Letters 63.1–64.6

Cyprian to his brother Caecilius, greeting. Although I know, dearest brother, that very many bishops set over the Lord's churches throughout the whole world by divine favor keep the principle of gospel truth and of the Lord's tradition, and do not depart by any human and novel institution from what Christ the teacher both commanded and did, yet since some, either in ignorance or in simplicity, in sanctifying the Lord's cup and ministering it to the people, do not do what Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, the author and teacher of this sacrifice, did and taught, I have thought it both a religious duty and necessary to write this letter to you on the matter, so that, if anyone is still held in this error, he may see the light of truth and return to the root and origin of the Lord's tradition. And do not think, dearest brother, that we are writing our own human ideas, or boldly taking this upon ourselves of our own will, since we always keep our modest station with humble and reverent restraint. But when something is commanded by God's inspiration and command, a faithful servant must obey his master, excused before all of taking nothing arrogantly upon himself, since he is compelled to fear offending his master if he does not do what he is ordered.

Know, then, that we have been admonished that in offering the cup the Lord's tradition should be kept, and that nothing else should be done by us than what the Lord first did for us: that the cup which is offered in commemoration of him should be offered mixed with wine. For since Christ says, “I am the true vine,” the blood of Christ is surely not water but wine. Nor can his blood, by which we have been redeemed and given life, be seen to be in the cup when wine is lacking from the cup, by which the blood of Christ is shown, and which is proclaimed by the sacrament and testimony of all the Scriptures.

For we find in Genesis too, in the mystery of Noah, that this same thing went before and that a figure of the Lord's passion was there: that he drank wine, that he was drunk, that he was uncovered in his house, that he lay with his thighs naked and exposed, that his father's nakedness was noticed by the middle son and reported outside, but covered by the other two, the elder and the younger; and the other details, which it is not necessary to follow out, since it is enough to grasp this alone, that Noah, showing a type of the truth to come, drank not water but wine, and so expressed an image of the Lord's passion.

Likewise in the priest Melchizedek we see the sacrament of the Lord's sacrifice prefigured, as divine Scripture testifies, saying: “And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine. Now he was a priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abraham.” And that Melchizedek bore a type of Christ the Holy Spirit declares in the Psalms, saying, in the person of the Father to the Son: “Before the morning star I begot you. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” This order is surely this one, coming from that sacrifice and descending from it: that Melchizedek was a priest of God Most High, that he offered bread and wine, that he blessed Abraham. For who is more a priest of God Most High than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered a sacrifice to God the Father, and offered the very same thing that Melchizedek had offered, that is, bread and wine, namely his body and blood? And that blessing which went before, concerning Abraham, belonged to our people. For if Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, surely whoever believes God and lives by faith is found righteous, and is shown to have been blessed and justified long ago in faithful Abraham, as the blessed apostle Paul proves, saying: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Know therefore that those who are of faith, these are the sons of Abraham. And Scripture, foreseeing that God justifies the nations by faith, foretold to Abraham that all the nations would be blessed in him. So those who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” Hence we find in the gospel that sons of Abraham are raised up from stones, that is, gathered from the nations. And when the Lord praised Zacchaeus, he answered and said: “Today salvation has come to this house, since he too is a son of Abraham.” So, in order that in Genesis the blessing of Abraham through the priest Melchizedek might be duly celebrated, an image of the sacrifice, consisting namely in bread and wine, goes before; and the Lord, perfecting and fulfilling this, offered bread and the cup mixed with wine, and he who is the fullness fulfilled the truth of the prefigured image.

But through Solomon too the Holy Spirit shows beforehand a type of the Lord's sacrifice, making mention of the slain victim, of bread and wine, and also of the altar and the apostles. “Wisdom,” he says, “has built a house and set up seven pillars. She has slain her victims, mixed her wine in the bowl, and prepared her table. And she has sent her servants, calling with loud proclamation to the bowl, saying: Whoever is foolish, let him turn aside to me. And to those lacking understanding she said: Come and eat of my loaves and drink the wine which I have mixed for you.” He declares the wine mixed, that is, he foretells with prophetic voice the Lord's cup mixed with water and wine, so that it may appear that in the Lord's passion that was done which had been foretold before.

In the blessing of Judah too the same thing is signified, where there too a figure of Christ is expressed: that he would be praised and worshiped by his brothers; that he would press down, with the hands with which he bore the cross and conquered death, the backs of his enemies yielding and fleeing; and that he himself is the lion of the tribe of Judah, and lies down sleeping in his passion, and rises, and is himself the hope of the nations. To this divine Scripture adds, saying: “He will wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape.” But when the blood of the grape is spoken of, what else is shown but the wine of the Lord's cup, his blood? And likewise in Isaiah the Holy Spirit testifies to the same thing concerning the Lord's passion, saying: “Why are your garments red, and your clothing as from the treading of a full and well-trodden winepress?” Can water make garments red? Or is it water in the winepress that is trodden by feet or pressed out by the press? Wine is mentioned for this very reason: that the Lord's blood may be understood by wine, and that what was later made manifest in the Lord's cup might be proclaimed by the announcing prophets.

The treading and pressing of the winepress is also pointed to: because, as one cannot come to drink wine unless the cluster is first trodden and pressed, so neither could we drink the blood of Christ unless Christ had first been trodden and pressed, and had first drunk the cup, from which he might give drink to those who believe.

But whenever water alone is named in the holy Scriptures, baptism is proclaimed, as we see signified in Isaiah. “Do not remember the former things,” he says, “and do not consider the old things. Behold, I make new things, which will now spring up, and you will know them; and I will make a way in the desert, and rivers in a waterless place, to give drink to my chosen race, my people whom I have acquired, that they might set forth my mighty works.” There God foretold through the prophet that among the nations, in places that had before been waterless, rivers would afterward overflow and give drink to the chosen race of God, that is, to those made sons of God through the generation of baptism. Likewise again it is foretold and proclaimed beforehand that the Jews, if they thirst and seek Christ, will drink with us, that is, will attain the grace of baptism. “If they thirst,” he says, “in the deserts, he will bring them water; he will bring it out of the rock for them; the rock will be split and water will flow, and my people will drink.” This is fulfilled in the gospel, when Christ, who is the rock, is split by the stroke of the lance in his passion; who also, reminding them of what was foretold by the prophet, cries out and says: “If anyone thirsts, let him come and drink, he who believes in me. As the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his belly.” And so that it might be more plain that the Lord is speaking there not of the cup but of baptism, Scripture added, saying: “But this he said of the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.” Now through baptism the Holy Spirit is received, and so those who have been baptized and have attained the Holy Spirit come to drink the Lord's cup. Let no one be troubled that, when divine Scripture speaks of baptism, it says that we thirst and drink, since the Lord too says in the gospel, “Blessed are those who thirst and hunger for righteousness,” because what is received with eager and thirsty desire is drawn more fully and abundantly. As also in another place the Lord speaks to the Samaritan woman, saying: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give will not thirst forever.” By this too the baptism of saving water is signified, which, of course, is received once and not repeated again. But the Lord's cup is always both thirsted for and drunk in the church.

Nor is there need of many arguments, dearest brother, to prove that baptism has always been signified by the name of water, and that we ought so to understand it, since the Lord at his coming made plain the truth of baptism and of the cup: he commanded that that faithful water, the water of eternal life, be given to believers in baptism, but taught by the example of his teaching that the cup be mixed by the joining of wine and water. For taking the cup on the day of his passion, he blessed it and gave it to his disciples, saying: “Drink of this, all of you; for this is the blood of the covenant, which will be poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink henceforth of this creature of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father.” In this passage we find that the cup which the Lord offered was mixed, and that it was wine which he called his blood. Hence it appears that the blood of Christ is not offered if wine is lacking from the cup, nor is the Lord's sacrifice celebrated with lawful sanctification unless our offering and sacrifice corresponds to the passion. And how shall we drink the new wine of the creature of the vine with Christ in the kingdom of the Father, if in the sacrifice of God the Father and of Christ we do not offer wine, nor mix the Lord's cup according to the Lord's tradition?

The blessed apostle Paul too, chosen and sent by the Lord and appointed a preacher of gospel truth, sets down these same things in his letter, saying: “The Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread and gave thanks and broke it and said: This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also the cup, after supper, he took, saying: This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” If this is commanded by the Lord and the same is confirmed and handed down by his apostle, that as often as we drink we should do in remembrance of the Lord what the Lord also did, we find that what was commanded is not observed by us unless we also do the same things that the Lord did, and, mixing the cup in like manner, do not depart from the divine teaching. And that there must be no departure at all from the gospel precepts, and that disciples ought also to observe and do the same things that the master taught and did, the blessed apostle teaches more firmly and strongly in another place, saying: “I wonder that you are so quickly changing from him who called you to grace, to another gospel, which is not another; only there are some who trouble you and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than what we have announced to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: if anyone announces to you other than what you have received, let him be anathema.”

Since, then, neither the apostle himself nor an angel from heaven can announce or teach otherwise than what Christ once taught and his apostles announced, I wonder greatly where this practice has been taken from, that, contrary to the gospel and apostolic discipline, in some places water is offered in the Lord's cup, which alone cannot express the blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit is not silent about the mystery of this in the Psalms either, making mention of the Lord's cup and saying: “Your inebriating cup, how excellent it is!” But a cup that inebriates is surely mixed with wine; for water cannot inebriate anyone. The Lord's cup inebriates in the way that Noah too, drinking wine in Genesis, was inebriated. But since the inebriation of the Lord's cup and blood is not such as is the inebriation of worldly wine, when the Holy Spirit said in the psalm “your inebriating cup,” he added “how excellent it is,” namely because the Lord's cup so inebriates as to make men sober, as to bring minds back to spiritual wisdom, so that each one comes to his senses from this worldly taste to the understanding of God. And as by this common wine the mind is loosened and the soul relaxed and all sadness laid aside, so, when the Lord's blood and the saving cup have been drunk, the memory of the old man is laid aside, the former worldly way of life is forgotten, and the sorrowful and sad heart, which was formerly weighed down by distressing sins, is released by the joy of divine forgiveness. This can gladden the one who drinks in the Lord's church only if what is drunk holds to the Lord's truth.

How perverse and how contrary it is that, while the Lord at the wedding made wine from water, we should make water from wine, when the mystery of that event too ought to admonish and instruct us to offer wine rather in the Lord's sacrifices. For because spiritual grace had failed among the Jews, the wine also failed; for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel. But Christ, teaching and showing that the people of the nations would succeed, and that we would afterward come, by the merit of faith, into the place which the Jews had lost, made wine from water; that is, he showed that at the marriage of Christ and the church, as the Jews ceased, the people of the nations would rather flow together and assemble. For divine Scripture declares in the Apocalypse that waters signify peoples, saying: “The waters which you saw, on which that harlot sits, are peoples and crowds and nations of the heathen and tongues.” This we plainly see to be contained in the mystery of the cup too.

For because Christ bore us all, who also bore our sins, we see that by the water the people are understood, while by the wine the blood of Christ is shown. And when water is mixed with wine in the cup, the people are united to Christ, and the multitude of believers is coupled and joined to him in whom it has believed. This coupling and joining of water and wine is so mixed in the Lord's cup that that mixture cannot be separated from itself. Hence nothing will be able to separate the church, that is, the people established in the church, faithfully and firmly persevering in what it has believed, from Christ, so as to keep it from always clinging and remaining in undivided love. So, then, in sanctifying the Lord's cup water alone cannot be offered, just as wine alone cannot. For if anyone offers wine only, the blood of Christ begins to be without us; but if the water is alone, the people begin to be without Christ. But when both are mixed and joined to each other in a blended union, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is completed. So the Lord's cup is not water alone or wine alone unless both are mixed together, just as the Lord's body cannot be flour alone or water alone unless both have been united and joined and made firm in the structure of one bread. By this very sacrament too our people is shown to be made one: as many grains, gathered into one and ground and mixed together, make one bread, so let us know that in Christ, who is the heavenly bread, there is one body, to which our whole number is joined and united.

There is no reason, then, dearest brother, for anyone to think that the custom of certain people should be followed, if some in the past have thought that water alone should be offered in the Lord's cup. For we must ask whom they themselves have followed. For if in the sacrifice which Christ offered none but Christ is to be followed, surely we ought to obey and do what Christ did and what he commanded to be done, since he himself says in the gospel: “If you do what I command you, I no longer call you servants but friends.” And that Christ alone ought to be heard the Father too testifies from heaven, saying: “This is my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him.” Therefore, if Christ alone is to be heard, we ought not to attend to what another before us thought should be done, but to what Christ, who is before all, first did. For we ought not to follow the custom of man but the truth of God, since God speaks through the prophet Isaiah and says: “In vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men”; and again the Lord repeats the same in the gospel, saying: “You reject the commandment of God that you may establish your tradition.” And in another place too he sets it down and says: “Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and so teaches men will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” But if it is not permitted to break even the least of the Lord's commandments, how much more is it not right to infringe things so important, so great, so closely bound up with the very sacrament of the Lord's passion and of our redemption, or to change them by human tradition into something other than what was divinely instituted? For if Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, is himself the high priest of God the Father, and offered himself as a sacrifice to the Father, and commanded that this be done in remembrance of him, surely that priest truly acts in the place of Christ who imitates what Christ did, and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the church to God the Father if he begins to offer in accordance with what he sees Christ himself to have offered.

Otherwise the whole discipline of religion and truth is overturned, unless what is spiritually commanded is faithfully kept; unless, indeed, someone is afraid in the morning sacrifices that by the taste of wine he may smell of the blood of Christ. So, then, the brotherhood begins to be held back from the passion of Christ in persecutions, while in the offerings it learns to be ashamed of his blood and its shedding. But the Lord says in the gospel: “Whoever is ashamed of me, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him.” And the apostle too speaks, saying: “If I were pleasing men, I would not be the servant of Christ.” And how can we shed our blood for Christ, we who blush to drink the blood of Christ?

Or does anyone flatter himself with the thought that, although in the morning water alone is seen to be offered, yet when we come to supper we offer a mixed cup? But when we sup, we cannot call the people together to our meal, so as to celebrate the truth of the sacrament with the whole brotherhood present. But, it is said, the Lord offered the mixed cup not in the morning but after supper. Must we, then, celebrate the Lord's service after supper, so as to offer the mixed cup at the frequent Lord's gatherings? It was fitting for Christ to offer about the evening of the day, so that the very hour of the sacrifice might show the setting and evening of the world, as it is written in Exodus: “And the whole multitude of the synagogue of the children of Israel will kill it in the evening”; and again in the Psalms: “The lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.” But we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord in the morning.

And because we make mention of his passion in all sacrifices (for the passion of the Lord is the sacrifice which we offer), we ought to do nothing other than what he did. For Scripture says that as often as we offer the cup in remembrance of the Lord and of his passion, we should do what it is established that the Lord did. And let it be seen to, dearest brother: if any of our predecessors, either in ignorance or in simplicity, did not observe and keep what the Lord taught us to do by his example and teaching, pardon may be granted to his simplicity by the Lord's indulgence; but we cannot be forgiven, who have now been admonished and instructed by the Lord to offer the Lord's cup mixed with wine, as the Lord offered it, and to send letters to our colleagues about this too, so that everywhere the law of the gospel and the Lord's tradition may be kept, and there may be no departure from what Christ both taught and did.

To go on despising these things any longer and to persevere in the former error, what else is it than to incur the rebuke of the Lord, who reproaches and says: “Why do you set forth my ordinances and take my covenant in your mouth? 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.” For to set forth the ordinances and covenant of the Lord and not to do the same thing that the Lord did, what else is it than to cast away his words and despise the Lord's discipline, and to commit thefts and adulteries not earthly but spiritual? While one steals from the truth of the gospel the words and deeds of our Lord, he both corrupts and adulterates the divine precepts, as it is written in Jeremiah: “What is the chaff to the wheat? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal my words, each from his neighbor, and lead my people astray in their lies and their errors.” Likewise in the same prophet in another place: “And she committed adultery,” he says, “with wood and stone, and in all these things she did not return to me.” That this theft and adultery may not fall upon us too, we must take care anxiously and observe fearfully and religiously. For if we are priests of God and of Christ, I do not find whom we ought to follow more than God and Christ, since he himself says most emphatically in the gospel: “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” So that we may not walk in darkness, we ought to follow Christ and observe his precepts, since he himself too, sending the apostles, said in another place: “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and teach all nations, dipping them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Therefore, if we wish to walk in the light of Christ, let us not depart from his precepts and warnings, giving thanks that, while he instructs us for the future in what we ought to do, he pardons for the past what we have erred in simplicity. And because his second coming is now drawing near to us, his kind and generous favor enlightens our hearts more and more with the light of truth.

It befits our religion, therefore, and our fear of God, and the very place and office of our priesthood, dearest brother, in mixing and offering the Lord's cup, to keep the truth of the Lord's tradition, and, at the Lord's warning, to correct what seems formerly to have been done in error by some, so that when he begins to come in his brightness and heavenly majesty he may find us holding to what he warned, observing what he taught, doing what he did. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian and the other colleagues who were present at the council, sixty-six in number, to their brother Fidus, greeting. We have read your letter, dearest brother, in which you told us about Victor, formerly a presbyter: that before he had done full penance and made satisfaction to the Lord God, against whom he had sinned, our colleague Therapius rashly gave him peace at an untimely moment and with excessive haste. This troubled us considerably, that there had been a departure from the authority of our decree, so that peace was granted to him before the lawful and full time of satisfaction, and without the request and knowledge of the people, with no sickness pressing and no necessity compelling. But after long weighing the matter among ourselves, it was enough to rebuke our colleague Therapius for having done this rashly, and to instruct him not to do anything of the kind in future. The peace, however, once given in whatever way by a priest of God, we did not think should be taken away, and for this reason we have allowed Victor to make use of the communion granted to him.

As for the case of infants, who you said ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after they are born, and that the law of the ancient circumcision should be taken into account, so that you did not think one who is born should be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day: it seemed quite otherwise in our council. For no one agreed with what you thought should be done; rather, we all judged that the mercy and grace of God must be denied to no human being who is born. For since the Lord says in his gospel, “The Son of Man did not come to destroy men's souls but to save them,” as far as lies in us, if it can be done, no soul is to be lost. For what is lacking to one who has once been formed in the womb by the hands of God? For to us and to our eyes those who are born seem to receive increase according to the course of worldly days; but whatever things are made by God are perfect by the majesty and work of God their maker.

Finally, the faith of divine Scripture declares to us that there is among all, whether infants or older people, one equality of the divine gift, when Elisha, praying to God, stretched himself over the widow's infant son, who lay dead, so that head was laid to head and face to face, and the limbs of Elisha spread over him were joined to each of the little one's limbs, and feet to feet. If this is considered according to the quality of our birth and body, an infant could not be made equal to one grown and advanced in years, nor could small limbs fit and match larger ones. But there a divine and spiritual equality is expressed: that all men are alike and equal, since they have once been made by God, and our age may have a difference in the growth of bodies according to the world, not according to God; unless the grace itself which is given to the baptized is granted less or greater according to the age of those who receive it, whereas the Holy Spirit is given equally to all, not by measure, but by fatherly kindness and indulgence. For God, as he does not respect persons, so neither does he respect age, since he shows himself a Father to all with equal balance for the attaining of heavenly grace.

And as for what you said, that the foot of an infant in the first days after its birth is not clean, and that each of us still shrinks from kissing it: we do not think that this either ought to be an obstacle to the giving of heavenly grace. For it is written: “To the clean all things are clean.” Nor ought any of us to shrink from what God has deigned to make. For although the infant is still fresh from birth, it is not such that anyone ought to shrink from kissing it in giving grace and making peace, since in the kiss of an infant each of us, according to his piety, ought to think of the very hands of God, still fresh, which in a man just formed and newly born we in a manner kiss, when we embrace what God has made. For the fact that the eighth day was observed in the Jewish circumcision of the flesh was a sacrament sent before in shadow and image, but fulfilled in truth when Christ came. For because the eighth day, that is, the first day after the sabbath, was to be the day on which the Lord would rise and give us life and give us spiritual circumcision, this eighth day, that is, the first after the sabbath and the Lord's day, went before in image. This image ceased when the truth afterward came and spiritual circumcision was given to us.

For this reason we think that no one should be hindered from obtaining grace by the law that has already been laid down, and that spiritual circumcision ought not to be hindered by carnal circumcision, but that absolutely everyone should be admitted to the grace of Christ, since Peter too speaks in the Acts of the Apostles and says: “The Lord told me that no man should be called common or unclean.” Besides, if anything could hinder men from obtaining grace, it would rather be graver sins that could hinder adults, those advanced in years, and older people. But if even to the gravest sinners, who have sinned much against God before, remission of sins is given when they afterward believe, and no one is kept from baptism and grace, how much more ought an infant not to be kept from it, who, newly born, has not sinned at all, except that, born carnally according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death by his first birth; who approaches the more easily to receive the remission of sins for this very reason, that it is not his own sins but another's that are remitted to him.

And therefore, dearest brother, this was our sentence in council: that no one ought to be kept by us from baptism and from the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and loving to all. Since this is to be observed and kept regarding everyone, we think it is to be observed all the more regarding infants themselves and the newly born, who deserve more from our help and from the divine mercy for this very reason, that at the very first beginning of their birth, crying and weeping, they do nothing else but plead. We wish you, dearest brother, good health always.