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

Contents

Reading pages: 2.1–5.53 · 6.1–6.378

1. 2.1After the flood and the covenant of the rainbow, a new impiety arises in Sodom, whose sexual vice the poet calls worse than the most savage pagan cruelties.
2. 2.24Two angels come to Sodom, where Lot receives them hospitably; when the men of the city demand them, Lot pleads that their lust is against nature.
3. 2.49Lot offers his daughters instead of his guests; the mob turns on him, but the angels pull him inside and strike the crowd blind.
4. 2.74The angels warn Lot of the coming judgment; his sons-in-law laugh, and at dawn the angels lead Lot's family out, granting his request to flee to the small town of Segor (Zoar).
5. 2.99Fire and sulphur fall on Sodom, which the poet calls the truth behind the fable of Phaethon, and Lot's wife, looking back, becomes a pillar of salt that still stands.
6. 2.123The poet describes the burnt land of Sodom, its ash-filled fruit, and the lifeless Dead Sea, which yields only bitumen.
7. 2.149The poet tells of the Dead Sea's bitumen and its strange buoyancy, and concludes that Sodom's punishment is a lasting warning to the nations to fear the one Lord.
8. 3.1After Sodom the poet turns to Nineveh: God warns before he strikes, but Jonah, knowing God's mercy, flees rather than preach a doom that may not come, and goes to Joppa.
9. 3.25Jonah sails for Tarsus, but a sudden storm darkens the sky and batters the ship while the sailors struggle and throw the cargo overboard.
10. 3.50The sailors pray to their gods while Jonah sleeps, a figure of the Lord's death; the captain wakes him, the lot falls on him, and he confesses that he is fleeing the God who made heaven and earth.
11. 3.74Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard; after praying not to be guilty of his blood they do so, the sea grows calm, and Jonah, swallowed alive by the sea-monster, becomes a sign of the Lord's victory over death.
12. 4.1The poet rebukes a former Christian who has returned to the cult of the Great Mother, mocking her effeminate priests and their bloody rites.
13. 4.25The poet mocks the former consul who now serves Isis wearing the dog mask, and reproaches him for leaving the truth after he had come to know God.
14. 4.49The poet warns against excess and instability, quoting Virgil's Theseus, and insists that abandoning the known truth is a grave fault.
15. 4.74The poet hopes that age will bring the apostate back and urges him to repent and keep faith with God so as not to fall twice.
16. 5.1The cross, planted on Golgotha, is pictured as a tree whose fruit is buried and rises on the third day, grows to heaven after forty days, sends out twelve branches to the nations, and receives the Spirit's nectar after fifty days.
17. 5.26Beneath the tree is a spring where people of every kind must wash before they may eat its fruit; those who taste it are changed, though some reject the taste.
18. 5.53Some relapse after touching the springs, but those who receive the truth are bathed fasting on the appointed day, cleansed of their former life, and given the way to heaven through the tree of life.
19. 6.1The poet, who once sang of the seasons and the countryside, announces a higher theme: creation, the fall, death, and the eternal flames.
20. 6.26The poet will sing of the true God who made the world, and urges whoever would escape eternal fire to worship the one eternal, unbegotten, almighty God.
21. 6.51God made man in his image, gave him dominion and one command; but man, urged by the woman who sinned first, broke it and fell under death.
22. 6.75Through Eve's sin and the serpent's envy death and evil spread; God, dwelling in unapproachable light, keeps souls after death in darkness or refreshment until the resurrection and judgment.
23. 6.100The God who made all things from nothing can surely raise the dead, however they perished, as dead seed rises in a new harvest.
24. 6.126Day and night, the phoenix and the trees show renewal; at the divine voice the Judge comes with countless angels, and the earth trembles to give back the dead.
25. 6.150At God's command the tombs open, bodies are rebuilt and souls restored, and every age, nation and rank rises and stands before him.
26. 6.174The Lord sits enthroned among martyrs, prophets and priests, separates the just from the wicked, and sends the just to an eternal land of light.
27. 6.200The land of the blessed is full of matchless flowers, gems, spices, gold and trees.
28. 6.225In the land of the blessed the trees never fade, honey and milk flow, four rivers spring from one fountain, there is no night, and no evil, fear or toil can enter.
29. 6.250The pious, the merciful and the honest rejoice and praise God in the land of the blessed; then the wicked come forward, lamenting their crimes.
30. 6.275The angels forbid the wicked to pray, and they are reproached for ignoring God's gifts in creation, rejecting him, and killing his messengers, and are sentenced to fire.
31. 6.300The Lord sends the wicked into eternal fire; the elements turn to flame, and the poet describes the fiery place of punishment at the end of the earth.
32. 6.327In the place of punishment the wicked weep and gnash their teeth and confess their sins: idolatry, adultery, child-killing, robbery, murder, poisoning and theft.
33. 6.353The prophets foretold this judgment; Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones shows the resurrection to come, so all should know and fear the true Lord who holds power over life and death.
34. 6.378The poet urges his readers to repent while there is time, to wash away their guilt, keep the new life, and pray, so as to reach the eternal rewards.