Letters 67.1–68.5

Cyprian, Caecilius, Primus, Polycarp, Nicomedes, Lucilianus, Successus, Sedatus, Fortunatus, Januarius, Secundinus, Pomponius, Honoratus, Victor, Aurelius, Sattius, Petrus, another Januarius, Saturninus, another Aurelius, Venantius, Quietus, Rogatianus, Tenax, Felix, Faustus, Quintus, another Saturninus, Lucius, Vincentius, Libosus, Geminius, Marcellus, Iambus, Adelphius, Victoricus, and Paulus, to the presbyter Felix and to the peoples residing at León and Astorga, and also to the deacon Aelius and the people residing at Mérida, brothers in the Lord, greeting. When we had come together, we read your letter, dearest brothers, which in the soundness of your faith and in the fear of God you wrote to us through our fellow bishops Felix and Sabinus, indicating that Basilides and Martialis, stained with certificates of idolatry and bound by the consciousness of unspeakable crimes, ought not to hold the episcopate and administer the priesthood of God; and you asked that we write back to you about this, and that your just and necessary concern be relieved by the comfort or the help of our judgment. But to this wish of yours it is not so much our counsels as the divine precepts that answer, by which it has long since been commanded by the heavenly voice and prescribed by God's law who and what sort of men ought to serve the altar and celebrate the divine sacrifices. For in Exodus God speaks to Moses and warns, saying: “Let the priests who approach the Lord God be sanctified, lest perhaps the Lord forsake them.” And again: “And when they approach to minister at the altar of the holy place, they shall not bring sin upon themselves, lest they die.” Likewise in Leviticus the Lord commands and says: “A man in whom there is a blemish and defect shall not approach to offer gifts to God.”

Since these things have been foretold and made plain to us, our obedience must serve the divine precepts; nor in such matters can respect be had to persons, or anything be granted to anyone by human indulgence, where the divine prescription intervenes and lays down the law. For we ought not to forget what the Lord spoke to the Jews through the prophet Isaiah, rebuking them and angry that, despising the divine precepts, they followed human doctrines: “This people,” he says, “honors me with their lips, but their heart is far separated from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men.” The Lord repeats this in the gospel too and says: “You reject the commandment of God, that you may establish your tradition.” Keeping these things before our eyes and considering them carefully and religiously, we ought in the ordinations of priests to choose only bishops who are spotless and upright, who, offering sacrifices to God holily and worthily, can be heard in the prayers they make for the safety of the Lord's people, since it is written: “God does not hear a sinner; but he who worships God and does his will, him he hears.” For this reason those ought to be chosen for the priesthood of God with full diligence and sincere examination who are certainly heard by God.

Nor let the people flatter themselves that they can be free from the contagion of sin while they are in communion with a sinful priest and lend their consent to the unjust and unlawful episcopate of their leader, since the divine censure threatens through the prophet Hosea and says: “Their sacrifices are like the bread of mourning; all who eat of them will be defiled”; teaching, that is, and showing that all without exception are bound to the sin who have been defiled by the sacrifice of a profane and unjust priest. This we find made plain in Numbers too, when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram claimed for themselves the right to sacrifice against the priest Aaron. There too the Lord commands through Moses that the people be separated from them, lest, joined to the wicked, they themselves be bound up in the same wickedness. “Separate yourselves,” he says, “from the tents of these most hardened unjust men, and touch nothing that is theirs, lest you perish together in their sin.” For this reason a people that obeys the Lord's precepts and fears God ought to separate itself from a sinful leader and not mix itself with the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest, especially since the people itself has the power either of choosing worthy priests or of refusing unworthy ones.

We see that this too comes down from divine authority: that the priest be chosen in the presence of the people, before the eyes of all, and be approved as worthy and fit by public judgment and testimony, as in Numbers the Lord commands Moses, saying: “Take Aaron your brother and Eleazar his son, and place them on the mountain before all the synagogue, and strip Aaron of his robe and clothe Eleazar his son; and let Aaron be gathered there and die.” God commands the priest to be appointed before all the synagogue; that is, he instructs and shows that priestly ordinations ought to take place only with the knowledge of the people standing by, so that, the people being present, either the crimes of the wicked may be exposed or the merits of the good proclaimed, and the ordination may be just and lawful which has been examined by the vote and judgment of all. This is afterward observed, according to the divine teachings, in the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter speaks to the people about ordaining a bishop in the place of Judas. “Peter rose,” it says, “in the midst of the disciples; and the crowd was together.” And we notice that the apostles observed this not only in the ordinations of bishops and priests but also in those of deacons, about which too it is written in their Acts: “And the twelve,” it says, “called together the whole multitude of the disciples and said to them.” This was done so diligently and carefully, with the whole people called together, precisely so that no unworthy person might creep into the ministry of the altar or into the priestly place. For that the unworthy are sometimes ordained, not according to God's will but according to human presumption, and that those things displease God which do not come from a lawful and just ordination, God himself makes plain through the prophet Hosea, saying: “They have appointed a king for themselves, and not through me.”

For this reason what is held among us too, and in almost all the provinces, must be carefully observed and kept from divine tradition and apostolic observance: that, for ordinations to be duly celebrated, all the nearest bishops of the same province come together to the people for whom a leader is being ordained, and the bishop is chosen in the presence of the people, who know most fully the life of each and have observed the conduct of every one from his way of living. This we see was done among you too in the ordination of our colleague Sabinus: that by the vote of the whole brotherhood and by the judgment of the bishops who had assembled in person, and who had written to you about him, the episcopate was conferred on him and hands were laid on him in the place of Basilides. Nor can an ordination rightly completed be rescinded by the fact that Basilides, after his crimes had been discovered and laid bare even by the confession of his own conscience, went to Rome and deceived our colleague Stephen, who was far away and ignorant of what had been done and of the truth, so as to canvass to be unjustly restored to the episcopate from which he had been rightly deposed. The effect of this is that Basilides' sins have not so much been blotted out as heaped up, so that to his former sins the crime of deceit and circumvention has been added. For he is not so much to be blamed who was carelessly taken in as this man is to be execrated who fraudulently crept in. But if Basilides could take in men, he cannot take in God, since it is written: “God is not mocked.” Nor can deceit have profited Martialis either, so as to keep him, involved as he is in grave sins, from being barred from holding the episcopate, since the apostle too warns and says: “A bishop must be without crime, as God's steward.”

Therefore, since, as you write, dearest brothers, and as our colleagues Felix and Sabinus affirm, and as another Felix of Caesaraugusta, a devotee of the faith and defender of the truth, indicates in his letter, Basilides and Martialis have been defiled by the unspeakable certificate of idolatry; and since Basilides, besides the stain of the certificate, while lying in sickness blasphemed against God and confessed that he had blasphemed, and, laying down the episcopate of his own accord because of the wound of his conscience, turned to doing penance, entreating God and well content if he might be in communion even as a layman; and since Martialis too, besides long frequenting the shameful and filthy banquets of the heathen in a guild, and burying his sons in that same guild, after the manner of foreign peoples, among profane tombs and together with strangers, also declared in proceedings publicly held before a ducenarian procurator that he had yielded to idolatry and denied Christ; and since there are many other grave sins in which Basilides and Martialis are held entangled: in vain do such men try to usurp the episcopate for themselves, since it is quite plain that men of this kind can neither preside over the church of Christ nor ought to offer sacrifices to God; especially since long ago, together with us and with absolutely all the bishops established throughout the whole world, our colleague Cornelius too, a peaceable and just priest, honored also by the Lord's favor with martyrdom, decreed that such men may indeed be admitted to do penance, but are barred from ordination to the clergy and from priestly honor.

Nor let it trouble you, dearest brothers, if among some in the last times a slippery faith wavers, or an irreligious fear of God totters, or peaceful concord does not persevere. It has been foretold that these things would come at the end of the world, and it was predicted by the Lord's voice and the testimony of the apostles that, as the world now fails and Antichrist draws near, all good things would fail, while evil and adverse things would advance.

Yet, although in the last times, the vigor of the gospel has not so fallen in God's church, nor the strength of Christian courage or faith so languished, that there does not remain a portion of priests who by no means give way to these ruins of affairs and shipwrecks of faith, but, brave and steadfast, guard the honor of the divine majesty and the priestly dignity with full observance of fear. We remember and hold that, while others gave way and yielded, Mattathias bravely vindicated the law of God; that Elijah, while the Jews failed and departed from divine religion, stood and contended loftily; that Daniel, deterred neither by the loneliness of a foreign land nor by the assault of continual persecution, often and bravely gave glorious testimonies; that the three youths likewise, broken neither by their years nor by threats, faithfully withstood the Babylonian fires and conquered the victorious king in their very captivity. However great the number of transgressors or of betrayers who have now begun to rise up in the church against the church and to undermine faith and truth alike, there remains in very many a sincere mind and sound religion and a soul devoted only to its Lord and God; and another's faithlessness does not press Christian faith down to ruin, but rather rouses and exalts it to glory, as the blessed apostle exhorts and says: “For what if some of them have fallen away from the faith? Has their unbelief made void the faithfulness of God? By no means. For God is true, but every man a liar.” But if every man is a liar and God alone true, what else ought we, his servants, and especially God's priests, to do but abandon human errors and lies and, keeping the Lord's precepts, remain in God's truth?

Therefore, even if there are some of our colleagues, dearest brothers, who think that God's discipline may be neglected and who rashly hold communion with Basilides and Martialis, this ought not to disturb our faith, since the Holy Spirit threatens such men in the Psalms, saying: “But you have hated discipline and cast my words behind you. If you saw a thief, you ran with him, and you put your portion with adulterers.” He shows that those who have been joined with sinners become partners and sharers in others' sins. And the apostle Paul too writes the same and says: “Whisperers, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, proud, boastful, inventors of evils; who, though they knew the justice of God, did not understand that those who do such things are worthy of death; not only do they do evil, but they also consent to those who do these things.” “For those who do such things,” he says, “are worthy of death.” He makes plain and proves that not only those who do evil are worthy of death and come to punishment, but also those who consent to those who do such things; who, while they mix in unlawful communion with the wicked and sinners who do not do penance, are polluted by contact with the guilty, and, as they are joined in guilt, so are not separated in punishment. For this reason, dearest brothers, we both praise and approve the religious concern of your integrity and faith, and exhort you by our letter as much as we can not to mix yourselves in sacrilegious communion with profane and stained priests, but to keep the whole and sincere firmness of your faith with religious fear. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Stephen, greeting. Our colleague Faustinus, residing at Lyons, dearest brother, has written to me once and again, informing me of what I know has certainly been reported to you too, both by him and by our other fellow bishops established in the same province: that Marcianus, residing at Arles, has joined himself to Novatian and departed from the truth of the catholic church and from the agreement of our body and priesthood, holding the most hardened perversity of heretical presumption, so that the comforts and helps of divine kindness and fatherly gentleness are shut to the servants of God who repent and grieve and knock at the church with tears and groaning and sorrow, and the wounded are not admitted to have their wounds cared for, but, left without hope of peace and communion, are cast out to be the plunder of wolves and the prey of the devil. It is our part, dearest brother, to take counsel for this matter and to come to the rescue, we who, considering the divine clemency and holding the balance of governing the church, so show the severity of vigor to sinners that we do not, however, deny the medicine of divine goodness and mercy for raising up the lapsed and healing the wounded.

Therefore you ought to write a very full letter to our fellow bishops established in Gaul, so that they no longer allow Marcianus, stubborn and proud and an enemy of divine kindness and of the brothers' salvation, to insult our college on the ground that he does not yet seem to have been excluded by us, who has long been boasting and proclaiming that, in his zeal for Novatian and following his stubbornness, he has separated himself from our communion; although Novatian himself, whom he follows, was long ago excluded and judged an enemy of the church, and, when he had sent envoys to us in Africa desiring to be admitted to our communion, took back from here, from a council of very many priests who were present, the sentence that he had begun to be outside, and that none of us could be in communion with him, who had tried, when Cornelius had been ordained bishop in the catholic church by God's judgment and the vote of clergy and people, to set up a profane altar, to establish an adulterous chair, and to offer sacrilegious sacrifices against the true priest; and that accordingly, if he wished to come to his senses and return to the counsel of a sound mind, he should do penance and return to the church as a suppliant. How vain it is, dearest brother, that, when Novatian has lately been beaten back and refuted and excluded by God's priests throughout the whole world, we should now still allow his flatterers to mock us and to judge the majesty and dignity of the church!

Let a letter be sent by you to the province and to the people residing at Arles, by which, Marcianus being excluded, another may be put in his place, and the flock of Christ, which to this day is scattered and wounded by him and held in contempt, may be gathered. Let it suffice that many of our brothers there have departed in these past years without peace. At least let help be given to the rest who survive and groan day and night and, entreating the divine and fatherly mercy, beg the comfort of our aid. For this reason, dearest brother, the body of priests is large, bound together by the glue of mutual concord and the bond of unity: so that, if any of our college tries to make a heresy and to tear and lay waste the flock of Christ, the others may come to the rescue and, as useful and merciful shepherds, gather the Lord's sheep into the flock. For what if in the sea some harbor, its defenses broken, begins to be hostile and dangerous to ships? Do not those sailing steer their ships to other nearby harbors, where there is a safe and saving entrance and a secure anchorage? Or if on the road some inn begins to be besieged and held by robbers, so that whoever enters is caught there by the attack of those lying in wait, do not travelers, learning of this report, seek other, safer inns on their journey, where there are trustworthy lodgings and safe shelter for travelers? This must be so with us, dearest brother: that we receive with ready and kindly humanity our brothers who, avoiding the rocks of Marcianus, seek the saving harbors of the church, and offer travelers an inn such as is in the gospel, in which those wounded and hurt by robbers may be received, cared for, and protected by the innkeeper.

For what greater or better care do leaders have than to provide, with diligent concern and wholesome healing, for the tending and preserving of the sheep, since the Lord speaks and says: “What was weak you have not strengthened, and what was sick you have not made strong, and what was broken you have not comforted, and what strayed you have not called back, and what was lost you have not sought; and my sheep have been scattered because there are no shepherds, and they have become food for all the beasts of the field, and there was none to seek or to call them back. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep from their hands and turn them away, so that they do not feed my sheep; and they will no longer feed them; and I will draw them out of their mouth and feed them with judgment.” Since, then, the Lord so threatens such shepherds, through whom the Lord's sheep are neglected and perish, what else ought we to do, dearest brother, than show full diligence in gathering and cherishing Christ's sheep, and apply the medicine of fatherly kindness to healing the wounds of the lapsed, since the Lord too admonishes in the gospel and says: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” For although we shepherds are many, yet we feed one flock, and we ought to gather and cherish all the sheep whom Christ sought by his blood and passion, and not allow our suppliant and grieving brothers to be cruelly despised and trampled by the proud presumption of some, since it is written: “But he who is stubborn, a man boasting of himself, will achieve nothing at all, who has enlarged his soul like the underworld”; and the Lord in the gospel blames and condemns all such, saying: “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men; but God knows your hearts, for what is lofty among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” He calls those execrable and detestable who please themselves, who, swollen and puffed up, arrogantly take anything upon themselves. Since Marcianus has begun to be one of these, and, joining himself to Novatian, has stood out as an adversary of mercy and kindness, let him not pronounce sentence but receive it, nor act as if he himself had judged the college of priests, since he himself has been judged by all the priests.

For the glorious honor of our predecessors, the blessed martyrs Cornelius and Lucius, must be preserved. While we honor their memory, much more ought you, dearest brother, to honor and preserve it by your weight and authority, since you have been made their vicar and successor. For they, full of the Spirit of the Lord and established in glorious martyrdom, judged that peace should be given to the lapsed, and marked in their letters that, when penance has been done, the fruit of communion and peace should not be denied; and this all of us everywhere have judged. For there could not be a different view among us in whom there was one Spirit; and therefore it is plain that he does not hold the truth of the Holy Spirit with the others whom we see to think differently. Let us know plainly who has been put in the place of Marcianus at Arles, so that we may know to whom we ought to direct our brothers and to whom we ought to write. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.