Letters 30.1–34.4

To Pope Cyprian, the presbyters and deacons living at Rome, greeting. Although a mind that is well aware of itself, supported by the vigour of the gospel's discipline, and made its own true witness in the heavenly decrees, is accustomed to be content with God alone as judge, and neither to seek the praises nor to fear the accusations of another, yet those are worthy of double praise who, while they know that they owe their conscience to God alone as judge, nevertheless desire their actions to be approved by their own brothers as well. It is no wonder that you do this, brother Cyprian, who, out of your modesty and inborn diligence, have wished us to be found not so much judges as sharers of your counsels, so that in approving your deeds we might find praise with you in them, and might be co-heirs of your good counsels because we could also confirm them. For we shall all be believed to have acted alike in that in which we are all found joined by the same agreement of censure and discipline.

For what is so fitting in peace, or so necessary in the war of persecution, as to keep the due severity of divine vigour? He who relaxes it must always wander in an unstable course of affairs, be scattered here and there by the varied and uncertain storms of business, and, as if the helm of counsel were wrenched from his hands, dash the ship of the church's safety on the rocks; so that it appears that the church's safety cannot be provided for otherwise than by driving back, like adverse waves, those who act against it, and by keeping, like a saving helm in the storm, the ever-guarded principle of discipline itself. Nor is this counsel only lately thought out by us, nor have these sudden aids against the wicked only just now come upon us; but this severity among us is ancient, the faith ancient, the discipline read of is ancient; since the apostle would not have spoken such praise of us, saying, “For your faith is proclaimed in all the world,” unless this vigour had already from then borrowed the roots of faith from those times; and to have fallen away from that praise and glory is the greatest crime. For it is less disgrace never to have come to the proclamation of praise than to have fallen from the height of praise; it is less guilt not to have been honoured with a good testimony than to have lost the honour of good testimonies; it is less to have lain obscure without praise, with no verdict on one's virtues, than, disinherited of faith, to have lost one's own praises. For the things that are put forward to anyone's glory, unless they are kept by anxious and careful labour, swell into the odium of the greatest crime.

That we do not say this falsely our earlier letter has proved, in which we set out our judgement to you in a clear account against those who had betrayed themselves as unfaithful by the unlawful declaration of impious certificates, as though by this they would seem to escape those entangling snares of the devil, whereas they were held by the very fact that they had attested it, no less than if they had approached the impious altars; and also against those who had had the records made, even though they were not present when it was done, since by giving the order that they be so recorded they had certainly made themselves present. For he is not free from guilt who obtained that it be done, nor is he a stranger to the crime by whose consent the crime is publicly read out, even if he did not commit it. And since the whole sacrament of faith is understood to be summed up in the confession of the name of Christ, he who seeks deceitful tricks for an excuse has denied; and he who wishes to seem to have satisfied the edicts or laws set forth against the gospel has already obeyed by the very fact that he wished to seem to have obeyed. We have also shown our faith and agreement against those too who had polluted their hands and mouths with unlawful sacrifices, their own minds having first been polluted, from which the hands and mouths themselves were also polluted. For far be it from the Roman church to let go of its vigour with such profane leniency, and to loosen the sinews of severity by overturning the majesty of faith; so that, while the ruins of our overthrown brothers not only still lie fallen but are still falling, overhasty remedies of communion, which will certainly not profit, should be given, and new wounds, by a false mercy, be stamped upon the old wounds of transgression, so that even penance is snatched from the wretched to their greater overthrow. For where can the medicine of pardon go forward, if the physician himself, cutting off penance, 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 will speak the truth, to kill.

Moreover, you have the letter of the confessors too, whom the dignity of their confession still keeps shut in prison here, and whom their faith has already once gloriously crowned in confession for the gospel contest, a letter in harmony with ours, in which they have set forth the severity of the gospel's discipline and turned back unlawful petitions from the modesty of the church; lest, if they had done this easily, they should not easily repair the ruins of the gospel's discipline; especially since it was fitting for no one more than for those who had handed themselves over to the raging to be tortured and butchered for the gospel to keep unimpaired the dignity of the gospel's vigour, lest they deservedly lose the honour of martyrdom if, on the occasion of martyrdom, they had chosen to be betrayers 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.

In this regard we ought to give, and do give, you the greatest and fullest thanks, that you have lit up the darkness of their prison with your letters; that you came to them in the way you could enter; that you refreshed by your addresses and letters their minds, strong in their own faith and confession; that, following their happiness with worthy praises, you kindled them to a much more ardent desire for heavenly glory; that you urged on those already eager; that by the strength of your words you have animated those whom we believe and pray will be victors; so that, although all this seems to come from the faith of the confessors and from divine favour, they may yet seem to have become in some measure your debtors in their martyrdom. But to return to the point from which our discourse seemed to have digressed: you will find attached the letter we have also sent to Sicily. Although a greater need of deferring this matter rests upon us, who, since the departure of Fabian of most noble memory, have not yet had a bishop appointed because of the difficulties of affairs and times, to regulate all these things and to be able to deal with the case of those who have lapsed with authority and counsel. However, in so great a matter we agree with what you yourself have set out: that the peace of the church should first be awaited, and then, a conference of counsels having been held with bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and also the laity who have stood firm, the case of the lapsed be dealt with. For it seems to us very invidious and burdensome not to examine through many what appears to have been committed by many, and for one to pronounce sentence, when so great a crime is observed to have gone forth spread through many; since a decree cannot be firm that will not be seen to have had the consent of very many. Look at the whole world almost laid waste, and everywhere the remains and ruins of the fallen lying, and therefore counsel is sought as great as the sin appears widely spread. Let the medicine not be less than the wound, let the remedies not be less than the deaths; so that, as those who fell fell because they were too incautious with blind rashness, so those who try to settle this may use every moderation of counsel, lest anything done otherwise than it ought be judged by all as void.

With one and the same counsel, then, with the same prayers and weeping, let both us, who so far seem to have escaped the ruins of this time, and those who seem to have fallen into the disasters of this time, entreat the divine majesty and ask for peace for the church's name. With mutual prayers 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 who stand, that they may not be tempted to the point of ruin; let us pray that those who are reported to have fallen, recognizing the greatness of their sin, may understand that they should not desire a momentary or overhasty medicine. Let us pray that the effect of pardon may follow the penance of the lapsed too, and that, having understood their crime, they may be willing to show us patience for the time being, and not disturb the still wavering state of the church, lest they seem to have kindled an inner persecution against us themselves, and it be added to the heap of their crimes that they were also restless. For modesty befits most of all those whose immodest mind is condemned in their sins. Let them knock at the doors, by all means, but not break them down. Let them come to 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 understand that they have been deserters. Let them take up again the trumpet of their prayers, but not sound a battle call with it. Let them arm themselves indeed with the weapons of modesty, and take up again the shield of faith which, in denying, they had let go for fear of death; but so as to believe themselves armed, even now, against the enemy the devil, not against the church, which grieves for their fall. A modest petition will profit them much, a respectful request, a necessary humility, a patience that is not idle. Let them send tears as ambassadors for their sorrows; let groans brought forth from the inmost breast plead for them, proving grief and shame for the crime committed.

Indeed, if they shudder at the greatness of the disgrace committed, if they truly treat with a physician's hand the deadly blow to their heart and conscience and the deep recesses of the winding wound, let them blush even to ask; except that it is again a matter of greater danger and shame not to have asked for the help of peace. But let all this be done in the sacrament, and within the law of the request itself, with due regard to the time, with lowly petition, with submissive prayer; since he who is petitioned ought to be bent, not provoked; and as the divine clemency must be kept in view, so must the divine censure be kept in view too; and as it is written, “I forgave you all the debt, because you asked me,” so it is written, “Whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father and before his angels.” For God, as he is indulgent, so is he an exacter of his precepts, and a careful one; and as he calls to the banquet, so the man who has not the wedding garment he throws out, hands and feet bound, outside the assembly of the saints. He has prepared heaven, but he has also prepared Tartarus. He has prepared places of refreshment, but he has also prepared eternal punishments. He has prepared inaccessible light, but he has also prepared the vast and eternal gloom of perpetual night. Seeking to keep the balance of this moderation, we here, for a long time, and indeed many of us, and indeed with certain bishops who are near us and neighbours, and those whom the heat of this persecution had driven out of other provinces far away, thought that nothing should be innovated before the appointment of a bishop, but believed that the care of the lapsed should be moderately tempered: so that meanwhile, while we wait for a bishop to be given us by God, the case of those who can bear the delay of postponement be held in suspense; but that those whose pressing departure from life cannot bear delay, having done penance and frequently professed detestation of their deeds, if with tears, with groans, with weeping they have shown the signs of a grieving and truly penitent mind, when no hope of living, humanly speaking, remains, should be helped, but only then, cautiously and carefully; God himself knowing what to do with such, and how to weigh the scales of his judgement; while we take anxious care that neither wicked men praise our ready leniency, nor the truly penitent accuse our severity as harsh cruelty. We wish you, most blessed and most glorious pope, good health in the Lord always, and that you remember us.

To Pope Cyprian, Moses and Maximus, presbyters, and Nicostratus and Rufinus and the other confessors who are with them, greeting. Placed as we are, brother, amid various and manifold sorrows because of the present falls of many throughout almost the whole world, this special comfort has come to us, that on receiving your letter we were lifted up and received soothing for the griefs of our sorrowing mind. From this we can now understand that the grace of divine providence has perhaps willed to keep us so long shut in the chains of prison for no other reason than that, instructed and more strongly animated by your letter, we might come with readier desire to the crown appointed for us. For your letter shone on us like fair weather in a storm, like longed-for calm in a turbulent sea, like rest in labours, like health in dangers and pains, like bright and shining light in the thickest darkness. So we drank it in with a thirsting mind and received it with a hungry desire, so that we rejoice to be well fed and fattened by it for the contest with the enemy. The Lord will repay you the reward for this love of yours and will render the fruit due to so good a work. For he who has exhorted is no less worthy of the reward of the crown than he who has suffered; he who has done is no more worthy of praise than he who has taught; he who has admonished is no less to be honoured than he who has obeyed the exhorter; except that sometimes the fuller measure of glory overflows to the one who trained rather than to the one who offered himself as a teachable disciple. For the latter perhaps would not have had what he practised, had the former not taught it.

We have received, then, we will say again, brother Cyprian, great joys, great comforts, great soothing, especially because you have honoured with glorious and worthy praises the glorious, I will not say deaths, but immortalities of the martyrs. For such departures had to be proclaimed with such words, so that what was reported might be told as it was done. From your letter, then, we saw those glorious triumphs of the martyrs, and with our eyes we in a way followed them as they sought heaven, and as it were beheld them placed among the angels and the heavenly powers and dominions. And we in a way heard with our ears the Lord bearing before his Father the testimony promised them. This, then, is what lifts up our spirit day by day and kindles us to attain the steps of so great a favour.

For what more glorious or happier thing could befall any human being by the divine favour than to confess the Lord God undaunted among the executioners themselves; amid the varied and refined tortures of a raging worldly power, even with the body racked, tortured, and butchered, to confess Christ the Son of God with a spirit departing but still free; to have left the world and sought heaven; to have deserted men and to stand among the angels; to have broken all worldly hindrances and now to present oneself free in the sight of God; to hold the heavenly kingdom without any delay; to have been made a colleague in suffering with Christ in Christ's name; to have been made, by the divine favour of one's judge, a judge oneself; to have brought back an unstained conscience from the confession of the name; not to have obeyed human and sacrilegious laws against the faith; to have testified to the truth with public voice; to have subdued, by dying, the very death that all fear; to have attained immortality through death itself; butchered and racked by all the instruments of cruelty, to have overcome torments by the torments themselves; to have struggled by strength of mind against all the pains of a torn body; not to have shuddered at one's own flowing blood; after believing, to have begun to love one's own punishments; to count it a loss to one's life to have lived?

For to this battle the Lord rouses us, as it were with the trumpet of his gospel, saying: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves his life more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” And again: “Blessed are those who have suffered persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they persecute you and hate you. Rejoice and exult; for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” And: “For you will stand before kings and governors, and brother will deliver brother to death, and father son; and he who perseveres to the end, he will be saved.” And: “To him who conquers I will grant to sit on my throne, as I too conquered and sat on the throne of my Father.” And the apostle too: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome because of him who loved us.”

When we read these and similar things gathered in the gospel, and feel them put under us like torches by the Lord's words to set our faith ablaze, we not only no longer shudder at the enemies of truth, but even challenge them; and we have already conquered the enemies of God by the very fact that we have not yielded, and have subdued the impious laws against the truth. And if we have not yet shed our blood, but are ready to shed it, let no one judge this delay of our postponement to be clemency; it harms us, it hinders our glory, it postpones heaven, it holds back the glorious sight of God. For in such a contest, and in such a battle where faith struggles, true clemency is not to delay the martyrs by postponement. Ask, therefore, dearest Cyprian, that the Lord by his grace may more and more, day by day, more richly and readily arm and illumine us, strengthen and fortify us with the might of his power, so that, as the best of commanders, he may lead out his soldiers, whom until now he has trained and proved in the camp of the prison, to the field of the contest set before them. May he hand us the divine arms, those weapons that do not know defeat: the breastplate of righteousness, which is never broken; the shield of faith, which cannot be pierced; the sword of the Spirit, which is not accustomed to be wounded. For to whom ought we rather to entrust this, to ask it for us, than to so glorious a bishop, so that victims destined for sacrifice may ask help from the priest?

Behold another joy of ours: that in the duty of your episcopate, though for the present you are separated from the brothers because of the condition of the time, you have not been lacking; that you have often strengthened the confessors by letters; that you have also supplied necessary funds from your own just labours; that in all things you have always shown yourself, in a way, present; that in no part of your duty have you limped like some deserter. But what has more strongly stirred us to greater joy we cannot pass over without following it with all the testimony of our voice. For we have noticed that you rebuked with fitting censure both those who, unmindful of their sins, had extorted peace from the presbyters in your absence with hasty and headlong desire, and those who, without regard to the gospel, had given away with ready leniency the holy thing of the Lord and the pearls; since so great a sin, which has spread with incredible devastation through almost the whole world, ought not to be dealt with except, as you yourself write, cautiously and with moderation, after consulting all the bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and the laity who have stood firm themselves, as you yourself testify in your letter; lest, while we wish to help the fallen unseasonably, we seem to prepare other greater falls. For where will the fear of God be left, if pardon is so easily granted to sinners? Their minds must indeed be cherished and nourished until the time of their ripeness, and instructed from the Scriptures that they have committed a huge sin, beyond all others. Nor let them take courage from being many, but rather be restrained by the very fact that they are not few. A shameless number has never availed to lessen a sin; but shame does, modesty, penance, discipline, humility and submission, to have awaited another's judgement on oneself, to have borne another's sentence on one's deed. This is what proves penance. This is what draws a scar over the wound inflicted. This is what raises and lifts up the ruins of the fallen mind, what quenches and ends the burning disease of seething sins. For the physician will not give to the sick what belongs to healthy bodies, lest untimely food not repress but inflame the storm of raging illness; that is, lest what could have been healed sooner by the reducing of fasting be seen to be prolonged through impatience by the undigested food eaten.

Hands defiled by impious sacrifice, therefore, must be washed clean by good works, and wretched mouths polluted by impious food must be expiated by words of true penance, and the mind must be renewed and replanted in the secret places of a faithful heart. Let the frequent groans of penitents be heard, and let faithful tears be poured again from the eyes, so that those very eyes which wickedly looked on idols may wash away, by weeping that makes satisfaction to God, what they had unlawfully committed. Patience is what is needed in illnesses. Those who are sick struggle with their pain, and only then hope for health if by endurance they overcome the pain. For a scar which a hasty physician has quickly drawn over is untrustworthy, and at any accident the healing is torn open, if the remedies are not faithfully supplied from the very slowness. Quickly the flame is called back again into a blaze unless the fuel of the whole fire is quenched down to the last spark; so that such people may rightly know that even by the delay itself their interest is better served, and more trustworthy remedies are provided by necessary postponements.

Otherwise, what will be the point of those who confess Christ being shut up in the custody of a filthy prison, if those who have denied him are free from danger to their faith? What the point of being bound in the circle of chains in the name of God, if those who have refused to confess God are not without communion? What the point of glorious souls laying down their lives in custody, if those who have abandoned the faith do not feel the greatness of their dangers and sins? But if they display excessive impatience and demand communion with unbearable haste, in vain do they hurl these querulous and spiteful reproaches, of no avail against the truth, with petulant and unbridled mouth; since it was open to them to keep by right what they are now forced by a necessity they sought of their own accord to beg for. For the faith that could have confessed Christ could also have been kept by Christ in communion. We wish you, brother, good health, and that you remember us.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. So that you might know, dearest brothers, what letter I wrote to the clergy staying at Rome and what they wrote back to me, and also what the presbyters Moses and Maximus and the deacons Nicostratus and Rufinus and the other confessors with them held in custody likewise wrote in reply to my letter, I have forwarded the copies for you to read. Take care, as far as you can by your diligence, that both our letters and their replies become known to our brothers. And if any bishops, my colleagues from abroad, or presbyters or deacons, are present or arrive, let them hear all this from you. And if they wish to copy the letters and take them to their own people, let them have the opportunity of copying, although I have also charged Saturus the reader, our brother, to give each one who desires it the opportunity to copy; so that, in settling the state of the churches in whatever way for the present, one faithful agreement may be kept by all. As for the other things that will have to be done, as I have also written to very many of my colleagues, we shall deal with them more fully in common counsel when, with the Lord's permission, we begin to meet together. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health always. Greet the brotherhood. Farewell.

Our Lord, whose precepts we ought to fear and keep, arranging the honour of the bishop and the order of his church, speaks in the gospel and says to Peter: “I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it; and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven also, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven also.” From there, through the changes of times and successions, the ordination of bishops and the order of the church runs down, so that the church is established upon the bishops and every act of the church is governed through those same leaders. Since this is founded by divine law, I wonder that certain people with bold rashness have chosen to write to me in such a way as to make their letter in the name of the church, since the church is established in the bishop and the clergy and in all who stand firm. For far be it, and may the Lord's mercy and his invincible power not allow it, that the number of the lapsed should be called the church, since it is written: “God is not the God of the dead but of the living.” We desire indeed that all be made alive, and we pray with our prayers and groans that they be restored to their former state. But if certain of the lapsed wish themselves to be the church, and if the church is among them and in them, what remains but that we ask them to deign to admit us to the church? Those, therefore, who, mindful of their sin, ought to make satisfaction to God, should be submissive and quiet and modest, and not make letters in the name of the church, since they should rather know that they are writing to the church.

But some of the lapsed have written to me, humble and gentle and trembling and fearing God, who have always worked in the churches gloriously and generously and have never reckoned their work to the Lord's account, knowing that he said: “And when you have done all these things, say: We are useless servants; we have done what we ought to do.” Thinking of these things, and, although they had received a certificate from the martyrs, praying nonetheless that their very satisfaction might be accepted by the Lord, they wrote to me that they acknowledge their sin and are doing true penance, and are not hurrying to peace rashly or importunely, but are waiting for our presence, saying that peace itself will be sweeter to them if they receive it in our presence. How much I rejoiced with them the Lord is witness, who has deigned to show what servants of this kind and such as these deserve of his goodness. Since I have received this letter, and now read that you have written something else, I ask you to make your desires distinct, and whoever you are who have now sent this letter, to put your names to a document and send me the document with the names of each. For I must first know to whom I am to reply. Then I will reply to each thing you have written, according to the modest measure of my position and conduct. I wish you, brothers, good health, and that you act quietly and peacefully according to the Lord's discipline. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. You have acted rightly and with discipline, dearest brothers, in resolving, on the advice of my colleagues who were present, not to hold communion with Gaius of Dida, a presbyter, and his deacon. By holding communion with the lapsed and offering their offerings, they have often been caught in their wicked errors, and, having been warned once and again by my colleagues, as you wrote to me, not to do this, they have persisted stubbornly in their presumption and audacity, deceiving certain brothers of our people, for whom we desire to provide in every useful way, and whose salvation we look after, not with corrupt flattery but with sincere faith, so that they may entreat God with true penance and with groaning and full sorrow; because it is written: “Remember from where you have fallen, and repent”; and again the divine Scripture says: “Thus says the Lord: When you turn and groan, then you will be saved, and you will know where you have been.”

But how can those groan and do penance whose groans and tears are cut short by certain of the presbyters, who rashly think communion should be held with them, not knowing that it is written: “Those who call you blessed lead you into error and confuse the path of your feet”? Rightly our wholesome and true counsels make no progress, while saving truth is hindered by flatteries and ruinous caressing; and the wounded and sick mind of the lapsed suffers what those who are sick and weak in body also often suffer: while they spit out wholesome food and useful drinks as bitter and repugnant, and seek those things that seem to delight and be sweet for the present, they bring on themselves ruin and death by their disobedience and intemperance, and the physician's true medicine does not help them to health, while the sweet enticement of the flatterer deceives them.

You, then, taking counsel faithfully and wholesomely according to my letter, do not depart from the better counsels. Read this same letter also to my colleagues, if any are present or arrive, so that, united and in harmony, we may hold to wholesome counsel for cherishing and healing the wounds of the lapsed, being about to deal most fully with everything when by the Lord's mercy we begin to meet together. Meanwhile, if anyone, immoderate and headlong, whether of our presbyters or deacons or of those from abroad, dares to hold communion with the lapsed before our judgement, let him be kept from our communion, to plead the cause of his rashness before all of us when, with the Lord's permission, we meet together.

You also wished me to write back what I think about Philumenus and Fortunatus, subdeacons, and Favorinus, an acolyte, who withdrew in the middle of this time and have now come back. I do not think I ought to give judgement on this matter alone, since many of the clergy are still absent and have not thought they should seek their places again even late, and this inquiry into individuals must be dealt with and refined more fully, not only with my colleagues but with the whole people itself. For a matter that will set an example for the future concerning the ministers of the church must be weighed and pronounced with careful moderation. Meanwhile let them only abstain from the monthly distribution, not as though they seemed to be deprived of the church's ministry, but so that, with everything left intact, they may be deferred until our presence. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always. Greet the whole brotherhood. Farewell.