in this so as to wish to be delivered in the present, but rather thought upon that glory of eternal freedom and security.

IV. Holding fast this faith also, and meditating upon it day and night, prompt with your whole heart toward God, in contempt of present things you think only of things to come, so that you may be able to come to the fruit of the eternal kingdom and to the embrace and kiss of the Lord and to his sight; that you may follow in all things Rogatianum the presbyter, a glorious old man, making a way for you to glory in our time by religious virtue and divine condescension, who together with our brother Felicissimus, ever quiet and sober, receiving the onset of the raging people, prepared for you the first lodging in prison, and as it were your forerunner, even now goes before you. That this may be brought to completion in you, we beseech the Lord with unceasing prayers, that, advancing from beginnings to the heights, he who caused them to confess may also cause them to be crowned.

I wish you, dearest and most blessed brethren, always to fare well in the Lord and to attain the crown of heavenly glory. Victor the deacon and those who are with me greet you.

Cyprian to his brother Successus, greeting. The reason why I did not write to you immediately, dearest brother, was this: that all the clergy, placed under the stroke of the contest, were altogether unable to depart from here, all being prepared in the devotion of their soul for divine and heavenly glory. Know, however, that those have now arrived whom I had sent to the City for this purpose, that, however the rescript concerning us might have turned out, they might bring back to us the ascertained truth. For many things are being tossed about in various and uncertain opinions. But the facts of the matter are as follows.

Valerian had sent a rescript to the senate to the effect that bishops and presbyters and deacons should be punished immediately; that senators, however, and men of rank and Roman knights, having lost their dignity, should also be stripped of their property; and that, if when their means were taken away they persisted in being Christians, they should also be punished with death; that matrons, having their property taken away, should be sent into exile; that moreover any of the Caesariani who had either previously confessed or should now confess should have their property confiscated and should be sent in chains assigned to the Caesarian estates. The emperor Valerian also appended to his address a copy of the letters which he sent to the governors of the provinces concerning us: which letters we expect to arrive daily, standing firm according to the steadfastness of faith for the endurance of suffering, and awaiting from the help and indulgence of the Lord the crown of eternal life.

Know also that Xistus was executed in the cemetery on the eighth day before the Ides of August, and with him four deacons. But the prefects in the City also press on with this persecution daily, so that any who are brought before them are punished and their goods claimed for the treasury.

II. These things I ask to be made known through you to our other colleagues as well, so that everywhere by their exhortation the brotherhood may be strengthened and prepared for the spiritual contest; that each of our people may think not so much of death as of immortality, and, dedicated to the Lord with full faith and all their strength, may rejoice rather than fear in this confession: in which they know that the soldiers of God and of Christ are not slain but crowned. I wish you, dearest brother, always to fare well in the Lord.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and all the people, greeting. When it had been reported to us, dearest brethren, that warrants had been sent to bring me to Utica, and when the counsel of my dearest friends had persuaded me that we should withdraw for the time being from our gardens, a just cause intervening, with their agreement, because it is fitting that a bishop should confess the Lord in that city over whose Church of the Lord he presides, and that all the people should be glorified by the confession of their present overseer. For whatever a confessor bishop speaks in that moment of confession, he speaks, with God breathing upon him, with the mouth of all.

Moreover, the honor of our church, so glorious, will be diminished if I, a bishop set over another church, having received sentence at Utica concerning my confession, should depart thence as a martyr to the Lord; since I both ought and desire with continual prayers and all my vows to confess before you both for myself and for you, and to suffer there, and thence to depart to the Lord. We await therefore here in retirement one returning, to hear from him what the emperors have commanded concerning the name of Christian laymen and bishops, and to say what the Lord shall will to be said at that hour. II. But do you, dearest brethren, according to the discipline which you have always received from me out of the Lord's commandments, and as you have very often learned from my teaching, maintain quiet and tranquility, and let none of you stir up any tumult among the brethren, nor offer himself voluntarily to the gentiles.

For one who is seized and handed over ought to speak; since the Lord, dwelling in us, speaks in that hour, who willed us rather to confess than to profess. But what else it befits us to observe, before the proconsul pronounces sentence upon me concerning the confession of the name of God, we shall arrange in common with the Lord's guidance. May our Lord cause you, dearest brethren, to remain in his Church and deign to preserve you. So be it through his mercy.

I have received the writings of your charity, which are not pleasing and are contrary to the rule of faith, in which I recognized things that nauseate, and I did not commend the fact that poisons of speech are being sown by you against the Catholic Church spread throughout the whole world with horrible tares. These I ask you quickly to remove and condemn. Which indeed you ought to have done before the deadly poison, scattered through the world, destroyed the minds of the simple and innocent. It is not therefore fitting to rebaptize. Therefore eradicate and root out, as we have said, by flowery and worthy words through a subsequent letter the earlier writings, which the offspring of vipers judged fit to preserve against the Catholic faith.

For it does not befit the bishop of so great a city and a most excellent teacher that, while you think the baptism of heresy is to be condemned, you should hear words that stain the true Baptism, which you grieve to hear repugnant to the Apostle who says: One God, one faith, one Baptism.

Cyprian to the people dwelling at Carthage, eternal salvation in the Lord. We give thanks indeed to God the Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has united you and restored you to your assemblies. On account of which matter we have called to mind and wished to preserve the writing of the most blessed martyrs and confessors for our counsel. The majesty from above and the Holy Spirit commands, whose grace in us is a saving witness. For when treating of the traditores, he commands both in the Gospel and in the Apostle, both in the Psalms and in the Prophets and the other Scriptures: Search. Which having been searched by us, it has been found that those who have handed over the holy Scriptures do not deserve to enter our council, that is, to dwell in the council. For there is no one who is gathered into this council who does not look toward heaven.

And therefore we have called to mind that those who have so handled the Scriptures should be brought before the standing of the people and the judgment put forth by them, and that no action be brought forth by them, nor even that they be near to the standing of the sacrifice nor of the people; who indeed, having long since abandoned the people, stripped the altars, and put forward the sacrifices. Rightly calling these things to mind with sadness and grief of soul, we have borne witness before the Lord to what we were bound to establish, which all disputes and dissensions and heresies and scandals had swallowed up, lest men provoke themselves further, whether they be of lesser faith or light in the Scriptures and as readers—this we have established and established, and from our decree we are unwilling to recede, that if any overseer who has handed over should deserve to administer this people, serving the altar with body intact.

But to those by whom we have commanded that sacrifice be offered, it is right that these precepts be obeyed, and nothing else shall come to pass than that the sincere evangelical voice according to John straightway speaks: I will not, he says, have sacrifices from your hands, because you did not come to me with a clean offering. He who does not offer a clean offering, the offering does not ascend from his hands. For again we read: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. Those who through the Word have pretended to give things uninhabitable among them, whether true holy scriptures or forged ones, who gives the voice and who gives the nearest desires, who indeed shall pretend to hand over shall fulfill the tradition. Rightly we wish those who deny to have pardon in the meantime, those who confess the fathers. For he who says he does not have the Scriptures was at any rate prepared even to be tortured, of whom we have examples.

They denied three times, and did not hand over the sacrament. But those who offered without even being questioned shall communicate as laymen in the meantime until the standing of the council. Nevertheless, in the standing of the council, what the holy Scripture shall have advanced, according to the fixed sentence of the holy ones and friends of God we wish to be fulfilled, since already witnesses and those near at hand had already long since determined something, our predecessors. On account of which it is necessary for us to agree with the witnesses, to embrace and to fulfill. I pray that you may always fare well in the Lord. Amen. Thanks be to God.

Cyprian to his blessed and most beloved father Turasius, eternal salvation in the Lord. I have received the letter of your charity, by which I learned that your spirit was moved with grief at the falling asleep of your daughter. What I marveled at above all else was that the virtue of a Christian heart had been boasted of in you, only for you to bend your spirit toward grief. I am astonished that the wall of faith has been pierced by the wounds of bereavement, a wall which the hope of resurrection and of the heavenly kingdom ought to have fortified. Hope never accords with grief, nor does faith ever feel any loss whatsoever. We believe that the dead rise again, and yet we mourn: what would we do if God commanded only that we die without resurrection? Surely His will alone would suffice for consolation, before which we know no affection is to be placed. He who created took away what He had given. Why do you strive to mourn what you had received for a time?

He had lent it that you might have it for as long as He willed, and when He willed, might take it back again. He took nothing of yours away, who deigned to receive back what was His own. It was fitting that the creditor should receive back his loan, and nothing else befits the borrower than to give thanks to his creditor. Thus we read of Job, whose most devoted voice we should follow: The Lord, he says, gave, the Lord took away. As it pleased the Lord, so it was done. Blessed be the name of the Lord. This consolation alone, then, was not too little against grief—that no one ought to mourn when he has returned something belonging to another, because it was not right for that to be detained with another which had been necessary to its lord. There is added another provision of consolation, which meets the darts of bereavement.

We ought to rejoice over those who depart from this world, if we feel the world's enmities against us, and yet we mourn the benefits of the Lord, who grants to us what He grants in consideration of our weakness. He who grieves over one who is sleeping still wished that person to be in peril, and desired to see the wretch laboring amid the waves of the present life. To what end do you think a Christian and faithful soul ought to have lingered within the prison of the world, for which the whole world is a shipwreck? So many and such great storms of life, so many assaults of the devil, so many wars of the body, so many disasters of the age, so many calamities has she escaped. And you pour out tears, as though you do not know what you yourself suffer daily: For which reason the Lord thus admonishes His Apostles, saying: If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I go to the Father.

Indeed He wept for the dead Lazarus, but not with your tears. He who promised resurrection could not grieve, lest He make a falsehood of the faith He taught. He grieved for Lazarus not as one sleeping, but rather as one about to rise again, and He wept for him whom He was compelled, for the sake of saving others and confounding unbelievers, to call back to the world. The Lord groaned in giving this life which you grieve to have been taken away. Your tears fight against His tears, and your love does not accord with His love. His weeping has no equal. He was unwilling to restore to toils the one He had loved, and do you believe you love one for whom you wished the torments of toils still to remain? Moreover, if you think He grieved for Lazarus as one dead, He would never have permitted him to go forth beforehand, He who could repel death, or certainly He would not have wept who afterward had the power of raising the dead man.

Whence it appears that He was moved by this cause alone, that He was pressed to call back His dearest one to a hostile life anew, for the sake of some who would believe or of unbelievers to be confounded. Then the Lord followed, saying: Therefore, Father, that they may believe that thou hast sent me, He cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth. And it was done. You ought therefore to rejoice over that which compelled Him to weep, lest you appear to envy the blessedness of one who sleeps. She has passed from a foreign world to her own, she has passed to the Lord, and from a hostile fatherland she has migrated to the fatherly homeland, to heaven, as the Apostle says: We know, he says, that if our earthly house of this body be dissolved, we have a habitation not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

She has therefore been freed from a house which she ought not even to have known; she has been freed from evil fellow-citizens whose hatreds she endured, lest she still sojourn in a contrary land, as the Apostle recalls, saying: As long as we are in this world, we sojourn away from the Lord. Grief ought not therefore to weigh upon anyone who has deserved to return from sojourning to his own country, especially since he is known to return not empty and void who has purchased the gain of Christianity, for the sake of which he came to the commerce of the world. He has completed his business, returned, and paid his debt to God. He has acquired the purchase for which he had come down, and has hastened to return to the Lord, to whom he may offer his merchandise, so that he may receive both the security and the honor of the merchandise purchased.

And I, you will say, am troubled by no doubt of the heavenly promises, but, burning with the mere separation from the dying one, I am tossed about, desolate, bereft of the comfort of a dear pledge. This is without doubt an excuse of human frailty, which cannot serve as a defense of distrust. For if men could not bear desolation, they would never at all have sent their dear ones away from themselves. They complain of being abandoned by the dying, and yet they entrust living children to foreign regions for the sake of letters or honors or business, and rejoice to remain apart from their affections for a whole lifetime, provided they obtain what they desire from their dear ones; and that they may go to palaces, they sojourn abroad. They sail to acquire the pursuits of dignity, or they drive those setting out to endure the toils and dangers of settling the affairs of their patrimony, and they do not suffer those they love to remain idle with them.

And yet, that they may be able to reach with security the palace of heaven, the pursuits of Christ, the honor of perpetual life, the patrimony of eternal possession, no one rejoices that his children depart from him willingly. For uncertain things through uncertain ways each one compels a son or brother or parent to sojourn abroad, and for certain things through certain ways no one allows any of his own to set out. To acquire sins, parents and children alike rejoice to be separated from one another at the devil's prompting; to receive pardon, they are unwilling to be parted from one another at God's calling, so that it appears we do not grieve for any rational cause when we seem to lose someone, but rather display a sign of distrust, we who do not endure the departures of our own to the Lord, while we rejoice at their sojournings in the world. Because we believe in the gains of the world, we tolerate the divided members of our body.

If we believed in the promises of God, after the departure of our own, nothing but thanksgiving ought to resound from the joys of our hearts. Believe me, in all things and always it is unbelief that grieves, and as faith cannot know what it should grieve for, so distrust alone is held as a handmaid to sorrows. For if we call them sleeping, we ought surely to believe them sleeping, not dead, but resting in the meantime, according to the word of the Lord speaking faithfully: Everyone, He says, who believes in me, though he die, shall live. If a human physician were to promise anyone anything, without doubt he could not deny joy to his promise. Now because the Lord Christ, maker and raiser of the dead, makes the promise, you do not fear to mourn, so that you seem to judge a physician more faithful than Christ and likewise more powerful in his promises.

But you say, I grieve for an old age left desolate, because I ought rather to have preceded my children, lest I remain in toils. When anything concerning spiritual goods is treated, nothing of carnal things is to be set before the eyes at all. I declare to you that it has turned out better, since I consider around you not carnal but spiritual faithfulness. You say you are worn out in old age by the death of a dear pledge. I on the contrary prove that your old age has been relieved. The Lord has cut away the anxiety that tormented you concerning your living daughter lest she should perish. It is surely better now that she, dead to the world, has returned to the Lord alive, than that you should grieve for her, living to the world, perhaps dead before the Lord. Rejoice that you have deserved to follow a Christian woman, whom, having followed her to heaven, you may rejoice to embrace again.

She has not abandoned you, but gone before; and lest she should grieve to receive a father departing, she hastened ahead. You have not lost your nurturing. If you shrink from grief and as an old man can account it as having offered your pledge to the Lord, you can have after Abraham according to your vow, if you cannot have the first, so that what he did not tremble to offer, you at least may appear to rejoice over what has been taken. From him the Lord demanded; from you He took. He obeyed the command; you consented to the will. He, through the unlawful law of nature, offered one whom the Lord proved devoted to Himself; let Him at least note you as devout, call you as devout, through the lawful condition of religion. For if you are compelled by will and not by necessity to show the Lord something of devotion, in what part will you be able to prove yourself a Christian.

Let our unbelief blush before the gentiles, if it wishes to be subject to the Lord. The departure of death is common to us and to them, and we surpass their sorrows with our sorrows. What would we do if something were demanded of us in particular that pertained to our honor? The gentiles often despise sorrows, when they are snatched not to heavenly promises but to the punishments of Tartarus. And we mourn those going to heaven. Let such a Christian consider what he henceforth deserves who strives neither to imitate the examples of the saints nor to have the contempt of the gentiles. They despise grief by despairing, and we strive to despise it by hoping. Moreover they often do not hesitate to sell their children, so that, what is worse, they may spurn them while living. And we are not even relieved by the deaths of the departed. And we wish those taken away and granted freedom to remain in servitude.

They intrepidly hand over their children to mortal men, and we with sacrilegious mind hesitate to send away together both our children and theirs to be freed, as though we judge it safer to commend a child to men rather than to the Lord. A Christian is, I know not what, a matter of shame and reproach before the gentiles; by whom those are without doubt judged worse whom it would have been criminal to say were their equals, let alone to think them better. Christians are unwilling even with rejoicing to escort their own to good things; the gentiles do not hesitate to hand them over to evil things. Finally, let us be compelled to bend our spirit even by the very happiness of our own who are dying, and let our desires begin to contend against their desires. They rejoice who go out, coming to rest. Let us also rejoice with them, at least reckoning the blessedness of our own who depart.

If devout or a novice who has escaped—if you cannot, at least exult because you know that a sharer of your blood has pleased Christ, especially since even by occasion you ought to endure the will of the Lord, whom you cannot contradict. And since this lot is common to all, that grief is vain which appears to be neither the first nor the only one. But you say: No anguish of mind over my desolation wounds me, but the feeling of humanity urges me on account of the sins of the little one dying. Nor is it lawful for this to move the Christian spirit, lest it struggle against the commands of Christ. What does it matter to have left behind children of any kind and condition whatsoever, whom we are commanded by the Lord to hate for the cause of devotion? She now saves her soul better by dying.

She leaves them in peace, lest she could not leave persecution behind with her own death; he himself aids in the world those whose mother dwells in heaven, and he who helps the mother certainly also succors the children. Finally, see whether anyone ought to be cut down by grief, where anyone can be wearied without any remedy. He who grieves ought to grieve wisely, lest he lose without cause what he grieves for. Now, however, arms must be taken up against grief, so that our hope may be able to have victory. Let us first of all give thanks that the Lord willed to receive her. Then, because this is added as common to all in the world, let us add what is our own particular—that we are called back to rest.

There follows the consummation of all joys, which shall be restored to us mutually in the resurrection by the Lord's renewing, as the Apostle promises: We would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who sleep, that you be not sorrowful as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also those who have slept in Jesus will God bring with him. These things I have sent to you, blessed one, out of mutual charity. For the rest, I know that you are well and that you console others. Then bereavement will not find you vulnerable, if you do not cease to arm others against it. I wish you, dearest brother, always to be well and to be mindful of us.