Letters

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and the people living at Furni, greeting. My colleagues who were present and our fellow presbyters who were sitting with us and I were deeply disturbed, dearest brothers, when we learned that our brother Geminius Victor, on departing this world, named the presbyter Geminius Faustinus as guardian in his will, although it was long ago decreed in a council of bishops that no one should appoint any of the clergy and ministers of God as guardian or trustee in his will, since every one of those honoured with the divine priesthood and appointed to the clerical ministry ought to serve only the altar and the sacrifices and to devote himself to prayers and supplications. For it is written: “No one serving as a soldier to God entangles himself in worldly troubles, so that he may please him to whom he has proved himself.” Since this was said of everyone, how much more ought those not to be entangled in worldly troubles and snares who, busied with divine and spiritual things, cannot withdraw from the church and give their time to earthly and worldly business! The pattern of this ordering and observance the Levites held before, in the Law: when the eleven tribes divided the land and shared out the possessions, the tribe of Levi, which was devoted to the temple and the altar and the divine ministries, received nothing from that share of the division; but while the others tilled the land, it tilled only the worship of God, and for its food and sustenance received from the eleven tribes tithes of the crops that grew. All this was done by divine authority and arrangement, so that those who applied themselves to divine service might not be called away by anything, nor be compelled to think about or do worldly business. This principle and pattern is now kept among the clergy, so that those who are promoted by clerical ordination in the church of the Lord may not be called away in any respect from the divine ministry, nor be tied down by worldly troubles and business, but, receiving as it were tithes of the crops in the honour paid by the brothers who contribute, may not withdraw from the altar and the sacrifices, and may serve heavenly and spiritual things day and night.

Our predecessors the bishops, considering this devoutly and providing for it wholesomely, decreed that no brother on departing should name a cleric to guardianship or trusteeship, and that if anyone did so, no offering should be made for him and no sacrifice celebrated for his falling asleep. For he does not deserve to be named at the altar of God in the prayer of the priests who wished to call the priests and ministers away from the altar. And therefore, since Victor, against the rule lately given by the priests in council, dared to appoint the presbyter Geminius Faustinus as guardian, there is no ground for any offering to be made among you for his falling asleep or for any prayer to be said in his name in the church; so that the decree of the priests, made devoutly and of necessity, may be kept by us, and at the same time an example may be given to the other brothers, that no one call away to worldly trouble the priests and ministers of God who are devoted to his altar and church. For it will be possible to see to it that this is not done again in the case of clergy, if what has now been done is punished. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Eucratius, greeting. Out of your love and our mutual respect, dearest brother, you thought I should be consulted about what I think of a certain actor who, living among you, still persists in the disgrace of that same art of his, and, as a master and teacher not of instructing boys but of ruining them, passes on to others too what he has wickedly learned: whether such a man ought to be in communion with us. I think it befits neither the divine majesty nor the discipline of the gospel that the modesty and honour of the church be defiled by so shameful and infamous a contagion. For since in the Law men are forbidden to put on women's clothing, and those who do so are judged accursed, how much greater a crime is it not only to take on women's garments but also, by the teaching of a shameless art, to express base, effeminate, and womanish gestures?

Nor let anyone excuse himself on the ground that he himself has left the theatre, while he still teaches this to others. For he cannot be regarded as having left off who puts substitutes in his place and supplies many replacements for himself alone, instructing and teaching, against God's ordinance, how a male is to be broken down into a female, how sex is to be changed by art, and how the devil, who defiles the divine handiwork, is to be pleased by the sins of a corrupted and unmanned body. But if such a man pleads want and the necessity of poverty, his need too can be relieved among the others who are supported by the church's provisions, provided he is content with plainer and innocent food and does not think he must be paid a salary to stop sinning, since in this it is not us but himself that he serves. Otherwise, whatever he gains from that source, what kind of gain is it that snatches people from the banquet of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and, after fattening them wickedly and ruinously in this world, leads them to the punishments of eternal hunger and thirst? And therefore, as far as you can, call him back from this depravity and disgrace to the way of innocence and to the hope of his life, so that he may be content with the church's allowance, more sparing indeed, but wholesome. And if the church there is not sufficient to provide food for those in need, he can transfer himself to us and receive here what he needs for food and clothing, and not teach deadly things to others outside the church, but himself learn saving things within the church. I wish you, dearest son, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Rogatianus, greeting. My colleagues who were present and I were deeply and painfully disturbed, dearest brother, on reading your letter, in which you complained of your deacon, that, forgetful of your priestly station and unmindful of his own office and ministry, he has provoked you with his insults and injuries. You indeed have acted honourably toward us and with your customary humility in preferring to complain to us about him, although by the vigour of the episcopate and the authority of the chair you had the power to punish him at once, being sure that all of us your colleagues would welcome whatever you did by your priestly power against a deacon who insulted you. For you have divine precepts about such men, since the Lord God says in Deuteronomy: “And any man who acts in pride, so as not to listen to the priest or the judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die; and all the people, when they hear, will fear, and will not act impiously even now.” And that we may know that this word of God went forth with his true and supreme majesty to honour and avenge his priests: when three of the ministers, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, dared to be proud against the priest Aaron, to lift up their necks, and to make themselves equal to the priest set over them, they were swallowed and devoured by the opening of the earth and paid at once the penalty of their sacrilegious daring. Nor they alone; the other two hundred and fifty also, who were their companions in their daring, were consumed by fire breaking out from the Lord, so that it might be proved that the priests of God are avenged by him who makes priests. In the Book of Kingdoms too, when Samuel the priest was despised by the Jewish people because of his old age, as you are now, the Lord cried out in anger and said: “They have not despised you, but they have despised me.” And to avenge this he raised up Saul as king over them, to afflict them with grievous injuries and to trample and crush the proud people with every insult and penalty, so that the despised priest might be avenged of the proud people by divine vengeance.

Solomon too, speaking in the Holy Spirit, testifies and teaches what priestly authority and power are, saying: “With all your soul fear God, and hallow his priests”; and again: “Honour God with all your soul, and honour his priests.” Mindful of these precepts, the blessed apostle, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, when it was said to him, “Do you thus assail the priest of God with abuse?”, answered and said: “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest; for it is written, You shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people.” Our Lord himself too, Jesus Christ, our King and Judge and God, kept honour toward the high priests and priests right up to the day of his passion, although they had kept neither the fear of God nor the knowledge of Christ. For when he had cleansed the leper, he said to him: “Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift.” With that humility by which he taught us too to be humble, he still called him priest whom he knew to be sacrilegious. Likewise, at the very stroke of the passion, when he had received a blow and it was said to him, “Is that how you answer the high priest?”, he said nothing insulting against the person of the high priest, but rather defended his own innocence, saying: “If I have spoken evil, reprove the evil; but if well, why do you strike me?” All these things he did humbly and patiently so that we might have an example of humility and patience. He taught that true priests are to be honoured lawfully and fully, by showing himself such toward false priests.

Deacons, however, ought to remember that the Lord chose apostles, that is, bishops and leaders, whereas deacons were appointed by the apostles, after the Lord's ascension into heaven, as ministers of their episcopate and of the church. But if we can dare anything against God, who makes bishops, then deacons, by whom they are made, can dare things against us. And therefore the deacon of whom you write must do penance for his audacity, so as to acknowledge the honour of the priest and make satisfaction with full humility to the bishop set over him. For these are the beginnings of heretics and the origins and attempts of evil-minded schismatics: to please themselves and to despise the one set over them with swollen pride. So men depart from the church; so a profane altar is set up outside; so there is rebellion against the peace of Christ and the ordinance and unity of God. But if he provokes and exasperates you further with his insults, you will exercise against him the power of your office, so as either to depose him or to exclude him from communion. For if the apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, said, “Let no one despise your youth,” how much more must your colleagues say to you, “Let no one despise your old age.” And since you have written that a certain man has joined himself to that deacon of yours and shares his pride and audacity, you may either restrain or exclude him too, and any others who may appear of the same kind and act against the priest of God. Only we urge and advise that they rather recognize that they have sinned and make satisfaction, and allow us to keep to our purpose; for we would much rather and more earnestly overcome the insults and injuries of individuals by merciful patience than punish them by priestly licence. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian, Caecilius, Victor, Sedatus, and Tertullus, with the presbyters who were present, to their brother Pomponius, greeting. We have read your letter, dearest brother, which you sent by our brother Paconius, asking and desiring that we should write back to you what we think about those virgins who, after once resolving to keep their state continently and firmly, were afterwards discovered to have stayed in the same bed together with men, one of whom is a deacon; and yet the same women, who have confessed that they slept with men, declare that they are intact. Since you have asked our advice on this matter, know that we do not depart from the gospel and apostolic traditions, but always counsel our brothers and sisters steadfastly and firmly and keep the church's discipline by every way of profit and salvation, since the Lord speaks and says: “And I will give you shepherds after my heart, and they will feed you, feeding with discipline.” And again it is written: “He who casts away discipline is unhappy”; and in the psalms too the Holy Spirit instructs us, saying: “Keep hold of discipline, lest the Lord be angry and you perish from the right way, when his anger is quickly kindled against you.”

In the first place, then, dearest brother, both leaders and people must labour for nothing else than that we who fear God should keep the divine precepts with every observance of discipline, and not allow our brothers to go astray and live as they please and for their own indulgence, but faithfully counsel each one toward life; and not allow virgins to live with men, I do not say to sleep together, but not even to live together, since both the weak sex and an age still slippery ought to be curbed and ruled by us in all things, so that no opportunity to do harm may be given to the devil, who lies in wait and longs to rage, since the apostle too says: “Give no place to the devil.” The ship must be watchfully freed from dangerous places, so that it is not broken among the reefs and rocks. The baggage must be quickly got out of the fire before it is burned up by the flames coming upon it. No one is safe for long who is near to danger. Nor will a servant of God be able to escape the devil if he has entangled himself in the devil's snares. We must intervene quickly with such people while they can still be separated innocent, because afterwards they will not be able to be parted by our intervention. Indeed, we see what grievous falls of many come from this, and with the deepest grief of heart we behold very many virgins corrupted by such unlawful and dangerous unions. If they have faithfully dedicated themselves to Christ, let them persevere modest and chaste without any gossip, and thus, strong and steadfast, await the reward of virginity; but if they will not or cannot persevere, it is better that they marry than that they fall into the fire by their sins. Certainly let them give no offence to the brothers or sisters, since it is written: “If food makes my brother stumble, I will not eat meat for ever, lest I make my brother stumble.”

Nor let any woman think she can defend herself by the excuse that it can be examined and proved whether she is a virgin, since both the hands and the eyes of midwives are often deceived; so that even if a virgin is found intact in that part in which a woman can be, she may nonetheless have sinned in some other part of the body, which can be corrupted and yet cannot be examined. Certainly the very lying together, the very embracing, the very talking together and kissing, and the shameful and foul sleeping of two lying side by side, how much disgrace and guilt does it confess! If a husband coming upon them sees his betrothed lying with another, is he not indignant and does he not rage, and perhaps in the pain of jealousy take even a sword in his hands? What of Christ, our Lord and Judge, when he sees his virgin, dedicated to him and destined for his holiness, lying with another? How indignant and angry he is, and what penalties he threatens against such impure unions! That every one of the brothers may escape his spiritual sword and the coming day of judgement, we ought to provide and labour with all our counsel. And while all without exception must keep discipline, it is much more right that leaders and deacons take care of this, who should provide an example and pattern to others by their way of life and conduct. For how can they preside over purity and continence if corruptions begin from them and lessons in vice proceed from them?

And therefore you acted wisely and with vigour, dearest brother, in excluding from communion the deacon who often stayed with a virgin, and also the others who had been accustomed to sleep with virgins. If they do penance for this unlawful lying together and have withdrawn from one another, let the virgins meanwhile be carefully examined by midwives, and if they are found to be virgins, let them receive communion and be admitted to the church, yet with this warning: that if afterwards they return to the same men, or live together with them in one house and under the same roof, they will be cast out with a heavier censure and will not easily be received into the church afterwards. But if any of them is found to have been corrupted, let her do full penance, for she who has committed this crime is an adulteress not against a husband but against Christ; and therefore, after a just period has been judged, and confession has been made, let her return to the church. But if they obstinately persist and do not separate from one another, let them know that with this shameless obstinacy of theirs they can never be admitted by us into the church, lest by their sins they begin to set an example to others for their ruin. Nor let them think that they have any account of life or salvation if they refuse to obey the bishops and priests, since in Deuteronomy the Lord God says: “And any man who acts with pride, so as not to listen to the priest or the judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die; and all the people, when they hear, will fear, and will not act impiously even now.” God commanded that those who did not obey his priests be put to death; he appointed a time of his judgement for the disobedient. And then indeed they were slain with the sword, while circumcision of the flesh still remained; but now, since spiritual circumcision has begun among the faithful servants of God, the proud and contumacious are slain with the spiritual sword, when they are cast out of the church. For they cannot live outside, since the house of God is one and there can be salvation for no one except in the church. And that the undisciplined perish while they do not listen to or obey wholesome precepts, the divine Scripture testifies, which says: “The undisciplined man does not love the one who corrects him. But those who hate reproofs will be consumed shamefully.”

So, dearest brother, that the undisciplined may not be consumed and perish, strive to rule the brotherhood as far as you can with wholesome counsels and to counsel each one toward his salvation. Narrow and strait is the way by which we enter into life, but high and great is the reward when we arrive at glory. Let those who have once made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven please God in all things, and not … priests of God, or through the church offer themselves as a stumbling block to the brothers. And if for the present they seem to be saddened by us, let us nonetheless admonish them with wholesome persuasion, knowing that the apostle too said: “Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?” If they obey, it is most welcome to us: we have made them stand firm unto salvation by the grace of our word. But if some of the perverse will not obey, then, according to the same apostle, who says, “If I were pleasing men, I would not be the servant of Christ,” if we cannot persuade some to make themselves pleasing to Christ, let us at least, for our part, please Christ our Lord and God by keeping his precepts. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brother, good health in the Lord always.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his dearest brothers, greeting. I greet you, safe by the grace of God, dearest brothers, glad to have learned that all is well with regard to your safety too. And since the circumstances of my situation do not now permit me to be present, I ask you, by your faith and devotion, to discharge there both your own duties and mine, so that nothing may be lacking either in discipline or in diligence. As for supplying funds, whether to those who, having confessed the Lord with glorious voice, are held in prison, or to those who are poor and in need and yet persevere in the Lord, I ask that nothing be lacking, since the whole small sum that was collected has been distributed there among the clergy for such emergencies, so that more of them might have the means to work for the needs and distresses of each one.

I also ask that your skill and care be not lacking in securing quiet. For although the brothers, out of their love, are eager to meet and visit the good confessors whom the divine favour has already made illustrious by glorious beginnings, I think this should be done cautiously, and not in crowds or by a large number gathered at once, lest by this very thing ill will be stirred up and access to go in be denied, and while in our insatiable desire we want much, we lose everything. Take counsel therefore and see to it that this can be done more safely with moderation, so that the presbyters also who offer there among the confessors should take turns one at a time, each with one deacon, because the change of persons and the alternation of visitors lessens ill will. For in all things, gentle and humble as befits servants of God, we ought to accommodate ourselves to the times, to look out for quiet, and to provide for the people. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health always, and that you remember us. Greet the whole brotherhood. The deacon greets you, and those who are with me greet you. Farewell.

Cyprian to Sergius and Rogatianus and the other confessors, everlasting greeting in God. I greet you, dearest brothers, wishing that I too might enjoy the sight of you, if the circumstances of my situation allowed me to come to you. For what could happen to me more desirable or more joyful than to cling to you now, so that you might embrace me with those hands which, pure and innocent and keeping faith with the Lord, have rejected sacrilegious services? What more delightful and more sublime than now to kiss your lips, which have confessed the Lord with glorious voice, and to be seen in person by your eyes, which, having despised the world, have proved worthy to look upon God? But since I am not given the opportunity to share in this joy, I send this letter in my place to your ears and eyes, in which I congratulate you and likewise exhort you to persevere strong and steadfast in the confession of heavenly glory, and, having entered on the way of the Lord's favour, to press on with spiritual strength to receive the crown, having as protector and guide the Lord, who said: “And behold, I am with you all days until the consummation of the world.” O blessed prison, which your presence has made illustrious! O blessed prison, which sends men of God to heaven! O darkness brighter than the sun itself and clearer than this light of the world, where now the temples of God and your members, hallowed by divine confessions, are placed!

Let nothing now occupy your hearts and minds but the divine precepts and heavenly commands, by which the Holy Spirit has always encouraged us to endure suffering. Let no one think of death, but of immortality; not of temporary punishment, but of everlasting glory; since it is written: “Precious in the sight of God is the death of his righteous ones.” And again: “A troubled spirit is a sacrifice to God; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” And again, where the divine Scripture speaks of the torments that consecrate the martyrs of God and sanctify them by the very testing of suffering: “And though in the sight of men they have suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality; and having been troubled a little, they will be greatly rewarded, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace he proved them, and as a whole burnt offering he accepted them; and in their time there will be regard for them. They will judge nations and rule over peoples, and their Lord will reign for ever.” When therefore you consider that you will judge and reign with Christ the Lord, you must exult and trample on present torments in the joy of what is to come, knowing that it was so ordained from the beginning of the world that righteousness should toil here in the conflict of this age; since at the very first origin the righteous Abel is slain, and after him all the righteous, and the prophets and apostles who were sent. To all of these the Lord too set an example in himself, teaching that none come to his kingdom except those who have followed him by his way, saying: “He who loves his life in this world will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” And again: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can kill both soul and body in Gehenna.” Paul also exhorts us that we who desire to come to the Lord's promises ought to imitate the Lord in all things. “We are,” he says, “children of God; and if children, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.” He also added a comparison of the present time and the future glory, saying: “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to come, which will be revealed in us.” Thinking of the splendour of this glory, we ought to endure all distresses and persecutions, because, though the distresses of the righteous are many, yet those who trust in God are delivered out of them all.

Blessed too are the women who are with you, placed in the same glory of confession, who, holding fast the Lord's faith and stronger than their sex, are not only themselves near the crown, but have also given other women an example by their constancy. And that nothing might be lacking to the glory of your number, so that every sex and age might be with you in honour, the divine favour has joined boys also to you in a glorious confession, presenting to us something like what Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, those illustrious youths, once did: when they were shut in the furnace, the fires gave way and the flames gave refreshment, the Lord being present with them and proving that the burning of Gehenna could do nothing against his confessors and martyrs, but that those who believed in God would always continue unharmed and safe in all things. And I ask you, by your devotion, to consider more carefully what faith those youths had, which was able to merit God's favour more fully. For, ready for everything, as we all ought to be, they said to the king: “King Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you concerning this word. For the God whom we serve is able to rescue us from the furnace of burning fire, and he will deliver us out of your hands, O king. And if not, let it be known to you that we do not serve your gods and do not worship the golden image that you have set up.” Although they believed, and knew that because of their faith they could be delivered even from the present punishment, they nevertheless would not boast of this or claim it for themselves, saying, “And if not,” so that the strength of their confession might not be less without the testimony of suffering. They added that God can do all things, but that they did not rely on this, so as to wish to be delivered at present; rather they thought of that glory of everlasting freedom and security.

Holding fast this faith ourselves also, and meditating on it day and night, let us, ready for God with our whole heart and despising the present, think only of the things to come: the fruit of the eternal kingdom, the embrace and kiss of the Lord, the sight of God. So may you follow in all things the presbyter Rogatianus, the glorious old man, who by his devout courage and the divine favour is making a way for you to the glory of our time; who, with our brother Felicissimus, always quiet and sober, receiving the attack of the raging people, first prepared lodging for you in the prison, and, as if your quartermaster, now also goes before us. That this may be completed in you we pray the Lord with continual prayers, that the beginnings may go on to their fulfilment, and that those whom he has made to confess he may also make to be crowned. I wish you, dearest and most blessed brothers, good health in the Lord always, and that you may come to the glory of the heavenly crown.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his dearest brothers, greeting. I greet you, dearest brothers, safe by the grace of God, and wishing to come to you soon, so that both my longing and yours and that of all the brothers may be satisfied. Yet we must consider the common peace, and for a time, though with weariness of mind, be absent from you, lest our presence provoke the ill will and violence of the heathen, and we become the cause of breaking the peace, we who ought rather to consider the quiet of all. When therefore you write that matters are settled and I ought to come, or if the Lord deigns to show me before then, I will come to you. For where could it be better or happier for me than there, where God willed me both to believe and to grow? I ask you to take diligent care of the widows and the sick and all the poor. And to strangers also, if any are in need, supply funds from my own sum which I left with our fellow presbyter Rogatianus. In case that sum has perhaps already been entirely paid out, I have sent him another portion by the acolyte Naricus, so that the work may be done more generously and readily for those in need. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

We have learned from Crementius the subdeacon, who came to us from you for a particular reason, that the blessed pope Cyprian has withdrawn; which he has certainly done rightly, because he is a prominent person, and because of the impending contest which God has permitted in the world, for the sake of struggling with the adversary together with his servants, wishing also to make this contest manifest to angels and men, that he who conquers may be crowned, while he who is conquered will bring upon himself the sentence that has been made known to us. And since it is incumbent on us, who seem to be leaders and to guard the flock in the place of shepherds, if we are found negligent it will be said to us what was also said to our predecessors, who were such negligent leaders: that we have not sought the lost, nor corrected the wandering, nor bound up the lame, and we used to eat their milk and clothe ourselves with their wool. Finally, the Lord himself also, fulfilling what was written in the Law and the prophets, teaches, saying: “I am the good shepherd, who lay down my life for my sheep. But the hireling, whose own the sheep are not, when he sees the wolf coming, leaves them and flees, and the wolf scatters them.” And to Simon too he says thus: “Do you love me?” He answered, “I love you.” He said to him: “Feed my sheep.” We know that this word was fulfilled by the very act by which he departed, and the other disciples did likewise.

We do not wish, therefore, most beloved brothers, to be found hirelings, but good shepherds, since you know that no small danger lies upon you if you do not exhort our brothers to stand immovable in the faith, lest the brotherhood be utterly uprooted as they rush headlong into idolatry. Nor do we exhort you to this in words only; you will be able to learn from many who come from us to you that, with God's help, we have done and are doing all these things with all care and at worldly risk, having before our eyes the fear of God and eternal punishments rather than the fear of men and a brief injury, not deserting the brotherhood, and exhorting them to stand in the faith and to be ready to go with the Lord. We have even called back those who were going up to do what they were being compelled to do. The church stands strong in the faith, although some, compelled by terror itself, whether because they were prominent persons or because they were seized with the fear of men, have fallen. These indeed, though separated from us, we have not abandoned, but we have exhorted them and do exhort them to do penance, if in any way they may be able to receive pardon from him who can grant it, lest, if they are abandoned by us, they become worse.

You see, therefore, brothers, that you too ought to do this, so that even those who have fallen, as you correct their minds by your exhortation, may confess if they are arrested again, so that they may correct their former error; and there are other things incumbent on you, which we have also added: that if those who have fallen into this temptation begin to be seized with sickness, and do penance for their deed and desire communion, help should certainly be given them. Whether widows, or the afflicted who cannot support themselves, or those who are in prison, or those shut out of their homes, they certainly ought to have people to minister to them. And catechumens too, if seized with sickness, ought not to be disappointed, but should be helped. And, what is most important, if the bodies of the martyrs or of others are not buried, a great danger hangs over those on whom this work falls. Whoever of you, then, on whatever occasion, has accomplished this work, we are sure he will be counted a good servant, so that he who has been faithful in the least may be set over ten cities. May God, who grants all things to those who hope in him, grant that we may all be found in these works. The brothers who are in chains greet you, and the presbyters and the whole church, which itself also keeps watch with the greatest care for all who call on the name of the Lord. And we ask you in turn to remember us. Know also that Bassianus has reached us. And we ask you, who have zeal for God, to send a copy of this letter to whomever you can by suitable opportunities, or make your own, or send a messenger, so that they may stand strong and immovable in the faith. We wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons living at Rome, his brothers, greeting. When the report among us of the departure of the good man, my colleague, was uncertain, dearest brothers, and opinion wavered in doubt, I received a letter from you, sent to me by the subdeacon Crementius, by which I was most fully informed of his glorious end; and I rejoiced greatly that, in keeping with the integrity of his administration, its completion also proved honourable. In this I congratulate you too very much, that you honour his memory with so solemn and illustrious a testimony, so that through you we might learn what is glorious for you regarding the memory of your leader, and what also gives us an example of faith and courage. For as much as the fall of a leader is a ruinous thing, leading to the fall of those who follow, so much, on the other hand, is it useful and salutary when a bishop offers himself to the brothers to be imitated through the firmness of his faith. I have also read a letter in which neither the writers nor those to whom it was written are clearly stated. And since in that letter the handwriting, the content, and even the paper itself disturbed me, lest anything of the truth should have been removed or altered, I have sent the original letter back to you, so that you may check whether it is the one you gave to the subdeacon Crementius to deliver. For it is very serious if the truth of a clerical letter has been corrupted by any falsehood or fraud. So that we may know this, therefore, check whether the handwriting and the signature are yours, and write back to us what the truth is. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors of Jesus Christ our Lord, everlasting greeting in God the Father. I exult with joy and give thanks, bravest and most blessed brothers, on learning of your faith and courage, in which mother church glories. She gloried lately too, when, the confession being maintained, the penalty was undergone that made the confessors of Christ exiles. Yet the present confession is as much more illustrious and greater in honour as it is braver in suffering. The fight has grown, and the glory of the fighters has grown too. You were not held back from the battle by fear of torments, but by the torments themselves you were rather provoked to the battle; brave and steadfast, you went forth with ready devotion to the fight of the greatest contest. Of you I have learned that some have already been crowned, some are close to the crown of victory, and all whom the prison has shut in, a glorious column, are animated with equal and like warmth of courage to wage the contest, as the soldiers of Christ ought to be in the divine camp: so that flattery does not deceive the uncorrupted firmness of faith, threats do not terrify it, torture and torments do not overcome it; because greater is he who is in us than he who is in this world, and earthly punishment has no more power to cast down than divine protection has to raise up. The thing has been proved by the glorious contest of the brothers, who, becoming leaders to the rest in overcoming torments, gave an example of courage and faith, engaging in the battle until the battle line gave way, conquered.

With what praises, then, shall I proclaim you, bravest brothers? With what heraldry of speech shall I adorn the strength of your heart and the perseverance of your faith? You endured the harshest interrogation until glory was complete; you did not give way to the tortures, but rather the tortures gave way to you. The end of your pains, which the torments did not give, the crowns gave. The heavier butchery persisted long, not to cast down a faith that stood, but to send the men of God more quickly to the Lord. The multitude of those present saw with wonder the heavenly contest of God, the spiritual battle of Christ: his servants standing with free voice, uncorrupted mind, divine courage, naked indeed of worldly weapons, but armed, as believers, with the arms of faith. The tortured stood stronger than the torturers, and the beaten and torn limbs overcame the beating and tearing hooks. The blow, raging long and repeated, could not overcome the invincible faith, although, with the framework of the flesh broken, it was no longer limbs but wounds that were tortured in the servants of God. Blood flowed that would quench the fire of persecution, that would still the flames and fires of Gehenna with glorious gore. O what a spectacle that was for the Lord, how sublime, how great, how acceptable in the eyes of God, by the oath and devotion of his soldier! As it is written in the psalms, the Holy Spirit speaking to us and at the same time admonishing us: “Precious in the sight of God is the death of his righteous ones.” Precious is this death, which has bought immortality at the price of its own blood, which has received the crown of God by the completion of its courage.

How glad Christ was there! How willingly he both fought and conquered in such servants of his, the protector of faith, giving to believers as much as he who receives believes that he receives! He was present at his own contest; he raised up, strengthened, and animated the fighters and champions of his name. And he who once for all conquered death for us always conquers in us. “When they deliver you up,” he says, “do not think what you will say; for it will be given you in that hour what to say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.”

The present battle has given proof of this. A voice full of the Holy Spirit broke forth from the martyr's mouth, when the most blessed Mappalicus, amid his tortures, said to the proconsul: “Tomorrow you will see a contest.” And what he said with the testimony of courage and faith the Lord fulfilled. The heavenly contest was presented, and the servant of God was crowned in the struggle of the promised contest. This is the contest which the prophet Isaiah foretold, saying: “It is no small struggle for you with men, since God provides the contest.” And to show what this contest would be, he added, saying: “Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel.” This is the contest of our faith, in which we engage, in which we conquer, in which we are crowned. This is the contest which the blessed apostle Paul also showed us, in which we must run and come to the glory of the crown. “Do you not know,” he says, “that those who run in the stadium all run, but one receives the prize? So run that you may win. And they do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable.” Likewise, showing his own struggle and promising that he would soon be a sacrifice to the Lord, he says: “I am already being poured out, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good contest, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. There remains for me now the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” This contest, then, foretold by the prophets, begun by the Lord, carried on by the apostles, Mappalicus promised again to the proconsul in his own name and that of his colleagues. Nor did the faithful voice fail in its promise. The fight he pledged he presented, and the prize he merited he received. This most blessed martyr now, and the others who shared the same engagement, companions steadfast in faith, patient in pain, victors under interrogation, I both wish and exhort that the rest of you also follow; so that those whom the bond of confession and the lodging of the prison have joined together, the completion of courage and the heavenly crown may also join; so that by your joy you may wipe away the tears of mother church, who mourns the falls and deaths of very many, and by the challenge of your example may strengthen the firmness of the others who stand. If the battle calls you, if the day of your contest comes, fight bravely, struggle steadfastly, knowing that you struggle under the eyes of the Lord who is present, that by the confession of his name you come to his glory; who is not such that he only watches his servants, but he himself wrestles in us, himself engages, himself in the struggle of our contest both crowns and is crowned. But if, by the Lord's mercy, peace comes before the day of your contest, the will remains whole in you and the conscience glorious. Nor let any of you be saddened as though he were less than those who, having endured torments before you, have come to the Lord by a glorious road, having conquered and trampled on the world. The Lord is the searcher of the reins and the heart; he sees into secrets and beholds hidden things. To merit the crown from him, the testimony of him alone who is to judge suffices. Both things therefore, dearest brothers, are equally sublime and illustrious: the one, more secure, to hasten to the Lord with the completion of victory; the other, more joyful, to receive leave after glory and flourish in the praise of the church. O blessed church of ours, which the honour of the divine favour so illuminates, which in our times the glorious blood of martyrs makes illustrious! Before, she was white in the works of the brothers; now she has become purple in the blood of martyrs. Among her flowers neither lilies nor roses are lacking. Let each now strive for the most ample dignity of both honours. Let them receive crowns, either white from works or purple from suffering. In the heavenly camp both peace and battle have their flowers, with which the soldier of Christ may be crowned for glory. I wish you, bravest and most blessed brothers, good health in the Lord always, and that you remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. Although I know, dearest brothers, that out of the fear which each of us owes to God you too are urgently applying yourselves there to continual prayers and earnest supplications, I myself nonetheless also remind your devout care that, to appease and entreat God, we should groan not with voice alone but also with fastings and tears and every kind of supplication. For we must understand and confess that the turbulent devastation of this affliction, which has laid waste our flock for the most part and is laying it waste still, has come because of our sins, since we do not keep the way of the Lord nor observe the heavenly commands given us for salvation. Our Lord did the will of the Father, and we do not do the will of God, being eager for property and gain, pursuing pride, given over to rivalry and dissension, careless of simplicity and faith, renouncing the world in words only and not in deeds, each pleasing himself and displeasing everyone. So we are beaten as we deserve, since it is written: “But that servant who knows his master's will and has not obeyed his will shall be beaten with many stripes.” But what blows, what scourges do we not deserve, when not even the confessors, who ought to have been an example to the rest for good conduct, keep discipline? And so, while the swollen and shameless boasting of their confession insolently exalts some, the torments have come: torments without end for the torturer, without outcome in condemnation, without the comfort of death; torments that do not easily release to the crown, but torture as long as it takes to cast down; unless someone, withdrawn by the divine favour, has passed on in the very midst of the tortures, having obtained glory not by the end of the punishment but by the swiftness of dying.

We suffer these things through our own sin and desert, as the divine judgement warned beforehand, saying: “If they forsake my law and do not walk in my judgements, if they profane my statutes and do not observe my precepts, I will visit their crimes with the rod and their sins with scourges.” We feel the rods and scourges, then, who neither please God by good deeds nor make satisfaction for our sins. Let us ask God's mercy from our inmost heart and with our whole mind, for he himself also added, saying: “But my mercy I will not scatter from them.” Let us ask, and we receive; and if there is delay and slowness in receiving, since we have gravely offended, let us knock, because to the one who knocks it is opened, if only our prayers and groans and tears knock at the door, in which we must persist and linger, and if the prayer is of one mind.

For what most persuaded and compelled me to write this letter to you, you must know, as the Lord deigns to show and reveal: it was said in a vision, “Ask, and you will obtain.” Then the people standing by were commanded to ask for certain persons pointed out to them; but in asking their voices were discordant and their wills at variance, and this greatly displeased him who had said, “Ask, and you will obtain,” that the people were uneven and out of tune, and there was not one simple agreement of the brothers and united concord. For it is written: “God, who makes those of one mind to dwell in a house”; and we read in the Acts of the Apostles: “And the multitude of those who had believed acted with one soul and mind”; and the Lord commanded with his own voice, saying: “This is my commandment, that you love one another”; and again: “But I tell you that if two of you agree on earth about anything whatever that you ask, it will be done for you by my Father who is in heaven.” If two of one mind can do so much, what if there were unanimity among all? If there were agreement among all the brothers according to the peace which the Lord has given us, we would long ago have obtained from the divine mercy what we ask, and we would not have been tossed so long in this danger to our salvation and faith; indeed, these evils would not have come upon the brothers at all, if the brotherhood had been animated as one.

For this too was shown: that the father of the household was sitting, and on his right a young man was sitting; the young man sat anxious and somewhat sad with a kind of indignation, holding his chin in his hand with a sorrowful face. Another, standing on the left side, was carrying a net, which he threatened to cast to catch the people standing around. And when the one who saw it wondered what this was, he was told that the young man sitting thus on the right was saddened and grieved that his precepts were not being observed, while the one on the left exulted that an opportunity was being given him to receive from the father of the household power to rage. This was shown long before the storm of this devastation arose. And we see fulfilled what had been shown: that while we despise the Lord's precepts, while we do not keep the salutary commands of the law given us, the enemy received the power to do harm, and with the cast of his net covered those less armed and less wary to resist.

Let us pray urgently and groan with continual supplications. For know, dearest brothers, that this too was not long ago made a reproach to us through a vision: that we are drowsy in our prayers and do not pray watchfully. And certainly God, who loves whom he rebukes, when he rebukes, rebukes in order to amend, and amends in order to save. Let us therefore shake off and break the bonds of sleep and pray urgently and watchfully, as the apostle Paul commands, saying: “Persevere in prayer, watching in it.” For the apostles too did not cease to pray day and night, and the Lord himself also, the teacher of discipline and the way of our example, prayed often and watchfully, as we read in the gospel: “He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” And certainly what he prayed he prayed for us, since he himself was not a sinner but bore our sins. So much indeed did he intercede for us that we read in another place: “And the Lord said to Peter: Behold, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail.” If he labours and watches and prays for us and for our sins, how much more ought we to persist in supplications and pray, and first ask the Lord himself, and then through him make satisfaction to God the Father! We have as advocate and intercessor for our sins Jesus Christ our Lord and God, if only we repent of having sinned in the past, and, confessing and understanding the sins by which we now offend the Lord, promise at least to walk in his ways henceforth and to fear his precepts. The Father both corrects and protects us, provided we stand in faith and, amid afflictions and distresses, cling firmly to his Christ, as it is written: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword?” None of these can separate believers; nothing can tear away those who cleave to his body and blood. This persecution is a testing and a searching out of our sin; God has willed us to be sifted and proved, as he has always proved his own; and yet in his provings help has never been lacking to believers.

Finally, to the least of his servants, who is placed in very many sins and unworthy of his favour, he nevertheless, out of his goodness toward us, deigned to send this word: “Tell him,” he said, “to be of good heart, because peace is coming; but that there is a little delay meanwhile, because there still remain some to be proved.” We are also admonished by divine favours about sparing food and sober drink, namely, lest the enticement of the world enervate a heart already lifted high by heavenly vigour, or lest the mind, weighed down by more lavish feasts, be less watchful for the supplications of prayer.

I ought not to pass over these several things or hide them alone in my own conscience, by which each one of us may be instructed and guided; nor, then, should you keep this letter hidden among yourselves, but bring it to the brothers to be read. For to intercept the things by which the Lord deigns to admonish and instruct us belongs to one who does not want his brother admonished and instructed. Let them know that we are being proved by our Lord, and let them not fall away, in the struggle of the present affliction, from the faith with which we once believed in him; each recognizing his own sins, let them at least now put off the way of life of the old man. For no one who looks back and puts his hand to the plough is fit for the kingdom of God. Lot's wife, when she had been delivered, looked back against the command and lost what she had escaped. Let us attend not to the things behind, to which the devil calls us back, but to the things before, to which Christ calls us. Let us lift our eyes to heaven, lest the earth deceive us with its delights and enticements. Let each one pray to God not for himself only but for all the brothers, as the Lord taught us to pray, where he does not command a private prayer for individuals, but bade those who pray with common prayer and harmonious supplication to pray for all. If the Lord sees us humble and quiet, joined to one another, fearful of his anger, corrected and amended by the present tribulation, he will keep us safe from the attacks of the enemy. Discipline has gone before; pardon will follow.

Only let us, unceasing in asking and faithful in receiving, simple and of one mind, entreat the Lord, entreating with groaning and weeping alike, as those ought to entreat who are placed between the falls of those who lament and the remnants of those who fear, between the numerous slaughter of the weak and the scant firmness of those who stand. Let us ask that peace be restored more quickly, that help come soon to our hiding places and dangers, that what the Lord deigns to show his servants be fulfilled: the restoration of his church, the security of our salvation, after rains fair weather, after darkness light, after storms and whirlwinds a peaceful calm, the loving help of fatherly love, the accustomed mighty works of the divine majesty, by which the blasphemy of the persecutors may be beaten back, the penance of the lapsed reformed, and the strong and steadfast faith of those who persevere may glory. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always, and that you remember us. Greet the brotherhood in my name and remind them to remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. Although I know, dearest brothers, that you have been often admonished in my letters that every diligence be shown to those who have confessed the Lord with glorious voice and are held in prison, yet I press upon you again and again that nothing be lacking to the care of those to whom nothing is lacking in glory. And would that the circumstances of my place and rank permitted me to be present myself now: promptly and gladly I would fulfil, with the customary ministry, all the services of love toward our bravest brothers. But let your diligence represent my office and do all that ought to be done for those whom the divine favour has made illustrious by such merits of their faith and courage. To the bodies also of all those who, even if they have not been tortured, nevertheless depart in prison by the glorious end of death, let more attentive watchfulness and care be given. For neither their courage nor their honour is any less, so as to keep them from being joined, they too, to the blessed martyrs. As far as in them lay, they endured whatever they were ready and prompt to endure. He who offered himself to torments and death under the eyes of God has suffered whatever he was willing to suffer. For it was not he who failed the torments, but the torments that failed him. “Whoever confesses me before men, I too will confess him before my Father,” says the Lord. They have confessed. “He who endures to the end, he will be saved,” says the Lord. They have endured, and have carried the merits of their virtues uncorrupted and unstained right to the end. And again it is written: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” They have remained faithful, steadfast, and invincible unto death. When to our will and confession in prison and chains the end of dying is also added, the glory of martyrdom is complete.

Finally, note also the days on which they depart, so that we may celebrate their commemorations among the memorials of the martyrs; although Tertullus, our most faithful and devoted brother, among the other care and concern which he bestows on the brothers in every service of work, and who is not lacking there either in the care of the bodies, has written and writes and informs me of the days on which our blessed brothers in prison pass to immortality by the end of a glorious death, so that offerings and sacrifices for their commemorations may be celebrated here by us, which with the Lord's protection we shall soon celebrate with you. Let your care and diligence not be lacking to the poor either, as I have often written, but to those who, standing in the faith and fighting bravely with us, have not left the camp of Christ; to whom indeed greater love and care must now be shown by us, because, neither driven by poverty nor laid low by the storm of persecution, while they serve the Lord faithfully, they have given an example of faith to the other poor as well. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health always, and that you remember us. Greet the brotherhood in my name.

Cyprian to the presbyter Rogatianus and the other confessors, his brothers, greeting. Some time ago, dearest and bravest brothers, I sent you a letter in which I congratulated your faith and courage in exultant words; and now our voice embraces nothing else first than that we should proclaim often and always, with glad heart, the glory of your name. For what could be greater or better in my prayers than when I see the flock of Christ lit up by the honour of your confession? For while all the brothers ought to rejoice in this, the bishop's share in the common joy is the greater. For the glory of the church is the glory of its leader. As much as we grieve over those whom the hostile storm has laid low, so much do we rejoice over you, whom the devil could not overcome.

We exhort you, however, by our common faith, by the true and simple love of our heart toward you, that you who have conquered the adversary in this first encounter hold fast your glory with brave and persevering courage. We are still in the world, still placed in the battle line; we fight daily for our life. We must take pains that after these beginnings there may be growth also, and that what you have already begun to be with happy first steps may be completed in you. It is a small thing to have been able to obtain something; it is more to be able to keep what you have obtained; just as faith itself and saving birth give life not by being received but by being guarded. Nor is it attainment at once, but completion, that keeps a person for God. The Lord taught this by his teaching, saying: “Behold, you have been made well; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you.” Suppose him to say this also to his confessor: “Behold, you have been made a confessor; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you.” Solomon, indeed, and Saul, and many others, as long as they did not walk in the ways of the Lord, could not keep the grace given to them: when the Lord's discipline departed from them, grace departed too.

We must persevere in the narrow and strait road of praise and glory; and while quietness and humility and the tranquillity of good conduct befit all Christians, according to the word of God, which looks to no one but the humble and quiet and the one who trembles at his words, then it is all the more fitting that confessors observe and fulfil this, who have been made an example to the other brothers, to whose conduct the life and actions of all ought to be stirred. For as the Jews were estranged from God, because of whom the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles, so, on the other hand, those are dear to God through whose discipline the name of the Lord is proclaimed with praiseworthy testimony, as it is written, the Lord forewarning and saying: “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” And the apostle Paul says: “Shine as lights in the world.” And Peter likewise exhorts: “As strangers,” he says, “and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly desires, which war against the soul, having your conduct good among the Gentiles, so that while they speak against you as evildoers, seeing your good works they may magnify the Lord.” This indeed the greatest part of you takes care to do, to my joy; and made better by the very honour of your confession, it guards and keeps its glory by quiet and good conduct.

But I hear that some are staining your number and destroying the praise of your distinguished name by their depraved conduct; and you yourselves, as lovers and keepers of your praise, ought to rebuke, restrain, and correct them. For with what shame to your name is it sinned, when one lingers drunk and wanton, and another returns to the homeland from which he was exiled, to perish when caught, no longer as a Christian but as a criminal! I hear that some are puffed up and swollen, although it is written: “Do not be high-minded, but fear. For if the Lord did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you either.” Our Lord was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is without voice, so he did not open his mouth. “I am not stubborn,” he says, “nor do I contradict. I have given my back to the scourges and my cheeks to the palms; and I did not turn away my face from the filth of spitting.” And does anyone, living now through him and in him, dare to exalt himself and be proud, forgetful both of the deeds he did and of the commands he has handed down to us, either himself or through his apostles? But if the servant is not greater than his master, let those who follow the Lord imitate his footsteps, humble and quiet and silent, since the lower anyone is, the higher he becomes, as the Lord says: “He who is least among you, he will be great.”

What, then, of this, which ought to seem to you detestable, which we have learned with the deepest groaning and grief of heart: that there are not lacking some who defile the temples of God, and members sanctified and made more illustrious after confession, by their base and infamous lying together, sharing beds promiscuously with women? Even if their conscience is free of actual fornication, this itself is a great crime, that from their scandal examples arise for the ruin of others. There ought also to be no quarrels and rivalries among us, since the Lord has left us his peace, and it is written: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself. But if you bite and accuse one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” I beg you also to abstain from abuse and reviling, because neither will revilers obtain the kingdom of God; and the tongue that has confessed Christ must be kept unharmed and pure together with its honour. For he who speaks peaceable, good, and just things according to the precept of Christ confesses Christ daily. We had renounced the world when we were baptized; but now truly we renounce the world, when, tempted and proved by God, leaving all that is ours, we have followed the Lord and stand and live in his faith and fear.

Let us strengthen ourselves by mutual exhortations and advance more and more in the Lord, so that when, in his mercy, he makes the peace he promises to make, we may return to the church new and almost changed, and our brothers or the heathen may receive us corrected in all things and reformed for the better; and those who formerly admired the glory in our courage may now admire the discipline in our conduct. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. I had indeed wished, dearest brothers, to greet our whole clergy by my letter whole and unharmed. But since the hostile storm which has laid low our people for the greatest part has added to our sorrows this further heap, that it has touched even a part of the clergy with its destruction, we pray the Lord that you, whom we know to stand in faith and courage, we may greet safe also in future through the divine mercy. And although reasons pressed me to hasten and come to you myself, first from my desire and longing for you, which is the highest thing in my prayers, and then so that we might together deal with the matters that the common interest demands concerning the governing of the church, and, having examined them with the counsel of many, refine them: yet it seemed better still to keep to my hiding place and quiet for the present, out of regard for other interests which concern the peace and safety of all of us. An account of these will be given to you by our dearest brother Tertullus, who, besides the rest of the care which he devotes earnestly to divine works, was also the author of this advice: that I should be cautious and moderate, and not rashly expose myself to public view, and especially in that place where I had been so often demanded and sought.

Relying therefore on your love and devotion, which I know well enough, I both exhort and charge you by this letter that you, whose presence there is least exposed to ill will and not so dangerous, discharge my office in carrying out what the religious administration requires. Meanwhile let care of the poor be kept as far as possible and in whatever way possible, provided they have stood with unshaken faith and have not left the flock of Christ, so that funds may be supplied to them through your diligence to bear their want, lest what the storm did not do to the faithful, necessity do to those in need. Let more attentive care be given also to the glorious confessors. And although I know that very many of them have been taken in by the prayers and love of the brothers, yet if there are any who lack clothing or funds, as I wrote to you before, when they were still held in prison, let whatever is necessary be supplied to them; only let them know from you, and be instructed, and learn what the church's discipline requires according to the teaching of the Scriptures: that they ought to be humble and modest and quiet, so as to keep the honour of their name; that those who were glorious in voice may be glorious in conduct too; that they make themselves worthy, so that, deserving well of the Lord in all things, they may come to the heavenly crown by the completion of their praise. For more remains than seems accomplished, since it is written: “Before death praise no man”; and again: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life”; and the Lord also says: “He who endures to the end, he will be saved.” Let them imitate the Lord, who at the very time of his passion was not prouder but humbler. For then he washed the feet of his disciples, saying: “If I, your master and lord, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash the feet of others. For I have given you an example, that as I have done, you also should do to others.” Let them likewise follow the teachings of the apostle Paul, who after repeated imprisonment, after scourges, after beasts, remained gentle and humble in all things, and even after the third heaven and paradise claimed nothing insolently for himself, saying: “Nor did we eat bread from anyone for nothing, but working in labour and toil night and day, so as not to burden any of you.”

Convey each of these things, I beg you, to our brothers. And since he who humbles himself will be exalted, now is the time for them to fear the more the adversary who lies in wait, who attacks the stronger the more, and, made fiercer by the very fact that he was conquered, tries to overcome the one who overcame him. The Lord will grant that I may see them and, by wholesome exhortation, settle their minds to keep their glory. For I grieve when I hear that some run about wickedly and insolently, give their time to follies or discords, defile the members of Christ, which have already confessed Christ, by unlawful lying together, and cannot be ruled by deacons or presbyters, but act so that through the depraved and evil conduct of a few the honourable glory of many good confessors is stained; they ought to fear that, condemned by the testimony and judgement of these, they may be deprived of their fellowship. For he, in the end, is the illustrious and true confessor of whom the church is not afterwards ashamed but glories.

As for what our fellow presbyters Donatus, Fortunatus, Novatus, and Gordius wrote to me, I could write back nothing alone, since from the beginning of my episcopate I resolved to do nothing by my own private opinion without your counsel and without the consent of the people. But when by the grace of God I come to you, then we shall deal in common, as mutual honour requires, with the things that have either been done or are to be done. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health always, and that you remember me. Greet warmly from me the brotherhood, whatever of it is with you, and remind them to remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors, his dearest brothers, greeting. The responsibility of our position and the fear of God compel me, bravest and most blessed martyrs, to admonish you by our letter that the same people by whom the faith of the Lord is kept so devoutly and bravely should also keep the law and discipline of the Lord. For while all the soldiers of Christ ought to guard the precepts of their commander, then it is more fitting that you obey his precepts all the more, since you have been made an example to the rest both of courage and of the fear of God. I had indeed believed that the presbyters and deacons who are present there were admonishing you and instructing you most fully concerning the law of the gospel, as was always done in the past under our predecessors, so that the deacons, going to and from the prison, guided the desires of the martyrs by their counsels and by the precepts of the Scriptures. But now, with the greatest grief of heart, I learn that not only are the divine precepts not being suggested to you there, but that they are rather being obstructed, so that what is done by you yourselves, both cautiously toward God and honourably toward the priest of God, is being undone by certain presbyters. Thinking neither of the fear of God nor of the bishop's honour, although you sent me a letter asking that your desires be examined and that peace be given to certain of the lapsed when, the persecution ended, we should begin to meet together with the clergy and be gathered again, these presbyters there, against the law of the gospel, and against your honourable petition too, before penance has been done, before confession of a most grave and extreme sin has been made, before hands have been laid on them in penance by the bishop and clergy, dare to offer for them and to profane the holy body of the Lord, although it is written: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”

And to the lapsed indeed pardon can be granted in this: who that is dead would not hurry to be made alive? Who would not hasten to come to his salvation? But it belongs to those set over the church to keep the precept and to instruct those who are either hurrying or ignorant, lest those who ought to be shepherds of the sheep become butchers. For to grant things that turn to destruction is to deceive; the fallen man is not raised up in this way, but, by offending God, is driven the more to ruin. So let them learn even from you what they ought to have taught. Let them reserve your petitions and desires for the bishop, and wait for a ripe and peaceful time to give peace at your request. It must come first that the mother receive peace from the Lord, and then, according to your desires, the peace of the children be dealt with.

And since I hear, bravest and dearest brothers, that you are pressed by the shamelessness of some and that your modesty suffers violence, I beg you with what prayers I can, that, mindful of the gospel and considering what and of what kind were the things your predecessors the martyrs granted in the past, how careful they were in all things, you too weigh the desires of those who petition you carefully and cautiously; that, as friends of the Lord, who will afterwards judge with him, you examine the conduct and works and merits of each, and consider also the kinds and qualities of their sins, lest, if anything should be promised by you or done by us hastily and unworthily, our church should begin to blush even before the heathen themselves. For we are visited and chastened often, and admonished that the Lord's commands should remain uncorrupted and inviolate. And I know that there too among you the divine censure does not cease to instruct very many of you in the church's discipline. All this can be done if you moderate what is asked of you with devout consideration, understanding and restraining those who, showing partiality, either curry favour with your benefits or hunt for the markets of an unlawful trade.

About this I have also written a letter both to the clergy and to the people, both of which I have ordered to be read to you. But you ought also to bring to your diligence and correct this: that you designate by name those to whom you desire peace to be given. For I hear that for some people certificates are being made out in such a way that it is said, “Let so-and-so be in communion with his household,” which was never at all done by the martyrs, so that a vague and blind petition may afterwards heap ill will upon us. For it extends widely when it is said, “so-and-so with his household”: twenty or thirty or more can be presented to us who claim to be relatives, in-laws, freedmen, and members of the household of the one who received the certificate. And therefore I ask that those whom you yourselves see, whom you know, whose penance you see to be close to satisfaction, you designate by name in the certificate, and so send us letters in keeping with faith and discipline. I wish you, bravest and most beloved brothers, good health in the Lord always, and that you remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. For a long time I have held my patience, dearest brothers, as though our modest silence might serve the cause of quiet. But since the immoderate and headlong presumption of certain men is trying by its rashness to disturb the honour of the martyrs, the modesty of the confessors, and the tranquillity of the whole people, I must not keep silent any longer, lest too much silence lead to danger for the people and for us alike. For what danger ought we not to fear from offending the Lord, when some of the presbyters, mindful neither of the gospel nor of their own position, and thinking neither of the Lord's future judgement nor of the bishop now set over them, claim everything for themselves, with insult and contempt for the one set over them, a thing never done at all under our predecessors?

And would that they claimed everything for themselves without laying low the salvation of our brothers! I could overlook and bear the insults to our episcopate, as I have always overlooked and borne them. But this is no time for overlooking, when our brotherhood is being deceived by some of you, who, while they wish to win applause without any principle of restoring salvation, rather harm the lapsed. For that the sin which the persecution compelled them to commit is the greatest, even those who committed it know, since our Lord and Judge has said: “Whoever confesses me before men, I too will confess him before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me, I too will deny him”; and again he said: “All sins and blasphemies will be forgiven the sons of men; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”; and likewise the blessed apostle said: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot share in the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” He who withholds these things from our brothers deceives the wretched, so that those who could, by doing true penance, make satisfaction by their prayers and works to God, as to a Father and merciful, are led astray, so that they perish the more, and those who could raise themselves fall further. For while in lesser sins sinners do penance for a just time, and come to confession according to the order of discipline, and receive the right of communion through the laying on of hands of the bishop and clergy, now, at an unripe time, while persecution still continues, before the peace of the church itself has been restored, they are admitted to communion, and offering is made in their name, and, before penance is done, before confession is made, before hands are laid on them by the bishop and clergy, the Eucharist is given to them, although it is written: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”

But now those are not guilty who have kept the law of Scripture less well; those will be guilty who preside and do not suggest these things to the brothers, so that, instructed by their leaders, they may do all things with the fear of God and with the observance given and prescribed by him. Further, they expose the blessed martyrs to ill will, and set the glorious servants of God at odds with the priest of God. For whereas the martyrs, mindful of our position, sent me a letter and asked that their desires be examined and peace be given at the time when our mother herself has first received peace from the Lord's mercy and the divine protection has brought us back to his church, these men, setting aside the honour which the blessed martyrs with the confessors keep for us, despising the Lord's law and the observance which the same martyrs and confessors command to be kept, before the fear of persecution is quenched, before our return, almost before the very departure of the martyrs, hold communion with the lapsed, offer, and give them the Eucharist; when, even if the martyrs, in the heat of glory, considering Scripture less closely, desired anything more against the Lord's law, they ought to have been admonished by the presbyters and deacons suggesting better, as was always done in the past.

And so the divine censure does not cease to chasten us, by night or by day. Besides visions by night, by day also the innocent age of boys among us is filled with the Holy Spirit, and in ecstasy sees with the eyes, and hears and speaks, those things by which the Lord deigns to warn and instruct us. And you will hear everything when the Lord, who ordered me to withdraw, brings me back to you. Meanwhile let certain rash, heedless, and swollen men among you, who do not regard man, at least fear God, knowing that if they persist further in the same things, I will use that admonition which the Lord bids me use, so that meanwhile they are forbidden to offer, and will have to plead their case before us and before the confessors themselves and before the whole people, when, with the Lord's permission, we begin to be gathered again into the bosom of mother church. About this I have written a letter to the martyrs and confessors and to the people, both of which I have ordered to be read to you. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health in the Lord always, and that you remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the brothers among the people, greeting. That you groan and grieve over the falls of our brothers I know from myself, dearest brothers, since I too groan and grieve with you for each one, and suffer and feel what the blessed apostle says: “Who is weak,” he says, “and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?” And again he put it in his letter, saying: “If one member suffers, the other members suffer with it; and if one member rejoices, the other members rejoice with it.” I suffer with, I grieve with our brothers, who, having lapsed and been laid low by the assault of persecution, dragging part of our own heart with them, have inflicted on us equal pain with their wounds; to these the divine mercy is able to give healing. Yet I do not think we should hurry, or do anything incautiously and hastily, lest while peace is rashly usurped, the displeasure of divine indignation be more gravely provoked. The blessed martyrs have written to us about certain people, asking that their desires be examined. When peace has first been given to us all by the Lord and we begin to return to the church, each case will be examined in your presence and with your judgement.

I hear, however, that some of the presbyters, neither mindful of the gospel nor considering what the martyrs have written to us nor reserving to the bishop the honour of his priesthood and chair, have already begun to hold communion with the lapsed, to offer for them, and to give them the Eucharist, whereas one ought to come to these things in due order. For while in lesser sins, which are not committed against God, penance is done for a just time, and confession is made after the life of the penitent has been examined, and no one can come to communion unless hands have first been laid on him by the bishop and clergy, how much more in these most grave and extreme sins ought everything to be observed cautiously and with moderation according to the Lord's discipline! This indeed our presbyters and deacons ought to have urged, so as to cherish the sheep entrusted to them and instruct them by the divine teaching in the way of seeking salvation by prayer. I know both the quietness and the fear of our people: they would be watchful in making satisfaction to God and in prayer, had not certain of the presbyters deceived them to win their favour.

Do you, then, each of you, guide them, and by your counsel and moderation calm the minds of the lapsed according to the divine precepts. Let no one pluck bitter fruit at an unseasonable time. Let no one commit his ship, shaken and holed by the waves, to the deep again before he has carefully repaired it. Let no one hurry to take and put on a torn tunic unless he has seen it mended by a skilled craftsman and received it back cleaned by the fuller. Let them hear our counsel patiently, I beg, and await our return, so that when by God's mercy we have come to you, with many fellow bishops called together, we may examine the letters and desires of the blessed martyrs according to the Lord's discipline, in the presence of the confessors and with your opinion too. About this I have written a letter both to the clergy and to the martyrs and confessors, both of which I have ordered to be read to you. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health in the Lord always, and that you remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. I am surprised, dearest brothers, that you have written nothing back to my many letters which I have frequently sent you, since the interest or need of our brotherhood is surely best governed if, informed by you, we can refine our plan for what is to be done. But since I see that there is not yet an opportunity of coming to you, and that summer has already begun, a season that is beset with continual and serious illnesses, I think we must meet the needs of our brothers: those who have received certificates from the martyrs and can be helped by their privilege before God, if they are overtaken by any misfortune and danger of illness, may, without waiting for our presence, make confession of their sin before any presbyter who is present, or, if no presbyter can be found and death begins to press, before a deacon too, so that, hands having been laid on them for penance, they may go to the Lord with the peace which the martyrs, in their letters to us, desired to be given them.

The rest of the people too who have lapsed, cherish by your presence, and revive by your comfort, so that they do not fail from faith and from the Lord's mercy. For those who persevere, gentle and humble and truly doing penance, in good works will not be abandoned by the Lord's help and aid, so as not to be provided for by the divine remedy as well. To catechumens too, if any are overtaken by danger and placed at the point of death, let your watchfulness not be lacking; let the Lord's mercy not be denied to those who implore the divine grace. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always, and that you remember us. Greet the whole brotherhood in my name and remind them to remember us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. I have read your letter, dearest brothers, in which you wrote that your wholesome counsel is not lacking to our brothers, so that, laying aside rash haste, they may offer God a devout patience, so that when by his mercy we come together, we may deal with every kind of case according to church discipline, especially since it is written: “Remember from where you have fallen, and repent.” He does penance who, mindful of the divine precept, gentle and patient and obedient to the priests of God, earns the Lord's favour by his obedience and just works.

Since, however, you have indicated that some are immoderate and are pressing hastily to receive communion, and you wished a rule to be given you by me on this matter, I believe I wrote fully enough on this in my last letter to you: that those who have received a certificate from the martyrs and can be helped by their aid before the Lord in their sins, if they begin to be oppressed by some illness and danger, should, confession having been made and hands laid on them by you for penance, be sent on to the Lord with the peace promised them by the martyrs. But the others, who, without having received any certificate from the martyrs, are stirring up ill will, since this is the case not of a few, nor of one church or one province, but of the whole world, let them wait first for the public peace of the church itself, through the Lord's protection. For this befits the modesty and the discipline and the very life of all of us: that the leaders, meeting with the clergy, and in the presence also of the people who have stood firm, to whom honour must also be paid for their faith and fear, may arrange everything with the devout care of common counsel. Besides, how irreligious it is, and ruinous even to those who are in haste, that while the confessors, made exiles, driven from their homeland, and stripped of all their goods, have not yet returned to the church, some of the lapsed hurry to get ahead of the confessors themselves and enter the church first! If they are in too great a hurry, they have in their own power what they ask, and the times themselves grant them more than they ask. The battle is still being waged, and the contest is celebrated daily. If they truly and firmly repent of what they have done, and the warmth of faith prevails, he who cannot be put off can be crowned. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always, and that you remember us. Greet the whole brotherhood in my name and remind them to be mindful of us. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons living at Rome, his brothers, greeting. Since I have learned, dearest brothers, that what has been done and is being done here by us has been reported to you less than straightforwardly and faithfully, I have thought it necessary to write you this letter, in which an account of our conduct, discipline, and diligence might be given you. For, as the Lord's commands instruct, as soon as the first onset of the disturbance arose, when the people had repeatedly demanded me with violent clamour, thinking not so much of my own safety as of the public quiet of the brothers, I withdrew for the time, lest by our unseemly presence the riot that had begun should be provoked further. Yet though absent in body, I was not lacking in spirit, or in action, or in my counsels, in providing for our brothers, according to the Lord's precepts, in whatever I could in my small way.

And what I have done is told you by the letters sent out as the times required, thirteen in number, which I have forwarded to you, in which neither counsel to the clergy nor exhortation to the confessors nor, when it was needed, rebuke to the exiles was lacking, nor our address and persuasion to the whole brotherhood to entreat the mercy of God, as far as our small ability could strive, according to the law of faith and the fear of God, the Lord prompting. After the tortures also came, our word reached our brothers, whether already tortured or still shut up to be tortured, to strengthen and comfort them. Likewise, when I learned that those who had stained their hands and mouths with sacrilegious contacts, or had no less polluted their conscience with impious certificates, were canvassing the martyrs everywhere and corrupting the confessors too with importunate and ingratiating entreaty, so that thousands of certificates were being given daily, without any discrimination or examination of individuals, contrary to the law of the gospel, I wrote a letter in which by my counsel I might recall the martyrs and confessors, as far as I could, to the Lord's precepts. Likewise, priestly vigour was not lacking toward the presbyters and deacons, so that certain men, less mindful of discipline and headlong in rash haste, who had already begun to hold communion with the lapsed, were restrained by our intervention. The people themselves too we calmed as far as we could, and instructed them that church discipline should be kept.

Afterwards, when certain of the lapsed, whether of their own accord or at the instigation of someone else, rushed forward with bold demand, so as to try to extort by violent assault the peace promised them by the martyrs and confessors, I wrote twice to the clergy about this too and ordered it read to them: that, to soften their violence meanwhile in some way, if any who had received a certificate from the martyrs were departing this life, then, confession having been made and hands laid on them for penance, they should be sent on to the Lord with the peace promised them by the martyrs. In this I did not lay down a law or rashly set myself up as its author. But since it seemed both that honour should be paid to the martyrs and that the violence of those who wished to throw everything into confusion should be checked, and since, besides, I had read your letter which you had lately written to our clergy by the subdeacon Crementius, that help should be given to those who after their fall were seized with illness and, repenting, desired communion, I thought I should stand by your judgement too, lest our action, which ought to be united and in agreement in all things, should differ in any respect. The cases of the others, of course, even though they had received a certificate from the martyrs, I ordered to be deferred and reserved until our presence, so that when, peace having been given us by the Lord, many leaders begin to meet together, we may arrange or reform each matter, having shared counsel with you also.

Celerinus to Lucian. As I write this to you, my lord brother, I have been both glad and sad: glad because I have heard that you were held for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, and confessed his name before the magistrates of this world; sad because, from the time I escorted you, I have never been able to receive a letter from you. And now just lately a double sadness has come upon me, because you knew that our common brother Montanus was to come to me from you out of the prison, and you sent me no word about your welfare or about what is happening with you. But this commonly happens to the servants of God, especially those who are placed in the confession of Christ. For I know that each one no longer attends to the things of the world, since he hopes for the heavenly crown. For I said that perhaps you had forgotten to write to me. For, though I, the lowest of your brothers, may be called your brother, if I, Celerinus, am worthy to hear it, yet when I too was in so flourishing a confession, I remembered my oldest brothers, and reminded them by my letters that their old love was still with me and mine. Yet I ask the Lord, dearest one, that you may be washed in that holy blood for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ before my letter reaches you in this world; or, if it reaches you now, that you write me back about these things. So may he whose name you have confessed crown you. For I believe that, even if we do not see each other in this world, yet in the world to come we shall embrace in the presence of Christ. Ask that I too may be worthy to be crowned with your number.

Know, however, that I am placed in great tribulation, and, as if you were present with me, so I remember our old love day and night: God alone knows. And therefore I ask that you consent to my desire and grieve with me at the death of my sister, who fell away from Christ in this devastation. For she sacrificed and provoked our Lord, as seems plain to us. For her deed I, on the day of the joy of Easter, weeping day and night, have spent my days in sackcloth and ashes, tearful, and spend them until today, until the help and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ comes to the aid of so terrible a shipwreck, through you or through those lords of mine who have been crowned, of whom you are going to ask it. For I remembered your old love, that you grieve with everyone for our sister … whom you too know well, that is, Numeria and Candida; for whose sin we ought to keep watch, since they have us as brothers. For I believe that Christ, in view of their penance and the works they did toward our colleagues, the exiles who came from you, of whose works you will hear from those very men, will now pardon them at the request of you, his martyrs.

For I have heard that you have received the ministry of the more flourishing ones. O happy you! Receive your wishes, which you always desired, even when sleeping on the ground. You wished to be sent to prison for his name, which has now befallen you, as it is written: “May the Lord give you according to your heart.” And now, made a bishop of God over them, the same minister has recognized … I ask, therefore, my lord, and beg through our Lord Jesus Christ, that you report to the rest of your colleagues, your brothers and my lords, and ask them that whoever of you is crowned first may remit so great a sin to these our sisters Numeria and Candida. For this very one I have always called Etecusa, God is our witness, because she paid money for herself so as not to sacrifice; she seems only to have gone up as far as the Three Fates and to have come down from there. So I know that she did not sacrifice. Their case having already been heard, the leaders ordered that they remain as they are for the time being, until a bishop is appointed. But so far as by your holy prayers and petitions, in which we trust, since you are friends but also witnesses of Christ, may you pardon everything.

I ask, therefore, my dearest lord Lucian, that you remember me and consent to my petition. So may Christ grant you that holy crown, which he has given you not only in confession but also in holiness, in which you have always run, and of which you have always been an example and witness to the saints: that you report this matter to all my lords, your brothers the confessors, so that they may receive help from us. For you must know this, my lord brother, that I ask this for them not only myself, but also Statius and Severianus and all the confessors who came here from there, from us, whom these women went down to the harbour to meet and brought up to the city, and who ministered to sixty-five of them and have cared for them in everything until today. For they are all with them. But I ought not to burden that holy heart of yours any further, since I know that you work with ready will. Macarius greets you, with his sisters Cornelia and Emerita, who rejoice in your flourishing confession, and in that of all the brothers; and Saturninus, who too wrestled with the devil, who also bravely confessed the name of Christ, who also there under the torture of the hooks bravely confessed, and who here too asks and begs you earnestly. Your brothers Calpurnius and Maria and all the holy brothers greet you. For you must know this too, that I have written also to my lords your brothers, and I ask you to deign to read the letter to them.

Lucian to Celerinus, his lord, whom I would call my colleague in Christ if I am worthy, greeting. I have received your letter, my most beloved lord brother, in which you so weighed me down that because of your burdening such great joy almost fell away; so that I rejoiced to read, through the kindness of your great humility, the letter which I too longed to read after so long a time, in which you deigned to remember me, you who, writing to me, said, “If I am worthy to be called your brother”, to a man who confessed the name of God with fear before lesser officials. For you, God willing, not only confessed but frightened off the great serpent himself, the forerunner of Antichrist, with those words and divine sayings by which I know … as lovers of faith and zealous for the discipline of Christ, in which I know you live with vigour, and I rejoice: you have conquered. Now just lately, dearest one, already to be counted among the martyrs, you wished to burden us with your letter, in which you told us about our sisters; for whom would that it were possible for us to make remembrance without so great a crime having been committed! Surely we would not be given over to so many tears as now.

You ought to know what has been done concerning us. While the blessed martyr Paulus was still in the body, he called me and said to me: “Lucian, before Christ I say to you that if anyone after my summons asks peace of you, give it in my name.” And also all of us whom the Lord has deigned to summon in so great a tribulation, all together, by a letter by agreement, have granted peace to all. See, then, brother, partly what Paulus commanded me, partly what we all resolved, from those of us who already, before this tribulation, when we were ordered, according to the emperor's command, to be killed by hunger and thirst, and were shut up in two cells, so that … did not accomplish it by hunger and thirst. And the fire too from the work of our affliction was so unbearable that no one could bear it. But now we are placed in the very brightness itself. And therefore, dearest brother, greet Numeria and Candida, whom … according to the command of Paulus and of the other martyrs, whose names I add below: Bassus in the stone quarry, Mappalicus under interrogation, Fortunio in prison; Paulus after interrogation, Fortunata, Victorinus, Victor, Herennius, Credula, Hereda, Donatus, Firmus, Venustus, Fructus, Julia, Martialis, and Ariston, who, God willing, were killed by hunger in prison; whose companions you will hear that we too shall be within days. For it is now eight days, on the day I wrote you this letter, since we were shut up again. For before those eight days, for five days in between, we received a little bread and water by measure. And therefore, brother, I ask that, as here, when the Lord begins to give peace to the church itself, according to the command of Paulus and our decision, their case having been set before the bishop and confession having been made, they may have peace; not only these, but also those whom you know to be dear to our heart.

All my colleagues greet you. Greet the confessors of the Lord who are there with you, whose names you mentioned, among whom also Saturninus with his companions, and also my colleague, and Maris, Collecta and Emerita, Calpurnius and Maria, Sabina, Spesina, and the sisters Januaria, Dativa, and Donata. We greet Saturus with his household, Bassianus and the whole clergy, Uranius, Alexius, Quintianus, Colonica, and all, I ask, whose names I have not written because I was so tired; therefore they must forgive me. I wish you, Alexius and Getulicus and the silversmiths and the sisters, good health. My sisters Januaria and Sophia greet you, whom I commend to you.

All the confessors to Pope Cyprian, greeting. Know that we have all given peace to those of whom an account has been given you of what they have done since their sin, and we want this rule to be made known through you to the other bishops too. We desire you to have peace with the holy martyrs. Lucian wrote this, with one of the clergy present, both an exorcist and a reader.

Caldonius to Cyprian and his fellow presbyters living at Carthage, greeting. The necessity of the time makes us not give peace rashly. But it was necessary to write to you because those who, after they had sacrificed, were tested again and have been made exiles: they seem to me, then, to have washed away their former sin, since they give up possessions and houses and, doing penance, follow Christ. So Felix, who served as presbyter under Decimus, next to me in chains (I came to know this same Felix more fully), and Victoria his wife, and Lucius, having been made faithful exiles, have left their possessions, which the treasury now holds. And also in the persecution a woman named Bona, who was dragged by her husband to sacrifice; she did not stain her conscience, but those holding her hands made the sacrifice themselves; and so she began to cry out against it, “I did not do it; you did it”; and so she too was made an exile. Since, then, all of them asked me for peace, saying, “We have recovered the faith that we had lost; doing penance, we have publicly confessed Christ,” although it seems to me that they ought to receive peace, I have referred them to your counsel, lest I seem rashly to presume anything. If, then, anything is decided by common counsel, write to me. Greet our friends; ours greet you. I wish you, most happy ones, good health.

Cyprian to his brother Caldonius, greeting. We have received your letter, dearest brother, very sober and full of integrity and faith. Nor are we surprised if, trained and skilled in the Lord's Scriptures, you do everything cautiously and with counsel. You have judged rightly about granting peace to our brothers, which they have restored to themselves by true penance and the glory of confessing the Lord, justified by their words, by which they had condemned themselves before. Since, then, they have washed away all their sin and, with the Lord's help, blotted out the first stain by their later courage, they ought no longer to lie under the devil as if laid low, they who, having been made exiles and stripped of all their goods, have raised themselves up and begun to stand with Christ. And would that the rest too, repenting after their fall, might so be restored to their former state! That you may know how we have dealt with those who now press on and extort peace rashly and importunely, I have sent you a book with five letters which I wrote to the clergy and to the people and to the martyrs and confessors too; these letters, sent also to very many of our colleagues, have met with their approval, and they have written back that they too stand with us in the same counsel, according to the catholic faith. This you too will send on to those of our colleagues you can, so that among all one course of action and one agreement may be kept according to the Lord's precepts. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. The Lord speaks and says: “On whom shall I look, except on the humble and quiet and the one who trembles at my words?” While we ought all to be so, those ought to be so the more who must labour, after a grave fall, to win the Lord's favour by true penance and complete humility. Now I have read the letter of all the confessors, which they wanted made known through me to all my colleagues, and that the peace given by them should reach those of whom an account has been given to us of what they have done since their sin. Since this matter concerns the counsel and judgement of all of us, I do not dare to prejudge it and claim a common matter for myself alone. And therefore let the letters which I wrote to you most recently be adhered to meanwhile, a copy of which I have already sent to many colleagues too; and they have written back that they approve what we have decided, and that there must be no departure from it, until, peace having been restored to us by the Lord, we can meet together and examine the cases of individuals. And that you may know what my colleague Caldonius wrote to me and what I wrote back to him, I have joined a copy of both letters to mine. I ask that you read all this to our brothers, so that they may be more and more settled into patience and not add yet another sin to their former sin, by not allowing us to serve the gospel, nor their cases to be examined according to the letter of all the confessors. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health, and that you remember us. Greet the whole brotherhood.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons living at Rome, his brothers, greeting. After I had written to you, dearest brothers, a letter in which our conduct was set out and an account given of our discipline and diligence, such as it is, something else has come up of which you also ought not to be unaware. For our brother Lucian, himself too one of the confessors, ardent indeed in faith and strong in courage, but not well grounded in the reading of the Lord's word, has attempted certain things unskilfully, for some time now setting himself up as an authority, so that certificates written in his hand were given in crowds to many in the name of Paulus; whereas Mappalicus the martyr, cautious and modest, mindful of the law and discipline, wrote no letters contrary to the gospel, but, moved only by family affection, directed that peace be given to his mother and sister, who had lapsed; and Saturninus too, after his tortures, while still in prison, sent out no letters of this kind. But Lucian not only gave out everywhere certificates written in his own hand in the name of Paulus while Paulus was still in prison, but even after his departure continued to do the same under his name, saying that this had been commanded him by him, and not knowing that one must obey the Lord rather than a fellow servant. In the name of Aurelius too, a young man who had endured tortures, many certificates were given, written by the same Lucian's hand, because Aurelius did not know how to write.

To oppose this to some extent, I wrote a letter to them, which I forwarded to you with my former letter, in which I did not cease to ask and persuade them that the principle of the Lord's law and of the gospel should be kept. After that letter, as though something more moderate and restrained were being done, Lucian wrote a letter in the name of all the confessors, by which almost every bond of faith and fear of God and the Lord's command and the holiness and firmness of the gospel would be loosed. For he wrote in the name of all that they had all given peace, and wished this rule to be made known through me to the other bishops; a copy of this letter I have forwarded to you. There was added, indeed, “those of whom an account has been given of what they have done since their sin.” This heaps greater ill will upon us, so that when we begin to hear and examine the cases of individuals, we seem to be denying many what they all now boast they have received from the martyrs and confessors.

Indeed the beginning of this sedition has already come. For in our province, in several cities, the crowd has made an attack on their leaders, and has forced them to grant at once the peace which they kept shouting had been given once for all to everyone by the martyrs and confessors, their leaders being terrified and subdued, since they were not strong enough in courage of mind and firmness of faith to resist. Among us too certain turbulent men, who even in the past were hardly ruled by us and were being deferred until our presence, inflamed by this letter as if by torches, have begun to burn more fiercely and to extort the peace given them. I have sent you a copy of the letter I wrote to the clergy about them. And what my colleague Caldonius wrote to me, out of his integrity and faith, and what I wrote back to him, I have forwarded both to you to read. I have also sent you copies of the letter of Celerinus, the good and strong confessor, which he wrote to the same confessor Lucian, and likewise of what Lucian wrote back to him, so that you might know that our diligence works carefully in all things, and learn from the truth itself how moderate and cautious Celerinus the confessor is, and how modest in the humility and fear of our religion; whereas Lucian, as I have said, is less skilled in understanding the Lord's word, and by his easygoing ways immoderate in leaving ill will to fall on our restraint. For while the Lord said that the nations are to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and that past sins are remitted in baptism, this man, ignorant of the precept and the law, orders peace to be given and sins to be remitted in the name of Paulus, and says that this was commanded him by Paulus, as you will notice in the letter of the same Lucian to Celerinus; in which he did not consider that it is not martyrs who make the gospel, but through the gospel martyrs are made; since Paul the apostle too, whom the Lord called his chosen vessel, put it in his letter, saying: “I marvel that you are so quickly changing from him who called you into grace to another gospel, which is not another; except that there are some who trouble you and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should announce otherwise than we have announced to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: if anyone announces to you anything other than what you received, let him be anathema.”

But your letter to the clergy, which I received, arrived opportunely, and likewise the letter which the blessed confessors Moses, Maximus, Nicostratus, and the others sent to Saturninus and Aurelius and the others, in which the full vigour of the gospel and the strong discipline of the Lord's law is contained. Your words greatly helped us, who are labouring here and resisting with all the strength of faith against the onslaught of ill will; so that by divine providence the way was shortened, and before the letter which I sent you most recently reached you, you declared to us that your judgement too stands firmly and unanimously with us according to the law of the gospel. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to Moses and Maximus, presbyters, and the other confessors, his most beloved brothers, greeting. The glory of your faith and courage, bravest and most blessed brothers, I had long known by report, and was very glad and rejoiced greatly that the special favour of our Lord had prepared you for the crown by the confession of his name. For you, made the first and the leaders in the battle of our time, have advanced the standards of the heavenly army. You have begun, by your courage, the spiritual contest that God has now willed to be waged. You have broken the first onsets of the rising war with immovable strength and unshaken steadfastness. From there the happy beginnings of the fight arose; from there the omens of victory began. Here it has happened that martyrdoms have been completed through tortures; but he who, going ahead in the encounter, has been made an example of courage to the brothers shares in honour with the martyrs. Crowns woven by your hand you have handed from there to here, and you have pledged the brothers from the cup of salvation.

To the glorious beginnings of your confession and the omens of a victorious warfare has been added the steady course of discipline, which we have seen in the vigour of your letter, which you lately sent with anxious admonition to your colleagues joined with you in the confession of the Lord, that the holy precepts of the gospel and the life-giving commands once handed down to us should be held with strong and steadfast observance. Behold another lofty step of your glory; behold again a claim to God's favour doubled with confession: to stand with firm step, and in this battle line, which is trying to break in upon the gospel, to drive back by the strength of faith those who lay impious hands to undermine the Lord's precepts; to have given before the beginnings of courage, and now to give lessons in conduct too. The Lord, sending the apostles after the resurrection, commands and says: “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 whatever I have commanded you.” And John the apostle, mindful of the command, afterwards puts in his letter: “By this,” he says, “we understand that we have known him, if we keep his precepts. He who says that he has known him and does not keep his commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” You urge that these precepts be kept; you keep the divine and heavenly commands. This is to be a confessor of the Lord; this is to be a martyr of Christ: to keep the firmness of one's voice inviolate and solid in all things, and not to become a martyr through the Lord and then try to destroy the Lord's precepts. To use against him the favour he has given you, to become in a sense a rebel with arms received from him, this is to wish to confess Christ and to deny the gospel of Christ. I rejoice therefore over you, bravest and most faithful brothers; and as much as I congratulate the martyrs honoured there for the glory of their strength, so much do I congratulate you too for the crown also of the Lord's discipline. The Lord has poured out his favour in manifold kinds of generosity; he has distributed the praises and spiritual glories of good soldiers in rich variety. We too are partakers of your honours; we count your glory our glory, since such happiness has made our times illustrious that it has been granted us in our age to see servants of God proved and soldiers of Christ crowned. I wish you, bravest and most blessed brothers, good health always, and that you remember us.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. So that nothing should escape your knowledge, dearest brothers, of what was written to me and what I wrote back, I have sent you a copy of both letters; and I believe that what I wrote back does not displease you. But I ought also to convey to you by my letter that, a pressing reason requiring it, I have sent a letter to the clergy living in the city. And since I had to write by clerics, but I know that very many of ours are absent, while the few who are there are hardly sufficient for the daily ministry of the work, it was necessary to appoint some new ones to be sent. Know, then, that I have made Saturus a reader and the confessor Optatus a subdeacon, whom we had long ago, by common counsel, made next to the clergy: when we gave Saturus the reading on Easter Day once and again, and when lately, while we were carefully testing readers with the presbyter-teachers, we appointed Optatus among the readers of the teachers of the hearers, examining whether everything that ought to be in those who were being prepared for the clergy suited them. Nothing new, then, has been done by me in your absence; but what had long ago been begun by the common counsel of all of us has been advanced under the pressure of necessity. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always, and that you remember us. Greet the brotherhood. Farewell.

To Pope Cyprian, the presbyters and deacons living at Rome, greeting. Although a mind that is well aware of itself, supported by the vigour of the gospel's discipline, and made its own true witness in the heavenly decrees, is accustomed to be content with God alone as judge, and neither to seek the praises nor to fear the accusations of another, yet those are worthy of double praise who, while they know that they owe their conscience to God alone as judge, nevertheless desire their actions to be approved by their own brothers as well. It is no wonder that you do this, brother Cyprian, who, out of your modesty and inborn diligence, have wished us to be found not so much judges as sharers of your counsels, so that in approving your deeds we might find praise with you in them, and might be co-heirs of your good counsels because we could also confirm them. For we shall all be believed to have acted alike in that in which we are all found joined by the same agreement of censure and discipline.

For what is so fitting in peace, or so necessary in the war of persecution, as to keep the due severity of divine vigour? He who relaxes it must always wander in an unstable course of affairs, be scattered here and there by the varied and uncertain storms of business, and, as if the helm of counsel were wrenched from his hands, dash the ship of the church's safety on the rocks; so that it appears that the church's safety cannot be provided for otherwise than by driving back, like adverse waves, those who act against it, and by keeping, like a saving helm in the storm, the ever-guarded principle of discipline itself. Nor is this counsel only lately thought out by us, nor have these sudden aids against the wicked only just now come upon us; but this severity among us is ancient, the faith ancient, the discipline read of is ancient; since the apostle would not have spoken such praise of us, saying, “For your faith is proclaimed in all the world,” unless this vigour had already from then borrowed the roots of faith from those times; and to have fallen away from that praise and glory is the greatest crime. For it is less disgrace never to have come to the proclamation of praise than to have fallen from the height of praise; it is less guilt not to have been honoured with a good testimony than to have lost the honour of good testimonies; it is less to have lain obscure without praise, with no verdict on one's virtues, than, disinherited of faith, to have lost one's own praises. For the things that are put forward to anyone's glory, unless they are kept by anxious and careful labour, swell into the odium of the greatest crime.

That we do not say this falsely our earlier letter has proved, in which we set out our judgement to you in a clear account against those who had betrayed themselves as unfaithful by the unlawful declaration of impious certificates, as though by this they would seem to escape those entangling snares of the devil, whereas they were held by the very fact that they had attested it, no less than if they had approached the impious altars; and also against those who had had the records made, even though they were not present when it was done, since by giving the order that they be so recorded they had certainly made themselves present. For he is not free from guilt who obtained that it be done, nor is he a stranger to the crime by whose consent the crime is publicly read out, even if he did not commit it. And since the whole sacrament of faith is understood to be summed up in the confession of the name of Christ, he who seeks deceitful tricks for an excuse has denied; and he who wishes to seem to have satisfied the edicts or laws set forth against the gospel has already obeyed by the very fact that he wished to seem to have obeyed. We have also shown our faith and agreement against those too who had polluted their hands and mouths with unlawful sacrifices, their own minds having first been polluted, from which the hands and mouths themselves were also polluted. For far be it from the Roman church to let go of its vigour with such profane leniency, and to loosen the sinews of severity by overturning the majesty of faith; so that, while the ruins of our overthrown brothers not only still lie fallen but are still falling, overhasty remedies of communion, which will certainly not profit, should be given, and new wounds, by a false mercy, be stamped upon the old wounds of transgression, so that even penance is snatched from the wretched to their greater overthrow. For where can the medicine of pardon go forward, if the physician himself, cutting off penance, indulges the dangers; if he only covers the wound and does not allow the necessary remedies of time to draw a scar over it? This is not to heal but, if we will speak the truth, to kill.

Moreover, you have the letter of the confessors too, whom the dignity of their confession still keeps shut in prison here, and whom their faith has already once gloriously crowned in confession for the gospel contest, a letter in harmony with ours, in which they have set forth the severity of the gospel's discipline and turned back unlawful petitions from the modesty of the church; lest, if they had done this easily, they should not easily repair the ruins of the gospel's discipline; especially since it was fitting for no one more than for those who had handed themselves over to the raging to be tortured and butchered for the gospel to keep unimpaired the dignity of the gospel's vigour, lest they deservedly lose the honour of martyrdom if, on the occasion of martyrdom, they had chosen to be betrayers of the gospel. For he who does not guard what he has in that from which he possesses it, while he violates that from which he possesses it, loses what he possessed.

In this regard we ought to give, and do give, you the greatest and fullest thanks, that you have lit up the darkness of their prison with your letters; that you came to them in the way you could enter; that you refreshed by your addresses and letters their minds, strong in their own faith and confession; that, following their happiness with worthy praises, you kindled them to a much more ardent desire for heavenly glory; that you urged on those already eager; that by the strength of your words you have animated those whom we believe and pray will be victors; so that, although all this seems to come from the faith of the confessors and from divine favour, they may yet seem to have become in some measure your debtors in their martyrdom. But to return to the point from which our discourse seemed to have digressed: you will find attached the letter we have also sent to Sicily. Although a greater need of deferring this matter rests upon us, who, since the departure of Fabian of most noble memory, have not yet had a bishop appointed because of the difficulties of affairs and times, to regulate all these things and to be able to deal with the case of those who have lapsed with authority and counsel. However, in so great a matter we agree with what you yourself have set out: that the peace of the church should first be awaited, and then, a conference of counsels having been held with bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and also the laity who have stood firm, the case of the lapsed be dealt with. For it seems to us very invidious and burdensome not to examine through many what appears to have been committed by many, and for one to pronounce sentence, when so great a crime is observed to have gone forth spread through many; since a decree cannot be firm that will not be seen to have had the consent of very many. Look at the whole world almost laid waste, and everywhere the remains and ruins of the fallen lying, and therefore counsel is sought as great as the sin appears widely spread. Let the medicine not be less than the wound, let the remedies not be less than the deaths; so that, as those who fell fell because they were too incautious with blind rashness, so those who try to settle this may use every moderation of counsel, lest anything done otherwise than it ought be judged by all as void.

With one and the same counsel, then, with the same prayers and weeping, let both us, who so far seem to have escaped the ruins of this time, and those who seem to have fallen into the disasters of this time, entreat the divine majesty and ask for peace for the church's name. With mutual prayers let us cherish, guard, and arm one another. Let us pray for the lapsed, that they may be raised up; let us pray for those who stand, that they may not be tempted to the point of ruin; let us pray that those who are reported to have fallen, recognizing the greatness of their sin, may understand that they should not desire a momentary or overhasty medicine. Let us pray that the effect of pardon may follow the penance of the lapsed too, and that, having understood their crime, they may be willing to show us patience for the time being, and not disturb the still wavering state of the church, lest they seem to have kindled an inner persecution against us themselves, and it be added to the heap of their crimes that they were also restless. For modesty befits most of all those whose immodest mind is condemned in their sins. Let them knock at the doors, by all means, but not break them down. Let them come to the threshold of the church, but not leap over it. Let them keep watch at the gates of the heavenly camp, but armed with the modesty by which they understand that they have been deserters. Let them take up again the trumpet of their prayers, but not sound a battle call with it. Let them arm themselves indeed with the weapons of modesty, and take up again the shield of faith which, in denying, they had let go for fear of death; but so as to believe themselves armed, even now, against the enemy the devil, not against the church, which grieves for their fall. A modest petition will profit them much, a respectful request, a necessary humility, a patience that is not idle. Let them send tears as ambassadors for their sorrows; let groans brought forth from the inmost breast plead for them, proving grief and shame for the crime committed.

Indeed, if they shudder at the greatness of the disgrace committed, if they truly treat with a physician's hand the deadly blow to their heart and conscience and the deep recesses of the winding wound, let them blush even to ask; except that it is again a matter of greater danger and shame not to have asked for the help of peace. But let all this be done in the sacrament, and within the law of the request itself, with due regard to the time, with lowly petition, with submissive prayer; since he who is petitioned ought to be bent, not provoked; and as the divine clemency must be kept in view, so must the divine censure be kept in view too; and as it is written, “I forgave you all the debt, because you asked me,” so it is written, “Whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father and before his angels.” For God, as he is indulgent, so is he an exacter of his precepts, and a careful one; and as he calls to the banquet, so the man who has not the wedding garment he throws out, hands and feet bound, outside the assembly of the saints. He has prepared heaven, but he has also prepared Tartarus. He has prepared places of refreshment, but he has also prepared eternal punishments. He has prepared inaccessible light, but he has also prepared the vast and eternal gloom of perpetual night. Seeking to keep the balance of this moderation, we here, for a long time, and indeed many of us, and indeed with certain bishops who are near us and neighbours, and those whom the heat of this persecution had driven out of other provinces far away, thought that nothing should be innovated before the appointment of a bishop, but believed that the care of the lapsed should be moderately tempered: so that meanwhile, while we wait for a bishop to be given us by God, the case of those who can bear the delay of postponement be held in suspense; but that those whose pressing departure from life cannot bear delay, having done penance and frequently professed detestation of their deeds, if with tears, with groans, with weeping they have shown the signs of a grieving and truly penitent mind, when no hope of living, humanly speaking, remains, should be helped, but only then, cautiously and carefully; God himself knowing what to do with such, and how to weigh the scales of his judgement; while we take anxious care that neither wicked men praise our ready leniency, nor the truly penitent accuse our severity as harsh cruelty. We wish you, most blessed and most glorious pope, good health in the Lord always, and that you remember us.

To Pope Cyprian, Moses and Maximus, presbyters, and Nicostratus and Rufinus and the other confessors who are with them, greeting. Placed as we are, brother, amid various and manifold sorrows because of the present falls of many throughout almost the whole world, this special comfort has come to us, that on receiving your letter we were lifted up and received soothing for the griefs of our sorrowing mind. From this we can now understand that the grace of divine providence has perhaps willed to keep us so long shut in the chains of prison for no other reason than that, instructed and more strongly animated by your letter, we might come with readier desire to the crown appointed for us. For your letter shone on us like fair weather in a storm, like longed-for calm in a turbulent sea, like rest in labours, like health in dangers and pains, like bright and shining light in the thickest darkness. So we drank it in with a thirsting mind and received it with a hungry desire, so that we rejoice to be well fed and fattened by it for the contest with the enemy. The Lord will repay you the reward for this love of yours and will render the fruit due to so good a work. For he who has exhorted is no less worthy of the reward of the crown than he who has suffered; he who has done is no more worthy of praise than he who has taught; he who has admonished is no less to be honoured than he who has obeyed the exhorter; except that sometimes the fuller measure of glory overflows to the one who trained rather than to the one who offered himself as a teachable disciple. For the latter perhaps would not have had what he practised, had the former not taught it.

We have received, then, we will say again, brother Cyprian, great joys, great comforts, great soothing, especially because you have honoured with glorious and worthy praises the glorious, I will not say deaths, but immortalities of the martyrs. For such departures had to be proclaimed with such words, so that what was reported might be told as it was done. From your letter, then, we saw those glorious triumphs of the martyrs, and with our eyes we in a way followed them as they sought heaven, and as it were beheld them placed among the angels and the heavenly powers and dominions. And we in a way heard with our ears the Lord bearing before his Father the testimony promised them. This, then, is what lifts up our spirit day by day and kindles us to attain the steps of so great a favour.

For what more glorious or happier thing could befall any human being by the divine favour than to confess the Lord God undaunted among the executioners themselves; amid the varied and refined tortures of a raging worldly power, even with the body racked, tortured, and butchered, to confess Christ the Son of God with a spirit departing but still free; to have left the world and sought heaven; to have deserted men and to stand among the angels; to have broken all worldly hindrances and now to present oneself free in the sight of God; to hold the heavenly kingdom without any delay; to have been made a colleague in suffering with Christ in Christ's name; to have been made, by the divine favour of one's judge, a judge oneself; to have brought back an unstained conscience from the confession of the name; not to have obeyed human and sacrilegious laws against the faith; to have testified to the truth with public voice; to have subdued, by dying, the very death that all fear; to have attained immortality through death itself; butchered and racked by all the instruments of cruelty, to have overcome torments by the torments themselves; to have struggled by strength of mind against all the pains of a torn body; not to have shuddered at one's own flowing blood; after believing, to have begun to love one's own punishments; to count it a loss to one's life to have lived?

For to this battle the Lord rouses us, as it were with the trumpet of his gospel, saying: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves his life more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” And again: “Blessed are those who have suffered persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they persecute you and hate you. Rejoice and exult; for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” And: “For you will stand before kings and governors, and brother will deliver brother to death, and father son; and he who perseveres to the end, he will be saved.” And: “To him who conquers I will grant to sit on my throne, as I too conquered and sat on the throne of my Father.” And the apostle too: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome because of him who loved us.”

When we read these and similar things gathered in the gospel, and feel them put under us like torches by the Lord's words to set our faith ablaze, we not only no longer shudder at the enemies of truth, but even challenge them; and we have already conquered the enemies of God by the very fact that we have not yielded, and have subdued the impious laws against the truth. And if we have not yet shed our blood, but are ready to shed it, let no one judge this delay of our postponement to be clemency; it harms us, it hinders our glory, it postpones heaven, it holds back the glorious sight of God. For in such a contest, and in such a battle where faith struggles, true clemency is not to delay the martyrs by postponement. Ask, therefore, dearest Cyprian, that the Lord by his grace may more and more, day by day, more richly and readily arm and illumine us, strengthen and fortify us with the might of his power, so that, as the best of commanders, he may lead out his soldiers, whom until now he has trained and proved in the camp of the prison, to the field of the contest set before them. May he hand us the divine arms, those weapons that do not know defeat: the breastplate of righteousness, which is never broken; the shield of faith, which cannot be pierced; the sword of the Spirit, which is not accustomed to be wounded. For to whom ought we rather to entrust this, to ask it for us, than to so glorious a bishop, so that victims destined for sacrifice may ask help from the priest?

Behold another joy of ours: that in the duty of your episcopate, though for the present you are separated from the brothers because of the condition of the time, you have not been lacking; that you have often strengthened the confessors by letters; that you have also supplied necessary funds from your own just labours; that in all things you have always shown yourself, in a way, present; that in no part of your duty have you limped like some deserter. But what has more strongly stirred us to greater joy we cannot pass over without following it with all the testimony of our voice. For we have noticed that you rebuked with fitting censure both those who, unmindful of their sins, had extorted peace from the presbyters in your absence with hasty and headlong desire, and those who, without regard to the gospel, had given away with ready leniency the holy thing of the Lord and the pearls; since so great a sin, which has spread with incredible devastation through almost the whole world, ought not to be dealt with except, as you yourself write, cautiously and with moderation, after consulting all the bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and the laity who have stood firm themselves, as you yourself testify in your letter; lest, while we wish to help the fallen unseasonably, we seem to prepare other greater falls. For where will the fear of God be left, if pardon is so easily granted to sinners? Their minds must indeed be cherished and nourished until the time of their ripeness, and instructed from the Scriptures that they have committed a huge sin, beyond all others. Nor let them take courage from being many, but rather be restrained by the very fact that they are not few. A shameless number has never availed to lessen a sin; but shame does, modesty, penance, discipline, humility and submission, to have awaited another's judgement on oneself, to have borne another's sentence on one's deed. This is what proves penance. This is what draws a scar over the wound inflicted. This is what raises and lifts up the ruins of the fallen mind, what quenches and ends the burning disease of seething sins. For the physician will not give to the sick what belongs to healthy bodies, lest untimely food not repress but inflame the storm of raging illness; that is, lest what could have been healed sooner by the reducing of fasting be seen to be prolonged through impatience by the undigested food eaten.

Hands defiled by impious sacrifice, therefore, must be washed clean by good works, and wretched mouths polluted by impious food must be expiated by words of true penance, and the mind must be renewed and replanted in the secret places of a faithful heart. Let the frequent groans of penitents be heard, and let faithful tears be poured again from the eyes, so that those very eyes which wickedly looked on idols may wash away, by weeping that makes satisfaction to God, what they had unlawfully committed. Patience is what is needed in illnesses. Those who are sick struggle with their pain, and only then hope for health if by endurance they overcome the pain. For a scar which a hasty physician has quickly drawn over is untrustworthy, and at any accident the healing is torn open, if the remedies are not faithfully supplied from the very slowness. Quickly the flame is called back again into a blaze unless the fuel of the whole fire is quenched down to the last spark; so that such people may rightly know that even by the delay itself their interest is better served, and more trustworthy remedies are provided by necessary postponements.

Otherwise, what will be the point of those who confess Christ being shut up in the custody of a filthy prison, if those who have denied him are free from danger to their faith? What the point of being bound in the circle of chains in the name of God, if those who have refused to confess God are not without communion? What the point of glorious souls laying down their lives in custody, if those who have abandoned the faith do not feel the greatness of their dangers and sins? But if they display excessive impatience and demand communion with unbearable haste, in vain do they hurl these querulous and spiteful reproaches, of no avail against the truth, with petulant and unbridled mouth; since it was open to them to keep by right what they are now forced by a necessity they sought of their own accord to beg for. For the faith that could have confessed Christ could also have been kept by Christ in communion. We wish you, brother, good health, and that you remember us.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. So that you might know, dearest brothers, what letter I wrote to the clergy staying at Rome and what they wrote back to me, and also what the presbyters Moses and Maximus and the deacons Nicostratus and Rufinus and the other confessors with them held in custody likewise wrote in reply to my letter, I have forwarded the copies for you to read. Take care, as far as you can by your diligence, that both our letters and their replies become known to our brothers. And if any bishops, my colleagues from abroad, or presbyters or deacons, are present or arrive, let them hear all this from you. And if they wish to copy the letters and take them to their own people, let them have the opportunity of copying, although I have also charged Saturus the reader, our brother, to give each one who desires it the opportunity to copy; so that, in settling the state of the churches in whatever way for the present, one faithful agreement may be kept by all. As for the other things that will have to be done, as I have also written to very many of my colleagues, we shall deal with them more fully in common counsel when, with the Lord's permission, we begin to meet together. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, good health always. Greet the brotherhood. Farewell.

Our Lord, whose precepts we ought to fear and keep, arranging the honour of the bishop and the order of his church, speaks in the gospel and says to Peter: “I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it; and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven also, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven also.” From there, through the changes of times and successions, the ordination of bishops and the order of the church runs down, so that the church is established upon the bishops and every act of the church is governed through those same leaders. Since this is founded by divine law, I wonder that certain people with bold rashness have chosen to write to me in such a way as to make their letter in the name of the church, since the church is established in the bishop and the clergy and in all who stand firm. For far be it, and may the Lord's mercy and his invincible power not allow it, that the number of the lapsed should be called the church, since it is written: “God is not the God of the dead but of the living.” We desire indeed that all be made alive, and we pray with our prayers and groans that they be restored to their former state. But if certain of the lapsed wish themselves to be the church, and if the church is among them and in them, what remains but that we ask them to deign to admit us to the church? Those, therefore, who, mindful of their sin, ought to make satisfaction to God, should be submissive and quiet and modest, and not make letters in the name of the church, since they should rather know that they are writing to the church.

But some of the lapsed have written to me, humble and gentle and trembling and fearing God, who have always worked in the churches gloriously and generously and have never reckoned their work to the Lord's account, knowing that he said: “And when you have done all these things, say: We are useless servants; we have done what we ought to do.” Thinking of these things, and, although they had received a certificate from the martyrs, praying nonetheless that their very satisfaction might be accepted by the Lord, they wrote to me that they acknowledge their sin and are doing true penance, and are not hurrying to peace rashly or importunely, but are waiting for our presence, saying that peace itself will be sweeter to them if they receive it in our presence. How much I rejoiced with them the Lord is witness, who has deigned to show what servants of this kind and such as these deserve of his goodness. Since I have received this letter, and now read that you have written something else, I ask you to make your desires distinct, and whoever you are who have now sent this letter, to put your names to a document and send me the document with the names of each. For I must first know to whom I am to reply. Then I will reply to each thing you have written, according to the modest measure of my position and conduct. I wish you, brothers, good health, and that you act quietly and peacefully according to the Lord's discipline. Farewell.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brothers, greeting. You have acted rightly and with discipline, dearest brothers, in resolving, on the advice of my colleagues who were present, not to hold communion with Gaius of Dida, a presbyter, and his deacon. By holding communion with the lapsed and offering their offerings, they have often been caught in their wicked errors, and, having been warned once and again by my colleagues, as you wrote to me, not to do this, they have persisted stubbornly in their presumption and audacity, deceiving certain brothers of our people, for whom we desire to provide in every useful way, and whose salvation we look after, not with corrupt flattery but with sincere faith, so that they may entreat God with true penance and with groaning and full sorrow; because it is written: “Remember from where you have fallen, and repent”; and again the divine Scripture says: “Thus says the Lord: When you turn and groan, then you will be saved, and you will know where you have been.”

But how can those groan and do penance whose groans and tears are cut short by certain of the presbyters, who rashly think communion should be held with them, not knowing that it is written: “Those who call you blessed lead you into error and confuse the path of your feet”? Rightly our wholesome and true counsels make no progress, while saving truth is hindered by flatteries and ruinous caressing; and the wounded and sick mind of the lapsed suffers what those who are sick and weak in body also often suffer: while they spit out wholesome food and useful drinks as bitter and repugnant, and seek those things that seem to delight and be sweet for the present, they bring on themselves ruin and death by their disobedience and intemperance, and the physician's true medicine does not help them to health, while the sweet enticement of the flatterer deceives them.

You, then, taking counsel faithfully and wholesomely according to my letter, do not depart from the better counsels. Read this same letter also to my colleagues, if any are present or arrive, so that, united and in harmony, we may hold to wholesome counsel for cherishing and healing the wounds of the lapsed, being about to deal most fully with everything when by the Lord's mercy we begin to meet together. Meanwhile, if anyone, immoderate and headlong, whether of our presbyters or deacons or of those from abroad, dares to hold communion with the lapsed before our judgement, let him be kept from our communion, to plead the cause of his rashness before all of us when, with the Lord's permission, we meet together.

You also wished me to write back what I think about Philumenus and Fortunatus, subdeacons, and Favorinus, an acolyte, who withdrew in the middle of this time and have now come back. I do not think I ought to give judgement on this matter alone, since many of the clergy are still absent and have not thought they should seek their places again even late, and this inquiry into individuals must be dealt with and refined more fully, not only with my colleagues but with the whole people itself. For a matter that will set an example for the future concerning the ministers of the church must be weighed and pronounced with careful moderation. Meanwhile let them only abstain from the monthly distribution, not as though they seemed to be deprived of the church's ministry, but so that, with everything left intact, they may be deferred until our presence. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always. Greet the whole brotherhood. Farewell.

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.

Cyprian to the whole people, greeting. Although, dearest brothers, Virtius, a most faithful and upright presbyter, and likewise Rogatianus and Numidicus, presbyters and confessors, illustrious in the glory of the divine favour, and also the deacons, good men devoted to the church's administration in every service, give you the full diligence of their presence together with the other ministers, and do not cease to strengthen each one with continual exhortations and also to guide and reform the minds of the lapsed with wholesome counsels, yet I, as far as I can, admonish you, and, as I can, visit you by my letters. By letters, I say, dearest brothers. For the malice and treachery of certain presbyters has brought it about that I have not been able to come to you before Easter Day; since, mindful of their conspiracy and keeping those old poisons against my episcopate, or rather against your vote and God's judgement, they are renewing their old assault on us and again reviving their sacrilegious machinations with their usual plots. And indeed, by God's providence, without our wishing or desiring it, indeed while we were pardoning and keeping silent, they have paid the penalty they deserved: not cast out by us, they have cast themselves out; they have passed sentence on themselves according to their own conscience; according to your divine votes the conspirators and criminals have driven themselves from the church of their own accord.

Now it has become plain where the faction of Felicissimus came from, on what roots and by what strength it stood. These men formerly gave encouragement and incitement to certain confessors not to agree with their bishop, nor to keep church discipline with faith and quiet according to the Lord's precepts, nor to keep the glory of their confession by an uncorrupted and unstained way of life. And as if it had been too little to have corrupted the minds of certain confessors and to have wished to arm a portion of the broken brotherhood against the priesthood of God, they have now turned to the ruin of the lapsed with their poisoned deceit, so as to call away from the healing of their wound those who are sick and wounded, and, through the calamity of their fall, less fit and less firm to take stronger counsels; and, breaking off the prayers and supplications by which the Lord must be appeased with long and continual satisfaction, to invite them to a deadly rashness by the lie of a deceptive peace.

But I beg you, brothers, be watchful against the snares of the devil, and, anxious for your salvation, keep guard more diligently against the deadly deceit. This is another persecution and another temptation; and these five presbyters are nothing other than those five leading men who were lately joined to the magistrates under the edict, to overthrow our faith and to turn the frail hearts of the brothers to deadly snares by betraying the truth. The same scheme, the same overthrow is now brought in again, to the ruin of salvation, by five presbyters joined to Felicissimus: that God is not to be entreated, nor the one who has denied Christ to beg the same Christ whom he had denied; that after the guilt of the crime penance too is to be taken away, and satisfaction is not to be made to the Lord through the bishops and priests of the Lord; but that, the Lord's priests being abandoned, a new tradition of a sacrilegious institution should arise against the gospel's discipline; and that, whereas it was once agreed both by us and by the confessors and the clergy of the City, and likewise by all the bishops placed either in our province or across the sea, that nothing should be innovated regarding the case of the lapsed unless we all met together and, having compared counsels, fixed a judgement tempered alike with discipline and mercy, rebellion should be raised against this counsel of ours, and all priestly authority and power be destroyed by factious conspiracies.

What punishment I now suffer, dearest brothers, that I cannot come to you myself at present, cannot approach each one myself, cannot exhort you myself according to the teaching of the Lord and his gospel! It was not enough, an exile already of two years, and the mournful separation from your faces and eyes, the continual grief and groaning that tortures me, alone without you, with constant lamentation, the tears flowing day and night, because it has not yet been granted to the priest whom you made with such love and ardour to greet you and to cling to your embraces. To our wasting spirit a greater grief has been added here, that in so great anxiety and need I cannot hasten to you myself, while, because of the threats and plots of the faithless, we take care lest at our arrival a greater tumult arise there, and lest the bishop, who ought to provide for peace and tranquillity in all things, should seem himself to have given occasion for sedition and to have inflamed the persecution anew. From here, however, most beloved brothers, from here I both admonish and counsel you not to believe ruinous voices rashly, not to lend your consent easily to deceitful words, not to take darkness for light, night for day, hunger for food, thirst for drink, poison for remedy, death for salvation. Let neither their age nor their authority deceive you, who, answering to the old wickedness of the two presbyters, as those tried to corrupt and violate the chaste Susanna, so these too try to corrupt the chastity of the church and violate the gospel truth with adulterous doctrines.

God cries out and says: “Do not listen to the words of the false prophets, for the visions of their heart deceive them. They speak, but not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those who cast away the word of the Lord: Peace will be yours.” Those now offer peace who themselves do not have peace; those who had withdrawn from the church promise to bring back and recall the lapsed into the church. God is one and Christ is one, and there is one church and one chair founded upon Peter by the Lord's voice. Another altar cannot be set up, nor a new priesthood be made, besides the one altar and the one priesthood. Whoever gathers elsewhere scatters. Adulterous, impious, sacrilegious is whatever is instituted by human madness so as to violate the divine arrangement. Withdraw far from the contagion of such men, and avoid their words by fleeing them like a cancer and a plague, as the Lord forewarns and says: “They are blind leaders of the blind; and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit.” They obstruct our prayers, which you pour out to God with us day and night so as to appease him with just satisfaction. They obstruct our tears, with which you wash away the guilt of the sin committed. They obstruct the peace which you truly and faithfully ask of the Lord's mercy; they do not know that it is written: “And that prophet or dreamer of dreams, who has spoken so as to make you stray from the Lord your God …” Let no one, brothers, make you stray from the ways of the Lord. Let no one snatch you, Christians, from the gospel of Christ; let no one take the sons of the church out of the church. Let those perish alone who have willed to perish; let those alone remain outside the church who have withdrawn from the church; let those alone not be with the bishops who have rebelled against the bishops; let those alone undergo the penalties of their conspiracy who formerly by your votes, and now by God's judgements, have deserved to undergo the sentence for their conspiracy and malice.

The Lord admonishes us in his gospel, saying: “You reject the commandment of God so as to establish your own tradition.” Let those who reject the commandment of God and try to establish their own tradition be rejected by you strongly and firmly. Let one fall be enough for the lapsed. Let no one throw down headlong by his trickery those who wish to rise. Let no one lay lower and press down those who lie fallen, for whom we pray that they may be raised up by God's hand and arm. Let no one turn away from all hope of salvation those who are half alive and pray to recover their former health. Let no one put out every light of the saving road for those who stagger in the darkness of their fall. The apostle instructs us, saying: “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and his teaching, puffed up with stupidity, withdraw from such a man.” And again he says: “Let no one deceive you with empty words; for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Do not, then, be partakers with them.” There is no reason why you should begin to be partakers of their depravity, deceived by empty words. Withdraw from such men, I beg you, and agree with our counsels, who pour out continual prayers to the Lord for you daily, who desire you to be recalled to the church through the Lord's clemency, who pray God for the fullest peace, first for the mother, and then for her sons. Join your prayers and supplications too with our prayers and supplications; unite your tears with our weeping. Avoid the wolves that separate the sheep from the shepherd; avoid the poisoned tongue of the devil, who, from the beginning of the world always deceitful and lying, lies in order to deceive, flatters in order to harm, promises good in order to give evil, promises life in order to destroy. His words shine clear now too, and his poisons are manifest: he promises peace so that peace cannot be reached; he promises salvation so that the one who has sinned may not come to salvation; he pledges the church, when what he is doing is that whoever believes him may perish from the church altogether.

Now, most beloved brothers, it is time that you who stand persevere bravely and keep with lasting firmness the glorious steadfastness you held in the persecution; and that you who have lapsed through the adversary's trickery take faithful counsel for your hope and your peace in this second temptation, and, so that the Lord may pardon you, do not withdraw from the Lord's priests, since it is written: “And any man who acts in pride, so as not to listen to the priest or the judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die.” This is the last and final temptation of this persecution, and it too, under the Lord's protection, will soon pass, so that I may be restored to you after Easter Day with my colleagues; in whose presence, according to your judgement too and the common counsel of us all, as was once agreed, we shall be able to arrange and refine what must be done. But if anyone, refusing to do penance and make satisfaction to God, goes over to the side of Felicissimus and his satellites and joins himself to the heretical faction, let him know that afterwards he cannot return to the church and be in communion with the bishops and the people of Christ. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always, and that you persist with us in continual prayers to entreat the Lord's mercy.

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. There came to us, dearest brother, sent by Novatian, Maximus a presbyter, Augendus a deacon, and a certain Machaeus and Longinus. But when we learned from the letter they brought with them, and from their own words and assertion, that Novatian had been made bishop, disturbed by the wickedness of an ordination unlawful and made against the catholic church, we resolved that they must at once be kept from our communion. And having for the present refuted and beaten back what they tried obstinately and stubbornly to assert, I and a great many colleagues who had gathered with me nonetheless awaited the arrival of our colleagues Caldonius and Fortunatus, whom we had lately sent as envoys to you and to our fellow bishops who had been present at your ordination, so that, when they arrived and reported the truth of what had happened, the wickedness of the opposing party might be broken with greater authority and by clear proof through them. But our colleagues Pompeius and Stephanus arrived, who themselves also, to inform us from there, brought forward, in keeping with their gravity and faith, plain evidence and testimonies, so that there was no further need to hear those who had come sent by Novatian.

When, in the assembly, they burst out with spiteful abuse and turbulent shouts, demanding that the charges which they said they were bringing and could prove be examined publicly by us and the people, we said it did not befit our gravity to allow the honour of our colleague, already chosen and ordained and approved by the praiseworthy judgement of many, to be tossed about any further by the slanderous voice of rivals. And since it would be long to gather in a letter the arguments by which they were refuted and silenced and exposed as having made a heresy by their unlawful attempts, you will hear each point most fully from our fellow presbyter Primitivus when he comes to you. And so that their raging audacity should never cease, here too they are trying to pull the members of Christ into the parts of a schism, and to cut and tear the body of the catholic church, running about from door to door through the houses of many, or from town to town through certain cities, seeking companions for their obstinacy and their error of division. To them we have given our answer once for all, and we do not cease to charge them to lay aside their ruinous dissension and contention, and to know that it is impiety to desert their mother, and to acknowledge and understand that, once a bishop has been made and approved by the testimony and judgement of his colleagues and the people, another can in no way be appointed. Accordingly, if they confess that they have taken counsel for themselves peacefully and faithfully, if they claim to be champions of the gospel and of Christ, let them first return to the church. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. As befitted servants of God, and especially just and peaceable priests, dearest brother, we recently sent our colleagues Caldonius and Fortunatus, so that not only by the persuasion of our letter but by their presence and the counsel of all of you they might strive and labour, as far as they could, to bring the members of the divided body together into the unity of the catholic church and to join them with the bond of Christian love. But since the obstinate and inflexible stubbornness of the other party has not only refused the bosom and embrace of the root and mother, but even, as the discord grows and breaks out worse, has appointed a bishop for itself, and, against the sacrament of the divine arrangement and catholic unity once handed down, has made an adulterous and opposing head outside the church: having received letters both from you and from our colleagues, and our good colleagues, most dear to us, Pompeius and Stephanus having arrived, by whom all these things were firmly asserted and proved to us to our common joy, we have directed our letter to you, as the holiness and truth alike of divine tradition and church institution required. And, making these same things known to each of our colleagues throughout our province, we have directed that brothers with letters be sent back by them too.

Our mind and purpose, indeed, had already then been made known to the brothers and to the whole people here, when, after receiving letters lately from both parties, we read your letter and made the ordination of your episcopate known to the ears of all. Mindful also of our common honour, and keeping regard for priestly gravity and holiness, we rejected the things gathered with bitter accusations in the document sent by the other side, considering and weighing together what ought to be read and heard in so great and religious an assembly of brothers, with the priests of God sitting together and the altar set up. For things ought not to be easily brought forth and incautiously and rashly published which, written in a quarrelsome style, stir up scandal among the hearers and confuse with uncertain opinion brothers placed far away and across the sea. Let those see to it who, serving their own fury or lust and unmindful of the divine law and holiness, are eager meanwhile to bandy about what they cannot prove, and, since they cannot destroy and overthrow innocence, are content to sprinkle stains on it by lying report and false rumour. Certainly, as befits leaders and priests, we must take pains that, when such things are written by some, they are rejected by us. For where will be what we learn and teach, that it is written: “Keep your tongue from evil, and let your lips not speak deceit”? Likewise elsewhere: “Your mouth abounded in malice, and your tongue devised snares. Sitting, you spoke against your brother, and against your mother's son you set a stumbling block.” Likewise what the apostle says: “Let no evil word proceed from your mouth, but a good one, for the building up of faith, that it may give grace to the hearers.” Moreover, we would be showing that such things ought to be done if, whenever such things have been written by the slanderous rashness of some, we allowed them to be read among us. And therefore, dearest brother, when writings came to me against you and against the fellow presbyters sitting with you, I ordered to be read to the clergy and people those that sounded with religious simplicity and did not resound with any barking of abuse and insults.

As for our having asked for the letters of our colleagues who were present there at your ordination, we were not forgetting the old customs or seeking anything new. For it would be enough for you to announce by letter that you had been made bishop, were there not on the other side a dissenting faction that, by its accusing and slanderous inventions, was disturbing the minds and confusing the hearts of colleagues and very many brothers alike. To quiet this we thought it necessary that the firm and solid authority of our colleagues writing to us should be secured for you; and they, proclaiming in their letters testimonies worthy of your character, life, and discipline, have removed every scruple of doubt and dissent even from your rivals, who rejoice in either novelty or depravity. And according to our counsel, weighed with wholesome reasoning, the minds of the brothers, tossing in this tide, have sincerely and firmly approved your priesthood. For this above all, brother, we labour and ought to labour: to take care to maintain, as far as we can, the unity handed down by the Lord and through the apostles to us their successors, and, as far as lies in us, to gather into the church the bleating and straying sheep whom the stubborn faction and heretical temptation of some separate from their mother; only those remaining outside who by their obstinacy or madness have refused and would not return to us, and who will themselves give account to the Lord for the division and separation they have made and for the church they have abandoned.

As for what concerns here the case of certain presbyters and of Felicissimus, so that you might know what has been done here, our colleagues have sent you a letter signed with their own hands; from their letter you will learn what they thought and what they pronounced after hearing them. But you will do better, brother, if you also order to be read there to the brothers the copies of the letters which, out of our common love, I recently sent you by our colleagues Caldonius and Fortunatus to be read, which I had written about the same Felicissimus and the same presbyters to the clergy here, and also to the people; they tell both the order and the account of what was done, so that both here and there the brotherhood may be instructed by us on everything. I have now also sent the same copies by the subdeacon Mettius, sent by me, and the acolyte Nicephorus. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to Maximus and Nicostratus and the other confessors, greeting. Since you have often learned from my letters, dearly beloved, what honor I have kept in what I say for your confession and what love for the brotherhood joined to us, I beg you to believe and to accept this letter of mine, in which I write to you and counsel you simply and faithfully for the sake of your conduct and your praise. For it weighs on me and saddens me, and the grief of a heart struck almost unbearably and nearly laid low grips me, now that I have learned that there, against the ordering of God, against the law of the gospel, against the unity of the catholic institution, you have consented to the making of another bishop; that is, to what is neither right nor permitted: that another church be set up, that the members of Christ be torn apart, that the one soul and body of the Lord's flock be mangled by a divided rivalry. I beg that at least in you this unlawful rending of our brotherhood may not continue, but that, mindful both of your confession and of the divine tradition, you return to the mother from whom you went out, from whom you came to the glory of confession amid the rejoicing of that same mother.

And do not think that you are defending the gospel of Christ while you separate yourselves from Christ's flock and from his peace and concord, since it better befits glorious and good soldiers to stay within their own camp and, placed inside, to deal with and provide for the things that must be handled in common. For since our unanimity and concord ought in no way to be split, and since we cannot leave the church and go out to you, we ask and entreat you, with what encouragements we can, rather to return to the church your mother and to your brotherhood. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. I thought it both dutiful toward you and necessary, dearest brother, to write a short letter to the confessors who are there and who, led astray by the obstinacy and perversity of Novatian and Novatus, have withdrawn from the church, in which, out of our mutual affection, I might appeal to them to return to their mother, that is, the catholic church. I instructed the subdeacon Mettius to read this letter to you first, so that no one might pretend I had written anything other than what my letter contains. I have also instructed that same Mettius, sent by me to you, to act at your discretion; and if you think that letter should be entrusted to the confessors, then he is to deliver it. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. I have read your letter, dearest brother, which you sent by our fellow presbyter Primitivus, in which I learned that you were troubled because, whereas letters had been directed to you from the colony of Hadrumetum in Polycarp's name, after Liberalis and I had come to that place letters began to be directed there to the presbyters and deacons.

We want you to know and to believe for certain that this was done out of no fickleness or contempt. But when several of us colleagues who had come together had decided that, after our fellow bishops Caldonius and Fortunatus had been sent to you as envoys, everything should meanwhile be held in suspense until those same colleagues of ours returned to us, having either brought matters there to peace or found out the truth, the presbyters and deacons residing at Hadrumetum, in the absence of our fellow bishop Polycarp, did not know what we had agreed in common. But when we came there in person and our decision was learned, they too began to observe what the others did, so that in none of the churches here would there be any disagreement.

Yet some people now and then trouble minds and spirits with their talk, reporting certain things otherwise than the truth is. For we, giving an account to each person sailing from here, so that they might sail without any cause of stumbling, know that we urged them to acknowledge and hold to the womb and root of the catholic church. But since our province is widely spread, having Numidia and Mauretania joined to it as well, it was decided, so that a schism made in the City might not confuse the minds of those far away with uncertain opinion, that only when the truth of the matter had been ascertained by us through the bishops, and greater authority obtained for approving your ordination, and so every doubt shaken from each one's heart, should letters be written by absolutely all who are placed here, as they are now being written, so that all our colleagues might firmly approve and hold to you and to your communion, that is, both the unity and the charity of the catholic church. We rejoice that this has come about by God's doing and that our plan has proceeded with foresight.

For so now the truth and likewise the dignity of your episcopate is established in the clearest light, with the plainest and firmest approval, so that from the replies of our colleagues who wrote to us from there, and from the report and testimony of our fellow bishops Pompeius, Stephanus, Caldonius, and Fortunatus, the necessary origin and just grounds of your ordination, and also your glorious innocence, might be known to all. That we, together with our other colleagues too, may administer this steadfastly and firmly, and hold it in the harmonious unanimity of the catholic church, divine protection will bring about, so that the Lord, who deigns to choose and appoint priests for himself in his church, may also guard by his will and help those whom he has chosen and appointed, inspiring them in their governing and supplying them with vigor to curb the defiance of the wicked, and gentleness to foster the penance of the lapsed. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cornelius to his brother Cyprian, greeting. As great as was the anxiety and distress we endured over those confessors who had been ensnared and almost deceived and estranged from the church by the guile and malice of a crafty and practiced man, so great is the joy with which we are filled, and we give thanks to God almighty and to Christ our Lord, now that, having recognized their error and understood the poisonous cunning of the wicked man, like a serpent's, they have come back with a single will to the church from which they had gone out, as they themselves declare from their heart. At first, indeed, our brothers of proven faith, lovers of peace and desirous of unity, reported that their swelling pride was softening; yet the assurance was not strong enough for us easily to believe that they had suddenly changed. But afterward the confessors Urbanus and Sidonius came to our fellow presbyters, affirming that the confessor and presbyter Maximus … also wished to return to the church together with them. But since many things had gone before which had been planned by them, which you too have learned from our fellow bishops and from my letters, so that they should not be trusted rashly, it was decided that what they had sent word of by messengers should be heard from their own mouth and confession. When they came and were asked by the presbyters to account for what they had done, and finally for the fact that letters full of slanders and abuse had been sent frequently in their name through all the churches and had disturbed almost all the churches, they declared that they had been ensnared and had not known what was in those letters, but had only signed them; that, led around by his cunning, they had also committed themselves to schism and had been the authors of heresy, so as to allow hands to be laid on him as if for the episcopate. When these and other things had been reproached to them, they begged that they be blotted out and removed from memory.

When the whole proceeding had been reported to me, I decided to convene the presbytery. Five bishops were also present, who were there that same day too, so that, a plan being settled, what should be observed regarding their persons might be determined by the consent of all. And so that you might learn the sentiment of all and the counsel of each, we decided also to bring our opinions to your knowledge; you will read them attached. When this had been done, Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, and a good many brothers who had joined them came into the presbytery, desiring with the most earnest prayers that what had been done before should pass into oblivion and no mention of it be made, just as if nothing had been either done or said, all being forgiven on both sides, and that they might now present to God a clean and pure heart, following the word of the gospel that the pure in heart are blessed, for they shall see God. As followed naturally, this whole proceeding had to be made known to the people, so that they too might see established in the church those whom they had so long seen, and grieved over, wandering and astray. When their wish was known, there was a great gathering of the brotherhood. There was one voice of all giving thanks to God, expressing the joy of their hearts with tears, embracing them as if on that day they had been freed from the punishment of prison. And to set down their own words: “We,” they say, “know that Cornelius was chosen bishop of the most holy catholic church by God almighty and Christ our Lord. We confess our error. We have suffered deception. We were ensnared by treachery and captious talk. For although we seemed to have had a kind of communion with a schismatic and heretical man, our heart was always in the church. For we are not ignorant that there is one God, and one Christ the Lord, whom we confessed, one Holy Spirit, and that there ought to be one bishop in the catholic church.” Who would not be moved by this profession of theirs, that what they had confessed before the power of this world, they should now, standing in the church, confirm? Therefore we ordered the presbyter Maximus to take up his place. To the rest, with the great approval of the people, we remitted everything done before, leaving it to God almighty, in whose power all things are reserved. These things, then, dearest brother, we have sent to you in writing at the same hour and moment, and I have at once dispatched to you from the station the acolyte Nicephorus, who was hurrying down to take ship, so that, with no delay, you might give thanks together with us to God almighty and Christ our Lord, as if present in this clergy and this assembly of the people. We believe, nay rather we now confidently trust, that the others too who are set in this error will soon return to the church, when they see their leaders acting with us. I think you ought, dearest brother, to send this letter also to the other churches, so that all may know that the guile and treachery of this schismatic and heretic are being brought to nothing day by day. Farewell, dearest brother.

Cornelius to his brother Cyprian, greeting. That nothing might be lacking to the coming punishment of this wicked man, though struck down by the powers of God, when Maximus and Longinus and Machaeus had been driven out from there, he has risen up again; and, as I indicated in my earlier letter, which I sent you by the confessor Augendus, I think that Nicostratus and Novatus and Evaristus and Primus and Dionysius have already arrived there. Let watch be kept, then, so that it becomes known to all our fellow bishops and brothers: that Nicostratus, guilty of many crimes, has not only committed frauds and plunder against his patroness according to the flesh, whose accounts he managed, but also, which is reserved for him to everlasting punishment, has carried off no small deposits of the church; and that Evaristus was with the author of the schism, and that Zetus has been appointed bishop in his place, successor over the people over whom he had previously presided. Novatus, for his part, has displayed here the same malice and insatiable greed that he always practiced there among you; so that you may know what kind of leaders and protectors this schismatic and heretic always keeps joined to his side. Farewell, dearest brother.

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. We declare, dearest brother, that we have given and give without ceasing the greatest thanks to God the Father almighty and to his Christ, our Lord and God and Savior, that the church is so protected by God that its unity and holiness are not continually nor wholly corrupted by the obstinacy of faithlessness and heretical perversity. For we have read your letter and received with exultation the fullest joy of our common prayer: that the presbyter Maximus and Urbanus, confessors, with Sidonius and Macarius, have returned to the catholic church; that is, that, laying aside their error and forsaking the schismatic, nay heretical, madness, they have sought again with faithful soundness the home of unity and truth, so that, from where they had gone forth to glory, they might return there glorious; so that those who had confessed Christ should not afterward desert the camp of Christ, and those who had not been overcome in strength and courage should not be tried in the faith of charity and unity. See, the integrity of their praise is safe and spotless; see, the dignity of the confessors is uncorrupted and solid: they have withdrawn from deserters and fugitives, they have left the betrayers of the faith and the assailants of the catholic church. Rightly, as you write, did clergy and people, the whole brotherhood, receive them with the greatest joy as they returned, since in confessors who keep their glory and return to unity there is no one who does not reckon himself a sharer and partaker in their glory. The gladness of that day we can estimate from our own feelings.

For if here the whole number of the brothers rejoiced at your letter which you sent about their confession, and received this news of common thanksgiving with the greatest eagerness, what must it have been there, where the thing itself and the joy were present and taking place before the eyes of all? For since the Lord says in his gospel that there is the highest joy in heaven over a sinner doing penance, how much greater is the joy both on earth and in heaven alike over confessors returning to the church of God with their glory and praise, and making the way of return for others by the faith and proof of their example? For here error had led some of our brothers to think that they were following the communion of the confessors. With that error removed, light has been poured into the hearts of all, and the catholic church has been shown to be one, unable to be split or divided. Nor will anyone now easily be deceived by the wordy talk of a raving schismatic, since it has been proven that the good and glorious soldiers of Christ could not long be held outside the church by another's deceit and treachery. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. You acted both diligently and lovingly, dearest brother, in sending us in haste the acolyte Nicephorus, to bring us the glorious joy of the confessors' return and to inform us most fully against the new and ruinous devices of Novatian and Novatus for attacking the church of Christ. For whereas the day before, the harmful faction of heretical perversity had come here, itself already lost and about to ruin others who agree with it, on the following day Nicephorus arrived with your letter, from which we learned, and began to teach and instruct others, that Evaristus, from being a bishop, has not remained even a layman; that, banished from his see and his people and an exile from the church of Christ, he wanders far through other provinces, and, himself made a shipwreck of truth and faith, stirs up like shipwrecks among some who are like him; that Nicostratus too, having lost the diaconate of his holy ministry, having taken away the church's money by sacrilegious fraud and denied the deposits of widows and orphans, did not so much wish to come to Africa as flee from the City out of consciousness of his robberies and unspeakable crimes. And now, a deserter and fugitive from the church, as if changing one's region were changing one's person, he still boasts and proclaims himself a confessor, although he who has denied the church of Christ can neither be called nor be a confessor of Christ. For since the apostle Paul says: “For this reason a man will leave father and mother, and the two will be in one flesh. This sacrament is great; but I say, in Christ and the church”; since, I say, the blessed apostle says this and testifies with his holy voice to the unity of Christ and the church, cleaving together in bonds that cannot be divided, how can he be with Christ who is not with the bride of Christ and in his church? Or how does he take upon himself the care of ruling or governing the church who has robbed and defrauded the church of Christ?

As for Novatus, nothing needed to be reported to us from there, since Novatus ought rather to be shown to you by us: always eager for revolution, raging with the rapacity of insatiable greed, puffed up with the arrogance and stupor of swollen pride, always ill regarded here by the bishops, always condemned by the voice of all the priests as a heretic and faithless, always inquisitive so that he may betray, a flatterer so that he may deceive, never faithful so that he may love; a torch and fire for kindling the blazes of sedition, a whirlwind and storm for making shipwrecks of faith, an enemy of quiet, an adversary of tranquility, a foe of peace. In short, when Novatus withdrew from you there, that is, when the storm and whirlwind withdrew, quiet came there in part, and the glorious and good confessors who had left the church at his urging returned to the church after he left the City. This is the same Novatus who first sowed the fire of discord among us, who separated some of the brothers here from their bishop, who in the very persecution was, so to speak, another persecution of ours, for overturning the minds of the brothers. He it is who, without my permission or knowledge, by his faction and ambition appointed his henchman Felicissimus a deacon, and who, sailing with his storm to Rome too for overturning the church, contrived similar and like things there, tearing a portion of the people away from the clergy, splitting the concord of a brotherhood that held well together and loved one another. Clearly, because Rome ought by its greatness to take precedence over Carthage, he committed greater and graver crimes there: he who here had made a deacon against the church made a bishop there. Let no one wonder at this in such men. The wicked are always carried away, maddened by their own fury, and after they have committed crimes they are driven by the very conscience of their guilty mind. Nor can those remain in the church of God who have not kept God's discipline and the church's either in the conduct of their life or in peaceable character. Orphans robbed by him, widows defrauded, the church's money too withheld, exact from him the penalties we see in his madness. His father also died of hunger in the street, and afterward was not even buried by him. His wife's womb was struck by his heel, and, a miscarriage being hastened, the child was forced out in a parricide. And now he dares to condemn the hands of those who sacrificed, when he himself is guiltier in his feet, by which the son who was being born was killed.

He had long feared this consciousness of his crimes. Because of it he held it for certain that he would not only be put out of the presbytery but also barred from communion; and, at the brothers' urging, the day of inquiry was drawing near on which his case was to be tried before us, had not the persecution come first. He welcomed it with a kind of wish to escape and be spared condemnation, and committed and stirred up all these things, so that he who was about to be cast out and excluded from the church might forestall the judgment of the priests by a voluntary departure, as if to have anticipated the sentence were to have escaped the penalty.

As for the other brothers, whom we grieve to have been ensnared by him, we are working that they may flee the ruinous side of the old deceiver, escape the deadly snares of the tempter, and seek again the church from which he deserved by God's doing to be driven out. We trust that, with the Lord's help, through his mercy they can come back. For no one can perish except one who is certain to perish, since the Lord says in his gospel: “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.” Only he who has not been planted in the precepts and admonitions of God the Father can depart from the church; only he can remain in madness with schismatics and heretics, having abandoned the bishops. But the rest the mercy of God the Father, the forgiveness of Christ our Lord, and our patience will unite to us. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, and Macarius to their brother Cyprian, greeting. We are sure, dearest brother, that you too rejoice with us with like prayer that, having taken counsel and considering rather the interests and peace of the church, passing over all other things and reserving them to the judgment of God, we have made peace with Cornelius our bishop and likewise with the whole clergy. You ought to know most certainly from this letter of ours that this was done amid the joy of the whole church and with the ready love of all. We pray, dearest brother, that you may fare well for many years.

Cyprian to the presbyter Maximus, and also to Urbanus, Sidonius, and Macarius, his brothers, greeting. Having read your letter, dearest brothers, which you wrote to me about your return and about the peace of the church and the restoration of brotherhood, I confess that I rejoiced as much as I had rejoiced before when I learned of the glory of your confession and received with congratulation the heavenly and spiritual praise of your warfare. For this too is another confession of your faith and praise: to confess that the church is one, and not to become a partaker in another's error, or rather perversity; to seek again the same camp from which you went forth, from which you sprang out with the bravest strength to wage battle and subdue the adversary. For the trophies from the battle line had to be brought back to the place from which arms had been taken up for the battle, so that the church of Christ should not lack, as her glorious ones, those whom Christ had prepared for glory. But now you have kept, in the Lord's peace, a course fitting your faith and the law of undivided love and concord, and by your journey have set an example of love and peace to others, so that the truth of the church and the unity of the gospel and of the sacrament which we held might be bound fast by your consent and bond as well, and that confessors of Christ, who had stood out as praiseworthy authors of courage and honor, should not become leaders of error.

Let others see how much they congratulate you, or how much each glories within himself: I confess that I both congratulate you fully and glory more than the rest in this peaceful return and love of yours. For you ought to hear simply what was in my heart. I grieved deeply and was sorely distressed that I could not be in communion with those whom I had once begun to love. After schismatic and heretical error took you in as you came out of prison, it was as if your glory had remained in the prison. For the dignity of your name seemed to have stayed behind there, when soldiers of Christ did not return from prison to the church, into which prison they had first gone with the church's praise and congratulation.

For even if there seem to be tares in the church, neither our faith nor our love ought to be hindered, so that, because we see tares in the church, we ourselves withdraw from the church. We must labor only that we may be wheat, so that when the wheat begins to be stored in the Lord's barns we may receive fruit for our work and labor. The apostle says in his letter: “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of clay, and some to honor, some to dishonor.” Let us take pains and labor as much as we can to be a vessel of gold or silver. But to break the vessels of clay is granted to the Lord alone, to whom the rod of iron has also been given. The servant cannot be greater than his master, nor may anyone claim for himself what the Father has granted to the Son alone, so as to think that he can already carry the fan to winnow and cleanse the threshing floor, or by human judgment separate all the tares from the wheat. That is proud obstinacy and sacrilegious presumption which perverse madness takes upon itself. And while some always take for themselves more than gentle justice requires, they perish from the church; and while they insolently exalt themselves, blinded by their very swelling pride they lose the light of truth. For this reason we too, keeping moderation, considering the Lord's balance, and thinking of the kindness and mercy of God the Father, after long and full discussion among ourselves, have weighed what must be done with just moderation.

All of this you can examine thoroughly by reading the booklets which I recently read here and had sent to you too, to be read out of our common love, in which the lapsed lack neither the rebuke that reproves nor the medicine that heals. But our modest ability has also set out, as far as it could, the unity of the catholic church; and I trust that this booklet pleases you more and more now, when you read it in such a way as both to approve and to love it, since what we have written in words you fulfill in deeds, when you return to the church in the unity of love and peace. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Antonianus, greeting. I received your first letter, dearest brother, firmly maintaining the concord of the priestly college and cleaving to the catholic church, in which you indicated that you were not in communion with Novatian but followed our counsel and … [that I should forward a copy] of that same letter to our colleague Cornelius, so that, laying aside all anxiety, he might now know that you were in communion with him, that is, with the catholic church.

But then another letter of yours arrived, sent by our fellow presbyter Quintus, in which I noticed that your mind, moved by Novatian's letter, had begun to waver. For although you had first firmly fixed your counsel and consent, you asked in this letter that I write back to you what heresy Novatian had introduced, or on what grounds Cornelius is in communion with Trophimus and with those who offered incense. If indeed you take anxious care for the faith and search out with concern the truth of a doubtful matter, the anxious hesitation of a mind in turmoil in the fear of God is not to be blamed.

Yet since I see that after the first opinion in your letter you were afterward shaken by Novatian's letter, I put this first, dearest brother: serious men, once founded upon the rock with solid firmness, are moved, I do not say by a light breeze, but not even by wind or whirlwind, lest a doubtful and uncertain mind be often tossed by various opinions as by blasts of assailing winds and be changed from its purpose with some reproach of fickleness. That Novatian's letter may not do this with you or with anyone, I will briefly set out the matter for you, brother, as you asked. And first, since you seem also to be troubled about my own conduct, my person and my case must be cleared before you, lest anyone think I have lightly departed from my purpose, and that, although at first and at the beginning I defended the rigor of the gospel, I afterward seem to have turned my mind from my former discipline and severity, so as to have thought that peace should be granted too easily to those who have stained their conscience with certificates or committed the unspeakable sacrifices. Both of these I did not do without a reason long weighed and considered.

For while the battle was still at hand and the fight of the glorious contest was raging in the persecution, the strength of the soldiers had to be roused with every exhortation and full force, and above all the minds of the lapsed had to be stirred by the trumpet, as it were, of our voice, so that they might follow the way of penance not only with prayers and laments but, since the opportunity was given of renewing the contest and recovering salvation, might be spurred by our rebukes rather to the ardor of confession and the glory of martyrdom. Accordingly, when the presbyters and deacons had written to me about some who were unrestrained and were pressing hastily to receive communion, in writing back to them in my letter, which is extant, I added this too: “If they are in too great a hurry, they have in their own power what they ask, the time itself granting them more than they ask. The battle is still being waged, and the contest is celebrated daily. If they truly and firmly repent of what they have committed, and the warmth of faith prevails, he who cannot be put off can be crowned.” But I deferred what should be decided about the case of the lapsed, so that, when quiet and tranquility had been granted and divine indulgence allowed the bishops to meet together, then, counsel being shared and weighed by the conference of all, we might decide what ought to be done; and if anyone before our council, and before a sentence settled by the counsel of all, wished rashly to give communion to the lapsed, he himself should be kept from communion.

This I also wrote most fully to Rome, to the clergy, who were then still without a bishop, and to the confessors, the presbyter Maximus and the others then held in custody, now joined with Cornelius in the church; that I wrote this you can learn from their replies. For in their letter they put it thus: “Although in so great a matter we agree with what you yourself have discussed, that the peace of the church must first be awaited, and then, a conference of counsels being held with bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and also laymen who stood firm, the case of the lapsed be treated.” It was also added, Novatian then writing and reading aloud with his own voice what he had written, and the presbyter Moyses, then still a confessor and now a martyr, subscribing, that peace should be given to the lapsed who were sick and at the point of death. This letter was sent through the whole world and brought to the knowledge of all the churches and of all the brothers.

Nevertheless, in accordance with what had been determined before, when the persecution had died down and the opportunity was given of meeting together, a large number of bishops, whom their faith and the Lord's protection had kept whole and unharmed, came together; and, the Scriptures having been brought forward on both sides, we weighed a balance with wholesome moderation, so that hope of communion and peace should not be wholly denied to the lapsed, lest they fail the more from despair and, because the church was shut against them, follow the world and live as heathens; nor yet, on the other hand, should the rigor of the gospel be loosened so that they rush rashly to communion; but that penance should be drawn out long, and the fatherly clemency be sorrowfully entreated, and the cases, intentions, and necessities of each be examined, according to what is contained in the booklet which I trust has reached you, in which the several heads of our decisions are written down. And in case the number of bishops in Africa should seem too small, we also wrote to Rome on this matter to our colleague Cornelius, who himself, having held a council with very many fellow bishops, agreed with us in the same sentence with equal seriousness and wholesome moderation.

I had to write this to you now so that you may know that I did nothing lightly, but, according to what I had set out before in my letters, deferred everything to the common counsel of our council; that I gave communion to none of the lapsed earlier, while there was still a way by which a lapsed person might receive not only pardon but also a crown; but that afterward, as both the concord of the college and the benefit of gathering the brotherhood and healing its wound required, I yielded to the necessity of the times and thought that the salvation of many must be provided for; and that I do not now depart from what was once agreed in our council by common conference, although many things are bandied about by the voices of many, and lies uttered against the priests of God from the devil's mouth are hurled everywhere to break the concord of catholic unity. But it befits you, as a good brother and a like-minded fellow priest, not easily to accept what the malicious and apostates say, but to weigh what your colleagues, modest and serious men, do, from an examination of our life and discipline.

I come now, dearest brother, to the person of our colleague Cornelius, so that you may know Cornelius more truly with us, not from the lies of the malicious and slanderers, but from the judgment of God, who made him bishop, and from the testimony of his fellow bishops, the whole number of whom throughout the world has agreed with harmonious unanimity. For what commends our dearest Cornelius with praiseworthy report to God, to Christ and his church, and also to all his fellow priests is this: he did not come to the episcopate suddenly, but, promoted through all the church's offices and having often deserved well of the Lord in the divine ministries, he ascended through every grade of religion to the lofty summit of the priesthood. Then he neither asked for nor wanted the episcopate itself, nor did he seize it, like others whom the swelling of their arrogance and pride puffs up; but, quiet in other ways and modest, and such as those are accustomed to be who are chosen for this place by God, out of the modesty of his virginal continence and the humility of the reserve inborn in him and guarded, he did not, as some have, use force to become bishop, but himself suffered force, so that he accepted the episcopate under compulsion. And he was made bishop by very many of our colleagues who were then present in the city of Rome, who sent us letters about his ordination that were honorable and full of praise and distinguished by the testimony of their report. Cornelius was made bishop by the judgment of God and his Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the vote of the people who were then present, and by the assembly of aged priests and good men, when no one had been made before him, when the place of Fabian, that is, the place of Peter and the rank of the priestly chair, was vacant. Once that place has been filled and confirmed by the will of God and the consent of all of us, whoever now wishes to be made bishop must of necessity be made outside, and he does not have the church's ordination who does not hold the unity of the church. Whoever he may be, however much he boasts of himself and claims for himself, he is profane, he is an alien, he is outside. And since there cannot be a second after the first, whoever is made after the one who ought to be alone is no longer second but nothing.

Then, after an episcopate neither canvassed for nor extorted, but received by the will of God who makes priests, how great was the courage in the very taking up of his episcopate, how great the strength of soul, what firmness of faith, which we ought with a simple heart both to see thoroughly and to praise: that he sat fearless at Rome in the priestly chair at a time when a tyrant hostile to God's priests was threatening things speakable and unspeakable, when he would hear with far more patience and tolerance that a rival prince was rising against him than that a priest of God was being appointed at Rome. Is not this man, dearest brother, to be proclaimed with the highest testimony of courage and faith? Is he not to be counted among the glorious confessors and martyrs, who sat so long awaiting the executioners of his body and the avengers of a raging tyrant, who might attack Cornelius, as he resisted the deadly edicts and trampled threats and torments and tortures underfoot by the vigor of his faith, with the sword, or crucify him, or roast him with fire, or tear his entrails and limbs with some unheard-of kind of punishment? Even if the majesty and goodness of the Lord who protects him guarded, once made, the priest whom he willed to be made, yet Cornelius, as far as his devotion and fear are concerned, suffered whatever he could suffer, and by his priesthood first conquered the tyrant who was afterward conquered by arms and war.

As for the shameful and grave things that are bandied about concerning him, I would not have you wonder, since you know that it is always the devil's work to tear the servants of God with lies and defame a glorious name with false opinions, so that those who shine in the light of their own conscience may be sullied by others' rumors. But know that our colleagues have investigated and found out most truly that he was not stained, as some keep boasting, by any taint of a certificate; nor did he mingle sacrilegious communion with bishops who had sacrificed, but joined with us only those whose case had been heard and whose innocence had been proven.

As for Trophimus, about whom you asked to be written to, the matter is not as rumor and the lies of the malicious brought it to you. For, as our predecessors also often did, our dearest brother yielded to necessity in gathering back our brothers. And since the greatest part of the people had gone away with Trophimus, now that Trophimus was returning to the church, making satisfaction, confessing his former error with the penance of supplication, and calling back with full humility and satisfaction the brotherhood he had lately drawn away, his prayers were heard, and not so much Trophimus as a very great number of brothers who had been with Trophimus were admitted into the Lord's church; all of them would not have returned to the church unless they had come with Trophimus accompanying them. So, after discussion there with very many colleagues, Trophimus was received, the return of the brothers and the restored salvation of many making satisfaction for him. Yet Trophimus was admitted on the terms that he communicates as a layman, not, as the letters of the malicious reported to you, as if he were usurping a priestly place.

And the report to you that Cornelius indiscriminately gives communion to those who sacrificed, this too springs from the invented rumors of apostates. For those who withdraw cannot praise us, nor ought we to expect to please those who, displeased with us and rebelling against the church, violently press on to lure brothers away from the church. Therefore, whatever is bandied about concerning Cornelius and concerning us, do not readily listen to it or believe it, dearest brother.

For if any are overtaken by sickness, help is given them in their danger, as was decided. But after help has been given and peace granted to those in danger, they cannot be smothered by us, or crushed, or pushed by our force and hand to the end of death, as if, because peace is given to the dying, those who have received peace must die; when rather the sign of divine kindness and fatherly gentleness appears in this, that those who receive the pledge of life in the peace granted are also held here in life after peace has been received. And therefore, if after peace is received a reprieve is given by God, no one ought to blame the priests for this, once it has been decided that the brothers should be helped in their danger. And do not think, dearest brother, as it seems to some, that those who took certificates ought to be put on a level with those who sacrificed, since even among those who sacrificed the circumstances and the case often differ. For he is not to be put on a level who leapt at once of his own will to the unspeakable sacrifice, and he who, having resisted and struggled long, came to this deadly deed under necessity; he who betrayed both himself and all his household, and he who, going himself into danger for all, protected his wife, his children, and his whole house by the bargain of his own peril; he who compelled his tenants or friends to the crime, and he who spared his tenants and farmers, and even received into his own roof and hospitality very many brothers who were withdrawing as exiles and fugitives, showing and offering to the Lord many souls living and unharmed to plead for one that is wounded.

Since, then, there is great difference even among those who sacrificed, what unmercifulness it is, and what bitter harshness, to join those who took certificates with those who sacrificed, when the one who received a certificate may say: “I had read before, and had learned from the bishop's teaching, that one must not sacrifice to idols and that a servant of God ought not to worship images; and therefore, so as not to do what was not permitted, when the opportunity of a certificate was offered (which I would not have taken either, had the opportunity not been shown me), I either went to the magistrate or, another going for me, sent word that I was a Christian, that it was not lawful for me to sacrifice, that I could not come to the devil's altars, and that I was paying for this reason, so as not to do what is not lawful.” Yet now even this one who is stained by a certificate, after he has learned from our admonition that he ought not to have done even this, and that, although his hand is clean and no contact with the deadly food has polluted his mouth, his conscience is nevertheless polluted, weeps on hearing us and laments; and, now admonished of how he has sinned, deceived not so much by crime as by error, he testifies that from now on he is instructed and prepared.

If we reject the penance of those who have some confidence in a conscience that can be borne, at once, with their wives and children whom they had kept unharmed, they are snatched away into heresy or schism at the devil's invitation; and it will be written against us on the day of judgment that we did not care for the wounded sheep, and for the sake of one wounded lost many whole ones. And whereas the Lord, leaving the ninety-nine sound, sought the one that was wandering and weary and, when he found it, carried it himself on his shoulders, we should not only not seek the weary but even drive away those who come; and while false prophets do not cease now to lay waste and tear the flock of Christ, we should give an opening to dogs and wolves, so that those whom hostile persecution did not destroy we destroy by our harshness and inhumanity. And where, dearest brother, will be what the apostle says: “I please all in all things, not seeking what is profitable to me, but to many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ”? And again: “I became weak to the weak, that I might gain the weak.” And again: “If one member suffers, the other members suffer with it; and if one member rejoices, the other members rejoice with it.”

The reasoning of the philosophers and Stoics is another thing, dearest brother: they say that all sins are equal and that a serious man ought not easily to be swayed. But between Christians and philosophers there is a very great distance. And since the apostle says: “See that no one plunders you through philosophy and empty deceit,” we must avoid what does not come from the clemency of God but descends from the presumption of a harsher philosophy. Of Moses we read it said in the Scriptures: “And Moses was a very gentle man.” And the Lord says in his gospel: “Be merciful, as your Father also has had mercy on you.” And again: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” What medicine can he practice who says: “I cure only the healthy, who have no need of a physician”? We ought to offer our help, our healing, to the wounded. Nor let us think that those whom we see wounded by the deadly persecution are dead, but rather that they lie half alive; for if they were wholly dead, confessors and martyrs would never afterward be made from them.

But since there is in them something that, with penance following, may regain strength for faith, and from penance their vigor is armed for courage (which cannot be armed if one fails from despair, if, harshly and cruelly separated from the church, he turns to the ways of the heathen and worldly works, or, rejected by the church, goes over to heretics and schismatics, where, even if he is afterward killed for the Name, being placed outside the church and divided from unity and love, he cannot be crowned in death), therefore it was decided, dearest brother, after examination of each one's case, that those who took certificates should be admitted meanwhile, and those who sacrificed be helped at the end, because there is no confession in the underworld, nor can anyone be compelled by us to penance if the fruit of penance is taken away. If battle comes first, he will be found strengthened by us for battle; but if sickness presses him before battle, he departs with the comfort of peace and communion.

For we do not prejudge the Lord who is to judge, so that, if he finds the sinner's penance full and just, he may then ratify what has been decided by us here. But if anyone has deceived us by a pretense of penance, let God, who is not mocked and who looks upon the heart of man, judge concerning what we have not seen clearly, and let the Lord amend the sentence of his servants. Only, brother, we ought to remember that it is written: “A brother helping a brother will be exalted”; and that the apostle too said: “Considering each one, lest you also be tempted, bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ”; and also what he sets down in his letter, rebuking the proud and breaking arrogance: “And let him who thinks he stands see that he does not fall”; and in another place he says: “Who are you that judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. But he will stand, for God is able to make him stand.” John also proves that Jesus Christ our Lord is advocate and intercessor for our sins, saying: “My little children, I write these things to you that you may not sin; and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.” And the apostle Paul too put in his letter: “If, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, much more now, justified by his blood, shall we be delivered through him from wrath.”

Thinking of his kindness and clemency, we ought not to be so bitter, nor so harsh, nor inhuman in caring for our brothers, but to grieve with those who grieve and weep with those who weep, and to raise them up as far as we can with the help and comfort of our love; neither so ungentle and stubborn as to beat back their penance, nor again so lax and easy as to relax communion rashly. See, a brother lies wounded, struck by the adversary in the battle. On one side the devil tries to kill the one he has wounded; on the other Christ urges that the one he has redeemed should not wholly perish. Which of the two do we stand by? On whose side do we stand? Do we favor the devil, that he may destroy, and pass by our brother lying half dead, like the priest and Levite in the gospel? Or rather, as priests of God and Christ, imitating what Christ both taught and did, do we snatch the wounded man from the adversary's jaws, and, having cared for him, reserve him for God the judge?

Nor think, dearest brother, that on this account either the courage of the brothers is lessened or martyrdoms fail, because penance has been relaxed for the lapsed and hope of peace offered to the penitent. The strength of those who truly trust remains unmoved, and among those who fear and love God with their whole heart integrity perseveres firm and strong. For to adulterers too a time of penance is granted by us, and peace is given. Yet virginity does not therefore fail in the church, nor does the glorious resolve of continence grow feeble through others' sins. The church flourishes, crowned with so many virgins, and chastity and modesty keep the course of their glory; nor is the vigor of continence broken because penance and pardon are relaxed for the adulterer. It is one thing to stand waiting for pardon, another to attain to glory; one thing, sent into prison, not to come out from there until one pays the last farthing, another at once to receive the reward of faith and courage; one thing to be tormented with long grief for one's sins and to be cleansed and purged a long time by fire, another to have purged all sins by suffering; one thing, in short, to hang on the Lord's sentence on the day of judgment, another to be crowned at once by the Lord.

And indeed, among our predecessors, some of the bishops here in our province thought that peace should not be given to adulterers, and wholly closed the place of penance against adulteries. Yet they did not withdraw from the college of their fellow bishops, nor break the unity of the catholic church by the obstinacy of their harshness or severity, so that, because peace was given to adulterers by others, the one who did not give it should be separated from the church. While the bond of concord remains and the undivided sacrament of the catholic church endures, each bishop arranges and directs his own conduct, as one who will give account of his decision to the Lord.

I am amazed that some are so obstinate as to think that penance should not be given to the lapsed, or to judge that pardon must be denied to the penitent, when it is written: “Remember from where you have fallen, and do penance, and do the first works.” This is said, surely, to one who has evidently fallen and whom the Lord urges to rise again by works, because it is written: “Almsgiving frees from death,” and surely not from that death which the blood of Christ once extinguished and from which the water of saving baptism and the grace of our Redeemer have freed us, but from that which creeps in afterward through sins. In another place likewise a time of penance is given, and the Lord threatens the one who does not do penance: “I have much against you,” he says, “that you allow your wife Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat of sacrifice; and I gave her time to do penance, and she will not repent of her immorality. Behold, I cast her into a bed, and those who have committed immorality with her into very great tribulation, unless they do penance for their works.” The Lord would surely not urge to penance unless he promised pardon to the penitent. And in the gospel: “I say to you,” he says, “so there will be joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance, more than over ninety-nine righteous who have no need of penance.” For since it is written, “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living,” surely he who wills that no one perish desires that sinners do penance and through penance return again to life. Therefore he also cries through the prophet Joel and says: “And now the Lord your God says: Return to me with your whole heart, and with fasting and weeping and mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and kind and patient and of great mercy, and one who turns his sentence away from the evil threatened.” In the Psalms too we read the severity and likewise the clemency of God, at once threatening and sparing, punishing to correct and, when he has corrected, preserving: “I will visit their crimes with the rod,” he says, “and their sins with scourges; but my mercy I will not scatter from them.”

The Lord too, showing in the gospel the kindness of God the Father, says: “Which man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will hand him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, will hand him a serpent? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?” Here the Lord compares a father according to the flesh with the eternal and bountiful kindness of God the Father. If that evil father on earth, gravely offended by a sinful and wicked son, yet afterward sees him reformed and, the sins of his former life laid aside, corrected by the sorrow of penance to sober and good habits and to the discipline of innocence, rejoices and is glad and, taking back the one he had cast off, embraces him with the longing of a father's exultation, how much more does that one and true Father, good, merciful, and kind, nay goodness and mercy and kindness itself, rejoice in the penance of his children, and threaten not wrath to the penitent, nor punishment to those who mourn and lament, but rather promise pardon and forgiveness! Hence the Lord in the gospel calls those who mourn blessed, because he who mourns calls forth mercy, while he who is stubborn and proud heaps up for himself wrath and the punishment of the coming judgment. And therefore, dearest brother, we have decided that those who do not do penance, nor testify to sorrow for their sins with their whole heart and the open profession of their lament, are to be wholly barred from the hope of communion and peace if they begin to plead in sickness and danger, because what drives them to ask is not penance for their sin but the warning of pressing death; and he is not worthy to receive comfort in death who did not reflect that he would die.

As for the person of Novatian, dearest brother, about whom you asked to be written to, what heresy he had introduced, know first of all that we ought not even to be curious about what he teaches, since he teaches outside. Whoever he is and whatever he is, he is not a Christian who is not in the church of Christ. Let him boast and proclaim his philosophy or eloquence with proud words: he who has kept neither brotherly love nor the church's unity has lost even what he had been before. Unless he seems a bishop to you who, when a bishop had been made in the church by sixteen fellow bishops, strives by intrigue to be made an adulterous and alien bishop by deserters; and who, although the church has been divided by Christ into many members throughout the whole world, and likewise the episcopate is one, spread abroad in the harmonious multitude of many bishops, after God's tradition, after the unity of the catholic church linked and everywhere joined together, tries to make a human church and sends his new apostles through very many cities to lay certain fresh foundations of his own institution; and although long ago bishops have been ordained through all the provinces and in every city, old in years, sound in faith, proven in affliction, proscribed in persecution, he dares to create other false bishops over them: as if he could either travel the whole world by the obstinacy of his new attempt or tear apart the frame of the church's body by sowing his discord, not knowing that schismatics are always fervent at the beginning but cannot grow or increase what they have unlawfully begun, but at once fail together with their perverse rivalry. But he could not hold the episcopate even if, having been made bishop first, he broke away from the body of his fellow bishops and from the unity of the church, since the apostle admonishes us to bear with one another, lest we withdraw from the unity which God has established, and says: “Bearing with one another in love, taking care to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” He, then, who keeps neither the unity of the Spirit nor the bond of peace, and separates himself from the bond of the church and from the college of priests, can have neither the power nor the honor of a bishop, since he would hold neither the unity nor the peace of the episcopate.

Then, further, how great is the swelling of arrogance, how great the forgetfulness of humility and gentleness, how great the boasting of his arrogance, that anyone should either dare or believe himself able to do what the Lord did not grant even to the apostles: to think that he can distinguish the tares from the wheat, or, as if it had been granted to him to carry the fan and cleanse the threshing floor, to try to separate the chaff from the wheat; and, whereas the apostle says, “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of clay,” to seem to choose out the vessels of gold and silver and to despise, cast away, and condemn those of wood and clay, when only on the day of the Lord will the vessels of wood be burned by the blaze of divine fire, and those of clay be broken by him to whom the rod of iron has been given.

Or if he has set himself up as searcher and judge of heart and reins, let him judge equally in all things; and since he knows it is written, “Behold, you have been made whole; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you,” let him separate the defrauders and adulterers from his side and company, since the case of the adulterer is far graver and worse than that of one who took a certificate: the latter sinned under necessity, the former by will; the latter, thinking it enough for himself that he had not sacrificed, was deceived by error; the former, a violator of another's marriage, or one who entered a brothel, into the sewer and filthy pit of the crowd, has violated a sanctified body and God's temple with loathsome defilement, as the apostle says: “Every sin that a man commits is outside the body; but he who commits adultery sins against his own body.” Yet even to these penance is granted, and hope of lamenting and making satisfaction is left, according to the same apostle who says: “I fear lest perhaps, when I come to you, I may mourn over many of those who sinned before and did not do penance for the uncleanness and sexual immorality and lusts that they committed.”

Nor let the new heretics flatter themselves in this, that they say they do not hold communion with idolaters, since among them there are both adulterers and defrauders who are held guilty of the crime of idolatry, according to the apostle who says: “For know this, understanding that every sexually immoral or unclean person or defrauder, which is idolatry, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” And again: “Put to death, therefore, your members which are on earth, putting off sexual immorality, uncleanness, and evil desire and greed, which are the service of idols, on account of which the wrath of God comes.” For since our bodies are members of Christ and each of us is a temple of God, whoever violates the temple of God by adultery violates God; and whoever does the devil's will in committing sins serves demons and idols. For evil deeds do not come from the Holy Spirit, but the lusts born of the adversary's prompting and of the unclean spirit compel men to act against God and serve the devil. So it follows that, if they say that one person is defiled by another's sin and contend by their assertion that the idolatry of the sinner passes over to the one who does not sin, they cannot, by their own word, be excused from the crime of idolatry, since it is established by the apostle's proof that the adulterers and defrauders with whom they hold communion are idolaters. But for us, according to our faith and the form given by the divine preaching, the rule of truth holds that each is held in his own sin, and one cannot become guilty for another, since the Lord forewarns and says: “The righteousness of the righteous will be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon him.” And again: “Fathers shall not die for sons, nor shall sons die for fathers; each shall die in his own sin.” Reading and holding this, we think that no one is to be kept from the fruit of satisfaction and the hope of peace, since we know, according to the faith of the divine Scriptures, with God himself as author and encourager, both that sinners are brought back to do penance and that pardon and forgiveness are not denied to the penitent.

And oh, the mockery of frustrating the brotherhood! Oh, the same deception of wretched mourners! Oh, the ineffective and empty tradition of heretical teaching: to urge men to the penance of satisfaction and to take away the medicine from the satisfaction; to say to our brothers: “Mourn and shed tears and groan day and night, and work generously and often to wash away and cleanse your sin; but after all this you will die outside the church. You will do whatever pertains to peace, but you will receive none of the peace you seek.” Who would not perish at once, who would not fail from very despair, who would not turn his mind from the purpose of lamenting? Do you think a farmer could work if you said: “Work the field with all the skill of husbandry, apply yourself diligently to cultivation, but you will reap no harvest, you will gather no fruit of your olive grove, you will pick no fruit from the trees”? Or if you were urging someone to the ownership and use of ships and said: “Buy timber, brother, from the finest forests; frame the keel with very strong and choice oak; work to have the ship built and fitted with rudder, ropes, and sails; but when you have done this, you will see no fruit from its voyages and runs.”

It is to shut off and cut off the road of sorrow and the way of repenting, so that, whereas in the Scriptures the Lord God speaks gently to those who return to him and repent, by our harshness and cruelty, while the fruit of penance is intercepted, penance itself is taken away. But if we find that no one ought to be prevented from doing penance, and that to those who beg and implore the Lord's mercy peace can be granted through his priests, according as he is merciful and kind, then the groaning of mourners must be admitted and the fruit of penance must not be denied to those who grieve. And since in the underworld there is no confession, nor can confession be made there, those who have repented with their whole heart and have asked ought meanwhile to be received into the church and reserved in it for the Lord, who, when he comes to his church, will judge concerning those whom he finds within it. But apostates and deserters, or adversaries and enemies and those who scatter the church of Christ, even if they have been killed for the Name outside, cannot, according to the apostle, be admitted to the peace of the church, since they have kept neither the unity of the Spirit nor that of the church.

These few things out of many, dearest brother, I have run through briefly for now as best I could, both to satisfy your wish and to join you more and more in the fellowship of our college and body. But if you have the opportunity and means of coming to us, we shall be able to confer on more things together and to discuss more fully and richly what makes for a saving concord. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to Fortunatus, Ahymmus, Optatus, Privatianus, Donatulus, and Felix, his brothers, greeting. You wrote to me, dearest brothers, that when you were in the city of Capsa for the ordination of a bishop, our brother and colleague Superius brought before you the case of our brothers Ninus, Clementianus, and Florus. They had earlier been arrested in the persecution and, confessing the Lord's name, had overcome the violence of the magistrate and the onset of the raging people; but afterward, when they were tortured with heavy punishments before the proconsul, they were subdued by the force of the torments and, through prolonged tortures, fell from the degree of glory toward which they were striving with the full strength of faith. Yet after this grave lapse, incurred not by will but by necessity, they have not ceased to do penance throughout these three years. About them you thought you should consult whether it was now right to admit them to communion.

And indeed, as far as my own mind's judgment goes, I think that the Lord's forgiveness will not be lacking to those who, as is established, stood in the battle, confessed the Lord's name, overcame the violence of the magistrates and the assault of the raging people by the steadfastness of an unmoved faith, suffered prison, and long resisted, amid the threats of the proconsul and the roar of the surrounding people, torments that tore and racked them with long repetition; so that what at the very end seems to have been subdued by weakness of the flesh may be relieved by the plea of their earlier merits, and it may be enough for such men to have lost their glory; but that we ought not to close to them the place of pardon as well and deprive them of the fatherly kindness and of our communion. For them we judge that it can suffice for entreating the Lord's clemency that, as you write, they have mourned continually and sorrowfully for three years with the greatest lamentation of penance. Certainly I do not think that peace is entrusted incautiously and rashly to those whom we see, by the fortitude of their warfare, not to have failed the battle before, and who, if battle comes again, can regain their glory. For since it was decided in council that those doing penance should be helped and given peace in the danger of sickness, surely those ought to go first in receiving peace whom we see to have fallen, not from weakness of mind, but, having engaged in battle and been wounded, to have been unable through frailty of the flesh to carry through the crown of their confession; especially since, though they desired to die, they were not allowed to be killed, but the torments tore them, worn out, for as long as it took, not to conquer their faith, which is unconquered, but to weary their flesh, which is weak.

Yet since you have written that I should discuss this very matter most fully with more colleagues, and so great a matter requires a larger and more weighed counsel from the conference of many, and now nearly all are staying at home with the brothers during the first solemnities of Easter, when they have fulfilled the celebration of the feast among their own people and begin to come to me, I will discuss it more fully with each, so that a firm sentence, weighed by the counsel of many priests, may be fixed among us on what you have asked and written back to you. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian, Liberalis, Caldonius, Nicomedes, Caecilius, Junius, Marrutius, Felix, Successus, Faustinus, Fortunatus, Victor, Saturninus, another Saturninus, Rogatianus, Tertullus, Lucianus, Sattius, Secundinus, another Saturninus, Eutyches, Ampius, another Saturninus, Aurelius, Priscus, Herculaneus, Victoricus, Quintus, Honoratus, Manthaneus, Hortensianus, Verianus, Iambus, Donatus, Pomponius, Polycarp, Demetrius, another Donatus, Privatianus, Fortunatus, Rogatus, and Monnulus to their brother Cornelius, greeting. We had indeed decided some time ago, dearest brother, having shared counsel with one another, that those who in the onslaught of persecution had been tripped up by the adversary and had lapsed and stained themselves with unlawful sacrifices should do full penance for a long time, and, if the danger of sickness pressed, should receive peace under the stroke of death. For it was not right, nor did fatherly kindness and divine clemency permit, that the church should be closed to those who knock, and that the help of saving hope should be denied to those who grieve and entreat, so that, departing from the world, they would be sent to the Lord without communion and peace; since he himself has permitted and given the law that what is bound on earth should be bound also in heaven, and that those things can be loosed there which were first loosed here in the church. But since we see that the day of another onslaught has begun to draw near again, and we are warned by frequent and continual showings to be armed and ready for the contest which the enemy declares against us, and to prepare with our exhortations the people entrusted to us by divine favor, and to gather within the Lord's camp all the soldiers of Christ who desire arms and demand battle, we have decided, necessity compelling, that peace must be given to those who have not withdrawn from the Lord's church and have not ceased, from the first day of their lapse, to do penance and to lament and to entreat the Lord, and that they must be armed and equipped for the battle that threatens.

For we must obey the showings and just admonitions, so that the sheep may not be deserted in danger by the shepherds, but the whole flock may be gathered into one and the Lord's army be armed for the contest of heavenly warfare. For rightly was the penance of those who grieve drawn out for a longer time, so that the sick were helped at the end, as long as there was quiet and tranquility, which allowed the tears of the mourners to be long deferred and help to be given late to those dying in sickness. But now peace is needed not by the sick but by the strong, and communion is to be given by us not to the dying but to the living, so that we may not leave unarmed and naked those whom we rouse and exhort to battle, but may fortify them with the protection of the blood and body of Christ; and since the Eucharist is made for this, that it may be a safeguard to those who receive it, let us arm those whom we wish to be safe against the adversary with the fortification of the Lord's fullness. For how do we teach or challenge them to shed their blood in confession of the Name, if we deny the blood of Christ to those about to do battle? Or how do we make them fit for the cup of martyrdom, if we do not first admit them to drink the cup of the Lord in the church by the right of communion?

There must be a difference, dearest brother, between those who have either apostatized and, returning to the world they had renounced, live like heathens, or, becoming deserters to the heretics, daily take up parricidal arms against the church, and those who, not withdrawing from the church's threshold and imploring continually and sorrowfully the divine and fatherly comfort, now declare that they are ready for the fight and will stand firm and fight for their Lord's name and for their own salvation. At this time we give peace not to the sleeping but to the watchful; we give peace not for pleasures but for arms; we give peace not for rest but for the battle line. If, as we hear of them and hope and believe, they stand firm and overthrow the adversary together with us in the encounter, we do not regret having granted peace to men so brave; nay, it is the great honor and glory of our episcopate to have given peace to martyrs, so that we priests, who celebrate the sacrifices of God daily, may prepare offerings and victims for God. But if (may the Lord avert it from our brothers) one of the lapsed deceives us, seeking peace deceitfully and receiving communion at the time of the impending battle without intending to fight, he deceives and cheats himself, hiding one thing in his heart and uttering another with his voice. We, as far as it is granted us to see and judge, see each one's face; we cannot search the heart and look into the mind. Of these the searcher and knower of hidden things judges, who will soon come and judge the secrets and hidden things of the heart. The bad ought not to harm the good, but rather the bad should be helped by the good. Nor, therefore, should peace be denied to those who will become martyrs because some will deny, since for this reason peace must be given to all who will do battle, lest through our ignorance the one who is to be crowned in battle begins to be passed over.

Nor let anyone say: “He who undergoes martyrdom is baptized in his own blood, and he has no need of peace from the bishop, since he will have the peace of his glory and will receive a greater reward from the Lord's favor.” First, he cannot be fit for martyrdom who is not armed for battle by the church; and the mind fails which the Eucharist, when received, does not raise up and kindle. For the Lord says in his gospel: “But when they hand you over, do not think what you will say; for it will be given you in that hour what you will say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” Since he says that the Spirit of the Father speaks in those who are handed over and set in the confession of the Name, how can he be found ready or fit for confession who has not first, by receiving peace, received the Spirit of the Father, who, strengthening his servants, himself speaks and confesses in us? Then again, if, leaving all his possessions, he flees, and, placed in hiding and solitude, he happens to fall among robbers or dies of fever and sickness, will it not be laid to our charge that so good a soldier, who left all he had and, despising house and parents or children, chose to follow his Lord, dies without peace and without communion? Will not either sluggish negligence or cruel harshness be ascribed to us on the day of judgment, that as shepherds we were willing neither to care in peace for the sheep entrusted and committed to us nor to arm them in battle? Will not the Lord cast in our teeth what he cries out through his prophet, saying: “Behold, you consume the milk and cover yourselves with the wool, and kill what is fat, and do not feed my sheep; 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 what was strong you have worn out with labor; 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 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 my sheep out of their mouth and feed them with judgment.”

Therefore, lest the sheep entrusted to us by the Lord be demanded back from our mouth, with which we deny peace, with which we set against them the harshness of human cruelty rather than divine and fatherly kindness, we have decided, the Holy Spirit prompting and the Lord admonishing through many clear visions, since the enemy is foretold and shown to be threatening us, to gather the soldiers of Christ within the camp and, after examining each one's case, to give peace to the lapsed, nay rather to supply arms to those who will fight. We believe this will please you too, in consideration of the fatherly mercy. But if any of our colleagues is found who thinks that peace should not be given to the brothers and sisters while the contest presses, he will give account to the Lord on the day of judgment either for his untimely severity or for his inhuman harshness. We have set forth what was in our conscience, as befitted faith and love and care: that the day of the contest has drawn near, that a violent enemy will soon rise against us, that a battle is coming not such as was before but much graver and fiercer; that this has often been shown us by God, and of this we are often warned by the Lord's providence and mercy. Of his help and kindness we who trust in him can be secure, because he who in peace foretells the coming battle to his soldiers will give victory to those who fight in the encounter. We wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to the people residing at Thibaris, greeting. I had indeed intended, dearest brothers, and had it in my plans, if the state of affairs and the conditions of the time permitted, to come to you myself, as you have often wished, and, being present there, to strengthen the brotherhood by such modest exhortation as I can give. But since we are held back by such pressing affairs that we are not given the opportunity of going far from here and of being long absent from the people over whom by divine indulgence we preside, I have meanwhile sent you this letter in my place. For since by the favor of the Lord who instructs us we are often roused and admonished, we ought to bring the concern of our admonition to your conscience too. For you ought to know, and to believe and hold for certain, that the day of affliction has begun to hang over our heads, and that the end of the world and the time of Antichrist have drawn near, so that we may all stand ready for battle and think of nothing but the glory of eternal life and the crown of confessing the Lord; and let us not think that what is coming is like what has passed. A graver and fiercer fight now threatens, for which the soldiers of Christ ought to prepare themselves with uncorrupted faith and robust courage, considering that they drink the cup of Christ's blood daily for this reason: that they too may be able to shed their blood for Christ. For this is to wish to be found with Christ: to imitate what Christ both taught and did, according to the apostle John, who says: “He who says he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk as he walked.” Likewise the apostle Paul exhorts and teaches, saying: “We are children of God; and if children, heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”

All these things we must now consider, so that no one may desire anything from a world already dying, but may follow Christ, who both lives forever and gives life to his servants established in the faith of his name. For the time has come, dearest brothers, which our Lord long ago foretold and taught would come, saying: “The hour will come when everyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God. But they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. But I have said these things to you so that, when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you.” Nor let anyone wonder that we are worn by continual persecutions and often pressed by distressing afflictions, since the Lord foretold that these things would happen in the last times and equipped our warfare with the teaching and exhortation of his word; and his apostle Peter too taught that persecutions happen so that we may be proved, and so that we too may be joined to the love of God by death and sufferings, after the example of the righteous who went before. For he set it down in his letter, saying: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the burning that comes upon you, which happens for your testing, nor fall away as though something new were happening to you; but as often as you share in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice in all things, so that at the revelation of his glory you may also rejoice and exult. If you are reproached in the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the name of the majesty and power of the Lord rests on you; which on their part is blasphemed, but on ours is honored.” And the apostles taught us what they too had learned from the Lord's precepts and heavenly commands, the Lord himself strengthening us and saying: “There is no one who leaves house or field or parents or brothers or wife or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who does not receive seven times as much in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” And again: “Blessed will you be,” he says, “when men hate you and separate you and cast you out and curse your name as evil for the sake of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and exult; for behold, your reward is great in heaven.”

The Lord wished us to rejoice and exult in persecutions, because when persecutions happen, then the crowns of faith are given, then the soldiers of God are proved, then the heavens lie open to the martyrs. For we did not enlist in the army so as to think only of peace and to shirk and refuse service, since in this very service the Lord, the teacher of humility and endurance and suffering, walked first, so that he did first what he taught should be done, and he who urges us to suffer himself suffered first for us. Let it be before your eyes, dearest brothers, that he who alone received all judgment from the Father, and who will come to judge, has already pronounced the sentence of his judgment and of the coming inquiry, foretelling and testifying that he will confess before his Father those who confess him and deny those who deny him. If we could escape death, we would rightly fear to die. But since a mortal must die, let us embrace the opportunity that comes from the divine promise and favor, and let us accomplish the end of death with the reward of immortality, and not fear to be killed, since it is certain that when we are killed we are crowned.

Nor let anyone, dearest brothers, be troubled when he sees our people put to flight and scattered by fear of persecution, because he does not see the brotherhood gathered or hear the bishops preaching. At such a time all cannot be together, who are not permitted to kill but must be killed. Wherever each of the brothers may be in those days, separated from the flock for a while by the necessity of the time, in body, not in spirit, let him not be moved by the horror of that flight, nor, withdrawing and hiding, be frightened by the solitude of a desert place. He is not alone who has Christ as his companion in flight. He is not alone who, keeping the temple of God, is not without God wherever he may be. And if a robber overpowers him as he flees in the wilderness and the mountains, a wild beast attacks him, hunger or thirst or cold afflicts him, or a tempest and storm drowns him as he hastens over the seas in headlong voyage, Christ watches his soldier fighting wherever he is, and to him who dies because of persecution for the honor of his name he renders the reward that he promised to give in the resurrection. Nor is the glory of martyrdom less for not having perished publicly and among many, since the cause of perishing is to perish for Christ. That witness who proves and crowns the martyrs suffices for the testimony of his martyrdom.

Let us imitate, dearest brothers, righteous Abel, who began martyrdoms when he was the first to be killed for righteousness' sake. Let us imitate Abraham, the friend of God, who did not hesitate to offer his son as a victim with his own hands, obeying God with the faith of devotion. Let us imitate the three youths Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, who, neither frightened by their age nor broken by captivity, when Judea had been conquered and Jerusalem taken, conquered the king in his own kingdom by the power of faith; who, ordered to worship the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had made, proved stronger than both the king's threats and the flames, proclaiming and testifying to their faith with these words: “King Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you on this matter. For the God whom we serve is able to rescue us from the furnace of burning fire, and he will deliver us from your hands; and if not, let it be known to you that we do not serve your gods and do not worship the golden image that you have set up.” They believed that by faith they could escape, but they added “and if not,” so that the king might know that they could also die for the God whom they worshiped. For this is the strength of courage and faith: to believe and know that God can deliver from present death, and yet not to fear death nor give way, so that faith may be proved the more strongly. The uncorrupted and unconquered vigor of the Holy Spirit burst forth through their mouth, so that what the Lord declared in his gospel might appear true, saying: “But when they seize you, do not think what you will say; for it will be given you in that hour what you will say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” He said that what we can say and answer is given and offered to us by God in that hour, and that it is not we who then speak, but the Spirit of God the Father, who, since he does not depart from or become separated from those who confess, himself both speaks and is crowned in us. So too Daniel, when he was being compelled to worship the idol Bel, which the people and the king then worshiped, burst out, in asserting the honor of his God, with full faith and freedom, saying: “I worship nothing but the Lord my God, who founded heaven and earth.”

What of the grievous torments of the blessed martyrs in Maccabees, and the manifold punishments of the seven brothers, and the mother encouraging her children in their punishments and dying herself with her children: do they not bear witness to proofs of great courage and faith, and urge us by their sufferings to the triumph of martyrdom? What of the prophets, whom the Holy Spirit quickened to foreknowledge of the future? What of the apostles, whom the Lord chose? Since the righteous are killed for righteousness, have they not taught us also to die? The birth of Christ began at once with the martyrdoms of infants, so that those who were two years old and under were slain for his name. An age not yet able to fight proved fit for the crown. That it might appear that those killed for Christ are innocent, innocent infancy was killed for his name. It was shown that no one is exempt from the danger of persecution, since even such as these became martyrs. But how grave a matter is it for a Christian man, a servant, to be unwilling to suffer when his Lord suffered first; and for us to be unwilling to suffer for our own sins, when he, having no sin of his own, suffered for us! The Son of God suffered to make us sons of God, and the son of man will not suffer in order to remain a son of God! If we labor under the hatred of the world, Christ first endured the hatred of the world; if we bear insults in this world, if exile, if torments, the maker and Lord of the world experienced worse things, who also warns us, saying: “If the world hates you,” he says, “remember that it hated me first. If you were of the world, the world would love what was its own; but because you are not of the world, and I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: the servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” Whatever our Lord and God taught, he also did, so that the disciple who learns and does not do can have no excuse.

Nor let any of us, dearest brothers, be so frightened by fear of the coming persecution or by the threatening arrival of Antichrist as not to be found armed for everything by the gospel's exhortations and the heavenly precepts and warnings. Antichrist comes, but Christ comes after him. The enemy rages and is cruel, but the Lord follows at once to avenge our sufferings and wounds. The adversary is angry and threatens, but there is one who can deliver from his hands. He is to be feared whose wrath no one will be able to escape, as he himself forewarns, saying: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can kill both body and soul in Gehenna.” And again: “He who loves his soul will lose it, and he who hates his soul in this world will keep it for eternal life.” And the Apocalypse instructs and forewarns, saying: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives the mark on his forehead and on his hand, he too will drink of the wine of God's wrath, mixed in the cup of his wrath, and he will be punished with fire and sulfur before the eyes of the holy angels and before the eyes of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torments will go up for ever and ever, and they will have no rest day or night, whoever worships the beast and its image.”

Men are trained and prepared for a worldly contest, and they count it a great glory to their honor if it falls to them to be crowned with the people watching and the emperor present. See a lofty and great contest, glorious with the prize of a heavenly crown, in which God watches us as we strive and, opening his eyes upon those whom he has deigned to make his sons, delights in the spectacle of our contest. God watches us as we do battle and fight in the encounter of faith; his angels watch; Christ too watches. How great is the dignity of glory, how great the happiness, to fight with God presiding and to be crowned with Christ as judge! Let us arm ourselves, dearest brothers, with all our strength and prepare for the contest with uncorrupted mind, sound faith, devoted courage. Let the camp of God advance to the battle line that is declared against us. Let those who stood firm be armed, so that the one who stood firm may not lose what he lately stood for. Let the lapsed too be armed, so that the lapsed may recover what he lost. Let honor call those who stood firm to battle, and sorrow the lapsed. The blessed apostle teaches us to be armed and prepared, saying: “We have no wrestling against flesh and blood, but against the powers and princes of this world and of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore put on the whole armor, so that you may be able to resist in the most evil day, so that, when you have accomplished everything, you may stand, having your loins girded in truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace, taking up the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the fiery darts of the most wicked one, and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

Let us take up these arms, let us fortify ourselves with these spiritual and heavenly defenses, so that in the most evil day we may be able to resist and fight back against the devil's threats. Let us put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that the breast may be fortified and safe against the enemy's darts. Let our feet be shod and armed with the gospel's teaching, so that, when the serpent begins to be trodden and crushed by us, it may not be able to bite and trip us. Let us bravely carry the shield of faith, under whose protection whatever the enemy hurls may be quenched. Let us also take the spiritual helmet to cover the head, so that the ears may be fortified, lest they hear the deadly edicts; the eyes fortified, lest they see the detestable images; the forehead fortified, so that the sign of God may be kept unharmed; the mouth fortified, so that the victorious tongue may confess Christ its Lord. Let us arm the right hand too with the spiritual sword, so that it may bravely reject the deadly sacrifices, so that, mindful of the Eucharist, the hand that receives the Lord's body may embrace the Lord himself, and afterward receive from the Lord the reward of heavenly crowns.

Oh, what and how great a day will come, dearest brothers, when the Lord begins to review his people and, by the examination of divine inquiry, to recognize the merits of each; to send the guilty into Gehenna and condemn our persecutors to the perpetual burning of penal flame, but to pay us the reward of faith and devotion! What will be the glory and how great the joy to be admitted to see God, to be honored so as to receive with Christ, your Lord God, the joy of eternal salvation and light; to greet Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the patriarchs and apostles and prophets and martyrs; to rejoice with the righteous and the friends of God in the kingdom of heaven in the delight of the immortality granted; to receive there what eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man! For the apostle proclaims that we receive greater things than what we either do or suffer here, saying: “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come which will be revealed in us.” When that revelation comes, when the glory of God shines upon us, we shall be as blessed and joyful, honored by the Lord's favor, as those will remain guilty and wretched who, deserters of God or rebels against God, have done the devil's will, so that they must be tormented together with him in unquenchable fire.

Let these things, dearest brothers, cling to your hearts. Let this be the preparation of our arms, this our meditation by day and night: to have before our eyes and always to turn over in our thoughts and feelings the punishments of the wicked and the rewards and merits of the righteous, what the Lord threatens to those who deny for punishment, and what, on the other hand, he promises to those who confess for glory. If the day of persecution comes upon us while we think and meditate on these things, the soldier of Christ, taught by his precepts and warnings, does not tremble at the fight, but is ready for the crown. I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. I have read your letter, dearest brother, which you sent by our brother Saturus the acolyte, full enough of brotherly love, church discipline, and priestly severity, in which you indicated that Felicissimus, the enemy of Christ, who was not newly but long ago excluded for his very many and very grave crimes, and condemned by the sentence not only of myself but of very many fellow bishops, has been rejected by you there; and that, when he came surrounded by a band and faction of desperate men, he was driven from the church with the full vigor with which bishops ought to act; the church from which he, together with those like him, was long ago driven by the majesty of God and the severity of Christ our Lord and judge, so that the author of schism and division, the embezzler of money entrusted to him, the seducer of virgins, the ravager and corrupter of many marriages, might no longer violate the bride of Christ, uncorrupted, holy, and chaste, with the disgrace of his presence and his shameless and unchaste contagion.

But when I read the other letter, brother, which you attached to the first, I was greatly surprised, since I noticed that you had been somewhat shaken by the threats and terrors of those who had come, since, as you wrote, they had assailed you, threatening in utter desperation that, if you did not accept the letter they had brought, they would read it publicly and utter many shameful and disgraceful things worthy of their mouth. If the matter stands so, dearest brother, that the audacity of the most wicked is feared, and what the bad cannot achieve by right and equity they accomplish by rashness and desperation, it is all over with the vigor of the episcopate and with the lofty and divine power of governing the church; nor can we any longer endure or even be Christians, if it has come to this, that we are afraid of the threats and plots of the lost. For heathens and Jews threaten too, and heretics, and all whose hearts and minds the devil has besieged testify daily with raging voice to their poisoned fury. Yet we must not therefore give way because they threaten, nor is the adversary and enemy therefore greater than Christ because he claims and takes so much for himself in the world. The strength of faith ought to remain unmoved with us, dearest brother, and a steady and unshaken courage ought to withstand all the assaults and onsets of the barking waves like a rock set in their way, by its strength and mass. Nor does it matter from where terror or danger comes to a bishop, who lives exposed to terrors and dangers and yet is made glorious by those very terrors and dangers. For we ought not to think of and look only to the threats of heathens or Jews, since we see that the Lord himself was seized by brothers and betrayed by one whom he himself had chosen among the apostles; that at the very beginning of the world it was none other than a brother who killed righteous Abel; that a hostile brother pursued Jacob as he fled; that the boy Joseph was sold by his brothers selling him; and that we read in the gospel too the prophecy that enemies would rather be of one's own household, and that those who were first joined in the sacrament of unanimity would betray one another. It makes no difference who betrays or rages, since God permits us to be betrayed and to be crowned. Nor is it disgrace to us to suffer from brothers what Christ suffered, nor glory to them to do what Judas did. But what self-exaltation it is, what swollen, puffed-up, and empty boasting of those who threaten, to threaten me there in my absence, when here they have me present in their power! We do not fear the abuse with which they daily tear themselves and their own life; we do not shudder at the clubs and stones and swords that they fling about in parricidal words. As far as in them lies, such men are murderers before God. Yet they cannot kill unless the Lord permits them to kill. And while we must die once, they by their hatred and words and sins destroy themselves daily.

But not for that reason, dearest brother, must church discipline be abandoned or priestly severity relaxed, because we are assailed with abuse or shaken with terrors, since Scripture meets us, saying: “But he who is presumptuous and stubborn, a man boasting of himself, will achieve nothing at all, who has enlarged his soul like the underworld.” And again: “And do not fear the words of a sinful man, for his glory will be dung and worms. Today he will be lifted up, and tomorrow he will not be found, because he has returned to his earth, and his thought will perish.” And again: “I saw the ungodly exalted and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found.” Exaltation and puffing up and arrogant, proud boasting are born not from the teaching of Christ, who teaches humility, but from the spirit of Antichrist, whom the Lord reproaches through the prophet and says: “But you said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on a high mountain above the high mountains toward the north; I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High.” And he added, saying: “But you will go down to the underworld, into the foundations of the earth; and those who see you will wonder at you.” Hence divine Scripture threatens a like punishment to such men in another place too, and says: “For the day of the Lord of hosts is upon everyone who is insolent and proud, and upon everyone who is lifted up and lofty.” So each one is at once betrayed by his mouth and his words, and whether he has Christ in his heart or Antichrist is uncovered by his speaking, as the Lord says in his gospel: “Brood of vipers, how can you speak good things, since you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out of good treasure brings forth good things, and the evil man out of evil treasure brings forth evil.” Hence too that rich sinner, who implores help from Lazarus, placed in Abraham's bosom and set in refreshment, while he, racked in torments, is scorched by the heat of the burning flame, pays the penalty in his mouth and tongue more than in all the parts of his body, because, evidently, he had sinned more with his tongue and mouth.

For since it is written, “Nor will the abusive attain the kingdom of God,” and again the Lord says in his gospel, “Whoever says to his brother ‘Fool,’ and whoever says ‘Raca,’ will be liable to the Gehenna of fire,” how can they escape the censure of the avenging Lord who heap such things not only on brothers but also on priests, to whom so great an honor is granted by God's favor that whoever did not obey his priest and the one judging here for the time was at once put to death? In Deuteronomy the Lord God speaks, saying: “And whatever man acts in pride, so as not to listen to the priest or the judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die; and all the people, when they hear, will fear and will not act impiously even now.” Likewise, when Samuel was spurned by the Jews, God says to him: “They have not spurned you, but they have spurned me.” And the Lord too in the gospel: “He who hears you hears me and him who sent me; and he who rejects you rejects me and him who sent me.” And when he had cleansed a leper, he said: “Go and show yourself to the priest.” And afterward, at the time of his passion, when he had received a slap from the priest's servant, and the servant had said to him, “Is that how you answer the high priest?”, the Lord said nothing insulting against the high priest, nor took anything from the priest's honor, but rather, asserting and showing his own innocence, said: “If I have spoken wrongly, reproach me for the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike me?” Likewise afterward in the Acts of the Apostles, the blessed apostle Paul, when it was said to him, “Do you thus assail the priest of God with abuse?”, although, the Lord having already been crucified, they had begun to be sacrilegious, impious, and bloody, and no longer kept anything of priestly honor and authority, yet Paul, thinking of the mere name, though empty, and a kind of shadow of the priest, said: “I did not know, brothers, that he was high priest; for it is written: You shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people.”

Since these many and great examples go before, by which priestly authority and power is established by divine favor, what sort of men do you think those are who, enemies of the priests and rebels against the catholic church, are frightened neither by the threat of the Lord's forewarning nor by the vengeance of the coming judgment? For heresies have arisen and schisms been born from no other source than this: that God's priest is not obeyed, and it is not borne in mind that there is one priest in the church for the time and one judge for the time in the place of Christ. If the whole brotherhood obeyed him according to the divine teachings, no one would stir anything against the college of priests; no one, after the divine judgment, after the vote of the people, after the consent of the fellow bishops, would make himself judge, no longer of the bishops, but of God; no one would split the church of Christ by rending its unity; no one, pleasing himself and swollen with pride, would found a new heresy apart and outside. Unless there is someone of such sacrilegious rashness and lost mind as to think that a priest is made without God's judgment, when the Lord says in his gospel: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and neither of them falls to the ground without the Father's will?” Since he says that not even the least things happen without the will of God, does anyone think that the highest and greatest things happen in God's church without God's knowing or permitting it, and that the priests, that is, his stewards, will not be ordained by his decision? This is not to have the faith by which we live; this is not to give honor to God, by whose nod and will we know and believe that all things are ruled and governed. Clearly there are bishops who are not made by the will of God, but they are those made outside the church, those made against the ordering and tradition of the gospel, as the Lord himself sets down in the twelve prophets and says: “They have appointed a king for themselves, and not through me.” And again: “Their sacrifices are like the bread of mourning; all who eat of them will be defiled.” And through Isaiah too the Holy Spirit cries out and says: “Woe to you, deserting children. Thus says the Lord: You have taken counsel, but not through me; and you have made a covenant, but not through my Spirit, to add sins upon sins.”

For the rest (I speak provoked, I speak grieving, I speak compelled): when a bishop is put in the place of one deceased, when he is chosen in peace by the vote of the whole people, when he is protected by God's help in persecution, faithfully joined to all his colleagues, already proven to his people in the episcopate for four years, serving discipline in quiet, proscribed in the storm, with the name of his episcopate attached and added, so often demanded for the lion in the circus and in the amphitheater, honored with the testimony of the Lord's favor, and in these very days, in which I wrote this letter to you, demanded again for the lion in the circus by the outcry of the populace because of the sacrifices which the people were ordered by a published edict to celebrate: when such a man, dearest brother, is seen to be attacked by certain desperate and lost men placed outside the church, it is plain who is attacking: not, of course, Christ, who either appoints or protects priests, but he who, adversary of Christ and enemy of his church, persecutes the head of the church with his hostility for this purpose, that, the helmsman removed, he may rage more fiercely and violently to bring shipwreck on the church.

Nor ought it to trouble anyone faithful, mindful of the gospel and keeping the commands of the forewarning apostle, dearest brother, if in the last times some proud, stubborn men, enemies of God's priests, either withdraw from the church or act against the church, since both the Lord and his apostles foretold that such men would come. Nor let anyone wonder that the servant is deserted by some, since his disciples left the Lord himself while he was doing the greatest mighty works and wonders and proving the powers of God the Father by the testimony of his deeds. And yet he did not rebuke those who withdrew or threaten them severely, but rather, turning to his apostles, said: “Do you also wish to go?”, keeping, that is, the law by which man, left to his freedom and placed in his own choice, seeks for himself either death or salvation. Yet Peter, on whom the church had been built by the same Lord, speaking as one for all and answering with the voice of the church, says: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the word of eternal life, and we believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God”; signifying, that is, and showing that those who withdraw from Christ perish by their own fault, but that the church, which believes in Christ and holds once for all what it has known, never departs from him at all; and that those are the church who remain in the house of God, while those are not a planting planted by God the Father whom we see not made firm with the stability of wheat but winnowed like chaff by the spirit of the scattering enemy. Of them John too says in his letter: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.” Likewise Paul admonishes us not to be moved when the wicked perish from the church, nor to have our faith lessened when the faithless withdraw. “For what,” he says, “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.”

As for us, it befits our conscience, brother, to take pains that no one perish from the church by our fault; but if anyone perishes of his own accord and by his own crime, and is unwilling to do penance and return to the church, we who take thought for their health will be blameless on the day of judgment, and they alone will remain in punishment who were unwilling to be healed by the wholesomeness of our counsel. Nor ought the abuse of the lost move us to depart from the right way and the sure rule, since the apostle too instructs us, saying: “If I were pleasing men, I would not be the servant of Christ.” It makes a difference whether one desires to win the favor of men or of God. If men are pleased, the Lord is offended. But if we strive and labor to be able to please God, we ought to despise human abuse and curses.

As for my not writing to you at once, dearest brother, about this Fortunatus, the false bishop appointed by a few inveterate heretics: the matter was not one that needed to be brought hastily to your notice as if it were great or to be feared, especially since you already knew well enough the name of Fortunatus, who is one of the five presbyters who long ago fled from the church and were recently excluded by the sentence of our fellow bishops, many and most serious men, who wrote to you about this matter last year. Likewise you would recognize Felicissimus, the standard-bearer of sedition, who himself is also included in the same letter of our fellow bishops sent to you some time ago; who was not only excluded by them here but also recently driven from the church by you there. Since I was confident that these things were known to you and knew for certain that they were fixed in your memory and discipline, I did not think it necessary to report the follies of heretics to you quickly and urgently. For what the audacity of heretics and schismatics contrives among themselves ought not to concern the majesty and dignity of the catholic church. For Novatian's party too is said to have made here, as their false bishop, the presbyter Maximus, who was recently sent to us by Novatian as envoy and rejected from our communion. Yet I had not written to you about this either, since all these things are despised by us, and since I lately sent you the names of the bishops established here who, sound and whole in the catholic church, preside over the brothers. It was decided by the counsel of all of us to write this to you precisely so that there might be a short way to wash away error and see the truth, and that you and our colleagues might know to whom you ought to write and from whom in turn to receive letters; and if anyone besides those whom we included in our letter dared to write to you, you would know that he was stained either by sacrifice or by a certificate, or was one of the heretics, that is, perverse and profane. Nevertheless, finding the opportunity of a most intimate man and cleric, through the acolyte Felicianus, whom you had sent with our colleague Perseus, I wrote to you about this Fortunatus too, among the other things that had to be brought to your notice from here. But while our brother Felicianus was either delayed here by the wind or detained by us to receive other letters, he was forestalled by Felicissimus hurrying to you. For so crimes always hurry, as if by haste they could prevail against innocence.

Through Felicianus, however, I informed you, brother, that Privatus had come to Carthage, an old heretic in the colony of Lambaesis, condemned many years ago for many grave offenses by the sentence of ninety bishops, and most severely censured also by the letters of our predecessors Fabian and Donatus, as is not unknown to you either. When he said that he wished to plead his case before us at the council which we held on the last Ides of May, and was not admitted, he made this Fortunatus his false bishop, worthy of his fellowship. There had also come with him a certain Felix, whom he himself had once appointed false bishop outside the church in heresy. Jovinus and Maximus too were present as companions of the heretic Privatus, condemned by the sentence of nine of our colleagues for unspeakable sacrifices and for crimes proven against them, and excluded again by more of us last year in council. With these four was also joined Repostus of Sutunurca, who not only fell himself in the persecution but also cast down the greatest part of his people by sacrilegious persuasion. These five, with a few who had either sacrificed or had a bad conscience, co-opted Fortunatus as their false bishop, so that, their crimes agreeing together, the ruler should, of course, be such as those who are ruled.

From this you can now recognize the other lies too, dearest brother, which desperate and lost men have spread there: that, although there were no more than five false bishops, from among those who sacrificed or heretics, who came to Carthage and appointed Fortunatus as partner of their madness, they nevertheless, as sons of the devil and full of lying, dared, as you write, to boast that twenty-five bishops had been present. This lie they had first spread here too among our brothers, saying that twenty-five bishops would come from Numidia to make a bishop for them. After they were detected and confounded in this lie of theirs, only five shipwrecked men excluded by us having come together, they sailed to Rome with their cargo of lies, as if the truth could not sail after them, to convict their lying tongues by proof of the certain fact. And this, brother, is true madness: not to consider or know that lies do not deceive for long; that it is night only until the day dawns; but that when the day has brightened and the sun has risen, darkness and gloom give way to the light, and the robberies that were rampant through the night cease. In short, if you asked them for names, they would not have even any to name falsely. So great is the scarcity even of bad men among them that not even twenty-five can be gathered to them from those who sacrificed or from heretics. And yet, to deceive the ears of the simple and of those far away, the number is inflated with a lie; as if, even if this number were true, the church could be conquered by heretics or justice by the unjust.

Nor ought I, dearest brother, now to repay them in kind and run through in my speech the things they have committed and still commit, since we must consider what it befits God's priests to bring forth and write, and with us shame ought to speak rather than resentment, lest I seem, provoked, to heap up curses rather than crimes and sins. I say nothing, therefore, of the frauds done to the church; I pass over conspiracies and adulteries and various kinds of offenses. One thing only in their crime, in which the cause is not mine nor men's but God's, I do not think should be passed over in silence: that from the very first day of the persecution, when the crimes of the offenders were fresh and hot, and not only the devil's altars but still the very hands and mouths of the lapsed were smoking from the unspeakable sacrifices, they did not cease to hold communion with the lapsed and to obstruct the doing of penance. God cries: “He who sacrifices to gods, except to the Lord alone, shall be rooted out”; and the Lord says in the gospel: “He who denies me, I will deny him.” And in another place the divine indignation and wrath is not silent, saying: “To them you have poured out drink offerings, and to them you have laid on sacrifices. Shall I not be angry at these things? says the Lord.” And they obstruct the entreating of God, who himself testifies that he is angry. They obstruct Christ's being won over by prayers and satisfactions, who declares that he denies the one who denies him.

We sent letters on this very matter at the very time of the persecution, and were not heard. In frequent councils we decreed, not only with our agreement but also with a threat, that the brothers should do penance, and that no one should rashly give peace to those who did not do penance. And they, sacrilegious against God, rash with impious fury against God's priests, withdrawing from the church and taking up parricidal arms against the church, labor that the devil's malice may complete its work: that the divine clemency may not heal the wounded in his church. They corrupt the penance of the wretched by the fraud of their lies, so that God in his anger may not be satisfied, so that he who before was either ashamed or afraid to be a Christian may not afterward seek Christ his Lord, so that he who had withdrawn from the church may not return to the church. Pains are taken that sins may not be redeemed by just satisfactions and laments, that wounds may not be washed by tears. True peace is taken away by the lie of a false peace; the saving bosom of the mother is shut by the intervention of a stepmother, so that weeping and groaning may not be heard from the breast and mouth of the lapsed. Moreover the lapsed are still further compelled to abuse the priests with the tongues and mouth with which they sinned before on the Capitol; they pursue with insults and abusive words the confessors and virgins and all the righteous who are outstanding in the praise of faith and glorious in the church. By these words it is not so much the modesty, humility, and decency of our people that is struck as their own hope and life that is torn. For it is not he who hears abuse but he who utters it that is wretched; nor is he who is beaten by a brother, but he who beats a brother, a sinner in the law; and when the guilty wrong the innocent, it is those who think they do the wrong who suffer it. Hence, in short, their mind is stricken, their spirit dull, their sense estranged: it is the wrath of God not to understand one's sins, so that penance may not follow, as it is written: “And God gave them a spirit of stupor,” so that, that is, they may not return and be healed and be made whole after their sins by just prayers and satisfactions. The apostle Paul sets down in his letter and says: “They did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved; and therefore God will send them a working of error, that they may believe a lie, that all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.” The first degree of happiness is not to sin; the second, to acknowledge one's sins. In the first, innocence runs whole and untouched to keep us; in the second, medicine follows to heal us. Both of these they have lost by offending God, so that both the grace received from the sanctification of baptism is lost, and there remains no penance by which guilt is cured. Or do you think, brother, that these are light crimes against God, small and moderate sins, that through them the majesty of an angry God is not entreated, that the wrath and fire and day of the Lord are not feared, that, with Antichrist at hand, the faith of the fighting people is disarmed while the vigor and fear of Christ are taken away? Let the laity see how they may care for this. On the priests lies the greater labor of upholding and caring for the majesty of God, so that we may not seem to neglect anything in this respect, since the Lord admonishes and says: “And now this command is to you, O priests: if you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord, I will send a curse upon you and curse your blessing.” Is honor then given to God when the majesty and censure of God are so despised that, when he says he is indignant and angry with those who sacrifice, and when he threatens eternal punishments and perpetual torments, it is proposed and said by the sacrilegious that God's anger should not be considered, the Lord's judgment not feared, no knocking done at the church of Christ, but that, penance being removed and no confession of the crime made, the bishops despised and trampled underfoot, peace should be preached by presbyters with deceitful words, and, so that the lapsed may not rise or those placed outside return to the church, communion be offered to those not in communion?

It was not enough for them to have withdrawn from the gospel, to have taken away from the lapsed the hope of satisfaction and penance, to have removed from all sense and fruit of penance those entangled in frauds, or stained with adulteries, or polluted by the deadly contagion of sacrifices, so that they would not entreat God nor make confession of their crimes in the church; to have set up for themselves, outside the church and against the church, a little gathering of a lost faction, into which a band of men with bad consciences, unwilling to entreat God and make satisfaction, might flow together. After all this, further still, with a false bishop appointed for them by heretics, they dare to sail and to carry letters from schismatics and profane men to the chair of Peter and to the principal church, from which priestly unity arose, and not to consider that these are the Romans whose faith was praised by the preaching apostle, to whom faithlessness can have no access. But what reason was there for coming and announcing that a false bishop had been made against the bishops? For either they are pleased with what they have done and persevere in their crime; or, if they are displeased and withdraw, they know where to return. For since it has been decided by all of us, and is equally fair and just, that each person's case be heard where the crime was committed, and since to each shepherd a portion of the flock has been assigned, which each is to rule and govern as one who will give account of his conduct to the Lord, those over whom we preside certainly ought not to run about, nor break the close-knit concord of the bishops by their crafty and deceitful rashness, but plead their case where they can have both accusers and witnesses of their crime; unless to a few desperate and lost men the authority of the bishops established in Africa seems too small, who have already judged them and have recently condemned, by the weight of their judgment, their conscience bound with the many snares of their sins. Their case has already been examined; sentence has already been pronounced on them; and it does not befit the censure of priests to be blamed for the fickleness of a changeable and inconstant mind, since the Lord teaches and says: “Let your word be yes, yes; no, no.”

If the number of those who judged them last year is counted together with the presbyters and deacons, more were present at that judgment and hearing than there are of these very men who now seem to be joined with Fortunatus. For you should know, dearest brother, that since he was made false bishop by heretics he has already been deserted by almost all. For those before whose eyes tricks were formerly held up, and to whom deceitful words were given, that they were said to be about to return to the church together, after they saw that a false bishop had been made there, learned that they had been cheated and deceived, and are coming back daily and knocking at the church; while we, from whom account must be rendered to the Lord, anxiously weigh and carefully examine who ought to be received and admitted to the church. For with some either their own crimes stand in the way, or the brothers so obstinately and firmly resist, that they cannot be received at all without the scandal and danger of very many. For some rotten things must not be gathered in so that what is whole and sound is wounded; nor is that shepherd useful or wise who so mixes diseased and infected sheep with the flock that he contaminates the whole flock with the affliction of the clinging evil. Oh, if you could be present here with us, dearest brother, when these perverse and wrong men return from the schism, you would see what labor I have to persuade our brothers to patience, so that, the grief of their minds being calmed, they consent to the receiving and healing of the wicked. For as they rejoice and are glad when those who are tolerable and less guilty return, so on the other hand they murmur and resist whenever the incorrigible and insolent, defiled by adulteries or sacrifices, and on top of this proud as well, come back to the church in such a way as to corrupt the good dispositions within. I scarcely persuade the people, nay I wring it from them, to allow such men to be admitted. And the grief of the brotherhood has been made more just by the fact that one or two, received against the resistance and opposition of the people yet by my indulgence, proved worse than they had been before and could not keep faith with their penance, because they had not come with true penance either.

But what shall I say of those who have now sailed to you with Felicissimus, guilty of every crime, sent as envoys by Fortunatus the false bishop, bringing you a letter as false as he himself whose letter they carry is false, as manifold as is their consciousness of sins, as execrable and shameful as their life, so that, even if they were in the church, such men ought to be cast out of the church? In fact, because they know their own conscience, they do not dare to come or approach the threshold of the church, but wander about outside through the province to deceive and despoil the brothers; and, being now well enough known to all and shut out everywhere for their crimes, they sail even there to you. For they cannot have the face to approach us or to stand among us, since the charges brought against them by the brothers are most bitter and most grave. If they wish to submit to our judgment, let them come. In short, if they can have any excuse and defense, let us see what sense of satisfaction they have, what fruit of penance they bring. The church here is closed to no one, nor is the bishop denied to anyone. Our patience, readiness, and kindness are at hand for those who come. I wish all to return to the church; I wish all our fellow soldiers to be gathered within the camp of Christ and the dwellings of God the Father. I remit everything; I overlook much out of zeal and desire to gather the brotherhood. Even offenses committed against God I do not examine with the full judgment of religion. In remitting sins more than I ought, I almost sin myself. I embrace with ready and full love those who return with penance, confessing their sin with humble and simple satisfaction.

But if there are any who think that they can return to the church not by prayers but by threats, or suppose that they can make an entrance for themselves not by laments and satisfactions but by terrors, let them hold for certain that the Lord's church stands closed against such men, and that the camp of Christ, unconquered, strong, and fortified by the Lord's protection, does not yield to threats. A priest of God who holds the gospel and keeps Christ's precepts can be killed; he cannot be conquered. Zechariah, God's priest, suggests and supplies us with examples of courage and faith: when he could not be frightened by threats and stoning, he was killed in the temple of God, crying out and repeating what we too cry out and say against the heretics: “Thus says the Lord: You have forsaken the ways of the Lord, and the Lord will forsake you.” For because a few rash and wicked men forsake the heavenly and saving ways of the Lord and, not doing holy things, are deserted by the Holy Spirit, we ought not therefore to be forgetful of the divine tradition, so as to judge the crimes of madmen greater than the judgments of priests, or think that human efforts can do more to attack than divine protection avails to defend.

Or must the dignity of the catholic church, dearest brother, and the faithful and uncorrupted majesty of the people placed within it, and priestly authority and power too, be laid aside for this: that those placed outside the church should say that they wish to judge the head of the church, the wounded judge the sound, the injured the whole, the lapsed the one who stands, the guilty the judge, the sacrilegious the priest? What remains but that the church should yield to the Capitol, and, the priests withdrawing and removing the Lord's altar, images and idols with their altars should pass into the sacred and venerable assembly of our clergy, and fuller and richer material be supplied to Novatian for declaiming against us and reproaching us, if those who sacrificed and publicly denied Christ should begin not only to be entreated and admitted without doing penance, but, further still, to domineer by the power of their terror? If they ask for peace, let them lay down their arms; if they make satisfaction, why do they threaten? Or if they threaten, let them know that they are not feared by God's priests. For not even Antichrist, when he begins to come, will enter the church because he threatens, nor is it yielded to his arms and violence because he declares he will destroy those who resist. The heretics arm us when they think we are frightened by their threatening; they do not cast us down on our faces, but rather raise and fire us up, while they make peace itself worse than persecution for the brothers. We do indeed pray that they may not fulfill in crime what they speak in fury, that those who sin in faithless and cruel words may not offend in deeds too. We pray and entreat God, whom they do not cease to provoke and exasperate, that their hearts may soften, that, laying aside their fury, their minds may return to soundness, that breasts covered with the darkness of sins may recognize the light of penance, and that they may rather ask that the prayers and supplications of the bishop be poured out for them than themselves pour out the blood of the priest. But if they remain in their fury and cruelly persevere in these plots and parricidal threats of theirs, no priest of God is so weak, so fallen and cast down, so feeble with the infirmity of human mediocrity, that he is not raised up by God against the enemies and assailants of God, and that his lowliness and weakness are not quickened by the vigor and strength of the protecting Lord. It makes no difference to us by whom or when we perish, since we shall receive from the Lord the reward of death and blood. Theirs is a condition to be wept and lamented, whom the devil so blinds that, not thinking of the eternal punishments of Gehenna, they try to imitate the coming of Antichrist, already drawing near.

And although I know, dearest brother, that out of the mutual love which we owe and show one another you always read our letters to the most flourishing clergy presiding there with you and to the most holy and very large people, yet now I both admonish and ask that what you otherwise do of your own accord and honorably you do also at my request: that, when this letter of mine has been read, if any contagion of poisoned speech and pestilent sowing has crept in there, it may all be stripped from the ears and hearts of the brothers, and the whole and sincere love of the good be cleansed of all the filth of heretical slander.

For the rest, let our dearest brothers firmly turn aside from and avoid the words and conversations of those whose speech creeps like a cancer, as the apostle says: “Evil conversations corrupt good dispositions.” And again: “Avoid a heretical man after one reproof, knowing that such a one is perverse and sins and is condemned by himself.” And the Holy Spirit speaks through Solomon: “The perverse man,” he says, “carries destruction in his mouth and hides fire in his lips.” Likewise he warns again, saying: “Hedge your ears with thorns, and do not hear a wicked tongue.” And again: “The wicked man listens to the tongue of the unjust, but the righteous does not attend to lying lips.” Although I know that our brotherhood there, fortified by your foresight and also cautious enough by its own vigilance, cannot be caught or deceived by the poisons of heretics, and that divine teachings and precepts prevail with them as much as they have fear of God, yet either our anxiety or our love has persuaded us, out of abundance, to write this to you, so that no dealings may be joined with such men, no feasts or conversations mingled with the wicked, and that we may be as separated from them as they are fugitives from the church; for it is written: “But if he despises the church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector.” And the blessed apostle does not only advise but commands that such men be shunned: “We command you,” he says, “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw from all brothers who walk disorderly and not according to the tradition which they received from us.” There can be no fellowship of faith and faithlessness. He who is not with Christ, who is Christ's adversary, who is an enemy of his unity and peace, cannot cleave to us. If they come with prayers and satisfactions, let them be heard; if they heap curses and threats, let them be rejected. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting. We have learned, dearest brother, the glorious testimonies of your faith and courage, and have received the honor of your confession with such exultation that we count ourselves also sharers and partners in your merits and praises. For since we have one church, a mind joined together, and an undivided concord, what priest does not rejoice in the praises of his fellow priest as in his own, or what brotherhood is not glad everywhere in the joy of its brothers? It cannot be adequately expressed how great was the exultation here and how great the joy when we learned of your prosperous and brave deeds: that you stood out there as the leader of confession for the brothers, and that the leader's confession was increased by the brothers' agreement, so that, while you go before to glory, you have made many companions of glory and persuaded the people to become confessors, being ready to confess first on behalf of all; so that we do not find what we ought to praise first in you, your ready and steadfast faith or the inseparable love of the brothers. There the courage of the bishop going before has been publicly proved; the union of the brotherhood following has been shown. While among you there is one mind and one voice, the whole Roman church has confessed.

The faith which the blessed apostle proclaimed of you has shone out, dearest brother. Even then he foresaw in the Spirit this praise of courage and firmness of strength, and, bearing witness to your merits by proclaiming the future, while he praised the parents he was challenging the children. Being thus of one mind and brave, you have given great examples of unanimity and bravery to the other brothers too. You have taught grandly to fear God, to cling firmly to Christ, for the people to be joined to the priests in danger, for brothers not to be separated from brothers in persecution; that concord united together cannot be conquered at all; that whatever is asked by all together, the God of peace grants to the peaceable. The adversary had leapt out to throw the camp of Christ into confusion with violent terror. But with the same onset with which he came he was driven back, and as much fear and terror as he brought, so much fortitude and strength he found. He had believed that he could again trip up the servants of God and shake them in his usual way, as if they were raw recruits, less prepared and less wary. Attacking one first, like a wolf he had tried to set the sheep apart from the flock, like a hawk to separate the dove from the flying band; for he who has not strength enough against all seeks to take advantage of the solitude of individuals. But beaten back by the faith and vigor alike of an army united, he understood that the soldiers of Christ are now watchful and sober and stand armed for battle; that they cannot be conquered, that they can die, and that by this very fact they are unconquered, because they do not fear to die; and that they do not fight back against their assailants, since it is not lawful for the innocent to kill even the guilty, but readily hand over both their lives and their blood, so that, while so much malice and cruelty rages in the world, they may withdraw the more quickly from the malicious and cruel. What a glorious spectacle that was under the eyes of God, what joy for his church in the sight of Christ, that not single soldiers but the whole camp together went out to the battle which the enemy had tried to bring on! For it is clear that all would have come if they could have heard, since whoever heard ran up in haste and came. How many of the lapsed were restored there by a glorious confession! They stood brave, and were made braver for the battle by the very grief of their penance, so that it appears that lately they had been taken by surprise and had trembled in fear of a new and unaccustomed thing, but that afterward true faith returned to them and their strength, gathered from the fear of God, was firmly and steadily strengthened for all endurance, and that they now stand not for pardon of their crime but for the crown of suffering.

What does Novatian say to this, dearest brother? Does he now lay aside his error? Or rather, as is the way of madmen, has he been driven to greater fury by our very blessings and successes, and, the more the glory of love and faith grows here, does the insanity of dissension and jealousy break out afresh there? Does the wretch not heal his own wound, but wound himself and his followers still more grievously, raging with his tongue to the ruin of the brothers and hurling the darts of poisoned eloquence, harsh with the perversity of worldly philosophy rather than peaceable with the gentleness of the Lord's wisdom: deserter of the church, enemy of mercy, slayer of penance, teacher of pride, corrupter of truth, destroyer of love? Does he now recognize who is the priest of God, which is the church and house of Christ, who are the servants of God whom the devil assails, who are the Christians whom Antichrist attacks? For he does not seek out those whom he has already subdued, nor long to overthrow those whom he has already made his own. The foe and enemy of the church despises and passes by, as captives and conquered, those whom he has estranged from the church and led outside; he goes on to harass those in whom he sees Christ dwelling.

And yet, even if any of such men has been arrested, there is no reason for him to flatter himself as if in the confession of the Name, since it is clear that, if such men are killed outside the church, it is not the crown of faith but rather the punishment of faithlessness, and that those will not dwell in the house of God among those of one mind whom we see to have withdrawn from the peaceful and divine house in the fury of discord.

We earnestly exhort you, as much as we can, dearest brother, by the mutual love in which we cleave to one another, that, since we are instructed by the providence of the Lord who warns us and admonished by the wholesome counsels of divine mercy that the day of our contest and struggle is now drawing near, we should not cease, with all the people, to persist in fasts, vigils, and prayers. Let us devote ourselves to continual groanings and frequent supplications. For these are our heavenly arms, which make us stand and persevere bravely; these are the spiritual defenses and divine weapons that protect. Let us be mindful of one another, harmonious and of one mind; let us always pray for one another on both sides; let us relieve afflictions and distresses by mutual love; and if one of us goes from here first by the swiftness of divine favor, let our love continue before the Lord, and let our prayer for our brothers and sisters not cease before the mercy of the Father. I wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian with his colleagues to his brother Lucius, greeting. Only lately, dearest brother, we congratulated you, when divine favor, with a double honor, appointed you both confessor and priest in the administration of his church. But now too we congratulate you no less, and your companions and the whole brotherhood, because the kind and bountiful protection of the Lord has brought you back again to your own people with the same glory and praise, so that the shepherd has been restored to feed the flock, the helmsman to steer the ship, the ruler to govern the people; and it appears that your banishment was so arranged by God, not that the bishop, banished and driven out, should be lacking to the church, but that he should return to the church greater.

For the dignity of martyrdom was not less in the three youths because, death being cheated, they came out of the furnace of fire unharmed; nor did Daniel prove unfinished in his praises because, having been thrown to the lions as prey, he lived, protected by the Lord, for glory. In the confessors of Christ, martyrdoms deferred do not lessen the merit of the confessors but show the mighty works of divine protection. We see enacted in you what the brave and illustrious youths proclaimed before the king: that they were ready to burn in the flames rather than serve his gods or worship the image he had made, but that the God whom they worshiped, and whom we also worship, was able to take them out of the furnace of fire and deliver them from the king's hands and from present punishments. This we find now done in the faith of your confession and in the Lord's protection over you: that, although you were ready and prepared to undergo every punishment, the Lord nevertheless withdrew you from punishment and kept you for the church. In your return the dignity of his confession has not been cut short in the bishop, but rather priestly authority has grown, so that a bishop stands at God's altar who exhorts the people to take up the arms of confession and to undergo martyrdom not by words but by deeds, and, with Antichrist at hand, prepares soldiers for battle not only by the incitement of speech and voice but by the example of faith and courage.

We understand, dearest brother, and perceive with the whole light of our heart the saving and holy counsels of the divine majesty: why the sudden persecution recently broke out there, why the secular power suddenly burst forth against the church of Christ and against Bishop Cornelius, the blessed martyr, and against all of you: it was so that, to confound and beat back the heretics, the Lord might show which was the church, who was its one bishop chosen by divine ordination, who were the presbyters joined with the bishop in priestly honor, who was the united and true people of Christ, bound together by the love of the Lord's flock; who were those whom the enemy would harass, and who, on the other hand, those whom the devil would spare as his own. For the adversary of Christ persecutes and attacks only the camp and soldiers of Christ. The heretics, once laid low and made his own, he despises and passes by. He seeks to throw down those whom he sees standing.

And would that the opportunity were now given us, dearest brother, who love you with mutual love, to be present there at your return, so that we too, being present, might with the others gather the most joyful fruit of your coming. What exultation of all the brothers there, what running together and embracing of each one meeting you! Hardly can the kisses of those clinging to you be satisfied; hardly can the very faces and eyes of the people be sated with seeing, from the joy of your coming. There the brotherhood began to know what and how great will be the joy that will follow when Christ comes; since his coming has drawn near quickly, a kind of image of it has already gone before in you, so that, as John his forerunner and herald came and preached that Christ had come, so now, as a bishop, confessor of the Lord and priest, returns, it may appear that the Lord too is now returning. In our stead, dearest brother, I and my colleagues and the whole brotherhood send you this letter, and, making present our joy to ourselves by letter, we show the faithful service of love; here too in our sacrifices and prayers we do not cease to give thanks to God the Father and to Christ his Son our Lord, and to pray and ask alike that he who is perfect and makes perfect may keep and perfect in you the glorious crown of your confession; who perhaps also called you back for this purpose, that the glory might not be hidden, if the martyrdoms that complete your confession were accomplished abroad. For the victim that offers the brotherhood an example of courage and faith ought to be sacrificed in the presence of the brothers. We wish you, dearest brother, good health always.

Cyprian to Januarius, Maximus, Proculus, Victor, Modianus, Nemesianus, Nampulus, and Honoratus, his brothers, greeting. With the deepest groaning of our spirit, and not without tears, we have read your letter, dearest brothers, which in the care of your love you wrote to us about the captivity of our brothers and sisters. For who would not grieve at such misfortunes, or who would not count a brother's grief as his own, since the apostle Paul speaks and says: “If one member suffers, the other members suffer with it; and if one member rejoices, the other members rejoice with it”? And in another place: “Who is weak,” he says, “and I am not weak?” Therefore now the captivity of our brothers must be counted as our captivity, and the grief of those in danger reckoned as our grief, since there is, of course, one body of our union, and not only love but religion ought to urge and strengthen us to redeem the members who are our brothers.

For since the apostle Paul says again: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”, even if love had driven us less to bring help to the brothers, yet we should have considered in this case that it is temples of God that have been captured, and that we ought not, by long delay and neglected grief, to allow the temples of God to be captive for long, but to labor with what strength we can and act quickly, so that we may win the favor of Christ our judge and our Lord God by our services. For since the apostle Paul says, “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ,” in our captive brothers Christ must be seen and redeemed from the danger of captivity, who redeemed us from the danger of death; so that he who took us out of the jaws of the devil, he himself who remains and dwells in us, may now be taken out of the hands of the barbarians, and he who redeemed us by the cross and blood may be redeemed with a sum of money. He allows these things to happen meanwhile for this reason, that our faith may be tested, whether each one will do for another what he would wish done for himself if he himself were held captive among the barbarians. For who, mindful of humanity and reminded of mutual love, if he is a father, would not reckon that his own sons are there now; if he is a husband, would not think, with grief and with the love of the marriage bond alike, that his own wife is held captive there? And how great is the common sorrow and torment of all of us over the danger of the virgins who are held there, for whom not only the loss of liberty but of chastity must be mourned, and not so much the chains of the barbarians as the violations of pimps and brothels must be wept for, lest members dedicated to Christ and devoted by chaste virtue to the eternal honor of continence be defiled by the contagion of insulting lust!

Considering all these things here, according to your letter, and sorrowfully examining them, our brotherhood all readily, willingly, and generously contributed money in aid for the brothers, always inclined indeed to God's work according to the firmness of their faith, but now even more fired to saving works by the contemplation of so great a grief. For since the Lord says in his gospel, “I was sick, and you visited me,” with how much greater reward for our work will he say, “I was a captive, and you redeemed me”! And since he says again, “I was in prison, and you visited me,” how much more it is when he begins to say, “I was in the prison of captivity, and I lay shut up and bound among the barbarians, and from that prison of slavery you set me free,” when the day of judgment comes and we are to receive the reward from the Lord! Finally, we give you the greatest thanks for wishing us to be partners in your care and in so good and necessary a work, so that you offered us fruitful fields in which to cast the seeds of our hope, expecting a harvest of the most abundant fruits that come from this heavenly and saving work. We have sent one hundred thousand sesterces, which were collected here in the church over which by the Lord's indulgence we preside, by the contribution of the clergy and the people residing with us; you will dispense them there with your usual diligence.

And we wish indeed that nothing of the kind may happen hereafter, and that our brothers, protected by the Lord's majesty, may be kept unharmed from such dangers. If, however, to test the love of our mind and examine the faith of our heart, any such thing should happen, do not hesitate to report it to us by your letters, holding for certain and knowing that our church and the whole brotherhood here pray that these things may not happen again, and, if they do happen, will willingly and generously supply aid. And so that you may keep in mind in your prayers our brothers and sisters who have worked readily and willingly at this so necessary work, that they may always work, and may repay them for their good work in your sacrifices and prayers, I have added below the names of each; and I have also added the names of our colleagues and fellow priests, who, being present, themselves also contributed something according to their means in their own name and their people's; and besides our own amount I have indicated and sent their small sums too. You ought to remember all of them in your prayers and supplications, as faith and love require. We wish you, dearest brothers, good health always in the Lord, and that you remember us.

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.

Cyprian to his brother Epictetus and to the people residing at Assuras, greeting. I have been gravely and sorrowfully troubled, dearest brothers, to learn that Fortunatianus, formerly bishop among you, after the grave lapse of his fall, now wishes to act as though unharmed and has begun to claim the episcopate for himself. This has saddened me, first on his own account, since, wretched man, either wholly blinded by the devil's darkness or deceived by the sacrilegious persuasion of certain people, when he ought to make satisfaction and devote himself day and night to entreating the Lord with tears and prayers and supplications, he still dares to claim for himself the priesthood which he betrayed; as if it were right, after the devil's altars, to approach the altar of God, or as if he were not provoking greater wrath and indignation of the Lord against himself on the day of judgment, who, since he could not be a leader of faith and courage for the brothers, stands out as a teacher of faithlessness, audacity, and rashness; and he who did not teach the brothers to stand bravely in battle teaches those who have been conquered and laid low not even to entreat, although the Lord says: “To them you have poured out drink offerings and to them you have laid on sacrifices. Shall I not be angry at these things? says the Lord.” And in another place: “He who sacrifices to gods, except to the Lord alone, shall be rooted out.” Likewise the Lord speaks again and says: “They worshiped what their fingers made, and man was bowed down and the man was humbled, and I will not forgive them.” In the Apocalypse too we read the wrath of the Lord threatening and saying: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives the mark on his forehead and on his hand, he too will drink of the wine of God's wrath mixed in the cup of his wrath, and will be punished with fire and sulfur before the eyes of the holy angels and before the eyes of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torments will go up for ever and ever; and those who worship the beast and its image will have no rest day or night.”

Since, then, the Lord threatens these torments, these punishments on the day of judgment to those who obey the devil and sacrifice to idols, how does he think he can act as a priest of God, he who obeyed and served the devil's priests? Or how does he think that his hand, which was made captive to sacrilege and crime, can be transferred to God's sacrifice and the Lord's prayer, when in the divine Scriptures God forbids priests who are guilty even of a lighter fault to approach the sacrifice, and says in Leviticus: “A man in whom there is a defect and blemish shall not approach to offer gifts to God”? Likewise in Exodus: “And let the priests who approach the Lord God be sanctified, lest perhaps the Lord forsake them.” And again: “And those who approach to minister at the altar of the holy place shall not bring sin upon themselves, lest they die.” Those, then, who have brought grave sins upon themselves, that is, who by sacrificing to idols have offered sacrilegious sacrifices, cannot claim God's priesthood for themselves nor make any prayer for the brothers in his sight, since it is written in the gospel: “God does not hear a sinner; but if anyone worships God and does his will, him he hears.” Yet the deep gloom of the gathering darkness has so blinded the hearts of some that they admit no light from the saving precepts, but, once turned from the straight path of the true way, are swept headlong over the precipice of their crimes by night and error.

Nor is it surprising if those who have denied the Lord now refuse our counsels or the Lord's precepts. They long for the contributions and offerings and gains over which they formerly brooded insatiably; and even now they gape after suppers and banquets, whose surfeit, lately surviving, they belched out daily in indigestion, now proving most plainly that even before they served not religion but rather their belly and gain with profane greed. Hence we perceive and believe that the rebuke itself came from God's searching, so that they might not continue further to stand at the altar and handle, the unchaste modesty, the faithless faith, the profane religion, the earthly divine things, the sacrilegious holy things. That such men may not return again to the desecration of the altar and the contagion of the brothers, we must watch with all our strength and strive with all vigor to beat them back, as far as we can, from this audacity of their crime, lest those who, cast down to the extremity of death, have fallen beyond the lapsed laity with the weight of a greater ruin, should still try to act as priests.

But if the incurable fury of these madmen persists, and, the Holy Spirit withdrawing, the blindness that has begun remains in its night, our counsel will be to separate the brothers one by one from their deceit and set them apart from their contagion, so that no one falls into the snares of error, since neither can the offering be sanctified there where the Holy Spirit is not, nor will the Lord help anyone through the prayers and supplications of one who has himself outraged the Lord. But if Fortunatianus, either forgetful of his crime through the devil's blindness or made the devil's minister and servant to deceive the brotherhood, persists in this madness of his, labor as much as you can, and in this gloom of the raging devil call back the minds of the brothers from error, so that they may not readily consent to another's madness nor make themselves partners in the sins of desperate men, but may keep, whole, the course of their salvation and the lasting vigor of the integrity they have preserved and guarded.

But let the lapsed, recognizing the greatness of their sin, not cease from entreating the Lord nor forsake the catholic church, which is one and alone established by the Lord; but, persevering in satisfactions and entreating the Lord's mercy, let them knock at the church, so that they may be received there where they were, and return to Christ from whom they withdrew. And let them not listen to those who deceive them with false and deadly seduction, since it is written: “Let no one deceive you with empty words; for because of this the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Do not, therefore, be partners with them.” Let no one, then, accompany the disobedient, those who do not fear God and withdraw wholly from the church. But if anyone is too impatient to entreat the Lord whom he has offended, and will not obey us, but follows the desperate and lost, he will have himself to blame when the day of judgment comes. For how will he be able to entreat the Lord on that day who before this denied Christ and now also denies the church of Christ, and, not obeying bishops who are sound, whole, and living, has made himself the companion and partner of the dying? I wish you, dearest brothers, good health always.

Cyprian, also called Thascius, to his brother Florentius, also called Puppianus, greeting. I had believed, brother, that you had at last turned to repentance for having in the past rashly heard or believed about us things so unspeakable, so shameful, so execrable even to the heathen. But even now I notice in your letter that you are still the same as you were before: that you believe the same things about us and persist in what you have believed, and, lest perhaps the dignity of your renown and martyrdom be stained by communion with us, that you are diligently inquiring into our character, and that after God, the judge who makes priests, you wish to sit in judgment, I will not say on me (for how great am I?) but on the judgment of God and Christ. This is not to believe in God; this is to stand as a rebel against Christ and against his gospel: that, while he says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and neither of them falls to the ground without the Father's will?”, and his majesty and truth prove that not even the least things happen without God's knowledge and permission, you should think that the priests of God are ordained in the church without his knowledge. For to believe that those who are ordained are unworthy and unchaste, what else is it than to contend that his priests are not appointed in the church by God or through God?

Or do you think that my testimony about myself is greater than God's, when the Lord himself teaches and says that testimony is not true if anyone stands as witness about himself, because everyone naturally favors himself, and no one brings forward hostile and adverse things against himself; whereas the credit of truth is sincere if in what is proclaimed of us another is the proclaimer and witness? “If I bear witness about myself,” he says, “my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness about me.” But if the Lord himself, who will afterward judge all things, did not wish to be believed on his own testimony, but preferred to be approved by the judgment and testimony of God the Father, how much more ought his servants to observe this, who are not only approved by the judgment and testimony of God but even glory in it? Yet with you the fabrication of enemies and malicious men has prevailed against the divine sentence and against our conscience, resting on the strength of its faith; as if among the lapsed and profane and those placed outside the church, from whose hearts the Holy Spirit has departed, there could be anything but a depraved mind, a deceitful tongue, poisoned hatreds, and sacrilegious lies. Whoever believes them must be found with them when the day of judgment comes.

As for your saying that priests ought to be humble, because both the Lord and the apostles were humble: my humility all the brothers, and the heathen too, know very well and love; and you too knew and loved it when you were still in the church and in communion with me. But which of us is far from humility: I, who daily serve the brothers and receive kindly, with desire and joy, each one who comes to the church, or you, who make yourself bishop of the bishop and judge of the judge given by God for the time? For the Lord God says in Deuteronomy: “And whatever man acts in pride, so as not to listen to the priest or the judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die; and all the people, when they hear, will fear and will not act impiously even now.” And again he speaks to Samuel and says: “They have not spurned you, but they have spurned me.” And further, the Lord in the gospel, when it had been said to him, “Is that how you answer the high priest?”, keeping and teaching that priestly honor ought to be preserved, said nothing against the high priest, but only cleared his own innocence, answering: “If I have spoken wrongly, reproach me for the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike me?” Likewise the blessed apostle, when it had been said to him, “Do you thus assail the priest with abuse?”, spoke nothing insulting against the priest, although he could have stood up boldly against those who had crucified God and had already lost the Lord and Christ and the temple and the priesthood; but, thinking of the very shadow, empty as it was, of the priestly name even in false and despoiled priests, he said: “I did not know, brothers, that he was high priest; for it is written: You shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people.”

Unless, perhaps, I was a priest to you before the persecution, when you were in communion with me, and after the persecution ceased to be a priest! For the persecution, when it came, raised you to the highest summit of martyrdom, but weighed me down with the burden of proscription, when it was publicly read out: “If anyone holds or possesses any of the goods of Caecilius Cyprianus, bishop of the Christians”; so that even those who did not believe God when he appointed a bishop might at least believe the devil when he proscribed a bishop. I do not boast of this, but bring it forward in grief, since you make yourself judge of God and of Christ, who says to the apostles, and through this to all leaders who succeed the apostles by vicarious ordination: “He who hears you hears me; and he who hears me hears him who sent me. And he who rejects you rejects me and him who sent me.”

For from where have schisms and heresies arisen, and from where do they arise? From this: that the bishop, who is one and presides over the church, is despised by the proud presumption of some, and a man honored by God's favor is judged unworthy by men. For what swelling of pride is this, what arrogance of spirit, what inflation of mind, to summon leaders and priests to your inquiry, and, unless we have been cleared before you and acquitted by your sentence, see, for six years now the brotherhood will have had no bishop, the people no leader, the flock no shepherd, the church no helmsman, Christ no minister, God no priest! Let Puppianus come to the rescue and pronounce sentence, and ratify the judgment of God and Christ, so that so great a number of the faithful who have been summoned while under us may not seem to have departed without hope of salvation and peace; so that the new people of believers may not be judged to have obtained through us no grace of baptism and of the Holy Spirit; so that the peace given to so many lapsed and penitent, and the communion granted by our examination, may not be undone by the authority of your judgment. Nod assent at last, and deign to pronounce on us and confirm our episcopate by the vigor of your inquiry, so that God and his Christ may give you thanks that through you a minister and ruler has been restored to their altar and their people alike!

Bees have a king, and cattle a leader, and they keep faith with them; robbers obey their chief with a submission full of humility. How much simpler and better than you are brute cattle and dumb animals, and brigands, though bloody and raging among swords and arms! A leader is recognized and feared there, whom no divine sentence appointed, but on whom a lost faction and a guilty band agreed.

You said, indeed, that the doubt into which you have fallen must be removed from your mind. You have fallen, but by your irreligious credulity; you have fallen, but by your sacrilegious mind and will: while you readily hear unchaste, impious, unspeakable things against a brother, against a priest, and willingly believe them, you defend others' lies as though they were your own and private, and do not remember that it is written: “Hedge your ears with thorns, and do not hear a wicked tongue”; and again: “The wicked man listens to the tongue of the unjust, but the righteous does not attend to lying lips.” Why did the martyrs, full of the Holy Spirit and already near through their suffering to the sight of God and his Christ, not fall into this doubt, who directed letters from prison to Cyprian the bishop, acknowledging him as God's priest and bearing witness to him? Why did so many fellow bishops, my colleagues, not fall into this doubt, who were either proscribed when they withdrew or arrested and were in prison and chains, or who, banished into exile, went to the Lord by an illustrious journey, or who in some places were executed and received heavenly crowns from the Lord's glorifying? Why did so many confessors from this people of ours, which is with us and committed to us by God's favor, not fall into this doubt, who were interrogated and tortured and are glorious in the memory of their famous wounds and scars; so many virgins untouched, so many praiseworthy widows, and finally all the churches throughout the whole world joined with us by the bond of unity? Unless all these, being in communion with me, have, as you wrote, been polluted by our polluted mouth and have lost the hope of eternal life by the contagion of our communion. Puppianus alone, whole, inviolate, holy, chaste, who would not mix himself with us, will dwell alone in paradise and in the kingdom of heaven!

You also wrote that the church now has a portion of itself scattered because of me, although the whole people of the church has been gathered and united and joined together in undivided concord, and only those have remained outside who, even if they were inside, would have had to be cast out. Nor does the Lord, the protector and guardian of his people, allow the wheat to be snatched from his threshing floor; only the chaff can be separated from the church, since the apostle too 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.” And the Lord too in the gospel, when the disciples left him as he spoke, turned to the twelve and said: “Do you also wish to go?” Peter answered him, saying: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the word of eternal life, and we believe and know that you are the Son of the living God.” There Peter speaks, on whom the church had been built, teaching and showing in the name of the church that, even if a stubborn and proud multitude of those unwilling to obey departs, the church does not withdraw from Christ; and those are the church who are a people united to the priest and a flock cleaving to its shepherd. Hence you ought to know that the bishop is in the church and the church in the bishop, and that whoever is not with the bishop is not in the church; and that those flatter themselves in vain who, not having peace with God's priests, creep in and believe that they are secretly in communion with some, since the church, which is catholic and one, is not split or divided, but is indeed connected and joined by the glue of priests cleaving to one another.

Therefore, brother, if you consider the majesty of God who ordains the priests, if you at last have regard for Christ, who by his will and nod and presence governs both the leaders themselves and the church with its leaders; if you believe about the innocence of priests not from human hatred but from divine judgment; if you begin, even late, to do penance for your rashness, pride, and insolence; if you make the fullest satisfaction to the Lord and his Christ, whom I serve and to whom with a pure and spotless mouth I offer sacrifices unceasingly both in persecution and in peace, we shall be able to consider your communion, while still keeping regard and fear for the divine censure; and I shall first consult my Lord whether he permits, by his showing and admonition, that peace be given to you and that you be admitted to the communion of his church. For I remember what has already been shown to me, or rather what has been commanded by the Lord's divine authority to an obedient and fearing servant; who, among the other things that he deigned to show and reveal, added this too: “So whoever does not believe Christ when he makes a priest will afterward begin to believe him when he avenges a priest.” I know, however, that dreams seem ridiculous and visions foolish to some, but surely to those who would rather believe against priests than believe a priest. But it is no wonder, since Joseph's brothers said of him, “Behold, that dreamer comes; now therefore come, let us kill him,” and afterward the dreamer attained what he had dreamed, and his murderers and sellers were confounded, so that those who had not first believed words afterward believed deeds. As for what you did either in persecution or in peace, it would be foolish of me to wish to judge you, since you have rather made yourself our judge. I have written back out of the pure conscience of my mind and in confidence in my Lord and God. You have my letter and I have yours. On the day of judgment, before the tribunal of Christ, both will be read out.

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.

Cyprian to his son Magnus, greeting. In your devout care you have consulted my humble self, dearest son, whether among the other heretics those also who come from Novatian ought, after his profane washing, to be baptized and sanctified in the catholic church with the lawful, true, and only baptism of the church. On this matter, so far as the capacity of our faith and the holiness and truth of the divine Scriptures suggest, we say that all heretics and schismatics without exception have no power and no right. For this reason Novatian neither ought to be nor can be made an exception, so as not to be counted among the adversaries and antichrists, since he too stands outside the church and acts against the peace and love of Christ. For when our Lord Jesus Christ testified in his gospel that those who were not with him were his enemies, he did not specify any particular kind of heresy; he showed that all without exception who were not with him, and who, not gathering with him, scattered his flock, were adversaries, saying: “He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters.” Likewise the blessed apostle John did not himself distinguish any heresy or schism or set any apart specially, but called all who had gone out from the church and who acted against the church antichrists, saying: “You have heard that antichrist is coming; but now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.” Hence it is clear that all are adversaries of the Lord and antichrists who are known to have withdrawn from the love and from the unity of the catholic church. Further, the Lord in his gospel lays it down and says: “But if he despises even the church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector.” If those who despise the church are held to be heathens and tax collectors, much more surely must rebels and enemies, who fabricate false altars, unlawful priesthoods, sacrilegious sacrifices, and counterfeit names, be counted among heathens and tax collectors, since those who sin less and are only despisers of the church are judged heathens and tax collectors by the Lord's sentence.

That the church is one, the Holy Spirit declares in the Song of Songs, speaking in the person of Christ: “My dove, my perfect one, is one; she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her who bore her.” Of her he also says again: “A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride, a fountain sealed, a well of living water.” If the bride of Christ, which is the church, is a garden enclosed, a thing shut cannot lie open to strangers and the profane. And if she is a fountain sealed, one placed outside, who has no access to the fountain, can neither drink from it nor be sealed from it. The well of living water too, if it is one, the same which is within, cannot give life and holiness to one placed outside from that water, whose whole use and drinking is granted only to those who are within. Peter also showed this, that the church is one and that only those who are in the church can be baptized, when he said: “In the ark of Noah few, that is, eight souls of men were saved through water; which baptism will likewise save you also,” proving and attesting that the one ark of Noah was a type of the one church. If at that time, in that baptism of the world when it was cleansed and purified, anyone who was not in the ark of Noah could be saved through water, then now too one who is not in the church, to which alone baptism has been granted, can be given life through baptism. But Paul too, showing this same thing still more openly and clearly, writes to the Ephesians and says: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her with the washing of water.” If the church which Christ loves and which alone is cleansed by his washing is one, how can one who is not in the church either be loved by Christ or be washed and cleansed by his washing?

Therefore, since the church alone has the life-giving water and the power to baptize and wash a person, whoever says that anyone can be baptized and sanctified with Novatian must first show and prove that Novatian is in the church or presides over the church. For the church is one, and being one it cannot be both within and without. If it is with Novatian, it was not with Cornelius. But if it was with Cornelius, who succeeded Bishop Fabian by lawful ordination, and whom the Lord glorified with martyrdom besides the honor of the priesthood, then Novatian is not in the church and cannot be counted a bishop, since, despising the gospel and apostolic tradition and succeeding no one, he sprang from himself. For one who has not been ordained in the church can in no way have or hold the church.

That the church is not outside, and cannot be split against itself or divided, but keeps the unity of an inseparable and undivided house, the faith of divine Scripture makes plain, when it is written of the sacrament of the Passover and of the lamb, which lamb signified Christ: “In one house it shall be eaten; you shall not cast the flesh out of the house.” We see the same expressed in the case of Rahab, who herself also bore a type of the church, to whom it is commanded and said: “Your father and your mother and your brothers and the whole house of your father you shall gather to yourself into your house; and whoever goes out of the door of your house shall be guilty on his own head.” By this sacrament it is declared that those who are to live and escape the destruction of the world must be gathered into one house only, that is, into the church; but that whoever of those gathered goes outside, that is, if anyone, though he has obtained grace in the church, withdraws and goes out from the church, will be guilty, that is, will have himself to blame for his perishing. The apostle Paul explains this when he teaches and commands that a heretic is to be avoided as perverted and a sinner and self-condemned. For this is the one who will be guilty on his own head: not cast out by the bishop, but a fugitive from the church of his own accord, condemned by himself through heretical presumption.

And so the Lord, impressing on us the unity that comes from divine authority, lays it down and says: “I and the Father are one.” Bringing his church back to this unity, he says again: “And there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” But if the flock is one, how can one be counted in the flock who is not in the number of the flock? Or how can he be held a shepherd who, while the true shepherd remains and presides in the church of God by succeeding ordination, succeeds no one, begins from himself, and becomes a stranger and profane, an enemy of the Lord's peace and of divine unity, not dwelling in the house of God, that is, in the church of God, in which none dwell but those of one heart and one mind, as the Holy Spirit speaks in the Psalms and says: “God, who makes those of one mind to dwell in a house”? Indeed, the Lord's sacrifices themselves declare Christian unanimity, bound to itself by firm and inseparable love. For when the Lord calls his body bread, gathered together from the union of many grains, he indicates our people, whom he bore, as united; and when he calls his blood wine, pressed from many clusters and grapes and brought together into one, he likewise signifies our flock joined by the mingling of a multitude made one. If Novatian is united to this bread of the Lord, if he too is mingled with the cup of Christ, he might seem also to be able to have the grace of the one baptism of the church, if it were established that he holds the unity of the church.

Then how inseparable is the sacrament of unity, and how hopeless they are and what utter ruin they bring on themselves from the indignation of God, who make a schism and, forsaking their bishop, set up for themselves another, a false bishop, outside, divine Scripture declares in the books of Kingdoms, where the ten tribes were split off from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin and, forsaking their king, set up another for themselves outside: “And the Lord was indignant,” it says, “with all the seed of Israel, and removed them and gave them up to plunder, until he cast them from his presence; because Israel was scattered from the house of David, and they set up for themselves as king Jeroboam son of Nebat.” It said that the Lord was indignant and gave them up to ruin because they had been scattered from unity and had set up another king for themselves. And so great was the Lord's indignation against those who had made the schism that even when the man of God was sent to Jeroboam to rebuke him for his sins and to foretell the coming vengeance, he was forbidden to eat bread or drink water among them. When he did not keep this, and dined against God's command, he was at once struck by the majesty of the divine judgment, so that on his way back he was killed on the road by the attack and bite of a lion. And does any of you dare to say that the saving water of baptism and heavenly grace can be shared with schismatics, with whom not even earthly [food] nor worldly drink ought to be shared? The Lord satisfies us further in his gospel and shows a greater light of understanding: that those same people who had then cut themselves off from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin and, leaving Jerusalem, had withdrawn to Samaria, were counted among the profane and the gentiles. For when he first sent his disciples on the ministry of salvation, he commanded and said: “Do not go off into the way of the nations, and do not enter the city of the Samaritans.” Sending them first to the Jews, he orders the gentiles to be passed over for the time; but by adding that the city of the Samaritans, where the schismatics were, must also be left aside, he shows that schismatics are put on a level with gentiles.

But if someone objects, saying that Novatian holds the same law as the catholic church holds, baptizes with the same creed as we do, knows the same God the Father, the same Son Christ, the same Holy Spirit, and that for this reason he can claim the power of baptizing, because he seems not to differ from us in the baptismal questions: let whoever thinks this should be objected know, first, that we and the schismatics do not have one law of the creed nor the same questions. For when they say, “Do you believe in the remission of sins and eternal life through the holy church?” they lie in their question, since they do not have the church. Then too, with their own voice they confess that the remission of sins cannot be given except through the holy church; and not having it, they show that sins cannot be remitted there.

As for their being said to know the same God the Father, the same Son Christ, the same Holy Spirit as we do, not even this can help such people. For Korah and Dathan and Abiram knew the same God as Aaron the priest and Moses, living under the same law and religion; they called on the one true God who was to be worshiped and called upon. Yet because they overstepped the ministry of their own place and claimed for themselves the license to sacrifice, against Aaron the priest who had received the lawful priesthood by God's favor and the Lord's ordination, they were struck from heaven and at once paid the penalty for their unlawful attempts; and the sacrifices offered irreligiously and unlawfully, against the right of divine appointment, could not be valid or of any profit. Even the censers in which the incense had been unlawfully offered, so that they should no longer be used by the priests but should rather present to posterity, for its correction, a memorial of divine indignation and vengeance, were by the Lord's command melted down, purged with fire, beaten into thin plates, and fastened to the altar, as divine Scripture says: “A memorial,” it says, “to the sons of Israel, that no stranger who is not of the seed of Aaron should come near to put incense before the Lord, that he may not be as Korah.” And yet those men had not made a schism, nor gone outside and rebelled shamelessly and hostilely against the priests of God, as these now do, who split the church and, rebels against the peace and unity of Christ, attempt to set up a chair for themselves, to assume primacy, and to claim the license to baptize and to offer. How can those accomplish what they do, or obtain anything from God by unlawful attempts, who contrive against God what is not permitted them? Therefore those who plead the cause of Novatian or other schismatics of that kind contend in vain that anyone can be baptized and sanctified there with saving baptism, where it is established that the one who baptizes has no license to baptize.

And so that it may be better understood what the divine judgment is against such audacity, we find that in such a crime not only the leaders and authors but also the partakers are destined for punishment, unless they separate themselves from communion with the wicked, as the Lord commands through Moses and says: “Separate yourselves from the tents of these most hardened men, and do not touch anything that is theirs, lest you perish together in their sin.” And what the Lord had threatened through Moses he fulfilled: whoever had not separated himself from Korah and Dathan and Abiram at once paid the penalty for his impious communion. By this example it is shown and proved that all will be liable both to guilt and to punishment who have joined themselves to schismatics against the leaders and priests with irreligious rashness. So too the Holy Spirit testifies through the prophet Hosea and says: “Their sacrifices are like the bread of mourning; all who eat them shall be defiled,” teaching and showing, that is, that all without exception who have been defiled by their sin are joined in punishment with the authors.

What merit, then, can there be with God for those on whom punishments are inflicted from heaven? Or how can such men justify and sanctify the baptized, who, enemies of the priests, try to usurp what belongs to others, what is unlawful and granted them by no right? Yet we do not wonder that they contend for their own perversity. Each one must needs defend what he does, and once defeated they do not want to yield easily, though they know that what they do is not lawful. What is to be wondered at, or rather to be indignant at and grieved over, is that Christians stand by antichrists, and that betrayers of the faith and traitors to the church stand within the church itself against the church. Obstinate and unteachable as they are in other things, they do at least confess this, that all, whether heretics or schismatics, do not have the Holy Spirit, and therefore can indeed baptize but cannot give the Holy Spirit; and on this very point we hold them fast, so as to show that those who do not have the Holy Spirit cannot baptize at all.

For since in baptism each person's sins are remitted, the Lord proves and declares in his gospel that sins can be forgiven only through those who have the Holy Spirit. For after the resurrection, sending his disciples, he speaks to them and says: “As the Father has sent me, I also send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you remit anyone's sins, they will be remitted to him; if you retain anyone's, they will be retained.” In this passage he shows that only one who has the Holy Spirit can baptize and give remission of sins. Indeed John, who was to baptize Christ our Lord himself, received the Holy Spirit beforehand while still in his mother's womb, so that it might be certain and plain that none can baptize except those who have the Holy Spirit. So let those who plead for heretics or schismatics answer us whether they have the Holy Spirit or not. If they have it, why, when those baptized there come to us, are hands laid on them to receive the Spirit, since it would surely have been received already where, if it was there, it could have been given? But if all heretics and schismatics outside do not give the Holy Spirit, and therefore hands are laid on among us so that here may be received what there neither exists nor can be given, it is clear that remission of sins cannot be given through those who are known not to have the Holy Spirit. And therefore, so that, according to the divine appointment and the truth of the gospel, they may obtain remission of sins, be sanctified, and become temples of God, all without exception who come from the adversaries and antichrists to the church of Christ must be baptized with the baptism of the church.

You have also asked, dearest son, what I think of those who obtain the grace of God in sickness and weakness, whether they are to be held lawful Christians, because they have not been bathed with the saving water but had it poured over them. In this matter our modesty and restraint prejudge no one, so as to prevent each from holding what he thinks and doing what he holds. We, so far as our small capacity conceives, judge that the divine benefits cannot in any way be mutilated or weakened, nor can anything less happen there, where what is drawn from the divine gifts is received with full and entire faith both of the giver and of the receiver. For the contagion of sins is not washed away in the saving sacrament as the dirt of the skin and body is washed away in a fleshly and worldly bath, so that there is need of soda and other aids, and of a tub and a pool, by which the poor body can be washed and cleaned. The breast of the believer is washed in another way; the mind of a person is cleansed in another way, by the merits of faith. In the saving sacraments, when necessity compels and God grants his indulgence, the divine abridgments confer the whole on believers. Nor should it trouble anyone that the sick seem to be sprinkled or poured over when they obtain the Lord's grace, since holy Scripture speaks through the prophet Ezekiel and says: “And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols; and I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you.” Likewise in Numbers: “And the man who is unclean until evening shall be purified on the third day and on the seventh day, and he shall be clean. But if he is not purified on the third day and on the seventh day, he shall not be clean, and that soul shall be cut off from Israel, because the water of sprinkling has not been sprinkled on him.” And again: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Take the Levites from among the sons of Israel, and purify them. And thus you shall do their purification for them: you shall sprinkle them with the water of purification.” And again: “The water of sprinkling is a purification.” Hence it appears that sprinkling with water also has the force of the saving bath; and when this is done in the church, where the faith of both receiver and giver is whole, all can stand and be completed and perfected by the majesty of the Lord and the truth of faith.

Further, as for some calling those who have obtained the grace of Christ by the saving water and lawful faith not “Christians” but “clinics,” I do not find where they take this name from, unless perhaps those who have read more and more recondite books have found these “clinics” in Hippocrates or Soranus. For I, who know of a clinic from the gospel, know that for that paralytic, disabled man lying on his bed through the long course of his years, his infirmity did not hinder him from coming most fully to heavenly strength; and not only was he raised from his pallet by the Lord's indulgence, but with his strength restored and invigorated he took up his pallet himself. And therefore, so far as it is given us by faith to conceive and to perceive, my judgment is this: that everyone should be judged a lawful Christian who has obtained divine grace in the church by the law and right of faith. Or if anyone thinks that they have obtained nothing because they were only poured over with the saving water, then if they are empty and void, let them not be deceived, but, if they escape the trouble of their sickness and recover, let them be baptized. But if those cannot be baptized who have already been sanctified by the church's baptism, why are they made to stumble in their faith and in the Lord's indulgence? Or have they indeed obtained the Lord's grace, but in a shorter and smaller measure of the divine gift and of the Holy Spirit, so that they are indeed held Christians, yet are not to be equaled with the rest?

No, rather, the Holy Spirit is not given by measure but is poured whole upon the believer. For if the day dawns equally for all, and if the sun spreads over all with equal and like light, how much more does Christ, the true sun and day, bestow in his church the light of eternal life with equal fairness? We see the sacrament of this equality celebrated in Exodus, when manna flowed down from heaven and, prefiguring things to come, showed the nourishment of heavenly bread and the food of Christ who was to come. For there, without distinction of sex or age, an omer was gathered equally for each. From this it appeared that Christ's indulgence and the heavenly grace that would follow later would be divided equally to all, and that the gift of spiritual grace would be poured on the whole people of God without difference of sex, without distinction of years, without respect of persons. To be sure, the same spiritual grace which is received equally in baptism by believers is afterwards either lessened or increased by our conduct and action, as in the gospel the Lord's seed is sown equally, but according to the variety of the soil some is consumed and some is heaped up into manifold abundance, with fruit overflowing thirtyfold, sixtyfold, or a hundredfold. Further, since each is called to the one denarius, why should what God distributes equally be lessened by human interpretation?

But if anyone is troubled that some of those who are baptized when sick were still tempted by unclean spirits, let him know that the devil's stubborn wickedness has power up to the saving water, but in baptism loses all the poison of his wickedness. We see an example of this in King Pharaoh, who, long resisting and lingering in his faithlessness, could resist and prevail just so long, until he came to the water; when he had come there, he was both conquered and destroyed. That that sea was a sacrament of baptism the blessed apostle Paul declares, saying: “For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” And he added, saying: “Now all these things were figures of us.” This happens even today, when by exorcists, with a human voice and divine power, the devil is scourged and burned and tortured; and though he often says that he is going out and releasing the people of God, yet he deceives in what he has said, and practices the same lying obstinacy and fraud that was done before through Pharaoh. Yet when one comes to the saving water and to the sanctification of baptism, we ought to know and trust that there the devil is crushed, and the person dedicated to God is set free by divine indulgence. For if scorpions and serpents, which are strong on dry land, can keep their strength or retain their poisons when thrown into water, then the evil spirits too, which are called scorpions and serpents and yet are trodden underfoot by us through the power given by the Lord, can remain any longer in the body of a person in whom, baptized and sanctified, the Holy Spirit begins to dwell.

This indeed we experience in the facts themselves: those baptized under the pressure of necessity in sickness, having obtained grace, are free of the unclean spirit by which they were moved before, live praiseworthy and approved lives in the church, and advance more day by day in the increase of heavenly grace through the growth of faith; while on the contrary some of those who are baptized in health, if afterwards they begin to sin, are shaken by the unclean spirit returning; so that it is clear that the devil is shut out in baptism by the faith of the believer, and returns if faith afterwards fails. Unless perhaps it seems just to some that those who are polluted with profane water outside the church among adversaries and antichrists should be judged baptized, while those who are baptized in the church should be thought to have obtained less of divine indulgence and grace; and that such honor should be paid to heretics that those who come from them are not asked whether they were bathed or poured over, whether they were clinics or walkers, while among us the whole truth of faith is diminished and the church's baptism is robbed of its majesty and holiness.

I have answered your letter, dearest son, as far as my small ability allowed, and have shown what we, for our part, think, prescribing to no one so as to prevent each leader from deciding what he thinks, since he will give account of his action to the Lord, according to what the blessed apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans and says: “Each one of us will give account for himself. Let us therefore not judge one another.” I pray, dearest son, that you may always be well.

Cyprian, Liberalis, Caldonius, Junius, Primus, Caecilius, Polycarp, Nicomedes, Felix, Marrutius, Successus, Lucianus, Honoratus, Fortunatus, Victor, Donatus, Lucius, Herculanus, Pomponius, Demetrius, Quintus, Saturninus, Marcus, another Saturninus, another Donatus, Rogatianus, Sedatus, Tertullus, Hortensianus, and also another Saturninus and Sattius, to their brothers Januarius, Saturninus, Maximus, Victor, another Victor, Cassius, Proculus, Modianus, Cittinus, Gargilius, Eutychianus, another Gargilius, another Saturninus, Nemesianus, Nampulus, Antonianus, Rogatianus, and Honoratus, greeting. While we were together in council, dearest brothers, we read the letter you wrote about those who seem to have been baptized among heretics and schismatics, whether on coming to the catholic church, which is one, they ought to be baptized. On this matter, although you yourselves there hold the truth and firmness of the catholic rule, yet because out of our common love you have thought we should be consulted, we put forward no new opinion, but join with you in equal agreement in one long since established by our predecessors and observed by us: we judge, namely, and hold for certain that no one can be baptized outside, beyond the church, since there is one baptism appointed in the holy church, and it is written, the Lord saying: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water”; and again divine Scripture warns and says: “Keep yourself from strange water, and do not drink from a strange fountain.” The water must first be cleansed and sanctified by the priest, so that it may wash away by its baptism the sins of the one who is baptized, because the Lord says through Ezekiel: “And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols; and I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you.” But how can one cleanse and sanctify the water who is himself unclean and with whom the Holy Spirit is not? For the Lord says in Numbers: “And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean.” Or how can one who baptizes give another remission of sins who cannot himself put away his own sins outside the church?

But the very question asked in baptism is also a witness to the truth. For when we say, “Do you believe in eternal life and the remission of sins through the holy church?” we understand that remission of sins is given only in the church, and that among heretics, where there is no church, sins are not forgiven. So those who champion heretics must either change the question or vindicate the truth, unless they grant a church also to those whom they claim have baptism. The one who has been baptized must also be anointed, so that, having received the chrism, that is, the anointing, he may be God's anointed and have in himself the grace of Christ. Further, it is from the Eucharist that the baptized are anointed with the oil sanctified on the altar. But one who has had neither altar nor church could not sanctify the creature of oil. Hence there can be no spiritual anointing among heretics either, since it is established that among them oil cannot be sanctified nor the Eucharist celebrated at all. We ought to know and remember that it is written: “Let not the oil of a sinner anoint my head.” The Holy Spirit gave this warning beforehand in the Psalms, so that no one, straying off the track and wandering from the way of truth, should be anointed among heretics and the adversaries of Christ. And what prayer can a sacrilegious and sinful priest make for the one baptized, since it is written: “God does not hear a sinner; but whoever worships God and does his will, him he hears”? Who can give what he does not himself have? Or how can one who has himself lost the Holy Spirit perform spiritual acts? And therefore one who comes to the church untaught must be baptized and renewed, so that he may be sanctified within by the holy, because it is written: “Be holy, for I also am holy, says the Lord”; so that one who was led astray into error and dipped outside may, in the true baptism of the church, put away this very thing too, that coming to God and seeking a priest he fell, by the deceit of error, upon a sacrilegious one.

Besides, to approve the baptism of heretics and schismatics is to agree that they have baptized. For part of it cannot be void there and part prevail. If he could baptize, he could also give the Holy Spirit. But if he cannot give the Holy Spirit, because, placed outside, he is not with the Holy Spirit, neither can he baptize the one who comes, since there is one baptism and one Holy Spirit and one church, founded by Christ our Lord upon Peter as the origin and principle of unity. So it follows that, since everything among them is void and false, nothing of what they have done ought to be approved by us. For what can be valid and firm with the Lord that is done by those whom the Lord calls his enemies and adversaries, laying it down in his gospel: “He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters”? And the blessed apostle John too, keeping the Lord's commands and precepts, set down in his letter: “You have heard that antichrist is coming; but now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.” Hence we too ought to gather and consider whether those who are the Lord's adversaries and have been called antichrists can give the grace of Christ. Therefore we who are with the Lord and hold the Lord's unity and, by his condescension, administer his priesthood in the church, ought to repudiate and reject and hold as profane whatever his adversaries and antichrists do; and to those who, coming from error and perversity, acknowledge the true faith of the one church, we ought to give in every respect the sacraments of divine grace, the truth of unity and faith. We pray, dearest brothers, that you may always be well.

Cyprian to his brother Quintus, greeting. Lucianus, our fellow presbyter, has reported to me, dearest brother, that you wished us to let you know what we think about those who seem to have been baptized among heretics and schismatics. So that you may know what many fellow bishops, with the fellow presbyters who were present, recently resolved on this matter in council, I have sent you a copy of that letter. For I do not know by what presumption some of our colleagues are led to think that those who have been dipped among heretics ought not to be baptized when they come to us, because, they say, there is one baptism. That one baptism, of course, is in the catholic church, because the church is one and there can be no baptism apart from the church. For since there cannot be two baptisms, if heretics truly baptize, they themselves have baptism. And whoever grants them this patronage by his authority yields to them and agrees that the enemy and adversary of Christ should seem to have the power of washing, purifying, and sanctifying a person. But we say that those who come from there are not rebaptized among us but baptized. For they do not receive anything there, where there is nothing; but they come to us so that they may receive here, where there is all grace and truth, because grace and truth are one. Further, some of our colleagues prefer to give honor to heretics rather than agree with us; and while, by insisting on the one baptism, they refuse to baptize those who come, they thus either make two baptisms themselves, by saying there is baptism among heretics too, or, what is more serious, they strive to set the filthy and profane dipping of heretics before and above the true, only, and lawful baptism of the catholic church, not considering that it is written: “He who is baptized by a dead man, what does his washing profit him?” It is clear that those who are not in the church of Christ are counted among the dead, and that one who does not himself live cannot give life to another, since the church is one, which, having obtained the grace of eternal life, both lives forever and gives life to the people of God.

And they say that in this they follow ancient custom, since among the ancients heresy and schism were still in their first beginnings, so that those who were there were people who had withdrawn from the church and had previously been baptized here; and these, when they returned to the church and did penance, there was then no need to baptize. We too observe this today: those who are known to have been baptized here and to have gone over from us to the heretics, if afterwards, having recognized their sin and put away their error, they return to the truth and to the mother, it is enough to lay a hand on them in penance, so that the shepherd may receive into his fold this sheep, driven off and straying, because it had already been a sheep. But if one who comes from the heretics was not previously baptized in the church but comes wholly a stranger and profane, he must be baptized so that he may become a sheep, because there is one water in the holy church that makes sheep. And therefore, since nothing can be common to falsehood and truth, darkness and light, death and immortality, antichrist and Christ, we ought in every respect to hold the unity of the catholic church and yield in nothing to the enemies of faith and truth.

One must not lay down the law from custom, but prevail by reason. For not even Peter, whom the Lord chose first and on whom he built his church, when Paul later disputed with him about circumcision, claimed anything for himself insolently or assumed anything arrogantly, so as to say that he held the primacy and that newcomers and latecomers ought rather to obey him; nor did he despise Paul because he had earlier been a persecutor of the church; but he admitted the counsel of truth and readily agreed to the lawful reasoning that Paul defended, giving us, namely, an example both of concord and of patience, that we should not obstinately love our own views, but should rather take as our own whatever is at times usefully and wholesomely suggested by our brothers and colleagues, if it is true and lawful. Paul too, looking to this and faithfully caring for concord and peace, set it down in his letter, saying: “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the rest judge. If something is revealed to another who sits by, let the first be silent.” In this he taught and showed that many things are revealed to individuals for the better, and that each one ought not to fight obstinately for what he had once imbibed and held, but should gladly embrace whatever has appeared better and more useful. For we are not defeated when better things are offered us, but instructed, above all in what concerns the unity of the church and the truth of our hope and faith: that we, priests of God and leaders of his church by his condescension, should know that remission of sins can be given only in the church, and that the adversaries of Christ can claim nothing for themselves concerning his grace.

This indeed Agrippinus too, a man of good memory, with his other fellow bishops who at that time governed the Lord's church in the province of Africa and Numidia, decreed, and confirmed after weighing it in common deliberation. We too have followed their devout and lawful judgment, wholesome and in keeping with the faith and the catholic church. And so that you may know what kind of letter we wrote on this matter, we have sent a copy of it, out of our common love, for the information both of yourself and of our fellow bishops who are there. I pray, dearest brother, that you may always be well.

Cyprian and the others to their brother Stephen, greeting. To settle certain matters and refine them by the examination of common counsel, we found it necessary, dearest brother, to assemble and hold a council, with many priests coming together into one; in it many things were brought forward and carried through. But above all we had to write to you and confer with your gravity and wisdom about what especially concerns both priestly authority and the unity and at the same time the dignity of the catholic church, which comes from the ordering of divine appointment: namely, that those who have been dipped outside, beyond the church, and stained among heretics and schismatics with the blot of profane water, when they come to us and to the church, which is one, ought to be baptized, since it is too little to lay a hand on them to receive the Holy Spirit unless they also receive the church's baptism. For only then can they be fully sanctified and be sons of God, if they are born of both sacraments, since it is written: “Unless one has been born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” For we find in the Acts of the Apostles that this was kept by the apostles and preserved in the truth of saving faith: when in the house of Cornelius the centurion the Holy Spirit had come down on the gentiles who were there, fervent with the warmth of faith and believing in the Lord with their whole heart, and, filled with him, they were blessing God in various tongues, nevertheless the blessed apostle Peter, mindful of the divine command and of the gospel, ordered that those same people, who had already been filled with the Holy Spirit, be baptized, so that nothing might seem omitted by which the apostolic teaching should fail to keep in every respect the law of the divine command and of the gospel. That what heretics use is not baptism, and that nothing among those who oppose Christ can profit by the grace of Christ, was recently set out carefully in the letter written on this matter to Quintus, our colleague in Mauretania, and also in the letter our colleagues wrote earlier to the fellow bishops presiding in Numidia; I have attached copies of both letters.

We plainly add and join to this, dearest brother, by common consent and authority, that if any presbyters or deacons were either first ordained in the catholic church and afterwards stood faithless and rebellious against the church, or were promoted among heretics by a profane ordination from false bishops and antichrists against the arrangement of Christ, and attempted to offer false and sacrilegious sacrifices outside against the one divine altar, these too are to be received on this condition when they return: that they communicate as laymen, and consider it enough that they are admitted to peace who were enemies of peace; and that on returning they ought not to keep among us the same weapons of ordination and honor with which they rebelled against us. For the priests and ministers who serve the altar and the sacrifices must be whole and spotless, since the Lord God speaks in Leviticus and says: “A man in whom there is a blemish and a defect shall not come near to offer gifts to God”; and he commands the same in Exodus and says: “And let the priests who come near to the Lord God be sanctified, lest perhaps the Lord forsake them”; and again: “And when they come near to minister at the altar of the holy place, they shall not bring guilt on themselves, lest they die.” But what greater guilt can there be, or what uglier blemish, than to have stood against Christ, to have scattered his church, which he prepared and founded with his blood, to have fought, forgetful of the gospel's peace and love, with the fury of hostile discord against the people of God, which is of one heart and one mind? Even if they themselves later return to the church, they cannot restore and call back with them those who, led astray by them and overtaken by death outside, perished outside the church without communion and peace, whose souls will be required on the day of judgment at the hands of those who were the authors and leaders of their ruin. And therefore it is enough that pardon be given to such people on their return; but faithlessness ought not to be promoted in the house of faith. For what do we keep for the good and innocent who do not withdraw from the church, if we honor those who withdrew from us and stood against the church?

We have brought these things to your attention, dearest brother, both for our common honor and out of simple love, believing that what is both devout and true will please you too, because of the truth of your religion and faith. For the rest, we know that some are unwilling to lay aside what they have once imbibed and do not easily change their position, but, while keeping the bond of peace and concord among colleagues, retain certain practices of their own that they have once adopted. In this matter we neither do violence to anyone nor lay down a law, since each leader has in the administration of the church the free choice of his own will, and will give account of his action to the Lord. We pray, dearest brother, that you may always be well.

Cyprian to his brother Jubaianus, greeting. You have written to me, dearest brother, wishing to be told my mind, what we think about the baptism of heretics, who, placed outside and set beyond the church, claim for themselves a thing that is neither within their right nor within their power. We cannot count it either valid or lawful, since it is established that among them it is unlawful. And since we have already expressed in our letters what we think on this matter, to be brief I have sent you a copy of those letters: what we decreed in council when a good many of us were present, and also what I afterwards wrote back to our colleague Quintus when he asked about the same matter. And now too, when we had come together, bishops both of the province of Africa and of Numidia, seventy-one in number, we confirmed this same thing again by our judgment, deciding that there is one baptism, that which is appointed in the catholic church, and that therefore whoever come from adulterous and profane water, to be washed and sanctified by the truth of the saving water, are not rebaptized by us but baptized.

Nor are we moved, dearest brother, by what you included in your letter, that the Novatianists rebaptize those whom they lure away from us, since what the enemies of the church do is no concern of ours at all, so long as we ourselves hold the honor of our power and the firmness of reason and truth. For Novatian, like the apes, which though they are not human imitate human things, wants to claim for himself the authority and truth of the catholic church, though he is not himself in the church, and indeed has further stood as a rebel and enemy against the church. For knowing that baptism is one, he claims this one baptism for himself, so as to say that the church is with him and to make us heretics. But we who hold the head and root of the one church know for certain and trust that nothing is lawful for him outside the church, and that the baptism which is one is with us, where he too was previously baptized, when he held both the principle and the truth of divine unity. But if Novatian thinks that those baptized in the church must be rebaptized outside, beyond the church, he ought to have begun with himself, so that he might first be rebaptized with an outside and heretical baptism, since he holds that after the church, or rather against the church, people must be baptized outside. But what sort of reasoning is it that, because Novatian dares to do this, we should think it must not be done? What then? Because Novatian also usurps the honor of the priestly chair, must we therefore renounce our chair? And because Novatian strives, against what is right, to set up an altar and offer sacrifices, must we cease from altar and sacrifices, lest we seem to celebrate the same and like things as he? It is utterly empty and foolish that, because Novatian outside the church claims for himself an image of the truth, the church should abandon the truth.

With us, moreover, it is no new or sudden thing that we judge those who come from heretics to the church must be baptized, since it is now many years and a long time since very many bishops, coming together under Agrippinus, a man of good memory, decreed this; and from then until today so many thousands of heretics in our provinces, converted to the church, have not spurned or hesitated, but rather have reasonably and gladly embraced it, so as to obtain the grace of the life-giving washing and saving baptism. For it is not hard for a teacher to instill what is true and lawful in one who, having condemned heretical perversity and discovered the truth of the church, comes for this purpose, to learn, and learns for this purpose, to live. Let us only not give heretics the dull complacency that comes from our patronage and consent, and they gladly and readily obey the truth.

Now since I found written in the letter of which you sent me a copy that one should not ask who baptized, since the one who was baptized could receive remission of sins according to what he believed, I did not think this passage should be passed over, especially since I noticed that the same letter also mentions Marcion, saying that even those who come from him need not be baptized, because they seem already to have been baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. We ought therefore to consider the faith of those who believe outside, whether according to that same faith they can obtain any grace. For if we and the heretics have one faith, we can also have one grace. If the Patripassians, Anthropians, Valentinians, Apelleans, Ophites, Marcionites, and the other plagues and swords and poisons of the heretics for overturning the truth confess with us the same Father, the same Son, the same Holy Spirit, the same church, then there can be one baptism there too, if there is also one faith.

And not to take long running through all the heresies and reviewing the follies or madnesses of each, since it is no pleasure to speak of what one shudders or is ashamed to know, let us for the present examine Marcion alone, who is mentioned in the letter you sent us, whether the case for his baptism can stand. For the Lord after the resurrection, sending his disciples, instructs and teaches them how they ought to baptize, saying: “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, teach all nations, dipping them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He intimates the Trinity, in whose sacrament the nations were to be dipped. Does Marcion hold this Trinity? Does he affirm the same God the Father, the Creator, as we do? Does he know the same Son, Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, who as the Word was made flesh, who bore our sins, who conquered death by dying, who first began in himself the resurrection of the flesh and showed his disciples that he had risen in that same flesh? Far different is the faith with Marcion, and with the other heretics too. Indeed, with them there is nothing but faithlessness and blasphemy and contention hostile to soundness and truth. How then can one who is baptized among them be thought to have obtained remission of sins and the grace of divine indulgence through his faith, when he has not had the truth of the faith itself? For if, as some think, anyone could receive something outside, beyond the church, according to his faith, he surely received what he believed. But believing what is false, he could not receive what is true; rather he received adulterous and profane things according to what he believed.

This matter of profane and adulterous baptism the prophet Jeremiah touches on keenly, saying: “Why do those who grieve me prevail? My wound is firm; from where shall I be healed? While it is being made, it has become to me like lying water that has no faithfulness.” The Holy Spirit through the prophet mentions lying water that has no faith. What is this lying and faithless water? Surely that which falsely feigns the image of baptism and cheats the grace of faith with a shadowy pretense. But if anyone outside could be baptized and obtain remission of sins according to a perverse faith, he could according to the same faith obtain the Holy Spirit too, and there is no need for a hand to be laid on him when he comes, so that he may obtain the Holy Spirit and be sealed. For either he could obtain both by his faith outside, or he who had been outside received neither.

It is clear, moreover, where and through whom the remission of sins can be given, which is given, namely, in baptism. For the Lord first gave that power to Peter, on whom he built the church and from whom he instituted and showed the origin of unity, that whatever he loosed should be loosed. And after the resurrection too he speaks to the apostles, saying: “As the Father has sent me, I also send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you remit anyone's sins, they will be remitted to him; if you retain anyone's, they will be retained.” From this we understand that only the leaders in the church, grounded on the law of the gospel and the Lord's ordination, may baptize and give remission of sins, and that outside nothing can be either bound or loosed, where there is no one who can either bind or loose.

Nor do we put this forward, dearest brother, without the authority of divine Scripture, when we say that all things have been arranged by God by a fixed law and proper ordination, and that no one can usurp against the bishops and priests anything that is not within his right and power. For Korah and Dathan and Abiram tried to usurp for themselves the license to sacrifice against Moses and Aaron the priest, and yet they did not go unpunished for what they unlawfully dared. And the sons of Aaron, who put strange fire on the altar, were at once destroyed in the sight of the indignant Lord. That punishment awaits those who bring strange water to a false baptism, so that the divine judgment may avenge and punish heretics for doing against the church what is lawful for the church alone.

As for some saying that on those who had been baptized in Samaria, when the apostles Peter and John came, a hand was only laid on them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit, but they were not rebaptized, we see, dearest brother, that this passage does not bear on the present case at all. For those who had believed in Samaria had believed with a true faith, and had been baptized within the church, which is one and to which alone it is permitted to give the grace of baptism and to loose sins, by Philip the deacon, whom those same apostles had sent. And therefore, since they had obtained lawful church baptism, they ought not to be baptized further; only what was lacking was done by Peter and John, that prayer being made for them and a hand laid on them, the Holy Spirit should be invoked and poured out upon them. This is done among us now too: those baptized in the church are presented to the leaders of the church, and through our prayer and the laying on of hands they obtain the Holy Spirit and are perfected with the Lord's seal.

There is no reason, then, dearest brother, for us to think we must yield to heretics, or to think that baptism, which was given only to the one and only church, should be betrayed. It is the part of a good soldier to defend his commander's camp against rebels and enemies; it is the part of a glorious general to keep the standards entrusted to him. It is written: “The Lord your God is a jealous God.” We who have received the Spirit of God ought to have zeal for the divine faith, the zeal by which Phinehas pleased God and, winning his favor, calmed the wrath of the indignant God when the people were perishing. Why do we credit as received what is adulterous and alien and hostile to divine unity, we who know only one Christ and his one church? The church, set forth in the likeness of paradise, has enclosed within its walls fruit-bearing trees, and of these whatever does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. These trees it waters with four rivers, that is, with the four gospels, by which it bestows the grace of baptism in a saving and heavenly flood. Can one who is not within the church water from the church's fountains? Can one impart to anyone the wholesome and saving drinks of paradise who, perverse and self-condemned and banished outside the fountains of paradise, has withered and failed in the dryness of eternal thirst?

The Lord cries out that whoever thirsts should come and drink from the rivers of living water that flowed from his belly. Where is the one who thirsts to come? To the heretics, where there is no fountain and river of life-giving water at all, or to the church, which is one and was founded by the Lord's voice upon one, who also received its keys? It is she alone who holds and possesses all the power of her bridegroom and lord. In her we preside; for her honor and unity we fight; her grace and her glory alike we defend with faithful devotion. By divine permission we water the thirsting people of God; we guard the boundaries of the life-giving fountains. If we hold the right of our possession, if we acknowledge the sacrament of unity, why do we stand as betrayers of the truth, why as traitors to unity? The faithful, saving, and holy water of the church cannot be corrupted and adulterated, as the church herself is uncorrupted, chaste, and modest. If heretics are devoted to the church and established in the church, they can use both her baptism and her other saving goods. But if they are not in the church, and indeed act against the church, how can they baptize with the church's baptism?

For it is no small or trifling thing that is conceded to heretics when their baptism is credited by us, since from it begins the whole origin of faith, the saving entrance into the hope of eternal life, and God's gracious favor for purifying and giving life to his servants. For if anyone could be baptized among heretics, he surely could also obtain remission of sins. If he obtained remission of sins, he was sanctified; if he was sanctified, he was made a temple of God. If he was made a temple of God, I ask, of which God? If of the Creator, he could not be, for he did not believe in him. If of Christ, neither can one become his temple who denies that Christ is God. If of the Holy Spirit, since the three are one, how can the Holy Spirit be at peace with one who is an enemy either of the Son or of the Father?

So it is in vain that some who are defeated by reason set custom against us, as if custom were greater than truth, or as if in spiritual matters one ought not to follow what has been revealed for the better by the Holy Spirit. For one who errs in simplicity can be pardoned, as the blessed apostle Paul says of himself: “I who was formerly,” he says, “a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent, but I obtained mercy, because I acted in ignorance.” But after inspiration and revelation have come, whoever persists knowingly and deliberately in what he had erred in sins without the excuse of ignorance. For he relies on a kind of presumption and obstinacy, though he is overcome by reason. And let no one say, “We follow what we received from the apostles,” since the apostles handed down only one church and one baptism, which is appointed only in that same church; and we find no one who, when he had been baptized among heretics, was admitted by the apostles in that baptism and given communion, so that the apostles might seem to have approved the baptism of heretics.

As for what some say, as if it favored the heretics, that the apostle Paul said, “Nevertheless in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed,” we find that this too can do nothing to help the patronage of those who back the heretics and applaud them. For Paul in his letter was not speaking of heretics or of their baptism, so that he could be shown to have set down anything bearing on this matter. He was speaking of brothers, whether walking disorderly and against the discipline of the church, or keeping the truth of the gospel in the fear of God. And he stated that some of them spoke the word of the Lord steadfastly and fearlessly, but some were engaged in envy and dissension; that some kept kindly love toward him, but others had malicious dissension; yet that he bore everything patiently, so long as, whether in truth or in pretense, the name of Christ that Paul preached should come to the knowledge of very many, and the sowing of the word, still new and unformed, should spread through the preaching of those who spoke. But it is one thing for those who are within the church to speak about the name of Christ, another for those who are outside and act against the church to baptize in the name of Christ. So let one who pleads for heretics not bring forward what Paul set down about brothers, but show whether he thought anything should be conceded to a heretic, or approved their faith and baptism, or laid down that the faithless and blasphemous can receive remission of sins outside the church.

But if we consider what the apostles thought about heretics, we shall find that in all their letters they curse and detest the sacrilegious perversity of heretics. For when they say that their word creeps like a cancer, how can that word give remission of sins which creeps like a cancer into the ears of the hearers? And when they say there is no partnership between righteousness and iniquity, no communion between light and darkness, how can darkness enlighten or iniquity justify? And when they say that they are not of God but of the spirit of antichrist, how do they perform spiritual and divine acts who are enemies of God and whose breasts the spirit of antichrist has occupied? Therefore, if we leave aside the errors of human contention and return with sincere and devout faith to the authority of the gospel and the tradition of the apostles, we understand that nothing pertaining to the church's saving grace is lawful for those who, scattering and attacking the church of Christ, are called adversaries by Christ himself and antichrists by his apostles.

Nor is there reason for anyone, to get around Christian truth, to set the name of Christ against us and say that those baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, anywhere and in any way, have obtained the grace of baptism, since Christ himself speaks and says: “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven,” and again forewarns and instructs that no one be easily deceived by false prophets and false christs in his name. “Many,” he says, “will come in my name saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many”; and afterwards he added, saying: “But you, take heed. See, I have told you all things beforehand.” From this it appears that not whatever is flaunted in Christ's name is at once to be accepted and taken up, but what is done in Christ's truth.

For when in the gospels and in the letters of the apostles the name of Jesus Christ is set forth for the remission of sins, it is not as though the Son alone could benefit anyone either without the Father or against the Father, but so that it might be shown to the Jews, who boasted that they had the Father, that the Father would profit them nothing unless they believed in the Son whom he had sent (for those who knew God the Creator as Father ought to know Christ the Son also), and so that they should not flatter and applaud themselves about the Father alone without the acknowledgment of his Son, who also said: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” That it is the knowledge of the two that saves, he himself makes plain, saying: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Since, then, by the preaching and testimony of Christ himself the Father who sent must first be known, and then Christ who was sent, and there can be no hope of salvation unless both are known together, how are those who are said to be baptized in the name of Christ among the heretics judged to have obtained remission of sins, when God the Father is not known, indeed is blasphemed? For the situation of the Jews under the apostles was one thing, the condition of the gentiles another. The Jews, because they had already obtained the most ancient baptism of the law and of Moses, were to be baptized also in the name of Jesus Christ, as Peter speaks to them in the Acts of the Apostles and says: “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all hereafter whom the Lord our God shall call.” Peter mentions Jesus Christ not as though the Father were omitted, but so that the Son might be joined to the Father.

Finally, when after the resurrection the apostles are sent by the Lord to the nations, they are commanded to baptize the gentiles in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. How then do some say that a gentile baptized outside, beyond the church, indeed against the church, provided only it be in the name of Jesus Christ, by whomever and however, can obtain remission of sins, when Christ himself commands the nations to be baptized in the full and united Trinity? Unless perhaps, while one who denies Christ is denied by Christ, one who denies his Father, whom Christ himself confessed, is not denied; and one who blasphemes against him whom Christ called his Lord and God is rewarded by Christ and obtains remission of sins and the sanctification of baptism! But by what power can one who denies God, the Creator of Christ, obtain remission of sins in baptism, when Christ received from that same Father the very power by which we are baptized and sanctified, the Father whom he called greater, by whom he asked to be glorified, whose will he fulfilled even to the obedience of drinking the cup and undergoing death? What else is it, then, than to become a partner of blaspheming heretics, to want to defend and assert that one who blasphemes gravely and sins against the Father and Lord and God of Christ can receive remission of sins in the name of Christ? And then what sort of thing is it that one who denies the Son should not have the Father, but one who denies the Father should be thought to have the Son, when the Son himself testifies and says: “No one can come to me unless it has been given him by the Father”? So it is clear that no remission of sins can be received in baptism from the Son that the Father is known not to have given, especially since he repeats it again and says: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.”

But if the disciples of Christ are unwilling to learn from Christ how much veneration and honor is owed to the Father's name, let them learn at least from earthly and worldly examples, and know that Christ said, not without the sharpest reproach: “The sons of this world are more prudent than the sons of light.” In this world, if anyone has insulted someone's father, if, abusive and insolent, he has torn his modesty and honor with a slanderous mouth, the son is indignant and angry and tries with what strength he can to avenge the injury to his wronged father. Do you think that Christ gives impunity to the impious, the sacrilegious, and blasphemers against his Father, and forgives them their sins in baptism, when it is known that after baptism they still heap the same curses on the person of the Father and sin with the unceasing crime of a blaspheming tongue? Can a Christian, can a servant of God, conceive this in his mind, or believe it in faith, or utter it in speech? And where will the divine precepts of the law be, which say: “Honor your father and mother”? Unless perhaps the name of father, which we are commanded to honor in a man, may be violated with impunity in God. Where will be what Christ himself lays down in the gospel and says: “Whoever curses father or mother, let him die the death”? Unless he who commands that those who curse their fleshly parents be punished and put to death himself gives life to those who curse the heavenly and spiritual Father and are enemies of the mother church! Something utterly accursed and detestable is asserted by some: that he who threatens that whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will be guilty of an eternal sin is said himself to sanctify with saving baptism those who blaspheme against God the Father. And now those who think that such people coming to the church should be admitted to communion without baptism do not consider that they are sharing in others' sins, indeed in eternal sins, when they admit without baptism those who cannot lay aside the sins of their blasphemies except in baptism.

Further, how empty and perverse it is that, when the heretics themselves, having rejected and abandoned the error or crime they were in before, acknowledge the truth of the church, we should mutilate the rights and sacraments of that same truth, and tell those who come and repent that they have obtained remission of sins, when they confess that they have sinned and are coming for that reason to the church's pardon! Therefore, dearest brother, we ought both to hold firmly and to teach the faith and truth of the catholic church, and to show through all the precepts of the gospel and the apostles the principle of the divine arrangement and of unity.

Can the power of baptism be greater or stronger than confession, than suffering, when one confesses Christ before men and is baptized in his own blood? And yet not even this baptism profits a heretic, even though, having confessed Christ, he was killed outside the church; unless the patrons and advocates of heretics proclaim as martyrs heretics killed in a false confession of Christ, and, against the testimony of the apostle, who says that it can profit them nothing even if they are burned and killed, assign them the glory and crown of suffering. But if not even the baptism of public confession and of blood can profit a heretic for salvation, because there is no salvation outside the church, how much more will it profit him nothing if, dipped in a hiding place and a den of robbers with the contagion of adulterous water, he has not only not put off his old sins but has rather heaped up new and greater ones! Therefore baptism cannot be common to us and the heretics, with whom neither God the Father nor Christ the Son nor the Holy Spirit nor faith nor the church itself is common. And so those who come from heresy to the church must be baptized, so that those who by the lawful, true, and only baptism of the holy church are prepared by divine regeneration for the kingdom of God may be born of both sacraments, because it is written: “Unless one has been born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

At this point some, as if they could empty the truth of the gospel's preaching by human argument, set catechumens against us: if one of them, before being baptized in the church, is arrested for confessing the name and killed, does he lose the hope of salvation and the reward of confession, because he has not first been reborn of water? Let such people, the backers and patrons of heretics, know then, first, that those catechumens hold the whole faith and the truth of the church, and go out from the divine camp to fight down the devil with a full and sincere knowledge of God the Father and of Christ and of the Holy Spirit; and next, that they are not deprived of the sacrament of baptism, since they are baptized with the most glorious and greatest baptism of blood, of which the Lord also said that he had another baptism to be baptized with. And that those baptized in their own blood and sanctified by suffering are perfected and obtain the grace of the divine promise, the same Lord declares in the gospel, when he speaks to the thief who believed and confessed in the very hour of his suffering, and promises that he will be with him in paradise. Therefore we who preside over faith and truth ought not to deceive and mislead those who come to faith and truth and, doing penance, ask that their sins be forgiven them, but, corrected and reformed by us, to train them for the kingdom of heaven by heavenly disciplines.

But someone says: “What then will become of those who in the past, coming from heresy to the church, were admitted without baptism?” The Lord is able by his mercy to grant pardon, and not to separate from the gifts of his church those who, admitted to the church in simplicity, have fallen asleep in the church. Yet it does not follow that because there was error once, there must always be error, since it better befits the wise and those who fear God to obey gladly and without hesitation the truth once laid open and perceived, than to struggle obstinately and stubbornly for heretics against brothers and against priests.

Nor let anyone think that heretics, because baptism is set before them, are put off from coming to the church, as if offended by the word “second baptism.” On the contrary, by this very thing they are driven all the more to the necessity of coming, by the testimony of the truth shown and proved to them. For if they see it decided and settled by our judgment and sentence that the baptism with which they are baptized there is counted just and lawful, they will think that they possess the church too and the other gifts of the church justly and lawfully, and there will be no reason for them to come to us, since, having baptism, they will seem to have the rest as well. But when they learn that there is no baptism outside, and that remission of sins cannot be given outside the church, they hasten to us more eagerly and readily and beg for the gifts and endowments of the mother church, certain that they cannot at all attain to the true promise of divine grace unless they first come to the truth of the church. Nor will heretics refuse to be baptized among us with the lawful and true baptism of the church, when they learn from us that those also were baptized by Paul who had already been baptized with the baptism of John, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles.

And now among some of our own the baptism of heretics is asserted, and, out of a sort of odium attached to “rebaptizing,” it is counted a crime to baptize after the enemies of God; though we find that those were baptized whom John had baptized: that John who was held greatest among the prophets, who was filled with divine grace while still in his mother's womb, who was upheld by the spirit and power of Elijah, who was not an adversary of the Lord but his forerunner and herald, who not only foretold the Lord in words but also showed him to the eyes, who baptized Christ himself, through whom the rest are baptized. But if a heretic could obtain the right of baptism for the reason that he baptized first, baptism will now belong not to the one who possesses it but to the one who seizes it. And since baptism and the church cannot at all be separated and divided from each other, he who could seize baptism first has likewise seized the church; and you begin to seem a heretic to him, since, forestalled, you have come to be second, and by yielding and giving up you have abandoned the right you had received. But how dangerous it is in divine matters for anyone to yield his right and power, holy Scripture declares, when in Genesis Esau lost his birthright in this way and could not afterwards recover what he had once yielded.

We have written this back to you briefly, dearest brother, according to our small ability, prescribing to no one and prejudging no one, so as to prevent each of the bishops from doing what he thinks, since he has the free power of his own judgment. We, for our part, do not quarrel over heretics with our colleagues and fellow bishops, with whom we keep divine concord and the Lord's peace, especially since the apostle also says: “But if anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor has the church of God.” Love of heart, the honor of our college, the bond of faith, and the concord of the priesthood are kept by us patiently and gently. For this reason too we have now written, as far as our small ability could, with the Lord's permission and inspiration, a little book on the good of patience, which we have sent to you out of mutual love. I pray, dearest brother, that you may always be well.

Cyprian to his brother Pompeius, greeting. Although we have fully covered what needs to be said about baptizing heretics in the letters of which we sent you copies, dearest brother, yet since you wished to be informed what our brother Stephen wrote back to me in answer to our letter, I have sent you a copy of his reply. When you have read it you will note more and more his error, who tries to maintain the cause of heretics against Christians and against the church of God. For among the other things he wrote without forethought, either arrogant or irrelevant or self-contradictory, he also added this, saying: “If, then, any come to you from any heresy whatever, let nothing be innovated except what has been handed down, that a hand be laid on them for penance, since the heretics themselves, properly speaking, do not baptize those who come to them from one another, but only admit them to communion.”

He forbade that one coming from any heresy whatever be baptized in the church; that is, he judged the baptisms of all heretics to be just and lawful. And since the various heresies have various baptisms and different sins, he, by sharing in the baptism of all, has heaped up the offenses of all together into his own bosom. And he commanded that nothing be innovated except what has been handed down, as if he innovates who, holding unity, claims the one baptism for the one church, and not rather he who, forgetful of unity, usurps the lies and contagion of a profane dipping. “Let nothing be innovated,” he says, “except what has been handed down.” Where does that tradition come from? Does it come down from the authority of the Lord and the gospel, or does it come from the commands and letters of the apostles? For God testifies and forewarns that what is written is to be done, saying to Joshua son of Nun: “The book of this law shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do all that is written in it.” Likewise the Lord, sending his apostles, commands that the nations be baptized and taught to observe all that he commanded. If, then, it is commanded in the gospel, or contained in the letters or Acts of the apostles, that those coming from any heresy whatever are not to be baptized but only to have a hand laid on them for penance, let this divine and holy tradition be observed. But if everywhere heretics are called nothing but adversaries and antichrists, if they are declared to be avoided as perverted and self-condemned, how is it that those should seem not to be condemned by us whom the apostolic testimony shows to be self-condemned? So no one ought to slander the apostles as though they approved the baptisms of heretics or admitted them to communion without the church's baptism, since the apostles wrote such things about heretics, and that when the fiercer plagues of heresy had not yet broken out, and Marcion of Pontus had not yet emerged from Pontus. His teacher Cerdo came to Rome under Hyginus, who was the ninth bishop in the city; Marcion followed him, added increases to the crime, began to blaspheme more shamelessly and violently than the rest against God the Father, the Creator, and armed heretical fury, rebelling against the church, more wickedly and heavily with sacrilegious weapons.

But if it is clear that more and worse heresies arose later, and if in former times it was nowhere at all commanded or written that only a hand should be laid on a heretic for penance and that he should thus be admitted to communion, and if there is only one baptism, which is with us and within and granted by divine favor to the church alone, what obstinacy is this, or what presumption, to put human tradition before divine appointment, and not to notice that God is indignant and angry whenever human tradition loosens and passes over the divine precepts? As he cries out through the prophet Isaiah and says: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far removed from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men.” Likewise the Lord in the gospel, rebuking and reproaching them in the same way, lays it down and says: “You reject the commandment of God so that you may establish your tradition.” Mindful of this precept, the blessed apostle Paul too warns and instructs, saying: “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and with his teaching, he is puffed up in stupidity and knows nothing: withdraw from such a one.”

A splendid and lawful tradition indeed is put forward by the teaching of our brother Stephen, one that offers us fitting authority! For in the same place in his letter he added and appended: “since the heretics themselves, properly speaking, do not baptize those who come to them from one another, but only admit them to communion.” To such depth of evil has the church of God and bride of Christ sunk, that she follows the example of heretics; that, for celebrating the heavenly sacraments, light borrows its discipline from darkness, and Christians do what antichrists do! What blindness of mind is this, what perversity, to refuse to recognize the unity of faith that comes from God the Father and from the tradition of Jesus Christ our Lord and God? For if the church is not among heretics because it is one and cannot be divided, and if the Holy Spirit is not there because he is one and cannot be among the profane and outsiders, then surely baptism too, which consists in that same unity, cannot be among heretics, because it can be separated neither from the church nor from the Holy Spirit.

Or if they attribute the effect of baptism to the majesty of the name, so that those baptized in the name of Jesus Christ anywhere and in any way are judged renewed and sanctified, why is not a hand also laid there on the baptized person in the name of the same Christ to receive the Holy Spirit? Why does not the same majesty of the same name prevail in the laying on of hands, which they contend prevailed in the sanctification of baptism? For if one born outside the church can become a temple of God, why can the Holy Spirit not also be poured on the temple? For one who, his sins put off in baptism, has been sanctified and spiritually reformed into a new man, has been made fit to receive the Holy Spirit, since the apostle says: “As many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ.” One who can put on Christ when baptized among heretics can much more receive the Holy Spirit whom Christ sent. Otherwise the one sent will be greater than the sender, so that one baptized outside begins to have put on Christ indeed but to have been unable to receive the Holy Spirit, as if Christ could be put on without the Spirit, or the Spirit be separated from Christ. It is foolish, too, that, since the second birth, by which we are born in Christ through the washing of regeneration, is spiritual, they say that one can be spiritually born among heretics, where they deny the Spirit is. For water alone cannot cleanse sins and sanctify a person unless it also has the Holy Spirit. Therefore they must either grant that the Spirit too is there where they say baptism is, or else there is no baptism where the Spirit is not, because baptism cannot exist without the Spirit.

But what sort of thing is it to assert and contend that those can be sons of God who were not born in the church? For that it is baptism in which the old man dies and the new is born, the blessed apostle makes plain and proves, saying: “He saved us through the washing of regeneration.” But if regeneration is in the washing, that is, in baptism, how can heresy, which is not the bride of Christ, beget sons to God through Christ? For it is the church alone which, joined and united to Christ, spiritually begets sons, as the same apostle says again: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, cleansing her with the washing of water.” If, then, she is the beloved and the bride who alone is sanctified by Christ and alone cleansed by his washing, it is clear that heresy, which is not the bride of Christ and cannot be cleansed or sanctified by his washing, cannot beget sons to God.

Further, one is not born through the laying on of hands when he receives the Holy Spirit, but in baptism, so that, already born, he may receive the Spirit, as was done with the first man, Adam. God first formed him, then breathed into his face the breath of life. For the Spirit cannot be received unless there first exists one to receive it. But since the birth of Christians is in baptism, and the begetting and sanctification of baptism is with the bride of Christ alone, who can spiritually bear and beget sons to God, where and of whom and to whom has he been born who is not a son of the church? For one to be able to have God as Father, let him first have the church as mother. But though no heresy at all, nor indeed any schism, can have outside the sanctification of saving baptism, the hard obstinacy of our brother Stephen has broken out so far that he contends that sons are born to God even from the baptism of Marcion, and likewise of Valentinus and Apelles and the others who blaspheme against God the Father, and says that remission of sins is given there in the name of Jesus Christ where blasphemy is uttered against the Father and the Lord God of Christ.

At this point, dearest brother, we must consider, for the sake of the faith and religion of the priestly office we hold, whether a priest of God can render a satisfactory account on the day of judgment who asserts and approves and credits the baptisms of blasphemers, when the Lord threatens and says: “And now this command is for you, O priests: if you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord almighty, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessing.” Does he give honor to God who shares in communion with the baptism of Marcion? Does he give honor to God who judges that remission of sins is given among those who blaspheme against God? Does he give honor to God who maintains that sons of God are born outside from an adulteress and a harlot? Does he give honor to God who, not holding the unity and truth that come from the divine law, champions heresies against the church? Does he give honor to God who, a friend of heretics and an enemy of Christians, thinks that the priests of God who defend the truth of Christ and the unity of the church should be excluded from communion? If honor is given to God in this way, if the fear of God and discipline are kept in this way by his worshipers and priests, let us throw away our arms, let us surrender to captivity, let us hand over to the devil the ordering of the gospel, the arrangement of Christ, the majesty of God; let the oaths of divine military service be dissolved, the standards of the heavenly camp be surrendered; let the church give in and yield to heretics, light to darkness, faith to faithlessness, hope to despair, reason to error, immortality to death, love to hatred, truth to falsehood, Christ to antichrist! Deservedly, then, do schisms and heresies arise day by day and grow up more often and more abundantly, so that, sprouting with snaky locks, they spew out the poison of their venom against the church of God with greater strength, while by the advocacy of certain people both authority and firmness are given them, while their baptism is defended, while faith, while truth is betrayed, while what is done outside against the church is championed inside, in the church itself.

But if there is among us, most beloved brother, the fear of God, if the constancy of faith prevails, if we keep the precepts of Christ, if we guard the uncorrupted and inviolate holiness of his bride, if the words of the Lord cling to our minds and hearts when he says, “When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?”, then as faithful soldiers of God who serve God with faith and sincere religion, let us keep with faithful courage the camp divinely entrusted to us. Nor ought custom, which had crept in among some, to prevent truth from prevailing and conquering. For custom without truth is the antiquity of error. Therefore let us leave error and follow truth, knowing that in Esdras too truth conquered, as it is written: “Truth endures and grows strong forever, and lives and prevails for ever and ever. With her there is no respect of persons or distinctions, but she does what is just; nor is there anything unjust in her judgment; and hers is the strength and the kingdom and the majesty and the power of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth.” This truth Christ showed us when he says in his gospel: “I am the truth.” Therefore, if we are in Christ and have Christ in us, and if we abide in the truth and the truth abides in us, let us hold what is true.

It comes from a zeal for presumption and stubbornness that someone would rather defend his own perverse and false views than agree to another's right and true ones. Foreseeing this, the blessed apostle Paul writes to Timothy and warns that a bishop ought to be not quarrelsome or contentious, but gentle and teachable. And he is teachable who is mild and gentle in patience for learning. For bishops ought not only to teach but also to learn, since he teaches better who grows daily and advances by learning better things. The same apostle Paul also teaches and forewarns this very thing, that if something better has been revealed to another who sits by, the first should be silent. For devout and simple minds there is a short way both to lay aside error and to find and bring out the truth. For if we return to the head and source of divine tradition, human error ceases, and when the reason of the heavenly sacraments has been seen, whatever lay hidden and obscure under the gloom and cloud of darkness is opened into the light of truth. So, if a channel bringing water, which before flowed copiously and abundantly, suddenly fails, does one not go to the spring to learn the cause of the failure there, whether the veins have dried up and the water has run dry at the head, or whether, flowing from there whole and full, it has stopped midway; so that, if it has come about through the fault of a broken or leaking channel that the water did not flow continuously and steadily, the channel may be repaired and strengthened, and the water collected may be delivered for the use and drink of the city with the same abundance and wholeness with which it proceeds from the spring? This the priests of God who keep the divine precepts must do now too: if in anything the truth has wavered and faltered, let us return both to the Lord's origin and to the gospel and apostolic tradition, and let the principle of our action arise from where both the order and the origin arose.

For it has been handed down to us that there is one God and one Christ and one hope and one faith and one church and one baptism, appointed only in the one church; and whoever departs from it must be found with the heretics; and in championing them against the church, he attacks the sacrament of divine tradition. We see the sacrament of this unity expressed also in the Song of Songs, in the person of Christ, who says: “A garden enclosed, my sister, my bride, a fountain sealed, a well of living water, a paradise with fruit of apples.” But if his church is a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed, how can one who is not in the church enter that garden or drink from its fountain? Likewise Peter himself, showing and defending unity, commanded and warned that we can be saved only through the one baptism of the one church: “In the ark of Noah,” he says, “few, that is, eight souls of men were saved through water; which baptism will likewise save you also.” By this brief and spiritual summary the sacrament of unity is made plain. For as in that baptism of the world, in which the ancient iniquity was purged, one who was not in the ark of Noah could not be saved through water, so now one cannot be thought saved through baptism who has not been baptized in the church, which was founded by the Lord's unity after the sacrament of the one ark.

So it is observed and held by us, dearest brother, after the truth has been examined and seen, that all who are converted to the church from any heresy whatever are baptized with the one and lawful baptism of the church, except those who had been baptized in the church before and had then gone over to the heretics. For these, when they return, having done penance, must be received by the laying on of hands alone and restored by the shepherd to the fold from which they had strayed. I pray, dearest brother, that you may always be well.

Firmilian to Cyprian, his brother in the Lord, greeting. We have received through our dearest Rogatianus, the deacon sent by you, the letter you wrote to us, most beloved brother, and we gave the greatest thanks to God for it, that it has come about that we who are separated from one another in body are so united in spirit, as if we were not only holding one region but living together in the very same house. And this is fitting to say, because the spiritual house of God is also one. “For in the last days,” he says, “the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God above the tops of the mountains.” Those who come together in it are united with joy, as in the psalm too this is asked of the Lord, to dwell in the house of God all the days of life. Hence in another place too it is made plain that among the saints there is a great love of the will to come together into one: “See,” he says, “how good and delightful it is that brothers dwell in unity.”

For union and peace and concord give the greatest delight not only to faithful people who know the truth but also to the heavenly angels themselves, for whom, the divine word says, there is joy over one sinner who repents and returns to the bond of unity. This surely would not be said of angels, whose life is in heaven, unless they too, who rejoice in our union, were united with us; just as, on the contrary, they are surely saddened when they see the divided minds and split wills of some, as though they did not together call on one and the same God, but, separated and divided from one another, could no longer have even conversation or common speech. Except that in this we can give thanks to Stephen, that through his inhumanity it has now come about that we have gained proof of your faith and wisdom. But if we have received this favor of a benefit because of Stephen, it does not follow that Stephen has done something worthy of favor and thanks. For neither can Judas, by his faithlessness and the betrayal he wickedly carried out against the Savior, be thought worthy, as though he himself had provided the cause of such great goods, that through him the world and the people of the gentiles were set free by the Lord's passion.

But let what Stephen has done be passed over for the present, lest, while we recall his audacity and insolence, we bring on ourselves a longer sorrow over things he has wickedly done. But learning of you that you have settled the matter now in question according to the rule of truth and the wisdom of Christ, we exulted with great joy and gave thanks to God, that we found in brothers placed so far away such unanimity of faith and truth with us. For the grace of God is able to join and bind with the bond of love and unity even things that seem divided by a long stretch of lands, as of old too divine power joined in the bond of unanimity Ezekiel and Daniel, later in age, with Job and Noah, who were among the first, though separated by an interval of time … so that, although they were parted by long ages, they nevertheless thought the same by the same divine inspiration. This we observe now in you too: that you, separated from us by very distant regions, have proved yourselves joined with us in mind and spirit. All this comes about through divine unity. For since the Lord who dwells in us is one and the same, he joins and binds his own everywhere with the bond of unity. Hence the sound of those who were sent by the Lord, running swiftly in the spirit of unity, went out into all the earth; just as, on the contrary, it profits nothing for some to be near and joined to one another in body if they differ in mind and spirit, since souls that have divided themselves from the unity of God cannot be united at all. “For behold,” he says, “those who remove themselves far from you shall perish.” But such people, withdrawing from his words, will undergo the Lord's judgment as they deserve, who prays to the Father for unity and says: “Father, grant that as I and you are one, so these also may be in us.”

We for our part have taken up what you wrote as if it were our own, and did not read it in passing but, going over it often, committed it to memory. Nor does it hinder the saving benefit either to repeat the same things to confirm the truth or to add some things to heap up the proof. If anything is added by us, it is not added as if too little had been said by you, but because the divine word surpasses human nature and the soul cannot grasp the whole and perfect; and that is why the number of the prophets is so great, so that manifold divine wisdom may be distributed through many. Hence the first who speaks in prophecy is also commanded to be silent if something has been revealed to a second. For this reason it necessarily happens among us that every year we elders and leaders come together to arrange the matters entrusted to our care, so that anything more serious may be directed by common counsel, and that for fallen brothers, wounded by the devil after the saving washing, healing may be sought through penance: not as though they obtained remission of sins from us, but so that through us they may be turned to an understanding of their offenses and be compelled to make fuller satisfaction to the Lord.

But since the envoy sent by you was hurrying to return to you and the winter season was pressing, we have answered your letter as far as we could. And indeed, as regards what Stephen said, as though the apostles had forbidden those who come from heresy to be baptized and had handed this down to posterity to be kept, you have answered most fully that no one is so foolish as to believe that the apostles handed this down, since it is clear that the accursed and detestable heresies themselves arose later: for Marcion too, the disciple of Cerdo, is found to have introduced his sacrilegious tradition against God late, after the apostles and a long time after them, and Apelles, agreeing with his blasphemy, added many other new and graver things hostile to faith and truth. The time of Valentinus and Basilides is also plain: they too rebelled with their wicked lies against the church of God after the apostles and after a long period. It is clear that the other heretics too introduced their depraved sects and perverse inventions later, each as he was led by error; and all of them are plainly self-condemned and have pronounced an inexcusable sentence against themselves before the day of judgment. Whoever confirms their baptism, what else does he do than judge himself with them and condemn himself by making himself their partner?

That those who are at Rome do not observe in all things what has been handed down from the beginning, and vainly allege the authority of the apostles, anyone can know from the fact that concerning the celebration of the days of Easter and concerning many other sacred matters of divine religion he may see that there are some differences among them, and that not everything is observed there alike as it is observed at Jerusalem; just as in very many other provinces too many things vary according to the difference of places and peoples. Yet on account of this there has never been any departure from the peace and unity of the catholic church. This Stephen has now dared to do, breaking the peace with you which his predecessors always kept with you in mutual love and honor, and besides defaming the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, as if they had handed this down, who in their letters cursed heretics and warned us to avoid them. Hence it appears that this tradition is human which champions heretics and maintains that they have baptism, which belongs to the church alone.

But you have also answered well that part where Stephen said in his letter that the heretics themselves also agree about baptism, and do not baptize those who come to them from one another but only admit them to communion, as though we too ought to do this. At this point, although you have already proved that it is quite ridiculous for anyone to follow those who err, we add this further: it is no wonder that heretics act so, for even if they differ in certain lesser things, they hold one and the same agreement in what is greatest, namely to blaspheme the Creator, inventing for themselves certain dreams and phantoms of an unknown God; so it surely follows that they agree about the emptiness of their baptism as they agree in rejecting the truth of the divine nature. Since it would be long to answer each of their wicked or pointless doctrines, it is enough to say briefly, in summary, that those who do not hold the true Lord the Father cannot hold the truth either of the Son or of the Holy Spirit. So, too, those who are called Cataphrygians and try to lay claim to new prophecies can have neither the Father nor the Son, because they do not have the Holy Spirit either. If we ask them what Christ they preach, they will answer that they preach him who sent the Spirit that spoke through Montanus and Prisca. Since we observe that it was not the spirit of truth but of error that was in these, we know that those who champion their false prophecy against the faith of Christ cannot have Christ. And all other heretics too, if they have cut themselves off from the church of God, can have no power or grace, since all power and grace is established in the church, where the elders preside who possess the power of baptizing, of laying on hands, and of ordaining. For as it is not lawful for a heretic to ordain or to lay on hands, so neither to baptize nor to do anything holy and spiritual, since he is a stranger to spiritual and divine holiness. All this we confirmed long ago at Iconium, a place in Phrygia, when we had gathered together with those who came from Galatia and Cilicia and the other neighboring regions, as something to be firmly held and defended against heretics, when some had doubts about this matter.

And since Stephen and those who agree with him contend that the forgiveness of sins and the second birth can come about in the baptism of heretics, among whom even they themselves confess that the Holy Spirit is not, let them consider and understand that spiritual birth cannot be without the Spirit; just as the blessed apostle Paul baptized again with spiritual baptism those who had been baptized by John before the Holy Spirit had been sent by the Lord, and then laid his hand on them so that they might receive the Holy Spirit. What sort of thing is it that, when we see Paul baptizing disciples again after John's baptism, we should hesitate to baptize those who come from heresy to the church after their unlawful and profane dipping? Unless perhaps Paul was less than these bishops of today, so that they can give the Holy Spirit to heretics who come to them by the laying on of hands alone, while Paul was not fit to give the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands to those baptized by John unless he had first baptized them also with the church's baptism.

It is absurd, too, that they think one need not ask who it was that baptized, because the one baptized could obtain grace once the Trinity of the names of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit had been invoked. Then this will be the wisdom which Paul writes is among those who are perfect: that one who is perfect and wise in the church should either defend or believe that this bare invocation of the names suffices for the remission of sins and the sanctification of baptism, whereas these things profit only when the one who baptizes has the Holy Spirit and the baptism itself is not established without the Spirit. But they say that one who is baptized outside in any way whatever can obtain the grace of baptism by his own mind and faith. This too is doubtless ridiculous, as though either a depraved mind could draw down to itself from heaven the sanctification of the righteous, or a false faith the truth of believers. But that not all who call on the name of Christ are heard, or can obtain any grace by their invocation, the Lord himself makes plain, saying: “Many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and will deceive many.” Indeed there is no difference between a false prophet and a heretic. For as the one deceives in the name of God or Christ, so the other deceives in the sacrament of baptism. Both rely on falsehood to deceive people's wills.

I want also to set out for you a story of something that happened among us, bearing on this very point. About twenty-two years ago, in the times after the emperor Alexander, many conflicts and afflictions befell here, whether on all people in common or on Christians in particular. There were also very many and frequent earthquakes, so that many buildings throughout Cappadocia and Pontus collapsed, and some cities too were swallowed into the depths by the gaping of the torn ground; so that from this a severe persecution also arose against us for the name, which, breaking out suddenly after a long period of peace, was made the more terrible for troubling our people by the unexpected and unaccustomed evil. Serenianus was then governor in our province, a harsh and dreadful persecutor. While the faithful were in this turmoil, fleeing here and there for fear of persecution, leaving their homelands and crossing into other parts of the region (for it was possible to cross over, because that persecution was local and not throughout the whole world), there suddenly appeared here a certain woman who, in a state of ecstasy, presented herself as a prophetess and acted as though filled with the Holy Spirit. She was so carried away by the onset of the chief demons that for a long time she troubled and deceived the brotherhood, performing certain astonishing and portentous things, and promising that she would make the earth quake: not that a demon had such power that it could move the earth or shake an element by its own strength, but because sometimes a wicked spirit, foreknowing and perceiving that an earthquake was coming, pretended that it would do what it saw was going to happen. By these lies and boasts it had so subdued the minds of individuals that they obeyed her and followed wherever she commanded and led; it also made that woman walk barefoot in the raw winter through rough snow without being troubled or hurt in any way by that running about; and she said she was hurrying to Judea and Jerusalem, pretending that she had come from there. Here she also deceived one of the presbyters, Rusticus, and also another, a deacon, so that they had intercourse with that same woman; this was discovered a little later. For suddenly there appeared before her one of the exorcists, a man of proven character who had always lived well in religious discipline; roused also by the exhortation of very many brothers who were present, themselves brave and praiseworthy in faith, he rose up to refute that wicked spirit. With subtle deceit it had even predicted a little before that a certain hostile and faithless tempter would come. Yet that exorcist, inspired by God's grace, resisted bravely and showed that it was a most wicked spirit which before had been thought holy. Now that woman, who before had worked many demonic wonders through tricks and deceits to deceive the faithful, among the other things by which she had deceived very many, often dared even this: to pretend with an invocation not to be despised that she sanctified bread and made the Eucharist, and to offer the sacrifice to the Lord without the sacred form of the customary proclamation; she also baptized many, using the customary and lawful words of the questions, so that she seemed to differ in nothing from the church's rule.

What then shall we say of the baptism of this woman, by which a most wicked demon baptized through a woman? Do Stephen and those who agree with him approve this too, especially since neither the creed of the Trinity nor the lawful questions of the church were lacking to it? Can it be believed that remission of sins was given, or that the regeneration of the saving washing was duly accomplished, where everything, though in the image of the truth, was done through a demon? Unless those who champion the baptisms of heretics contend that even a demon gave the grace of baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; for among the heretics there is doubtless the same error and the very same deceit of demons, since among them there is no Holy Spirit at all.

And what sort of thing is it that Stephen wants, that the presence and holiness of Christ is with those who are baptized among heretics? For if the apostle does not lie when he says, “As many of you as have been dipped in Christ have put on Christ,” then surely one who has been baptized there in Christ has put on Christ. But if he has put on Christ, he could also receive the Holy Spirit, who was sent by Christ, and it is in vain that a hand is laid on him when he comes to receive the Spirit; unless they divide the Spirit from Christ, so that among heretics Christ indeed is present, but the Holy Spirit is not there.

Let us run through briefly the other points too that you made copiously and very fully, especially as Rogatianus, our dearest deacon, is hurrying back to you. For it follows that those who defend heretics must be asked by us whether their baptism is fleshly or spiritual. If it is fleshly, they differ in nothing from the baptism of the Jews, which they use as a common and ordinary bath, merely to wash off dirt. But if it is spiritual, how can there be spiritual baptism among those among whom the Holy Spirit is not? And therefore the water in which they are dipped is for them only a fleshly bath, not the sacrament of baptism.

But if the baptism of heretics can have the regeneration of the second birth, those who are baptized among them must be counted not heretics but sons of God. For the second birth, which is in baptism, begets sons of God. But if the bride of Christ is one, which is the catholic church, she it is who alone begets sons to God. For there are not many brides of Christ, since the apostle says: “I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a holy virgin to Christ”; and: “Hear, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people, for the king has desired your beauty”; and: “Come, bride, from Lebanon; you shall come and pass on from the beginning of faith”; and: “I have entered my garden, my sister, my bride.” We see that one person is set forth everywhere, because the bride too is one. But the synagogue of the heretics is not one with us, because the adulteress and harlot is not the bride either. Hence she cannot bear sons to God either. Unless, as Stephen thinks, heresy indeed bears children and exposes them, and the church takes up the exposed and nurses as her own those whom she did not bear, though she cannot be the mother of others' children. And therefore Christ our Lord, making plain that his bride is one and declaring the sacrament of her unity, says: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” For if Christ is with us, and the heretics are not with us, then certainly the heretics are against Christ; and if we gather with Christ, and the heretics do not gather with us, without doubt they scatter.

Nor must we pass over what you rightly said, that according to the Song of Songs the church is a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed, a paradise with fruit of apples. How will those who have never entered this garden nor seen the paradise planted by God the Creator be able to give anyone the living water of the saving washing from the fountain that is enclosed within and sealed with the divine seal? And since the ark of Noah too was nothing other than a sacrament of the church of Christ, which then, while all outside perished, saved only those who were within the ark, we are plainly instructed to recognize the unity of the church, as Peter too set down, saying: “So baptism will likewise save us also”; showing that, as those who were not with Noah in the ark were not only not cleansed and saved through water but perished at once in that flood, so now whoever are not with Christ in the church will perish outside, unless they are converted through penance to the one saving washing of the church.

How great an error it is, and how great the blindness, of one who says that remission of sins can be given in the synagogues of heretics and does not remain on the foundation of the one church, which was once established by Christ upon the rock, can be understood from this: that Christ said to Peter alone: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven”; and again in the gospel Christ breathed on the apostles alone, saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you remit anyone's sins, they will be remitted to him; and if you retain anyone's, they will be retained.” The power of remitting sins, therefore, was given to the apostles and to the churches which they, sent by Christ, established, and to the bishops who succeeded them by vicarious ordination. But the enemies of the one catholic church in which we are, and the adversaries of us who have succeeded the apostles, claiming unlawful priesthoods against us and setting up profane altars, what else are they than Korah and Dathan and Abiram, sacrilegious with equal crime, and about to pay the same penalties as they, together with those who agree with them? Just as then too their partners and supporters perished with them by the same death.

And here I am justly indignant at this so open and manifest folly of Stephen: that he who boasts so of the place of his episcopate and contends that he holds the succession of Peter, on whom the foundations of the church were laid, should bring in many other rocks and set up new buildings of many churches, while he maintains by his authority that there is baptism there. For those who are baptized doubtless make up the number of the church; and whoever approves their baptism affirms, from the fact of the baptized, that there is a church there too. Nor does he understand that one who thus betrays and deserts unity obscures and in a way abolishes the truth of the Christian rock. The apostle acknowledges that the Jews, though blind with ignorance and bound by a most grievous crime, have a zeal for God. Stephen, who proclaims that he holds the chair of Peter by succession, is stirred by no zeal against heretics, granting them no small but the very greatest power of grace, so as to say and insist that through the sacrament of baptism they wash away the filth of the old man, pardon the ancient sins of death, make sons of God by heavenly regeneration, and restore to eternal life by the sanctification of the divine washing. If he thus concedes and grants to heretics the great and heavenly gifts of the church, what else does he do than hold communion with those for whom he defends and claims so much grace? And it is in vain that he now hesitates to agree with them and be their partner in other things too, so as to meet together with them, mingle his prayers with theirs, and set up a common altar and sacrifice.

“But,” he says, “the name of Christ is of great profit for faith and the sanctification of baptism, so that whoever has been baptized anywhere in the name of Christ at once obtains the grace of Christ.” This point can be met briefly and it can be said: if baptism outside availed to cleanse a person in the name of Christ, the laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit could also avail there in the name of the same Christ. And the other things done among heretics will begin to seem just and lawful too, since they are done in the name of Christ; whereas, as you have set out in your letter, the name of Christ can avail only in the church alone, to which alone Christ has granted the power of heavenly grace.

As for refuting custom, which they seem to set against the truth, who is so empty-headed as to prefer custom to truth, or who, having seen the light, would not abandon darkness? Unless perhaps most ancient custom helps the Jews in any way, now that Christ, that is, the truth, has come, because they remained in antiquity and abandoned the new way of truth. This indeed you Africans can say against Stephen: that on knowing the truth you abandoned the error of custom. But we join custom to truth, and to the custom of the Romans we oppose custom, but the custom of truth, holding from the beginning what was handed down by Christ and the apostles. Nor do we remember that this ever began among us, since it has always been observed here that we knew only one church of God and counted holy baptism as belonging only to the holy church. To be sure, since some were in doubt about the baptism of those who, though they receive the new prophets, seem to know the same Father and Son as we do, very many of us met together at Iconium and most carefully discussed and confirmed that absolutely all baptism established outside the church is to be rejected.

As for what they put forward for the heretics, saying that the apostle said, “Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed,” it is pointless for us to answer, since it is clear that the apostle, in the letter in which he said this, mentioned neither heretics nor their baptism, but spoke only of brothers, whether speaking faithlessly with him or persevering in sincere faith; nor is there need to go into this in a long treatise; it is enough to read the letter itself and learn from the apostle himself what the apostle said.

“What then,” they say, “will become of those who, coming from heretics, have been admitted without the church's baptism?” If they have departed this world, they are counted among those who have been instructed as catechumens among us but died before they were baptized, having no small benefit from the truth and faith to which they had come, leaving error behind, even if, overtaken by death, they did not obtain the completion of grace. But those who are still in this world should be baptized with the church's baptism, so that they may obtain remission of sins, lest, remaining in their former error through another's presumption, they die without the completion of grace. For what an offense it is, either of those who are admitted or of those who admit them, that, with their filth not washed away by the church's washing nor their sins put off, they should rashly usurp communion and touch the body and blood of the Lord, since it is written: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”

We have also judged that those whom men baptized who had formerly been bishops in the catholic church and afterwards assumed to themselves the power of clerical ordination are to be held as unbaptized. And this is observed among us: whoever come to us dipped by them are baptized among us, as strangers who have obtained nothing, with the one and true baptism of the catholic church, so that they may obtain the regeneration of the life-giving washing. And yet there is a great difference between one who gave way unwillingly, compelled by the necessity of persecution, and one who, bold with sacrilegious will, rebels against the church or blasphemes with impious voice against the Father and God of Christ and Creator of the whole world. And Stephen is not ashamed to assert that remission of sins can be given through those who are themselves set in all sins, as though there could be a washing of salvation in the house of death.

Where then will be what is written, “Keep yourself from strange water, and do not drink from a strange fountain,” if, leaving the church's sealed fountain, you take strange water as your own and pollute the church with profane fountains? For when you share in communion with the baptism of heretics, what else do you do than drink from their whirlpool and mire, and, though cleansed yourself by the sanctification of the church, become defiled by contact with others' filth? And do you not fear the judgment of God, bearing witness for heretics against the church, since it is written: “A false witness shall not go unpunished”? Indeed, you are worse than all the heretics. For when many of them, having recognized their error, come from there to you to receive the true light of the church, you help the errors of those who come, and, darkening the light of the church's truth, you heap up the shadows of heretical night; and when they confess that they are in sins and have no grace, and are therefore coming to the church, you take away from them the remission of sins which is given in baptism, by saying that they are already baptized and have obtained the church's grace outside the church. Nor do you understand that their souls will be required at your hand when the day of judgment comes, since you denied the church's drink to the thirsty and became a cause of death to those who wished to live. And on top of this you are indignant!

See with what ignorance you dare to rebuke those who strive for truth against falsehood! For who ought more justly to be indignant against the other: he who champions the enemies of God, or he who stands against the enemies of God for the truth of the church? Except that it is plain that the ignorant are also hot-tempered and wrathful, since through lack of counsel and speech they are easily turned to anger, so that divine Scripture speaks of no one more than you: “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, and a wrathful man heaps up sins.” For what strife and dissensions have you stirred up throughout the churches of the whole world? And how great a sin have you heaped up for yourself, when you cut yourself off from so many flocks? For you have cut off yourself; do not deceive yourself, since he is truly a schismatic who has made himself an apostate from the communion of the church's unity. For while you think that all can be excluded from communion by you, you have excluded yourself alone from all. Nor could even the precepts of the apostle shape you to the rule of truth and peace, when he warns and says: “I, therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, with all humility of mind and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all.”

How diligently Stephen has fulfilled these commands and wholesome warnings of the apostle, keeping humility of mind and gentleness in the first place! For what is humbler or gentler than to have disagreed with so many bishops throughout the whole world, breaking peace with each by various kinds of discord, now with the easterners, as we are sure you are aware, now with you who are in the south, from whom he received the envoys, bishops, so patiently and gently that he would not admit them even to the speech of common conversation; and, still more mindful of love and charity, commanded the whole brotherhood that no one should receive them into his house, so that when they came not only peace and communion but even roof and hospitality were denied them! This is to have kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: to cut oneself off from the unity of love, to make oneself a stranger to the brothers in everything, and to rebel against the sacrament and bond of peace with the fury of discord. Can there be one body and one Spirit with such a man, in whom perhaps the soul itself is not one, so slippery and changeable and uncertain is it? But as far as he is concerned, let us leave him. Let us rather examine the point on which the chief question turns. Those who contend that those baptized by heretics should be received as if they had obtained the grace of lawful baptism say that there is one baptism for us and for them, differing in nothing. But what does the apostle Paul say? “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God.” If the baptism of heretics is one and the same as ours, doubtless the faith too is one. But if the faith is one, surely the Lord too is one. If the Lord is one, it follows to say that God is one. But if this unity, which cannot be separated or divided at all, is the same among heretics too, why do we contend any further? Why do we call them heretics and not Christians? But since for us and the heretics there is neither one God nor one Lord nor one church nor one faith, nor indeed one Spirit or one body, it is plain that neither can baptism be common to us and the heretics, with whom we have nothing whatever in common. And yet Stephen is not ashamed to give patronage to such people against the church, and for the sake of championing heretics to split the brotherhood, and besides to call Cyprian a false christ and a false apostle and a deceitful worker; conscious that all these things are in himself, he got in first so as to charge another falsely with what he himself deserved to hear. We all wish you well, together with all the bishops who are in Africa and all the clergy and the whole brotherhood, so that, always of one heart and one mind, we may have you united with us even from afar.

Cyprian to Nemesianus, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus, Polianus, Victor, Iader, and Dativus, his fellow bishops, and also to the fellow presbyters and deacons and the other brothers in the mines, martyrs of God the Father almighty and of Jesus Christ our Lord and God our preserver, eternal greeting. Your glory indeed demanded, most blessed and beloved brothers, that I myself should come to see and embrace you, were it not that I too, banished for confessing the name, am held in by the limits of a prescribed place. But in the way I can, I present myself to you; and even if it is not granted me to come in body and on foot, I come in love and in spirit, expressing in a letter my heart, with which I exult for joy in your virtues and praises, counting myself your partner, if not in bodily suffering, then in the fellowship of love. Could I keep silent and stifle my voice when I learn so many glorious things about my dearest ones, with which divine favor has honored you: that part of you has already gone ahead by the consummation of martyrdom, to receive from the Lord the crown of their merits, and part still lingers in the confines of prisons or in the mines and in chains, by the very delays of their punishments giving greater proofs for strengthening and arming the brothers, and advancing, through the slowness of their torments, to fuller titles of merit, to have as many rewards in the heavenly prizes as you now count days in punishments? That these things have befallen you, bravest and most blessed brothers, in keeping with the merit of your religion and faith, I do not wonder, that the Lord has thus raised you to the lofty summit of glory by the honor of his glorification, you who have always flourished in his church in the steady keeping of the faith, firmly preserving the Lord's commands: innocence in simplicity, concord in love, modesty in humility, diligence in administration, vigilance in helping the suffering, mercy in cherishing the poor, constancy in defending the truth, strictness in the severity of discipline. And so that nothing might be lacking in you as an example of good deeds, now also by confessing with the voice and suffering in the body you rouse the minds of the brothers to divine martyrdom, showing yourselves leaders in virtue; so that, as the flock follows its shepherds and imitates what it sees done by its leaders, it may be crowned by the Lord with equal merits of obedience.

That you began the devout first stages of your confession by first being severely beaten with clubs and afflicted by punishments of this kind is not something for us to abhor. For a Christian body does not shudder at clubs, since all its hope is in wood. The servant of Christ has recognized the sacrament of his salvation: redeemed by wood for eternal life, he is advanced by wood to the crown. And what wonder if you, vessels of gold and silver, have been sent to the mine, that is, the home of gold and silver? Except that now the nature of mines is reversed, and places that used to give gold and silver have begun to receive them. They have also put fetters on your feet and bound your blessed limbs, the temples of God, with shameful chains, as if the spirit too were bound with the body, or your gold were stained by contact with iron. To people dedicated to God and bearing witness to their faith with devout courage, these are ornaments, not chains; they do not bind Christians' feet for disgrace but glorify them for the crown. O feet blessedly bound, which are loosed not by the smith but by the Lord! O feet blessedly bound, which are directed on the saving road to paradise! O feet bound for the present in the world, that they may be always free with God! O feet hesitant for a while with fetters and crossbars, but soon to run to Christ on a glorious road! However much envious cruelty or malignant … may hold you here in its bonds and chains, you will soon come from the earth and these punishments to the kingdom of heaven. In the mines the body is not comforted with bed and cushions, but it is comforted with the refreshment and solace of Christ. Your inward parts, weary with labor, lie on the ground; but it is no punishment to lie down with Christ. Your limbs are filthy without baths, disfigured with neglect and dirt; but what is soiled outwardly in the flesh is washed spiritually within. There the bread is scanty; but man does not live by bread alone but by the word of God. Clothing is lacking to the freezing; but one who has put on Christ is abundantly clothed and adorned. The hair of your half-shorn heads bristles; but since Christ is the head of the man, whatever that head is like, it must be becoming, since it is distinguished for the Lord's name. All this disfigurement, hateful and loathsome to the gentiles, with what splendor will it be repaid! This worldly and brief punishment, for what a reward of bright and eternal honor will it be exchanged, when, according to the blessed apostle's word, the Lord will transform the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of his glory.

Nor, most beloved brothers, can any loss of religion or faith be felt in the fact that the priests of God there are not now given the opportunity to offer and celebrate the divine sacrifices. On the contrary, you celebrate and offer to God a sacrifice both precious and glorious, which will greatly profit you for the repayment of heavenly rewards, since divine Scripture speaks and says: “A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” This sacrifice you offer to God; this sacrifice you celebrate without ceasing day and night, made offerings to God and presenting yourselves as holy and spotless victims, as the apostle exhorts and says: “I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed in the renewal of your mind, to prove what is the will of God, good and pleasing and perfect.”

For this is what especially pleases God; this is where our works advance with greater merits to win the will of God; this is the only thing by which the services of our faith and devotion repay the Lord for his great and saving benefits, as the Holy Spirit proclaims and testifies in the Psalms: “What shall I render,” he says, “to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his righteous ones.” Who would not gladly and readily take the cup of salvation? Who would not seek, rejoicing and glad, that in which he too may repay something to his Lord? Who would not bravely and steadfastly accept a death precious in the sight of God, to please his eyes who, looking down from above on us in the contest for his name, approves the willing, helps the fighters, crowns the victors, rewarding in us, with the repayment of fatherly goodness and kindness, whatever he himself has supplied, and honoring what he himself has perfected?

For that it is his doing that we conquer, and that, the adversary subdued, we reach the palm of the greatest contest, the Lord declares and teaches in his gospel, saying: “But when they hand you over, do not think how or what you will speak. For what you are to speak will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” And again: “Settle it in your hearts not to prepare beforehand to make your defense. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom which your adversaries will not be able to resist.” In this lies both the great confidence of believers and the gravest guilt of the faithless: not to believe him who promises that he will give his help to those who confess, nor again to fear the same one who threatens eternal punishment to those who deny.

All these things you have instilled in our brothers, bravest and most faithful soldiers of Christ, fulfilling in deeds what you taught before in words, and you will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, as the Lord promises and says: “Whoever does and so teaches will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Indeed, following your example, a large part of the people has confessed together with you and been crowned together with you, joined to you by the bond of the strongest love and not separated from their leaders by prison or mines. Nor are virgins lacking from their number, to whose sixtyfold fruit a hundredfold has been added, and whom a double glory has carried to the heavenly crown. In boys too a courage greater than their age has surpassed their years with the praise of confession, so that every sex and age adorns the blessed flock of your martyrdom.

What vigor of a victorious conscience is now yours, most beloved brothers, what loftiness of soul, what exultation of mind, what triumph in the heart, that each of you stands awaiting the reward God has promised, is secure about the day of judgment, walks in the mine with a captive body but a reigning heart, knows that Christ is present with him, rejoicing in the endurance of his servants as they advance in his footsteps and ways to the eternal kingdom! You await each day with joy the saving day of your departure, and, about to withdraw from the world at any moment, you hasten to the rewards and divine dwellings of the martyrs, to see after this world's darkness the most radiant light and to receive a glory greater than all your sufferings and struggles, as the apostle testifies and says: “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, which will be revealed in us.” Since your word is now more effective in prayers, and prayer in affliction more readily obtains what it asks, ask and entreat more earnestly that divine favor may complete the confession of all of us; that God may set us too free, with you, whole and glorious, from this darkness and these snares of the world; so that we who have stood together here, joined in the bond of love and peace, against the wrongs of heretics and the pressures of the gentiles, may rejoice together in the heavenly kingdom. I pray, most blessed and bravest brothers, that you may be well in the Lord and always and everywhere remember us. Farewell.

To their brother Cyprian, Nemesianus, Dativus, Felix, and Victor, eternal greeting in the Lord. You have always spoken in your letters with great thoughts suited to the circumstances of the time, most beloved Cyprian; by reading them constantly the wayward are corrected and people of good faith are strengthened. For since you do not cease to lay bare hidden mysteries in your treatises, you thus make us grow in faith and people from the world come to belief. For whatever good things you have set out in your many books, you have unknowingly portrayed yourself to us. For you are greater than all in treatise, more eloquent in speech, wiser in counsel, simpler in wisdom, more generous in works, holier in abstinence, humbler in obedience, and more innocent in good action. You know yourself, dearest one, that it is our desired wish to see you, our teacher and lover, attain the crown of a great confession.

For like a good and true teacher you were the first to declare in the proceedings before the proconsul what we your disciples, following you, ought to say before the governor; and sounding the trumpet you roused God's soldiers, equipped with heavenly arms, to the battle of the contest; and in the front line you slew the devil with the spiritual sword; and you drew up the ranks of the brothers on this side and that with your words, so that snares were set for the enemy on every side and the corpses and severed sinews of the public enemy himself were trampled. Believe us, dearest one, your innocent soul is not less than the hundredfold reward, since it neither feared the world's first attacks nor refused to go into exile nor hesitated to leave the city nor shrank from staying in a desert place; and since it gave many an example of confession, it has itself led the way in martyrdom. For how many has it roused by its example to accomplish martyrdom! And it has begun not only to be joined to the martyrs already departing from the world, but has also bound itself in heavenly friendship with those to come.

So, dearest Cyprian, those condemned with us give you the greatest thanks before God, because by your letter you have refreshed our laboring hearts, healed limbs wounded by clubs, loosed feet bound with fetters, evened out the hair of half-shorn heads, lit up the darkness of the prison, leveled the mountains of the mine into plains, even set fragrant flowers to our nostrils and dispelled the foul smell of smoke. And your ministry, and that of our most beloved Quirinus, which you sent to be distributed through Herennianus the subdeacon and Lucanus, Maximus, and Amantius the acolytes, has done its work and provided whatever was lacking for the needs of our bodies. Let us then be helpers of one another in our prayers, and let us ask, as you commanded, that we may have God and Christ and the angels as supporters in all our actions. We pray, lord brother, that you may always be well and remember us. Greet all who are with you. All of ours who are with us love you and greet you and long to see you.

To Cyprian, his brother and colleague, Lucius and all the brothers who are with him, greeting in God. While we were exulting and rejoicing in God that he had both armed us for the contest and by his favor made us victors in the battle, your letter arrived, dearest brother, which you sent us through Herennianus the subdeacon and Lucanus, Maximus, and Amantius the acolytes. Reading it, we received relief in our chains, comfort in our affliction, and help in our need; we were roused and more strongly encouraged, even if there should be any further punishments. For before our suffering we were called by you to glory, you who were the first to give us the lead to the confession of Christ's name. We, following the footsteps of your confession, hope for equal grace with you. For he who is first in the race is first also to the prize; and you, who took it first, have shared with us from what you have received, showing, namely, the undivided love with which you have always loved us: so that for those who had one spirit in the bond of peace there might be both the grace of your prayers and one crown of confession.

To the crown of confession, dearest brother, has been added for you the repayment of your works, an abundant measure which you will receive from the Lord on the day of reward; you who have also made yourself present to us by your letter, showing that pure and blessed heart of yours which we have always known, and, according to its breadth, you spoke praises to God with us, not as much as we deserve to hear, but as much as you are able to say. For by your words you have adorned what was less furnished in us and strengthened us to bear these very sufferings that we undergo, secure of the heavenly reward, of the crown of martyrdom, and of the kingdom of God, according to the prophecy you pledged in your letter, full of the Holy Spirit. All this will happen, most beloved, if you keep us in mind in your prayers, which I trust you do, as we surely do too.

So, most longed-for brother, we accept what you sent from Quirinus and from yourself as a sacrifice of every pure work. As Noah too offered to God, and God was delighted with the pleasing odor and regarded his sacrifice, so he also regards yours and is delighted to repay you the reward of so good a work. I ask that you have the letter we wrote to Quirinus sent on. I pray, dearest and most longed-for brother, that you may always be well and remember us. Greet all who are with you. Farewell.

To Cyprian, dearest and most beloved, Felix, Iader, and Polianus, together with the presbyters and all who are staying with us at the mine of Sigus, eternal greeting in God. We return your greeting, dearest brother, through Herennianus the subdeacon and Lucanus and Maximus, our brothers, who are strong and safe, helped by your prayers. From them we received a sum by way of an offering, together with the letter you sent, in which you deigned to comfort us with heavenly words as sons. And we have given and give thanks to God the Father almighty through his Christ that we have been so comforted and strengthened by your address, asking the kindness of your heart that you deign to keep us in mind in your constant prayers, so that the Lord may complete your confession and ours, which he has deigned to bestow on us. Greet all who are staying with you. We pray, dearest brother, that you may be well in the Lord. Iader signed. Polianus read. I greet my lord Eutychianus.

Cyprian to his brother Successus, greeting. The reason I did not write to you at once, dearest brother, was that all the clergy, placed under the stroke of the contest, could not leave here at all, all being ready, in the devotion of their souls, for divine and heavenly glory. Know that those have come whom I had sent to the city for this purpose, to bring us the ascertained truth of whatever had been decreed about us. For many various and uncertain things are bandied about in rumors. But the truth of the matter is this: that Valerian has sent a rescript to the senate that bishops and presbyters and deacons be punished forthwith; that senators and men of rank and Roman knights lose their dignity and also be deprived of their property, and if, when their means have been taken away, they persevere as Christians, be also punished with death; that matrons have their property taken and be banished into exile; and that members of Caesar's household, whoever had confessed before or confess now, have their property confiscated and be sent in chains, registered, to Caesar's estates. The emperor Valerian also appended to his speech a copy of the letter he has written about us to the governors of the provinces; we expect this letter to arrive any day, standing in the firmness of faith ready to endure suffering, and awaiting from the Lord's help and indulgence the crown of eternal life. Know that Xystus was put to death in the cemetery on the eighth day before the Ides of August, and with him four deacons. And the prefects in the city are pressing this persecution daily, so that any who are brought before them are punished and their property claimed for the treasury.

I ask that through you these things be made known to our other colleagues too, so that everywhere the brotherhood may be strengthened by their exhortation and prepared for the spiritual contest; so that each of us may think not so much of death as of immortality, and, dedicated to the Lord with full faith and all courage, may rejoice rather than fear in this confession, in which they know that the soldiers of God and Christ are not slain but crowned. I pray, dearest brother, that you may always be well in the Lord.

Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and the whole people, greeting. When it was reported to us, dearest brothers, that officers had been sent to bring me to Utica, and I had been persuaded by the counsel of my dearest ones to withdraw from our gardens for a while, I consented, for a just reason intervening: that it is fitting for a bishop to confess the Lord in the city in which he presides over the Lord's church, and to glorify the whole people by the confession of their leader in their presence. For whatever a confessor bishop says at the very moment of confession, he says, by God's inspiration, with the mouth of all. Moreover, the honor of our so glorious church would be maimed if I, a bishop placed over another church, received sentence for my confession at Utica and went from there to the Lord as a martyr, since I pray with continual prayers, and long with every wish, and ought, to confess among you both for myself and for you, and to suffer there and go from there to the Lord. So we are waiting here in a hidden retreat for the arrival of the proconsul returning to Carthage, to hear from him what the emperors have ordered concerning Christian laymen and bishops, and to say what the Lord wills to be said at that hour. But you, dearest brothers, in accordance with the discipline you have always received from me out of the Lord's commands, and as you have very often learned from my teaching, keep quiet and calm, and let none of you stir up any disturbance for the brothers or offer himself of his own accord to the gentiles. For one who is arrested and handed over ought to speak, since God placed in us speaks in that hour, who willed us rather to confess than to profess. What else it is fitting for us to observe before the proconsul passes sentence on me for confessing the name of God, we will arrange in person, the Lord instructing us. May the Lord Jesus make you remain safe in his church, dearest brothers, and deign to preserve you.