Letters 35.1–42.1

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons living at Rome, his brothers, greeting. Both our common love and reason require, dearest brothers, that we withhold from your knowledge nothing of what is done among us, so that we may have common counsel for the good of the church's administration. For after I wrote you the letter which I sent by our brothers Saturus the reader and Optatus the subdeacon, the concerted rashness of certain lapsed, who refuse to do penance and to make satisfaction to God, wrote a letter to me, not asking that peace be given them but claiming it as already given, because they say that Paulus gave peace to all, as you will read in their letter, a copy of which I have forwarded to you; and at the same time what I have briefly written back to them for the present; and, so that you might know what letter I wrote afterwards to the clergy, I have sent you a copy of this too. But if their rashness is not checked further by my letter or yours, and does not obey wholesome counsels, we will do what the Lord has commanded to be done according to the gospel. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always. Farewell.

To Pope Cyprian, the presbyters and deacons living at Rome, greeting. When we had read through, brother, your letter which you had sent by the subdeacon Fortunatus, we were struck by a twofold sorrow and confounded by a double grief: that no rest was given you amid such great necessities of persecution, and that the immoderate petulance of the lapsed brothers was reported to have gone so far as a dangerous rashness of words. But although the things we have mentioned grievously afflicted us and our spirit, yet your vigour, and the severity you have applied according to the gospel's discipline, lighten so heavy a burden of our grief, since you both justly restrain the wickedness of certain people and, by exhorting them to penance, show the way of lawful salvation. We have been greatly astonished that they wished to leap forward so far that, so urgently and at so unripe and bitter a time, in so huge and immense a crime and sin, they did not so much seek peace for themselves as claim it, and even said that they already had it in heaven. If they have it, why do they ask for what they hold? But if it is proved that they do not have it by the very fact that they ask for it, why do they not wait for the judgement of those from whom they thought they should ask the peace which they certainly do not have? But if they believe they have the privilege of communion from some other source, let them try comparing it with the gospel, so that it may be firmly valid only if it does not disagree with the gospel law. Otherwise, how can what seems to have been decreed against the gospel truth grant gospel communion? For since every privilege looks to the favour of pardon only if it does not disagree with that to which it seeks to be joined, because it disagrees with that to which it seeks to be joined, it must lose the pardon and the privilege of fellowship.

Let them see, then, what they are trying to do in this business. For if they say that the gospel has laid down one thing and the martyrs another, setting the martyrs against the gospel, they will be in danger on both sides. For the majesty of the gospel will seem already broken and lying low, if it could be overcome by the novelty of another decree; and the glorious crown of confession will be taken from the head of the martyrs, if they are found not to have won it by keeping the gospel, whence martyrs are made; so that rightly it is fitting for no one so much to decree nothing against the gospel as for him who labours to receive the name of martyr from the gospel. We should like to learn this besides: if martyrs are made martyrs for no other reason than that, by not sacrificing, they may keep the church's peace even to the shedding of their blood, lest, overcome by the pain of torture, they lose salvation by losing peace, how do they think that the salvation which they did not think they would have if they had sacrificed should be given to those who are said to have sacrificed, when they ought to keep in others this law which they themselves had evidently laid down for themselves before? In this business we notice that what they thought they were doing for themselves they have brought forward against themselves. For if the martyrs thought peace should be given them, why did they not give it themselves? Why did they decide that they should be referred, as they themselves say, to the bishop? For he who orders a thing to be done can certainly do what he orders to be done. But as we understand it, or rather as the matter itself speaks and cries out, the most holy martyrs thought a balance of modesty and truth should be kept on both sides. For since they were pressed by many, in referring them to the bishop they thought they should consult their own modesty, so as not to be troubled further; and in not holding communion with them themselves, they judged that the unimpaired purity of the gospel law should be guarded.

But do you, brother, in your love, never cease to calm the minds of the lapsed and to give the medicine of truth to the erring, even though a sick mind is accustomed to reject the efforts of those who heal it. This wound of the lapsed is recent, and the blow is still rising into a swelling. And therefore we are sure that, with a longer space of time, when this impulse grows old, they will love the very fact that they were put off for the sake of a faithful medicine; provided there are none who arm them to their own danger and, instructing them perversely, demand for them, instead of the saving remedies of delay, the deadly poisons of hasty communion. For we do not believe that all would have dared to claim peace for themselves so petulantly without the instigation of certain people. We know the faith of the church of Carthage, we know its training, we know its humility. Hence we were even surprised to notice certain rather harsh things thrown at you among yourselves in the letter, since we had often learned of your mutual love and charity from many examples of reciprocal affection toward one another. It is time, therefore, for them to do penance for their sin, to prove their sorrow for their fall, to show modesty, to display humility, to exhibit restraint, so that by their submission they may call down upon themselves God's clemency, and by the honour due to God's priest draw upon themselves the divine mercy. Their letter would have been better if the prayers of those who stand had been added for them, aided by their own humility; since what is asked is more easily obtained when he for whom it is asked is worthy to obtain what is asked.

As for Privatus of Lambaesis, you have acted in your usual way, wishing to report the matter to us as a cause of concern. For it befits all of us to keep watch for the body of the whole church, whose members are distributed through the various provinces. But even before your letter the fraud of the crafty man could not escape us. For when previously one of the band of his wickedness, Futurus, the standard-bearer of Privatus, had come and tried to draw a letter from us by fraud, neither was it hidden who he was, nor did he receive the letter he wanted. We wish you good health always.

Cyprian to Moses and Maximus, presbyters, and the other confessors, his brothers, greeting. Celerinus, on his arrival, the companion of your faith and courage and a soldier of God in glorious encounters, has brought you all together and each one of you before our affections, dearest brothers. In him, as he came, we beheld you all; and when he spoke sweetly and often of your love toward me, we heard you in his words. I rejoice fully and greatly when such things are brought from you by such men. In a way we too are there with you in prison; we who cling so to your hearts believe that we feel with you the adornments of the divine favour. Your undivided love links us to your honour; the Spirit does not let our love be separated. Confession shuts you in there; affection shuts me in. And we indeed, mindful of you day and night, both when we make prayer with many at the sacrifices and when we pray with private prayers in retirement, ask the Lord's full favour for your crowns and praises. But our small ability is too slight to repay you. You give more when you remember us in prayer, you who, hoping now only for heavenly things and meditating only on divine things, climb to loftier heights by the very delay of your suffering, and by the long course of time do not drag out your glories but increase them. A first and single confession makes one blessed. You confess as often as, when asked to leave the prison, you prefer the prison by faith and courage. As many as your days, so many your praises; as many the courses of the months, so many the increases of merits. He conquers once who suffers at once; but he who, remaining always in punishments, grapples with pain and is not conquered, is crowned daily.

Let magistrates and consuls or proconsuls now go their way, and glory in the insignia of their yearly dignity and in their twelve fasces. See, the heavenly dignity in you has been marked with the splendour of a yearly honour, and has already passed beyond the rolling circle of the returning year by the long duration of its victorious glory. The rising sun and the running moon lit up the world; but for you he who made the sun and moon was a greater light in prison, and the brightness of Christ, shining in your hearts and minds, lit up with that eternal and white light the darkness of the place of punishment, dreadful and deadly to others. Through the succession of the months winter has passed; but you, shut in, have exchanged the seasons of winter for the winter of persecution. The mildness of spring followed winter, glad with roses and crowned with flowers; but you had roses and flowers from the delights of paradise, and heavenly garlands crowned your head. See, summer is fruitful with the fertility of harvests, and the threshing floor is full of grain; but you who sowed glory reap the harvest of glory, and, placed on the Lord's threshing floor, you watch the chaff burned with unquenchable fire, while you yourselves, as winnowed grains of wheat and precious corn, already proved and stored, count the lodging of the prison your granary. Nor does autumn lack spiritual grace for fulfilling the duties of the season. Outside the vintage is pressed, and the grape that will serve the cups is trodden in the presses; you, rich bunches from the Lord's vineyard, clusters with fruit already ripe, trodden by the assault of worldly affliction, feel our winepress in the torturing prison; instead of wine you pour out blood; brave to endure suffering, you gladly drink the cup of martyrdom. So the year rolls round among the servants of God; so the change of seasons is celebrated with spiritual merits and heavenly rewards.

Blessed indeed are those of you who, travelling by these footsteps of glory, have already departed from the world, and, having finished the journey of courage and faith, have come to the embrace and kiss of the Lord, the Lord himself rejoicing. But your glory is no less, you 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 show God a spectacle by your courage. The longer your fight, the loftier your crown: the contest is one, but it is heaped up with a manifold number of battles. You overcome hunger and despise thirst, and with vigorous strength you trample on the squalor of the prison and the horror of the place of punishment. Punishment is subdued there, torture is crushed; death is not feared but desired, being conquered, of course, by the reward of immortality, so that he who conquers is honoured with eternal life. What a spirit is now in you, how lofty and capacious a heart, where such and so great things are pondered, where nothing is thought of but God's precepts and Christ's rewards! There is only God's will there; and though you are still placed in the flesh, the life now lived is not of the present world but of the world to come.

Now it is time, most blessed brothers, that you remember me; that amid your great and divine thoughts you turn us over too in your mind and heart; and that I may be in your prayers and supplications, when that voice, made illustrious by the purifying of confession and praiseworthy by the continuous course of its honour, reaches the ears of God, and, heaven opened to it, passing from these subjected parts of the world to the things above, obtains from the Lord's goodness what it asks. For what do you ask of the Lord's mercy that you do not deserve to obtain? You who have so kept the Lord's commands, who have held the gospel's discipline with the sincere vigour of faith, who, standing bravely with the uncorrupted honour of courage with the Lord's precepts and with his apostles, have strengthened the wavering faith of many by the truth of your martyrdom. Truly witnesses of the gospel and truly martyrs of Christ, resting on his roots, founded on the rock with strong mass, you have joined discipline with courage, you have stirred others to the fear of God, you have made your martyrdoms examples. I wish you, bravest and most blessed brothers, good health always, and that you remember us.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, and likewise to the whole people, greeting. In clerical ordinations, dearest brothers, we are accustomed to consult you beforehand and to weigh the conduct and merits of each by common counsel. But human testimonies need not be awaited when divine approvals go before. Aurelius our brother, an illustrious young man, is already approved by the Lord and dear to God, still new in years but advanced in the praise of courage and faith, younger in the nature of his age, but greater in honour. He has fought in a double contest, twice confessing and twice glorious in the victory of his confession: both when he conquered in the course, being made an exile, and when he fought again in a stronger contest, triumphant and victorious in the battle of suffering. As often as the adversary wished to challenge the servants of God, so often did this most ready and bravest soldier both fight and conquer. It had been a small thing to have engaged before under the eyes of a few, when he was made an exile; he deserved also to engage in the forum with more illustrious courage, so that after the magistrates he conquered the proconsul too, after exile he overcame torments. Nor do I find what I ought to praise more in him, the glory of his wounds or the modesty of his conduct; that he is distinguished by the honour of courage or praiseworthy for the admiration of his modesty. He is so exalted in dignity and so lowly in humility that it appears he has been divinely reserved to be an example to others of church discipline: how the servants of God should conquer by courage in confession and stand out by conduct after confession. Such a man deserved further steps of clerical ordination and greater advancement, to be judged not by his years but by his merits. But meanwhile it has been decided that he should begin with the office of reader, because nothing better suits the voice that has confessed God with glorious proclamation than to resound in reading the divine lessons; after the lofty words which spoke out the martyrdom of Christ, to read the gospel of Christ from which martyrs are made; to come to the pulpit after the scaffold; there to have been seen by the multitude of the heathen, here to be seen by the brothers; there to have been heard with the wonder of the surrounding people, here to be heard with the joy of the brotherhood. Know, then, most beloved brothers, that he has been ordained by me and by the colleagues who were present. I know that you gladly welcome this and wish as many such as possible to be ordained in our church. And since joy always hastens and gladness cannot bear delay, he has read for us meanwhile on the Lord's day, that is, he has made a beginning of peace by dedicating his reading. Persist often in prayers and help our prayers with yours, that the Lord's mercy, favouring us, may soon restore to his people both their priest unharmed and, with the priest, the martyr who is reader. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and the whole people, his brothers, greeting. We must recognize and embrace, most beloved brothers, the divine favours by which the Lord has deigned to make his church illustrious and honoured in our times, by granting leave to his good confessors and glorious martyrs, so that those who had confessed Christ sublimely might afterwards adorn the clergy of Christ with church ministries. Exult, then, and rejoice with us on reading our letter, in which I and my colleagues who were present report to you that our brother Celerinus, glorious alike in courage and in conduct, has been joined to our clergy, not by human vote but by divine favour. When he hesitated to consent, he was compelled by the admonition and exhortation of the church itself, in a vision by night, not to refuse. This had more power than our persuading, and constrained him; because it was neither right nor fitting that he whom the Lord had so honoured with the dignity of heavenly glory should be without church honour.

He was the first in the battle of our time; he was the standard-bearer among the soldiers of Christ; he, amid the burning beginnings of the persecution, engaged with the very prince and author of the attack, and, while he conquered the adversary by the invincible firmness of his contest, made a way of conquering for others; a victor not by a short cut of wounds, but a triumphant victor by the marvel of a long wrestling, with punishments clinging and lasting long. For nineteen days he was shut in the custody of prison, in the stocks and in irons. But though his body was placed in chains, his spirit remained loosed and free. His flesh wasted away with prolonged hunger and thirst, but God fed with spiritual nourishment the soul that lived by faith and courage. He lay among punishments stronger than his punishments, shut in and greater than those who shut him in, lying down and loftier than those who stood, bound and firmer than those who bound him, judged and more sublime than those who judged; and though his feet were bound in the stocks, the serpent was crushed and trodden down and conquered. On his glorious body the bright marks of wounds shine; the traces pressed into the sinews and limbs of the man, wasted by long decay, stand out and appear. Great, marvellous are the things the brotherhood may hear of his virtues and praises. And if anyone like Thomas should appear, who is slow to believe his ears, the testimony of the eyes is not lacking either, so that one may also see what he hears. In the servant of God the glory of wounds has made the victory; the memory of the scars guards the glory.

Nor is this title of glories rough or new in our dearest Celerinus. He walks in the footsteps of his kin; he is made equal to his parents and relatives in like honour of divine favour. His grandmother Celerina was crowned with martyrdom long ago. Likewise his paternal and maternal uncles, Laurentinus and Egnatius, who themselves once served in the worldly camps, but were true and spiritual soldiers of God, while they laid the devil low by the confession of Christ, merited the Lord's palms and crowns by an illustrious passion. We always offer sacrifices for them, as you remember, as often as we celebrate the passions and days of the martyrs with an anniversary commemoration. He could not, then, be degenerate or lesser, whom the dignity of his family and noble birth challenged with such domestic examples of courage and faith. But if in a worldly family it is a matter of praise and commendation to be a patrician, how much greater praise and honour is it to become noble in heavenly proclamation! I do not find whom I should call more blessed, those in so illustrious a posterity or him in so glorious an origin. So equally does the divine favour run back and forth among them, that the dignity of the offspring illuminates their crown and the loftiness of his lineage lights up his glory.

When he came to us, most beloved brothers, with such favour from the Lord, made illustrious by the testimony and wonder of the very man who had persecuted him, what else was right than that he be placed on the pulpit, that is, on the tribunal of the church, so that, supported by the height of the loftier place and visible to the whole people for the brightness of his honour, he may read the precepts and gospel of the Lord which he follows bravely and faithfully? Let the voice that has confessed the Lord be heard daily in the things the Lord has spoken. It will be seen whether there is a further step to which he may be advanced in the church. There is nothing in which a confessor can profit the brothers more than that, while the gospel reading is heard from his mouth, everyone who hears may imitate the reader's faith. He had to be joined in reading to Aurelius, with whom he is also joined in fellowship of divine honour, with whom he is linked by all the marks of courage and praise. Both are equal and each like the other; as lofty in glory, so humble in modesty; as far advanced by divine favour, so submissive in their quiet and tranquillity; giving to each alike examples both of courage and of conduct, fitted both for combat and for peace, praiseworthy there for strength, here for modesty.

In such servants the Lord rejoices, in confessors of this kind he glories, whose way and conduct so advance the proclamation of glory that they provide a teaching of discipline to others. For this Christ willed them to be here in the church for a long time; for this, withdrawn from the midst of death, by a kind of resurrection, I might say, worked upon them, he kept them unharmed: so that, while nothing loftier in honour, nothing more submissive in humility is seen by the brothers, the brotherhood may follow and accompany these same men. Know, however, that they have been appointed readers for the present, because the lamp had to be set on the lampstand, from which it may give light to all, and their glorious faces had to be placed in a higher place, where, seen by all around, they may give an incentive to glory to those who see them. But know also that we have already designated them for the honour of the presbyterate, so that they may be honoured with the same allowances as the presbyters and share the monthly distributions in equal amounts, and will sit with us when their years have advanced and matured; although in no respect can he seem lesser in the nature of his age who has completed his age by the dignity of glory. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and the whole people, his dearest and most longed-for brothers, greeting. We had to announce to you, dearest brothers, something that concerns both our common joy and the greatest glory of our church. For know that we have been admonished and instructed by the divine favour that the presbyter Numidicus should be enrolled in the number of the presbyters of Carthage and sit with us among the clergy, illustrious with the brightest light of confession and exalted in the honour of courage and faith. By his exhortation he sent before him a glorious number of martyrs slain by stones and flames, and he looked on gladly at his wife, who clung to his side, burned, or rather, I should say, preserved, together with the others. He himself, half-burned and overwhelmed with stones and left for dead, when afterwards his daughter, with anxious filial devotion, searched for her father's corpse, was found half alive, drawn out, and revived, and so remained, unwillingly, behind the companions he had himself sent ahead. But the reason for his remaining, as we see, was this: that the Lord might join him to our clergy and adorn with glorious priests the ranks left desolate by the fall of some of our presbyters. And he will indeed be promoted, when God permits, to a fuller place of his religious office, when, under the Lord's protection, we come into your presence. Meanwhile let what is shown be done, so that we may receive this gift of God with thanksgiving, hoping from the Lord's mercy for many such adornments, so that, the strength of his church restored, he may make men so gentle and humble flourish in the honour of our assembly. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to his colleagues Caldonius and Herculanus, and likewise to his fellow presbyters Rogatianus and Numidicus, greeting. I was greatly saddened, dearest brothers, on receiving your letter. For while it has always been my purpose and prayer to keep our whole brotherhood safe and to preserve the flock unharmed, as love requires, you now report that Felicissimus has contrived many things wickedly and treacherously: that, besides his frauds and robberies, of which I had long ago learned much, he has now also tried to set a portion of the people at odds with the bishop, that is, to separate the sheep from the shepherd, to part the sons from their father, and to scatter the members of Christ. And whereas I sent you as my deputies to meet the needs of our brothers with those funds, and, if any wished also to practise their trades, to help their desires with as much addition as was enough, and at the same time to distinguish their ages and conditions and merits, so that even now I, on whom the care falls, may know them all, as I wish, and promote to the offices of church administration those who are worthy and humble and gentle: he interfered so that no one could be relieved and so that what I had wished could not be sorted out by your diligent examination; he even threatened, with wicked tyranny and violent terror, those of our brothers who had come first to be relieved, that those who were willing to obey us would not be in communion with him in death.

And after all this, not moved by the honour of my position nor broken by your authority and presence, disturbing the quiet of the brothers at his own instigation, he rushed off with a great many, declaring himself with rash fury the leader of a faction and the head of a sedition. In this I rejoice indeed that a great many brothers have withdrawn from his audacity and have preferred to agree with you, so as to remain with mother church and receive her allowances as the bishop distributes them; and I know for certain that the rest too will do so peacefully and will soon withdraw from their rash error. Meanwhile, since Felicissimus has threatened that those who obeyed us, that is, who held communion with us, would not be in communion with him in death, let him receive the sentence which he pronounced first, and know that he is excluded from communion by us; for to his frauds and robberies, which we have learned with clear truth, is added also the crime of adultery, which our brothers, grave men, have reported that they detected and have declared they will prove. All this we shall examine when, with the Lord's permission, we meet together with many colleagues. And Augendus too, who, thinking neither of the bishop nor of the church, has joined himself to him in the same conspiracy, if he persists further with him, let him bear the sentence which that factious and rash man brings upon himself. And whoever joins himself to his conspiracy and faction, let him know that he will not be in communion with us in the church, since he has chosen of his own accord to separate himself from the church. Read this letter of mine to our brothers and send it on to Carthage to the clergy, adding the names of all who have joined Felicissimus. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Caldonius, with his colleagues Herculanus and Victor, and likewise Rogatianus with Numidicus, presbyters. We have excluded from communion Felicissimus and Augendus, and also Repostus, one of the exiles, and Irene of the Rutili and Paula the seamstress, as you should know from my note. We have also excluded Sophronius, and, also from among the exiles, Soliassus the mat-maker.