Poems ascribed to Cyprian (Sodom, Jonah, To a Senator, On Easter, To Flavius Felix) 6.1–6.378

I who wished for country Muses in my song, and inscribed the rosy breezes with spring flowers and the heavy summer ears of the harvest, cut the swelling grapes from the vines of autumn, and always praised the peaceful olives of winter, and drew out tuneful waters from the springs, and sang of the leafy woods from the wandering grass: now at once I will sing of the ethereal shores of light; now let me reach the light-bearing Muses, unfold the secret nymphs from the river's source and the glad woods set beneath another star, and at the same time tell in song of the eternal flames, whence the immense sea surges into swelling waves, what power warns the solid earth to tremble, and whence golden light first shone on the new world, who could have fashioned man from the glad clay, whence the race could grow in the empty age, and what desire of living the people has in their variety, what lineage of dying was first created by evil, whence comes the good scent and blush of rosy crowns, what makes the vine seethe with glad grapes, and how new barley turns milky in tender stalks, how the tree ripens toward winter with black olives, who gives increase of vigor to varied seeds and protects the mother of offspring with soft shade.

It is good to know all things, what the beginnings of things are, so that through all things one may recognize the true God, who prepared light, seas, sky and earth, and adorned the new world with varied stars, and bade the cattle and the birds come forth first, and gave the sea waves to be filled with fish and drove living creatures over the fruitful sands. Such songs will I bring forth with the Muses set in order, and set forth the healthful wave from new springs and the glad rain coming from peaceful clouds, flowing deep and freely into the souls of men; I will receive it in full streams into our fallow fields. Come now, touch the secure and living nymph and swiftly draw the easy liquor of life. If anyone wishes to escape the punishments of the eternal flame, ignorant of the day and unaware of the age to come, and rather to gain the rewards of a just life, let him remember this one God and pray to him alone, who set the whole world in the balance beneath its threshold, and, abiding eternally and ever to be through the ages, holding all ages, and alone before the ages, unbegotten God without end, alone holding the divine throne, ever towers over high heaven, alone almighty, whom all things obey,

who formed man, pleasing to himself, for the ages, gave him to be shepherd of the cattle and lord of the wild beasts, and gave him rule over the birds, and the sea and the land to govern; who by speech alone could stretch out the sky, and by a word bade the solid earth hang, and quicker than said separated the sea's wave; this form, dear to him, he loved to fashion with his hands, and willed his own comely likeness to be in it; by his Spirit he breathed a life-giving breath into his face. He, unmindful of God, rashly committed so great a thing, though warned to touch nothing beyond: one thing, whence he would know evil and whence discern the right, the forbidden fruit, God at once forbade him to touch. How great were the gifts of the world God granted to man, and marked them as a most sweet pledge of his love, gave him useful and dear commands for his salvation, gave the lands under his dominion and every living soul, the winged race, the cattle, every kind of wild beast, and the race of the sea, all creatures that swim. But because, having first transgressed the law by a crime, the first man now was altering the Lord's commands, his wife urging all evils, he was perishing in death. For the woman first committed the evil of sin and betrayed her husband and deceived him from the law.

Eve, wickedly persuaded, opened the doors to death and created funerals for herself together with her whole race. Hence (unhallowed misfortune!) death flowed out through the ages. Thence crime spread more easily and deeply, and the farmer's labor drove the year more harshly. The cunning serpent cast this in with wicked envy. Thence all the more did the peoples commit many evils, and abominable seeds brought forth evil deeds. And therefore God alone, who has the highest power, and holds the highest summits above the lofty sky, dwelling on high in inaccessible light through the ages, mindful of the past and knowing the future beforehand, keeps for ever the decree of desert for the race: all souls that slowly govern bodies and move the human being by reason wandering through the limbs, as soon as they lay down the weight of the limbs and depart, and go light, released from earthly bonds, and seek again their own shores in different parts, forthwith some are shut in hidden darkness, but others are at once called back to glad breezes, kept wholly for the rewards decreed by the law, until … bodies rise again with their limbs restored: then men will weigh the interest of their first life, and stand before God their judge, mindful of the past, each to await his own punishment for his own crime.

or wholly, like cattle, without a name … breath, or in vain … to pour out God's breath by ending. Can God almighty, by whose nod all things are ruled, be unable to give back life after death, or does the Lord seem unable to do anything? If he could shut out bright light from darkness, and could compose the whole mass by a word, make all things from nothing by his mighty voice, why could he not, out of something, fashion the known shape that once was, the form that lived before, and bid it rise again like its own shape? Since all things are God's, the earth will all the more give back all, when commanded; she will call back whatever she once covered. If the flame perhaps consumed someone laid asleep on the pyre, or the sea threw someone down into its blind waves, if anyone has fed the hunger of a fish's belly, or wild beasts have pierced his limbs with a cruel death, or his blood has lain for the birds, his body snatched away: not even the last of deaths will refuse anyone to the Lord; men must appear living before God from death and stand with their own shapes taken back. So seeds are entrusted dry to the turned earth and, fixed deep in the furrows, rot dead; then the stalk is quickened with ears renewed, and again they grow golden, strong, with living grains, and new harvests rise with varied interest.

All the stars will set, and will shine again reborn, and day dies with its light into thick night; night sets into day as things are uncovered by light, and high day rises again among its stars. The splendor-bearing sun sets from on high with clear light, the light perishes as evening comes and shades the world, and it returns and renews joy for the whole age: so the phoenix, burned, lives from its own funeral, and at once the bird rises from its own pyre. And the tree stripped of its leaves puts out shoots in its season and again bends its branches from the bud of fruit. So, when at the divine voice, the world trembling and the powers of the high air deeply shaken, then an unaccustomed crash and the greatest rumblings of the sky, God advancing, the judge of the world coming: at once countless ministers rush together to go, and surround God with heavenly majesty; angelic hosts descend far and wide in throngs, all the messengers of God, who have divine power pre-eminent, and beauty, all the powers of spirit. Their vigor is fiery, their bodies glowing; heaven's divine force flashes: hence the whole upper air thunders, hence the trembling earth bellows back from its depths, entire, in labor with the men whom, by command, she must give back.

His companions marvel, the clouds at last are troubled, the stars, amazed, quake at once at the power from on high, God commanding, easily, with the voice of the Mighty One. At once, the tombs burst open through all the kingdoms, all the ground pours out bones from wide chasms, and the sand, opening, belches forth living peoples. Limbs cling together, bones are knit with marrow, and interlaced sinews govern the breathing bodies, and at the same time veins, filled again, move with blood, and the souls that had been sent away are given back to the opened hollows, and all the organs, rising, seek again each its own. (O faith to be marveled at!) hence every age sprouts forth, the ancient crowd of the dead sprouts from the dust. Mothers and husbands rise with light restored, great-hearted youths, boys and unmarried girls, and old men long dead stand by with living souls, and the world resounds, groaning with the wailing of infants. Varied nations come together from the lowest seats, and the bands of the East, and those whom the farthest land sees, those who inhabit the middle zones in the sloping clime and hold the Riphaean heights under the frosty star: every settler of every border is present, afraid, the peasant and the soldier, kings with their crowns laid aside, the rich man mingled with the poor in one even column.

Deep trembling everywhere; now the world groans in prayer, and the peoples, stretching out their hands, marvel with shouting. The Lord himself, seated, bright with surpassing light, and all-powerful, flashes like fire among all the powers, and gleams on a lofty throne in the heavenly seat, hedged about by martyrs, a shining number of men, and he stands accompanied by his blessed prophets, whose temples shine with snowy fillets. And now priests are present in gleaming garments, carrying glowing crowns, the rewards of life, and all, bowing down with bent knees, adore: “Holy, holy, God alone” is the one voice of all. Then the Lord will bid the twofold people stand: he commands the just to be separated from the number of the wicked, and bids them, clothed with strength, death conquered, have for ever the unquenched breath of light, go through the ancient, ever-flowering kingdoms, through rich groves, ever pleasant green places, and spend everlasting life in a glorious body. There is a place on the Aeolian shores, beloved by the Lord, where clear light shines and a healthier air breathes, and eternal day and unchangeable time, and a region set apart for God, very rich in fields, and a seat exceedingly blessed in a serene quarter, the air ever glad and ever to be in light, and a gentle wind breathing life-giving gusts.

the very rich land bears all things equally from its all-bearing soil: flowery purple blazes in the level meadows. All things, very bright, mingle their light without envy; one glad flower clothes another's mantle with its own light. Here rosy fields are varied with snowy seed, and snowy fields are curled with rosy flowers. You would not know with which flowers the fields are more beautifully sweet, or with which they breathe more happily in the heavenly air, which is better in appearance or which excels in honor. Never are such lilies born in flower-bearing gardens, nor have such flowered in our fields, nor does the familiar rose blush so, or the white one open, nor is purple so steeped in Tyrian red. The gem shines, beautiful with colored stones, the prase gleams on this side, the carbuncle burns on that, and the emerald stone pours out flashing lights. Here too cinnamon grows on fragrant twigs, and glad amomum is fragrant with green leaf. Here lies gold, inborn, of radiant light, and high groves that hold the sky with flowering top, and the richest buds weigh down the green branches. No India has put forth groves like these, nor does the green pine raise its tops so thick, nor does the cypress so curl its high, quivering foliage, nor does a branch flower better in springtime.

Here, otherwise, the … flourish on the top, and the woods alone, without hail, are green for ever. No leaves fall, no flower fails in its season: the tops are green, compacted with strength; the tree is purple. But I think that flower is the rose, the even blush in it, so does it breathe such beauty of fragrances into its leaves. The fairest tree stands with flower and with new fruits, and the happy trunks thicken with life-giving fruit. Rich honey is fragrant on the greening branches, milk too flows drinkable in full streams. Whatever the holy land greens forth breathes life there, whatever flowers from the bud continually blesses, and the soil smells of beautiful, healing chalk. A spring there floods the fields with its calm stream; from it four rivers water the divided land. I think the upper air, clothed with flowers, keeps ever spring. Cold does not vary the breezes with a winter star, nor does summer flash, rayed with pressing heat; the sky with its own light tempers the serene breezes and refreshes the fruitful earth with a better breath. There is no night there; the stars keep away their darkness, and anger and plots are absent, and dread desire, and fear is shut out and cares driven from the threshold. Thence the wicked man is banished, an exile, to the farthest shores, and toil is forbidden to touch the blessed borders.

Here ancient faith rests in the chosen seat, Justice, rejoicing, lives in an eternal covenant, and secure salvation is glad in peaceful fields, ever to live and ever to be in light. Here whoever was a pious tiller of equity and goodness, and who feared God the Thunderer with innocent mind, and honored his parents with holy devotion, and lived a holy life always without crime, or whenever he consoled the needy with friendly wealth and came to the aid of the overburdened poor, helper of the poor man, accustomed to save orphans, and rescued the injured, and came to the aid of those pressed by false charges, gave guests the dear pledges of his table, did all his duties by divine commands, harmed no one, coveted nothing of another's: all these, exulting in divine praises and praying together, raise their voices to the stars, psalming to the Lord they give thanks with joy, and will go the blessed way with messengers accompanying them. After the Lord has accomplished these happy gifts and has sent the just together into the eternal kingdoms: lo, the wretched crowd comes, lamenting its crimes: groaning arises, all mourn with burning tears and bear witness to their deeds with constant howling; they tremble at the fiery darts pressing upon them for their deserts.

Angels now seize them and forbid them to pray, and forbid them to pour out late cries of repentance, and now pardon for prayers is denied as the flame comes on. “O wretched ones, how often did divine power make itself known to you, how often was the majesty of the truth known? You heard the sounds, you saw the lightnings of heaven, you constantly experienced rains, the angers of winds and hail, so often nights and serene days: the fruitful seasons gave you the gifts of God, spring gave roses in abundance, nor did summer lack crops, autumn offered varied mellow fruits, icy winter always broke the glad olives. God gave all things, nor was any goodness lacking, yet through all these things the whole human race did not know God. The earth trembled at God, the sea hung at God's nod, and the river, trembling, flowed back over dry sands, and creation, glad, confesses God in all things. Yet you denied this Lord of heaven and earth, and killed the just instead with cruel slaughter, and many of you often put the heralds of God to flight. The truth always clung to you as if it were a crime. And therefore you will reap the fruit of an unjust sowing: you do not know: behold, the day you are accustomed to laugh at. You will go into the deep darkness of fire and sulphur, to suffer, burning, cruel wrath with pains.”

These the Lord commands to depart to eternal punishment, to go under the burnings of Gehenna ever without end, to be pressed down, a mass, through the torrent pools of flame. He commands the threatening elements to be turned into flames, and all the fire of heaven to descend from the clouds. Then greedy Tartarus shuts out its swift fires, and the seas will surge with stormy flames, and the whole earth will confound the living with ashes, and the angry air will brandish fiery furrows, and the burning world will be armed with every torch; with a Tartarean onrush the fires will seize the world. They, driven headlong, are lifted into the surge; they flee this way, and are carried back that way in sharp course. The fierce wrath of the flame meets them as they flee, and now they recognize their punishment for their crime. And now, where the earth is possessed by no settler, and pressed beneath the farthest bounds of the deep sea, where the sun, its ray having run its course, ends Olympus, and the risen stars are hidden when the world has passed, the air grows thick with darkness, its light hidden, the last pools flaming with secret streams. The nature of the place is fiery, marked out for punishments, and the swamp of the underworld, glowing in its depths with burnings, thunders horribly, a strait of punishment; the furnace seethes, and, flaming, is churned with a rapid whirl, a river rushing into torments with surging flood; the scorched sand, all of it, is mixed with the mire.

Hither the captive, groaning crowd of the wicked will be sent, and (unhallowed!) the column of the criminal body, to burn. Great lamentation there, weeping joined with clamor, and quick gnashing; the howling of those in pain will rise from the flame afar, and the fire, deep and resounding, and the groaning of the burning will rise into the air. Then the human race pays for the evil it committed, and they will begin to stretch late prayers to heaven, and will now wish to know God, whom they would not know. There each will confess the savage things of his life, the guilty hands and minds savage in crime, and will testify to the unspeakable things of his savage life. First whoever had thought ill of God before and worshipped wandering stones with a false deity and had consecrated bloody altars to images and feared painted figures without voice and adored the thin shades of a false deity, and whomever evil error at once led astray; if anyone was an adulterer, whoever had killed his children, if anyone lived with a conscience guilty of any evil, or had marauded by robbery or by defrauding a client, if anyone stained his palms with human blood and mixed poisons with lurking death, then if anyone hid thefts in an empty breast, or rejoiced in the unjust gain of another's misfortune, whoever committed any wickedness of the wicked.

Deep burning will torture them with bitter fire, and all will pay the penalty in a living death, thus … the whole crowd of men, mourning. Have not the holy prophets so often sung these things, often warned by the Spirit of God, and foretold what was to come? Thus God almighty willed his rewards to be known and the threats of the law laid down *** by such things, sending many to cry out heavenly words. Then, at God's command, the prophet put bones together, and was astonished at the tombs suddenly moved, not of themselves, that bodies … had lain in scattered ashes; he marveled that then they rose living as the soul came, and with their voice stretched their palms toward heaven. They indeed went back to their silent tombs and yielded to the future day of God, to be kept for it: he bade them be held for a little while in their deepest beds, until that great day, its time completed, should come. All of you, know the true Lord, who alone can make the soul strive toward the light, and can likewise thrust it into the Tartarus of punishment, and to whom all power of life and death lies open. For God, to will is enough to be able, and it is done by speaking: he alone is to be feared by me in my inmost senses.

And since every course is concluded by death, whoever lives today will carry his life with him. And therefore, while life remains, while you may enjoy the light, while you may repent, before the end of time seizes you unawares, and that last day of death, which is held by law, closes your unknowing eyes: what remains first, watch over your dear salvation, and, ready and sure, turn your course toward the good. After errors, and after sins checked by holy rites, and after the storms that have harried you, wandering, too long, take the right ways and hold to the glad breezes. Hence with glad souls first drive away crime, and let the long-hardened guilt be washed from your breast, then, gentle, abolish the unspeakable evils you have committed, and appease the dreadful God with unceasing prayers. Let all the worst things yield to the good, mortal things to the living. Keep now the new life without crime, and keep your minds pious and in the true name. And as suppliants ask pardon for your former offenses. Now let pure hearts ripen in pious tillers, and lift innocent hands in just prayers, and render voices ready for divine praises. And let your minds begin to grow used to things good and true, and let the gifts of the divine law be celebrated the more, and remember good things and at once take hold of good deeds. Let the sordid evils once committed grow worthless, and all better things will blaze for you, the pious, and at once life is freed from dreadful perils and will come, by its prayers, to the eternal rewards.