y C. & . Clarfc, 
 
 Just published, iii One Volume 8vo, 10s. 6d., 
 
 ANALYTICAL OOMMENTA-ET 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, 
 
 TE AGING THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT BY THE 
 AID OF PARALLELISM; 
 
 WITH 
 
 NOTES AND DISSERTATIONS ON THE PRINCIPAL DIFFICULTIES 
 CONNECTED WITH THE EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE. 
 
 BY REV. JOHN FORBES, LL.D. 
 
 In addition to the TEXT, with ANALYTICAL COMMENTARY AND NOTES ON EACH 
 CHAPTER, the Work contains 
 
 DISSERTATIONS ON THE ' SON OF GOD.' Chap. i. 4. 
 On the ' RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD ; ' on the ' GLORY or GOD.' Chap. v. 5. 
 On the ' COMPARISON BETWEEN ADAM AND CHRIST.' 
 On the expressions ' DIED TO SIN,' ' THE BODY OF SIN,' of ' DEATH.' 
 On the question ' WHO is THE HUSBAND ? ' Chap. vn. 1-4. 
 On the question ' Is THE PERSON DESCRIBED IN CHAPTER vii. 13-25, RE- 
 GENERATE OR UNREGENERATE ? ' 
 
 On the ' MEANING OF LAW,' in Chap. vn. 21, 23, 25 ; vni. 2. 
 On the ' MEANING OF THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH,' in Chap. vm. 1-4. 
 On ' CREATION GROANING.' 
 On the ' LOVE OF GOD.' 
 On ' PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL,' etc. etc.
 
 v . & C. Clark, eui 
 
 In demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d., 
 
 THE DOCTEIO OF THE ATONEMENT, 
 
 AS TAUGHT BY CHEIST HIMSELF ; 
 
 OR, THE SAYINGS OF JESUS ON THE ATONEMENT EXEGETICALLY EXPOUNDED AND 
 
 CLASSIFIED. 
 
 BY REV. GEORGE SMEATON, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 SEC. 
 
 C ONTEN 
 SEC. 
 25. 
 
 1. Preliminary Remarks on the Nature of 
 
 our Investigation, 1. 
 
 2. The number of our Lord's testimonies 
 
 to the Atonement, and the circum- 
 stances connected with them, 2. 
 
 3. Whether all the Testimonies of Christ 
 
 on His Atoning Death are recorded, 7. 
 
 4. The Method to be followed, in evolving 
 
 the import of His Sayings, 9. 
 
 5. The importance of Biblical Ideas on 
 
 Christ's Death, 10. 
 
 6. Divine Love providing the Atonement : 
 
 or, the Love of God in Harmony with 
 Justice, as the only Channel of Life, 13. 
 
 7. The Influence of Christ's Deity, 21. 
 
 8. Single Phrases descriptive of the unique 
 
 position of Jesus; or, His standing 
 between God and Man, 30. 
 
 9. Sayings of Jesus referring to a Sending 
 
 by the Father, 33. 
 
 10. Sayings of Christ assuming that He is 
 
 the second Adam, and acting with the 
 Father in his Atoning Work, 40. 
 
 11. Separate Sayings which affirm or imply 
 
 the necessity of the Atonement, 47. 
 
 12. Classification of the Sayings into those 
 
 which represent Christ as the Sin- 
 bearer, and as the willing Servant, 63. 
 
 13. The Baptist's testimony to Jesus as 
 
 the Sin- bearer, 65. 
 
 14. The name, Son of man, further exhibit- 
 
 ing Him as the Sin-bearer, 80. 
 
 15. Christ receiving Baptism as the con- 
 
 scious Sin-bearer, 96. 
 
 16. Christ, as the Sin-bearer, taking on 
 
 Him the burdens and sicknesses of 
 His people, 104. 
 
 17. The historic fact of Christ's Sufferings 
 
 illustrated by His Sayings, 111. 
 
 18. The Sayings of Christ as the conscious 
 
 Sin-bearer in prospect of His agony, 
 and during it, 112. 
 
 19. Christ, the Sin-bearer, testifying that 
 
 He was to be numbered with trans- 
 gressors during His crucifixion, 127. 
 
 20. Single Expressions byChrieit in reference 
 
 to a work given Him to do, 140. 
 
 21. The classification of Christ's Sayings, 
 
 as they represent the effects of His 
 death, etc., 147. 
 
 22. Christ describing Himself as dying to 
 
 be a Ransom for many, 148. 
 
 23. The Testimony of Christ that his death 
 
 is the sacrifice of the New Covenant 
 for the remission of sin, 165. 
 
 24. Christ fulfilling the law for His people, 
 
 and thus bringing in a righteousness 
 or atouement for them, 183. 
 
 26. 
 . 
 K. 
 
 n. 
 pa, 
 
 31. 
 32. 
 
 n, 
 
 34. 
 35. 
 86. 
 
 37. 
 
 38. 
 39. 
 
 40. 
 41. 
 42. 
 
 13. 
 44. 
 
 15. 
 IG. 
 
 47. 
 
 IS. 
 
 T S. 
 
 Sayings which represent the Death of 
 Jesus asHisgreat act of obedience, and 
 as the righteousness of His people, 199. 
 
 Christ's offering, that His followers 
 might be sanctified in truth, 203. 
 
 Sayings relative to the subjective life- 
 giving effects of Christ's death, 213. 
 
 Christ crucified, the Antitype of the 
 Brazen Serpent, etc., 214. 
 
 Christ giving His Flesh for the Life of 
 the World, 227. 
 
 The relation of the Atonement to other 
 interests in the Universe, 238. 
 
 The Death of Christ in connection with 
 the raising of the Temple of God, 239. 
 
 The Atonement of Christ deciding the 
 judicial process to whom the World 
 shall belong, 248. 
 
 Christ, by means of His Atonement, 
 overcoming the World, 254. 
 
 The Atonement of Christ denuding 
 Satan of his dominion, 258. 
 
 Christ's vicarious death taking the 
 sting out of Death, etc., 265. 
 
 Christ laying down His life for the 
 sheep, and thus becoming the actual 
 Shepherd of the sheep, 270. 
 
 Sayings which represent Christ's 
 dominion as the reward of His atone- 
 ment, 283. 
 
 The influence of the Atonement in pro- 
 curing the gift of the Holy Ghost, 291. 
 
 Christ's abasement as the second Man 
 opening heaven, and restoring com- 
 munion between men and angels, 299. 
 
 Sayings of Jesus which represent the 
 Atonement as glorifying God, 304. 
 
 The efficacious character of the Atone- 
 ment, etc., 312. 
 
 The Atonement extending to all times 
 in the World's history, and to all 
 Nations, 326. 
 
 Sayings which particularly relate to 
 the application of the Atonement, 329. 
 
 The preaching of Forgiveness based on 
 the Atonement, and even connected 
 with it, 330. 
 
 The place which Christ assigns to the 
 Atonement in the Church, 337. 
 
 Christ's Sayings which represent Faith 
 as the organ or instrument of re- 
 ceiving the Atonement, 341. 
 
 Endless happiness, or irremediable 
 woe, decided by the manner in which 
 men receive the Atonement, 346. 
 
 The Influence of the Atonement cor- 
 rectly understood on the whole domain 
 of Morals and Religion, 353.
 
 C. & C. Clarfc, 
 
 Books for the Library of Clergymen and Educated Laymen, 
 
 ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, ONE GUINEA (PAYABLE IN ADVANCE) FOR FOUR 
 VOLUMES, DEMY 8VO. 
 
 *** When not paid in advance, the retail bookseller is entitled to charge 24s. 
 
 THE following are the Contents of each of the Series. Each "Work may be 
 had separately at the price within parentheses. 
 
 %* A SELECTION of Twelve Volumes from First Series will be supplied at the 
 Subscription Price of Three Guineas ; or Twenty Volumes from First and 
 Second Series at the Subscription Price of Five Guineas; or of Thirty-two 
 Volumes from First, Second, and Third Series for Eight Guineas (or a 
 larger number at same ratio). 
 
 The following may be added to, or substituted for the same number of Volumes 
 in, such a selection : 
 
 Macdonald's Introduction to the Pentateuch. 2 Volumes. 
 Hengstenberg's Egypt and the Books of Moses. 1 Volume. 
 Ackennan on the Christian Element in Plato. 1 Volume. 
 Kobinson's Greek Lexicon of the New Testament. I Volume. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. 
 
 Twenty-nine Volumes. Subscription Price, 7, 12s. 6d. 
 Hengstenberg's Commentary on the Psalms. 3 Volumes. (1, 13s.) 
 Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine. 2 Volumes. (1, Is.) 
 Gieseler's Compendium of Ecclesiastical History. 5 Volumes. (2, 12s. 6d.) 
 Neander's General Church History. 9 Volumes. (2, 11s. 6d.) 
 Olshausen on the Gospels and Acts. 4 Volumes. (2, 2s.) 
 Olshausen on the Komans. (10s. 6d.) 
 Olshausen on the Corinthians. (9s.) 
 
 Olshausen on the Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. (10s. 6d.) 
 Olshausen on Philippians, Titus, and Timothy. (10s. 6d.) 
 Olshausen and Ebrard on the Hebrews. (10s. 6d.) 
 Havernick's General Introduction to the Old Testament. (10s. 6d.) 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 Twenty Volumes. Subscription Price, 5, 5s. 
 Stier on the Words of the Lord Jesus. 8 Volumes. (4, 4s.) 
 Hengstenberg's Christology of the Old Testament. 4 Volumes. (2, 2s.) 
 Ullmann's Reformers before the Keformation. 2 Volumes. (1, Is.) 
 Gerlach's Commentary on the Pentateuch. 1 Volume. (10s. 6d.) 
 Baumgarten's Apostolic History. 3 Volumes. (1, 7s.) 
 ** Muller on the Doctrine of Sin. 2 Volumes. (1, Is.) 
 
 %* A new translation of this important work has been carefully prepared, and will be 
 supplied to regular Subscribers who may wish it, at subscription price (10s. 6d.). 
 
 [Over.
 
 . Clark, (S&tn&urgl). 
 
 Foreign Theological Library continued. 
 
 THIRD SERIES. 
 Twenty Volumes (1859-60-61-62-63). Subscription Price, 5, 5s. 
 
 N.B. A single Year's Books (except in the case of the current Year) cannot be supplied 
 separately. Non-subscribers, price 10s. 6d. each Volume, with exceptions marked. 
 
 *.* The following is the order of Publication, but any Two Years or more can be had 
 at Subscription Price : 
 
 1st Year (1859). 
 
 Kurtz on Old Covenant Dispensation. 3 Volumes. 
 Stier on the Words of the Risen Saviour, and on the Epistle of St. James. 1 Vol. 
 
 2d Year (1860). 
 
 Hengstenberg on Ecclesiastes. 1 Volume. (9s.) 
 Tholuck on St. John. 1 Volume. (9s.) 
 Tholuck on the Sermon on the Mount. 1 Volume. 
 Ebrard on Epistles of John. 1 Volume. 
 
 3d Year (1861). 
 
 Lange on St. Matthew's Gospel. Volumes I. and II. 
 Dorner on Person of Christ. Division I., Vol. I. ; and Division II., Vol. I. 
 
 4th Year (1862). 
 
 Dorner on Person of Christ Division I., Volume II. 
 Dorner on Person of Christ. Division II., Volume II. 
 Lange on Matthew and Mark. Volume III. 
 Oosterzee on St. Luke. Edited by Dr. Lange. Volume I. (9s.) 
 
 5th Year (1863). 
 
 Oosterzee on St. Luke. Edited by Dr. Lange. Vol. II. (Completion.) (9s.) 
 Dorner on Person of Christ. Division II., Volume III. 
 Kurtz on the Old Testament Sacrifices. 
 Ebrard on the Gospel History. 
 
 FOURTH SERIES. 
 
 1st Year (1864). 
 
 Lange, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. 2 Volumes. 
 Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Pentateuch. Volumes I. and II. 
 
 2d Year (1865). 
 
 Hengstenberg on the Gospel of St. John. 2 Volumes. 
 Keil and Delitzsch on the Pentateuch. Volume III. 
 Keil and Delitzsch on Joshua, Judges, and Euth. 
 
 3d Year (1866). 
 
 Keil and Delitzsch on Samuel. 1 Volume. 
 Keil and Delitzsch on Job. 2 Volumes. 
 Martensen's System of Christian Doctrine. 1 Volume. 
 
 4th Year (1867). 
 
 Delitzsch's System of Biblical Psychology. (12s.) 
 Delitzsch's Commentary on Isaiah. 2 Volumes. 
 Auberlen on the Divine Eevelation. 
 
 5th Year (1868). 
 
 First Issue 
 Keil and Delitzsch's Commentary on the Minor Prophets. 2 Volumes. 
 
 Subscribers' Names received by all Booksellers. 
 
 EDINBURGH: T. AND T. CLARK. 
 LONDON (for Non-subscribers only) : HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND Co.
 
 ANTE-NICENE 
 
 CHRISTIAN LIBRARY: 
 
 TRANSLATIONS OF 
 THE WRITINGS OF THE FATHERS 
 
 DOWN TO A.D. 325. 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. ALEXANDER ROBERTS, D.D., 
 
 AND 
 
 JAMES DONALDSON, LL.D. 
 
 VOL. VIII. 
 
 THE WETTINGS OF CYPEIAN. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLXVIII.
 
 MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, 
 PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.
 
 THE 
 
 WRITINGS OF CYPRIAN, 
 
 BISHOP OF CARTHAGE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 REV. ROBERT ERNEST WALLIS, PH.D., 
 
 SENIOR PRIEST VICAB OF WELLS CATHEDRAL, AND INCUMBENT OF 
 CHRIST CHURCH, COXLEY, SOMERSET. 
 
 VOL I. 
 
 CONTAINING THE EPISTLES AND 
 SOME OF THE TREATISES. 
 
 EDINBUEGH: 
 
 T. & T. CLAEK, 38, GEORGE STEEET. 
 LONDON: HAMILTON & CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO. 
 
 MDCCCLXVIII.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE BY THE TRANSLATOR, . . . ix 
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN, BISHOP AND MARTYR. By 
 
 Pontius the Deacon, ...... xiii 
 
 EPISTLES. 
 
 1. To Donatus [A.D. 246], ..... 1 
 
 2. To the Carthaginian clergy from the clergy of Borne, about 
 
 Cyprian's retirement [A. D. 250], . . . 1-i 
 
 3. To the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome [A.D. 250], . 17 
 
 4. To the presbyters and deacons of Carthage [A.D. 250], . 18 
 f>. To the same [A.D. 250], . . . . .19 
 C. To Rogatiauus the presbyter, and the other confessors [A.D. 
 
 250], ... ... 23 
 
 7. To the clergy, concerning prayer to God [A.D. 250], . 27 
 
 8. To the martyrs and confessors [A.D. 250], . . .33 
 
 9. To the clergy, concerning granting peace to the lapsed prema- 
 
 turely, -without the privity of the bishops [A.D. 250], . 37 
 
 10. To the martyrs and confessors who sought that peace should 
 
 be granted to the lapsed [A.D. 250], . . .40 
 
 11. To his people [A.D. 250], ..... 43 
 
 12. To the clergy, concerning the lapsed and catechumens, that 
 
 they should not be left without superintendence [A.D. 
 250], 45 
 
 13. To the clergy, concerning those who were in haste to receive 
 
 peace [A.D. 250], ...... 47 
 
 14. To the presbyters and deacons assembled at Rome [A.D. 250], 48 
 
 15. To Moyses and Maximus, and the rest of the confessors [A.D. 
 
 250], 51 
 
 16. The confessors to Cyprian [A.D. 250], . . .54. 
 
 17. To the presbyters and deacons about the foregoing and follow- 
 
 ing letters [A.D. 250], ..... 55 
 
 18. Caldonius to Cyprian [A.D. 250], . . . 56 
 
 19. Cyprian to Caldonius [A.D. 250], . . . .57 
 
 20. Celerinus to Luciau [A.D. 250], . . . .68
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 21. Lucian to Celerinus [A.D. 250], . . . .61 
 
 22. To the clergy at Rome, concerning the confessors, and the 
 
 forwardness of Lucian, and the modesty of Celerinus [A.D. 
 250], 64 
 
 23. To the clergy, on the letters sent to Rome ; and about the 
 
 appointment of Saturus as reader and Optatus as sub- 
 deacon [A.D. 250], . . . . .67 
 
 24. To Moyses and Maximus, and the rest of the confessors [A.D. 
 
 250], 68 
 
 25. Moyses, Maximus, Nicostratus, and the other confessors, in 
 
 reply [A.D. 250], . . '. - . .70 
 
 26. Cyprian to the lapsed [A.D. 250], . . .76 
 
 27. To the presbyters and deacons [A.D. 250], . . .78 
 
 28. To the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome [A.D. 250], . 81 
 
 29. The presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome to Cyprian [A.D. 
 
 250], 81 
 
 30. The Roman clergy to Cyprian [A.D. 250], . . .85 
 
 31. To the Carthaginian clergy, about the letters sent to Rome 
 
 and received thence [A.D. 250], . . . .92 
 
 32. To the clergy and people about the ordination of Aurelius as 
 
 a reader [A.D. 250], . . ..' . . 93 
 
 33. To the same about the ordination of Celerinus as a reader 
 
 [A.D. 250], 95 
 
 34. To the same about the ordination of Numidicus as presbyter 
 
 [A.D. 250], . .98 
 
 35. To the clergy, concerning the case of the poor and strangers 
 
 [A.D. 250 or 251], . ... . . .100 
 
 36. To the clergy, bidding them show every kindness to the con- 
 
 fessors in prison [A.D. 250 or 251], . . . 101 
 
 37. To Caldonius, Herculanus, and others, about the excommuni- 
 
 cation of Felicissimus [A.D. 250], .... 103 
 
 38. Caldonius, Herculanus, and others on the Excommunication 
 
 of Felicissimus with his people [A.D. 251], . . 105 
 
 39. To the people, concerning five schismatic presbyters of the 
 
 faction of Felicissimus [A.D. 251], .... 105 
 
 40. To Cornelius on his refusal to receive Novatian's ordination 
 
 [A.D. 251], ... ... Ill 
 
 41. To Cornelius about Cyprian's approval of his ordination, and 
 
 concerning Felicissimus [A.D. 251], . . .113 
 
 42. To the same on his having sent letters to the confessors whom 
 
 Novatian had seduced [A.D. 251], . . . .117 
 
 43. TotheRoman confessors, urgingtheirreturntounity[A.D.251], 117 
 
 44. To Cornelius, concerning Polycarp the Adrumetine [A.D. 251], 119 
 
 45. Cornelius to Cyprian on the return of the confessors to unity 
 
 [A.D. 251], 121
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 46. Cyprian to Cornelius, congratulating him on the return of the 
 
 confessors from schism [A.D. 251], . . 124 
 
 47. Cornelius to Cyprian, concerning the faction of Novatian with 
 
 his party [A.D. 251], ..... 125 
 
 48. Cyprian's answer to Cornelius concerning the crimes of Novatus 
 
 [A.D. 251], 126 
 
 49. Maximus and the other confessors to Cyprian about their re- 
 
 turn from schism [A.D. 251] , .... 130 
 
 50. Cyprian to the confessors, congratulating them on their re- 
 
 turn from schism [A.D. 252], .... 130 
 
 51. To Antonianus about Cornelius and Novatian [A.D. 252], . 133 
 
 52. To Fortunatus and his other colleagues, concerning those who 
 
 had been overcome by tortures [A.D. 252], . . 152 
 
 53. To Cornelius, concerning granting peace to the lapsed [A.D. 
 
 252], .... . 154 
 
 54. To Cornelius, concerning Fortunatus and Felicissimus, or 
 
 against the heretics [A.D. 252], .... 159 
 
 55. To the people of Thibaris, exhorting to martyrdom [A.D. 252], 180 
 
 56. To Cornelius in exile, concerning his confession [A.D. 252], . 189 
 
 57. To Lucius, bishop of Rome, returned from banishment [A.D. 
 
 252], . . 192 
 
 58. To Fidus on the baptism of infants [A.D. 253], . . 195 
 
 59. To the Numidian bishops on the redemption of their brethren 
 
 from captivity among the barbarians [A.D. 253], . . 199 
 
 60. To Euchratius about an actor [probably A.D. 249], . . 202 
 
 61. To Pomponius, concerning some virgins [probably A.D. 249], 204 
 
 62. To Csecilius on the sacrament of the cup of the Lord [A.D. 253], 208 
 
 63. To Epictetus and the congregation at Assurse, concerning For- 
 
 tunatianus, formerly their bishop [A.D. 253], . . 221 
 
 64. To Rogatianus, concerning the deacon who contended against 
 
 the bishop [A.D. 249 or A.D. 253], . . .225 
 
 65. To the clergy and people at Furni, about Victor, who had 
 
 made the presbyter Faustinus a guardian [A.D. 249], . 228 
 
 66. To Pope Stephanus, concerning Marcion of Aries, who had 
 
 joined himself to Novatian [A.D. 254], . . . 231 
 
 67. To the clergy and people abiding in Spain, concerning Basi- 
 
 lides and Martial [A.D. 254], .... 235 
 
 68. To Florentius Pupianus, on calumniators [A.D. 254], . 243 
 
 69. To Januarius and other Numidian bishops on baptizing here- 
 
 tics [A.D. 255], . . . . . .250 
 
 70. To Quintus, concerning the baptism of heretics [A.D. 255], . 253 
 
 71. To Pope Stephen, concerning a council [A.D. 255], . .. 256 
 
 72. To Jubaianus, concerning the baptism of heretics [A.D. 256],' 260 
 
 73. To Pompey, against the epistle of Stephen about the baptism 
 
 of heretics TA.D. 256], ..... 276
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 74. Firmilian, bishop of Csesarea in Cappadocia, to Cyprian, against 
 
 the letter of Stephen [A.D. 256], . . . .285 
 
 75. To Magnus on baptizing the Novatians, and those who obtain 
 
 grace on a sick-bed [A.D. 255], .... 302 
 
 76. Cyprian to Nemesianus, and other martyrs in the mines [A.D. 
 
 257], 315 
 
 77. Reply of Nemesianus and others to Cyprian [A.D. 257], . 321 
 
 78. Reply of Lucius and the rest to the same [A.D. 257], . 323 
 
 79. Reply of Felix and the rest of the martyrs to the same [A.D. 
 
 257], . .... . . .324 
 
 80. Cyprian to Sergius Rogatianus, and the other confessors in 
 
 prison [A.D. 250 or A.D. 257], . . . . 325 
 
 81. To Successus on the tidings of the persecution brought from 
 
 Rome [A.D. 258], . . . . . .329 
 
 82. To his clergy and people, concerning his retirement a little 
 
 before his martyrdom [A.D. 258], . . . .331 
 
 TREATISES. 
 
 1. On the Dress of Virgins, ..... . . 333 
 
 2. On the Lapsed, . ". " . . . ,"50 
 
 3. On the Unity of the Church, . ' . . . . "77 
 
 4. On the Lord's Prayer, . . . . . . 398 
 
 5. To Demetrianus, . . . . . .423 
 
 6. On the Vanity of Idols, . . . . .443 
 
 7. On the Mortality, 452
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 
 
 ilTTLE is known of the early history of Thascius 
 Cyprian (born probably about 200 A.D.) until the 
 period of his intimacy with the Carthaginian 
 presbyter Csecilius, which led to his conversion 
 A.D. 246. That he was born of respectable parentage, and 
 highly educated for the profession of a rhetorician, is all that 
 can be said with any degree of certainty. At his baptism he 
 assumed the name of his friend Cascilius, and devoted him- 
 self, with all the energies of an ardent and vigorous mind, to 
 the study and practice of Christianity. 
 
 His ordination and his elevation to the episcopate rapidly 
 followed his conversion. With some resistance on his own 
 part, and not without great objections on the part of older 
 presbyters, who saw themselves superseded by his promotion, 
 the popular urgency constrained him to accept the office of 
 bishop of Carthage [A.D. 248], which he held until his 
 martyrdom [A.D. 258]. 
 
 The writings of Cyprian, apart from their intrinsic worth, 
 have a very considerable historical interest and value, as 
 illustrating the social and religious feelings and usages that 
 then prevailed among the members of the Christian com- 
 munity. Nothing can enable us more vividly to realize the 
 intense convictions the high-strained enthusiasm which 
 formed the common level of the Christian experience, than 
 does the indignation with which the prelate denounces the 
 evasions of those who dared not confess, the lapses of those 
 who shrank from martyrdom. Living in the atmosphere of 
 persecution, and often in the immediate presence of a linger-
 
 x IN TROD UCTOE Y NOTICE. 
 
 ing death, the professors of Christianity were nerved up to a 
 wonderful contempt of suffering and of worldly enjoyment, 
 and saw every event that occurred around them in the glow 
 of their excited imagination ; so that many circumstances 
 were sincerely believed and honestly recorded, which will not 
 be for a moment received as true by the calm and critical 
 reader. The account given by Cyprian in his treatise on 
 the Lapsed may serve as an illustration, p. 368, vol. i. Of 
 this Dean Milman observes : " In what a high wrought state 
 of enthusiasm must men have been, who could relate and 
 believe such statements as miraculous I" 1 
 
 Before being advanced to the episcopate, Cyprian had 
 written his Epistle to Donatus shortly after his baptism 
 [A.D. 246] ; his treatise, or fragment of a treatise, on the 
 Vanity of Idols ; and his three books of Testimonies against 
 the Jews. In the following translation the order of Migne 
 has been adopted, which places the letter to Donatus, as seems 
 most natural, first among the Epistles, instead of with the 
 Treatises. 
 
 The breaking out of the Decian persecution, A.D. 250, 
 induced Cyprian to retire into concealment for a time ; and 
 his retreat gave occasion to a sharp attack upon his conduct, 
 in a letter from the Roman to the Carthaginian clergy 
 (Epistle ii.). During this year he wrote many letters from 
 his place of concealment to the clergy and others at Rome 
 and at Carthage, controlling, warning, directing, and ex- 
 horting, and in every way maintaining his episcopal super- 
 intendence in his absence, in all matters connected with the 
 wellbeing of the church. 
 
 The first 39 of the Epistles, excepting the one to Donatus, 
 were probably written during the period of Cyprian's retire- 
 ment. He appears to have returned to his public duties early 
 in June 251. Then follow many letters between himself and 
 Cornelius bishop of Rome, and others, on subjects connected 
 with the schisms of Novatian, Novatus, and Felicissimus, 
 and with the condition of those who had been perverted by 
 them. The question proposed in Epistle 52 was settled in 
 1 Milman's History of Christianity, vol. ii. p. 190, note 6.
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. si 
 
 the Council that was held in May 252 ; and the reference to 
 that anticipated decision limits the date of the letter to about 
 April in the same year. In the 53d Epistle, Cyprian is allud- 
 ing to the impending persecution of Gallus, under which 
 Cornelius was banished in July 252. The 56th Epistle was 
 a letter of congratulation to Cornelius on his banishment ; 
 and therefore it must have been written before September 
 14th in that year, which was the date of the death of Cor- 
 nelius. Lucius, his successor, was also banished, and was 
 congratulated on his return by Cyprian in Epistle 57, which 
 therefore must have been written about the end of November 
 252. The 59th Epistle is referred by Bishop Pearson to the 
 beginning of the year 253. 
 
 There seems nothing to suggest the date of Epistles 60 and 
 61. except the probability that they were written during a 
 time of peace ; and for this reason they are referred to the 
 beginning of Cyprian's episcopate, before the outbreak of the 
 Decian persecution, A.D. 249. It is usual to assign Epistle 
 64 to the same year, or at least to a very early period of 
 Cyprian's official life ; but it seems scarcely likely that his 
 episcopal counsel should have been sought by a brother 
 bishop in a matter of practice, until he had had some experi- 
 ence ; and as it was probably written at a time of peace, 
 when discipline had become relaxed, the date 253 seems pre- 
 ferable. The 68th Epistle is easily dated by the reference 
 at page 246 to an episcopate of six years' duration ; and it 
 must therefore have been written in A.D. 254. On the 14th 
 September, Cyprian was banished to Curubis by the Emperor 
 Valerian. From his place of exile he wrote Epistle 76, 
 which was replied to in Epistles 77, 78, and 79. Doubts are 
 entertained as to the date of Epistle 80, whether it should be 
 referred to A.D. 250 or 257. Pamelius prefers' the latter 
 date, on the ground that the Rogatianus to whom it is in- 
 scribed was one who survived the Decian persecution, and a 
 younger man than the one who, as he supposes, was declared 
 to have suffered martyrdom at the date of this Epistle, p. 328. 
 This, however, seems very unsatisfactory ; and the weight of 
 authority is in favour of the earlier date. The remaining
 
 xii INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 Epistles are easily limited by their contents to the period im- 
 mediately preceding Cyprian's martyrdom. 
 
 For -the sake of uniformity, it has been thought well to 
 adhere to the arrangement of Migne, in the order of the 
 Epistles as well as in their divisions. For the convenience 
 of reference, however, the number of each Epistle in the 
 Oxford edition is appended in a note. For a similar reason, 
 the general form of Migne' s text has been used in the fol- 
 lowing translation ; but the use of other texts and of pre- 
 ceding translations has not been rejected in the endeavour 
 to approximate to the sense of the author. Moreover, such 
 various readings as might suggest different shades of meaning 
 in doubtful passages have been given. 
 
 The Translator has only to add, that, as a rule, an exact 
 rendering has been sought after, sometimes in preference to 
 a version in fluent English. But, except in cases where the 
 corruption or obscurity of the text seems insurmountable, 
 the meaning of the writer is believed to be given fairly and 
 intelligibly. The style of Cyprian, like that of his master 
 Tertullian, is marked much more by vehemence than perspi- 
 cuity, and it is often no easy matter to give exact expression 
 in another language to the idea contained in the original 
 text. 
 
 Cyprian's Life, as written by his own deacon Pontius, is 
 subjoined.
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION 
 
 OF 
 
 CYPRIAN, BISHOP AND MARTYR. 
 
 BY 
 
 PONTIUS THE DEACON. 
 
 LTHOUGII CYPRIAN, the devout priest and 
 glorious witness of God, composed many writ- 
 ings whereby the memory of his worthy name 
 survives ; and although the profuse fertility of 
 his eloquence and of God's grace so expands itself in the 
 exuberance and richness of his discourse, that he will pro- 
 bably never cease to speak even to the end of the world ; 
 yet, since to his works and deserts it is justly due that his 
 example should be recorded in writing, I have thought it 
 well to prepare this brief and compendious narrative. Not 
 that the life of so great a man can be unknown to any 
 even of the heathen nations, but that to our posterity also 
 this incomparable and lofty pattern may be prolonged into 
 immortal remembrance. It would assuredly be hard that, 
 when our fathers have given such honour even to lay- 
 people and catechumens who have obtained martyrdom, for 
 reverence of their very martyrdom, as to record many, or I 
 had nearly said, well nigh all, of the circumstances of their 
 sufferings, so that they might be brought to our knowledge 
 also who as yet were not born, the passion of such a priest 
 and such a martyr as Cyprian should be passed over, who,
 
 xiv THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 independently of his martyrdom, had much to teach, and 
 that what he did while he lived should be hidden from the 
 world. And, indeed, these doings of his were such, and so 
 great, and so admirable, that I am deterred by the contem- 
 plation of their greatness, and confess myself incompetent to 
 discourse in a way that shall be worthy of the honour of his 
 deserts, and unable to relate such noble deeds in such a way 
 that they may appear as great as in fact they are, except that 
 the multitude of his glories is itself sufficient for itself, and 
 needs no other heraldry. It enhances my difficulty, that 
 you also are anxious to hear very much, or if it be possible 
 everything, about him, longing with eager warmth at least 
 to become acquainted with his deeds, although now his living 
 words are silent. And in this behalf, if I should say that 
 the powers of eloquence fail me, I should say too little. For 
 eloquence itself fails of suitable powers fully to satisfy your 
 desire. And thus I am sorely pressed on both sides, since he 
 burdens me with his virtues, and you press me hard with your 
 entreaties. 
 
 2. At what point, then, shall I begin, from what direction 
 shall I approach the description of his goodness, except from 
 the beginning of his faith and from his heavenly birth? 
 inasmuch as the doings of a man of God should not be 
 reckoned from any point except from the time that he was 
 born of God. He may have had pursuits previously, 
 and liberal arts may have imbued his mind while engaged 
 therein ; but these things I pass over ; for as yet they had 
 nothing to do with anything but his secular advantage. But 
 when he had learned sacred knowledge, and breaking through 
 the clouds of this world had emerged into the light of spiri- 
 tual wisdom, if I was with him in any of his doings, if I 
 have discerned any of his more illustrious labours, I will 
 speak of them ; only asking meanwhile for this indulgence, 
 that whatever I shall say too little (for too little I must needs 
 say) may rather be attributed to my ignorance than sub- 
 tracted from his glory. While his faith was in its first 
 rudiments, he believed that before God nothing was worthy 
 in comparison of the observance of continency. For he
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. xv 
 
 thought that the heart might then become what it ought to 
 be, and the mind attain to the full capacity of truth, if he 
 trod under foot the lust of the flesh with the robust and 
 healthy vigour of holiness. Who has ever recorded such 
 a marvel? His second birth had not yet enlightened the 
 new man with the entire splendour of the divine light, yet 
 he was already overcoming the ancient and pristine darkness 
 by the mere dawning of the light. Then what is even 
 greater when he had learned from the reading of Scripture 
 certain things not according to the condition of his noviciate, 
 but in proportion to the earliness of his faith, he immediately 
 laid hold of what he had discovered, for his own advantage 
 in deserving well of God. By distributing his means for 
 the relief of the indigence of the poor, by dispensing the 
 purchase-money of entire estates, he at once realized two 
 benefits, the contempt of this world's ambition, than which 
 nothing is more pernicious, and the observance of that mercy 
 which God has preferred even to His sacrifices, and which 
 even he did not maintain who said that he had kept all the 
 commandments of the law ; whereby with premature swift- 
 ness of piety he almost began to be perfect before he had 
 learnt the way to be perfect. Who of the ancients, I pray, 
 has done this ? Who of the most celebrated veterans in the 
 faith, whose hearts and ears have throbbed to the divine 
 words for many years, has attempted any such thing, as 
 this man of faith yet unskilled, and whom, perhaps, as yet 
 nobody trusted surpassing the age of antiquity, accom- 
 plished by his glorious and admirable labours ? No one reaps 
 immediately upon his sowing ; no one presses out the vintage 
 harvest from the trenches just formed; no one ever yet sought 
 for ripened fruit from newly planted slips. But in him all 
 incredible things concurred. In him the threshing preceded 
 (if it may be said, for the thing is beyond belief) preceded 
 the sowing, the vintage the shoots, the fruit the root. 
 
 3. The apostle's epistle says 1 that novices should be passed 
 over, lest by the stupor of heathenism that clings to their 
 yet unconfirmed minds, their untaught inexperience should 
 1 1 Tim. iii. 6.
 
 xvi THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN, 
 
 in any respect sin against God. He first, and I think lie 
 alone, furnished an illustration that greater progress is made 
 by faith than by time. For although in the Acts of the 
 Apostles 1 the eunuch is described as at once baptized by 
 Philip, because he believed with his whole heart, this is not 
 a fair parallel. For he was a Jew, and as he came from the 
 temple of the Lord he was reading the prophet Isaiah, and 
 he hoped in Christ, although as yet he did not believe that 
 He had come ; while the other, coming from the ignorant 
 heathens, began with a faith as mature as that with which 
 few perhaps have finished their course. In short, in respect 
 of God's grace, there was no delay, no postponement, I 
 have said but little, he immediately received the presby- 
 terate and the priesthood. For who is there that would not 
 entrust every grade of honour to one who believed with such 
 a disposition ? There are many things which he did while 
 still a layman, and many things which now as a presbyter 
 he did many things which, after the examples of righteous 
 men of old, and following them with a close imitation, he 
 accomplished with the obedience of entire consecration that 
 deserved well of the Lord. For his discourse concerning 
 this was usually, that if he had read of any one being set 
 forth with the praise of God, he would persuade us to in- 
 quire on account of what doings he had pleased God. If 
 Job, glorious by God's testimony, was called a true wor- 
 shipper of God, and one to whom there was none upon earth 
 to be compared, he taught that we should do whatever Job 
 had previously done, so that while we are doing like things 
 we may call forth a similar testimony of God for ourselves. 
 He, contemning the loss of his estate, gained such advantage 
 by his virtue thus tried, that he had no perception of the 
 temporal losses even of his affection. Neither poverty nor 
 pain broke him down ; the persuasion of his wife did not in- 
 fluence him ; the dreadful suffering of his own body did not 
 shake his firmness. His virtue remained established in its own 
 home, and his devotion, founded upon deep roots, gave way 
 under no onset of the devil tempting him to abstain from 
 1 Acts viii. 37.
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. xvii 
 
 blessing his God with a grateful faith even in his adversity. 
 His house was open to every comer. No widow returned 
 from him with an empty lap ; no blind man was unguided 
 by him as a companion ; none faltering in step was unsup- 
 ported by him for a staff ; none stripped of help by the 
 hand of the mighty was not protected by him as a defender. 
 Such things ought they to do, he was accustomed to say, 
 who desire to please God. And thus running through the 
 examples of all good men, by always imitating those who 
 were better than others he made himself also worthy of 
 imitation. 
 
 4. He had a close association among us with a just man, 
 and of praiseworthy memory, by name Csecilius, and in age 
 as well as in honour a presbyter, who had converted him 
 from his worldly errors to the acknowledgment of the true 
 divinity. This man he loved with entire honour and all 
 observance, regarding him with an obedient veneration, not 
 only as the friend and comrade of his soul, but as the parent 
 of his new life. And at length he, influenced by his atten- 
 tions, was, as well he might be, stimulated to such a pitch of 
 excessive love, that when he was departing from this world, 
 and his summons was at hand, he commended to him his wife 
 and children ; so that him whom he had made a partner in 
 the fellowship of his way of life, he afterwards made the heir 
 of his affection. 
 
 5. It would be tedious to go through individual circum- 
 stances, it would be laborious to enumerate all his doings. 
 For the proof of his good works I think that this one thing 
 is enough, that by the judgment of God and the favour of 
 the people, he was chosen to the office of the priesthood and 
 the degree of the episcopate while still a neophyte, and, as it 
 was considered, a novice. Although still in the early days 
 of his faith, and in the untaught season of his spiritual life, 
 a generous disposition so shone forth in him, that although 
 not yet resplendent with the glitter of office, but only of 
 hope, he gave promise of entire trustworthiness for the 
 priesthood that was coming upon him. Moreover, I will 
 not pass over that remarkable fact, of the way in which, 
 
 b
 
 xviii THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 when the entire people by God's inspiration leapt forward 
 in his love and honour, he humbly withdrew, giving place to 
 men of older standing, and thinking himself unworthy of a 
 claim to so great honour, so that he thus became more 
 worthy. For he is made more worthy who dispenses with 
 what he deserves. And with this excitement were the eager 
 people at that time inflamed, desiring with a spiritual longing, 
 as the event proved, not only a bishop, for in him whom 
 then with a latent foreboding of divinity they were in such 
 wise demanding, they were seeking not only a priest, but 
 moreover a future martyr. A crowded fraternity was be- 
 sieging the doors of the house, and throughout all the ave- 
 nues of access an anxious love was circulating. Possibly that 
 apostolic experience might then have happened to him, as he 
 desired, of being let down through a window, had he also been 
 equal to the apostle in the honour of ordination. It was 
 plain to be seen that all the rest were expecting his coming 
 with an anxious spirit of suspense, and received him when he 
 came with excessive joy. I speak unwillingly, but I must 
 needs speak. Some resisted him, even that he might overcome 
 them ; yet with what gentleness, how patiently, how bene- 
 volently he gave them indulgence ! how mercifully he for- 
 gave them, reckoning them afterwards, to the astonishment 
 of many, among his closest and most intimate friends ! For 
 who would not be amazed at the forgetfulness of a mind so 
 retentive ? 
 
 6. Henceforth who is sufficient to relate the manner in 
 which he bore himself ? what piety was his ? what vigour ? 
 how great his mercy? how great his strictness? So much 
 sanctity and grace beamed from his face that it confounded 
 the minds of the beholders. His countenance was grave and 
 joyous. Neither was his severity gloomy, nor his affability 
 excessive, but a mingled tempering of both ; so that it might 
 be doubted whether he most deserved to be revered or to be 
 loved, except that he deserved both to be revered and to be 
 loved. And his dress was not out of harmony with his coun- 
 tenance, being itself also subdued to a fitting mean. The 
 pride of the world did not inflame him, nor yet did an exces-
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. six 
 
 cessively affected penury make him sordid, because this latter 
 kind of attire arises no less from, boastfulness, than does such 
 an ambitious frugality from ostentation. But what did he as 
 bishop in respect of the poor, whom as a catechumen he had 
 loved ? Let the priests of piety consider, or those whom the 
 teaching of their very rank has trained to the duty of good 
 works, or those whom the common obligation of the Sacra- 
 ment has bound to the duty of manifesting love. Cyprian 
 the bishop's throne received such as he had been before, it 
 did not make him so. 
 
 7. And therefore for such merits he at once obtained the glory 
 of proscription also. For nothing else was proper than that 
 he who in the secret recesses of his conscience was rich in the 
 full honour of religion and faith, should moreover be renowned 
 in the publicly diffused report of the Gentiles. He might, 
 indeed, at that time, in accordance with the rapidity where- 
 with he always attained everything, have hastened to the 
 crown of martyrdom appointed for him, especially when with 
 repeated calls he was frequently demanded for the lions, had 
 it not been needful for him to pass through all the grades of 
 glory, and thus to arrive at the highest, and had not the 
 impending desolation needed the aid of so fertile a mind. 
 For conceive of him as being at that time taken away by the 
 dignity of martyrdom. Who was there to show the advan- 
 tage of grace, advancing by faith ? Who was there to restrain 
 virgins to the fitting discipline of modesty and a dress worthy 
 of holiness, as if with a kind of bridle of the lessons of the 
 Lord ? Who was there to teach penitence to the lapsed, truth 
 to heretics, unity to schismatics, peacefulness and the law of 
 evangelical prayer to the sons of God ? By whom were the 
 blaspheming Gentiles to be overcome by retorting upon them- 
 selves the accusations which they heap upon us ? By whom 
 were Christians of too tender an affection, or, what is of more 
 importance, of a too feeble faith in respect of the loss of their 
 friends, to be consoled with the hope of futurity ? Whence 
 should we so learn mercy? whence patience? Who was 
 there to restrain the ill blood arising from the envenomed 
 
 O 
 
 malignity of envy, with the sweetness of a wholesome remedy?
 
 xx THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Who was there to raise up such great martyrs by the exhor- 
 tation of his divine discourse ? Who was there, in short, to 
 animate so many confessors sealed with a second inscription on 
 their distinguished brows, and reserved alive for an example 
 of martyrdom, kindling their ardour with a heavenly trumpet ? 
 Fortunately, fortunately it occurred then, and truly by the 
 Spirit's direction, that the man who was needed for so many 
 and so excellent purposes was withheld from the consumma- 
 tion of martyrdom. Do you wish to be assured that the 
 cause of his withdrawal was not fear ? to allege nothing else, 
 he did suffer subsequently, and this suffering he assuredly 
 would have evaded as usual, if he had evaded it before. It 
 was indeed that fear and rightly so that fear which would 
 dread to offend the Lord that fear which prefers to obey 
 God's commands rather than to be crowned in disobedience. 
 For a mind dedicated in all things to God, and thus enslaved 
 to the divine admonitions, believed that even in suffering 
 itself it would sin, unless it had obeyed the Lord, who then 
 bade [him seek] the place of concealment. 
 
 8. Moreover, I think that something may here be said 
 about the benefit of the delay, although I have already 
 touched slightly on the matter. By what appears subse- 
 quently to have occurred, it follows that we may prove that 
 that withdrawal was not conceived by human pusillanimity, 
 but, as indeed is the case, was truly divine. The unusual 
 and violent rage of a cruel persecution had laid waste God's 
 people ; and since the artful enemy could not deceive all by 
 one fraud, wherever the incautious soldier laid bare his side, 
 there in various manifestations of rage he had destroyed 
 individuals with different kinds of overthrow. There needed 
 some one who could, when men were wounded and hurt by 
 the various art of the attacking enemy, use the remedy of 
 the celestial medicine according to the nature of the wound, 
 either for cutting or for cherishing them. A man was pre- 
 served of an intelligence, besides other excellences, also spi- 
 ritually trained, who between the resounding waves of the 
 opposing schisms could steer the middle course of the church 
 in a steady path. Are not such plans, I ask, divine ? Could
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. xxi 
 
 this have been done without God ? Let them consider who 
 think that such things as these can happen by chance. To 
 them the church replies with clear voice, saying, " I do not 
 allow and do not believe that such needful men are reserved 
 without the decree of God." 
 
 9. Still, if it seem well, let me glance at the rest. After- 
 wards there broke out .a dreadful plague, and excessive 
 destruction of a hateful disease invaded every house in suc- 
 cession of the trembling populace, carrying off day by day 
 with abrupt attack numberless people, every one from his own 
 house. All were shuddering, fleeing, shunning the contagion, 
 impiously exposing their own friends, as if with the exclusion 
 of the person who was sure to die of the plague, one could 
 exclude death itself also. There lay about the meanwhile, 
 over the whole city, no longer bodies, but the carcases of 
 many, and, by the contemplation of a lot which in their turn 
 would be theirs, demanded the pity of the passers-by for 
 themselves. No one regarded anything besides his cruel gains. 
 No one trembled at the remembrance of a similar event. 
 No one did to another what he himself wished to experience. 
 In these circumstances, it would be a wrong to pass over 
 what the pontiff of Christ did, who excelled the pontiffs of the 
 world as much in kindly affection as he did in truth of religion. 
 On the people assembled together in one place he first of all 
 urged the benefits of mercy, teaching by examples from divine 
 lessons, how greatly the duties of benevolence avail to deserve 
 well of God. Then afterwards he subjoined, that there was 
 nothing wonderful in our cherishing our own people only 
 with the needed attentions of love, but that he might become 
 perfect who would do something more than the publican or 
 the heathen, who, overcoming evil with good, and practising 
 a clemency which was like the divine clemency, loved even 
 his enemies, who would pray for the salvation of those that 
 persecute him, as the Lord admonishes and exhorts. God 
 continually makes His sun to rise, and from time to time gives 
 showers to nourish the seed, exhibiting all these kindnesses 
 not only to His people, but to aliens also. And if a man pro- 
 fesses to be a son of God, why does not he imitate the
 
 xxii THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 example of his Father? "It becomes us," said he, "to 
 answer to our birth ; and it is not fitting that those who are 
 evidently born of God should be degenerate, but rather that 
 the propagation of a good Father should be proved in His 
 offspring by the emulation of His goodness." 
 
 10. I omit many other matters, and, indeed, many im- 
 portant ones, which the necessity of a limited space does not 
 permit to be detailed in more lengthened discourse, and con- 
 cerning which this much is sufficient to have been said. But 
 
 O 
 
 if the Gentiles could have heard these things as they stood 
 before the rostrum, they would probably at once have believed. 
 What, then, should a Christian people do, whose very name 
 proceeds from faith? Thus the ministrations are constantly dis- 
 tributed according to the quality of the men and their degrees. 
 Many who, by the straitness of poverty, were unable to manifest 
 the kindness of wealth, manifested more than wealth, making 
 up by their own labour a service dearer than all riches. And 
 under such a teacher, who would not press forward to be found 
 in some part of such a warfare, whereby he might please both 
 God the Father, and Christ the Judge, and for the present 
 so excellent a priest ? Thus what is good was done in the 
 liberality of overflowing works to all men, not to those only 
 who are of the household of faith. Something more was 
 done than is recorded of the incomparable benevolence of 
 Tobias. He must forgive, and forgive again, and frequently 
 forgive ; or, to speak more truly, he must of right concede 
 that, although very much might be done before Christ, yet 
 that something more might be done after Christ, since to His 
 times all fulness is attributed. Tobias collected together those 
 who were slain by the king and cast out, of his own race only. 
 11. Banishment followed these actions, so good and so 
 benevolent. For impiety always makes this return, that it 
 repays the better with the worse. And what God's priest 
 replied to the interrogation of the proconsul, there are Acts 
 which relate. In the meantime, he is excluded from the 
 city who had done some good for the city's safety, he who 
 had striven that the eyes of the living should not suffer the 
 horrors of the infernal abode, he, I say, who, vigilant in the
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN, xxiii 
 
 watches of benevolence, had provided oh wickedness ! with 
 unacknowledged goodness, that when all were forsaking the 
 desolate appearance of the city, a destitute state and a de- 
 serted country should not perceive its many exiles. But let 
 the world look to this, which accounts banishment a penalty. 
 To them, their country is too dear, and they have the same 
 name as their parents ; but we abhor even our parents them- 
 selves if they would persuade us against God. To them, it is 
 a severe punishment to live outside their own city ; to the 
 Christian, the whole of this world is one home. Wherefore, 
 though he were banished into a hidden and secret place, yet, 
 associated with the affairs of his God, he cannot regard it as 
 an exile. In addition, while honestly serving God, he is a 
 stranger even in his own city. For while the continency of 
 the Holy Spirit restrains him from carnal desires, he lays 
 aside the conversation of the former man, and even among 
 his fellow-citizens, or, I might almost say, among the parents 
 themselves of his earthly life, he is a stranger. Besides, 
 although this might otherwise appear to be a punishment, 
 yet in causes and sentences of this kind, which we suffer for 
 the trial of the proof of our virtue, it is not a punishment, 
 because it is a glory. But, indeed, suppose banishment not 
 to be a punishment to us, yet the witness of their own con- 
 science may still attribute the last and worst wickedness to 
 those who can lay upon the innocent what they think to be a 
 punishment. I will not now describe a charming place ; and, 
 for the present, I pass over the addition of all possible delights. 
 Let us conceive of the place, filthy in situation, squalid in 
 appearance, having no wholesome water, no pleasantness of 
 verdure, no neighbouring shore, but vast wooded rocks be- 
 tween the inhospitable jaws of a totally deserted solitude, far 
 removed in the pathless regions of the world. Such a place 
 might have borne the name of exile, if Cyprian, the priest 
 of God, had come thither ; although to him, if the ministra- 
 tions of men had been wanting, either birds, as in the case of 
 Elias, or angels, as in that of Daniel, would have ministered. 
 Away, away with the belief that anything would be wanting 
 to the least of us, so long as he stands for the confession of
 
 xxiv THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the name. So far was God's pontiff, who had always been 
 urgent in merciful works, from needing the assistance of all 
 these things. 
 
 12. And now let us return with thankfulness to what I 
 had suggested in the second place, that for the soul of such 
 a man there was divinely provided a sunny and suitable 
 spot, a dwelling, secret as he wished, and all that has before 
 been promised to be added to those who seek the kingdom 
 and righteousness of God. And, not to mention the number 
 of the brethren who visited him, and then the kindness of 
 the citizens themselves, which supplied to him everything 
 whereof he appeared to be deprived, I will not pass over 
 God's wonderful visitation, whereby He wished His priest 
 to be so certain in exile of his passion that was to follow, 
 that in his full confidence of the threatening martyrdom, 
 Curubis possessed not only an exile, but a martyr too. For 
 on that day whereon we first abode in the place of banish- 
 ment (for the condescension of his love had chosen me among 
 his household companions to be a voluntary exile : would that 
 he could also have chosen me to share his passion !), " there 
 appeared to me," said he, " ere yet I was sunk in the repose 
 of slumber, a young man of unusual stature, who, as it were, 
 led me to the praetorium, where I seemed to myself to be led 
 before the tribunal of the proconsul, then sitting. When he 
 looked upon me, he began at once to note' down a sentence 
 on his tablet, which I knew not, for he had asked nothing of 
 me with the accustomed interrogation. But the youth, who 
 was standing at his back, very anxiously read what had been 
 noted down. And because he could not then declare it in 
 words, he showed me by an intelligible sign what was con- 
 tained in the writing of that tablet. For, with hand expanded 
 and flattened like a blade, he imitated the stroke of the ac- 
 customed punishment, and expressed what he wished to be 
 understood as clearly as by speech, I understood the future 
 sentence of my passion. I began to ask and to beg imme- 
 diately that a delay of at least one day should be accorded 
 me, until I should have arranged my property in some 
 reasonable order. And when I had urgently repeated my
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. xxv 
 
 entreaty, he began again to note down, I know not what, on 
 his tablet. But I perceived from the calmness of his coun- 
 tenance that the judge's mind was moved by my petition, as 
 being a just one. Moreover, that youth, who already had 
 disclosed to me the intelligence of my passion by gesture 
 rather than by words, hastened to signify repeatedly by 
 secret signal that the delay was granted which had been 
 asked for until the morrow, twisting his fingers one behind 
 the other. And I, although the sentence had not been read, 
 although I rejoiced with very glad heart with joy at the 
 delay accorded, yet trembled so with fear of the uncertainty 
 of the interpretation, that the remains of fear still set my 
 exulting heart beating with excessive agitation." 
 
 13. What could be more plain than this revelation ? 
 What could be more blessed than this condescension ? 
 Everything was foretold to him beforehand which subse- 
 quently followed. Nothing was diminished of the words of 
 God, nothing was mutilated of so sacred a promise. Care- 
 fully consider each particular in accordance with its an- 
 nouncement. He asks for delay till the morrow, when the 
 sentence of his passion was being deliberated on, begging 
 that he might arrange his affairs on the day which he had 
 thus obtained. This one day signified a year, which he was 
 about to pass in the world after his vision. For, to speak 
 more plainly, on that day, after the year was expired, he was 
 crowned, on which, at the commencement of the year, the 
 fact had been announced to him. For although we do not 
 read of the day of the Lord as a year in sacred Scripture, yet 
 we regard that space of time as due in making promise of 
 future things. Whence it is of no consequence if, in this 
 case, under the ordinary expression of a day, it is only a year 
 that in this place is implied, because that which is the greater 
 ought to be fuller in meaning. Moreover, that it was ex- 
 plained rather by signs than by speech, was because the 
 utterance of speech was reserved for the manifestation of 
 the time itself. For anything is usually set forth in words, 
 whenever what is set forth is accomplished. For, indeed, no 
 one knew why this had been shown to him, until afterwards,
 
 xxvi THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 when, on the very day on which he had seen it, he was 
 crowned. Nevertheless, in the meantime, his impending 
 suffering was certainly known by all, but the exact day of his 
 passion was not spoken of by any of the same, just as if they 
 were ignorant of it. And, indeed, I find something similar 
 in the Scriptures. For Zacharias the priest, because he did 
 not believe the promise of a son, made to him by the angel, 
 became dumb ; so that he asked for tablets by a sign, being 
 about to write his son's name rather than utter it. With 
 reason, also in this case, where God's messenger declared 
 the impending passion of His priest rather by signs, he both 
 admonished his faith and fortified his priest. Moreover, 
 the ground of asking for delay arose out of his wish to 
 arrange his affairs and settle his will. Yet what affairs or 
 what will had he to arrange, except ecclesiastical concerns ? 
 And thus that last delay was received, in order that whatever 
 had to be disposed of by his final decision concerning the care 
 of cherishing the poor might be arranged. And I think that 
 for no other reason, and indeed for this reason only, indul- 
 gence was granted to him even by those very persons who 
 had ejected and were about to slay him, that, being at hand, 
 he might relieve the poor also who were before him with 
 the final or, to speak more accurately, with the entire outlay 
 of his last stewardship. And therefore, having so benevo- 
 lently ordered matters, and so arranged them according to 
 his will, the morrow drew near. 
 
 14. Now also a messenger came to him from the city from 
 Xistus, the good and peace-making priest, and on that ac- 
 count most blessed martyr. The coming executioner was in- 
 stantly looked for who should strike through that devoted neck 
 of the most sacred victim ; and thus, in the daily expectation of 
 dying, every day was to him as if the crown might be attri- 
 buted to each. In the meantime, there assembled to him many 
 eminent people, and people of most illustrious rank and family, 
 and noble with the world's distinctions, who, on account of 
 ancient friendship with him, repeatedly urged his withdrawal ; 
 and, that their urgency might not be in some sort hollow, 
 they also offered places to which he might retire. But he
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN, xxvii 
 
 had now set the world aside, having his mind suspended upon 
 heaven, and did not consent to their tempting persuasions. 
 He would perhaps even then have done what was being 
 asked for by so many and faithful friends, if it had been 
 bidden him by divine command. But that lofty glory of so 
 great a man must not be passed over without announcement, 
 that now, when the world was swelling, and of its trust in its 
 princes breathing out hatred of the name, he was instructing 
 God's servants, as opportunity was given, in the exhortations 
 of the Lord, and was animating them to tread under foot the 
 sufferings of this present time by the contemplation of a 
 glory to come hereafter. Indeed, such was his love of sacred 
 discourse, that he wished that his prayers in regard to his 
 suffering might be so answered, that he would be put to death 
 in the very act of speaking about God. 
 
 15. And these were the daily acts of a priest destined for 
 a pleasing sacrifice to God, when, behold, at the bidding of 
 the proconsul, the officer with his soldiers on a sudden came 
 imexpectedly on him, or rather, to speak more truly, thought 
 that he had come unexpectedly on him, at his gardens, at 
 his gardens, I say, which at the beginning of his faith he had 
 sold, and which, being restored by God's mercy, he would 
 assuredly have sold again for the use of the poor, if he had 
 not wished to avoid ill-will from the persecutors. But 
 when could a mind ever prepared be taken unawares, as if 
 by an unforeseen attack ? Therefore now he went forward, 
 certain that what had been long delayed would be settled, he 
 went forward with a lofty and elevated mien, manifesting 
 cheerfulness in his look and courage in his heart. But being 
 delayed to the morrow, he returned from the prsetorium to 
 the officer's house, when on a sudden a scattered rumour pre- 
 vailed throughout all Carthage, that now Thascius was brought 
 forward, whom there was nobody who did not know as well for 
 his illustrious fame in the honourable opinion of all, as on ac- 
 count of the recollection of his most renowned work. On all 
 sides all men were flocking together to a spectacle, to us glorious 
 from the devotion of faith, and to be mourned over even by 
 the Gentiles. A gentle custody, however, had him in charge
 
 xxviii THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 when taken and placed for one night in the officer's house ; 
 so that we, his associates and friends, were as usual in his 
 company. The whole people in the meantime, in anxiety 
 that nothing should be done throughout the night without 
 their knowledge, kept watch before the officer's door. The 
 goodness of God granted him at that time, so truly worthy of 
 it, that even God's people should watch on the passion of the 
 priest. Yet, perhaps, some one may ask Avhat was the reason 
 of his returning from the praBtorium to the officer. And some 
 think that this arose from the fact, that for his own part the 
 proconsul was then unwilling. Far be it from me to com- 
 plain, in matters divinely ordered, of sloth fulness or aversion 
 in the proconsul. Far be it from me to admit such an evil 
 into the consciousness of a religious mind, as that the fancy 
 of man should decide the fate of so blessed a martyr. But 
 the morrow, which a year before the divine condescension 
 had foretold, required to be literally the morrow, [and hence 
 the respite.] 
 
 16. At last that other day dawned that destined, that 
 promised, that divine day which, if even the tyrant himself 
 had wished to put off, he would not have had any power to 
 do so ; the day rejoicing at the consciousness of the future 
 martyr; and, the clouds being scattered throughout the circuit 
 of the world, the day shone upon with a brilliant sun. He 
 went out from the house of the officer, though he was the 
 officer of Christ and God, and was walled in on all sides by 
 the ranks of a mingled multitude. And such a numberless 
 army hung upon his company, as if they had come with an 
 assembled troop to assault death itself. Now, as he went, he 
 had to pass by the race-course. And rightly, and as if it had 
 been contrived on purpose, he had to pass by the place of a 
 corresponding struggle, who, having finished his contest, was 
 running to the crown of righteousness. But when he had 
 come to the pratorium, as the proconsul had not yet come 
 forth, a place of retirement was accorded him. There, as he 
 sat moistened after his long journey with excessive perspira- 
 tion (the seat was by chance covered with linen, so that even 
 in the very moment of his passion he might enjoy the honour
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. xxix 
 
 of the episcopate), one of the officers (" Tesserarius"), who Had 
 formerly been a Christian, offered him his clothes, as if he 
 might wish to change his moistened garments for drier ones ; 
 and he doubtless coveted nothing further in respect of his 
 proffered kindness than to possess the now blood-stained sweat 
 of the martyr going to God. He made reply to him, and 
 said, " We apply medicines to annoyances which probably 
 to-day will no longer exist." Is it any wonder that he de- 
 spised suffering in body who had despised death in soul ? 
 Why should we say more ? He was suddenly announced to 
 the proconsul ; he is brought forward ; he is placed before 
 him ; he is interrogated as to his name. He answers who he 
 is, and nothing more. 
 
 17. And thus, therefore, the judge reads from his tablet 
 the sentence which lately in the vision he had not read, a 
 spiritual sentence, not rashly to be spoken, a sentence 
 worthy of such a bishop and such a witness, a glorious sen- 
 tence, wherein he was called a standard-bearer of the sect, 
 and an enemy of the gods, and one who was to be an example 
 to his people ; and that with his blood discipline would begin 
 to be established. Nothing could be more complete, nothing 
 more true, than this sentence. For all the things which were 
 said, although said by a heathen, are divine. Nor is it indeed 
 to be wondered at, since priests are accustomed to prophesy 
 of the passion. He had been a standard-bearer, who was 
 accustomed to teach concerning the bearing of Christ's 
 standard ; he had been an enemy of the gods, who com- 
 manded the idols to be destroyed. Moreover, he gave 
 example to his friends, since, when many were about to fol- 
 low in a similar manner, he was the first in the province to 
 consecrate the first-fruits of martyrdom. And by his blood 
 discipline began to be established ; but it was the discipline of 
 martyrs, who, emulating their teacher, in the imitation of a 
 glory like his own, themselves also gave a confirmation to dis- 
 cipline by the very blood of their own example. 
 
 18. And when he left the doors of the prsetorium, a crowd 
 of soldiery accompanied him ; and that nothing might be 
 wanting in his passion, centurions and tribunes guarded his
 
 xxx THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 side. Now the place itself where he was about to suffer is 
 level, so that it affords a noble spectacle, with its trees thickly 
 planted on all sides. But as, by the extent of the space 
 beyond, the view was not attainable to the confused crowd, 
 persons who favoured him had climbed up into the branches 
 of the trees, that there might not even be wanting to him 
 (what happened in the case of Zacchgeus), that he was gazed 
 upon from the trees. And now, having with his own hands 
 bound his eyes, he tried to hasten the slowness of the exe- 
 cutioner, whose office was [to wield] the sword, and who with 
 difficulty clasped the blade in his failing right hand with 
 trembling fingers, until the mature hour of glorification 
 strengthened the hand of the centurion with power granted 
 from above to accomplish the death of the excellent man, 
 and at length supplied him with the permitted strength. 
 O blessed people of the church, who as well in sight as in 
 feeling, and, what is more, in outspoken words, suffered with 
 such a bishop as theirs ; and, as they had ever heard him in 
 his own discourses, were crowned by God the Judge ! For 
 although that which the general wish desired could not occur, 
 viz. that the entire congregation should suffer at once in the 
 fellowship of a like glory, yet whoever under the eyes of 
 Christ beholding, and in the hearing of the priest, eagerly 
 desired to suffer, by the sufficient testimony of that desire 
 did in some sort send a missive to God, as his ambassador. 
 
 19. His passion being thus accomplished, it resulted that 
 Cyprian, who had been an example to all good men, was also 
 the first who in Africa imbued his priestly crown [with blood 
 of martyrdom], because he was the first who began to be such 
 after the apostles. For from the time at which the episcopal 
 order is enumerated at Carthage, not one is ever recorded, 
 even of good men and priests, to have come to suffering. 
 Although devotion surrendered to God is always in conse- 
 crated men reckoned instead of martyrdom; yet Cyprian 
 attained even to the perfect crown by the consummation 
 of the Lord ; so that in that very city in which he had in 
 such wise lived, and in which he had been the first to do 
 many noble deeds, he also was the first to decorate the
 
 THE LIFE AND PASSION OF CYPRIAN. xxxi 
 
 insignia of his heavenly priesthood with glorious gore. What 
 shall I do now ? Between joy at his passion, and grief at 
 still remaining, my mind is divided in different directions,, 
 and twofold affections are burdening a heart too limited for 
 them. Shall I grieve that I was not his associate? But 
 yet I must triumph in his victory. Shall I triumph at his 
 victory ? Still I grieve that I am not his companion. Yet 
 still to you I must in simplicity confess, what you also are 
 aware of, that it was my intention to be his companion. 
 Much and excessively I exult at his glory ; but still more do- 
 I grieve that I remained behind.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE I. 1 
 
 TO DONATUS. 
 
 AEGUMENT. Cyprian had promised Donatus that he would 
 have a discourse ivith him concerning things divine, and 
 now being reminded of his promise, he fulfils it. Com- 
 mending at length the grace of God conferred in baptism, 
 he declares how he had been changed thereby ; and, finally, 
 pointing out the errors of the ivorld, he exhorts to con- 
 tempt of it, and to reading and prayer. 
 
 ^ECILIUS CYPRIAN to Donatus sends, greeting. 
 You rightly remind me, dearest Donatus; for I 
 not only remember my promise, but I confess 
 that this is the appropriate time for its fulfilment, 
 when the vintage festival invites the mind to unbend in re- 
 pose, and to enjoy the annual and appointed respite of the 
 declining year. 2 Moreover, the place is in accord with the 
 season, and the pleasant aspect of the gardens harmonizes 
 with the gentle breezes of a mild autumn in soothing and 
 cheering the senses. In such a place as this it is delightful 
 to pass the day in discourse, and, by the [study of the sacred] 
 narratives, 3 to train the conscience of the breast to the appre- 
 hension of the divine precepts. And that no profane intruder 
 may interrupt our converse, nor any unrestrained clatter of 
 a noisy household disturb it, let us seek this bower. The 
 neighbouring thickets ensure us solitude, and the vagrant 
 
 1 In the Oxford edition this epistle is given among the treatises. 
 
 2 Wearying, soil. " fatigantis." 3 "Fabulis." 
 
 A
 
 2 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 trailings of the vine branches creeping in pendent mazes 
 among the reeds that support them have made for us a porch 
 of vines and a leafy shelter. Pleasantly here we clothe our 
 thoughts in words ; and while we gratify our eyes with the 
 agreeable outlook upon trees and vines, the mind is at once 
 instructed by what we hear, and nourished by what we see, 
 although at the present time your only pleasure and your 
 only interest is in our discourse. Despising the [other] 
 pleasures of sight, your eye is now fixed on me. With 
 your mind as well as your ears you are altogether a listener ; 
 and a listener, too, with an eagerness proportioned to your 
 affection. 
 
 2. And yet, of what kind or of what amount is anything 
 that rny mind is likely to communicate to yours 1 The poor 
 mediocrity of my shallow understanding produces a very 
 limited harvest, and enriches the soil with no fruitful deposits. 
 Nevertheless, with such powers as I have, I will set about 
 the matter; for the subject itself on which I am about to 
 speak will assist me. In courts of justice, in the public 
 assembly, in political debate, a copious eloquence may be the 
 glory of a voluble ambition ; but in speaking of the Lord 
 God, a chaste simplicity of expression strives for the convic- 
 tion of faith rather with the substance, than with the powers, 
 of eloquence. Therefore accept from me things, not clever 
 but weighty, words, not decked up to charm a popular 
 audience with cultivated rhetoric, but simple and fitted by 
 their unvarnished truthfulness for the proclamation of the 
 divine mercy. Accept what is felt before it is spoken, what 
 has not been accumulated with tardy painstaking during the 
 lapse of years, but has been inhaled in one breath of ripening 
 grace. 
 
 3. While I was still lying in darkness and gloomy night, 
 wavering hither and thither, tossed about on the foam of this 
 boastful age, and uncertain of my wandering steps, knowing 
 nothing of my real life, and remote from truth and light, I 
 used to regard it as a difficult matter, and especially as diffi- 
 cult in respect of my character at that time, that a man 
 should be capable of being born again a truth which the
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 3 
 
 divine mercy had announced for my salvation, and that a 
 man quickened to a new life in the laver of saving water 
 should be able to put off what he had previously been ; and 
 although retaining all his bodily structure, should be himself 
 changed in heart and soul. " How," said I, " is such a con- 
 version possible, that there should be a sudden and rapid 
 divestment of all which, either innate in us has hardened in 
 the corruption of our material nature, or acquired by us has 
 become inveterate by long accustomed use ? These things 
 have become deeply and radically engrained within us. 
 When does he learn thrift who has been used to liberal 
 banquets and sumptuous feasts ? And he who has been 
 glittering in gold and purple, and has been celebrated for his 
 costly attire, when does he reduce himself to ordinary and 
 simple clothing? One who has felt the charm of the fasces 
 and of civic honours shrinks from becoming a mere private 
 and inglorious citizen. The man who is attended by crowds 
 of clients, and dignified by the numerous association of an 
 officious train, regards it as a punishment when he is alone. 
 It is inevitable, as it ever has been, that the love of wine 
 should entice, pride inflate, anger inflame, covetousness dis- 
 quiet, cruelty stimulate, ambition delight, lust hasten to ruin, 
 with allurements that will not let go their hold." 
 
 4. These were my frequent thoughts. For as I myself was 
 held in bonds by the innumerable errors of my previous life, 
 from which I did not believe that I could by possibility be 
 delivered, so I was disposed to acquiesce in my clinging vices; 
 and because I despaired of better things, I used to indulge 
 my sins as if they were actually parts of me, and indigenous 
 to me. But after that, by the help of the water of new birth, 
 the stain of former years had been washed away, and a light 
 from above, serene and pure, had been infused into my recon- 
 ciled heart, after that, by the agency of the Spirit breathed 
 from heaven, a second birth had restored me to a new man ; 
 then, in a wondrous manner, doubtful things at once began 
 to assure themselves to me, hidden things to be revealed, 
 dark things to be enlightened, what before had seemed diffi- 
 cult began to suggest a means of accomplishment, what had
 
 4 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 been thought impossible, to be capable of being achieved ; so 
 that I was enabled to acknowledge that what previously, being 
 born of the flesh, had been living in the practice of sins, was 
 of the earth earthly, but had now begun to be of God, and 
 was animated by the Spirit of holiness. You yourself as- 
 suredly know and recollect as well as I do what was taken 
 away from us, and what was given to us by that death of 
 evil, and that life of virtue. You yourself know this without 
 my information. Anything like boasting in one's own praise 
 is hateful, although we cannot [in reality] boast but only 
 be grateful for whatever we do not ascribe to man's virtue 
 but declare to be the gift of God ; so that now we sin not 
 is the beginning of the work of faith, whereas that we sinned 
 before was the result of human error. All our power is of 
 God ; I say, of God. From Him we have life, from Him 
 we have strength, by power derived and conceived from Him 
 we do, while yet in this world, foreknow the indications of 
 things to come. Only let fear be the keeper of innocence, 
 that the Lord, who of His mercy has flowed 1 into our hearts 
 in the access of celestial grace, may be kept by righteous 
 submissiveness in the hostelry of a grateful mind, that the 
 assurance we have gained may not beget carelessness, and 
 so the old enemy creep upon us again. 
 
 5. But if you keep the way of innocence, the way of 
 righteousness, if you walk with a firm and steady step, if, 
 depending on God with your whole strength and with your 
 whole heart, you only be what you have begun to be, liberty 
 and power to do is given you in proportion to the increase 
 of your spiritual grace. For there is not, as is the case with 
 earthly benefits, any measure or stint in the dispensing of 
 the heavenly gift. The Spirit freely flowing forth is re- 
 strained by no limits, is checked by no closed barriers within 
 certain bounded spaces ; it flows perpetually, it is exuberant 
 in its affluence. Let our heart only be athirst, and be ready 
 to receive : in the degree in which we bring to it a capacious 
 faith, in that measure we draw from it an overflowing grace. 
 Thence is given power, with modest chastity, with a sound 
 1 Or, "shone," "infulsit"
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN, 5 
 
 mind, with a simple voice, with unblemished virtue, that is 
 able to quench the virus of poisons for the healing of the 
 sick, to purge out the stains of foolish souls by restored 
 health, to bid peace to those that are at enmity, repose to 
 the violent, gentleness to the unruly, by startling threats to 
 force to avow themselves the impure and vagrant spirits that 
 have betaken themselves into the bodies of men whom thev 
 
 ti 
 
 purpose to destroy, to drive them with heavy blows to come 
 out of them, to stretch them out struggling, howling, groan- 
 ing with increase of constantly renewing pain, to beat them 
 with scourges, to roast them with fire : the matter is carried 
 on there, but is not seen ; the strokes inflicted are hidden, 
 but the penalty is manifest. Thus, in respect of what we 
 have already begun to be, the Spirit that we have received 
 possesses its own liberty of action ; while in that we have not 
 yet changed our body and members, the carnal view is still 
 darkened by the clouds of this world. How great is this 
 empire of the mind, and what a power it has, not alone that 
 itself is withdrawn from the mischievous associations of the 
 world, as one who is purged and pure can suffer no stain of 
 a hostile irruption, but that it becomes still greater and 
 stronger in its might, so that it can rule over all the im- 
 perious host of the attacking adversary with its sway ! 
 
 6. But in order that the characteristics of the divine may 
 shine more brightly by the development of the truth, I 
 will give you light to apprehend it, the obscurity caused by 
 sin being wiped away. I will draw away the veil from the 
 darkness of this hidden world. For a brief space conceive 
 yourself to be transported to one of the loftiest peaks of some 
 inaccessible mountain, thence gaze on the appearances of 
 things lying below you, and with eyes turned in various 
 directions look upon the eddies of the billowy world, while 
 you yourself are removed from earthly contacts, you will 
 at once begin to feel compassion for the world, and with self- 
 recollection and increasing gratitude to God, you will rejoice 
 with all the greater joy that you have escaped it. Consider 
 the roads blocked up by robbers, the seas beset with pirates, 
 wars scattered all over the earth with the bloody horror of
 
 6 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 camps. The whole world is wet with mutual blood ; and 
 murder, which in the case of an individual is admitted to be 
 a crime, is called a virtue when it is committed wholesale. 
 Impunity is claimed for the wicked deeds, not on the plea that 
 they are guiltless, but because the cruelty is perpetrated on a 
 grand scale. 
 
 7. And now, if you turn your eyes and your regards to the 
 cities themselves, you will behold a concourse more fraught 
 with sadness than any solitude. The gladiatorial games are 
 prepared, that blood may gladden the lust of cruel eyes. The 
 body is fed up with stronger food, and the vigorous mass of 
 limbs is enriched with brawn and muscle, that the wretch 
 fattened for punishment may die a harder death. Man is 
 slaughtered that man may be gratified, and the skill that is 
 best able to kill is an exercise and an art. Crime is not only 
 committed, but it is taught. What can be said more inhuman, 
 what more repulsive ? Training is undergone to acquire the 
 power to murder, and the achievement of murder is its glory. 
 What state of things, I pray you, can that be, and what can 
 it be like, in which men, whom none have condemned, offer 
 themselves to the wild beasts men of ripe age, of sufficiently 
 beautiful person, clad in costly garments? Living men, they 
 are adorned for a voluntary death ; wretched men, they boast 
 of their own miseries. They fight with beasts, not for their 
 crime, but for their madness. Fathers look on their own sons; 
 a brother is in the arena, and his sister is hard by; and although 
 a grander display of pomp increases the price of the exhibition, 
 yet, oh shame ! even the mother will pay the increase in order 
 that she may be present at her own miseries. And in looking 
 upon scenes so frightful and so impious and so deadly, they do 
 not seem to be aware that they are parricides with their eyes. 
 
 8. Hence turn your looks to the abominations, not less to 
 be deplored, of another kind of spectacle. In the theatres also 
 you will behold what may well cause you grief and shame. It 
 is the tragic buskin which relates in verse the crimes of ancient 
 days. The old horrors 1 of parricide and incest are unfolded 
 in action calculated to express the image of the truth, so 
 
 1 Errors , v I.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 7 
 
 that, as the ages pass by, any crime that was formerly com- 
 mitted may not be forgotten. Each generation is reminded 
 by what it hears, that whatever has once been done may be 
 done again. Crimes never die out by the lapse of ages ; 
 wickedness is never abolished by process of time ; impiety is 
 never buried in oblivion. Things which have now ceased to be 
 actual deeds of vice become examples. In the mimes, more- 
 over, by the teaching of infamies, the spectator is attracted 
 either to reconsider what he may have done in secret, or to 
 hear what he may do. Adultery is learnt while it is seen ; 
 and while the mischief having public authority panders to 
 vices, the matron, who perchance had gone to the spectacle 
 a modest woman, returns from it immodest. Still further, 
 what a degradation of morals it is, what a stimulus to abomi- 
 nable deeds, what food for vice, to be polluted by histrionic 
 gestures, against the covenant and law of one's birth, to gaze 
 in detail upon the endurance of incestuous abominations ! 
 Men are emasculated, and all the pride and vigour of their 
 sex is effeminated in the disgrace of their enervated body ; 
 and he is most pleasing there who has most completely broken 
 down the man into the woman. He grows into praise by 
 virtue of his crime ; and the more he is degraded, the more 
 skilful he is considered to be. Such a one is looked upon 
 oh shame ! and looked upon with pleasure. And what can- 
 not such a creature suggest? He inflames the senses, he 
 flatters the affections, he drives out the more vigorous con- 
 science of a virtuous breast ; nor is there wanting authority 
 for the enticing abomination, that the mischief may creep 
 upon people with a less perceptible approach. They picture 
 Venus immodest, Mars adulterous ; and that Jupiter of theirs 
 not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed with 
 earthly love in the midst of his own thunders, now growing 
 white in the feathers of a swan, now pouring down in a 
 golden shower, now breaking forth by the help of birds to 
 violate the purity of boys. And now put the question, Can 
 he who looks upon such things be healthy-minded or modest? 
 Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miser- 
 able beings their crimes become their religion.
 
 8 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 9. Oh, if placed on that lofty watch-tower you could 
 gaze into the secret places if you could open the closed 
 doors of sleeping chambers, and recall their dark recesses to 
 the perception of sight, you would behold things done by 
 immodest persons which no chaste eye could look upon ; you 
 would see what even to see is a crime ; you would see what 
 people embruted with the madness of vice deny that they 
 have done, and yet hasten to do, men with frenzied lusts 
 rushing upon men, doing things which afford no gratification 
 even to those who do them. I am deceived if the man who 
 is guilty of such things as these does not accuse others of 
 them. The depraved maligns the depraved, and thinks that 
 he himself, though conscious of the guilt, has escaped, as if 
 consciousness were not a sufficient condemnation. The same 
 people who are accusers in public are criminals in private, 
 condemning themselves at the same time as they condemn 
 the culprits; they denounce abroad what they commit at 
 home, willingly doing what, when they have done, they 
 accuse, a daring which assuredly is fitly mated with vice, 
 and an impudence quite in accordance with shameless people. 
 And I beg you not to wonder at the things that persons of 
 this kind speak : the offence of their mouths in words is the 
 least of which they are guilty. 
 
 10. But after considering the public roads full of pitfalls, 
 after battles of many kinds scattered abroad over the whole 
 world, after exhibitions either bloody or infamous, after the 
 abominations of lust, whether exposed for sale in brothels OF 
 hidden within the domestic walls abominations, the audacity 
 of which is greater in proportion to the secrecy of the crime, 
 possibly you may think that the Forum at least is free 
 from such things, that it is neither exposed to exasperating 
 wrongs, nor polluted by the association of criminals. Then 
 turn your gaze in that direction : there you will discover 
 things more odious than ever, so that thence you will be 
 more desirous of turning away your eyes, although the laws 
 are carved on twelve tables, and the statutes are publicly 
 prescribed on brazen tablets. Yet wrong is done in the midst 
 of the laws themselves; wickedness is committed in the
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 9 
 
 very face of the statutes ; innocence is not preserved even 
 in the place where it is defended. By turns the rancour of 
 disputants rages ; and when peace is broken among the togas, 1 
 the Forum echoes with the madness of strife. There close at 
 hand is the spear and the sword, and the executioner also ; 
 there is the claw that tears, the rack that stretches, the fire 
 that burns up, more tortures for one poor human body than 
 it has limbs. And in such cases who is there to help ? One's 
 patron ? He makes a feint, and deceives. The judge ? But 
 he sells his sentence. He who sits to avenge crimes commits 
 them, and the judge becomes the culprit, in order that the 
 accused may perish innocently. Crimes are everywhere 
 common ; and everywhere in the multiform character of sin, 
 the pernicious poison acts by means of degraded minds. 
 One man forges a will, another by a capital fraud makes a 
 false deposition ; on the one hand, children are cheated of 
 their inheritances, on the other, strangers are endowed with 
 their estates. The opponent makes his charge, the false 
 accuser attacks, the witness defames, on all sides the venal 
 impudence of hired voices sets about the falsification of 
 charges, while in the meantime the guilty do not even perish 
 with the innocent. There is no fear about the laws, no 
 concern for either inquisitor or judge ; when the sentence 
 can be bought off for money, it is not cared for. It is a 
 crime now among the guilty to be innocent ; whoever does 
 not imitate the wicked is an offence to them. The laws 
 have come to terms with crimes, and whatever is public has 
 begun to be allowed. What can be the modesty, what can 
 be the integrity, that prevails there, when there are none to 
 condemn the wicked, and one only meets with those who 
 ought themselves to be condemned ? 
 
 11. But that we may not perchance appear as if we were 
 picking out extreme cases, and with the view of disparage- 
 ment were seeking to attract your attention to those things 
 whereof the sad and revolting view may offend the gaze of a 
 better conscience, I will now direct you to such things as 
 the world in its ignorance accounts good. Among these also 
 1 The dresses of peace.
 
 10 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 you will behold things that will shock you. In respect of 
 what you regard as honours, of what you consider the fasces, 
 what you count affluence in riches, what you think power in 
 the camp, the glory of the purple in the magisterial office, 
 the power of licence in the chief command, there is hidden 
 the virus of ensnaring mischief, and an appearance of smiling 
 wickedness, joyous indeed, but the treacherous deception of 
 hidden calamity, just as some poison, in which the flavour 
 having been medicated with sweetness, craftily mingled in 
 its deadly juices, seems, when taken, to be an ordinary 
 draught ; but when it is drunk up, the destruction that you 
 have swallowed assails you. You see, forsooth, that man 
 distinguished by his brilliant dress, glittering, as he thinks, in 
 his purple. Yet with what baseness has he purchased this 
 glitter ! What contempts of the proud has he had first to 
 submit to ! what haughty thresholds has he as an early 
 courtier besieged ! How many scornful footsteps of arro- 
 gant great men has he had to precede, thronged in the crowd 
 of clients, that by and by a similar procession might attend 
 and precede him with salutations, a train waiting not upon 
 his person, but upon his power ! for he has no claim to be 
 regarded for his character, but for his fasces. Of these, 
 finally, you may see the degrading end, when the time- 
 serving sycophant has departed, and the hanger-on, desert- 
 ing them, has defiled the exposed side of the man who has 
 retired into a private condition. It is then that the mischiefs 
 done to the squandered family-estate smite upon the con- 
 science, then the losses that have exhausted the fortune are 
 known, expenses by which the favour of the populace was 
 bought, and the people's breath asked for with fickle and 
 empty entreaties. Assuredly, it was a vain and foolish boast- 
 fulness to have desired to set forth in the gratification of a 
 disappointing spectacle, what the people would not receive, 
 and what would ruin the magistrates. 
 
 12. But those, moreover, whom you consider rich, who 
 add forests to forests, and who, excluding the poor from 
 their neighbourhood, stretch out their fields far and wide 
 into space without any limits, who possess immense heaps of
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 11 
 
 silver and gold and mighty sums of money, either in built- 
 up heaps or in buried stores, even in the midst of their 
 riches those are torn to pieces by the anxiety of vague 
 thought, lest the robber should spoil, lest the murderer 
 should attack, lest the envy of some wealthier neighbour 
 should become hostile, and harass them with malicious law- 
 suits. Such an one enjoys no security either in his food or 
 in his sleep. In the midst of the banquet he sighs, although 
 he drinks from a jewelled goblet ; and when his luxurious 
 bed has enfolded his body languid with feasting in its yield- 
 ing bosom, he lies wakeful in the midst of the down ; nor 
 does he perceive, poor wretch, that these things are merely 
 gilded torments, that he is held in bondage by his gold, and 
 that he is the slave of his luxury and wealth rather than 
 their master. And oh, the odious blindness of perception, 
 and the deep darkness of senseless greed ! although he might 
 disburden himself and get rid of the load, he rather continues 
 to brood over his vexing wealth, he goes on obstinately 
 clinging to his tormenting hoards. From him there is no 
 liberality to dependents, no communication to the poor. And 
 yet such people call that their own money, which they guard 
 with jealous labour, shut up at home as if it were another's, 
 and from which they derive no benefit either for their friends, 
 for their children, or, in fine, for themselves. Their possession 
 amounts to this only, that they can keep others from possess- 
 ing it ; and oh, what a marvellous perversion of names ! they 
 call those things " goods" which they aj^olutely put to none 
 but bad uses. 
 
 13. Or think you that even those are secure, that those 
 at least are safe with some stable permanence among the chap- 
 lets of honour and vast wealth, whom, in the glitter of royal 
 palaces, the safeguard of watchful arms surrounds ? [On 
 the contrary,] they have greater fear than others. A man is 
 constrained to dread no less than he is dreaded. Exaltation 
 exacts its penalties equally from the more powerful, although 
 he may be hedged in with bands of satellites, and may guard 
 his person with the enclosure and protection of a numerous 
 retinue. Even as he does not allow his inferiors to feel
 
 12 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 security, it is inevitable that he himself should want the 
 sense of security. The power of those whom power makes 
 terrible to others, is, first of all, terrible to themselves. It 
 smiles to rage, it cajoles to deceive, it entices to slay, it 
 lifts up to cast down. With a certain usury of mischief, the 
 greater the height of dignity and honours attained, the greater 
 is the interest of penalty required. 
 
 14. Hence, then, the one peaceful and trustworthy tran- 
 quillity, the one solid and firm and constant security, is this, 
 for a man to withdraw from these eddies of a distracting 
 
 O 
 
 world, and, anchored on the ground of the harbour of salva- 
 tion, to lift his eyes from earth to heaven ; and having been 
 admitted to the gift of God, and being already very near 
 to his God in mind, he may boast, that whatever in human 
 affairs others esteem lofty and grand, lies altogether beneath 
 his consciousness. Pie who is actually greater than the world 
 can crave nothing, can desire nothing, from the world. How 
 stable, how free from all shocks is that safeguard; how 
 heavenly the protection in its perennial blessings, to be 
 loosed from the snares of this entangling world, and to be 
 purged from earthly dregs, and fitted for the light of eternal 
 immortality ! He will see what crafty mischief of the foe 
 that previously attacked us has been in progress against us. 
 We are constrained to have more love for what we shall be, 
 by being allowed to know and to condemn what we were. 
 Neither for this purpose is it necessary to pay a price 
 either in the way <f bribery or of labour ; so that man's 
 elevation or dignity or power should be begotten in him with 
 elaborate effort ; but it is a gratuitous gift from God, and it is 
 accessible to all. As the sun shines spontaneously, as the day 
 gives light, as the fountain flows, as the shower yields mois- 
 ture, so does the heavenly Spirit infuse itself into us. When 
 the soul, in its gaze into heaven, has recognised its Author, it 
 rises higher than the sun, and far transcends all this earthly 
 power, and begins to be that which it believes itself to be. 
 
 15. Do you, however, whom the celestial warfare has en- 
 listed in the spiritual camp, only observe a discipline uncor- 
 rupted and chastened in the virtues of religion. Be constant
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 13 
 
 as well in prayer as in reading; now speak with God, now let 
 God speak with you, let Him instruct you in His precepts, 
 let Him direct you. Whom He has made rich, none shall 
 make poor ; for, in fact, there can be no poverty to him 
 whose breast has once been supplied with heavenly food. 
 Ceilings enriched with gold, and houses adorned with mo- 
 saics of costly marble, will seem mean to you, now when you 
 know that it is you yourself who are rather to be perfected, 
 you who are rather to be adorned, and that that dwelling 
 in which God has dwelt as in a temple, in which the Holy 
 Spirit has begun to make His abode, is of more importance 
 than all others. Let us embellish this house with the colours 
 of innocence, let us enlighten it with the light of justice : 
 this will never fall into decay with the wear of age, nor 
 shall it be defiled by the tarnishing of the colours of its 
 walls nor of its gold. Whatever is artificially beautified is 
 perishing ; and such things as contain not the reality of 
 possession afford no abiding assurance to their possessors. 
 But this remains in a beauty perpetually vivid, in perfect 
 honour, in permanent splendour. It can neither decay nor 
 be destroyed ; it can only be fashioned into greater perfec- 
 tion when the body returns to it. 
 
 16. These things, dearest Donatus, briefly for the pre- 
 sent. For although what you profitably hear delights your 
 patience, indulgent in its goodness, your well-balanced mind, 
 and your assured faith and nothing is so pleasant to your 
 ears as what is pleasant to you in God, yet, as we are 
 associated as neighbours, and are likely to talk together 
 frequently, we ought to have some moderation in our con- 
 versation ; and since this is a holiday rest, and a time of 
 leisure, whatever remains of the day, now that the sun is 
 sloping towards the evening, let us spend it in gladness, nor 
 let even the hour of repast be without heavenly grace. Let 
 the temperate meal resound with psalms ; and as your memory 
 is tenacious and your voice musical, undertake this office, as 
 is your wont. You will provide a better entertainment for 
 your dearest friends, if, while we have something spiritual to 
 listen to, the sweetness of religious music charm our ears.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE II. 1 
 
 FROM THE ROMAN CLERGY TO THE CARTHAGINIAN 
 CLERGY, ABOUT THE RETIREMENT OF THE BLESSED 
 CYPRIAN. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The Roman clergy had learnt from Crementius 
 the sub-deacon, that in the time of persecution Cyprian 
 had withdrawn himself. Therefore, with their accus- 
 tomed zeal for the faith, they remind the Carthaginian 
 clergy of their duty, and instruct them what to do in the 
 case of the lapsed, daring tJie interval of the bishop's 
 absence. 
 
 1. We have been informed by Crementius the sub-deacon, 
 who came to us from you, that the blessed father 2 Cyprian 
 has for a certain reason withdrawn ; " in doing which he acted 
 quite rightly, because he is a person of eminence, and because 
 a conflict is impending," which God has allowed in the world, 
 for the sake of co-operating with His servants in their struggle 
 against the adversary, and was, moreover, willing that this 
 conflict should show to angels and to men that the victor shall 
 be crowned, while the vanquished shall in himself receive the 
 doom which has been made manifest to us. Since, moreover, 
 it devolves upon us who appear to be placed on high, in the 
 place of a shepherd, to keep watch over the flock ; if we be 
 found neglectful, it will be said to us, as it was said to our pre- 
 decessors also, who in such wise negligent had been placed in 
 charge, that we have not sought for that which was lost, and 
 have not corrected the wanderer, and have not bound up 
 that which was broken, but have eaten their milk, and been 
 clothed with their wool ; 3 and then also the Lord Himself, 
 fulfilling what had been written in the law and the prophets, 
 teaches, saying, " I am the good shepherd, who lay down my 
 life for the sheep. But the hireling, whose own the sheep 
 are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. viii. 2 Papam. 3 Ezek. xxxiv. 3, 4.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 15 
 
 fleeth, and the wolf scattereth them." 1 To Simon, too, He 
 speaks thus : " Lovest thou me 1 He answered, I do love 
 Thee. He saith to him, Feed my sheep." 2 We know that 
 this saying arose out of the very circumstance of his with- 
 drawal, and the rest of the disciples did likewise. 3 
 
 2. We are unwilling, therefore, beloved brethren, that you 
 should be found hirelings, but we desire you to be good 
 shepherds, since you are aware that no slight danger threatens 
 you if you do not exhort our brethren to stand stedfast in 
 the faith, so that the brotherhood be not absolutely rooted 
 out, as being of those who rush headlong into idolatry. 
 Neither is it in words only that we exhort you to this ; but 
 you will be able to ascertain from very many who come to 
 you from us, that, God blessing us, we both have done and 
 still do all these things ourselves with all anxiety and worldly 
 risk, having before our eyes rather the fear of God and 
 eternal sufferings than the fear of men and a short-lived 
 discomfort, not forsaking the brethren, but exhorting them 
 to stand firm in the faith, and to be ready to go with the 
 Lord. And we have even recalled those who were ascend- 
 ing 4 to do that to which they were constrained. The church 
 stands in faith, notwithstanding that some have been driven 
 to fall by very terror, whether that they were persons of emi- 
 nence, or that they were afraid, when seized, with the fear 
 of man : these, however, we did not abandon, although they 
 were separated from us, but exhorted them, and do exhort 
 them, to repent, if in any way they may receive pardon from 
 Him who is able to grant it ; lest, haply, if they should be 
 deserted by us, they should become worse. 
 
 3. You see, then, brethren, that you also ought to do the 
 like, so that even those who have fallen may amend their 
 
 1 John x. 11, 12. 2 John xxi. 17. 
 
 3 This is a very obscure passage, and is variously understood. It 
 seems most probable that the allusion is to Peter's denial of his Lord, 
 and following Him afar off ; and is intended to bear upon Cyprian's 
 retirement. There seems no meaning in interpreting the passage as a 
 reference to Peter's death. 
 
 4 That is to say, " to the Capitol to sacrifice."
 
 1C THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 minds by your exhortation ; and if they should be seized once 
 more, may confess, and may so make amends for their pre- 
 vious sin. And there are other matters which are incumbent 
 on you, which also we have here added, as that if any who 
 may have fallen into this temptation begin to be taken with 
 sickness, and repent of what they have done, and desire com- 
 munion, it should in any wise be granted them. Or if you 
 have widows or bedridden people 1 who are unable to main- 
 tain themselves, or those who are in prisons or are excluded 
 from their own dwellings, these ought in all cases to have 
 some to minister to them. Moreover, catechumens when 
 seized with sickness ought not to be deceived, 2 but help 
 is to be afforded them. And, as matter of the greatest 
 importance, if the bodies of the martyrs and others be not 
 buried, a considerable risk is incurred by those whose duty it 
 is to do this office. By whomsoever of you, then, and on 
 whatever occasion this duty may have been performed, we 
 are sure that he is regarded as a good servant, as one who 
 has been faithful in the least, and will be appointed ruler 
 over ten cities. May God, however, who gives all things to 
 them that hope in Him, grant to us that we may all be found 
 in these works. The brethren who are in bonds greet you, 
 as do the elders, and the whole Church, which itself also 
 with the deepest anxiety keeps watch over all who call on 
 the name of the Lord. And we likewise beg you in your 
 turn to have us in remembrance. Know, moreover, that 
 Bassianus has come to us ; and we request of you who have a 
 zeal for God, to send a copy of this letter to whomsoever you 
 are able, as occasions may serve, or make your own opportu- 
 nities, or send a message, that they may stand firm and sted- 
 f ast in the faith. We bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily 
 farewell. 
 
 1 Clinomeni. 
 
 2 I.e. as to the implied promise of their preparation for baptism.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 17 
 
 EPISTLE III. 1 
 
 TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ABIDING AT - ROME. 
 
 ARGUMENT. This is a familiar and friendly epistle; so that 
 it requires no formal argument, especially as it can be 
 sufficiently gathered from the title itself. Tfie letter 
 of the Roman clergy, to which Cyprian is replying, is 
 missing. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the elders and deacons, brethren abiding at 
 Rome, sends, greeting. When the report of the departure 
 of the excellent man, my colleague, 2 was still uncertain among 
 us, my beloved brethren, and I was wavering doubtfully in 
 my opinion on the matter, I received a letter sent to me 
 from you by Crementius the sub-deacon, in which I was 
 most abundantly informed of his glorious end ; and I rejoiced 
 greatly that, in harmony with the integrity of his adminis- 
 tration, an honourable consummation also attended him. 
 Wherein, moreover, I greatly congratulate you, that you 
 honour his memory with a testimony so public and so illus- 
 trious, so that by your means is made known to me, not only 
 what is glorious to you in connection with the memory of 
 your bishop, but what ought to afford to me also an example 
 of faith and virtue. For in proportion as the fall of a bishop 
 is an event which tends ruinously to the fall of his followers, 
 so on the other hand it is a useful and helpful thing when a 
 bishop, by the firmness of his faith, sets himself forth to his 
 brethren as an object of imitation. 
 
 3. I have, moreover, read another epistle, 3 in which neither 
 the person who wrote nor the persons to whom it was written 
 were plainly declared ; and inasmuch as in the same letter 
 both the writing and the matter, and even the paper itself, 
 gave me the idea that something had been taken away, or 
 had been changed from the original, I have sent you back 
 
 1 Oxford ed.: Ep. ix. 2 Fabian, bishop of Rome. 
 
 3 The foregoing letter, Ep. ii. 
 B
 
 18 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the epistle as it actually came to hand, that you may examine 
 whether it is the very same which you gave to Crementius 
 the sub-deacon, to carry. For it is a very serious thing if the 
 truth of a clerical letter is corrupted by any falsehood or 
 deceit. In order, then, that we may know this, ascertain 
 whether the writing and subscription are yours, and write 
 me again what is the truth of the matter. I bid you, dearest 
 brethren, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE IV. 1 
 
 TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACOXS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian exhorts his clergy from his place of 
 retirement) that in his absence they should be united ; that 
 nothing should be wanting to prisoners or to the rest of 
 the poor ; and further, that they should keep the people 
 in quiet, lest, if they should rush in crowds to visit the 
 martyrs in prison, this privilege should at length be for- 
 lidden them. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his beloved 
 brethren, greeting. Being by the grace of God in safety, 
 dearest brethren, I salute you, rejoicing that I am informed 
 of the prosperity of all things in respect of your safety also ; 
 and as the condition of the place * does not permit me to 'be 
 with you now, I beg you, by your faith and your religion, to 
 discharge there both your own office and mine, that there 
 may be nothing wanting either to discipline or diligence. 
 In respect of means, moreover, for meeting the expenses, 
 whether for those who, having confessed their Lord with a 
 glorious voice, have been put in prison, or for those who are 
 labouring in poverty and want, and still stand fast in the 
 Lord, I entreat that nothing be wanting, since the whole of 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. v. 
 
 2 scil. Carthage, where the populace had already demanded Cyprian's 
 "blood.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 19 
 
 the small sum which was collected there was distributed 
 among the clergy for cases of that kind, that many might 
 have means whence they could assist the necessities and 
 burthens of individuals. 
 
 2. I beg also that there may be no lack, on your parts, 
 of wisdom and carefulness to preserve peace. For although 
 from their affection the brethren are eager to approach and 
 to visit those good confessors, on whom by their glorious 
 beginnings the divine consideration has already shed a 
 brightness, yet I think that this eagerness must be cautiously 
 indulged, and not in crowds, not in numbers collected to- 
 gether at once, lest from this very thing ill-will be aroused, 
 and the means of access be denied, and thus, while we in- 
 satiably wish for all, we lose all. Take counsel, therefore, 
 and see that this may be more safely managed with modera- 
 tion, so that the presbyters also, who there offer l with the 
 confessors, may one by one take turns with the deacons 
 individually ; because, by thus changing the persons and 
 varying the people that come together, suspicion is diminished. 
 For, meek and humble in all things, as befits the servants of 
 God, we ought to accommodate ourselves to the times, and to 
 provide for quietness, and to have regard to the people. I 
 bid you, brethren, beloved and dearly longed-for, always 
 heartily farewell ; and have me in remembrance. Greet all 
 the brotherhood. Victor the deacon, and those who are with 
 me, greet you. Farewell ! 
 
 EPISTLE V. 2 
 
 TO THE PEESBYTERS AND DEACONS. 
 
 AEGUMENT. Tlie argument of this letter is nearly the same 
 as that of the preceding one, except that the writer directs 
 the confessors also to be admonished by the clergy of their 
 
 1 " Qui illic apud confessores offerunt," sell, "the oblation" (vpoc- 
 (popa), i.e. "who celebrate the eucharist." 
 
 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xiv.
 
 20 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 duty, to give attention to humility, and obey the presbyters 
 and deacons. His own retirement incidentally furnishes 
 an occasion for this. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, 
 greeting. I had wished indeed, beloved brethren, with this 
 my letter to greet the whole of my clergy in health and 
 safety. But since the stormy time which has in a great 
 measure overwhelmed my people, has, moreover, added this 
 enhancement to my sorrows, that it has touched with its 
 desolation even a portion of the clergy, I pray the Lord 
 that, by the divine mercy, I may hereafter greet you at all 
 events as safe, who, as I have learned, stand fast both in 
 faith and virtue. And although some reasons might appear 
 to urge me to the duty of myself hastening to come to you, 
 firstly, for instance, because of my eagerness and desire for 
 you, which is the chief consideration in my prayers, and 
 then, that we might be able to consult together on those 
 matters which are required by the general advantage, in 
 respect of the government of the church, and having care- 
 fully examined them with abundant counsel, might wisely 
 arrange them ; yet it seemed to me better, still to preserve 
 my retreat and my quiet for a while, with a view to other 
 advantages connected with the peace and safety of us all : 
 of which advantages an account will be given you by our 
 beloved brother Tertullus, who, besides his other care which 
 he zealously bestows on divine labours, was ? moreover, the 
 author of this counsel ; that I should be cautious and moderate, 
 and not rashly trust myself into the sight of the public ; and 
 especially that I should beware of that place where I had 
 been so often inquired for and sought after. 
 
 2. Relying, therefore, upon your love and your piety, which 
 I have abundantly known, in this letter I both exhort and 
 command you, that those of you whose presence there is least 
 suspicious and least perilous, should in my stead discharge my 
 duty, in respect of doing those things which are required for 
 the religious administration. In the meantime let the poor 
 be taken care of as much and as well as possible ; but espe-
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 21 
 
 cially those who have stood with unshaken faith and have 
 not forsaken Christ's flock, that, by your diligence, means 
 be supplied to them to enable them to bear their poverty, so 
 that what the troublous time has not effected in respect of 
 their faith, may not be accomplished by want in respect 
 of their afflictions. Let a more earnest care, moreover, be 
 bestowed upon the glorious confessors. And although I 
 know that very many of those have been maintained by the 
 vow 1 and by the love of the brethren, yet if there be any 
 who are in want either of clothing or maintenance, let them 
 be supplied with whatever things are necessary, as I formerly 
 wrote to you, while they were still kept in prison, only let 
 them know from you and be instructed, and learn what, accord- 
 ing to the authority of Scripture, the discipline of the church 
 requires of them, that they ought to be humble and modest 
 and peaceable, that they should maintain the honour of their 
 name, so that those who have achieved glory by what they 
 have testified, may achieve glory also by their characters, and 
 in all things seeking the Lord's approval, may show themselves 
 worthy, in consummation of their praise, to attain a heavenly 
 crown. For there remains more than what is yet seen to be 
 accomplished, since it is written, "Praise not any man before 
 his death;" 2 and again, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I 
 will give thee a crown of life." 3 And the Lord also says, 
 "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." 4 
 Let them imitate the Lord, who at the very time of His 
 passion was not more proud, but more humble. For then 
 He washed His disciples' feet, saying, " If I, your Lord and 
 Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one 
 another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye 
 should do as I have done to you." 5 Let them also follow 
 the example of the Apostle Paul, who, after imprisonment 
 often repeated, after scourging, after exposures to wild beasts, 
 
 1 It is thought that Cyprian here speaks of an order of men called 
 " Parabolani," who systematically devoted themselves to the service of 
 the sick and poor and imprisoned. 
 
 2 Eccles. xi. 28. 3 Apoc. ii. 10. 
 
 * Matt. x. 22. John xiii. 14, 15.
 
 22 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 in everything continued meek and humble ; and even after 
 his rapture to the third heaven and paradise, he did not 
 proudly arrogate anything to himself when he said, " Neither 
 did we eat any man's bread for nought, but wrought with 
 labour and travail night and day, that we might not be 
 chargeable to any of you." 1 
 
 3. These several matters, I pray you, suggest to our 
 brethren. And as " he who humble th himself shall be ex- 
 alted," 2 now is the time when they should rather fear the 
 ensnaring adversary, who more eagerly attacks the man that 
 is strongest, and becoming more virulent, for the very reason 
 that he is conquered, strives to overcome fiis conqueror. 
 The Lord grant that I may soon both see them again, and 
 by salutary exhortation may establish their minds to preserve 
 their glory. For I am grieved when I hear that some of 
 them run about wickedly and proudly, and give themselves 
 up to follies or to discords ; that members of Christ, and even 
 members that have confessed Christ, are defiled by unlawful 
 concubinage, and cannot be ruled either by deacons or by 
 presbyters, but cause that, by the wicked and evil characters 
 of a few, the honourable glories of many and good confessors 
 are tarnished ; whom they ought to fear, lest, being condemned 
 by their testimony and judgment, they be excluded from their 
 fellowship. That, finally, is the illustrious and true confessor, 
 concerning whom afterwards the church does not blush, but 
 boasts. 
 
 4. In respect of that which our fellow-presbyters, Donatus 
 and Fortunatus, Novatus and Gordius, wrote to me, I have 
 not been able to reply by myself, since, from the first com- 
 mencement of my episcopacy, I made up my mind to do 
 nothing on my own private opinion, without your advice and 
 without the consent of the people. But as soon as, by the 
 grace of God, I shall have come to you, then we will discuss 
 in common, as our respective dignity requires, those things 
 which either have been or are to be done. I bid you, 
 brethren beloved and dearly longed-for, ever heartily fare- 
 well, and be mindful of me. Greet the brotherhood that is 
 
 1 2 Thess. iii. 8. 2 Luke xiv. 11.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 23 
 
 with you earnestly from me, and tell them to remember me. 
 Farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE VI. 1 
 
 H 
 
 TO ROGATIANUS THE PRESBYTER, AND THE OTHER 
 CONFESSORS. 
 
 AHGUMENT. He exhorts Rogatianus and the other confessors 
 to maintain discipline) that none ivlw had confessed Christ 
 in word should seem to deny Him in deed; casually 
 rebuking Some of them, ip/io, being exiled on account of 
 the faith, were not afraid to return unbidden into their 
 country. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyter Rogatianus, and to the other 
 confessors, his brethren, greeting. I had both heretofore, 
 clearly beloved and bravest brethren, sent you a letter, in 
 which I congratulated your faith and virtue with exulting 
 words, and now my voice has no other object, first of all, than 
 with joyous mind, repeatedly and always to announce the 
 glory of your name. For what can I wish greater or better 
 in my prayers than to see the flock of Christ enlightened by 
 the honour of your confession? For although all the 
 brethren ought to rejoice in this, yet, in the common glad- 
 ness, the share of the bishop is the greatest. For the glory 
 of the church is the glory of the bishop. In proportion as 
 we grieve over those whom a hostile persecution has cast 
 down, in the same proportion we rejoice over you whom the 
 devil has not been able to overcome. 
 
 2. Yet I exhort you by our common faith, by the true and 
 simple love of my heart towards you, that, having overcome 
 the adversary in this first encounter, you should hold fast 
 jour glory with a brave and persevering virtue. We are still 
 in the world : we are still placed in the battle-field ; we fight 
 daily for our lives. Care must be taken, that after such 
 beginnings as these there should also come an increase, and 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xiii.
 
 24 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 that what you have begun to be with such a blessed com- 
 mencement should be consummated in you. It is a slight 
 thing to have been able to attain anything ; it is more to be 
 able to keep what you have attained ; even as faith itself and 
 saving birth makes alive, not by being received, but by being 
 preserved. Nor is it actually the attainment, but the per- 
 fecting, that keeps a man for God. The Lord taught this in 
 His instruction when He said, " Behold, thou art made whole; 
 sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." 1 Conceive 
 of Him as saying this also to His confessor, " Lo thou art 
 made a confessor ; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto 
 thee." Solomon also, and Saul, and many others, so long 
 as they walked in the Lord's ways, were able to keep the 
 grace given to them. When the discipline of the Lord was 
 forsaken by them, grace also forsook them. 
 
 3. We must persevere in the straight and narrow road of 
 praise and glory ; and since peacef ulness and humility and 
 the tranquillity of a good life is fitting for all Christians, 
 according to the word of the Lord, who looks to none other 
 man than " to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and 
 that trembleth at" 2 His word, it the more behoves you con- 
 fessors, who have been made an example to the rest of the 
 brethren, to observe and fulfil this, as being those whose 
 characters should provoke to imitation the life and conduct 
 of all. For as the Jews were alienated from God, as those 
 on whose account " the name of God is blasphemed among 
 the Gentiles," 3 so on the other hand those are dear to God 
 through whose conformity to discipline the name of God is 
 declared with a testimony of praise, as it is written, the Lord 
 Himself forewarning and saying, " Let your light so shine 
 before men that they may see your good works and glorify 
 your Father which is in heaven." 4 And Paul the apostle 
 says, " Shine as lights in the world." 5 And similarly Peter 
 exhorts : " As strangers," says he, '" and pilgrims, abstain 
 from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, having your 
 conversation honest among the Gentiles ; that whereas they 
 
 1 John v. 14. 2 Isa. Ixvi. 2. 3 R om . & 24. 
 
 4 Matt. v. 16. 5 Phil. ii. 15.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 25 
 
 speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, 
 which they shall behold, glorify the Lord." 1 This, indeed, 
 the greatest part of you, I rejoice to say, are careful for ; and 
 made better by the honour of your confession itself, guard 
 and preserve its glory by tranquil and virtuous lives. 
 
 4. But I hear that some infect your number, and destroy 
 the praise of a distinguished name by their corrupt conversa- 
 tion ; whom you yourselves, even as being lovers and guar- 
 dians of your own praise, should rebuke and check and 
 correct. For what a disgrace is suffered by your name, 
 when one spends his days in intoxication and debauchery, 
 another returns to that country whence he was banished, to 
 perish when arrested, not now as being a Christian, but as 
 being a criminal ! 2 I hear that some are puffed up and are 
 arrogant, although it is written, " Be not high-minded, but 
 fear : for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed 
 lest He also spare not thee." 3 Our Lord " was led as a 
 sheep to the slaughter ; and as a lamb before her shearers is 
 dumb, so He opened not His mouth." 4 "I am not rebel- 
 lious," says He, " neither do I gainsay. I gave my back to 
 the smiters, and my cheeks to the palms of their hands. I 
 hid not my face from the filthiness of spitting." And dares 
 any one now, who lives by and in this very One, lift up him- 
 self and be haughty, forgetful, as well of the deeds which He 
 did, as of the commands which He left to us either by Him- 
 self or by His apostles 1 But if " the servant is not greater 
 than his Lord," 6 let those who follow the Lord humbly and 
 peacefully and silently tread in His steps, since the lower one 
 is, the more exalted he may become ; as says the Lord, " He 
 that is least among you, the same shall be great." 7 
 
 5. What, then, is that how execrable should it appear to 
 
 1 1 Pet. ii. 11, 12. 
 
 2 Either as criminals having returned from banishment without 
 authority, or as having committed some crime for which they became 
 amenable to punishment. See 1 Pet. iv. 15, "But let none of you 
 suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer." 
 
 3 Rom. xi. 20, 21. 4 Isa. liii. 7. 5 Isa. 1. 5, 6. 
 6 John xiii. 16. 7 Luke is. 48.
 
 2G THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 you which I have learnt with extreme anguish and grief of 
 mind, to wit, that there are not wanting those who defile the 
 temples of God, and the members sanctified after confession 
 and made glorious, 1 with a disgraceful and infamous concu- 
 binage, associating their beds promiscuously with women's ! 
 In which, even if there be no pollution of their conscience, 
 there is a great guilt in this very thing, that by their offence 
 originate examples for the ruin of others. There ought also 
 to be no contentions and emulations among you, since the 
 Lord left to us His peace, and it is written, " Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour as thyself." 2 "But if ye bite and find 
 fault with one another, take heed that ye be not consumed 
 one of another." 3 From abuse and revilings also I entreat 
 you to abstain, for " revilers do not attain the kingdom of 
 God ;" 4 and the tongue which has confessed Christ should be 
 preserved sound and pure with its honour. For he who, 
 according to Christ's precept, speaks things peaceable and 
 good and just, daily confesses Christ. We had renounced 
 the world when we were baptized ; but we have now indeed 
 renounced the world when tried and approved by God, we 
 leave all that we have, and have followed the Lord, and 
 stand and live in His faith and fear. 
 
 6. Let us confirm one another by mutual exhortations, and 
 let us more and more go forward in the Lord ; so that when 
 of His mercy He shall have made that peace which He 
 promises to give, we may return to the church new and 
 almost changed men, and may be received, whether by our 
 brethren or by the heathen, in all things corrected and re- 
 newed for the better ; and those who formerly admired our 
 glory in our courage may now admire the discipline in our 
 lives. [And although I have most fully written to our clergy, 
 both lately when you were still kept in prison, and now also 
 again, to supply whatever was needful, either for your 
 clothing or for your food, yet I myself have also sent you 
 from the small means of my own which I had with me, 250 
 pieces ; and another 250 I had also sent before. Victor also, 
 
 1 " Illustrata." The Oxford translation has " bathed in light." 
 
 2 Lev. xix. 18. s Matt. xxii. 39. 4 Gal. v. 15.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 27 
 
 who from a reader has Lecome a deacon, and is with me, 
 sent you 175. But I rejoice when I know that very many 
 of our brethren of their love are striving with each other, and 
 are aiding your necessities with their contributions.] l I bid 
 you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell ; and be mind- 
 ful of me. 
 
 EPISTLE VII. 2 
 
 TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING PRAYER TO GOD. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The argument of the present epistle is nearly 
 the same as that of the two preceding, except that he 
 exhorts in this to diligent prayer. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, 
 greeting. Although I know, brethren beloved, that from 
 the fear which we all of us owe to God, you also are 
 instantly urgent in continual petitions and earnest prayers 
 to Him, still I myself remind your religious anxiety, that 
 in order to appease and entreat the Lord, we must lament 
 not only in words, but also with fastings and with tears, and 
 with every kind of urgency. For we must perceive and 
 confess that the so disordered ruin arising from that affliction, 
 which has in a great measure laid waste, and is even still 
 laying waste, our flock, has visited us according to our sins, 
 in that we do not keep the way of the Lord, nor observe the 
 heavenly commandments given to us for our salvation. Our 
 Lord did the will of His Father, and we do not do the will of 
 our Lord ; eager about our patrimony and our gain, seeking 
 to satisfy our pride, yielding ourselves wholly to emulation 
 and to strife, careless of simplicity and faith, renouncing the 
 world in words only, and not in deeds, every one of us pleas- 
 ing himself, and displeasing all others, therefore we are 
 smitten as we deserve, since it is written : " And that servant, 
 
 1 The portion inserted in brackets is found only in one MS. Its 
 gentiineness is therefore doubted by some. 
 
 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xi.
 
 28 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 which knoweth his master's will, and has not obeyed his 
 will, shall be beaten with many stripes." 1 But what stripes, 
 what blows, do we not deserve, when even confessors, who 
 ought to be au example of virtuous life to others, do not 
 maintain discipline? Therefore, while an inflated and im- 
 modest boastfulness about their own confession excessively 
 elates some, tortures come upon them, and tortures without 
 any cessation of the tormentor, without any end of condem- 
 nation, without any comfort of death, tortures which do not 
 easily let them pass to the crown, but wrench them on the 
 rack until they cause them to abandon their faith, unless 
 some one taken away by the divine compassion should depart 
 in the very midst of the torments, gaining glory, not by the 
 cessation of his torture, but by the quickness of his death. 
 
 2. These things we suffer by our own fault and our own 
 deserving, even as the divine judgment has forewarned us, 
 saying, " If they forsake my law and walk not in my judg- 
 ments, if they profane my statutes and keep not my com- 
 mandments, then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, 
 and their iniquities with stripes." : It is for this reason that 
 we feel the rods and the stripes, because we neither please 
 God with good deeds nor atone 3 for our sins. Let us of our 
 inmost heart and of our entire mind ask for God's mercy, be- 
 cause He Himself also adds, saying, "Nevertheless my loving- 
 kindness will I not scatter away from them." 4 Let us ask, 
 and we shall receive ; and if there be delay and tardiness in 
 our receiving, since we have grievously offended, let us knock, 
 because " to him that knocketh also it shall be opened," 5 if 
 only our prayers, our groanings, and our tears, knock at the 
 door ; and with these we must be urgent and persevering, even 
 although prayer be offered with one mind. 
 
 3. For, which the more induced and constrained me to 
 write this letter to you, you ought to know (since the Lord 
 has condescended to show and to reveal it) that it was said 
 in a vision, " Ask, and ye shall obtain." Then, afterwards, 
 that the attending people were bidden to pray for certain 
 
 1 Luke xii. 47. 2 Ps. Ixxxix. 30-32. 3 Satisfacimus. 
 
 4 Ps. Ixxxix. 33. 5 Luke xi. 10.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 29 
 
 persons pointed out to them, but that in their petitions there 
 were dissonant voices, and wills disagreeing, and that this 
 excessively displeased Him who had said, " Ask, and ye shall 
 obtain," because the disagreement of the people was out of 
 harmony, and there was not a consent of the brethren one 
 and simple, and a united concord ; since it is written, " God 
 who maketh men to be of one mind in a house;" 1 and we 
 read in the Acts of the Apostles, " And the multitude of them 
 that believed were of one heart and of one soul." 2 And the 
 Lord has bidden us with His own voice, saying, " This is my 
 command, that ye love one another." 3 And again, " I say 
 unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching 
 anything that you shall ask, it shall be done for you of my 
 Father which is in heaven." 4 But if two of one mind can 
 do so much, what might be effected if the unanimity pre- 
 vailed among all ? But if, according to the peace which our 
 Lord gave us, there were agreement among all brethren, we 
 should before this have obtained from the divine mercy what 
 we seek ; nor should we be wavering so long in this peril of 
 our salvation and our faith. Yes, truly, and these evils would 
 not have come upon the brethren, if the brotherhood had 
 been animated with one spirit. 
 
 4. For there also was shown that there sate the father of 
 a family, a young man also being seated at his right hand, 
 who, anxious and somewhat sad with a kind of indignation, 
 holding his chin in his right hand, occupied his place with a 
 sorrowful look. But another standing on the left hand, bore 
 a net, which he threatened to throw, in order to catch the 
 people standing round. And when he who saw marvelled 
 what this could be, it was told him that the youth who was 
 thus sitting on the right hand was saddened and grieved 
 because his commandments were not observed ; but that he 
 on the left was exultant because an opportunity was afforded 
 him of receiving from the father of the family the power of 
 destroying. This was shown long before the tempest of this 
 devastation arose. And we have seen that which had been 
 shown fulfilled ; that while we despise the commandments of 
 1 Ps. Ixviii. 6. 2 Acts iv. 32. 8 John xv. 12. 4 Matt, xviii. 19.
 
 30 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the Lord, while we do not keep the salutary ordinances of 
 the law that He has given, the enemy was receiving a power 
 of doing mischief, and was overwhelming, by the cast of his 
 net, those who were imperfectly armed and too careless to 
 resist. 
 
 5. Let us urgently pray and groan with continual petitions. 
 For know, beloved brethren, that I was not long ago re- 
 proached with this also in a vision, that we were sleepy in 
 our prayers, and did not pray with watchfulness ; and un- 
 doubtedly God, who " rebukes whom He loves," l when He 
 rebukes, rebukes that He may amend, amends that He may 
 preserve. Let us therefore strike off and break away from 
 the bonds of sleep, and pray with urgency and watchfulness, 
 as the Apostle Paul bids us, saying, " Continue in prayer, and 
 watch in the same." 2 For the apostles also ceased not to 
 pray day and night ; and the Lord also Himself, the teacher 
 of our discipline, and the way of our example, frequently 
 and watchfully prayed, as we read in the Gospel : " He went 
 out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in 
 prayer to God." 3 And assuredly what He prayed for, He 
 prayed for on our behalf,. since He was not a sinner, but bore 
 the sins of others. But He so prayed for us, that in another 
 place we read, " And the Lord said to Peter, Behold, Satan 
 has desired to sift you as wheat : but I have prayed for thee, 
 that thy faith fail not." 4 But if for us and for our sins He 
 both laboured and watched and prayed, how much more 
 ought we to be instant in prayers ; and, first of all, to pray 
 and to entreat the Lord Himself, and then through Him, to 
 make satisfaction to God the Father ! We have an advocate 
 and an intercessor for our sins, Jesus Christ the Lord and 
 our God, if only we repent of our sins past, and confess and 
 acknowledge our sins, whereby we now offend the Lord, 
 and for the time to come engage to walk in His ways, and 
 to fear His commandments. The Father corrects and pro- 
 tects us, if we still stand fast in the faith both in afflictions 
 and perplexities, that is to say, cling closely to His Christ ; as 
 it is written, " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? 
 1 Heb. xii. 6. 2 Col. iv. 2. 3 Luke vi. 12. 4 Luke xxii. 31, 32.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 31 
 
 Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or 
 nakedness, or peril, or sword ?" ] None of these things can 
 separate believers, nothing can tear away those \vho are 
 clinging to His body and blood. Persecution of that kind 
 is an examination and searching out of the heart. God wills 
 us to be sifted and proved, as He has always proved His 
 people ; and yet in His trials help has never at any time been 
 wanting to believers. 
 
 6. Finally, to the very least of His servants, although 
 placed among very many sins, and unworthy of His con- 
 descension, yet He has condescended of His goodness towards 
 us to command : " Tell him," said He, " to be safe, because 
 peace is coming; 2 but that, in the meantime, there is a little 
 delay, that some who still remain may be proved." But we 
 are admonished by these divine condescensions both concern- 
 ing a spare diet and a temperate use of drink ; to wit, lest 
 worldly enticement should enervate the breast now elevated 
 with celestial vigour, or lest the mind, weighed down by too 
 abundant feasting, should be less watchful unto prayers and 
 supplication. 
 
 7. It was my duty not to conceal these special matters, 
 nor to hide them alone in my own consciousness, matters by 
 which each one of us may be both instructed and guided. 
 And do not you for your part keep this letter concealed among 
 yourselves, but let the brethren have it to read. For it is 
 the part of one who desires that his brother should not be 
 warned and instructed, to intercept those words with which 
 the Lord condescends to admonish and instruct us. Let 
 them know that we are proved by our Lord, and let them 
 never fail of that faith whereby we have once believed in 
 Him, under the conflict of this present affliction. Let each 
 one, acknowledging his own sins, even now put off the con- 
 versation of the old man. " For no man who looks back as 
 he putteth his hand to the plough is fit for the kingdom of 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 35. 
 
 2 This prediction of settled times was published in unsettled ones ; and 
 it was fulfilled by the sudden and unexpected death of Decius, in his 
 expedition against the Goths.
 
 32 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 God." 1 And, finally, Lot's wife, who, when she was delivered, 
 looked back in defiance of the commandment, lost the benefit 
 of her escape. 2 Let us look not to things which are behind, 
 whither the devil calls us back, but to things which are be- 
 fore, whither Christ calls us. Let us lift up our eyes to 
 heaven, lest the earth with its delights and enticements 
 deceive us. Let each one of us pray God not for himself 
 only, but for all the brethren, even as the Lord has taught us 
 to pray, when He bids to each one, not private prayer, but 
 enjoined them, when they prayed, to pray for all in common 
 prayer and concordant supplication. If the Lord shall be- 
 hold us humble and peaceable ; if He shall see us joined 
 one with another ; if He shall see us fearful concerning 
 His anger ; if corrected and amended by the present tribula- 
 tion, He will maintain us safe from the disturbances of the 
 enemy. Discipline hath preceded; pardon also shall follow. 
 8. Let us only, without ceasing to ask, and with full faith 
 that we shall receive, in simplicity and unanimity beseech 
 the Lord, entreating not only with groaning but with tears, 
 as it behoves those to entreat who are situated between the 
 ruins of those who wail, and the remnants of those who fear ; 
 between the manifold slaughter of the yielding, and the little 
 firmness of those who still stand. Let us ask that peace may 
 be soon restored ; that we may be quickly helped in our 
 concealments and our dangers ; that those things may be 
 fulfilled which the Lord deigns to show to His servants, the 
 
 O ' 
 
 restoration of the church, the security of our salvation ; after 
 the rains, serenity ; after the darkness, light ; after the storms 
 and whirlwinds, a peaceful calm, the affectionate aids of 
 paternal love, the accustomed grandeurs of the divine majesty 
 whereby both the blasphemy of persecutors may be re- 
 strained, the repentance of the lapsed renewed, and the sted- 
 fast faith of the persevering may glory. I bid you, beloved 
 brethren, ever heartily farewell ; and have me in remem- 
 brance. Salute the brotherhood in my name ; and remind 
 them to remember me. Farewell. 
 
 1 Luke ix. 62. 2 Gen. xix. 26.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 83 
 
 EPISTLE VIII. 1 
 
 TO THE MARTYRS AND CONFESSORS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian, commending the African martyrs mar- 
 vellously for their constancy, urges them to perseverance 
 l>y the example of their colleague Mappalicus. 
 
 Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors in Christ our 
 Lord and in God the Father, everlasting salvation. I gladly 
 rejoice and am thankful, most brave and blessed brethren, at 
 hearing of your faith and virtue, wherein the church, our 
 Mother, glories. Lately, indeed, she gloried, when, in con- 
 sequence of an enduring confession, that punishment was 
 undergone which drove the confessors of Christ into exile ; 
 yet the present confession is so much the more illustrious 
 and greater in honour as it is braver in sufferino;. The 
 
 O O 
 
 combat has increased, and the glory of the combatants has 
 increased also. Nor were you kept back from the struggle 
 by fear of tortures, but by the very tortures themselves you 
 were more and more stimulated to the conflict ; bravely and 
 firmly you have returned with ready devotion, to contend in 
 the extremest contest. Of you I find that some are already 
 crowned, while some are even now within reach of the crown 
 of victory ; but all whom the danger has shut up in a glorious 
 company are animated to carry on the struggle with an equal 
 and common warmth of virtue, as it behoves the soldiers of 
 Christ in the divine camp : that no allurements may deceive 
 the incorruptible stedfastness of your faith, no threats terrify 
 you, no sufferings or tortures overcome you, because " greater 
 is He that is in TIS, than he that is in the world ; " 2 nor is 
 the earthly punishment able to do more towards casting 
 down, than is the divine protection towards lifting up. This 
 truth is proved by the glorious struggle of the brethren, who, 
 having become leaders to the rest in overcoming their tortures, 
 afforded an example of virtue and faith, contending in the 
 strife, until the strife yielded, being overcome. With what 
 praises can I commend you, most courageous brethren ? 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. x. * John iv. 4. 
 

 
 34 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 With what vocal proclamation can I extol the strength of 
 your heart and the perseverance of your faith ? You have 
 borne the sharpest examination by torture, even unto the 
 glorious consummation, and have not yielded to sufferings, 
 but rather the sufferings have given way to you. The end 
 of torments, which the tortures themselves did not give, the 
 crown has given. The examination by torture waxing 
 severer, continued for a long time to this result, not to over- 
 throw the stedfast faith, but to send the men of God more 
 quickly to the Lord. The multitude of those who were 
 present saw with admiration the heavenly contest, the con- 
 test of God, the spiritual contest, the battle of Christ, saw 
 that His servants stood with free voice, with unyielding 
 mind, with divine virtue bare, indeed, of weapons of this 
 world, but believing and armed with the weapons of faith. 
 The tortured stood more brave than the torturers ; and the 
 limbs, beaten and torn as they were, overcame the hooks 
 that bent and tore them. The scourge, often repeated 
 with all its rage, could not conquer invincible faith, even 
 although the membrane which enclosed the entrails were 
 
 O 
 
 broken, and it was no longer the limbs but the wounds of 
 the servants of God that were tortured. Blood was flowing 
 which might quench the blaze of persecution, which might 
 subdue the flames of Gehenna with its glorious gore. Oh, 
 what a spectacle was that to the Lord, how sublime, how 
 great, how acceptable to the eyes of God in the allegiance 
 and devotion of His soldiers ! As it is written in the Psalms, 
 when the Holy Spirit at once speaks to us and warns us : 
 " Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His 
 saints." 1 Precious is the death which has bought immor- 
 tality at the cost of its blood, which has received the crown 
 from the consummation of its virtues. How did Christ re- 
 joice therein ! How willingly did He both fight and con- 
 quer in such servants of His, as the protector of their faith, 
 and giving to believers as much as he who taketh believes 
 that he receives ! He was present at His own contest ; He 
 lifted up, strengthened, animated the champions and assertors 
 1 Ps. cxvi. 15.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 35 
 
 of His name. And He who once conquered death on our 
 behalf, always conquers it in us. " "When they," says He, 
 " deliver you up, take no thought what ye shall speak : for it 
 shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. For 
 it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which 
 speaketh in you." 1 The present struggle has afforded a 
 proof of this saying. A voice filled with the Holy Spirit 
 broke forth from the martyr's mouth when the most blessed 
 Mappalicus said to the proconsul in the midst of his tor- 
 ments, "You shall see a contest to-morrow." And that 
 which he said with the testimony of virtue and faith, the 
 Lord fulfilled. A heavenly contest was exhibited, and the 
 servant of God was crowned in the struggle of the promised 
 fight. This is the contest which the prophet Isaiah of old 
 predicted, saying, " It shall be no light contest for you with 
 men, since God appoints the struggle." 2 And in order to 
 show what this struggle would be, he added the words, " Be- 
 hold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and ye shall call 
 His name Emmanuel." 3 This is the struggle of our faith in 
 which we engage, in which we conquer, in which we are 
 crowned. This is the struggle which the blessed Apostle 
 Paul has shown to us, in which it behoves us to run and to 
 attain the crown of glory. "Do ye not know," says he, 
 " that they which run in a race, run all indeed, but one re- 
 ceiveth the prize ? So run that ye may obtain." " Now they 
 do it that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an 
 incorruptible." 4 Moreover, setting forth his own struggle, 
 and declaring that he himself should soon be a sacrifice for 
 the Lord's sake, he says, " I am now ready to be offered, 
 and the time of my assumption is at hand. I have fought a 
 good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith : 
 henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 
 Avhich the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that 
 day ; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His 
 appearing." 5 This fight, therefore, predicted of old by the 
 prophets, begun by the Lord, waged by the apostles, Map- 
 
 1 Matt. x. 19, 20. 2 Isa. vii. 13 ; vide Lam. iii. 26. 
 
 3 Isa. vii. 14. * 1 Cor. ix. 24, 25. 5 2 Tim. iv. 6-8.
 
 36 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 palicus promised again to the proconsul in his own name 
 and that of his colleagues. Nor did the faithful voice de- 
 ceive in his promise ; he exhibited the fight to which he had 
 pledged himself, and he received the reward which he de- 
 served. I not only beseech but exhort the rest of you, that 
 you all should follow that martyr now most blessed, and the 
 other partners of that engagement, soldiers and comrades, 
 stedfast in faith, patient in suffering, victors in tortures, that 
 those who are united at once by the bond of confession, and 
 the entertainment of a dungeon, may also be united in the con- 
 summation of their virtue and a celestial crown ; that you by 
 your joy may dry the tears of our Mother, the church, who 
 mourns over the wreck and death of very many; and that you 
 may confirm, by the provocation of your example, the sted- 
 fastness of others who stand also. If the battle shall call 
 you out, if the day of your contest shall come, engage bravely, 
 fight with constancy, as knowing that you are fighting under 
 the eyes of a present Lord, that you are attaining by the 
 confession of His name to His own glory ; who is not such a 
 one as that He only looks on His servants, but He Himself 
 also wrestles in us, Himself is engaged, Himself also in the 
 struggles of our conflict not only crowns, but is crowned. 
 But if before the day of your contest, of the mercy of God, 
 peace shall supervene, let there still remain to you the sound 
 will and the glorious conscience. Nor let any one of you 
 be saddened as if he were inferior to those who before you 
 have suffered tortures, have overcome the world and trodden 
 it under foot, and so have come to the Lord by a glorious 
 road. For the Lord is the " searcher out of the reins and 
 the hearts." 1 He looks through secret things, and beholds 
 that which is concealed. In order to merit the crown from 
 Him, His own testimony alone is sufficient, who will judge 
 us. Therefore, beloved brethren, either case is equally lofty 
 and illustrious, the former more secure, to wit, to hasten to 
 the Lord with the consummation of our victory, the latter 
 more joyous ; a leave of absence, after glory, being received 
 to flourish in the praises of the church. O blessed church of 
 1 Rev. ii. 23.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 37 
 
 ours, which the honour of the divine condescension illumi- 
 nates, which in our own times the glorious blood of martyrs 
 renders illustrious ! She was white before in the works of 
 the brethren ; now she has become purple in the blood of the 
 martyrs. Among her flowers are wanting neither roses nor 
 lilies. Now let each one strive for the largest dignity of 
 either honour. Let them receive crowns, either white, as of 
 labours, or of purple, as of suffering. In the heavenly camp 
 both peace and strife have their own flowers, with which the 
 soldier of Christ may be crowned for glory. I bid you, most 
 brave and beloved brethren, always heartily farewell in the 
 Lord ; and have me in remembrance. Fare ye well. 
 
 EPISTLE IX. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING CERTAIN PRESBYTERS WHO 
 HAD RASHLY GRANTED PEACE TO THE LAPSED BEFORE 
 THE PERSECUTION HAD BEEN APPEASED, AND WITH- 
 OUT THE PRIVITY OF THE BISHOPS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The argument of this epistle is contained in the 
 following ivords of the 14th epistle: " To the presby- 
 ters and deacons" he says, " icas not wanting the vigour 
 of the priesthood, so that some, too little mindful of dis- 
 cipline, and hasty with a rash precipitation^ icho had 
 already begun to communicate with the lapsed, icere 
 checked" 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, 
 greeting. I have long been patient, beloved brethren, hoping 
 that my forbearing silence would avail to quietness. But since 
 the unreasonable and reckless presumption of some is seek- 
 ing by its boldness to disturb both the honour of the martyrs, 
 and the modesty of the confessors, and the tranquillity of the 
 whole people, it behoves me no longer to keep silence, lest 
 too much reticence should issue in danger both to the people 
 and to ourselves. For what danger ouc;ht we not to fear 
 
 O O 
 
 from the Lord's displeasure, when some of the presbyters, 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xvi.
 
 38 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 remembering neither the gospel nor their own place, and, 
 moreover, considering neither the Lord's future judgment nor 
 the bishop now placed over them, claim to themselves entire 
 authority (a thing which was never in any wise done under 
 our predecessors), with discredit and contempt of the bishop ? 
 2. And I wish, if it could be so without the sacrifice of our 
 brethren's safety, that they could make good their claim to all 
 things; I could dissemble and bear the discredit of my episco- 
 pal authority, as I always have dissembled and borne it. But 
 it is not now the occasion for dissimulating when our brother- 
 hood is deceived by some of you, who, while without the means 
 of restoring salvation they desire to please, become a still 
 greater stumbling-block to the lapsed. For that it is a very 
 great crime which persecution has compelled to be committed, 
 they themselves know who, have committed it; since our Lord 
 and Judge has said, "Whosoever shall confess me before men, 
 him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven; 
 but whosoever shall deny me, him will I also deny." 1 And 
 again He has said, "All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons 
 of men, and blasphemies ; but he that shall blaspheme against 
 the Holy Ghost shall not have forgiveness, but is guilty of 
 eternal sin." 2 Also the blessed apostle has said, " Ye cannot 
 drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils ; ye cannot 
 be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils." 3 
 He who withholds these words from our brethren deceives 
 them, wretched that they are ; so that they who truly repent- 
 ing might satisfy God, both as the Father and as merciful, 
 with their prayers and works, are seduced more deeply to 
 perish ; and they who might raise themselves up fall the more 
 "deeply. For although in smaller sins sinners may do penance 
 for a set time, and according to the rules of discipline come to 
 public confession, 4 and by imposition of the hand of the bishop 
 and clergy receive the right of communion : now with their 
 time still unfulfilled, while persecution is still raging, while 
 the peace of the church itself is not yet restored, they are 
 admitted to communion, and their name is presented ; and 
 
 1 Matt. x. 32, 33. 2 Mark iii. 28, 29. 
 
 8 1 Cor. x. 21. * " Exomologesis."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 39 
 
 while the penance is not yet performed, confession is not yet 
 made, the hands of the bishop and clergy are not yet laid upon 
 them, the eucharist is given to them ; although it is written, 
 " Whosoever shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the 
 Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the 
 Lord." 1 
 
 3. But now they are not guilty who so little observe the law 
 of Scripture ; but they will be guilty who are in office and do 
 not suggest these things to brethren, so that, being instructed 
 by those placed above them, they may do all things with the 
 fear of God, and with the observance given and prescribed by 
 Him. Then, moreover, they lay the blessed martyrs open to 
 ill-will, and involve the glorious servants of God with the 
 priest of God ; so that although they, mindful of my place, 
 have directed letters to me, and have asked that their wishes 
 should then be examined, and peace granted them, when our 
 Mother, the church herself, should first have received peace 
 for the Lord's mercy, and the divine protection have brought 
 me back to His church, yet these, disregarding the honour 
 which the blessed martyrs with the confessors maintain for me, 
 despising the Lord's law and that observance, which the same 
 martyrs and confessors bid to be maintained, before the fear 
 of persecution is quenched, before my return, almost even 
 before the departure of the martyrs, communicate with the 
 lapsed, and offer and give them the eucharist, when even if 
 the martyrs, in the heat of their glory, were to consider less 
 carefully the Scriptures, and to desire anything more, they 
 should be admonished by the presbyters' and deacons' sugges- 
 tions, as was always done in time past. 
 
 4. For this reason the divine rebuke does not cease to 
 chastise us night nor day. For besides the visions of the night, 
 by day also, the innocent age of boys is among us filled with 
 the Holy Spirit, seeing in an ecstasy with their eyes, and hear- 
 ing and speaking those things whereby the Lord condescends 
 to warn and instruct us. And you shall hear all things when 
 the Lord, who bade me withdraw, shall bring me back again 
 to you. In the meanwhile, let those certain ones among you 
 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 27.
 
 40 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 who are rash and incautious and boastful, and who do not 
 regard man, at least fear God, knowing that, if they shall 
 persevere still in the same course, I shall use that power of 
 admonition which the Lord bids me use ; so that they may 
 meanwhile be withheld from offering, and have to plead their 
 cause both before me and before the confessors themselves 
 and before the whole people, when, with God's permission, 
 we begin to be gathered together once more into the bosom 
 of the church, our Mother. Concerning this matter, I have 
 written to the martyrs and confessors, and to the people, 
 letters ; both of which I have bidden to be read to you. I 
 wish you, dearly beloved brethren and earnestly longed-for, 
 ever heartily farewell in the Lord; and have me in remem- 
 brance. Fare ye well. 
 
 EPISTLE X. 1 
 
 TO THE MARTYRS AND CONFESSORS WHO SOUGHT THAT 
 PEACE SHOULD BE GRANTED TO THE LAPSED. 
 
 AKGUMENT. The occasion of this letter is given below in 
 Epistle xiv. as follows: li When I found that those icho 
 had polluted their hands and mouths with sacrilegious 
 contact, or had no less infected their conscience with tvicked 
 certificates, were everywhere soliciting the martyrs, and 
 were also corrupting the confessors icith importunate and 
 excessive entreaty ', so that, without any distinction or exa- 
 mination of the individuals, thousands of certificates 
 were given, against the gospel law, 1 wrote letters in which 
 I recalled by my advice as much as possible the martyrs 
 and confessors to the Lortfs commands? 
 
 1. Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors, his beloved 
 brethren, greeting. The anxiety of my situation and the 
 fear of the Lord constrain me, my brave and beloved 
 brethren, to admonish you in my letters, that those who so 
 devotedly and bravely maintain the faith of the Lord should 
 also maintain the law and discipline of the Lord. For while 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xv.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 41 
 
 it behoves all Christ's soldiers to keep the precepts of their 
 commander; to you it is more especially fitting that you 
 should obey His precepts, inasmuch as you have been made 
 an example to others, both of valour and of the fear of God. 
 And I had indeed believed that the presbyters and deacons 
 who are there present with you would admonish and instruct 
 you more fully concerning the law of the gospel, as was the 
 case always in time past under my predecessors ; so that the 
 deacons passing in and out of the prison controlled the 
 wishes of the martyrs by their counsels, and by the Scripture 
 precepts. But now, with great sorrow of mind, 1 gather that 
 not only the divine precepts are not suggested to you by them, 
 but that they are even rather restrained, so that those things 
 which are done by you yourselves, both in respect of God 
 with caution, and in respect of God's priest with honour, are 
 relaxed by certain presbyters, who consider neither the fear 
 of God nor the honour of the bishop. Although you sent 
 letters to me in which you ask that your wishes should be 
 examined, and that peace should be granted to certain of the 
 lapsed as soon as with the end of the persecution we should 
 have begun to meet with our clergy, and to be gathered 
 together once more ; those presbyters, contrary to the gospel 
 law, contrary also to your respectful petition, before penance 
 was performed, before confession even of the gravest and 
 most heinous sin was made, before hands were placed upon 
 the repentance by the bishops and clergy, dare to offer on 
 their behalf, and to give them the eucharist, that is, to profane 
 the sacred body of the Lord, although it is written, " Who- 
 soever shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord 
 unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." 1 
 2. And to the lapsed indeed pardon may be granted ia 
 respect of this thing. For what dead person would not 
 hasten to be made alive ? Who would not be earjer to attain 
 
 O 
 
 to his own salvation ? But it is the duty of those placed over 
 them to keep the ordinance, and to instruct those that are 
 either hurrying or ignorant, that those who ought to be 
 shepherds of the sheep may not become their butchers. For 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 27.
 
 42 THE EPISTLES OF CJPEIAN. 
 
 to concede those things which tend to destruction is to 
 deceive. Nor is the lapsed raised in this manner, but, by 
 offending God, he is more urged on to ruin. Let them learn, 
 therefore, even from you, what they ought to have taught ; 
 let them reserve your petitions and wishes for the bishops, 
 and let them wait for ripe and peaceable times to give peace 
 at your requests. The first thing is, that the Mother should 
 first receive peace from the Lord, and then, in accordance 
 with your wishes, that the peace of her children should be 
 considered. 
 
 3. And since I hear, most brave and beloved brethren, that 
 you are pressed by the shamelessness of some, and that your 
 modesty suffers violence ; I beg you with what entreaties I 
 may, that, as mindful of the gospel, and considering what and 
 what sort of things in past time your predecessors the mar- 
 tyrs conceded, how careful they were in all respects, you also 
 should anxiously and cautiously weigh the wishes of those 
 who petition you, since, as friends of the Lord, and hereafter 
 to exercise judgment with Him, you must inspect both the 
 conduct and the doings and the deserts of each one. You 
 
 O 
 
 must consider also the kinds and qualities of their sins, lest, 
 in the event of anything being abruptly and unworthily 
 either promised by you or done by me, our church should 
 begin to blush, even before the very Gentiles. For we are 
 visited and chastened frequently, and we are admonished, 
 that the commandments of the Lord may be kept without 
 corruption or violation, which I find does not cease to be the 
 case there among you so as to prevent the divine judgment 
 from instructing very many of you also in the discipline of 
 the church. Now this can all be done, if you will regulate 
 those things that are asked of you with a careful consideration 
 of religion, perceiving and restraining those who, by accept- 
 ing persons, either make favours in distributing your benefits, 
 or seek to make a profit of an unlawful trade. 
 
 4. Concerning this I have written both to the clergy and 
 to the people, both of which letters I have directed to be read 
 to you. But you ought also to bring back and amend that 
 matter according to your diligence, in such a way as to
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 43 
 
 designate those by name to whom you desire that peace 
 should be granted. For I hear that certificates are so given 
 to some as that it is said, " Let such a one be received to 
 communion along with his friends," which was never in any 
 case done by the martyrs so that a vague and blind petition 
 should by and by heap reproach upon us. For it opens a wide 
 door to say, <( Such a one with his friends ; " and twenty or 
 thirty or more, may be presented to us, who may be asserted to 
 be neighbours and connections, and freedmen and servants, of 
 the man who receives the certificate. And for this reason I 
 beg you that you will designate by name in the certificate 
 those whom you yourselves see, whom you have known, whose 
 penitence you see to be very near to full satisfaction, and so 
 direct to us letters in conformity with faith and discipline. 
 I bid you, very brave and beloved brethren, ever heartily 
 in the Lord farewell ; and have me in remembrance. Fare 
 ye well. 
 
 EPISTLE XL 1 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The substance of this letter is also suggested in 
 Epistle xiv. " Among the people also" he says, " / have 
 done what I could to quiet their minds, and have instructed 
 them to be retained in ecclesiastical discipline" 
 
 1. Cyprian to his brethren among the people wlio stand 
 fast, greeting. That you bewail and grieve over the downfall 
 of our brethren I know from myself, beloved brethren, who 
 also bewail with you and grieve for each one, and suffer and 
 feel what the blessed apostle said : " Who is weak," said he, 
 " and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?"' 
 And again he has laid it down in his epistle, saying, 
 " Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with 
 it ; or one member rejoice, all the members rejoice with it." 3 
 I sympathize with you in your suffering and grief, therefore, 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xvii. 2 2 Cor. xi. 29. 3 1 Cor. xii. 26.
 
 44 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 for our brethren, who, having lapsed and fallen prostrate under 
 the severity of the persecution, have inflicted a like pain on 
 us by their wounds, inasmuch as they tear away part of our 
 bowels with them, to these the divine mercvis able to brine; 
 
 V 
 
 healing. Yet I do not think that there must be any haste, 
 nor that anything must be done incautiously and immaturely, 
 lest, while peace is being grasped at, the divine indignation 
 be more seriously incurred. The blessed martyrs have 
 written to me about certain persons, requesting that their 
 wishes may be examined into. When, as soon as peace is 
 given to us all by the Lord, we shall begin to return to the 
 church, then the wishes of each one shall be looked into in 
 your presence, and with your judgment. 
 
 2. Yet I hear that certain of the presbyters, neither mind- 
 ful of the gospel nor considering what the martyrs have 
 written to me, nor reserving to the bishop the honour of his 
 priesthood and of his dignity, have already begun to com- 
 municate with the lapsed, and to offer on their behalf, and 
 to give them the eucharist, when it was fitting that they 
 should attain to these things in due course. For, as in smaller 
 sins which are not committed against God, penance may be 
 performed in a set time, and confession may be made with 
 investigation of the life of him who performs the penance, 
 and no one can come to communion unless the hands of the 
 bishop and clergy be first imposed upon him ; how much 
 more ought all such matters as these to be observed with 
 caution and moderation, according to the discipline of the 
 Lord, in these gravest and extremest sins ! This warning, 
 indeed, our presbyters and deacons ought to have given you, 
 that they might cherish the sheep committed to their care, 
 and by the divine authority might instruct them in the way 
 of obtaining salvation by prayer. I am aware of the peace- 
 fulness as well as the fear of our people, who would be watch- 
 ful in the satisfaction and the deprecation of God's anger, 
 unless some of the presbyters, by way of gratifying them, 
 had deceived them. 
 
 3. Even you, therefore, yourselves, guide them each one, 
 and control the minds of the lapsed by counsel and by your
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 45 
 
 own moderation, according to the divine precepts. Let no 
 one pluck the unripe fruit at a time as yet premature. Let 
 no one commit his ship, shattered and broken with the waves, 
 anew to the deep, before he has carefully repaired it. Let 
 none be in haste to accept and to put on a rent tunic, unless 
 he has seen it mended by a skilful workman, and has received 
 it arranged by the fuller. Let them bear with patience my 
 advice, I beg. Let them look for my return, that when by 
 God's mercy I come to you, I, with many of my co-bishops, 
 being called together according to the Lord's discipline, and 
 in the presence of the confessors, and with your opinion also, 
 may be able to examine the letters and the wishes of the 
 blessed martyrs. Concerning this matter I have written both 
 to the clergy and to the martyrs and confessors, both of 
 which letters I have directed to be read to you. I bid you, 
 brethren beloved and most longed-for, ever heartily fare- 
 well in the Lord ; and have me in remembrance. Fare ye 
 well. n 
 
 EPISTLE XII. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING THE LAPSED AND GATE- . 
 CHUMENS, THAT THEY SHOULD NOT BE LEFT WITHOUT 
 SUPERINTENDENCE. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The lurden of this letter, as of the succeeding one, 
 is found below in the 14^/t epistle. " But afterwards" 
 lie says, " ichen some of the lapsed, ivhether of their own 
 accord, or by the suggestion of any other, broke forth ivith 
 a daring demand, as though they ivould endeavour, by a 
 violent effort, to extort the peace that had been promised 
 to them by the martyrs and confessors, concerning this 
 also 1 ivrote twice to the clergy, and commanded it to be 
 read to them, that for the mitigation of their violence in 
 any manner for the meantime, if any who had received 
 a certificate from the martyrs were departing from this 
 life, having made confession and received the hands im- 
 posed upon them for repentance, they should be remitted 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xviii.
 
 46 THE EPISTLES OF CJPRIAN. 
 
 to the Lord with the peace promised them by the mar~ 
 tyrs" etc. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, 
 greeting. I marvel, beloved brethren, that you have answered 
 nothing to me in reply to my many letters which I have fre- 
 quently written to you, although as well the advantage as the 
 need of our brotherhood would certainly be best provided for 
 if, receiving information from you, I could accurately inves- 
 tigate and advise upon the management of affairs. Since, 
 however, I see that there is not yet any opportunity of 
 coming to you, and that the summer has already begun 
 a season that is disturbed with continual and heavy sicknesses, 
 I think that our brethren must be dealt with ; that they 
 who have received certificates from the martyrs, and may 
 be assisted by their privilege with God, if they should be 
 seized with any misfortune and peril of sickness, should, 
 without waiting for my presence, before any presbyter who 
 might be present, or if a presbyter should not be found and 
 death begins to be imminent, before even a deacon, be able 
 to make confession of their sin, that, with the imposition of 
 hands upon them for repentance, they should come to the 
 Lord with the peace which the martyrs have desired, by their 
 letters to us, to be granted to them. 
 
 2. Cherish also by your presence the rest of the people 
 who are lapsed, and cheer them by your consolation, that they 
 may not fail of the faith and of God's mercy. For those 
 shall not be forsaken by the aid and assistance of the Lord, 
 who meekly, humbly, and with true penitence have perse- 
 vered in good works ; but the divine remedy will be granted 
 to them also. To the hearers 1 also, if there are any overtaken 
 by danger, and placed near to death, let your vigilance not be 
 wanting ; let not the mercy of the Lord be denied to those 
 that are imploring the divine favour. I bid you, beloved 
 brethren, ever heartily farewell ; and remember me. Greet 
 the whole brotherhood in my name, and remind them and 
 ask them to be mindful of me. Fare ye well. 
 
 1 " Audientibus," soil, catechumens.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 47 
 
 EPISTLE XIII. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING THOSE WHO ARE IN HASTE 
 TO RECEIVE PEACE. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Peace must be attained through penitence, and 
 penitence is realized by keeping the commandments. They 
 who are oppressed with sickness, if they are relieved by 
 the suffrages of the martyrs, may be admitted to peace ; 
 but others are to be kept back until the peace of the church 
 is secured. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, 
 greeting. I have read your letter, beloved brethren, wherein 
 you wrote that your wholesome counsel was not wanting to 
 our brethren, that, laying aside all rash haste, they should 
 manifest a religious patience to God, so that when by His 
 mercy we come together, we may debate upon all kinds of 
 things, according to the discipline of the church, especially 
 since it is written, " Remember from whence thou hast fallen, 
 and repent." 2 Now he repents, who, remembering the divine 
 precept, with meekness and patience, and obeying the priests 
 of God, deserves well of the Lord by his obedience and his 
 righteous works. 
 
 2. Since, however, ypu intimate that some are petulant, 
 and eagerly urge their being received to communion, and 
 have desired in this matter that some rule should be given 
 by me to you, I think I have sufficiently written on this sub- 
 ject in the last letter that was sent to you, that they who 
 have received a certificate from the martyrs, and can be 
 assisted by their help with the Lord in respect of their sins, 
 if they begin to be oppressed with any sickness or risk; when 
 they have made confession, and have received the imposition 
 of hands on them by you in acknowledgment of their peni- 
 tence, should be remitted to the Lord with the peace promised 
 to them by the martyrs. But others who, without having 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xix. 2 Rev. ii. 5.
 
 48 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 received any certificate from the martyrs, are envious l (since 
 this is the cause not of a few, nor of one church, nor of one 
 province, but of the whole world), must wait, in dependence 
 on the protection of the Lord, for the public peace of the 
 church itself. For this is suitable to the modesty and the 
 discipline, and even the life of all of us, that the chief officers 
 meeting together with the clergy in the presence also of the 
 people who stand fast, to whom themselves, moreover, honour 
 is to be shown for their faith and fear, we may be able to 
 order all things with the religiousness of a common consulta- 
 tion. But how irreligious is it, and mischievous, even to those 
 themselves who are eager, that while such as are exiles, and 
 driven from their country, and spoiled of all their property, 
 have not yet returned to the church, some of the lapsed 
 should be hasty to anticipate even confessors themselves, and 
 to enter into the church before them ! If they are so over- 
 anxious, they have what they require in their own power, the 
 times themselves offering them freely more than they ask. 
 The struggle is still going forward, and the strife is daily 
 celebrated. If they truly and with constancy repent of what 
 they have done, and the fervour of their faith prevails, he 
 who cannot be delayed may be crowned. I bid you, beloved 
 brethren, ever heartily farewell; and have me in remem- 
 brance. Greet all the brotherhood in my name, and tell 
 them to be mindful of me. Fare ye well. 
 
 EPISTLE XIV. 2 
 
 TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ASSEMBLED AT ROME. 
 
 ARGUMENT. He gives an account of his withdrawal and of 
 the things which he did therein, having sent to Rome for 
 
 1 Faciunt invidiam : " are producing ill-will to us." Those who were 
 eager to be received into the church without certificates would produce 
 ill-will to those who refused to receive them, as if they were too strict. 
 Thus Rigaltius explains the passage. " These," Cyprian says, " should 
 wait until the church in its usual way gives them peace publicly." 
 
 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xx.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 49 
 
 his justification, copies of the letters ivhich he had written 
 to his people ; nay, he makes use of the same words ivhich 
 he had employed in them. (Comp. Ep. xxii. to the 
 Roman clergy.) 
 
 1. Cyprian to his brethren the presbyters and deacons 
 assembled at Rome, greeting. Having ascertained, beloved 
 brethren, that what I have done and am doincj has been told 
 
 ' O 
 
 to you in a somewhat garbled and untruthful manner, I have 
 thought it necessary to write this letter to you, wherein I might 
 give an account to you of my doings, my discipline, and my 
 diligence ; for, as the Lord's commands teach, immediately 
 the first burst of the disturbance arose, and the people with 
 violent clamour repeatedly demanded me, I, taking into 
 consideration not so much my own safety as the public peace 
 of the brethren, withdrew for a while, lest, by my over-bold 
 presence, the tumult which had begun might be still further 
 provoked. Nevertheless, although absent in body, I was not 
 wanting either in spirit, or in act, or in my advice, so as to 
 fail in any benefit that I could afford my brethren by my 
 counsel, according to the Lord's precepts, in anything that 
 my poor abilities enabled me. 
 
 2. And what I did, these thirteen letters sent forth at 
 various times declare to you, which I have transmitted to 
 you ; in which neither counsel to the clergy, nor exhortation 
 to the confessors, nor rebuke, when it was necessary, to the 
 exiles, nor my appeals and persuasions to the whole brother- 
 hood, that they should entreat the mercy of God, was wanting 
 to the full extent that, according to the law of faith and the 
 fear of God, with the Lord's help, my poor abilities could 
 endeavour. But afterwards, when tortures came, my words 
 reached both to our tortured brethren and to those who as yet 
 were only imprisoned with a view to torture, to strengthen 
 and console them. Moreover, when I found that those who 
 had polluted their hands and mouths with sacrilegious con- 
 tact, or had no less infected their consciences with wicked 
 certificates, were everywhere soliciting the martyrs, and were 
 also corrupting the confessors with importunate and excessive 
 
 D
 
 50 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 entreaties, so that, without any discrimination or examination 
 of the individuals themselves, thousands of certificates were 
 beincr daily given, contrary to the law of the gospel, I wrote 
 letters in which I recalled by my advice, as much as possible, 
 the martyrs and confessors to the Lord's commands. To the 
 presbyters and deacons also was not wanting the vigour of 
 the priesthood ; so that some, too little mindful of discipline^ 
 and hasty, with a rash precipitation, who had already begun 
 to communicate with the lapsed, were restrained by my inter- 
 position. Among the people, moreover, I have done what I 
 could to quiet their minds, and have instructed them to main- 
 tain ecclesiastical discipline. 
 
 3. But afterwards, when some of the lapsed, whether of their 
 own accord, or by the suggestion of any other, broke forth with 
 a daring demand, as though they would endeavour by a violent 
 effort to extort the peace that had been promised to them by 
 the martyrs and confessors ; concerning this also I wrote twice 
 to the clergy, and commanded it to be read to them ; that for 
 the mitigation of their violence in any manner for the mean- 
 time, if any who had received a certificate from the martyrs 
 were departing from this life, having made confession, and 
 received the imposition of hands on them for repentance, they 
 should be remitted to the Lord with the peace promised them 
 by the martyrs. Nor in this did I give them a law, or 
 rashly constitute myself the author of the direction ; but as 
 it seemed fit both that honour should be paid to the martyrs, 
 and that the vehemence of those who were anxious to disturb 
 everything should be restrained ; and when, besides, I had 
 read your letter which you lately wrote hither to my clergy 
 by Crementius the sub-deacon, to the effect that assistance- 
 should be given to those who might, after their lapse, bo 
 seized with sickness, and might penitently desire communion ; 
 I judged it well to stand by your judgment, lest our proceed- 
 ings, which ought to be united and to agree in all things, 
 should in any respect be different. The cases of the rest, 
 even although they might have received certificates from the 
 martyrs, I ordered altogether to be put off, and to be reserved 
 till I should be present, that so, when the Lord has given to
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 51 
 
 us peace, and several bishops shall have begun to assemble 
 into one place, we may be able to arrange and reform every- 
 thing, having the advantage also of your counsel. I bid you, 
 beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XV. 1 
 
 TO MOYSES AND MAXIMUS, AND THE EEST OF THE 
 CONFESSORS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Tlie burden of this letter is given in Epistle 
 xxxi. below, where the Roman clergy say : ll On which 
 subject ice owe, you, and give you our deepest and abun- 
 dant thanks, that you threw light into the gloom of their 
 prison by your letters ; that you came to them in such 
 way as you could enter ; that you refreshed their minds, 
 robust in their own faith and confession, by your appeals 
 and your letters ; that, accompanying their happiness with 
 deserved praises, you inflamed them to a much more ardent 
 desire for heavenly glory ; that you urged them onward 
 in the course ; that you animated, as we believe and hope, 
 future victors by the power of your address, so that, al- 
 though all this may seem to come from the faith of the con- 
 fessors and the divine indulgence, yet in their martyrdom 
 they may seem in some manner to have become debtors 
 to you" 
 
 1. Cyprian to Moyses and Maximus, the presbyters and the 
 other confessors, his brethren, greeting. Celerinus, a companion 
 both of your faith and virtue, and God's soldier in glorious 
 engagements, has come to me, beloved brethren, and repre- 
 sented all of yon, as well as each individual, forcibly to my 
 affection. I beheld in him, when he came, the whole of you ; 
 and when he spoke sweetly and often of your love to me, in 
 his words I heard you. I rejoice very greatly when such 
 things are brought to me from you by such men as he. In 
 a certain manner I am also there with you in prison. I 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxxvii.
 
 52 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 think that I who am thus bound to your hearts, enjoy with 
 you the delights of the divine approval. Your individual 
 love associates me with your honour; the Spirit does not 
 allow our love to be separated. Confession shuts you up 
 in prison ; affection shuts me up there. And I indeed, re- 
 membering you day and night, both when in the sacrifices 
 I offer prayer with many, and when in retirement I pray 
 with private petition, beseech of the Lord a full acknowledg- 
 ment to your crowns and your praises. But my poor ability 
 is too weak to recompense you ; you give more when you 
 remember me in prayer, since, already breathing only celestial 
 things, and meditating only divine things, you ascend to 
 loftier heights, even by the delay of your suffering ; and 
 by the long lapse of time, are not wasting, but increasing 
 your glory. A first and single confession makes blessed ; 
 you confess as often as, when asked to retire from prison, 
 you prefer the prison with faith and virtue ; your praises 
 are as numerous as the days ; as the months roll onward, 
 ever your merits increase. He conquers once who suffers 
 at once ; but he who continues always battling with punish- 
 ments, and is not overcome with suffering;, is dailv crowned. 
 
 O/ * 
 
 2. Now, therefore, let magistrates and consuls or pro- 
 consuls go by ; let them glory in the ensigns of their yearly 
 dignity, and in their twelve fasces. Behold, the heavenly 
 dignity in you is sealed by the brightness of a year's honour, 
 and already, in the continuance of its victorious glory, has 
 passed over the rolling circle of the returning year. The 
 rising sun and the waning moon enlightened the world ; but 
 to you, He who made the sun and moon was a greater light 
 in your dungeon, and the brightness of Christ glowing in your 
 hearts and minds, irradiated with that eternal and brilliant 
 light the gloom of the place of punishment, which to others 
 was so horrible and deadly. The winter has passed through 
 the vicissitudes of the months ; but you, shut up in prison, 
 were undergoing, instead of the inclemencies of winter, the 
 winter of persecution. To the winter succeeded the mildness 
 of spring, rejoicing with roses and crowned with flowers ; but 
 to you were present roses and flowers from the delights of
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 53 
 
 paradise, and celestial garlands wreathed your brows. Be- 
 hold; the summer is fruitful with the fertility of the harvest, 
 and the threshing-floor is filled with grain ; but you who 
 have sown glory, reap the fruit of glory, and, placed in the 
 Lord's threshing-floor, behold the chaff burnt up with un- 
 quenchable fire ; you yourselves as grains of wheat, winnowed 
 and precious corn, now purged and garnered, regard the 
 dwelling-place of a prison as your granary. Nor is there want- 
 ing to the autumn spiritual grace for discharging the duties 
 of the season. The vintage is pressed out of doors, and the 
 grape which shall hereafter flow into the cups is trodden in 
 the presses. You, rich bunches out of the Lord's vineyard, 
 and branches with fruit already ripe, trodden by the tribula- 
 tion of worldly pressure, fill your wine-press in the torturing 
 prison, and shed your blood instead of wine ; brave to bear 
 suffering, you willingly drink the cup of martyrdom. Thus 
 the year rolls on with the Lord's servants, thus is celebrated 
 the vicissitude of the seasons with spiritual deserts, and with 
 celestial rewards. 
 
 3. Abundantly blessed are they who, from your number, 
 passing through these footprints of glory, have already de- 
 parted from the world; and, having finished their journey 
 of virtue and faith, have attained to the embrace and the 
 kiss of the Lord, to the joy of the Lord Himself. But 
 yet your glory is not less, who are still engaged in contest, 
 and, about to follow the glories of your comrades, are long 
 waging the battle, and with an unmoved and unshaken faith 
 standing fast, are daily exhibiting in your virtues a spectacle 
 in the sight of God. The longer is your strife, the loftier 
 will be your crown. The struggle is one, but it is crowded 
 with a manifold multitude of contests ; you conquer hunger, 
 and despise thirst, and tread under foot the squalor of the 
 dungeon, and the horror of the very abode of punishment, 
 by the vigour of your courage. Punishment is there sub- 
 dued ; torture is worn out ; death is not feared but desired, 
 being overcome by the reward of immortality, so that he 
 who has conquered is crowned with eternity of life. What 
 now must be the mind in you, how elevated, how large
 
 54 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the heart, -when such and so great things are resolved, when 
 nothing but the precepts of God and the rewards of Christ 
 are considered ! The will is then only God's will ; and al- 
 though you are still placed in the flesh, it is the life not of 
 the present world, but of the future, that you now live. 
 
 4. It now remains, beloved brethren, that you should be 
 mindful of me ; that, among your great and divine considera- 
 tions, you should also think of me in your mind and spirit ; 
 and that I should be in your prayers and supplications, when 
 that voice, which is illustrious by the purification of confession, 
 and praiseworthy for the continual tenor of its honour, pene- 
 trates to God's ears, and heaven being open to it, passes from 
 these regions of the world subdued, to the realms above, and 
 obtains from the Lord's goodness even what it asks. For 
 what do you ask from the Lord's mercy which you do not 
 deserve to obtain? you who have thus observed the Lord's 
 commands, who have maintained the gospel discipline with 
 the simple vigour of your faith, who, with the glory of 
 your virtue uncorrupted, have stood bravely by the Lord's 
 commands, and by His apostles, and have confirmed the 
 wavering faith of many by the truth of your martyrdom ? 
 Truly, gospel witnesses, and truly, Christ's martyrs, resting 
 upon His roots, founded with strong foundation upon the 
 Rock, you have joined discipline with virtue, you have 
 brought others to the fear of God, you have made your 
 martyrdoms, examples. I bid you, brethren, very brave and 
 beloved, ever heartily farewell ; and remember me. 
 
 EPISTLE XVI. 1 
 
 THE CONFESSORS TO CYPRIAN. 
 
 ARGUMENT. A certificate written in the name of the martyrs 
 
 by Lucianus. 
 
 
 
 All the confessors to Father 2 Cyprian, greeting. Know 
 that, to all, concerning whom the account of what they have 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxiii. 2 " Cypriano Papse," to Pope Cyprian.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 55 
 
 done since the commission of their sin has been, in your 
 estimation, satisfactory, we have granted peace ; and we have 
 desired that this rescript should be made known by you to 
 the other bishops also. We bid you to have peace with the 
 holy martyrs. Lucianus wrote this, there being present of 
 the clergy, both an exorcist and a reader. 
 
 EPISTLE XVII. 1 
 
 TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ABOUT THE FOREGOING 
 AND THE FOLLOWING LETTERS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. No account is to be made of certificates from the 
 martyrs before the peace of the church is restored. 
 
 Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, 
 greeting. The Lord speaketh and saith, " Upon whom 
 shall I look, but upon him that is humble and quiet, and that 
 trembleth at my words'?" 2 Although we ought all to be this, 
 yet especially those ought to be so who must labour, that, 
 after their grave lapse, they may, by true penitence and 
 absolute humility, deserve well of the Lord. Now I have 
 read the letter of the whole body of confessors, which they 
 wish to be made known by me to all my colleagues, and in 
 which they requested that the peace given by themselves 
 should be assured to those concerning whom the account of 
 
 O 
 
 what they have done since their crime has been, in our 
 estimation, satisfactory ; which matter, as it waits for the 
 counsel and judgment of all of us, I do not dare to prejudge, 
 and so to assume a common cause for my own decision. And 
 therefore, in the meantime, let us abide by the letters which 
 I lately wrote to you, of which I have now sent a copy to 
 many of my colleagues, who wrote in reply, that they were 
 pleased with what I had decided, and that there must be no 
 departure therefrom, until, peace being granted to us by the 
 Lord, we shall be 'able to assemble together into one place, 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxvi. 2 Isa. Ixvi. 2.
 
 56 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 and to examine into the cases of individuals. But that you 
 may know both what my colleague Caldonius wrote to me, 
 and what I replied to him, I have enclosed with my letter a 
 copy of each letter, the whole of which I beg you to read to 
 our brethren, that they may be more and more settled down to 
 patience, and not add another fault to what had hitherto been 
 their former fault, not being willing to obey either me or the 
 gospel, nor allowing their ca,ses to be examined in accordance 
 with the letters of all the confessors. I bid you, beloved 
 brethren, ever heartily farewell ; and have me in remem- 
 brance. Salute all the brotherhood. Fare ye well ! 
 
 EPISTLE XVIII. 1 
 CALDONIUS TO CYPRIAN. 
 
 AKGUMENT. When, in the urgency of a new persecution, 
 certain of the lapsed had confessed Christ, and so, before 
 they went away into exile, sought for peace, Caldonius 
 consults Cyprian as to whether peace should be granted 
 them. 
 
 Caldonius to Cyprian and his fellow-presbyters abiding at 
 Carthage, greeting. The necessity of the times induces us 
 not hastily to grant peace. But it was well to write to you, 
 that they 2 who, after having sacrificed, were again tried, 
 became exiles. And thus they seem to me to have atoned 
 for their former crime, in that they now let go their posses- 
 sions and homes, and, repenting, follow Christ. Thus Felix, 
 who assisted in the office of presbyter 3 under Decimus, and 
 was very near to me in bonds (I knew that same Felix very 
 thoroughly), Victoria, his wife, and Lucius, being faithful, 
 were banished, and have left their possessions, which the 
 treasury now has in keeping. Moreover, a woman, Bona 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxiv. 
 
 2 " Some" would seem to be correct (Goldhorn) ; but it has no authority. 
 
 3 " Presbyterium subministrabat ;" assisted, probably as vicar or curate.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 57 
 
 by name, who was dragged by her husband to sacrifice, 
 and (with no conscience guilty of the crime, but because 
 those who held her hands, sacrificed) began to cry against 
 them, "I did not do it; you it was who did it!" was also 
 banished. Since, therefore, all these were asking for peace, 
 saying, " We have recovered the faith which we had lost, 
 we have repented, arid have publicly confessed Christ" 
 although it seems to me that they ought to receive peace, 
 yet I have referred them to your judgment, that I might 
 not appear to presume anything rashly. If, therefore, you 
 should wish me to do anything by the common decision, 
 write to me. Greet our brethren ; our brethren greet you. 
 I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XIX. 1 
 
 CYPRIAN REPLIES TO CALDONIUS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian treats of nothing peculiar in this epistle, 
 beyond acquiescing in the opinion of Caldonius, to ivit, 
 that peace should not be refused to such lapsed as, by a 
 true repentance and confession of the name of Christ, have 
 deserved it, and have therefore returned to Him. 
 
 Cyprian to Caldonius, his brother, greeting. We have 
 received your letter, beloved brother, which is abundantly 
 sensible, and full of honesty and faith. Nor do we wonder 
 that, skilled and exercised as you are in the Scriptures of the 
 Lord, you do everything discreetly and wisely. You have 
 judged quite correctly about granting peace to our brethren, 
 which they, by true penitence and by the glory of a con- 
 fession of the Lord, have restored to themselves, being justi- 
 fied by their words, by which before they had condemned 
 themselves. Since, then, they have washed away all their 
 sin, and their former stain, by the help of the Lord, has been 
 done away by a more powerful virtue, they ought not to lie any 
 longer under the power of the devil, as it were, prostrate ; 
 when, being banished and deprived of all their property, they 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. sxv.
 
 58 THE EPISTLES OF CJPEIAN. 
 
 have lifted themselves up and have begun to stand with 
 Christ. And I wish that the others also would repent after 
 their fall, and be transferred into their former condition ; and 
 that you may know how we have dealt with these, in their 
 urgent and eager rashness and importunity to extort peace, I 
 have sent a book l to you, with letters to the number of five, 
 that I wrote to the clergy and to the people, and to the martyrs 
 also and confessors, which letters have already been sent to 
 many of our colleagues, and have satisfied them ; and they 
 replied that they also agree with me in the same opinion 
 according to the catholic faith ; which very thing do you 
 also communicate to as many of our colleagues as you can, 
 that among all these, may be observed one mode of action 
 and one agreement, according to the Lord's precepts. I bid 
 you, beloved brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XX. 2 
 
 CELEKINUS TO LUCIA K 
 
 ARGUMENT. Celerinus, on behalf of Ids lapsed sisters at 
 Home, beseeches peace from tJie Carthaginian confessors. 
 
 1. Celerinus to Lucian, greeting. In writing this letter to 
 you, my lord and brother, I have been rejoicing and sorrowful, 
 rejoicing in that I had heard that you had been tried on behalf 
 of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, and had 
 confessed His name in the presence of the magistrates of the 
 world ; but sorrowful, in that from the time when I was in 
 your company I have never been able to receive your letters. 
 And now lately a twofold sorrow has fallen upon me ; that 
 although you knew that Mcmtanus, our common brother, was 
 coming to me from you out of the dungeon, you did not inti- 
 mate anything to me concerning your wellbeing, nor about 
 anything that is done in connection with you. This, however, 
 continually happens to the servants of God, especially to those 
 who are appointed for the confession of Christ. For I know 
 that every one looks not now to the things that are of the 
 
 1 Probably the treatise, On the Lapsed. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxi.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 59 
 
 world, but that he is hoping for a heavenly crown. More- 
 over, I said that perhaps you had forgotten to write to me. 
 For if from the lowest place I may be called by you yours, 
 or brother, if I should be worthy to hear myself named 
 Celerinus ; yet, when I also was in such a purple 1 confession, 
 I remembered my oldest brethren, and I took notice of them 
 in my letters, that their former love was still around me and 
 mine. Yet I beseech, beloved of the Lord, that if, first of all, 
 you are washed in that sacred blood, and have suffered for the 
 name of our Lord Jesus Christ before my letters find you in 
 this world, or should they now reach you, that you would 
 answer them to me. So may He crown you whose name you 
 have confessed. For I believe, that although in this world we 
 do not see each other, yet in the future we shall embrace one 
 another in the presence of Christ. Entreat that I may be 
 worthy, even I, to be crowned along with your company. 
 
 2. Know, nevertheless, that I am placed in the midst of 
 a great tribulation ; and, as if you were present with me, I 
 remember your former love day and night, God only knows. 
 And therefore I ask that you will grant my desire, and that 
 you will grieve with me at the death of my sister, who in this 
 time of devastation has fallen from Christ ; for she has sacri- 
 ficed and provoked our Lord, as seems manifest to us. And 
 for her deeds I in this day of paschal rejoicing, weeping 
 day and night, have spent the days in tears, in sackcloth, and 
 ashes, and I am still spending them so to this day, until 2 
 the aid of our Lord Jesus Christ, and affection manifested 
 through you, or through those my lords who have been 
 crowned, from whom you are about to ask it, shall come to the 
 help of so terrible a shipwreck. For I remember your former 
 love, that you will grieve with all the rest for our sisters whom 
 you also knew well that is, Numeria and Candida, for 
 
 1 ".Florida," soil " purpurea," purpled, that is, with blood. See con- 
 cluding section of Ep. viii. The Oxford translator has " empurpled." 
 
 2 The Oxford edition has a variation here, as follows : " Until our 
 Lord Jesus Christ afford help, and pity be manifested through you, or 
 through those my lords who may have been crowned, from whom you 
 will entreat that these dreadful shipwrecks may be pardoned."
 
 60 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 whose sin, because they have us as brethren, we ought to keep 
 watch. For I believe that Christ, according to their repent- 
 ance and the works which they have done towards our banished 
 colleagues who came from you by whom themselves you will 
 hear of their good works, that Christ, I say, will have mercy 
 upon them, when you, His martyrs, beseech Him. 
 
 3. For I have heard that you have received the ministry 
 of the purpled ones. Oh, happy are you, even sleeping on 
 the ground, to obtain your wishes which you have always 
 desired ! You have desired to be sent into prison for His 
 name's sake, which now has come to pass ; as it is written, 
 "The Lord grant thee according to thine own heart ;" ] 
 and now made a priest of God over them, and the same 
 their minister has acknowledged it. 2 I ask, therefore my 
 lord, and I entreat by our Lord Jesus Christ, that you 
 will refer the case to the rest of your colleagues, your 
 brethren, my lords, and ask from them, that whichever of 
 you is first crowned, should remit such a great sin to those 
 our sisters, Numeria and Candida. For this latter I have 
 always called Etecusa 3 God is my witness, because she 
 gave gifts for herself that she might not sacrifice ; but she 
 appears only to have ascended to the Tria Fata, 4 and thence 
 to have descended. I know, therefore, that she has not 
 sacrificed. Their cause having been lately heard, the chief 
 rulers commanded them in the meantime to remain as they 
 are, until a bishop should be appointed. But, as far as 
 possible, by your holy prayers and petitions, in which we 
 trust, since you are friends as well as witnesses of Christ, [we 
 pray] that you would be indulgent in all these matters. 
 
 1 Ps. xx. 4. 
 
 2 This seems altogether unintelligible : the original is probably cor- 
 rupt. 
 
 3 Dodwcll conjectures this name to be from drv-^waa, (unhappy) or 
 diMvacc (unwilling), and applies it to Candida. 
 
 4 A spot in the Roman Forum which must of necessity be passed by 
 in the ascent to the Capitol. It would appear that Candida therefore 
 repented of her purpose of sacrificing, when she was actually on her way 
 to effect it. 
 
 5 i.e. in the room of Fabian.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 61 
 
 4. I entreat, therefore, beloved lord Lucian, be mindful of 
 me, and acquiesce in my petition ; so may Christ grant you 
 that sacred crown which He has given you not only in con- 
 fession but also in holiness, in which you have always walked 
 and have always been an example to the saints, as well as a 
 witness, that you will relate to all my lords, your brethren the 
 confessors, all about this matter, that they may receive help 
 from you. For this, my lord and brother, you ought to know, 
 that it is not I alone who ask this on their behalf, but also 
 Statius and Severianus, and all the confessors who have come 
 thence hither from you ; to whom these very sisters went 
 down to the harbour and took them up into the city, and 
 they have ministered to sixty-five, and even to this day have 
 tended them in all things. For all are with them. But I 
 ought not to burden that sacred heart of yours any more, 
 since I know that you will labour with a ready will. 
 Macharius, with his sisters Cornelia and Emerita, salute 
 you, rejoicing in your sanguinary confession, as well as in 
 that of all the brethren, and Saturninus, who himself also 
 wrestled with the devil, who also bravely confessed the name 
 of Christ, who moreover, under the torture of the grappling 
 claws, bravely confessed, and who also strongly begs and 
 entreats this. Your brethren Calphurnius and. Maria, and 
 all the holy brethren, salute you. For you ought to know 
 this too, that I have written also to my lords your brethren 
 letters, which I request that you will deign to read to them. 
 
 EPISTLE XXI. 1 
 
 LUCIAN REPLIES TO CELERINUS. 
 
 AKGUMENT. Lucian assents to the petition of Celerinus. 
 
 1. Lucian to Celerinus, his lord, and (if I shall be worthy 
 
 to be called so) colleague in Christ, greeting. I have received 
 
 your letter, most dearly beloved lord and brother, in which 
 
 you have so laden me with expressions of kindness, that by 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxii.
 
 62 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 reason of your so burdening me I was almost overcome with 
 such excessive joy ; so that I exulted in reading, by the benefit 
 of your so great humility, the letter, which I also earnestly 
 desired after so long a time to read, in which you deigned to 
 call me to remembrance, saying to me in your writing, " if 
 I may be worthy to be called your brother," of a man such 
 as I am who confessed the name of God with trembling be- 
 fore the inferior magistrates. For you, by God's will, when 
 you confessed, not only frightened back the great serpent 
 himself, the pioneer of Antichrist, 1 [but] have conquered 
 him, by that voice and those divine words, whereby I know 
 how you love the faith, and how zealous you are for Christ's 
 discipline, in which I know and rejoice that you are actively 
 occupied. 2 Now beloved, already to be esteemed among the 
 martyrs, you have wished to overload me with your letter, in 
 which vou told us concernino; our sisters, on whose behalf I 
 
 / d) s 
 
 wish that we could by possibility mention them without re- 
 membering also so great a crime committed. Assuredly we 
 should not then think of them with so many tears as we do 
 now. 
 
 2. You ought to know what has been done concerning us. 
 
 o o 
 
 When the blessed martyr Paulus was still in the body, he 
 called me and said to me : " Lucian, in the presence of Christ 
 I say to you, If any one, after my being called away, shall ask 
 for peace from you, grant it in my name." Moreover, all of 
 us whom the Lord has condescended in such tribulation to 
 call away, by our letters, by mutual agreement, have given 
 peace to all. You see, then, brother, how [I have done this] 
 in part of what Paulus bade me, as what we in all cases 
 decreed when we were in this tribulation, wherein by the 
 command of the emperor we were ordered to be put to death 
 by hunger and thirst, and were shut up in two cells, that so 
 they might weaken us by hunger and thirst. Moreover, the 
 fire from the effect of our torture was so intolerable 3 that 
 
 1 The emperor Decius. 
 
 2 The passage is hopelessly confused. 
 
 " And, moreover, by the smoke of fire, and our suffering was so in- 
 tolerable," etc. ; v. J.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. G3 
 
 nobody could bear it. But now we have attained the bright- 
 ness itself. And therefore, beloved brother, greet Numeria 
 and Candida, who [shall have peace 1 ] according to the pre- 
 cept of Paulus, and the rest of the martyrs whose names I 
 subjoin, Bassus in the dungeon of the perjured, 2 Mappali- 
 cus at the torture, Fortunio in prison, Paulus after torture, 
 Fortunata, Victorinus, Victor, Herennius, Julia, Martial, 
 and Aristo, who by God's will were put to death in the 
 prison by hunger, of whom in a few days you will hear of 
 me as a companion. For now there are eight days, from the 
 day in which I was shut up again, to the day in which 
 I wrote my letter to you. For before these eight days, for 
 five intervening days, I received a morsel of bread and 
 water by measure. And therefore, brother, I ask that, as 
 here, since the Lord has begun to give peace to the church 
 itself, according to the precept of Paulus, and our tractate, 
 the case being set forth before the bishop, and confession 
 being made, not only these may have peace, but also those 
 whom you know to be very near to our heart. 
 
 3. All my colleagues greet you. Do you greet the con- 
 fessors of the Lord who are there with you, whose names you 
 have intimated, among whom also are Saturninus, with his 
 companions, but who also is my colleague, and Maris, Col- 
 lecta, and Emerita, Calphurnius and Maria, Sabina, Spesina, 
 and the sisters, Januaria, Dativa, Donata. We greet Satu- 
 rus with his family, Bassianus and all the clergy, Uranius, 
 Alexius, Quintianus, Colonica, and all whose names I have 
 not written, because I am already weary. Therefore they 
 must pardon me. I bid you heartily farewell, and Alexius, 
 and Getulicus, and the money-changers, arid the sisters. My 
 sisters Januaria and Sophia, whom I commend to you, greet 
 
 1 These words in brackets are necessary to the sense, but are omitted 
 in the original. 
 
 2 " Pejerario." There are many conjectures as to the meaning of this. 
 Perhaps the most plausible is the emendation, "Petrario" "in the 
 mines." 
 
 3 This epistle, as well as the preceding, seems to be very imperfect,
 
 64 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE XXII. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY ABIDING AT ROME, CONCERNING MANY OF 
 THE CONFESSORS, AND CONCERNING THE FORWARD- 
 NESS OF LUCIAN AND THE MODESTY OF CELERINUS 
 THE CONFESSOR. 
 
 ARGUMENT. In this letter Cyprian informs the Roman clergy 
 of the seditious demand of the lapsed to be restored to 
 peace, and of the forwardness of Lucian. In order that 
 they may better understand these matters, Cyprian takes 
 care that not only his own letters, but also those of Cele- 
 rinus and Lucian, should be sent to them. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome, 
 his brethren, greeting. After the letters that I wrote to you, 
 beloved brethren, in which what I had done was explained, 
 and some slight account was given of my discipline and dili- 
 gence, there came another matter which, any more than the 
 others, ought not to be concealed from you. For our brother 
 Lucian, who himself also is one of the confessors, earnest 
 indeed in faith, and robust in virtue, but little established in 
 the reading of the Lord's word, has attempted certain things, 
 constituting himself for a time an authority for unskilled people, 
 so that certificates written by his hand were given indis- 
 criminately to many persons 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 only, moved with domestic affection for his mother,' 2 who 
 had fallen, commanded peace to be given to her. Satur- 
 ninus, moreover, after his torture, still remaining in prison, 
 sent out no letters of this kind. But Lucian, not only while 
 
 having probably been " -written," says the Oxford translator, " by persons 
 little versed in writing, confessors, probably, of the less instructed sort." 
 The meaning in many places is very unsatisfactory. 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxvii. 
 
 2 Some read, " his mother and sisters, who had fallen."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPETAN. 65 
 
 Paulas was still in prison, gave everywhere in his name 
 certificates written with his own hand, but even after his 
 decease persisted in doing the same things under his name, 
 saying that this had been commanded him by Paulus, ignorant 
 that he must obey the Lord rather than his fellow-servant. 
 In the name also of Aurelius, a young man who had under- 
 gone the torture, many certificates were given, written by 
 the hand of the same Lucian, because Aurelius did not know 
 how to write himself. 
 
 2. In order, in some measure, to put a stop to this practice, 
 I wrote letters to them, which I have sent to you under the 
 enclosure of the former letter, in which I did not fail to ask 
 and persuade them that consideration might be had for the law 
 of the Lord and the gospel. But after I sent my letters to them, 
 that, as it were, something might be done more moderately 
 and temperately ; the same Lucian wrote a letter in the name 
 of all the confessors, in which well nigh every bond of faith, 
 and fear of God, and the Lord's command, and the sacred- 
 ness and sincerity of the gospel were dissolved. For he wrote 
 in the name of all, that they had given peace to all, and that 
 he wished that this decree should be communicated through 
 me to the other bishops, of which letter I transmitted a copy 
 to you. It was added indeed, " of whom the account of what 
 they have done since their crime has been satisfactory ; " 
 a thing this which excites a greater odium against me, 
 because I, when I have begun to hear the cases of each one 
 and to examine into them, seem to deny to many what they 
 now are all boasting that they have received from the 
 martyrs and confessors. 
 
 3. Finally, this seditious practice has already begun to 
 appear ; for in our province, through some of its cities, an 
 attack has been made by the multitude upon their rulers, and 
 they have compelled that peace to be given to them immediately 
 which they all cried out had been once given to them by the 
 martyrs and confessors. Their rulers being frightened and 
 subdued, were of little avail to resist them, either by vigour of 
 mind or by strength of faith. With us, moreover, some tur- 
 bulent spirits, who in time past were with difficulty governed 
 
 E
 
 66 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 
 
 by me, and were delayed till my coming, were inflamed by 
 this letter as if by a firebrand, and began to be more violent, 
 and to extort the peace granted to them. I have sent a copy 
 to you of the letters that I wrote to my clergy about these 
 matters, and, moreover, what Caldonius, my colleague, of 
 his integrity and faithfulness wrote, and what I replied to 
 him. I have sent both to you to read. Copies also of the 
 letter of Celerinus, the good and stout confessor, which he 
 wrote to Lucian the same confessor also what Lucian re- 
 plied to him, I have sent to you ; that you may know both 
 my labour in respect of everything, and my diligence, and 
 might learn the truth itself, how moderate and cautious 
 is Celerinus the confessor, and how reverent both in his 
 humility and fear for our faith ; while Lucian, as I have 
 said, is less skilful concerning the understanding of the Lord's 
 word, and by his facility, is mischievous on account of the dis- 
 like that he causes for my reverential dealing. For while the 
 Lord has said that the nations are to be baptized in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and 
 their past sins are to be done away in baptism ; this man, 
 ignorant of the precept and of the law, commands peace to 
 be granted and sins to be done away in the name of Paulus ; 
 and he says that this was commanded him by Paulus, as you 
 will observe in the letter sent by the same Lucian to Cele- 
 rinus, in which he very little considered that it is not martyrs 
 that make the gospel, but that martyrs are made by the 
 gospel ; since Paul also, the apostle whom the Lord called a 
 chosen vessel unto Him, laid down in his epistle : "I marvel 
 that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into 
 the grace of Christ, unto another gospel : which is not 
 another ; but there be some that trouble you, and would 
 pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel 
 from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that 
 which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As 
 we said before, so say 1 now again, If any man preach any 
 other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be 
 accursed." l 
 
 1 Gal. i 6-9.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 67 
 
 4. But your letter, which I received, written to my clergy, 
 came opportunely ; as also did those which the blessed con- 
 fessors, Moyses and Maximus, Nicostratus, and the rest, sent 
 to Saturninus and Aurelius, and the others, in which are con- 
 tained the full vigour of the gospel and the robust discipline 
 of the law of the Lord. Your words much assisted me as I 
 laboured here, and withstood with the whole strength of faith 
 the onset of ill-will, so that my work was shortened from 
 above, and that before the letters which I last sent you 
 reached you, you declared to me, that according to the gospel 
 law, your judgment also strongly and unanimously concurred 
 with mine. I bid you, brethren, beloved and longed-for, 
 ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XXIII. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY, ON THE LETTERS SENT TO ROME, AND 
 ABOUT THE APPOINTMENT OF SATURUS AS READER, 
 AND OPTATUS AS SUB-DEACON. 
 
 AKGUMENT. The clergy are informed by this letter of the 
 ordination of Saturns and Optatus, and what Cyprian 
 had written to Rome. 
 
 Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, greet- 
 ing. That nothing may be unknown to your consciousness, 
 beloved brethren, of what was written to me and what I 
 replied, I have sent you a copy of each letter, and I believe 
 that my rejoinder will not displease you. But I ought to 
 acquaint you in my letter concerning this, that for a very 
 urgent reason I have sent a letter to the clergy who abide 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxix. The numbering of the epistles has hitherto 
 been in accordance with Migne's edition of the text; but as he here 
 follows a typographical error in numbering this epistle " xxiv.," and all 
 the subsequent ones accordingly, it has been thought better to con- 
 tinue the correct order in this translation. In each case, therefore, after 
 this, the number of the epistle in the translation will be one earlier than 
 in the original.
 
 68 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 in the city. And since it behoved me to write by clergy, 
 while I know that very many of ours are absent, and the few 
 that are there are hardly sufficient for the ministry of the 
 daily duty, it was necessary to appoint some new ones, who 
 nuVht be sent. Know, then, that I have made Saturus a 
 
 O ' ' 
 
 reader, and Optatus, the confessor, a sub-deacon ; whom 
 already, by the general advice, we had made next to the 
 clergy, in having entrusted to Saturus on Easter-day, once 
 and again, the reading ; and when with the teacher-presby- 
 ters l we were carefully trying readers in appointing Optatus 
 from among the readers to be a teacher of the hearers ; 
 examining, first of all, whether all things were found fitting 
 in them, which ought to be found in such as were being 
 prepared for the clerical office. Nothing new, therefore, has 
 been done by me in your absence ; but what, on the general 
 advice of all of us had been begun, has, upon urgent necessity, 
 been accomplished. I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily 
 farewell ; and remember me. Fare ye well. 
 
 EPISTLE XXIV. 2 
 
 TO MOYSES AND MAXIMUS AND THE EEST OF THE 
 CONFESSORS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. This letter is one of congratulation to the Roman 
 confessors. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Moyses and Maximus, the presbyters, and 
 to the other confessors, his very beloved brethren, greeting. 
 I had already known from rumour, most brave and blessed 
 brethren, the glory of your faith and virtue, rejoicing greatly 
 and abundantly congratulating you, that the highest con- 
 
 1 Not " teachers and presbyters," as in the Oxford translation, but 
 " teaching presbyters." For these were a distinct class of presbyters 
 all not being teachers, and these were to be judges of the fitness of such 
 as were to be teachers of the hearers. 
 
 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxviii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 69 
 
 descension of our Lord Jesus Christ should have prepared 
 you for the crown by confession of His name. For you, who 
 have become chiefs and leaders in the battle of our day, have 
 set forward the standard of the celestial warfare ; you have 
 made a beginning of the spiritual contest which God has 
 purposed to be now waged by your valour ; you, with un- 
 shaken strength and unyielding firmness, have broken the 
 first onset of the rising war. Thence have arisen happy 
 openings of the fight ; thence have begun good auspices of 
 victory. It happened that here martyrdoms were consum- 
 mated by tortures. But he who, preceding in the struggle, 
 has been made an example of virtue to the brethren, is on 
 common ground with the martyrs in honour. Hence you 
 have delivered to us garlands woven by your hand, and 
 have pledged your brethren from the cup of salvation. 
 
 2. To these glorious beginnings of confession and the omens 
 of a victorious warfare, has been added the maintenance of 
 discipline, which I observed from the vigour of your letter 
 that you lately sent to your colleagues joined with you to the 
 Lord in confession, with anxious admonition, that the sacred 
 precepts of the gospel and the commandments of life once 
 delivered to us should be kept with firm and rigid observance. 
 Behold another lofty degree of your glory ; behold, with 
 confession, a double title to deserving well of God, to stand 
 with a firm step, and to drive away in this struggle, by the 
 strength of your faith, those who endeavour to make a breach 
 in the gospel, and bring impious hands to the work of under- 
 mining the Lord's precepts : to have before afforded the 
 indications of courage, and now to afford lessons of life. The 
 Lord, when, after His resurrection, He sent forth His apostles, 
 charges them, saying, " All power is given unto me in heaven 
 and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, bap- 
 tizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things 
 whatsoever I have commanded you." 1 And the Apostle 
 John, remembering this charge, subsequently lays it down in 
 his epistle : " Hereby," says he, " we do know that we know 
 1 Matt, xxviii. 18-20.
 
 70 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith he 
 knoweth Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, 
 and the truth is not in him." * You prompt the keeping of 
 these precepts; you observe the divine and heavenly com- 
 mands. This is to be a confessor of the Lord ; this is to be 
 a martyr of Christ, to keep the firmness of one's profession 
 inviolate among all evils, and secu.re. 2 For to wish to become 
 a martyr for the Lord, and to tiy to overthrow the Lord's 
 precepts ; to use against Him the condescension that He has 
 granted you ; to become, as it were, a rebel with arms that 
 you have received from Him; this is to wish to confess 
 Christ, and to deny Christ's gospel. I rejoice, therefore, on 
 your behalf, most brave and faithful brethren ; and as much 
 as I congratulate the martyrs there honoured for the glory of 
 their strength, so much do I also equally congratulate you 
 for the crown of the Lord's discipline. The Lord has shed 
 forth His condescension in manifold kinds of liberality. He 
 has distributed the praises of good soldiers and their spiritual 
 glories in plentiful variety. We also are sharers in your 
 honour ; we count your glory our glory, whose times have 
 been brightened by such a felicity, that it should be the 
 fortune of our day to see the proved servants of God and 
 Christ's soldiers crowned. I bid you, most brave and blessed 
 brethren, ever heartily farewell ; and remember me. 
 
 EPISTLE XXV. 3 
 
 MOYSES, MAXIMUS, NICOSTRATUS, AND THE OTHER 
 CONFESSORS ANSWER THE FOREGOING LETTER. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Tliey gratefully acknowledge tJie consolation 
 which the Roman confessors had received from Cyprian s 
 
 1 1 John ii. 3, 4. 
 
 2 "And not to become a martyr for the Lord's sake" (or, "by the 
 Lord's help"), "and to endeavour to overthrow the Lord's precepts." 
 Baluz. reads "prater" but in notes, " propter," while most MSS. read 
 " per Dominion." 
 
 8 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxxi.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 71 
 
 letter. Martyrdom is not a punishment, but a happiness. 
 The words of the gospel are brands to inflame faith. In 
 the case of the lapsed, the judgment of Cyprian is ac- 
 quiesced in. 
 
 1. To Coecilius Cyprian, bishop of the church of the Car- 
 thaginians, Moyses and Maximus, presbyters, and Nicostratus 
 and Rufinus, deacons, and the other confessors persevering 
 in the faith of the truth, in God the Father, and in His Son 
 Jesus Christ our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit, greeting. 
 Placed, brother, as we are among various and manifold sor- 
 rows, on account of the present desolations of many brethren 
 throughout almost the whole world, this chief consolation has 
 reached us, that we have been lifted up by the receipt of your 
 letter, and have gathered some alleviation for the griefs of 
 our saddened spirit. From which we can already perceive that 
 the grace of divine providence wished to keep us so long shut 
 up in the prison chains, perhaps for no other reason than 
 that, instructed and more vigorously animated by your letter, 
 we might with a more earnest will attain to the destined 
 
 O 
 
 crown. For your letter has shone upon us as a calm in the 
 midst of a tempest, and as the longed-for tranquillity in the 
 midst of a troubled sea, and as repose in labours, as health 
 in dangers and pains, as in the densest darkness, the bright 
 and glowing light. Thus w r e drank it up with a thirsty spirit, 
 and received it with a hungry desire ; so that we rejoice to 
 find ourselves by it sufficiently fed and strengthened for 
 encounter with the foe. The Lord will reward you for that 
 love of yours, and will restore you the fruit due to this so 
 good work; for he who exhorts is not less worthy of the 
 reward of the crown than he who suffers ; not less worthy of 
 praise is he who has taught, than he who has acted also ; he 
 is not less to be honoured who has warned, than he who has 
 fought ; except that sometimes the weight of glory more re- 
 dounds to him who trains, than to him who has shown 
 himself a teachable learner; for the latter, perchance, would 
 not have had what he has practised, unless the former had 
 taught him.
 
 72 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 2. Therefore, again, we say, brother Cyprian, we have 
 received great joy, great comfort, great refreshment, espe- 
 cially in that you have described, with glorious and deserved 
 praises, the glorious, I will not say, deaths, but immortalities 
 of martyrs. For such departures should have been pro- 
 claimed with such words, that the things which were related 
 might be told in such manner as they were done. Thus, 
 from your letter, we saw those glorious triumphs of the 
 martyrs ; and with our eyes in some sort have followed them 
 as they went to heaven, and have contemplated them seated 
 among angels, and the powers and dominions of heaven. 
 Moreover, we have in some manner perceived with our ears 
 the Lord giving them the promised testimony in the presence 
 of the Father. It is this, then, which also raises our spirit 
 day by day, and inflames us to the following of the track of 
 such dignity. 
 
 3. For what more glorious, or what more blessed, can 
 happen to any man from the divine condescension, than to 
 confess the Lord God, in death itself, before his very exe- 
 cutioners ? than among the raging and varied and exquisite 
 tortures of worldly power, even when the body is racked and 
 torn and cut to pieces, to confess Christ the Son of God 
 with a spirit still free, although departing ? than to have 
 mounted to heaven with the world left behind? than, having 
 forsaken men, to stand among the angels ? than, all worldly 
 impediments being broken through, already to stand free in 
 the sight of God 1 than to enjoy the heavenly kingdom with- 
 out any delay ? than to have become an associate of Christ's 
 passion in Christ's name ? than to have become by the divine 
 condescension the judge of one's own judge ? than to have 
 brought off an unstained conscience from the confession of 
 His name ? than to have refused to obey human and sacri- 
 legious laws against the faith ? than to have borne witness to 
 the truth with a public testimony ? than, by dying, to have 
 subdued death itself, which is dreaded by all 1 than, by death 
 itself, to have attained immortality? than, when torn to 
 pieces, and tortured by all the instruments of cruelty, to have 
 overcome the torture by the tortures themselves ? than by
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 73 
 
 strength of mind to have wrestled with all the agonies of a 
 mangled body ? than not to have shuddered at the flow of 
 one's own blood ? than to have begun to love one's punish- 
 ments, after having faith to bear them? 1 than to think it an 
 injury to one's life not to have left it? 
 
 4. For to this battle our Lord, as with the trumpet of His 
 gospel, stimulates us when Pie says, " He that loveth father 
 or mother more than me is not worthy of me : and he that 
 loveth his own soul more than me is not worthy of me. And 
 he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not 
 worthy of me." 2 And again, " Blessed are they which are 
 persecuted for righteousness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom 
 of heaven. Blessed shall ye be, when men shall persecute you, 
 and hate you. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad : for so did 
 their fathers persecute the prophets which were before you." 3 
 And again, " Because ye shall stand before kings and powers, 
 and the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the 
 father the son, and he that endureth to the end shall be 
 saved ;" 4 and " To him that overcometh will I give to sit on 
 my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down on the 
 throne of my Father." 5 Moreover the apostle : " Who shall 
 separate us from the love of Christ ? shall tribulation, or 
 distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
 sword ? (As it is written, For thy sake are we killed all the 
 clay long ; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) 
 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors for Him 
 who hath loved us." 6 
 
 5. When we read these things, and things of the like 
 kind, brought together in the gospel, and feel, as it were, 
 torches placed under us, with the Lord's words to inflame 
 our faith, we not only do not dread, but we even provoke the 
 enemies of the truth ; and we have already conquered the 
 opponents of God, by the very fact of our not yielding to 
 them, and have subdued their nefarious laws against the 
 truth. And although we have not yet shed our blood, we are 
 
 1 Supplicia sua post fidem amare coepisse. 2 Matt. x. 37, 38. 
 
 3 Matt. v. 10-12. * Matt. x. 18, xxi. 22. 6 Rev. iii. 21. 
 6 Kom. viii. 35.
 
 74 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 prepared to shed it. Let no one think that this delay of our 
 departure l is any clemency ; for it obstructs us, it makes 
 a hindrance to our glory, it puts off heaven, it withholds the 
 glorious sight of God. For in a contest of this kind, and in 
 the kind of contest when faith is struggling in the encounter, 
 it is not true clemency to put off martyrs by delay. Entreat 
 therefore, beloved Cyprian, that of His mercy the Lord will 
 every day more and more arm and adorn every one of us 
 with greater abundance and readiness, and will confirm and 
 strengthen us by the strength of His power ; and, as a good 
 captain, will at length bring forth His soldiers, whom He has 
 hitherto trained and proved in the camp of our prison, to 
 the field of the battle set before them. May He hold forth 
 to us the divine arms, those weapons that know not how to be 
 conquered, the breastplate of righteousness, which is never 
 accustomed to be broken, the shield of faith, which cannot 
 be pierced through, the helmet of salvation, which cannot be 
 shattered, and the sword of the Spirit, which has never been 
 wont to be injured. For to whom should we rather commit 
 these things for him to ask for us, than to our so glorious 
 bishop, as destined victims ask help of the priest ? 
 
 6. Behold another joy of ours, that, in the duty of your 
 episcopate, although in the meantime you have been, owing 
 to the condition of the times, divided from your brethren, 
 you have frequently confirmed the confessors by your letters ; 
 that you have ever afforded necessary supplies from your 
 own just acquisitions ; that in all things you have always 
 shown yourself in some sense present ; that in no part of 
 your duty have you hung behind as a deserter. But what 
 more strongly stimulated us to a greater joy we cannot be 
 silent upon, but must describe with all the testimony of our 
 voice. For we observe that you have both rebuked with 
 fitting censure, and worthily, those who, unmindful of their 
 sins, had, with hasty and eager desire, extorted peace from the 
 presbyters in your absence, and those who, without respect 
 for the gospel, had with profane facility granted the holiness 2 
 of the Lord unto dogs, and pearls to swine ; although a great 
 1 Lit. "of our postponement." 2 u Sanctum."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 75 
 
 crime, and one which has extended with incredible destructive- 
 ness almost over the whole earth, ought only, as you yourself 
 write, to he treated cautiously and with moderation, with the 
 advice of all the bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and 
 even the laymen who abide fast, as in your letters you your- 
 self also testify ; so that, while wishing unseasonably to bring 
 repairs to the ruins, we may not appear to be bringing about 
 other and greater destruction, for where is the divine word 
 left, if pardon be so easily granted to sinners ? Certainly their 
 spirits are to be cheered and to be nourished up to the season 
 of their maturity, and they are to be instructed from the Holy 
 Scriptures how great and surpassing a sin they have committed. 
 Nor let them be animated by the fact that they are many, 
 but rather let them be checked by the fact that they are not 
 few. An unblushing number has never been accustomed to 
 have weight in extenuation of a crime ; but shame, modesty, 
 patience, discipline, humility, and subjection, waiting for the 
 judgment of others upon itself, and bearing the sentence of 
 others upon its own judgment, this it is which proves 
 penitence ; this it is which skins over a deep wound ; this it 
 is which raises up the ruins of the fallen spirit and restores 
 them, which quells and restrains the burning vapour of their 
 raging sins. For the physician will not give to the sick 
 the food of healthy bodies, lest the unseasonable nourish- 
 ment, instead of repressing, should stimulate the power of 
 the raging disease, that is to say, lest what might have been 
 sooner diminished by abstinence, should, through impatience, 
 be prolonged by growing indigestion. 
 
 7. Hands, therefore, polluted with impious sacrifices must 
 be purified with good works, and wretched mouths defiled 
 with accursed food must be purged with words of true peni- 
 tence, and the spirit must be renewed and consecrated in the 
 recesses of the faithful heart. Let the frequent groanings 
 of the penitents be heard; let faithful tears be shed from 
 the eyes not once only, but again and again, so that those 
 very eyes which wickedly looked upon idols may wash away, 
 with tears that satisfy God, the unlawful things that they 
 had done. Nothing is necessary for diseases but patience :
 
 7G THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 they who are weary and weak wrestle with their pain ; and so 
 at length hope for health, if, by tolerating it, they can over- 
 come their suffering ; for unfaithful is the scar which the 
 physician has too quickly produced ; and the healing is un- 
 done by any little casualty, if the remedies be not used faith- 
 fully from their very slowness. The flame is quickly recalled 
 again to a conflagration, unless the material of the whole fire 
 be extinguished even to the extremes! spark ; so that men of 
 this kind should justly know that even they themselves are 
 more advantaged by the very delay, and that more trusty 
 remedies are applied by the necessary postponement. Be- 
 sides, where shall it be said that they who confess Christ are 
 shut up in the keeping of a squalid prison, if they who have 
 denied Him are in no peril of their faith? where, that 
 they are bound in the cincture of chains in God's name, if 
 they who have not kept the confession of God are not de- 
 prived of communion ? where, that the imprisoned martyrs 
 lay down their glorious lives, if those who have forsaken the 
 faith do not feel the magnitude of their dangers and their 
 sins ? But if they betray too much impatience, and demand 
 communion with intolerable eagerness, they vainly utter 
 with petulant and unbridled tongues those querulous and 
 invidious reproaches which avail nothing against the truth, 
 since they might have retained by their own right what now 
 by a necessity, which they of their own free will have sought, 
 they are compelled to sue for. For the faith which could con- 
 fess Christ, could also have been kept by Christ in communion. 
 We bid you, blessed and most glorious father, ever heartily 
 farewell in the Lord ; and have us in remembrance. 
 
 EPISTLE XXVI. 1 
 
 CYPRIAN TO THE LAPSED. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The argument of this letter is found beloio in. 
 Letter xxvii. " They wrote to me" says he, " not asking 
 t/tat peace should be granted them, but claiming it for them- 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxxiii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 77 
 
 selves as already granted, because they say that Paulus 
 has given peace to all ; as you will read in their letter of 
 which 1 have sent you a copy, together with what I briefly 
 replied to them" But the letter of the lapsed to which 
 he is replying is wanting. 
 
 1. Our Lord, whose precepts and admonitions we ought 
 to observe, describing the honour of a bishop and the order 
 of His church, speaks in the Gospel, and says to Peter : " I 
 say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I 
 build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the king- 
 dom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth 
 shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose 
 on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 1 Thence, through the 
 changes of times and successions, the ordering of bishops 
 and the plan of the church flows onwards ; so that the church 
 is founded upon the bishops, and every act of the church is 
 controlled by these same rulers. Since this, then, is founded 
 on the divine law, I marvel that some, with daring temerity, 
 have chosen to write to me as if they wrote in the name of 
 the church ; when the church is established in the bishop and 
 the clergy, and all who stand [fast in the faith]. For far be 
 it from the mercy of God and His uncontrolled might to 
 suffer the number of the lapsed to be called the Church ; 
 since it is written, " God is not the God of the dead, but of 
 the living." 2 For we indeed desire that all may be made 
 alive ; and we pray that, by our supplications and groans, 
 they may be restored to their original state. But if certain 
 lapsed ones claim to be the church, and if the church be 
 among them and in them, what is left but for us to ask of 
 these very persons that they would deign to admit us into the 
 church? Therefore it behoves them to be submissive and 
 quiet and modest, as those who ought to appease God, in 
 remembrance of their sin, and not to write letters in the 
 name of the church, when they should rather be aware that 
 they are writing to the church. 
 
 1 Matt. xvi. 18, 19. a Matt. xxii. 32.
 
 78 THE EPISTLES OF C7PRIAN. 
 
 2. But some have lately written to me, who are of the 
 lapsed, and are humble and meek and trembling and fear- 
 ing God, and who have always laboured in the church 
 gloriously and liberally, and who have never made a boast of 
 their labour to the Lord, knowing that He has said, " When 
 ye shall have done all these things, say, We are unprofitable 
 servants: we have done that which was our duty to do." 1 
 Thinking of which things, and although they had received 
 certificates from the martyrs, nevertheless, that their satis- 
 faction might be admitted by the Lord, these persons beseech- 
 ing have written to me that they acknowledge their sin, and 
 are truly repentant, and do not hurry rashly or importunately 
 to secure peace ; but that they are waiting for my presence, 
 saying that even peace itself, if they should receive it when 
 I was present, would be sweeter to them. How greatly I 
 congratulate these, the Lord is my witness, who hath conde- 
 scended to tell what such, and such kind of servants deserve 
 of His kindness. Which letters, as I lately received, and 
 now read that you have written very differently, I beg that 
 you will discriminate between your wishes ; and whoever 
 you are who have sent this letter, add your names to the 
 certificate, and transmit the certificate to me with your several 
 names. For I must first know to whom I have to reply ; 
 then I will respond to each of the matters that you have 
 written, having regard to the mediocrity of my place and 
 conduct. I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily fare- 
 well, and live quietly and tranquilly according to the Lord's 
 discipline. Fare ye well. 
 
 EPISTLE XXVII. 1 
 
 TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS. 
 
 AKGUMENT. The argument of this letter is sufficiently in 
 agreement with the preceding, and it appears that it is 
 the one of which lie speaks in the following letter ; for he 
 1 Luke xvii. 10. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxxiy.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 79 
 
 praises his clergy for having rejected from communion 
 Gains of Didda, a presbyter, and his deacon, who rashly 
 communicated with the lapsed; and exhorts them to do 
 the same with certain others. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, 
 greeting. You have done uprightly and with discipline, 
 beloved brethren, that, by the advice of my colleagues who 
 were present, you have decided not to communicate with 
 Gains the presbyter of Didda, and his deacon ; who, by com- 
 municating with the lapsed, and offering their oblations, 
 have been frequently taken in their wicked errors ; and who 
 once and again, as you wrote to me, when warned by my 
 colleagues not to do this, have persisted obstinately in their 
 presumption and audacity, deceiving certain brethren also 
 from among our people, whose benefit we desire with all 
 humility to consult, and whose salvation we take care for, 
 not with affected adulation, but with sincere faith, that they 
 may supplicate the Lord with true penitence and groaning 
 and sorrow, since it is written, " Remember from whence 
 thou art fallen, and repent." 1 And again, the divine Scrip- 
 ture says, " Thus saith the Lord, When thou shalt be con- 
 verted and lament, then thou shalt be saved, and shalt know 
 where thou hast been." 2 
 
 2. Yet how can those mourn and repent, whose groanings 
 and tears some of the presbyters obstruct when they rashly 
 think that they may be communicated with, not knowing that 
 it is written, " They who call you happy 3 cause you to err, 
 and destroy the path of your feet?"' Naturally, our whole- 
 some and true counsels have no success, whilst the salutary 
 truth is hindered by mischievous blandishments and flatteries, 
 and the wounded and unhealthy mind of the lapsed suffers 
 what those also who are bodily diseased and sick often suffer; 
 that while they refuse wholesome food and beneficial drink 
 as bitter and distasteful, and crave those things which seem to 
 please them and to be sweet for the present, they are inviting 
 
 1 Rev. ii. 5. 2 Isa. xxx. 15, LXX. 
 
 8 " They which lead thee." E. V. * Isa. iii. 12, LXX.
 
 80 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 to themselves mischief and death by their regardlessness 
 and intemperance. Nor does the true remedy of the skilful 
 physician avail to their safety, whilst the sweet enticement 
 is deceiving with its charms. 
 
 3. Do you, therefore, according to my letters, take counsel 
 about this faithfully and wholesomely, and do not recede from 
 better counsels ; and be careful to read these same letters 
 to my colleagues also, if there are any present, or if any 
 should come to you ; that, with unanimity and concord, we 
 may maintain a healthful plan for soothing and healing the 
 wounds of the lapsed, intending to deal very fully with all 
 when, by the Lord's mercy, we shall begin to assemble 
 together. In the meantime, if any unrestrained and im- 
 petuous person, whether of our presbyters or deacons or of 
 strangers, should dare, before our decree, to communicate 
 with the lapsed, let him be expelled from our communion, and 
 plead the cause of his rashness before all of us when, by the 
 Lord's permission, we shall assemble together again. More- 
 over, you wished me to reply what I thought concerning 
 Philumenus and Fortunatus, sub-deacons, and Favorinus, an 
 acolyte, who retired in the midst of the time of trial, and 
 have now returned. Of which thing I cannot make myself 
 sole judge, since many of the clergy are still absent, and have 
 not considered, even thus late, that they should return to their 
 place ; and this case of each one must be considered separately 
 and fully investigated, not only with my colleagues, but also 
 with the whole of the people themselves. For a matter 
 which hereafter may constitute an example as regards the 
 ministers of the church must be weighed and adjudged with 
 careful deliberation. In the meanwhile, let them only abstain 
 from the monthly division, 1 not so as to seem to be deprived 
 of the ministry of the church, but that all matters being in a 
 sound state, they may be reserved till my coming. I bid 
 you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell. Greet all the 
 brotherhood, and fare ye well. 
 
 1 Some read this, " dictione," preaching.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 81 
 
 EPISTLE XXVIII. 1 
 
 TO THE PEESBYTERS AND DEACONS ABIDING AT ROME. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The Roman clergy are informed of the temerity 
 of the lapsed who were demanding peace. 
 
 Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome, 
 his brethren, greeting. Both our common love and the reason 
 of the thing demand, beloved brethren, that I should keep back 
 from your knowledge nothing of those matters which are trans- 
 acted among us, that so we may have a common plan for the 
 advantage of the administration of the church. For after 
 I wrote to you the letter which I sent by Saturus the reader, 
 and Optatus the sub-deacon, the combined temerity of certain 
 of the lapsed, who refuse to repent and to make satisfaction 
 to God, wrote to me, not asking that peace might be given to 
 them, but claiming it as already given ; because they say that 
 Paulus has given peace to all, as you will read in their letter 
 of which I have sent you a copy, as well as what I briefly 
 replied to them in the meantime. But that you may also 
 know what sort of a letter I afterwards wrote to the clergy, 
 I have, moreover, sent you a copy of this. But if, after all, 
 their temerity should not be repressed either by my letters or 
 by yours, and should not yield to wholesome counsels, I shall 
 take such proceedings as the Lord, according to His gospel, 
 has enjoined to be taken. I bid you, beloved brethren, ever 
 heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XXIX. 2 
 
 THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ABIDING AT ROME, 
 TO CYPRIAN. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The Roman church declares its judgment con- 
 cerning the lapsed to be in agreement with the Carthaginian 
 decrees. Any indulgence shown to the lapsed is required 
 to be in accordance with the law of the gospel. That the 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxxv. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxxvi.
 
 82 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 peace granted ly the confessors depends only upon grace 
 and good-will, is manifest from the fact that the lapsed 
 are referred to the bishops. The seditious demand for 
 peace made by Felicissimus is to be attributed to faction. 
 
 1. The presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome, to father 1 
 Cyprian, greeting. When, beloved brother, we carefully 
 read your letter which you had sent by Fortunatus the sub- 
 deacon, we were smitten with a double sorrow, and disordered 
 with a twofold grief, that there was not any rest given to you 
 in such necessities of the persecution, and that the unreason- 
 able petulance of the lapsed brethren was declared to be 
 carried even to a dangerous boldness of expression. But 
 although those things which we have spoken of severely 
 afflicted us and our spirit, yet your vigour and the severity 
 that you have used, according to the proper discipline, mode- 
 rates the so heavy load of our grief, in that you rightly 
 restrain the wickedness of some, and, by your exhortation to 
 repentance, show the legitimate way of salvation. That they 
 should have wished to hurry to such an extreme as this, we are 
 indeed considerably surprised ; as that with such urgency, and 
 at so unseasonable and bitter a time, being in so great and 
 excessive a sin, they should not so much ask for, as claim, 
 peace for themselves, nay, should say that they already 
 have it in heaven. If they have it, why do they ask for 
 what they possess ? But if, by the very fact that they are 
 asking for it, it is proved that they have it not, wherefore do 
 they not accept the judgment of those from whom they have 
 thought fit to ask for the peace, which they certainly have not 
 got ? But if they think that they have from any other source 
 the prerogative of communion, let them try to compare it with 
 the gospel, that so at length it may abundantly avail them, if 
 it is not out of harmony with the gospel law. But on what 
 principle can that give gospel communion which seems to be 
 established contrary to gospel truth ? For since every pre- 
 rogative contemplates the privilege of association, precisely 
 on the assumption of its not being out of harmony with the
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 83 
 
 will of Him with whom it seeks to be associated; then, because 
 this is alien from His will with whom it seeks to be associated, 
 it must of necessity lose the indulgence and privilege of the 
 association. 
 
 2. Let them, then, see what it is they are trying to do in 
 this matter. For if they say that the' gospel has established 
 one decree, but the martyrs have established another; then 
 they, setting the martyrs at variance with the gospel, will be 
 in danger on both sides. For, on the one hand, the majesty 
 of the gospel will already appear shattered and cast down, 
 if it can be overcome by the novelty of another decree ; 
 and, on the other, the glorious crown of confession will be 
 taken from the heads of the martyrs, if they be not found to 
 have attained it by the observation of that gospel whence 
 they become martyrs ; so that, reasonably, no one should be 
 more careful to determine nothing contrary to the gospel, 
 than he who strives to receive the name of martyr from the 
 gospel. We should like, besides, to be informed of this : if 
 martyrs become martyrs for no other reason than that by 
 not sacrificing they may keep the peace of the church even 
 to the shedding of their own blood, lest, overcome by the 
 suffering of the torture, by losing peace, they might lose 
 salvation ; on what principle do they think that the salva- 
 tion, which if they had sacrificed they thought that they 
 should not have, was to be given to those who are said to 
 have sacrificed ; although they ought to maintain that law 
 in others which they themselves appear to have held before 
 their own eyes ? In which thing we observe that they have 
 put forward against their own cause the very thing which 
 they thought made for them. For if the martyrs thought 
 that peace was to be granted to them, why did not they 
 themselves grant it ? Why did they think that, as they them- 
 selves say, they were to be referred to the bishops ? For he 
 who orders a thing to be done, can assuredly do that which 
 he orders to be done. But, as we understand, nay, as the 
 case itself speaks and proclaims, the most holy martyrs 
 thought that a proper measure of modesty and of truth must 
 be observed on both sides. For as they were urged by many,
 
 84 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 in remitting them to the bishop they conceived that they 
 would consult their own modesty so as to be no further dis- 
 quieted; and in not themselves holding communion with 
 them, they judged that the purity of the gospel law ought 
 to be maintained unimpaired. 
 
 3. But of your charity, brother, never desist from soothing 
 the spirits of the lapsed and affording to the erring the 
 medicine of truth, although the temper of the sick is wont 
 to reject the kind offices of those who would heal them. 
 This wound of the lapsed is as yet fresh, and the sore is 
 still rising into a tumour ; and therefore we are certain, that 
 when, in the course of more protracted time, that urgency of 
 theirs shall have worn out, they will love that very delay 
 which refers them to a faithful medicine; if only there be 
 not those who arm them for their own danger, and, instruct- 
 ing them perversely, demand on their behalf, instead of the 
 salutary remedies of delay, the fatal poisons of a premature 
 communion. For we do not believe, that without the insti- 
 gation of certain persons they would all have dared so petu- 
 lantly to claim peace for themselves. We know the faith of 
 the Carthaginian church, we know her training, we know 
 her humility ; whence also we have marvelled that we should 
 observe certain things somewhat rudely suggested against 
 you by letter, although we have often become aware of your 
 mutual love and charity, in many illustrations of reciprocal 
 affection of one another. It is time, therefoi'e, that they should 
 repent of their fault, that they should prove their grief for 
 their lapse, that they should show modesty, that they should 
 manifest humility, that they should exhibit some shame, 
 that, by their submission, they should appeal to God's cle- 
 mency for themselves, and by due honour for 1 God's priest 
 should draw forth upon themselves the divine mercy. How 
 vastly better would have been the letters of these men them- 
 selves, if the prayers of those who stood fast had been aided 
 by their own humility ! since that which is asked for is more 
 easily obtained, when he for whom it is asked is worthy, that 
 what is asked should be obtained. 
 
 in.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 85 
 
 4. In respect, however, of Privatus of Lambesa, you have 
 acted as you usually do, in desiring to inform us of the 
 matter, as being an object of anxiety; for it becomes us 
 all to watch for the body of the whole church, whose mem- 
 bers are scattered through every various province. But the 
 deceitfulness of that crafty man could not be hid from us 
 even before we had your letters ; for previously, when from the 
 company of that very wickedness a certain Futurus came, a 
 standard-bearer of Privatus, and was desirous of fraudulently 
 obtaining letters from us, we were neither ignorant who he 
 was, nor did he get the letters which he wanted. We bid 
 you heartily farewell in the Lord. 
 
 EPISTLE XXX. 1 
 
 THE KOMAN CLERGY TO CYPRIAN. 
 
 ARGUMENT. TJie Roman clergy enter into the matters which 
 they had spoken of in the foregoing letter, more fully and 
 substantially in the present one ; replying, moreover, to an- 
 other letter of Cyprian, which is thought not to be extant, 
 and from ichich they quote a few words. By the way, also, 
 they thank Cyprian for his letters sent to the Roman 
 confessors and martyrs. This letter was written, as were 
 also the others of the Roman clergy, during the vacancy 
 of the see, after the death of Fabian. 
 
 1. To father 2 Cyprian, the presbyters and deacons abiding 
 at Home, greeting. Although a mind conscious to itself of 
 uprightness, and relying on the vigour of evangelical dis- 
 cipline, and made a true witness to itself in the heavenly 
 decrees, is accustomed to be satisfied with God for its only 
 judge, and neither to seek the praises nor to dread the 
 charges of any other, yet those are worthy of double praise, 
 who, knowing that they owe their conscience to God alone 
 as the judge, yet desire that their doings should be approved 
 also by their brethren themselves. It is no wonder, brother 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxx. 2 Pope.
 
 86 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Cyprian, that you should do this, who, with your usual 
 modesty and inborn industry, have wished that we should be 
 found not so much judges of, as sharers in, your counsels, so 
 that we might find praise with you in your doings while we 
 approve them ; and might be able to be fellow-heirs with you 
 in your good counsels, because we entirely accord with them. 
 In the same way we are all thought to have laboured in that 
 in which we are all regarded as allied in the same agreement 
 of censure and discipline. 
 
 2. For what is there either in peace so suitable, or in a 
 war of persecution so necessary, as to maintain the due 
 severity of the divine vigour ? which he who resists, will of 
 necessity wander in the unsteady course of affairs, and will 
 be tossed hither and thither by the various and uncertain 
 storms of things ; and the helm of counsel being, as it were, 
 wrenched from his hands, he will drive the ship of the 
 church's safety among the rocks ; so that it would appear 
 that the church's safety can be no otherwise secured, than by 
 repelling any who set themselves against it as adverse waves, 
 and by maintaining the ever-guarded rule of discipline itself 
 as if it were the rudder of safety in the tempest. Nor 
 is it now but lately that this counsel has been considered 
 by us, nor have these sudden appliances against the wicked 
 but recently occurred to us ; but this is read of among 
 us as the ancient severity, the ancient faith, the ancient 
 discipline, since the apostle would not have published such 
 praise concerning us, when he said " that your faith is 
 spoken of throughout the whole world," 1 unless already from 
 thence that vigour had borrowed the roots of faith from those 
 times ; from which praise and glory it is a very great crime 
 to have become degenerate. For it is less disgrace never to 
 have attained to the heraldry of praise, than to have fallen 
 from the height of praise ; it is a smaller crime not to have 
 been honoured with a good testimony, than to have lost the 
 honour of good testimonies ; it is less discredit to have lain 
 without the announcement of virtues, ignoble without praise, 
 than, disinherited of the faith, to have lost our proper praises. 
 1 Rom. L 8.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 87 
 
 For those tilings which ai'e proclaimed to the glory of any 
 one, unless they are maintained by anxious and careful pains, 
 swell up into the odium of the greatest crime. 
 
 3. That we are not saying this dishonestly, our former 
 letters have proved, wherein we have declared our opinion to 
 you with a very plain statement, both against those who had 
 betrayed themselves as unfaithful by the unlawful presenta- 
 tion of wicked certificates, as if they thought that they would 
 escape those ensnaring nets of the devil ; whereas, not less 
 than if they had approached to the wicked altars, they were 
 held fast by the very fact that they had testified to him ; 
 and against those who had used those certificates when made, 
 although they had not been present when they were made, 
 since they had certainly asserted their presence by ordering 
 that they should be so written. For he is not guiltless of 
 wickedness who has bidden it to be done ; nor is he uncon- 
 cerned in the crime with whose consent it is publicly spoken 
 of, although it was not committed by him. And since the 
 whole mystery 1 of faith is understood to be contained in the 
 confession of the name of Christ, he who seeks for deceitful 
 tricks to excuse himself, has denied Christ ; and he who 
 wants to appear to have satisfied either edicts or laws put 
 forth against the gospel, has obeyed those edicts by the very 
 fact by which he wished to appear to have obeyed them. 
 Moreover, also, we have declared our faith and consent 
 against those, too, who had polluted their hands and their 
 mouths with unlawful sacrifices, whose own minds were be- 
 fore polluted ; whence also their very hands and mouths 
 were polluted also. Far be it from the Roman church to 
 slacken her vigour with so profane a facility, and to loosen 
 the nerves of her severity by overthrowing the majesty of 
 faith ; so that, when the wrecks of your ruined brethren are 
 still not only lying, but are falling around, remedies of a too 
 hasty kind, and certainly not likely to avail, should be 
 afforded for communion ; and by a false mercy, new wounds 
 should be impressed on the old wounds of their transgression ; 
 so that even repentance should be snatched from these 
 1 Sacramentum.
 
 88 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 wretched beings, to their greater overthrow. For where can 
 the medicine of indulgence profit, if even the physician him- 
 self, by intercepting repentance, makes easy way for new 
 dangers, if he only hides the wound, and does not suffer 
 the necessary remedy of time to close the scar ? This is not 
 to cure, but, if we wish to speak the truth, to slay. 
 
 4. Nevertheless, you have letters agreeing with our letters 
 from the confessors, whom the dignity of their confession has 
 still shut up here in prison, and whom, for the gospel con- 
 test, their faith has once already crowned in a glorious con- 
 fession; letters wherein they have maintained the severity 
 of the gospel discipline, and have revoked the unlawful 
 petitions, so that they might not be a disgrace to the church. 
 Unless they had done this, the ruins of gospel discipline 
 would not easily be restored, especially since it was to none 
 so fitting to maintain the tenor of evangelical vigour unim- 
 paired, and its dignity, as to those who had given themselves 
 up to be tortured and cut to pieces by raging men on behalf 
 of the gospel, that they might not deservedly forfeit the 
 honour of martyrdom, if, on the occasion of martyrdom, they 
 had wished to be betrayers of the gospel. For he who does 
 not guard what he has, in that condition whereon he possesses 
 it, by violating the condition whereon he possesses it, loses 
 what he possessed. 
 
 5. In which matter we ought to give you also, and we do 
 give you, abundant thanks, that you have brightened the 
 darkness of their prison by your letters ; that you came to 
 them in whatever way you could enter; that you refreshed 
 their minds, robust in their own faith and confession, by 
 your addresses and letters ; that, following up their felicities 
 with worthy praises, you have inflamed them to a much 
 more ardent desire of heavenly glory; that you urged them 
 forward ; that you animated, by the power of your discourse, 
 those who, as we believe and hope, will be victors by and by ; 
 so that although all may seem to come from the faith of those 
 who confess, and from the divine mercy, yet they seem in 
 their martyrdom to have become in some sort debtors to you. 
 But once more, to return to the point whence our discourse
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN, 89 
 
 appears to have digressed, you shall find subjoined the sort 
 of letters that we also sent to Sicily; although upon us is 
 incumbent a greater necessity of delaying this affair ; having, 
 since the departure of Fabian of most noble memory, had no 
 bishop appointed as yet, on account of the difficulties of 
 affairs and times, who can arrange all things of this kind, 
 and who can take account of those who are lapsed, with 
 authority and wisdom. However, what you also have yourself 
 declared in so important a matter, is satisfactory to us, that 
 the peace of the church must first be maintained ; then, that an 
 assembly for counsel being gathered together, with bishops, 
 presbyters, deacons, and confessors, as well as with the laity 
 who stand fast, we should deal with the case of the lapsed. 
 For it seems extremely invidious and burdensome to examine 
 into what seems to have been committed by many, except 
 by the advice of many ; or that one should give a sentence 
 when so great a crime is known to have gone forth, and to 
 be diffused among so many; since that cannot be a firm 
 decree which shall not appear to have had the consent of 
 very many. Look upon almost the whole world devastated, 
 and observe that the remains and the ruins of the fallen 
 are lying about on every side, and consider that therefore an 
 extent of counsel is asked for, large in proportion as the 
 crime appears to be widely propagated. Let not the medi- 
 cine be less than the wound, let not the remedies be fewer 
 than the deaths, that in the same manner as those who fell, 
 fell for this reason that they were too incautious with a blind 
 rashness, so those who strive to set in order this mischief 
 should use every moderation in counsels, lest anything done 
 as it ought not to be, should, as it were, be judged by all of 
 no effect. 
 
 6. Thus, with one and the same counsel, with the same 
 prayers and tears, let us, who up to the present time seem to 
 have escaped the destruction of these times of ours, as well 
 as those who appear to have fallen into those calamities of 
 the time, entreat the divine majesty, and ask peace for the 
 church's name. With mutual prayers, let us by turns cherish, 
 guard, arm one another ; let us pray for the lapsed, that they
 
 90 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 may be raised up ; let us pray for those who stand, that they 
 may not be tempted to such a degree as to be destroyed ; let 
 us pray that those who are said to have fallen may acknowledge 
 the greatness of their sin, and may perceive that it needs no 
 momentary nor over-hasty cure ; let us pray that penitence 
 may follow also the effects of the pardon of the lapsed ; that 
 so, when they have understood their own crime, they may be 
 willing to have patience with us for a while, and no longer 
 disturb the fluctuating condition of the church, lest they may 
 seem themselves to have inflamed an internal persecution for 
 us, and the fact of their unquietness be added to the heap of 
 their sins. For modesty is very greatly fitting for them in 
 whose sins it is an immodest mind that is condemned. Let 
 them indeed knock at the doors, but assuredly let them not 
 break them down ; let them present themselves at the threshold 
 of the church, but certainly let them not leap over it ; let 
 them watch at the gates of the heavenly camp, but let them 
 be armed with modesty, by which they perceive that they 
 have been deserters ; let them resume the trumpet of their 
 prayers, but let them not therewith sound a point of war ; 
 let them arm themselves indeed with the weapons of modesty, 
 and let them resume the shield of faith, which they had put 
 off by their denial through the fear of death, but let those 
 that are even now armed believe that they are armed against 
 their foe, the devil, not against the church, which grieves 
 over their fall. A modest petition will much avail them, a 
 bashful entreaty, a necessary humility, a patience which is 
 not careless. Let them send tears as their ambassadors for 
 their sufferings ; let groanings, brought forth from their 
 deepest heart, discharge the office of advocate, and prove 
 their grief and shame for the crime they have committed. 
 
 7. Nay, if they shudder at the magnitude of the guilt 
 incurred; if with a truly medicinal hand they deal with 
 the deadly wound of their heart and conscience and the deep 
 recesses of the subtle mischief, let them blush even to ask ; 
 except, again, that it is a matter of greater risk and shame not 
 to have besought the aid of peace. But let all this be in the
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 91 
 
 sacrament ; l in the law of their very entreaty let considera- 
 tion be had for the time ; let it be with downcast entreaty, 
 with subdued petition, since he also who is besought ought to 
 be bent, not provoked ; and as the divine clemency ought to be 
 looked to, so also ought the divine censure; and as it is written, 
 " I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me," 2 
 so it is written, " Whosoever shall deny me before men, him 
 will I also deny before my Father and before His angels." ;! 
 For God, as He is merciful, so He exacts obedience to His 
 precepts, and indeed carefully exacts it ; and as He invites to 
 the banquet, so the man that hath not a wedding garment He 
 binds hands and feet, and casts him out beyond the assembly 
 of the saints. lie has prepared heaven, but He has also pre- 
 pared hell. He has prepared places of refreshment, but He 
 has also prepared eternal punishment. He has prepared the 
 light that none can approach unto, but He has also prepared 
 the vast and eternal gloom of perpetual night. 
 
 8. Desiring to maintain the moderation of this middle 
 course in these matters, we for a long time, and indeed many 
 of us, and, moreover, with some of the bishops who are near 
 to us and within reach, and some whom, placed afar off, the 
 heat of the persecution had driven out from other provinces, 
 have thought that nothing new was to be done before the 
 appointment of a bishop ; but we believe that the care of the 
 lapsed must be moderately dealt with, so that, in the meantime, 
 whilst the grant of a bishop is withheld from us by God, the 
 cause of such as are able to bear the delays of postponement 
 should be kept in suspense ; but of such as impending death 
 does not suffer to bear the delay, having repented and pro- 
 fessed a detestation of their deeds with frequency, if with 
 tears, if with groans, if with weeping they have betrayed the 
 signs of a grieving and truly penitent spirit, when there re- 
 mains, as far as man can tell, no hope of living, to them, 
 finally, such cautious and careful help should be ministered, 
 God Himself knowing what He will do with such, and in 
 
 1 " In sacramento," scil. " fidei ;" perhaps in a way in harmony with 
 their religious engagement and with ecclesiastical discipline. 
 
 2 Matt, xviii. 32. Matt. x. 33 ; Luke xii. 9.
 
 92 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 what way He will examine the balance of His judgment; 
 while we, however, take anxious care that neither ungodly 
 men should praise our smooth facility, nor truly penitent men 
 accuse our severity as cruel. We bid you, most blessed and 
 glorious father, ever heartily farewell in the Lord ; and have 
 ns in memory. 
 
 EPISTLE XXXI. 1 
 
 TO THE CARTHAGINIAN CLERGY, ABOUT THE LETTERS SENT 
 TO ROME, AND RECEIVED THENCE. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The Carthaginian clergy are requested to take 
 care that the letters of the Roman clergy and Cyprian's 
 answer are communicated. 
 
 Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, 
 greeting. That you, my beloved brethren, might know what 
 letters I have sent to the clergy acting at Rome, and what 
 they have replied to me, and, moreover, what Moyses and 
 Maximus, the presbyters, and Rufinus and Nicostratus, the 
 deacons, and the rest of the confessors that with them are 
 kept in prison, replied likewise to my letters, I have sent 
 you copies to read. Do you take care, with as much diligence 
 as you can, that what I have written, and what they have 
 replied, be made known to our brethren. And, moreover, 
 if any bishops from foreign places, my colleagues, or pres- 
 byters, or deacons, should be present, or should arrive among 
 you, let them hear all these matters from you ; and if they 
 wish to transcribe copies of the letters and to take them to 
 their own people, let them have the opportunity of tran- 
 scribing them ; although I have, moreover, bidden Saturus the 
 reader, our brother, to give liberty of copying them to any 
 individuals who wish it ; so that, in ordering, for the present, 
 the condition of the church in any manner, an agreement, 
 one and faithful, maybe observed by all. But about the other 
 matters which were to be dealt with, as I have also written 
 to several of my colleagues, we will more fully consider them 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxxlL
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 93 
 
 in a common council, when, by the Lord's permission, we 
 shall begin to assemble into one place. I bid you, brethren, 
 beloved and longed for, ever heartily farewell. . Salute the 
 brotherhood. Fare ye well. 
 
 EPISTLE XXXII. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE, ABOUT THE ORDINATION 
 OF AURELIUS AS A READER. 
 
 AEGUMENT. Cyprian tells the clergy and people that Aurelius 
 the confessor has been ordained a reader by him, and 
 commends, by the way, the constancy of his virtue and his 
 mind, whereby he was even deserving of a higher degree 
 in the church. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the elders and deacons, and to the whole 
 people, greeting. In ordinations of the clergy, beloved 
 brethren, we usually consult you beforehand, and weigh the 
 character and deserts of individuals, with the general advice. 
 But human testimonies must not be waited for when the 
 divine approval precedes. Aurelius, our brother, an illus- 
 trious youth, already approved by the Lord, and dear to God, 
 in years still very young, but, in the praise of virtue and of 
 faith, advanced, inferior in the natural abilities of his age, 
 but superior in the honour [he has gained], has contended 
 here in a double conflict, having twice confessed and twice 
 been glorious in the victory of his confession, both when he 
 conquered in the course and was banished, and when at length 
 he fought in a severer conflict, he was triumphant and vic- 
 torious in the battle of suffering. As often as the adversary 
 wished to call forth the servants of God, so often this prompt 
 and brave soldier both fought and conquered. It had been 
 a slight matter, previously to have engaged under the eyes of 
 a few, when he was banished ; he deserved also in the forum 
 to engage with a more illustrious virtue ; so that, after over- 
 coming the magistrates, he might also triumph over the pro- 
 consul, and, after exile, might vanquish tortures also. Nor 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxxviii.
 
 94 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 can I discover what I ought to speak most of in him, the 
 o-lory of his wounds or the modesty of his character; that he 
 is distinguished by the honour of his virtue, or praiseworthy 
 for the admirableness of his bashfulness. He is both so 
 excellent in dignity and so lowly in humility, that it seems 
 that he is divinely reserved as one who should be an example 
 to the rest for ecclesiastical discipline, of the way in which 
 the servants of God should in confession conquer by their 
 courage, and, after confession, be conspicuous for their cha- 
 racter. 
 
 2. Such an one, to be estimated not by his years but by 
 his deserts, merited higher degrees of clerical ordination and 
 larger increase. But, in the meantime, I judged it well, that 
 he should begin with the office of reading ; because nothing 
 is more suitable for the voice which has confessed the Lord 
 in a glorious utterance, than to sound Him forth in the 
 solemn repetition of the divine lessons, than, after the 
 sublime words which spoke out the witness of Christ, to read 
 the gospel of Christ whence martyrs are made ; to come to 
 the desk after the scaffold, there to have been conspicuous 
 to the multitude of the Gentiles, here to be beheld by the 
 brethren, 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 brethren, that this 
 man has been ordained by me and by my colleagues who 
 were then present. I know that you will both gladly wel- 
 come these tidings, and that you desire that as many such 
 as possible may be ordained in our church. And since joy 
 is always hasty, and gladness can bear no delay, he reads on 
 the Lord's day, in the meantime, for me ; that is, he has 
 made a beginning of peace, by solemnly entering on his office 
 of a reader. 1 Do you frequently be urgent in supplications, 
 and assist my prayers by yours, that the Lord's mercy favour- 
 ing us may soon restore both the priest safe to his people, and 
 the martyr for a reader with the priest. I bid you, beloved 
 
 1 Aurelius not being able to discharge the functions of his office in 
 public, because of the persecution, in the meantime read for Cyprian ; 
 which is said to be an augury or beginning of future peace.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 95 
 
 brethren in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, ever heartily 
 farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XXXIII. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE, ABOUT THE ORDINATION 
 OF CELERINUS AS READER. 
 
 ARGUMENT. This letter is about the same in purport with the 
 preceding, except that he largely commends the constancy 
 of Celerinus in his confession of the faith. Moreover, that 
 both of these letters were written during his retreat, is suffi- 
 ciently indicated by the very circumstances of the context. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, and to the whole 
 people, his brethren in the Lord, greeting. The divine 
 benefits, beloved brethren, should be acknowledged and em- 
 braced, wherewith the Lord has condescended to embellish 
 and illustrate His church in our times by granting a respite 
 to His good confessors and His glorious martyrs, that they who 
 had grandly confessed Christ should afterwards adorn Christ's 
 clergy in ecclesiastical ministries. Exult, therefore, and re- 
 joice with me on receiving my letter, wherein I and my 
 colleagues who were then present mention to you Celerinus, 
 our brother, glorious alike for his courage and his character, 
 as added to our clergy, not by human recommendation, but 
 by divine condescension ; who, when he hesitated to yield to 
 the church, was constrained by her own admonition and ex- 
 hortation, in a vision by night, not to refuse our persuasions ; 
 and she had more power, and constrained him, because it 
 was not right, nor was it becoming, that he should be without 
 ecclesiastical honour, whom the Lord honoured with the dig- 
 nity of heavenly glory. 
 
 2. This man was the first in the struggle of our days ; he 
 was the leader among Christ's soldiers ; he, in the midst of 
 the burning beginnings of the persecution, engaged with the 
 very chief and author of the disturbance, in conquering with 
 invincible firmness the adversary of his own conflict. He 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xxxix.
 
 96 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 made a way for others to conquer, a victor with no small 
 amount of wounds, but triumphant by a miracle, with the 
 long-abiding and permanent penalties of a tedious conflict. 
 For nineteen days, shut up in the close guard of a dungeon, 
 he was racked and in irons ; but although his body was laid 
 in chains, his spirit remained free and at liberty. His flesh 
 wasted away by the long endurance of hunger and thirst ; 
 but God fed his soul, that lived in faith and virtue, with 
 spiritual nourishments. He lay in punishments, the stronger 
 for his punishments; imprisoned, greater than those that 
 imprisoned him ; lying prostrate, but loftier than those who 
 stood ; as bound, and firmer than the links which bound him ; 
 judged, and more sublime than those who judged him ; and 
 although his feet were bound on the rack, yet the serpent 
 was trodden on and ground down and vanquished. In his 
 glorious body shine the bright evidences of his wounds ; their 
 traces manifested, glow forth, and appear on the man's sinews 
 and limbs, worn out with tedious wasting away. Great 
 things are they marvellous things are they which the 
 brotherhood may hear of his virtues and of his praises. 
 And should any one appear like Thomas, who has little faith 
 in what he hears, the faith of the eyes is not wanting, so 
 that what one hears he may also see. In the servant of God, 
 the glory of the wounds made the victory ; the memory of 
 the scars preserves that glory. 
 
 3. Nor is that kind of title to glories in the case of 
 Celerinus, our beloved, an unfamiliar and novel thing. He 
 is advancing in the footsteps of his kindred ; he rivals 
 his parents and relations in equal honours of divine con- 
 descension. His grandmother, Celerina, was some time 
 since crowned with martyrdom. Moreover, his paternal and 
 maternal uncles, Laurentius and Egnatius, who themselves 
 also were once warring in the camps of the world, but were 
 true and spiritual soldiers of God, casting down the devil by 
 the confession of Christ, merited palms and crowns from the 
 Lord by their illustrious passion. We always offer sacrifices 
 for them, as you remember, as often as we celebrate the 
 passions and days of the martyrs in the annual commemora-
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 97 
 
 tion. Nor could he, therefore, be degenerate and inferior 
 whom this family dignity and a generous nobility provoked, by 
 domestic examples of virtue and faith. But if in a worldly 
 family it is a matter of heraldry and of praise to be a patri- 
 cian, of how much greater praise and honour is it to be- 
 come of noble rank in the celestial heraldry ! I cannot tell 
 whom I should call more blessed, whether those ancestors, 
 for a posterity so illustrious, or him, for an origin so glorious. 
 So equally between them does the divine condescension flow, 
 and pass to and fro, that, just as the dignity of their offspring 
 brightens their crown, so the sublimity of his ancestry illumi- 
 nates his glory. 
 
 4. When this man, beloved brethren, came to us with such 
 condescension of the Lord, illustrious by the testimony and 
 wonder of the very man who had persecuted him, what else 
 behoved to be done except that he should be placed on the 
 desk, that is, on the tribunal of the church ; that, resting on 
 the loftiness of a higher station, and conspicuous to the whole 
 people for the brightness of his honour, he should read the 
 precepts and gospel of the Lord, which he so bravely and 
 faithfully follows? Let the voice that has confessed the 
 Lord daily be heard in those things which the Lord spoke. 
 Let it be seen whether there is any further degree to which he 
 can be advanced in the church. There is nothing in which 
 a confessor can do more good to the brethren than that, 
 while the reading of the gospel is heard from his lips, every 
 one who hears should imitate the faith of the reader. He 
 should have been associated with Aurelius in reading ; with 
 whom, moreover, he was associated in the alliance of divine 
 honour ; with whom, in all the insignia of virtue and praise, 
 he had been united. Equal both, and each like to the other, 
 in proportion as they were sublime in glory, in that proportion 
 they were humble in modesty. As they were lifted up by 
 divine condescension, so they were lowly in their own peace- 
 fulness and tranquillity, and equally affording examples to 
 every one of virtues and character, and fitted both for con- 
 flict and for peace, praiseworthy in the former for strength, 
 in the latter for modesty. 
 
 G
 
 98 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 5. In such servants the Lord rejoices ; in confessors of this 
 kind He glories, whose way and conversation is so advan- 
 tageous to the announcement of their glory, that it affords to 
 others a teaching of discipline. For this purpose Christ has 
 willed them to remain long here in the church ; for this pur- 
 pose He has kept them safe, snatched from the midst of death, 
 a kind of resurrection, so to speak, being wrought on their 
 behalf ; so that, while nothing is seen by the brethren loftier 
 in honour, nothing more lowly in humility, the way of life of 
 the brotherhood l may accompany these same persons. Know, 
 then, that these for the present are appointed readers, because 
 it was fitting that the candle should be placed in a candle- 
 stick, whence it may give light to all, and that their glorious 
 countenances should be established in a higher place, where, 
 beheld by all the surrounding brotherhood, they may give an 
 incitement of glory to the beholders. But know that I have 
 already purposed the honour of the presbytery for them, that 
 so they may be honoured with the same presents as the 
 presbyters, and may share the monthly divisions in equalled 
 quantities, to sit with us hereafter in their advanced and 
 strengthened years ; although in nothing can he seem to be 
 inferior in the qualities of age who has consummated his age 
 by the dignity of his glory. I bid you, brethren, beloved and 
 earnestly longed for, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XXXIV. 2 
 
 TO THE SAME, ABOUT THE OEDINATION OF NUMIDICUS 
 AS PRESBYTER. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian tells the clergy and people that Numi- 
 dicus has been ordained by him presbyter ; and briefly 
 commends his worth. 
 
 Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, and to the whole 
 people, his brethren, very dear and longed-for, greeting. 
 
 " The brotherhood may follow and imitate these same persons ; " v. 1. 
 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xL
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 99 
 
 That which belongs, dearest brethren, both to the common 
 joy and to the greatest glory of our church ought to be told 
 to you ; for you must know that I have been admonished 
 and instructed by divine condescension, that Numidicus the 
 presbyter should be appointed in the number of Carthaginian 
 presbyters, and should sit with us among the clergy, a man 
 illustrious by the brightest light of confession, exalted in the 
 honour both of virtue and of faith ; who by his exhorta- 
 tion sent before himself an abundant number of martyrs, 
 slain by stones and by the flames, and who beheld with joy 
 his wife abiding by his side, burned (I should rather say, 
 preserved) together with the rest. He himself, half con- 
 sumed, overwhelmed with stones, and left for dead, when 
 afterwards his daughter, with the anxious consideration of 
 affection, sought for the corpse of her father, was found half 
 dead, was drawn out and revived, and remained unwillingly l 
 from among the companions whom he himself had sent be- 
 fore. But the reason of his remaining behind, as we see, was 
 this : that the Lord might add him to our clergy, and might 
 adorn with glorious priests the number of our presbyters 
 that had been desolated by the lapse of some. And when 
 God permits, he shall be advanced to a larger office in his 
 region, when, by the Lord's protection, we have come into 
 your presence once more. In the meantime, let what is re- 
 vealed be done, that we receive this gift of God with thanks- 
 giving, hoping from the Lord's mercy more ornaments of 
 the same kind, that so the strength of His church being re- 
 newed, He may make men so meek and lowly to flourish in 
 the honour of our assembly. I bid you, brethren, very dear 
 and longed for, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 1 Otherwise, " unconquered."
 
 100 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE XXXV. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY, CONCERNING THE CARE OF THE POOR 
 AND STRANGERS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. He cautions them against neglecting the ividows, 
 the sick, or the f>oor } or strangers. 
 
 Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his beloved brethren, 
 greeting. In safety, by God's grace, I greet you, beloved 
 brethren, desiring soon to come to you, and to satisfy the 
 wish as well of myself and you, as of all the brethren. It 
 behoves me also, however, to have regard to the common 
 peace, and, in the meantime, although with weariness of spirit, 
 to be absent from you, lest my presence should provoke the 
 jealousy and violence of the heathens, and I should be the 
 cause of breaking the peace, who ought rather to be careful 
 for the quiet of all. When, therefore, you write that mat- 
 ters are arranged, and that I ought to come, or if the Lord 
 should condescend to intimate it to me before, then I will 
 come to you. For where could I be better or more joyful 
 than there where the Lord willed me both to believe and to 
 grow up [in honour] ? I request that you will diligently take 
 care of the widows, and of the sick, and of all the poor. More- 
 over, you may supply the expenses for strangers, if any should 
 be indigent, from my own portion, which I have left with 
 Rogatianus, our fellow-presbyter ; which portion, lest it 
 should be all appropriated, I have supplemented by sendino- 
 to the same by Naricus the acolyte another share, so that 
 the sufferers may be more largely and promptly dealt with. 
 I bid you, beloved brethren, ever heartily farewell ; and have 
 me in remembrance. Greet your brotherhood in my name, 
 and tell them to be mindful of me. 
 
 1 Oxford ed : Ep. vii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 101 
 
 EPISTLE XXXVI. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY, BIDDING THEM SHOW EVEEY KINDNESS 
 TO THE CONFESSORS IN PRISON. 
 
 AEGUMENT. He exhorts Ids clergy tliat every kindness and 
 care should le exercised towards the confessors, as well 
 towards those icho were alive, as those who died, in prison ; 
 that the days of their death should be carefully noted, for 
 the purpose of celebrating their memory annually ; and, 
 finally, that they should not forget the poor also. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his brethren, 
 greeting. Although 1 know, dearest brethren, that you have 
 frequently been admonished in my letters to manifest all 
 care for those who with a glorious voice have confessed the 
 Lord, and are confined in prison ; yet, again and again, I 
 urge it upon you, that no consideration be wanting to them 
 to whose glory there is nothing wanting. And I wish that 
 the circumstances of the place and of my station would per- 
 mit me to present myself at this time with them ; promptly 
 and gladly would I fulfil all the duties of love towards our 
 most courageous brethren in my appointed ministry. But I 
 beseech you, let your diligence be the representative of my 
 duty, and do all those things which behove to be done in re- 
 spect of those whom the divine condescension has rendered 
 illustrious in such merits of their faith and virtue. Let there 
 be also a more zealous watchfulness and care bestowed upon 
 the bodies of all those who, although they were not tortured 
 in prison, yet depart thence by the glorious exit of death. 
 For neither is their virtue nor their honour too little for 
 them also to be allied with the blessed martyrs. As far 
 as they could, they bore whatever they were prepared and 
 equipped to bear. He who under the eyes of God has offered 
 himself to tortures and to death, has suffered whatever he was 
 willing to suffer ; for it was not he that was wanting to the 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xii.
 
 102 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 tortures, but the tortures that were wanting to him. " Who- 
 soever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess 
 before my Father which is in heaven," 1 saith the Lord. 
 They have confessed Him. " He that endureth to the end, 
 the same shall be saved," 2 saith the Lord. They have en- 
 dured and have carried the uncorrupted and unstained 
 merits of their virtues through, even unto the end. And, 
 again, it is written, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I 
 will give thee a crown of life." 3 They have persevered in 
 their faithfulness, and stedfastness, and irivincibleness, even 
 unto death. When to the willingness and the confession of 
 the name in prison and in chains is added also the conclu- 
 sion of dying, the glory of the martyr is consummated. 
 
 2. Finally, also, take note of their days on which they 
 depart, that we may celebrate their commemoration among 
 the memorials of the martyrs, although Tertullus, our most 
 faithful and devoted brother, who, in addition to the other 
 solicitude and care which he shows to the brethren in all ser- 
 vice of labour, is not wanting besides in that respect in any 
 care of their bodies, has written, and does write and intimate 
 to me the days, in which our blessed brethren in prison pass 
 by the gate of a glorious death to their immortality; and there 
 are celebrated here by us oblations and sacrifices for their 
 commemorations, which things, with the Lord's protection, we 
 shall soon celebrate with you. Let your care also (as I have 
 already often written) and your diligence not be wanting to 
 the poor, to such, I mean, as stand fast in the faith and 
 bravely fight with us, and have not left the camp of Christ ; 
 to whom, indeed, we should now show a greater love and 
 care, in that they are neither constrained by poverty nor 
 prostrated by the tempest of persecution, but faithfully serve 
 with the Lord, and have given an example of faith to the 
 other poor. I bid you, brethren beloved, and greatly longed 
 for, ever heartily farewell; and remember me. Greet the 
 brotherhood in my name. Fare ye well. 
 
 1 Matt. x. 32. 2 Matt. x. 22. * Rev. ii. 10.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 103 
 
 EPISTLE XXXVII. 1 
 
 TO CALDONIUS, HERCULANUS, AND OTHERS, ABOUT THE 
 EXCOMMUNICATION OF FELIOISSIMUS. 
 
 AEGUMENT. Felicissimus, together with his companions in 
 sedition, is to be restrained from the communion of all. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Caldonius and Herculanus, his colleagues, 
 also to Kogatianus and Numidicus, his fellow-presbyters, 
 greeting. I have been greatly grieved, dearest brethren, at 
 the receipt of your letter, that although I have always pro- 
 posed to myself and wished to keep all our brotherhood safe, 
 and to preserve the flock unharmed, as charity requires, you 
 tell me now that Felicissimus has been attempting many 
 things with wickedness and craft; so that, besides his old 
 frauds and plundering, of which I had formerly known a good 
 deal, he has now, moreover, tried to divide with the bishop, a 
 portion of the people ; that is, to separate the sheep from the 
 shepherd, and sons from their parents, and to scatter the 
 members of Christ. And although I sent you as my substi- 
 tutes to discharge the necessities of our brethren, with funds, 
 and if any, moreover, wished to exercise their crafts, to assist 
 their wishes with such an addition as might be sufficient, and 
 at the same time also to take note of their ages and conditions 
 and deserts, that I also, upon whom falls the charge of know- 
 ing all of them thoroughly, might promote any that were 
 worthy and humble and meek to the offices of the ecclesias- 
 tical administration ; he has interfered, and directed that no 
 one should be relieved, and that those things which I had 
 desired should not be ascertained by careful examination ; 
 he has also threatened our brethren, who had first approached 
 to be relieved, with a wicked exercise of power, and with a 
 violent dread that those who desired to obey me should not 
 communicate with him in death. 2 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xli. 
 
 2 Or, "in the mount," "in monte" (vide Neander, K. G. i. 252);
 
 104 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 2. And since, after all these things, neither moved by the 
 honour of my station, nor shaken by your authority and 
 presence, but of his own impulse, disturbing the peace of the 
 brethren, he hath rushed forth with many more, and asserted 
 himself as a leader of a faction and chief of a sedition with 
 a hasty madness in which respect, indeed, I congratulate 
 several of the brethren that they have withdrawn from this 
 boldness, and have rather chosen to consent with you, so that 
 they may remain with the church, their mother, and receive 
 their stipends from the bishop who dispenses them, which, 
 indeed, I know for certain, that others also will peaceably do, 
 and will quickly withdraw from their rash error, in the 
 meantime, since Felicissimus has threatened that they should 
 not communicate with him in death 1 who had obeyed us, that 
 is, who communicated with us, let him receive the sentence 
 which he first of all declared, that he may know that he is 
 excommunicated by us ; inasmuch as he adds to his frauds and 
 rapines, which we have known by the clearest truth, the crime 
 also of adultery, which our brethren, grave men, have declared 
 that they have discovered, and have asseverated that they will 
 prove ; all which things we shall then judicially examine, 
 when, with the Lord's permission, we shall assemble in one 
 place with many of our colleagues. But Augendus also, who, 
 considering neither his bishop nor his church, has equally 
 associated himself with him in this conspiracy and faction, if 
 he should further persevere with him, let him bear the sen- 
 tence which that factious and impetuous man has provoked 
 on himself. Moreover, whoever shall ally himself with his 
 conspiracy and faction, let him know that he shall not com- 
 municate in the church with us, since of his own accord he has 
 preferred to be separated from the church. Read this letter 
 of mine to our brethren, and also transmit it to Carthage to 
 the clergy, the names being added of those who have joined 
 themselves with Felicissimus. I bid you, beloved brethren,. 
 ever heartily farewell ; and remember me. Fare ye well. 
 
 probably in some church or congregation assembled by Felicissimus, on 
 an eminence near or in Carthage. ' 
 1 Or, " on the mount."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 105 
 
 EPISTLE XXXVIII. 1 
 
 THE LETTER OF CALDONIUS, HERCULANUS, AND OTHERS, 
 ON THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF FELICISSIMUS WITH HIS 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Caldonius, Herculanus, and others carry into 
 effect what the preceding letter had bidden them. 
 
 Caldonius, with Herculanus and Victor, his colleagues, also 
 with Rogatianus and Numidicus, presbyters. 2 We have re- 
 jected Felicissimus and Augendus from communion ; also 
 Kepostus from among the exiles, and Irene of the Blood- 
 stained ones; 3 and Paula the sempstress; which you ought to 
 know from my subscription ; also we have rejected Sophronius 
 and Soliassus (budinarius), 4 himself also one of the exiles. 
 
 EPISTLE XXXIX. 5 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE, CONCERNING FIVE SCHISMATIC PRES- 
 BYTERS OF THE FACTION OF FELICISSIMUS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. In like manner, as in the epistle but one before 
 this, Cyprian told the clergy, so now he tells the people, 
 that Felicissimus is to be avoided, together with five pres- 
 byters of his faction, who not only granted peace to the 
 lapsed inthout any discrimination, but stirred up sedition 
 and schism against himself. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the whole people, greeting. Although, 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xlii. 2 V.I. " to Cyprian, greeting." 
 
 3 " Rutili," sdl. confessors who had spilt their blood. 
 
 4 " Budinarius." The exact meaning of this word is unknown. Some 
 read it as another name : " Soliassus and Budinarius." The Oxford 
 editor changes it into Burdonarius, meaning a " carrier on mules." 1 
 Salmasius, in a long note on a passage in the life of Aurelian (Hist. Aug. 
 p. 408), proposes butinarius, which he derives from fivrivn, a vessel for 
 containing vinegar, etc., and which he identifies with ftolm;, the original 
 of our bottle. Butinarius would then mean a maker of vessels suitable 
 for containing vinegar, etc. See Sophocles' Glossary of Byzantine Greek, 
 s. v. fioiJTTis. 5 Oxford ed. : Ep. xliii.
 
 106 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 dearest brethren, Virtius, 1 a most faithful and upright pres- 
 byter, and also Rogatianus and Numidicus, presbyters, 
 confessors, and illustrious by the glory of the divine conde- 
 scension, and also the deacons, good men and devoted to the 
 ecclesiastical administration in all its duties, with the other 
 ministers, afford you the full attention of their presence, and do 
 not cease to confirm individuals by their assiduous exhorta- 
 tions, and, moreover, to govern and reform the minds of the 
 lapsed by their wholesome counsels, yet, as much as I can, I 
 admonish, and as I can, I visit you with my letters. By my 
 letters I say, dearest brethren for the malignity and treachery 
 of certain of the presbyters has accomplished this, that I 
 should not be allowed to come to you before Easter-day ; 
 since mindful of their conspiracy, and retaining that ancient 
 venom against my episcopate, that is, against your suffrage 
 and God's judgment, they renew their old attack upon me, 
 and once more begin their sacrilegious machinations with 
 their accustomed craft. And, indeed, of God's providence, 
 neither by our wish nor desire, nay, although we were forgiving 
 and silent, they have suffered the punishment which they had 
 deserved ; so that, not cast out by us, they of their own accord 
 have cast themselves out ; they themselves, before their own 
 conscience, have passed sentence on themselves in accord- 
 ance with your suffrages and the divine ; these conspirators 
 and evil men of their own accord have driven themselves 
 from the church. 
 
 2. Now it has appeared whence came the faction of Feli- 
 cissimus, on what root and by what strength it stood. These 
 men supplied in former times encouragements and exhorta- 
 tions to certain confessors, not to agree with their bishop, 
 not to maintain the ecclesiastical discipline with faith and 
 quietness according to the Lord's precepts, not to keep the 
 glory of their confession with an uncorrupt and unspotted 
 conversation. And lest it should be too little to have cor- 
 rupted the minds of certain confessors, and to have wished 
 to arm a portion of our broken fraternity against God's 
 priesthood, they have now turned their attention with their 
 1 Some read " Britius" or " Briccius."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 107 
 
 envenomed deceitful ness to the ruin of the lapsed, to turn 
 away from the healing of their wound the sick and the 
 wounded, and those who, by the misfortune of their fall, are 
 less fit and less sturdy to take stronger counsel ; and invite 
 them, by the falsehood of a fallacious peace, to a fatal rash- 
 ness, leaving off prayers and supplications, whereby, with long 
 and continual satisfaction, the Lord is to be appeased. 
 
 3. But I pray you, brethren, watch against the snares of 
 the devil, and, taking care for your own salvation, be diligently 
 on your guard against this death-bearing fallacy. This is 
 another persecution and another temptation. Those five 
 presbyters are none other than the five leaders who were 
 lately associated with the magistrates in an edict, that they 
 might overthrow our faith, that they might turn away the 
 feeble hearts of the brethren to their deadly nets by the pre- 
 varication of the truth. Now the same scheme, the same 
 overturning, is again brought about by the five presbyters 
 linked with Felicissimus to the destruction of salvation, that 
 God should not be besought, and that he who has denied 
 Christ should not appeal for mercy to the same Christ whom 
 he had denied ; that after the fault of the crime, repentance 
 also should be taken away ; and that the Lord should not be 
 appeased through bishops and priests, but that the Lord's priests 
 being forsaken, a new tradition of a sacrilegious appointment 
 should arise, contrary to the evangelical discipline ; and al- 
 though it was once arranged as well by us as by the con- 
 fessors and the city 1 clergy, and moreover by all the bishops 
 appointed either in our province or beyond the sea, 2 that no 
 novelty should be introduced in respect of the case of the 
 lapsed unless we all assembled into one place, and our counsels 
 being compared, should decide upon a moderate sentence, 
 tempered alike with discipline and with mercy ; against this 
 our counsel they have rebelled, and all priestly authority and 
 power is destroyed by factious conspiracies. 
 
 4. What sufferings do I now endure, dearest brethren, that 
 I myself am not able to come to you at the present juncture, 
 
 1 " Clericis urbicis," soil, the " Eoman city clergy." 
 
 2 " Romse," soil. " across the sea, at Rome."
 
 108 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 that I myself cannot approach you each one, that I myself 
 cannot exhort you according to the teaching of the Lord 
 and of His gospel! An exile of now two years was not 
 sufficient, and a mournful separation from you, from your 
 countenance, and from your sight, continual grief and 
 lamentation, which, in my loneliness without you, tears me to 
 pieces with my constant mourning, nor my tears floAving day 
 and night, that there is not even an opportunity for the priest 
 whom you made with so much love and eagerness to greet 
 you, nor to be enfolded in your embraces. This greater grief 
 is added to my worn spirit, that in the midst of so much soli- 
 citude and necessity I am not able myself to hasten to you, 
 since, by the threats and by the snares of perfidious men, 
 we are anxious that on our coining a greater tumult may not 
 arise there ; and so, although the bishop ought to be careful 
 for peace and tranquillity in all things, he himself should 
 seem to have afforded material for sedition, and to have em- 
 bittered persecution anew. Hence, however, beloved brethren, 
 I not only admonish but counsel you, not rashly to trust to 
 mischievous words, nor to yield an easy consent to deceitful 
 sayings, nor to take darkness for light, night for day, hunger 
 for food, thirst for drink, poison for medicine, death for 
 safety. Let not the age nor the authority deceive you of 
 those who, answering to the ancient wickedness of the two 
 elders ; as they attempted to corrupt and violate the chaste 
 Susannah, 1 are thus also attempting, with their adulterous 
 doctrines, to corrupt the chastity of the church and violate 
 the truth of the gospel. 
 
 5. The Lord cries aloud, saying, " Hearken not unto the 
 words of the false prophets, for the visions of their own 
 hearts deceive them. They speak, but not out of the mouth 
 of the Lord. They say to them that despise the word of the 
 Lord, Ye shall have peace." 2 They are now offering peace 
 who have not peace themselves. They are promising to bring 
 back and recall the lapsed into the church, who themselves 
 have departed from the church. There is one God, and 
 Christ is one, and there is one church, and one chair founded 
 1 Hist, of Susannah. a Jer. xxiii. 16, 17.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 100 
 
 upon the rock by the word of the Lord. Another altar can- 
 iiot be constituted or a new priesthood be made, except the 
 one altar and the one priesthood. Whosoever gathereth else- 
 where, scattereth. Whatsoever is appointed by human mad- 
 ness, so that the divine disposition is violated, is adulterous, is 
 impious, is sacrilegious. Depart far from the contagion of 
 men of this kind, and flee from their words, avoiding them 
 as a cancer and a plague, as the Lord warns you and says, 
 " They are blind leaders of the blind. But if the blind lead 
 the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch." 1 They inter- 
 cept your prayers, which you pour forth with us to God day 
 and night, to appease Him with a righteous satisfaction. 
 They intercept your tears with which you wash away the 
 guilt of the sin you have committed ; they intercept the peace 
 which you truly and faithfully ask from the mercy of the Lord; 
 and they do not know that it is written, " And that prophet, 
 or that dreamer of dreams, that hath spoken to turn you 
 away from the Lord your God, shall be put to death." 2 Let 
 no one, beloved brethren, make you to err from the ways of 
 the Lord ; let no one snatch you, Christians, from the gospel 
 of Christ ; let no one take sons of the church away from the 
 church ; let them perish alone for themselves who have wished 
 to perish ; let them remain outside the church alone who have 
 departed from the church ; let them alone be without bishops 
 who have rebelled against bishops ; let them alone undergo 
 the penalties of their conspiracies who formerly, according to 
 your votes, and now according to God's judgment, have de- 
 served to undergo the sentence of their own conspiracy and 
 malignity. 
 
 6. The Lord warns us in His gospel, saying, " Ye reject the 
 commandment of God, that ye may establish your own tradi- 
 tion." 3 Let them who reject the commandment of God and 
 endeavour to keep their own tradition be bravely and firmly 
 rejected by you ; let one downfall be sufficient for the lapsed ; 
 let no one by his fraud hurl down those who wish to rise ; 
 let no one cast down more deeply and depress those who are 
 down, on whose behalf we pray that they may be raised up 
 1 Matt. xv. 14. 2 Deut. xiii. 5. 3 Mark vii. 9.
 
 110 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 by God's hand and arm ; let no one turn away from all hope 
 of safety those who are half alive and entreating that they 
 may receive their former health ; let no one extinguish every 
 light of the way of salvation to those that are wavering in 
 the darkness of their lapse. The apostle instructs us, saying, 
 " If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the whole- 
 some words of our Lord Jesus Christ and His doctrine, he is 
 lifted up with foolishness : from such withdraw thyself." l 
 And again he says, " Let no man deceive you with vain 
 words ; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God 
 upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore par- 
 takers with them." 2 There is no reason that you should be 
 deceived with vain words, and begin to be partakers of their 
 depravity. Depart from such, I entreat you, and acquiesce 
 in our counsels, who daily pour out for you continual prayers 
 to the Lord, who desire that you should be recalled to the 
 church by the clemency of the Lord, who pray for the fullest 
 peace from God, first for the mother, and then for her chil- 
 dren. Join also your petitions and prayers with our prayers 
 and petitions ; mingle your tears with our wailings. Avoid 
 the wolves who separate the sheep from the shepherd ; avoid 
 the envenomed tongue of the devil, who from the beginning 
 of the world, always deceitful and lying, lies that he may 
 deceive, cajoles that he may injure, promises good that he 
 may give evil, promises life that he may put to death. Now 
 also his words are evident, and his poisons are plain. He 
 promises peace, in order that peace may not possibly be 
 attained ; he promises salvation, that he who has sinned 
 may not come to salvation ; he promises a church, when 
 he so contrives that he who believes him may utterly perish 
 apart from the church. 
 
 7. It is now the occasion, dearly beloved brethren, both 
 for you who stand fast to persevere bravely, and to maintain 
 your glorious stability, which you kept in persecution with a 
 continual firmness ; and if any of you by the circumvention 
 of the adversary have fallen, that in this second temptation 
 you should faithfully take counsel for your hope and your 
 1 1 Tim. vi. 3-5. 2 Eph. v. 6, 7.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. Ill 
 
 peace ; and in order that the Lord may pardon you, that you 
 should not depart from the priests of the Lord, since it is 
 written, "And the man that will do presumptuously, and will 
 not hearken unto the priest or unto the judge that shall be in 
 those days, even that man shall die." ] Of this persecution 
 this is the latest and final temptation, which itself also, by the 
 Lord's protection, shall quickly pass away ; so that I shall 
 be again presented to you after Easter-day with my col- 
 leagues, who, being present, we shall be able as well to 
 arrange as to complete the matters which require to be done 
 according to your judgment and to the general advice of 
 all of us as it has been decided before. But if anybody 
 refusing to repent and to make satisfaction to God, shall 
 yield to the party of Felicissimus and his satellites, and 
 shall join himself to the heretical faction, let him know that 
 he cannot afterwards return to the church and communicate 
 with the bishops and the people of Christ. I bid you, dearest 
 brethren, ever heartily farewell, and that you plead with me 
 in continual prayer that the mercy of God may be entreated. 
 
 EPISTLE XL. 2 
 
 TO CORNELIUS, ON HIS EEFUSAL TO RECEIVE 
 NOVATIAN'S ORDINATION. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The messengers sent by Novatian to intimate Ms 
 ordination to the church of Carthage are rejected by Cyprian. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Cornelius, his brother, greeting. There have 
 come to us, beloved brother, sent by Novatian, Maximus the 
 presbyter, and Augendus the deacon, and a certain Macha3us 
 and Longinus. But, as we discovered, as well from the letters 
 which they brought with them, as from their discourse and 
 declaration, that Novatian had been made bishop ; disturbed 
 by the wickedness of an unlawful ordination made in opposi- 
 tion to the catholic church, we considered at once that they 
 must be restrained from communion with us ; and having, in 
 1 Deut. xvii. 12. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xliv.
 
 112 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the meanwhile, refuted and repelled the things which they 
 pertinaciously and obstinately endeavoured to assert, I and 
 several of my colleagues, who had come together to me, were 
 awaiting the arrival of our colleagues Caldonius and Fortu- 
 natus, whom we had lately sent to you as ambassadors, and 
 to our fellow-bishops, who were present at your ordination, 
 in 'order that, when they came and reported the truth of 
 the matter, the wickedness of the adverse party might be 
 quelled through them, by greater authority and .manifest 
 proof. But there came, in addition, Pompeius and Stephanus, 
 our colleagues, who themselves also, by way of instructing us 
 thereon, put forward manifest proofs and testimonies in con- 
 formity with their gravity and faithfulness, so that it was 
 not even necessary that those who had come as sent by 
 Novatian should be heard any further. And when in our 
 solemn assembly 1 they burst in with invidious abuse and 
 turbulent clamour, demanding that the accusations, which 
 they said that they brought and would prove, should be 
 publicly investigated by us and by the people, we said that 
 it was not consistent with our gravity to suffer the honour 
 of our colleague, who had already been chosen and ordained 
 and approved by the laudable sentence of many, to be called 
 into question any further by the abusive voice of rivals. 
 And because it would be a long business to collect into a 
 letter the matters in which they have been refuted and re- 
 pressed, and in which they have been manifested as having 
 caused heresy by their unlawful attempts, you shall hear 
 everything most fully from Primitivus our co-presbyter, 
 when he shall come to you. 
 
 2. And lest their raging boldness should ever cease, they 
 are striving here also to distract the members of Christ into 
 schismatical parties, and to cut and tear the one body of 
 the catholic church, so that, running about from door to door, 
 through the houses of many, or from city to city, through 
 certain districts, they seek for companions in their obstinacy 
 and error to join to themselves in their schism. To whom 
 
 1 " In statione," "stationary assembly," these being the Wednesdays 
 and Fridays in each week. MARSHALL.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 113 
 
 we have once given this reply, nor shall we cease to com- 
 mand them to lay aside their pernicious dissensions and dis- 
 putes, and to be aware that it is an impiety to forsake their 
 Mother; and to acknowledge and understand that, when a 
 bishop is once made and approved by the testimony and 
 judgment of his colleagues and the people, another can be 
 by no means appointed. Thus, if they consult their own in- 
 terest peaceably and faithfully, if they confess themselves to 
 be maintainers of the gospel of Christ, they must return 
 to the church. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily 
 farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XLI. 1 
 
 TO CORNELIUS, ABOUT CYPRIAN'S APPROVAL OF HIS 
 ORDINATION, AND CONCERNING FELICISSIMUS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian excuses himself for not having without 
 hesitation believed in the ordination of Cornelius, until 
 he received the letters of his colleagues Caldonius and 
 Fortunatus, ichich fully testified to its legitimacy ; and 
 incidentally repeats, in respect of the contrary faction of 
 the Novatian party, that he did not in the very Jirst in- 
 stance give his adhesion to that, but rather to Cornelius, 
 even to the extent of refusing to receive accusations agains* 
 him. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. As was 
 fitting for God's servants, and especially for upright and 
 peaceable priests, dearest brother, we recently sent our col- 
 leagues Caldonius and Fortunatus, that they might, not only 
 by the persuasion of our letters, but by their presence and 
 the advice of all of you, strive and labour with all their 
 power to bring the members of the divided body into the 
 unity of the catholic church, and associate them into the 
 bond of Christian charity. But since the obstinate and in- 
 flexible pertinacity of the adverse party has not only rejected 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xlv. 
 H
 
 1U THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the bosom and the embrace of its root and Mother, but even r 
 with a discord spreading and reviving itself worse and worse, 
 has appointed a bishop for itself, and, contrary to the sacra- 
 ment once delivered of the divine appointment and of catholic 
 unity, has made an adulterous and opposed head outside the 
 church ; having received your letters as well as those of our 
 colleagues, at the coming also of our colleagues Pompeius 
 and Stephanus, good men and very dear to us, by whom all 
 these things were undoubtedly alleged and proved to us with 
 general gladness, 1 in conformity with the requirements alike 
 of the sanctity and the truth of the divine tradition and 
 ecclesiastical institution, we have directed our letters to you. 
 Moreover, bringing these same things under the notice of 
 our several colleagues throughout the province, we have 
 bidden also that our brethren, with letters from them, be 
 directed to you. 
 
 2. [This has been done], although our mind and intention 
 had been already plainly declared to the brethren, and to the 
 whole of the people in this place, when having received letters 
 lately from both parties, we read your letters, and intimated 
 your ordination to the episcopate, in the ears of every one. 
 Moreover, remembering the common honour, and having 
 respect for the sacerdotal gravity and sanctity, we repudiated 
 those things which from the other party had been heaped 
 together with bitter virulence into a document transmitted to 
 us ; alike considering and weighing, that in so great and so 
 religious an assembly of brethren, in which God's priests 
 were sitting together, and His altar was set, they ought 
 neither to be read nor to be heard. For those things should 
 not easily be put forward, nor carelessly and rudely published, 
 which may move a scandal by means of a quarrelsome pen in 
 the minds of the hearers, and confuse brethren, who are placed 
 far apart and dwelling across the sea, with uncertain opinions. 
 Let those beware, who, obeying either their own rage or lust, 
 and unmindful of the divine law and holiness, rejoice to 
 throw abroad in the meantime things which they cannot prove; 
 
 1 The Oxford edition follows some authorities in reading this "sad- 
 ness" rather than " gladness."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 115 
 
 and although they may not be successful in destroying and 
 ruining innocence, are satisfied with scattering stains upon 
 it with lying reports and false rumours. Assuredly, we should 
 exert ourselves, as it is fitting for prelates and priests to do, 
 that such things, when they are written by any, should be 
 repudiated as far as we are concerned. For otherwise, what 
 will become of that which we learn and which we declare to 
 be laid down in Scripture : " Keep thy tongue from evil, and 
 thy lips from speaking guile?" 1 And elsewhere: " Thy mouth 
 abounded in malice, and thy tongue embraced deceit. Thou 
 satest and spakest against thy brother, and slanderedst thine 
 own mother's son." 2 Also what the apostle says: "Let 
 no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but 
 that which is good to the edifying of faith, that it may mini- 
 ster grace unto the hearers." 3 Further, we show what the 
 right course of conduct to pursue is, 4 if, when such things are 
 written by the calumnious temerity of some, we do not allow 
 them to be read among us ; and therefore, dearest brother, 
 when such letters came to me against you, even though they 
 were the letters of your co-presbyter sitting with you, 5 as they 
 breathed a tone of religious simplicity, and did not echo with 
 any barkings of curses and reviliugs, I ordered them to be 
 read to the clergy and the people. 
 
 3. But in desiring letters from our colleagues, who were 
 present at your ordination at that place, we did not forget 
 the ancient usage, nor did we seek for any novelty. For it 
 was sufficient for you to announce yourself by letters to have 
 been made bishop, unless there had been a dissenting faction 
 on the other side, who by their slanderous and calumnious 
 fabrications disturbed the minds and perplexed the hearts 
 of our colleagues, as well as of several of the brethren. To 
 set this matter at rest, we judged it necessary to obtain thence 
 
 1 Ps. xxxiv. 13. 2 Ps. 1. 19, 20. 8 Eph. iv. 29. 
 
 4 Lit. : " that these things ought to be done." 
 
 5 The co-presbyter here spoken of is Novatian. The Oxford text reads, 
 " When such writings came to me concerning you and your co-presbyters 
 sitting -with you, as had the true ring of religious simplicity in them." 
 There is a variety of readings.
 
 116 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the strong and decided authority of our colleagues who wrote 
 to us ; and they, declaring the testimony of their letters to be 
 fully deserved by your character, and life, and teaching, 
 have deprived even your rivals, and those who delight either 
 in novelty or evil, of every scruple of doubt or of difference ; 
 and, according to our advice weighed in wholesome reason, 
 the minds of the brethren tossing about in this sea have 
 sincerely and decidedly approved your priesthood. For this, 
 my brother, we especially both labour after, and ought to 
 labour after, to be careful to maintain as much as we can the 
 unity delivered by the Lord, and through His apostles to us 
 their successors, and, as far as in us lies, to gather into the 
 church the dispersed and wandering sheep which the wilful 
 faction and heretical temptation of some is separating from 
 their Mother; those only being left outside, who by their 
 obstinacy and madness have persisted, and have been un- 
 willing to return to us ; who themselves will have to give an 
 account to the Lord of the dissension and separation made 
 by them, and of the church that they have forsaken. 
 
 4. But, so far as pertains to the cause of certain pres- 
 byters here, and of Felicissimus, that you may know what has 
 been done here, our colleagues have sent you letters sub- 
 scribed by their own hand, that you may learn, when you 
 have heard the parties, from their letters what they have 
 thought and what they have pronounced. But you will do 
 better, brother, if you will also bid copies of the letters which 
 I had sent lately by our colleagues Caldonius and Fortu- 
 natus to you, to be read for the common satisfaction, which 
 I had written concerning the same Felicissimus and his pres- 
 bytery to the clergy there, and also to the people, to be read 
 to the brethren there ; declaring your ordination, and the 
 course of the whole transaction, that so as well there as here 
 the brotherhood may be informed of all things by us. More- 
 over, I have here transmitted also copies of the same by 
 Mettius the subdeacon, sent by me, and by Nicephorus the 
 acolyte. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 117 
 
 EPISTLE XLII. 1 
 
 TO THE SAME, ON HIS HAVING SENT LETTERS TO THE 
 CONFESSORS WHOM NOVATIAN HAD SEDUCED. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The argument of this letter sufficiently appears 
 from the title. It is manifest that this letter and the 
 follovjing were sent by one messenger. 
 
 Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. I have thought 
 it both obligatory on me, and necessary for you, dearest brother, 
 to write a short letter to the confessors who are there with 
 you, and, seduced by the obstinacy and depravity of Novatian 
 and Novatus, have departed from the church ; in which letter 
 I might induce them, for the sake of our mutual affection, to 
 return to their Mother, that is, to the catholic church. This 
 letter I have first of all entrusted to you by Mettius the sub- 
 deacon for your perusal, lest any one should pretend that I 
 had written otherwise than according to the contents of my 
 letter. I have, moreover, charged the same Mettius sent by 
 me to you, that he should be guided by your decision ; and 
 if you should think that this letter should be given to the 
 confessors, then that he should deliver it. I bid you, dearest 
 brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XLIII. 2 
 
 TO THE ROMAN CONFESSORS, THAT THEY SHOULD RETURN 
 TO UNITY. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Pie exhorts the Roman confessors who had been 
 seduced by the faction of Novatian and Novatus, to return 
 to unity. 
 
 Cyprian to Maximus and Nicostratus, and the other con- 
 fessors, greeting. As you have frequently gathered from my 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xlvii. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. xlvi.
 
 118 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 letters, beloved, what honour I have ever observed in my 
 mode of speaking for your confession, and what love for the 
 associated brotherhood ; believe, I entreat you, and acquiesce 
 in these my letters, wherein I both write and with simplicity 
 and fidelity consult for you, and for your doings, and for your 
 praise. For it weighs me down and saddens me, and the in- 
 tolerable grief of a smitten, almost prostrate, spirit seizes me, 
 when I find that you there, contrary to ecclesiastical order, 
 contrary to evangelical law, contrary to the unity of the 
 catholic institution, had consented that another bishop should 
 be made. That is what is neither right nor allowable to be 
 done ; that another church should be set up ; that Christ's 
 members should be torn asunder; that the one mind and 
 body of the Lord's flock should be lacerated by a divided 
 emulation. I entreat that in you, at all events, that unlawful 
 rending of our brotherhood may not continue ; but remem- 
 bering both your confession and the divine tradition, you 
 may return to the Mother whence you have gone forth; 
 whence you came to the glory of confession with the rejoicing 
 of the same Mother. And think not that you are thus main- 
 taining the gospel of Christ when you separate yourselves from 
 the flock of Christ, and from His peace and concord ; since 
 it is more fitting for glorious and good soldiers to sit down 
 within their own camp, and so placed within to manage and 
 provide for those things which are to be dealt with in common. 
 For as our unanimity and concord ought by no means to be 
 divided, and because we cannot forsake the church and go 
 outside her to come to you, we beg and entreat you with 
 what exhortations we can, rather to return to the church 
 your Mother, and to our brotherhood. I bid you, dearest 
 brethren, ever heartily farewell.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 119 
 
 EPISTLE XLIV. 1 
 
 TO CORNELIUS, CONCERNING POLYCARP THE ADRUMETINE. 
 
 ARGUMENT. He excuses himself in this letter for what had oc- 
 curred, in that, during the time that he was at Adrumetum, 
 letters had been sent thence by the clergy of Poll/carp, not 
 to Cornelius, but to the Roman clergy, notwithstanding 
 that previously Polycarp himself had written rather to 
 Cornelius. It appears tolerably plain from the context 
 itself that this was written after the preceding ones. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. I have 
 read your letters, dearest brother, which you sent by Primi- 
 tivus our co-presbyter, in which I perceived that you were 
 annoyed that, whereas letters from the Adrumetine colony in 
 the name of Polycarp were directed to you, yet after Libe- 
 ralis and I came to that place, letters began to be directed 
 thence to the presbyters and to the deacons. 
 
 2. In respect of which I wish you to know, and certainly 
 to believe, that it was done from no levity or contempt. But 
 when several of our colleagues who had assembled into one 
 place had determined that, while our co-bishops Caldonius 
 and Fortunatus were sent as ambassadors to you, all things 
 should be in the meantime suspended as they were, until the 
 same colleagues of ours, having reduced matters there to 
 peace, or, having discovered their truth, should return to us ; 
 the presbyters and deacons abiding in the Adrumetine colony, 
 in the absence of our co-bishop Polycarp, were ignorant of 
 what had been decided in common by us. But when we 
 came before them, and our purpose was understood, they 
 themselves also began to observe what the others did, so that 
 the agreement of the churches abiding there was in no respect 
 (broken. 
 
 3. Some persons, however, sometimes disturb men's minds 
 and spirits by their words, in that they relate things other- 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xlviii.
 
 120 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 wise than is the truth. For we, who furnish every person 
 who sails hence with a plan that they may sail without any 
 offence, know that we have exhorted them to acknowledge 
 and hold the root and womb of the catholic church. But 
 since our province is wide-spread, and has Numidia and 
 Mauritania attached to it; lest a schism made in the city should 
 confuse the minds of the absent with uncertain opinions, we 
 decided having obtained by means of the bishops the truth 
 of the matter, and having got a greater authority for the proof 
 of your ordination, and so at length every scruple being got 
 rid of from the breast of every one that letters should be 
 sent you by all who were placed anywhere in the province ; 
 as in fact is done, that so the whole of our colleagues might 
 decidedly approve of and maintain both you and your com- 
 munion, that is as well to the unity of the catholic church 
 as to its charity. That all which has by God's direction 
 come to pass, and that our design has under Providence been 
 forwarded, we rejoice. 
 
 4. For thus as well the truth as the dignity of your epis- 
 copate has been established in the most open light, and with 
 the most manifest and substantial approval ; so that from the 
 replies of our colleagues, who have thence written to us, and 
 from the account and from the testimonies of our co-bishops 
 Pompeius, and Stephanus, and Caldonius, and Fortunatus, 
 both the needful cause and the right order, and moreover 
 the glorious innocence, of your ordination might be known by 
 all. That we, with the rest of our colleagues, may steadily 
 and firmly administer this office, and keep it in the concor- 
 dant unanimity of the catholic church, the divine conde- 
 scension will accomplish ; so that the Lord who condescends 
 to elect and appoint for Himself priests in His church, may 
 protect them also when elected and appointed by His good- 
 will and help, inspiring them to govern, and supplying both 
 vigour for restraining the contumacy of the wicked, and 
 gentleness for cherishing the penitence of the lapsed. I bid 
 you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 121 
 
 EPISTLE XLV. 1 
 
 CORNELIUS TO CYPRIAN, ON THE RETURN OF THE 
 CONFESSORS TO UNITY. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cornelius informs Cyprian of the solemn return 
 of the confessors to the church^ and describes it. 
 
 1. Cornelius to Cyprian his brother, greeting. In pro- 
 portion to the solicitude and anxiety that we sustained in 
 respect of those confessors who had been circumvented and 
 almost deceived and alienated from the church by the craft 
 and malice of that wily and subtle man, 2 was the joy with 
 which we were affected, and the thanks which we gave to 
 Almighty God and to our Lord Christ, when they, acknow- 
 ledging their error, and perceiving the poisoned cunning of 
 the malignant man, as if of a serpent, came back, as they 
 with one heart profess, with singleness of will to the church 
 from which they had gone forth. And first, indeed, our 
 brethren of approved faith, loving peace and desiring unity, 
 announced that the swelling pride of these men was already 
 soothed; 3 yet there was no fitting assurance to induce us 
 easily to believe that they were thoroughly changed. But 
 afterwards, Urbanus and Sidonius the confessors came to our 
 presbyters, affirming that Maximus the confessor and pres- 
 byter, equally with themselves, desired to return into the 
 church ; but since many things had preceded this which they 
 had contrived, of which you also have been made aware from 
 our co-bishops and from my letters, so that faith could not 
 hastily be reposed in them, we determined to hear from their 
 own mouth and confession those things which they had sent 
 by the messengers. And when they came, and were required 
 by the presbyters to give an account of what they had done, 
 and were charged with having very lately repeatedly sent 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. xlix. 2 Novatian. 
 
 8 Baluz. : " Announced the swelling pride of some, the softened temper 
 of others."
 
 122 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 letters full of calumnies and reproaches, in their name, 
 through all the churches, and had disturbed nearly all the 
 churches; they affirmed that they had been deceived, and 
 that they had not known what was in those letters; [declaring] 
 that only through being misled they had also committed 
 schismatical acts, and been the authors of heresy, so that 
 they suffered hands to be imposed on him as if upon a bishop. 
 And when these and other matters had been charged upon 
 them, they entreated that they might be done away and alto- 
 gether discharged from memory. 
 
 2. The whole of this transaction therefore being brought 
 before me, I decided that the presbytery should be brought 
 together; (for there were present five bishops, who were also 
 present to-day ;) so that by well-grounded counsel it might be 
 determined with the consent of all what oucht to be observed 
 
 O 
 
 in respect of their persons. And that you may know the feel- 
 ing of all, and the advice of each one, I decided also to bring 
 to your knowledge our various opinions, which you will read 
 subjoined. When these things were done, Maximus, Urbanus, 
 Sidonius, and several brethren who had joined themselves to 
 them, came to the presbytery, desiring with earnest prayers 
 that what had been done before might fall into oblivion, and 
 no mention might be made of it; and [promising] that hence- 
 forth, as though nothing had been either done or said, all 
 things on both sides being forgiven, they would now exhibit to 
 God a heart clean and pure, following the evangelical word 
 which says, " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
 God." l What remained was, that the people should be in- 
 formed of all this proceeding, that they might see those very 
 men established in the church whom they had long seen and 
 mourned as wanderers and scattered. Their will being known, 
 a great concourse of the brotherhood was assembled. There 
 was one voice from all, giving thanks to God; all were express- 
 ing the joy of their heart by tears, embracing them as if they 
 had this day been set free from the penalty of the dungeon. 
 And to quote their very own words, " We," they say, " know 
 that Cornelius is bishop of the most holy catholic church 
 
 1 Matt. v. 8.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 123 
 
 elected by Almighty God, and by Christ our Lord. We con- 
 fess our error ; we have suffered imposture ; we were deceived 
 by captious perfidy and loquacity. For although we seemed, 
 as it were, to have held a kind of communion with a man 
 who was a schismatic and a heretic, yet our mind was always 
 sincere in the church. For we are not ignorant that there is 
 
 o 
 
 one God ; that there is one Christ the Lord whom we have 
 confessed, and one Holy Spirit ; and that there ought to be 
 one bishop in the catholic church." Were we not rightly 
 induced by that confession of theirs, 1 to allow that what they 
 had confessed before the power of the world they might 
 approve when established in the church? Wherefore we 
 bade Maximus the presbyter to take his own place ; the rest 
 we received with great approbation of the people. But we 
 remitted all things to Almighty God, in whose power all 
 things are reserved. 
 
 3. These things therefore, brother, written to you in the 
 same hour, at the same moment, we have transmitted ; and I 
 have sent away at once Nicephorus the acolyte, hastening to 
 descend to embarkation, that so, no delay being made, you 
 might, as if you had been present among that clergy and in 
 that assembly of people, give thanks to Almighty God and 
 to Christ our Lord. But we believe nay, we confide in it 
 for certain that the others also who have been ranged in 
 this error will shortly return into the church when they see 
 their leaders acting with us. I think, brother, that you ought 
 to send these letters also to the other churches, that all may 
 know that the craft and prevarication of this schismatic and 
 heretic are from day to day being reduced to nothing. 
 Farewell, dearest brother, f 
 
 1 Baluzius reads, without authority : " Who would not be moved by 
 that profession of theirs," etc.
 
 124 THE EPISTLES OF CTPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE XLVL 1 
 
 CYPRIAN'S ANSWER TO CORNELIUS, CONGRATULATING HIM 
 ON THE RETURN OF THE CONFESSORS FROM SCHISM. 
 
 ARGUMENT. He congratulates him on the return of the con- 
 fessors to the church, and reminds him how much that 
 return benefits the catholic church. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. I profess 
 that I both have rendered and do render the greatest thanks 
 without ceasing, dearest brother, to God the Father Almighty, 
 and to His Christ the Lord and our God and Saviour, 
 that the church is thus divinely protected, and its unity and 
 holiness is not constantly nor altogether corrupted by the 
 obstinacy of perfidy and heretical wickedness. For we have 
 read your letter, and have exultingly received the greatest 
 joy from [the fulfilment of] our common desire ; to wit, that 
 Maximus the presbyter, and iTrbanus, the confessors, with 
 Sidonius and Macarius, have re-entered into the catholic 
 church, that is, that they have laid aside their error, and 
 given up their schismatical, nay, their heretical madness, and 
 have sought again in the soundness of faith the home of 
 unity and truth ; that whence they had gone forth to glory, 
 thither they might gloriously return ; and that they who had 
 confessed Christ should not afterwards desert the camp of 
 Christ, and that they might not tempt the faith of their 
 charity and unity, 2 who had not been overcome in strength 
 and courage. Behold the safe and unspotted integrity of 
 their praise ; behold the uncorrupted and substantial dignity 
 of these confessors, that they have departed from the deserters 
 and fugitives, that they have left the betrayers of the faith, 
 and the impugners of the catholic church ! With reason did 
 both the people and the brotherhood receive them when they 
 returned, as you write, with the greatest joy; since in the 
 glory of confessors who had maintained their glory, and re- 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. li. 
 
 2 Some read, " might not be tried by the faith of their charity and 
 unity."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 125 
 
 turned to unity, there is none who does not reckon himself 
 a partner and a sharer. 
 
 2. We can estimate the joy of that day 1 from our own 
 feelings. For if, in this place, the whole number of the 
 brethren rejoiced at your letter which you sent concerning 
 their confession, and received this tidings of common rejoicing 
 with the greatest alacrity, what must have been the joy there 
 when the matter itself, and the general gladness, was carried 
 on under the eyes of all ? For since the Lord in His gospel 
 says that there is the highest " joy in heaven over one sinner 
 that repenteth," 2 how much greater is the joy in earth, no 
 less than in heaven, over confessors who return with their 
 glory and with praise to the church of God, and make a 
 way of returning for others by the faith and approval of 
 their example ? For this error had led away certain of our 
 brethren, so that they thought they were following the com- 
 munion of confessors. When this error was removed, light 
 was infused into the breasts of all, and the catholic church 
 has been shown to be one, and to be able neither to be cut 
 nor divided. Nor can any one now be easily deceived by the 
 talkative words of a raging schismatic, since it has been proved 
 that good and glorious soldiers of Christ could not long be 
 detained without the church by the deceitfulness and perfidy 
 of others. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XL VII. 8 
 
 CORNELIUS TO CYPRIAN, CONCERNING THE FACTION OF 
 NOVATIAN WITH HIS PARTY. 
 
 AEGUMENT. Cornelius gives Cyprian an account of the 
 faction of "Novatian. 
 
 Cornelius to Cyprian his brother, greeting. That nothing 
 might be wanting to the future punishment of this wretched 
 man, when cast down by the powers of God, (on the expulsion 
 
 1 Some old editions read, " of that thing." 
 
 2 Luke xv. 7. 8 Oxford ed. : Ep. 1.
 
 126 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 by you of Maximus, and Longinus, and Machseus ; ) he 
 has risen again ; and, as I intimated in my former letter 
 which I sent to you by Augendus the confessor, I think that 
 Nicostratus, and Novatus, and Evaristus, and Primus, and 
 Dionysius, have already come thither. Therefore let care 
 be taken that it be made known to all our co-bishops and 
 brethren, that Nicostratus is accused of many crimes, and 
 that not only has he committed frauds and plunders on his 
 secular patroness, whose affairs he managed ; but, moreover 
 (which is reserved to him for a perpetual punishment), he has 
 abstracted no small deposits of the church; that Evaristus 
 has been the author of a schism ; and that Zetus has been 
 appointed bishop in his room, and his successor to the people 
 over whom he had previously presided. But he contrived 
 greater and worse things by his malice and insatiable wicked- 
 ness than those which he was then always practising among 
 his own people ; so that you may know what kind of leaders 
 and protectors that schismatic and heretic constantly had 
 joined to his side. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily 
 farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE XLVIII. 1 
 
 CYPRIAN'S ANSWER TO CORNELIUS, CONCERNING THE 
 CRIMES OF NOVATUS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. He praises Cornelius, that lie had given him 
 timely warning, seeing that the day after the guilty fac- 
 tion Jtad come to him he had received Cornelius' letter. 
 TJien he describes at length Novatus crimes, and the 
 schism that had before been stirred up by him in Africa. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. You have 
 acted, dearest brother, both with diligence and love, in send- 
 ing us in haste Nicephorus the acolyte, who both told us the 
 glorious gladness concerning the return of the confessors, 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. lii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 127 
 
 and most fully instructed us against the new and mischievous 
 devices of Novatian and Novatus for attacking the church 
 of Christ. For whereas on the clay before, that mischievous 
 faction of heretical wickedness had arrived here, itself already 
 lost and ready to ruin others who should join it, on the day 
 after, Nicephorus arrived with your letter. From which we 
 both learnt ourselves, and have begun to teach and to in- 
 struct others, that Evaristus from being a bishop has now 
 not remained even a layman ; but, banished from the see 
 and from the people, and an exile from the church of 
 Christ, he roves about far and wide through other pro- 
 vinces, and himself having made shipwreck of truth and 
 faith, is preparing for some who are like him, as fearful 
 shipwrecks : moreover, that Nicostratus, having lost the 
 diaconate of sacred administrations, because he had abstracted 
 the church's money by a sacrilegious fraud, and disowned 
 the deposits of the widows and orphans, did not wish so 
 much to come into Africa as to escape thither from the 
 city, from the consciousness of his rapines and his fright- 
 ful crimes. And now a deserter and a fugitive from the 
 church, as if to have changed the clime w r ere to change the 
 man, he goes on to boast and announce himself a confessor, 
 although he can no longer either be called or be a confessor 
 of Christ who has denied Christ's church. For when the 
 Apostle Paul says, "For this cause shall a man leave his 
 father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife ; and they 
 two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery ; but I speak 
 concerning Christ and the church;" 1 when, I say, the 
 blessed apostle says this, and with his sacred voice testifies 
 to the unity of Christ with the church, cleaving to one 
 another with indivisible links, how can he be with Christ 
 who is not with the spouse of Christ, and in His church ? 
 Or how does he assume to himself the charge of ruling or 
 governing the church, who has spoiled and wronged the 
 church of Christ ? 
 
 2. For about Novatus there need have been nothing told 
 by you to us, since Novatus ought rather to have been 
 1 Eph. v. 31, 32.
 
 128 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 shown by ns to you, as always greedy of novelty, raging with 
 the rapacity of an insatiable avarice, inflated with the arro- 
 gance and stupidity of swelling pride ; always known with 
 bad repute to the bishops there ; always condemned by the 
 voice of all the priests as a heretic and a perfidious man ; al- 
 ways inquisitive, that he may betray: he flatters for the purpose 
 of deceiving, never faithful that he may love, a torch and fire 
 to blow up the flames of sedition, a whirlwind and tempest to 
 make shipwrecks of the faith, the foe of quiet, the adversary 
 of tranquillity, the enemy of peace. Finally, when Novatus 
 withdrew thence from among you, that is, when the storm 
 and the whirlwind departed, calm arose there in part, and 
 the glorious and good confessors who by his instigation had 
 departed from the church, after he retired from the city, 
 returned to the church. This is the same Novatus who 
 first sowed among us the flames of discord and schism ; who 
 separated some of the brethren here from the bishop ; who, 
 in the persecution itself, was to our people, as it were,' an- 
 other persecution, to overthrow the minds of the brethren. 
 He it is who, without my leave or knowledge, of his own 
 factiousness and ambition appointed his attendant Felicis- 
 simus a deacon, and with his own tempest sailing also to 
 Rome to overthrow the church, endeavoured to do similar 
 and equal things there, forcibly separating a part of the 
 people from the clergy, and dividing the concord of the 
 fraternity that was firmly knit together and mutually loving 
 one another. Since Rome from her greatness plainly ought 
 to take precedence of Carthage, he there committed still greater 
 and graver crimes. He who in the one place had made a 
 deacon contrary to the church, in the other made a bishop. 
 Nor let any one be surprised at this in such men. The 
 wicked are always madly carried away by their own furious 
 passions; and after they have committed crimes, they are 
 agitated by the very consciousness of a depraved mind. 
 Neither can those remain in God's church, who have not 
 maintained its divine and ecclesiastical discipline, either in 
 the conversation of their life or the peace of their character. 
 Orphans despoiled by him, widows defrauded, moneys more-
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 129 
 
 over of the church withheld, exact from him those penalties 
 which we behold inflicted in his madness. His father also 
 <lied of hunger in the street, and afterwards even in death was 
 not buried by him. The womb of his wife was smitten by a 
 blow of his heel ; and in the miscarriage that soon followed, 
 the offspring was brought forth, the fruit of a father's murder. 
 And now does he dare to condemn the hands of those who 
 sacrifice, when he himself is more guilty in his feet, by which 
 the son who was being born was slain ? 
 
 3. He long ago feared this consciousness of crime : on 
 account of this he regarded it as certain that he would not 
 only be turned out of the presbytery, but restrained from 
 communion ; and by the urgency of the brethren, the day of 
 investigation was coming on, on which his cause was to be 
 dealt with before us, if the persecution had not prevented. 
 He welcoming this, with a sort of desire of escaping and evad- 
 ing condemnation, committed all these crimes, and wrought 
 all this stir ; so that he who was to be ejected and excluded 
 from the church, anticipated the judgment of the priests by 
 a voluntary departure, as if to have anticipated the sentence 
 were to have escaped the punishment. 
 
 4. But in respect to the other brethren, over whom we grieve 
 that they were circumvented by him, we labour that they may 
 avoid the mischievous neighbourhood of the crafty impostor, 
 that they may escape the deadly nets of his solicitations, that 
 they may once more seek the church from which he deserved 
 by divine authority to be expelled. Such indeed, with the 
 Lord's help, we trust may return by His mercy, for one can- 
 not perish unless it is plain that he must perish, since the 
 Lord in His gospel says, " Every planting which my heavenly 
 Father hath not planted shall be rooted up." 1 He alone who 
 has not been planted in the precepts and warnings of God 
 the Father, can depart from the church : he alone can forsake 
 the bishops and abide in his madness with schismatics and 
 heretics. But the mercy of God the Father, and the indul- 
 gence of Christ our Lord, and our own patience, will unite the 
 rest with us. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 1 Matt. xv. 13. 
 I
 
 130 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE XLIX. 1 
 
 MAXIMUS AND THE OTHER CONFESSORS TO CYPRIAN, 
 ABOUT THEIR RETURN FROM SCHISM. 
 
 ARGUMENT. They inform Cyprian that they had returned to 
 
 the church. 
 
 Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, and Macharius, to Cyprian 
 their brother, greeting. We are certain, dearest brother, 
 that you also rejoice together with us with equal earnestness, 
 that we having taken advice, and especially, considering the 
 interests and the peace of the church, having passed by all 
 other matters, and reserved them to God's judgment, have 
 made peace with Cornelius our bishop, as well as with the 
 whole clergy. You ought most certainly to know from these 
 our letters that this was done with the joy of the whole 
 church, and even with the forward affection of the brethren. 
 We pray, dearest brother, that for many years you may fare 
 well. 
 
 EPISTLE L. 2 
 
 FROM CYPRIAN TO THE CONFESSORS, CONGRATULATING 
 THEM ON THEIR RETURN FROM SCHISM. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian congratulates the Roman confessors on 
 their return into the church, and replies to their letters. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Maximus the presbyter, also to Urbanus, and 
 Sidonius, and Macharius, his brethren, greeting. When I 
 read your letters, dearest brethren, that you wrote to me 
 about your return, and about the peace of the church, and 
 the brotherly restoration, I confess that I was as greatly 
 overjoyed as I had before been overjoyed when I learnt the 
 glory of your confession, and thankfully received tidings of 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. liii. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. liv.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 131 
 
 the heavenly and spiritual renown of your warfare. For 
 this, moreover, is another confession of your faith and praise ; 
 to confess that the church is one, and not to become a sharer 
 in other men's error, or rather wickedness ; to seek anew the 
 same camp whence you went forth, whence with the most 
 vigorous strength you leapt forth to wage the battle and to 
 subdue the adversary. For the trophies from the battle-field 
 ought to be brought back thither whence the arms for the 
 field had been received, lest the church of Christ should not 
 retain those same glorious warriors whom Christ had fur- 
 nished for glory. Now, however, you have kept in the peace 
 of the Lord the fitting tenor of your faith and the law of 
 undivided charity and concord, and have given by your walk 
 an example of love and peace to others ; so that the truth of 
 the church, and the unity of the gospel mystery which is 
 held by us, are also linked together by your consent and bond; 
 and confessors of Christ do not become the leaders of error, 
 after having stood forth as praiseworthy originators of virtue 
 and honour. 
 
 2. Let others consider how much they may congratulate 
 you, or how much each one may glory for himself : I confess 
 that I congratulate you more, and I more boast of you to 
 others, in respect of this your peaceful return and charity. 
 For you ought in simplicity to hear what was in my heart. 
 I grieved vehemently, and I was greatly afflicted, that I 
 could not hold communion with those whom once I had 
 begun to love. After the schismatical and heretical error 
 laid hold of you, on your going forth from prison, it seemed 
 as if your glory had been left in the dungeon. For there 
 the dignity of your name seemed to have stayed behind when 
 the soldiers of Christ did not return from the prison to the 
 church, although they had gone into the prison with the 
 praise and congratulations of the church. 
 
 3. For although there seem to be tares in the church, yet 
 neither our faith nor our charity ought to be hindered, so 
 that because we see that there are tares in the church we 
 ourselves should withdraw from the church : we ought only 
 to labour that we may be wheat, that when the wheat shall
 
 132 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 begin to be gathered into the Lord's barns, we may receive 
 fruit for our labour and work. The apostle in his epistle 
 says, " In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and 
 silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honour and 
 some to dishonour." 1 Let us strive, dearest brethren, and 
 labour as much as we possibly can, that we may be vessels of 
 gold or silver. But to the Lord alone it is granted to break 
 the vessels of earth, to whom also is given the rod of iron. 
 The servant cannot be greater than his lord, nor may any 
 one claim to himself what the father has given to the son 
 alone, so as to think that he can take the fan for win- 
 nowing and purging the threshing-floor, or can separate by 
 human judgment all the tares from the wheat. That is a 
 proud obstinacy and a sacrilegious presumption which a de- 
 praved madness assumes to itself ; and while some are always 
 assuming to themselves more dominion than meek justice de- 
 mands, they perish from the church ; and while they insolently 
 extol themselves, blinded by their own swelling, they lose the 
 light of truth. For which reason we also, keeping modera- 
 tion, and considering the Lord's balances, and thinking of the 
 love and mercy of God the Father, have long and carefully 
 pondered with ourselves, and have weighed what was to be 
 done with due moderation. 
 
 4. All which matters you can look into thoroughly, if you 
 will read the pamphlets which I have lately read here, and 
 have, for the sake of our mutual love, transmitted to you also 
 for you to read ; wherein there is neither wanting for the 
 lapsed, censure which may rebuke, nor medicine which may 
 heal. Moreover, my feeble ability has expressed as well as it 
 could the unity of the catholic church. 2 Which pamphlet 
 I now more and more trust will be pleasing to you, since you 
 now read it in such a way as both to approve and love it ; 
 inasmuch as what we have written in words you fulfil in deeds, 
 when you return to the church in the unity of charity and 
 peace. I bid you, dearest brethren, and greatly longed for, 
 ever heartily farewell. 
 
 1 2 Tim. ii. 20. 2 Of the Unity of tlie Church.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 133 
 
 EPISTLE LI. 1 
 TO ANTONIANUS ABOUT CORNELIUS AND NOVATIAN. 
 
 ARGUMENT. When Antonianus, having received letters from 
 Novatian, had begun to be disposed in his mind towards 
 his party, Cyprian confirms him in his former opinion, 
 namely, that of continuing to hold communion with Cor- 
 nelius, that is,' with the catholic church. That he may 
 induce him to this, lie narrates the history of the whole 
 disturbance between Cornelius andNovatian, and explains 
 that Cornelius was an excellent man, and legitimately 
 elected ; while Novatian was guilty of many crimes, and 
 had obtained an unlawful election. Moreover, by the way, 
 at the commencement of the letter he excuses himself for 
 his own change of opinion in respect of the lapsed, and at 
 the end he explains wherein consists the Novatian heresy. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Antonianus his brother, greeting. I re- 
 ceived your first letters, dearest brother, firmly maintaining 
 the concord of the priestly college, and adhering to the 
 catholic church, in which you intimated that you did not 
 hold communion with Novatian, but followed my advice, and 
 held one common agreement with Cornelius our co-bishop. 
 You wrote, moreover, for me to transmit a copy of those 
 same letters to Cornelius our colleague, so that he might lay 
 aside all anxiety, and know at once that you held communion 
 with him, that is, with the catholic church. 
 
 2. But subsequently there arrived other letters of yours 
 sent by Quintus our co-presbyter, in which I observed that 
 your mind, influenced by the letters of Novatian, had begun 
 to waver. For although previously you had settled your 
 opinion and consent firmly, you desired in these letters that 
 I should write to you once more what heresy Novatian had 
 introduced, or on what grounds Cornelius holds communion 
 with Trophimus and the sacrificers. In which matters, in- 
 deed, if you are anxiously careful, from solicitude for the 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Iv.
 
 134 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 faith, and are diligently seeking out the truth of a doubtful 
 matter, the hesitating anxiety of a mind undecided in the 
 fear of God, is not to be blamed. 
 
 3. Yet, as I see that after the first opinion expressed in your 
 letter, you have been disturbed subsequently by letters of 
 Novatian, I assert this first of all, dearest brother, that grave 
 men, and men who are once established upon the strong rock 
 with solid firmness, are not moved, I say not with a light air, 
 but even with a wind or a tempest, lest their mind, changeable 
 and uncertain, be frequently agitated hither and thither by 
 various opinions, as by gusts of wind rushing on them, and 
 so be turned from its purpose with some reproach of levity. 
 That the letters of Novatian may not do this with you, nor 
 with any one, I will set before you, as you have desired, my 
 brother, an account of the matter in few words. And first 
 of all indeed, as you also seem troubled about what I too 
 have done, I must clear my own person and cause in your 
 eyes, lest any should think that I have lightly withdrawn 
 from my purpose, and while at first and at the commence- 
 ment I maintained evangelical vigour, yet subsequently 
 I seem to have turned my mind from discipline and from 
 its former severity of judgment, so as to think that those 
 who have stained their conscience with certificates, or have 
 offered abominable sacrifices, are to have peace made easy 
 to them. 'Both of which things have been done by me, not 
 without long balanced and pondered reasons. 
 
 4. For when the battle was still going on, and the struggle 
 of a glorious contest was raging in the persecution, the 
 courage of the soldiers had to be excited with every exhorta- 
 tion, and with full urgency, and especially the minds of the 
 lapsed had to be roused with the trumpet call, as it were, of 
 my voice, that they might pursue the way of repentance, not 
 only with prayers and lamentations; but, since an opportunity 
 was given of repeating the struggle and of regaining salva- 
 tion, that they might be reproved by my voice, and stimulated 
 rather to the ardour of confession and the glory of martyr- 
 dom. Finally, when the presbyters and deacons had written 
 to me about some persons, that they were without moderation
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 135 
 
 and were eagerly pressing forward to receive communion ; re- 
 plying to them in my letter which is still in existence, 1 then I 
 added also this : " If these are so excessively eager, they have 
 what they require in their own power, the time itself provid- 
 ing for them more than they ask : the battle is still being 
 carried on, and the struggle is daily celebrated : if they truly 
 and substantially repent of what they have done, and the 
 ardour of their faith prevails, he who cannot be delayed may 
 be crowned." But I put off deciding what was to be ar- 
 ranged about the case of the lapsed, so that when quiet and 
 tranquillity should be granted, and the divine indulgence 
 should allow the bishops to assemble into one place, then 
 the advice gathered from the comparison of all opinions being 
 communicated and weighed, we might determine what was 
 necessary to be done. But if any one, before our council, 
 and before the opinion decided upon by the advice of all, 
 should rashly wish to communicate with the lapsed, he him- 
 self should be withheld from communion. 
 
 5. And this also I wrote very fully to Rome, to the clergy 
 who were then still acting without a bishop, and to the con- 
 fessors, Maximus the presbyter, and the rest who were then 
 shut up in prison, but are now in the church, joined with 
 Cornelius. You may know that I wrote this from their 
 reply, for in their letter they wrote thus : " However, what 
 you have yourself also declared in so important a matter is 
 satisfactory to us, that the peace of the church must first 
 be maintained ; then, that an assembly for counsel being 
 gathered together, with bishop, presbyters, deacons, and con- 
 fessors, as well as with the laity who stand fast, we should 
 deal with the case of the lapsed." 2 It was added also 
 Novatian then writing, and reciting with his own voice what 
 he had written, and the presbyter Moyses, then still a con- 
 fessor, but now a martyr, subscribing that peace ought to be 
 granted to the lapsed who were sick and at the point of de- 
 parture. Which letter was sent throughout the whole world, 
 and was brought to the knowledge of all the churches and 
 all the brethren. 
 
 1 Ep. xiii. 2. 2 Ep. xxxi.
 
 136 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 6. According, however, to what had been before decided, 
 when the persecution was quieted, and opportunity of meet- 
 ing was afforded ; a large number of bishops, whom their 
 faith and the divine protection had preserved in soundness 
 and safety, we met together ; and the divine Scriptures being 
 brought forward on both sides, we balanced the decision 
 with wholesome moderation, so that neither should hope of 
 communion and peace be wholly denied to the lapsed, lest 
 they should fail still more through desperation, and, because 
 the church was closed to them, should, like the world, 
 live as heathens ; nor yet, on the other hand, should the 
 censure of the gospel be relaxed, so that they might rashly 
 rush to communion, but that repentance should be long pro- 
 tracted, and the paternal clemency be sorrowfully besought, 
 and the cases, and the wishes, and the necessities of indi- 
 viduals be examined into, according to what is contained in a 
 little book, which I trust has come to you, in which the several 
 heads of our decisions are collected. And lest perchance the 
 number of bishops in Africa should seem unsatisfactory, we 
 also wrote to Rome, to Cornelius our colleague, concerning 
 this thing, who himself also holding a council with very many 
 bishops, concurred in the same opinion as we had held, with 
 equal gravity and wholesome moderation. 
 
 7. Concerning which it has now become necessary to write 
 to you, that you may know that I have done nothing lightly, 
 but, according to what I had before comprised in my letters, 
 had put off everything to the common determination of our 
 council, and indeed communicated with no one of the lapsed 
 as yet, so long as there still was an opening by which the 
 lapsed might receive not only pardon, but also a crown. 
 Yet afterwards, as the agreement of our college, and the 
 advantage of gathering the fraternity together and of 
 healing their wound required, I submitted to the necessity 
 of the times, and thought that the safety of the many must 
 be provided for ; and I do not now recede from these things 
 which have once been determined in our council by common 
 agreement, although many things are ventilated by the voices 
 of many, and lies against God's priests uttered from the
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 137 
 
 devil's mouth, and tossed about everywhere, to the rupture 
 of the concord of catholic unity. But it behoves you, as a 
 good brother and a fellow-priest like-minded, not easily to 
 receive what malignants and apostates may say, but care- 
 fully to weigh what your colleagues, modest and grave men, 
 may do, from an investigation of our life and teaching. 
 
 8. I come now, dearest brother, to the character of Cor- 
 nelius our colleague, that with us you may more justly know 
 Cornelius, not from the lies of malignants and detractors, 
 but from the judgment of the Lord God, who made him a 
 bishop, and from the testimony of his fellow-bishops, the 
 whole number of whom has agreed with an absolute unani- 
 mity throughout the whole world. For, a thing which with 
 laudable announcement commends our dearest Cornelius to 
 God and Christ, and to His church, and also to all his fellow- 
 priests, he was not one who on a sudden attained to the epis- 
 copate ; but, promoted through all the ecclesiastical offices, 
 and having often deserved well of the Lord in divine adminis- 
 trations, he ascended by all the grades of religious service to 
 the lofty summit of the priesthood. Then, moreover, he did 
 not either ask for the episcopate itself, nor did he wish it ; nor, 
 as others do when the swelling of their arrogance and pride 
 inflates them, did he seize upon it ; but quiet otherwise, and 
 meek, and such as those are accustomed to be who are chosen 
 of God to this office, having regard to the modesty of his 
 virgin continency, and the humility of his inborn and guarded 
 veneration, he did not, as some do, use force to be made a 
 bishop, but he himself suffered compulsion, so as to be forced 
 to receive the episcopal office. And he was made bishop by 
 very many of our colleagues who were then present in the 
 city of Rome, who sent to us letters concerning his ordina- 
 tion, honourable and laudatory, and remarkable for their tes- 
 timony in announcement of him. Moreover, Cornelius was 
 made bishop by the judgment of God and of His Christ, by 
 the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the suffrage of 
 the people who were then present, and by the assembly of 
 ancient priests and good men, when no one had been made 
 so before him, when the place of Fabian, that is, when the
 
 138 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 place of Peter and the degree of the sacerdotal throne was 
 vacant ; which being occupied by the will of God, and estab- 
 lished by the consent of all of us, whosoever now wishes to 
 become a bishop, must needs be made from without ; and he 
 cannot have the ordination of the church who does not hold 
 the unity of the church. Whoever he may be, although 
 greatly boasting about himself, and claiming very much for 
 himself, he is profane, he is an alien, he is without. And as 
 after the first there cannot be a second, whosoever is made 
 after one who ought to be alone, is not second to him, but 
 is in fact none at all. 
 
 9. Then afterwards, when he had undertaken the episco- 
 pate, not obtained by solicitation nor by extortion, but by the 
 will of God who makes priests ; what a virtue there was in 
 the very undertaking of his episcopate, what strength of 
 mind, what firmness of faith, a thing that we ought with 
 simple heart both thoroughly to look into and to praise, 
 that he intrepidly sate at Rome in the sacerdotal chair at that 
 time when a tyrant, odious to God's priests, was threatening 
 things that can, and cannot be spoken, inasmuch as he would 
 much more patiently and tolerantly hear that a rival prince 
 was raised up against himself, than that a priest of God was 
 established at Rome. Is not this man, dearest brother, to be 
 commended with the highest testimony of virtue and faith ? 
 is not he to be esteemed among the glorious confessors and 
 martyrs, who for so long a time sate awaiting the manglers 
 of his body and the avengers of a ferocious tyrant, who, 
 when Cornelius resisted their deadly edicts, and trampled 
 on their threats and sufferings and tortures by the vigour 
 of his faith, would either rush upon him with the sword, 
 or crucify him, or scorch him with fire, or rend his bowels 
 and his limbs with some unheard-of kind of punishment? 
 Even though the majesty and goodness of the protecting 
 Lord guarded when made, the priest whom He willed to be 
 made ; yet Cornelius, in what pertains to his devotion and 
 fear, suffered whatever he could suffer, and conquered the 
 tyrant first of all by his priestly office, who was afterwards 
 conquered in arms and in war.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 139 
 
 10. But in respect of certain discreditable and malignant 
 things that are bandied about concerning him, I would not 
 have you wonder, when you know that this is always the 
 work of the devil, to wound God's servants with lies, and to 
 defame a glorious name by false opinions, so that they who 
 are bright in the light of their own conscience may be tar- 
 nished by the reports of others. Moreover, you are to know 
 that our colleagues have investigated, and have certainly 
 discovered that he has been blemished with no stain of a 
 certificate, as some intimate ; neither has he mingled in sacri- 
 legious communion with the bishops who have sacrificed, 
 but has merely associated with us those whose cause had 
 been heard, and whose innocence was approved. 
 
 11. For with respect to Trophimus also, of whom you 
 wished tidings to be written to you, the case is not as the 
 report and the falsehood of malignant people had conveyed 
 it to you. For, as our predecessors often did, our dearest 
 brother, in bringing together the brethren, yielded to neces- 
 sity ; and since a very large part of the people had withdrawn 
 with Trophimus, now when Trophimus returned to the church, 
 and atoned for, and with the penitence of prayer confessed, 
 his former error, and with perfect humility and satisfaction 
 recalled the brotherhood whom he had lately taken away, his 
 prayers were heard; and not only Trophimus, but a very great 
 number of brethren who had been with Trophimus, were 
 admitted into the church of the Lord, who would not all have 
 returned to the church unless they had come in Trophimus' 
 company. Therefore the matter being considered there with 
 several colleagues, Trophimus was received, for whom the 
 return of the brethren and salvation restored to many made 
 atonement. Yet Trophimus was admitted in such a manner 
 as only to communicate as a layman, not, according to the 
 information given to you by the letters of the malign ants, in 
 such a way as to assume the place of a priest. 
 
 12. But, moreover, in respect of what has been told you, 
 that Cornelius communicates everywhere with those who have 
 sacrificed, this intelligence has also arisen from the false reports 
 of the apostates. For neither can they praise us who depart
 
 140 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 from us, nor ought we to expect to please them, who, while 
 they displease us, and revolt against the church, violently per- 
 sist in soliciting brethren away from the church. Wherefore, 
 dearest brethren, do not with facility either hear or believe what- 
 ever is currently rumoured against Cornelius and about me. 
 
 13. For if any are seized with sicknesses, help is given to 
 them in danger, as it has been decided. Yet after they have 
 been assisted, and peace has been granted to them in their 
 danger, they cannot [surely] be suffocated by us, or destroyed, 1 
 or by our force or hands urged on to the result of death ; as if, 
 because peace is granted to the dying, it were necessary that 
 those who have received peace should die ; although the token 
 of divine love and paternal lenity appears more in this way, 
 that they, who in peace given to them receive the pledge of 
 life, are moreover here bound to life by the peace they have 
 received. And therefore, if with peace received, a reprieve 
 is given by God, no one ought to complain of the priests for 
 this, when once it has been decided that brethren are to be 
 aided in peril. Neither must you think, dearest brother, as 
 some do, that those who receive certificates are to be put on 
 a par with those who have sacrificed ; since even among those 
 who have sacrificed, the condition and the case are frequently 
 different. For we must not place on a level one who has at 
 once leapt forward with good-will to the abominable sacrifice, 
 and one who, after lon^ struiifrle and resistance, has reached 
 
 7 O OO * 
 
 that fatal result under compulsion ; one who has betrayed 
 both himself and all his connections, and one who, himself 
 approaching the trial in behalf of all, has protected his wife 
 and his children, and his whole family, by himself undergoing 
 the danger ; one who has compelled his inmates or friends 
 to the crime, and one who has spared inmates and servants, 
 and has even received many brethren who were departing to 
 banishment and flight, into his house and hospitality ; show- 
 ing and offering to the Lord many souls living and safe 
 to entreat for a single wounded one. 
 
 14. Since, then, there is much difference between those who 
 have sacrificed, what a want of mercy it is, and how bitter is 
 
 1 Opprimi.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 141 
 
 the hardship, to associate those who have received certificates, 
 with those who have sacrificed, when he by whom the certi- 
 ficate has been received may say, " I had previously read, 
 and had been made aware by the discourse of the bishop, 
 that we must not sacrifice to idols, that the servant of God 
 ought not to worship images ; and therefore, in order that I 
 might not do this which was not lawful, when the opportunity 
 of receiving a certificate was offered, which itself also I should 
 not have received, unless the opportunity had been put before 
 me, I either went or charged some other person going to 
 the magistrate, to say that I am a Christian, that I am not 
 allowed to sacrifice, that I cannot come to the devil's altars, 
 and that I pay a price for this purpose, that I may not do 
 what is not lawful for me to do." Now, however, even he 
 who is stained with having received a certificate, after he has 
 learnt from our admonitions that he ought not even to have 
 done this, and that although his hand is pure, and no con- 
 tact of deadly food has polluted his lips, yet his conscience 
 is nevertheless polluted, weeps when he hears us, and laments, 
 and is now admonished of the thing wherein he has sinned, and 
 having been deceived, not so much by guilt as by error, bears 
 witness that for another time he is instructed and prepared. 
 
 15. If we reject the repentance of those who have some 
 confidence in a conscience that may be tolerated ; at once 
 with their wife, with their children, whom they had kept 
 safe, they are hurried by the devil's invitation into heresy or 
 schism ; and it will be attributed to us in the day of judg- 
 ment, that we have not cared for the wounded sheep, and 
 that on account of a single wounded one we have lost many 
 sound ones. And whereas the Lord left the ninety and nine 
 that were whole, and sought after the one wandering and 
 weary, and Himself carried it when found upon His shoulders, 
 we not only do not seek the lapsed, but even drive them 
 away when they come to us ; and while false prophets are not 
 ceasing to lay waste and tear Christ's flock, we give an op- 
 portunity to dogs and wolves, so that those whom a hateful 
 persecution has not destroyed, we ruin by our hardness and 
 inhumanity. And what will become, dearest brother, of
 
 142 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 what the apostle says : " I please all men in all things, not 
 seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they 
 may be saved. Be ye followers of me, as I also am of 
 Christ." l And again : " To the weak I became as weak, 
 that I might gain the weak." 2 And again : " Whether one 
 member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member 
 rejoice, all the members rejoice with it." 3 
 
 16. The principle of the philosophers and stoics is diffe- 
 rent, dearest brother, who say that all sins are equal, and 
 that a grave man ought not easily to be moved. But there 
 is a wide difference between Christians and philosophers. 
 And when the apostle says, "Beware, lest any man spoil 
 you through philosophy and vain deceit," 4 we are to avoid 
 those things which do not come from God's clemency, but 
 are begotten of the presumption of a too rigid philosophy. 
 Concerning Moses, moreover, we find it said in the Scrip- 
 tures, " Now the man Moses was very meek ; " 5 and the Lord 
 in His gospel says, " Be ye merciful, as your Father also had 
 mercy upon you ;" 6 and again, " They that be whole need 
 not a physician, but they that are sick." 7 What medical skill 
 can he exercise who says, " I cure the sound only, who have 
 no need of a physician?" We ought to give our assist- 
 ance, our healing art, to those who are wounded ; neither let 
 us think them dead, but rather let us regard them as lying 
 half alive, whom we see to have been wounded in the fatal 
 persecution, and who, if they had been altogether dead, would 
 never from the same men become afterwards both confessors 
 and martyrs. 
 
 17. But since in them there is that, which, by subsequent 
 repentance, may be strengthened into faith; and by repentance 
 strength is armed to virtue, which could not be armed if one 
 should fall away through despair ; if, hardly and cruelly 
 separated from the church, he should turn himself to Gentile 
 ways and to worldly works, or, if rejected by the church, he 
 should pass over to heretics and schismatics ; where, although 
 he should afterwards be put to death on account of the name, 
 
 1 1 Cor. x. 33, xi. 1. 2 1 Cor. ix. 22. 3 1 Cor. xii. 2G. 
 
 4 CoL ii. 8. 6 Num. xii. 3. 6 Luke vi. 36. 7 Matt. ix. 12.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 143 
 
 still, being placed outside the church, and divided from unity 
 and from chanty, he could not in his death be crowned. 
 And therefore it was decided, dearest brother, the case of 
 each individual having been examined into, that the receivers 
 of certificates should in the meantime be admitted, that those 
 who had sacrificed should be assisted at death, because there 
 is no confession in the grave, nor can any one be constrained 
 by us to repentance, if the fruit of repentance be taken away. 
 If the battle should come first, strengthened by us, he will 
 be found ready armed for the battle ; but if sickness should 
 press hard upon him before the battle, he departs with the 
 consolation of peace and communion. 
 
 18. Moreover, we do not prejudge when the Lord is to be 
 the judge ; save that if He shall find the repentance of the 
 sinners full and sound, He will then ratify what shall have 
 been here determined by us. If, however, any one should 
 delude us with the pretence of repentance, God, who is not 
 mocked, and who looks into man's heart, will judge of those 
 things which we have imperfectly looked into, and the Lord 
 will amend the sentence of His servants ; while yet, dearest 
 brother, we ought to remember that it is written, " A brother 
 that helpetli a brother shall be exalted ;' 51 and that the apostle 
 also has said, " Let all of you severally have regard to your- 
 selves, lest ye also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, 
 and so fulfil the law of Christ ; " 2 also that, rebuking the 
 haughty, and breaking down their arrogance, he says in his 
 epistle, " Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he 
 fall;" 3 and in another place he says, "Who art thou that 
 judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth 
 or f alleth ; yea, he shall stand, for God is able to make him 
 stand." 4 John also proves that Jesus Christ the Lord is 
 our Advocate and Intercessor for our sins, saying, "My 
 little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. 
 And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, 
 Jesus Christ the Supporter : and He is the propitiation for 
 our sins." 5 And Paul also, the apostle, in his epistle, has 
 
 1 Prov. xviii. 19 (old version). 2 Gal. vi. 1, 2. 
 
 3 1 Cor. x. 12. * Eom. xiv. 4. 5 1 John ii. 1, 2.
 
 144 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 written, " If, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us ; 
 much more, being now justified by His blood, we shall be 
 saved from wrath through Him." ] 
 
 19. Considering His love and mercy, we ought not to be 
 so bitter, nor cruel, nor inhuman in cherishing the brethren, 
 but to mourn with those that mourn, and to weep with them 
 that weep, and to raise them up as much as we can by the 
 help and comfort of our love ; neither being too ungentle 
 and pertinacious in repelling their repentance; nor, again, 
 being too lax and easy in rashly yielding communion. Lo ! 
 a wounded brother lies stricken by the enemy in the field of 
 battle. There the devil is striving to slay him whom he has 
 wounded ; here Christ is exhorting that he whom He has 
 redeemed may not wholly perish. Whether of the two do 
 we assist ? On whose side do we stand ? Whether do we 
 favour the devil, that he may destroy, and pass by our pro- 
 strate lifeless brother, as in the Gospel did the priest and 
 Levite ; or rather, as priests of God and Christ, do we imitate 
 what Christ both taught and did, and snatch the wounded 
 man from the jaws of the enemy, that we may preserve him 
 cured for God the judge? 
 
 20. And do not think, dearest brother, that either the 
 courage of the brethren will be lessened, or that martyrdoms 
 will fail for this cause, that repentance is relaxed to the 
 lapsed, and that the hope of peace is offered to the penitent. 
 The strength of the truly believing remains unshaken ; and 
 with those who fear and love God with their whole heart, 
 their integrity continues steady and strong. For to adul- 
 terers even a time of repentance is granted by us, and peace 
 is given. Yet virginity is not therefore deficient in the 
 church, nor does the glorious design of continence languish 
 through the sins of others. The church, crowned with so 
 many virgins, flourishes; and chastity and modesty preserve 
 the tenor of their glory. Nor is the vigour of continence 
 broken down because repentance and pardon are facilitated 
 to the adulterer. It is one thing to stand for pardon, another 
 thing to attain to glory : it is one thing, when cast into 
 
 1 Rom. v. 8, 9.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 145 
 
 prison, not to go out thence until one has paid the uttermost 
 farthing ; another thing at once to receive the wages of faith 
 and courage. It is one thing, tortured by long suffering for 
 sins, to be cleansed and long purged by fare ;* another to have 
 purged all sins by suffering. It is one thing, in fine, to be 
 in suspense till the sentence of God at the day of judgment ; 
 another to be at once crowned by the Lord. 
 
 21. And, indeed, among our predecessors, some of the 
 bishops here in our province thought that peace was not 
 to be granted to adulterers, and wholly closed the gate of 
 repentance against adultery. Still they did not withdraw 
 from the assembly of their co-bishops, nor break the unity of 
 the catholic church by the persistency of their severity or 
 censure ; so that, because by some peace was granted to 
 adulterers, he who did not grant it should be separated from 
 the church. While the bond of concord remains, and the 
 undivided sacrament of the catholic church endures, every 
 bishop disposes and directs his own acts, and will have to 
 give an account of his purposes to the Lord. 
 
 22. But I wonder that some are so obstinate as to think 
 that repentance is not to be granted to the lapsed, or to 
 suppose that pardon is to be denied to the penitent, when it 
 is written, " Remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, 
 and do the first works," 2 which certainly is said to him who 
 evidently has fallen, and whom the Lord exhorts to rise 
 up again by his works, because it is written, "Alms do 
 deliver from death," 3 and not, assuredly, from that death 
 which once the blood of Christ extinguished, and from which 
 the saving grace of baptism and of our Redeemer has deli- 
 vered us, but from that which subsequently creeps in through 
 sins. Moreover, in another place time is granted for re- 
 pentance ; and the Lord threatens him that does not repent: 
 " I have," saith He, " many things against thee, because 
 thou sufferest thy wife Jezebel, which calleth herself a 
 prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit 
 
 1 These words are variously read, " to he purged divinely," or "to be 
 purged for a long while, " soil. " purgari divine," or " purgari diutine." 
 
 2 Apoc. ii. 5. 3 Tob. iv. 10. 
 
 K
 
 146 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols ; and I gave 
 her a space to repent, and she will not repent of her forni- 
 cation. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that 
 commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they 
 repent of their deeds ; " l whom certainly the Lord would not 
 exhort to repentance, if it were not that He promises mercy 
 to them that repent. And in the Gospel He says, " I say 
 unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner 
 that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons 
 that need no repentance." 2 For since it is written, " God did 
 not make death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction 
 of the living," 3 assuredly He who wills that none should 
 perish, desires that sinners should repent, and by repentance 
 should return again to life. Thus also He cries- by Joel 
 the prophet, and says, " And now, thus saith the Lord your 
 God, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fast- 
 ing, and with weeping, and with mourning ; and rend your 
 heart, and not your garments, and return unto the Lord your 
 God; for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and 
 of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil appointed." 4 
 In the Psalms, also, we read as well the rebuke as the 
 clemency of God, threatening at the same time as He spares, 
 punishing that He may correct ; and when He has corrected T 
 preserving. " I will visit," He says, " their transgressions 
 with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, 
 my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them." 5 
 
 23. The Lord also in His Gospel, setting forth the love of 
 God the Father, says, " What man is there of you, whom, 
 if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone ? or if he ask 
 a fish, will he give him a serpent ? If ye then, being evil, 
 know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much 
 more shall your heavenly Father give good things to them 
 that ask Him?" 6 The Lord is here comparing the father 
 after the flesh, and the eternal and liberal love of God the 
 Father. But if that evil father upon earth, deeply offended 
 by a sinful and evil son, yet if he should see the same son 
 
 1 Apoc. ii. 20-22. 2 Luke xv. 7. z Wisd. i. 13. 
 
 4 Jod ii. 12, 13. Ps. Ixxxix. 32, 33. Matt. vii. 9-11.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 147 
 
 afterwards reformed, and, the sins of his former life being put 
 away, restored to sobriety and morality and to the discipline 
 of innocence by the sorrow of his repentance, both rejoices and 
 gives thanks, and with the eagerness of a father's exultation, 
 embraces the restored one, whom before he had cast out ; how 
 much more does that one and true Father, good, merciful, and 
 loving yea, Himself Goodness and Mercy and Love rejoice 
 in the repentance of His own sons ! nor threatens punishment 
 to those who are now repenting, or mourning and lamenting, 
 but rather promises pardon and clemency. Whence the Lord 
 in the Gospel calls those that mourn, blessed ; because he who 
 mourns calls forth mercy. He who is stubborn and haughty 
 heaps up wrath against himself, and the punishment of the 
 coming judgment. And therefore, dearest brother, we have 
 decided that those who do not repent, nor give evidence of 
 sorrow for their sins with their whole heart, and with manifest 
 profession of their lamentation, are to be absolutely restrained 
 from the hope of communion and peace if they begin to beg 
 for them in the midst of sickness and peril ; because it is not 
 repentance for sin, but the warning of urgent death, that 
 drives them to ask ; and he is not worthy to receive consola- 
 tion in death who has not reflected that he was about to die. 
 
 24. In reference, however, to the character of Novatian, 
 dearest brother, of whom you desired that intelligence should 
 be written you what heresy he had introduced ; know that, 
 in the first place, we ought not even to be inquisitive as to 
 what he teaches, so long as he teaches out of the pale [of 
 the church]. Whoever he may be, and whatever he may 
 be, he who is not in the church of Christ is not a Christian. 
 Although he may boast himself, and announce his philosophy 
 or eloquence with lofty words, yet he who has not maintained 
 brotherly love or ecclesiastical unity has lost even what he 
 previously had been. Unless he seems to you to be a bishop, 
 who when a bishop has been made in the church by sixteen 
 co-bishops strives by bribery to be made an adulterous and 
 extraneous bishop by the hands of deserters ; and although 
 there is one church, divided by Christ throughout the whole 
 world into many members, and also one episcopate diffused
 
 148 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 through a harmonious multitude of many bishops ; in spite 
 of God's tradition, in spite of the combined and everywhere 
 compacted unity of the catholic church, is endeavouring 
 to make a human church, and is sending his new apostles 
 through very many cities, that he may establish some new 
 foundations of his own appointment ; and although there 
 have already been ordained in each city, and through all the 
 provinces, bishops old in years, sound in faith, proved in 
 trial, proscribed in persecution, dares to create over these 
 other false bishops : as if he could either wander over the 
 whole world with the persistence of his new endeavour, or 
 break asunder the structure of the ecclesiastical body, by the 
 propagation of his own discord, not knowing that schismatics 
 are always fervid at the beginning, but that they cannot in- 
 crease nor add to what they have unlawfully begun, but that 
 they immediately fail together with their evil emulation. But 
 he could not hold the episcopate, even if he had before been 
 made bishop, since he has cut himself off from the body of 
 his fellow-bishops, and from the unity of the church ; since 
 the apostle admonishes that we should mutually sustain one 
 another, and not withdraw from the unity which God has 
 appointed, and says, " Bearing with one another in love, 
 endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of 
 peace." 1 He then who neither maintains the unity of the Spii'it 
 nor the bond of peace, and separates himself from the band of 
 the church, and from the assembly of priests, can neither have 
 the power nor the honour of a bishop, since he has refused 
 to maintain either the unity or the peace of the episcopate. 
 
 25. Then, moreover, what a swelling of arrogance it is, 
 what oblivion of humility and gentleness, what a boasting 
 of his own arrogance, that any one should either dare, or 
 think that he is able, to do what the Lord did not even grant 
 to the apostles that he should think that he can discern the 
 tares from the wheat, or, as if it were granted to him to bear 
 the fan and to purge the threshing-floor, should endeavour 
 to separate the chaff from the wheat ; and since the apostle 
 says, " But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold 
 1 Eph. iv. 2, 3.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 149 
 
 and of silver, but also of wood and of earth," 1 should think 
 to choose the vessels of gold and of silver, to despise, to cast 
 away, and to condemn the vessels of wood and of clay ; while 
 the vessels of wood are not burnt up except in the day of the 
 Lord by the flame of the divine burning, and the vessels of clay 
 are only broken by Him to whom is given the rod of iron. 
 
 26. Or if he appoints himself a searcher and judge of the 
 heart and reins, let him in all cases judge equally. And as 
 he knows that it is written, " Behold, thou art made whole ; 
 sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee," 2 let him 
 separate the fraudulent and adulterers from his side and from 
 his company, since the case of an adulterer is by far both 
 graver and worse than that of one who has taken a certifi- 
 cate, because the latter has sinned by necessity, the former 
 by free will : the latter, thinking that it is sufficient for him 
 that he has not sacrificed, has been deceived by an error; the 
 former, a violator of the matrimonial tie of another, or en- 
 tering a brothel, into the sink and filthy gulf of the common 
 people, has befouled by detestable impurity a sanctified body 
 and God's temple, as says the apostle : " Every sin that a man 
 doeth is without the body, but he that committeth fornication 
 sinneth against his own body." 3 And yet to these persons 
 themselves repentance is granted, and the hope of lamenting 
 and atoning is left, according to the saying of the same 
 apostle : " I fear lest, when I come to you, I shall bewail 
 many of those who have sinned already, and have not re- 
 pented of the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness 
 which they have committed." 4 
 
 27. Neither let the new heretics flatter themselves in this, 
 that they say that they do not communicate with idolaters ; 
 although among them there are both adulterers and fraudu- 
 lent persons, who are held guilty of the crime of idolatry, 
 according to the saying of the apostle : " For know this with 
 understanding, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, 
 nor covetous man, whose guilt is that of idolatry, hath any 
 inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." 5 And 
 
 1 2 Tim. ii. 20. 2 John v. 14. 8 1 Cor. vi. 18. 
 
 4 2 Cor. xii. 21. s Eph. v. 5.
 
 150 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 again : " Mortify therefore your members which are upon the 
 earth ; putting off fornication, uncleanness, and evil concupis- 
 cence, and covetousness, which are the service of idols : for 
 which things' sake cometh the wrath of God." 1 For as our 
 bodies are members of Christ, and we are each a temple 
 of God, whosoever violates the temple of God by adultery, 
 violates God ; and he who, in committing sins, does the will 
 of the devil, serves demons and idols. For evil deeds do not 
 come from the Holy Spirit, but from the prompting of the 
 adversary, and lusts born of the unclean spirit constrain men 
 to act against God and to obey the devil. Thus it happens 
 that if they say that one is polluted by another's sin, and if 
 they contend, by their own asseveration, that the idolatry of 
 the delinquent passes over to one who is not guilty according 
 to their own word ; they cannot be excused from the crime of 
 idolatry, since from the apostolic proof it is evident that the 
 adulterers and defrauders with whom they communicate are 
 idolaters. But with us, according to our faith and the given 
 rule of divine preaching, agrees the principle of truth, that 
 every one is himself held fast in his own sin ; nor can one be- 
 come guilty for another, since the Lord forewarns us, saying, 
 " The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and 
 the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." 2 And 
 again : " The fathers shall not die for the children, and the 
 children shall not die for the fathers. Every one shall die in 
 his own sin." 3 Reading and observing this, we certainly think 
 that no one is to be restrained from the fruit of satisfaction, 
 and the hope of peace, since we know, according to the faith 
 of the divine Scriptures, God Himself being their author, 
 and exhorting in them, both that sinners are brought back 
 to repentance, and that pardon and mercy are not denied to 
 penitents. 
 
 28. And oh, mockery of a deceived fraternity ! Oh, vain 
 deception of miserable and senseless mourners ! Oh, ineffec- 
 tual and profitless tradition of heretical institution I to exhort 
 to the repentance of atonement, and to take away the healing 
 from the atonement to say to our brethren, "Mourn and 
 
 1 Col. iii. 5, 6. 2 Ezek. xviii. 20. 3 Deut. xxiv. 26.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 151 
 
 shed tears, and groan day and night, and labour largely and 
 frequently for the washing away and cleansing of your sin ; 
 but, after all these things, you shall die without the pale of 
 the church. Whatsoever things are necessary to peace, you 
 shall do, but none of that peace which you seek shall you 
 receive!" Who would not perish at once? who would not 
 fall away, from very desperation ? who would not turn away 
 his mind from all design of lamentation? Do you think 
 that the husbandman could labour if you should say, " Till 
 the field with all the skill of husbandry, diligently persevere in 
 its cultivation; but you shall reap no harvest, you shall press 
 no vintage, you shall receive no fruits of your olive-yard, you 
 shall gather no apples from the trees ;" or if, urging upon 
 any one the possession and use of ships, you were to say, 
 " Purchase, my brother, material from excellent woods in- 
 weave your keel with the strongest and chosen oak labour 
 on the rudder, the ropes, the sails, that the ship may be con- 
 structed and fitted ; but when you have done this, you shall 
 never behold the result from its doings and its voyages? " 
 
 29. This is to shut up and to cut off the way of grief and 
 of repentance ; so that while in all Scripture the Lord God 
 soothes those who return to Him and repent, repentance itself 
 is taken away by our hardness and cruelty, which intercepts 
 the fruits of repentance. But if we find that none ought to 
 be restrained from repenting, and that peace may be granted 
 by His priests to those who entreat and beseech the Lord's 
 mercy, inasmuch as He is merciful and loving, the groaning 
 of those who mourn is to be admitted, and the fruit of repent- 
 ance is not to be denied to those who grieve. And because 
 in the grave there is no confession, neither can confession 
 be made there, they who have repented from their whole 
 heart, and have asked for it, ought to be received within the 
 church, and to be kept in it for the Lord, who will of a surety 
 judge, when He comes to His church, those whom He shall 
 find within it. But apostates and deserters, or adversaries 
 and enemies, and those who lay waste the church of Christ, 
 cannot, even if outside the church they have been slain for 
 His name, according to the apostle, be admitted to the peace
 
 152 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 of the church, since they have neither kept the unity of the 
 spirit nor of the church. 
 
 30. These few things for the present, out of many, dearest 
 brother, I have run over as briefly as I could, that I might 
 thereby both satisfy your desire, and might link you more 
 and more closely to the society of our college and body. But 
 if there should arise to you an opportunity and power of 
 coming to us, we shall be able to confer more fully together, 
 and to consider more fruitfully and more at large the things 
 which make for a salutary agreement. I bid you, dearest 
 brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LI I. 1 
 
 TOFORTUNATUSANDHIS OTHER COLLEAGUES, CONCERNING 
 THOSE WHO HAD BEEN OVERCOME BY TORTURES. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian being consulted by his colleagues, 
 whether certain lapsed persons icho had been overpowered 
 by torture should be admitted to communion, replies, that 
 inasmuch as they had already repented for the space of 
 three years, he thought they should be received; but as 
 after the festival of Easter there would be a council of 
 bishops with him, he would then consider the matter with 
 them. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Fortunatus, Ahymnus, Optatus, Privati- 
 anus, Donatulus, and Felix, his brethren, greeting. You 
 have written to me, dearest brethren, that when you were in 
 the city of Capsa for the purpose of ordaining a bishop, 
 Superius our brother and colleague brought before you, that 
 Ninus, Clementianus, and Florus, our brethren, who had been 
 previously laid hold of in the persecution, and confessing the 
 name of the Lord, had overcome the violence of the magis- 
 tracy, and the attack of a raging populace, afterwards, when 
 they were tortured before the proconsul with severe sufferings, 
 were vanquished by the acuteness of the torments, and fell, 
 through their lengthened agonies, from the degree of glory to 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ivi.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 153 
 
 which in the full virtue of faith they were tending, and had 
 not yet, after this grave lapse, incurred not willingly but of 
 necessity, ceased their repentance for the space of three years : 
 of whom you thought it right to consult whether it was well 
 to receive them now to communion. 
 
 2. And indeed, in respect of my own opinion, I think that 
 the Lord's mercy will not be wanting to those who are known 
 to have stood in the ranks of battle, to have confessed the 
 name, 1 to have overcome the violence of the magistrates and 
 the rush of the raging populace with the persistency of 
 unshaken faith, to have suffered imprisonment, to have long 
 resisted, amidst the threats of the proconsul and the warring 
 of the surrounding people, torments that wrenched and tore 
 them with protracted repetition ; so that in the last moment 
 to have been vanquished by the infirmity of the flesh, may 
 be extenuated by the plea of preceding deserts ; and it may 
 be sufficient for such to have lost their glory, but that we 
 ought not, moreover, to close the place of pardon to them, 
 and deprive them of their Father's love and of our com- 
 munion ; to whom we think it may be sufficient for entreating 
 the mercy of the Lord, that for three years continually and 
 sorrowfully, as you write, they have lamented with excessive 
 penitential mourning. Assuredly I do not think that peace 
 is incautiously and over-hastily granted to those, who we see, 
 by the bravery of their warfare, have not been previously 
 wanting to the battle ; and who, if the struggle should come 
 on anew, might be able to regain their glory. For when it 
 was decided in the council that penitents in peril of sickness 
 should be assisted, and have peace granted to them, surely 
 those ought to precede in receiving peace whom we see not 
 to have fallen by weakness of mind, but who, having engaged 
 in the conflict, and being wounded, have not been able to 
 sustain the crown of their confession through weakness of 
 the flesh ; especially since, in their desire to die, they were 
 not permitted to be slain, but the tortures wrenched their 
 wearied frames long enough, not to conquer their faith, which 
 is unconquerable, but to exhaust the flesh, which is weak. 
 1 According to some readings, " the name of the Lord."
 
 154 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 3. Since, however, you have written for me to give full 
 consideration to this matter with many of my colleagues ; and 
 so great a subject claims greater and more careful counsel 
 from the conference of many ; and as now almost all, during 
 the first celebrations of Easter, are dwelling at home with their 
 brethren : when they shall have completed the solemnity to be 
 celebrated among their own people, and have begun to come 
 to me, I will consider it more at large with each one, so that a 
 decided opinion, weighed in the council of many priests, on 
 the subject on which you have consulted me, may be estab- 
 lished among us, and may be written to you. I bid you, 
 dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LIII. 1 
 
 TO CORNELIUS, CONCERNING GRANTING PEACE TO THE 
 LAPSED. 
 
 ARGUMENT. As the African bishops had previously decided 
 in a certain council) that the lapsed, except after long 
 penitence, should not be received to peace, unless perchance 
 peril of sickness ivas urgent ; now on the appearance of a 
 new persecution they decided that peace was to be granted 
 to all those u-ho had repented, so that they might be the 
 more courageous for the contest of suffering. Cyprian 
 announces this decree of the bishops in the name of the 
 whole synod to Father Cornelius ; and therefore this letter 
 is not so much the letter of Cyprian himself, as that of 
 the entire African synod. 
 
 Cyprian,'Liberalis, Caldonius, Nicomedes, Csecilius, Junius, 
 Marrutius, Felix, Successus, Faustinus, Fortunatus, Victor, 
 Saturninus, another Saturninus, Rogatianus, Tertullus, Lu- 
 cianus, Eutyches, Amplus, Sattius, Secundinus, another 
 Saturninus, Aurelius, Priscus, Herculanus, Victorious, Quin- 
 tus, Honoratus, Montanus, Hortensianus, Verianus, Iambus, 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ivii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 155 
 
 Donatus, Pompeius, Polycarpus, Demetrius, another Donatus, 
 Privatianus, another Fortunatus, Rogatus and Monulus, to 
 Cornelius their brother, greeting. 1 
 
 1. We had indeed decided some time ago, dearest brother, 
 having mutually taken counsel one with another, that they 
 who, in the fierceness of persecution, had been overthrown 
 by the adversary, and had lapsed, and had polluted them- 
 selves with unlawful sacrifices, should undergo a long and 
 full repentance ; and if the risk of sickness should be urgent, 
 should receive peace on the very point of death. For it was 
 not right, neither did the love of the Father nor divine mercy 
 allow, that the church should be closed to those that knock, or 
 the help of the hope of salvation be denied to those who mourn 
 and entreat, so that when they pass from this world, they 
 should be dismissed to their Lord without communion and 
 peace ; since He Himself who gave the law, that things which 
 were bound on earth should also be bound in heaven, allowed, 
 moreover, that things might be loosed there which were here 
 first loosed in the church. But now, when we see that the day 
 of another trouble is again beginning to draw near, and are 
 admonished by frequent and repeated intimations that we 
 should be prepared and armed for the struggle which the 
 enemy announces to us, that we should also prepare the people 
 committed to us by divine condescension, by our exhortations, 
 and gather together from all parts all the soldiers of Christ 
 who desire arms, and are anxious for the battle within the 
 Lord's camp, under the compulsion of this necessity, we have 
 decided that peace is to be given to those who have not with- 
 drawn from the church of the Lord, but have not ceased 
 from the first day of their lapse to repent, and to lament, and 
 
 1 The superscription in other texts is as follows : " Cyprian, Liberalis, 
 Caldonius, Nicomedes, Csecilius, Junius, Marrutius, Felix, Successus, 
 Faustiuus, Fortunatus, Victor, Saturninus, another Saturninus, Roga- 
 tian, Tertullus, Lucianus, Sattius, Secundinus, another Saturninus, 
 Eutyches, Amplus, another Saturninus, Aurelius, Priscus, Herculaneus, 
 Victorious, Quintus, Honoratus, Manthaneus, Hortensianus, Verianus, 
 Iambus, Donatus, Pomponius, Polycarp, Demetrius, another Donatus, 
 Privatianus, another Fortunatus, Eogatus and Munnulus, to Cornelius 
 their brother, greeting."
 
 156 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 to beseech the Lord ; and [have decided] that they ought to 
 be armed and equipped for the battle which is at hand. 
 
 2. For we must comply with fitting intimations and ad- 
 monitions, that the sheep may not be deserted in danger 
 by the shepherds, but that the whole flock may be gathered 
 together into one place, and the Lord's army may be armed 
 for the contest of the heavenly warfare. For the repentance 
 of the mourners was reasonably prolonged for a more pro- 
 tracted time, help only being afforded to the sick in their 
 departure, so long as peace and tranquillity prevailed, which 
 permitted the long postponement of the tears of the mourners, 
 and late assistance in sickness to the dying. But now 
 indeed peace is necessary, not for the sick, but for the 
 strong ; nor is communion to be granted by us to the dying, 
 but to the living, that we may not leave those whom we stir 
 up and exhort to the battle unarmed and naked, but may 
 fortify them with the protection of Christ's body and blood ; 
 and, as the Eucharist is appointed for this very purpose that 
 it may be a safeguard to the receivers, that we may arm 
 those whom we wish to be safe against the adversary with 
 the protection of the Lord's abundance. For how do we 
 teach or provoke them to shed their blood in confession of 
 His name, if we deny to those who are about to enter on the 
 warfare the blood of Christ ? Or how do we make them fit 
 for the cup of martyrdom, if we do not first admit them to 
 drink in the church the cup of the Lord by the right of 
 communion ? 
 
 3. We should make a difference, dearest brother, between 
 those who, either, have apostatized, and having returned to 
 the world which they have renounced, are living heathenish 
 lives, or, having become deserters to the heretics, are daily 
 taking up parricidal arms against the church ; and those who 
 do not depart from the church's threshold, and constantly 
 and sorrowfully imploring divine and paternal consolation, 
 profess that they are now prepared for the battle, and ready 
 to stand and fight bravely for the name of their Lord and 
 for their own salvation. In these times we grant peace, not 
 to those who sleep, but to those who watch. We grant peace,
 
 THE EPISTLES OF C7PRIAN. 157 
 
 not amid indulgences, but amid arms. We grant peace, not 
 for rest, but for the field of battle. If, according to what 
 we hear, and desire, and believe of them, they shall stand 
 bravely, and shall overthrow the adversary with us in the 
 encounter, we shall not repent of having granted peace to 
 men so brave ; yea, it is the great honour and glory of our 
 episcopate to have granted peace to martyrs, so that we, 
 as priests, who daily celebrate the sacrifices of God, may 
 prepare offerings arid victims for God. But if which may 
 the Lord avert from our brethren any one of the lapsed 
 should deceive, seeking peace by guile, and at the time of 
 the impending struggle receiving peace without any purpose 
 of doing battle, he betrays and deceives himself, hiding one 
 thing in his heart and pronouncing another with his voice. 
 We, so far as it is allowed to us to see and to judge, look upon 
 the face of each one ; we are not able to scrutinize the heart 
 and to inspect the mind. Concerning these the Discerner 
 and Searcher of hidden things judges, and He will quickly 
 come and judge of the secrets and hidden things of the heart. 
 But the evil ought not to stand in the way of the good, but 
 rather the evil ought to be assisted by the good. Neither is 
 peace, therefore, to be denied to those who are about to 
 endure martyrdom, because there are some who will refuse 
 it, since for this purpose peace should be granted to all who 
 are about to enter upon the warfare, that through our igno- 
 rance he may not be the first one to be passed over, who in 
 the struggle is to be crowned. 
 
 4. Nor let any one say, " that he who accepts martyrdom 
 is baptized in his own blood, and peace is not necessary to 
 him from the bishop, since he is about to have the peace of 
 his own glory, and about to receive a greater reward from 
 the condescension of the Lord." First of all, he cannot be 
 fitted for martyrdom who is not armed for the contest by the 
 church ; and his spirit is deficient which the Eucharist received 
 does not raise and stimulate. For the Lord says in His 
 Gospel : " But when they deliver you up, take no thought 
 what ye shall speak ; for it shall be given you in that hour 
 what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the
 
 158 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." 1 Now, 
 since He says that the Spirit of the Father speaks in those 
 who are delivered up and set in the confession of His name, 
 how can he be found prepared or fit for that confession who 
 has not first, in the reception of peace, received the Spirit of 
 the Father, who, giving strength to His servants, Himself 
 speaks and confesses in us? Then, besides if, having for- 
 saken everything that he has, a man shall flee, and dwelling 
 in hiding-places and in solitude, shr.il fall by chance among 
 thieves, or shall die in fever and in weakness, will it not be 
 charged upon us that so good a soldier, who has forsaken all 
 that he hath, and contemning his house, and his parents, and 
 his children, has preferred to follow his Lord, dies without 
 peace and without communion"? Will not either inactive 
 negligence or cruel hardness be ascribed to us in the day of 
 judgment, that, pastors though we are, we have neither been 
 willing to take care of the sheep trusted and committed to 
 us in peace, nor to arm them in battle ? Would not the charge 
 be brought against us by the Lord, which by His prophet 
 He utters and says ? " Behold, ye consume the milk, and ye 
 clothe you with the wool, and ye kill them that are fed ; but 
 ye feed not my flock. The weak have ye not strengthened, 
 neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye 
 comforted that which was broken, neither have ye brought 
 again that which strayed, neither have ye sought that which 
 was lost, and that which was strong ye wore out with labour. 
 And my sheep were scattered, because there were no shep- 
 herds : and they became meat to all the beasts of the field ; 
 and there was none who sought after them, nor brought them 
 
 O J O 
 
 back. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I am against 
 the shepherds; and I will require my sheep of their hand, 
 and cause them to cease from feeding my sheep ; neither 
 shall they feed them any more : and I will deliver my sheep 
 from their mouth, and I will feed them with judgment." 2 
 
 5. Lest, then, the sheep committed to us by the Lord be 
 demanded back from our mouth, wherewith we deny peace, 
 wherewith we oppose to them rather the severity of human 
 1 Matt. x. 19, 20. 2 Ezek. xxxiv. 3-G. 10-16.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 159 
 
 cruelty than [the benignity] of divine and paternal love ; we 
 have determined by the suggestion of the Holy Spirit and 
 the admonition of the Lord, conveyed by many and manifest 
 visions, because the enemy is foretold and shown to be at hand, 
 to gather within the camp the soldiers of Christ, to examine the 
 cases of each one, and to grant peace to the lapsed, yea, rather 
 to furnish arms to those who are about to fight. And this, we 
 trust, will please you in contemplation of the paternal mercy. 
 But if there be any of our colleagues who, now that the con- 
 test is urgent, thinks that peace should not be granted to our 
 brethren and sisters, he shall give an account to the Lord in 
 the day of judgment, either of his grievous rigour or of his 
 inhuman hardness. We, as befitted our faith and charity and 
 solicitude, have laid before you what was in our own mind, 
 namely, that the day of contest has approached, that a violent 
 enemy will soon rise up against us, that a struggle is coming 
 on, not such as it has been, but much more serious and fierce. 
 This is frequently shown to us from above ; concerning this 
 we are often admonished by the providence and mercy of the 
 Lord, of whose help and love we who trust in Him may be 
 secure, because He who in peace foretells to His soldiers that 
 the battle will come, will give to them when they are warring 
 victory in the encounter. We bid you, dearest brother, ever 
 heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LIV. 1 
 
 TO CORNELIUS, CONCERNING FORTUNATUS AND FELICIS- 
 SIMUS, OE AGAINST THE HERETICS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian cine fly warns Cornelius in this letter 
 not to hear the calumnies of Felicissimus and Fortunatus 
 against him, and not to be frightened by their threats, 
 but to be of a brave spirit, as becomes God's priests in 
 opposition to heretics; namely, those who, after the custom 
 prevailing among heretics, began their heresy and schisms 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. lix.
 
 160 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN, 
 
 with the contempt of one bishop in the church ; indicating 
 also by the way whence heresy and schisms are wont to 
 take their rise, so that the letter is icith good reason in- 
 scribed by Morell " Contra Hcereticos" 
 
 1. I have read your letter, dearest brother, which you 
 sent by Saturus our brother the acolyte, abundantly full of 
 fraternal love and ecclesiastical discipline and priestly reproof; 
 in which you signified that Felicissimus, no new enemy of 
 Christ, but long ago excommunicated for his very many and 
 grave crimes, and condemned not only by my judgment, but 
 also by that of very many of my fellow-bishops, has been 
 rejected by you there, and that when he came attended by 
 a band and faction of desperadoes, he was driven from 
 the church with the full vigour with which it behoves a 
 
 O 
 
 bishop to act ; from which church long ago he was driven, 
 with others like himself, by the majesty of God and the 
 severity of Christ our Lord and Judge ; that the author 
 of schism and disagreement, the fraudulent user of money 
 entrusted to him, the violator of virgins, the destroyer and 
 corrupter of many marriages, should not, by the dishonour 
 of his presence and his immodest and incestuous contact, 
 violate further the spouse of Christ, hitherto uncorrupt, holy, 
 modest. 
 
 2. But yet, when I read your other letter, brother, 
 which you subjoined to your first one, I was considerably 
 surprised at observing that you were in some degree dis- 
 turbed by the threats and terrors of those who had come, 
 when, according to what you wrote, they had attacked and 
 threatened you with the greatest desperation, that if you 
 would not receive the letters which they had brought, they 
 would read them publicly, and would utter many base and 
 disgraceful things, and such as were worthy of their mouth. 
 But if the matter is thus, dearest brother, that the audacity 
 of the most wicked men is to be dreaded, and that what evil 
 men cannot do rightly and equitably, they may accomplish 
 by daring and desperation, there is an end of the vigour 
 of the episcopacy, and of the sublime and divine power of
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 161 
 
 jroverning the church ; nor can we continue any longer, 
 or in fact now be Christians, if it is come to this, that we 
 are to be afraid of the threats or the snares of outcasts. For 
 both Gentiles and Jews threaten, and heretics and all those, 
 of whose hearts and minds the devil has taken possession, 
 daily attest their venomous madness with furious voice. We 
 are not, therefore, to yield because they threaten ; nor is the 
 adversary and enemy on that account greater than Christ, 
 because he claims for himself and assumes so much in the 
 world. There ought to abide with us, dearest brother, an 
 immoveable strength of faith ; and against all the irruptions 
 and onsets of the waves that roar against us, a steady and 
 unshaken courage should plant itself as with the fortitude and 
 mass of a resisting rock. Nor does it matter whence comes 
 the terror or the danger to a bishop, who lives subject to 
 terrors and dangers, and is nevertheless made glorious by 
 those very terrors and dangers. For we ought not to consider 
 and regard the mere threats of the Gentiles or of the Jews, 
 
 O ' 
 
 when we see that the Lord Himself was deserted by His 
 brethren, and was betrayed by him whom He Himself had 
 chosen among His apostles ; that also in the beginning of the 
 world it was none other than a brother who slew righteous 
 Abel, and an angry brother pursued the fleeing Jacob, and 
 the youthful Joseph was sold by the act of his brethren. In 
 the Gospel also we read that it was foretold that our foes 
 should rather be of our own household, and that they who 
 have first been associated in the sacrament of unity shall be 
 they who shall betray one another. It makes no difference 
 who delivers up or who rages, since God permits those to be 
 delivered up whom He appoints to be crowned. For it is no 
 ignominy to us to suffer from our brethren what Christ 
 suffered, nor is it glory to them to do what Judas did. But 
 what insolence it is in them, what swelling and inflated and 
 
 ' O 
 
 vain boasting on the part of these threateners, there to threaten 
 me in my absence, when here they have me present in their 
 power ! I do not fear their reproaches with which they daily 
 wound themselves and their own life ; I do not tremble at 
 their clubs and stones and swords, which they brandish with 
 
 L
 
 162 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 parricidal words : as far as lies in their power such men are 
 homicides before God. Yet they are not able to slay unless 
 the Lord have allowed them to slay ; and although I must 
 die but once, yet they daily slay me by their hatred, their 
 words, and their villanies. 
 
 3. But, dearest brother, ecclesiastical discipline is not on 
 that account to be forsaken, nor priestly censure to be re- 
 laxed, because we are disturbed with reproaches or are shaken 
 with terrors ; since holy Scripture meets and warns us, 
 saying, "But he who presumes and is haughty, the man 
 who boasts of himself, who hath enlarged his soul as hell, 
 shall accomplish nothing." l And again : " And fear not 
 the words of a sinful man, for his glory shall be dung and 
 worms. To-day he is lifted up, and to-morrow he shall not 
 be found, because he is turned into his earth, and his thought 
 shall perish." 2 And again : " I have seen the wicked exalted, 
 and raised above the cedars of Libanus : I went by, and, lo, 
 he was not ; yea, I sought him, and his place was not found." 3 
 Exaltation, and puffing up, and arrogant and haughty 
 boastfulness, spring not from the teaching of Christ who 
 teaches humility, but from the spirit of Antichrist, whom the 
 Lord rebukes by His prophet, saying, " For thou hast said 
 in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will place my throne 
 above the stars of God : I will sit on a lofty mountain, above 
 the lofty mountains to the north : I will ascend above the 
 clouds ; I will be like the Most High." 4 And he added, say- 
 ing, " Yet thou shalt descend into hell, to the foundations 
 of the earth ; and they that see thee shall wonder at thee." 5 
 Whence also divine Scripture threatens a like punishment 
 to such in another place, and says, " For the day of the Lord 
 of hosts shall be upon every one that is injurious and proud, 
 and upon every one that is lifted up, and lofty." 6 By his 
 mouth, therefore, and by his words, is every one at once be- 
 trayed ; and whether he has Christ in his heart, or Antichrist, 
 is discerned in his speaking, according to what the Lord says 
 in His Gospel, " O generation of vipers, how can ye, being 
 
 1 Hab. ii. 5. 2 1 Mac. ii. 62, 63. 3 Ps. xxxviii. 35, 36. 
 
 * Isa. xiv. 13, 14. * Isa. xiv. 15, 16. 6 Isa. ii. 12.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 163 
 
 evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the 
 heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good 
 treasure bringeth forth good things ; and an evil man out of 
 the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." J Whence also 
 that rich sinner who implores help from Lazarus, then laid 
 in Abraham's bosom, and established in a place of comfort, 
 while he, writhing in torments, is consumed by the heats of 
 burning flame, suffers most punishment of all parts of his 
 body in his mouth and his tongue, because doubtless in his 
 mouth and his tongue he had most sinned. 
 
 4. For since it is written, "Neither shall revilers inherit 
 the kingdom of God," 2 and again the Lord says in His 
 Gospel, " Whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool ; and 
 whosoever shall say, Raca, shall be in danger of the Gehenna 
 of fire," 3 how can they evade the rebuke of the Lord the 
 avenger, who heap up such expressions, not only on their 
 brethren, but also on the priests, to whom is granted such 
 honour of the condescension of God, that whosoever should 
 not obey his priest, and him that judgeth here for the time, 
 was immediately to be slain ? In Deuteronomy the Lord God 
 speaks, saying, " And the man that will do presumptuously, 
 and will not hearken unto the priest or to the judge, whosoever 
 he shall be in those days, that man shall die; and all the people, 
 when they hear, shall fear, and shall do no more wickedly." 4 
 Moreover, to Samuel, when he w r as despised by the Jews, 
 God says, " They have not despised thee, but they have 
 despised me." 5 And the Lord also in the Gospel says, " He 
 that heareth you, heareth me, and Him that sent me ; and he 
 that rejecteth you, rejecteth me ; and he that rejecteth me, 
 rejecteth Him that sent me." 6 And when he had cleansed 
 the leprous man, he said, " Go, show thyself to the priest." 7 
 And when afterwards, in the time of His passion, He had 
 received a buffet from a servant of the priest, and the servant 
 said to him, "Answerest thou the high priest so?" 8 the 
 Lord said nothing reproachfully against the high priest, nor 
 
 1 Matt. xii. 34, 35. 2 1 Cor. vi. 10. 3 Matt. v. 22. 
 
 * Deut. xvii. 12, 13. s I Sam. viii. 7. 6 Luke x. 16. 
 
 7 Matt. viii. 4. 8 John xviii. 22.
 
 1G4 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 detracted any thing from the priest's honour ; but rather assert- 
 ing His own innocence, and showing it, He says, " If I have 
 spoken evil, bear witness of the evil ; but if well, why smitest 
 thou me ?"* Also subsequently, in the Acts of the Apostles, 
 the blessed Apostle Paul, when it was said to him, " Revilest 
 thou God's priest ?" 2 although they had begun to be sacri- 
 legious, and impious, and bloody, the Lord having already 
 been crucified, and had no longer retained anything of the 
 priestly honour and authority yet Paul, considering the 
 name itself, however empty, and the shadow, as it were, of 
 the priest, said, " I wist not, brethren, that he was the high 
 priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the 
 ruler of thy people." 3 
 
 5. When, then, such and so great examples, and many 
 others, are precedents whereby the priestly authority and 
 power by the divine condescension is established, what kind of 
 people, think you, are they who, being enemies of the priests, 
 and rebels against the catholic church, are frightened neither 
 by the threatening of a forewarning Lord, nor by the ven- 
 geance of coming judgment? For neither have heresies 
 arisen, nor have schisms originated, from any other source 
 than from this, that God's priest is not obeyed ; nor do they 
 consider that there is one person for the time priest in the 
 church, and for the time judge in the stead of Christ ; whom, 
 if, according to divine teaching, the whole fraternity should 
 obey, no one would stir up anything against the college of 
 priests ; no one, after the divine judgment, after the suffrage 
 of the people, after the consent of the co-bishops, would 
 make himself a judge, not now of the bishop, but of God. 
 No one would rend the church by a division of the unity of 
 Christ. No one, pleasing himself, and swelling with arro- 
 gance, would found a new heresy, separate and without, 
 unless any one be of such sacrilegious daring and abandoned 
 mind, as to think that a priest is made without God's judg- 
 ment, when the Lord says in His Gospel, "Are not two 
 sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them does not fall 
 to the ground without the will of your Father." 4 When He 
 1 John xviii. 23. 2 Acts xxiii. 4. 3 Acts xxiii. 5. 4 Matt. x. 29.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 1G5 
 
 says that not even the least things are done without God's 
 will, does any one think that the highest and greatest things 
 are done in God's church either without God's knowledge or 
 permission, and that priests that is, His stewards are not 
 ordained by His decree ? This is not to have faith, whereby 
 we live : this is not to give honour to God, by whose direction 
 and decision we know and believe that all things are ruled 
 and governed. Undoubtedly there are bishops made, not by 
 the will of God, but they are such as are made outside of the 
 church such as are made contrary to the ordinance and 
 tradition of the gospel, as the Lord Himself in the twelve 
 prophets asserts, saying, " They have set up a king for them- 
 selves, and not by me." x And again : " Their sacrifices are as 
 the bread of mourning ; all that eat thereof shall be polluted." 2 
 And the Holy Spirit also cries by Isaiah, and says, " Woe 
 rmto you, children that are deserters. Thus saith the Lord, 
 Ye have taken counsel, but not of me ; and ye have made a 
 covenant, but not of my Spirit, that ye may add sin to sin." 3 
 6. But I speak to you as being provoked ; I speak as 
 grieving ; I speak as constrained when a bishop is appointed 
 into the place of one deceased, when he is chosen in time of 
 peace by the suffrage of an entire people, when he is protected 
 by the help of God in persecution, faithfully linked Avith 
 all his colleagues, approved to his people by now four years' 
 experience in his episcopate ; observant of discipline in time 
 of peace ; in time of disturbance, proscribed with the name 
 of his episcopate applied and attached to him; so often 
 asked for in the circus " for the lions ;" in the amphitheatre, 
 honoured with the testimony of the divine condescension ; 
 even in these very days on which I have written this letter 
 to you, on account of the sacrifices which, by proclaimed 
 edict, the people were commanded to celebrate, demanded 
 anew in the circus " for the lions" by the clamour of the 
 populace ; when such an one, dearest brother, is seen to be 
 assailed by some desperate arid reckless men, and by those 
 who have their place outside the church, it is manifest who 
 assails him : not assuredly Christ, who either appoints or 
 1 Hos. viii. 4. 2 Hos. ix. 4. 3 Isa. xxx. 1.
 
 166 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 protects his priests ; but he who, as the adversary of Christ 
 and the foe to His church, for this purpose persecutes with 
 his malice the ruler of the church, that when the pilot is 
 removed, he may rage more atrociously and more violently 
 with a view to the church's dispersion. 
 
 7. Nor ought it, my dearest brother, to disturb any one 
 who is faithful and mindful of the gospel, and retains the 
 commands of the apostle who forewarns us ; if in the last 
 days certain persons, proud, contumacious, and enemies of 
 God's priests, either depart from the church or act against the 
 church, since both the Lord and His apostles have previously 
 foretold that there should be such. Nor let any one wonder 
 that the servant placed over them should be forsaken by some, 
 when His own disciples forsook the Lord Himself, who per- 
 formed such great and wonderful works, and illustrated the 
 attributes of God the Father by the testimony of His doings. 
 And yet He did not rebuke them when they went away, nor 
 even severely threaten them; but rather, turning to His 
 apostles, He said, " Will ye also go away 1 " 1 manifestly ob- 
 serving the law whereby a man left to his own liberty, and 
 established in his own choice, himself desires for himself either 
 death or salvation. Nevertheless, Peter, upon whom by the 
 same Lord the church had been built, speaking one for all, and 
 answering with the voice of the church, says, " Lord, to whom 
 shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life ; and we 
 believe, and are sure that Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
 the living God ! " 2 signifying, doubtless, and showing that 
 those who departed from Christ perished by their own fault, 
 yet that the church which believes on Christ, and holds that 
 which it has once learned, never departs from Him at all, and 
 that those are the church who remain in the house of God ; 
 but that, on the other hand, they are not the plantation 
 planted by God the Father, whom we see not to be established 
 with the stability of wheat, but blown about like chaff by the 
 breath of the enemy scattering them, of whom John also 
 in his epistle says, " They went out from us, but they were 
 not of us ; for if they had been of us, no doubt they would 
 1 John vi. 67. 2 Matt. xv. 13.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 167 
 
 have continued with us." 1 Paul also warns us, when evil 
 men perish out of the church, not to be disturbed, nor to let 
 our faith be lessened by the departure of the faithless. 
 "For what," he says, "if some of them have departed from the 
 faith ? Hath their unbelief made the faith of God of none 
 effect? God forbid ! For God is true, but every man a liar." 2 
 
 8. For our own part, it befits our conscience, dearest 
 brother, to strive that none should perish [through going] out 
 of the church by our fault ; but if any one, of his own accord 
 and by his own sin, should perish, and should be unwilling to 
 repent and to return to the church, that we who are anxious 
 for their well-being should be blameless in the day of judg- 
 ment, and that they alone should remain in punishment who 
 refused to be healed by the wholesomeness of our advice. 
 Nor ought the reproaches of the lost to move us in any 
 degree to depart from the right path and from the sure rule, 
 since also the apostle instructs us, saying, " If I should please 
 men, I should not be the servant of Christ." 3 There is a 
 great difference whether one desires to deserve well of men 
 or of God. If we seek to please men, the Lord is offended. 
 But if we strive and labour that we may please God, we 
 ought to contemn human reproaches and abuse. 
 
 9. But that I did not immediately write to you, dearest 
 brother, about Fortunatus, that pseudo-bishop, constituted 
 by a few, and those, inveterate heretics, the matter was not 
 such as ought at once and hastily to be brought under your 
 notice, as if it were great or to be feared ; especially since 
 you already know well enough the name of Fortunatus, who 
 is one of the five presbyters who some time back deserted 
 from the church, and were lately excommunicated by the 
 judgment of our fellow-bishops, men both numerous and en- 
 titled to the greatest respect, who on this matter wrote to you 
 last year. Also you would recognise Felicissimus, the stan- 
 dard-bearer of sedition, who himself also is comprised in those 
 same letters long ago written to you by our co-bishops, and 
 who not only was excommunicated by them here, but moreover 
 \vas lately driven from the church by you there. Since I was 
 
 1 1 John ii. 19. 2 Rom. iii. 3, 4. 3 Gal. i. 10.
 
 168 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 confident that these things were in your knowledge, and kne\r 
 for certain that they abode in your memory and discipline, I 
 did not think it necessary that the follies of heretics should be 
 told you quickly and urgentty. For indeed it ought not to 
 pertain to the majesty or the dignity of the catholic church, to 
 concern itself with what the audacity of heretics and schis- 
 matics may attempt among themselves. For Novatian's party 
 is also said to have now made Maximus the presbyter who 
 was lately sent to us as an ambassador for Novatian, and 
 rejected from communion with us their false bishop in that 
 place ; and yet I had not written to you about this, since 
 all these things are slighted by us ; and I had sent to you 
 lately the names of the bishops appointed there, who with 
 wholesome and sound discipline govern the brethren in the 
 catholic church. And this certainly, therefore, it was decided 
 by the advice of all of us to write to you, that there might 
 be found a short method of destroying error and of finding 
 out truth, that you and our colleagues might know to whom 
 to write, and reciprocally, from whom it behoved you to 
 receive letters ; but if any one, except those whom we have 
 comprised in our letter, should dare to write to you, you 
 would know either that he was polluted by sacrifice, or by 
 receiving a certificate, or that he was one of the heretics, 
 and therefore perverted and profane. Nevertheless, having 
 gained an opportunity, by means of a very great friend and 
 a clerk, I have written to you by Felicianus the acolyte, 
 whom you had sent with Perseus our colleague, among other 
 matters which were to be brought under your notice from 
 their party, about that Fortunatus also. But while our 
 brother Felicianus is either retarded there by the wind, or is 
 detained by receiving other letters from us, he has been 
 forestalled by Felicissimus hastening to you. For thus 
 wickedness always hastens, as if by its speed it could prevail 
 against innocence. 
 
 10. But I intimated to you, my brother, by Felicianus, 
 that there had come to Carthage, Privatus, an old heretic 
 in the colony of Lambesa, many years ago condemned for 
 many and grave crimes by the judgment of ninety bishops,
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 169 
 
 and severely remarked upon in the letters of Fabian and 
 Donatus, also our predecessors, as is not hidden from your 
 knowledge ; who, Avhen he said that he wished to plead his 
 cause before us in the council which we held on the Ides of 
 May then past, and was not permitted, made for himself that 
 Fortunatus a pretended bishop, worthy of his college. And 
 there had also come with him a certain Felix, whom he himself 
 had formerly appointed a pseudo-bishop outside the church, 
 in heresy. But Jovinus also, and Maxim us, were present as 
 companions with the proved heretic, 1 condemned for wicked 
 sacrifices and crimes proved against them by the judgment 
 of nine bishops, our colleagues, and again excommunicated 
 also by many of us last year in a council. And with these 
 four was also joined Repostus of Suturnica, who not only 
 fell himself in the persecution, but cast down by sacrilegious 
 persuasion the greatest part of his people. These five, with 
 a few who either had sacrificed, or had evil consciences, con- 
 curred in desiring Fortunatus as a false bishop for them- 
 selves, that so, their crimes agreeing, the ruler should be such 
 as those who are ruled. 
 
 11. Hence also, dearest brother, you may now know the 
 other falsehoods which desperate and abandoned men have 
 there spread about, that although, of the sacrificers, or of the 
 heretics, there were not more than five false bishops who 
 came to Carthage, and appointed Fortunatus as the associate 
 of their madness ; yet they, as children of the devil, and full 
 of lies, dared, as you write, to boast that there were present 
 twenty-five bishops ; which falsehood they boasted here also 
 before among our brethren, saying that twenty-five bishops 
 would come from Numidia to make a bishop for them. After 
 they were detected and confounded in this their lie (only 
 five who had made shipwreck coming together, and these 
 being excommunicated by us), they sailed to Rome with the 
 reward of their lies, as if the truth could not sail after them, 
 and convict their lying tongues by proof of the certainty. 
 And this, my brother, is real madness, not to think nor to 
 
 1 Or, " with Privatus, the proved heretic ; " or, according to the 
 Oxford translation, " a proud heretic."
 
 170 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 know that lies do not long deceive, that the night only lasts 
 so long as until the day brightens ; but that when the day is 
 clear and the sun has arisen, the darkness and gloom give 
 place to light, and the robberies which were going on through 
 the night cease. In fine, if you were to seek the names from 
 them, they would have none which they could even falsely 
 give. For such among them is the penury even of wicked 
 men, that neither of sacrificers nor of heretics can there be 
 collected twenty-five for them ; and yet, for the sake of 
 deceiving the ears of the simple and the absent, the number 
 is exaggerated by a lie, as if, even if this number were 
 true, either the church would be overcome by heretics, or 
 righteousness by the unrighteous. 
 
 12. Nor does it behove me, dearest brother, to do like 
 things to them, and to go through in my discourse those 
 things which they have committed, and still commit, since 
 we have to consider what it becomes God's priests to utter 
 and to write. Nor ought grief to speak among us so much 
 as shame, and I ought not to seem provoked rather to heap 
 together reproaches than crimes and sins. Therefore I am 
 silent upon the deceits practised in the church. I pass over 
 the conspiracies and adulteries, and the various kinds of crimes. 
 That circumstance alone, however, of theirwickedness, in which 
 the cause is not mine, nor man's, but God's, I do not think must 
 be withheld ; that from the very first day of the persecution, 
 while the recent crimes of the guilty were still hot, and not 
 only the devil's altars, but the very hands and the mouths of 
 the lapsed, were still smoking with the abominable sacrifices, 
 they did not cease to communicate with the lapsed, and to 
 interfere with their repentance. God cries, " He that sacri- 
 ficeth unto any gods, save unto the Lord only, shall be rooted 
 out." 1 And in the Gospel the Lord says, "Whosoever shall 
 deny me, him will I deny." 2 And in another place the 
 divine indignation and anger are not silent, saying, "To 
 them hast thou poured out a drink-offering, and to them hast 
 thou offered a meat-offering. Shall I not be angry with these 
 things? saith the Lord." 3 And they interfere that God may 
 1 Ex. xxii. 20. 2 Matt. x. 33. 3 Isa. Ivii. 6.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 171 
 
 not be entreated, who Himself declares that He is angry ; 
 they interpose that Christ may not be besought with prayers 
 and satisfactions, who professes that him who denies Him 
 He will deny. 
 
 13. In the very time of persecution we wrote letters on 
 this matter, but we were not attended to. A full council 
 being held, we decreed, not only with our consent, but also 
 with our threatening, that the brethren should repent, 1 and 
 that none should rashly grant peace to those who did not 
 repent. And those sacrilegious persons rush with impious 
 madness against God's priests, departing from the church ; 
 and raising their parricidal arms against the church, in 
 order that the malice of the devil may consummate their 
 work, 2 take pains that the divine clemency may not heal 
 the wounded in His church. They corrupt the repent- 
 ance of the wretched men by the deceitfulness of their 
 lies, that it may not satisfy an offended God that he 
 who has either blushed or feared to be a Christian before, 
 may not afterwards seek Christ his Lord, nor he return 
 to the church who had departed from the church. Efforts 
 are used that the sins may not be atoned for with just 
 satisfactions and lamentations, that the wounds may not be 
 washed away with tears. True peace is done away by the 
 falsehood of a false peace ; the healthful bosom of a mother 
 is closed by the interference of the stepmother, that weeping 
 and groaning may not be heard from the breast and from 
 the lips of the lapsed. And beyond this, the lapsed are com- 
 pelled with their tongues and lips, in the Capitol 3 wherein 
 before they had sinned, to reproach the priests to assail 
 with contumelies and with abusive words the confessors and 
 virgins, and those righteous men who are most eminent for the 
 praise of the faith, and most glorious in the church. By which 
 
 1 Strictly, the phrase here as elsewhere is, " should do penance," 
 *' poenitentiam agerent." 
 
 2 " That by the malice of the devil they may consummate their 
 work ;" v. I. 
 
 3 Sell. Capitol of Carthage, for the provinces imitated Rome in this 
 respect. Du Cange gives many instances.
 
 172 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 things, indeed, it is not so much the modesty and the humi- 
 lity and the shame of our people that are smitten, as their 
 own hope and life that are lacerated. For neither is it he 
 who hears, but he who utters the reproach, that is wretched ; 
 nor is it he who is smitten by his brother, but he w'ho smites 
 a brother, that is a sinner under the law ; and when the 
 guilty do a wrong to the innocent, they suffer the injury who 
 think that they are doing it. Finally, their mind is smitten 
 by these things, and their spirit is dull, and their sense of 
 right is estranged : it is God's wrath that they do not per- 
 ceive their sins, lest repentance should follow, as it is written, 
 "And God gave them the spirit of torpor," 1 that is, that they 
 may not return and be healed, and be made whole after their 
 sins by just prayers and satisfactions. Paul the apostle in 
 his epistle lays it down, and says, " They received not the 
 love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this 
 cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should 
 
 O ' v 
 
 believe a lie : that they all might be judged who believed 
 not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 2 The 
 highest degree of happiness is, not to sin ; the second, to ac- 
 knowledge our sins. In the former, innocence flows pure 
 and unstained to preserve us ; in the latter, there comes a 
 medicine to heal us. Both of these they have lost by offend- 
 ing God, both because the grace is lost which is received from 
 the sanctification of baptism, and repentance comes not to 
 their help, whereby the sin is healed. Think you, brother, 
 that their wickednesses against God are trifling, their sins small 
 and moderate since by their means the majesty of an angry 
 God is not besought, since the anger and the fire and the day 
 of the Lord is not feared since, when Antichrist is at hand, 
 the faith of the militant people is disarmed by the taking away 
 of the power of Christ and His fear ? Let the laity see to 
 it how they may amend this. A heavier labour is incumbent 
 on the priests in asserting and maintaining the majesty of 
 God, that we seem not to neglect anything in this respect, 
 when God admonishes us, and says, " And now, O ye priests, 
 
 1 Isa. xxix. 10 : orig. " lram>punctionis." 
 
 2 2 Thess. ii. 10-12.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 173 
 
 tins commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if yc 
 will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the 
 Lord, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse 
 your blessing." 1 Is honour, then, given to God when the 
 majesty and decree of God are so contemned, that when 
 He declares that He is indignant and angry with those who 
 sacrifice, and when He threatens eternal penalties and per- 
 petual punishments, it is proposed by the sacrilegious, and 
 said, Let not the wrath of God be considered, let not the 
 judgment of the Lord be feared, let not any knock at the 
 church of Christ ; but repentance being done away with, and 
 no confession of sin being made, the bishops being despised 
 and trodden under foot, let peace be proclaimed by the pres- 
 byters in deceitful words ; and lest the lapsed should rise up, 
 or those placed without should return to the church, let com- 
 munion be offered to those who are not in communion ? 
 
 14. To these also it was not sufficient that they had with- 
 drawn from the gospel, that they had taken away from the 
 lapsed the hope of satisfaction and repentance, that they had 
 taken away those involved in frauds or stained with adulteries, 
 or polluted with the deadly contagion of sacrifices, lest they 
 should entreat God, or make confession of their crimes in the 
 church, from all feeling and fruit of repentance ; that they 
 had set up 2 outside for themselves outside the church, and 
 opposed to the church, a conventicle of their abandoned fac- 
 tion, when there had flowed together a band of creatures with 
 
 / O 
 
 evil consciences, and unwilling to entreat and to satisfy God. 
 After such things as these, moreover, they still dare a false 
 bishop having been appointed for them by heretics to set 
 sail and to bear letters from schismatic and profane persons 
 to the throne of Peter, and to the chief church whence 
 priestly unity takes it source ; and not to consider that these 
 were the Romans whose faith was praised in the preaching 
 of the apostle, to whom faithlessness could have no access. 
 But what was the reason of their coming and announcing the 
 making of the pseudo-bishop in opposition to the bishops? 
 For either they are pleased with what they have done, and 
 1 Mai. ii. 1, 2. 2 Unless they had set up ;" . I.
 
 174 THE EPISTLES OF C7PRIAN. 
 
 persist in their wickedness ; or, if they are displeased and 
 retreat, they know whither they may return. For, as it has 
 been decreed by all of us and is equally fair and just 
 that the case of every one should be heard there where the 
 crime has been committed ; and a portion of the flock has 
 been assigned to each individual pastor, which he is to rule 
 and govern, having to give account of his doing to the Lord ; 
 it certainly behoves those over whom we are placed not to 
 run about nor to break up the harmonious agreement of the 
 bishops with their crafty and deceitful rashness, but there to 
 plead their cause, where they may be able to have both 
 accusers and witnesses of their crime ; unless perchance the 
 authority of the bishops constituted in Africa seems to a few 
 desperate and abandoned men to be too little, who have already 
 judged concerning them, and have lately condemned, by the 
 gravity of their judgment, their conscience bound in many 
 bonds of sins. Already their case has been examined, already 
 sentence concerning them has been pronounced ; nor is it fit- 
 ting for the dignity of priests to be blamed for the levity of a 
 changeable and inconstant mind, when the Lord teaches and 
 says, " Let your communication be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay." l 
 
 15. If the number of those who judged concerning them 
 last year be reckoned with the presbyters and deacons, then 
 there were more present to the judgment and hearing than 
 are those very same persons who now seem to be associated 
 with Fortunatus. For you ought to know, dearest brother, 
 that after he was made a pseudo-bishop by the heretics, he 
 was at once deserted by almost all. For those to whom in 
 past time delusions were offered, and deceitful words were given, 
 to the effect that they were to return to the church together ; 
 after they saw that a false bishop was made there, learned that 
 they had been fooled and deceived, and are daily returning and 
 knocking at the [door of the] church; while we, meanwhile, 
 by whom account is to be given to the Lord, are anxiously 
 weighing and carefully examining who ought to be received 
 and admitted into the church. For some are either hindered 
 by their crimes to such a degree, or they are so obstinately 
 1 Matt. v. 37.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 175 
 
 and firmly opposed by their brethren, that they cannot be re- 
 ceived at all except with offence and risk to a great many. 
 For neither must some putridities be so collected and brought 
 together, that the parts which are sound and whole should be 
 injured ; nor is that pastor serviceable or wise who so mingles 
 the diseased and affected sheep with his flock as to conta- 
 minate the whole flock with the infection of the clinging 
 evil. [Do not pay attention to their number. For one who 
 fears God is better than a thousand impious sons, as the Lord 
 spoke by the prophet, saying, " O son, do not delight in 
 ungodly sons, though they multiply to thee, except the fear 
 of the Lord be with them." 1 ] Oh, if you could, dearest 
 brother, be with us here when those evil and perverse men 
 return from schism, you would see what labour is mine to 
 persuade patience to our brethren, that they should calm 
 their grief of mind, and consent to receive and heal the 
 wicked. For as they rejoice and are glad when those who 
 are endurable and less guilty return, so, on the other hand, 
 they murmur and are dissatisfied as often as the incorrigible 
 and violent, and those who are contaminated either by adul- 
 teries or by sacrifices, and who, in addition to this, are 
 proud besides, so return to the church, as to corrupt the good 
 dispositions within it. Scarcely do I persuade the people; 
 nay, I extort it from them, that they should suffer such to be 
 admitted. And the grief of the fraternity is made the more 
 just, from the fact that one and another who, notwithstanding 
 the opposition and contradiction of the people, have been 
 received by my facility, have proved worse than they had 
 been before, and have not been able to keep the faith of their 
 repentance, because they had not come with true repentance. 
 16. But what am I to say of those who have now sailed to 
 you with Felicissimus, guilty of every crime, as ambassadors 
 sent by Fortunatus the pseudo-bishop, bringing to you letters 
 as false as he himself is false, whose Letters they bring, as his 
 conscience is full of sins, as his life is execrable, as it is 
 disgraceful ; so that, even if they were in the church, such 
 
 1 Ecclus. xvi. 1, 2. (The words in brackets are not found in many 
 editions.)
 
 176 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 
 
 people ought to be expelled from the church. In addition, 
 since they have known their own conscience, they do not 
 dare to come to us or to approach to the threshold of the 
 church, but wander about, without her, through the province, 
 for the sake of circumventing and defrauding the brethren ; 
 and now, being sufficiently known to all, and everywhere 
 excluded for their crimes, they sail thither also to you. For 
 they cannot have the face to approach to us, or to stand 
 before us, since the crimes which are charged upon them by 
 the brethren are most grievous and grave. If they wish to 
 undergo our judgment, let them come. Finally, if they can 
 find any excuse or defence, let us see what thought they 
 have of making satisfaction, what fruit of repentance they 
 bring forward. The church is neither closed here to any 
 one, nor is the bishop denied to any. Our patience, and 
 facility, and humanity are ready for those who come. I 
 entreat all to return into the church. I beg all our fellow- 
 soldiers to be included within the camp of Christ, and the 
 dwelling-place of God the Father. I remit everything. I 
 shut my eyes to many things, with the desire and the wish 
 to gather together the brotherhood. Even those things 
 which are committed against God I do not investigate with 
 the full judgment of religion. I almost sin myself, in remit- 
 ting sins more than I ought. I embrace with prompt and 
 full love those who return with repentance, confessing their 
 sin with lowly and unaffected atonement. 
 
 17. But if there are some who think that they can return 
 to the church not with prayers but with threats, or suppose 
 that they can make a way for themselves, not with lamenta- 
 tion and atonements, but with terrors, let them take it for 
 certain that against such the church of the Lord stands closed ; 
 nor does the camp of Christ, unconquered and firm with the 
 Lord's protection, yield to threats. The priest of God hold- 
 ing fast the gospel and keeping Christ's precepts may be 
 slain ; he cannot be conquered. Zacharias, God's priest, 
 suggests and furnishes to us examples of courage and faith, 
 who, when he could not be terrified with threats and stoning, 
 was slain in the temple of God, at the same time crying out
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 177 
 
 and saying, what we also cry out and say against the heretics, 
 " Thus saith the Lord, Ye have forsaken the ways of the 
 Lord, and the Lord will forsake you." 1 For because a few 
 rash and wicked men forsake the heavenly and wholesome 
 ways of the Lord, and not doing holy things are deserted by 
 the Holy Spirit, we also ought not therefore to be unmind- 
 ful of the divine tradition, so as to think that the crimes of 
 madmen are greater than the judgments of priests; or conceive 
 that human endeavours can do more to attack, than divine 
 protection avails to defend. 
 
 18. Is the dignity of the catholic church, dearest brother, 
 to be laid aside, is the faithful and uncorrupted majesty of 
 the people placed within it, and the priestly authority and 
 power also, all to be laid aside for this, that those who are set 
 without the church may say that they wish to judge con- 
 cerning a prelate in the church ? heretics concerning a Chris- 
 tian ? wounded men about a whole man ? maimed concerning 
 a sound man ? lapsed concerning one who stands fast ? guilty 
 concerning their judge? sacrilegious men concerning a priest ? 
 What is left but that the church should yield to the Capitol, 
 and that, while the priests depart and remove the Lord's 
 altar, the images and idols should pass over with their altars 
 into the sacred and venerable assembly of our clergy, and 
 a larger and fuller material for declaiming against us and 
 abusing us be afforded to Novatian ; if they who have sacri- 
 ficed and have publicly denied Christ should begin not only 
 to be entreated and admitted without penance done, but, 
 moreover, in addition, to domineer by the power of their 
 terror ? 
 
 19. If they desire peace, let them lay aside their arms. 
 If they make atonement, why do they threaten ? or if they 
 threaten, let them know that they are not feared by God's 
 priests. For even Antichrist, when he shall begin to come, 
 shall not enter into the church because he threatens ; neither 
 shall we yield to his arms and violence, because he declares 
 that he will destroy us if we resist. Heretics arm us when 
 they think that we are terrified by their threatenings ; nor 
 
 1 2 Chron. xxiv. 20. 
 M
 
 178 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN, 
 
 do they cast us down on our face, but rather they lift us up 
 and inflame us, when they make peace itself worse to the 
 brethren than persecution. And we desire, indeed, that they 
 may not fill up with crime what they speak in madness, that 
 they who sin with perfidious and cruel words may not also- 
 sin in deeds. We pray and beseech God, whom they do not 
 cease to provoke and exasperate, that He will. soften their 
 hearts, that they may lay aside their madness, and return to- 
 soundness of mind ; that their breasts, covered over with the 
 darkness of sins, may acknowledge the light of repentance, 
 and that they may rather seek that the prayers and suppli- 
 cations of the priest may be poured out on their behalf,, 
 than themselves pour out the blood of the priest. But if 
 they continue in their madness, and cruelly persevere in 
 these their parricidal deceits and threats, no priest of God 
 is so weak, so prostrate, and so abject, so inefficient by the 
 weakness of human infirmity, as not to be aroused against 
 the enemies and impugners of God by strength from above ; 
 as not to find his humility and weakness animated by the 
 vigour and strength of the Lord who protects him. It 
 matters nothing to us by whom, or when we are slain, since 
 we shall receive from the Lord the reward of our death and 
 of our blood. Their concision is to be mourned and lamented, 
 whom the devil so blinds, that, without considering the eternal 
 punishments of Gehenna, they endeavour to imitate the 
 coming of Antichrist, who is now approaching. 
 
 20. And although I know, dearest brother, from the 
 mutual love which we owe and manifest one towards another, 
 that you always read my letters to the very distinguished clergy 
 who preside with you there, and to your very holy and large 
 congregation, yet now I both warn and ask you to do by 
 my request what at other times you do of your own accord 
 and courtesy ; that so, by the reading of this my letter, 
 if any contagion of envenomed speech and of pestilent pro- 
 pagation has crept in there, it may be all purged out of the 
 ears and of the hearts of the brethren, and the sound and 
 sincere affection of the good may be cleansed anew from all 
 the filth of heretical disparagement.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 179 
 
 21. But for the rest, let our most beloved brethren firmly 
 decline, and avoid the words and conversations of those 
 whose word creeps onwards like a cancer ; as the apostle says, 
 " Evil communications corrupt good manners." 1 And again: 
 " A man that is an heretic, after one admonition, reject ; 
 knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being 
 condemned of himself." 2 And the Holy Spirit speaks by 
 Solomon, saying, " A perverse man carrieth perdition in his 
 mouth ; and in his lips he hideth a fire." 3 Also again, he 
 warneth us, and says, " Hedge in thy ears with thorns, and 
 hearken not to a wicked tongue." 4 And again : " A wicked 
 
 O O 
 
 doer glveth heed to the tongue of the unjust; but a righteous 
 man does not listen to lying lips." 5 And although I know 
 that our brotherhood there, assuredly fortified by your fore- 
 siVht, and besides suificientlv cautious by their own vigilance, 
 
 D / */ / O 
 
 cannot be taken nor deceived by the poisons of heretics, 
 and that the teachings and precepts of God prevail with 
 them only in proportion as the fear of God is in them ; yet, 
 even although needlessly, either my solicitude or my love 
 persuaded me to write these things to you, that no commerce 
 should be entered into with such ; that no banquets nor con- 
 ferences be entertained with the wicked ; but that we should 
 be as much separated from them, as they are deserters from 
 the church ; because it is written, " If he shall neglect to hear 
 the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a 
 publican." And the blessed apostle not only warns, but also 
 commands us to withdraw from such. " We command you," 
 he says, " in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, that ye 
 withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh dis- 
 orderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us." 7 
 There can be no fellowship between faith and faithlessness. 
 He who is not with Christ, who is an adversary of Christ, 
 who is hostile to His unity and peace, cannot be associated 
 with us. If they come with prayers and atonements, let 
 them be heard ; if they heap together curses and threats, let 
 
 1 1 Cor. xv. 33. 2 Tit. iii. 10, 11. 3 Prov. xvi. 27. 
 
 4 Ecclus. xxviii. 24. (Vulg. 28). 5 Prov. xvii. 4. 
 
 6 Matt, xviii. 17. 7 2 Thess. iii. G.
 
 180 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 them be rejected. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily 
 farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LV. 1 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE OF THIBARIS, EXHORTING TO 
 MARTYRDOM. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian first of all excuses himself to the Thi- 
 baritans thai he had not been to visit them, and gives them 
 warning of the persecution at hand; he then furnishes 
 inducements readily to undergo martyrdom. Hence are 
 suggested illustrations of good men from the beginning of 
 the world who have suffered martyrdom, especially that 
 which surpasses all examples, the passion of our Lord. 
 What an incitement is afforded to the endurance of mar- 
 tyrdom by the brave and ready enduring of the contests 
 of the stadium and the theatre. Finally, let, the reward 
 be considered, which now, moreover, animates and influ- 
 ences us to sustain everything. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the people abiding at Thibaris, greeting. I 
 had indeed thought, beloved brethren, and prayerfully desired 
 if the state of things and the condition of the times per- 
 mitted, in conformity with what you frequently desired 
 myself to come to you ; and being present with you, then to 
 strengthen the brotherhood with such moderate powers of 
 exhortation as I possess. But since I am detained by such 
 urgent affairs, that I have not the power to travel far from 
 this place, and to be long absent from the people over whom 
 by divine mercy I am placed, I have written in the mean- 
 time this letter, to be to you in my stead. For as, by the 
 condescension of the Lord instructing me, I am very often 
 instigated and warned, I ought to bring unto your conscience 
 also the anxiety of my warning. For you ought to know and 
 to believe, and hold it for certain, that the day of affliction 
 has begun to hang over our heads, and the end (occasum) of 
 the world and the time of Antichrist to draw near, so that we 
 must all stand prepared for the battle ; nor consider anything 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Iviii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 181 
 
 but the glory of life eternal, and the crown of the confession 
 of the Lord ; and not regard those things which are coming as 
 being such as were those which have passed away. A severer 
 and a fiercer fight is now threatening, 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 the reason that they themselves also 
 may be able to shed their blood for Christ. For this is to 
 wish to be found with Christ, to imitate that which Christ 
 both taught and did, according to the Apostle John, who said, 
 " He that saith he abideth in Christ, ought himself also so 
 to walk even as He walked." 1 Moreover, the blessed Apostle 
 Paul exhorts and teaches, saying, " We are God's children ; 
 but if children, then heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; 
 if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glori- 
 fied together." 2 
 
 2. Which things must all now be considered by us, that 
 no one may desire anything from the world that is now dying, 
 but may follow Christ, who both lives for ever, and quickens 
 His servants, who are established in the faith of His name. For 
 there comes the time, beloved brethren, which our Lord long 
 ago foretold and taught us was approaching, saying, "The time 
 cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth 
 God service. And these things they will do unto you, because 
 they have not known the Father nor me. But these things 
 have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may re- 
 member that I told you of them." 3 Nor let any one wonder 
 that we are harassed with constant persecutions, and continu- 
 ally tried with increasing afflictions, when the Lord before 
 predicted that these things would happen in the last times, 
 and has instructed us for the warfare by the teaching and 
 exhortation of His words. Peter also, His apostle, has taught 
 that persecutions occur for the sake of our being proved, 
 and that we also should, by the example of righteous men 
 who have gone before us, be joined to the love of God by 
 death and sufferings. For he wrote in his epistle, and said, 
 " Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial 
 1 1 John ii. 6. 2 Rom. viii. 16, 17. 3 John xvi. 2-4.
 
 182 THE EPISTLES OF CYPPJAN. 
 
 which is to try you, nor do ye fall away, as if some new thing 
 happened unto you ; but as often as ye partake in Christ's 
 sufferings, rejoice in all things, that when His glory shall be 
 revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be 
 reproached in the name of Christ, happy are ye ; for the 
 name of the majesty and power of the Lord resteth on you, 
 which indeed on their part is blasphemed, but on our part is 
 glorified." 1 Now the apostles taught us those things which 
 they themselves also learnt from the Lord's precepts and the 
 heavenly commands, the Lord Himself thus strengthening 
 us, and saying, " There is no man that hath left house, or 
 land, or parents, or brethren, or sisters, or wife, or children, 
 for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive seven- 
 fold more in this present time, and in the world to come life 
 everlasting." 2 And again He says, "Blessed are ye when, 
 men shall hate you, and shall separate you from their com- 
 pany, and shall cast you out, and shall reproach your name 
 as evil for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, 
 and leap for joy; for, behold, your reward is great in heaven." 3 
 3. The Lord desired that we should rejoice and leap for 
 joy in persecutions, because, when persecutions occur, then 
 are given the crowns of faith, then the soldiers of God are 
 proved, then the heavens are opened to martyrs. For we 
 have not in such a way given our name to warfare that we 
 ought only to think about peace, and draw back from and 
 refuse war, when in this very warfare the Lord walked first 
 the Teacher of humility, and endurance, and suffering 
 so that what He taught to be done, He first of all did, and 
 what He exhorts to suffer, He Himself first suffered for us. 
 Let it be before your eyes, beloved brethren, that He who 
 alone received all judgment from the Father, and who will 
 come to judge, has already declared the decree of His judg- 
 ment and of His future recognition, foretelling and testifying 
 that He will confess those before His Father who confess 
 Him, and w r ill deny those who deny Him. If we could 
 escape death, we might reasonably fear to die. But since, on 
 the other hand, it is necessary that a mortal man should die, 
 1 1 Pet. iv. 12-14. 2 Luke xviii. 29, 30. 3 Luke vi. 22, 23.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 183 
 
 we should embrace the occasion that comes by divine promise 
 and condescension, and accomplish the ending provided by 
 death with the reward of immortality ; nor fear to be slain, 
 since we are sure when we are slain to be crowned. 
 
 4. Nor let any one, beloved brethren, when he beholds 
 our people driven away and scattered by the fear of perse- 
 cution, be disturbed at not seeing the brotherhood gathered 
 together, nor hearing the bishops discoursing. All are not 
 able to be there together, who may not kill, but who must 
 be killed. Wherever, in those days, each one of the brethren 
 shall be separated from the flock for a time, by the necessity 
 of the season, in body, not in spirit, let him not be moved 
 at the terror of that flight ; nor, if he withdraw and be 
 concealed, let him be alarmed at the solitude of the desert 
 place. He is not alone, whose companion in flight Christ 
 is ; he is not alone who, keeping God's temple wheresoever 
 he is, is not without God. And if a robber should fall 
 upon you, a fugitive in the solitude or in the mountains ; 
 if a wild beast should attack you ; if hunger, or thirst, or 
 cold should distress you, or the tempest and the storm should 
 overwhelm you hastening in a rapid voyage over the seas, 
 Christ everywhere looks upon His soldier fighting ; and for 
 the sake of persecution, for the honour of His name, gives 
 a reward to him when he dies, as Pie has promised that He 
 will give in the resurrection. Nor is the glory of martyrdom 
 less that he has not perished publicly and before many, since 
 the cause of perishing is to perish for Christ. That Witness 
 who proves martyrs, and crowns them, suffices for a testimony 
 of his martyrdom. 
 
 5. Let us, beloved brethren, imitate righteous Abel, who 
 initiated martyrdoms, he first being slain for righteousness' 
 snke. Let us imitate Abraham, the friend of God, who 
 did not delay to offer his son as a victim with his own 
 hands, obeying God with a faith of devotion. Let us imi- 
 tate the three children Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, who, 
 neither frightened by their youthful age nor broken down 
 by captivity, Juda3a being conquered and Jerusalem taken, 
 overcame the king by the power of faith in his own kingdom;
 
 184 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 who, when bidden to worship the image which Nebuchad- 
 nezzar the king had made, stood forth stronger both than the 
 king's threats and the flames, calling out and attesting their 
 faith by these words : " O king Nebuchadnezzar, we are not 
 careful to answer thee in this matter. For the God whom 
 we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; 
 and He will deliver us out of thine hands, O king. But if 
 not, be it known unto thee, that we do not serve thy gods, 
 nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." 1 
 They believed that they might escape according to their faith, 
 but they added, " and if not," that the king might know 
 that they could also die for the God they worshipped. For 
 this is the strength of courage and of faith, to believe and to 
 know that God can deliver from present death, and yet not 
 to fear death nor to give way, that faith may be the more 
 mightily proved. The uncorrupted and unconquered might 
 of the Holy Spirit broke forth by their mouth, so that the 
 words which the Lord in His Gospel spoke are seen to be true: 
 " But when 'they shall seize you, take no thought what ye 
 shall speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what ye 
 shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of 
 your Father which speaketh in you." 2 He said that what 
 we are able to speak and to answer is given to us in that 
 hour from heaven, and supplied ; and that it is not then we 
 who speak, but the Spirit of God our Father, who, as He 
 does not depart nor is separated from those who confess Him, 
 Himself both speaks and is crowned in us. So Daniel, too, 
 when he was required to worship the idol Bel, which the 
 people and the king then worshipped, in asserting the honour 
 of his God, broke forth with full faith and freedom, saying, 
 " I worship nothing but the Lord my God, who created the 
 heaven and the earth." 3 
 
 6. What shall we say of the cruel tortures of the blessed 
 martyrs in the Maccabees, and the multiform sufferings of 
 the seven brethren, and the mother comforting her children 
 in their agonies, and herself dying also with her children? Do 
 not they witness the proofs of great courage and faith, and 
 1 Dan. iii. 16-18. 2 Matt. x. 19, 20. 3 Bel and the Dragon, 5.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CJPRIAN. 185 
 
 exhort us by their sufferings to the triumphs of martyrdom ? 
 What of the prophets whom the Holy Spirit quickened to 
 the foreknowledge of future events 1 What of the apostles 
 whom the Lord chose ? Since these righteous men were slain 
 
 O 
 
 for righteousness' sake, have they not taught us also to die ? 
 The nativity of Christ witnessed at once the martyrdom of 
 infants, so that they who were two years old and under were 
 slain for His name's sake. An age not yet fitted for the battle 
 appeared fit for the crown. That it might be manifest that they 
 who are slain for Christ's sake are innocent, innocent infancy 
 was put to death for His name's sake. It is shown that none 
 is free from the peril of persecution, when even these accom- 
 plished martyrdoms. But how grave is the case of a Christian 
 man, if he a servant is unwilling to suffer, when his Master 
 first suffered ; and that we should be unwilling to suffer for 
 our own sins, when He who had no sin of His own suffered 
 for us ! The Son of God suffered that He might make us 
 sons of God, and the son of man will not suffer that he may 
 continue to be a son of God ! If we suffer from the world's 
 hatred, Christ first endured the world's hatred. If we suffer 
 reproaches in this world, if exile, if tortures, the Maker and 
 Lord of the world experienced harder things than these, and 
 He also warns us, saying, "If the world hate you, remem- 
 ber that it hated me before you. If ye were of the world, 
 the world would love its own : but because ye are not of the 
 world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the 
 world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, 
 The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have per- 
 secuted me, they will also persecute you." 1 Whatever our 
 Lord and God taught, He also did, that the disciple might 
 not be excused if he learns and does not. 
 
 7. Nor let any one of you, beloved brethren, be so 
 terrified by the fear of future persecution, or the coming of 
 the threatening Antichrist, as not to be found armed for all 
 things by the evangelical exhortations and precepts, and by 
 the heavenly warnings. Antichrist is coming, but above him 
 comes Christ also. The enemy goeth about and rageth, but 
 1 John xv. 18-20.
 
 186 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 immediately the Lord follows to avenge our sufferings aud 
 our wounds. The adversary is enraged and threatens, but 
 there is One who can deliver us from his hands. He is to be 
 feared whose anger no one can escape, as He Himself fore- 
 warns, and says: "Fear not them which kill the body, but 
 are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear Him which 
 is able to destroy both body and soul in hell." 1 And again : 
 " He that loveth his life, shall lose it ; and he that hateth 
 his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal." 2 
 And in the Apocalypse He instructs and forewarns, saying, 
 " If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive 
 his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same also shall 
 drink of the wine of the wrath of God, mixed in the cup of 
 His indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and 
 brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the 
 presence of the Lamb ; and the smoke of their torments 
 shall ascend up for ever and ever ; and they shall have no 
 rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image." 3 
 
 8. For the secular contest men are trained and prepared, 
 and reckon it a great glory of their honour if it should 
 happen to them to be crowned in the sight of the people, and 
 in the presence of the emperor. Behold a lofty and great 
 contest, glorious also with the reward of a heavenly crown, 
 inasmuch as God looks upon us as we struggle, and extending 
 His view over those whom He has condescended to make His 
 sons, He enjoys the spectacle of our contest. God looks 
 upon us in the warfare, and fighting in the encounter of faith ; 
 His angels look on us, and Christ looks on us. How great 
 is the dignity, and how great the happiness of the glory, to 
 engage in the presence of God, and to be crowned, with 
 Christ for a judge! Let us be armed, beloved brethren, with 
 our whole strength, and let us be prepared for the struggle 
 with an uncorrupted mind, with a sound faith, with a devoted 
 courage. Let the camp of God go forth to the battle-field 
 which is appointed to us. Let the sound ones be armed, lest 
 he that is sound should lose the advantage of having lately 
 stood ; let the lapsed also be armed, that even the lapsed may 
 1 Matt. x. 28. 2 John xii. 25. 3 Apoc. xiv. 9-11.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 187 
 
 regain what he has lost : let honour provoke the whole ; let 
 sorrow provoke the lapsed to the battle. The Apostle Paul 
 teaches us to be armed and prepared, saying, " We wrestle 
 not against flesh and blood, but against powers, and the princes 
 of this world and of this darkness, against spirits of wicked- 
 ness in high places. Wherefore put on the whole armour, that 
 ye may be able to withstand in the most evil day, that when 
 ye have done all ye may stand ; having your loins girt about 
 with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness; 
 and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 
 taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench 
 all the fiery darts of the wicked one; and the helmet of salva- 
 tion, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." 1 
 9. Let us take these arms, let us fortify ourselves with these 
 spiritual and heavenly safeguards, that in the most evil day 
 we may be able to withstand, and to resist the threats of the 
 devil : let us put on the breastplate of righteousness, that 
 our breast may be fortified and safe against the darts of the 
 enemy : let our feet be shod with evangelical teaching, and 
 armed, so that when the serpent shall begin to be trodden 
 and crushed by us, he may not be able to bite and trip us 
 up : let us bravely bear the shield of faith, by the protection 
 of which, whatever the enemy darts at us may be extinguished : 
 let us take also for protection of our head the helmet of sal- 
 vation, that our ears may be guarded from hearing the deadly 
 edicts ; that our eyes may be fortified, that they may not see 
 the odious images ; that our brow may be fortified, so as to 
 keep safe the sign of God ; 2 that our mouth may be fortified, 
 that the conquering tongue may confess Christ its Lord : let 
 us also arm the right hand with the sword of the Spirit, that 
 it may bravely reject the deadly sacrifices ; that, mindful of 
 the Eucharist, the hand which has received the Loi'd's body 3 
 may embrace the Lord Himself, hereafter to receive from 
 the Lord the reward of heavenly crowns. 
 
 1 Eph. vi. 12-17. 2 Sell. : the sign of the cross in baptism. 
 
 3 It is observed here that the Eucharist was at this time received by 
 the hand of the communicant, and not placed in his mouth by the mini- 
 ster, as some have pretended was the original mode of administration.
 
 188 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 10. Oh, what and how great will that day be at its coming, 
 beloved brethren, when the Lord shall begin to count up His 
 people, and to recognise the deservings of each one by the 
 inspection of His divine knowledge, to send the guilty to 
 Gehenna, and to set on fire our persecutors with the per- 
 petual burning of a penal fire, but to pay to us the reward of 
 our faith and devotion ! What will be the glory and how great 
 the joy to be admitted to see God, to be honoured to receive 
 with Christ, thy Lord God, the joy of eternal salvation and 
 light to greet Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the 
 patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles, and martyrs to rejoice 
 with the righteous and the friends of God in the kingdom of 
 heaven, with the pleasure of immortality given to us to re- 
 ceive there what neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither 
 hath entered into the heart of man ! For the apostle announces 
 that we shall receive greater things than anything that we here 
 either do or suffer, saying, " The sufferings of this present 
 time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come 
 hereafter which shall be revealed in us." 1 When that revela- 
 tion shall come, when that glory of God shall shine upon 
 us, we shall be as happy and joyful, honoured with the con- 
 descension of God, as they will remain guilty and wretched, 
 who, either as deserters from God or rebels against Him, have 
 done the will of the devil, so that it is necessary for them to 
 be tormented with the devil himself in unquenchable fire. 
 
 11. Let these things, beloved brethren, take hold of our 
 hearts ; let this be the preparation of our arms, this our 
 daily and nightly meditation, to have before our eyes and 
 ever to revolve in our thoughts and feelings the punishments 
 of the wicked and the rewards and the deservings of the right- 
 eous : what the Lord threatens by way of punishment against 
 those that deny Him ; what, on the other hand, He promises by 
 way of glory to those that confess Him. If, while we think 
 and meditate on these things, there should come to us a day of 
 persecution, the soldier of Christ instructed in His precepts and 
 warnings is not fearful for the battle, but is prepared for the 
 crown. I bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 18.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 189 
 
 EPISTLE LVL 1 
 
 TO COENELIUS IN EXILE, CONCERNING HIS CONFESSION. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian praises in Cornelius and his people 
 their confession of the name of Christ even to banishment ; 
 and exhorts them to constancy and to mutual prayer for 
 one another, as well in respect of the approaching day of 
 struggle in this life, as after death. Moreover, Damasus 
 mentions this epistle in the life of Cornelius, as being 
 that on account of which a calumny arose, whence the 
 tyrant took an excuse for his death. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. We have 
 been made acquainted, dearest brother, with the glorious 
 testimonies of your faith and courage, and have received with 
 such exultation the honour of your confession, that we count 
 ourselves also sharers and companions in your merits and 
 praises. For as we have one church, a mind united, and a 
 concord undivided, what priest does not congratulate him- 
 self on the praises of his fellow-priest as if on his own ; or 
 what brotherhood would not rejoice in the joy of its brethren ? 
 It cannot be sufficiently declared how great was the exulta- 
 tion and how great the joy here, when we had heard of your 
 success and bravery, that you had stood forth as a leader of 
 confession to the brethren there ; and, moreover, that the 
 confession of the leader had increased by the consent of the 
 brethren ; so that, while you precede them to glory, you have 
 made many your companions in glory, and have persuaded 
 the people to become a confessor by being first prepared to 
 confess on behalf of all; so that we are at a loss what we ought 
 first of all to commend in you, whether your prompt and 
 decided faith, or the inseparable love of the brethren. Among 
 you the courage of the bishop going before has been publicly 
 proved, and the unitedness of the brotherhood following has 
 been shown. As with you there is one mind and one voice, 
 the whole Roman church has confessed. 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ix.
 
 190 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN, 
 
 2. The faith, dearest brethren, which the blessed apostle 
 commended in you has shone brightly. He even then in the 
 spirit foresaw this praise of courage and firmness of strength ; 
 and, attesting your merits by the commendation of your 
 future doings, in praising the parents he provokes the chil- 
 dren. While you are thus unanimous, while you are thus 
 brave, you have given great examples both of unanimity and 
 of bravery to the rest of the brethren. You have taught 
 them deeply to fear God, firmly to cling to Christ ; that the 
 people should be associated with the priests in peril ; that 
 the brethren should not be separated from brethren in perse- 
 cution ; that a concord, once established, can by no means be 
 overcome ; that whatsoever is at the same time sought for by 
 all, the God of peace will grant to the peaceful. The ad- 
 versary had leapt forth to disturb the camp of Christ with 
 violent terror ; but, with the same impetuosity with which he 
 had come, he was beaten back and conquered ; and as much 
 fear and terror as lie had brought, so much bravery and 
 strength he also found. He had thought that he could again 
 overthrow the servants of God, and agitate them in his 
 accustomed manner, as if they were novices and inexperienced 
 as if little prepared and little cautious. He attacked one 
 first, as a wolf had tried to separate the sheep from the flock, 
 as a hawk to separate the dove from the flying troop ; for 
 he who has not sufficient strength against all, seeks to gain 
 advantage from the solitude of individuals. But when beaten 
 back as well by the faith as by the vigour of the combined 
 army, he perceived that the soldiers of Christ are now watch- 
 ing, and stand sober and armed for the battle ; that they 
 cannot be conquered, but that they can die ; and that by this 
 very fact they are invincible, that they do not fear death ; 
 that they do not in turn assail their assailants, since it is not 
 lawful for the innocent even to kill the guilty ; but that they 
 readily deliver up both their lives and their blood ; that since 
 such malice and cruelty rages in the world, they may the 
 more quickly withdraw from the evil and cruel. What a 
 glorious spectacle was that under the eyes of God ! what a 
 joy of His church in the sight of Christ, that not single
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 191 
 
 soldiers, but the whole camp, at once went forth to the battle 
 which the enemy had tried to begin ! For it is plain that 
 all would have come if they could have heard, since who- 
 ever heard ran hastily and came. How many lapsed were 
 there restored by a glorious confession ! They bravely stood, 
 and by the very suffering of repentance were made braver 
 for the battle, that it might appear that lately they had 
 been taken at unawares, and had trembled at the fear of a 
 new and unaccustomed thing, but that they had afterwards 
 returned to themselves ; that true faith and their strength, 
 gathered from the fear of God, had constantly and firmly 
 strengthened them to all endurance ; and that now they do 
 not stand for pardon of their crime, but for the crown of 
 their suffering. 
 
 3. AVhat does Novatian say to these things, dearest brother? 
 Does he yet lay aside his error? Or, indeed, as is the custom 
 of foolish men, is he more driven to fury by our very benefits 
 and prosperity; and in proportion as the glory of love and faith 
 srows here more and more, does the madness of dissension 
 
 O ' 
 
 and envy break out anew there ? Does the wretched man not 
 cure his own wound, but wound both himself and his friends 
 still more severely, clamouring with his tongue to the ruin of 
 the brethren, and hurling darts of poisonous eloquence, more 
 severe in accordance with the wickedness of a secular philo- 
 sophy than peaceable with the gentleness of the Lord's wisdom, 
 a deserter of the church, a foe to mercy, a destroyer of 
 repentance, a teacher of arrogance, a corrupter of truth, a 
 murderer of love ? Does he now acknowledge who is the 
 priest of God ; which is the church and the house of Christ ; 
 who are God's servants, whom the devil molests; who are 
 the Christians, whom Antichrist attacks ? For neither does 
 he seek those whom he has already subdued, nor does he 
 take the trouble to overthrow those whom he has already 
 made his own. The foe and enemy of the church despises 
 and passes by those whom he has alienated from the church, 
 and led without as captives and conquered ; he goes on to 
 harass those in whom he sees Christ dwell. 
 
 4. Even although any one of such should have been seized,
 
 192 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 there is no reason for his flattering himself, as if in the con- 
 fession of the name ; since it is manifest that, if people of this 
 sort should be put to death outside the church, it is no crown 
 of faith, but is rather a punishment of treachery. Nor will 
 those dwell in the house of God among those that are of one 
 mind, whom we see to have withdrawn by the madness of 
 discord from the peaceful and divine household. 
 
 5. We earnestly exhort as much as we can, dearest 
 brother, for the sake of the mutual love by which we are 
 joined one to another, that since we are instructed by the 
 providence of the Lord, who warns us, and are admonished by 
 the wholesome counsels of divine mercy, that the day of our 
 contest and struggle is already approaching, we should not 
 cease to be instant with all the people in fastings, in watch- 
 ings, in prayers. Let us be urgent, with constant groanings 
 and frequent prayers. For these are our heavenly arms, 
 which make us to stand fast and bravely to persevere. These 
 are the spiritual defences and divine weapons which defend 
 us. Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. 
 Let us on both sides always pray for one another. Let us 
 relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if any 
 one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go 
 hence the first, our love may continue in the presence of the 
 Lord, and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease 
 in the presence of the Father's mercy. I bid you, dearest 
 brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LVII. 1 
 
 TO LUCIUS THE BISHOP OF ROME, EETURNED FROM 
 BANISHMENT. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian, urith his colleagues, congratulates 
 
 Lucius on his return from exile, reminding him that 
 
 martyrdom deferred does not make the glory less. Then, 
 
 pointing out that the martyrdom of Cornelius and the 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixi.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 193 
 
 banishment of Lucius had happened by divine direction, 
 for the confusion of the Ncvatians, he foretells to him 
 his own impending martyrdom, God so ordaining it that 
 it should be consummated not away from home, but among 
 his oivn people. 
 
 1. Cyprian, with his colleagues, to Lucius his brother, 
 greeting. We had lately also congratulated you indeed, 
 dearest brother, when the divine condescension, by a double 
 honour, appointed you in the administration of God's church, 
 as well a confessor as a priest. But now also we no less 
 congratulate you and your companions, and the whole fra- 
 ternity, that the benignant and liberal protection of the Lord 
 has brought you back again to His own with the same glory, 
 and with praises to you; that so the shepherd .might be 
 restored to feed his flock, and the pilot to manage the ship, 
 and the ruler to govern the people ; and that it might appear 
 that your banishment was so divinely arranged, not that the 
 bishop banished and driven away should be wanting to the 
 church, but that he should return to the church greater than 
 he had left it. 
 
 2. For the dignity of martyrdom was not the less in the 
 case of the three youths, because their death being frustrated, 
 they came forth safe from the fiery furnace ; nor did Daniel 
 stand forth uncompleted in the praise he deserved, because, 
 when he had been sent to the lions for a prey, he was pro- 
 tected by the Lord, and lived to glory. Among confessors of 
 Christ, martyrdoms deferred do not diminish the merits of 
 confession, but show forth the greatness of divine protection. 
 We see represented in you what the brave and illustrious 
 youths announced before the king, that they indeed were pre- 
 pared to be burnt in the flames, that they might not serve 
 his gods, nor worship the image which he had made ; but that 
 the God whom they worshipped, and whom we also worship, 
 was able even to rescue them from the fiery furnace, and 
 to deliver them from the hands of the king, and from immi- 
 nent sufferings. This we now find carried out in the faith 
 of your confession, and in the Lord's protection over you ; 
 
 H
 
 194 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 
 
 so that while you. were prepared and ready to undergo all 
 punishment, yet the Lord withdrew you from punishment, 
 and preserved you for the church. In your return the 
 dignity of his confession has not been abridged in the bishop, 
 but the priestly authority has rather increased; so that a 
 priest is assisting at the altar of God, who exhorts the people 
 to take up the arms of confession, and to submit to martyr- 
 dom, not by his words, but by his deeds ; and now that 
 Antichrist is near, prepares the soldiers for the battle, not 
 only by the urgency of his speech and his words, but by the 
 example of his faith and courage. 
 
 3. We understand, dearest brother, and we perceive with 
 the whole light of our heart, the salutary and holy plans of 
 the divine majesty, whence the sudden persecution lately 
 arose there whence the secular power suddenly broke forth 
 against the church of Christ and the bishop Cornelius, the 
 blessed martyr, and all of you ; so that, for the confusion 
 and beating down of heretics, the Lord might show which 
 was the church which is its one bishop chosen by divine 
 appointment which presbyters are associated with the bishop 
 in priestly honour which is the united and true people of 
 Christ, linked together in the love of the Lord's flock who 
 they were whom the enemy would harass ; whom, on the 
 other hand, the devil would spare as being his own. For 
 Christ's adversary does not persecute and attack any except 
 Christ's camp and soldiers; heretics, once prostrated and 
 made his own, he despises and passes by. He seeks to cast 
 down those whom he sees to stand. 
 
 4. And I wish, dearest brother, that the power were now 
 given us to be with you there on your return, that we our- 
 selves, who love you with mutual love, might, being present 
 with the rest, also receive the very joyous fruit of your 
 coming. What exultation among all the brethren there ; 
 what running together and embracing of each one as they 
 arrive ! Scarcely can you be satisfied with the kisses of those 
 who cling to you ; scarcely can the very faces and eyes of 
 the people be satiated with seeing. At the joy of your com- 
 ing the brotherhood there has begun to recognise what and
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 195 
 
 how great a joy will follow when Christ shall come : for 
 because His advent will quickly approach, a kind of repre- 
 sentation has now gone before in you ; that just as John, His 
 forerunner and preparer of His way, came and preached that 
 Christ had come, so, now that a bishop returns as a confessor 
 of the Lord, and His priest, it appears that the Lord also 
 is now returning. But I and my colleagues, and all the 
 brotherhood, send this letter to you in the stead of us, dearest 
 brother ; and setting forth to you by our letter our joy, we 
 express the faithful inclination of our love here also in our 
 sacrifices and our prayers, not ceasing to give thanks to God 
 the Father, and to Christ His Son our Lord; and as well 
 to pray as to entreat, that He who is perfect, and makes 
 perfect, will keep and perfect in you the glorious crown of 
 your confession, who perchance has called you back for this 
 purpose, that your glory should not be hidden, if the martyr- 
 dom of your confession should be consummated away from 
 home. For the victim which affords an example to the 
 brotherhood both of courage and of faith, ought to be offered 
 up when the brethren are present. We bid you, dearest 
 brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LVIII. 1 
 
 TO FIDUS, ON THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. In tins letter Cyprian is not establishing any new 
 decree ; but keeping most firmly the faith of the church, 
 for the correction of those who thought that an infant must 
 not be baptized before the eighth day after its birth, he 
 decreed ivith some of his fellow-bishops, that as soon as 
 it was born it might properly be baptized. He takes 
 occasion, however, to refuse to recall the peace that had 
 been granted to one Victor, although it had been granted 
 against the decrees of synods concerning the lapsed; 
 but forbids Therapius the bishop to do it in other cases. 
 From which it is plainly evident that this letter was 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixiv.
 
 196 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 written after both synods concerning the lapsed, of which 
 mention was made above in Epistle liii. ; but whether a 
 long time or a short time after is uncertain, although the 
 context indicates that it was written during a time of 
 peace. 
 
 1. Cyprian, and others his colleagues who were present in 
 council, in number sixty-six, to Fidus their brother, greeting. 
 We have read your letter, dearest brother, in which you 
 intimated concerning Victor, formerly a presbyter, that our 
 colleague Therapius, rashly at a too early season, and witli 
 over-eager haste, granted peace to him before he had fully 
 repented, and had satisfied the Lord God, against whom he 
 had sinned ; which thing rather disturbed us, that it was a 
 departure from the authority of our decree, that peace should 
 be granted to him before the legitimate and full time of satis- 
 faction, and without the request and consciousness of the 
 people no sickness rendering it urgent, and no necessity 
 compelling it. But the judgment being long weighed among 
 us, it was considered sufficient to rebuke Therapius our col- 
 league for having done this rashly, and to have instructed 
 him that he should not do the like with any other. Yet we 
 did not think that the peace once granted in any wise by a 
 priest of God was to be taken away, and for this reason 
 have allowed Victor to avail himself of the communion 
 granted to him. 
 
 2. But in respect of the case of infants, which you say 
 ought not to be baptized within the second or third day 
 after their birth, and that the law of ancient circumcision 
 should be regarded, so that you think that one who is just 
 born should not be baptized and sanctified within the eighth 
 day, we all thought very differently in our council. For in 
 this course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed ; 
 but we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is 
 not to be refused to any one born of man. For as the Lord 
 says in his Gospel, " The Son of man is not come to destroy 
 men's lives, but to save them," * as far as we can, we must 
 
 1 Luke is. 56.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 197 
 
 strive that, if possible, no soul be lost. For what is wanting 
 to him who has once been formed in the womb by the hand 
 of God ? To us, indeed, and to our eyes, according to the 
 worldly course of days, they who are born appear to receive 
 an increase. But whatever things are made by God, are 
 completed by the majesty and work of God their Maker. 
 
 3. Moreover, belief in divine Scripture declares to us, that 
 among all, whether infants or those who are older, there is 
 the same equality of the divine gift. Elisha, beseeching 
 God, so laid himself upon the infant son of the widow, who 
 was lying dead, that his head was applied to his head, and 
 his face to his face, and the limbs of Elisha were spread over 
 and joined to each of the limbs of the child, and his feet to 
 his feet. If this thing be considered with respect to the 
 inequality of our birth and our body, an infant could not be 
 made equal with a person grown up and mature, nor could its 
 little limbs fit and be equal to the larger limbs [of the man]. 
 But in that is expressed the divine and spiritual equality, 
 that all men are like and equal, since they have once been 
 made by God ; and our age may have a difference in the 
 increase of our bodies, according to the world, but not accord- 
 ing to God ; unless that very grace also which is given to the 
 baptized is given either less or more, according to the age of 
 the receivers, whereas the Holy Spirit is not given with 
 measure, but by the love and mercy of the Father alike to all. 
 For God, as He does not accept the person, so does not 
 accept the age ; since He shows Himself a Father to all with 
 well-weighed equality for the attainment of heavenly grace. 
 
 4. For, with respect to what you say, that the aspect of 
 an infant in the first days after its birth is not pure, so that 
 any one of us would still shudder at kissing it, we do not think 
 that this ought to be alleged as any impediment to heavenly 
 grace. For it is written, " To the pure all things are pure." 1 
 Nor ought any of us to shudder at that which God hath 
 condescended to make. For although the infant is still fresh 
 from its birth, yet it is not such that any one should shudder 
 at kissing it in giving grace and in making peace ; since in 
 
 1 Tit. i. 15.
 
 198 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the kiss of an infant every one of us ought, for his very 
 religion's sake, to consider the still recent hands of God 
 
 O * 
 
 themselves, which in some sort we are kissing, in the man 
 lately formed and freshly born, when we are embracing that 
 which God has made. For in respect of the observance of 
 the eighth day in the Jewish circumcision of the flesh, a 
 sacrament was given beforehand in shadow and in usage ; 
 but when Christ came, it was fulfilled in truth. For because 
 the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was 
 to be that on which the Lord should rise again, and should 
 quicken us, and give us circumcision of the spirit, the eighth 
 day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, and the Lord's 
 day, went before in the figure ; which figure ceased when 
 by and by the truth came, and spiritual circumcision was 
 given to us. 
 
 5. For which reason we think that no one is to be hindered 
 from obtaining grace by that law which was already ordained, 
 and that spiritual circumcision ought not to be hindered by 
 carnal circumcision, but that absolutely every man is to be 
 admitted to the grace of Christ, since Peter also in the Acts 
 of the Apostles speaks, and says, " The Lord hath said to me 
 that I should call no man common or unclean." 1 But if 
 anything could hinder men from obtaining grace, their more 
 heinous sins might rather hinder those who are mature and 
 grown up and older. But again, if even to the greatest 
 sinners, and to those who had sinned much against God, when 
 they subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted and 
 nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace how much 
 rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant, who, 
 being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born 
 after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the con- 
 tagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches 
 the more easily on this very account to the reception of the 
 forgiveness of sins that to him are remitted, not his own 
 sins, but the sins of another. 
 
 6. And therefore, dearest brother, this was our opinion in 
 council, that by us no one ought to be hindered from baptism 
 
 1 Acts x. 28.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 199 
 
 and from the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and 
 loving to all. Which, since it is to be observed and main- 
 tained in respect of all, we think is to be even more observed 
 in respect of infants and newly-born persons, who on this 
 very account deserve more from our help and from the divine 
 mercy, that immediately, on the very beginning of their birth, 
 lamenting and weeping, they do nothing else but entreat. We 
 bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LIX. 1 
 
 TO THE NUMIDIAN BISHOPS, ON THE REDEMPTION OF 
 THEIR BRETHREN FROM CAPTIVITY AMONG THE 
 BARBARIANS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian begins by deploring tJie captivity of 
 the IretJiren, of which he had heard from the Numi- 
 dian bishops, and says that he is sending them a hundred 
 thousand sesterces, contributed by brethren and sisters and 
 colleagues. It is probable that this captivity was the icork 
 of those barbarians against whom Decius went to war and 
 was killed. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Januarius, Maximus, Proculus, Victor, 
 Modianus, Nemesianus, Nampulus, and Honoratus, his 
 brethren, greeting. With excessive grief of mind, and not 
 without tears, dearest brethren, I have read your letter 
 which you wrote to me from the solicitude of your love, con- 
 cerning the captivity of our brethren and sisters. For who 
 would not grieve at misfortunes of that kind, or who would 
 not consider his brother's grief his own, since the Apostle 
 Paul speaks, saying, " Whether one member suffer, all the 
 members suffer with it ; or one member rejoice, all the 
 members rejoice with- it;" 2 and in another place he says, 
 "Who is weak, and I am not weak?" 3 Wherefore now 
 also the captivity of our brethren must be reckoned as our 
 captivity, and the grief of those who are endangered is to be 
 esteemed as our grief, since indeed there is one body of our 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixii. 2 1 Cor. xii. 26. 3 2 Cor. xi. 29.
 
 200 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 union; and not love only, but also religion, ought to instigate? 
 and strengthen us to redeem the members of the brethren. 
 
 2. For inasmuch as the Apostle Paul says again, " Know ye 
 not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
 dwelleth in you?" 1 even although love urged us less to 
 bring help to the brethren, yet in this place we must have 
 considered that it was the temples of God which were taken 
 captive, and that we ought not by long inactivity and neglect 
 of their suffering to allow the temples of God to be long 
 captive, but to strive with what powers we can, and to act 
 quickly by our obedience, to deserve well of Christ our 
 Judge and Lord and God. For as the Apostle Paul says, 
 " As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have 
 put on Christ," 2 Christ is to be contemplated in our captive 
 brethren, and He is to be redeemed from the peril of cap- 
 tivity who redeemed us from the peril of death ; so that He 
 who took us out of the jaws of the devil, who abides and 
 dwells in us, may now Himself be rescued and redeemed from 
 the hands of barbarians by a sum of money -who redeemed us 
 by His cross and blood who suffers these things to happen 
 for this reason, that our faith may be tried, whether each one 
 of us will do for another what he would wish to be done for 
 himself, if he himself were held captive among barbarians. 
 For who that is mindful of humanity, and reminded of mutual 
 love, if he be a father, will not now consider that his sons are 
 there ; if he be a husband, will not think that his wife is there 
 kept captive, with as much grief as shame for the marriage 
 tie? But how great is the general grief among all of us, and 
 suffering concerning the peril of virgins who are kept there, 
 on whose behalf we must bewail not only the loss of liberty, 
 but of modesty; and must lament the bonds of barbarians 
 less than the violence of seducers and abominable places, lest 
 the members dedicated to Christ, and devoted for ever m 
 honour of continence by modest virtue, should be sullied by 
 the lust and contagion of the insulter. 
 
 3. Our brotherhood, considering all these things according 
 to your letter, and sorrowfully examining, have all promptly 
 1 1 Cor. iii. 16. 2 Gal. iii. 27.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 201 
 
 and willingly and liberally gathered together supplies of 
 money for the brethren, being always indeed, according to 
 the strength of their faith, prone to the work of God, but 
 now even more stimulated to salutary works by the conside- 
 ration of so great a suffering. For since the Lord in His 
 Gospel says, "I was sick, and ye visited me," 1 with how 
 much greater reward for our work will Pie say now, " I was 
 captive, and ye redeemed me!" And since again Pie says, 
 " I was in prison, and ye came unto me," how much more 
 will it be when He begins to say, " I was in the dungeon of 
 captivity, and P lay shut up and bound among barbarians, 
 and from that prison of slavery you delivered me," being 
 about to receive a reward from the Lord when the day of 
 judgment shall come ! Finally, we give you the warmest 
 thanks that you have wished us to be sharers in your anxiety, 
 and in so great and necessary a work that you have offered 
 us fruitful fields in which we might cast the seeds of our 
 hope, with the expectation of a harvest of the most abundant 
 fruits which will proceed from this heavenly and saving 
 operation. We have then sent you a sum of one hundred 
 thousand sesterces, which have been collected here in the 
 church over which by the Lord's mercy we preside, by the 
 contributions of the clergy and people established with us, 
 which you will there dispense with what diligence you 
 may. 
 
 4. And we wish, indeed, that nothing of such a kind may 
 happen again, and that our brethren, protected by the 
 majesty of the Lord, may be preserved safe from perils of 
 this kind. If, however, for the searching out of the love of 
 our mind, and for the testing of the faith of our heart, any 
 such thing should happen, do not delay to tell us of it in your 
 letters, counting it for certain that our church and the whole 
 fraternity here beseech by their prayers that these things 
 may not happen again ; but if they happen, that they will 
 willingly and liberally render help. But that you may have 
 in mind in your prayers our brethren and sisters who have 
 laboured so promptly and liberally for this needful work, 
 1 Matt. xxv. 06.
 
 202 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 that they may always labour ; and that in return for their 
 good work you may present them in your sacrifices and 
 prayers, I have subjoined the names of each one ; and more- 
 over also of my colleagues and fellow-priests, who themselves 
 also, as they were present, cpntributed some little according 
 to their power, in their own names and the name of their 
 people, I have added the names ; and besides our own 
 amount, I have intimated and sent their small sums, all of 
 whom, in conformity with the claims of faith and charity, 
 you ought to remember in your supplications and prayers. 
 We bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell, and 
 remember us. 
 
 EPISTLE LX. 1 
 
 TO EUCHRATIUS, ABOUT AN ACTOR. 
 
 ARGUMENT. He forbids an actor, if he continue in his dis- 
 graceful calling, from communicating in the church. 
 Neither does he allow it to be an excuse for him, that he 
 himself does not practise the histrionic art, so long as he 
 teaches it to others ; neither does he excuse it because of 
 the want of means, since necessaries may be supplied 
 to him from the resources of the church; and therefore, 
 if the means of the church there are not sufficient^ lie 
 recommends him to come to Carthage. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Euchratius his brother, greeting. From our 
 mutual love and your reverence for me you have thought 
 that I should be consulted, dearest brother, as to my opinion 
 concerning a certain actor, who, being settled among you, 
 still persists in the discredit of the same art of his ; and as a 
 master and teacher, not for the instruction, but for the de- 
 struction of boys, that which he has unfortunately learnt he 
 also imparts to others : you ask whether such an one ought 
 to communicate with us. This, I think, neither befits the 
 divine majesty nor the discipline of the gospel, that the 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. ii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 203 
 
 modesty and credit of the church should be polluted by so 
 disgraceful and infamous a contagion. For since, in the law, 
 men are forbidden to put on a woman's garment, and those 
 that offend in this manner are judged accursed, how much 
 greater is the crime, not only to take women's garments, but 
 also to express base and effeminate and luxurious gestures, 
 by the teaching of an immodest art ! 
 
 2. Nor let any one excuse himself that he himself has 
 given up the theatre, while he is still teaching the art to 
 others. For he cannot appear to have given it up who 
 substitutes others in his place, and who, instead of himself 
 alone, supplies many in his stead ; against God's appointment, 
 instructing and teaching in what way a man may be broken 
 down into a woman, and his sex changed by art, and how 
 the devil who pollutes the divine image may be gratified by 
 the sins of a corrupted and enervated body. But if such an 
 one alleges poverty and the necessity of small means, his 
 necessity also can be assisted among the rest who are main- 
 tained by the support of the church; if he be content, that is, 
 with very frugal but innocent food. And let him not think 
 that he is redeemed by an allowance to cease from sinning, 
 since this is an advantage not to us, but to himself. What 
 more he may wish he must seek thence, from such gain as 
 takes men away from the banquet of Abraham, and Isaac, 
 and Jacob, and leads them down, sadly and perniciously 
 fattened in this world, to the eternal torments of hunger and 
 thirst ; and therefore, as far as you can, recall him from this 
 depravity and disgrace to the way of innocence, and to the 
 hope of eternal life, that he may be content with the main- 
 tenance of the church, sparing indeed, but wholesome. But 
 if the church with you is not sufficient for this, to afford 
 support for those in need, he may transfer himself to us, and 
 here receive what may be necessary to him for food and 
 clothing, and not teach deadly things -to others without the 
 church, but himself learn wholesome things in the church. 
 I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.
 
 204 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE LXI. 1 
 
 TO POMPONIUS, CONCERNING SOME VIRGINS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian, with some of Ms colleagues, replies to 
 his colleague Pomponius, that virgins who had determined 
 to maintain their state with continency and firmness, lut 
 who had yet subsequently been found in the same bed with 
 men, if they were still found to be virgins, should be 
 received into communion and admitted to the church ; but 
 if otherwise, since they are adulterous, not to their husband^ 
 but to Christ, they should be compelled to full repentance, 
 and those who should obstinately persevere should be ejected 
 from the church. He suggests, by the icay, the kind of 
 discipline by which virgins may be kept in their duty, and 
 some matters concerning the power of excommunication in 
 the church. 
 
 1. Cyprian, Caecilius, Victor, Seclatus, Tertullus, with the 
 presbyters who were present with them, to Pomponius their 
 brother, greeting. We have read, dearest brother, your 
 letter which you sent by Paconius our brother, asking and 
 desiring us to write again to you, and say what we thought of 
 those virgins who, after having once determined to continue in 
 their condition, and firmly to maintain their continency, have 
 afterwards been found to have remained in the same bed 
 side by side with men ; of whom you say that one is a deacon ; 
 and yet that the same virgins who have confessed that they 
 have slept with men declare that they are chaste. Concern- 
 ing which matters, since you have desired our advice, know 
 that we do not depart from the traditions of the gospel and 
 of the apostles, but with constancy and firmness take counsel 
 for our brethren and sisters, and maintain the discipline of 
 the church by all the ways of usefulness and safety, since the 
 Lord speaks, saying, " And I will give you pastors according 
 to mine heart, and they shall feed you with discipline." 2 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. iv. 2 Jcr. iii. 15.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 205 
 
 And again it is written, "Whoso despiseth discipline is miser- 
 able ;" l and in the Psalms also the Holy Spirit admonishes 
 and instructs us, saying, " Keep discipline, lest haply the 
 Lord be angry, and ye perish from the right way, when His 
 anger shall quickly burn against you." 2 
 
 2. In the first place, therefore, dearest brother, both by 
 overseers and people nothing is to be more eagerly sought 
 after, than that we who fear God should keep the divine 
 precepts with every observation of discipline, and should not 
 suffer our brethren to stray, and to live according to their 
 own fancy and lust; 3 but that we should faithfully consult for 
 the life of each one, and not suffer virgins to dwell with men, 
 I do not say to sleep together, but to live together, since 
 both their weak sex and their age, still critical, ought to be 
 bridled in all things and ruled by us, lest an occasion should 
 be given to the devil who ensnares us, and desires to rage 
 over us, to hurt them, since the apostle also says, " Do not 
 give place to the devil." 4 The ship is watchfully to be 
 delivered from perilous places, that it may not be broken 
 among the rocks and cliffs ; the baggage must swiftly be 
 taken out of the fire, before it is burnt up by the flames 
 reaching it. No one who is near to danger is long safe, nor 
 will the servant of God be able to escape the devil if he has 
 entangled himself in the devil's nets. We must interfere at 
 once with such as these, that they may be separated while yet 
 they can be separated in innocence ; because by and by they 
 will not be able to be separated by our interference, after 
 they have become joined together by a very guilty conscience. 
 Moreover, what a number of serious mischiefs we see to have 
 arisen hence ; and what a multitude of virgins we behold 
 corrupted by unlawful and dangerous conjunctions of this 
 kind, to our great grief of mind ! But if they have faithfully 
 dedicated themselves to Christ, let them persevere in modesty 
 
 i Wisd. iii. 11. 2 Ps- a> 12 (LXX.). 
 
 8 Some editors read here "fructu" for "ructu;" but Goldhorn ob- 
 serves that a similar collocation of eructation with error is found iu 
 Horace, Ep. ad Pis. 457. 
 
 * Eph. iv. 27.
 
 206 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 and chastity, without incurring any evil report, and so in 
 courage and steadiness await the reward of virginity. But 
 if they are unwilling or unable to persevere, it is better that 
 they should marry, than that by their crimes they should fall 
 into the fire. Certainly let them not cause a scandal to the 
 brethren or sisters, since it is written, " If meat cause my 
 brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, 
 lest I make my brother to offend." J 
 
 3. Nor let any one think that she can be defended by this 
 excuse, that she may be examined and proved whether she be 
 a virgin ; since both the hands and the eyes of the midwives 
 are often deceived ; and if she be found to be a virgin in 
 that particular in which a woman may be so, yet she may 
 have sinned in some other part of her body, which may be 
 corrupted and yet cannot be examined. Assuredly the mere 
 lying together, the mere embracing, the very talking together, 
 and the act of kissing, and the disgraceful and foul slumber 
 of two persons lying together, how much of dishonour and 
 crime does it confess ! If a husband come upon his wife, and 
 see her lying with another man, is he not angry and raging, 
 and by the passion of his rage does he not perhaps take his 
 sword into his hand ? And what shall Christ and our Lord 
 and Judge think, when He sees His virgin, dedicated to Him, 
 and destined for His holiness, lying with another? How 
 indignant and angry is He, and what penalties does He 
 threaten against such unchaste connections ! whose spiritual 
 sword and the coming day of judgment, that every one of 
 the brethren may be able to escape, we ought with all our 
 counsel to provide and to strive. And since it behoves all 
 by all means to keep discipline, much more is it right that 
 overseers and deacons should be careful for this, that they 
 may afford an example and instruction to others concerning 
 their conversation and character. For how can they direct 
 the integrity and continence of others, if the corruptions and 
 teachings of sin begin to proceed from themselves ? 
 
 4. And therefore you have acted advisedly and with 
 vigour, dearest brother, in excommunicating the deacon who 
 
 ! 1 Cor. viii. 18.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 207 
 
 has often abode with a virgin ; and, moreover, the others 
 who had been used to sleep with virgins. But if they have 
 repented of this their unlawful lying together, and have 
 mutually withdrawn from one another, let the virgins mean- 
 time be carefully inspected by midwives ; and if they should 
 be found virgins, let them be received to communion, and 
 admitted to the church ; yet with this threatening, that if 
 subsequently they should return to the same men, or if they 
 should dwell together with the same men in one house or 
 under the same roof, they should be ejected with a severer 
 censure, nor should such be afterwards easily received into 
 the church. But if any one of them be found to be cor- 
 rupted, let her abundantly repent, because she who has been 
 guilty of this crime is an adulteress, not against a husband, 
 but against Christ; and therefore, a due time being appointed, 
 let her afterwards, when confession has been made, return to 
 the church. But if they obstinately persevere, and do not 
 mutually separate themselves, let them know that, with this 
 their immodest obstinacy, they can never be admitted by us 
 into the church, lest they should begin to set an example to 
 others to go to ruin by their crimes. Nor let them think 
 that the way of life or of salvation is still open to them, if 
 they have refused to obey the bishops and priests, since in 
 Deuteronomy the Lord God says, " And the man that will 
 do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest or 
 judge, whosoever he shall be in those days, that man shall 
 die, and all the people shall hear and fear, and do no more 
 presumptuously." 1 God commanded those who did not obey 
 His priests to be slain, and those who did not hearken to His 
 judges who were appointed for the time. And then indeed 
 they were slain with the sword, when the circumcision of the 
 flesh was yet in force ; but now that circumcision has begun 
 to be of the spirit among God's faithful servants, the proud 
 and contumacious are slain with the sword of the Spirit, in 
 that they are cast out of the church. For they cannot live 
 out of it, since the house of God is one, and there can be no 
 salvation to any except in the church. But the divine Scrip- 
 1 Deut. xvii. 12, 13.
 
 203 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 ture testifies that the undisciplined perish, because they do 
 not listen to, nor obey wholesome precepts ; for it says, " An 
 undisciplined man loveth not him that correcteth him. But 
 they who hate reproof shall be consumed with disgrace." 1 
 
 5. Therefore, dearest brother, endeavour that the undisci- 
 plined should not be consumed and perish, that as much as 
 you can, by your salutary counsels, you should rule the 
 brotherhood, and take counsel of each one with a view to his 
 salvation. Strait and narrow is the way through which we 
 enter into life, but excellent and great is the reward when we 
 enter into glory. Let those who have once made themselves 
 eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven please God in all things, 
 and not offend God's priests nor the Lord's church by the 
 scandal of their wickedness. And if, for the present, certain 
 of our brethren seem to be made sorry by us, let us never- 
 theless remain in our wholesome persuasion, knowing that an 
 apostle also has said, " Am I therefore become your enemy 
 because I tell you the truth?" 2 But if they shall obey us, 
 we have gained our brethren, and have formed them as well 
 to salvation as to dignity by our address. But if some of 
 the perverse persons refuse to obey, let us follow the same 
 apostle, who says, " If I please men, I should not be the ser- 
 vant of Christ." 3 If we cannot please some, so as to make 
 them please Christ, let us assuredly, as far as we can, please 
 Christ our Lord and God, by observing His precepts. I bid 
 you, brother beloved and much longed for, heartily farewell 
 in the Lord. 
 
 EPISTLE LXII. 4 
 
 TO (LECILIUS, ON THE SACRAMENT OF THE CUP OF THE 
 
 LORD. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian teaches, in opposition to those ivho used 
 water in the Lord's supper, that not water alone, but wine 
 
 1 Prov. xv. 12, 10. 2 Gal. iv. 16. 
 
 8 GaL i. 10. * Oxford ed. : Ep. bdii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 209 
 
 mixed with water, was to be offered; that by water ivas 
 designated in Scripture, Baptism, but certainly not the 
 Eucharist. By types drawn from the Old Testament, 
 the use of ivine in the sacrament of the Lord's body 
 is illustrated; and it is declared that by the symbol of 
 water is understood the Christian congregation. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Cascilius his brother, greeting. Although I 
 know, dearest brother, that very many of the bishops who 
 are set over the churches of the Lord by divine condescen- 
 sion, throughout the whole world, maintain the plan of evan- 
 gelical truth, and of the tradition of the Lord, and do riot 
 by human and novel institution depart from that which 
 Christ our Master both prescribed and did ; yet since some, 
 either by ignorance or simplicity in sanctifying the cup of 
 the Lord, and in ministering to the people, do not do that 
 which Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, the founder and 
 teacher of this sacrifice, did and taught, I have thought it 
 as well a religious as a necessary thing to write to you this 
 letter, that, if any one is still kept in this error, he may 
 behold the light of truth, and return to the root and origin 
 of the tradition of the Lord. Nor must you think, dearest 
 brother, that I am writing my own thoughts or man's ; or 
 that I am boldly assuming this to myself of my own volun- 
 tary will, since I always hold my mediocrity with lowly 
 and modest moderation. But when anything is prescribed 
 by the inspiration and command of God, it is necessary that 
 a faithful servant should obey the Lord, acquitted by all of 
 assuming anything arrogantly to himself, seeing that he is 
 constrained to fear offending the Lord unless he does what 
 he is commanded. 
 
 2. Know then that I have been admonished that, in offering 
 the cup, the tradition of the Lord must be observed, and that 
 nothing must be done by us but what the Lord first did on 
 our behalf, as that the cup which is offered in remembrance 
 of Him should be offered mingled with wine. For when 
 
 O 
 
 Christ says, "I am the true vine," 1 the blood of Christ is 
 1 John XT. 1.
 
 210 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 assuredly not water, but wine; neither can His blood by which 
 we are redeemed and quickened appear to be in the cup, 
 when in the cup there is no wine whereby the blood of Christ 
 is shown forth, which is declared by the sacrament and testi- 
 mony of all the Scriptures. 
 
 3. For we find in Genesis also, in respect of the sacra- 
 ment in Noe, this same thing was to them a precursor and 
 figure of the Lord's passion ; that he drank wine ; that he 
 was drunken ; that he was made naked in his household ; 
 that he was lying down with his thighs naked and exposed ; 
 that the nakedness of the father was observed by his second 
 son, and was told abroad, but was covered by two, the eldest 
 and the youngest ; and other matters which it is not necessary 
 to follow out, since this is enough for us to embrace alone, 
 that Noe, setting forth a type of the future truth, did not 
 drink water, but wine, and thus expressed the figure of the 
 passion of the Lord. 
 
 4. Also in the priest Melchizedek we see prefigured the 
 sacrament of the sacrifice of the Lord, according to what 
 
 / O 
 
 divine Scripture testifies, and says, " And Melchizedek, king 
 of Salem, brought forth bread and wine." 1 Now he was a 
 priest of the most high God, and blessed Abraham. And 
 that Melchizedek bore a type of Christ, the Holy Spirit 
 declares in the Psalms, saying from the person of the Father 
 to the Son : " Before the morning star I begat Thee ; Thou 
 art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek ;" 2 which 
 order is assuredly this coming from that sacrifice and thence 
 descending ; that Melchizedek was a priest of the most high 
 God ; that he offered wine and bread ; that he blessed 
 Abraham. For who is more a priest of the most high God 
 than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered a sacrifice to God 
 the Father, and offered that very same thing which Mel- 
 chizedek had offered, that is, bread and wine, to wit, His 
 body and blood ? And with respect to Abraham, that bless- 
 ing going before belonged to our people. For if Abraham 
 believed in God, and it was accounted unto him for right- 
 eousness, assuredly whosoever believes in God and lives in 
 1 Gen. xiv. 18. 2 Ps. ex. 4.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 211 
 
 faith is found righteous, and already is blessed in faithful 
 Abraham, and is set forth as justified ; as the blessed Apostle 
 Paul proves, when he says, " Abraham believed God, and it 
 was accounted to him for righteousness. Ye know, then, 
 
 O / / 
 
 that they which are of faith, these are the children of Abra- 
 ham. But the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify 
 the Gentiles through faith, pronounced before to Abraham, 
 that all nations should be blessed in him ; therefore they who 
 are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." l Whence 
 in the gospel we find that "children of Abraham are raised 
 from stones, that is, are gathered from the Gentiles." 2 And 
 when the Lord praised Zacchseus, He answered and said, 
 " This day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he 
 also is a son of Abraham." 3 In Genesis, therefore, that the 
 benediction, in respect of Abraham by Melchizedek the priest, 
 might be duly celebrated, the figure of Christ's sacrifice pre- 
 cedes, namely, as ordained in bread and wine ; which thing 
 the Lord completing and fulfilling, offered bread and the 
 cup mixed with wine, and so He who is the fulness of truth 
 fulfilled the truth of the image prefigured. 
 
 5. Moreover the Holy Spirit by Solomon shows before the 
 type of the Lord's sacrifice, making mention of the immo- 
 lated victim, and of the bread and wine, and, moreover, of 
 the altar and of the apostles, and says, " Wisdom hath builded 
 her house, she hath underlaid her seven pillars; she hath 
 killed her victims ; she hath mingled her wine in the goblet ; 
 she hath also furnished her table : and she hath sent forth 
 her servants, calling together with a lofty announcement to 
 her cup, saying, Whoso is simple, let him. turn to me ; and 
 to those that want understanding she hath said, Come, eat of 
 my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled for 
 you." 4 He declares the wine mingled, that is, he foretells 
 with prophetic voice the cup of the Lord mingled with water 
 and wine, that it may appear that that was done in our 
 Lord's passion which had been before predicted. 
 
 6. In the blessing of Judah also this same thing is signi- 
 fied, where there also is expressed a figure of Christ, that 
 
 1 Gal. iii. 6-9. 2 Matt. iii. 9. 3 Luke xix. 9. 4 Prov. ix. 1-5.
 
 212 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 He should have praise and worship from his brethren ; that 
 He should press down the back of His enemies yielding and 
 fleeing, with the hands with which He bore the cross and 
 conquered death ; and that He himself is the Lion of the 
 tribe of Judah, and should couch sleeping in His passion, 
 and should rise up, and should Himself be the hope of the 
 Gentiles. To which things divine Scripture adds, and says, 
 " He shall wash His garment in wine, and His clothing in 
 the blood of the grape." 1 But when the blood of the grape 
 is mentioned, what else is set forth than the wine of the cup 
 of the blood of the Lord ? 
 
 7. In Isaiah also the Holy Spirit testifies this same thing 
 concerning the Lord's passion, saying, " Wherefore are Thy 
 garments red, and Thy apparel as from the treading of the 
 wine-press full and well trodden ? " Can water make gar- 
 ments red ? or is it water in the wine-press which is trodden 
 by the feet, or pressed out by the press ? Assuredly, there- 
 fore, mention is made of wine, that the Lord's blood may be 
 understood, and that which was afterwards manifested in 
 the cup of the Lord might be foretold by the prophets who 
 announced it. The treading also, and- pressure of the wine- 
 press, is repeatedly dwelt on ; because just as the drinking 
 of wine cannot be attained to unless the bunch of grapes be 
 first trodden and pressed, so neither could we drink the blood 
 of Christ unless Christ had first been trodden on and pressed, 
 and had first drunk the cup of which He should also give 
 believers to drink. 
 
 8. But as often as water is named alone in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, baptism is referred to, as we see intimated in Isaiah : 
 " Remember not," says he, " the former things, and consider 
 not the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, which 
 shall now spring forth ; and ye shall know it. I will even 
 make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the dry place, 
 to give drink to my elected people, my people whom I have 
 purchased, that they might show forth my praise." 3 There 
 God foretold by the prophet, tbat among the nations, in 
 places which previously had been dry, rivers should after- 
 
 1 Gen. xlix. 11. 2 Isa. briii. 2. 3 Isa. xliii. 18-21.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 213 
 
 wards flow plenteously, and should provide water for the 
 elected people of God, that is, for those who were made sons 
 of God by the generation of baptism. Moreover, it is again 
 predicted and foretold before, that the Jews, if they should 
 thirst and seek after Christ, should drink with us, that is, 
 should attain the grace of baptism. " If they shall thirst," 
 he says, " He shall lead them through the deserts, shall bring 
 forth water for them out of the rock ; the rock shall be 
 cloven, and the water shall flow, and my people shall drink ;' 51 
 which is fulfilled in the gospel, when Christ, who is the Rock, 
 is cloven by a stroke of the spear in His passion ; who also, 
 admonishing what was before announced by the prophet, 
 cries and says, " If any man thirst, let him come and drink. 
 He that believeth on me, as the Scripture saith, out of his 
 belly shall flow rivers of living water." And that it might 
 be more evident that the Lord is speaking there, not of the 
 cup, but of baptism, the Scripture adds, saying, " But this 
 spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him 
 should receive." 2 For by baptism the Holy Spirit is re- 
 ceived ; and thus by those who are baptized, and have 
 attained to the Holy Spirit, is attained the drinking of the 
 Lord's cup. And let it disturb no one, that when the divine 
 Scripture speaks of baptism, it says that we thirst and drink, 
 since the Lord also in the Gospel says, " Blessed are they 
 which do hunger and thirst after righteousness ; " 3 because 
 what is received with a greedy and thirsting desire is drunk 
 more fully and plentifully. As also, in another place, the 
 Lord speaks to the Samaritan woman, saying, " Whosoever 
 drinketh of this water shall thirst again ; but whosoever 
 drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall not thirst 
 for ever." 4 By which is also signified the very baptism of 
 saving water, which indeed is once received, and is not 
 again repeated. But the cup of the Lord is always both 
 thirsted for and drunk in the church. 
 
 9. Nor is there need of very many arguments, dearest 
 brother, to prove that baptism is always indicated by the 
 
 1 Isa. xlviii. 21. 2 John vii. 37-39. 
 
 Matt. v. 6. * John iv. 13, 14.
 
 214 THE EPISTLES OF CYPPJAN. 
 
 appellation of water, and that thus we ought to understand 
 it, since the Lord, when He came, manifested the truth of 
 baptism and the cup in commanding that that faithful water, 
 the water of life eternal, should be given to believers in 
 baptism, but, teaching by the example of His own authority, 
 that the cup should be mingled with a union of wine and 
 water. For, taking the cup on the eve of His passion, He 
 blessed it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, " Drink ye all 
 of this ; for this is my blood of the New Testament, which 
 shall be shed for many, for the remission of sins. I say unto 
 you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, 
 until that day in which I shall drink new wine with you in 
 the kingdom of my Father." 1 In which portion we find 
 that the cup which the Lord offered was mixed, and that 
 that was wine which He called His blood. Whence it 
 appears that the blood of Christ is not offered if there be 
 no wine in the cup, nor the Lord's sacrifice celebrated with 
 a legitimate consecration unless our oblation and sacrifice 
 respond to His passion. But how shall we drink the new 
 wine of the fruit of the vine with Christ in the kingdom of 
 His Father, if in the sacrifice of God the Father and of 
 Christ we do not offer wine, nor mix the cup of the Lord 
 by the Lord's own tradition ? 
 
 10. Moreover, the blessed Apostle Paul, chosen and sent 
 by the Lord, and appointed a preacher of the gospel truth, 
 lays down these very things in his epistle, saying, " The Lord 
 Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread ; 
 and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, This 
 is my body, which shall be given for you : do this in remem- 
 brance of me. After the same manner also He took the 
 cup, when He had supped, saying, This cup is the new testa- 
 ment in my blood : this do, as oft as ye drink it, in remem- 
 brance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this 
 cup, ye shall show forth the Lord's death until He come." 2 
 But if it is both enjoined by the Lord, and the same thing is 
 confirmed and delivered by His apostle, that as often as we 
 drink, we do in remembrance of the Lord the same thing 
 1 Matt. xxvi. 28, 29. 2 1 Cor. xi. 23-26.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 215 
 
 which the Lord also did, we find that what was commanded 
 is not observed by us, unless we also do what the Lord did ; 
 and that mixing the Lord's cup in like manner we do not 
 depart from the divine teaching ; but that we must not at all 
 depart from the evangelical precepts, and that disciples ought 
 also to observe and to do the same things which the Master 
 both taught and did. The blessed apostle in another place 
 more earnestly and strongly teaches, saying, " I wonder that 
 ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into grace, 
 unto another gospel, which is not another ; but there are some 
 that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 
 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other- 
 wise than that which we have preached to you, let him be 
 anathema. As we said before, so say I now again, If any 
 man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have 
 received, let him be anathema." l 
 
 11. Since, then, neither the apostle himself nor an angel 
 from heaven can preach or teach any otherwise than Christ 
 has once taught and His apostles have announced, I wonder 
 very much whence has originated this practice, that, contrary 
 to evangelical and apostolical discipline, water is offered in 
 some places in the Lord's cup, which water by itself cannot 
 express the blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit also is not 
 silent in the Psalms on the sacrament of this thing, when 
 He makes mention of the Lord's cup, and says, " Thy in- 
 toxicating cup, how excellent it is!" 2 Now the cup which 
 intoxicates is assuredly mingled with wine, for water cannot 
 intoxicate anybody. And the cup of the Lord in such wise 
 inebriates, as Noe also was intoxicated drinking wine, in 
 Genesis. But because the intoxication of the Lord's cup and 
 blood is not such as is the intoxication of the world's wine, 
 since the Holy Spirit said in the Psalm, " Thy intoxicating 
 cup," Pie added, " how excellent it is," because doubtless 
 the Lord's cup so inebriates them that drink, that it makes 
 them sober; that it restores their minds to spiritual wisdom ; 
 that each one recovers from that flavour of the world to the 
 understanding of God; and in the same way, that by that 
 1 Gal. i. 6-9. 2 Ps. xxiii. 5.
 
 216 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 common wine the mind is dissolved, and the soul relaxed, 
 and all sadness is laid aside, so, when the blood of the Lord 
 and the cup of salvation have been drunk, the memory of the 
 old man is laid aside, and there arises an oblivion of the 
 former worldly conversation, and the sorrowful and sad breast 
 which before was oppressed by tormenting sins is eased by 
 the joy of the divine mercy ; because that only is able to 
 rejoice him who drinks in the church, which, when it is drunk, 
 retains the Lord's truth. 
 
 12. But how perverse and how contrary it is, that although 
 the Lord at the marriage made wine of water, we should 
 make water of wine, when even the sacrament of that thing 
 ought to admonish and instruct us rather to offer wine in 
 the sacrifices of the Lord ! For because among the Jews 
 there was a want of spiritual grace, wine also was wanting. 
 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts was the house of Israel ; 
 but Christ, when teaching and showing that the people of the 
 Gentiles should succeed them, and that by the merit of faith 
 we should subsequently attain to the place which the Jews 
 had lost, of water made wine ; that is, He showed that at the 
 marriage of Christ and the church, as the Jews failed, the 
 people of the nations should rather flow together and assemble : 
 for the divine Scripture in the Apocalypse declares that the 
 waters signify the people, saying, " The waters which thou 
 sawest, upon which the whore sitteth, are peoples and multi- 
 tudes, and nations of the Gentiles, and tongues," 1 which we 
 evidently see to be contained also in the sacrament of the cup. 
 
 13. For because Christ bore us all, in that He also bore 
 our sins, we see that in the water is understood the people, 
 but in the wine is showed the blood of Christ. But when 
 the water is mingled in the cup with wine, the people is 
 made one with Christ, and the assembly of believers is asso- 
 ciated and conjoined with Him on whom it believes ; which 
 association and conjunction of water and wine is so mingled 
 in the Lord's cup, that that mixture cannot any more be sepa- 
 rated. Whence, moreover, nothing can separate the church 
 that is, the people established in the church, faithfully and 
 
 1 Apoc. xvii. 15.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 217 
 
 firmly persevering in that which they have believed from 
 Christ, in such a way as to prevent their undivided love from 
 always abiding. and adhering. Thus, therefore, in consecrating 
 the cup of the Lord, water alone cannot be offered, even as 
 wine alone cannot be offered. For if any one offer wine only, 
 the blood of Christ is dissociated from us ; but if the water 
 be alone, the people are dissociated from Christ ; but when 
 both are mingled, and are joined with one another by a close 
 union, there is completed a spiritual and heavenly sacrament. 
 Thus the cup of the Lord is not indeed water alone, nor wine 
 alone, unless each be mingled with the other ; just as, on the 
 other hand, the body of the Lord cannot be flour alone or 
 water alone, unless both should be united and joined together 
 and compacted in the mass of one bread ; in which very 
 sacrament our people are shown to be made one, so that in 
 like manner as many grains, collected, and ground, and mixed 
 together into one mass, make one bread ; so in Christ, who is 
 the heavenly bread, we may know that there is one body, 
 with which our number is joined and united. 
 
 14. There is then no reason, dearest brother, for any one 
 to think that the custom of certain persons is to be followed, 
 who have thought in time past that water alone should be 
 offered in the cup of the Lord. For we must inquire whom 
 they themselves have followed. For if in the sacrifice which 
 Christ offered none is to be followed but Christ, assuredly it 
 behoves us to obey and do that which Christ did, and what 
 He commanded to be done, since He Himself says in the 
 Gospel, " If ye do whatsoever I command you, henceforth I 
 call you not servants, but friends." l And that Christ alone 
 ought to be heard, the Father also testifies from heaven, 
 saying, " This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased ; hear ye Him." 2 Wherefore, if Christ alone must 
 be heard, we ought not to give heed to what another before 
 us may have thought was to be done, but what Christ, who is 
 before all, first did. Neither is it becoming to follow the 
 practice of man, but the truth of God ; since God speaks by 
 Isaiah the prophet, and says, " In vain do they worship me, 
 i John xv. 14, 15. 2 Matt. xvii. 5.
 
 218 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 teaching the commandments and doctrines of men." l And 
 again the Lord in the Gospel repeats this same saying, and 
 says, "Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may 
 keep your own tradition." 2 Moreover, in another place He 
 establishes it, saying, " Whosoever shall break one of these 
 least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be 
 called the least in the kingdom of heaven." 3 But if we may 
 not break even the least of the Lord's commandments, how 
 much rather is it forbidden to infringe such important ones, 
 so great, so pertaining to the very sacrament of our Lord's 
 passion and our own redemption, or to change it by human 
 tradition into anything else than what was divinely appointed ! 
 For if Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the chief 
 priest of God the Father, and has first offered Himself a 
 sacrifice to the Father, and lias commanded this to be done 
 in commemoration of Himself, certainly that priest truly dis- 
 charges the office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ 
 did ; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the church 
 to God the Father, when he proceeds to offer it according to 
 what he sees Christ Himself to have offered. 
 
 15. But the discipline of all religion and truth is over- 
 turned, unless what is spiritually prescribed be faithfully 
 observed ; unless indeed any one should fear in the morning 
 sacrifices, 4 lest by the taste of wine he should be redolent of 
 the blood of Christ. Therefore thus the brotherhood is be- 
 ginning even to be kept back from the passion of Christ in 
 persecutions, by learning in the offerings to be disturbed 
 concerning His blood and His blood-shedding. Moreover, 
 however, the Lord says in the Gospel, " Whosoever shall be 
 ashamed of me, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed." 5 
 And the apostle also speaks, saying, " If I pleased men, I 
 
 1 Isa. xxix. 13. 2 Mark vii. 13. 3 Matt. v. 19. 
 
 4 According to some texts is read here, "to offer -wine, lest in the 
 morning hours, through the flavour of the wine, its smell should be re- 
 cognised by its fragrant odour by the perception of unbelievers, and he 
 should be known to be a Christian, since we commemorate the blood of 
 Christ in the oblation of wine." 
 
 5 Mark viii. 38.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 219 
 
 should not be the servant of Christ." 1 But how can we 
 shed our blood for Christ, who blush to drink the blood of 
 Christ? 
 
 16. Does any one perchance flatter himself with this 
 notion, that although in the morning, water alone is seen to 
 be offered, yet when we come to supper we offer the mingled 
 cup ? But when we sup, we cannot call the people together 
 to our banquet, so as to celebrate the truth of the sacrament in 
 the presence of all the brotherhood. But still [it may be said 
 that] it was not in the morning, but after supper, that the 
 Lord offered the mingled cup. Ought we then to celebrate 
 the Lord's cup after supper, that so by continual repetition 
 of the Lord's Supper 2 we may offer the mingled cup ? It 
 behoved Christ to offer about the evening of the day, that 
 the very hour of sacrifice might show the setting and the 
 evening of the world ; as it is written in Exodus, "And all 
 the people of the synagogue of the children of Israel shall 
 kill it in the evening." 3 And again in the Psalms, t( Let the 
 lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice." 4 But we 
 celebrate the resurrection of the Lord in the morning. 
 
 17. And because we make mention of His passion in all 
 sacrifices (for the Lord's passion is the sacrifice which we 
 offer), we ought to do nothing else than what He did. For 
 Scripture says, " For as often as ye eat this bread and drink 
 this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death till He come." 5 
 As often, therefore, as we offer the cup in commemoration 
 of the Lord and of His passion, let us do what it is known 
 the Lord did. And let this conclusion be reached, dearest 
 brother : if from among our predecessors any have either by 
 ignorance or simplicity not observed and kept this which the 
 Lord by His example and teaching has instructed us to do, 
 he may, by the mercy of the Lord, have pardon granted to 
 his simplicity. But we cannot be pardoned who are now 
 admonished arid instructed by the Lord to offer the cup of 
 the Lord mingled with wine according to what the Lord 
 offered, and to direct letters to our colleagues also about 
 
 1 Gal. i. 10. 2 " Frequentandis dominicis." 
 
 3 Ex. xii. 6. 4 Ps. cxli. 2. s I Cor. xi. 26.
 
 220 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 this, so that the evangelical law and the Lord's tradition 
 may be everywhere kept, and there be no departure from 
 what Christ both taught and did. 
 
 IS. To neglect these things any further, and to persevere 
 in the former error, what is it else than to fall under the 
 Lord's rebuke, who in the psalm reproveth, and says, " What 
 hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest 
 take my covenant into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruc- 
 tion and easiest my words behind thee ? When thou sawesfc 
 a thief, thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker 
 with adulterers." l For to declare the righteousness and the 
 covenant of the Lord, and not to do the same that the Lord 
 did, what else is it than to cast away His words and to despise 
 the Lord's instruction, to commit not earthly, but spiritual 
 thefts and adulteries ? While any one is stealing from evan- 
 gelical truth the words and doings of our Lord, he is cor- 
 rupting and adulterating the divine precepts, as it is written 
 in Jeremiah. He says, " What is the chaff to the wheat ? 
 Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, 
 who steal my words every one from his neighbour, and cause 
 my people to err by their lies and by their lightness." 2 Also 
 in the same prophet, in another place, He says, " She com- 
 mitted adultery with stocks and stones, and yet for all this 
 she turned not unto me." 3 That this theft and adultery may 
 not fall unto us also, we ought to be anxiously careful, and 
 fearfully and religiously to watch. For if we are priests of 
 God and of Christ, I do not know any one whom we ought 
 rather to follow than God and Christ, since He Himself em- 
 phatically says in the Gospel, "I am the light of the world ; he 
 that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have 
 the light of life." 4 Lest therefore we should walk in darkness, 
 we ought to follow Christ, and to observe His precepts, because 
 He Himself told His apostles in another place, as He sent 
 them forth, "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth. 
 Go therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the 
 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : 
 
 1 Ps. 1. 16-18. 2 Jer. xxiii. 28, 30, 32. 
 
 8 Jer. iii. 9, 10. 4 John viii. 12.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 221 
 
 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
 
 O O 
 
 manded you." 1 Wherefore, if we wish to walk in the light 
 of Christ, let us not depart from His precepts and monitions, 
 giving thanks that, while He instructs for the future what 
 we ought to do, He pardons for the past wherein we in 
 our simplicity have erred. And because already His second 
 coming draws near to us, His benign and liberal condescen- 
 sion is more and more illuminating our hearts with the light 
 of truth. 
 
 19. Therefore it befits our religion, and our fear, and the 
 place itself, and the office of our priesthood, dearest brother, 
 in mixing and offering the cup of the Lord, to keep the truth 
 of the Lord's tradition, and, on the warning of the Lord, to 
 correct that which seems with some to have been erroneous ; 
 so that when He shall begin to come in His brightness 
 and heavenly majesty, He may find that we keep what He 
 admonished us ; that we observe what He taught ; that we 
 do what He did. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily 
 farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXIII. 1 
 
 TO EPICTETUS AND TO THE CONGREGATION OF ASSURE, 
 CONCERNING FORTUNATIANUS, FORMERLY THEIR BISHOP. 
 
 ARGUMENT. He warns Epictetus and the congregation of the 
 Assuritans not to allow Fortunatianus, their former 
 bishop, but lapsed, to return to his episcopate, as well 
 for other reasons as because it had been decreed that 
 lapsed bishops should not be admitted to their former 
 rank. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Epictetus his brother, and to the people 
 established at Assurse, greeting. I was gravely and grievously 
 disturbed, dearest brethren, at learning that Fortunatianus, 
 formerly bishop among you, after the sad lapse of his fall, 
 was now wishing to act as if he were sound, and beginning to 
 1 Matt, xxviii. 18-20. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixv.
 
 222 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 claim for himself the episcopate. Which thing distressed me ; 
 in the first place, on his own account, who, wretched man 
 that he is, being either wholly hlinded in the darkness of the 
 devil, or deceived by the sacrilegious persuasion of certain 
 persons ; when he ought to be making atonement, and to give 
 himself to the work of entreating the Lord night and day, 
 by tears, and supplications, and prayers, dares still to claim 
 to himself the priesthood which he has betrayed, as if it were 
 right, from the altars of the devil, to approach to the altar of 
 God ; or as if he would not provoke a greater wrath and 
 indignation of the Lord against himself in the day of judg- 
 ment, who, not being able to be a guide to the brethren in 
 faith and virtue, stands forth as a teacher in perfidy, in bold- 
 ness, and in temerity; and he who has not taught the brethren 
 to stand bravely in the battle, teaches those who are con- 
 quered and prostrate not even to ask [for pardon] ; although 
 the Lord says, " To them have ye poured a drink-offering, and 
 to them have ye offered a meat-offering. Shall I not be angry 
 for these things? saith the Lord." 1 And in another place, 
 " He that sacrificeth to any god, save unto the Lord only, shall 
 be destroyed." 2 Moreover, the Lord again speaks, and says, 
 " They have worshipped those whom their own fingers have 
 made : and the mean man boweth down, and the great man 
 humbleth himself: and I will not forgive them." 3 In the 
 Apocalypse also, we read the anger of the Lord threatening, 
 and saying, " If any man worship the beast and his image, 
 and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same 
 shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God mixed in the 
 cup of His anger ; and he shall be tormented with fire and 
 brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the 
 presence of the Lamb : and the smoke of their torments 
 shall ascend up for ever and ever ; neither shall they have 
 rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image." * 
 
 2. Since, therefore, the Lord threatens these torments, 
 these punishments in the day of judgment, to those who 
 obey the devil and sacrifice to idols, how does he think that 
 
 1 Isa. Ivii. 6. 2 Ex. xxii. 20. 
 
 8 Isa. ii. 8, 9. * Apoc. xiv. 9-11.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPKIAN. 223 
 
 he can act as a priest of God who has obeyed and served the 
 priests of the devil ; or how does he think that his hand can 
 be transferred to the sacrifice of God and the prayer of the 
 Lord which has been captive to sacrilege and to crime, when 
 in the sacred Scriptures God forbids the priests to approach 
 to sacrifice even if they have been in lighter guilt; and 
 says in Leviticus : " The man in whom there shall be any 
 blemish or stain shall not approach to offer gifts to God ? " 
 Also in Exodus : " And let the priests which come near to 
 the Lord God sanctify themselves, lest perchance the Lord 
 forsake them." 2 And again: "And when they come near 
 to minister at the altar of the Holy One, they shall not bring 
 sin upon them, lest they die." 3 Those, therefore, who have 
 brought grievous sins upon themselves, that is, who, by sacri- 
 ficing to idols, have offered sacrilegious sacrifices, cannot claim 
 to themselves the priesthood of God, nor make any prayer for 
 their brethren in His sight ; since it is written in the Gospel, 
 " God heareth not a sinner ; but if any man be a worshipper 
 of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth." 4 Nevertheless 
 the profound gloom of the falling darkness has so blinded 
 the hearts of some, that they receive no light from the whole- 
 some precepts, but, once turned away from the direct path 
 of the true way, they are hurried headlong and suddenly by 
 the night and error of their sins. 
 
 3. Nor is it wonderful if now those reject our counsels, 
 or the Lord's precepts, who have denied the Lord. They 
 desire gifts, and offerings, and gain, for which formerly they 
 watched insatiably ; they still long also for suppers and 
 banquets, whose debauch, in the indigestion lately left to the 
 day, they belched forth, most manifestly proving now that 
 they did not before serve religion, but rather their belly and 
 gain, with profane cupidity. Whence also we perceive and 
 believe that this rebuke has come from God's searching out, 
 that they might not continue to stand at the altar ; and any 
 further, as unchaste persons, to have to do with modesty ; as 
 perfidious, to have to do with faith; as profane, with reli- 
 
 1 Lev. xxi. 17. 2 Ex. xix. 22. 
 
 3 Ex. xxviii. 43. * John ix. 31.
 
 224 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 gion ; as earthly, with things divine ; as sacrilegious, with 
 things sacred. That such persons may not return again to 
 the profanation of the altar, and to the contagion of the 
 brethren, we must keep watch with all our powers, and strive 
 with all our strength, that, as far as in us lies, we may keep 
 them back from this audacity of their wickedness, that they 
 attempt not any longer to act in the character of priest ; who, 
 cast down to the lowest pit of death, have gone headlong 
 with the weight of a greater destruction beyond the lapses of 
 the laity. 
 
 4. But if, among these insane persons, their incurable 
 madness shall continue, and, with the withdrawal of the 
 Holy Spirit, the blindness which has begun shall remain in 
 its deep night, our counsel will be to separate individual 
 brethren from their deceitf ulness ; and, lest any one should 
 run into the toils of their error, to separate them from their 
 contagion : since neither can the oblation be consecrated 
 where the Holy Spirit is not ; nor can the Lord avail to 
 any one by the prayers and supplications of one who him- 
 self has done despite to the Lord. But if Fortunatianus, 
 either by the blindness induced by the devil forgetful of his 
 crime, or become a minister and servant of the devil for 
 deceiving the brotherhood, shall persevere in this his mad- 
 ness, do you, as far as in you lies, strive, and in this darkness 
 of the rage of the devil, recall the minds of the brethren from 
 error, that they may not easily consent to the madness of 
 another ; that they may not make themselves partakers in 
 the crimes of abandoned men ; but being sound, let them 
 maintain the constant tenor of their salvation, and of the 
 integrity preserved and guarded by them. 1 
 
 5. Let the lapsed, however, who acknowledge the great- 
 ness of their sin, not depart from entreating the Lord, nor 
 forsake the catholic church, which has been appointed one 
 and alone by the Lord ; but, continuing in their atonements 
 and entreating the Lord's mercy, let them knock at the [door 
 of the] church, that they may be received there where once 
 
 1 Otherwise, " the enduring vigour of that soundness which they 
 have preserved and guarded."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 225 
 
 they were, and may return to Christ from whom they have 
 departed, and not listen to those who deceive them with a 
 fallacious and deadly seduction ; since it is written, " Let no 
 man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things 
 cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience ; 
 be not ye therefore partakers with them." l Therefore let no 
 one associate himself with the contumacious, and those who 
 do not fear God, and those who entirely withdraw from the 
 church. But if any one should be impatient of entreating 
 the Lord who is offended, and should be unwilling to obey us, 
 but should follow desperate and abandoned men, he must take 
 the blame to himself when the day of judgment shall come. 
 For how shall he be able in that day to entreat the Lord, who 
 has both before this denied Christ, and now also the church of 
 Christ, and not obeying bishops sound and wholesome and 
 living, has made himself an associate and a partaker with the 
 dying? I bid you, dearest brethren and longed for, ever 
 heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXIV. 2 
 
 TO KOGATIANUS, CONCERNING THE DEACON WHO 
 CONTENDED AGAINST THE BISHOP. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian warns the bishop Hogatianus to restrain 
 the pride of the deacon ivho had provoked him with his 
 insults, and to compel him to repent of his boldness; 
 taking occasion to repeat once more ivhatever he has said 
 in the previous letter, about the sacerdotal or episcopal 
 power. At what time, however, this letter icas written is 
 uncertain, unless we may gather from the similar com- 
 mencement in both letters, that it ivas written at the same 
 synod with the following one. 
 
 1. Cyprian to his brother Rogatianus, greeting. I and 
 my colleagues who were present with me were deeply and 
 grievously distressed, dearest brother, on reading your letter 
 1 Eph. v. G, 7. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. iii. 
 
 P
 
 226 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 in which you complained of your deacon, that, forgetful of 
 your priestly station, and unmindful of his own office and 
 ministry, he had provoked you by his insults and injuries. 
 And you indeed have acted worthily, and with your accus- 
 tomed humility towards us, in rather complaining of him to 
 us ; although you have power, according to the vigour of 
 the episcopate and the authority of your throne, whereby 
 you might be justified on him at once, assured that all we 
 your colleagues would regard it as a matter of satisfaction, 
 whatever you should do by your priestly power in respect of 
 an insolent deacon, as you have in respect of men of this 
 kind divine commands, inasmuch as the Lord God says in 
 Deuteronomy, " And the man that will do presumptuously, 
 and will not hearken unto the priest or the judge, whoever 
 he shall be in those days, that man shall die ; and all the 
 people, when they hear, shall fear, and shall no more do im- 
 piously." l And that we may know that this voice of God 
 came forth with His true and highest majesty to honour and 
 avenge His priests ; when three of the ministers Korah, 
 Dathan, and Abiram dared to deal proudly, and to exalt 
 their neck against Aaron the priest, and to equal themselves 
 with the priest set over them ; they were swallowed up and 
 devoured by the opening of the earth, and so immediately 
 suffered the penalty of their sacrilegious audacity. Nor they 
 alone, but also two hundred and fifty others, who were their 
 companions in boldness, were consumed by a fire breaking 
 forth from the Lord, that it might be proved that God's 
 priests are avenged by Him who makes priests. In the book 
 of Kings also, when Samuel the priest was despised by the 
 Jewish people on account of his age, as you are now, the 
 Lord in wrath exclaimed, and said, " They have not rejected 
 thee, but they have rejected me." 2 And that He might 
 avenge this, He set over them Saul as a king, who afflicted 
 them with grievous injuries, and trod on the people, and 
 pressed down their pride with all insults and penalties, that 
 the despised priest might be avenged by divine vengeance on 
 a proud people. 
 
 1 Deut. xvii. 12, 13. 2 1 Sam. viii. 7.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 227 
 
 2. Moreover also Solomon, established in the Holy Spirit, 
 testifies and teaches what is the priestly authority and power, 
 saying, " Fear the Lord with all thy soul, and reverence His 
 priests ;" * and again, " Honour God with all thy soul, and 
 honour His priests." 2 Mindful of which precepts, the blessed 
 Apostle Paul, according to what we read in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, when it was said to him, " Revilest thou thus God's 
 high priest "?" answered and said, " I wist not, brethren, that 
 he was the high priest ; for it is written, Thou shalt not speak 
 evil of the ruler of thy people." 3 Moreover, our Lord Jesus 
 Christ Himself, our King, and Judge, and God, even to the 
 very day of His passion observed the honour to priests and 
 high priests, although they observed neither the fear of God 
 nor the acknowledgment of Christ. For when He had 
 cleansed the leper, He said to him, " Go, show thyself to the 
 priest, and offer the gift." 4 With that humility which taught 
 us also to be humble, He still called him a priest whom He 
 knew to be sacrilegious; also under the very sting of His 
 passion, when He had received a blow, and it w r as said to 
 Him, " Answerest thou the high priest so ?" He said nothing 
 reproachfully against the person of the high priest, but rather 
 maintained His own innocence, saying, "If I have spoken 
 evil, bear witness of the evil ; but if well, why smitest thou 
 me ?" 5 All which things were therefore done by Him 
 humbly and patiently, that we might have an example of 
 humility and patience ; for He taught that true priests were 
 lawfully and fully to be honoured, in showing Himself such 
 as He w r as in respect of false priests. 
 
 3. But deacons ought to remember that the Lord chose 
 apostles, that is,bishops and overseers; while apostles appointed 
 for themselves deacons after the ascent of the Lord into heaven, 
 as ministers of their episcopacy and of the church. But if we 
 may dare anything against God who makes bishops, deacons 
 may also dare against us by whom they are made ; and there- 
 fore it behoves the deacon of whom you write to repent of his 
 audacity, and to acknowledge the honour of the priest, and 
 
 1 Ecclus. vii. 29. 2 Ecclus. vii. 31. 3 Acts xxiii. 4, 5. 
 
 4 Matt. viii. 4. B John xviii. 23.
 
 228 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 to satisfy the bishop set over him with full humility. For 
 these things are the bee-innings of heretics, and the origins 
 
 o o o / o 
 
 and endeavours of evil-minded schismatics ; to please them- 
 selves, and with swelling haughtiness to despise him who is 
 set over them. Thus they depart from the church thus a 
 profane altar is set up outside thus they rebel against the 
 peace of Christ, and the appointment and the unity of God. 
 But if, further, he shall harass and provoke you with his 
 insults, you must exercise against him the power of your 
 dignity, by either deposing him or excommunicating him. 
 For if the Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, said, " Let no 
 man despise thy youth," 1 how much rather must it be said by 
 your colleagues to you, Let no man despise thy age ? And 
 since you have written, that one has associated himself with 
 that same deacon of yours, and is a partaker of his pride and 
 boldness, you may either restrain or excommunicate him 
 also, and any others that may appear of a like disposition, 
 and act against God's priest. Unless, as we exhort and 
 advise, they should rather perceive that they have sinned 
 and make satisfaction, and suffer us to keep our own purpose ; 
 for we rather ask and desire to overcome the reproaches and 
 injuries of individuals by clemency and patience, than to 
 punish them by our priestly power. I bid you, dearest 
 brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXV. 2 
 
 TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE ABIDING AT FURNI, ABOUT 
 VICTOR, WHO HAD MADE THE PRESBYTER FAUSTINUS 
 A GUARDIAN. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Since, against the decision of a council of bishops, 
 Geminius Victor had named in his will Geminius Faus- 
 tinus the presbyter as his guardian or curator, he forbids 
 that offering should be made for him, or that the sacrifice 
 should be celebrated for his repose, inferring by the way, 
 1 1 Tim. iv. 12. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. i.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 229 
 
 from the example of the Levitical tribe, that clerics ought 
 not to mix themselves up in secular cares. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters, and deacons, and people 
 abiding at Furni, greeting. I and my colleagues who were 
 present with me were greatly disturbed, dearest brethren, as 
 were also our fellow-presbyters who sate with us, when we 
 were made aware that Geminius Victor, our brother, when 
 departing this life, had named Geminius Faustinus the pres- 
 byter executor to his will, although lonsj since it was decreed, 
 
 v ' O O * 
 
 in a council of the bishops, that no one should appoint any 
 of the clergy and the ministers of God executor or guardian 1 
 by his will, since every one honoured by the divine priest- 
 hood, and ordained in the clerical service, ought to serve only 
 the altar and sacrifices, and to have leisure for prayers and 
 supplications. For it is written : " No man that warreth for 
 God entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he 
 may please Him to whom he has pledged himself."* As this 
 is said of all men, how much rather ought those not to be 
 bound by M r orldly anxieties and involvements, who, being- 
 busied with divine and spiritual things, are not able to withdraw 
 from the church, and to have leisure for earthly and secular 
 doings ! The form of which ordination and engagement 
 the Levites formerly observed under the law, so that when 
 the eleven tribes divided the land and shared the possessions, 
 the Levitical tribe, which was left free for the temple and the 
 altar, and for the divine ministries, received nothing from that 
 portion of the division ; but while others cultivated the soil, 
 that portion only cultivated the favour of God, and received 
 the tithes from the eleven tribes, for their food and main- 
 tenance, from the fruits which grew. All which was done 
 by divine authority and arrangement, so that they who waited 
 on divine services might in no respect be called away, nor be 
 compelled to consider or to transact secular business. Which 
 plan and rule is now maintained in respect of the clergy, 
 
 1 The Oxford translator notes here that the Roman law did not permit 
 this office to be declined. 
 
 2 2 Tim. ii. 4.
 
 230 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 that they who are promoted by clerical ordination in the 
 church of the Lord may be called off in no respect from the 
 divine administration, nor be tied down by worldly anxieties 
 and matters ; but in the honour of the brethren who con- 
 tribute, receiving as it were tenths of the fruits, they may not 
 withdraw from the altars and sacrifices, but may serve day 
 and night in heavenly and spiritual things. 
 
 2. The bishops our predecessors religiously considering this, 
 and wholesomely providing for it, decided that no brother 
 departing should name a cleric for executor or guardian ; and 
 if any one should do this, no offering should be made for him, 
 nor any sacrifice be celebrated for his repose. 1 For he does 
 not deserve to be named at the altar of God in the prayer of 
 the priests, who has wished to call away the priests and 
 ministers from the altar. And therefore, since Victor, con- 
 trary to the rule lately made in council by the priests, has 
 dared to appoint Geminius Faustinus, a presbyter, his execu- 
 tor, it is not allowed that any offering be made by you for his 
 repose, nor any prayer be made in the church in his name, 
 that so the decree of the priests, religiously and needfully 
 made, may be kept by us ; and, at the same time, an example 
 be given to the rest of the brethren, that no one should call 
 away to secular anxieties the priests and ministers of God 
 who are occupied with the service of His altar and church. 
 For care will probably be taken in time to come that this 
 happen not with respect to the person of clerics any more, if 
 what has now been done has been punished. I bid you, 
 dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 1 " Pro dormitione ejus." Goldhorn observes here, rather needlessly, 
 that it was unlucky among the ancient Christians to speak of death.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 231 
 
 EPISTLE LXVI. 1 
 
 TO POPE STEPHANUS, CONCERNING MARCIANUS OF ARLES, 
 WHO HAD JOINED HIMSELF TO NOVATIAN. 
 
 AEGUMENT. As Marcianus, Bishop of Aries, when he fol- 
 lowed the sect of Novatian, had seduced many, and by his 
 schism had separated himself from the communion of the 
 rest of the bishops, Cyprian warns Stephanus, the chief 
 pontiff, that by virtue of his authority he should in his 
 absence appoint another in his place; and that so peace 
 might be granted, as well to the lapsed as to those seduced 
 by him, upon their repentance, and a return to the church 
 conceded to them. 
 
 1. Cyprian to his brother Stephen, greeting. Faustinus 
 our colleague, abiding at Lyons, has once and again written 
 to me, dearest brother, informing me of those things which 
 also I certainly know to have been told to you, as well by him 
 as by others our fellow-bishops established in the same pro- 
 vince, that Marcianus, who abides at Aries, has associated 
 himself with Novatian, and has departed from the unity of 
 the catholic church, and from the agreement of our body and 
 priesthood, holding that most extreme depravity of heretical 
 presumption, that the comforts and aids of divine love and 
 paternal tenderness are closed to the servants of God who 
 repent, and mourn, and knock at the gate of the church with 
 tears, and groans, and grief ; and that those who are wounded 
 are not admitted for the soothing of their wounds, but that, 
 forsaken without hope of peace and communion, they must 
 be thrown to become the prey of wolves and the booty of the 
 devil ; which matter, dearest brother, it is our business to 
 advise for and to aid in, since we who consider the divine 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixviii. This epistle does not appear in many uss., 
 and its genuineness has been therefore doubted. But the style points to 
 Cyprian as its author, and the documents where it is found are among 
 the oldest, one the most ancient of all.
 
 232 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 clemency, and hold the balance in governing the church, da 
 thus exhibit the rebuke of vigour to sinners in such a way as 
 that, nevertheless, we do not refuse the medicine of divine 
 goodness and mercy in raising the lapsed and healing the 
 wounded. 
 
 2. Wherefore it behoves you to write a very copious letter 
 to our fellow-bishops appointed in Gaul, not to suffer any 
 longer that Marcian, froward and haughty, and hostile to 
 the divine mercy and to the salvation of the brotherhood, 
 should insult our assembly, because he does not yet seem to 
 be excommunicated by us ; in that he now for a long time 
 boasts and announces that, adhering to Novatian, and follow- 
 ing his frowardness, he has separated himself from our com- 
 munion ; although Novatian himself, whom he follows, has 
 formerly been excommunicated, and judged an enemy to the 
 church; and when he sent ambassadors to us into Africa, 
 asking to be received into our communion, he received back 
 word from a council of several priests who were here present, 
 that lie himself had excluded himself, and could not by any 
 of us be received into communion, as he had attempted to 
 erect a profane altar, and to set up an adulterous throne, and 
 to offer sacrilegious sacrifices opposed to the true priest ; 
 while the Bishop Cornelius was ordained in the catholic 
 church by the judgment of God, and by the suffrages of the 
 clergy and people. Therefore, if he were willing to return 
 to a right mind, and to come to himself, he should repent 
 and return to the church as a suppliant. How vain it is, 
 dearest brother, when Novatian has lately been repulsed and 
 rejected, and excommunicated by God's priests throughout 
 the whole world, for us still to suffer his flatterers now to 
 jest with us, and to judge of the majesty and dignity of the 
 church ! 
 
 3. Let letters be directed by you into the province and 
 to the people abiding at Aries, by which, Marcian being 
 excommunicated, another may be substituted in his place, 
 and Christ's flock, which even to this day is contemned as 
 scattered and wounded by him, may be gathered together. 
 Let it suffice that many of our brethren have departed in
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 233 
 
 these late years in those parts without peace ; and certainly 
 let the rest who remain be helped, who groan both day and 
 night, and beseeching the divine and fatherly mercy, entreat 
 the comfort of our succour. For, for that reason, dearest bro- 
 ther, the body of priests is abundantly large, joined together 
 by the bond of mutual concord, and the link of unity ; so that 
 if any one of our college should try to originate heresy, and 
 to lacerate and lay waste Christ's flock, others may help, and 
 as it were, as useful and merciful shepherds, gather together 
 the Lord's sheep into the flock. For what if any harbour in 
 the sea shall begin to be mischievous and dangerous to ships, 
 by the breach of its defences ; do not the navigators direct 
 their ships to other neighbouring ports where there is a safe 1 
 and practicable entrance, and a secure station ? Or if, on 
 the road, any inn should begin to be beset and occupied by 
 robbers, so that whoever should enter would be caught bv 
 
 O / 
 
 the attack of those who lie in wait there ; do not the 
 travellers, as soon as this its character is discovered, seek 
 other houses of entertainment on the road, which shall be 
 safer, where the lodging is trustworthy, and the inns safe 
 for the travellers ? And this ought now to be the case with 
 us, dearest brother, that we should receive to us with ready 
 and kindly humanity our brethren, who, tossed on the rocks 
 of Marcian, 2 are seeking the secure harbours of the church ; 
 and that we afford such a place of entertainment for the 
 travellers as is that in the Gospel, in which those who are 
 wounded and maimed by robbers may be received and 
 cherished, and protected by the host. 
 
 4. For what is a greater or a more worthy care of over- 
 seers, than to provide by diligent solicitude and wholesome 
 medicine for cherishing arid preserving the sheep ? since the 
 Lord speaks, and says, "The diseased have ye not strengthened, 
 neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye 
 bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought 
 again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought 
 
 1 Suppl. "access," according to Baluzius? 
 
 2 Some old editions read, " who, having avoided the rocks of 
 Marcian."
 
 234 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 that which was lost. And my sheep were scattered because 
 there is no shepherd ; and they became meat to all the beasts 
 of the field, and none did search or seek after them. There- 
 fore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I am against the shepherds, 
 and I will require my flock at their hands, and cause them to 
 cease from feeding the flock ; neither shall they feed them 
 any more : for I will deliver them from their mouth, and I 
 will feed them with judgment." l Since therefore the Lord 
 thus threatens such shepherds by whom the Lord's sheep 
 are neglected and perish, what else ought we to do, dearest 
 brother, than to exhibit full diligence in gathering together 
 and restoring the sheep of Christ, and to apply the medicine 
 of paternal affection to cure the wounds of the lapsed, since 
 the Lord also in the Gospel warns, and says, " They that be 
 whole need not a physician, but they that are sick ? " For 
 although we are many shepherds, yet we feed one flock, and 
 ought to collect and cherish all the sheep which Christ by 
 His blood and passion sought for; nor ought we to suffer 
 our suppliant and mourning brethren to be cruelly despised 
 and trodden down by the haughty presumption of some, since 
 it is written, " But the man that is proud and boastful shall 
 bring nothing at all to perfection, who has enlarged his soul 
 as hell." 3 And the Lord, in his Gospel, blames and con- 
 demns men of that kind, saying, " Ye are they which justify 
 yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts ; for 
 that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in 
 the sight of God." 4 He says that those are execrable and 
 detestable who please themselves, who, swelling and inflated, 
 arrogantly assume anything to themselves. Since then 
 Marcian has begun to be of these, and allying himself with 
 Novatian, has stood forth as the opponent of mercy and 
 love, let him not pronounce sentence, but receive it ; and let 
 him not so act as if he himself were to judge of the college 
 of priests, since he himself is judged by all the priests. 
 
 5. For the glorious honour of our predecessors, the blessed 
 martyrs Cornelius and Lucius, must be maintained, whose 
 
 1 Ezek. xxxiv. 4-6, 10, 16. 2 Matt. ix. 12. 
 
 Hab. ii. 5. * Luke xvi. 15.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 235 
 
 memory as we hold in honour, much more ought you, 
 dearest brother, to honour and cherish with your weight 
 and authority, since you have become their vicar and suc- 
 cessor. For they, full of the Spirit of God, and established 
 in a glorious martyrdom, judged that peace should be granted 
 to the lapsed, and that when penitence was undergone, the 
 reward of peace and communion was not to be denied ; and 
 this they attested by their letters, and we all everywhere and 
 entirely have judged the same thing. For there could not be 
 among us a diverse feeling in whom there was one spirit ; and 
 therefore it is manifest that he does not hold the truth of the 
 Holy Spirit with the rest, whom we observe to think dif- 
 ferently. Intimate plainly to us who has been substituted at 
 Aries in the place of Marcian, that we may know to whom 
 to direct our brethren, and to whom we ought to write. I 
 bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXVII. 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE ABIDING IN SPAIN, 
 CONCERNING BASILIDES AND MARTIAL. 
 
 AKGUMENT. Basilides and Martial, bishops, having lapsed and 
 become contaminated by the certificates of idolatry, Cyprian 
 with his fellow-bishops praises the clergy and people of 
 Spain that they had substituted in their place by a legitimate 
 election Sabinus and Felix ; especially as, according to the 
 decree of Cornelius, lapsed bishops might indeed be received 
 to repentance, but were prohibited from the priestly honour, 
 Moreover, he alludes by the ivay to certain matters about the 
 ancient rite of episcopal election. The context indicates 
 that this was written during the primacy of Stephen. 
 
 1. Cyprian, Caecilius, Primus, Polycarp, Nicomedes, Lu- 
 
 cilianus, Successus, Sedatus, Fortunatus, Januarius, Secun- 
 
 dinus, Pomponius, Honoratus, Victor, Aurelius, Sattius, 
 
 Petrus, another Januarius, Saturninus, another Aurelius, 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixvii.
 
 236 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Venantius, Quietus, Rogatianus, Tenax, Felix, Faustinas, 
 Quintus, another Saturninus, Lucius, Vincentius, Libosus, 
 Geminius, . Marcellus, Iambus, Adelphius, Victorious, and 
 Paulus, to Felix the presbyter, and to the peoples abiding 
 at Legio 1 and Asturica, 2 also to Lselius the deacon, and 
 the people abiding at Emerita, 3 brethren in the Lord, 
 greeting. When we had come together, dearly beloved 
 brethren, we read your letters, which according to the in- 
 tegrity of your faith and your fear of God you wrote to us 
 by Felix and Sabinus our fellow-bishops, signifying that 
 Basilides and Martial, being stained with the certificates of 
 idolatry, and bound with the consciousness of wicked crimes, 
 ought not to hold the episcopate and administer the priest- 
 hood of God ; and you desired an answer to be written to 
 you again concerning these things, and your solicitude, no 
 less just than needful, to be relieved either by the comfort 
 or by the help of our judgment. Nevertheless to this your 
 desire not so much our counsels as the divine precepts reply, 
 in which it is long since bidden by the voice of Heaven and 
 prescribed by the law of God, who and what sort of persons 
 ought to serve the altar and to celebrate the divine sacrifices. 
 For in Exodus God speaks to Moses, and warns him, saying, 
 " Let the priests which come near to the Lord God sanctify 
 themselves, lest the Lord forsake them." 4 And again : 
 "And when they come near to the altar of the Holy One to 
 minister, they shall not bring sin upon them, lest they die." 5 
 Also in Leviticus the Lord commands, and says, " Whoso- 
 ever hath any spot or blemish upon him, shall not approach to 
 offer gifts to God." c 
 
 2. Since these things are announced and are made plain to 
 us, it is necessary that our obedience should wait upon the 
 divine precepts ; nor in matters of this kind can human indul- 
 gence accept any man's person, or yield anything to any one, 
 when the divine prescription has interfered, and establishes 
 a law. For we ought not to be forgetful what the Lord 
 spoke to the Jews by Isaiah the prophet, rebuking, and 
 
 1 Leon. - Astorga. 3 Merida. 
 
 4 Ex. xix. 22. e Ex. xxviii. 43. c Lev. xxi. 17.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 237 
 
 indignant that they had despised the divine precepts and fol- 
 lowed human doctrines. " This people," he says, " honoureth 
 me with their lips, but their heart is widely removed from 
 me ; but in vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrines 
 and commandments of men." This also the Lord re- 
 peats in the Gospel, and says, " Ye reject the command- 
 ment of God, that ye may establish your own tradition."" 
 Having which things before our eyes, and solicitously and 
 religiously considering them, we ought in the ordinations of 
 priests to choose none but unstained and upright ministers, 3 
 who, holily and worthily offering sacrifices to God, may be 
 heard in the prayers which they make for the safety of the 
 Lord's people, since it is written, " God heareth not a sinner; 
 but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, 
 him He heareth." 4 On which account it is fitting, that with 
 full diligence and sincere investigation those should be chosen 
 for God's priesthood whom it is manifest God will hear. 
 
 3. Nor let the people flatter themselves that they can be 
 free from the contagion of sin, while communicating with a 
 priest who is a sinner, and yielding their consent to the 
 unjust and unlawful episcopacy of their overseer, when the 
 divine reproof by Hosea the prophet threatens, and says, 
 " Their sacrifices shall be as the bread of mournine; ; all 
 
 O ' 
 
 that eat thereof shall be polluted;"" teaching manifestly 
 and showing that all are absolutely bound to the sin who 
 have been contaminated by the sacrifice of a profane and 
 unrighteous priest ; which, moreover, we find to be mani- 
 fested also in Numbers, when Korah, and Dathan, and 
 Abiram claimed for themselves the power of sacrificing in 
 opposition to Aaron the priest. There also the Lord com- 
 manded by Moses that the people should be separated from 
 them, lest, being associated with the wicked, themselves also 
 should be bound closely in the same wickedness. " Separate 
 yourselves," said He, " from the tents of these wicked and 
 hardened men, and touch not those things which belong to 
 them, lest ye perish together in their sins." On which 
 
 1 Isa. xxix. 13. 2 Mark vii. 13. 3 " Antistites." 
 
 4 John ix. 31. 5 Hos. ix. 4. 6 Xum. xvi. 26.
 
 238 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 account a people obedient to the Lord's precepts, and fearing 
 God, ought to separate themselves from a sinful prelate, and 
 not to associate themselves with the sacrifices of a sacrilegious 
 priest, especially since they themselves have the power either 
 of choosing worthy priests, or of rejecting unworthy ones. 
 
 4. Which very thing, too, we observe to come from divine 
 authority, that the priest should be chosen in the presence of 
 the people under the eyes of all, and should be approved 
 worthy and suitable by public judgment and testimony; as in 
 the book of Numbers the Lord commanded Moses, saying, 
 " Take Aaron thy brother, and Eleazar his son, and place 
 them in the mount, in the presence of all the assembly, and 
 strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his 
 son ; and let Aaron die there, and be added to his people." l 
 God commands a priest to be appointed in the presence of all 
 the assembly ; that is, He instructs and shows that the ordi- 
 nation of priests ought not to be solemnized except with the 
 knowledge of the people standing near, that in the presence 
 of the people either the crimes of the wicked may be disclosed, 
 or the merits of the good may be declared, and the ordination, 
 which shall have been examined by the suffrage and judg- 
 ment of all, may be just and legitimate. And this is subse- 
 quently observed, according to divine instruction, in the Acts 
 of the Apostles, when Peter speaks to the people of ordaining 
 an apostle in the place of Judas. " Peter," it says, " stood 
 up in the midst of the disciples, and the multitude were in one 
 place." 2 Neither do we observe that this was regarded by 
 the apostles only in the ordinations of bishops and priests, but 
 also in those of deacons, of which matter itself also it is 
 written in their Acts : " And they twelve called together," 
 it says, "the whole congregation of the disciples, and said 
 to them ;" 3 which was done so diligently and carefully, with 
 the calling together of the whole of the people, surely for this 
 
 1 Num. xx. 25, 26. 
 
 2 Acts i. 15. From some authorities, Baluzius here interpolates, " the 
 number of men was about a hundred and twenty." But this, says a 
 modern editor, smacks of "emendation." 
 
 3 Acts vi. 2.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 239 
 
 reason, that no unworthy person might creep into the mini- 
 stry of the altar, or to the office of a priest. For that un- 
 worthy persons are sometimes ordained, not according to the 
 will of God, but according to human presumption, and that 
 those things which do not come of a legitimate and righteous 
 ordination are displeasing to God, God Himself manifests 
 by Hosea the prophet, saying, " They have set up for them- 
 selves a king, but not by me." 1 
 
 5. For which reason you must diligently observe and keep 
 the practice delivered from divine tradition and apostolic 
 observance, which is also maintained among us, and almost 
 throughout all the provinces; that for the proper celebration of 
 ordinations all the neighbouring bishops of the same province 
 should assemble with that people for which aprelate is ordained; 
 and the bishop should be chosen in the presence of the people, 
 who have most fully known the life of each one, and have 
 looked into the doings of each one as respects his habitual 
 conduct. And this also, we see, was done by you in the ordina- 
 tion of our colleague Sabinus ; so that, by the suffrage of the 
 whole brotherhood, and by the sentence of the bishops who 
 had assembled in their presence, and who had written letters to 
 you concerning him, the episcopate was conferred upon him, 
 and hands were imposed on him in the place of Basilides. 
 Neither can it rescind an ordination rightly perfected, that 
 Basilides, after the detection of his crimes, and the baring of 
 his conscience even by his own confession, went to Rome and 
 deceived Stephen our colleague, placed at a distance, and 
 ignorant of what had been done, and of the truth, to canvass 
 that he might be replaced unjustly in the episcopate from 
 which he had been righteously deposed. The result of this 
 is, that the sins of Basilides are not so much abolished as 
 enhanced, inasmuch as to his former sins he has also added 
 the crime of deceit and circumvention. For he is not so much 
 to be blamed who has been through heedlessness surprised by 
 fraud, as he is to be execrated who has fraudulently taken him 
 by surprise. But if Basilides could deceive men, he cannot 
 deceive God, since it is written, " God is not mocked." 2 But 
 1 Hos. viii. 4. 2 Gal. vi. 7.
 
 240 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 neither can deceit advantage Martialis, in such a way as that 
 lie who also is involved in great crimes should hold his 
 bishopric, since the apostle also warns, and says, " A bishop 
 must be blameless, as the steward of God." 1 
 
 6. Wherefore, since as ye have written, dearly beloved 
 brethren, and as Felix and Sabinus our colleagues affirm, 
 and as another Felix of Ca3sar Augusta, 2 a maintainer of 
 the faith and a defender of the truth, signifies in his letter, 
 Basilides and Martialis have been contaminated by the 
 abominable certificate of idolatry ; and Basilides, moreover, 
 besides the stain of the certificate, when he was prostrate in 
 sickness, blasphemed against God, and confessed that he blas- 
 phemed ; and because of the wound to his own conscience, 
 voluntarily laying down his episcopate, turned himself to re- 
 pentance, entreating God, and considering himself sufficiently 
 happy if it might be permitted him to communicate even as 
 a layman : Martialis also, besides the long frequenting of the 
 disgraceful and filthy banquets of the Gentiles in their 
 college, and placing his sons in the same college, after the 
 manner of foreign nations, among profane sepulchres, and 
 burying them together with strangers, has also affirmed, by 
 acts which are publicly taken before a ducenarian procurator," 
 that he had yielded himself to idolatry, and had denied Christ ; 
 and as there are many other and grave crimes in which Ba- 
 silides and Martialis are held to be implicated ; such persons 
 attempt to claim for themselves the episcopate in vain ; since 
 it is evident that men of that kind may neither rule over the 
 church of Christ, nor ought to offer sacrifices to God, espe- 
 cially since Cornelius also, our colleague, a peaceable and 
 righteous priest, and moreover honoured by the condescension 
 of the Lord with martyrdom, has long ago decreed with us, 
 and with all the bishops appointed throughout the whole 
 world, that men of this sort might indeed be admitted to 
 repentance, but were prohibited from the ordination of the 
 clergy, and from the priestly honour. 
 
 7. Nor let it disturb you, dearest brethren, if with some, 
 
 1 Tit. i. 7. 2 " Saragossa." 
 
 3 A collector of taxes, so called from the amount of his salary.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 241 
 
 in these last times, either an uncertain faith is wavering, or 
 a fear of God without religion is vacillating, or a peaceable 
 concord does not continue. These things have been foretold 
 as about to happen in the end of the world ; and it was pre- 
 dicted by the voice of the Lord, and by the testimony of the 
 apostles, that now that the world is failing, and the Antichrist 
 is drawing near, everything good shall fail, but evil and ad- 
 verse things shall prosper. 
 
 8. Yet although, in these last times, evangelic vigour has 
 not so failed in the church of God, nor the strength of Chris- 
 tian virtue or faith so languished, that there is not left a 
 portion of the priests which in no respect gives way under 
 these ruins of things and wrecks of faith ; but, bold and sted- 
 fast, they maintain the honour of the divine majesty and the 
 priestly dignity, with full observance of fear. We remember 
 and keep in view that, although others succumbed and yielded, 
 Mattathias boldly vindicated God's law ; that Elias, when the 
 Jews gave way and departed from the divine religion, stood and 
 nobly contended ; that Daniel, deterred neither by the loneli- 
 ness of a foreign country nor by the harassment of continual 
 persecution, frequently and gloriously suffered martyrdoms ; 
 also that the three youths, subdued neither by their tender 
 years 1 nor by threats, stood up faithfully against the Baby- 
 lonian fires, and conquered the victor king even in their very 
 captivity itself. Let the number either of prevaricators or 
 of traitors see to it, who have now begun to rise in the church 
 against the church, and to corrupt as well the faith as the 
 truth. Among very many there still remains a sincere mind 
 and a substantial religion, and a spirit devoted to nothing but 
 the Lord and its God. Nor does the perfidy of others press 
 down the Christian faith into ruin, but rather stimulates and 
 exalts it to glory, according to what the blessed Apostle Paul 
 exhorts, and says : " For what if some of these have fallen 
 from their faith : hath their unbelief made the faith of God 
 of none effect ? God forbid. For God is true, but every 
 man a liar." 2 But if every man is a liar, and God only true, 
 
 1 Some read, " by the furnaces ;" some " by arms." 
 
 2 Rom. iii. 3, 4. 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 what else ought we, the servants, and especially the priests, 
 of God, to do, than forsake human errors and lies, and con- 
 tinue in the truth of God, keeping the Lord's precepts ? 
 
 9. Wherefore, although there have been found some among 
 our colleagues, dearest brethren, who think that the godly 
 discipline may be neglected, and who rashly hold communion 
 w T ith Basilides and Martialis, such a thing as this ought not 
 to trouble our faith, since the Holy Spirit threatens such 
 in the Psalms, saying, "But thou hatest instruction, and 
 castedst my words behind thee : when thou sawest a thief, 
 thou consentedst unto him, and hast been partaker with adul- 
 terers." l He shows that they become sharers and partakers 
 of other men's sins who are associated with the delinquents. 
 And besides, Paul the apostle writes, and says the same 
 thing : " Whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, injurious, 
 proud, boasters of themselves, inventors of evil things, who, 
 although they knew the judgment of God, did not under- 
 stand that they which commit such things are worthy of 
 death, not only they which commit those things, but they 
 also which consent unto those who do these things." 2 Since 
 they, says he, who do such things are worthy of death, he 
 makes manifest and proves that not only they are worthy 
 of death, and come into punishment who do evil things, but 
 also those who consent unto those who do such things who, 
 while they are mingled in unlawful communion with the evil 
 and sinners, and the unrepenting, are polluted by the contact 
 of the guilty, and being joined in the fault, are thus not 
 separated in its penalty. For which reason we not only 
 approve, but applaud, dearly beloved brethren, the religious 
 solicitude of your integrity and faith, and exhort you as 
 much as we can by our letters, not to mingle in sacrilegious 
 communion with profane and polluted priests, but maintain 
 the sound and sincere constancy of your faith with religious 
 fear. I bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell. 
 1 Ps. 1. 17, 18. 2 Rom. i. 30-32.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 243 
 
 EPISTLE LXVIII. 1 
 TO FLORENTIUS PUPIANUS, ON CALUMNJATOES. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian clears himself in the eyes of Florentius 
 Pupianus from various crimes of which he is accused by 
 him ; and argues the lightness of his mind) in that he 
 has so hastily trusted calumniators. From his saying, 
 moreover, that he has now discharged his episcopal office 
 for six years, it is plainly evident that he is writing this 
 letter under Pope Stephen. 
 
 1. Cyprian, who is also called Thascius, 2 to Florentius, who 
 is also Pupianus, his brother, greeting. I had believed, 
 brother, that you were now at length turned to repent- 
 ance for having either rashly heard or believed in time past 
 things so wicked, so disgraceful, so execrable even among 
 Gentiles, concerning me. But even now in your letter I 
 perceive that you are still the same as you were before 
 that you believe the same things concerning me, and that 
 you persist in what you did believe, and, lest by chance the 
 dignity of your eminence and your martyrdom should be 
 stained by communion with me, that you are inquiring care- 
 fully into my character ; and after God the Judge who 
 makes priests, that you wish to judge I will not say of me, 
 for what am I ? but of the judgment of God and of Christ. 
 This is not to believe in God this is to stand forth as a 
 rebel against Christ and His gospel; so that although He 
 says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing 1 ? and neither 
 of them falls to the ground without the will of my Father,"* 
 and His majesty and truth prove that even things of little 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixvi. 
 
 2 It is suggested with some probability, that this form of superscription 
 was intended to rebuke the rudeness of Florentius, who, in addressing 
 Cyprian, had used his heathen name of Thascius instead of his assumed 
 name of Csecilius, which he had adopted from the presbyter who had 
 been the means of his conversion. 
 
 a Matt. x. 29.
 
 244 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 consequence are not done without the consciousness and per- 
 mission of God, you think that God's priests are ordained 
 in the church without His knowledge. For to believe that 
 they who are ordained are unworthy and unchaste, what else 
 is it than to believe that his priests are not appointed in the 
 church by God, nor through God ? 
 
 2. Think you that my testimony of myself is better than 
 that of God ? when the Lord Himself teaches, and says that 
 testimony is not true, if any one himself appears as a witness 
 concerning himself, for the reason that every one would 
 assuredly favour himself, nor would any one put forward mis- 
 chievous and adverse things against himself ; but there may 
 be a simple confidence of truth if, in what is announced of 
 us, another is the announcer and witness. " If," He says, 
 "I bear witness of myself, my testimony is not true; but 
 there is another who beareth witness of me." 1 But if the 
 Lord Himself, who will by and by judge all things, was un- 
 willing to be believed on His own testimony, but preferred 
 to be approved by the judgment and testimony of God the 
 Father, how much more does it behove His servants to observe 
 this, who are not only approved by, but even glory in the judg- 
 ment and testimony of God ! But with you the fabrication 
 of hostile and malignant men has prevailed against the divine 
 decree, and against our conscience resting upon the strength 
 of its faith, as if among lapsed and profane persons placed 
 outside the church, from whose breasts the Holy Spirit has 
 departed, there could be anything else than a depraved mind 
 and a deceitful tongue, and venomous hatred, and sacrilegious 
 lies, which whosoever believes, must of necessity be found 
 with them when the day of judgment shall come. 
 
 3. But with respect to what you have said, that priests 
 should be lowly, because both the Lord and His apostles 
 were lowly ; both all the brethren and Gentiles also well know 
 and love my humility ; and you also knew and loved it while 
 you were still in the church, and were in communion with 
 me. But which of us is far from humility: I, who daily 
 serve the brethren, and kindly receive with good-will and 
 
 1 John v. 31, 32.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 245 
 
 gladness every one that comes to the church; or you, who 
 appoint yourself bishop of a bishop, and judge of a judge, 
 given for the time by God ? Although the Lord God says 
 in Deuteronomy, "And the man that will do presumptuously, 
 and will not hearken unto the priests or unto the judge who 
 shall be in those days, even that man shall die ; and all the 
 people, when they hear, shall fear, and do no more presump- 
 tuously." l And again He speaks to Samuel, and says, " They 
 have not despised thee, but they have despised me." 2 And 
 moreover the Lord, in the Gospel, when it was said to Him, 
 " Answerest thou the high priest so?" guarding the priestly 
 dignity, and teaching that it ought to be maintained, would 
 say nothing against the high priest, but only clearing His 
 own innocence, answered, saying, " If I have spoken evil, 
 bear witness of the evil ; but if well, why smitest thou me ? " ! 
 The blessed apostle also, when it was said to him, " Eevilest 
 thou God's high priest?" spoke nothing reproachfully against 
 the priest, when he might have lifted up himself boldly against 
 those who had crucified the Lord, and who had already 
 sacrificed God and Christ, and the temple and the priest- 
 hood ; but even although in false and degraded priests, con- 
 sidering still the mere empty shadow of the priestly name, he 
 said, " I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest : for 
 it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy 
 people." 4 
 
 4. Unless perchance I was a priest to you before the perse- 
 cution, when you held communion with me, and ceased to 
 be a priest after the persecution ! For the persecution, when 
 it came, lifted you to the highest sublimity of martyrdom. 
 But it depressed me with the burden of proscription, since it 
 was publicly declared, " If any one holds or possesses any of 
 the property of Ceecilius Cyprian, bishop of the Christians ;" 
 so that even they who did not believe in God appointing a 
 bishop, could still believe in the devil proscribing a bishop. 
 Nor do I boast of these things, but with grief I bring them 
 forward, since you constitute yourself a judge of God and of 
 
 1 Deut. xvii. 12, 13. 2 1 Sam. viii. 7. 
 
 3 John xviii. 23. * Acts xxiii. 4, 5.
 
 246 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Christ, who says to the apostles, and thereby to all chief 
 rulers, who by vicarious ordination succeed to the apostles : 
 " He that heareth you, heareth me ; and he that heareth me, 
 heareth Him that sent me ; and he that despiseth you, dc- 
 spiseth me, and Him that sent. me." 1 
 
 5. For from this have arisen schisms and heresies, and 
 still arise, in that the bishop who is one and rules over the 
 church is contemned by the haughty presumption of some 
 persons ; and the man, who is honoured by God's condescen- 
 sion, is judged unworthy by men. For what swelling of 
 pride is this, what arrogance of soul, what inflation of mind, 
 to call prelates and priests to one's own recognition, and 
 unless I may be declared clear in your sight and absolved by 
 your judgment, behold now for six years the brotherhood 
 has neither had a bishop, nor the people a prelate, nor the 
 flock a pastor, nor the church a governor, nor Christ a repre- 
 sentative, 2 nor God a priest ! Pupianus must come to the 
 rescue, and give judgment, and declare the decision of God 
 and Christ accepted, that so great a number of the faithful 
 who have been summoned away [from the world] under my 
 rule, may not appear to have departed without hope of salva- 
 tion and of peace ; that the new crowd of believers may not 
 be considered to have failed of attaining any grace of baptism 
 and the Holy Spirit by my ministiy ; that the peace conferred 
 upon so many lapsed and penitent persons, and the communion 
 vouchsafed by my examination, may not be abrogated by the 
 authority of your judgment. Condescend for once, and deign 
 to pronounce concerning us, and to establish our episcopate by 
 the authority of your recognition, that God and His Christ 
 may thank you, in that by your means a representative and 
 ruler has been restored as well to their altar as to their people. 
 
 6. Bees have a king, and cattle a leader, and keep faith to 
 him. Robbers obey their chief with an obedience full of 
 humility. How much more simple and better than you are 
 the brute cattle and dumb animals, and robbers, although 
 bloody, and raging among swords and weapons ! The chief 
 among them is acknowledged and feared, whom no divine 
 
 1 Luke x. 16. 2 " Antistitem."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPPJAN. 247 
 
 judgment lias appointed, but on whom an abandoned faction 
 and a guilty band have agreed. 
 
 7. You say, indeed, that the scruple into which you have 
 fallen ought to be taken from your mind. You have fallen 
 into it, but it was by your irreligious credulity; you have 
 fallen into it, but it was by your own sacrilegious disposition 
 and will in easily hearkening to unchaste, to impious, to un- 
 speakable things against your brother, against a priest, and 
 in willingly believing them ; in defending other men's false- 
 hoods, as if they were your own and your private property ; 
 and in not remembering that it is written, "Hedge thine 
 ears with thorns, and hearken not to a wicked tongue;" 1 
 and again : " A wicked doer giveth heed to the tongue of 
 the unjust; but a righteous man regards not lying lips." 2 
 Wherefore have not the martyrs fallen into this scruple, full 
 of the Holy Ghost, and already by their passion near to the 
 presence of God and of His Christ ; martyrs who, from their 
 dungeon, directed letters to Cyprian the bishop, acknowledg- 
 ing the priest of God, and bearing witness to him ? Where- 
 fore have not so many bishops, my colleagues, fallen into this 
 scruple, who either, when they departed from the midst of 
 us, were proscribed, or being taken were cast into prison and 
 were in chains ; or who, sent away into exile, have gone by an 
 illustrious road to the Lord ; or who in some places, con- 
 demned to death, have received heavenly crowns from the 
 glorification of the Lord ? Wherefore have not they fallen 
 into this scruple, from among that people of ours which is 
 with us, and is by God's condescension committed to us so 
 many confessors who have been put to the question and tor- 
 tured, and glorious by the memory of illustrious wounds and 
 scars ; so many chaste virgins, so many praiseworthy widows ; 
 finally, all the churches throughout the whole world who are 
 associated with us in the bond of unity ? unless all these, who 
 are in communion with me, as you have written, are polluted 
 with the pollution of my lips, and have lost the hope of 
 eternal life by the contagion of my communion. Pupianus 
 nlone, sound, inviolate, holy, modest, who would not associate 
 
 1 Ecclus. xxviii. 24 (Vulg. 28). 2 Prov. xvii. 4, LXX.
 
 248 THE EPISTLES OF CYPPJAN. 
 
 himself with us, shall dwell alone in paradise and in the 
 kingdom of heaven. 
 
 8. You have written also, that on my account the church 
 has now a portion of herself in a state of dispersion, although 
 the whole people of the church are collected, and united, 
 and joined to itself in an undivided concord : they alone have 
 remained without, who even, if they had been within, would 
 have had to be cast out. Nor does the Lord, the protector 
 of His people, and their guardian, suffer the wheat to be 
 snatched from His floor ; but the chaff alone can be separated 
 from the church, since also the apostle says, " For what if 
 some of them have departed from the faith ? shall their un- 
 belief make the faith of God of none effect ? God forbid ; 
 for God is true, but every man a liar." 1 And the Lord also 
 in the Gospel, when disciples forsook Him as He spoke, 
 turning to the twelve, said, "Will ye also go away?" then 
 Peter answered Him, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou 
 hast the word of eternal life ; and we believe, and are sure, 
 that Thou art the Son of the living God." 2 Peter speaks 
 there, on whom the church was to be built, teaching and 
 showing in the name of the church, that although a rebellious 
 and arrogant multitude of those who will not hear and obey 
 may depart, yet the church does not depart from Christ ; arid 
 they are the church who are a people united to the priest, 
 and the flock which adheres to its pastor. Whence you 
 ought to know that the bishop is in the church, and the 
 church in the bishop ; and if any one be not with the bishop, 
 that he is not in the church, and that those flatter themselves 
 in vain who creep in, not having peace with God's priests, 
 and think that they communicate secretly with some ; while 
 the church, which is catholic and one, is not cut nor divided, 
 but is indeed connected and bound together by the cement 
 of priests who cohere with one another. 
 
 9. Wherefore, brother, if you consider God's majesty who 
 ordains priests, if you will for once have respect to Christ, 
 who by His decree and word, and by His presence, both 
 rules prelates themselves, and rules the church by prelates ; 
 
 1 Kom. iii. 3, 4. 2 John vi. 67-69.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 249 
 
 if you will trust, in respect of the innocence of bishops, not 
 human hatred, but the divine judgment; if you will begin 
 even a late repentance for your temerity, and pride, and in- 
 solence ; if you will most abundantly make satisfaction to 
 God and His Christ whom I serve, and to whom with pure 
 and unstained lips I ceaselessly offer sacrifices, not only in 
 peace, but in persecution ; we may have some ground for 
 communion with you, even although there still remains 
 among us respect and fear for the divine censure ; so that first 
 I should consult my Lord whether He would permit peace to 
 be granted to you, and you to be received to the communion 
 of His church by His own showing and admonition. 
 
 10. For I remember what has already been manifested to 
 me, nay, what has been .prescribed by the authority of our 
 Lord and God to an obedient and fearing- servant ; and 
 among other things which He condescended to show and to 
 reveal, He also added this : u Whoso therefore does not 
 believe Christ, who maketh the priest, shall hereafter begin 
 to believe Him who avengeth the priest." Although I know 
 that to some men dreams seem ridiculous and visions foolish, 
 yet assuredly it is to such as would rather believe in opposi- 
 tion to the priest, than believe the priest. But it is no 
 wonder, since his brethren said of Joseph, " Behold, this 
 dreamer cometh ; come now therefore, let us slay him." 1 And 
 afterwards the dreamer attained to what he had dreamed; 
 and his slayers and sellers were put to confusion, so that they, 
 who at first did not believe the words, afterwards believed 
 the deeds. But of those things that you have done, either 
 in persecution or in peace, it is foolish for me to pretend to 
 judge you, since you rather appoint yourself a judge over us. 
 These things, of the pure conscience of my mind, and of my 
 confidence in my Lord and my God, I have written at length. 
 You have my letter, and I yours. In the day of judgment, 
 before the tribunal of Christ, both will be read. 
 1 Gen. xxxvii. 19, 20.
 
 250 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE LXIX. 1 
 
 TO JANUARIUS AND OTHER NUMIDIAN BISHOPS, ON 
 BAPTIZING HERETICS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The argument of this letter and tlie next is 
 found in a subsequent Epistle to Stephen (Ep. Ixxi.) : 
 " That ivhat heretics use is not baptism ; and that none 
 among them can receive benefit by the grace of Christ, who 
 oppose Christ; has been lately carefully expressed in a 
 letter ichich icas written on that subject to Quintus, our 
 colleague, established in Mauritania; as also in a letter 
 ichich our colleagues previously wrote to the bishops pre- 
 siding in Numidia ; of both of ichich letters I have sub- 
 joined copies" Moreover, mention is made of both letters 
 in the Epistle to Jubaianus, and in the one that follows 
 this. 
 
 1. Cyprian, Liberalis, Caldonius, Junius, Primus, Cacci- 
 lius, Polycarp, Nicomedes, Felix, Marrutius, Successus, 
 Lucianus, Honoratus, Fortunatus, Victor, Donatus, Lucius, 
 Herculanus, Pomponius, Demetrius, Quintus, Saturninus, 
 Januarius, Marcus, another Saturninus, another Donatus, 
 Rogatianus, Sedatus, Tertullus, Hortensianus, still another 
 Saturninus, Sattius, to their brethren Januarius, Saturninus, 
 Maximus, Victor, another Victor, Cassius, Proculus, Modi- 
 anus, Cittinus, Gargilius, Eutycianus, another Gargilius, 
 another Saturninus, Nemesianus, Nampulus, Antonianus, 
 Rogatianus, Honoratus, greeting. When we were together 
 in council, dearest brethren, we read your letter which you 
 wrote to us concerning those who seem to be baptized by 
 heretics and schismatics, (asking) whether, when they come 
 to the catholic church, which is one, 2 they ought to be bap- 
 tized. On which matter, although you yourselves hold there- 
 upon the truth and certainty of the catholic rule, yet since 
 you have thought that of our mutual love we ought to be 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixx. 2 "And true."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 251 
 
 consulted, we put forward our opinion, not as a new one, 
 but we join with you in equal agreement, in an opinion long 
 since decreed by our predecessors, and observed by us, judg- 
 ing, namely, and holding it for certain that no one can be 
 baptized abroad outside the church, since there is one baptism 
 appointed in the holy church ; and it is written in the words 
 of the Lord, " They have forsaken me, the fountain of living 
 waters, and hewed them out broken cisterns, which can hold 
 no water." 1 And again, sacred Scripture warns, and says, 
 " Keep thee from the strange water, and drink not from a 
 fountain of strange water." 13 It is required, then, that the 
 water should first be cleansed and sanctified by the priest, 
 that it may wash away by its baptism the sins of the man 
 who is baptized ; because the Lord says by Ezekiel the pro- 
 phet : " Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye 
 shall be cleansed from all your filthiness ; and from all your 
 idols will I cleanse you : a new heart also will I give you, 
 and a new spirit will I put within you." 3 But how can he 
 cleanse and sanctify the water who is himself unclean, and in 
 whom the Holy Spirit is not? since the Lord says in the 
 book of Numbers, " And whatsoever the unclean person 
 toucheth shall be unclean." 4 Or how can he who baptizes 
 give to another remission of sins, who himself, being outside 
 the church, cannot put away his own sins? 
 
 2. But, moreover, the very interrogation which is put in 
 baptism is a witness of the truth. For when we say, Dost 
 thou believe in eternal life and remission of sins through the 
 
 O 
 
 holy church ? we mean that remission of sins is not granted 
 except in the church, and that among heretics, where there 
 is no church, sins cannot be put away. Therefore they who 
 assert that heretics can baptize, must either change the inter- 
 rogation or maintain the truth ; unless indeed they attribute 
 a church also to those who, they contend, have baptism. It 
 is also necessary that he should be anointed who is baptized ; 
 so that, having received the chrism, that is, the anointing, 
 lie may be anointed of God, and have in him the grace of 
 
 1 Jer. ii. 13. 2 Prov. ix. 19 (LXX.). 
 
 8 Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26. 4 Num. xix. 2.
 
 252 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Christ. Further, it is the Eucharist whence the baptized 
 are anointed with the oil sanctified on the altar. 1 But he 
 cannot sanctify the creature of oil, who has neither an 
 altar nor a church; whence also there can be no spiritual 
 anointing among heretics, since it is manifest that the oil 
 cannot be sanctified nor the Eucharist celebrated at all among 
 them. But we ought to know and remember that it is 
 
 O 
 
 written, " Let not the oil of a sinner anoint my head," 2 which 
 the Holy Spirit before forewarned in the Psalms, lest any one 
 going out of the way and wandering from the path of truth 
 should be anointed by heretics and adversaries of Christ. 
 Besides, what prayer can a priest who is impious and a 
 sinner offer for a baptized person? since it is written, " God 
 heareth not a sinner ; but if any man be a worshipper of 
 God, and doeth His will, him He heareth." 3 Who, moreover, 
 can give what he himself has not ? or how can he discharge 
 spiritual functions who himself has lost the Holy Spirit? 
 And therefore he must be baptized and renewed who comes 
 untrained to the church, that he may be sanctified within by 
 those who are holy, since it is written, " Be ye holy, for I am 
 holy, saith the Lord." 4 So that he who has been seduced into 
 error, and baptized (tinctus) outside [of the church], should 
 lay aside even this very thing in the true and ecclesiastical 
 baptism, viz. that he a man coming to God, while he seeks 
 for a priest, fell by the deceit of error upon a profane one. 
 
 3. But it is to approve the baptism of heretics and schis- 
 matics, to admit that they have [truly] baptized. For 
 therein a part cannot be void, and part be valid. If one 
 could baptize, he could also give the Holy Spirit. But if he 
 cannot give the Holy Spirit, because he that is appointed 
 without is not endowed with the Holy Spirit, he cannot 
 baptize those who come ; since both baptism is one and the 
 Holy Spirit is one, and the church founded by Christ the 
 Lord upon Peter, by a source and principle of unity, is one 
 also. Hence it results, that since with them all things are 
 
 1 An authorized reading here is, " But further, the Eucharist and the 
 oil, whence the baptized axe anointed, are sanctified on the altar." 
 
 2 Ps. cxli. 5 (LXX.). 3 John ix. 31. 4 Lev. xix. 2.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 253 
 
 futile and false, nothing of tliat which they have done ought 
 to be approved by us. For what can be ratified and estab- 
 lished by God which is done by them whom the Lord calls 
 His enemies and adversaries? setting forth in His Gospel, 
 " He that is not with me is against me ; and he that gathereth 
 not with me, scattereth." 1 And the blessed Apostle John 
 also, keeping the commandments and precepts of the Lord, 
 has laid it down in his epistle, and said, " Ye have heard that 
 antichrist shall come : even now there are many antichrists ; 
 whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out 
 from us, but they were not of us ; for if they had been of us, 
 no doubt they would have continued with us." Whence we 
 also ought to gather and consider whether they who are the 
 Lord's adversaries, and are called antichrists, can give the 
 grace of Christ. Wherefore we who are with the Lord, and 
 maintain the unity of the Lord, and according to His con- 
 descension administer His priesthood in the church, ought to 
 repudiate and reject and regard as profane whatever His 
 adversaries and the antichrists do ; and to those who, coming 
 out of error and wickedness, acknowledge the true faith of 
 the one church, we should give the truth both of unity and 
 faith, by means of all the sacraments of divine grace. We 
 bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXX. 3 
 
 TO QUINTUS, CONCERNING THE BAPTISM OF HERETICS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. An answer is given to Quintus, a bishop in 
 Mauritania, who has asked advice concerning the baptism 
 of heretics. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Quintus his brother, greeting. Lucian, our 
 co-presbyter, has reported to me, dearest brother, that you 
 have wished me to declare to you what I think concerning 
 those who seem to have been baptized by heretics and schis- 
 
 1 Luke xi. 23. 2 1 John ii. 18, 19. 3 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixxi.
 
 254 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 matics ; of which matter, that you may know what several of us 
 fellow-bishops, with the brother presbyters who were present, 
 lately determined in council, I have sent you a copy of the 
 same epistle. For I know not by what presumption some of 
 our colleagues are led to think that they who have been dipped 
 by heretics ought not to be baptized when they come to u?, 
 for the reason that they say that there is one baptism ; [which 
 indeed is therefore one, because the church is one, and there 
 cannot be any baptism out of the church]. 1 For since there 
 cannot be two baptisms, if heretics truly baptize, they them- 
 selves have this baptism. And he who of his own authority 
 grants this advantage to them, yields and consents to them, 
 that the enemy and adversary of Christ should seem to have 
 the power of washing, and purifying, and sanctifying a man. 
 But we say that those who come thence are not rebap- 
 tized among us, but are baptized. For indeed they do not 
 receive anything there, where there is nothing ; but they come 
 to us, that here they may receive where there is both grace 
 and all truth, because both grace and truth are one. But 
 again some of our colleagues would rather give honour to 
 heretics than agree with us ; and while by the assertion of 
 one baptism they are unwilling to baptize those that come, 
 they thus either themselves make two baptisms in saying 
 that there is a baptism among heretics ; or certainly, which is 
 a matter of more importance, they strive to set before and 
 prefer the sordid and profane washing of heretics to the true 
 and only and legitimate baptism of the catholic church, not 
 considering that it is written, " He who is baptized by one 
 dead, what availeth his washing?" 1 Now it is manifest that 
 they who are not in the church of Christ are reckoned among 
 the dead ; and another cannot be made alive by him who 
 himself is not alive, since there is one church which, having 
 
 / / O 
 
 attained the grace of eternal life, both lives for ever and 
 quickens the people of God. 
 
 2. And they say that in this matter they follow ancient 
 
 1 Otherwise, " which doubtless is one in the catholic church ; and if 
 this church be one, baptism cannot exist outside the church." 
 
 2 Ecclus. xxxiv. 25.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 255 
 
 custom ; although among the ancients these were as yet the 
 first beginnings of heresy and schisms, so that those were 
 involved in them who departed from the church, having 
 first been baptized therein ; and these, therefore, when they 
 returned to the church and repented, it was not necessary to 
 baptize. Which also we observe in the present day, that it 
 is sufficient to lay hands for repentance upon those who are 
 known to have been baptized in the church, and have gone 
 over from us to the heretics, if, subsequently acknowledging 
 their sin and putting away their error, they return to the 
 truth and to their parent ; so that, because it had been a sheep, 
 the Shepherd may receive into His fold the estranged and 
 vagrant sheep. But if he who comes from the heretics has 
 not previously been baptized in the church, but comes as a 
 stranger and entirely profane, he must be baptized, that he 
 may become a sheep, because in the holy church is the 
 one water which makes sheep. And therefore, because there 
 can be nothing common to falsehood and truth, to darkness 
 and light, to death and immortality, to Antichrist and Christ, 
 we ought by all means to maintain the unity of the catholic 
 church, and not to give way to the enemies of faith and truth 
 in any respect. 
 
 3. Neither must we prescribe this from custom, but over- 
 come [opposite opinions] by reason. For neither did Peter, 
 whom first the Lord chose, and upon whom He built His 
 church, when Paul disputed with him afterwards about cir- 
 cumcision, claim anything to himself insolently, nor arrogantly 
 assume anything ; so as to say that he held the primacy, and 
 that he ought rather to be obeyed by novices and those lately 
 come ; nor did he despise Paul because he had previously 
 been a persecutor of the church, but admitted the counsel 
 of truth, and easily yielded to the lawful reason which Paul 
 asserted, furnishing thus an illustration to us both of concord 
 and of patience, that we should not obstinately love our own 
 opinions, but should rather adopt as our own those which at any 
 time are usefully and wholesomely suggested by our brethren 
 and colleagues, if they be true and lawful. Paul, moreover, 
 looking forward to this, and consulting faithfully for concord
 
 256 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 and peace, has laid down in his epistle this rule: "Moreover, let 
 the prophets speak two or three, and let the rest judge. But 
 if anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first 
 hold his peace." 1 In which place he has taught and shown 
 that many things are revealed to individuals for the better, 
 and that each one ought not obstinately to contend for that 
 which he had once imbibed and held ; but if anything has 
 appeared better and more useful, he should gladly embrace 
 it. For we are not overcome when better things are pre- 
 sented to us, but we are instructed, especially in those matters 
 which pertain to the unity of the church and the truth of our 
 hope and faith ; so that we, priests of God and prelates of His 
 church, by His condescension, should know that remission of 
 sins cannot be given save in the church, nor can the adver- 
 saries of Christ claim to themselves anything belonging to 
 His grace. 
 
 4. Which thing, indeed, Agrippinus also, a man of worthy 
 memory, with his other fellow-bishops, who at that time 
 governed the Lord's church in the province of Africa and 
 Numidia, decreed, and by the well-weighed examination of 
 the common council established : whose opinion, as being 
 both religious and lawful and salutary, and in harmony with 
 the catholic faith and church, we also have followed. And 
 that you may know what kind of letters we have written 
 on this subject, I have transmitted for our mutual love a 
 copy of them, as well for your own information as for that 
 of our fellow-bishops who are in those parts. I bid you, 
 dearest brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXI. 2 
 
 TO POPE STEPHEN, CONCERNING A COUNCIL. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian with his colleagues in a certain council 
 tells Stephen, the Roman pontiff, that it had been decreed 
 by them, both that those who returned from heresy into 
 1 1 Cor. xiv. 29, 30. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixxii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPEIAN. 257 
 
 the church should be baptized, and that bishops or priests 
 coming from the heretics should be received on no other 
 condition, than that they should communicate as lay people. 
 
 1. Cyprian and others, to Stephen their brother, greeting. 
 We have thought it necessary for the arranging of certain 
 matters, dearest brother, and for their investigation by the 
 examination of a common council, to gather together and to 
 hold a council, at which many priests were assembled at 
 once ; at which, moreover, many things were brought for- 
 ward and transacted. But the subject in regard to which 
 we had chiefly to write to you, and to confer with your 
 gravity and wisdom, is one that more especially pertains 
 both to the priestly authority and to the unity, as well as 
 the dignity, of the catholic church, arising as these do from 
 the ordination of the divine appointment ; to wit, that those 
 who have been dipped abroad outside the church, and have 
 been stained among heretics and schismatics with the taint 
 of profane water, when they come to us and to the church 
 which is one, ought to be baptized, for the reason that 
 it is a small matter to lay hands on them that they may 
 receive the Holy Ghost, unless they receive also the baptism 
 of the church. For then finally can they be fully sanctified, 
 and be the sons of God, if they be born of each sacrament; 1 
 since it is written, " Except a man be born again of water, 
 and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." 2 
 For we find also, in the Acts of the Apostles, that this is 
 maintained by the apostles, and kept in the truth of the 
 saving faith, so that when, in the house of Cornelius the 
 centurion, the Holy Ghost had descended upon the Gentiles 
 
 1 The sense of this passage has been doubted, but seems to be this : 
 The rite of confirmation, or the giving of the Holy Ghost, is of no 
 avail unless baptism have first been conferred. For only by being 
 born of each sacrament, scil. confirmation and baptism, can they be 
 fully sanctified and be born again ; since it is written, " Except a man 
 be born of water and of the Spirit" etc. ; which quotation is plainly 
 meant to convey, that the birth of water is by baptism, that of the Spirit 
 by confirmation. 
 
 2 John iii. 5.
 
 258 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 who were there, fervent in the warmth of their faith, and 
 believing in the Lord with their whole heart ; and when, 
 filled with the Spirit, they blessed God in divers tongues, still 
 none the less the blessed Apostle Peter, mindful of the divine 
 precept and the gospel, commanded that those same men 
 should be baptized who had already been filled with the Holy 
 Spirit, that nothing might seem to be neglected to the observ- 
 ance by the apostolic instruction in all things of the law of 
 the divine precept and gospel. But that that is not baptism 
 which the heretics use ; and that none of those who oppose 
 Christ can profit by the grace of Christ ; has lately been set 
 forth with care in the letter which was written on that sub- 
 ject to Quintus, our colleague, established in Mauritania ; as 
 also in a letter which our colleagues previously wrote to our 
 fellow-bishops presiding in Numidia, of both which letters I 
 have subjoined copies. 
 
 2. We add, however, and connect with what we have said, 
 dearest brother, with common consent and authority, that 
 if, again, any presbyters or deacons, who either have been 
 before ordained in the catholic church, and have subse- 
 quently stood forth as traitors and rebels against the church, 
 or who have been promoted among the heretics by a pro- 
 fane ordination by the hands of false bishops and anti- 
 christs contrary to the appointment of Christ, and have 
 attempted to offer, in opposition to the one and divine altar, 
 false and sacrilegious sacrifices without, that these also be 
 received when they return, on this condition, that they com- 
 municate as laymen, and hold it to be enough that they 
 should be received to peace, after having stood forth as 
 enemies of peace ; and that they ought not, on returning, to 
 retain those arms of ordination and honour with which they 
 rebelled against us. For it behoves priests and ministers, 
 who wait upon the altar and sacrifices, to be sound and stain- 
 less ; since the Lord God speaks in Leviticus, and says, " No 
 man that hath a stain or a blemish shall come nigh to offer 
 gifts to the Lord." 1 Moreover, in Exodus, He prescribes 
 this same thing, and says, " And let the priests which come 
 
 1 Lev. xxi. 21.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 259 
 
 near to the Lord God sanctify themselves, lest the Lord forsake 
 them." 1 And again : "And when they come near to minister 
 at the altar of the holy place, they shall not bear iniquity upon 
 them, lest they die." 2 But what can be greater iniquity, or 
 what stain can be more odious, than to have stood in opposi- 
 tion to Christ ; than to have scattered His church, which He 
 purchased and founded with His blood ; than, unmindful of 
 evangelical peace and love, to have fought with the madness 
 of hostile discord against the unanimous and accordant people 
 of God? Such as these, although they themselves return to 
 the church, still cannot restore and recall with them those 
 who, seduced by them, and forestalled by death without, have 
 perished outside the church without communion and peace ; 
 whose souls in the day- of judgment shall be required at the 
 hands of those who have stood forth as the authors and 
 leaders of their ruin. And therefore to such, when they 
 return, it is sufficient that pardon should be granted ; since 
 perfidy ought certainly not to receive promotion in the 
 household of faith. For what do we reserve for the good 
 and innocent, and those who do not depart from the church, 
 if we honour those who have departed from us, and stood in 
 opposition to the church ? 
 
 3. We have brought these things, dearest brother, to your 
 knowledge, for the sake of our mutual honour and sincere 
 affection ; believing that, according to the truth of your reli- 
 gion and faith, those things which are no less religious than 
 true will be approved by you. But we know that some will 
 not lay aside what they have once imbibed, and do not easily 
 change their purpose ; but, keeping fast the bond of peace and 
 concord among their colleagues, retain certain things peculiar 
 to themselves, which have once been adopted among them. 
 In which behalf we neither do violence to nor impose a law 
 upon any one, since each prelate has in the administration of 
 the church the exercise of his will free, as he shall give an 
 account of his conduct to the Lord. We bid you, dearest 
 brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 1 Ex. xix. 22. 2 Ex. xxviii. 43.
 
 260 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXIL 1 
 
 TO JUBAIANUS, CONCERNING THE BAPTISM OF HERETICS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. In the year of Christ 256, a little after the 
 seventh council of Carthage, Cyprian ivrote a long letter to 
 the Bishop Jubaianus. He had consulted Cyprian about 
 baptism, and at the same time had sent a letter not written 
 by himself, but by some other person opposed to the opi- 
 nion of Cyprian. Cyprian refutes this letter, and with 
 the greatest care collects whatever he thinks will avail for 
 the defence of his cause. Moreover, he sends Jubaianus 
 a copy of the letter to the Numidians and to Quintus, and 
 probably the decrees of the last synod. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Jubaianus his brother, greeting. You have 
 written to me, dearest brother, wishing that the impression 
 of my mind should be signified to you, as to what I think 
 concerning the baptism of heretics ; who, placed without, and 
 established outside the church, arrogate to themselves a mat- 
 ter neither within their right nor their power. This baptism 
 we cannot consider as valid or legitimate, since it is manifestly 
 unlawful among them ; and since we have already expressed 
 in our letters what we thought on this matter, I have, as a 
 compendious method, sent you a copy of the same letters, what 
 we decided in council when very many of us were present, 
 and what, moreover, I subsequently wrote back to Quintus, 
 our colleague, when he asked about the same thing. And 
 now also, when we had met together, bishops as well of 
 the province of Africa as of Numidia, to the number of 
 seventy-one, we established this same matter once more by 
 our judgment, deciding that there is one baptism which is 
 appointed in the catholic church ; and that by this those are 
 not re-baptized, but baptized by us, who at any time come 
 from the adulterous and unhallowed water to be washed and 
 sanctified by the truth of the saving water. 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixxiii.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 261 
 
 2. Nor does what you have described in your letters dis- 
 turb us, dearest brother, that the Novatians re-baptize those 
 whom they entice from us, since it does not in any wise mat- 
 ter to us what the enemies of the church do, so long as we 
 ourselves hold a regard for our power, and the stedfastness 
 of reason and truth. For Novatian, after the manner of 
 apes which, although they are not men, yet imitate human 
 doings wishes to claim to himself the authority and truth of 
 the catholic church, while he himself is not in the church ; 
 nay, moreover, has stood forth hitherto as a rebel and enemy 
 against the church : for, knowing that there is one baptism, 
 he arrogates to himself this one, so that he may say that the 
 church is with him, and make us heretics. But we who 
 hold the head and root of the one church know, and trust for 
 certain, that nothing is lawful there outside the church, and 
 
 / f. 
 
 that the baptism which is one 1 is among us, where he him- 
 self also was formerly baptized, when he maintained both 
 the wisdom and truth of the divine unity. But if Novatian 
 thinks that those who have been baptized in the church are 
 to be re-baptized outside without the church he ought to 
 begin by himself, that he might first be re-baptized with an 
 extraneous and heretical baptism, since he thinks that after the 
 church, yea, and contrary to the church, people are to be 
 baptized without. But what sort of a thing is this, that, be- 
 cause Novatian dares to do this thing, we are to think that we 
 must not do it ! What then ? Because Novatian also usurps 
 the honour of the priestly throne, ought we therefore to re- 
 pounce our throne 1 Or because Novatian endeavours wrong- 
 fully to set up an altar and to offer sacrifices, does it behove 
 us to cease from our altar arid sacrifices, lest we should appear 
 to be celebrating the same or like things with him ? Utterly 
 vain and foolish is it, that because Novatian arrogates to 
 himself outside the church the image of the truth, we should 
 forsake the truth of the church. 
 
 3. But among us it is no new or sudden thing for us to 
 
 O O 
 
 judge that those are to be baptized who come to the church 
 
 from among the heretics, since it is now many years and a 
 
 1 Or, " the source of baptism which is one."
 
 262 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 long time ago, that, under Agrippinus a man of worthy 
 memory very many bishops assembling together have de- 
 cided this ; and thenceforward until the present day, so many 
 thousands of heretics in our provinces have been converted 
 to the church, and have neither despised nor delayed, nay, 
 they have both reasonably and gladly embraced the oppor- 
 tunity to attain the grace of the life-giving laver and of 
 saving baptism. For it is not difficult for a teacher to in- 
 sinuate true and lawful things into his mind, who, having 
 condemned heretical pravity, and discovered the truth of the 
 church, comes for this purpose, that he may learn, and learns 
 for the purpose that he may live. We ought not to increase 
 the stolidity of heretics by the patronage of our consent, when 
 they gladly and readily obey the truth. 
 
 4. Certainly, since I found in the letter the copy of which 
 you transmitted to me, that it was written, " That it should 
 not be asked who baptized, since he who is baptized might 
 receive remission of sins according to what he believed," I 
 thought that this topic was not to be passed by, especially 
 since I observed in the same epistle that mention was also 
 made of Marcion, saying that even those that came from him 
 did not need to be baptized, because they seemed to have 
 been already baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Therefore 
 we ought to consider their faith who believe without, whether 
 in respect of the same faith they can obtain any grace. For 
 if we and heretics have one faith, we may also have one grace. 
 If the Patripassians, Anthropians, Valentinians, Apelletians, 
 Ophites, Marcionites, and other pests, and swords, and poisons 
 of heretics for subverting the truth, 1 confess the same Father, 
 the same Son, the same Holy Ghost, the same church with us, 
 they may also have one baptism if they have also one faith. 
 
 5. And lest it should be wearisome to go through all the 
 heresies, and to enumerate either the follies or the madness of 
 each of them, because it is no pleasure to speak of that which 
 one either dreads or is ashamed to know, let us examine in 
 the meantime about Marcion alone, the mention of whom 
 
 1 Or otherwise, " and other plagues of heretics subverting the truth 
 with their swords and poisons."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 263 
 
 Las been made in the letter transmitted by you to us, whether 
 the ground of his baptism can be made good. For the Lord 
 after His resurrection, sending His disciples, instructed and 
 taught them in what manner they ought to baptize, saying, 
 " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, 
 therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 1 
 He suggests the Trinity, in whose sacrament the nations were 
 to be baptized. Does Marcion then maintain the Trinity ? 
 Does he then assert the same 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 bare our sins, who con- 
 quered death by dying, who by Himself first of all originated 
 the resurrection of the flesh, and showed to His disciples that 
 He had risen in the same flesh? Widely different is the 
 faith with Marcion, and, moreover, with the other heretics ; 
 nay, with them there is nothing but perfidy, and blasphemy, 
 and contention, which is hostile to holiness and truth. How 
 then can one who is baptized among them seem to have 
 obtained remission of sins, and the grace of the divine mercy, 
 by his faith, when he has not the truth of the faith itself ? 
 For if, as some suppose, one could receive anything abroad 
 out of the church according to his faith, certainly he has re- 
 ceived what he believed ; but if he believes what is false, he 
 could not receive what is true ; but rather he has received 
 things adulterous and profane, according to what he believed. 
 6. This matter of profane and adulterous baptism Jeremiah 
 the prophet plainly rebukes, saying, " Why do they who afflict 
 me prevail ? My wound is hard ; whence shall I be healed ? 
 while it has indeed become unto me as deceitful water which 
 has no faithfulness." 2 The Holy Spirit makes mention by the 
 prophet of deceitful water which has no faithfulness. What 
 is this deceitful and faithless water? Certainly that which 
 falsely assumes the resemblance of baptism, and frustrates the 
 grace of faith by a shadowy pretence. But if, according to a 
 perverted faith, one could be baptized without, and obtain re- 
 mission of sins, according to the same faith he could also attain 
 1 Matt, xxviii. 18, 19. 2 Jer. xv. 18 (LXX.).
 
 2G4 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the Holy Spirit ; and there is no need that hands should be laid 
 on him when he comes, that he might obtain the Holy Ghost, 
 and be sealed. Either he could obtain both privileges without 
 by his faith, or he who has been without has received neither. 
 7. But it is manifest where and by whom remission of 
 sins can be given ; to wit, that which is given in baptism. For 
 first of all the Lord gave that power to Peter, upon whom 
 He built the church, and whence He appointed and showed 
 the source of unity the power, namely, that whatsoever he 
 loosed on earth should be loosed in heaven. And after the 
 resurrection, also, He speaks to the apostles, saying, "As the 
 Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when He had 
 said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye 
 the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
 unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." * 
 Whence we perceive that only they who are set over the 
 church and established in the gospel law, and in the ordinance 
 of the Lord, are allowed to baptize and to give remission of 
 sins ; but that without, nothing can either be bound or loosed, 
 where there is none who can either bind or loose anything. 
 
 8. Nor do we propose this, dearest brother, without the 
 authority of divine Scripture, when we say that all things are 
 arranged by divine direction by a certain law and by special 
 ordinance, and that none can usurp to himself, in opposition 
 to the bishops and priests, anything which is not of his own 
 right and power. For Corah, Dathan, and Abiram en- 
 deavoured to usurp, in opposition to Moses and Aaron the 
 priest, the power of sacrificing ; and they did not do without 
 punishment what they unlawfully dared. The sons of Aaron 
 also, who placed strange fire upon the altar, were at once 
 consumed in the sight of an angry Lord ; which punishment 
 remains to those who introduce strange water by a false 
 baptism, that the divine vengeance may avenge and chastise 
 when heretics do that in opposition to the church, which the 
 church alone is allowed to do. 
 
 9. But in respect of the assertion of some concerning those 
 who had been baptized in Samaria, that when the Apostles 
 
 1 John xx. 21-23.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 2G5 
 
 Peter and John came, only hands were imposed on them, that 
 they might receive the Holy Ghost, yet that they were not 
 re-baptized ; we see that that place does not, dearest brother, 
 touch the present case. For they who had believed in 
 Samaria had believed with a true faith ; and within, in the 
 church which is one, and to which alone it is granted to 
 bestow the grace of baptism and to remit sins, had been 
 baptized by Philip the deacon, whom the same apostles had 
 sent. And therefore, because they had obtained a legitimate 
 and ecclesiastical baptism, there was no need that they should 
 be baptized any more, but only that which was needed was 
 performed by Peter and John ; viz., that prayer being made 
 for them, and hands being imposed, the Holy Spirit should be 
 invoked and poured out upon them, which now too is done 
 among us, so that they who are baptized in the church are 
 brought to the prelates of the church, and by our prayers 
 and by the imposition of hands obtain the Holy Spirit, and 
 are perfected with the Lord's seal. 
 
 10. There is no ground, therefore, dearest brother, for 
 thinking that we should give way to heretics so far as to con- 
 template the betrayal to them of that baptism, which is only 
 granted to the one and only church. It is a good soldier's 
 duty to defend the camp of his general against rebels and 
 enemies. It is the duty of an illustrious leader to keep the 
 standards entrusted to him. It is written, "The Lord thy 
 God is a jealous God." x We who have received the Spirit of 
 God ought to have a jealousy for the divine faith ; with such 
 a jealousy as that wherewith Phineas both pleased God and 
 justly allayed His wrath when He was angry, and the people 
 were perishing. Why do AVC receive as allowed an adulterous 
 and alien church, a foe to the divine unity, when we know 
 only one Christ and His one church ? The church, setting 
 forth the likeness of paradise, includes within her walls fruit- 
 bearing trees, whereof that which does not bring forth good 
 fruit is cut off and is cast into the fire. These trees she 
 waters with four rivers, that is, with the four Gospels, where- 
 with, by a celestial inundation, she bestows the grace of saving 
 1 Deut. iv. 24.
 
 266 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 baptism. Can any one who is not within the church water 
 from the church's fountains ? Can one impart to any one 
 those wholesome and saving draughts of paradise if he is per- 
 verted, and of himself condemned, and banished outside the 
 fountains of paradise, and has dried up and failed with the 
 dryness of an eternal thirst ? 
 
 11. The Lord cries aloud, that " whosoever thirsts should 
 come and drink of the rivers of living w r ater that flowed out 
 of His belly." l "Whither is he to come who thirsts ? Shall 
 he come to the heretics, where there is no fountain and river 
 of living water at all ; or to the church which is one, and is 
 founded upon one who has received the keys of it by the 
 Lord's voice ? It is she who holds and possesses alone all 
 the power of her spouse and Lord. In her we preside ; for 
 her honour and unity we fight; her grace, as well as her 
 glory, we defend with faithful devotedness. 2 We by the divine 
 permission water the thirsting people of God ; we guard the 
 boundaries of the living fountains. If, therefore, we hold 
 the right of our possession, if we acknowledge the sacrament 
 of unity, wherefore are we esteemed prevaricators against 
 truth? wherefore are we judged betrayers of unity? The 
 faithful, and saving, and holy water of the church cannot be 
 corrupted and adulterated, as the church herself also is uncor- 
 rupted, and chaste, and modest. If heretics are devoted tc 
 the church and established in the church, they may use both 
 her baptism and her other saving benefits. But if they are 
 not in the church, nay more, if they act against the church, 
 how can they baptize with the church's baptism 1 
 
 12. For it is no small and insignificant matter which is 
 conceded to heretics, when their baptism is recognised by us ; 
 since thence springs the whole origin of faith and the saving 
 access to the hope of life eternal, and the divine condescen- 
 sion for purifying and quickening the servants of God. For 
 if any one could be baptized among heretics, certainly he 
 could also obtain remission of sins. If he attained remission 
 of sins, he was also sanctified. If he was sanctified, he also 
 was made the temple of God. I ask, of what God ? If of 
 
 1 John vii. 37. 38. 2 Or, " with the courage of faith."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 267 
 
 the Creator ; he could not be, because he has not believed in 
 Him. If of Christ ; he could not become His temple, since he 
 denies that Christ is God. If of the Holy Spirit ; since the 
 three are one, how can the Holy Spirit be at peace with him 
 who is the enemy either of the Son or of the Father ? 
 
 13. Hence it is in vain that some who are overcome by 
 reason oppose to us custom, as if custom were greater than 
 truth ; or as if that were not to be sought after in spiritual 
 matters which has been revealed as the better by the Holy 
 Spirit. For one who errs by simplicity may be pardoned, as 
 the blessed Apostle Paul says of himself, " I who at first was 
 a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious ; yet obtained 
 mercy, because I did it ignorantly." l But after inspiration 
 and revelation made to him, he who intelligently and know- 
 ingly perseveres in that course in which he had erred, sins 
 without pardon for his ignorance. For he resists with a 
 certain presumption and obstinacy, when he is overcome by 
 reason. Nor let any one say, " We follow that which we 
 have received from the apostles," when the apostles only de- 
 livered one church, and one baptism, which is not ordained 
 except in the same church ; and we cannot find that any one, 
 when he had been baptized by heretics, was received by the 
 apostles in the same baptism, and communicated in such a 
 way as that the apostles should appear to have approved the 
 baptism of heretics. 
 
 14. For as to what some say, as if it tended to favour 
 heretics, that the Apostle Paul declared, " Only every way, 
 whether in pretence or in truth, let Christ be preached," 2 
 we find that this also can avail nothing to their benefit who 
 support and applaud heretics. For Paul, in his epistle, was 
 not speaking of heretics, nor of their baptism, so that any- 
 thing can be shown to have been alleged which pertained to 
 this matter. He was speaking of brethren, whether as walk- 
 ing disorderly and against the discipline of the church, or as 
 keeping the truth of the gospel with the fear of God. And 
 he said that certain of them spoke the word of God with con- 
 stancy and courage, but some acted in envy and dissension ; 
 
 ilTim. i. 13. > Phil. i. 18.
 
 268 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 that some maintained towards him a benevolent love, but that 
 some indulged a malevolent spirit of dissension ; but yet that 
 he bore all patiently, so long only as, whether in truth or in 
 pretence, the name of Christ which Paul preached might 
 come to the knowledge of many ; and the sowing of the word, 
 which as yet had been new and irregular, might increase 
 through the preaching of the speakers. Besides, it is one 
 thing for those who are within the church to speak con- 
 cerning the name of Christ ; it is another for those who are 
 without, and act in opposition to the church, to baptize in 
 the name of Christ. Wherefore, let not those who favour 
 heretics put forward what Paul spoke concerning brethren, 
 but let them show if he thought anything was to be conceded 
 to the heretic, or if he approved of their faith or baptism, or 
 if he appointed that perfidious and blasphemous men could 
 receive remission of their sins outside the church. 
 
 15. But if we consider what the apostles thought about 
 heretics, we shall find that they, in all their epistles, execrated 
 and detested the sacrilegious wickedness of heretics. For 
 when they say that "their word creeps as a canker," 1 how 
 is such a word as that able to give remission of sins, which 
 creeps like a canker to the ears of the hearers ? And when 
 they say that there can be no fellowship between righteous- 
 ness and unrighteousness, no communion between light and 
 darkness, 2 how can either darkness illuminate, or unright- 
 eousness justify? And when they say that "they are not 
 of God, but are of the spirit of Antichrist," 3 how can they 
 transact spiritual and divine matters, who are the enemies 
 of God, and whose hearts the spirit of Antichrist has pos- 
 sessed? Wherefore, if, laying aside the errors of human 
 dispute, we return with a sincere and religious faith to the 
 evangelical authority and to the apostolical tradition, we 
 shall perceive that they may do nothing towards conferring 
 the ecclesiastical and saving grace, who, scattering and at- 
 tacking the church of Christ, are called adversaries by Christ 
 Himself, but by His apostles, Antichrists. 
 
 16. Again, there is no ground for any one, for the circum- 
 1 2 Tim. ii. 17. 2 2 Cor. vi. 1-1. 3 1 John iv. 3.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF GYPEIAN. 269 
 
 vention of Christian truth, opposing to us the name of Christ, 
 and saying, " All who are baptized everywhere, and in any 
 manner, in the name of Jesus Christ, have obtained the grace 
 of baptism," when Christ Himself speaks, and says, " Not 
 every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
 the kingdom of heaven." 1 And again, He forewarns and 
 instructs, that no one should be easily deceived by false 
 prophets and false Christs in His name. " Many," He says, 
 " shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall de- 
 ceive many." And afterwards He added : " But take ye heed : 
 behold, I have foretold you all things." 2 Whence it appears 
 that all things are not at once to be received and assumed- 
 which are boasted of in the name of Christ, but only those 
 things which are done in the truth of Christ. 
 
 O 
 
 17. For whereas in the Gospels, and in the epistles of the 
 apostles, the name of Christ is alleged for the remission of 
 sins ; it is not in such a way as that the Son alone, without 
 the Father, or against the Father, can be of advantage to 
 anybody; but that it might be shown to the Jews, who 
 boasted as to their having the Father, that the Father 
 would profit them nothing, unless they believed on the Son 
 whom He had sent. For they who know God the Father 
 the Creator, ought also to know Christ the Son, lest they 
 .should flatter and applaud themselves about the Father alone, 
 without the acknowledgment of His Son, who also said, 
 " No man cometh to the Father but by me." 3 But He the 
 same sets forth, that it is the knowledge of the two which 
 saves, when He says, "And this is life eternal, that they 
 might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
 whom Thou hast sent." 4 Since, therefore, from the preach- 
 ing and testimony of Christ Himself, the Father who sent 
 must be first known, then afterwards Christ, who was sent, 
 and there cannot be a hope of salvation except by knowing 
 the two together ; how, when God the Father is not known, 
 nay, is even blasphemed, can they who among the heretics 
 are said to be baptized in the name of Christ, be judged to 
 
 1 Matt. vii. 21. 2 Matt. xxiv. 5, 25. 
 
 8 John xiv. 6. * John xvii. 3.
 
 270 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 have obtained the remission of sins ? For the case of the 
 Jews under the apostles was one, but the condition of the 
 Gentiles is another. The former, because they had already 
 gained the most ancient baptism of the law and Moses, 
 were to be baptized also in the name of Jesus Christ, in 
 conformity with what Peter tells them in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, saying, " Repent, and be baptized every one of you 
 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the remission of 
 sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For 
 this promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that 
 are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." 1 
 Peter makes mention of Jesus Christ, not as though the 
 
 ' O 
 
 Father should be omitted, but that the Son also might be 
 joined to the Father. 
 
 18. Finally, when, after the resurrection, the apostles are 
 sent by the Lord to the heathens, they are bidden to baptize 
 the Gentiles in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost. How, then, do some say, that a Gentile 
 baptized without, outside the church, yea, and in opposition 
 to the church, so that it be only in the name of Jesus Christ, 
 everywhere, and in whatever manner, can obtain remission 
 of sin, when Christ Himself commands the heathen to be 
 baptized in the full and united Trinity ? Unless while one 
 who denies Christ is denied by .Christ, he who denies His 
 Father whom Christ Himself confessed is not denied ; and 
 he who blasphemes against Him whom Christ called His 
 Lord and His God, is rewarded by Christ, and obtains remis- 
 sion of sins, and the sanctification of baptism ! But by what 
 power can he who denies God the Creator, the Father of 
 Christ, obtain in baptism the remission of sins, since Christ 
 received that very power by which we are baptized and sancti- 
 fied, from the same Father whom He called greater than 
 Himself, by whom He desired to be glorified, whose will He 
 fulfilled even unto the obedience of drinking the cup, and 
 of undergoing death 1 What else is it then, than to become 
 a partaker with blaspheming heretics, to wish to maintain 
 and assert, that one who blasphemes and gravely sins against 
 1 Acts ii. 38, 39.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 271 
 
 the Father and the Lord and God of Christ, can receive 
 remission of sins in the name of Christ ? What, moreover, 
 is that, and of what kind is it, that he who denies the Son of 
 God has not the Father, and he who denies the Father 
 should be thought to have the Son, although the Son Him- 
 self testifies, and says, " No man can come unto me except 
 it were given unto him of my Father?" 1 So that it is evi- 
 dent, that no remission of sins can be received in baptism 
 from the Son, which it is not plain that the Father has 
 granted, especially since He further repeats, and says, 
 " Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted 
 shall be rooted up." 3 
 
 19. But if Christ's disciples are unwilling to learn from 
 Christ what veneration and honour is due to the name of the 
 Father, still let them learn from earthly and secular examples, 
 and know that Christ has declared, not without the strongest 
 rebuke, " The children of this world are wiser in their gene- 
 ration than the children of light." 3 In this world of ours, 
 if any one have offered an insult to the father of any ; if in 
 injury and frowardness he have wounded his reputation and 
 his honour by a malevolent tongue, the son is indignant, and 
 wrathful, and with what means he can, strives to avenge his 
 injured father's wrong. Think you that Christgrants impunity 
 to the impious and profane, and the blasphemersof His Father, 
 and that He puts away their sins in baptism, who it is evi- 
 dent, when baptized, still heap up evil words on the person of 
 the Father, and sin with the unceasing wickedness of a blas- 
 pheming tongue ? Can a Christian, can a servant of God, 
 either conceive this in his mind, or believe it in faith, or put 
 it forward in discourse ? And what will become of the pre- 
 cepts of the divine law, which say, " Honour thy father and 
 thy mother?" 4 If the name of father, which in man is com- 
 manded to be honoured, is violated with impunity in God, 
 what will become of what Christ Himself lays down in the 
 Gospel, and says, " He that curseth father or mother, let him 
 die the death ;" 5 if He who bids that those who curse their 
 
 1 John vi. 65. 2 Matt. xv. 13. 3 Luke xvi. 8. 
 
 * Ex. xx. 12. 6 Matt. xv. 4.
 
 272 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 parents after the flesh should be punished and slain, Himself 
 quickens those who revile their heavenly and spiritual Father, 
 and are hostile to the church, their Mother ? An execrable 
 and detestable thing is actually asserted by some, that He who 
 threatens the man who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, 
 that he shall be guilty of eternal sin, Himself condescends to 
 sanctify those who blaspheme against God the Father with 
 saving baptism. And now, those who think that they must 
 communicate with such as come to the church without bap- 
 tism, do not consider that they are becoming partakers with 
 other men's, yea, with eternal sins, when they admit without 
 baptism those who cannot, except in baptism, put off the sins 
 of their blasphemies. 
 
 20. Besides, how vain and perverse a thing it is, that when 
 the heretics themselves, having repudiated and forsaken 
 cither the error or the wickedness in which they had pre- 
 viously been, acknowledge the truth of the church, we should 
 mutilate the rights and sacrament of that same truth, and say 
 to those who come to us and repent, that they had obtained 
 remission of sins when they confess that they have sinned, and 
 are for that reason come to seek the pardon of the church ! 
 Wherefore, dearest brother, we ought both firmly to maintain 
 the faith and truth of the catholic church, and to teach, and 
 by all the evangelical and apostolical precepts to set forth, 
 the plan of the divine dispensation and unity. 
 
 21. Can the power of baptism be greater or of more avau 
 than confession, than suffering, when one confesses Christ 
 before men and is baptized in his own blood? And yet 
 even this baptism does not benefit a heretic, although he has 
 confessed Christ, and been put to death outside the church, 
 unless the patrons and advocates of heretics declare that the 
 heretics who are slain in a false confession of Christ are 
 martyrs ; and, contrary to the testimony of the apostle, who 
 says that it will profit them nothing although they were 
 burnt and slain, 1 assign to them the glory and the crown of 
 martyrdom. But if not even the baptism of a public confes- 
 sion and blood can profit a heretic to salvation, because there 
 
 1 1 Cor. xiii. 3.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 273 
 
 is no salvation out of the church, how much less shall it be of 
 advantage to him, if in a hiding-place and a cave of robbers, 
 stained with the contagion of adulterous water, he has not 
 only not put off his old sins, but rather heaped up still newer 
 and greater ones ! Wherefore baptism cannot be common to 
 us and to heretics, to whom neither God the Father, nor 
 Christ the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, nor the faith, nor the 
 church itself, is common. And therefore it behoves those to 
 be baptized who come from heresy to the church, that so they 
 who are prepared, in the lawful, and true, and only baptism 
 of the holy church, by divine regeneration, for the kingdom 
 of God, may be born of both sacraments, because it is written, 
 " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can- 
 not enter into the kingdom of God." * 
 
 22. On which place some, as if by human reasoning they 
 were able to make void the truth of the Gospel declaration, 
 object to us the case of catechumens ; asking if any one of 
 these, before he is baptized in the church, should be appre- 
 hended and slain on confession of the name, whether he 
 would lose the hope of salvation and the reward of confession, 
 because he had not previously been born again of water? 
 Let men of this kind, who are aiders and favourers of here- 
 tics, know therefore, first, that those catechumens hold the 
 sound faith and truth of the church, and advance from the 
 divine camp to do battle with the devil, with a full and sin- 
 cere acknowledgment of God the Father, and of Christ, and 
 of the Holy Ghost ; then, that they certainly are not deprived 
 of the sacrament of baptism who are baptized with the most 
 glorious and greatest baptism of blood, concerning which the 
 Lord also said, that He had " another baptism to be baptized 
 with." 2 But the same Lord declares in the Gospel, that those 
 who are baptized in their own blood, and sanctified by suffer- 
 ing, are perfected, and obtain the grace of the divine promise, 
 when He speaks to the thief believing and confessing in His 
 very passion, and promises that he should be with Himself 
 in paradise. Wherefore we who are set over the faith and 
 truth ought not to deceive and mislead those who come to 
 1 John iii. 5. 2 Luke xii. 50.
 
 274 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the faith and truth, and repent, and beg that their sins should 
 be remitted to them ; but to instruct them when corrected 
 by us, and reformed for the kingdom of heaven by celestial 
 discipline. 
 
 23. But some one says, " What, then, shall become of those 
 who in past times, coming from heresy to the church, were 
 received without baptism ?" The Lord is able by His mercy 
 to give indulgence, and not to separate from the gifts of 
 His church those who by simplicity were admitted into the 
 church, and in the church have fallen asleep. Neverthe- 
 less it does not follow that, because there was error at one 
 time, there must always be error; since it is more fitting for 
 wise and God-fearing men, gladly and without delay to obey 
 the truth when laid open and perceived, than pertinaciously 
 and obstinately to struggle against brethren and fellow-priests 
 on behalf of heretics. 
 
 24. Nor let any one think that, because baptism is proposed 
 to them, heretiqs will be kept back from coming to the church, 
 as if offended at the name of a second baptism ; nay, but on 
 this very account they are rather driven to the necessity of 
 coming by the testimony of truth shown and proved to them. 
 For if they shall see that it is determined and decreed by our 
 judgment and sentence, that the baptism wherewith they are 
 there baptized is considered just and legitimate, they will think 
 that they are justly and legitimately in possession of the church 
 also, and the other gifts of the church ; nor will there be any 
 reason for their coming to us, when, as they have baptism, 
 they seem also to have the rest. But further, when they 
 know that there is no baptism without, and that no remission 
 of sins can be given outside the church, they more eagerly 
 and readily hasten to us, and implore the gifts and benefits 
 of the church our Mother, assured that they can in no wise 
 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 shall have learnt from us that they also 
 were baptized by Paul, who already had been baptized with 
 the baptism of John, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 275 
 
 25. And now by certain of us the baptism of heretics is 
 asserted to occupy the ground, and, as if by a certain dislike 
 of re-baptizing, it is counted unlawful to baptize after God's 
 enemies ; although we find that they were baptized whom 
 John had baptized: John, esteemed the greatest among the 
 prophets ; John, filled with divine grace even in his mother's 
 womb ; who was sustained with the spirit and power of 
 Elias; who was not an adversary of the Lord, but His pre- 
 cursor and announcer ; who not only foretold our Lord in 
 words, but even showed Him to the eyes; who baptized 
 Christ Himself by whom others are baptized. But if on 
 that account a heretic could obtain the right of baptism, 
 because he first baptized, then baptism will not belong to 
 the person that has it, but to the person that seizes it. And 
 since baptism and the church can by no means be separated 
 from one another, and divided, he who has first been able to 
 lay hold on baptism has equally also laid hold on the church ; 
 and you begin to appear to him as a heretic, when you being 
 anticipated, have begun to be last, and by yielding and giving 
 way have relinquished the right which you had received. 
 But how dangerous it is in divine matters, that any one 
 should depart from his right and power, holy Scripture 
 declares when, in Genesis, Esau thence lost his birthright, 
 nor was able afterwards to regain that which he had once 
 given up. 
 
 26. These things, dearest brother, I have briefly written 
 to you, according to my abilities, prescribing to none, and 
 prejudging none, so as to prevent any one of the bishops 
 doing what he thinks well, and having the free exercise of 
 his judgment. We, as far as in us lies, do not contend on 
 behalf of heretics with our colleagues and fellow-bishops, 
 with whom we maintain a divine concord and the peace of 
 the Lord; especially since the apostle says, " If any man, 
 however, is thought to be contentious, we have no such cus- 
 tom, neither the church of God." l Charity of spirit, the 
 honour of our college,, the bond of faith, and priestly concord, 
 are maintained by us with patience and gentleness. For this 
 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 16.
 
 276 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 reason, moreover, we have with the best of our poor abilities, 
 with the permission and inspiration of the Lord, written a 
 pamphlet on the " Benefit of Patience," which for the sake 
 of our mutual love we have transmitted to you. I bid you, 
 dearest brother, ever heartily, farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXIII. 1 
 
 TO POMPEY, AGAINST THE EPISTLE OF STEPHEN ABOUT 
 THE BAPTISM OF HERETICS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The purport oftlds epistle is given in St. Augus- 
 tine's lib. v. " contra Donatistas" cap. 23. He says there : 
 " Cyprian, moreover, writes to Pompey on the same sub- 
 ject, when he plainly signifies that Stephen, who, as we 
 learn, was then a bishop of the Roman church, not only 
 did not agree with him on those points, but even had 
 written and charged in opposition to him." On which 
 subject, again, in chap. 25: " I ivill not now reconsider 
 what he angrily uttered against Stephen, because there is 
 no necessity for it. The very same things are indeed 
 said which have already been sufficiently discussed, and 
 it is better to pass by ichat suggested the risk of a mis- 
 chievous dissension. Stephen, for his part, had thought 
 that they who endeavoured to annul the old custom about 
 receiving heretics were to be excommunicated; but the other, 
 moved with the difficulty of that very question, and very 
 largely endowed with a sacred charity, thought that unity 
 might be maintained with them who thought differently. 
 TJius, although there was a great deal of keenness, yet it 
 was always in a spirit of brotherhood; and at length the 
 peace of Christ conquered in their faarts, so that in such 
 a dispute none of the mischief of schism arose between 
 them." Thus far Augustine, ivhom we have quoted at 
 length, because the passage is opposed to those who strive 
 from this to assert his schism from the Roman pontiff. 
 (Migne.) 
 
 1. Cyprian to his brother Pompeius, greeting. Although 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixxiv.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 277 
 
 I have fully comprised what is to be said concerning the 
 baptism of heretics in the letters of which I sent you copies, 
 dearest brother, yet, since you have desired that what Stephen 
 our brother replied to my letters should be brought to your 
 knowledge, I have sent you a copy of his reply ; on the read- 
 ing of which, you will more and more observe his error in 
 endeavouring to maintain the cause of heretics against Chris- 
 tians, and against the church of God. For among other 
 matters, which were either haughtily assumed, or were not 
 pertaining to the matter, or contradictory to his own view, 
 which he unskilfully and without foresight wrote, he more- 
 over added this saying : " If any one, therefore, come to you 
 from any heresy whatever, let nothing be innovated which 
 has not been handed down, to wit, that hands be imposed 
 on him for repentance; 1 since the heretics themselves, in 
 their own proper character, do not baptize such as come to 
 them from one another, but only admit them to communion." 
 2. He forbade one coming from any heresy to be baptized 
 in the church; that is, he judged the baptism of all heretics 
 to be just and lawful. And although special heresies have 
 special baptisms and different sins, he, holding communion 
 with the baptism of all, gathered up the sins of all, heaped 
 together into his own bosom. And he charged that nothing 
 should be innovated except what had been handed down; as 
 if he were an innovator, who, holding the unity, claims for 
 the one church one baptism ; and not manifestly he who, for- 
 getful of unity, adopts the lies and the contagions of a pro- 
 fane washing. Let nothing be innovated, says he, except 
 what has been handed down. Whence is that tradition? 
 Whether does it descend from the authority of the Lord and 
 of the gospel, or does it come from the commands and the 
 epistles of the apostles? For that those things which are 
 written must be done, God witnesses and admonishes, saying 
 to Joshua the son of Nun : " The book of this law shall not 
 depart out of thy mouth ; but thou shalt meditate in it day 
 
 1 Meaning, probably, heretics with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, 
 Pope Stephen not regarding the Novatians as " properly " heretics 
 (Oxford transl.).
 
 278 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all 
 that is written therein." 1 Also the Lord, sending His 
 apostles, commands that the nations should be baptized, and 
 taught to observe all things which He commanded. If, 
 therefore, it is either prescribed in the Gospel, or contained 
 in the epistles or Acts of the Apostles, that those who come 
 from any heresy should not be baptized, but only hands laid 
 upon them to repentance, let this divine and holy tradition 
 be observed. But if everywhere heretics are called nothing 
 else than adversaries and antichrists, if they are pronounced 
 to be people to be avoided, and to be perverted and con- 
 demned of their own selves, wherefore is it that they should 
 not be thought worthy of being condemned by us, since it is 
 evident from the apostolic testimony that they are of their 
 own selves condemned? So that no one ought to defame the 
 apostles as if they had approved of the baptisms of heretics, 
 or had communicated with them without the church's baptism, 
 when they, the apostles, wrote such things of the heretics : 
 and this, too, while as yet the more terrible plagues of heresy 
 had not broken forth ; while Marcion of Pontus had not yet 
 emerged from Pontus, whose master Cerdon came to Rome 
 while Hyginus was still bishop, who was the ninth bishop in 
 that city, whom Marcion followed, and with greater impu- 
 dence adding other enhancements to his crime, and more 
 daringly set himself to blaspheme against God the Father, 
 the Creator, and armed with sacrilegious arms the heretical 
 madness that rebelled against the church with greater wicked- 
 ness and determination. 
 
 3. But if it is evident that subsequently heresies became 
 more numerous and worse ; and if, in time past, it was never 
 at all prescribed nor written that only hands should be laid 
 upon a heretic for repentance, and that so he might be com- 
 municated with ; and if there is only one baptism, which is 
 with us, and is within, and is granted of the divine conde- 
 scension to the church alone, what obstinacy is that, or what 
 presumption, to prefer human tradition to divine ordinance, 
 and not to observe that God is indignant and angry as often 
 1 Josh. i. 8.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 279 
 
 as human tradition relaxes and passes by the divine precepts, 
 as He cries out, and says by Isaiah the prophet, " This people 
 honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from 
 me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrines 
 and commandments of men." 1 Also the Lord in the Gospel, 
 similarly rebuking and reproving, utters and says, " Ye re- 
 ject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own 
 tradition." 2 Mindful of which precept, the blessed Apostle 
 Paul himself also warns and instructs, saying, " If any man 
 teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, and to His doctrine, he is proud, 
 knowing nothing : from such withdraw thyself." 3 
 
 4. Certainly an excellent and lawful tradition is set be- 
 fore us by the teaching of our brother Stephen, which may 
 afford us a suitable authority ! For in the same place of 
 his epistle he has added and continued : " Since those who 
 are specially heretics do not baptize those who come to them 
 from one another, but only receive them to communion." 
 To this point of evil has the church of God and spouse 
 of Christ been developed, that she follows the examples of 
 heretics ; that for the purpose of celebrating the celestial 
 sacraments, light should borrow her discipline from darkness, 
 and Christians should do that which antichrists do. But 
 what is that blindness of soul, what is that degradation of 
 faith, to refuse to recognise the unity which comes from God 
 the Father, and from the tradition of Jesus Christ the Lord 
 and our God ! For if the church is not with heretics, there- 
 fore, because it is one, and cannot be divided ; and if thus 
 the Holy Spirit is not there, because He is one, and cannot 
 be among profane persons, and those who are without ; cer- 
 tainly also baptism, which consists in the same unity, cannot 
 be among heretics, because it can neither be separated from 
 the church nor from the Holy Spirit. 
 
 5. Or if they attribute the effect of baptism to the majesty 
 of the name, so that they who are baptized anywhere and 
 anyhow, in the name of Jesus Christ, are judged to be 
 renewed and sanctified ; wherefore, in the name of the same 
 
 1 Isa. xxix. 13. 2 Mark vii. 13. 3 1 Tim. vi. 3-5.
 
 280 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Christ, are not hands laid upon the baptized persons among 
 them, for the reception of the Holy Spirit? Why does not 
 the same majesty of the same name avail in the imposition 
 of hands, which, they contend, availed in the sanctification 
 of baptism ? For if any one born out of the church can 
 become God's temple, why cannot the Holy Spirit also be 
 poured out upon the temple ? For he who has been sancti- 
 fied, his sins being put away in baptism, and has been 
 spiritually re-formed into a new man, has become fitted for 
 receiving the Holy Spirit ; since the apostle says, " As many 
 of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." l 
 He who, having been baptized among the heretics, is able to 
 put on Christ, may much more receive the Holy Spirit whom 
 Christ sent. Otherwise He who is sent will be greater than 
 Him who sends; so that one baptized without may begin 
 indeed to put on Christ, but not to be able to receive the 
 Holy Spirit, as if Christ could either be put on without the 
 Spirit, or the Spirit be separated from Christ. Moreover, 
 it is silly to say, that although the second birth is spiritual, by 
 which we are born in Christ through the laver of regenera- 
 tion, one may be born spiritually among the heretics, where 
 they say that the Spirit is not. For water alone is not able 
 to cleanse away sins, and to sanctify a man, unless he have 
 also the Holy Spirit. Wherefore it is necessary that they 
 should grant the Holy Spirit to be there, where they say 
 that baptism is ; or else that there is no baptism where 
 the Holy Spirit is not, because there cannot be baptism 
 without the Spirit. 
 
 6. But what a thing it is, to assert and contend that they 
 who are not born in the church can be the sons of God! For 
 the blessed apostle sets forth and proves that baptism is that 
 wherein the old man dies and the new man is born, saying, 
 " He saved us by the washing of regeneration." 2 But if 
 regeneration is in the washing, that is, in baptism, how can 
 heresy, which is not the spouse of Christ, generate sons to 
 God by Christ? For it is the church alone which, con- 
 joined and united with Christ, spiritually bears sons ; as the 
 1 Gal. iii. 27. 2 Tit. iii. 5.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 281 
 
 same apostle again says, " Christ loved the church, and gave 
 Himself for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it with 
 the washing of water." 1 If, then, she is the beloved and 
 spouse who alone is sanctified by Christ, and alone is cleansed 
 by His washing, it is manifest that heresy, which is not the 
 spouse of Christ, nor can be cleansed nor sanctified by His 
 washing, cannot bear sons to God. 
 
 7. But further, one is not born by the imposition of hands 
 when he receives the Holy Ghost, but in baptism, that so, 
 being already born, he may receive the Holy Spirit, even as 
 it happened in the first man Adam. For first God formed 
 him, and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. 
 For the Spirit cannot be received, unless he who receives first 
 have an existence. But as the birth of Christians is in baptism, 
 while the generation and sanctification of baptism are with 
 the spouse of Christ alone, who is able spiritually to conceive 
 and to bear sons to God, where and of whom and to whom 
 is he born, who is not a son of the church, so as that he 
 should have God as his Father, before he has had the church 
 for his Mother? But as no heresy at all, and equally no 
 schism, being without, can have the sanctification of saving 
 baptism, why has the bitter obstinacy of our brother Stephen 
 broken forth to such an extent, as to contend that sons are 
 born to God from the baptism of Marcion ; moreover, of 
 Valentinus and Apelles, and of others who blaspheme against 
 God the Father ; and to say that remission of sins is granted 
 in the name of Jesus Christ where blasphemy is uttered 
 against the Father and against Christ the Lord God ? 
 
 8. In which place, dearest brother, we must consider, for 
 the sake of the faith and the religion of the sacerdotal office 
 which we discharge, whether the account can be satisfactory 
 in the day of judgment for a priest of God, who maintains, 
 and approves, and acquiesces in the baptism of blasphemers, 
 when the Lord threatens, and says, " And now, O ye priests, 
 this commandment is for you : if ye will not hear, and if ye 
 will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name, saith the 
 Lord Almighty, I will even send a curse upon you, and I 
 
 1 Eph. v. 25, 26.
 
 282 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 will curse your blessings." 1 Does he give glory to God, 
 who communicates with the baptism of Marcion ? Does he 
 give glory to God, who judges that remission of sins is granted 
 among those who blaspheme against God? Does he give 
 glory to God, who affirms that sons are born to God without, 
 of an adulterer and a harlot ? Does he give glory to God, 
 who does not hold the unity and truth that arise from the 
 divine law, but maintains heresies against the church? Does 
 he give glory to God, who, a friend of heretics and an enemy 
 to Christians, thinks that the priests of God, who support 
 the truth of Christ and the unity of the church, are to be 
 excommunicated ? If glory is thus given to God, if the fear 
 and the discipline of God is thus preserved by His worshippers 
 and His priests, let us cast away our arms ; let us give our- 
 selves up to captivity ; let us deliver to the devil the ordina- 
 tion of the gospel, the appointment of Christ, the majesty 
 of God ; let the sacraments of the divine warfare be loosed ; 
 let the standards of the heavenly camp be betrayed ; and let 
 the church succumb and yield to heretics, light to darkness, 
 faith to perfidy, hope to despair, reason to error, immortality 
 to death, love to hatred, truth to falsehood, Christ to Anti- 
 christ ! Deservedly thus do heresies and schisms arise day 
 by day, more frequently and more fruitfully grow up, and 
 with serpents' locks shoot forth and cast out against the 
 church of God with greater force the poison of their venom ; 
 whilst, by the advocacy of some, both authority and support are 
 afforded them : whilst their baptism is defended, whilst faith, 
 whilst truth, is betrayed ; whilst that which is done without 
 against the church is defended within in the very church itself. 
 9. But if there be among us, most beloved brother, the 
 fear of God, if the maintenance of the faith prevail, if we 
 keep the precepts of Christ, if we guard the incorrupt and 
 inviolate sanctity of His spouse, if the words of the Lord 
 abide in our thoughts and hearts, when He says, " Thinkest 
 thou, when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on 
 the earth ? " ~ then, because we are God's faithful soldiers, 
 who war for the faith and sincere religion of God, let us keep 
 1 Mai. ii. 1, 2. 2 Luke xviii. 8.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 283 
 
 the camp entrusted to us by God with faithful valour. Nor 
 ought custom, which had crept in among some, to prevent 
 the truth from prevailing and conquering ; for custom with- 
 out truth is the antiquity of error. On which account, let 
 us forsake the error and follow the truth, knowing that in 
 Esdras also the truth conquers, as it is written : " Truth 
 endureth and grows strong to eternity, and lives and prevails 
 for ever and ever. With her there is no accepting of persons 
 or distinctions ; but what is just she does : nor in her judg- 
 ments is there unrighteousness, but the strength, and the 
 kingdom, and the majesty, and the power of all ages. Blessed 
 be the Lord God of truth ! " This truth Christ showed to 
 us in His Gospel, and said, " I am the truth." 2 Wherefore, 
 if we are in Christ, and have Christ in us, if we abide in 
 the truth, and the truth abides in us, let us keep fast those 
 things which are true. 
 
 10. But it happens, by a love of presumption and of 
 obstinacy, that one would rather maintain his own evil and 
 false position, than agree in the right and true which belongs 
 to another. Looking forward to which, the blessed Apostle 
 Paul writes to Timothy, and warns him that a bishop must 
 not be " litigious, nor contentious, but gentle and teachable. "' 
 Now he is teachable who is meek and gentle to the patience 
 of learning. For it behoves a bishop not only to teach, but 
 also to learn ; because he also teaches better who daily in- 
 creases and advances by learning better ; which very thing, 
 moreover, the same Apostle Paul teaches, when he admonishes, 
 " that if anything better be revealed to one sitting by, the 
 first should hold his peace." 4 But there is a brief way for 
 religious and simple minds, both to put away error, and to 
 find and to elicit truth. For if we return to the head and 
 source of divine tradition, human error ceases ; and having 
 seen the reason of the heavenly sacraments, whatever lay 
 hid in obscurity under the gloom and cloud of darkness, is 
 opened into the light of the truth. If a channel supplying 
 water, which formerly flowed plentifully and freely, suddenly 
 
 ] Esdras iv. 38-40. - John xiv. 6. 
 
 3 Original, " docibilis." 2 Tim. ii. 24. 4 1 Cor. xiv. 30.
 
 284 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 fail, do we not go to the fountain, that there the reason of 
 the failure may be ascertained, whether from the drying up 
 of the springs the water has failed at the fountainhead, or 
 whether, flowing thence free and full, it has failed in the 
 midst of its course ; that so, if it has been caused by the fault 
 of an interrupted or leaky channel, that the constant stream 
 does not flow uninterruptedly and continuously, then the 
 channel being repaired and strengthened, the water collected 
 may be supplied for the use and drink of the city, with the 
 same fertility and plenty with which it issues from the spring 1 ? 
 And this it behoves the priests of God to do now, if they 
 would keep the divine precepts, that if in any respect the 
 truth have wavered and vacillated, we should return to our 
 Lord and origin, and the evangelical and apostolical tradition; 
 and thence may arise the ground of our action, whence has 
 taken rise both our order and our origin. 
 
 11. For it has been delivered to us, that there is one God, 
 and one Christ, and one hope, and one faith, and one church, 
 and one baptism ordained only in the one church, from which 
 unity whosoever will depart must needs be found with here- 
 tics ; and while he upholds them against the church, he im- 
 pugns the sacrament of the divine tradition. The sacrament 
 of which unity we see expressed also in the Canticles, in the 
 person of Christ, who says, " A garden enclosed is my sister, 
 my spouse, a fountain sealed, a well of living water, a garden 
 with the fruit of apples." l But if His church is a garden 
 enclosed, and a fountain sealed, how can he who is not in 
 the church enter into the same garden, or drink from its 
 fountain ? Moreover, Peter himself, showing and vindicating 
 the unity, has commanded and warned us that we cannot be 
 saved, except by the one only baptism of one church. " In 
 the ark," says he, " of Noah, few, that is, eight souls, were 
 saved by water, as also baptism shall in like manner save 
 you." 2 In how short and spiritual a summary has he set 
 forth the sacrament of unity ! For as, in that baptism of 
 the world in which its ancient iniquity was purged away, he 
 who was not in the ark of Noah could not be saved by water, 
 1 Cant. iv. 12, 13. 2 1 Pet. iii. 20, 21.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 285 
 
 so neither can he appear to be saved by baptism who has not 
 been baptized in the church which is established in the unity 
 of the Lord according to the sacrament of the one ark. 
 
 12. Therefore, dearest brother, having explored and seen 
 the truth ; it is observed and held by us, that all who are 
 converted from any heresy whatever to the church must be 
 baptized by the only and lawful baptism of the church, with 
 the exception of those who had previously been baptized in 
 the church, and so had passed over to the heretics. For it 
 behoves these, when they return, having repented, to be re- 
 ceived by the imposition of hands only, and to be restored by 
 the shepherd to the sheep-fold whence they had strayed. I 
 bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXIV. 1 
 
 FIRMILIAN, BISHOP OF C.ESAREA IN CAPPADOCIA, TO 
 CYPRIAN, AGAINST THE LETTER OF STEPHEN. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The argument of this letter is exactly the same 
 as that of the previous one, but written with a little more 
 vehemence and acerbity than becomes a bishop, chiefly for 
 the reason, as may be suspected, that Stephen had also 
 ivritten another letter to Firmilianus, Helenus, and other 
 bishops of those parts, to the effect that he would not hold 
 communion with them so long as they should persist in 
 their opinion concerning the baptism of heretics, as Euse- 
 bius tells us from a letter of Dionysius of Alexandria 
 to Xistus, the successor of Stephen, " Hist. JEccles" book 
 vii. c. 4. 
 
 1. Firmilianus to Cyprian, his brother in the Lord, greet- 
 ing. We have received by Rogatian, our beloved deacon, 
 the letter sent by you which you wrote to us, well-beloved 
 brother; and we gave the greatest thanks to the Lord, because 
 it has happened that we who are separated from one another 
 in body are thus united in spirit, as if we were not only 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixxv.
 
 28G THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 occupying one country, but inhabiting together one and the 
 self-same house. Which also it is becoming for us to say, 
 because, indeed, the spiritual house of God is one. " For 
 it shall come to pass in the last days," saith the prophet, 
 " that the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the 
 house of God above the tops of the mountains." 1 Those 
 that come together into this house are united with gladness, 
 according to what is asked from the Lord in the psalm, to 
 dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of one's life. 
 Whence in another place also it is made manifest, that among 
 the saints there is great and desirous love for assembling 
 together. " Behold," he says, " how good and how pleasant 
 a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity ! " 2 
 
 2. For unity and peace and concord afford the greatest 
 pleasure not only to men who believe and know the truth, 
 but also to heavenly angels themselves, to whom the divine 
 word says it is a joy when one sinner repents and returns to 
 the bond of unity. But assuredly this would not be said of 
 the angels, who have their conversation in heaven, unless they 
 themselves also were united to us, who rejoice at our unity ; 
 even as, on the other hand, they are assuredly saddened when 
 they see the diverse minds and the divided wills of some, as if 
 not only they do not together invoke one and the same God, 
 but as if, separated and divided from one another, they can 
 neither have a common conversation nor discourse. Except 
 that we may in this matter give thanks to Stephen, that it 
 has now happened through his unkindness that we receive 
 the proof of your faith and wisdom. But although we have 
 received the favour of this benefit on account of Stephen, 
 certainly Stephen has not done anything deserving of kind- 
 ness and thanks. For neither can Judas be thought worthy 
 by his perfidy and treachery wherewith he wickedly dealt 
 concerning the Saviour, as though he had been the cause of 
 such great advantages, that through him the world and the 
 people of the Gentiles were delivered by the Lord's passion. 
 
 3. But let these things which were done by Stephen be 
 passed by for the present, lest, while we remember his auda- 
 
 1 Isa. ii. 2. 2 Ps. cxxxiii. 1.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 287 
 
 city and pride, we bring a more lasting sadness on ourselves 
 from the things that he has wickedly done. And knowing, 
 concerning you, that you have settled this matter, concern- 
 ing which there is now a question, according to the rule 
 of truth and the wisdom of Christ; we have exulted with 
 great joy, and have given God thanks that we have found in 
 brethren placed at such a distance such a unanimity of faith 
 and truth with us. For the grace of God is mighty to asso- 
 ciate and join together in the bond of charity and unity 
 even those things which seem to be divided by a considerable 
 space of earth, according to the way in which of old also 
 the divine power associated in the bond of unanimity Ezekiel 
 and Daniel, though later in their age, and separated from 
 them by a long space of time, to Job and Noah, who were 
 among the first ; so that although they were separated by long 
 periods, yet by divine inspiration they felt the same truths. 
 And this also we now observe in you, that you who are sepa- 
 rated from us by the most extensive regions approve your- 
 selves to be, nevertheless, joined with us in mind and spirit. 
 All which arises from the divine unity. For even as the 
 Lord who dwells in us is one and the same, He everywhere 
 joins and couples His own people in the bond of unity, whence 
 their sound has gone out into the whole earth, who are sent 
 by the Lord swiftly running in the spirit of unity ; as, on the 
 other hand, it is of no advantage that some are very near and 
 joined together bodily, if in spirit and mind they differ, since 
 souls cannot at all be united which divide themselves from 
 God's unity. "For, lo," it says, '"'they that are far from 
 Thee shall perish." 1 But such shall undergo the judgment 
 of God according to their desert, as depart from His words 
 who prays to the Father for unity, and says, " Father, grant 
 that, as Thou and I are one, so they also may be one in us." 2 
 4. But we receive those things which you have written as 
 if they were our own ; nor do we read them cursorily, but by 
 frequent repetition have committed them to memory. Nor 
 does it hinder saving usefulness, either to repeat the same 
 things for the confirmation of the truth, or, moreover, to add 
 1 Ps. Ixxiii. 27. 2 John xvii. 21.
 
 288 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 some tilings for the sake of accumulating proof. But if 
 anything has been added by us, it is not added as if there 
 had been too little said by you ; but since the divine discourse 
 surpasses human nature, and the soul cannot conceive or 
 grasp the whole and perfect word, therefore also the number 
 of prophets is so great, that the divine wisdom in its mul- 
 tiplicity may be distributed through many. Whence also 
 he who first speaks in prophecy is bidden to be silent if a 
 revelation be made to a second. For which reason it hap- 
 pens of necessity among us, that year by year we, the elders 
 and prelates, assemble together to arrange those matters which 
 are committed to our care, so that if any things are more 
 serious they may be directed by the common counsel ; more- 
 over, that some remedy may be sought for by repentance for 
 lapsed brethren, and for those wounded by the devil after 
 the saving laver, not as though they obtained remission of 
 sins from us, but that by our means they may be converted 
 to the understanding of their sins, and may be compelled to 
 give fuller satisfaction to the Lord. 
 
 5. But since that messenger sent by you was in haste to 
 return to you, and the winter season was pressing, we replied 
 what we could to your letter. And indeed, as respects what 
 Stephen has said, as though the apostles forbade those who 
 come from heresy to be baptized, and delivered this also to 
 be observed by their successors, you have replied most abun- 
 dantly, that no one is so foolish as to believe that the apostles 
 delivered this, when it is even well known that these heresies 
 themselves, execrable and detestable as they are, arose subse- 
 quently ; when even Marcion the disciple of Cerdo is found 
 to have introduced his sacrilegious tradition against God long 
 after the apostles, and after long lapse of time from them ; 
 Apelles, also consenting to his blasphemy, added many other 
 new and more important matters hostile to faith and truth. 
 But also the time of Valentinus and Basilides is manifest, that 
 they too, after the apostles, and after a long period, rebelled 
 against the church of God with their wicked lies. It is plain 
 that the other heretics also afterwards introduced their evil 
 sects and perverse inventions, even as every one was led by
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 289 
 
 error ; all of whom, it is evident, were self-condemned, and 
 have declared against themselves an inevitable sentence before 
 the day of judgment ; and he who confirms the baptism of 
 these, what else does he do but adjudge himself with them, 
 and condemn himself, making himself a partaker with such ? 
 
 6. But that they who are at Rome do not observe those 
 tilings in all cases which are handed down from the begin- 
 ning, and vainly pretend the authority of the apostles ; any 
 one may know also from the fact, that concerning the cele- 
 bration of Easter, and concerning many other sacraments of 
 divine matters, he may see that there are some diversities 
 among them, and that all things are not observed among 
 them alike, which are observed at Jerusalem, just as in very 
 many other provinces also many things are varied because 
 of the difference of the places and names. 1 And yet on this 
 account there is no departure at all from the peace and unity 
 of the catholic church, such as Stephen has now dared to make; 
 breaking the peace against you, which his predecessors have 
 always kept with you in mutual love and honour, even herein 
 defaming Peter and Paul the blessed apostles, as if the very 
 men delivered this who in their epistles execrated heretics, 
 and warned us to avoid them. Whence it appears that this 
 tradition is of men which maintains heretics, and asserts that 
 they have baptism, which belongs to the church alone. 
 
 7. But, moreover, you have well answered that part where 
 Stephen said in his letter that heretics themselves also are 
 of one mind in respect of baptism ; and that they do not 
 baptize such as come to them from one another, but only 
 communicate with them; as if we also ought to do this. In 
 which place, although you have already proved that it is 
 sufficiently ridiculous for any one to follow those that are in 
 error, yet we add this moreover, over and above, that it is 
 not wonderful for heretics to act thus, who, although in some 
 lesser matters they differ, yet in that which is greatest they 
 hold one and the same agreement to blaspheme the Creator, 
 figuring for themselves certain dreams and phantasms of an 
 
 1 Probably " of men," "nominum" in the original having been read 
 for " hominum."
 
 290 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 unknown God. Assuredly it is but natural that these should 
 agree in having a baptism which is unreal, 1 in the same way as 
 they agree in repudiating the truth of the divinity ; of whom, 
 since it is tedious to reply to their several statements, either 
 wicked or foolish, it is sufficient shortly to say in sum, that 
 they who do not hold the true Lord the Father cannot hold 
 the truth either of the Son or of the Holy Spirit ; according 
 to which also they who are called Cataphrygians, and endea- 
 vour to claim to themselves new prophecies, can have neither 
 the Father, nor the Son, [nor the Holy Spirit ~], of whom, if 
 we ask what Christ they announce, they will reply that they 
 preach Him who sent the Spirit that speaks by Montanus 
 and Prisca. And in these, when we observe that there has 
 been not the spirit of truth, but of error, we know that they 
 who maintain their false prophesying against the faith of 
 Christ cannot have Christ. Moreover, all other heretics, if 
 they have separated themselves from the church of God, can 
 have nothing of power or of grace, since all power and grace are 
 established in the church where the elders preside, who pos- 
 sess the power both of baptizing, and of imposition of hands, 
 and of ordaining. For as a heretic may not lawfully ordain 
 nor lay on hands, so neither may he baptize, nor do anything 
 holily or spiritually, since he is an alien from spiritual and 
 deifying sanctity. All which we some time back confirmed 
 in Iconium, which is a place in Phrygia, when we were 
 assembled together with those who had gathered from Galatia 
 and Cilicia, and other neighbouring countries, as to be held 
 and firmly vindicated against heretics, when there was some 
 doubt in certain minds concerning that matter. 
 
 8. And as Stephen and those who agree with him contend 
 that putting away of sins and second birth may result from 
 the baptism of heretics, among whom they themselves con- 
 fess that the Holy Spirit is not ; let them consider and under- 
 stand that spiritual birth cannot be without the Spirit; in 
 conformity with which also the blessed Apostle Paul baptized 
 
 1 Literally, " in the vanity (or unreality) of a baptism." 
 
 2 These words within brackets are conjecturally interpolated, but have 
 no authority.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CJPRIAN. 291 
 
 anew with a spiritual baptism those who had already been 
 baptized by John before the Holy Spirit had been sent by 
 the Lord, and so laid hands on them that they might receive 
 the Holy Ghost. But what kind of a thing is it, that when 
 we see that Paul, after John's baptism, baptized his disciples 
 again, we are hesitating to baptize those who come to the 
 church from heresy after their unhallowed and profane 
 dipping, unless, perchance, Paul was inferior to the bishops 
 of these times, so that these indeed can by imposition of hands 
 alone give the Holy Spirit to those heretics who come [to the 
 church], while Paul was not fitted to give the Holy Spirit by 
 imposition of hands to those who had been baptized by John, 
 unless he had first baptized them also with the baptism of the 
 church ? 
 
 9. That, moreover, is absurd, that they do not think it is 
 to be inquired who was the person that baptized, for the 
 reason that he who has been baptized may have obtained 
 grace by the invocation of the Trinity, of the names of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Then this 
 will be the wisdom which Paul writes is in those who are 
 perfected. But who in the church is perfect and wise who 
 can either defend or believe this, that this bare invocation of 
 names is sufficient to the remission of sins and the sanctifi- 
 cation of baptism ; since these things are only then of advan- 
 tage, when both he who baptizes has the Holy Spirit, and the 
 baptism itself also is not ordained without the Spirit ? But, 
 say they, he who in any manner whatever is baptized with- 
 out, may obtain the grace of baptism by his disposition and 
 faith, which doubtless is ridiculous in itself, as if either a 
 wicked disposition could attract 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, and that their invocation cannot obtain any grace, 
 the Lord Himself manifests, saying, " Many shall come in 
 my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many." 1 
 Because there is no difference between a false prophet and 
 a heretic. For as the former deceives in the name of God 
 1 Mark xiii. 6.
 
 292 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 or Christ, so the latter deceives in the sacrament of baptism. 
 Both strive by falsehood to deceive men's wills. 
 
 10. But I wish to relate [some facts] to you concerning a 
 circumstance which occurred among us, pertaining to this very 
 matter. About two-andrtwenty years ago, in the times after 
 the Emperor Alexander, there happened in these parts many 
 struggles and difficulties, either in general to all men, or pri- 
 vately to Christians. Moreover, there were many and frequent 
 earthquakes, so that many places were overthrown throughout 
 Cappadocia and Pontus ; even certain cities, dragged into the 
 abyss, were swallowed up by the opening of the gaping earth : 
 so that from this also a severe persecution arose against us of 
 the Christian name; and this after the long peace of the pre- 
 vious age arose suddenly, and with its unusual evils was made 
 more terrible for the disturbance of our people. Serenianus 
 was then governor in our province, a bitter and terrible per- 
 secutor. But the faithful being set in this state of disturb- 
 ance, and fleeing hither and thither for fear of the persecution, 
 and leaving their country and passing over into other regions 
 for there was an opportunity of passing over, for the reason 
 that that persecution was not over the whole world, but was 
 local there arose among us on a sudden a certain woman, 
 who in a state of ecstasy announced herself as a prophetess, 
 and acted as if filled with the Holy Ghost. And she was 
 so moved by the impetus of the principal demons, that for 
 a long time she made anxious and deceived the brotherhood, 
 accomplishing certain wonderful and portentous things, and 
 promised that she would cause the earth to be shaken. 
 Not that the power of the demon was so great that he could 
 prevail to shake the earth, or to disturb the elements ; but 
 that sometimes a wicked spirit, prescient, and perceiving that 
 there will be an earthquake, pretends that he will do what 
 he sees will happen. By these lies and boastings he had 
 so subdued the minds of individuals, that they obeyed him 
 and followed whithersoever he commanded and led. He 
 would also make that woman walk in the .keen winter with 
 bare feet over frozen snow, and not to be troubled or hurt in 
 any degree by that walking. Moreover, she would say that
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 293 
 
 she was hurrying to Judea and to Jerusalem, feigning as if 
 she had come thence. Here also she deceived one of the 
 presbyters, a countryman, and another deacon, so that they 
 had intercourse with that same woman, which was shortly 
 afterwards detected. For on a sudden there appeared unto 
 her one of the exorcists, a man approved and always of 
 good conversation in respect of religious discipline ; who, 
 stimulated by the exhortation also of very many brethren 
 who were themselves strong and praiseworthy in the faith, 
 raised himself up against that wicked spirit to overcome it ; 
 which moreover, by its subtile fallacy, had predicted this a 
 little while before, that a certain adverse and unbelieving 
 
 O 
 
 tempter would come. Yet that exorcist, inspired by God's 
 grace, bravely resisted, and showed that that which was before 
 thought holy, was indeed a most wicked spirit. But that 
 woman, who previously by wiles and deceitfulness of the 
 demon was attempting many things for the deceiving of the 
 faithful, among other things by which she had deceived 
 many, also had frequently dared this, to pretend with an in- 
 vocation not to be contemned that she sanctified bread and 
 celebrated 1 the Eucharist, and to offer sacrifice to the Lord, 
 not without the sacrament of the accustomed utterance ; and 
 also to baptize many, making use of the usual and lawful 
 words of interrogation, that nothing might seem to be different 
 from the ecclesiastical rule. 
 
 11. What, then, shall we say about the baptism of this 
 woman, by which a most wicked demon baptized through 
 means of a woman ? Do Stephen and they who agree with 
 him approve of this also, especially when neither the symbol of 
 the Trinity nor the legitimate and ecclesiastical interrogatory 
 were wanting to her ? Can it be believed that either remis- 
 sion of sins was given, or the regeneration of the saving laver 
 duly completed, when all things, although after the image of 
 truth, yet were done by a demon? Unless, perchance, they 
 who defend the baptism of heretics contend that the demon 
 also conferred the grace of baptism in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Among them, no 
 
 1 Facere.
 
 294 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 doubt, there is the same error it is the very deceitfulness 
 of devils, since among them the Holy Spirit is not at all. 
 
 12. Moreover, what is the meaning of that which Stephen 
 would assert, that the presence and holiness of Christ is with 
 those who are baptized among heretics ? For if the apostle 
 does not speak falsely when he says, " As many of you as are 
 baptized into Christ, have put on Christ," 1 certainly he who 
 has been baptized among them into Christ, has put on Christ. 
 But if he has put on Christ, he might also receive the Holy 
 Ghost, who was sent by Christ, and hands are vainly laid 
 upon him who comes to us for the reception of the Spirit ; 
 unless, perhaps, he has [not] put on the Spirit from Christ, 
 so that Christ indeed may be with heretics, but the Holy 
 Spirit not be with them. 
 
 13. But let us briefly run through the other matters also, 
 which were spoken of by you abundantly and most fully, 
 especially as Rogatianus, our well-beloved deacon, is hurry- 
 ing to you. For it follows that they must be asked by us, 
 when they defend heretics, whether their baptism is carnal 
 or spiritual. For if it is carnal, they differ in no respect 
 from the baptism of the Jews, which they use in such a 
 manner that in it, as if in a common and vulgar laver, only 
 external filth is washed away. But if it is spiritual, how 
 can baptism be spiritual among those among whom there is 
 no Holy Spirit ? And thus the water wherewith they are 
 washed is to them only a carnal washing, not a sacrament of 
 baptism. 
 
 14. But if the baptism of heretics can have the regenera- 
 tion of the second birth, those who are baptized among them 
 must be counted not heretics, but children of God. For the 
 second birth, which occurs in baptism, begets sons of God. 
 But if the spouse of Christ is one, which is the catholic 
 church, it is she herself who alone bears sons of God. For 
 there are not many spouses of Christ, since the apostle says, 
 " I have espoused you, that I may present you as a chaste 
 virgin to Christ;" 2 and, " Hearken, O daughter, and consider, 
 and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, for the 
 
 1 Gal. iii. 27. 3 2 Cor. xi. 2.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 295 
 
 King hath greatly desired thy beauty;" 1 and, "Come with me, 
 my spouse, from Lebanon ; thou shalt come, and shalt pass 
 over from the source of thy faith;" 2 and, "I am come into 
 my garden, my sister, my spouse." 3 We see that one person 
 is everywhere set forward, because also the spouse is one. 
 But the synagogue of heretics is not one with us, because the 
 spouse is not an adulteress and a harlot. Whence also she 
 cannot bear children of God ; unless, as appears to Stephen, 
 heresy indeed brings them forth and exposes them, while 
 the church takes them up when exposed, and nourishes those 
 for her own whom she has not born, although she cannot 
 be the mother of strange children. And therefore Christ 
 our Lord, setting forth that His spouse is one, and declaring 
 the sacrament of His unity, says, " He that is not with me 
 is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth." 4 
 For if Christ is with us, but the heretics are not with us, 
 certainly the heretics are in opposition to Christ; and if 
 we gather with Christ, but the heretics do not gather with 
 us, doubtless they scatter. 
 
 15. But neither must we pass over what has been neces- 
 sarily remarked by you, that the church, according to the 
 Song of Songs, is a garden enclosed, and a fountain sealed, 
 a paradise with the fruit of apples. 5 They who have never 
 entered into this garden, and have not seen the paradise 
 planted by God the Creator, how shall they be able to afford 
 to another the living water of the saving laver from the foun- 
 tain which is enclosed within, and sealed with a divine seal? 
 And as the ark of Noah was nothing else than the sacrament 
 of the church of Christ, which then, when all without were 
 perishing, kept those only safe who were within the ark, we 
 are manifestly instructed to look to the unity of the church. 
 Even as also the Apostle Peter laid down, saying, " Thus 
 also shall baptism in like manner make you safe ; " 6 showing 
 that as they who were not in the ark with Noah not only were 
 not purged and saved by water, but at once perished in that 
 deluge ; so now also, whoever are not in the church with 
 
 1 Ps. xlv. 11. 2 Cant. iv. 8. 8 Cant. v. 1. 
 
 4 Luke xi. 23. * Cant. iv. 12, 13. c 1 Pet. iii. 21.
 
 296 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Christ will perish outside, unless they are converted by peni- 
 tence to the only and saving laver of the church. 
 
 16. But what is the greatness of his error, and what the 
 depth of his blindness, who says that remission of sins can 
 be granted in the synagogues of heretics, and does not abide 
 on the foundation of the one church which was once based 
 by Christ upon the rock, may be perceived from this, that 
 Christ said to Peter alone, " Whatsoever thou shalt bind on 
 earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt 
 loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." l And again, in 
 the Gospel, when Christ breathed on the apostles alone, 
 saying, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whose soever sins ye 
 remit they are remitted unto them, and whose soever sins ye 
 retain they are retained." 2 Therefore the power of remit- 
 ting sins was given to the apostles, and to the churches 
 which they, sent by Christ, established, and to the bishops 
 who succeeded to 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, assert- 
 ing for themselves, in opposition to us, unlawful priesthoods, 
 and setting up profane altars, what else are they than Korah, 
 Dathan, and Abiram, profane with a like wickedness, and 
 about to suffer the same punishments which they did, as well 
 as those who agree with them, just as their partners and 
 abettors perished with a like death to theirs ? 
 
 17. And in this respect I am justly indignant at this so- 
 open and manifest folly of Stephen, that he who so boasts of 
 the place of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the 
 succession from Peter, on whom the foundations of the 
 church were laid, should introduce many other rocks and 
 establish new buildings of many churches ; maintaining that 
 there is baptism in them by his authority. For they who 
 are baptized, doubtless, fill up the number of the church. 
 But he who approves their baptism maintains, of those bap- 
 tized, that the church is also with them. Nor does he 
 understand that the truth of the Christian rock is over- 
 shadowed, and in some measure abolished, by him when he 
 
 1 Matt. xvi. 19. 2 John xx. 22, 23.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 297 
 
 thus betrays and deserts unity. The apostle acknowledges 
 that the Jews, although blinded by ignorance, and bound by 
 the grossest wickedness, have yet a zeal for God. Stephen, 
 who announces that he holds by succession the throne of 
 Peter, is stirred with no zeal against heretics, when he concedes 
 to them, not a moderate, but the very greatest power of grace; 
 so far as to say and assert that, by the sacrament of baptism, 
 the filth of the old man is washed away by them, that they 
 pardon the former mortal sins, that they make sons of God by 
 heavenly regeneration, and renew to eternal life by the sancti- 
 fication of the divine laver. He who concedes and gives up 
 to heretics in this way the great and heavenly gifts of the 
 church, what else does he do but communicate with them 
 for whom he maintains and claims so much grace ? And 
 now he hesitates in vain to consent to them, and to be a 
 partaker with them in other matters also, to meet together 
 with them, and equally with them to mingle their prayers, 
 and appoint a common altar and sacrifice. 
 
 18. But, says he, the name of Christ is of great advantage 
 to faith and the sanctification of baptism ; so that whosoever 
 is anywhere soever baptized in the name of Christ, immedi- 
 ately obtains the grace of Christ : although this position may 
 be briefly met and answered, that if baptism without in the 
 name of Christ availed for the cleansing of man ; in the name- 
 of the same Christ, the imposition of hands might avail also 
 for the reception of the Holy Spirit ; and the other things 
 also which are done among heretics will begin to seem just 
 and lawful when they are done in the name of Christ ; as you 
 have maintained in your letter that the name of Christ could 
 be of no avail except in the church alone, to which alone 
 Christ has conceded the power of heavenly grace. 
 
 19. But with respect to the refutation of custom which 
 they seem to oppose to the truth, who is so foolish as to 
 prefer custom to truth, or when he sees the light, not to 
 forsake the darkness? unless most ancient custom in any 
 respect avail the Jews, upon the advent of Christ, that is, the 
 Truth, in remaining in their old usage, and forsaking the new 
 way of truth. And this indeed you Africans are able to say
 
 298 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 against Stephen, that when you knew the truth you forsook 
 the error of custom. But we join custom to truth, and to the 
 Romans' custom we oppose custom, but the custom of truth ; 
 holding from the beginning that which was delivered by 
 Christ and the apostles. Nor do we remember that this at 
 any time began among us, since it has always been observed 
 here, that we knew none but one church of God, and ac- 
 counted no baptism holy except that of the holy church. 
 Certainly, since some doubted about the baptism of those 
 who, although they receive the new prophets, 1 yet appear 
 to recognise the same Father and Son with us ; very many of 
 us meeting together in Iconiuin very carefully examined the 
 matter, and we decided that every baptism was altogether to 
 be rejected which is arranged for without the church. 
 
 20. But to what they allege and say on behalf of the 
 heretics, that the apostle said, " Whether in pretence or in 
 truth, Christ is preached," 2 it is idle for us to reply ; when it 
 is manifest that the apostle, in his epistle wherein he said this, 
 made mention neither of heretics nor of baptism of heretics, 
 but spoke of brethren only, whether as perfidiously speaking 
 in agreement with himself, or as persevering in sincere faith ; 
 nor is it needful to discuss this in a long argument, but it is 
 sufficient to read the epistle itself, and to gather from the 
 apostle himself what the apostle said. 
 
 21. What then, say they, will become of those who, coming 
 from the heretics, have been received without the baptism 
 of the church? If they have departed this life, they are 
 reckoned in the number of those who have been catechumens 
 indeed among us, but have died before they were baptized, 
 no trifling 3 advantage of truth and faith, to which they 
 had attained by forsaking error, although, being prevented 
 by death, they had not gained the consummation of grace. 
 But they who still abide in life should be baptized with the 
 baptism of the church, that they may obtain remission of 
 sins, lest by the presumption of others they remain in their 
 
 1 Or, "as we do the prophets." 2 Phil. i. 18. 
 
 3 Or, "they not only speak of, (but have)," is a proposed reading of 
 this obscure passage, " non modo dicunt."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 299 
 
 old error, and die without the completion of grace. But 
 what a crime is theirs on the one hand who receive, or on 
 the other, theirs who are received, that their foulness not 
 being washed away by the laver of the church, nor their sins 
 put away, communion being rashly seized, they touch the body 
 and blood of the Lord, although it is written, " Whosoever 
 shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, 
 shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord !" l 
 
 22. We have judged, that those also whom they, who had 
 formerly been bishops in the catholic church, and afterwards 
 had assumed to themselves the power of clerical ordina- 
 tion, had baptized, are to be regarded as not baptized. And 
 this is observed among us, that whosoever dipped by them 
 come to us are baptized among us as strangers and having 
 obtained nothing, with the only and true baptism of the 
 catholic church, and obtain the regeneration of the laver of 
 life. And yet there is a great difference between him who 
 unwillingly and constrained by the necessity of persecution 
 has given way, and him who with a profane will boldly rebels 
 against the church, or with impious voice blasphemes against 
 the Father and God of Christ and the Creator of the whole 
 world. And Stephen is not ashamed to assert and to say 
 that remission of sins can be granted by those who are them- 
 selves set fast in all kinds of sins, as if in the house of death 
 there could be the laver of salvation. 
 
 23. What, then, is to be made of what is written, "Abstain 
 from strange water, and drink not from a strange fountain," 2 
 if, leaving the sealed fountain of the church, you take up 
 strange water for your own, and pollute the church with 
 unhallowed fountains? For when you communicate with 
 the baptism of heretics, what else do you do than drink from 
 their slough and mud ; and while you yourself are purged 
 with the church's sanctification, you become befouled with the 
 contact of the filth of others ? And do you not fear the judg- 
 ment of God when you are giving testimony to heretics in 
 opposition to the church, although it is written, "A false 
 witness shall not be unpunished?" 3 But indeed you are 
 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 27. 2 Prov. ix. 19 (LXX.). 8 Prov. xix. 5.
 
 300 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 worse than all heretics. For when many, as soon as their 
 error is known, come over to you from them that they may 
 receive the true light of the church, you assist the errors of 
 those who come, and obscuring the light of ecclesiastical 
 truth, you heap up the darkness of the heretical night ; and 
 although they confess that they are in sins, and have no 
 grace, and therefore come to the church, you take away 
 from them remission of sins, which is given in baptism, 
 by saying that they are already baptized and have obtained 
 the grace of the church outside the church, and you do 
 not perceive that their souls will be required at your hands 
 when the day of judgment shall come, for having denied 
 to the thirsting the drink of the church, and having been 
 the occasion of death to those that were desirous of living. 
 And, after all this, you are indignant ! 
 
 24. Consider with what want of judgment you dare to 
 blame those who strive for the truth against falsehood. For 
 who ought more justly to be indignant against the other? 
 whether he who supports God's enemies, or he who, in 
 opposition to him who supports God's enemies, unites [with 
 us] on behalf of the truth of the church ? except that it is 
 plain that the ignorant are also excited and angry, because 
 by the want of counsel and discourse they are easily turned 
 to wrath; so that of none more than of you does divine 
 Scripture say, "A wrathful man stirreth up strifes, and a 
 furious man heapeth up sins." 1 For what strifes and dis- 
 sensions have you stirred up throughout the churches of the 
 whole world ! Moreover, how great sin have you heaped up 
 for yourself, when you cut yourself off from so many flocks ! 
 For it is yourself that you have cut off. Do not deceive your- 
 self, since he is really the schismatic who has made himself 
 an apostate from the communion of ecclesiastical unity. For 
 while you think that all may be excommunicated by you, you 
 have excommunicated yourself alone from all ; and not even 
 the precepts of an apostle have been able to mould you to the 
 rule of truth and peace, although he warned, and said, " I 
 therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk 
 1 Prov. xxix. 22.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 301 
 
 worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all 
 lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forhearing one 
 another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the 
 Spirit in 'the bond of peace. There is one body and one 
 Spirit, even as ye are 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." ] 
 
 25. How carefully has Stephen fulfilled these salutary 
 commands and warnings of the apostle, keeping in the first 
 place lowliness of mind and meekness ! For what is more 
 lowly or meek than to have disagreed with so many bishops 
 throughout the whole world, breaking peace with each one of 
 them in various kinds of discord : at one time with the eastern 
 churches, as we are sure you know ; at another time with 
 you who are in the south, from whom he received bishops as 
 messengers sufficiently patiently and meekly not to receive 
 them even to the speech of an ordinary conference ; and even 
 more, so mindful of love and charity as to command the entire 
 fraternity, that no one should receive them into his house, so 
 that not only peace and communion, but also a shelter and 
 entertainment, were denied to them when they came ! This 
 is to have kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, to 
 cut himself off from the unity of love, and to make himself 
 a stranger in all respects from his brethren, and to rebel 
 against the sacrament and the faith with the madness of 
 contumacious discord ! With such a man can there be one 
 Spirit and one body, in whom perchance there is not even 
 one mind, so slippery, and shifting, and uncertain is it? 
 
 26. But as far as he is concerned, let us leave him ; let us 
 rather deal with that concerning which there is the greatest 
 question. They who contend that persons baptized among 
 the heretics ought to be received as if they had obtained the 
 grace of lawful baptism, say that baptism is one and the same 
 to them and to us, and differs in no respect. But what says 
 the Apostle Paul ? " One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
 God." 2 If the baptism of heretics be one and the same with 
 ours, without doubt their faith also is one ; but if our faith 
 
 1 Eph. iv. 1-6. 2 Eph. iv. 5, 6.
 
 302 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 is one, assuredly also we have one Lord : if there is one Lord, 
 it follows that we say that He is one. 1 But if this unity 
 which cannot be separated and divided at all, is itself also 
 among heretics, why do we contend any more? Why do 
 we call them heretics and not Christians ? Moreover, since 
 we and heretics have not one God, nor one Lord, nor one 
 church, nor one faith, nor even one Spirit, nor one body, it 
 is manifest that neither can baptism be common to us with 
 heretics, since between us there is nothing at all in common. 
 And yet Stephen is not ashamed to afford patronage to sucli 
 in opposition to the church, and for the sake of maintaining 
 heretics to divide the brotherhood ; and in addition, to call 
 Cyprian a false Christ, and a false apostle, and a deceitful 
 worker. And he, conscious that all these characters are in 
 himself, has been in advance of you, by falsely objecting to 
 another those things which he himself ought deservedly 
 to hear. We all bid you, for all our sakes, with all the 
 bishops who are in Africa, and all the clergy, and all the 
 brotherhood, farewell; that, constantly of one mind, and 
 thinking the same thing, we may find you united with us 
 even though afar off. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXV. 2 
 
 TO MAGNUS, ON BAPTIZING THE NOVATIANS, AND THOSE 
 WHO OBTAIN GRACE ON A SICK-BED. 
 
 AEGUMENT. The former part of this letter is of the same 
 tenor with those that precede, except that he inculcates 
 concerning the Novatians what he had in substance said 
 concerning all heretics ; moreover, insinuating by the way 
 that the legitimate succession in the see of Peter is known, 
 as the church may be known. In the second part (which 
 hitherto, as the title sufficiently indicates, has been wrongly 
 published as a separate letter) he teaches that that is a 
 
 1 Otherwise " unity." Some commentators omit this clause. 
 
 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixix.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 303 
 
 true baptism wherein one is baptized by sprinkling on a 
 sick-bed, as well as by immersion in the church. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Magnus his son, greeting. With your usual 
 religious diligence, you have consulted my poor intelligence, 
 dearest son, as to whether, among other heretics, they also 
 who come from Novatian ought, after his profane washing, 
 to be baptized, and sanctified in the catholic church, with the 
 lawful, and true, and only baptism of the church. Respecting 
 which matter, as much as the capacity of my faith and the 
 sanctity and truth of the divine Scriptures suggest, I answer, 
 that no heretics and schismatics at all have any power or 
 right. For which reason Novatian neither ought to be nor 
 can be excepted, inasmuch as he also is without the church 
 and acting in opposition to the peace and love of Christ, 
 from being counted among adversaries and antichrists. For 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, when He testified in His Gospel 
 that those who were not with Him were His adversaries, 
 did not point out any species of heresy, but showed that all 
 whatsoever who were not with Him, and who, not gathering 
 with Him, were scattering His flock, were His adversaries ; 
 saying, " He that is not with me is against me, and he that 
 gathereth not with me scattereth." 1 Moreover, the blessed 
 Apostle John himself distinguished no heresy or schism, 
 neither did he set down any as specially separated ; but he 
 called all who had gone out from the church, and who acted 
 in opposition to the church, antichrists, saying, " Ye have 
 heard that antichrist cometh, and even now are come many 
 antichrists ; wherefore we know that this is the last time. 
 They went out from us, but they were not of us ; for if they 
 had been of us, they would have continued with us." 2 Whence 
 it appears, that all are adversaries of the Lord and antichrists, 
 who are known to have departed from charity and from the 
 unity of the catholic church. In addition, moreover, the Lord 
 establishes it in His Gospel, and says, " But if he neglect to 
 hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and 
 a publican." 3 Now if they who despise the church are counted 
 
 1 Luke xi. 23. 2 1 John ii. 18, 19. 3 Matt, xviii. 17.
 
 304 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 heathens and publicans, much more certainly is it necessary 
 that rebels and enemies, who forge false altars, and lawless 
 priesthoods, and sacrilegious sacrifices, and corrupted names, 
 should be counted among heathens and publicans ; since 
 they who sin less, and are only despisers of the church, are 
 by the Lord's sentence judged to be heathens and publicans. 
 2. But that the church is one, the Holy Spirit declares in 
 the Song of Songs, saying, in the person of Christ, "My 
 dove, my undefiled, is one ; she is the only one of her mother, 
 she is the choice one of her that bare her." 1 Concerning 
 which also He says again, " A garden enclosed is my sister, 
 my spouse; a spring sealed up, a well of living water." 2 But 
 if the spouse of Christ, which is the church, is a garden 
 enclosed ; a thing that is closed up cannot lie open to strangers 
 and profane persons. And if it is a fountain sealed, he who, 
 being placed without, has no access to the spring, can neither 
 drink thence nor be sealed. And the well also of living 
 water, if it is one and the same within, he who is placed 
 without cannot be quickened and sanctified from that water 
 of which it is only granted to those who are within to make 
 any use, or to drink. Peter also, showing this, set forth that 
 the church is one, and that only they who are in the church 
 can be baptized ; and said, " In the ark of Noah, few, that 
 is, eight souls, were saved by water ; the like figure where- 
 unto even baptism shall save you;" 3 proving and attesting 
 that the one ark of Noah was a type of the one church. If, 
 then, in that baptism of the world thus expiated and purified, 
 he who was not in the ark of Noah could be saved by water, 
 he who is not in the church to which alone baptism is 
 granted, can also now be quickened by baptism. Moreover, 
 too, the Apostle Paul, more openly and clearly still manifest- 
 ing this same thing, writes to the Ephesians, and says, " Christ 
 loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He might 
 sanctify and cleanse it with the \vashing of water." 4 But if 
 the church is one which is loved by Christ, and is alone 
 cleansed by His washing, how can he who is not in the church 
 
 1 Cant. vi. 9. 2 Cant. iv. 12. 
 
 3 1 Pet. iii. 20, 21. 4 Eph. v. 25, 26.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 305 
 
 be either loved by Christ, or washed and cleansed by His 
 washing ? 
 
 3. Wherefore, since the church alone has the living water, 
 and the power of baptizing and cleansing man, he who says 
 that any one can be baptized and sanctified by Novatian 
 must first show and teach that Novatian is in the church, or 
 presides over the church. For the church is one, and as she 
 is one, cannot be both within and without. For if she is 
 with Novatian, she was not with Cornelius. But if she was 
 with Cornelius, who succeeded the bishop Fabian by lawful 
 ordination, and whom, beside the honour of the priesthood, 
 the Lord glorified also with martyrdom, Novatian is not in 
 the church; nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, who, succeed- 
 ing to no one, and despising the evangelical and apostolic 
 tradition, sprang from himself. For he who has not been 
 ordained in the church can neither have nor hold to the 
 church in any way. 
 
 4. For the faith of the sacred Scripture sets forth that the 
 church is not without, nor can be separated nor divided 
 against itself, but maintains the unity of an inseparable and 
 undivided house ; since it is written of the sacrament of the 
 passover, and of the lamb, which lamb designated Christ: 
 " In one house shall it be eaten : ye shall not carry forth the 
 flesh abroad out of the house." 1 Which also we see expressed 
 concerning Rahab, who herself also bore a type of the 
 church, who received the command which said, " Thou shalt 
 bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all 
 thy father's household unto thee into thine house ; and who- 
 soever shall go out of the doors of thine house into the street, 
 his blood shall be upon him." 2 In which mystery is declared, 
 that they who will live, and escape from the destruction of 
 the world, must be gathered together into one house alone, 
 that is, into the church ; but whosoever of those thus collected 
 together shall go out abroad, that is, if any one, although he 
 may have obtained grace in the church, shall depart and go 
 out of the church, that his blood shall be upon him ; that is, 
 that he himself must charge it upon himself that he perishes ; 
 
 1 Ex. xii. 46. 2 Josh. ii. 18, 19. 
 
 U
 
 306 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 which the Apostle Paul explains, teaching and enjoining 
 that a heretic must be avoided, as perverse, and a sinner, and 
 as condemned of himself. For that man will be guilty of 
 his own ruin, who, not being cast out by the bishop, but of 
 his own accord deserting from the church is by heretical 
 presumption condemned of himself. 
 
 5. And therefore the Lord,- suggesting to us a unity that 
 comes from divine authority, lays it down, saying, " I and my 
 Father are one." 1 To which unity reducing His church, He 
 says again, " And there shall be one flock, 2 and one shep- 
 herd." 3 But if the flock is one, how can he be numbered 
 among the flock who is not in the number of the flock ? 
 Or how can he be esteemed a pastor, who, while the true 
 shepherd remains and presides over the church of God by 
 successive ordination, succeeding to no one, and beginning 
 from himself, becomes a stranger and a profane person, an 
 enemy of the Lord's peace and of the divine unity, not 
 dwelling in the house of God, that is, in the church of God, 
 in which none dwell except they are of one heart and one mind, 
 since the Holy Spirit speaks in the Psalms, and says, " It is 
 God who maketh men to dwell of one mind in a house." 4 
 
 6. Besides even the Lord's sacrifices themselves declare 
 that Christian unanimity is linked together with itself by a 
 firm and inseparable charity. For when the Lord calls bread, 
 which is combined by the union of many grains, His body, 
 He indicates our people whom He bore as being united ; and 
 when He calls the wine, which is pressed from many grapes 
 and clusters and collected together, His blood, He also signi- 
 fies our flock linked together by the mingling of a united 
 multitude. If Novatian is united to this bread of the Lord, 
 if he also is mingled with this cup of Christ, he may also 
 seem to be able to have the grace of the one baptism of the 
 church, if it be manifest that he holds the unity of the 
 church. In fine, how inseparable is the sacrament of unity, 
 and how hopeless are they, and what excessive ruin they 
 earn for themselves from the indignation of God, who make 
 
 O ' 
 
 a schism, and forsaking their bishop, appoint another false 
 1 John x. 30. 2 " Grex." 3 John x. 16. * Ps. Ixviii. 6.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 307 
 
 bishop for themselves without, Holy Scripture declares in 
 the books of Kings ; where ten tribes were divided from the 
 tribe of Judah and Benjamin, and forsaking their king, ap- 
 pointed for themselves another one without. It says, " And 
 the Lord was very angry with all the seed of Israel, and 
 removed them away, and delivered them into the hand of 
 spoilers, until He had cast them out of His sight ; for Israel was 
 scattered from the house of David, and they made themselves 
 a king, Jeroboam the son of Nebat." 1 It says that the Lord 
 was very angry, and gave them up to perdition, because they 
 were scattered from unity, and had made another king for 
 themselves. And so great was the indignation of the Lord 
 against those who had made the schism, that even when the 
 man of God w r as sent to Jeroboam, to charge upon him his 
 sins, and predict the future vengeance, he was forbidden to 
 eat bread or to drink water with them. And when he did 
 not observe this, and took meat against the command of God, 
 he was immediately smitten by the majesty of the divine judg- 
 ment, so that returning thence he was slain on the way by 
 the jaws of a lion which attacked him ; and dares any one to 
 say that the saving water of baptism and heavenly grace can 
 be in common with schismatics, with whom neither earthly 
 food nor worldly drink ought to be in common ? More- 
 over, the Lord satisfies us in His Gospel, and shows forth a 
 still greater light of intelligence, that the same persons who 
 had then divided themselves from the tribe of Judah and 
 Benjamin, and forsaking Jerusalem had seceded to Samaria, 
 should be reckoned among profane persons and Gentiles. For 
 when first He sent His disciples on the ministry of salvation, 
 He bade them, saying, " Go not into the way of the Gentiles, 
 and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not." 2 Sending 
 first to the Jews, He commands the Gentiles as yet to be 
 passed over; but by adding that even the city of the Samaritans 
 was to be omitted, where there were schismatics, Pie shows 
 that schismatics were to be put on the same level as Gentiles. 
 7. But if any one objects, by way of saying that Novatian 
 holds the same law which the catholic church holds, baptizes 
 1 2 Kings xvii. 20, 21. 2 Matt. x. 5.
 
 308 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 with the same symbol with which we baptize, knows the same 
 God and Father, the same Christ the Son, the same Holy 
 Spirit, and that for this reason he may claim the power of 
 baptizing, namely, that he seems not to differ from us in the 
 baptismal interrogatory; let any one that thinks that this may 
 be objected, know first of all, that there is not one law of 
 the creed, nor the same interrogatory common to us and to 
 schismatics. For when they say, "Dost thou believe the 
 remission of sins and life eternal through the holy church ? " 
 they lie in their interrogatory, since they have not the church. 
 Then, besides, with their own voice they themselves confess 
 that remission of sins cannot be given except by the holy 
 church ; and not having this, they show that sins cannot be 
 remitted among them. 
 
 8. But that they are said to have the same God the Father 
 as we, to know the same Christ the Son, the same Holy 
 Spirit, can be of no avail to such as these. For even Korah, 
 Dathan, and Abiram knew the same God as did the priest 
 Aaron and Moses. Living under the same law and religion, 
 they invoked the one and true God, who was to be invoked 
 and worshipped ; yet, because they transgressed the ministry 
 of their office in opposition to Aaron the priest, who had re- 
 ceived the legitimate priesthood by the condescension of God 
 and the ordination of the Lord, and claimed to themselves 
 the power of sacrificing, divinely stricken, they immediately 
 suffered punishment for their unlawful endeavours ; and 
 sacrifices offered irreligiously and lawlessly, contrary to the 
 right of divine appointment, could not be accepted, nor profit 
 them. Even those very censers in which incense had been 
 lawlessly offered, lest they should any more be used by the 
 priests, but that they might rather exhibit a memorial of the 
 divine vengeance and indignation for the correction of their 
 successors, being by the command of the Lord melted and 
 purged by fire, were beaten out into flexible plates, and 
 fastened to the altars, according to what the Holy Scrip- 
 ture says, " to be," it says, " a memorial to the children of 
 Israel, that no stranger which is not of the seed of Aaron 
 come near to offer incense before the Lord, that he be not
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 309 
 
 as Korali." 1 And yet those men had not made a schism, 
 nor had gone out abroad, and in opposition to God's priests 
 rebelled shamelessly and with hostility ; but this these men 
 are now doing who divide the church, and, as rebels against 
 the peace and unity of Christ, attempt to establish a throne 
 for themselves, and to assume the primacy, and to claim the 
 right of baptizing and of offering. How can they complete 
 what they do, or obtain anything by lawless endeavours from 
 God, seeing that they are endeavouring against God what is 
 not lawful to them ? Wherefore they who patronize Nova- 
 tian or other schismatics of that kind, contend in vain that 
 any one can be baptized and sanctified with a saving baptism 
 among them, when it is plain that he who baptizes has not 
 the power of baptizing. 
 
 9. And, moreover, that it may be better understood what 
 is the divine judgment against audacity of the like kind, 
 we find that in such wickedness, not only the leaders and 
 originators, but also the partakers, are destined to punish- 
 ment, unless they have separated themselves from the com- 
 munion of the wicked ; as 'the Lord by Moses commands, 
 and says, " Separate yourselves from the tents of these most 
 hardened men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be con- 
 sumed in their sins." 2 And what the Lord had threatened 
 by Moses He fulfilled, that whosoever had not separated 
 himself from Korah, and Dathan, and Abiram, immediately 
 suffered punishment for his impious communion. By which 
 example is shown and proved, that all will be liable to guilt 
 as well as its punishment, who with irreligious boldness 
 mingle themselves with schismatics in opposition to prelates 
 and priests ; even as also by the prophet Osea the Holy 
 Spirit witnesses, and says, " Their sacrifices shall be unto 
 them as the bread of mourning ; all that eat thereof shall 
 be polluted ;" 3 teaching, doubtless, and showing that all are 
 absolutely joined with the leaders in punishment, who have 
 been contaminated by their crime. 
 
 10. What, then, can be their deservings in the sight of 
 God, on whom punishments are divinely denounced ? or how 
 
 1 Num. xvii. 5. 2 Num. xvi. 26. 8 Hos. ix. 4.
 
 310 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 can such persons justify and sanctify the baptized, who, being 
 enemies of the priests, strive to usurp things foreign and 
 lawless, and by no right conceded to them? And yet we do 
 not wonder that, in accordance with their wickedness, they 
 do contend for them. For it is necessary that each one of 
 them should maintain what they do ; nor when vanquished 
 Avill they easily yield, although they know that what they do 
 is not lawful. That is to be wondered at, yea, rather to be 
 indignant and aggrieved at, that Christians should support 
 antichrists ; and that prevaricators of the faith, and betrayers 
 of the church, should stand within in the church itself. 1 And 
 these, although otherwise obstinate and unteachable, yet still 
 at least confess this that all, whether heretics or schismatics, 
 are without the Holy Ghost, and therefore can indeed baptize, 
 but cannot confer the Holy Spirit ; and at this very point 
 they are held fast by us, inasmuch as we show that those who 
 have not the Holy Ghost are not able to baptize at all. 
 
 11. For since in baptism every one has his own sins re- 
 mitted, the Lord proves and declares in His Gospel that sins 
 can only be put away by those who have the Holy Spirit. 
 For after His resurrection, sending forth His disciples, He 
 speaks to them, and says, " As the Father hath sent me, even 
 so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on 
 them, and said to them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose 
 soever sins ye remit, they shall be remitted unto them ; and 
 whose soever sins ye retain, they shall be retained." 2 In 
 which place He shows, that he alone can baptize and give 
 remission of sins who has the Holy Spirit. Moreover, John, 
 who was to baptize Christ our Lord Himself, previously 
 received the Holy Ghost while he was yet in his mother's 
 womb, that it might be certain and manifest that none can 
 baptize save those who have the Holy Spirit. Therefore 
 those who patronize heretics or schismatics must answer us 
 whether they have or have not the Holy Ghost. If they 
 have, why are hands imposed on those who are baptized among 
 them when they come to us, that they may receive the Holy 
 Ghost, since He must surely have been received there, where 
 1 " Within the very barriers of the church ;" v. I. 2 John xx. 21-23.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 311 
 
 if lie was He could be given? But if heretics and schis- 
 matics baptized without have not the Holy Spirit, and there- 
 fore hands are imposed on them among us, that here may be 
 received what there neither is nor can be given ; it is plain, 
 also, that remission of sins cannot be given by those who, it 
 is certain, have not the Holy Spirit. And therefore, in order 
 that, according to the divine arrangement and the evangelical 
 truth, they may be able to obtain remission of sins, and to be 
 sanctified, and to become temples of God, they must all abso- 
 lutely be baptized with the baptism of the church who come 
 from adversaries and antichrists to the church of Christ. 
 
 12. You have asked also, dearest son, what I thought of 
 those who obtain God's grace in sickness and weakness, 
 whether they are to be accounted legitimate Christians, for 
 that they are not washed, but sprinkled, with the saving water. 
 In this point, my diffidence and modesty prejudges none, so as 
 to prevent any from feeling what he thinks right, and from 
 doing what he feels to be right. As far as my poor under- 
 standing conceives it, I think that the divine benefits can in 
 
 O / 
 
 no respect be mutilated and weakened ; nor can anything less 
 occur in that case, where, with full and entire faith both of 
 the giver and receiver, is accepted what is drawn from the 
 divine gifts. For in the sacrament of salvation the contagion 
 of sins is not in such wise washed away, as the filth of the skin 
 and of the body is washed away in the carnal and ordinary 
 washing, as that there should be need of saltpetre and other 
 appliances also, and a bath and a basin wherewith this vile body 
 may be washed and purified. Otherwise is the breast of the 
 believer washed; otherwise is the mind of man purified by the 
 merit of faith. In the sacraments of salvation, when neces- 
 sity compels, and God bestows His mercy, the divine methods 
 confer the whole benefit on believers ; nor ought it to trouble 
 any one that sick people seem to be sprinkled or affused, when 
 they obtain the Lord's grace, when holy Scripture speaks by 
 the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, and says, " Then will I 
 sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from, 
 all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. 
 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put
 
 312 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 within you." 1 Also in Numbers : "And the man that shall 
 be unclean until the evening shall be purified on the third 
 day, and on the seventh day shall be clean : but if he shall 
 not be purified on the third day, on the seventh day he shall 
 not be clean. And that soul shall be cut off from Israel : 
 because the water of sprinkling hath not been sprinkled upon 
 him." 2 And again : " And the Lord spake unto Moses, say- 
 ing, Take the Levites from among the children of Israel, and 
 cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do unto them, to cleanse 
 them : thou shalt sprinkle them with the water of purifica- 
 tion." 3 And again : " The water of sprinkling is a purifica- 
 tion." 4 Whence it appears that the sprinkling also of water 
 prevails equally with the washing of salvation ; and that when 
 this is done in the church, where the faith both of receiver 
 and giver is sound, all things hold and may be consummated 
 and perfected by the majesty of the Lord and by the truth 
 of faith. 
 
 13. But, moreover, in respect of some calling those who 
 have obtained the peace of Christ by the saving water and 
 by legitimate faith, not Christians, but Clinics, I do not find 
 whence they take up this name, unless perhaps, having read 
 more, and of a more recondite kind, they have taken these 
 Clinics from Hippocrates or Soranus. For I, who know of 
 a Clinic in the Gospel, know that to that paralytic and in- 
 firm man, who lay on his bed during the long course of his 
 life, his infirmity presented no obstacle to his attainment in 
 the fullest degree of heavenly strength. Nor was he only 
 raised from his bed by the divine indulgence, but he also 
 took up his bed itself with his restored and increased strength. 
 And therefore, as far as it is allowed me by faith to conceive 
 and to think, this is my opinion, that any one should be 
 esteemed a legitimate Christian, who by the law and right of 
 
 1 Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26. 2 Num. xix. 8, 12, 13. 
 
 3 Num. viii. 5-7. * Num. xix. 9. 
 
 5 The Oxford translator has given this name as " Socrates" here, but, as 
 it appears, by an oversight only ; for the original text has "Soranus," who 
 is described as " of Ephesus, under Trajan and Adrian, a well-instructed 
 author in methodical medicine," just as the translator describes Socrates.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 313 
 
 faith shall have obtained the grace of God in the church. 
 Or if any one think that those have gained nothing by 
 having only been sprinkled with the saving water, but that 
 they are still empty and void, let them not be deceived, so as 
 if they escape the evil of their sickness, and get well, they 
 to be baptized. 1 But if they cannot be baptized who have 
 already been sanctified by ecclesiastical baptism, why are 
 they offended in respect of their faith and the mercy of the 
 Lord ? Or have they obtained indeed the divine favour, but 
 in a shorter and more limited measure of the divine gift and 
 of the Holy Spirit, so as indeed to be esteemed Christians, 
 but yet not to be counted equal with others ? 
 
 14. Nay, verily, the Holy Spirit is not given by measure, 
 but is poured out altogether on the believer. For if the day 
 rises alike to all, and if the sun is diffused with like and 
 equal light over all, how much more does Christ, who is the 
 true sun and the true day, bestow in His church the light of 
 eternal life with the like equality ! of which equality we see 
 the sacrament celebrated in Exodus, when the manna flowed 
 down from heaven, and, prefiguring the things to come, 
 showed forth the nourishment of the heavenly bread and 
 the food of the coming Christ. For there, without distinc- 
 tion either of sex or of age, an omer was collected equally 
 by each one. Whence it appeared that the mercy of Christ, 
 and the heavenly grace that would subsequently follow, was 
 equally divided among all ; without difference of sex, without 
 distinction of years, without accepting of persons, upon all 
 the people of God the gift of spiritual grace was shed. 
 Assuredly the same spiritual grace which is equally received 
 in baptism by believers, is subsequently either increased or 
 diminished in our conversation and conduct ; as in the gospel 
 the Lord's seed is equally sown, but, according to the variety 
 of the soil, some is wasted, and some is increased into a large 
 variety of plenty, with an exuberant fruit of either thirty 
 or sixty or a hundred fold. But, once more, when each was 
 called to receive a penny, wherefore should what is distributed 
 equally by God be diminished by human interpretation ? 
 1 The exact meaning of this sentence is very doubtful.
 
 314 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 15. But if any one is moved by this, that some of those 
 who are baptized in sickness are still tempted by unclean 
 spirits, let him know that the obstinate wickedness of the 
 devil prevails even up to the saving water, but that in baptism 
 it loses all the poison of his wickedness. An instance of this 
 we see in the king Pharaoh, who, having struggled long, 
 and delayed in his perfidy, could resist and prevail until he 
 came to the water ; but when he had come thither, he was 
 both conquered and destroyed. And that that sea was u 
 sacrament of baptism, the blessed Apostle Paul declares, 
 saying, " Brethren, I would not have you ignorant how that 
 all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through 
 the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and 
 in the sea ; " and he added, saying, " Now all these things 
 were our examples." l And this also is done in the present 
 day, in that the devil is scourged, and burned, and tortured 
 by exorcists, by the human voice, and by divine power ; and 
 although he often says that he is going out, and will leave the 
 men of God, yet in that which he says he deceives, and puts 
 in practice what was before done by Pharaoh with the same 
 obstinate and fraudulent deceit. When, however, they come 
 to the water of salvation and to the sanctification of baptism, 
 we ought to know and to trust that there the devil is beaten 
 down, and the man, dedicated to God, is set free by the divine 
 mercy. For as scorpions and serpents, which prevail on the 
 dry ground, when cast into water, cannot prevail nor retain 
 their venom ; so also the wicked spirits, which are called 
 scorpions and serpents, and yet are trodden under foot by 
 us, by the power given by the Lord, cannot remain any longer 
 in the body of a man in whom, baptized and sanctified, the 
 Holy Spirit is beginning to dwell. 
 
 16. This, finally, in very fact also we experience, that 
 those who are baptized by urgent necessity in sickness, and 
 obtain grace, are free from the unclean spirit wherewith they 
 were previously moved, and live in the church in praise 
 and honour, and day by day make more and more advance in 
 the increase of heavenly grace by the growth of their faith. 
 
 1 1 Cor. x. 1, 2, 6.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 315 
 
 And, on the other hand, some of those who are baptized in 
 health, if subsequently they begin to sin, are shaken by the 
 return of the unclean spirit, so that it is manifest that the 
 devil is driven out in baptism by the faith of the believer, 
 and returns if the faith afterwards shall fail ; unless, indeed, 
 it seems just to some, that they who, outside the church 
 among adversaries and antichrists, are polluted with profane 
 water, should be judged to be baptized ; while they who are 
 baptized in the church are thought to have attained less of 
 divine mercy and grace ; and so great consideration be had 
 for heretics, that they who come from heresy are not interro- 
 gated whether they are washed or sprinkled, whether they 
 be clinics or peripatetics ; but among us the sound truth of 
 faith is disparaged, and in ecclesiastical baptism its majesty 
 and sanctity suffer derogation. 
 
 17. I have replied, dearest son, to your letter, so far as 
 my poor ability prevailed ; and I have shown, as far as I could, 
 what I think ; prescribing to no one, so as to prevent any 
 prelate from determining what he thinks right, as he shall give 
 an account of his own doings to the Lord, according to what 
 the blessed Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans writes 
 and says: "Every one of us shall give account for himself: 
 let us not therefore judge one another." l I bid you, dearest 
 son, ever heartily farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXVI. 2 
 
 CYPRIAN TO NEMESIANUS AND OTHER MARTYRS IN THE 
 
 MINES. 
 
 ARGUMENT. lie extols with wonderful commendations the 
 martyrs in the mines, opposing , in a beautiful antithesis, 
 to the tortures of each, the consolations of each. We gather 
 that this ivas written in exile from these words, " If the 
 limits of the place appointed me did not restrain me, 
 banished as lam on account of the confession of the name" 
 
 1. Cyprian to Nemesianus, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, 
 Litteus, Polianus, Victor, Jader, and Dativus, his fellow- 
 1 Rom. xiv. 12, 13. 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. IxxvL
 
 316 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 * 
 
 bishops, also to his fellow-presbyters and deacons, and the 
 rest of the brethren in the mines, martyrs of God the 
 Father Almighty, and of Jesus Christ our Lord, and of God 
 our preserver, everlasting greeting. Your glory, indeed, 
 would demand, most blessed and beloved brethren, that I 
 myself should come to see and to embrace you, if the limits 
 of the place appointed me did not restrain me, banished as I 
 am for the sake of the confession of the name. But in what 
 way I can, I bring myself into your presence ; and even though 
 it is not permitted me to come to you in body and in move- 
 ment, yet in love and in spirit I come expressing my mind 
 in my letter, in which mind I joyfully exult in those virtues 
 and praises of yours, counting myself a partaker with you, 
 although not in bodily suffering, yet in community of love. 
 Could I be silent and restrain my voice in stillness, when I 
 am made aware of so many and such glorious things con- 
 cerning my dearest friends, things with which the divine 
 condescension has honoured you; so that parl of you have 
 already gone before by the consummation of their martyr- 
 dom to receive from their Lord the crown of their deserts ; 
 part still abide in the dungeons of the prison, or in the 
 mines and in chains, exhibiting by the very delays of their 
 punishments, greater examples for the strengthening and 
 arming of the brethren, advancing by the tediousness of their 
 tortures to more ample titles of merit, to receive as many 
 payments in heavenly rewards, as days are. now counted in 
 their punishments ? I do not marvel, most brave and blessed 
 brethren, that these things have happened to you in con- 
 sideration of the desert of your religion and your faith ; that 
 the Lord should thus have lifted you to the lofty height of 
 glory by the honour of His glorification, seeing that you have 
 always flourished in His church, guarding the tenor of the 
 faith, keeping firmly the Lord',s commands ; in simplicity, in- 
 nocence ; in charity, concord ; modesty in humility, diligence 
 in administration, watchfulness in helping those that suffer, 
 mercy in cherishing the poor, constancy in defending the 
 truth, judgment in severity of discipline. And that nothing 
 should be wanting to the example of good deeds in you,
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 317 
 
 even now, in the confession of your voice and tlte suffering 
 of your body, you provoke the minds of your brethren to 
 divine martyrdom, by exhibiting yourselves as leaders of 
 virtue, that while the flock follows its pastors, and imitates 
 what it sees to be done by those set over it, it may be crowned 
 with the like merits of obedience by the Lord. 
 
 2. But that, being first severely beaten with clubs, and ill- 
 used, you have begun by sufferings of that kind, the glorious 
 firstlings of your confession, is not a matter to be execrated 
 by us. For a Christian body is not very greatly terrified 
 at clubs, seeing all its hope is in the Wood. 1 The servant of 
 Christ acknowledges the sacrament of his salvation : redeemed 
 by wood to life eternal, he is advanced by wood to the crown. 
 But what wonder if, as golden and silver vessels, you have 
 been committed to the mine that is the home of gold and 
 silver, except that now the nature of the mines is changed, 
 and the places which previously had been accustomed to yield 
 gold and silver have begun to receive them? Moreover, they 
 have put fetters on your feet, and have bound your blessed 
 limbs, and the temples of God with disgraceful chains, as if 
 the spirit also could be bound with the body, or your' gold 
 could be stained by the contact of iron. To men who are 
 dedicated to God, and attesting their faith with religious 
 courage, such things are ornaments, not chains ; nor do they 
 bind the feet of Christians for infamy, but glorify them for 
 a crown. Oh feet blessedly bound, which are loosed, not by 
 the smith but by the Lord ! Oh feet blessedly bound, which 
 are guided to paradise in the way of salvation ! Oh feet 
 bound for the present time in the world, that they may be 
 always free with the Lord ! Oh feet, lingering for a while 
 among the fetters and cross-bars, but to run quickly to Christ 
 on a glorious road ! Let cruelty, either envious or malignant, 
 hold you here in its bonds and chains as long as it will, from 
 this earth and from these sufferings you shall speedily come 
 to the kingdom of heaven. The body is not cherished in the 
 mines with couch and cushions, but it is cherished with the 
 refreshment and solace of Christ. The frame wearied with 
 1 Scil. : " of the cross."
 
 318 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 labours lies prostrate on the ground, but it is no penalty to 
 lie down with Christ. Your limbs unbathed, are foul and 
 disfigured with filth and dirt ; but within they are spiritually 
 cleansed, although without the flesh is defiled. There the 
 bread is scarce ; but man liveth not by bread alone, but by the 
 word of God. Shivering, you want clothing; but he who puts 
 on Christ is both abundantly clothed and adorned. The hair 
 of your half-shorn head seems repulsive ; but since Christ is 
 the head of the man, anything whatever must needs become 
 that head which is illustrious on account of Christ's name. 
 All that deformity, detestable and foul to Gentiles, with what 
 splendour shall it be recompensed ! This temporal and brief 
 suffering, how shall it be exchanged for the reward of a bright 
 and eternal honour, when, according to the word of the blessed 
 apostle, " the Lord shall change the body of our humiliation, 
 that it may be fashioned like to the body of His brightness !" 
 
 3. But there cannot be felt any loss of either religion or 
 faith, most beloved brethren, in the fact that now there is 
 given no opportunity there to God's priests for offering and 
 celebrating the divine sacrifices ; yea, you celebrate and offer 
 a sacrifice to God equally precious and glorious, and that 
 will greatly profit you for the retribution of heavenly re- 
 wards, since the sacred Scripture speaks, saying, " The sacri- 
 fice of God is a broken spirit ; a contrite and humbled heart 
 God doth not despise." 2 You offer this sacrifice to God ; you 
 celebrate this sacrifice without intermission day and night, 
 being made victims to God, and exhibiting yourselves as 
 holy and unspotted offerings, as the apostle exhorts and says, 
 " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 
 that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable 
 unto God. And be not conformed to this world ; but be ye 
 transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove 
 what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." z 
 
 4. For this it is which especially pleases God ; it is this 
 wherein our works with greater deserts are successful in 
 earning God's good-will ; this it is which alone the obedience 
 of our faith and devotion can render to the Lord for His 
 
 1 Phil. iii. 21. 3 Ps. li. 18. 8 Rom. xii. 1, 2.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPPJAN. 319 
 
 great and saving benefits, as the Holy Spirit declares and 
 witnesses in the Psalms : " What shall I render," says He, " to 
 the Lord for all His benefits towards me? I will take the 
 cup of salvation, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. 
 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." ] 
 Who would not gladly and readily receive the cup of salva- 
 tion ? Who would not with joy and gladness desire that in 
 which he himself also may render somewhat unto His Lord ? 
 Who would not bravely and unfalteringly receive a death 
 precious in the sight of the Lord, to please His eyes, who, 
 looking down from above upon us who are placed in the con- 
 flict for His name, approves the willing, assists the struggling, 
 crowns the conquering with the recompense of patience, 
 goodness, and affection, rewarding in us whatever He Him- 
 self has bestowed, and honouring what He has accomplished? 
 
 5. For that it is His doing that we conquer, and that 
 we attain by the subduing of the adversary to the palm of 
 the greatest contest, the Lord declares and teaches in His 
 Gospel, saying, " But when they deliver you up, take no 
 thought how or what ye shall speak ; for it shall be given you 
 in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that 
 speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." 2 
 And again : " Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to medi- 
 tate before what ye shall answer ; for I will give you a mouth 
 and wisdom, which your adversaries shall not be able to 
 resist." 3 In which, indeed, is both the great confidence of 
 believers, and the gravest fault of the faithless, that they do 
 not trust Him who promises to give His help to those who 
 confess Him, and do not on the other hand fear Him who 
 threatens eternal punishment to those who deny Him. 
 
 6. All which things, most brave and faithful soldiers of 
 Christ, you have suggested to your brethren, fulfilling in 
 deeds what ye have previously taught in words, hereafter to 
 be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, as the Lord promises 
 and says, "Whosoever shall do and teach so, shall be called 
 the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." 4 Moreover, a mani- 
 
 1 Ps. cxvi. 12, 13, 15. 2 Matt. x. 19, 20. 
 
 3 Luke xxi. 14, 15. * Matt. v. 19.
 
 320 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 fold portion of the people, following your example, have con- 
 fessed alike with you, and alike have been crowned, associated 
 with you in the bond of the strongest charity, and separated 
 from their prelates neither by the prison nor by the mines ; 
 in the number of whom neither are there wanting vii'gins in 
 whom the hundred-fold are added to the fruit of sixty-fold, 
 and whom a double glory has advanced to the heavenly 
 crown. In boys also a courage greater than their age has 
 surpassed their years in the praise of their confession, so 
 that every sex and every age should adorn the blessed flock 
 of your martyrdom. 
 
 7. What now must be the vigour, beloved brethren, of 
 your victorious consciousness, what the loftiness of your mind, 
 what exultation in feeling, what triumph in your breast, that 
 every one of you stands near to the promised reward of God, 
 are secure from the judgment of God, walk in the mines 
 with a body captive indeed, but with a heart reigning, that 
 you know Christ is present with you, rejoicing in the endur- 
 ance of His servants, who are ascending by His footsteps and 
 in His paths to the eternal kingdoms ! You daily expect 
 with joy the saving day of your departure ; and already about 
 to withdraw from the world, you are hastening to the rewards 
 of martyrdom, and to the divine homes, to behold after this 
 darkness of the world the purest light, and to receive a glory 
 greater than all sufferings and conflicts, as the apostle wit- 
 nesses, and says, " The sufferings of this present time are not 
 worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed 
 in us." 1 And because now your word is more effectual in 
 prayers, and supplication is more quick to obtain what is 
 sought for in afflictions, seek more eagerly, and ask that the 
 divine condescension would consummate the confession of all 
 of us ; that from this darkness and these snares of the world 
 God would set us also free with you, sound and glorious ; 
 that we who here are united in the bond of charity and peace, 
 and have stood together against the wrongs of heretics and 
 the oppressions of the heathens, may rejoice together in the 
 heavenly kingdom. I bid you, most blessed and most beloved 
 1 Rom. viii. 18.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 321 
 
 brethren, ever farewell in the Lord, and always and every- 
 where remember me. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXVII. 1 
 
 THE REPLY OF NEMESIANUS, DATIVUS, FELIX, AND 
 VICTOR, TO CYPRIAN. 
 
 ARGUMENT. This epistle and the two following ones contain 
 nothing else than replies to the foregoing, inasmuch as 
 they contain the thanksgiving as well for the comfort con- 
 veyed by the letter as for the assistance sent therewith. 
 But from the fact that three distinct letters are sent in 
 reply to the single one of Cyprian's, we are to gather that 
 the bishops ivho wrote them were, placed in different depart- 
 ments of the mines. And this is confirmed in Epistle 
 Ixxix., where mention is made of one mine in particular. 
 
 1. Nemesianus, Dativus, Felix, and Victor, to their brother 
 Cyprian, in the Lord eternal salvation. You speak, dearly 
 beloved Cyprian, in your letters always with deep meaning, 
 as suits the condition of the time, by the assiduous reading 
 of which letters both the wicked are corrected and men of 
 good faith are confirmed. For while you do not cease in 
 your writings to lay bare the hidden mysteries, you thus 
 make us to grow in faith, and men from the world to draw 
 near to belief. For by whatever good things you have intro- 
 duced in your many books, unconsciously you have described 
 yourself to us. For you are greater than all men in dis- 
 course, in speech more eloquent, in counsel wiser, in patience 
 more simple, in works more abundant, in abstinence more 
 holy, in obedience more humble, and in good deeds more 
 innocent. And you yourself know, beloved, that our eager 
 wish was, that we might see you, our teacher and our lover, 
 attain to the crown of a great confession. 
 
 2. For as a good and true teacher, that which we your 
 disciples, following you, ought to say before the president, 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixxvii. 
 X
 
 322 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 you first in the proceedings before the proconsul have pro- 
 nounced ; and, as a sounding trumpet, you have stirred up 
 God's soldiers, furnished with heavenly arms, to the close 
 encounter ; and fighting in the first rank, you have slain the 
 devil with a spiritual sword : you have also ordered the troops 
 of the brethren, on the one hand and on the other, with your 
 words, so that snares were on all sides laid for the enemy, 
 and the severed sinews of the very carcase of the public foe 
 were trodden under foot. 1 Believe us, dearest, that your 
 innocent spirit is not far from the hundred-fold reward, see- 
 ing that it has feared neither the first onsets of the world, 
 nor shrunk from going into exile, nor hesitated to leave the 
 city, nor dreaded to dwell in a desert place ; and since it fur- 
 nished many with an example of confession, itself first spoke 
 the martyr-witness. For it provoked others to acts of mar- 
 tyrdom by its own example ; and not only began to be a 
 companion of the martyrs already departing from the world, 
 but also linked a heavenly friendship with those who should 
 be so. 
 
 3. Therefore they who were condemned with us give you 
 before God the greatest thanks, beloved Cyprian, that in 
 your letter you have refreshed their suffering breasts ; have 
 healed their limbs wounded with clubs ; have loosened their 
 feet bound with fetters ; have smoothed the hair of their 
 half-shorn head ; have illuminated the darkness of the dun- 
 geon ; have brought down the mountains of 'the mine to a 
 smooth surface ; have even placed fragrant flowers to their 
 nostrils, and have shut out the foul odour of the smoke. More- 
 over, your continued gifts, and those of our beloved Quirinus, 
 which you sent to be distributed by Herennianus the sub- 
 deacon, and Lucian, and Maximus, and Amantius the aco- 
 lytes, provided a supply of whatever had been wanting for 
 the necessities of their bodies. Let us, then, be in our 
 prayers helpers of one another ; and let us ask, as you have 
 bidden us, that we may have God and Christ and the angels 
 as supporters in all our actions. We bid you, lord and 
 
 1 Otherwise, " the sinews of the common enemy cut in two, his car- 
 case was trodden under foot."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CTPMIAN. 323 
 
 brother, ever heartily farewell, and have us in mind. Greet 
 all who are with you. All ours who are with us love you, 
 and greet you, and desire to see you. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXVIII. 1 
 
 THE EEPLY TO THE SAME OF LUCIUS AND THE EEST OF 
 THE MAETYES. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The argument of the present letter is, in sub- 
 stance, the same as that of the preceding ; and therefore 
 it is not a letter of Lucius the Roman pontiff, but of 
 Lucius the martyr and the African bishop. 
 
 1. To Cyprian our brother and colleague, Lucius, and all 
 the brethren who are with me in the Lord, greeting. Your 
 letter came to us, dearest brother, while we were exulting and 
 rejoicing in God that He had armed us for the struggle, and 
 had made us by His condescension conquerors in the battle ; 
 the letter, namely, which you sent to us by Herennianus the 
 subdeacon, and Lucian, and Maximus, and Amantius the 
 acolytes, which when we read we received a relaxation in our 
 bonds, a solace in our affliction, and a support in our necessity; 
 and we were aroused and more strenuously animated to bear 
 whatever more of punishment might be awaiting us. For 
 before our suffering we were called forth by you to glory, 
 who first afforded us guidance to confession of the name of 
 Christ. We indeed, who follow the footsteps of your con- 
 fession, hope for an equal grace with you. For he who is 
 first in the race is first also for the reward ; and you who 
 first occupied the course thence have communicated this to us 
 from what you began, showing doubtless the undivided love 
 wherewith you have always loved us, so that we who had 
 one Spirit in the bond of peace might have the grace of your 2 
 prayers, and one crown of confession. 
 
 2. But in your case, dearest brother, to the crown of con- 
 fession is added the reward of your labours an abundant 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixxviii. 2 Or, " united."
 
 324 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 measure which you shall receive from the Lord in the day of 
 retribution, who have by your letter presented yourself to 
 us, as you manifested to us that candid and blessed breast of 
 yours which we have ever known, and in accordance with its 
 largeness have uttered praises to God with us, not as much 
 as we deserve to hear, but as much as you are able to utter. 
 For with your words you have both adorned those things 
 which had been less instructed in us, and have strengthened 
 
 ' O 
 
 us to the sustaining of those sufferings which we bear, 1 as 
 being certain of the heavenly rewards, and of the crown of 
 martyrdom, and of the kingdom of God, from the prophecy 
 which, being filled with the Holy Spirit, you have pledged 
 to us in your letter. All this will happen, beloved, if you 
 will have us in mind in your prayers, which I trust you do 
 even as we certainly do. 
 
 3. And thus, O brother most longed for, we have re- 
 ceived what you sent to us from Quirinus and from yourself, 
 a sacrifice from every clean thing. Even as Noah offered to 
 God, and God was pleased with the sweet savour, and had 
 respect unto his offering, so also may He have respect unto 
 yours, and may He be pleased to return to you the reward of 
 this so good w r ork. But I beg that you will command the 
 letter which we have written to Quirinus to be sent forward. 
 I bid you, dearest brother and earnestly desired, ever heartily 
 farewell, and remember us. Greet all who are with you. 
 Farewell. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXIX. 2 
 
 THE ANSWER OF FELIX, JADER, POLIANUS, AND THE 
 REST OF THE MARTYRS, TO CYPRIAN. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The martyrs above spoken of acknowledge with 
 gratitude the assistance sent to them by Cyprian. 
 
 To our dearest and best beloved Cyprian, Felix, Jader, 
 Polianus, together with the presbyters and all who are abid- 
 1 Or, " patiently bear." 2 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixxix.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 325 
 
 ing with us at the mine of Sigua, eternal health in the 
 Lord. We reply to your salutation, dearest brother, by 
 Herennianus the sub-deacon, Lucian and Maximus our 
 brethren, strong and safe by the aid of your prayers, from 
 whom we have received a sum under the name of an offering, 
 
 o' 
 
 together with your letter which you wrote, and in which you 
 have condescended to comfort us as if we were sons, out of 
 the heavenly words ; and we have given and do give thanks 
 to God the Father Almighty through His Christ, that we 
 have been thus comforted and strengthened by your address, 
 asking from the candour of your mind that you would deign 
 to have us in mind in your constant prayers, that the Lord 
 would supply what is wanting in your confession and ours, 
 which He has condescended to confer on us. Greet all who 
 abide with you. "We bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily 
 farewell in God. I Felix wrote this ; I Jader subscribed it ; 
 I Polianus read it. I greet my lord Eutychianus. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXX. 1 
 
 CYPRIAN TO SERGIUS, ROGATIANUS, AND THE OTHER 
 CONFESSORS IN PRISON. 
 
 ARGUMENT. lie consoles Rogatianus and his colleagues, the 
 confessors in prison, and gives them courage by the 
 example of the martyrs Rogatianus the elder and Feli- 
 cissirnus. The letter itself indicates that it was written 
 in exile. 
 
 1. Cyprian to Sergius and Rogatianus, and the rest of the 
 confessors in the Lord, everlasting health. I salute you, 
 dearest and most blessed brethren, myself also desiring to enjoy 
 the sight of you, if the state in which I am placed would per- 
 mit me to come to you. For what could happen to me more 
 desirable and more joyful than to be now close to you, that 
 you might embrace me with those hands, which, pure and 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. vi.
 
 326 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 innocent, and maintaining the faith of the Lord, have rejected 
 the profane obedience "? What more pleasant and sublime 
 than now to kiss your lips, which with a glorious voice have 
 confessed the Lord, to be looked upon even in presence by 
 your eyes, which, despising the world, have become worthy of 
 looking upon God ? But since opportunity is not afforded me 
 to share in this joy, I send this letter in my stead to your 
 ears and to your eyes, by which I congratulate and exhort 
 you that you persevere strongly and steadily in the confession 
 of the heavenly glory ; and having entered on the way of the 
 Lord's condescension, that you go on in the strength of the 
 Spirit, to receive the crown, having the Lord as your pro- 
 tector and guide, who said, " Lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world." ] O blessed prison, which your 
 presence has enlightened ! O blessed prison, which sends the 
 men of God to heaven ! O darkness, more bright than the 
 sun itself, and clearer than the light of this world, where now 
 are placed temples of God, and your members are to ( be 
 sanctified by divine confessions ! 
 
 2. Nor let anything now be revolved in your hearts and 
 minds besides the divine precepts and heavenly commands, 
 with which the Holy Spirit has ever animated you to the 
 endurance of suffering. Let no one think of death, but of 
 immortality; nor of temporary punishment, but of eternal 
 glory ; since it is written, " Precious in the sight of the 
 Lord is the death of His saints;" 2 and again, "A broken 
 spirit is a sacrifice to God : a contrite and humble heart God 
 doth not despise." 3 And again, where the sacred Scripture 
 speaks of the tortures which consecrate God's martyrs, and 
 sanctify them in the very trial of suffering: "And if they 
 have suffered torments in the sight of men, yet is their hope 
 full of immortality ; and having been a little chastised, they 
 shall be greatly rewarded : for God proved them, and found 
 them worthy of Himself. As gold in the furnace hath He 
 tried them, and received them as a sacrifice of a burnt- 
 offering, and in due time regard shall be had unto them. 
 The righteous shall shine, and shall run to and fro like 
 i Matt, xxviii. 20. 2 Ps. cxvi. 15. s Ps. 1L 19.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 327 
 
 sparks among the stubble. They shall judge the nations, 
 and have dominion over the people ; and their Lord shall 
 reign for ever." * When, therefore, you reflect that you shall 
 judge and reign with Christ the Lord, you must needs exult 
 and tread under foot present sufferings, in the joy of what 
 is to come ; knowing that from the beginning of the world it 
 has been so appointed that righteousness should suffer there 
 in the conflict of the world, since in the beginning, even at 
 the first, the righteous Abel was slain, and thereafter all 
 righteous men, and prophets, and apostles who were sent. 
 To all of whom the Lord also in Himself has appointed an 
 example, teaching that none shall attain to His kingdom but 
 those who have followed Him in His own way, saying, " He 
 that loveth his life in this world shall lose it ; and he that 
 hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." 2 
 And again : " Fear not them which kill the body, but are 
 not able to kill the soul : but rather fear Him who is able to 
 destroy both soul and body in hell." 3 Paul also exhorts us 
 that we who desire to attain to the Lord's promises ought to 
 imitate the Lord in all things. " We are," says he, " the 
 sons of God: but if sons, then heirs; heirs of God, and 
 joint-heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer with Him, 
 that we may also be glorified together." 4 Moreover, he 
 added the comparison of the present time and of the future 
 glory, saying, " The sufferings of this present time are not 
 worthy to be compared with the coming glory which shall 
 be revealed in us." '' Of which brightness, when we consider 
 the glory, it behoves us to bear all afflictions and persecutions ; 
 because, although many are the afflictions of the righteous, 
 yet those are delivered from them all who trust in God. 
 
 3. Blessed women also, who are established with you in 
 the same glory of confession, who, maintaining the Lord's 
 faith, and braver than their sex, not only themselves are near 
 to the crown of glory, but have afforded an example to other 
 women by their constancy ! And lest anything should be 
 wanting to the glory of your number, that every sex and 
 
 1 Wisd. iii. 4-8. 2 John xii. 25. 3 Matt. x. 28. 
 
 4 Rom. viii. 16, 17. 5 Rom. viii. 18.
 
 328 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 age also might be with you in honour, the divine condescen- 
 sion has also associated with you boys in a glorious confession ; 
 representing to us something of the same kind as once did 
 Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, the illustrious youths to whom, 
 when shut up in the furnace, the fires gave way, and the 
 flames gave refreshment, the Lord being present with them, 
 and proving that against His confessors and martyrs the heat 
 of hell could have no power, but that they who trusted in God 
 should always continue unhurt and safe in all dangers. And 
 I beg you to consider more carefully, in accordance with 
 your religion, what must have been the faith in these youths 
 which could deserve such full acknowledgment from the 
 Lord. For, prepared for every fate, as we ought all to be, 
 they say to the king, " O king Nebuchadnezzar, we are not 
 careful to answer thee in this matter; for our God whom 
 we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace : 
 and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king ! But if 
 not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve 
 thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set 
 up." l Although they believed, and, in accordance with 
 their faith, knew that they might even be delivered from 
 their present punishment, they still would not boast of this, 
 nor claim it for themselves, saying, " But if not." Lest the 
 virtue of their confession should be less without the testimony 
 of their suffering, they added that God could do all things ; 
 but yet they would not trust in this, so as to wish to be 
 delivered at the moment ; but they thought on that glory of 
 eternal liberty and security. 
 
 4. And you also, retaining this faith, and meditating day 
 and night, with your whole heart prepared for God, think 
 of the future only, with contempt for the present, that you 
 may be able to come to the fruit of the eternal kingdom, and 
 to the embrace and kiss, and the sight of the Lord, that 
 you may follow in all things Rogatianus the presbyter, the 
 glorious old man who, to the glory of our time, makes a way 
 for you by his religious courage and divine condescension, 
 who, with Felicissimus our brother, ever quiet and temperate, 
 1 Dan. iii. 16-18.
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 329 
 
 receiving the attack of a ferocious people, first prepared for 
 you a dwelling in the prison, and, marking out the way 1 for 
 you in some measure, now also goes before you. That this 
 may be consummated in you, we beseech the Lord in con- 
 stant prayers, that from beginnings going on to the highest 
 results, Pie may cause those whom He has made to confess, 
 also to be crowned. I bid you, dearest and most beloved 
 brethren, ever heartily farewell in the Lord ; and may you 
 attain to the crown of heavenly glory. Victor the deacon, 
 and those who are with me, greet you. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXXI. 2 
 
 TO SUCCESSES ON THE TIDINGS BROUGHT FROM ROME, 
 TELLING OF THE PERSECUTION. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian tells the bishop Successus, that in a 
 severe persecution that had been decreed by the Emperor 
 Valerian (doubtless with Gallienus), Xistus the pontiff 
 had suffered at Rome on the eighth of the Ides of August; 
 and he begs him to intimate the same to the rest of his 
 colleagues, that each one might animate his own flock to 
 martyrdom. And as Cyprian suffered sJiortly after, in 
 the month of September, there is no doubt but that this 
 letter was written near the close of his life. 
 
 1. Cyprian to his brother Successus, greeting. The reason 
 why I could not write to you immediately, dearest brother, 
 was that all the clergy, being placed in the very heat of the 
 contest, were unable in any way to depart hence, all of them 
 being prepared in accordance with the devotion of their mind 
 for divine and heavenly glory. But know that those have 
 come whom I had sent to the City for this purpose, that they 
 might find out and bring back to us the truth, in whatever 
 manner it had been decreed respecting us. For many various 
 and uncertain things are current in men's opinions. But 
 1 " Metator." 2 Oxford cd. : Ep. Ixxx.
 
 330 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the truth concerning them is as follows, that Valerian had 
 sent a rescript to the Senate, to the effect that bishops and 
 presbyters and deacons should immediately be punished ; but 
 that senators, and men of importance, and Roman knights, 
 should lose their dignity, and moreover be deprived of their 
 property ; and if, when their means were taken away, they 
 should persist in being Christians, then they should also 
 lose their heads ; but that matrons should be deprived 
 of their property, and sent into banishment. Moreover, 
 people of Csesar's household, whoever of them had either 
 confessed before, or should now confess, should have their 
 property confiscated, and should be sent in chains by assign- 
 merit to Csesar's estates. The Emperor Valerian also added 
 to this address a copy of the letters which he sent to the 
 presidents of the provinces concerning us ; which letters we 
 are daily hoping will come, waiting according to the strength 
 of our faith for the endurance of suffering, and expecting 
 from the help and mercy of the Lord the crown of eternal 
 life. But know that Xistus was martyred in the cemetery 
 on the eighth day of the Ides of August, and with him four 
 deacons. 1 Moreover, the prefects in the city are daily urging 
 on this persecution ; so that, if any are presented to them, 
 they are martyred, and their property claimed by the treasury. 
 2. I beg that these things may be made known by your 
 means to the rest of our colleagues, that everywhere, by their 
 exhortation, the brotherhood may be strengthened and pre- 
 pared for the spiritual conflict, that every one of us may 
 think less of death than of immortality ; and, dedicated to 
 the Lord, with full faith and entire courage, may rejoice 
 rather than fear in this confession, wherein they know that 
 the soldiers of God and Christ are not slain, but crowned. 
 I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell in the 
 Lord. 
 
 1 Or, " and with him Quartus."
 
 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 EPISTLE LXXXIL 1 
 
 TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE CONCERNING HIS RETIRE- 
 MENT, A LITTLE BEFORE HIS MARTYRDOM. 
 
 ARGUMENT. When, near the end of his life, Cyprian, on re- 
 turning to his gardens, icas told that messengers were sent 
 to take him for punishment to Utica, he withdrew. And 
 lest it should be thought that he had done so from fear of 
 death, he gives the reason in this letter, viz. that he might 
 undergo his martyrdom nowhere else than at Carthage, in 
 the sight of his own people. 
 
 1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, and all the people, 
 greeting. When it had been told to us, dearest brethren, that 
 the gaolers 2 had been sent to bring me to Utica, and I had 
 been persuaded by the counsel of those dearest to me to with- 
 draw for a time from my gardens, as a just reason was afforded 
 I consented ; for the reason that it is fit for a bishop, in 
 that city in which he presides over the church of the Lord, 
 there to confess the Lord, and that the whole people should 
 be glorified by the confession of their prelate in their presence. 
 For whatever, in that moment of confession, the confessor- 
 bishop speaks, he speaks in the mouth of all, by inspiration 
 of God. But the honour of our church, glorious as it is, 
 will be mutilated if I, a bishop placed over another church, 
 receiving my sentence or my confession at Utica, should go 
 thence as a martyr to the Lord, when indeed, both for my 
 own sake and yours, I pray with continual supplications, 
 and with all my desires entreat, that I may confess among 
 you, and there suffer, and thence depart to the Lord even 
 as I ought. Therefore here in a hidden retreat I await the 
 arrival of the proconsul returning to Carthage, that I may 
 hear from him what the emperors have commanded upon the 
 subject of Christian laymen and bishops, and may say what 
 the Lord will wish to be said at that hour. 
 
 1 Oxford ed. : Ep. Ixxxi. 2 Or, " commissaries."
 
 332 THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 2. But do you, dearest brethren, according to the discipline 
 which you have ever received from me out of the Lord's com- 
 mands, and according to what you have so very often learnt 
 from my discourse, keep peace and tranquillity ; nor let any 
 of you stir up any tumult for the brethren, or voluntarily 
 offer himself to the Gentiles. For when apprehended and 
 delivered up, he ought to speak, inasmuch as the Lord abiding 
 in us speaks in that hour, who willed that we should rather 
 confess than profess. But for the rest, what it is fitting that 
 we should observe before the proconsul passes sentence on 
 me for the confession of the name of God, we will with the 
 instruction of the Lord arrange in common. May our Lord 
 make you, dearest brethren, to remain safe in His church, 
 and condescend to keep you. So be it through His mercy.
 
 THE TEEATISES OF CYPEIAN, 
 
 TREATISE I. 
 
 ON THE DRESS OF VIRGINS. 
 
 AEGUMENT. The deacon Pontius, in his life of Cyprian, in 
 few ivords comprises the argument of the following treatise. 
 " Who" says he, " would restrain virgins into a fitting 
 discipline of modesty, and a dress meet for holiness, as if 
 ivith a bridle of the Lord's lessons ?" Firstly, however, 
 a little more fully to explain the argument, he celebrates the 
 praises of discipline, and proves its usefulness from Scrip- 
 ture. Then, describing the glory, honour, and merits of 
 virginity, and of those who had voiced and dedicated their 
 virginity to Christ, lie teaches that continence not only 
 consists in fleshly purity, but also in seemliness of dress 
 and ornament, and that even wealth did not excuse super- 
 fluous care for dress on the part of those who had already 
 renounced the world, but that rather, since the apostle pre- 
 scribes to married women a dress to be regulated by fitting 
 limits, moderation ought even more to be observed by a 
 virgin ; and therefore, even if they are wealthy, they should 
 consider certainly liow to use their wealth, but for good 
 purposes, for those tilings which God has commanded, to 
 wit, for being spent on the poor. After this he teaches 
 from the Apostle, and from the third chapter of Isaiah also, 
 that the distinctions of dress and ornaments are more suited 
 to prostitutes than to virgins ; and he infers that, while so 
 many things are offensive to God, more especially are the 
 sumptuous ornaments of women ; and therefore making a 
 transition from superfluous ornament to the different kinds
 
 334 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 of dyes and paints, he forbids such things, not only to 
 virgins, but absolutely also to married women, who as- 
 suredly cannot with impunity strive to improve, to trans- 
 figure, and to adulterate God's work. Moreover, also, he 
 forbids to virgins those things tohich had negligently come 
 into use, as being present at weddings, as well as going to 
 promiscuous bathing-places. Finally, in a brief epilogue, 
 declaring what benefit the virtue of continency affords, and 
 what evil it is tvithout, he concludes the book with this 
 exclamation, " Endure bravely, go forward spiritually, 
 attain happily; only remember me when your virginity 
 shall begin to receive its honour" 
 
 |ISCIPLINE, the safeguard of hope, the bond of 
 faith, the guide of the way of salvation, the 
 stimulus and nourishment of good dispositions, 
 the 'teacher of virtue, causes us to abide always 
 in Christ, and to live continually for God, and to attain 
 to the heavenly promises and to the divine rewards. To 
 follow her is wholesome, and to turn away from her and 
 neglect her is deadly. The Holy Spirit says in the Psalms, 
 "Keep discipline, lest perchance the Lord be angry, and 
 ye perish from the right way, when His wrath is quickly 
 kindled against you." 1 And again : "But unto the ungodly 
 saith God, Why dost thou preach my laws, and takest my 
 covenant into thy mouth ? Whereas thou hatest discipline, 
 and hast cast my words behind thee." 2 And again we read : 
 " He that casteth away discipline is miserable." 3 And from 
 Solomon we have received the mandates of wisdom, warning 
 us : " My son, despise not thou the discipline of the Lord, 
 nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him : for whom the 
 Lord loveth He correcteth." 4 But if God rebukes whom 
 He loves, and rebukes him for the very purpose of amend- 
 ing him, brethren also, and especially priests, do not hate, 
 but love those whom they rebuke, that they may amend 
 them ; since God also before predicted by Jeremiah, and 
 
 1 Ps. ii. 12. 2 Ps. 1. 17. 
 
 3 Wisd. iii. 11. 4 Prov. iii. 11.
 
 ON THE DRESS OF VIRGINS. 335 
 
 pointed to our times, when he said, "And I will give you 
 shepherds according to my heart : and they shall feed you 
 with the food of discipline." l 
 
 2. But if in holy Scripture discipline is frequently and 
 everywhere prescribed, and the whole foundation of religion 
 and of faith proceeds from obedience and fear ; what is more 
 fitting for us urgently to desire, what more to wish for and 
 to hold fast, than to stand with roots strongly fixed, and with 
 our houses based with solid mass upon the rock unshaken by 
 the storms and whirlwinds of the world, so that we may come 
 by the divine precepts to the rewards of God ? considering 
 as well as knowing that our members, when purged from all 
 the filth of the old contagion by the sanctification of the 
 laver of life, are God's temples, and must not be violated nor 
 polluted, since he who does violence to them is himself in- 
 jured. We are the worshippers and priests of those temples ; 
 let us obey Him whose we have already begun to be. Paul 
 tells us in his epistles, in which he has formed us to a course 
 of living by divine teaching, " Ye are not your own, for ye 
 are bought with a great price ; glorify and bear God in your 
 body." 2 Let us glorify and bear God in a pure and chaste 
 body, and with a more complete obedience; and since we 
 have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, let us obey and 
 give furtherance to the empire of our Redeemer by all the 
 obedience of service, that nothing impure or profane may be 
 brought into the temple of God, lest He should be offended, 
 and forsake the temple which He inhabits. The words of 
 the Lord giving health and teaching, as well curing as warn- 
 ing, are : " Behold, thou art made whole : sin no more, lest a 
 worse thing come unto thee." a He gives the course of life, 
 He gives the law of innocency after He has conferred health, 
 nor suffers the man afterwards to wander with free and un- 
 checked reins, but more severely threatens him who is again 
 enslaved by those same things of which he had been healed, 
 because it is doubtless a smaller fault to have sinned before, 
 while as yet you had not known God's discipline ; but there 
 is no further pardon for sinning after you have begun to 
 1 Jer. iii 15. 2 1 Cor. vi. 19. 3 John v. 14.
 
 336 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 know God. And, indeed, let as well men as women, as well 
 boys as girls let every sex and every age observe this, and 
 take care in this respect, according to the religion and faith 
 which they owe to God, that what is received holy and pure 
 from the condescension of the Lord be preserved with a no 
 less anxious fear. 1 
 
 3. My address is now to virgins, whose glory, as it is more 
 eminent, excites the greater interest. This is the flower of the 
 ecclesiastical seed, 2 the grace and ornament of spiritual endow- 
 ment, a joyous disposition, the wholesome and uncorrupted 
 work of praise and honour, God's image answering to the holi- 
 ness of the Lord, the more illustrious portion of Christ's flock. 
 The glorious fruitfulness of Mother church rejoices by their 
 means, and in them abundantly flourishes ; and in proportion 
 as a copious virginity is added to her number, so much the 
 more it increases the joy of the Mother. To these I speak, 
 these I exhort with affection rather than with power; not 
 that I would claim, last and least, and very conscious of my 
 lowliness as I am, any right to censure, but because, being 
 unceasingly careful even to solicitude, I fear more from the 
 onset of Satan. 
 
 4. For that is not an empty carefulness nor a vain fear, 
 which takes counsel for the way of salvation, which guards 
 the commandments of the Lord and of life so ; that they who 
 have dedicated themselves to Christ, and who depart from 
 carnal concupiscence, and have vowed themselves to God as 
 well in the flesh as in the spirit, may consummate their work, 
 destined as it is to a great reward, and may not study any 
 longer to be adorned or to please anybody but their Lord, 
 from whom also they expect the reward of virginity ; as He 
 Himself says : " All men cannot receive this word, but they to 
 whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so 
 born from their mother's womb ; and there are some eunuchs, 
 which were made eunuchs of men ; and there are eunuchs 
 which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of 
 
 1 One codex adds here : " since it is written, ' He who perseveres unto 
 the end, the same shall be saved.' " 
 
 2 Otherwise, " These are the flowers of the ecclesiastical seed."
 
 ON THE DRESS OF VIRGINS. 337 
 
 heaven's sake." 1 Again, also by this word of the angel the 
 gift of continency is set forth, and virginity is preached : 
 "These are they which have not defiled themselves with 
 women, for they have remained virgins ; these are they which 
 follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." 2 For not only 
 thus does the Lord promise the grace of continency to men, 
 and pass over women ; but since the woman is a portion of 
 the man, and is taken and formed from him, God in Scrip- 
 ture almost always speaks to the Protoplast, the first formed, 
 because they are two in one flesh, and in the male is at the 
 same time signified the woman also. 
 
 5. But if continency follows Christ, and virginity is destined 
 for the kingdom of God, what have they to do with earthly 
 dress, and with ornaments, wherewith while they are striving 
 to please men they offend God? not considering that it is 
 declared, " They who please men are put to confusion, be- 
 cause God hath despised them;" 3 and that Paul also has 
 gloriously and sublimely uttered, " If I yet pleased men, I 
 should not be the servant of Christ." 4 But continence and 
 modesty consist not alone in purity of the flesh, but also in 
 seemliness, as well as in modesty of dress and adornment; so 
 that, according to the apostle, she who is unmarried may be 
 holy both in body and in spirit. Paul instructs and teaches 
 us, saying, " He that is unmarried careth for the things of 
 the Lord, how he may please God : but he who has con- 
 tracted marriage careth for the things which are of this 
 world, how he may please his wife. So both the virgin and 
 the unmarried woman consider those things which are the 
 Lord's, that they may be holy both in body and spirit." 5 A 
 virgin ought not only to "be so, but also to be perceived and 
 believed to be so : no one on seeing a virgin should be in any 
 doubt as to whether she is one. Perfectness should show itself 
 equal in all things ; nor should the dress of the body discredit 
 the good of the mind. Why should she walk out adorned ? 
 Why with dressed hair, as if she either had or sought for a 
 husband ? Rather let her dread to please if she is a virgin ; 
 
 1 Matt. xix. 11. 2 Apoc. xiv. 4. 3 Ps. liii. 5. 
 
 * Gal. i. 10. 1 Cor. vii. 32.
 
 338 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 and let her not invite her own risk, if she is keeping herself 
 for better and divine things. They who have not a husband 
 whom they profess that they please, should persevere, sound 
 and pure not only in body, but also in spirit. For it is not 
 right that a virgin should have her hair braided for the 
 appearance of her beauty, or boast of her flesh and of its 
 beauty, when she has no struggle greater than that against 
 her flesh, and no contest more obstinate than that of con- 
 quering and subduing the body. 
 
 6. Paul proclaims in a loud and lofty voice, "But God 
 forbid that I should ^lorv, save in the cross of our Lord 
 
 O v * 
 
 Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I 
 unto the world." 1 And yet a virgin in the church glories 
 concerning her fleshly appearance and the beauty of her 
 body ! Paul adds, and says, " For they that are Christ's have 
 crucified their flesh, with its faults and lusts." 2 And she who 
 professes to have renounced the lusts and vices of the flesh, 
 is found in the midst of those very things which she has 
 renounced ! Virgin, thou art taken, thou art exposed, thou 
 boastest one thing and affectest another. You sprinkle your- 
 self with the stains of carnal concupiscence, although you are 
 a candidate of purity and modesty. " Cry," says the Lord to 
 Isaiah, " All flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower 
 of the grass : the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth ; but 
 the word of the Lord endureth for ever." 3 It is becoming 
 for no Christian, and especially it is not becoming for a virgin, 
 to regard any glory and honour of the flesh, but only to desire 
 the word of God, to embrace benefits which shall endure for 
 ever. Or if she must glory in the flesh, then assuredly let her 
 glory when she is tortured in confession of the name ; when 
 a woman is found to be stronger than the tortures; when 
 she suffers fire, or the cross, or the sword, or the wild beasts, 
 that she may be crowned. These are the precious jewels of 
 the flesh, these are the better ornaments of the body. 
 
 7. But there are some rich women, and wealthy in the fer- 
 tility of means, who prefer their own wealth, and contend 
 that they ought to use these blessings. Let them know first 
 
 1 Gal. vi. 14. 2 Gal. v. 24. 3 Isa. xl. 6.
 
 ON THE DRESS OF VIRGINS. 339 
 
 of all that she is rich who is rich in God ; that she is 
 wealthy who is wealthy in Christ; that those are bless- 
 ings which are spiritual, divine, heavenly, which lead us to 
 God, which abide with us in perpetual possession with God. 
 But whatever things are earthly, and have been received in 
 this world, and will remain here with the world, ought so to 
 be contemned even as the world itself is contemned, whose 
 pomps and delights we have already renounced when by a 
 blessed passage we came to God. John stimulates and ex- 
 horts us, witnessing with a spiritual and heavenly voice. 
 " Love not the world," says he, " neither the things that are 
 in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the 
 Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is lust of 
 the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which 
 is not from the Father, but is of the lust of the world. And 
 the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that 
 doeth the will of God abideth for ever, even as God also 
 abideth for ever." 1 Therefore eternal and divine things are 
 to be followed, and all things must be done after the will of 
 God, that we may follow the divine footsteps and teachings 
 of our Lord, who warned us, and said, " I came down from 
 heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Plim that sent 
 me." 2 But if the servant is not greater than his lord, and 
 he that is freed owes obedience to his deliverer, we who de- 
 sire to be Christians ought to imitate what Christ said and 
 did. It is written, and it is read and heard, and is celebrated 
 for our example by the church's mouth, " He that saith he 
 abideth in Christ, ought himself also so to walk even as He 
 walked." 3 Therefore we must walk with equal steps; we 
 must strive with emulous walk. Then the following of truth 
 answers to the faith of our name, and a reward is given to 
 the believer, if what is believed is also done. 
 
 8. You call yourself wealthy and rich ; but Paul meets 
 your riches, and with his own voice prescribes for the mo- 
 derating of your dress and ornament within a just limit. 
 " Let women," said he, " adorn themselves with shamefaced- 
 ness and sobriety, not with broidered hair, nor gold, nor pearls, 
 1 1 John ii. 15-17. 2 John vi. 38. 3 1 John ii. 6.
 
 340 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 nor costly array, but as becometh women professing chastity,, 
 with a good conversation." 1 Also Peter consents to these 
 same precepts, and says, " Let there be in the woman not 
 the outward adorning of array, or gold, or apparel, but the 
 adorning of the heart." 2 But if these also warn us that the 
 women who are accustomed to make an excuse for their 
 dress by reference to their husband, should be restrained and 
 limited by religious observance to the church's discipline, 
 how much more is it right that the virgin should keep that 
 observance, who has no excuse for adorning herself, nor can 
 the deceitfulness of her fault be laid upon another, but she 
 herself remains in its guilt! 
 
 9. You say that you are wealthy and rich. But not every- 
 thing that can be done ought also to be done ; nor ought the 
 broad desires that arise out of the pride of the world to be 
 extended beyond the honour and modesty of virginity ; since 
 it is written, "All things are lawful, but all things are not 
 expedient: all things are lawful, but all things edify not." 3 
 For the rest, if you dress your hair sumptuously, and walk 
 so as to draw attention in public, and attract the eyes of 
 youth upon you, and draw the sighs of young men after 
 you, nourish the lust of concupiscence, and inflame the fuel 
 of sighs, so that, although you yourself perish not, yet you 
 cause others to perish, and offer yourself, as it were, a sword 
 or poison to the spectators ; you cannot be excused on the 
 pretence that you are chaste and modest in mind ; your 
 shameful dress and immodest ornament accuse you ; nor can 
 you be counted now among Christ's maidens and virgins, 
 since you live in such a manner as to make yourselves 
 objects of desire. 
 
 10. You say that you are wealthy and rich ; but it becomes 
 not a virgin to boast of her riches, since holy Scripture says, 
 " What hath pride profited us ? or what benefit hath the 
 vaunting of riches conferred upon us ? All these things have 
 passed away like a shadow." 4 And the apostle again warns 
 us, and says, " And they that buy, as though they bought 
 
 1 1 Tim. ii. 9, 10. 2 1 Pet. iii. 3, 4. 
 
 * 1 Cor. x. 23. * Wisd. v. 8.
 
 ON THE DRESS OF VIRGINS. 341 
 
 Hot ; and they that possess, as though they possessed not : 
 and they that use this world, as though they used it not. For 
 the fashion of this world passeth away." 1 Peter also, to whom 
 the Lord commends His sheep to be fed and guarded, on 
 whom He placed and founded the church, says indeed that 
 he has no silver and gold, but says that he is rich in the 
 grace of Christ that he is wealthy in his faith and virtue 
 wherewith he performed many great works with miracle, 
 wherewith he abounded in spiritual blessings to the grace of 
 glory. These riches, this wealth, she cannot possess, who had 
 rather be rich to this world than to Christ. 
 
 11. You say that you are wealthy and rich, and you think 
 that you should use those things which God has willed you to 
 possess. Use them, certainly, but for the things of salvation ; 
 use them, but for good purposes ; use them, but for those things 
 which God has commanded, and which the Lord has set forth. 
 Let the poor feel that you are wealthy ; let the needy feel 
 that you are rich. Lend your estate to God ; give food to 
 Christ. Move [God] by the prayers of many 2 to grant you 
 to carry out the glory of virginity, and to succeed in coming 
 to the Lord's rewards. There entrust your treasures, where 
 no thief digs through, where no insidious plunderer breaks 
 in. Prepare for yourself possessions ; but let them rather be 
 heavenly ones, where neither rust wears out, nor hail bruises, 
 nor sun burns, nor rain spoils your fruits constant and peren- 
 nial, and free from all contact of worldly injury. For in this 
 very matter you are sinning against God, if you think that 
 riches were given you by Him for this purpose, to enjoy them 
 thoroughly, without a view to salvation. For God gave man 
 also a voice ; and yet love-songs and indecent things are not 
 on that account to be smi. And God willed iron to be for 
 
 O 
 
 the culture of the earth, but not on that account must 
 murders be committed. Or because God ordained incense, 
 and wine, and fire, are we thence to sacrifice to idols ? Or 
 
 1 1 Cor. vii. 30, 31. 
 
 2 The meaning is, gifts to the poor will induce them to pray for the 
 virgin, and in answer to their prayers, God will grant her the glory of 
 virginity.
 
 342 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 because the flocks of cattle abound in your fields, ought you 
 to immolate victims and offerings to the gods ? Otherwise 
 a large estate is a temptation, unless the wealth minister to 
 good uses ; so that every man, in proportion to his wealth, 
 ought by his patrimony rather to redeem his transgressions 
 than to increase them. 
 
 12. The characteristics of ornaments, and of garments, 
 and the allurements of beauty, are not fitting for any but 
 prostitutes and immodest women ; and the dress of none is 
 more precious than of those whose modesty is lowly. 1 Thus 
 in the holy Scriptures, by which the Lord wished us to be 
 both instructed and admonished, the harlot city is described 
 more beautifully arrayed and adorned, and with her orna- 
 ments ; and the rather on account of those very ornaments 
 about to perish. " And there came," it is said, " one of the 
 seven angels, which had the seven phials, and talked with 
 me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the judgment of 
 the great whore, that sitteth upon many waters, with whom 
 the kino;s of the earth have committed fornication. And he 
 
 O 
 
 carried me away in spirit ; and I saw a woman sit upon a 
 beast, and that woman was arrayed in a purple and scarlet 
 mantle, and was adorned with gold, and precious stones, and 
 pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of curses, and 
 filthiness, and fornication of the whole earth." 2 Let chaste 
 and modest virgins avoid the dress of the unchaste, the 
 manners of the immodest, the ensigns of brothels, the orna- 
 ments of harlots. 
 
 13. Moreover Isaiah, full of the Holy Spirit, cries out and 
 chides the daughters of Sion, corrupted with gold, and silver, 
 and raiment, and rebukes them, affluent as they were in per- 
 nicious wealth, and departing from God for the sake of the 
 world's delights. " The daughters of Sion," says he, " are 
 haughty, and walk with stretched-out neck and beckoning of 
 
 1 Perhaps this sentence would be more literally translated, " and the 
 dress of no women is. generally speaking, more expensive than the dress 
 of those whose modesty is cheap ; " i.e. who have no modesty at all, or 
 very little. 
 
 2 Apoc. xvii. 1.
 
 ON THE DRESS OF VIRGINS. 343 
 
 the eyes, trailing their gowns as they go, and mincing with 
 their feet. And God will humble the princely daughters of 
 Sion, and the Lord will unveil their dress ; and the Lord will 
 take away the glory of their apparel, and their ornaments, and 
 their hair, and their curls, and their round tires like the moon, 
 and their crisping-pins, and their bracelets, and their clusters 
 of pearls, and their armlets and rings, and ear-rings, and silks 
 woven with gold and hyacinth. And instead of a sweet smell 
 there shall be dust ; and thou shalt be girt with a rope instead 
 of with a girdle ; and for a golden ornament of thy head thou 
 shalt have baldness." * This God blames, this He marks out : 
 hence He declares that virgins are corrupted ; hence, that 
 they have departed from the true and divine worship. Lifted 
 up, they have fallen ; with their heads adorned, they merited 
 dishonour and disgrace. Having put on silk and purple, they 
 cannot put on Christ ; adorned with gold, and pearls, and neck- 
 laces, they have lost the ornaments of the heart and spirit. 
 Who would not execrate and avoid that which has been the 
 destruction of another ? Who would desire and take up that 
 which has served as the sword and weapon for the death of 
 another ? If he who had drunk should die by draining the 
 cup, you would know that what he had drunk was poison ; 
 if, on taking food, he who had taken it were to perish, you 
 would know that what, when taken, could kill, was deadly ; 
 nor would you eat or drink of that whence you had before 
 seen that others had perished. Now what ignorance of truth 
 is it, what madness of mind, to w r ish for that which both has 
 hurt and always will hurt ; and to think that you yourself 
 W 7 ill not perish by those means whereby you know that others 
 have perished ! 
 
 14. For God neither made the sheep scarlet or purple, nor 
 taught the juices of herbs and shell-fish to dye and colour 
 wool, nor arranged necklaces with stones set in gold, and 
 with pearls distributed in a woven series or numerous cluster, 
 wherewith you would hide the neck which He made; that what 
 God formed in man may be covered, and that may be seen 
 upon it which the devil has invented in addition. Has God 
 1 Isa. iii. 16.
 
 344 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 willed that wounds should be made in the ears, wherewith 
 infancy, as yet innocent, and unconscious of worldly evil, 
 may be put to pain, that subsequently from the scars and 
 holes of the ears precious beads may hang, heavy, if not by 
 their weight, still by the amount of their cost ? all which 
 things sinning and apostate angels put forth by their arts, 
 when, lowered to the contagions of earth, they forsook their 
 heavenly vigour. They taught them also to paint the eyes 
 with blackness drawn round them in a circle, and to stain the 
 cheeks with a deceitful red, and to change the hair with false 
 colours, and to drive out all truth, both of face and head, by 
 the assault of their own corruption. 
 
 15. And indeed in that very matter, for the sake of the 
 fear which faith suggests to me, for the sake of the love 
 which brotherhood requires, I think that not virgins only 
 and widows, but married women also, and all females alike, 
 should be admonished, that the work of God and His 
 fashioning and formation ought in no manner to be adul- 
 terated, either with the application of yellow colour, or with 
 black dust or rouge, or with any kind of medicament which 
 can corrupt the native lineaments. God says, "Let us make 
 man in our image and- likeness;" 1 and does any one dare to 
 alter and to change what God has made ? They are laying 
 hands on God when they try to re-form that which He 
 formed, and to transfigure it, not knowing that everything 
 which comes into being is God's work, everything that is 
 changed is the devil's. If any artist, in painting, were to 
 delineate in envious colouring the countenance and likeness 
 
 O 
 
 and bodily appearance of any one; and the likeness being 
 now painted and completed, another person were to lay hands 
 on it, as if, when it was already formed and already painted, 
 he, being more skilled, could amend it, a serious wrong and a 
 just cause of indignation would seem natural to the former 
 artist. And do you think yourself likely with impunity to 
 commit a boldness of such wicked temerity, an offence to 
 God the artificer? For although you may not be immodest 
 among men, and are not unchaste with your seducing dyes, 
 
 1 Gen. i. 26.
 
 THE DRESS OF VIRGINS. . 345 
 
 yet when those things which belong to God are corrupted 
 and violated, you are engaged in a worse adultery. That 
 you think yourself to be adorned, that you think your hair 
 to be dressed, is an assault upon the divine work, is a pre- 
 varication of the truth. 
 
 16. The voice of the warning apostle is, "Purge out the 
 old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened; 
 for even Christ our passover is sacrificed. Therefore let us 
 keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven 
 of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of 
 sincerity and truth." 1 But are sincerity and truth preserved, 
 when what is sincere is polluted by adulterous colours, and 
 what is true is changed into a lie by the deceitful dyes of 
 medicaments ? Your Lord says, " Thou canst not make one 
 hair white or black;" 2 and you, in order to overcome the word 
 of your Lord, will be more mighty than He, and stain your 
 hair with a daring endeavour and with profane contempt ; 
 with evil presage of the future, make a beginning to yourself 
 already of flame-coloured hair ; and sin (oh, wickedness !) 
 with your head that is, with the nobler part of your body ! 
 And although it is written of the Lord, " His head and His 
 hair were white like wool or snow," 3 you curse that whiteness 
 and hate that hoariness which is like to the Lord's head. 
 
 17. Are you not afraid, I entreat you, being such as you 
 are, that when the day of resurrection cornes, your Maker 
 may not recognise you again, and may turn you away when 
 you come to His rewards and promises, and may exclude 
 you, rebuking you with the vigour of a Censor and Judge, 
 and say : This is not my work, nor is this our image. You 
 have polluted your skin with a false medicament, you have 
 changed your hair with an adulterous colour, your face is 
 violently taken possession of by a lie, your figure is corrupted, 
 your countenance is another's. You cannot see God, since 
 your eyes are not those which God made, but those which the 
 devil has spoiled. You have followed him, you have imitated 
 the red and painted eyes of the serpent. As you are adorned 
 in the fashion of your enemy, with him also you shall burn 
 
 1 I Cor. v. 7. 2 Matt. v. 36. 3 Apoc. i. 14.
 
 346 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 by and by. Are not these, I beg, matters to be reflected on 
 by God's servants ? are they not always to be dreaded day 
 and night ? Let married women see to it, in what respect 
 they are flattering themselves concerning the solace of their 
 husbands with the desire of pleasing them, and while they 
 put them forward indeed as their excuse, they make them 
 partners in the association of guilty consent. Virgins, assur- 
 edly, to whom this address is intended to appeal, who have 
 adorned themselves with arts of this kind, I should think 
 ought not to be counted among virgins, but, like infected 
 sheep and diseased cattle, to be driven from the holy and pure 
 flock of virginity, lest by living together they should pollute 
 the rest with their contagion, lest they ruin others even as 
 they have perished themselves. 
 
 18. And since we are seeking the advantage of continency, 
 let us also avoid everything that is pernicious and hostile to it. 
 And I will not pass over those things, which while by negli- 
 gence they come into use, have made for themselves a usurped 
 licence, contrary to modest and sober manners. Some are 
 not ashamed to be present at marriage parties, and in that 
 freedom of lascivious discourse to mingle in unchaste con- 
 versation, to hear what is not becoming, to say what is not 
 lawful, to expose themselves, to be present in the midst of 
 disgraceful words and drunken banquets, by which the ardour 
 of lust is kindled, and the bride is animated to bear, and the 
 bridegroom to dare lewdness. What place is there at wed- 
 dings for her whose mind is not towards marriage ? or what 
 can there be pleasant or joyous in those engagements for her, 
 where both desires and wishes are different from her own ? 
 What is learnt there what is seen ? How greatly a virgin 
 falls short of her resolution, when she who had come there 
 modest goes away immodest ! Although she may remain a 
 virgin in body and mind, yet in eyes, in ears, in tongue, she 
 has diminished the virtues that she possessed. 
 
 19. But what of those who frequent promiscuous baths ; 
 who prostitute to eyes that are curious to lust, bodies that 
 are dedicated to chastity and modesty ? They who disgrace- 
 fully behold naked men, and are seen naked by men, do they
 
 ON THE DRESS OF VIRGINS. 347 
 
 not themselves afford enticement to vice, do they not solicit 
 and invite the desires of those present to their own corruption 
 and wrong? " Let every one," say you, " look to the disposi- 
 tion with which he comes thither : my care is only that of re- 
 freshing and washing my poor body." That kind of defence 
 does not clear you, nor does it excuse the crime of lascivious- 
 ness and wantonness. Such a washing defiles ; it does not 
 purify nor cleanse the limbs, but stains them. You behold 
 110 one immodestly, but you yourself are gazed upon im- 
 modestly ; you do not pollute your eyes with disgraceful 
 delight, but in delighting others you yourself are polluted : 
 you make a show of the bathing-place ; the places where you 
 assemble are fouler than a theatre. There all modesty is put 
 off ; together with the clothing of garments, the honour and 
 modesty of the body is laid aside ; virginity is exposed, to be 
 pointed at and to be handled. And now, then, consider 
 whether when you are clothed you are modest among men, 
 when the boldness of nakedness has conduced to immodesty. 
 
 20. For this reason, therefore, the church frequently mourns 
 over her virgins ; hence she groans at their scandalous and 
 detestable stories ; hence the flower of her virgins is extin- 
 guished, the honour and modesty of continency are injured, 
 and all its glory and dignity are profaned. Thus the hostile 
 besieger insinuates himself by his arts; thus by snares that 
 deceive, by secret ways, the devil creeps in. Thus, while 
 virgins wish to be more carefully adorned, and to wander with 
 more liberty, they cease to be virgins, corrupted by a furtive 
 dishonour ; widows before they are married, adulterous, not 
 to their husband, but to Christ. In proportion as they had 
 been as virgins destined to great rewards, so will they expe- 
 rience great punishments for the loss of their virginity. 
 
 21. Therefore hear me, O virgins, as a parent ; hear, I 
 beseech you, one who fears while he warns ; hear one who is 
 faithfully consulting for your advantage and your profit. Be 
 such as God the Creator made you ; be such as the hand of 
 your Father ordained you. Let your countenance remain in 
 you incorrupt, your neck unadorned, your figure simple ; let 
 not wounds be made in your ears, nor let the precious chain
 
 348 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 of bracelets and necklaces circle your arms or your neck ; let 
 your feet be free from golden bands, your hair stained with 
 no dye, your eyes worthy of beholding God. Let your baths 
 be performed with women, whose bathing is modest towards 
 you. 1 Let the shameless feasts and lascivious banquets of 
 marriages be avoided, the contagion of which is perilous. 
 Overcome dress, since you are a virgin ; overcome gold, since 
 you overcome the flesh and the world. It is not consistent to 
 be unable to be conquered by the greater, and to be found 
 no match^for the less. Strait and narrow is the way which 
 leadeth to life ; hard and difficult is the track which tends to 
 glory. By this pathway the martyrs progress, the virgins 
 pass, the just of all kinds advance. Avoid the broad and 
 roomy ways. There are deadly snares and death-bringing 
 pleasures; there the devil flatters, that he may deceive; smiles, 
 that he may do mischief ; entices, that he may. slay. The 
 first fruit for the martyrs is a hundred-fold ; the second is 
 yours, sixty-fold. As with the martyrs there is no thought of 
 the flesh and of the world, no small, and trifling, and delicate 
 encounter ; so also in you, whose reward is second in grace, 
 let there be the strength in endurance next to theirs. The 
 ascent to great things is not easy. What toil we suffer, what 
 labour, when we endeavour to ascend the hills and the tops of 
 mountains ! What, then, that we may ascend to heaven ? If 
 you look to the reward of the promise, your labour is less. 
 Immortality is given to the persevering, eternal life is set 
 before them ; the Lord promises a kingdom. 
 
 22. Hold fast, O virgins ! hold fast what you have begun 
 to be ; hold fast what you shall be. A great reward awaits 
 you, a great recompense of virtue, the immense advantage 
 of chastity. Do you wish to know what ill the virtue of con- 
 tinence avoids, what good it possesses ? "I will multiply," 
 says God to the woman, " thy sorrows and thy groanings ; 
 and in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children ; and thy desire 
 shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." 2 You 
 
 1 Otherwise read, "among you;" or probably, " among whom your 
 bathing is modest." 
 
 2 Gen. iii. 16.
 
 ON THE DRESS OF VIRGINS. 349 
 
 are free from this sentence. You do not fear the sorrows 
 and the groans of women. You have no fear of child-bearing ; 
 nor is your husband lord over you ; but your Lord and 
 Head is Christ, after the likeness and in the place of the 
 man ; your lot and your condition is equal [to ours]. It is the 
 word of the Lord which says, " The children of this world 
 beget and are begotten ; but they who are counted worthy 
 of that world, and of the resurrection from the dead, neither 
 many nor are given in marriage : neither shall they die any 
 more : for they are equal to the angels of God, being the 
 children of the resurrection." 1 That which we shall be, you 
 have already begun to be. You possess already in this world 
 the glory of the resurrection. You pass through the world 
 without the contagion of the world ; in that you continue 
 chaste and virgins, you are equal to the angels of God. Only 
 let your virginity remain and endure substantial and unin- 
 jured ; and as it began bravely, let it persevere continuously, 
 and not seek the ornaments of necklaces nor garments, but 
 of conduct. Let it look towards God and heaven, and not 
 lower the eyes raised up aloft to the lust of the flesh and of 
 the world, or set it upon earthly things. 
 
 23. The first decree commanded to increase and to mul- 
 tiply ; the second enjoined continency. While the world is 
 still rough and void, w r e are propagated by the fruitful beget- 
 ting of numbers, and we increase to the enlargement of the 
 human race. Now, when the world is filled and the earth 
 supplied, they who can receive [the precept of] continency, 
 living after the manner of eunuchs, are made eunuchs unto the 
 kingdom. Nor does the Lord command this, but He exhorts 
 it ; nor does He impose the yoke of necessity, since the free 
 choice of the will is left. But when He says that in His 
 Father's house are many mansions, He points out the dwell- 
 ings of the better habitation. Those better habitations you 
 are seeking ; cutting away the desires of the flesh, you obtain 
 the reward of a greater grace in the heavenly home. All 
 indeed who attain to the divine gift and inheritance by the 
 sanctification of baptism, therein put off the old man by the 
 1 Luke xx. 35, 36.
 
 350 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 grace of the saving laver, and, renewed by the Holy Spirit 
 from the filth of the old contagion, are purged by a second 
 nativity. But the greater holiness and truth of that repeated 
 birth belongs to you, who have no longer any desires of the 
 flesh and of the body. Only the things which belong to virtue 
 and the Spirit have remained in you to glory. It is the 
 apostle's word whom the Lord called His chosen vessel, whom 
 God sent to proclaim the heavenly command : " The first 
 man," says he, " is from the earth, of earth ; the second man 
 is from heaven. Such as is the earthy, such are they also 
 who are earthy ; and such as is the heavenly, such also are 
 the heavenly. As we have borne the image of him who is 
 earthy, let us also bear the image of him who is heavenly." 1 
 Virginity bears this image, integrity bears it, holiness bears 
 it, and truth. Disciplines which are mindful of God bear it, 
 retaining righteousness with religion, stedfast in faith, humble 
 in fear, brave to all suffering, meek to sustain wrong, easy to 
 show mercy, of one mind and one heart in fraternal peace. 
 
 24. Every one of which things, O good virgins, you ought 
 to observe, to love, to fulfil, who, giving yourselves to God 
 and Christ, are advancing in both the higher and better part 
 to the Lord, to whom you have dedicated yourselves. You 
 that are advanced in years, suggest a teaching to the younger. 
 You that are younger, give a stimulus to your coevals. Stir 
 one another up with mutual exhortations ; provoke to glory 
 by rival proofs of virtue. Endure bravely, go on spiritually, 
 attain happily. Only remember us at that time, when vir- 
 ginity shall begin to be rewarded in you. 
 
 TREATISE II. 
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian had frequently promised, that as soon 
 
 as peace should be restored to the church, he would write 
 
 something definite on the subject of the lapsed; and in the 
 
 following treatise he fulfils his promise. And first of all, 
 
 1 1 Cor. xv. 47.
 
 THE LAPSED. 351 
 
 having enlarged upon the unlooked-for peace of the church, 
 and the constancy of the confessors and others who had 
 stood fast in the faith; and then with extreme grief having 
 pointed to the downfall of the lapsed, and unfolded the 
 causes of the bygone persecution, namely, the neglect of 
 discipline, and the sins of the faithful; he severely re- 
 proaches the lapsed, that, at the very jirst words of the 
 enemy threatening them, they had sacrificed to idols, and 
 had not rather withdrawn, according to Christ's counsel: 
 moreover, that now that they had been polluted with sacri- 
 fices, contrary to the law of the gospel, before their sins 
 were atoned for, before confession of their crime had been 
 made, they were doing violence to the body and blood of 
 the Lord, and loere extorting communion and peace from 
 certain presbyters, without the bishop s judgment. He 
 exhorts them accordingly, in many words, that, deterred 
 by the divine vengeance on certain of the lapsed icho had 
 communicated umvorthily, (casually making reference to 
 the certificated, that they were not excused from sin), and 
 animated by the example of those, who, although under the 
 bondage of no crime, either of sacrifice or of certificate, 
 yet, because they had even thought of these things, con- 
 fessed with grief and sincerity the actual sin to God's 
 priests and made avowal, they should confess their sin, 
 to public repentance and full satisfaction. Lastly, he 
 ivarns his readers to avoid the Novatians, confuting their 
 heresy ivith many scriptures. 
 
 1. Behold, beloved brethren, peace is restored to the church ; 
 and although it lately seemed to incredulous people difficult, 
 and to traitors impossible, our security is by divine aid and re- 
 tribution re-established. Our minds return to gladness ; and 
 the season of affliction and the cloud being dispersed, tran- 
 quillity and serenity have shone forth once more. Praises 
 must be given to God, and His benefits and gifts must be cele- 
 brated with giving of thanks, although even in the time of 
 persecution our voice has not ceased to give thanks. For not 
 even an enemy has so much power as to prevent us, who love
 
 352 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the Lord with our whole heart, and life, and strength, from 
 declaring His blessings and praises always and everywhere 
 with glory. The day earnestly desired by the prayers of all 
 has come; and after the dreadful and loathsome darkness 
 of a long night, the world has shone forth irradiated by the 
 light of the Lord. 
 
 2. "We look with glad countenances upon confessors illus- 
 trious with the heraldry of a good name, and glorious with 
 the praises of virtue and of faith ; clinging to them with 
 holy kisses, we embrace them long desired with insatiable 
 eagerness. The white-robed cohort of Christ's soldiers is 
 here, who in the fierce conflict have broken the ferocious 
 turbulence of an urgent persecution, having been prepared 
 for the suffering of the dungeon, armed for the endurance 
 of death. Bravely you have resisted the world : you have 
 afforded a glorious spectacle in the sight of God ; you have 
 been an example to your brethren that shall follow you. That 
 religious voice has named the name of Christ, in whom it has 
 once confessed that it believed ; those illustrious hands, which 
 had only been accustomed to divine works, have resisted the 
 sacrilegious sacrifices ; those lips, sanctified by heavenly food 
 after the body and blood of the Lord, have rejected the pro- 
 fane contacts and the leavings of the idols. Your head has 
 remained free from the impious and wicked veil 1 with which 
 the captive heads of those who sacrificed were there veiled ; 
 your brow, pure with the sign of God, could not bear the 
 crown of the devil, but reserved itself for the Lord's crown. 
 How joyously does your Mother church receive you in her 
 bosom, as you return from the battle ! How blissfully, how 
 gladly, does she open her gates, that in united bands you 
 may enter, bearing the trophies from a prostrate enemy ! 
 With the triumphing men come women also, who, while con- 
 tending with the world, have also overcome their sex ; and 
 virgins also come with the double glory of their warfare, and 
 boys transcending their years with their virtues. 2 Moreover, 
 
 1 The veiled head was the sign of Roman worship. Oxford trans. 
 
 2 Some read, with very uncertain authority, " with the virtues of con- 
 tineney."
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 353 
 
 also, the rest of the multitude of those who stand fast follow 
 your glory, and accompany your footsteps with the insignia 
 of praise, very near to, and almost joined with, your own. In 
 them also is the same sincerity of heart, the same soundness 
 of a tenacious faith. Resting on the unshaken roots of the 
 heavenly precepts, and strengthened by the evangelical tradi- 
 tions, the prescribed banishment, the destined tortures, the 
 loss of property, the bodily punishments, have not .terrified 
 them. The days for testing their faith were limited before- 
 hand ; but he who remembers that he has renounced the' 
 world knows no day of worldly appointment, neither does 
 he who hopes for eternity from God calculate the seasons of 
 earth any more. 
 
 3. Let none, my beloved bethren, let none depreciate this 
 glory ; let none by malignant dispraise detract from the un- 
 corrupted stedfastness of those who have stood. When the day 
 appointed for denying was gone by, every one who had ; not 
 professed within that time not to be a Christian, confessed 
 that he was a Christian. It is the first title to victory to 
 confess the Lord under the violence of the hands of the 
 Gentiles. It is the second step to glory to be withdrawn by 
 a cautious retirement, and to be reserved for the- Lord. The 
 former is a public, the latter is a private confession. The 
 former overcomes the judge of this world; the latter, content 
 with God as its judge, keeps a pure conscience in integrity 
 of heart. In the former case there is a readier fortitude ; in 
 the latter, solicitude is more secure. The former, as his hour 
 approached, was already found mature ; the latter perhaps 
 was delayed, who; leaving his estate, withdrew for awhile, 
 because he would not deny, but would certainly confess if he 
 too had been apprehended. 
 
 4. One cause of grief saddens these heavenly crowns of 
 martyrs, these glorious spiritual confessions, these very great 
 and illustrious virtues of the brethren who stand; which is, 
 that the hostile violence has torn away a part of our own 
 bowels, and thrown it away in the destructiveness of its own 
 cruelty. What shall I do in this matter, beloved brethren ? 
 Wavering in the various tide of feeling, what or how shall I 
 
 z
 
 354 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 speak ? I need tears rather than words to express the sorrow 
 with which the wound of our body should be bewailed, with 
 which the manifold loss of a people once numerous should be 
 lamented. For whose heart is so hard or cruel, who is so 
 unmindful of brotherly love, as, among the varied ruins of his 
 friends, and the mournful relics disfigured with all degrada- 
 tion, to be able to stand and to keep dry eyes, and not in the 
 breaking out of his grief to express his groanings rather with 
 tears than with words ? I grieve, brethren, I grieve with you; 
 nor does my own integrity and my personal soundness beguile 
 me to the soothing of my griefs, since it is the shepherd that 
 is chiefly wounded in the wound of his flock. I join my 
 breast with each one, and I share in the grievous burden of 
 sorrow and mourning. I wail with the wailing, I weep with 
 the weeping, I regard myself as prostrated with those that are 
 prostrate. My limbs are at the same time stricken with those 
 darts of the raging enemy ; their cruel swords have pierced 
 through my bowels ; my mind could not remain untouched 
 and free from the inroad of persecution among my down- 
 fallen brethren ; sympathy has cast me down also. 
 
 5. Yet, beloved brethren, the cause of truth is to be had in 
 view ; nor ought the gloomy darkness of the terrible persecu- 
 tion so to have blinded the mind and feeling, that there should 
 remain no light and illumination whence the divine precepts 
 may be beheld. If the cause of disaster is recognised, there 
 is at once found a remedy for the wound. The Lord has 
 desired His family to be proved ; and because a long peace 
 had corrupted the discipline that had been divinely delivered 
 to us, the heavenly rebuke has aroused our faith, which was 
 giving way, and I had almost said slumbering ; and although 
 we deserved l more for our sins, yet the most merciful Lord 
 has so moderated all things, that all which has transpired has 
 rather seemed a trial than a persecution. 
 
 6. Each one was desirous of increasing his estate; and for- 
 getful of what believers had either done before in the times of 
 the apostles, or always ought to do, they, with the insatiable 
 ardour of covetousness, devoted themselves to the increase of 
 
 1 Some read, " to suffer."
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 355 
 
 their property. Among the priests there was no devotedness 
 of religion ; among the ministers 1 there was no sound faith : 
 in their works there was no mercy ; in their manners there 
 was no discipline. In men, their beards were defaced ; in 
 women, their complexion was dyed : the eyes were falsified 
 from what God's hand had made them ; their hair was stained 
 with a falsehood. Crafty frauds were used to deceive the 
 hearts of the simple, subtle meanings for circumventing the 
 brethren. They united in the bond of marriage with un- 
 believers ; they prostituted the members of Christ to the 
 Gentiles. They would swear not only rashly, but even more, 
 would swear falsely ; would despise those set over them with 
 haughty swelling, would speak evil of one another with en- 
 venomed tongue, would quarrel with one another with obsti- 
 nate hatred. Very many bishops who ought to furnish both 
 exhortation and example to others, despising their divine 
 charge, became agents in secular business, forsook their 
 throne, deserted their people, wandered about over foreign 
 provinces, hunted the markets for gainful merchandise, 
 while brethren were starving in the church. 2 They sought to 
 possess money in hoards, they seized estates by crafty deceits, 
 they increased their gains by multiplying usuries. What do 
 not such as we deserve to suffer for sins of this kind, when 
 even already the divine rebuke has forewarned us, and said, 
 " If they shall forsake my law, and walk not in my judg- 
 ments ; if they shall profane my statutes, and shall not 
 observe my precepts, I will visit their offences with a rod, 
 and their sins with scourges 1 " 3 
 
 7. These things were before declared to us, and predicted. 
 But we, forgetful of the law and obedience required of us, 
 have so acted by our sins, that while we despise the Lord's 
 commandments, we have come by severer remedies to the cor- 
 rection of our sin and probation of our faith. Nor indeed 
 have we at last been converted to the fear of the Lord, so as 
 to undergo patiently and courageously this our correction and 
 
 1 A late version gives, " in the ministries." 
 
 2 Or, " brought no aid to starving brethren in the church." 
 
 3 Ps. Ixxxix. 30.
 
 356 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 divine proof. Immediately at the first words of the threaten- 
 ing foe, the greatest number of the brethren betrayed their 
 faith, and were cast down, not by the onset of persecution, 
 but cast themselves down by voluntary lapse. What unheard- 
 of thing, I beg of you, what new thing had happened, that, 
 as if on the occurrence of things unknown and unexpected, 
 the obligation to 1 Christ should be dissolved with headlong 
 rashness? Have not prophets aforetime, and subsequently 
 apostles, told of these things ? Have not they, full of the 
 Holy Spirit, predicted the afflictions of the righteous, and 
 always the injuries of the heathens ? Does not the sacred 
 Scripture, which ever arms our faith and strengthens with 
 a voice from heaven the servants of God, say, " Thou shalt 
 worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve ?" : 
 Does it not again show the anger of the divine indignation, 
 and warn of the fear of punishment beforehand, when it says, 
 " They worshipped them whom their fingers have made ; and 
 the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth 
 himself, and I will forgive them not?" 3 And again, God 
 speaks, and says, " He that sacrifices unto any gods, save unto 
 the Lord only, shall be destroyed." 4 In the gospel also sub- 
 sequently, the Lord, who instructs by His words and fulfils 
 by His deeds, teaching what should be done, and doing 
 whatever He had taught, did He not before admonish us of 
 whatever is now done and shall be done ? Did He not before 
 ordain both for those who deny Him eternal punishments, and 
 for those that confess Him saving rewards ? 
 
 8. From some ah, misery ! all these things have fallen 
 away, and have passed from memory. They indeed did not 
 wait to be apprehended ere they ascended, or to be interrogated 
 ere they denied. Many were conquered before the battle, 
 prostrated before the attack. Nor did they even leave it 
 to be said for them, that they seemed to sacrifice to idols 
 unwillingly. They ran to the market-place of their own 
 accord ; freely they hastened to death, as if they had for- 
 merly wished it, as if they would embrace an opportunity 
 
 1 " Christ! sacramentum." 2 Deut. vi. 13. 
 
 3 Isa. ii. 8, 9. * Ex. xxii. 20.
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 357 
 
 now given which they had always desired. How many were 
 put off by the magistrates at that time, when evening was 
 coming on ; how many even asked that their destruction might 
 not be delayed ! What violence can sucli an one plead as an 
 excuse ? How can he purge his crime, when it was he himself 
 who rather used force to bring about his own ruin ? When 
 they came voluntarily to the Capitol, when they freely ap- 
 proached to the obedience of the terrible wickedness, did 
 not their tread falter? Did not their sight darken, their 
 heart tremble, their arms fall helplessly down ? Did not 
 their senses fail, their tongue cleave to their mouth, their 
 speech grow weak ? Could the servant of God stand there, 
 and speak and renounce Christ, when he had already re- 
 nounced the devil and the world ? Was not that altar, 
 whither he drew near to perish, to him a funeral pile ? 
 Ought he not to shudder at and flee from the devil's altar, 
 which he had seen to smoke, and to be redolent of a foul 
 foetor, as if it were the funeral and sepulchre of his life ? 
 Why bring with you, O wretched man, a sacrifice ? why 
 immolate a victim ? You yourself have come to the altar an 
 offering ; you yourself have come a victim : there you have 
 immolated your salvation, your hope ; there you have burnt 
 up your faith in those deadly fires. 
 
 9. But to many their own destruction was not sufficient. 
 With mutual exhortations, people were urged to their ruin ; 
 death was pledged by turns in the deadly cup. And that 
 nothing might be wanting to aggravate the crime, infants 
 also, in the arms of their parents, either carried or conducted, 
 lost, while yet little ones, what in the very first beginning of 
 their nativity they had gained. Will not they, when the day 
 of judgment comes, say, "We have done nothing; 1 nor have 
 we forsaken the Lord's bread and cup to hasten freely to a 
 profane contact ; the faithlessness of others has ruined us. 
 We have found our parents our murderers ; they have denied 
 to us the church as a Mother ; they have denied God as a 
 Father : so that, while we were little, and unforeseeing, and 
 unconscious of such a crime, we were associated by others to 
 1 Some read, " evil."
 
 358 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the partnership of wickedness, and we were snared by the 
 deceit of others ? " 
 
 10. Nor is there, alas, any just and weighty reason which 
 excuses such a crime. One's country was to be left, and loss 
 of one's estate was to be suffered. Yet to whom that is born 
 and dies is there not a necessity at some time to leave his 
 country, and to suffer the loss of his estate? But let not Christ 
 be forsaken, so that the loss of salvation and of an eternal 
 home should be feared. Behold, the Holy Spirit cries by 
 the prophet, " Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, 
 touch not the unclean thing ; go ye out from the midst of 
 her, and be ye separate, that bear the vessels of the Lord." l 
 Yet those who are the vessels of the Lord and the temple 
 of God do not go out from the midst, nor depart, that they 
 may not be compelled to touch the unclean thing, and to be 
 polluted and corrupted with deadly food. Elsewhere also a 
 voice is heard from heaven, forewarning what is becoming 
 for the servants of God to do, saying, " Come out of her, my 
 people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye 
 receive not of her plagues." 2 He who goes out and departs 
 does not become a partaker of the guilt ; but he will be 
 wounded with the plagues w r ho is found a companion in the 
 crime. And therefore the Lord commanded us in the perse- 
 cution to depart and to flee ; and both taught that this should 
 be done, and Himself did it. For as the crown is given 
 of the condescension of God, and cannot be received unless 
 the hour comes for accepting it, whosoever abiding in Christ 
 departs for a while does not deny his faith, but waits for the 
 time ; but he who has fallen, after refusing to depart, re- 
 mained to deny it. 
 
 11. The truth, brethren, must not be disguised; nor must 
 the matter and cause of our wound be concealed. A blind 
 love of one's own property has deceived many ; nor could 
 they be prepared for, or at ease in, departing when their 
 wealth fettered them like a chain. Those were the chains 
 to them that remained those were the bonds by which both 
 virtue was retarded, and faith burdened, and the spirit bound, 
 
 1 Isa. lii. 11. 2 Apoc. xviii. 4
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 359 
 
 and the soul hindered ; so that they who were involved in 
 earthly things 1 might become a booty and food for the ser- 
 pent, which, according to God's sentence, feeds upon earth. 
 And therefore the Lord the teacher of good things, fore- 
 warning for the future time, says, " If thou wilt be perfect, 
 go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
 shalt have treasure in heaven : and come and follow me." 2 
 If rich men did this, they would not perish by their riches ; 
 if they laid up treasure in heaven, they would not now have a 
 domestic enemy and assailant. Heart and mind and feeling 
 would be in heaven, if the treasure were in heaven ; nor could 
 he be overcome by the world who had nothing in the world 
 whereby he could be overcome. 3 He would follow the Lord 
 loosed and free, as did the apostles, and many in the times 
 of the apostles, and many who forsook both their means and 
 their relatives, and clave to Christ with undivided ties. 
 
 12. But how can they follow Christ, who are held back 
 by the chain of their wealth ? Or how can they seek heaven, 
 and climb to sublime and lofty heights, who are weighed 
 down by earthly desires ? They think that they possess, when 
 they are rather possessed; as slaves of their profit, and not lords 
 with respect to their own money, but rather the bond-slaves of 
 their money. These times and these men are indicated by the 
 apostle, when he says, " But they that will be rich, fall into 
 temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful 
 lusts, which drown men in destruction and in perdition. For 
 the root of all evil is the love of money, which, while some 
 have coveted, they have erred 4 from the faith, and pierced 
 themselves through with many sorrows."'' But with what 
 rewards does the Lord invite us to contempt of worldly 
 wealth ? With what compensations does He atone for the 
 small and trifling losses of this present time 1 " There is no 
 man," saith He, " that leaves house, or land, or parents, or 
 brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, 
 
 1 According to some, for " things" read " desires." 
 
 2 Matt. xix. 21. 3 Otherwise, " could be bound." 
 
 4 Some substitute, " have made shipwreck of." 
 
 5 1 Tim. vi. 9.
 
 3GO THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 but he shall receive seven-fold l even in this time, but in the 
 world to come life everlasting." 2 If we know these things, 
 and have found them out from the truth of the Lord who 
 promises, not only is not loss of this kind to be feared, but 
 even to be desired; as the Lord Himself again announces and 
 warns us, " Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you, 
 and when they shall separate you from their company, and 
 shall cast you out, and shall speak of your name as evil, for 
 the Son of man's sake ! Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for 
 joy ; for, behold, your reward is great in heaven." 3 
 
 13. But [say they] subsequently tortures had come, 4 and 
 severe sufferings were threatening those who resisted. He 
 may complain of tortures who has been overcome by tortures ; 
 he may offer the excuse of suffering who has been vanquished 
 in suffering. Such an one may ask, and say, " I wished indeed 
 to strive bravely, and, remembering my oath, I took up the 
 arms of devotion and faith; but as I was struggling in the 
 encounter, varied tortures and lon^-continued sufferings over- 
 
 ; * * O O 
 
 came ,me..; My! mind stood firm, and my faith was strong, 
 and .my soul struggled long, unshaken with the torturing 
 pains ;: but when, with the renewed barbarity of the most 
 cruel judge, wearied out as I was, the scourges were now 
 tearing me, the clubs bruised me, the rack strained me, 
 the claw dug into me, the fire roasted me; my flesh deserted 
 me in the struggle, the weakness of my bodily frame gave 
 way, not my mind, but my body, yielded in the suffering." 
 Such a plea may readily avail to forgiveness ; an apology of 
 that kind may excite compassion. Thus at one time the Lord 
 forgave Castus and ^Emilius ; thus, overcome in the first 
 encounter, they were made victors in the second battle. So 
 that they who had formerly given way to the fires became 
 stronger than the fires, and in that in which they had been 
 vanquished they were conquerors. They entreated not for 
 pity of their tears, but of their wounds; nor with a lamentable 
 voice alone, but with laceration and suffering of body. Blood 
 
 1 Or, " a hundred-fold." - Mark x. 29. 
 
 8 Luke vi. 22. 4 " Were at hand." 
 
 * Or, " the scourges were lacerating my already wearied body."
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 361 
 
 flowed instead of weeping ; and instead of tears, gore poured 
 forth from their half-scorched entrails. 
 
 14. But now, what wounds can those Avho are overcome 
 show ? what gashes of gaping entrails, what tortures of the 
 limbs, in cases where it was not faith that fell in the en- 
 counter, but faithlessness that anticipated the struggle? Nor 
 does the necessity of the crime excuse the person compelled, 
 where the crime is committed of free will. Nor do I say this in 
 such a way as that I would burden the cases of the brethren, 
 but that I may rather instigate the brethren to a prayer of 
 atonement. For, as it is written, " They who call you happy 
 cause you to err, and destroy the paths of your feet," l he 
 who soothes the sinner with nattering blandishments furnishes 
 the stimulus to sin ; nor does he repress, but nourishes wrong- . 
 doing. But he who, with braver counsels, rebukes at the 
 same time that he instructs a brother, urges him onward to 
 salvation. " As many as I love," saith the Lord, " I rebuke 
 and chasten." 2 And thus also it behoves the Lord's priest 
 not to mislead by deceiving concessions, but to provide with 
 salutary remedies. He is an unskilful physician who handles 
 the swelling edges of wounds with a tender hand, and, by re- 
 taining the poison shut up in the deep recesses of the body, 
 increases it. The wound must be opened, and cut, and healed 
 by the stronger remedy of cutting out the corrupting parts. 
 The sick man may cry out, may vociferate, and may com- 
 plain, in impatience of the pain ; but he will afterwards give 
 thanks when he has felt that he is cured. 
 
 15. Moreover, beloved brethren, a new kind of devastation 
 lias appeared ; and, as if the storm of persecution had raged 
 too little, there has been added to the heap, under the title 
 of mercy, a deceiving mischief and a fair-seeming calamity. 
 Contrary to the vigour of the gospel, contrary to the law 
 of the Lord and God, by the temerity of some, communion 
 is relaxed to heedless persons, a vain and false peace, dan- 
 gerous to those who grant it, and likely to avail nothing to 
 those who receive it. They do not seek for the patience 
 necessary to health, nor the true medicine derived from 
 
 1 Isa. iii. 12. 2 Apoc. iii. 19.
 
 362 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 atonement. Penitence is driven forth from their breasts, 
 and the memory of their very grave and extreme sin is 
 taken away. The wounds of the dying are covered over, 
 and the deadly blow that is planted in the deep and secret 
 entrails is concealed by a dissimulated suffering. Returning 
 from the altars of the devil, they draw near to the holy place 
 of the Lord, with hands filthy and reeking with smell, still 
 almost breathing of the plague-bearing idol-meats ; and even 
 with jaws still exhaling their crime, and reeking with the 
 fatal contact, they intrude on the body of the Lord, although 
 the sacred Scripture stands in their way, and cries, saying, 
 " Every one that is clean shall eat of the flesh ; and whatever 
 soul eateth of the flesh of the saving sacrifice, which is the 
 Lord's, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be 
 cut off from his people." 1 Also, the apostle testifies, and 
 says, " Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of 
 devils ; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of 
 the table of devils." 2 He threatens, moreover, the stubborn 
 and froward, and denounces them, saying, " Whosoever 
 eateth the bread or drinketh the cup of the Lord unworthily, 
 is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." 3 
 
 16. All these warnings being scorned and contemned, 
 before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made 
 of their crime, before their conscience has been pui^ged by 
 sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, [before the offence of 
 an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, violence 
 is done to His body and blood ; and they sin now against 
 their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they 
 denied their Lord]. 4 They think that that is peace which 
 some with deceiving words are blazoning forth : 5 that is not 
 peace, but war ; and he is not joined to the church who is 
 separated from the gospel. Why do they call an injury a 
 kindness ? Why do they call impiety by the name of piety ? 
 Why do they hinder those who ought to weep continually 
 
 1 Lev. vii. 20. 2 1 Cor. x. 21. 3 1 Cor. xi. 27. 
 
 4 By some, the passage in brackets is placed at the beginning of the 
 paragraph, after the word " contemned." 
 
 5 Venditant.
 
 (W THE LAPSED. 363 
 
 and to entreat their Lord, from the sorrowing of repentance, 
 and pretend to receive them to communion ? This is the 
 same kind of thing to the lapsed as hail to the harvests ; as 
 the stormy star to the trees ; as the destruction of pestilence 
 to the herds ; as the raging tempest to shipping. They take 
 away the consolation of eternal hope ; they overturn the tree 
 from the roots; they creep on to a deadly contagion with 
 their pestilent words ; they dash the ship on the rocks, so 
 that it may not reach to the harbour. Such a facility does 
 not grant peace, but takes it away ; nor does it give commu- 
 nion, but it hinders from salvation. This is another perse- 
 cution, and another temptation, by which the crafty enemy 
 still further assaults the lapsed ; attacking them by a secret 
 corruption, that their lamentation may be hushed, that their 
 grief may be silent, that the memory of their sin may pass 
 away, that the groaning of their heart may be repressed, that 
 the weeping of their eyes may be quenched ; nor long and 
 full penitence deprecate the Lord so grievously offended, 
 although it is written, " Remember from whence thou art 
 fallen, and repent." l 
 
 17. Let no one cheat himself, let no one deceive himself. 
 The Lord alone can have mercy. He alone can bestow 
 pardon for sins which have been committed against Himself, 
 who bare our sins, who sorrowed for us, whom God delivered 
 up for our sins. Man cannot be greater than God, nor can 
 a servant remit or forego by his indulgence what has been 
 committed by a greater crime against the Lord, lest to the 
 person lapsed this be moreover added to his sin, if he be 
 ignorant that it is declared, " Cursed is the man that putteth 
 his hope in man." 2 The Lord must be besought. The Lord 
 must be appeased by our atonement, who has said, that him 
 that denieth Him He will deny, who alone has received all 
 judgment from His Father. We believe, indeed, that the 
 merits of martyrs and the works of the righteous are of great 
 avail with the Judge ; but that will be when the day of judg- 
 ment shall come when, after the conclusion of this life and 
 the world, His people shall stand before the tribunal of Christ. 
 1 Apoc. ii. 5. 2 Jer. xvii. 5.
 
 3G4 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 18. But if any one, by an overhurricd haste, raslily thinks 
 that he can give remission of sins to all, 1 or dares to rescind 
 the Lord's precepts, not only does it in no respect advantage 
 the lapsed, but it does them harm. Not to have observed 
 His judgment is to have provoked His wrath, and to think 
 that the mercy of God must not first of all be entreated, 
 and, despising the Lord, to presume on His power.'" Under 
 the altar of God the souls of the slain martyrs cry with a 
 loud voice, saying, " How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost 
 Thou not judge and avenge our blood upon those who dwell 
 on the earth 1 ?" 3 And they are bidden to rest, and still to 
 keep patience. And does any one think that, in opposition 
 to the Judfre, a man can become of avail 4 for the general re- 
 
 O J O 
 
 mission and pardon of sins, or that he can shield others before 
 he himself is vindicated ? The martyrs order something to 
 be done; but only if this thing be just and lawful, if it can 
 be done without opposing the Lord Himself by God's priest, 
 if the consent of the obeying party be easy and yielding, 
 if the moderation of the asking party be religious. The 
 martyrs order something to be done ; but if what they order 
 be not written in the law of the Lord, we must first know 
 that they have obtained what they ask from God, and then 
 do what they command. For that may not always appear 
 to be immediately conceded by the divine majesty, which has 
 been promised by man's undertaking. 
 
 19. For Moses also besought for the sins of the people ; 
 and yet, when he had sought pardon for these sinners, he 
 did not receive it. " I pray Thee," said he, " O Lord, this 
 people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of 
 gold. Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin, forgive it ; 
 but if not, blot me out of the book which Thou hast written. 
 And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned 
 against me, him will I blot out of my book." 5 He, the friend 
 of God ; he who had often spoken face to face with the 
 Lord, could not obtain what he asked, nor could appease 
 the wrath of an indignant God by his entreaty. God praises 
 
 1 " To any." 2 " On his facility ; " v. I. 
 
 8 Apoc. vi. 10. * " Worthy of." 5 Ex. xxxii. 31.
 
 CLV THE LAPSED. 365 
 
 Jeremiah, and announces, saying, " Before I formed thee in 
 the belly, I knew thee ; and before thou earnest out of the 
 womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto 
 the nations." 1 And to the same man He saith, when he often 
 entreated and prayed for the sins of the people, " Pray not 
 thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them ; 
 for I will not hear them in the time wherein they call on me, 
 in the time of their affliction." 2 But who was more righteous 
 than Noah, who, when the earth was filled with sins, was 
 alone found righteous on the earth ? Who more glorious 
 than Daniel ? Who more strong for suffering martyrdom in 
 firmness of faith, more happy in God's condescension, who 
 so many times, both when he was in conflict conquered, and, 
 when he had conquered, lived on? Was any more ready in 
 good works than Job, braver in temptations, more patient in 
 sufferings, more submissive in his fear, more true in his faith? 
 
 O / 9 
 
 And yet God said that He would not grant to them if they 
 were to seek. When the prophet Ezekiel entreated for the 
 sin of the people, " Whatsoever land," said He, " shall sin 
 against me by trespassing grievously, I will stretch out mine 
 hand upon it, and will break the staff of bread thereof, and 
 will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast 
 from it. Though, these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, 
 were in it, they should deliver neither sons nor daughters ; 
 but they only should be delivered themselves." 3 Thus, not 
 everything that is asked is in the prejudgment of the asker, 
 but in the free will of the giver ; neither can human judg- 
 ment claim to itself or usurp anything, unless the divine 
 pleasure approve. 
 
 20. In the Gospel the Lord speaks, and says, " Whosoever 
 shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before 
 my Father which is in heaven : but he that denieth me, him 
 will I also deny." 4 If He does not deny him that denies, 
 neither does He confess him that confesses ; the Gospel can- 
 not be sound in one part and waver in another. Either both 
 must stand firm, or both must lose the force of truth. If they 
 
 1 Jer. i. 5. 2 Jer. vii. 16. 
 
 8 Ezek. xiv. 13. * Luke xii. 8.
 
 366 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 who deny shall not be guilty of a crime, neither shall they who 
 confess receive the reward of a virtue. Again, if faith which 
 has conquered be crowned, it is of necessity that faithlessness 
 which is conquered should be punished. Thus the martyrs 
 can either do nothing if the Gospel may be broken ; or if the 
 Gospel cannot be broken, they can do nothing against the 
 Gospel, since they become martyrs on account of the Gospel. 
 Let no one, beloved brethren, let no one decry the dignity of 
 martyrs, let no one degrade their glories and their crowns. 
 The strength of their uncorrupted faith abides sound ; nor 
 can he either say or do anything against Christ, whose hope, 
 and faith, and virtue, and glory, are all in Christ : those cannot 
 be the authority for the bishops doing anything against God's 
 command, who themselves have done God's command. Is any 
 one greater than God, or more merciful than God's goodness, 
 that he should either wish that undone which God has suf- 
 fered to be done, or, as if God had too little power to protect 
 His church, should think that we could be preserved by his 
 help? 
 
 21. Unless, perchance, these things have been done with- 
 out God's knowledge, or all these things have transpired 
 without His permission ; although holy Scripture teaches the 
 indocile, and admonishes the unmindful, where it speaks, say- 
 ing, " Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to those who 
 made a booty of him ? Did not the Lord against whom they 
 sinned, and would not walk in His ways, neither were obe- 
 dient unto His law ? And He has poured upon them the 
 fury of His anger." 1 And elsewhere it testifies and says, 
 " Is the Lord's hand shortened, that it cannot save ; or His 
 ear heavy, that it cannot hear 1 But your iniquities separate 
 between you and your God ; and because of your sins He hath 
 hid His face from you, that He may not have mercy." 2 Let 
 us rather consider our offences, revolving our doings and the 
 secrets of our mind ; let us weigh the deserts of our conscience ; 
 let it come back upon our heart that we have not walked in 
 the Lord's ways, and have cast away God's law, and have 
 never been willing to keep His precepts and saving counsels. 
 1 Isa. xlii. 24. 2 Isa. lix. 1.
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 367 
 
 22. What good can you think of him, what fear can you 
 suppose to have been with him, or what faith, whom neither 
 fear could correct nor persecution itself could reform ? His 
 high and rigid neck, even when it has fallen, is unbent ; his 
 swelling and haughty soul is not broken, even when it is 
 conquered. Prostrate, he threatens those who stand ; and 
 wounded, the sound. And because he may not at once re- 
 ceive the body of the Lord in his polluted hands, the sacri- 
 legious one is angry with the priests. And oh your excessive 
 madness, O frantic one you are angry with him who en- 
 deavours to avert the anger of God from you ; you threaten 
 him who beseeches the divine mercy on your behalf, who 
 feels your wound which you yourself do not feel, who sheds 
 tears for you, which perhaps you never shed yourself. You 
 are still aggravating and enhancing your crime; and while you 
 yourself are implacable 1 against the ministers and priests 2 of 
 God, do you think that the Lord can be appeased concerning 
 you? 
 
 23. Receive rather, and admit what we say. Why do 
 your deaf ears not hear the salutary precepts with which we 
 warn you ? Why do your blind eyes not see the way of 
 repentance which we point out 1 Why does your stricken 
 and alienated mind not perceive the lively remedies which 
 we both learn and teach from the heavenly Scriptures ? Or 
 if some unbelievers have little faith in future events, let them 
 be terrified with present ones. Lo, what punishments do we 
 behold of those who have denied ! what sad deaths of theirs 
 do we bewail ! Not even here can they be without punish- 
 ment, although the day of punishment has not yet arrived. 
 Some are punished in the meantime, that others may be cor- 
 rected. The torments of a few are the examples of all. 
 
 24. One of those who of his own will ascended the 
 Capitol to make denial, after he had denied Christ, became 
 dumb. The punishment began from that point whence the 
 crime also began ; so that now he could not ask, since he had 
 no words for entreating mercy. 3 Another, who was in the 
 
 1 " And are angry." 2 Some omit " and priests." 
 
 8 Otherwise, " for the mercifulness of prayers."
 
 368 THE TREATISES OF OYPRIAN. 
 
 baths, (for this was wanting to her crime and to her misfor- 
 tunes, that she even went at once to the baths, when she 
 had lost the grace of the laver of life) ; there, unclean as 
 she was, was seized by an unclean spirit, 1 and tore with her 
 teeth the tongue with which she had either impiously eaten 
 or spoken. After the wicked food had been taken, the mad- 
 ness of the mouth was armed to its own destruction. She 
 herself was her own executioner, nor did she long continue 
 to live afterwards : tortured \vith pangs of the belly and 
 bowels, she expired. 
 
 25. Learn what occurred when I myself was present and a 
 witness. Some parents who by chance were escaping, being 
 little careful 2 on account of their terror, left a little daughter 
 
 ' O 
 
 under the care of a wet-nurse. The nurse gave up the for- 
 saken child to the magistrates. They gave it, in the presence 
 of an idol whither the people flocked (because it was not 
 yet able to eat flesh on account of its years), bread mingled 
 with wine, which however itself was the remainder of what 
 had been used in the immolation of those that had perished. 
 Subsequently the mother recovered her child. But the girl 
 was no more able to speak, or to indicate the crime that had 
 been committed, than she had before been able to under- 
 stand or to prevent it. Therefore it happened unawares in 
 their ignorance, that when we were sacrificing, the mother 
 brought it in with her. Moreover, the girl mingled with 
 the saints, became impatient of our prayer and supplica- 
 tions, and w r as at one moment shaken with weeping, and at 
 another tossed about like a wave of the sea by the violent 
 excitement of her mind ; as if by the compulsion of a torturer 
 the soul of that still tender child confessed a consciousness 
 of the fact with such signs as it could. When, however, the 
 solemnities were finished, and the deacon began to offer the 
 cup to those present, and when, as the rest received it, its 
 turn approached, the little child, by the instinct of the 
 divine majesty, turned away its face, compressed its mouth 
 with resisting lips, and refused the cup. Still the deacon 
 
 1 Some read, " and fell down." 
 
 2 Some read, "of themselves ;" others, "of their belongings."
 
 THE LAPSED. 369 
 
 persisted, and, although against her efforts, forced on her 
 some of the sacrament of the cup. Then there followed a 
 sobbing and vomiting. In a profaned body and mouth the 
 Eucharist could not remain ; the draught sanctified in the 
 blood of the Lord burst forth from the polluted stomach. 
 So great is the Lord's power, so great is His majesty. The 
 secrets of darkness were disclosed under His light, and not 
 even hidden crimes deceived God's priest. 
 
 26. This much about an infant, which was not yet of an 
 age to speak of the crime committed by others in respect of 
 herself. But the woman who in advanced life and of more 
 mature age secretly crept in among us when we were sacri- 
 ficing, received not food, but a sword for herself ; and as if 
 taking some deadly poison J into her jaws and body, began 
 presently to be tortured, and to become stiffened with frenzy; 
 and suffering the misery no longer of persecution, but of her 
 crime, shivering and trembling, she fell down. The crime 
 of her dissimulated conscience was not long unpunished or 
 concealed. She who had deceived man, felt that God was 
 taking vengeance. And another woman, when she tried with 
 unworthy hands to open her box, in which was the holy [body] 
 of the Lord, was deterred by fire rising from it from daring 
 to touch it. And when one, 2 who himself was defiled, 
 dared with the rest to receive secretly a part of the sacrifice 
 celebrated by the priest ; he could not eat or handle the holy 
 of the Lord, but found in his hands when opened that he had 
 a cinder. Thus by the experience of one it was shown that 
 the Lord withdraws when He is denied ; nor does that which 
 is received benefit the undeserving for salvation, since saving 
 grace is changed by the departure of the sanctity into a 
 cinder. How many there are daily who do not repent nor 
 make confession of the consciousness of their crime, who are 
 filled with unclean spirits ! How many are shaken even to 
 unsoundness of mind and idiotcy by the raging of madness ! 
 Nor is there any need to go through the deaths of indi- 
 viduals, since through the manifold lapses occurring in the 
 
 1 " And receiving the blood as if some deadly poison," etc. ; t;. I. 
 
 2 Or, " a certain one." 
 
 .2 A
 
 370 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 world the punishment of their sins is as varied as the multi- 
 tude of sinners is abundant. Let each one consider not 
 what another has suffered, but what he himself deserves to 
 suffer; nor think that he has escaped if his punishment delay 
 for a time, since he ought to fear it the more that the wrath 
 of God the judge has reserved it for himself. 
 
 27. Nor let those persons flatter themselves that they need 
 repent the less, who, although they have not polluted their 
 hands with abominable sacrifices, yet have defiled their con- 
 science with certificates. That profession of one who denies, is 
 the testimony of a Christian disowning what he had been. He 
 says that he has done what another has actually committed ; 
 and although it is written, " Ye cannot serve two masters," l 
 he has served an earthly master in that he has obeyed his 
 edict ; he has been more obedient to human authority than 
 to God. It matters not whether he has published what he 
 has done with less either of disgrace or of guilt among men. 
 Be that as it may, he will not be able to escape and avoid God 
 his judge, seeing that the Holy Spirit says in the Psalms, 
 " Thine eyes did see my substance, that it was imperfect, and 
 in Thy book shall all men be written." 2 And again : " Man 
 seeth the outward appearance, but God seeth the heart." a 
 The Lord Himself also forewarns and prepares us, saying, 
 "And all the churches shall know that I am He which 
 searcheth the reins and the heart." 4 He looks into the hid- 
 den and secret things, and considers those things which are 
 concealed ; nor can any one evade the eyes of the Lord, who 
 says, " I am a God at hand, and not a God afar off. If a 
 man be hidden in secret places, shall not I therefore see him ? 
 Do not I fill heaven and earth?" 5 He sees the heart and 
 mind of every person ; and He will judge not alone of our 
 deeds, but even of our words and thoughts. He looks into 
 the minds, and the wills, and conceptions of all men, in the 
 very lurking-places of the heart that is still closed up. 
 
 28. Moreover, how much are they both greater in faith 
 and better in their fear, who, although bound by no crime of 
 
 1 Matt. vi. 24. 2 Ps. cxxxix. 16. 3 1 Sam. xvi. 7. 
 
 4 Apoc. ii. 23. * Jer. xxiii. 23.
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 371 
 
 sacrifice or of certificate, yet, since they have even thought 
 of such things, with grief and simplicity confess this very 
 tiling to God's priests, and make the conscientious avowal, 
 put off from them the load of their minds, and seek out the 
 salutary medicine even for slight and moderate wounds, 
 knowing that it is written, " God is not mocked." l God can- 
 not be mocked, nor deceived, nor deluded by any deceptive 
 cunning. Yea, he sins the more, who, thinking that God is 
 like man, believes that he evades the penalty of his crime if 
 he has not openly admitted his crime. Christ says in His 
 precepts, " Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, of him shall 
 the Son of man be ashamed." 2 And does he think that he 
 is a Christian, who is either ashamed or afraid to be a Chris- 
 tian ? How can he be one with Christ, who either blushes 
 or fears to belong to Christ ? He Avill certainly have sinned 
 less, by not seeing the idols, and not profaning the sanctity of 
 the faith under the eyes of a people standing round and in- 
 sulting, and not polluting his hands by the deadly sacrifices, 
 nor defiling his lips with the wicked food. This is advan- 
 tageous to this extent, that the fault is less, not that the con- 
 science is guiltless. He can more easily attain to pardon of 
 his crime, yet he is not free from crime ; and let him not 
 cease to carry out his repentance, and to entreat the Lord's 
 mercy, lest what seems to be less in the quality of his fault, 
 should be increased by his neglect of atonement. 
 
 29. I entreat you, beloved brethren, that each one should 
 confess his own sin, while he who has sinned is still in this 
 world, while his confession may be received, while the satis- 
 faction and remission made by the priests are pleasing to 
 the Lord. Let us turn to the Lord with our whole heart, 
 and expressing our repentance for our sin with true grief, 
 let us entreat God's mercy. Let our soul lie low before 
 Him. Let our mourning atone to Him. Let all our hope 
 lean upon Him. He Himself tells us in what manner we 
 ought to ask. " Turn ye," He says, " to me with all your 
 heart, and at the same time with fasting, and with weeping, 
 and with mourning ; and rend your hearts, and not your gar- 
 1 Gal. vi. 7. 2 Mark viii. 83.
 
 372 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 ments." l Let us return to the Lord with our whole heart. 
 Let us appease His wrath and indignation with fastings, with 
 weeping, with mourning, as He Himself admonishes us. 
 
 30. Do we believe that a man is lamenting with his whole 
 heart, that he is entreating the Lord with fasting, and with 
 weeping, and with mourning, who from the first day of his 
 sin daily frequents the bathing-places with women; who, 
 feeding at rich banquets, and puffed out with fuller dainties, 
 belches forth on the next day his indigestions, and does not 
 dispense of his meat and drink so as to aid the necessity of the 
 poor? How does he who walks with joyous and glad step 
 mourn for his death ? And although it is written, " Ye shall 
 not mar the figure of your beard," 2 he plucks out his beard, 
 and dresses his hair ; and does he now study to please any 
 one who displeases God? Or does she groan and lament 
 who has time to put on the clothing of precious apparel, and 
 not to consider the robe of Christ which she has lost ; to 
 receive valuable ornaments and richly wrought necklaces, 
 and not to bewail the loss of divine and heavenly ornament ? 
 Although thou clothest thyself in foreign garments and silken 
 robes, thou art naked ; although thou adornest thyself to 
 excess both in pearls, and gems, and gold, yet without the 
 adornment of Christ thou art unsightly. And you who stain 
 your hair, now at least cease in the midst of sorrows ; and you 
 who paint the edges of your eyes with a line drawn around 
 them of black powder, now at least wash your eyes with 
 tears. If you had lost any dear one of your friends by the 
 death incident to mortality, you would groan grievously, and 
 weep with disordered countenance, with changed dress, with 
 neglected hair, with clouded face, with dejected appearance, 
 you would show the signs of grief. Miserable creature, you 
 have lost your soul ; spiritually dead here, you are continuing 
 to live to yourself, and although yourself walking about, you 
 have begun to carry your own death with you. And do you 
 not bitterly moan ; do you not continually groan ; do you not 
 hide yourself, either for shame of your sin or for continuance 
 of your lamentation? Behold, these are still worse wounds 
 1 Joel ii. 12. 2 Lev. xix. 27.
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 373 
 
 of sinning ; behold, these are greater crimes to have sinned, 
 and not to make atonement to have committed crimes, and 
 not to bewail your crimes. 
 
 31. Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, the illustrious and noble 
 youths, even amid the flames and the ardours of a raging 
 furnace, did not desist from making public confession to God. 
 Although possessed of a good conscience, and having often 
 deserved well of the Lord by obedience of faith and fear, 
 yet they did not cease from maintaining their humility, and 
 from making atonement to the Lord, even amid the glorious 
 martyrdoms of their virtues. The sacred Scripture speaks, 
 saying, " Azarias stood up and prayed, and opening his 
 mouth, made confession before God together with his com- 
 panions in the midst of the fire." 1 Daniel also, after the 
 manifold grace of his faith and innocency, after the con- 
 descension of the Lord often repeated in respect of his virtues 
 and praises, strives by fastings still further to deserve well 
 of God, wraps himself in sackcloth and ashes, sorrowfully 
 making confession, and saying, " O Lord God, great, and 
 strong, and dreadful, keeping Thy covenant and mercy for 
 them that love Thee and keep Thy commandments, we have 
 sinned, we have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly: 
 we have transgressed, and departed from Thy precepts, and 
 from Thy judgments; neither have we hearkened to the 
 words of Thy servants the prophets, which they spake in Thy 
 name to our kings, and to all the nations, and to all the earth. 
 O Lord, righteousness 2 belongeth unto Thee, but unto us 
 confusion." 3 
 
 32. These things were done by men, meek, simple, inno- 
 cent, in deserving well of the majesty of God; and now those 
 who have denied the Lord refuse to make atonement to the 
 Lord, and to entreat Him. I beg you, brethren, acquiesce 
 in wholesome remedies, obey better counsels, associate your 
 tears with our tears, join your groans with ours ; we beseech 
 you in order that we may beseech God for you : we turn our 
 very prayers to you first; our prayers with which we pray 
 
 1 Song of the Three Children. 
 
 2 Some add, " to Thee, glory." 8 Dan. ix. 4.
 
 374 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 God for you that He would pity you. Repent abundantly, 
 prove the sorrow of a grieving and lamenting mind. 
 
 33. Neither let that imprudent error or vain stupor of 
 some move you, who, although they are involved in so grave 
 a crime, are struck with blindness of mind, so that they 
 neither understand nor lament their sins. This is the greater 
 visitation of an angry God ; as it is written, " And God gave 
 them the spirit of deadness." 1 And again : " They received 
 not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for 
 this cause God shall send them the working of error, that 
 they should believe a lie ; that they all might be damned who 
 believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 1 ' 
 Unrighteously pleasing themselves, and mad with the aliena- 
 tion of a hardened mind, they despise the Lord's precepts, 
 neglect the medicine for their wound, and will not repent. 
 Thoughtless before their sin was acknowledged, after their 
 
 O O f 
 
 sin they are obstinate ; neither stedfast before, nor suppliant 
 afterwards : when they ought to have stood fast, they fell ; 
 when they ought to fall and prostrate themselves to God, they 
 think they stand fast. They have taken peace for them- 
 selves of their own accord when nobody granted it ; seduced 
 by false promises, and linked with apostates and unbelievers, 
 they take hold of error instead of truth : they regard a com- 
 munion as valid with those who are not communicants ; they 
 believe men against God, although they have not believed 
 God against men. 
 
 34. Flee from such men as much as you can ; avoid with 
 a wholesome caution those who adhere to their mischievous 
 contact. Their word doth eat as doth a cancer ; their con- 
 versation advances like a contagion ; their noxious and en- 
 venomed persuasion kills worse than persecution itself. In 
 such a case there remains only penitence which can make 
 atonement. But they who take away repentance for a crime, 
 close the way of atonement. Thus it happens that, while 
 by the rashness of some a false safety is either promised or 
 trusted, the hope of true safety is taken away. 
 
 35. But you, beloved brethren, whose fear is ready towards 
 1 Isa. xxix. 10; Vulg. " transpunctionis." 2 2 Thess. ii. 10.
 
 ON THE LAPSED. 375 
 
 God, and whose mind, although it is placed in the midst of 
 [a grievous] lapse, is mindful of its misery, do you in re- 
 pentance and grief look into your sins ; acknowledge the very 
 grave sin of your conscience ; open the eyes of your heart to 
 the understanding of your sin, neither despairing of the Lord's 
 mercy nor yet at once claiming His pardon. God, in propor- 
 tion as with the affection of a Father He is always indulgent 
 and good, in the same proportion is to be dreaded with the 
 majesty of a judge. Even as we have sinned greatly, so let us 
 greatly lament. To a deep wound let there not be wanting a 
 long and careful treatment ; let not the repentance be less than 
 the sin. Think you that the Lord can be quickly appeased, 
 whom with faithless words you have denied, to whom you 
 have rather preferred your worldly estate, whose temple you 
 have violated with a sacrilegious contact? Think you that 
 He will easily have mercy upon you whom you have declared 
 not to be your God ? You must pray more eagerly and 
 entreat ; you must spend the day in grief ; wear out nights 
 in watchings and weepings ; occupy all your time in wailful 
 lamentations ; lying stretched on the ground, you must cling 
 close to the ashes, be surrounded with sackcloth and filth ; 
 after losing the raiment of Christ, you must be willing now 
 to have no clothing; after the devil's meat, you must prefer 
 fasting ; be earnest in righteous works, whereby sins may be 
 purged ; frequently apply yourself to almsgiving, whereby 
 souls are freed from death. What the adversary took from 
 you, let Christ receive ; nor ought your estate now either to 
 be held or loved, by which you have been both deceived and 
 conquered. Wealth must be avoided as an enemy ; must be 
 fled from as a robber ; must be dreaded by its possessors as a 
 sword and as poison. 1 To this end only so much as remains 
 should be of service, that by it the crime and the fault may 
 be redeemed. Let good works be done without delay, and 
 largely; let all your estate be laid out for the healing of 
 your wound ; let us lend of our wealth and our means to the 
 Lord, who shall judge concerning us. Thus faith flourished 
 in the time of the apostles ; thus the first people of believers 
 1 Instead of " and a poison," some read, " and sold."
 
 376 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 kept Christ's commands : they were prompt, they were liberal, 
 they gave their all to be distributed by the apostles ; and yet 
 they were not redeeming sins of such a character as these. 
 
 36. If a man make prayer with his whole heart, if he 
 groan with the true lamentations and tears of repentance, 
 if he incline the Lord to pardon of his sin by righteous 
 and continual works, he who expressed His mercy in these 
 words may pity such men: "When you turn and lament, 
 then shall you be saved, and shall know where you have 
 been." 1 And again: "I have no pleasure in the death of 
 him that dieth, saith the Lord, but that he should return 
 and live." 2 And Joel the prophet declares the mercy of the 
 Lord in the Lord's own admonition, when he says: "Turn 
 ye to the Lord your God, for He is merciful and gracious, 
 and patient, and of great mercy, and repenteth Him with re- 
 spect to the evil that He hath inflicted." 3 He can show mercy ; 
 He can turn back His judgment. He can mercifully pardon 
 the repenting, the labouring, the beseeching sinner. He can 
 regard as effectual whatever, in behalf of such as these, either 
 martyrs have besought or priests have done. Or if any one 
 move Him still more by his own atonement, if he appease 
 His anger, if he appease the wrath of an indignant God by 
 righteous entreaty, He gives arms again whereby the van- 
 quished may be armed; He restores and confirms the strength 
 whereby the refreshed faith may be invigorated. The soldier 
 will seek his contest anew ; he will repeat the fight, he will 
 provoke the enemy, and indeed by his very suffering he is 
 made braver for the battle. He who has thus made atone- 
 ment to God ; he who by repentance for his deed, who by 
 shame for his sin, has conceived more both of virtue and 
 of faith from the very grief of his fall, heard and aided by 
 the Lord, shall make the church which he had lately sad- 
 dened glad, and shall now deserve of the Lord not only 
 pardon, but a crown. 
 
 1 Isa. xxx. 51. 2 Ezek. xxxiii. 11. 8 Joel ii. 13.
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 377 
 
 TREATISE III. 
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ARGUMENT. On the occasion of the schism of Novatian, to 
 keep back from him the Carthaginians, who already were 
 not averse to him, on account of Novatus and some other 
 presbyters of his church, who had originated the ivhole 
 disturbance, Cyprian wrote this treatise. And first of 
 all, fortifying them against the deceits of these, he exhorts 
 them to constancy, and instructs them that heresies exist 
 because the Head of the church is not looked to, that the 
 primacy of Peter is contemned, and the throne and the 
 one church and the one episcopate are deserted. Then 
 he proves, as well by the Scriptures as by the figures of 
 the Old and Neio Testament, the unity of the church. 
 Further, describing in few words the ambition and dis- 
 simulation of Novatian in invading the episcopate of 
 Rome, he argues at length, that neither on the one hand 
 is the passage in Matthew xviii. of any avail to compensate 
 for their fewness as against the church : " Wherever two 
 or three are gathered together in my name" etc. ; nor, on 
 the other, could martyrdom be of any benefit to them 
 outside the church. Then he tells them that they need 
 not marvel that heresies flourished, since they had been 
 foretold by Christ ; nor that certain Roman confessors 
 acquiesced in the schism, because before one's death no 
 one is blessed, and the traitor Judas was found in the 
 very company of the apostles. Yet he charges them to 
 shun the association of schismatics and heretics, and finally 
 exhorts them by the Scriptures to peace and unanimity. 
 
 1. Since the Lord warns us, saying, " Ye are the salt of 
 the earth," l and since He bids us to be simple to harmlessness, 
 and yet with our simplicity to be prudent, what else, beloved 
 brethren, befits us, than to use foresight and watching with 
 
 1 Matt. v. 13.
 
 378 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 an anxious heart, both to perceive and to beware of the 
 wiles of the crafty foe, that we, who have put on Christ the 
 wisdom of God the Father, may not seem to be wanting in 
 wisdom in the matter of providing for our salvation ? For 
 it is not persecution alone that is to be feared ; nor those 
 things which advance by open attack to overwhelm and cast 
 down the servants of God. Caution is more easy where 
 danger is manifest, and the mind is prepared beforehand for 
 the contest when the adversary avows himself. The enemy is 
 more to be feared and to be guarded against, when he creeps 
 on us secretly ; when, deceiving by the appearance of peace, 
 he steals forward by hidden approaches, whence also he lias 
 received the name of the Serpent [the creeping, stealing 
 thing]. That is always his subtlety; that is his dark and 
 stealthy artifice for circumventing man. Thus from the 
 veiy beginning of the world he deceived ; and flattering with 
 lying words, he misled inexperienced souls by an incautious 
 credulity. Thus he endeavoured to tempt the Lord Himself : 
 he secretly approached Him, as if he would creep on Him 
 again, and deceive ; yet he was understood, and beaten back, 
 and therefore prostrated, because he was recognised and 
 detected. 
 
 2. From which an example is given us to avoid the way 
 of the old man, to stand in the footsteps of a conquering 1 
 Christ, that we may not again be incautiously turned back 
 into the nets of death, but foreseeing our danger, may possess 
 the immortality that we have received. But how can we 
 possess immortality, unless we keep those commands of Christ 
 whereby death is driven out and overcome, when He Himself 
 warns us, and says, " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the 
 commandments?" 2 And again: "If ye do the things that 
 I command you, henceforth I call you not servants, but 
 friends." 3 Finally, these persons He calls strong and sted- 
 fast; these He declares to be founded in robust security 
 upon the rock, established with immoveable and unshaken 
 firmness, in opposition to all the tempests and hurricanes of 
 the world. " Whosoever," says He, " heareth my words, and 
 
 1 Or, "living." 2 Matt. xix. 17. 3 John xiv. 15.
 
 CLV THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 379 
 
 doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, that built his 
 house upon a rock : the rain descended, the floods came, the 
 winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not : for 
 it was founded upon a rock." 1 We ought therefore to stand 
 fast on His words, to learn and do whatever He both taught 
 and did. But how can a man say that he believes in Christ, 
 who does not do what Christ commanded him to do ? Or 
 whence shall he attain to the reward of faith, who will 
 not keep the faith of the commandment ? He must of 
 necessity waver and wander, and, caught away by a spirit 
 of error, like dust which is shaken by the wind, be blown 
 about; and he will make no advance in his walk towards 
 salvation, because he does not keep the truth of the way of 
 salvation. 
 
 3. But, beloved brethren, not only must we beware of 
 what is open and manifest, but also of what deceives by the 
 craft of subtle fraud. And what can be more crafty, or 
 what more subtle, than for this enemy, detected arid cast 
 down by the advent of Christ, after light has come to the 
 nations, and saving rays have shone for the preservation of 
 men, that the deaf might receive the hearing of spiritual 
 grace, the blind might open their eyes to God, the weak 
 might grow strong again with eternal health, the lame might 
 ran to the church, the dumb might pray with clear voices 
 and prayers seeing his idols forsaken, and his fanes and his 
 temples deserted by the numerous concourse of believers to 
 devise a new fraud, and under the very title of the Christian 
 name to deceive the incautious ? Pie has invented heresies 
 and schisms, whereby he might subvert the faith, might 
 corrupt the truth, might divide the unity. Those whom he 
 cannot keep in the darkness of the old way, he circumvents 
 and deceives by the error of a new way. He snatches men 
 from the church itself ; and while they seem to themselves 
 to have already approached to the light, and to have escaped 
 the night of the world, he pours over them again, in their 
 unconsciousness, new darkness ; so that, although they do 
 not stand firm with the gospel of Christ, and with the observa- 
 1 Matt. vii. 24.
 
 380 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 tion and law of Christ, they still call themselves Christians, 
 and, walking in darkness, they think that they have the 
 light, while the adversary is flattering and deceiving, who, 
 according to the apostle's word, transforms himself into an 
 angel of light, and equips his ministers as if they were the 
 ministers of righteousness, who maintain night instead of day, 
 death for salvation, despair under the offer of hope, perfidy 
 under the pretext of faith, antichrist under the name of 
 Christ ; so that, while they feign things like the truth, they 
 make void the truth by their subtlety. This happens, beloved 
 brethren, so long as we do not return to the source of truth, 
 as we do not seek the head nor keep the teaching of the 
 heavenly Master. 
 
 4. If any one consider and examine these things, there is 
 no need for lengthened discussion and arguments. There is 
 easy proof for faith in a short summary of the truth. The 
 Lord speaks to Peter, saying, " I say unto thee, that thou art 
 Peter ; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give 
 unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatso- 
 ever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, 
 and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
 heaven." l And again to the same He says, after His resur- 
 rection, "Feed my sheep." 2 [Upon him, being one, He 
 builds His church, and commits His sheep to be fed.] And 
 although to all the apostles, after His resurrection, He gives 
 an equal power, and says, " As the Father hath sent me, 
 even so send I you : Receive ye the Holy Ghost : Whose- 
 soever sins ye remit, they shall be remitted unto him ; and 
 whosesoever sins ye retain, they shall be retained ; " 3 yet, that 
 He might set forth unity, He arranged by His authority the 
 origin of that unity, as beginning from one. Assuredly the 
 rest of the apostles were also the same as was Peter, endowed 
 with a like partnership both of honour and power ; but the 
 beginning proceeds from unity ; [and the primacy is given 
 to Peter, that there might be shown one church of Christ 
 and one See ; and they are all shepherds, and the flock is 
 
 1 Matt. xvi. 18, 19. 2 John xxi. 15. 8 John xx. 21.
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 381 
 
 one, which is fed by all the apostles with unanimous consent]; 1 
 which one church, also, the Holy Spirit in the Song of Songs 
 designated in the person of our Lord, and says, " My dove, 
 my spotless one, is but one. She is the only one of her 
 mother, elect of her that bare her." 2 Does he who does not 
 hold this unity of the church think that he holds the faith ? 
 Does he who strives against and resists the church, [who 
 deserts the chair of Peter, upon whom the church is founded, 3 ] 
 trust that he is in the church, when moreover the blessed 
 Apostle Paul teaches the same thing, and sets forth the 
 sacrament of unity, saying, " There is one body and one 
 spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one 
 baptism, one God ? " 
 
 5. And this unity we ought firmly to hold and assert, 
 especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the 
 church, that we may also prove the episcopate itself to be 
 one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by 
 a falsehood: let no one corrupt the truth of the faith by 
 perfidious prevarication. The episcopate is one, each part 
 of which is held by each one for the whole. The church 
 also is one, which is spread abroad far and wide into a multi- 
 tude by an increase of fruitf ulness. As there are many rays 
 of the sun, but one light ; and many branches of a tree, but 
 one strength based in its tenacious root ; and since from one 
 spring flow many streams, although the multiplicity seems 
 diffused in the liberality of an overflowing abundance, yet 
 the unity is still preserved in the source. Separate a ray of 
 the sun from its body of light, its unity does not allow a divi- 
 sion of light ; break a branch from a tree, when broken, it 
 will not be able to bud ; cut off the stream from its fountain, 
 and that which is cut off dries up. Thus also the church, 
 shone over with the light of the Lord, sheds forth her rays 
 over the whole world, yet it is one light which is everywhere 
 diffused, nor is the unity of the body separated. Her fruit- 
 
 1 This passage, as well as one a few lines before, placed in brackets, is 
 beyond all question spurious. 
 
 2 Cant. vi. 9. 3 This passage also is undoubtedly spurious. 
 * Eph. iv. 4.
 
 082 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 ful abundance spreads her branches over the whole world. 
 She broadly expands her rivers, liberally flowing, yet her 
 head is one, her source one ; and she is one mother, plentiful 
 in the results of fruitfulness : from her womb we are born, 
 by her milk we are nourished, by her spirit we are animated. 
 
 6. The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous ; she is un- 
 corrupted and pure. She knows one home ; she guards with 
 chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch. She keeps us for 
 God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the 
 kingdom. Whoever is separated from the church and is 
 joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the 
 church ; nor can he who forsakes the church of Christ attain 
 to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger ; he is profane ; 
 he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, 
 who has not the church for his mother. If any one could 
 escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may 
 escape who shall be outside of the church. The Lord warns, 
 saying, " He who is not with me is against me, and he who 
 gathereth not with me scattered!." 1 He who breaks the 
 peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to 
 Christ ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the church, 
 scatters the church of Christ. The Lord says, " I and the 
 Father are one ;" 2 and again it is written of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, " And these three are 
 one." 3 And does any one believe that this unity which thus 
 comes from the divine strength and coheres in celestial sacra- 
 ments, can be divided in the church, and can be separated by 
 the parting asunder of opposing wills ? He who does not hold 
 this unity does not hold God's law, does not hold the faith of 
 the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation. 
 
 7. This sacrament of unity, this bond of a concord inse- 
 parably cohering, is set forth where in the Gospel the coat of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ is not at all divided nor cut, but is 
 received as an entire garment, and is possessed as an unin- 
 jured and undivided robe by those who cast lots concerning 
 Christ's garment, who should rather put on Christ. 4 Holy 
 
 1 Matt. xii. 30. 2 John x. 30. ' 6 1 John v. 7 
 
 4 The above reading of this passage seems hopelessly obscure; and it
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 383 
 
 Scripture speaks, saying, "But of the coat, because it was 
 not sewed, but woven from the top throughout, they said one 
 to another, Let us not rend it, but cast lots whose it shall be." l 
 That coat bore with it an unity that came down from the top, 
 that is, that came from heaven and the Father, which was not 
 to be at all rent by the receiver and the possessor, but with- 
 out separation we obtain a whole and substantial entireness. 
 He cannot possess the garment of Christ who parts and 
 divides the church of Christ. On the other hand, again, 
 when at Solomon's death his kingdom and people were 
 divided, Abijah the prophet, meeting Jeroboam the king in 
 the field, divided his garment into twelve sections, saying, 
 " Take thee ten pieces ; for thus saith the Lord, Behold, I 
 will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and I 
 will give ten sceptres unto thee ; and two sceptres shall be 
 unto him for my servant David's sake, and for Jerusalem, the 
 city which I have chosen to place my name there." 2 As 
 the twelve tribes of Israel were divided, the prophet Abijah 
 rent his garment. But because Christ's people cannot be 
 rent, His robe, woven and united throughout, is not divided 
 by those who possess it; undivided, united, connected, it shows 
 the coherent concord of our people who put on Christ. By 
 the sacrament and sign of His garment, He has declared the 
 unity of the church. 
 
 8. Who, then, is so wicked and faithless, who is so insane 
 with the madness of discord, that either he should believe 
 that the unity of God can be divided, or should dare to rend 
 it the garment of the Lord the church of Christ? He 
 Himself in His Gospel warns us, and teaches, saying, " And 
 there shall be one flock and one shepherd." 3 And does any 
 one believe that in one place there can be either many 
 shepherds or many flocks ? The Apostle Paul, moreover, 
 urging upon us this same unity, beseeches and exhorts, say- 
 ing, "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord 
 
 is not much mended apparently by substituting " ipsam" for Christum, 
 unless " potius" be omitted, as in some editions, in which case we should 
 read, " who should put it on." 
 
 1 John six. 23, 24. 2 1 Kings xi. 31. 3 John x. 1C.
 
 384 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there 
 be no schisms among you ; but that ye be joined together in 
 the same mind and in the same judgment." 1 And again, he 
 says, " Forbearing one another in love, endeavouring to keep 
 the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." 2 Do you think 
 that you can stand and live if you withdraw from the church, 
 building for yourself other homes and a different dwelling, 
 when it is said to Rahab, in whom was prefigured the church, 
 " Thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all the 
 house of thy father, thou shalt gather unto thee into thine 
 house ; and it shall come to pass, whosoever shall go abroad 
 beyond the door of thine house, his blood shall be upon his 
 own head ? " Also, the sacrament of the passover contains 
 nothing else in the law of the Exodus than that the lamb 
 which is slain in the figure of Christ should be eaten in one 
 house. God speaks, saying, " In one house shall ye eat it ; 
 ye shall not send its flesh abroad from the house." 4 The 
 flesh of Christ, and the holy of the Lord, cannot be sent 
 abroad, nor is there any other home to believers but the one 
 church. This home, this household 5 of unanimity, the Holy 
 Spirit designates and points out in the Psalms, saying, " God, 
 who maketh men to dwell with one mind in a house." 6 In 
 the house of God, in the church of Christ, men dwell with 
 one mind, and continue in concord and simplicity. 
 
 9. Therefore also the Holy Spirit came as a dove, a simple 
 and joyous creature, not bitter with gall, not cruel in its bite, 
 not violent with the rending of its claws, loving human 
 dwellings, knowing the association of one home ; when they 
 have young, bringing forth their young together ; when they 
 fly abroad, remaining in their flights by the side of one an- 
 other, spending their life in mutual intercourse, acknowledg- 
 ing the concord of peace with the kiss of the beak, in all 
 things fulfilling the law of unanimity. This is the simplicity 
 that ought to be known in the church, this is the charity 
 that ought to be attained, that so the love of the brotherhood 
 may imitate the doves, that their gentleness and meekness 
 
 1 1 Cor. i. 10. 2 Eph. iv. 3. 3 Josh. ii. 19. 
 
 4 Ex. xii. 46. 6 " Hospitium." 6 Ps. Ixviii. 6.
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 385 
 
 may be like the lambs and sheep. What does the fierceness 
 of wolves do in the Christian breast ? What the savaeeness 
 
 O 
 
 of dogs, and the deadly venom of serpents, and the sanguinary 
 cruelty of wild beasts ? We are to be congratulated when 
 such as these are separated from the church, lest they should 
 lay waste the doves and sheep of Christ with their cruel and 
 envenomed contagion. Bitterness cannot consist and be asso- 
 ciated with sweetness, darkness with light, rain with clearness, 
 battle with peace, barrenness with fertility, drought with 
 springs, storm with tranquillity. Let none think that the 
 good can depart from the church. The wind does not carry 
 away the wheat, nor does the hurricane uproot the tree that 
 is based on a solid root. The lio-ht straws are tossed about 
 
 O 
 
 by the tempest, the feeble trees are overthrown by the onset 
 of the whirlwind. The Apostle John execrates and severely 
 assails these, when he says, " They went forth from us, but 
 they were not of us ; for if they had been of us, surely 
 they would have continued with us." 1 
 
 10. Hence heresies not only have frequently been origi- 
 nated, but continue to be so ; while the perverted mind has 
 no peace while a discordant faithlessness does not maintain 
 unity. But the Lord permits and suffers these things to be, 
 while the choice of one's own liberty remains, so that while 
 the discrimination of truth is testing our hearts and our minds r 
 the sound faith of those that are approved may shine forth 
 with manifest light. The Holy Spirit forewarns and says by 
 the apostle, " It is needful also that there should be heresies, 
 that they which are approved may be made manifest among 
 you." 2 Thus the faithful are approved, thus the perfidious are 
 detected; thus even here, before the day of judgment, the souls 
 of the righteous and of the unrighteous are already divided, 
 and the chaff is separated from the wheat. These are they 
 who of their own accord, without any divine arrangement, set 
 themselves to preside among the daring strangers assembled, 
 who appoint themselves prelates without any law of ordina- 
 tion, who assume to themselves the name of bishop, although 
 no one gives them the episcopate ; whom the Holy Spirit 
 1 1 John ii. 19. 2 1 Cor. xi. 19. 
 
 2 B
 
 386 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 points out in the Psalms as sitting in the seat of pestilence, 
 plagues, and spots of the faith, deceiving with serpent's 
 tongue, and artful in corrupting the truth, vomiting forth 
 deadly poisons from pestilential tongues ; whose speech doth 
 creep like a cancer, whose discourse forms a deadly poison in 
 the heart and breast of every one. 
 
 11. Against people of this kind the Lord cries; from these 
 He restrains and recalls His erring people, saying, " Hearken 
 not unto the words of the false prophets ; for the visions of 
 their hearts deceive them. They speak, but not out of the 
 mouth of the Lord. They say to those who cast away the 
 word of God, Ye shall have peace, and every one that walketh 
 after his own will. Every one who walketh in the error of 
 his heart, no evil shall come upon him. I have not spoken 
 to them, yet they prophesied. If they had stood on my 
 foundation (substantia, vTroaTaaei), and had heard my words, 
 and taught my people, I would have turned them from their 
 evil thoughts." 1 Again, the Lord points out and designates 
 these same, saying, " They have forsaken me, the fountain of 
 living waters, and have hewed them out broken cisterns which 
 can hold no water." 2 Although there can be no other baptism 
 but one, they think that they can baptize ; although they 
 forsake the fountain of life, they promise the grace of living 
 and saving water. Men are not washed among them, but 
 rather are made foul ; nor are sins purged away, but are even 
 accumulated. Such a nativity does not generate sons to God, 
 but to the devil. By a falsehood they are born, and they do 
 not receive the promises of truth. Begotten of perfidy, they 
 lose the grace of faith. They cannot attain to the reward 
 of peace, since they have broken the Lord's peace with the 
 madness of discord. 
 
 12. Nor let any deceive themselves by a futile interpre- 
 tation, in respect of the Lord having said, " Wheresoever two 
 or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in 
 the midst of them." 3 Corrupters and false intepreters of the 
 Gospel quote the last words, and lay aside the former ones, 
 remembering part, and craftily suppressing part : as they 
 
 1 Jer. xxiii. 16-21. 2 Jer. ii. 13. 3 Matt, xviii. 20.
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 387 
 
 themselves are separated from the church, so they cut off the 
 substance of one section. For the Lord, when He would 
 urge unanimity and peace upon His disciples, said, " I say 
 unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth touching 
 anything that ye shall ask, it shall be given you by my 
 Father which is in heaven. For wheresoever two or three 
 are gathered together in my name, I am with them;" 1 show- 
 ing that most is given, not to the multitude, but to the 
 unanimity of those that pray. "If," He says, "two of you 
 shall agree on earth : " He placed agreement first ; He has 
 made the concord of peace a prerequisite ; He taught that 
 we should agree firmly and faithfully. But how can he 
 agree with any one who does not agree with the body of the 
 church itself, and with the universal brotherhood? How 
 can two or three be assembled together in Christ's name, 
 who, it is evident, are separated from Christ and from His 
 Gospel ? For we have not withdrawn from them, but they 
 from us ; and since heresies and schisms have risen subse- 
 quently, from their establishment for themselves of diverse 
 places of worship, they have forsaken the Head and Source 
 of the truth. But the Lord speaks concerning His church, 
 and to those also who are in the church He speaks, that if 
 they are in agreement, if according to what He commanded 
 and admonished, although only two or three gathered together 
 with unanimity should pray though they be only two or 
 three they may obtain from the majesty of God what 
 they ask. " Wheresoever two or three are gathered together 
 in my name, I," says He, " am with them ;" that is, with 
 the simple and peaceable with those who fear God and 
 keep God's commandments. With these, although only two 
 or three, He said that He was, in the same manner as He 
 was with the three youths in the fiery furnace ; and because 
 they abode towards God in simplicity, and in unanimity among 
 themselves, He animated them, in the midst of the surround- 
 ing flames, with the breath of dew: in the way in which, 
 with the two apostles shut up in prison, because they were 
 simple-minded and of one mind, He Himself was present ; 
 1 Matt, xviii. 19, 20.
 
 388 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 He Himself having loosed the bolts of the dungeon, placed 
 them again in the market-place, that they might declare to 
 the multitude the word which they faithfully preached. 
 When, therefore, in His commandments He lays it down, 
 and says, " Where two or three are gathered together in my 
 name, I am with them," He does not divide men from the 
 church, seeing that He Himself ordained and made the 
 church ; but rebuking the faithless for their discord, and 
 commending peace by His word to the faithful, He shows 
 that He is rather with two or three who pray with one mind, 
 than with a great many who differ, and that more can be 
 obtained by the concordant prayer of a few, than by the 
 discordant supplication of many. 
 
 13. Thus, also, when He gave the law of prayer, He 
 added, saying, " And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye 
 have ought against any ; that your Father also which is in 
 heaven may forgive you your trespasses." 1 And He calls 
 back from the altar one who comes to the sacrifice in strife, 
 and bids him first a^ree with his brother, and then return 
 
 O / 
 
 with peace and offer his gift to God : for God had not respect 
 unto Cain's offerings ; for he could not have God at peace 
 with him, who through envious discord had not peace with his 
 brother. What peace, then, do the enemies of the brethren 
 promise to themselves ? What sacrifices do those who are 
 rivals of the priests think that they celebrate ? Do they 
 deem that they have Christ with them when they are 
 collected together, who are gathered together outside the 
 church of Christ ? 
 
 14. Even if such men were slain in confession of the Name, 
 that stain is not even washed away by blood : the inexpiable 
 and grave fault of discord is not even purged by suffering. 
 He cannot be a martyr who is not in the church ; he cannot 
 attain unto the kingdom who forsakes that which shall reign 
 there. Christ gave us peace ; He bade us be in agreement, 
 and of one mind. He charged the bonds of love and charity 
 to be kept uncorrupted and inviolate ; he cannot show him- 
 self a martyr who has not maintained brotherly love. Paul 
 
 1 Mark xi. 25.
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 389 
 
 the apostle teaches this, and testifies, saying, "And though I 
 have faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not 
 charity, I am nothing. And though I give all my goods to 
 feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and 
 have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is mag- 
 nanimous ; charity is kind ; charity envieth not ; charity 
 acteth not vainly, is not puffed up, is not easily provoked, 
 thinketh no evil ; loveth all things, believeth all things, 
 hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never 
 faileth." 1 "Charity," says he, "never faileth." For she 
 will ever be in the kingdom, she will endure for ever in the 
 unity of a brotherhood linked to herself. Discord cannot 
 attain to the kingdom of heaven ; to the rewards of Christ, 
 who said, " This is my commandment, that ye love one 
 another, even as I have loved you:" 2 he cannot attain 3 who 
 has violated the love of Christ by faithless dissension. Pie 
 who has not charity has not God. The word of the blessed 
 Apostle John is : " God," saith he, " is love ; and he that 
 dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God dwelleth in 
 him." 4 They cannot dwell with God who would not be of 
 one mind in God's church. Although they burn, given up 
 to flames and fires, or lay down their lives, thrown to the 
 wild beasts, that will not be the crown of faith, but the 
 punishment of perfidy ; nor will it be the glorious ending of 
 religious valour, but the destruction of despair. Such an one 
 may be slain ; crowned he cannot be. He professes himself 
 to be a Christian in such a way as the devil often feigns him- 
 self to be Christ, as the Lord Himself forewarns us, and says, 
 "Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall 
 deceive many." 5 As he is not Christ, although he deceives 
 in respect of the name; so neither can he appear as a Christian 
 who does not abide in the truth of His gospel and of faith. 
 
 15. For both to prophesy and to cast out devils, and to 
 do great acts upon the earth, is certainly a sublime and an 
 admirable thing; but one does not attain the kingdom of 
 
 1 1 Cor. xiii. 2-5, 7, 8. 2 John xv. 12. 
 
 3 According to some readings, "to Christ," or "to the rewards of 
 Christ." 4 1 John iv. 16. 5 Mark xiii. 6.
 
 390 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 heaven although he is found in all these things, unless he 
 walks in the observance of the right and just way. The 
 Lord denounces, and says, " Many shall say to me in that 
 day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and 
 in Thy name have cast out devils, and in Thy name -done 
 many wonderful works ? And then will I profess unto them, 
 I never knew you : depart from me, ye that work iniquity." l 
 There is need of righteousness, that one may deserve well 
 of God the Judge ; we must obey His precepts and warn- 
 ings, that our merits may receive their reward. The Lord 
 in His Gospel, when He would direct the way of our hope 
 and faith in a brief summary, said, " The Lord thy God is 
 one God : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. This 
 is the first commandment ; and the second is like unto it : 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two 
 commandments hang all the law and the prophets." 2 He 
 taught, at the same time, love and unity by His instruction. 
 Pie has included all the prophets and the law in two precepts. 
 But what unity does he keep, what love does he maintain or 
 consider, who, savage with the madness of discord, divides 
 the church, destroys the faith, disturbs the peace, dissipates 
 charity, profanes the sacrament ? 
 
 16. This evil, most faithful brethren, had long ago begun, 
 but now the mischievous destruction of the same evil has 
 increased, and the envenomed plague of heretical perversity 
 and schisms has begun to spring forth and shoot anew ; 
 because even thus it must be in the decline of the world, 
 since the Holy Spirit foretells and forewarns us by the 
 apostle, saying, " In the last days," says he, " perilous times 
 shall come, and men shall be lovers of their own selves, 
 proud, boasters, covetous, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, 
 unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, 
 false accusers, incontinent, fierce, hating the good, traitors, 
 heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of 
 God, having a sort of form 3 of religion, but denying the 
 power thereof. Of this sort are they who creep into houses, 
 1 Matt. vii. 22. 2 Mark xii. 29-31. 3 Deformationem religionis.
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 391 
 
 and lead captive silly women laden with sins, which are led 
 away with divers lusts ; ever learning, and never coming to 
 the knowledge of the truth. And as Jannes and Jambres 
 withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth ; l but 
 they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be mani- 
 fest unto all men, even as theirs also was." 2 Whatever 
 things were predicted are fulfilled ; and as the end of the 
 world is approaching, they have come for the probation as well 
 of the men as of the times. Error deceives as the adversary 
 rages more and more ; senselessness lifts up, envy inflames, 
 covetousness makes blind, impiety depraves, pride puffs up, 
 discord exasperates, anger hurries headlong. 
 
 17. Yet let not the excessive and headlong faithlessness 
 of many move or disturb us, but rather strengthen our 
 faith in the truthfulness which has foretold the matter. As 
 some have become such, because these things were predicted 
 beforehand, so let other brethren beware of matters of a like 
 kind, because these also were predicted beforehand, even as 
 the Lord instructs us, and says, " But take ye heed : behold, 
 I have told you all things." 3 Avoid, I beseech you, brethren, 
 men of this kind, and drive away from your side and from 
 your ears, as if it w r ere the contagion of death, their mis- 
 chievous conversation ; as it is written, " Hedge thine ears 
 about with thorns, and refuse to hear a wicked tongue." 4 
 And again, " Evil communications corrupt good manners." 5 
 The Lord teaches and warns us to depart from such. He 
 saith, " They are blind leaders of the blind ; and if the blind 
 lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch." 6 Such 
 an one is to be turned away from and avoided, whosoever 
 he may be, that is separated from the church. Such an one 
 is perverted and sins, and is condemned of his own self. 
 Does he think that he has Christ, who acts in opposition to 
 Christ's priests, who separates himself from the company of 
 His clergy and people ? He bears arms against the church, 
 
 1 Some introduce, " men corrupted in feeling, reprobate concerning 
 the faith." 
 
 2 2 Tim. iii. 1-9. 8 Mark xiii. 23. * Ecclus. xxviii. 24, Vulg. 
 5 1 Cor. xv. 33. 6 Matt. xv. 14.
 
 392 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 he contends against God's appointment. An enemy of the 
 altar, a rebel against Christ's sacrifice, for the faith faithless, 
 for religion profane, a disobedient servant, an impious son, a 
 hostile brother, despising the bishops, and forsaking God's 
 priests, he dares to set up another altar, to make another 
 prayer with unauthorized words, to profane the truth of the 
 Lord's offering by false sacrifices, and not 1 to know that he 
 who strives against the appointment of God, is punished on 
 account of the daring of his temerity by divine visitation. 
 
 18. Thus Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who endeavoured 
 to claim to themselves the power of sacrificing in opposition 
 to Moses and Aaron the priest, underwent immediate punish- 
 ment for their attempts. The earth, breaking its fastenings, 
 gaped open into a deep gulf, and the cleft of the receding 
 ground swallowed up the men standing and living. Nor did 
 the anger of the indignant God strike only those who had been 
 the movers [of the sedition] ; but two hundred and fifty sharers 
 and associates of that madness besides, who had been mingled 
 with them in that boldness, the fire that went out from the 
 Lord consumed with a hasty revenge ; doubtless to admonish 
 and show that whatever those wicked men had endeavoured., 
 in order by human will to overthrow God's appointment, 
 had been done in opposition to God. Thus also Uzziah the 
 king, when he bare the censer and violently claimed to him- 
 self to sacrifice against God's law, and when Azariah the 
 priest withstood him, would not be obedient and yield, 
 was confounded by the divine indignation, and was polluted 
 upon his forehead by the spot of leprosy : he was marked by 
 an offended Lord in that part of his body where they are 
 signed who deserve well of the Lord. And the sons of Aaron, 
 who placed strange fire upon the altar, which the Lord had 
 not commanded, were at once extinguished in the presence 
 of an avenging Lord. 
 
 19. These, doubtless, they imitate and follow, who, despising 
 God's tradition, seek after strange doctrines, and bring in 
 teachings of human appointment, whom the Lord rebukes and 
 reproves in His Gospel, saying, " Ye reject the commandment 
 
 1 According to some, " docs not deign," or " disdains to know."
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 393 
 
 of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." 1 This is a 
 worse crime than that which the lapsed seem to have fallen 
 into, who nevertheless, standing as penitents for their crime, 
 beseech God with full satisfactions. In this case, the church 
 is sought after and entreated ; in that case, the church is re- 
 sisted : here it is possible that there has been necessity ; there 
 the will is engaged in the wickedness : on the one hand, ho 
 who has lapsed has only injured himself ; on the other, he who 
 has endeavoured to cause a heresy or a schism has deceived 
 many by drawing them with him. In the former, it is the 
 loss of one soul ; in the latter, the risk of many. Certainly 
 the one both understands that he has sinned, and laments 
 and bewails it ; the other, puffed up in his heart, and pleasing 
 himself in his very crimes, separates sons from their Mother, 
 entices sheep from their shepherd, disturbs the sacraments 
 of God ; and while the lapsed has sinned but once, he sins 
 daily. Finally, the lapsed, who has subsequently attained 
 to martyrdom, may receive the promises of the kingdom ; 
 while the other, if he have been slain without the church, 
 cannot attain to the rewards of the church. 
 
 20. Nor let any one marvel, beloved brethren, that even 
 some of the confessors advance to these lengths, and thence 
 also that some [others] sin thus wickedly, thus grievously. For 
 neither does confession make a man free from the snares of the 
 devil, nor does it defend a man who is still placed in the world, 
 with a perpetual security from temptations, and dangers, and 
 onsets, and attacks of the world ; otherwise we should never 
 see in confessors those subsequent frauds, and fornications, 
 and adulteries, which now with groans and sorrow we witness 
 in some. Whosoever that confessor is, he is not greater, or 
 better, or dearer to God than Solomon, who, although so 
 long as he walked in God's ways, retained that grace which 
 he had received from the Lord, yet after he forsook the 
 Lord's way he lost also the Lord's grace. 2 And therefore it 
 
 1 .Mark vii. 9. 
 
 2 Some read, " As it is written, And the Lord stirred up the adversary 
 (Satan) against Solomon ; and therefore in the Apocalypse the Lord 
 solemnly warns John."
 
 394 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 is written, " Hold fast that which thou hast, lest another take 
 thy crown." 1 But assuredly the Lord would not threaten 
 that the crown of righteousness might be taken away, were 
 it not that, when righteousness departs, the crown must also 
 depart. 
 
 21. Confession is the beginning of glory, not the full desert 
 of the crown ; nor does it perfect our praise, but it initiates 
 our dignity ; and since it is written, " He that endureth to the 
 end, the same shall be saved," 2 whatever has been before the 
 end is a step by which we ascend to the summit of salva- 
 tion, not a terminus wherein the full result of the ascent is 
 already gained. He is a confessor ; but after confession his 
 peril is greater, because the adversary is more provoked. He 
 is a confessor ; for this cause he ought the more to stand on 
 the side of the Lord's gospel, since he has by the gospel 
 attained glory from the Lord. For the Lord says, "To 
 whom much is given, of him much shall be required ; and to 
 whom more dignity is ascribed, of him more service is ex- 
 acted." 3 Let no one perish by the example of a confessor; 
 let no one learn injustice, let no one learn arrogance, let no 
 one learn treachery, from the manners of a confessor. He is 
 a confessor, let him be lowly and quiet ; let him be in his 
 doings modest with discipline, so that he who is called a con- 
 fessor of Christ may imitate Christ whom he confesses. For 
 since He says, "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, 
 and he who humbleth himself shall be exalted ;" 4 and since 
 He Himself has been exalted by the Father, because as the 
 Word, and the strength, and the wisdom of God the Father, 
 He humbled Himself upon earth, how can He love arrogance, 
 who even by His own law enjoined upon us humility, and 
 Himself received the highest name from the Father as the 
 reward of His humility ? He is a confessor of Christ, but 
 only so if the majesty and dignity of Christ be not after- 
 wards blasphemed by him. Let not the tongue which has 
 confessed Christ be evil-speaking ; let it not be turbulent, let 
 it not be heard jarring with reproaches and quarrels, let it 
 
 1 Apoc. iii. 11. 2 Matt: x. 22. 
 
 3 Luke xii. 48. 4 Luke xviii. 14.
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 395 
 
 not after words of praise, dart forth serpents' venom against 
 the brethren and God's priests. But if one shall have subse- 
 quently been blameworthy and obnoxious ; if he shall have 
 wasted his confession by evil conversation ; if he shall have 
 stained his life by disgraceful foulness ; if, finally, forsaking 
 the church in which he has become a confessor, and severing 
 the concord of unity, he shall have exchanged his first faith for 
 a subsequent unbelief, he may not flatter himself on account 
 of his confession that he is elected to the reward of glory, 
 when from this very fact his deserving of punishment has 
 become the greater. 
 
 22. For the Lord chose Judas also among the apostles, and 
 yet afterwards Judas betrayed the Lord. Yet not on that 
 account did the faith and firmness of the apostles fail, because 
 the traitor Judas failed from their fellowship : so also in the 
 case in question the holiness and dignity of confessors is not 
 forthwith diminished, because the faith of some of them is 
 broken. The blessed Apostle Paul in his epistle speaks in this 
 manner: "For what if some of them fall away from the faith, 
 shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 
 God forbid : for God is true, though every man be a liar." l 
 The greater and better part of the confessors stand firm in 
 the strength of their faith, and in the truth of the law and 
 discipline of the Lord ; neither do they depart from the peace 
 of the church, who remember that they have obtained grace 
 in the church by the condescension of God ; and by this very 
 thing they obtain a higher praise of their faith, that they 
 have separated from the faithlessness of those who have been 
 associated with them in the fellowship of confession, and 
 withdrawn from the contagion of crime. Illuminated by the 
 true light of the gospel, shone upon with the Lord's pure and 
 white brightness, they are as praiseworthy in maintaining the 
 peace of Christ, as they have been victorious in their combat 
 with the devil. 
 
 23. I indeed desire, beloved brethren, and I equally en- 
 deavour and exhort, that if it be possible, none of the brethren 
 should perish, and that our rejoicing Mother may enclose in 
 
 1 Rom. iii. 3.
 
 396 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 her bosom the one body of a people at agreement. Yet if 
 wholesome counsel cannot recall to the way of salvation certain 
 leaders of schisms and originators of dissensions, who abide in 
 blind and obstinate madness, yet do you others, if either taken 
 in simplicity, or induced by error, or deceived by some crafti- 
 ness of misleading cunning, loose yourselves from the nets of 
 deceit, free your wandering steps from errors', acknowledge 
 the straight way of the heavenly road. The word of the wit- 
 nessing apostle is : " We command you," says he, " in the 
 name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves 
 from all brethren that walk disorderly, and not after the 
 tradition that they have received from us." 1 And again he 
 says, " Let no man deceive you with vain words ; for because 
 of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children 
 of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them." 2 
 "VVe must withdraw, nay rather must flee, from those who fall 
 away, lest, while any one is associated with those who walk 
 wickedly, and goes on in ways of error and of sin, he himself 
 also, wandering away from the path of the true road, should 
 be found in like guilt. God is one, and Christ is one, and His 
 church is one, and the faith is one, and the people 3 is joined 
 into a substantial unity of body by the cement of concord. 
 Unity cannot be severed ; nor can one body be separated by a 
 division of its structure, nor torn into pieces, with its entrails 
 wrenched asunder by laceration. Whatever has proceeded 
 from the womb cannot live and breathe in its detached con- 
 dition, but loses the substance of health. 
 
 24. The Holy Spirit warns us, and says, " What man is 
 he that desireth to live, and would fain see good days ? 
 Refrain thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak 
 no guile. Eschew evil, and do good ; seek peace, and ensue 
 it." 4 The son of peace ought to seek peace and ensue it. 
 He who knows and loves the bond of charity, ought to refrain 
 his tongue from the evil of dissension. Among His divine 
 commands and salutary teachings, the Lord, when He was 
 now very near to His passion, added this one, saying, " Peace 
 
 1 2 Thess. iii. 6. 2 Eph. v. 6. 
 
 8 " is one." Ps. xxxiv. 12, 13.
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 397 
 
 I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." 1 He gave this 
 to us as an heritage ; He promised all the gifts and rewards 
 of which He spoke through the preservation of peace. If we 
 are fellow-heirs with Christ, let us abide in the peace of 
 Christ ; if we are sons of God, we ought to be peacemakers. 
 " Blessed," says He, " are the peacemakers ; for they shall 
 be called the sons of God." 2 It behoves the sons of God to 
 be peacemakers, gentle in heart, simple in speech, agreeing 
 in affection, faithfully linked to one another in the bonds of 
 unanimity. 
 
 25. This unanimity formerly prevailed among the apostles ; 
 and thus the new assembly of believers, keeping the Lord's 
 commandments, maintained its charity. Divine Scripture 
 proves this, when it says, " But the multitude of them which 
 believed were of one heart and of one soul." 3 And again : 
 " These all continued with one mind in prayer with the 
 women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His 
 brethren." 4 And thus 5 they prayed with effectual prayers; 
 thus they were able with confidence to obtain whatever they 
 asked from the Lord's mercy. 
 
 26. But in us unanimity is diminished in proportion as 
 liberality of working is decayed. Then they used to give for 
 sale houses and estates ; and that they might lay up for them- 
 selves treasures in heaven, presented to the apostles the price 
 of them, to be distributed for the use of the poor. But now we 
 do not even give the tenths from our patrimony ; and while 
 our Lord bids us sell, we rather buy and increase our store. 
 Thus has the vigour of faith dwindled away among us ; thus 
 has the strength of believers grown weak. And therefore 
 the Lord, looking to our days, says in His Gospel, " When 
 the Son of man cometh, think you that He shall find faith 
 on the earth?" We see that what He foretold has come 
 to pass. There is no faith in the fear of God, in the law of 
 righteousness, in love, in labour ; none considers the fear of 
 futurity, and none takes to heart the day of the Lord, and 
 the wrath of God, and the punishments to come upon unbe- 
 
 1 John xiv. 27. 2 Matt. v. 9. 3 Acts iv. 32. * Acts i. 14. 
 5 Some interpolate " because." c Luke xviii. 8.
 
 398 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 lievers, and the eternal torments decreed for the faithless. 
 That which our conscience would fear if it believed, it fears 
 not because it does not at all believe. But if it believed, it 
 would also take heed; and if it took heed, it would escape. 
 
 27. Let us, beloved brethren, arouse ourselves as much as 
 we can ; and breaking the slumber of our ancient listlessness, 
 let us be watchful to observe and to do the Lord's precepts. 
 Let us be such as He Himself has bidden us to be, saying, 
 "Let your loins be girt, and your lamps burning; 1 and ye 
 yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when He 
 shall come from the wedding, that when He cometh and 
 knocketh, they may open to Him. Blessed are those servants 
 whom their Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching." 2 
 We ought to be girt about, lest, when the day of setting 
 forth comes, it should find us burdened and entangled. Let 
 our light shine in good works, and glow in such wise as to 
 lead us from the night of this world to the daylight of 
 eternal brightness. Let us always with solicitude and caution 
 wait for the sudden coming of the Lord, that when He shall 
 knock, our faith may be on the watch, and receive from the 
 Lord the reward of our vigilance. If these commands be 
 observed, if these warnings and precepts be kept, we cannot 
 be overtaken in slumber by the deceit of the devil ; but we 
 shall reign with Christ in His kingdom as servants that 
 watch. 
 
 TEEATISE IV. 
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER 
 
 ARGUMENT. The treatise of Cyprian on the Lord's prayer 
 comprises three portions, in which division he imitates 
 Tertullian in his book on prayer. In the first portion, 
 he points out that the Lord's prayer is the most excel- 
 lent of all prayers, profoundly spiritual, and most 
 effectual for obtaining our petitions. In the second part, 
 he undertakes an explanation of the Lord' s prayer ; and, 
 1 Some read, " in your hands." 2 Luke xii. 35.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 399 
 
 still treading in the footsteps of Tertullian, lie goes througJi 
 its seven chief clauses. Finally, in the third part, he 
 considers the conditions of prayer, and tells its that prayer 
 ought to be, 1st, persevering and continuous, after the 
 example of Christ our Lord; 2dly, watchful, and poured 
 forth from the heart, after the example of the priest who, in 
 thepreface which precedes the prayer, prepares the minds of 
 the brethren by saying "Sursum Corda" to which the people 
 ansiver " Habemus ad Dominum ;" 3dly, associated with 
 good works and alms, like that of Tobias and Cornelius ; 
 ^thly, at every hour of the day, and especially at the three 
 hours appointed by the church for prayer, to ^vit, the third, 
 the sixth, and the ninth hour; and, moreover, we must 
 pray morning and evening. 
 
 1. The evangelical precepts, beloved brethren, are nothing 
 else than divine teachings, foundations on which hope is to 
 be built, supports to strengthen faith, nourishments for cheer- 
 ing the heart, rudders for guiding our way, guards for obtain- 
 ing salvation, which, while they instruct the docile minds 
 of believers on the earth, lead them to heavenly kingdoms. 
 God, moreover, willed many things to be said and to be heard 
 by means of the prophets His servants; but how much greater 
 are those which the Son speaks, which the Word of God who 
 was in the prophets testifies with His own voice; not now bid- 
 ding to prepare the way for His coming, but Himself coming 
 and opening and showing to us the way, so that we who have 
 before been wandering in the darkness of death, without fore- 
 thought and blind, being enlightened by the light of grace, 
 might keep the way of life, with the Lord for our ruler and 
 guide ! 
 
 2. He, among the rest of His salutary admonitions and 
 divine precepts wherewith He counsels His people for their 
 salvation, Himself also gave a form of praying Himself 
 advised and instructed us what we should pray for. He 
 who made us to live, taught us also to pray, with that same 
 benignity, to wit, wherewith He has condescended to give 
 and confer all things else ; in order that while we speak to
 
 400 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 the Father in that prayer and supplication which the Son 
 has taught us, we may be the more easily heard. Already 
 He had foretold that the hour was comino; " when the true 
 
 O 
 
 worshippers should worship the Father in spirit and in 
 truth;" 1 and He thus fulfilled what He before promised, 
 so that we who by His sanctification 2 have received the Spirit 
 and truth, may also by His teaching worship truly and spiri- 
 tually. For what can be a more spiritual prayer than that 
 which was given to us by Christ, by whom also the Holy 
 Spirit was given to us ? What praying to the Father can 
 be more truthful than that which was delivered to us by 
 the Son who is the Truth, out of His own mouth ? So that 
 to pray otherwise than He taught is not ignorance alone, 
 but also sin ; since He Himself has established, and said, 
 "Ye reject the commandments of God, that ye may keep 
 your own traditions." 3 
 
 3. Let us therefore, brethren beloved, pray as God our 
 Teacher has taught us. It is a loving and friendly prayer 
 to beseech God with His own word, to come up to His ears 
 in the prayer of Christ. Let the Father acknowledge the 
 words of His Son when we make our prayer, and let Him 
 also who dwells within in our breast Himself dwell in our 
 voice. And since we have Him as an Advocate with the 
 Father for our sins, let us, when as sinners we petition on 
 behalf of our sins, put forward the words of our Advocate. 
 For since He says, that " whatsoever we shall ask of the 
 Father in His name, He will give us," 4 how much more effec- 
 tually do we obtain what we ask in Christ's name, if we ask 
 for it in His own prayer ! 
 
 4. But let our speech and petition when we pray be under 
 discipline, observing quietness and modesty. Let us con- 
 sider that w r e are standing in God's sight. We must please 
 the divine eyes both with the habit of body and with the 
 measure of voice. For as it is characteristic of a shameless 
 man to be noisy with his cries, so, on the other hand, it is 
 fitting to the modest man to pray with moderated petitions. 
 
 1 John iv. 23. 2 " Satisfaction." 
 
 3 Mark vii. 9. 4 John xvi. 23.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PEA YER. 401 
 
 Moreover, in His teaching the Lord has bidden us to pray in 
 secret in hidden and remote places, in our very bed-cham- 
 bers which is best suited to faith, that we may know that 
 God is everywhere present, and hears and sees all, and in 
 the plenitude of His majesty penetrates even into hidden 
 and secret places, as it is written, " I am a God at hand, and 
 not a God afar off. If a man shall hide himself in secret 
 places, shall I not then see him ? Do not I fill heaven and 
 earth ? " ] And again : " The eyes of the Lord are in every 
 place, beholding the evil and the good." 2 And when we 
 meet together with the brethren in one place, and celebrate 
 divine sacrifices with God's priest, we ought to be mindful 
 of modesty and discipline not to throw abroad our prayers 
 indiscriminately, with unsubdued voices, nor to cast to God 
 with tumultuous wordiness a petition that ought to be com- 
 mended to God by modesty ; for God is the hearer, not of the 
 voice, but of the heart. Nor need He be clamorously re- 
 minded, since He sees men's thoughts, as the Lord proves to 
 us when He says, " Why think ye evil in your hearts?"' 
 And in another place : " And all the churches shall know 
 that I am He that searcheth the hearts and reins." 4 
 
 5. And this Hannah in the first book of Kings, who was 
 a type of the church, maintains and observes, in that she 
 prayed to God not with clamorous petition, but silently and 
 modestly, within the very recesses of her heart. She spoke 
 with hidden prayer, but with manifest faith. She spoke not 
 with her voice, but with her heart, because she knew that 
 thus God hears ; and she effectually obtained what she 
 sought, because she asked it with belief. Divine Scripture 
 asserts this, when it says, " She spake in her heart, and her 
 lips moved, and her voice was not heard ; and God did hear 
 her." 5 "VVe read also in the Psalms, " Speak in your hearts, 
 and in your beds, and be ye pierced." 6 The Holy Spirit, 
 moreover, suggests these same things by Jeremiah, and 
 
 1 Jer. xxiii. 23, 24. 2 Prov. xv. 3. 
 
 3 Matt. ix. 4. * Apoc. ii. 23. 
 
 * 1 Sam. i. 13. 6 Ps. iv. 4, " transpungimini." 
 
 2
 
 402 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 teaches, saying, " But in the heart ought God to be adored 
 by thee." 1 
 
 6. And let not the worshipper, beloved brethren, be igno- 
 rant in what manner the publican prayed with the Pharisee 
 in the temple. Not with eyes lifted up boldly to heaven, 
 nor with hands proudly raised ; but beating his breast, and 
 testifying to the sins shut up within, he implored the help 
 of the divine mercy. And while the Pharisee was pleased 
 with himself, this man who thus asked, the rather deserved 
 to be sanctified, since he placed the hope of salvation not in 
 the confidence of his innocence, because there is none who 
 is innocent ; but confessing his sinfulness, he humbly prayed, 
 and He who pardons the humble heard the petitioner. And 
 these things the Lord records in His Gospel, saying, " Two 
 men went up into the temple to pray ; the one a Pharisee, 
 and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood, and prayed 
 thus with himself : God, I thank Thee that I am not as other 
 men are, unjust, extortioners, adulterers, even as this pub- 
 lican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I 
 possess. But the publican stood afar off, and would not so 
 much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his 
 breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say unto 
 you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the 
 Pharisee : for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; 
 and whosoever humbleth himself shall be exalted." 2 
 
 7. These things, beloved brethren, when we have learnt 
 from the sacred reading, and have gathered in what way 
 we ought to approach to prayer, let us know also from the 
 Lord's teaching what we should pray. " Thus," says He, 
 " pray ye : 
 
 "Our Father, -which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy 
 kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven so in earth. Give us 
 this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our 
 debtors. And suffer us not to be led into temptation ; but deliver us 
 from evil. Amen." 3 
 
 1 Or, " In the heart, God, ought we to worship Thee." (Baruch 
 vi. 6.) 
 
 2 Luke xviii. 10-14. 3 Matt. vi. 9.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 403 
 
 8. Before all tilings, the Teacher of peace and the Master 
 of unity would not have prayer to be made singly and indi- 
 vidually, as for one who prays to pray for himself alone. 
 For we say not " My Father, which art in heaven," nor 
 "Give me this day my daily bread;" nor does each one ask 
 that only his own debt should be forgiven him; nor does 
 he request for himself alone that he may not be led into 
 temptation, and delivered from evil. Our prayer is public 
 and common ; and when we pray, we pray not for one, 
 but for the whole people, because we the whole people are 
 one. The God of peace and the Teacher of concord, who 
 taught unity, willed that one should thus pray for all, even 
 as He Himself bore us all in one.' This law of prayer the 
 three children observed when they were shut up in the fiery 
 furnace, speaking together in prayer, and being of one heart 
 in the agreement of the spirit ; and this the faith of the sacred 
 Scripture assures us, and in telling us how such as these 
 prayed, gives an example which we ought to follow in our 
 prayers, in order that we may be such as they were : " Then 
 these three," it says, " as if from one mouth sang an hymn, 
 and blessed the Lord." 1 They spoke as if from one mouth, 
 although Christ had not yet taught them how to pray. And 
 therefore, as they prayed, their speech was availing and effec- 
 tual, because a peaceful, and sincere, and spiritual prayer 
 deserved well of the Lord. Thus also we find that the 
 apostles, with the disciples, prayed after the Lord's ascen- 
 sion : " They all," says the Scripture, " continued with one 
 accord in prayer, with the women, and Mary who was the 
 mother of Jesus, and with His brethren." 2 They continued 
 with one accord in prayer, declaring both by the urgency 
 and by the agreement 3 of their praying, that God, "who 
 maketh men to dwell of one mind in a house," 4 only admits 
 into the divine and eternal home those among whom prayer 
 is unanimous. 
 
 9. But what matters of deep moment (sacramenta) are con- 
 tained in the Lord's prayer ! How many and how great, briefly 
 
 1 Song of the Three Children, v. 28. 2 Acts i. 14. 
 
 3 " Both the urgency and the agreement." 4 Ps. Ixviii. G.
 
 404 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 collected in the words, but spiritually abundant in virtue ! so 
 that there is absolutely nothing passed over that is not com- 
 prehended in these our prayers and petitions, as in a compen- 
 dium of heavenly doctrine. " After this manner," says He, 
 "pray ye: Our Father, which art in heaven." The new 
 man, born again and restored to his God by His grace, says 
 " Father," in the first place because he has now begun to be 
 a son. " He came,"" He says, " to His own, and His own 
 received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them 
 gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them 
 that believe in His name." 1 The man, therefore, who has 
 believed in His name, and has become God's son, ought 
 from this point to begin both to give thanks and to profess 
 himself God's son, by declaring that God is his Father in 
 heaven ; and also to bear witness, among the very first words 
 of his new birth, that he has renounced an earthly and 
 carnal father, and that he has begun to know as well as to 
 have as a father Him only who is in heaven, as it is written : 
 " They who say unto their father and their mother, I have 
 not known thee, and who have not acknowledged their own 
 children ; these have observed Thy precepts, and have kept 
 Thy covenant." 2 Also the Lord in His Gospel has bidden 
 us to call "no man our father upon earth, because there is 
 to us one Father, who is in heaven." 3 And to the disciple 
 who had made mention of his dead father, He replied, " Let 
 the dead bury their dead;" 4 for he had said that his father 
 was dead, while the Father of believers is living. 
 
 10. Nor ought we, beloved brethren, only to observe and 
 understand that we should call Him Father who is in heaven ; 
 but we add to it, and say our Father, that is, the Father of 
 those who believe of those who, being sanctified by Him, 
 and restored by the nativity of spiritual grace, have begun to 
 be sons of God. A word this, moreover, which rebukes and 
 condemns the Jews, who not only unbelievingly despised 
 Christ, who had been announced to them by the prophets, 
 and sent first to them, but also cruelly put Him to death ; and 
 these cannot now call God their Father, since the Lord con- 
 1 John i. 11. 2 Deut. xxxiii. 9. 3 Matt, xxiii. 9. 4 Matt. viii. 22.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PEA YEE. 405 
 
 founds and confutes them, saying, " Ye are born of your 
 father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. 
 For he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in 
 the truth, because there is no truth in him." 1 And by Isaiah 
 the prophet God cries in wrath, " I have begotten and 
 brought up children ; but they have despised me. The ox 
 knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel 
 hath not known me, and my people hath not understood me. 
 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with sins, a wicked seed, 
 corrupt children ! 2 Ye have forsaken the Lord ; ye have pro- 
 voked the Holy One of Israel to anger." 3 In repudiation 
 of these, we Christians, when we pray, say Our Father ; be- 
 cause He has begun to be ours, and has ceased to be the 
 Father of the Jews, who have forsaken Him. Nor can a 
 sinful people be a son ; but the name of sons is attributed 
 to those to whom remission of sins is granted, and to them 
 immortality is promised anew, in the words of our Lord Him- 
 self: " Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And 
 the servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the son 
 abideth ever." 4 
 
 11. But how great is the Lord's indulgence ! how great 
 His condescension and plenteousness of goodness towards us, 
 seeing that He has wished us to pray in the sight of God in 
 such a way as to call God Father, and to call ourselves sons 
 of God, even as Christ is the Son of God, a name which 
 none of us would dare to venture on in prayer, unless He 
 Himself had allowed us thus to pray! We ought then, beloved 
 brethren, to remember and to know, that when we call God 
 Father, we ought to act as God's children; so that in the 
 measure in which we find pleasure in considering God as a 
 Father, He might also be able to find pleasure in us. Let us 
 converse as temples of God, that it may be plain that God 
 dwells in us. Let not our doings be degenerate from the 
 Spirit ; so that we who have begun to be heavenly and spiri- 
 tual, may consider and do nothing but spiritual and heavenly 
 things ; since the Lord God Himself has said, " Them that 
 
 1 John viii. 44. 2 " A very evil seed, lawless children." 
 
 8 Isa. i. 3. 4 John viii. 34.
 
 406 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 honour me I will honour ; and he that despiseth me shall be 
 despised." 1 The blessed apostle also has laid down in his 
 epistle : " Ye are not your own ; for ye are bought with a 
 great price. Glorify and bear about God in your body." 2 
 
 12. After this we say, " Hallowed be Thy name ;" not that 
 we wish for God that He may be hallowed by our prayers, 
 but that we beseech of Him that His name may be hallowed 
 in us. But by whom is God sanctified, since He Himself 
 sanctifies ? Well, because He says, " Be ye holy, even as I am 
 holy," 3 we ask and entreat, that we who were sanctified in bap- 
 tism may continue in that which we have begun to be. And 
 this we daily pray for ; for we have need of daily sanctifica- 
 tion, that we who daily fall away may wash out our sins by 
 continual sanctification. And what the sanctification is 
 which is conferred upon us by the condescension of God, the 
 apostle declares, when he says, " Neither fornicators, nor 
 idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of them- 
 selves with mankind, nor thieves, nor deceivers, nor drunkards, 
 nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of 
 God. And such indeed were you ; but ye are washed ; but 
 ye are justified ; but ye are sanctified in the name of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God." 4 He 
 says that we are sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. We pray that this 
 sanctification may abide in us ; and because our Lord and 
 Judge warns the man that was healed and quickened by 
 Him, to sin no more lest a worse thing happen unto him, 
 we make this supplication in our constant prayers, we ask 
 this day and night, that the sanctification and quickening 
 which is received from the grace of God may be preserved 
 by His protection. 
 
 13. There follows in the prayer, Thy kingdom come. We 
 ask that the kingdom of God may be set forth to us, even as 
 we also ask that His name may be sanctified in us. For when 
 does God not reign, or when does that begin with Him which 
 both always has been, and never ceases to be? We pray that 
 
 1 1 Sam. ii. 30. 2 1 Cor. vi. 20. 
 
 3 Lev. xx. 7. 4 1 Cor. vi. 9.
 
 OiV THE LORD'S PR A YER. 407 
 
 our kingdom, which has been promised us by God, may come, 
 which was acquired by the blood and passion of Christ ; that 
 we who first are His subjects in the world, may hereafter 
 reign with Christ when He reigns, as He Himself promises 
 and says, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom 
 which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the 
 world." 1 Christ Himself, dearest brethren, however, may be 
 the kingdom of God, whom we day by day desire to come, whose 
 advent we crave to be quickly manifested to us. For since 
 He is Himself the Resurrection, 2 since in Him we rise again, 
 so also the kingdom of God may be understood to be Him- 
 self, since in Him we shall reign. But we do well in seeking 
 the kingdom of God, that is, the heavenly kingdom, because 
 there is also an earthly kingdom. But he who has already 
 renounced the world, is moreover greater than its honours and 
 its kingdom. And therefore he who dedicates himself to God 
 and Christ, desires not earthly, but heavenly kingdoms. But 
 there is need of continual prayer and supplication, that we 
 fall not away from the heavenly kingdom, as the Jews, to 
 whom this promise had first been given, fell away ; even as 
 the Lord sets forth and proves : " Many," says He, " shall 
 come from the east and from the west, and shall recline with 
 Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 
 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer 
 darkness : there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 3 
 He shows that the Jews were previously children of the 
 kingdom, so long as they continued also to be children of God; 
 but after the name of Father ceased to be recognised among 
 them, the kingdom also ceased ; and therefore we Christians, 
 who in our prayer begin to call God our Father, pray also 
 that God's kingdom may come to us. 
 
 14. We add, also, and say, " Thy will be done, as in 
 heaven so in earth ;" not that God should do what He wills, 
 but that we may be able to do what God wills. For who 
 resists God, that He may not do what He wills ? But since 
 we are hindered by the devil from obeying with our thought 
 and deed God's will in all things, we pray and ask that God's 
 
 1 Matt. xxv. 34. 2 Or, " our resurrection." 3 Matt. viii. 11.
 
 408 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 will may be done in us ; and that it may be done in us we 
 have need of God's good will, that is, of His help and protec- 
 tion, since no one is strong in his own strength, but he is safe 
 by the grace and mercy of God. And further, the Lord, 
 setting forth the infirmity of the humanity which He bore, 
 says, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;" 
 and affording an example to His disciples that they should do 
 not their own will, but God's, He went on to say, "Nevertheless 
 not as I will, but as Thou wilt." 1 And in another place He 
 says, " I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but 
 the will of Him that sent me." 2 Now if the Son was obe- 
 dient to do His Father's will, how much more should the 
 servant be obedient to do his Master's will ! as in his epistle 
 John also exhorts and instructs us to do the will of God, 
 saying, " Love not the world, neither the things that are in 
 the world. If any man love the world, the love of the 
 Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the 
 lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the ambition 
 of life, which is not of the Father, but of the lust of the 
 world. And the world shall pass away, and the lust thereof : 
 but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever, even as 
 God also abideth for ever." 3 We who desire to abide for 
 ever should do the will of God, who is everlasting. 
 
 15. Now that is the will of God which Christ both did 
 and taught. Humility in conversation ; stedfastness in faith ; 
 modesty in words ; justice in deeds ; mercifulness in works ; 
 discipline in morals ; to be unable to do a wrong, and to be 
 able to bear a wrong when done; to keep peace with the 
 brethren ; to love God with all one's heart ; to love Him in 
 that He is a Father ; to fear Him in that He is God ; to 
 prefer nothing whatever to Christ, because He did not prefer 
 anything to us ; to adhere inseparably to His love ; to stand 
 by His cross bravely and faithfully ; when there is any con- 
 test on behalf of His name and honour, to exhibit in dis- 
 course that constancy wherewith we make confession ; in 
 torture, that confidence wherewith we do battle; in death, 
 that patience whereby we are crowned ; this is to desire to 
 1 Matt. xxvi. 39. 2 John vi. 38. 8 1 John ii. 15-17.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 409 
 
 be fellow-heirs with Christ ; this is to do the commandment 
 of God ; this is to fulfil the will of the Father. 
 
 16. Moreover, we ask that the will of God may be done 
 both in heaven and in earth, each of which things pertains to 
 the fulfilment of our safety and salvation. For since we 
 possess the body from the earth and the spirit from heaven, 
 we ourselves are earth and heaven ; and in both that is, both 
 in body and spirit we pray that God's will may be done. 
 For between the flesh and spirit there is a struggle ; and 
 there is a daily strife as they disagree one with the other, so 
 that we cannot do those very things that we would, in that 
 the spirit seeks heavenly and divine things, while the flesh lusts 
 after earthly and temporal things; and therefore we ask 1 that, 
 by the help and assistance of God, agreement may be made 
 between these two natures, so that while the will of God is 
 done both in the spirit and in the flesh, the soul which is 
 new-born by Him may be preserved. This is what the 
 Apostle Paul openly and manifestly declares by his words : 
 " The flesh," says he, " lusteth against the spirit, and the 
 spirit against the flesh : for these are contrary the one to the 
 other ; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Now 
 the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these ; adul- 
 teries, fornications, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witch- 
 craft, murders, hatred, variance, emulations, wraths, strife, 
 seditions, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revel- 
 lings, and such like : of the which I tell you before, as I 
 have also told you in times past, that they which do such 
 things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit 
 of the spirit is love, joy, peace, magnanimity, goodness, faith, 
 gentleness, continence, chastity." 2 And therefore we make 
 it our prayer in daily, yea, in continual supplications, that 
 the will of God concerning us should be done both in heaven 
 and in earth ; because this is the will of God, that earthly 
 things should give place to heavenly, and that spiritual and 
 divine things should prevail. 
 
 17. And it may be thus understood, beloved brethren, that 
 since the Lord commands and admonishes us even to love 
 
 1 Some add " earnestly." 2 Gal. v. 17-22.
 
 410 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 our enemies, and to pray even for those who persecute us, 
 we should ask, moreover, for those who are still earth, and 
 have not yet begun to be heavenly, that even in respect of 
 these God's will should be done, which Christ accomplished 
 in preserving and renewing humanity. For since the disciples 
 are not now called by Him earth, but the salt of the earth, 
 and the apostle designates the first man as being from the dust 
 of the earth, but the second from heaven, we reasonably, who 
 ought to be like God our Father, who maketh His sun to 
 rise upon the good and bad, and sends rain upon the just 
 and the unjust, so pray and ask by the admonition of Christ 
 as to make our prayer for the salvation of all men ; that as 
 in heaven that is, in us by our faith the will of God has 
 been done, so that we might be of heaven ; so also in earth 
 that is, in those who believe [not] 1 God's'will may be done, 
 that they who as yet are by their first birth of earth, may, 
 being born of water and of the Spirit, begin to be of heaven. 
 18. As the prayer goes forward, we ask and say, " Give us 
 this day our daily bread." And this may be understood both 
 spiritually and literally, because either way of understanding 
 it is rich in divine usefulness to our salvation. For Christ is 
 the bread of life ; and this bread does not belong to all men, 
 but it is ours. And according as we say, " Our Father," 
 because He is the Father of those who understand and 
 believe ; so also we call it " our bread," because Christ is the 
 bread of those who are in union with His body. 2 And we 
 ask that this bread should be given to us daily, that we who 
 are in Christ, and daily receive the Eucharist for the food of 
 salvation, may not, by the interposition of some heinous sin, 
 by being prevented, as withheld and not communicating, from 
 partaking of the heavenly bread, be separated from Christ's 
 body, as He Himself predicts, and warns, " I am the bread of 
 life which came down from heaven. If any man eat of my 
 bread, he shall live for ever : and the bread which I will give 
 
 1 Some editions omit this " not." 
 
 2 This passage is differently read as follows : " And according as we 
 say Our Father, so also we call Christ our bread, because He is ours 
 as we come in contact with His body."
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 411 
 
 is my flesh, for the life of the world." 1 When, therefore, 
 He says, that whoever shall eat of His bread shall live for 
 ever ; as it is manifest that those who partake of His body 
 and receive the Eucharist by the right of communion are 
 living, so, on the other hand, we must fear and pray lest any 
 one who, being withheld from communion, is separate from 
 Christ's body should remain at a distance from salvation; as 
 He Himself threatens, and says, " Unless ye eat the flesh of 
 the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye shall have no life 
 in you." 2 And therefore we ask that our bread that is, 
 Christ may be given to us daily, that we who abide and 
 live in Christ may not depart from His sanctification and 
 body. 
 
 19. But it may also be thus understood, that we who have 
 renounced the world, and have cast away its riches and 
 pomps in the faith of spiritual grace, should only ask for 
 ourselves food and support, since the Lord instructs us, and 
 says, " Whosoever forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be 
 my disciple." 3 But he who has begun to be Christ's disciple, 
 renouncing all things according to the word of his Master, 
 ought to ask for his daily food, and not to extend the desires 
 of his petition to a long period, as the Lord again prescribes, 
 and says, " Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow 
 itself shall take thought for itself. Sufficient for the day is 
 the evil thereof." 4 With reason, then, does Christ's disciple 
 ask food for himself for the day, since he is prohibited from 
 thinking of the morrow ; because it becomes a contradiction 
 and a repugnant thing for us to seek to live long in this world, 
 since we ask that the kingdom of God should come quickly. 
 Thus also the blessed apostle admonishes us, giving substance 
 and strength to the stedfastness of our hope and faith : " We 
 brought nothing," says he, " into this world, nor indeed can 
 we carry anything out. Having therefore food and raiment, 
 let us be herewith content. But they that will be rich fall 
 into temptation and a snare, and into many and hurtful lusts, 
 which drown men in perdition and destruction. For the love 
 of money is the root of all evil ; which while some coveted 
 1 John vi. 58. 2 John vi. 53. 3 Luke xiv. 33. 4 Matt. vi. 34.
 
 412 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 after, they have made shipwreck from the faith, and have 
 pierced themselves through with many sorrows." l 
 
 20. He teaches us that riches are not only to be con- 
 temned, but that they are also full of peril ; that in them is 
 the root of seducing evils, that deceive the blindness of the 
 human mind by a hidden deception. Whence also God 
 rebukes the rich fool, who thinks of his earthly wealth, and 
 boasts himself in the abundance of his overflowing harvests, 
 
 o / 
 
 saying, " Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required 
 of thee ; then whose shall those things be which thou hast 
 provided ? " The fool who was to die that very night 
 was rejoicing in his stores, and he to whom life already was 
 failing, was thinking of the abundance of his food. But, on 
 the other hand, the Lord tells us that he becomes perfect 
 and complete who sells all his goods, and distributes them 
 for the use of the poor, and so lays up for himself treasure in 
 heaven. He says that that man is able to follow Him, and 
 to imitate the glory of the Lord's passion, who, free from 
 hindrance, and with his loins girded, is involved in no en- 
 tanglements of worldly estate, but at large and free himself, 
 accompanies his possessions, which before have been sent to 
 God. For which result, that every one of us may be able to 
 prepare himself, let him thus learn to pray, and know, from 
 the character of the prayer, what he ought to be. 
 
 21. For daily bread cannot be wanting to the righteous 
 man, since it is written, " The Lord will not slay the soul of 
 the righteous by hunger;" 3 and again, "I have been young, 
 and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, 
 nor his seed begging their bread." 4 And the Lord more- 
 over promises and says, " Take no thought, saying, What shall 
 we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be 
 clothed ? For after all these things do the nations seek. And 
 your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 
 Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and 
 all these things shall be added unto you." 5 To those who 
 seek God's kingdom and righteousness, He promises that 
 
 1 1 Tim. vi. 7. 2 Luke xii. 20. 3 Prov. x. 3. 
 
 4 Ps. xxxvii. 25. 5 Matt. vi. 31.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 413 
 
 all things shall be added. For since all things are God's, 
 nothing will be wanting to him who possesses God, if God 
 Himself be not wanting to him. Thus a meal was divinely 
 provided for Daniel : when he was shut up by the king's 
 command in the den of lions, and in the midst of wild beasts 
 who were hungry, and yet spared him, the man of God was 
 fed. Thus Elijah in his flight was nourished both by ravens 
 ministering to him in his solitude, and by birds bringing him 
 food in his persecution. And oh detestable cruelty of the 
 malice of man ! the wild beasts spare, the birds feed, while 
 men lay snares, and rage ! 
 
 22. After this we also entreat for our sins, saying, " And 
 forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." After 
 the supply of food, pardon of sin is also asked for, that he 
 who is fed by God may live in God, and that not only the 
 present and temporal life may be provided for, but the eternal 
 also, to which we may come if our sins are forgiven ; and 
 these the Lord calls debts, as He says in His Gospel, " I for- 
 gave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me." 1 And 
 how necessarily, how providently and salutarily, are we ad- 
 monished that we are sinners, since we are compelled to entreat 
 for our sins, and while pardon is asked for from God, the soul 
 recalls its own consciousness [of guilt] ! Lest any one should 
 flatter himself that he is innocent, 2 and by exalting himself 
 should more deeply perish, he is instructed and taught that 
 he sins daily, in that he is bidden to entreat daily for his sins. 
 Thus, moreover, John also in his epistle warns us, and says, 
 11 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and 
 the truth is not in us ; but if we confess our sins, the Lord is 
 faithful and just to forgive us our sins." 3 In his epistle he 
 has combined both, that we should entreat for our sins, and 
 that we should obtain pardon when we ask. Therefore he 
 said that the Lord was faithful to forgive sins, keeping the 
 faith of His promise ; because He who taught us to pray for 
 our debts and sins, has promised that His fatherly mercy and 
 pardon shall follow. 
 
 1 Matt, xviii. 32. 
 
 2 " Although none is innocent" is here added by some. 3 1 John L 8.
 
 414 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 23. He has clearly joined herewith and added the law, 
 and has bound us by a certain condition and engagement, 
 that we should ask that our debts be formven us in such 
 
 O 
 
 a manner as we ourselves forgive our debtors, knowing that 
 that which we seek for our sins cannot be obtained unless 
 we ourselves have acted in a similar way in respect of our 
 debtors. Therefore also He says in another place, " With 
 what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." 1 
 And the servant who, after havino; had all his debt forgiven 
 
 / O O 
 
 him by his master, would not forgive his fellow-servant, is 
 cast back into prison ; because he would not forgive his fellow- 
 servant, he lost the indulgence that had been shown to him- 
 self by his lord. And these things Christ still more urgently 
 sets forth in His precepts with yet greater power of His 
 rebuke. " When ye stand praying," says He, " forgive if ye 
 have aught against any, that your Father which is in heaven 
 may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, 
 neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive you your 
 trespasses." 2 There remains no ground of excuse in the day 
 of judgment, when you will be judged according to your 
 own sentence ; and whatever you have done, that you also 
 will suffer. For God commands us to be peacemakers, and 
 in agreement, and of one mind in His house; and such as He 
 makes us by a second birth, such He washes us when new- 
 born to continue, that we who have begun to be sons of 
 God may abide in God's peace, and that, having one spirit, 
 we should also have one heart and one mind. Thus God 
 does not receive the sacrifice of a person who is in disagree- 
 ment, but commands him to go back from the altar and 
 first be reconciled to his brother, that so God also may be 
 appeased by the prayers of a peacemaker. Our peace and 
 brotherly agreement is the greater sacrifice to God, and a 
 people united in one in the unity of the Father, and of the 
 Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 24. For even in the sacrifices which Abel and Cain first 
 offered, God looked not at their gifts, but at their hearts, so 
 that he was acceptable in his gift who was acceptable in his 
 
 1 Matt. vii. 2. 2 Mark xi. 25.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 415 
 
 heart. Abe], peaceable and righteous in sacrificing in inno- 
 cence to God, taught others also, when they bring their gift 
 to the altar, thus to come with the fear of God, with a simple 
 heart, with the law of righteousness, with the peace of concord. 
 With reason did he, who was such in respect of God's sacrifice, 
 become subsequently himself a sacrifice to God ; so that he 
 who first set forth martyrdom, and initiated the Lord's passion 
 by the glory of his blood, had both the Lord's righteousness 
 and His peace. Finally, such are crowned by the Lord, such 
 will be avenged 1 with the Lord in the day of judgment ; but 
 the quarrelsome and disunited, and he who has not peace 
 with his brethren, in accordance with what the blessed apostle 
 and the holy Scripture testifies, even if he have been slain 
 for the name of Christ, shall not be able to escape the crime 
 of fraternal dissension, because, as it is written, "He who 
 hateth his brother is a murderer," 2 and no murderer attains 
 to the kingdom of heaven, nor does he live with God. He 
 cannot be with Christ, who had rather be an imitator of 
 Judas than of Christ. How great is the sin which cannot 
 even be washed away by a baptism of blood ! how heinous 
 the crime which cannot be expiated by martyrdom ! 
 
 25. Moreover, the Lord of necessity admonishes us to 
 say in prayer, " And suffer us not to be led into temptation." 
 In which words it is shown that the adversary can do no- 
 thing against us except God shall have previously permitted 
 it ; so that all our fear, and devotion, and obedience may be 
 turned towards God, since in our temptations nothing is 
 permitted to evil unless power is given from Him. This is 
 proved by divine Scripture, which says, " Nebuchadnezzar 
 king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, and besieged it ; and the 
 Lord delivered it into his hand." 3 But power is given to 
 evil against us according to our sins, as it is written, " Who 
 gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to those who make a prey 
 of Him ? Did not the Lord, against whom they sinned, and 
 would not walk in His ways, nor hear His law ? and He has 
 brought upon them the anger of His wrath." 4 And again, 
 
 1 Or, " will judge." 2 1 John iii. 15. 
 
 3 2 Kings xxiv. 11. 4 Isa. xlii. 24.
 
 416 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 when Solomon sinned, and departed from the Lord's com- 
 mandments and ways, it is recorded, "And the Lord stirred 
 up Satan against Solomon himself." 1 
 
 26. Now power is given against us in two modes : either 
 for punishment when we sin, or for glory when we are proved, 
 as we see was done with respect to Job; as God Himself 
 sets forth, saying, " Behold, all that he hath I give unto 
 thy hands ; but be careful not to touch himself." 2 And the 
 Lord in His Gospel says, in the time of His passion, "Thou 
 couldest have no power against me unless it were given thee 
 from above." * But when we ask that we may not come into 
 temptation, we are reminded of our infirmity and weakness 
 in that we thus ask, lest any should insolently vaunt him- 
 self, lest any should proudly and arrogantly assume any- 
 thing to himself, lest any should take to himself the glory 
 either of confession or of suffering as his own, when the 
 Lord Himself, teaching humility, said, " Watch and pray, 
 that ye enter not into temptation ; the spirit indeed is willing, 
 but the flesh is weak;" 4 so that while a humble and submissive 
 confession comes first, and all is attributed to God, whatever 
 is sought for suppliantly with fear and honour of God, may 
 be granted by His own loving-kindness. 
 
 27. After all these things, in the conclusion of the prayer 
 comes a brief clause, which shortly and comprehensively 
 sums up all our petitions and our prayers. For we con- 
 clude by saying, " But deliver us from evil," comprehending 
 all adverse things which the enemy attempts against us in 
 this world, from which there may be a faithful and sure pro- 
 tection if God deliver us, if He afford His help to us who 
 pray for and implore it. And when we say, Deliver us from 
 evil, there, remains nothing further which ought to be asked. 
 When we have once asked for God's protection against evil, 
 and have obtained it, then against everything which the 
 devil and the world work against us we stand secure and safe. 
 For what fear is there in this life, to the man whose guardian 
 in this life is God ? 
 
 1 1 Kings xi. 14. 2 Job i. 12. 
 
 8 John xix. 11. * Mark xiv. 38.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 417 
 
 28. What wonder is it, beloved brethren, if such is the 
 prayer which God taught, seeing that He condensed in His 
 teaching all our prayer in one saving sentence ? This had 
 already been before foretold by Isaiah the prophet, when, 
 being filled with the Holy Spirit, he spoke of the majesty 
 and loving-kindness of God, " consummating and shortening 
 His word," l He says, " in righteousness, because a shortened 
 word 2 will the Lord make in the whole earth." 3 For when 
 the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came unto all, and 
 gathering alike the learned and unlearned, published to every 
 sex and every age the precepts of salvation, He made a large 
 compendium of His precepts, that the memory of the scholars 
 might not be burdened in the celestial learning, but might 
 quickly learn what was necessary to a simple faith. Thus, 
 when He taught what is life eternal, He embraced the sacra- 
 ment of life in' a large and divine brevity, saying, " And 
 this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only and 
 true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." 4 Also, 
 when He would gather from the law and the prophets the 
 first and greatest commandments, He said, " Hear, O Israel ; 
 the Lord thy God is one God : and thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with 
 all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the 
 second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy- 
 self." 5 " On these two commandments hang all the law and 
 the prophets." G And again : " Whatsoever good things ye 
 would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them. 
 For this is the law and the prophets." 7 
 
 29. Nor was it only in words, but in deeds also, that the 
 Lord taught us to pray, Himself praying frequently and 
 beseeching [God], and thus showing us, by the testimony of 
 His example, what it behoved us to do, as it is written, " But 
 Himself departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." 8 
 And again : " He went out into a mountain to pray, and con- 
 tinued all night in prayer to God." 9 But if He prayed who 
 
 1 Verbum. 2 Sermonem. 3 Isa. x. 22. 
 
 * John xvii. 3. B Matt. xii. 29-31. 6 Matt. xxii. 40. 
 
 7 Matt. vii. 12. 8 Luke v. 16. 9 Luke vi. 12. 
 
 2 D
 
 418 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 was without sin, how much more ought sinners to pray ; and 
 if He prayed continually, watching through the whole night 
 in uninterrupted petitions, how much more ought we to watch 
 nightly in constantly repeated prayer ! 
 
 30. But the Lord prayed and besought not for Himself 
 for why should He who was guiltless pray on His own be- 
 half? but for our sins, as He Himself declared, when He 
 said to Peter, " Behold, Satan hath desired that he might sift 
 you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith 
 fail not." 1 And subsequently He beseeches the Father for 
 all, saying, " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them 
 also which shall believe on me through their word ; that they 
 all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that 
 they also may be one in us." 2 The Lord's loving-kindness, 
 no less than His mercy, is great in respect of our salvation, 
 in that, not content to redeem us with His blood, He in 
 addition also prayed for us. Behold now what was the 
 desire of His petition, that like as the Father and Son are one, 
 so also we should abide in absolute unity ; so that from this 
 it may be understood how greatly he sins who divides unity 
 and peace, since for this same thing even the Lord besought, 
 desirous doubtless that His people should thus be saved and 
 live in peace, since He knew that discord cannot come into 
 the kingdom of God. 
 
 31. Moreover, when we stand praying, beloved brethren, 
 we ought to be watchful and earnest with our whole heart, 
 intent on our prayers. Let all carnal and worldly thoughts 
 pass away, nor let the soul at that time think on anything 
 but the object only of its prayer. For this reason also the 
 priest, by way of preface before his prayer, prepares the 
 minds of the brethren by saying, " Lift up your hearts," 
 that so upon the people's response, "We lift them up unto 
 the Lord," he may be reminded that he himself ought to 
 think of nothing but the Lord. Let the breast be closed 
 against the adversary, and be open to God alone ; nor let it 
 suffer God's enemy to approach to it at the time of prayer. 
 For frequently he steals upon us, and penetrates within, and 
 
 1 Luke xxii. 31. 2 John xvii. 20.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 419 
 
 by crafty deceit calls away our prayers from God, that we 
 may have one thing in our heart and another in our voice, 
 when not the sound of the voice, but the soul and mind, oucrht 
 
 ' 7 O 
 
 to be praying to the Lord with a simple intention. But what 
 carelessness it is, to be distracted and carried away by foolish 
 and profane thoughts when you are praying to the Lord, as 
 if there were anything which you should rather be thinking 
 of than that you are speaking with God ! How can you ask 
 to be heard of God, when you yourself do not hear yourself ? 
 Do you wish that God should remember you when you ask, 
 if you yourself do not remember yourself? This is abso- 
 lutely to take no precaution against the enemy ; this is, when 
 you pray to God, to offend the majesty of God by the care- 
 lessness of your prayer; this is to be watchful with your 
 eyes, and to be asleep with your heart, while the Christian, 
 even though he is asleep with his eyes, ought to be awake 
 with his heart, as it is written in the person of the church 
 speaking in the Song of Songs, "I sleep, yet my heart 
 waketh." 1 Wherefore the apostle anxiously and carefully 
 warns us, saying, " Continue in prayer, and watch in the 
 same;" 2 teaching, that is, and showing that those are able 
 to obtain from God what they ask, whom God sees to be 
 watchful in their prayer. 
 
 32. Moreover, those who pray should not come to God 
 with fruitless or naked prayers. Petition is ineffectual when 
 it is a barren entreaty that beseeches God. For as every 
 tree that bringeth not forth fruit is cut down and cast into 
 the fire ; assuredly also, words that do not bear fruit cannot 
 deserve anything of God, because they are fruitful in no 
 result. And thus holy Scripture instructs us, saying, " Prayer 
 is good with fasting and almsgiving." 3 For He who will 
 give us in the day of judgment a reward for our labours and 
 alms, is even in this life a merciful hearer of one who comes 
 to Him in prayer associated with good works. Thus, for 
 instance, Cornelius the centurion, when he prayed, had a 
 claim to be heard. For he was in the habit of doing many 
 alms-deeds towards the people, and of ever praying to God. 
 1 Cant. v. 2. 2 Col. i. 2. 8 Tob. xx. 8.
 
 420 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 To this man, when he prayed about the ninth hour, appeared 
 an angel bearing testimony to his labours, arid saying, " Cor- 
 nelius, thy prayers and thine alms are gone up in remem- 
 brance before God." 1 
 
 33. Those prayers quickly ascend to God which the merits 
 of our labours urge upon God. Thus also Raphael the 
 angel was a witness to the constant prayer and the constant 
 good works of Tobias, saying, " It is honourable to reveal and 
 confess the works of God. For when thou didst pray, and 
 Sarah, I did bring the remembrance of your prayers before 
 the holiness of God. And when thou didst bury the dead in 
 simplicity, and because thou didst not delay to rise up and 
 to leave thy dinner, but didst go out and cover the dead, I 
 was sent to prove thee ; and again God has sent me to heal 
 thee, and Sarah thy daughter-in-law. For I am Raphael, 
 one of the seven holy angels which stand and go in and out 
 before the glory of God." 2 By Isaiah also the Lord reminds 
 us, and teaches similar things, saying, " Loosen every knot 
 of iniquity, release the oppressions of contracts which have 
 no power, let the troubled go into peace, and break every 
 unjust engagement. Break thy bread to the hungry, and 
 bring the poor that are without shelter into thy house. When 
 thou seest the naked, clothe him ; and despise not those of the 
 same family and race as thyself. Then shall thy light break 
 forth in season, and thy raiment shall spring forth speedily ; 
 and righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of God 
 shall surround thee. Then shalt thou call, and God shall 
 hear thee ; and while thou shalt yet speak, He shall say, Here 
 I am." 3 He promises that He will be at hand, and says 
 that He will hear and protect those who, loosening the 
 knots of unrighteousness from their heart, and giving alms 
 among the members of God's household according to His com- 
 mands, even in hearing what God commands to be done, do 
 themselves also deserve to be heard by God. The blessed 
 Apostle Paul, when aided in the necessity of affliction by his 
 brethren, said that good works which are performed are 
 sacrifices to God. " I am full," saith he, "having received 
 1 Acts x. 2, 4. 2 Tob. xii. 12-15. 3 Isa. Iviii. 6-9.
 
 ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 421 
 
 of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an 
 odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing 
 to God." 1 For when one has pity on the poor, he lends to 
 God ; and he who gives to the least gives to God sacrifices 
 spiritually to God an odour of a sweet smell. 
 
 34. And in discharging the duties of prayer, we find that 
 the three children with Daniel, being strong in faith and 
 victorious in captivity, observed the third, sixth, and ninth 
 hour, as it were, for a sacrament of the Trinity, which in 
 the last times had to be manifested. For both the first hour 
 in its progress to the third shows forth the consummated 
 number of the Trinity, and also the fourth proceeding to the 
 sixth declares another Trinity ; and when from the seventh 
 the ninth is completed, the perfect Trinity is numbered 
 every three hours, which spaces of hours the worshippers of 
 God in time past having spiritually decided on, made use of 
 for determined and lawful times for prayer. And subse- 
 quently the thing was manifested, that these things were of 
 old Sacraments, in that anciently righteous men prayed in 
 this manner. For upon the disciples at the third hour the 
 Holy Spirit descended, who fulfilled the grace of the Lord's 
 promise. Moreover, at the sixth hour, Peter, going up unto 
 the house-top, was instructed as well by the sign as by the 
 word of God admonishing him to receive all to the grace of 
 salvation, whereas he was previously doubtful of the receiving 
 of the Gentiles to baptism. And from the sixth hour to the 
 ninth, the Lord, being crucified, washed away our sins by 
 His blood ; and that He might redeem and quicken us, He 
 then accomplished His victory by His passion. 
 
 35. But for us, beloved brethren, besides the hours of 
 prayer observed of old, both the times and the sacraments 
 have now increased in number. For we must also pray in 
 the morning, that the Lord's resurrection may be celebrated 
 by morning prayer. And this formerly the Holy Spirit 
 pointed out in the Psalms, saying, " My King, and my God, 
 because unto Thee will I cry ; , O Lord, in the morning 
 shalt Thou hear my voice; in the morning will I stand 
 
 1 Phil. iv. 18.
 
 422 THE TREATISES OF C7PPJAN. 
 
 before Thee, and will look up to Thee." 1 And again, the 
 Lord speaks by the mouth of the prophet : " Early in the 
 morning shall they watch for me, saying, Let us go, and 
 return unto the Lord our God." 2 Also at the suusetting 
 and at the decline of day, of necessity we must pray again. 
 For since Christ is the true sun and the true day, as the 
 worldly sun and worldly day depart, when we pray and ask 
 that light may return to us again, we pray for the advent of 
 Christ, which shall give us the grace of everlasting light. 
 Moreover, the Holy Spirit in the Psalms manifests that 
 Christ is called the day. " The stone," says He, " which 
 the builders rejected, is become the head of the corner. 
 This is the Lord's doing ; and it is marvellous in our eyes. 
 This is the day which the Lord hath made ; let us walk 
 and rejoice in it." 3 Also the prophet Malachi testifies that 
 He is called the Sun, when he says, " But to you that fear 
 the name of the Lord shall the Sun of righteousness arise, 
 and there is healing in His wings." 4 But if in the holy 
 Scriptures the true sun and the true day is Christ, there is 
 no hour excepted for Christians wherein God ought not fre- 
 quently and always to be worshipped ; so that we who are in 
 Christ that is, in the true sun and the true day should be 
 instant throughout the entire day in petitions, and should 
 pray ; and when, Isy the law of the world, the revolving night, 
 recurring in its alternate changes, succeeds, there can be no 
 harm arising from the darkness of night to those who pray, 
 because the children of light have the day even in the night. 
 For when is he without light who has light in his heart 1 or 
 when has not he the sun and the day, whose sun and day is 
 Christ? 
 
 36. Let not us, then, who are in Christ that is, always in 
 the light cease from praying even during night. Thus the 
 widow Anna, without intermission praying and watching, per- 
 severed in deserving well of God, as it is written in the Gospel : 
 " She departed not," it says, " from the temple, serving with 
 fastings and prayers night and day." 5 Let the Gentiles look 
 
 1 Ps. v. 2. 2 Hos. vi. 1. 8 Ps. cxviii. 22. 
 
 * Mai. iv. 2. 5 Luke ii. 37.
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETEIANUS. 423 
 
 to this, who are not yet enlightened, or the Jews who have 
 remained in darkness by having forsaken the light. Let us, 
 beloved brethren, who are always in the light of the Lord, 
 who remember and hold fast what by grace received we have 
 begun to be, reckon night for day ; let us believe that we 
 always walk in the light, and let us not be hindered by the 
 darkness which we have escaped. Let there be no failure of 
 prayers in the hours of night no idle and reckless waste of 
 the occasions of prayer. New-created and new-born of the 
 Spirit by the mercy of God, let us imitate what we shall one 
 day be. Since in the kingdom we shall possess day alone, 
 without intervention of night, let us so watch in the night as 
 if in the daylight. Since we are to pray and give thanks to 
 God for ever, let us not cease in this life also to pray and 
 give thanks. 
 
 TREATISE V. 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. Cyprian, in reply to Demetrianus the proconsul 
 of Africa, who contended that the wars, and famine, and 
 pestilence with which the world zoas then plagued must 
 be imputed to the Christians because they did not wor- 
 ship the gods ; fairly urges (having argued that all things 
 are gradually deteriorating with the old age of the 
 world) that it was rather the heathens themselves who 
 we're the causes of such mischiefs, because they did not wor- 
 ship God, and, moreover, were distressing the Christians 
 with unjust persecutions. Next, having reproached him 
 with the unaccustomed kinds of tortures with which he 
 tormented the Christians more severely than any other 
 criminals, not for the purpose of making them confess, 
 but of making them deny their faith, he shows the im- 
 potence of the gods, as well because they themselves 
 cannot defend themselves, and so Demetrianus, who pre- 
 tended to avenge them, should rather be worshipped by them, 
 than himself iwrship them ; as because, when expelled
 
 424 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 by Christians from possessed bodies, they themselves con- 
 fess what they are. Nor indeed must the fall of kings, 
 the destruction of property, and such like evils which 
 accompanied the persecutions of Christians as a punishment 
 from Heaven, be judged not to be punishments, because they 
 were shared by the Christians themselves ; inasmuch as all 
 these things are a joy to them rather than a punishment. 
 Accordingly, while there is time, he urges him. to return to- 
 a better mind, or at least to dread the judgment and an 
 ever burning fiery Gehenna. In this tract Cyprian partly 
 imitates Tertullian's Apology and his treatise to Scapula, 
 partly the Octavius of Minucius Felix. 
 
 1. I had frequently, Demetrianus, treated with contempt 
 your railing and noisy clamour with sacrilegious mouth and 
 impious words against the one and true God, thinking it 
 more modest and better, silently to scorn the ignorance of a 
 mistaken man, than by speaking to provoke the fury of a 
 senseless one. Neither did I do this without the authority 
 of the divine teaching, 1 since it is written, " Speak not in 
 the ears of a fool, lest when he hear thee he should despise 
 the wisdom of thy words ;" 2 and again, " Answer not a fool 
 according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."' 
 And we are, moreover, bidden to keep what is holy within 
 our own knowledge, and not expose it to be trodden down 
 by swine and dogs, since the Lord speaks, saying, " Give 
 not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your 
 pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, 
 and turn again and rend you." 4 For when you used often 
 to come to me with the desire of contradicting rather than 
 with the wish to learn, and preferred impudently to insist 
 on your own views, which you shouted with noisy words, to 
 patiently listening to mine, it seemed to me foolish to contend 
 with you ; since it would be an easier and slighter thing to- 
 restrain the angry waves of a turbulent sea with shouts, than 
 to check your madness by arguments. Assuredly it would 
 
 1 Some add, " <ond name." 2 Prov. xxiii. 9. 
 
 3 Prov. xxvi. 4. * Matt. vii. 6.
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS. 425 
 
 be both a vain and ineffectual labour to offer light to a blind 
 man, discourse to a deaf one, or wisdom to a brute; since 
 neither can a brute apprehend, nor can a blind man admit 
 the light, nor can a deaf man hear. 
 
 2. In consideration of this, I have frequently held my 
 tongue, and overcome an impatient man with patience ; since 
 I could neither teach an unteachable man, nor check an 
 impious one with religion, nor restrain a frantic man with 
 gentleness. But yet, when you say that very many are 
 complaining that to us it is ascribed that wars arise more 
 frequently, that plague, that famines rage, and that long 
 droughts are suspending the showers and rains, it is not 
 fitting that I should be silent any longer, lest my silence 
 should beffin to be attributed to mistrust rather than to 
 
 O 
 
 modesty ; and while I am treating the false charges with 
 contempt, I may seem to be acknowledging the crime. I 
 reply, therefore, as well to you, Demetrianus, as to others 
 whom perhaps you have stirred up, and many of whom, by 
 sowing hatred against us with malicious words, you have 
 made your own partisans, from the budding forth of your 
 own root and origin, who, however, I believe, will admit the 
 reasonableness of my discourse ; for he who is moved to evil 
 by the deception of a lie, will much more easily be moved to 
 good by the cogency of truth. 
 
 3. You have said that all these things are caused by us, 
 and that to us ought to be attributed the misfortunes where- 
 with the world is now shaken and distressed, because your 
 gods are not worshipped by us. And in this behalf, since 
 you are ignorant of divine knowledge, and a stranger to the 
 truth, you must in the first place know this, that the world 
 has now grown old, and does not abide in that strength in 
 which it formerly stood; nor has it that vigour and force 
 which it formerly possessed. This, even were we silent, and 
 if we alleged no proofs from the sacred Scriptures and from 
 the divine declarations, the world itself is now announcing, 
 and bearing witness to its decline by the testimony of its 
 failing estate. In the winter there is not such an abundance 
 of showers for nourishing the seeds ; in the summer the sun
 
 426 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 has not so much heat for cherishing the harvest ; nor in the 
 spring season are the corn-fields so joyous; nor are the 
 autumnal seasons so fruitful in their leafy products. The 
 layers of marble are dug out in less quantity from the dis- 
 embowelled and wearied mountains ; the diminished quantities 
 of gold and silver suggest the early exhaustion of the metals, 
 and the impoverished veins are straitened and decreased 
 day by day ; the husbandman is failing in the fields, the sailor 
 at sea, the soldier in the camp, innocence in the market, 
 justice in the tribunal, concord in friendships, skilf ulness in 
 the arts, discipline in morals. Think you that the sub- 
 stantial character of a thing that is growing old remains so 
 robust as that wherewith it might previously flourish in its 
 youth while still new and vigorous ? Whatever is tending 
 downwards to decay, with its end nearly approaching, must 
 of necessity be weakened. Thus, the sun at his setting darts 
 his rays with a less bright and fiery splendour ; thus, in her 
 declining course, the moon wanes with exhausted horns ; and 
 the tree, which before had been green and fertile, as its 
 branches dry up, becomes by and by misshapen in a barren 
 old age ; and the fountain which once gushed forth liberally 
 from its overflowing veins, as old age causes it to fail, scarcely 
 trickles with a sparing moisture. This is the sentence 
 passed on the world, this is God's law, that everything that 
 has had a beginning should perish, and things that have 
 grown should become old, and that strong things should 
 become weak, and great things become small, and that, 
 when they have become weakened and diminished, they 
 should come to an end. 
 
 4. You impute it to the Christians that everything is 
 decaying as the world grows old. What if old men should 
 charge it on the Christians that they grow less strong in 
 their old age ; that they no longer, as formerly, have the same 
 faculties, in the hearing of their ears, in the swiftness of their 
 feet, in the keenness of their eyes, in the vigour of their 
 strength, in the freshness of their organic powers, in the 
 fulness of their limbs, and that although once the life of 
 men endured beyond the age of eight and nine hundred
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS. 427 
 
 years, it can now scarcely attain to its hundredth year? 
 We see grey hairs in boys the hair fails before it begins 
 to grow ; and life does not cease in old age, but it begins 
 with old age. Thus, even at its very commencement, birth 
 hastens to its close ; thus, whatever is now born degenerates 
 with the old ao;e of the world itself ; so that no one ou^ht to 
 
 O 7 O 
 
 wonder that everything begins to fail in the world, when the 
 whole world itself is already in process of failing, and in its 
 end. 
 
 5. Moreover, that wars continue frequently to prevail, 
 that death and famine accumulate anxiety, that health is 
 shattered by raging diseases, that the human race is wasted 
 by the desolation of pestilence, know that this was foretold ; 
 that evils should be multiplied in the last times, and that 
 misfortunes should be varied; and that as the day of judg- 
 ment is now drawino; ni;h, the censure of an indignant God 
 
 O O ' O 
 
 should be more and more aroused for the scourging of the 
 human race. For these things happen not, as your false 
 complaining and ignorant inexperience of the truth asserts 
 and repeats, because your gods are not worshipped by us, but 
 because God is not worshipped by you. For since He is 
 Lord and Ruler of the world, and all things are carried on by 
 His will and direction, nor can anything be done save what 
 He Himself has done or allowed to be done, certainly when 
 those things occur which show the anger of an offended God, 
 they happen not on account of us by whom God is worshipped, 
 but they are called down by your sins and deservings, by 
 whom God is neither in any way sought nor feared, because 
 your vain superstitions are not forsaken, nor the true religion 
 known in such wise that He who is the one God over all 
 might alone be worshipped and petitioned. 
 
 6. In fine, listen to Himself speaking ; Himself with a 
 divine voice at once instructing and warning us : " Thou 
 shalt worship the Lord thy God," says He, " and Him only 
 shalt thou serve." 1 And again, " Thou shalt have none 
 other gods but me." 2 And again, " Go not after other gods, 
 to serve them ; and worship them not, and provoke not me to 
 
 1 Deut. vi. 13. * Ex. xxix. 3.
 
 428 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 anger with the works of your hands to destroy you." 1 More- 
 over, the prophet, filled with the Holy Spirit, attests and 
 denounces the anger of God, saying, " Thus saith the Lord 
 Almighty : Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run 
 every man to his own house, therefore the heavens shall be 
 stayed from dew, and the earth shall withhold her fruits : 
 and I will bring a sword upon the earth, and upon the corn, 
 and upon the wine, and upon the oil, and upon men, and 
 upon cattle, and upon all the labours of their hands." 2 More- 
 over, another prophet repeats, and says, " And I will cause it 
 to rain upon one city, and upon another city I will cause it 
 not to rain. One piece shall be rained upon, and the piece 
 whereon I send no rain shall be withered. And two and 
 three cities shall be gathered into one city to drink water, 
 and shall not be satisfied; and ye are not converted unto 
 me, saith the Lord." 3 
 
 7. Behold, the Lord is angry and wrathful, and threatens, 
 because you turn not unto Him. And you wonder or com- 
 plain in this your obstinacy and contempt, if the rain comes 
 down with unusual scarcity ; and the earth falls into neglect 
 with dusty corruption ; if the barren glebe hardly brings 
 forth a few jejune and pallid blades of grass; if the de- 
 stroying hail weakens the vines ; if the overwhelming whirl- 
 wind roots out the olive ; if drought stanches the fountain ; 
 a pestilent breeze corrupts the air; the weakness of disease 
 wastes away man ; although all these things come as the 
 consequence of the sins that provoke them, and God is more 
 deeply indignant when such and so great evils avail nothing \ 
 For that these things occur either for the discipline of the 
 obstinate or for the punishment of the evil, the same God 
 declares in the Holy Scriptures, saying, " In vain have I 
 smitten your children ; they have not received correction." 4 
 And the prophet devoted and dedicated to God answers to- 
 these words in the same strain, and says, " Thou hast stricken 
 them, but they have not grieved ; Thou hast scourged them, 
 but they have refused to receive correction." 5 Lo, stripes are 
 
 1 Jer. xxv. 6. 2 Hag. i. 9. 8 Amos iv. 7. 
 
 4 Jer. ii. 30. 6 Jcr. v. 3.
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETPJANUS. 429 
 
 inflicted from God, and there is no fear of God. Lo, blows 
 and scourgings from above are not wanting, and there is no 
 trembling, no fear. What if even no such rebuke as that 
 interfered in human affairs ? How much greater still would 
 be the audacity in men, if it were secure in the impunity of 
 their crimes ! 
 
 8. You complain that the fountains are now less plentiful 
 to you, and the breezes less salubrious, and the frequent showers 
 and the fertile earth afford you less ready assistance ; that the 
 elements no longer subserve your uses and your pleasures as of 
 old. But do you serve God, by whom all things are ordained 
 to your service ; do you wait upon Him by whose good plea- 
 sure all things wait upon you ? l From your slave you your- 
 self require service ; and though a man, you compel your 
 fellow-man to submit, and to be obedient to you ; and although 
 you share the same lot in respect of being born, the same 
 condition in respect of dying ; although you have like bodily 
 substance and a common order of souls, and although you 
 come into this world of ours and depart from it after a time 
 with equal rights, and by the same law ; yet, unless you are 
 served by him according to your pleasure, unless you are 
 obeyed by him in conformity to your will, you, as an imperious 
 and excessive exactor of his service, flog and scourge him : you 
 afflict and torture him with hunger, with thirst and nakedness, 
 and even frequently with the sword and with imprisonment. 
 And, wretch that you are, do you not acknowledge the Lord 
 your God while you yourself are thus exercising lordship ? 2 
 
 9. And therefore with reason in these plagues that occur, 
 there are not wanting God's stripes and scourges ; and since 
 they are of no avail in this matter, and do not convert 
 individuals to God by such terror of destructions, there re- 
 mains after all the eternal dungeon, and the continual fire, 
 and the everlasting punishment; nor shall the groaning of 
 the suppliants be heard there, because here the terror of the 
 angry God was not heard, crying by His prophet, and saying, 
 
 1 Some read, " But you do not serve God, by whom all things are 
 ordained to your service ; you do not wait upon Him," etc. 
 
 2 Some add, " over man."
 
 430 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 " Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel : for the 
 judgment of the Lord is against the inhabitants of the earth ; 
 because there is neither mercy, nor truth, nor knowledge of 
 God upon the earth. But cursing, and lying, and killing, 
 and stealing, and committing adultery, is broken out over the 
 land, they mingle blood with blood. Therefore shall the land 
 mourn, with every one that dwelleth therein, with the beasts 
 of the field, with things that creep on the earth, and with the 
 fowls of heaven ; and the fishes of the sea shall languish, so 
 that no man shall judge, no man shall rebuke." l God says He 
 is wrathful and angry, because there is no acknowledgment 
 of God in the earth, and God is neither known nor feared. 
 The sins of lying, of lust, of fraud, of cruelty, of impiety, of 
 anger, God rebukes and finds fault with, and no one is con- 
 verted to innocency. Lo, those things are happening which 
 were before foretold by the words of God ; nor is any one 
 admonished by the belief of things present to take thought for 
 what is to come. Amongst those very misfortunes wherein 
 the soul, closely bound and shut up, can scarcely breathe, 
 there is still found opportunity for men to be evil, and in 
 such great dangers to judge not so much of themselves as 
 of others. You are indignant that God is angry, as if by an 
 evil life you were deserving any good, as if all things of that 
 kind which happen were not infinitely less and of smaller 
 account than your sins. 
 
 10. You who judge others, be for once also a judge of 
 yourself ; look into the hiding-places of your own conscience ; 
 nay, since now there is not even any shame in your sin, 2 and 
 you are wicked, as if it were rather the very wickedness itself 
 that pleased you, do you, who are seen clearly and nakedly 
 by all other men, yourself also look upon yourself. For 
 either you are swollen with pride, or greedy with avarice, or 
 cruel with anger, or prodigal with gambling, or flushed with 
 intemperance, or envious with jealousy, or unchaste with 
 lust, or violent with cruelty ; and do you wonder that God's 
 anger increases in punishing the human race, when the sin 
 that is punished is daily increasing? You complain that the 
 
 1 Hos. iv. 1-4. 2 Some texts read, "fear or shame in sinning."
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS. 431 
 
 enemy rises up, as if, though an enemy were wanting, there 
 could be peace for you even among the very togas of peace. 
 You complain that the enemy rises up, as if, even although 
 external arms and dangers from barbarians were repressed, 
 the weapons of domestic assault from the calumnies and 
 wrongs of powerful citizens, would not be more ferocious and 
 more harshly wielded within. You complain of barrenness and 
 famine, as if drought made a greater famine than rapacity, 
 as if the fierceness of want did not increase more terribly 
 from grasping at the increase of the year's produce, and 
 the accumulation of their price. You complain that the 
 heaven is shut up from showers, although in the same way 
 the barns are shut up on earth. You complain that now less 
 is produced, as if what had already been produced were given 
 to the indigent. You reproach plague and disease, while by 
 plague itself and disease the crimes of individuals are either 
 detected or increased, while mercy is not manifested to the 
 weak, and avarice and rapine are waiting open-mouthed for 
 the dead. The same men are timid in the duties of affection, 
 but rash in quest of impious gains ; shunning the deaths of 
 the dying, and craving the spoils of the dead, so that it may 
 appear as if the wretched are probably forsaken in their sick- 
 ness for this cause, that they may not, by being cured, escape : 
 for he who enters so eagerly upon the estate of the dying, 
 [really] desired the sick man to perish. 
 
 11. So great a terror of destruction cannot give the teach- 
 ing of innocency ; and in the midst of a people dying with 
 constant havoc, nobody considers that he himself is mortal. 
 Everywhere there is scattering, there is seizure, there is 
 taking possession; no dissimulation about spoiling, and no 
 delay. 1 As if it were all lawful, as if it were all becoming, 
 as if he who does not rob were suffering loss and wasting his 
 own property, thus every one hastens to the rapine. Among 
 thieves there is at any rate some modesty in their crimes. 
 They love pathless ravines and deserted solitudes ; and they 
 do wrong in such a way, that still the crime of the wrong- 
 doers is veiled by darkness and night. Avarice [on the con- 
 1 Or, " no pretence." Some add, " no fear."
 
 432 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 trary] rages openly, and safe by its very boldness, exposes the 
 weapons of its headlong craving in the light of the market- 
 place. Thence cheats, thence poisoners, thence assassins in 
 the midst of the city, are as eager for wickedness as they are 
 wicked with impunity. The crime is committed by the guilty, 
 and the guiltless who can avenge it is not found. There is 
 no fear from accuser or judge : the wicked obtain impunity, 
 while modest men are silent ; accomplices are afraid, and those 
 who are to judge are for sale. And therefore by the mouth 
 of the prophet the truth of the matter is put forth with the 
 divine spirit and instinct : it is shown in a certain and obvious 
 way that God can prevent adverse things, but that the evil 
 deserts of sinners prevent His bringing aid. " Is the Lord's 
 hand," says he, " not strong to save you ; or has He made 
 heavy His ear, that He cannot hear you? But your sins 
 separate between you and God ; and because of your sins He 
 hath hid His face from you, that He may not have mercy." 1 
 Therefore let your sins and offences be reckoned up ; let the 
 wounds of your conscience be considered ; and let each one 
 cease complaining about God, or about us, if he should per- 
 ceive that himself deserves what he suffers. 
 
 12. Look what that very matter is of which is chiefly our 
 discourse that you molest us, although innocent ; that, in 
 contempt of God, you attack and oppress God's servants. It 
 is little [in your estimation] that your life is stained with a 
 variety of gross vices, with the iniquity of deadly crimes, with 
 the summary of all bloody rapines ; that true religion is over- 
 turned by false superstitions ; that God is neither sought at 
 all, nor feared at all ; but over and above this, you weary 2 
 God's servants, and those who are dedicated to His majesty and 
 His name, with unjust persecutions. It is not enough that 
 you yourself do not worship God, but, over and above, you 
 persecute those^ who do worship with a sacrilegious hostility. 
 You neither worship God, nor do you at all permit Him to 
 be worshipped ; and while others who venerate not only those 
 foolish idols and images made by man's hands, but even por- 
 tents and monsters besides, are pleasing to you, it is only the 
 1 Isa. lix. 1. 8 Or, " distress ; " v. I
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS. 433 
 
 worshipper of God who is displeasing to you. The ashes of 
 victims and the piles of cattle everywhere smoke in your 
 temples, and God's altars are either nowhere or are hidden. 
 Crocodiles, and apes, and stones, and serpents are worshipped 
 by you ; and God alone in the earth is not worshipped, or if 
 worshipped, not with impunity. You deprive the innocent, 
 the just, the dear to God, of their home ; you spoil them of 
 their estate, you load them with chains, you shut them up in 
 prison, you punish them with the sword, with the wild beasts, 
 with the flames. Nor, indeed, are you content with a brief 
 endurance of our sufferings, and with a simple and swift 
 exhaustion of pains. You set on foot tedious tortures, by 
 tearing our bodies ; you multiply numerous punishments, by 
 lacerating our vitals ; nor can your brutality and fierceness 
 be content with ordinary tortures your ingenious cruelty 
 devises new sufferings. 
 
 13. What is this insatiable madness for bloodshedding, 
 what this interminable lust of cruelty ? Rather make your 
 election of one of two alternatives. To be a Christian is 
 either a crime, or it is not. If it be a crime, why do you not 
 put the man that confesses it to death ? If it be not a crime, 
 why do you persecute an innocent man ? For I ought to be 
 put to the torture if I denied it. If in fear of your punish- 
 ment I should conceal, by a deceitful falsehood, what I had 
 previously been, and the fact that I had not worshipped your 
 gods, then I might deserve to be tormented, then I ought 
 to be compelled to confession of my crime by the power of 
 suffering, as in other examinations the guilty, who deny that 
 they are guilty of the crime of which they are accused, are 
 tortured in order that the confession of the reality of the 
 crime, which the tell-tale voice refuses to make, may be wrung 
 out by the bodily suffering. But now, when of my own 
 free will I confess, and cry out, and with words frequent and 
 repeated to the same effect bear witness that I am a Christian, 
 why do you apply tortures to one who avows it, and who de- 
 stroys your gods, not in hidden and secret places, but openly, 
 and publicly, and in the very market-place, in the hearing of 
 your magistrates and governors ; so that, although it was 
 
 2E
 
 434 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 a slight thing which you blamed in me before, that which 
 you ought rather to hate and punish has increased, that 
 by declaring myself a Christian in a frequented place, and 
 with the people standing around, I am confounding both you 
 and your gods by an open and public announcement ? 
 
 14. Why do you turn your attention to the weakness of 
 our body? why do you strive with the feebleness of this 
 earthly flesh ? Contend rather with the strength of the 
 mind, break down the power of the soul, destroy our faith, 
 conquer if you can by discussion, overcome by reason ; or, if 
 your gods have any deity and power, let them themselves rise 
 to their own vindication, let them defend themselves by their 
 own majesty. But what can they advantage their wor- 
 shippers, if they cannot avenge themselves on those who 
 worship them not? For if he who avenges is of more account 
 than he who is avenged, then you are greater than your gods. 
 And if you are greater than those whom you worship, you 
 ought not to worship them, but rather to be worshipped and 
 feared by them as their lord. Your championship defends 
 them when injured, just as your protection guards them when 
 shut up from perishing. You should be ashamed to worship 
 those whom you yourself defend ; you should be ashamed to 
 hope for protection from those whom you yourself protect. 
 
 15. Oh, would you but hear and see them when they are 
 adjured by us, and tortured with spiritual scourges, and are 
 ejected from the possessed bodies with tortures of words, 
 when howling and groaning at the voice of man and the 
 power of God, feeling the stripes and blows, they confess the 
 judgment to come ! Come and acknowledge that what we 
 say is true ; and since you say that you thus worship gods, 
 believe even those whom you worship. Or if you will even 
 believe yourself, he (i.e. the demon) who has now possessed 
 your breast, who has now darkened your mind with the night 
 of ignorance, shall speak concerning yourself in your hearing. 
 You will see that we are entreated by those whom you entreat, 
 that we are feared by those whom you fear, whom you adore. 
 You will see that under our hands they stand bound, and 
 tremble as captives, whom you look up to and venerate as
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS. 435 
 
 lords : assuredly even thus you might be confounded in those 
 errors of yours, when you see and bear your gods, at once 
 upon our interrogation betraying what they are, and even in 
 your presence unable to conceal those deceits and trickeries 
 of theirs. 
 
 16. What, then, is that sluggishness of mind ; yea, what 
 blind and stupid madness of fools, to be unwilling to come 
 out of darkness into light, and to be unwilling, when bound 
 in the toils of eternal death, to receive the hope of immor- 
 tality, and not to fear God when He threatens and says, 
 " He that sacrifices unto any gods, but unto the Lord only, 
 shall be rooted out?" 1 And again: "They worshipped 
 them whom their fingers made ; and the mean man hath 
 bowed down, and the great man hath humbled himself, and 
 I will not forgive them." 2 Why do you humble and bend 
 yourself to false gods ? Why do you bow your body cap- 
 tive before foolish images and creations of earth? God 
 made you upright ; and while other animals are downlooking, 
 and are depressed in posture bending towards the earth, 
 yours is a lofty attitude ; and your countenance is raised 
 upwards to heaven, and to God. Look thither, lift your 
 eyes thitherward, seek God in the highest, that you may be 
 free from things below ; lift your heart to a dependence on 
 high and heavenly things. Why do you prostrate yourself 
 into the ruin of death with the serpent whom you worship ? 
 Why do you fall into the destruction of the devil, by his 
 means and in his company ? Keep the lofty estate in which 
 you were born. Continue such as you were made by God. 
 To the posture of your countenance and of your body, con- 
 form your soul. That you may be able to know God, first 
 know yourself. Forsake the idols which human error has 
 invented. Be turned to God, whom if you implore He will 
 aid you. Believe in Christ, whom 3 the Father has sent to 
 quicken and restore us. Cease to hurt the servants of God 
 and of Christ with your persecutions, since when they are 
 injured the divine vengeance defends them. 
 
 1 Ex. xxii. 20. 2 Isa. ii. 8. 
 
 3 Some read, " the Son whom."
 
 436 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 17. For this reason it is that none of us, when he is appre- 
 hended, makes resistance, nor avenges himself against your 
 unrighteous violence, although our people are numerous and 
 plentiful. Our certainty of a vengeance to follow makes 
 us patient. The innocent give place to the guilty ; the 
 harmless acquiesce in punishments and tortures, sure and 
 confident that whatsoever we suffer will not remain un- 
 avenged, and that in proportion to the greatness of the in- 
 justice of our persecution so will be the justice and the 
 severity of the vengeance exacted for those persecutions. Nor 
 does the wickedness of the impious ever rise up against the 
 name we bear, without immediate vengeance from above at- 
 tending it. To say nothing of the memories of ancient times, 
 and not to recur with wordy commemoration to frequently re- 
 peated vengeance on behalf of God's worshippers, the instance 
 of a recent matter is sufficient to prove that our defence, so 
 speedily, and in its speed so powerfully, followed of late in 
 the ruins of things, 1 in the destruction of wealth, in the 
 waste of soldiers, and the diminution of forts. Nor let any 
 one think that this occurred by chance, or think that it was 
 fortuitous, since long ago Scripture has laid down, and said, 
 " Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord." 2 And 
 again the Holy Spirit forewarns, and says, " Say not thou, 
 I will avenge myself of mine enemy, but wait on the Lord, 
 that He may be thy help." 3 Whence it is plain and mani- 
 fest, that not by our means, but for our sakes, all those things 
 are happening which come down from the anger of God. 
 
 18. Nor let anybody think that Christians are not avenged 
 by those things that are happening, for the reason that they 
 also themselves seem to be affected by their visitation. A 
 man feels the punishment of worldly adversity, when all his 
 joy and glory are in the world. He grieves and groans if 
 it is ill with him in this life, with whom it cannot be well 
 after this life, all the fruit of whose life is received here, 
 all whose consolation is ended here, whose fading and brief 
 life here reckons some sweetness and pleasure, but when it 
 
 1 Or, according to some, " of kings." 
 
 2 Rom. xii. 19. 3 Prov. xx. 22.
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS. 437 
 
 has departed hence, there remains for him only punishment 
 added to sorrow. But they have no suffering from the assault 
 of present evils who have confidence in future good things. 
 In fact, we are never prostrated by adversity, nor are we 
 broken down, nor do we grieve or murmur in any external 
 misfortune or weakness of body : living by the Spirit rather 
 than by the flesh, we overcome bodily weakness by mental 
 strength. By those very things which torment and weary 
 us, we know and trust that we are proved and strengthened. 
 
 19. Do you think that we suffer adversity equally with 
 yourselves, when you see that the same adverse things are 
 not borne equally by us and by you ? Among you there is 
 always a clamorous and complaining impatience; with us 
 there is a strong and religious patience, always quiet and 
 always grateful to God. Nor does it claim for itself any- 
 thing joyous or prosperous in this world, but, meek and 
 gentle and stable against all the gusts of this tossing world, 
 it waits for the time of the divine promise ; for as long as this 
 body endures, it must needs have a common lot with others, 
 and its bodily condition must be common. Nor is it given 
 to any of the human race to be separated one from another, 
 except by withdrawal from this present life. In the mean- 
 time, we are all, good and evil, contained in one house- 
 hold. Whatever happens within the house, we suffer with 
 equal fate, until, when the end of the temporal life shall be 
 attained, we shall be distributed among the homes either of 
 eternal death or immortality. Thus, therefore, we are not 
 on the same level, and equal with you, because, placed in this 
 present world and in this flesh, we incur equally with you 
 the annoyances of the world and of the flesh ; for since in 
 the sense of pain is all punishment, it is manifest that he is 
 not a sharer of your punishment who, you see, does not 
 suffer pain equally with yourselves. 1 
 
 20. There flourishes with us the strength of hope and the 
 firmness of faith. Among these very ruins of a decaying 
 world our soul is lifted up, and our courage unshaken : our 
 patience is never anything but joyous ; and the mind is 
 
 1 Or, " whom you do not see not to suffer with yourself."
 
 438 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 always secure of its God, even as the Holy Spirit speaks 
 through the prophet, and exhorts us, strengthening with a 
 heavenly word the firmness of our hope and faith. " The 
 fig-tree," says He, " shall not bear fruit, and there shall be 
 no blossom in the vines. The labour of the olive shall fail, 
 and the fields shall yield no meat. The flock shall be cut off 
 from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. But 
 I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will joy in the God of my 
 salvation." l He says that the man of God and the worshipper 
 of God, depending on the truth of his hope, and founded on 
 the stedfastness of his faith, is not moved by the attacks of 
 this world and this life. Although the vine should fail, and 
 the olive deceive, and the field parched with grass dying 
 with drought should wither, what is this to Christians ? 
 what to God's servants whom paradise is inviting, whom all 
 the grace and all the abundance of the kingdom of heaven is 
 waiting for? They always exult in the Lord, and rejoice 
 and are glad in their God ; and the evils and adversities 
 of the world they bravely suffer, because they are looking 
 forward to gifts and prosperities to come : for we who 
 have put off our earthly birth, and are now created and 
 regenerated by the Spirit, and no longer live to the world 
 but to God, shall not receive God's gifts and promises until 
 we arrive at the presence of God. And yet we always ask, 
 for the repulse of enemies, and for obtaining showers, and 
 either for the removal or the moderating of adversity ; and 
 we pour forth our prayers, and, propitiating and appeasing 
 God, we entreat constantly and urgently, day and night, for 
 your peace and salvation. 
 
 21. Let no one, however, flatter himself, because there is 
 for the present to us and to the profane, to God's worship- 
 pers and to God's opponents, 2 by reason of the equality of 
 the flesh and body, a common condition of worldly troubles, 
 in such a way as to think from this, that all those things 
 which happen are not drawn down by you; since by the 
 
 1 Hab. iii. 17. 
 
 2 Otherwise read, " to us the worshippers of God, and to His profane 
 opponents."
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS. 439 
 
 announcement of God Himself, and by prophetic testimony, 
 it has previously been foretold that upon the unjust should 
 come the wrath of God, and that persecutions which humanly 
 would hurt us should not be wanting ; but, moreover, that 
 vengeance, which should defend with heavenly defence those 
 who were hurt, should attend them. 
 
 22. And how great, too, are those things which in the 
 meantime are happening in that respect on our behalf! 
 Something is given for an example, that the anger of an 
 avenging God may be known. But the day of judgment is 
 still future which the Holy Scripture denounces, saying, 
 " Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand, and destruction 
 from God shall come; for, lo, the day of the Lord cometh, 
 cruel with wrath and anger, to lay the earth desolate, and to 
 destroy the sinners out of it." l And again : " Behold, the 
 clay of the Lord cometh, burning as an oven ; and all the 
 aliens and all that do wickedly shall be as stubble, and the 
 day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord." " 
 The Lord prophesies that the aliens shall be burnt up and 
 consumed ; that is, aliens from the divine race, and the 
 profane, those who are not spiritually new-born, nor made 
 children of God. For that those only can escape who have 
 been new-born and signed with the sign of Christ, God says 
 in another place, when, sending forth His angels to the 
 destruction of the world and the death of the human race, 
 He threatens more terribly in the last time, saying, " Go ye, 
 and smite, and let not your eye spare. Have no pity upon 
 old or young, and slay the virgins and the litde ones and the 
 women, that they may be utterly destroyed. But touch not 
 any man upon whom is written the mark." 3 Moreover, 
 what this mark is, and in what part of the body it is placed, 
 God sets forth in another place, saying, " Go through the 
 midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of 
 the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that 
 be done in the midst thereof." 4 And that the sign pertains 
 to the passion and blood of Christ, and that whoever is found 
 
 1 Isa. xiii. 6-9. 2 Mai. iv. 1. 
 
 8 Ezek. ix. 5. 4 Ezek. ix. 4.
 
 440 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 in this sign is kept safe and unharmed, is also proved by God's 
 testimony, saying, "And the blood shall be to you for a 
 token upon the houses in which ye shall be ; and I will see 
 the blood, and will protect you, and the plague of diminution 
 shall not be upon you when I smite the land of Egypt." * 
 What previously preceded by a figure in the slain lamb is 
 fulfilled in Christ, the truth which followed afterwards. As, 
 then, when Egypt was smitten, the Jewish people could not 
 escape except by the blood and the sign of the lamb ; so also, 
 when the world shall begin to be desolated and smitten, 
 whoever is found in the blood and the sign of Christ alone 
 shall escape. 
 
 23. Look, therefore, 2 while there is time, to the true and 
 eternal salvation ; and since now the end of the world is at 
 hand, turn your minds to God, in the fear of God ; nor let 
 that powerless and vain dominion in the world over the just 
 and meek delight you, since in the field, even among the 
 cultivated and fruitful corn, the tares and the darnel have 
 dominion. Nor say ye that ill fortunes happen because your 
 gods are not worshipped by us ; but know that this is the judg- 
 ment of God's anger, that He who is not acknowledged on 
 account of His benefits may at least be acknowledged through 
 His judgments. Seek the Lord even late; for long ago, God, 
 forewarning by His prophet, exhorts and says, " Seek ye the 
 Lord, and your soul shall live." 3 Know God even late; for 
 Christ at His coming admonishes and teaches this, saying, 
 " This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only 
 true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." 4 Be- 
 lieve Him who deceives not at all. Believe Him who foretold 
 that all these things should come to pass. Believe Him who 
 will give to all that believe the reward of eternal life. Be- 
 lieve Him who will call down on them that believe not, eternal 
 punishments in the fires of Gehenna, 
 
 24. What will then be the glory of faith? what the punish- 
 ment of faithlessness ? When the day of judgment shall come, 
 
 1 Ex. xii. 13. 
 
 2 Or, according to some readings, " Be wise, therefore." 
 8 Amos v. 6. 4 John xvii. 3.
 
 AN ADDRESS TO DEMETRIANUS. 441 
 
 what joy of believers, what sorrow of unbelievers ; that they 
 should have been unwilling to believe here, and now that 
 they should be unable to return that they might believe ! An 
 ever-burning Gehenna will burn up the condemned, and a 
 punishment devouring with living flames ; nor will there be 
 any source whence at any time they may have either respite 
 or end to their torments. Souls with their bodies will be 
 reserved in infinite tortures for suffering. Thus the man 
 will be for ever seen by us who here gazed upon us for a 
 season ; and the short joy of those cruel eyes in the per- 
 secutions that they made for us will be compensated by a 
 perpetual spectacle, according to the truth of holy Scripture, 
 which says, " Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall 
 not be quenched ; and they shall be for a vision to all flesh." 1 
 And again : " Then shall the righteous men stand in great 
 constancy before the face of those who have afflicted them, 
 and have taken away their labours. When they see it, they 
 shall be troubled with horrible fear, and shall be amazed at 
 the suddenness of their unexpected salvation ; and they, re- 
 penting and groaning for anguish of spirit, shall say within 
 themselves, These are they whom we had some time in deri- 
 sion, and a proverb of reproach ; we fools counted their life 
 madness, and their end to be without honour. How are they 
 numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among 
 the saints ! Therefore have we erred from the way of truth, 
 and the light of righteousness hath not shined upon us, and 
 the sun rose not on us. We wearied ourselves in the way of 
 wickedness and destruction; we have gone through deserts 
 where there lay no way ; but we have not known the way 
 of the Lord. What hath pride profited us, or what good 
 hath the boasting of riches done us ? All those things are 
 passed away like a shadow." 2 The pain of punishment will 
 then be without the fruit of penitence ; weeping will be use- 
 less, and prayer ineffectual. Too late they will believe in 
 eternal punishment who would not believe in eternal life. 
 
 25. Provide, therefore, while you may, for your safety and 
 your life. We offer you the wholesome help of our mind 
 1 Isa. Ixvi. 24. 2 Wiscl. v. 1-9.
 
 442 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 and advice. And because we may not hate, and we please 
 God more by rendering no return for wrong, we exhort you 
 while you have the power, while there yet remains to you 
 something of life, to make satisfaction to God, and to emerge 
 from the abyss of darkling superstition 1 into the bright light 
 of true religion. We do not envy your comforts, nor do we 
 conceal the divine benefits. We repay kindness for your 
 hatred; and for the torments and penalties which are inflicted 
 on us, we point out to you the ways of salvation. Believe 
 and live, and do ye who persecute us in time rejoice with us 
 for eternity. When you have once departed thither, there is 
 no longer anyplace for repentance, and no possibility of making 
 satisfaction. Here life is either lost or saved ; here eternal 
 safety is provided for by the worship of God and the fruits 
 of faith. Nor let any one be restrained either by his sins or 
 by his years from coming to obtain salvation. To him who 
 still remains in this world no repentance is too late. The 
 approach to God's mercy is open, and the access is easy to 
 those who seek and apprehend the truth. Do you entreat 
 for your sins, although it be in the very end of life, and at 
 the setting of the sun of time ; and implore God, who is the 
 one and true God, in confession and faith of acknowledgment 
 of Him, and pardon is granted to the man who confesses, 
 and saving mercy is given from the divine goodness to the 
 believer, and a passage is opened to immortality even in death 
 itself. This grace Christ bestows ; this gift of His mercy 
 He confers upon us, by overcoming death in the trophy of 
 the cross, by redeeming the believer with the price of His 
 blood, by reconciling man to God the Father, by quicken- 
 ing our mortal nature with a heavenly regeneration. If it 
 be possible, let us all follow Him ; let us be registered in His 
 sacrament and sign. He opens to us the way of life ; He 
 brings us back to paradise ; Pie leads us on to the kingdom 
 of heaven. Made by Him the children of God, with Him we 
 shall ever live ; with Him we shall always rejoice, restored 
 by His own blood. We Christians shall be glorious together 
 
 1 " From the deep and darkling night of superstition " is another 
 reading.
 
 ON THE VANITY OF IDOLS. 443 
 
 with Christ, blessed of God the Father, always rejoicing with 
 perpetual pleasures in the sight of God, and ever giving 
 thanks to God. For none can be other than always glad and 
 grateful, who, having been once subject to death, has been 
 made secure in the possession of immortality. 
 
 TEEATISE VI. 
 
 ON THE VANITY OF IDOLS : SHOWING THAT THE IDOLS ARE 
 NOT GODS, AND THAT GOD IS ONE, AND THAT THROUGH 
 CHRIST SALVATION IS GIVEN TO BELIEVERS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. This heading embraces the three leading divisions 
 of this treatise. The icriter first of all shows that they 
 in whose honour temples were founded, statues modelled, 
 victims sacrificed, and festal days celebrated, were kings 
 and men and not gods; and therefore that their icor- 
 ship could be of no avail either to strangers or to Romans, 
 and that the power of the Roman empire was to be attri- 
 buted to fate rather than to them, inasmuch as it had 
 arisen by a certain good fortune, and was ashamed of 
 its own origin. Moreover, that it was manifest from 
 
 > their deceitful results, that nothing could be referred to 
 ausjnces or auguries ; nay, even those ivho acknowledged 
 both one God and the demons, allowed that these illusions 
 were the work of the demons, according to the testimony 
 of the poets themselves, and Socrates, Plato, Trismegistus, 
 and Hostanes. The second point, that God is one, he 
 makes evident in a few words, as well from the greater 
 dignity of a monarchy than of other forms of government, 
 as from the very expressions of the heathen and of the 
 common people " God!" and the like. Finally, he 
 treats of Christ more at large, from the Jewish prophets 
 and from the evangelical history . 
 
 1. That those are no gods whom the common people wor- 
 ship, is known from this. They were formerly kings, who on
 
 444 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 account of their royal memory subsequently began to be 
 adored by their people even in death. Thence temples were 
 founded to them; thence images were sculptured to retain 
 the countenances of the deceased by the likeness ; and men 
 sacrificed victims, and celebrated festal days, by way of 
 giving them honour. Thence to posterity those rites became 
 sacred which at first had been adopted as a consolation. 
 And now let us see whether this truth is confirmed in indi- 
 vidual instances. 
 
 2. Melicertes and Leucothea are precipitated into the sea, 
 and subsequently become sea-divinities. The Castors l die by 
 turns, that they may live. JEsculapius is struck by light- 
 ning, that he may rise into a god. Hercules, that he may 
 put off the man, is burnt up in the fires of Oeta. Apollo 
 fed the flocks of Admetus ; Neptune founded walls for La- 
 omedon, and received unfortunate builder no wages for 
 his work. The cave of Jupiter is to be seen in Crete, and 
 his sepulchre is shown ; and it is manifest that Saturn was 
 driven away by him, and that from him Latium received its 
 name, as being his lurking-place (latebra). He was the first 
 that taught to print letters ; he was the first that taught to 
 stamp money in Italy, and thence the treasury is called the 
 treasury of Saturn. And he also was the cultivator of the 
 rustic life, whence he is painted as an old man 2 carrying a 
 sickle. Janus had received him to hospitality when he was 
 driven away, from whose name the Janiculum is so called, 
 and the month of January is appointed. He himself is por- 
 trayed with two faces, because, placed in the middle, he seems 
 to look equally towards the commencing and the closing year. 
 The Mauri, indeed, manifestly worship kings, and do not 
 conceal their name by any disguise. 
 
 3. From this the religion of the gods is variously changed 
 among individual nations and provinces, inasmuch as no one 
 god is worshipped by all, but by each one the worship of its 
 own ancestors is kept peculiar. Proving that this is so, Alex- 
 ander the Great writes in the remarkable volume addressed 
 
 1 Most editors read, " Castor and Pollux." 
 
 2 According to some readings, the words " an old man" are omitted.
 
 ON THE VANITY OF IDOLS. 445 
 
 to his mother, that through fear of his power the doctrine of 
 the gods being men, which was kept secret, 1 had been dis- 
 closed to him by a priest, that it was the memory of ancestors 
 and kings that was [really] kept up, and that from this the 
 rites of worship and sacrifice have grown up. But if gods 
 were born at any time, why are they not born in these days 
 also ? unless, indeed, Jupiter possibly has grown too old, 
 or the faculty of bearing has failed Juno. 
 
 4. But why do you think that the gods can avail on behalf 
 of the Romans, when you see that they can do nothing for 
 their own worshippers in opposition to the Eoman arms? 
 For we know that the gods of the Romans are indigenous. 
 Romulus was made a god by the perjury of Proculus, and 
 Picus, and Tiberinus, and Pilumnus, and Census, whom 
 as a god of treachery Romulus would have to be worshipped, 
 just as if he had been a god of counsels, w r hen his perfidy re- 
 sulted in the rape of the Sabines. Tatius also both invented 
 and worshipped the goddess Cloacina ; Hostilius, Fear and 
 Paleness. By and by, I know not by whom, Fever was 
 dedicated, and Acca and Flora the harlots. [To such an 
 extent, indeed, were feigned the names of gods among the 
 Romans, that there is even among them a god, Vicluus, who 
 widows the body from the soul who, as being sad and fune- 
 real, is not kept within the walls, but placed outside ; but who 
 nevertheless, in that he is excluded, is rather condemned by 
 the Roman religion than worshipped. There is also Scansus, 
 so called from ascents, and Forculus from doors, and Lirnen- 
 tinus from thresholds, and Cardea from hinges, and Orbona 
 from bereavement.] 2 These are the Roman gods. But Mars 
 is a Thracian, and Jupiter a Cretan, and Juno either Argive 
 or Samian or Carthaginian, and Diana of Taurus, and the 
 mother of the gods of Ida ; and there are Egyptian monsters, 
 not deities, who assuredly, if they had had any power, would 
 have preserved their own and their people's kingdoms. Cer- 
 tainly there are also among the Romans the conquered 
 
 1 The readings here vary much. The first part of the sentence is found 
 in Minucius Felix, c. 21. 
 
 2 This passage between brackets is of doubtful authenticity.
 
 446 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 Penates whom the fugitive ^Eneas introduced thither. There 
 is also Venus the bald, far more dishonoured by the fact of 
 her baldness in Rome than by her having been wounded in 
 Homer. 
 
 5. Kingdoms do not rise to supremacy through merit, but 
 are varied by chance. Empire was formerly held by both 
 Assyrians and Medes and Persians ; and we know, too, that 
 both Greeks and Egyptians have had dominion. Thus, in the 
 varying vicissitudes of power, the period of empire has also 
 come to the Romans as to the others. But if you recur to its 
 origin, you must needs blush. A people is collected together 
 from profligates and criminals, and by founding an asylum, 
 impunity for crimes makes the number great ; and that their 
 king himself may have a superiority in crime, Romulus be- 
 comes a fratricide; 1 and in order to promote marriage, he makes 
 a beginning of that affair of concord by discords. They 
 steal, they do violence, they deceive in order to increase the 
 population of the state ; their marriage consists of the broken 
 covenants of hospitality and cruel wars with their fathers- 
 in-law. The consulship, moreover, is the highest degree in 
 Roman honours, yet we see that the consulship began even 
 as did the kingdom. Brutus puts his sons to death, that the 
 commendation of his dignity may increase by the approval 
 of his wickedness. The Roman kingdom, therefore, did not 
 grow from the sanctities of religion, nor from auspices and 
 auguries, but it keeps its appointed time within a definite 
 limit. Moreover, Regulus observed the auspices, yet was 
 taken prisoner ; and Mancinus observed their religious obli- 
 gation, yet was sent under the yoke. Paulus had chickens 
 that fed, and yet he was slain at Cannes. Caius Caesar 
 despised the auguries and auspices that were opposed to his 
 sending ships before the winter to Africa ; yet so much the 
 more easily he both sailed and conquered. 
 
 6. Of all these, however, the principle is the same, which 
 misleads and deceives, and with tricks which darken the 
 truth, leads away a credulous and foolish rabble. They are 
 impure and wandering spirits, who, after having been steeped 
 
 1 " Parricida."
 
 ON THE VANITY OF IDOLS. 447 
 
 in earthly vices, have departed from their celestial vigour by 
 the contagion of earth, and do not cease, when ruined them- 
 selves, to seek the ruin of others ; and when degraded them- 
 selves, to infuse into others the error of their own degradation. 
 These demons the poets also acknowledge, and Socrates de- 
 clared that he was instructed and ruled at the will of a demon ; 
 and thence the Magi have a power either for mischief or for 
 mockery, of whom, however, the chief Hostanes both says 
 that the form of the true God cannot be seen, and declares 
 that true angels stand round about His throne. Wherein 
 Plato also on the same principle concurs, and maintaining 
 one God, calls the rest angels or demons. Moreover, Hermes 
 Trismegistus speaks of one God, and confesses that He is in- 
 comprehensible, and beyond our estimation. 
 
 7. These spirits, therefore, are lurking under the statues 
 and consecrated images: these inspire the breasts of their 
 prophets with their afflatus, animate the fibres of the en- 
 trails, direct the flights of birds, rule the lots, give efficiency 
 to oracles, are always mixing up falsehood with truth, for 
 they are both deceived and they deceive ; they disturb their 
 life, they disquiet their slumbers ; their spirits creeping also 
 into their bodies, secretly terrify their minds, distort their 
 limbs, break their health, excite diseases to force them to 
 worship of themselves, so that when glutted with the steam 
 of the altars and the piles of cattle, they may unloose what 
 they had bound, and so appear to have effected a cure. The 
 only remedy from them is when their own mischief ceases ; 
 nor have they any other desire than to call men away from 
 God, and to turn them from the understanding of the true 
 religion, to superstition with respect to themselves ; and since 
 they themselves are under punishment, [they wish] to seek for 
 themselves companions in punishment whom they may by their 
 misguidance make sharers in their crime. These, however, 
 when adjured by us through the true God, at once yield and 
 confess, and are constrained to go out from the bodies pos- 
 sessed. You may see them at our voice, and by the opera- 
 tion of the hidden majesty, smitten with stripes, burnt with 
 fire, stretched out with the increase of a growing punish-
 
 448 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 ment, howlingj groaning, entreating, confessing whence they 
 came and when they depart a even in the hearing of those very 
 persons who worship them, and either springing forth at once 
 or vanishing gradually, even as the faith of the sufferer comes 
 in aid, or the grace of the healer effects. Hence they urge 
 the common people to detest our name, so that men begin to 
 hate us before they know us, lest they should either imitate 
 us if known, or not be able to condemn us. 
 
 8. Therefore the one Lord of all is God. For that sublimity 
 cannot possibly have any compeer, since it alone possesses 
 all power. Moreover, let us borrow an illustration for the 
 divine government from the earth. When ever did an alli- 
 ance in royalty either begin with good faith or end without 
 bloodshed? Thus the brotherhood of the Thebans was 
 broken, and discord endured even in death in their dis- 
 united ashes. And one kingdom could not contain the Koman 
 twins, although the shelter of one womb had held them. 
 Pompey and Caesar were kinsmen, and yet they did not 
 maintain the bond of their relationship in their envious power. 
 Neither should you marvel at this in respect of man, since 
 herein all nature consents. The bees have one king, and in 
 the flocks there is one leader, and in the herds one ruler. 
 Much rather is the Ruler of the world one ; who commands 
 all things, whatsoever they are, with His word, disposes them 
 by His wisdom, and accomplishes them by His power. 
 
 9. He cannot be seen He is too bright for vision ; nor 
 comprehended He is too pure for our discernment ; nor esti- 
 mated He is too great for our perception ; and therefore we 
 are only worthily estimating Him when we say that He is 
 inconceivable. But what temple can God have, whose temple 
 is the whole world ? And while man dwells far and wide, 
 shall I shut up the power of such great majesty within one 
 small building ? He must be dedicated in our mind ; in our 
 breast He must be consecrated. Neither must you ask the 
 name of God. God is His name. Among those there is 
 need of names where a multitude is to be distinguished by 
 the appropriate characteristics of appellations. To God who 
 alone is, belongs the whole name of God ; therefore He is one,
 
 ON THE VANITY OF IDOLS. 449 
 
 and He in His entirety is everywhere diffused. For even 
 the common people in many things naturally confess God, 
 when their mind and soul are admonished of their author 
 and origin. We frequently hear it said, "O God," and "God 
 sees," and "I commend to God," and "God give you," and 
 " as God will," and " if God should grant ;" and this is the 
 very height of sinfulness, to refuse to acknowledge Him 
 whom you cannot but know. 
 
 10. But that Christ is, and in what way salvation came to 
 us through Him, after this manner is the plan, after this 
 manner is the means. First of all, favour with God was 
 given to the Jews. Thus they of old were righteous ; thus 
 their ancestors were obedient to their religious engagements. 
 Thence with them both the loftiness of their rule flourished, 
 and the greatness of their race advanced. But subsequently 
 becoming neglectful of discipline, proud, and puffed up 
 with confidence in their fathers, they despised the divine 
 precepts, and lost the favour conferred upon them. But 
 how profane became their life, what offence to their violated 
 religion was contracted, even they themselves bear witness, 
 since, although they are silent with their voice, they confess 
 it by their end. Scattered and straggling, they wander 
 about; outcasts from their own soil and climate, they are 
 thrown upon the hospitality of strangers. 
 
 11. Moreover, God had previously foretold that it would 
 happen, that as the ages passed on, and the end of the world 
 was near at hand, God would gather to Himself from every 
 nation, and people, and place, worshippers much better in 
 obedience and stronger in faith, 1 who would draw from the 
 divine gift that mercy which the Jews had received and lost 
 by despising their religious ordinances. Therefore of this 
 mercy and grace 2 the Word and Son of God is sent as the 
 dispenser and master, who by all the prophets of old was 
 announced as the enlightener and teacher of the human race. 
 He is the power of God, He is the reason, He is His wisdom 
 
 1 " Of greater obedience and of stronger faith" is a varied reading 
 here. 
 
 2 Some add, " and discipline." 
 
 2 P
 
 450 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 and glory ; He enters into a virgin ; being the Holy Spirit, 1 
 He is endued with flesh; God is mingled with man. This is our 
 God, this is Christ, who, as the mediator of the two, puts on 
 man that He may lead them to the Father. What man is, 
 Christ was willing to be, that man also may be what Christ is. 
 
 12. And the Jews knew that Christ was to come, for He 
 was always being announced to them by the warnings of 
 prophets. But His advent being signified to them as two- 
 fold the one which should discharge the office and example 
 of a man, the other which should avow Him as God they 
 did not understand the first advent which preceded, as being 
 hidden in His passion, but believe in the one only which will 
 be manifest in power. But that the people of the Jews could 
 not understand this, was the desert of their sins. They were 
 so punished by their blindness of wisdom and intelligence, 
 that they who were unworthy of life, had life before their 
 eyes, and saw it not. 
 
 13. Therefore when Christ Jesus, in accordance with what 
 had been previously foretold by the prophets, drove out from 
 men the demons by His word, and by the command of His 
 voice nerved up the paralytics, cleansed the leprous, enlight- 
 ened the blind, gave power of movement to the lame, raised 
 the dead again, compelled the elements to obey Him as 
 servants, the winds to serve Him, the seas to obey Him, the 
 lower regions to yield to Him ; the Jews, who had believed 
 Him man only from the humility of His flesh and body, re- 
 garded Him as a sorcerer for the authority of His power. 
 Their masters and leaders that is, those whom He subdued 
 both by learning and wisdom inflamed with' wrath and 
 stimulated with indignation, 2 finally seized Him and delivered 
 Him to Pontius Pilate, who was then the procurator of Syria 
 on behalf of the Romans, demanding with violent and obsti- 
 
 9 O 
 
 nate urgency His crucifixion and death. 
 
 14. That they would do this He Himself also had foretold ; 
 and the testimony of all the prophets had in like manner 
 
 1 " With the co-operation of the Holy Spirit," is perhaps a more pro- 
 bable reading. 
 
 2 " Set upon Him and" is here interpolated by some.
 
 ON THE VANITY OF IDOLS. 451 
 
 preceded Him, that it behoved Him to suffer, not that He 
 might feel death, but that He might conquer death, and that, 
 when He should have suffered, He should return again into 
 heaven, to show the power of the divine majesty. Therefore 
 the course of events fulfilled the promise. For when cruci- 
 fied, the office of the executioner being forestalled, He Him- 
 self of His own will yielded up His spirit, and on the third 
 day freely rose again from the dead. He appeared to His 
 disciples like as He had been. He gave Himself to the re- 
 cognition of those that saw Him, associated together with 
 Him; and being evident by the substance of His bodily 
 existence, He delayed for forty days, that they might be in- 
 structed by Him in the precepts of life, and might learn what 
 they were to teach. Then in a cloud spread around Him 
 He was lifted up into heaven, that as a conqueror He might 
 bring to the Father, Man whom He loved, whom He put on, 
 whom He shielded from death ; soon to come from heaven 
 for the punishment of the devil and to the judgment of the 
 human race, with the force of an avenger and with the power 
 of a judge ; whilst the disciples, scattered over the world, at 
 the bidding of their Master and God gave forth His precepts 
 for salvation, guided men from their wandering in darkness 
 to the way of light, and gave eyes to the blind and ignorant 
 for the acknowledgment of the truth. 
 
 O 
 
 15. And that the proof might not be the less substantial, 
 and the confession of Christ might not be a matter of plea- 
 sure, they are tried by tortures, by crucifixions, by many 
 kinds of punishments. Pain, which is the test of truth, is 
 brought to bear, that Christ the Son of God, who is trusted in 
 as given to men for their life, might not only be announced 
 by the heralding of the voice, but by the testimony of suffer- 
 ing. Therefore we accompany Him, we follow Him, we 
 have Him as the Guide of our way, the Source of light, the 
 Author of salvation, promising as well the Father as heaven 
 to those who seek and believe. What Christ is, we Chris- 
 tians shall be, if we imitate Christ.
 
 452 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 TREATISE VII. 
 ON THE MORTALITY. 
 
 ARGUMENT. The deacon Pontius in a few words unfolds the 
 burthen of this treatise in his Life of Cyprian. He says : 
 " By whom were Christians, grieved with excessive fond- 
 ness at the loss of their friends, or what is of more con- 
 sequence, with their decrease of faith, comforted with the 
 hope of things to come?" For, first of all, having pointed 
 out that afflictions of this- kind had been foretold by 
 Christ, he tells them that the mortality or plague was not 
 to be feared, in tJiat it leads to immortality, and that there- 
 fore, that man is wanting in faith who is not eager for 
 a better world. Nor is it wonderful that the evils of this 
 life are common to the Christian with the heathens, since 
 they have to suffer more than others in the world, and 
 thence, after the example of Job and Tobias, there is need 
 of patience without murmuring. For that unless the 
 struggle preceded, the victory could not ensue ; and how 
 much soever diseases are common to the virtuous and 
 vicious, yet that death is not common to them, for that the 
 righteous are taken to consolation, while the unrighteous 
 are taken to punishment. Then to the tacit objection that 
 by this mortality they would be deprived of martyrdom, 
 he replies that martyrdom is not in our power, and that 
 even the spirit that is ready for martyrdom is crowned by 
 God the judge. Finally, he tells them that the dead must 
 not be bewailed in such a manner as that we should become 
 a stumbling-block to the Gentiles, as if we were without the 
 hope of a resurrection. But if also the day of our summons 
 should come, we must depart hence with a glad mind to 
 the Lord, especially since we are departing to our country, 
 where the large number of those dear to us are waiting for 
 us : a dense and abundant multitude are longing for us, 
 who, being already secure of their own immortality, are 
 still solicitous about our salvation. Eusebius in his
 
 ON THE MORTALITY. 453 
 
 Chronicon makes mention of the occasion on which Cyprian 
 wrote this treatise, saying, " A pestilent disease took pos- 
 session of many provinces of the whole world, and espe- 
 cially Alexandria and Egypt; as Dionysitis writes, and 
 the treatise of Cyprian ' concerning the Mortality ' bears 
 witness." 
 
 1. Although in very many of you, dearly beloved brethren, 
 there is a stedfast mind and a firm faith, and a devoted spirit 
 that is not disturbed at the frequency of this present mor- 
 tality, but, like a strong and stable rock, rather shatters the 
 turbulent onsets of the world and the raging waves of time, 
 while it is not itself shattered, and is not overcome but tried 
 by these temptations ; yet because I observe that among the 
 people some, either through weakness of mind, or through 
 decay of faith, or through the sweetness of this worldly life, or 
 through the softness of their sex, or what is of still greater 
 account, through error from the truth, are standing less 
 steadily, and are not exerting the divine and unvanquished 
 vigour of their heart, the matter may not be disguised nor kept 
 in silence, but as far as my feeble powers suffice with my full 
 strength, and with a discourse gathered from the Lord's lessons, 
 the slothfulness of a luxurious disposition must be restrained, 
 and he who has begun to be already a man of God and of 
 Christ, must be found worthy of God and of Christ. 
 
 2. For he who wars for God, dearest brethren, ought to 
 acknowledge himself as one who, placed in the heavenly camp, 
 already hopes for 1 divine things, so that we may have no 
 trembling at the storms and whirlwinds of the world, and no 
 disturbance, since the Lord had foretold that these would 
 come. With the exhortation of His foreseeing word, in- 
 structing, and teaching, and preparing, and strengthening the 
 people of His church for all endurance of things to come, He 
 predicted and said that wars, and famines, and earthquakes, 
 and pestilences would arise in each place ; and lest an unex- 
 pected and new dread of mischiefs should shake us, He pre- 
 viously warned us that adversity would increase more and 
 
 1 Some read " breathes."
 
 454 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 more in the last times. Behold, the very things occur which 
 were spoken ; and since those occur which were foretold 
 before, whatever things were promised will also follow ; as 
 the Lord Himself promises, saying, " But when ye see all 
 these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God 
 is at hand." 1 The kingdom of God, beloved brethren, is 
 
 O / / 
 
 beginning to be at hand ; the reward of life, and the rejoic- 
 ing of eternal salvation, and the perpetual gladness 2 and 
 possession lately lost of paradise, are now coming, with the 
 passing away of the world ; already heavenly things are taking 
 the place of earthly, and great things of small, and eternal 
 things of things that fade away. What room is there here 
 for anxiety and solicitude? Who, in the midst of these 
 things, is trembling and sad, except he who is without hope 
 and faith ? For it is for him to fear death who is not willing 
 to go to Christ. It is for him to be unwilling to go to Christ 
 who does not believe that he is about to reign 3 with Christ. 
 
 3. For it is written that the just lives by faith. If you 
 are just, and live by faith, if you truly believe in Christ, 
 why, since you are about to be with Christ, and are secure 
 of the Lord's promise, do you not embrace the assurance that 
 you are called to Christ, and rejoice that you are freed from 
 the devil ? Certainly Simeon, that just man, who was truly 
 just, who kept God's commands with a full faith, when it 
 had been pledged him from heaven that he should not die 
 before he had seen the Christ, and Christ had come an infant 
 into the temple with His mother, acknowledged in spirit 
 that Christ was now born, concerning whom it had before 
 been foretold to him ; and when he had seen Him, he knew 
 that he should soon die. Therefore, rejoicing concerning his 
 now approaching death, and secure of his immediate summons, 
 he received the child into his arms, and blessing the Lord, he 
 exclaimed, and said, " Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart 
 in peace, according to Thy word ; for mine eyes have seen 
 Thy salvation ;" 4 assuredly proving and bearing witness that 
 the servants of God then had peace, then free, then tranquil 
 
 1 Luke xxi. 31. s Or, " security." 
 
 3 Some add, " for ever." * Luke ii. "29.
 
 ON THE MORTALITY. 455 
 
 repose, when, withdrawn from these whirlwinds of the world, 
 we attain the harbour of our home and eternal security, when 
 having accomplished this death we come to immortality. For 
 that is our 1 peace, that our faithful tranquillity, that our 
 stedfast, and abiding, and perpetual security. 
 
 4. But for the rest, what else in the world than a battle 
 against the devil is daily carried on, than a struggle against 
 his darts and weapons in constant conflicts ? Our warfare 
 is with avarice, with immodesty, with anger, with ambition ; 
 our diligent and toilsome wrestle with carnal vices, with 
 enticements of the world. The mind of man besieged, and 
 
 O J 
 
 in every quarter invested with the onsets of the devil, scarcely 
 in each point meets the attack, scarcely resists it. If avarice 
 is prostrated, lust springs up. If lust is overcome, ambition 
 takes its place. If ambition is despised, anger exasperates, 
 pride puffs up, wine-bibbing entices, envy breaks concord, 
 jealousy cuts friendship ; you are constrained to curse, which 
 the divine law forbids ; you are compelled to swear, which is 
 not lawful. 
 
 5. So many persecutions the soul suffers daily, with so 
 many risks is the heart wearied, and yet it delights to abide 
 here long among the devil's weapons, although it should 
 rather be our craving and wish to hasten to Christ by the aid 
 of a quicker death ; as He Himself instructs us, and says, 
 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, That, ye shall weep and 
 lament, but the world shall rejoice ; and ye shall be sorrow- 
 ful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy." 2 Who would 
 not desire to be without sadness ? who would not hasten to 
 attain to joy? But when our sadness shall be turned into joy, 
 the Lord Himself again declares, when He says, " I will see 
 you again, and your heart shall rejoice ; and your joy no man 
 shall take from you." 3 Since, therefore, to see Christ is to 
 rejoice, and we cannot have joy unless when we shall see 
 Christ, what blindness of mind or what folly is it to love the 
 world's afflictions, and punishments, and tears, and not rather 
 to hasten to the joy which can never be taken away ! 
 
 1 Baluzius interpolates here, without authority, "true." 
 
 2 John xvi. 20. 3 John xvi. 22.
 
 456 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 6. But, beloved brethren, this is so, because faith is lack- 
 ing, because no one believes that the things which God pro- 
 mises are true, although He is true, whose word to believers 
 is eternal and unchangeable. If a grave and praiseworthy 
 man should promise you anything, you would assuredly have 
 faith in the promiser, and would not think that you should 
 be cheated and deceived by him whom you knew to be sted- 
 fast in his words and his deeds. Now God is speaking with 
 you; and do you faithlessly waver in your unbelieving mind? 
 God promises to you, on your departure from this world, 
 immortality and eternity ; and do you doubt ? This is not 
 to know God at all ; this is to offend Christ, the Teacher 1 of 
 believers, with the sin of incredulity ; this is for one estab- 
 lished in the church not to have faith in the house of faith. 
 
 7. How great is the advantage of going out of the world, 
 Christ Himself, the Teacher of our salvation and of our good 
 works, shows to us, who, when His disciples were saddened 
 that He said that He was soon to depart, spoke to them, and 
 said, " If ye loved me, ye would surely rejoice because I go 
 to the Father;" 2 teaching thereby, and manifesting that 
 when the dear ones whom we love depart from the world, we 
 should rather rejoice than grieve. Remembering which truth, 
 the blessed Apostle Paul in his epistle lays it down, saying, 
 "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain;" 3 counting it 
 the greatest gain no longer to be held by the snares of this 
 world, no longer to be liable to the sins and vices of the 
 flesh, but taken away from smarting troubles, and freed from 
 the envenomed fangs of the devil, to go at the call of Christ 
 to the joy of eternal salvation. 
 
 8. But nevertheless it disturbs some that the power of this 
 Disease attacks our people equally with the heathens, as if the 
 Christian believed for this purpose, that he might have the 
 enjoyment of the world and this life free from the contact of 
 ills ; and not as one who undergoes all adverse things here 
 and is reserved for future joy. It disturbs some that this 
 mortality is common to us with others ; and yet what is there 
 in this world which is not common to us with others, so long 
 
 1 Or, " Master and Teacher." 2 John xiv. 28. 3 Phil. i. 21.
 
 ON THE MORTALITY. 457 
 
 as this flesh of ours still remains, according to the law of our 
 first birth, common to us with them ? So long as we are here 
 in the world, we are associated with the human race in fleshly 
 equality, but are separated in spirit. Therefore until this 
 corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal receive 
 immortality, and the Spirit 1 lead us to God the Father, what- 
 soever are the disadvantages of the flesh are common to us 
 with the human race. Thus, when the earth is barren with 
 an unproductive harvest, famine makes no distinction ; thus, 
 when with the invasion of an enemy any city is taken, cap- 
 tivity at once desolates all ; and when the serene clouds with- 
 hold the rain, the drought is alike to all ; and when the 
 jagged rocks rend the ship, the shipwreck is common without 
 exception to all that sail in her ; and the disease of the eyes, 
 and the attack of fevers, and the feebleness of all the limbs 
 is common to us with others, so long as this common flesh of 
 ours is borne by us in the world. 
 
 9. Moreover, if the Christian know and keep fast under 
 what condition and what law he has believed, he will be 
 aware that he must suffer more than others in the world, since 
 he must struggle more with the attacks of the devil. Holy 
 Scripture teaches and forewarns, saying, " My son, when thou 
 comest to the service of God, stand in righteousness and fear, 
 and prepare thy soul for temptation." 2 And again : " In pain 
 endure, and in thy humility have patience ; for gold and silver 
 is tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of 
 humiliation." 3 
 
 10. Thus Job, after the loss of his wealth, after the death 
 of his children, grievously afflicted, moreover, with sores and 
 worms, was not overcome, but proved ; since in his very 
 struggles and anguish, showing forth the patience of a reli- 
 gious mind, he says, "Naked came I out of my mother's 
 womb, naked also I shall go under the earth : the Lord gave, 
 the Lord hath taken away ; as it seemed fit to the Lord, so it 
 hath been done. Blessed be the name of the Lord." 4 And 
 when his wife also urged him, in his impatience at the acute- 
 
 1 A few codices read, for " the Spirit," " Christ." 
 
 8 Ecclus. ii. 1, 4. 3 Ecclus. ii. 5. 4 Job i. 21.
 
 458 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 ness of his pain, to speak something against God with a com- 
 plaining and envious voice, he answered and said, " Thou 
 speakest as one of the foolish women. If we have received 
 good from the hand of the Lord, why shall we not suffer 
 evil? In all these things which befell him, Job sinned not 
 
 O * 
 
 with his lips in the sight of the Lord." l Therefore the Lord 
 God gives him a testimony, saying, " Hast thou considered 
 my servant Job ? for there is none like him in all the earth, 
 a man without complaint, a true worshipper of God." 2 And 
 Tobias, after his excellent works, after the many and glorious 
 illustrations of his merciful spirit, having suffered the loss of 
 his sight, fearing and blessing God in his adversity, by his 
 very bodily affliction increased in praise ; and even him also 
 his wife tried to pervert, saying, " Where are thy righteous- 
 nesses ? Behold what thou sufferest!" 3 But he, stedfast and 
 firm in respect of the fear of God, and armed by the faith 
 of his religion to all endurance of suffering, yielded not to 
 the temptation of his weak wife in his trouble, but rather 
 deserved better from God by his greater patience ; and after- 
 wards Raphael the angel praises him, saying, " It is honour- 
 able to show forth and to confess the works of God. For when 
 thou didst pray, and Sara thy daughter-in-law, I did offer the 
 remembrance of your prayer in the presence of the glory of 
 God. And when thou didst bury the dead in singleness of 
 heart, and because thou didst not delay to rise up and leave 
 thy dinner, and wentest and didst bury the dead, I was sent 
 to make proof of thee. And God again hath sent me to heal 
 thee and Sara thy daughter-in-law. For I am Raphael, one 
 of the seven holy angels, who are present, and go in and out 
 before the glory of God." 4 
 
 11. Righteous men have ever possessed this endurance. 
 The apostles maintained this discipline from the law of the 
 Lord, not to murmur in adversity, but to accept bravely and 
 patiently whatever things happen in the world; since the 
 people of the Jews in this matter always offended, that they 
 constantly murmured against God, as the Lord God bears 
 witness in the book of Numbers, saying, " Let their murmur- 
 1 Job ii. 10. 2 Job i. 8. 3 Tob. ii. 14. * Tob. xii. 11-15.
 
 ON THE MORTALITY. 459 
 
 ing cease from me, and they shall not die." 1 We must not 
 murmur in adversity, beloved brethren, but we must bear 
 with patience and courage whatever happens, since it is 
 written, " The sacrifice to God is a broken spirit ; a contrite 
 and humbled heart God does not despise;" 2 since also in 
 Deuteronomy the Holy Spirit warns by Moses, and says, 
 <; The Lord thy God will vex thee, and will bring hunger upon 
 thee ; and it shall be known in thine heart if thou hast well 
 kept His commandments or no." 3 And again : " The Lord 
 your God proveth you, that He may know whether ye love the 
 Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul." 4 
 12. Thus Abraham pleased God, who, that he might 
 please God, did not shrink even from losing his son, or from 
 doing an act of parricide. You, who cannot endure to lose 
 your son by the law and lot of mortality, what would you do 
 if you were bidden to slay your son ? The fear and faith 
 of God ought to make you prepared for everything, although 
 it should be the loss of private estate, although the constant 
 and cruel harassment of your limbs by agonizing disorders, 
 although the deadly and mournful wrench from wife, from 
 children, from departing dear ones ; let not these things be 
 offences to you, but battles : nor let them weaken nor break 
 the Christian's faith, but rather show forth his strength in 
 the struggle, since all the injury inflicted by present troubles 
 is to be despised in the assurance of future blessings. Unless 
 the battle has preceded, there cannot be a victory : when there 
 shall have been, in the onset of battle, the victory, then also 
 the crown is mven to the victors. For the helmsman 5 is 
 
 O 
 
 recognised in the tempest ; in the warfare the soldier is proved. 
 It is a wanton display when there is no danger. Struggle in 
 adversity is the trial of the truth. 6 The tree which is deeply 
 founded in its root is not moved by the onset of winds, and 
 the ship which is compacted of solid timbers is beaten by 
 the waves and is not shattered ; and when the threshing-floor 
 brings out the corn, the strong and robust grains despise the 
 
 1 Num. xvii. 10. 2 Ps. li. 17. 3 Deut. viii. 2. 
 
 4 Deut. xiii. 3. 5 According to some, " the ship's helmsman." 
 
 6 Some read, "of virtue."
 
 460 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 winds, while the empty chaff is carried away by the blast that 
 falls upon it. 
 
 13. Thus, moreover, the Apostle Paul, after shipwrecks, 
 after scourgings, after many and grievous tortures of the 
 flesh and body, says that he is not grieved, but benefited by 
 his adversity, in order that while he is sorely afflicted he might 
 more truly be proved. " There was given to me," he says, 
 " a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, 
 that I should not be lifted up : for which thing I besought 
 the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me ; and He said 
 unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for strength is made 
 perfect in weakness." 1 When, therefore, weakness and in- 
 efficiency and any destruction seize us, then our strength is 
 made perfect; then our faith, if when tried it shall stand 
 fast, is crowned ; as it is written, " The furnace trieth the 
 vessels of the potter, and the trial of tribulation just men." 2 
 This, in short, is the difference between us and others who 
 know not God, that in misfortune they complain and mur- 
 mur, while adversity does not call us away from the truth of 
 virtue and faith, but strengthens us by its suffering. 
 
 14. This trial, that now the bowels, relaxed into a constant 
 flux, discharge the bodily strength ; that a fire originated in 
 the marrow ferments into wounds of the fauces; that the 
 intestines are shaken with a continual vomiting; that the 
 eyes are on fire with the injected blood ; that in some cases 
 the feet or some parts of the limbs are taken off by the con- 
 tagion of diseased putrefaction ; that from the weakness aris- 
 ing by the maiming and loss of the body, either the gait is 
 enfeebled, or the hearing is obstructed, or the sight darkened ; 
 is profitable as a proof of faith. What a grandeur of spirit 
 it is to struggle with all the powers of an unshaken mind 
 against so many onsets of devastation and death I what sub- 
 limity, to stand erect amid the desolation of the human race, 
 and not to lie prostrate with those who have no hope in God ; 
 but rather to rejoice, 3 and to embrace the benefit of the 
 occasion ; that in thus bravely showing forth our faith, and 
 
 1 2 Cor. xii. 7-9. 2 Ecclus. xxvii. 5. 
 
 3 Some read, " rather it behoves us to rejoice."
 
 THE MORTALITY. 461 
 
 by suffering endured, going forward to Christ by the narrow 
 way that Christ trod, we may receive the reward of His life 1 
 and faith according to His own judgment ! Assuredly he 
 may fear to die, who, not being regenerated of water and the 
 Spirit, is delivered over to the fires of Gehenna ; he may fear 
 to die who is not enrolled in the cross and passion of Christ ; 
 he may fear to die, who from this death shall pass over to a 
 second death ; he may fear to die, whom on his departure 
 from this world eternal flame shall torment with never-ending 
 punishments ; he may fear to die who has this advantage in a 
 lengthened delay, that in the meanwhile his groanings and 
 his anguish are being postponed. 
 
 15. Many of our people die in this mortality, that is, many 
 of our people are liberated from this world. This mortality, 
 as it is a plague to Jews and Gentiles, and enemies of Christ, 
 so it is a departure to salvation to God's servants. The fact 
 that, without any difference made between one and another, 
 the righteous die as well as the unrighteous, is no reason for you 
 to suppose that it is a common death for the good and evil 
 alike. The righteous are called to their place of refreshing, 
 the unrighteous are snatched away to punishment ; safety is 
 the more speedily given to the faithful, penalty to the unbe- 
 lieving. We are thoughtless and ungrateful, beloved brethren, 
 for the divine benfits, and do not acknowledge what is con- 
 ferred upon us. Lo, virgins depart in peace, safe with their 
 glory, not fearing the threats of the coming antichrist, and 
 his corruptions and his brothels. Boys escape the peril of 
 their unstable age, and in happiness attain the reward of 
 continence and innocence. Now the delicate matron does 
 not fear the tortures ; for she has escaped by a rapid death 
 the fear of persecution, and the hands and the torments -of 
 the executioner. By the dread of the mortality and of the 
 time the lukewarm are inflamed, the slack are nerved up, 
 the slothful are stimulated, the deserters are compelled to 
 return, the heathens are constrained to believe, the ancient 
 congregation of the faithful is called to rest, the new and 
 abundant army is gathered to the battle with a braver vigour, 
 1 Or, " of the way."
 
 462 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 to fight without fear of death when the battle shall come, 
 because it comes to the warfare in the time of the mortality. 
 
 16. And further, beloved brethren, what is it, what a 
 great thing is it, how pertinent, how necessary, that that 
 pestilence and plague -which seems horrible and deadly, 
 searches out the righteousness of each one, and examines the 
 minds of the human race, to see whether they who are in 
 health tend the sick ; whether relations affectionately love 
 their kindred; whether masters pity their languishing ser- 
 vants; whether physicians do not forsake the beseeching 
 patients ; whether the fierce suppress their violence ; whether 
 the rapacious can quench the ever insatiable ardour of their 
 raging avarice even by the fear of death ; whether the 
 haughty bend their neck ; whether the wicked soften their 
 boldness ; whether, when their dear ones perish, the rich, 
 even then bestow anything, 1 and give, when they are to die 
 without heirs. Even although this mortality conferred no- 
 thing else, it has done this benefit to Christians and to God's 
 servants, that we begin gladly to desire martyrdom as we 
 learn not to fear death. These are trainings for us, not 
 deaths : they give the mind the glory of fortitude ; by con- 
 tempt of death they prepare for the crown. 
 
 17. But perchance some one may object, and say, " It is 
 this, then, that saddens me in the present mortality, that I, 
 who had been prepared for confession, and had devoted my- 
 self to the endurance of suffering with my whole heart and 
 with abundant courage, am deprived of martyrdom, in that 
 I am anticipated by death." In the first place, martyrdom 
 is not in your power, but in the condescension of God ; 
 neither can you say that you have lost what you do not 
 know whether you would deserve to receive. Then, besides, 
 God the searcher of the reins and heart, and the investi- 
 gator and knower of secret things, sees you, and praises and 
 approves you ; and He who sees that your virtue was ready 
 in you, will give you a reward for your virtue. Had Cain, 
 when he offered his gift to God, already slain his brother ? 
 And yet God, foreseeing the fratricide conceived in his 
 
 1 Some add, " on the poor."
 
 ON THE MORTALITY. 463 
 
 mind, anticipated its condemnation. As in that case the 
 evil thought and mischievous intention were foreseen 1 by a 
 foreseeing God, so also in God's servants, among whom con- 
 fession is purposed and martyrdom conceived in the mind, 
 the intention dedicated to good is crowned by God the judge. 
 It is one thing for the spirit to be wanting for martyrdom, 
 and another for martyrdom to have been wanting for the 
 spirit. Such as the Lord finds you when He calls you, such 
 also He judges you ; since He Himself bears witness, and says, 
 " And all the churches shall know that I am the searcher 
 of the reins and heart." 3 For God does not ask for our 
 blood, but for our faith. 3 For neither Abraham, nor Isaac, 
 nor Jacob were slain ; and yet, being honoured by the deserts 
 of faith and righteousness, they deserved to be first among the 
 patriarchs, to whose feast is collected every one that is found 
 faithful, and righteous, and praiseworthy. 
 
 18. We ought to remember that we should do not our own 
 will, but God's, in accordance with what our Lord has bidden 
 us daily to pray. How preposterous and absurd it is, that 
 while we ask that the will of God should be done, yet when 
 God calls and summons us from this world, we should not at 
 once obey the command of His will ! We struggle and resist, 
 and after the manner of froward servants we are dragged to 
 the presence of the Lord with sadness and grief, departing 
 hence under the bondage of necessity, not with the obedience 
 
 O 9 * 
 
 of free will ; and we wish to be honoured with heavenly 
 rewards by Him to whom w r e come unwillingly. Why, then, 
 do we pray and ask that the kingdom of heaven may come, 
 if the captivity of earth delights us ? Why with frequently 
 repeated prayers do we entreat and beg that the day of His 
 kingdom may hasten, if our greater desires and stronger 
 wishes are to obey the devil here, rather than to reign with 
 Christ ? 
 
 19. Besides, that the indications of the divine providence 
 may be more evidently manifest, proving that the Lord, pre- 
 
 1 Or, " perceived." 2 Apoc. ii. 23. 
 
 3 Some originals read, "does not desire our blood, but asks for our 
 faith."
 
 464 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 scient of the future, takes counsel for the true salvation of His 
 people, when one of our colleagues and fellow-priests, wearied 
 out with infirmity, and anxious about the present approach 
 of death, prayed for a respite to himself ; there stood by 
 him as he prayed, and when he was now at the point of 
 death, a youth, venerable in honour and majesty, lofty in 
 stature and shining in aspect, and on whom, as he stood by 
 him, the human glance could scarcely look with fleshly eyes, 
 except that he who was about to depart from the world could 
 already behold such a one. And he, not without a certain in- 
 dignation of mind and voice, rebuked him, and said, You fear 
 to suffer, you do not wish to depart ; what shall I do to you? 
 It was the word of one rebuking and warning, one who, 
 when men are anxious about persecution, and indifferent con- 
 cerning their summons, consents not to their present desire, 
 but consults for the future. Our dying brother and colleague 
 heard what he was to say to others. For he who heard when 
 he was dying, heard for the very purpose that he might tell 
 it ; he heard not for himself, but for us. For what could he, 
 who was already on the eve of departure, learn for himself ? 
 Yea, doubtless, he learnt it for us who remain, in order that, 
 when we find the priest who sought for delay rebuked, we 
 might acknowledge what is beneficial for all. 
 
 20. To myself also, the very least and last, how often 
 has it been revealed, how frequently and manifestly has it 
 been commanded by the condescension of God, that I should 
 diligently bear witness and publicly declare that our brethren 
 who are freed from this world by the Lord's summons are 
 not to be lamented, since we know that they are not lost, but 
 sent before ; that, departing from us, they precede us as travel- 
 lers, as navigators are accustomed to do ; that they should be 
 desired, but not bewailed ; that the black garments should 
 not be taken upon us here, when they have already taken 
 upon them white raiment there ; that occasion should not be 
 given to the Gentiles for them deservedly and rightly to re- 
 prehend us, that we mourn for those, who, we say, are alive 
 with God, as if they were extinct and lost ; and that we do 
 not approve with the testimony of the heart and breast the
 
 ON THE MORTALITY. 465 
 
 faith which we express with speech and word. We are pre- 
 varicators of our hope and faith : what we say appears to be 
 simulated, feigned, counterfeit. There is no advantage in 
 setting forth virtue by our words, and destroying the truth 
 by our deeds. 
 
 21. Finally, the Apostle Paul reproaches, and rebukes, and 
 blames any who are in sorrow at the departure of their friends. 
 " I would not," says he, " have you ignorant, brethren, con- 
 cerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as 
 others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus 
 died and rose again, even so them which are asleep in Jesus 
 will God bring with Him." 1 He says that those have sorrow 
 in the departure of their friends who have no hope. But we 
 who live in hope, and believe in God, and trust that Christ 
 suffered for us and rose again, abiding in Christ, and through 
 Him and in Him rising again, why either are we ourselves 
 unwilling to depart hence from this life, or do we bewail and 
 grieve for our friends when they depart as if they were lost, 
 when Christ Himself, our Lord and God, encourages us and 
 says, " I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth 
 in me, though he die, yet shall live ; and whosoever liveth and 
 believeth in me shall not die eternally ? " If we believe in 
 Christ, let us have faith in His words and promises ; and 
 since we shall not die eternally, let us come with a glad 
 security unto Christ, with whom we are both to conquer 
 and to reicm for ever. 
 
 O 
 
 22. That in the meantime we die, we are passing over to 
 immortality by death ; nor can eternal life follow, unless it 
 should befall us to depart from this life. That is not an 
 ending, but a transit, and, this journey of time being tra- 
 versed, a passage to eternity. Who would not hasten to 
 better things? Who would riot crave to be changed and 
 renewed 3 into the likeness of Christ, and to arrive more 
 quickly to the dignity of heavenly glory, since Paul the 
 apostle announces and says, "For our conversation is in 
 heaven, from whence also we look for the Lord Jesus 
 Christ ; who shall change the body of our humiliation, and 
 
 1 1 Tliess. iv. 13. 2 John xi. 25. 3 " Transformed." 
 
 2 G
 
 466 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 conform it to the body of His glory?" 1 Christ the Lord 
 also promises that we shall be such, when, that we may be 
 with Him, and that we may live with Him in eternal man- 
 sions, and may rejoice in heavenly kingdoms, He prays the 
 Father for us, saying, " Father, I will that they also whom 
 Thou hast given me be with me where I am, and may see 
 the glory which Thou hast given me before the world was 
 made." 2 He who is to attain to the throne of Christ, to- 
 the glory of the heavenly kingdoms, ought not to mourn nor 
 lament, but rather, in accordance with the Lord's promise, in 
 accordance with his faith in the truth, to rejoice in this his 
 departure and translation. 
 
 23. Thus, moreover, we find that Enoch also was trans- 
 lated, who pleased God, as. in Genesis the holy Scripture 
 bears witness, and says, "And Enoch pleased God; and 
 afterwards he was not found, because God translated him." 3 
 To have been pleasing in the sight of God was thus to have 
 merited to be translated from this contagion of the world. 
 And moreover, also, the Holy Spirit teaches by Solomon, that 
 they who please God are more early taken hence, and are 
 more quickly set free, lest while they are delaying longer in 
 this world they should be polluted with the contagions of the 
 world. " He was taken away," says he, " lest wickedness 
 should change his understanding. For his soul was pleasing 
 to God ; wherefore hasted He to take him away from the 
 midst of wickedness." * So also in the Psalms, the soul that 
 is devoted to its God in spiritual faith hastens to the Lord, 
 saying, " How amiable are thy dwellings, O God of hosts I 
 My soul longeth, and hasteth unto the courts of God." 5 
 
 24. It is for him to wish to remain long in the world whom 
 the world delights, whom this life, flattering and deceiving, 
 invites by the enticements of earthly pleasure. Again, since 
 the world hates the Christian, why do you love that which 
 hates you ? and why do you not rather follow Christ, who both 
 redeemed you and loves you ? John in his epistle cries and 
 says, exhorting that we should not follow carnal desires and 
 
 1 Phil. iii. 21. 2 John xvii. 24. 8 Gen. v. 24. 
 
 * Wisd. iv. 11. 5 Ps. Ixxxiv. 1.
 
 ON THE MORTALITY. 457 
 
 love the world. "Love not the world," says he, "neither 
 the things which are in the world. If any man love the 
 world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is 
 in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, 
 and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but of the 
 lust of the world. And the world shall pass away, and the 
 lust thereof ; but he who doeth the will of God abideth for 
 ever, even as God abideth for ever." l Rather, beloved 
 brethren, with a sound mind, with a firm faith, with a robust 
 virtue, let us be prepared for the whole will of God : laying 
 aside the fear of death, let us think on the immortality which 
 follows. By this let us show ourselves to be what we believe, 
 that we do not grieve over the departure of those dear to us, 
 and that when the day of our summons shall arrive, we come 
 without delay and without resistance to the Lord when He 
 Himself calls us. 
 
 25. And this, as it ought always to be done by God's 
 servants, much more ought to be done now now that the 
 world is collapsing and is oppressed with the tempests of mis- 
 chievous ills ; in order that we who see that terrible things 
 have begun, and know that still more terrible things are im- 
 minent, may regard it as the greatest advantage to depart from 
 it as quickly as possible. If in your dwelling the walls were 
 shaking with age, the roofs above you were trembling, and 
 the house, now worn out and wearied, were threatening an 
 immediate destruction to its structure crumbling with age, 
 would you not with all speed depart ? If, when you were on a 
 voyage, an angry and raging tempest, by the waves violently 
 aroused, foretold the coming shipwreck, would you not quickly 
 seek the harbour? Lo, the world is changing and passing 
 away, and witnesses to its ruin not now by its age, but by 
 the end of things. And do you not give God thanks, do 
 you not congratulate yourself, that by an earlier departure 
 you are taken away, and delivered from the shipwrecks and 
 disasters that are imminent ? 
 
 26. We should consider, dearly beloved brethren we 
 should ever and anon reflect that we have renounced the 
 
 1 1 John ii. 15.
 
 .468 THE TREATISES OF CYPRIAN. 
 
 world, and are in the meantime living here as guests and 
 strangers. Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to 
 his own home, which snatches us hence, and sets us free from 
 the snares of the world, and restores us to paradise and the l 
 kingdom. Who that has been placed in foreign lands would 
 not hasten to return to his own country ? Who that is 
 hastening to return to his friends would not eagerly desire 
 a prosperous gale, that he might the sooner embrace those 
 dear to him ? We regard paradise as our country we 
 already begin to consider the patriarchs as our parents : 
 why do we not hasten and run, that we may behold our 
 country, that we may greet our parents ? There a great 
 number of our dear ones is awaiting us, and a dense crowd 
 of parents, brothers, children, is longing for us, already assured 
 of their own safety, and still solicitous for our salvation. To 
 attain to their presence and their embrace, what a gladness 
 both for them and for us in common ! What a pleasure is 
 there in the heavenly kingdom, without fear of death ; and 
 how lofty and perpetual a happiness with eternity of living ! 
 There the glorious company of the apostles there the host 
 of the rejoicing prophets there the innumerable multitude 
 of martyrs, crowned for the victory of their struggle and 
 passion there the triumphant virgins, who subdued the lust 
 of the flesh and of the body by the strength of their conti- 
 nency there are merciful men rewarded, who by feeding 
 and helping the poor have done the works of righteousness 
 who, keeping the Lord's precepts, have transferred their 
 earthly patrimonies to the heavenly treasuries. To these, 
 beloved brethren, let us hasten with an eager desire ; let us 
 crave quickly to be with them, and quickly to come to Christ. 
 May God behold this our eager desire ; may the Lord Christ 
 look upon this purpose of our mind and faith, He who will 
 give the larger rewards of His glory to those whose desires in 
 respect of Himself were greater ! 
 
 1 Some have " heavenly."
 
 lj> C. & C. Ctoft, ffilinitirjlj. 
 
 WORKS OF JOHN CALVIN, 
 
 IN 51 VOLUMES, DEMY 8vo. 
 
 MESSRS CLARK beg respectfully to announce that the whole STOCK and COPYRIGHTS of 
 the WORKS OF CALVIN, published by the Calvin Translation Society, are noTther 
 property, and that this valuable Series will be issued by them on the folio wiue verv 
 favourable terms : J 
 
 1. Complete Sets in 51 Volumes, Nine Guineas. (Original Subscription price about 
 
 lo.) The ' LETTERS,' edited by Dr BONNET, 2 vols., 10s. 6d. additional 
 
 2. Complete Sets of Commentaries, 45 vols., 7, 17s. 6d. 
 
 3. A Selection of Six Volumes (or more at the same proportion 1 ) for 21s., with the 
 
 exception of the INSTITUTES, 3 vols.; PSALMS, vol. 5; and HABAKKUK. 
 
 4. Any Separate Volume (except INSTITUTES), 6s. 
 
 The Contents of the Series are as follow: 
 
 Institutes of the Christian Eeligion, 3 vols. 
 Tracts on the Reformation, 3 vols. 
 Commentary on Genesis, 2 vols. 
 Harmony of the last Four Books of the 
 
 Pentateuch, 4 vols. 
 Commentary on Joshua, 1 vol. 
 
 on the Psalms, 5 vols. 
 
 on Isaiah, 4 vols. 
 
 on Jeremiah and Lamentations, 5 vols. 
 
 on Ezekiel, 2 vols. 
 
 on Daniel, 2 vols. 
 
 on Hosea, 1 vol. 
 
 on Joel, Amos, and Obadiah, 1 vol. 
 
 on Jonah, Micah, and Nahum, 1 vol. 
 
 on Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Haggai, 
 1 VoL 
 
 Commentary on Zechariah and Malachi, 1 
 
 vol. 
 Harmony of the Synoptical Evangelists, 
 
 3 vols. 
 
 Commentary on John's Gospel, 2 vols. 
 f on Acts of the Apostles, 2 vols. 
 r on Romans, 1 vol. 
 r on Corinthians, 2 vols. 
 ' Galatians and Ephesians, 1 vol. 
 r on Philippians, Colossians, and Thes- 
 
 salonians, 1 vol. 
 r on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, 1 
 
 vol. 
 
 on Hebrews, 1 vol. 
 r on Peter, John, James, and Judo, 1 vol. 
 
 In Two Volumes, 8vo, price 14s. (1300 pages), 
 
 THE INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 BY JOHN CALVIN. 
 Translated by HENRY BEVERIDGE. 
 
 THIS translation of Calvin's Institutes was originally executed for the Calvin Transla- 
 tion Society, and is universally acknowledged to bo the best English version of the work. 
 The Publishers have reprinted it in an elegant form, and have at the same time fixed a 
 price so low as to bring it within the reach of all. 
 
 In One Volume, 8vo, price 8s. Cd., 
 
 CALVIN: 
 
 HIS LIFE, LABOURS, AND WRITINGS. 
 
 By FELIX BUNGENER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE ' HISTORY OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT,' ETC. 
 
 'M. Bungener's French vivacity has admirably combined with critical care and with 
 admiring reverence, to furnish what we venture to think the best portrait of Calvin 
 hitherto drawn. He tells us all that we need to know ; and instead of overlaying his 
 work with minute details and needless disquisitions, he simply presents the disencumbered 
 features, and preserves the true proportions of the great Reformer's character. We 
 heartily commend the work.' Patriot. 
 
 'Few will sit down to this volume without resolving to read it to the close.' Clerical 
 Journal.
 
 WILLIAM OLIPHAHT & CO.'S RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Just published, in Eight Volumes, large crown 8vo, pi-ice 2, 8s., 
 
 Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations, An entirely New Edition, 
 
 Eevised and Annotated by the Rev. J. L. PORTER, D.D., LL.D., Author of 'The 
 Giant Cities of Bashan,' etc. With numerous Illustrations on Wood and Steel. 
 These J ILLUSTRATIONS' consist of Original Headings for a Year on subjects relating to 
 Sacred History, Biography, Geography, Antiquities, and Theology. Especially designed 
 for the Family Circle and Sabbath School Teachers. 
 
 This Edition, like the former, consists of Two Series, as follows: 
 
 VOL. MORNING SERIES. 
 
 1. THE ANTEDILUVIANS AND PATRIARCHS. 
 
 2. MOSES AND THE JUDGES. 
 
 3. SAMUEL, SAUL, AND DAVID. 
 
 4. SOLOMON AND THE KINGS. 
 
 VOL. EVENING SERIES. 
 
 1. JOB AND THE POETICAL BOOKS. 
 
 2. ISAIAH AND THE PROPHETS. 
 
 3. LIFE AND DEATH OF OUR LORD. 
 
 4. THE APOSTLES AND THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 Each Volume is complete in itself, and is sold separately, price 6s. 
 
 The set may also be had in Half -Morocco, Roxburgh, Gilt Top, price 3, 5s.; or in 
 elegant Half-Morocco, Marbled Edges, price 8, 7s. 6d. 
 
 This Edition can also be had in Parts at One Shilling each. 
 
 Just published, in crown 8vo, price 6s., Illustrated with Six Steel Engravings, 
 
 The Desert and the Holy Land, By the Rev, Alex, Wallace, 
 
 D.D., Author of ' The Bible and Working People.' Containing an account of a 
 Journey recently made through the Desert of Sinai to the most interesting places 
 in the Holy Land. 
 
 CONTENTS: 1. Marseilles to Cairo; 2. Cairo; 3. Sakharra, Memphis, the Pyramids; 
 4. Suez to the Wells of Moses; 6. Wells of Moses to Mount Sinai; 6. Convent of St. 
 Catherine and Environs; 7. A Day in the Desert; 8. Sinai to Gaza; 9. Gaza to Jaffa; 
 
 10. Jaffa to Jerusalem; 11. Jerusalem and the Holy Places; 12. The Jordan and 
 the Dead Sea; 13. Nazareth and the Lake of Galilee; 14. Lebanon and Damascus; 
 15. Two Weeks in a Turkish Lazaretto ; Appendix. 
 
 Just published, in small crown 8vo, price 3s. 6d., 
 
 William Farel, and the Story of the Swiss Reform, By the 
 
 Eev. WM. M. BLACKBURN. 
 
 CONTENTS:!. The Holy Cross; 2. Not Battles but Books; 3. A Strange Voice in Paris; 
 4. A Circle of Friends; 5. A Busy Bishop; G. Farel a Wanderer; 7. A New Field; 
 8. Mourning and Madness; 9. Farel's Turning-Point; 10. The Alpine Schoolmaster; 
 
 11. The Eomance of Preaching; 12. My Lords of Berne; 13. The Huguenots Appear; 
 14. Laymen in the Field ; 15. The Preachers at the Inn ; 16. Froment's Little Ser- 
 mons; 17. Farel in his Element; 18. Calvin united with Farel; 19. Peace to the 
 Storms ; 20. Farel's Neighbourly Visits; 21. Old Life with New Love ; 22. The Call 
 to Glory. 
 
 In crown 8vo, price 3s. 6d. each, 
 
 Notes on the G-ospels, By Professor Jacobus, D,D,, of the 
 
 Theological Seminary, Alleghany, U.S. With Illustrations. 
 Vol. I. MATTHEW. Vol. II. MAEK AND LUKE. Vol. III. JOHN. 
 
 ' The book has been carefully prepared, and is admirably adapted for Sunday-school 
 teachers, and all who wish to have the results of criticism rather than the criticism itself. 
 The present edition is neatly and clearly printed, and can hardly fail to be popular.' 
 Journal of Sacred Literature. 
 
 'We spoke in strong commendation of the author's "Notes on Matthew," as having 
 more fitness to the wants of those who have no knowledge of the Greek Scriptures, than 
 any other popular commentary known to us We retain our opinion of the pecu- 
 liar value of his labours Professor Jacobus has certainly done more for the intelli- 
 gent study of the Gospels in Sunday schools, and for the edifying perusal of them in 
 families, than any preceding writer having the same scope and aim Nonconformist. 
 
 ' This is one of those volumes, too few in number, which may with safety and confi- 
 dence be commended to Sabbath-school teachers and village ministers. We have at 
 present no such portable volume on Matthew. Its information and instruction are clear 
 and lucid ; at the same time it is manly and strong.' Eclectic Review. 
 
 EDINBURGH: W. OLIPHANT & CO. LONDON: HAMILTON & CO.
 
 MAGMILLAN & GO.'S PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 Ecce Homo : A Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Ninth 
 
 Edition, crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 ' To me it appears that each page of the book breathes out, as it proceeds, what we may 
 call an air, which grows musical by degrees, and which, becoming more distinct even as 
 it swells, takes form, as in due time we find, in the articulate conclusion, " Surely this is 
 the Son of God ; surely this is the King of Heaven." 'Mr. GLADSTONE in Good Words. 
 
 The Nature of the Atonement, and its Eelation to Remission of Sins 
 
 and Eternal Life. By JOHN M'LEOD CAMPBELL. Second Edition, revised, 8vo, 
 10s. 6d. 
 
 'One of the deepest and noblest of modern contributions to theological study.' 
 Spectator. 
 
 BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 Notes on the Parables of our Lord, Tenth Edition. 8vo, cloth, 12s. 
 Notes on the Miracles of our Lord. Eighth Edition. 8vo, cloth, 12s. 
 Synonyms of the New Testament. New Edition. One volume 8vo, cloth, 
 
 10s. 6d. 
 
 Studies in the Gospels. Second Edition. 8vo, 10s. 6d. 
 
 Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia. Third 
 
 Edition, revised, 8s. 6d. 
 
 The Psalms Chronologically Arranged : an Amended Version, with .His- 
 torical Introductions and Explanatory Notes. By FOUK FKIENDS. Crown 8vo, 
 10s. 6d. 
 
 'It is a work of choice scholarship and rare delicacy of touch and feeling.' British 
 Quarterly. 
 
 WORKS BY JAMES M'COSH, LL.D. 
 
 The Method of the Divine Government, Physical and Moral. Ninth 
 
 Edition, 8vo, 10s. 6d. 
 
 The Supernatural in Relation to the Natural. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. 
 The Intuitions of the Mind. A New Edition. 8vo, cloth, 10s. 6d. 
 An Examination of Mr. J. S. Mill's Philosophy. Being a Defence of 
 
 Fundamental Truth. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Eecent British Philosophy : a Review, with Criticisms, including some 
 
 Comments on Mr. Mill's Answer to Sir William Hamilton. By Professor MASSON. 
 New and Cheaper Edition, crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 WORKS BY THE REV. W. ARCHER BUTLER,, M.A., late Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy in the University of Dublin. 
 
 Sermons, Doctrinal and Practical. Edited, with a Memoir of the Author's 
 
 Life, by T. WOODWARD, M.A., Dean of Down. With Portrait. Seventh and 
 Cheaper Edition, 8vo, 8s. 
 
 A Second Series of Sermons. Edited by J. A. Jeremie, D.D., Regius 
 
 Professor of Divinity, Cambridge. Fifth and Cheaper Edition, 8vo, 7s. 
 
 History of Ancient Philosophy. Edited by Win. H. Thompson, M.A., 
 
 Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Two volumes 8vo, 1, 5s. 
 
 Letters on Romanism, in reply to Dr. Newman's Essay on Development. 
 
 Edited by the Very Rev. T. WOODWARD Second Edition, revised by Archdeacon 
 HARDWICK. 8vo, 10s. 6d. 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LONDON.
 
 Itlor&s JlubliiiljrtJ bn . & C. t,ivfc, ffirinburgl). 
 
 WORKS OF PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D,D,, 
 
 PRINCIPAL AND PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN TIIE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW. 
 
 In Two Volumes, demy 8vo, price 21s., Fourth Edition, 
 
 THE TYPOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE, 
 
 VIEWED IN CONNECTION WITH THE WHOLE SEKIES OF THE 
 DIVINE DISPENSATIONS. 
 
 'One of the most sober, profound, and thorough treatises which we possess on a sub- 
 ject of great importance in its bearing on Christian doctrine.' Archdeacon Denison's 
 Church and State Review. 
 
 ' As the product of the labours of an original thinker and of a sound theologian, who 
 has at the same time scarcely left unexamined one previous writer on the subject, ancient 
 or modern, this work will be a most valuable accession to the library of the theological 
 student. As a whole, we believe it may, with the strictest truth, be pronounced the best 
 work on the subject that has yet been published.' Record. 
 
 ' A work fresh and comprehensive, learned and sensible, and full of practical religious 
 feeling.' British and Foreign Evangelical Review. 
 
 In demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d., Third Edition, 
 
 EZEKIEL, AND THE BOOK OF HIS PROPHECY: 
 
 AN EXPOSITION; WITH A NEW TKANSLATION. 
 
 In demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d., Second Edition, 
 
 PROPHECY, 
 
 VIEWED IN ITS DISTINCTIVE NATURE, ITS SPECIAL FUNCTIONS, 
 AND PROPER INTERPRETATION. 
 
 ' We would express our conviction that if ever this state of things is to end, and the 
 church is blest with the dawn of a purer and brighter day, it will be through the sober 
 and well-considered efforts of such a man as Dr Fairbairn, and through the general 
 acceptance of some such principles as are laid down for our guidance in this book.' 
 Christian Advocate. 
 
 In demy 8vo, price 10s. Gd., 
 
 HERMENEUTICAL MANUAL; 
 
 OR, INTBODUCTION TO THE EXEGETICAL STUDY OF THE SCRIPTURES 
 OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 PART I. Discussion of Facts and Principles bearing on the Language and Interpretation 
 
 of the New Testament. 
 PART II. Dissertations on particular subjects connected with the Exegesis of the New 
 
 Testament. 
 PART III. On the Use made of Old Testament Scripture in the Writings of the New 
 
 Testament 
 
 ' Dr Fairbairn has precisely the training which would enable him to give a fresh and 
 suggestive book on Hermeneutics. Without going into any tedious detail, it presents the 
 points that are important to a student. There is a breadth of view, a clearness and 
 manliness of thought, and a ripeness of learning, which make the work one of peculiar 
 freshness and interest. I consider it a very valuable addition to every student's library.' 
 Rev. Dr Moore, Author of the able Commentary on ' The Prophets of the Restoration.'
 
 KlovhS JSubltsIjrtJ 6 C. & . 
 
 WORKS BY THE LATE WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, D,D,, 
 
 PRINCIPAL AXD PROFESSOR OP CHURCH HISTORY, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH. 
 
 COMPLETE IN FOUR VOLUMES 8vo, PRICE 2, 2s. 
 In Two Volumes, demy 8vo, price 21s., Second Edition, 
 
 HISTORICAL THEOLOGY: 
 
 A EEVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL DOCTRINAL DISCUSSIONS IN THE 
 CHRISTIAN CHURCH SINCE THE APOSTOLIC AGE. 
 
 Chapter 1. The Church ; 2. The Council of Jerusalem ; 3. The Apostles' Creed ; 4. The 
 Apostolical Fathers ; 5. Heresies of the Apostolical Age ; 6. The Fathers of the 
 Second and Third Centuries j 7. The Church of the Second and Third Centuries; 
 8. The Constitution of the Church ; 9. The Doctrine of the Trinity ; 10. The Person 
 of Christ ; 11. The Pelagian Controversy ; 12. Worship of Saints and Images ; 
 13. The Civil and Ecclesiastical Authorities ; 14. The Scholastic Theology ; 15. The 
 Canon Law, 16. Witnesses for the Truth during Middle Ages; 17. The Church 
 at the Reformation; 18. The Council of Trent; 19. The Doctrine of the Fall; 
 20. Doctrine of the Will ; 21. Justification ; 22. The Sacramental Principle ; 23. The 
 Socinian Controversy ; 24. Doctrine of the Atonement ; 25. The Arminian Con- 
 troversy ; 26. Church Government ; 27. The Erastian Controversy. 
 
 In demy 8vo (624 pages), price 10s. 6d., Second Edition, 
 
 THE REFORMERS AND THE THEOLOGY 
 OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 Chapter 1. Leaders of the Reformation ; 2. Luther ; 3. The Reformers and the Doctrine 
 of Assurance ; 4. Melancthon and the Theology of the Church of England ; 5. Zwingle 
 and the Doctrine of the Sacraments ; 6. John Calvin ; 7. Calvin and Beza ; 8. Calvin- 
 ism and Arminianism ; 9. Calvinism and the Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity ; 
 10. Calvinism and its Practical Application ; 11. The Reformers and the Lessons 
 from their History. 
 4 This volume is a most magnificent vindication of the Reformation, in both its men 
 
 and its doctrines, suited to the present time and to the present state of the controversy.' 
 
 Witness. 
 
 In One Volume, demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d., 
 
 DISCUSSIONS ON CHURCH PRINCIPLES: 
 
 POPISH, ERASTIAN, AND PRESBYTERIAN. 
 
 Chapter 1. The Errors of Romanism; 2. Romanist Theory of Development; 3. The 
 Temporal Sovereignty of the Pope ; 4. The Temporal Supremacy of the Pope ; 5. The 
 Liberties of the Gallican Church; 6. Roj-al Supremacy in Church of England; 
 7. Relation between Church and State ; 8. The Westminster Confession on Relation 
 between Church and State; 9. Church Power; 10. Principles of the Free Church; 
 11. The Rights of the Christian People ; 12. The Principle of Non-Intrusion ; 
 13. Patronage and Popular Election. 
 
 In Two Volumes, demy 8vo, price 21s., 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH: 
 
 AN INQUIRY, CRITICAL AND DOCTRINAL, INTO THE GENUINENESS, 
 
 AUTHORITY, AND DESIGN OF THE MOSAIC WRITINGS. 
 
 BY REV. D. MACDONALD. 
 
 1 The object of this work is very opportune at the present time. It contains a full 
 review of the evidences, external and internal, for the genuineness, authenticity, and 
 divine character of the Pentateuch. While it gives full space and weight to the purely 
 critical and historical portions of the inquiry, its special attention is devoted to the cer- 
 tainly more profound and more conclusive considerations derived from the connection 
 between the Pentateuch and the great scheme of revelation, of which it forms the basis ; 
 and this portion of the work is that upon which the author lays most stress. We entirely 
 agree with him in his view of its importance. The work is singularly complete also m 
 its view of the literature of the subject, as well as in the outline of its plan. Guardian.
 
 NEW BOOKS. 
 
 ON ' ECCE HOMO.' By the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE. Second Edition. 
 Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
 ' A curiously delicate essay on the method pursued in Ecce Homo, the fine and com- 
 plicated texture of which is in strange contrast with the bold doubts and bold dog- 
 matisms of modern thought.' Spectator. 
 
 THE DISCIPLE, and other Poems. By GEORGE MACDONALD, M.A., Author 
 of 'Within and Without.' etc. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 ' One of the truest, most beautiful, and most musical volume of verses which has been 
 given to modern readers.' British Quarterly Review. 
 
 HIRE CHRIST OF HISTORY. By JOHN YOUNG, LL.D. New and Enlarged 
 JL Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
 ' The republication of Dr. Young's Christ of History, with an appendix on Kenan's 
 Vie de Jesus, is well timed. The argument is irresistible and unanswerable. We trust 
 that this re-appearance of a work of such great excellence, eloquence, and logical com- 
 pactness, will give fresh impetus to its study, and lead those who persist in approaching 
 Christ on the strictly human side to cry with the apostle, "My Lord and my God."' 
 British Quarterly Review. 
 
 ASSAYS FROM ' GOOD WORDS.' By HENRY ROGERS, Author of ' The 
 JU Eclipse of Faith.' Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
 WEEK-DAY SERMONS. By R. W. DALE, M.A. Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
 ' On a former occasion we spoke of Mr. Dale's preaching powers in terms of high com- 
 mendation. We are bound to say that this little volume fully justifies all that was then 
 said. We can only recommend our readers to lay Mr. Dale's Week-day Sermons in 
 stock as soon as may be. For reading aloud, and exciting friendly discussion, we hardly 
 know any modern book like it. The DEAN OF CANTERBURY in the Contemporary Review. 
 
 OCRIPTURE PORTRAITS ; and other Miscellanies. From the Published 
 U Writings of A. P. STANLEY, D.D., Dean of Westminster'. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 
 mHE CRITICAL ENGLISH TESTAMENT : Being an Adaptation of Bengel's 
 -L Gnomon, with numerous Notes, showing the Precise Eesults of Modern Criticism 
 and Exegesis. Edited by the Eev. W. L. BLACKLEY, M.A., and Rev. JAMES HAWKS, 
 M.A. Three Volumes, crown 8vo, 6s. each. 
 
 Vol. I. THE GOSPELS. Vol II. THE ACTS AND THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 
 
 Vol. III. THE OTHER EPISTLES, AND APOCALYPSE. 
 
 ' The editors of this valuable work have put before the English reader the results of 
 the labours of more than twenty eminent commentators. He who uses the book will 
 find that he is reading Bengel's suggestive "Gnomon," modifying it by the critical in- 
 vestigations of Tischendorf and Alf ord, and comparing it with the exegetical works) of 
 De Wette, Meyer, Olshausen, and others, and adding to it also profound remarks and 
 glowing sayings from the writings of such men as Trench and Stier.' Evangelical Mag. 
 
 HOW TO STUDY THE NEW TESTAMENT. By HENRY ALFORD, D.D., 
 Dean of Canterbury. Small 8vo, 3s. 6d. each Part. 
 
 Part I. THE GOSPELS AND THE ACTS. Part II. THE EPISTLES (First Section). 
 
 Part III. (completing the Work) In Preparation. 
 
 flHRIST AND CHRISTENDOM : Being the Boyle Lectures for 1864. By 
 \J E. H. PLUMPTRE, M.A., Professor of Divinity, King's College, London. 
 
 ' The Boyle Lectures for 1866 will stand not unworthily by the side of those produced 
 by Professor Plumptre's most eminent predecessors. In them he displays, with rare 
 force and constant readiness, all the resources of a ripe scholar, a keen critic, and an 
 eloquent writer.' Athenxum. 
 
 THE VICARIOUS SACRIFICE ; Grounded on Principles of Universal Obli- 
 gation. By HORACE BUSHNELL, D.D. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 THE BIBLE STUDENT'S LIFE OF OUR LORD. By Rev. SAMUEL J. 
 ANDREWS. Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
 THE FOUNDATIONS OF OUR FAITH. By Professors AUBERLEN, GESS, 
 and others. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 ' We know nothing that can compare with this work for completeness, wisdom, and 
 power." Nonconformist. 
 
 LONDON : STRAHAN & CO., 56, LUDGATE HILL.
 
 Half-a-Orown Monthly, 
 
 THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL, LITERARY, AND SOCIAL. 
 
 THE January, February, March, and April numbers (forming the first volume 
 of ' The Contemporary Review' for 1868, price 10s. 6d. in cloth binding) contain the 
 following among other papers : 
 
 A Liberal Education. By Professor Con- 
 
 ington. 
 A Reply to Professor Tyndall. By the 
 
 Eev. J. B. Mozley. 
 
 The Irish Church. By Professor Maurice. 
 Recent Histories of Early Rome. By Pro- 
 fessor Rawlinson. 
 Church Parties : Past, Present, and Future. 
 
 By Professor Plumptre. 
 A Reply to Professor Maurice on the Irish 
 
 Church. By the Dean of Cork. 
 The Union of Christendom in its Home 
 
 Aspect. By the Dean of Canterbury. 
 Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants. 
 
 By Principal Tulloch. 
 Music in England. By H. R. Haweis. 
 Max Miiller on the Science of Religion. 
 
 By Professor Plumptre. 
 The Social Legislation of 1867. By J. M. 
 
 Ludlow. 
 The Food of the People. By Benjamin 
 
 Shaw. 
 Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. By the 
 
 Rev. John Hunt. 
 
 The Talmud. By R. Stuart Poole. 
 
 The Marriage Laws of England and Scot- 
 land. By John Boyd Kinnear. 
 
 The influence of Plato's Theories in Modem 
 Times. By Dr. E. Zeller, Heidelberg. 
 
 The Education of Women. By the Rev. 
 Thomas Markby. 
 
 The Present State of the French Reformed 
 Church. By Pasteur F. G. Wheatcroft. 
 
 The Education Question in Holland. By 
 a Dutch Clergyman. 
 
 The Annotated Book of Common Prayer 
 on the Communion Service. By Pro- 
 fessor Conington. 
 
 The Revolution in a French Country Town. 
 By the Rev. J. R. Green. 
 
 The Arthurian Legends in Tennyson. 
 By Professor Cheetham. 
 
 Middle Schools Commission Report. By 
 the Rev. W. C. Lake. 
 
 The London Press. I. The 'Spectator,' 
 'Guardian,' and 'Nonconformist.' II. 
 The ' Pall Mall Gazette.' 
 
 LONDON: STRAHAN & CO., 56, LUDGATE HILL. 
 
 Now ready, in crown 8vo, price 6s., Second Edition, revised and enlarged, 
 
 THE TRIPARTITE NATURE OF MAN: 
 
 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. 
 
 Applied to Illustrate and Explain the Doctrines of Original Sin, the New Birth, the 
 Disembodied State, and the Spiritual Body. 
 
 BY THE EEV. J. B. HEAKD. M.A. 
 
 CHAP. I. The Case Stated. II. The Psychology of Natural and Revealed Religion con- 
 trasted. III. The Account of the Creation of Man. IV. The Relation of Body to 
 Soul in Scripture. V. Of the Relation of Soul and Spirit in Scripture. VI. Psycho 
 and Pneuma in the light of Christian Experience. VII. The Unity under Diversity 
 of the Three Parts of Man's Nature. VIII. Analogies from the Doctrine of the Trinity 
 to the Trichotomy in Man considered. IX. Of the Pneuma as the Faculty which 
 distinguishes Man from the Brute. X. The state of the Pneuma in Man since the 
 Fall. XI. The Question of Traducianism and Creationism solved by the distinction 
 between Soul and Spirit. XII. Conversion to God explained as the quickening of 
 the Pneuma. XIII. The Question of the Natural Immortality of Psyche considered. 
 XIV. Application of the Doctrine of the Trichotomy to discover the Principle of 
 Final Rewards and Punishments. XV. Intermediate State. XVI. The Resurrection 
 and Spritual Body. XVII. Summary. 
 
 'It will be seen that Mr. Heard's theme is a noble and important one, and he has 
 treated it in a way to afford a high intellectual treat to the Christian philosopher and 
 divine.' Clerical Journal. 
 
 'We must congratulate our author on having, from a theological point of view, 
 established satisfactorily, and with much thought, the theory he advocates, and with 
 having treated a subject generally considered dry and unreadable, in an attractive style.' 
 Header. 
 
 EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.
 
 THE PULPIT ANALYST. Designed for Preachers, Students, 
 
 and Teachers. The First and Second Volumes. Edited by Rev. JOSEPH PARKER, 
 D.D. 
 
 SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL CONTENTS: 
 
 A HOMILETIC ANALYSIS OF ST. MATTHEW'S 
 GOSPEL. Chaps. I. to XXVI. By the 
 Editor. 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN, with an Inter- 
 linear Translation. By T. D. Hall, M.A. 
 
 ELEMENTARY RULES OF GREEK SYNTAX. 
 By T. D. Hall, M.A. 
 
 DIVINE EEVEI.ATION, as Related to Human 
 Consciousness. . 
 
 REMOTER STARS : a Series of Biographical 
 Sketches. By George Gilfillan, 
 
 PULPIT ILLUSTRATIONS. Extracts from 
 Chrysostom, Augustine, Flavel, Manton, 
 Gurnall, Charnock, Owen, Jeremy Taylor, 
 Robert Hall, Henry Smith, Bunyan, 
 Fuller, Sibbes, Beecher, Burroughs, etc., 
 
 COMPLETE DISCOURSES : Socratic Sermons 
 on Faith and Revelation ; Abraham 
 Pleading for Sodom ; Babel ; Confession 
 and Remission of Sin; On Being Right 
 in the Main ; Christ and Nicodemus ; 
 Thoughts on Texts; The Unknown God; 
 The Programme of Life; The Feast upon 
 the Mountain; Peace; Nonconformity to 
 the World; Things New and Old; A 
 Secular Sermon on Foresight ; Human 
 Pilgrimage; Our Duty to the Erring ; On 
 Undervaluing Influence; Religious Les- 
 son Taught to Man by the Lower 
 Animals; The Well-attested Prophetic 
 Word ; The Woman and the Serpent. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY OUTLINES OF 
 
 etc. SERMONS. 
 
 The Volumes may be had separately, price 7s. 6d. each, handsomely bound in cloth. 
 
 THE THIRD VOLUME, NOW PUBLISHING, SIXPENCE MONTHLY, 
 
 CONTAINS 
 
 PROFESSOR J. H. GODWIN'S NEW TRANS- 
 LATION OF ST. MARK'S GOSPEL, with 
 Notes and Practical Lessons. 
 
 THE FOREIGN PULPIT. Discourses by 
 Eminent Continental Preachers. 
 
 MIS-READ PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE. By 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING: Discourses 
 
 by E. de Pressense", D.D. 
 ST. PAUL'S EPISODE ON LOVE. Sermons 
 
 on First Corinthians, chap. xiii. 
 NUMEROUS OUTLINES OF DISCOURSES, 
 
 REVIEWS, ETC., ETC. 
 
 J. Baldwin Brown, B.A. 
 
 A Specimen Number Post Free for 7 Stamps. 
 LONDON: JACKSON, WALFORD, & HODDER, 27, PATERNOSTER Row. 
 
 REV. PAXTON HOOD ON PREACHERS AND PREACHING IN ALL AGES. 
 Second Thousand. Large crown, 8vo, 10s. 6d. cloth, 
 
 LAMPS, PITCHERS, and TRUMPETS : Lectures on the Voca- 
 
 tion of the Preacher. Illustrated by Anecdotes Biographical, Historical, and 
 
 Elucidatory of every Order of Pulpit Eloquence, from the Great Preachers of all 
 
 Ages. By the Rev. E. PAXTON HOOD, Author of ' Dark Sayings on a Harp,' etc. 
 
 ' Clever, sensible, and full of stimulus and thought for men aspiring to preach. The 
 
 genius and power of the pulpit are vindicated, its character is pointed out, and the faults 
 
 and merits of sermons are touched with a keen and racy criticism, and in the generous 
 
 spirit of a man of large sympathies and culture. An excellent feature of these lectures is 
 
 their copiousness of illustration ; and the carefully studied and picturesque monographs, 
 
 ranging from Chrysostom and St. Bernard down to Lacordaire and Robertson, are full of 
 
 interest.' Christian Work. 
 
 LONDON : JACKSON, WALFORD, & HODDER, 27, PATERNOSTER Row. 
 
 In Two vols., 8vo, price 28s., cloth, 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, from the Opening of the Long 
 
 Parliament to the Death of Oliver Cromwell. By JOHN STOUGHTON, Author of 
 'Spiritual Heroes,' ' Church and State Two Hundred Years Ago,' etc. 
 'From his own standing-point he has given us a markedly fair, charitable, large- 
 minded, and honestly written history of a period bristling with the very questions which 
 sever Nonconformists from Churchmen to this very day. He has, besides this, carefully 
 investigated original authorities and consulted books of other views than his own, while 
 confining himself to that amount of expression of opinion which, is, perhaps, indispens- 
 able to vigorous narrative.' Guardian. 
 
 LONDON: JACKSON, WALFORD, & HODDER, 27, PATERNOSTER Row. 
 
 Crown 8vo, price 5s., cloth, 
 
 REMARKABLE FACTS: Illustrative and Confirmatory of 
 
 different Portions of Holy Scripture. By the late Rev. J. LEIFCHILD, D.D., with a 
 Preface by his Son. 
 
 ' Dr. Leifchild was not only a devout, but he was an observant man ; and this book of 
 facts, chiefly drawn from his own pastoral experience, is fraught with sound instruction 
 to persons of every age and class.' Evangelical Christendom. 
 
 LONDON : JACKSON, WALFORD, & HODDER, 27, PATERNOSTER Row.
 
 Clark, 
 
 In Eight Volumes, demy 8vo, 4, 4s., 
 
 THE WORDS OF THE LORD JESUS. 
 
 BY RUDOLPH STIER, D.D., 
 
 DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY, AND SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHKEUDITZ. 
 
 1 We know no work that contains, within anything like the same compass, so many 
 pregnant instances of what true genius under chastened submission to the control of a 
 sound philology, and gratefully accepting the seasonable and suitable helps of a whole- 
 some erudition, is capable of doing in the spiritual exegesis of the sacred volume. Every 
 page is fretted and studded with lines and forms of the most alluring beauty. At every 
 step the reader is constrained to pause and ponder, lest he should overlook one or other 
 of the many precious blossoms that, in the most dazzling profusion, are scattered around 
 his path. We venture to predict that his " Words of Jesus " are destined to produce a 
 great and happy revolution in the interpretation of the New Testament in this country.' 
 British and Foreign Evangelical Review. 
 
 'One of the most precious books for the spiritual interpretation of the Gospels.' Arch- 
 deacon Hare. 
 
 ' Dr Stier brings to the exposition of our Lord's discourses sound learning, a vigorous 
 understanding, and a quick discernment; but what is better, he brings also a devout mind, 
 and a habit of thought spiritual and deferential to the truth.' Evangelical Christendom. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 In One Volume, demy 8vo, 10s. 6d., 
 
 THE WORDS OF THE RISEN SAVIOUR; 
 
 AND 
 
 COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE OF ST JAMES. 
 
 'This volume is in all respects alike remarkable and valuable. We are unable to 
 name any exposition so novel, so striking, so instructive, and so edifying. It cannot fail 
 to bring forward those portions of Scripture portions of infinite moment which have 
 hitherto, in a great degreo, been neglected. The exposition is everywhere most excellent, 
 and adapted to be helpful to the public instructor as well as to the private student. . . 
 The latter half of this volume consists of thirty-two discourses expounding the Epistle of 
 James. By these sermons we set great store. Nothing can be more full, clear, scrip- 
 tural, and practical.' Christian Witness. 
 
 In One Thick Volume, 12s., Fifth Edition, 
 
 A GRAMMAR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT DICTION. 
 
 INTENDED AS AN INTEODUCTION TO THE CRITICAL STUDY 
 OF THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 BY DR G. B. WINER. 
 
 Extract from letter from the late Archdeacon HARDWICK, Christian Advocate: 
 1 It is a subject of sincere pleasure to all critics of the sacred text that this elaborate and 
 exhaustive treatise is at length in a fair way of becoming familiar to England as it has 
 long been to Germany. 1 have great pleasure in commending it to my divinity class.' 
 
 ' This is the standard classical work on the Grammar of the New Testament, and it is 
 of course indispensable to every one who would prosecute intelligently the critical study 
 of the most important portion of the inspired record. It is a great service to render such 
 a work accessible to the English reader. British and Foreign Evangelical Review. 
 
 ' We gladly welcome the appearance of Winer's great work in an English translation, 
 and most strongly recommend it to all who wish to attain to a sound and accurate know- 
 ledge of the language of the New Testament. Wo need not say it is the Grammar of the 
 New Testament. It is not only superior to all others, but so superior as to be by common 
 consent the one work of reference on the subject. No other could be mentioned with it.' 
 Literary Churchman.
 
 Enlarged to Eighty Pages, Demy Octavo, Monthly, Is. 
 THE NEW SERIES OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE AND REVIEW, 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 THE EEV. EDWAED GAEBETT, M.A., 
 
 INCUMBENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, SURBITON ; 
 BOYLE LECTURER 1860-3 ; BAMTTOX LECTURER, 1867. 
 
 THE Editor of the NEW SERIES of the CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE AND REVIEW has 
 undertaken his work with a deep sense alike of its obligations and its difficulties, 
 under the present circumstances of the Church of England. It is his earnest 
 desire and constant effort to promote the cause of scriptural truth, and to vindi- 
 cate those Protestant and Evangelical principles to which the Church of Eng- 
 land owes her existence, and which she has embodied in her Articles and 
 Formularies. 
 
 The enlargement of the Magazine, by sixteen additional pages, now admits 
 of a somewhat wider range and greater variety of subject than were possible 
 before. 
 
 Its contents include, in such varying proportions as circumstances may 
 require : 
 
 Papers on Subjects of Christian Experience and Devotion ; 
 
 The Explanation and Vindication of Doctrines, with Special Reference to the 
 Controversies of the Day ; 
 
 Historical and Biographical Sketches ; 
 
 Discussions on Social, Moral, and Political Questions of Personal Interest ; 
 
 Illustrations of the Practical "Work of the Church ; 
 
 Expository and Critical Essays, with Reviews and Short Notices of Books. 
 
 The CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE endeavours to justify its name, by allying itself 
 with the entire range of subjects affecting the truths of Christianity and the 
 prospects of the Christian Church. A rapid survey of current circumstances 
 of this kind, in the spheres of literature and science, is given in each Number. 
 Its readers are thus enabled to keep themselves acquainted with the course and 
 results of the characteristic religious conflicts of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The position of the CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE is distinctively that of the Church 
 of England, accepting with reverent affection her Apostolical order, and resting 
 on the foundation of her Apostolical doctrine. She is regarded as alike the 
 witness and the inheritor of the pure Christianity of the Primitive Ages : Christ 
 the object of her hope ; the Scriptures her rule of faith ; and the Spirit of 
 God the source and quickener of her life. Amid the progress of human know- 
 ledge, and the fluctuations of human opinion, the doctrines of revealed truth 
 stand-unchanged and unchangeable. It is the object of the ADVOCATE not only 
 to vindicate the ancient language of the Church, but to maintain the old truths 
 taught by the Apostles, held uncorrupted during the three first centuries of the 
 Christian era, and handed down in unimpaired succession through the Middle 
 Ages to the times of the Reformation. 
 
 As regards the defence of truth and the exposure of error, the promises of 
 assistance received by the Editor justify the hope that they will continue to be
 
 The Christian Advocate and Review continued. 
 
 maintained with no feeble hand. As regards 'the tone and temper of the 
 Magazine, the Editor endeavours to maintain distinctiveness -without narrow 
 exclusiveness ; unflinching firmness without bigotry ; moderation without 
 timidity ; breadth without latitudiuarianism ; and a lively appreciation of 
 modern criticism and inquiry, without either critical arrogance or sceptical 
 doubt. 
 
 The promises of Christ to His Church equally forbid any timid fears of the 
 results of modern inquiry, and any misgivings of the final triumph of revealed 
 truth. In this confidence every new argument of science or philosophy is 
 openly met and discussed as it arises. 
 
 To reach this standard is no easy task. An honest endeavour to approximate 
 towards it more and more is the Editor's plea for an indulgent criticism. 
 
 ' We, invite your special attention to the New Series of the " Christian Advocate" tinder 
 the sole editorship of one -well- known in the Church of England, the Rev. Edward Garlett, 
 M.A.. Incumbent of Christ Church, SurMton: Boyle Lecturer. 1860-63; Bampton Lecturer 
 1867. 
 
 'We have reason to think that the " Christian Advocate" under its present Editor, is 
 eminently calculated to do good service to the cause of Protestant and Evangelical principles 
 in the Church of England. We therefore venture to commend it strongly to your notice, and 
 to urge upon you the great importance of making it known in your district, and securing for 
 it a large measure of patronage and support.' 
 
 THE VEEY EEV. WILLIAM GOODE, D.D., Dean of Eipon. 
 
 THE VEEY EEV. HENRY LAW, M.A., Dean of Gloucester. 
 
 THE VENEBABLE EDWAED PBEST, M.A., Archdeacon and Canon of Durham. 
 
 Bev. EGBERT PAYNE SMITH, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity, and Canon of 
 
 Christ Church, Oxford. 
 
 Rev. WILLIAM CARTJS, M.A., Canon of Winchester. 
 THE REV. HUGH M'NEILE, D.D., Canon of Chester. 
 Rev. JAMES BARDSLEY, M.A., Rector of St. Ann's, Manchester. 
 Rev. EMILIUS BAYLEY, B.D., Incumbent of St. John's, Paddington. 
 Rev. T. R. BIRKS, M.A., Holy Trinity, Cambridge. 
 Rev. W. CADMAN, M.A., Rector of Holy Trinity, Marylebone. 
 Eev. C. F. CHILDE, M.A., Rector of Holbrook, Suffolk. 
 
 Eev. ALFRED M. W. CHRISTOPHER M.A., Rector of St. Aldate's, Oxford. 
 Rev. CHAELES CLAYTON, M.A., Hon. Canon of Eipon, Eector of Stanhope, Durham. 
 Rev. D. K. DRUMMOND, St. Thomas', Edinburgh. 
 Rev. G. T. FOX, M.A., Incumbent of St. Nicholas, Durham. 
 Rev. W. HARRISON, M.A., Rector of Birch, near Colchester. 
 Eev. E. HOAEE, M.A., Incumbent of Trinity Church, Tunbridge Wells. 
 Eev. W. KNIGHT, M.A., Rector of High Ham, Langport. 
 Rev. W. B. MACKENZIE, M.A., Incumbent of St. James', Holloway. 
 Rev. C. D. MARSTON, M.A., Rector of Kersal, Manchester. 
 Eev. J. C. MILLER, D.D., Vicar of Greenwich. 
 Rev. J. W. REEVE, M.A., Minister of Portman Chapel, Marylebone. 
 Rev. J. RICHARDSON, M.A., Incumbent of St. Mary's, Bury St. Edmund's. 
 Eev. J. C. RYLE, B.A., Vicar of Stradbroke, Suffolk. 
 Eev. EDWARD WALKER, D.C.L., Rector of Cheltenham. 
 Rev. W. WILKINSON, D.D., Eector of St. Martin's, Birmingham. 
 
 The First Volume of New Series of the CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE is now ready, 
 Cloth boards, 12s. 
 
 The CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE will be supplied by order of all Booksellers in Town 
 and Country ; or, when desired, will be sent, Post Free, on the day of 
 Publication, by the Publishers. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HUNT & CO., 23, HOLLES STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE.
 
 JAMES NISBET AND CO.'S PUBLICATIONS, 
 
 I. 
 
 rpHE DARWINIAN THEORY OF THE TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIE: 5 
 L EXAMINED. By a Graduate of the University of Cambridge. Second Edition. 
 Demy 8vo, 10s. Cd., cloth. 
 
 ' This volume is a work of no ordinary merit. It indicates extensive reading, intimate 
 acquaintance with the whole history of the Transmutation school of thinking, great 
 mastery of the abundant material placed at the disposal of the author, and a large in- 
 fusion of common sense.' British, Quarterly Review. 
 
 II. 
 
 rpHE REV. THOMAS SCOTT'S COMMENTARY ON THE HOLY BIBLE, 
 JL comprising Marginal References, a copious Topical Index, Fifteen Map*, and Sixty- 
 nine Engravings, illustrative .of Scripture Incidents and Scenery. Complete in six vols. 
 4to. Published at 4, 4s., now offered for 2, 10s. 
 
 The proprietors desire to direct especial attention to the highly important fact, that 
 the whole of the Critical and Explanatory Notes, with the Practical Reflections, and the 
 other important parts of this \york, underwent the Author's careful revision ; and that 
 he was engaged for about ten years in preparing an Edition 'which should be the stan- 
 dard of the work as long as it might exist.' This is the Edition now offered to the public, 
 and is the only one that has, or can have, the benefit of these final additions and emen- 
 dations. 
 
 III. 
 
 1TATTHEW HENRY'S COMMENTARY ON THE HOLY BIBLE, com- 
 iil prising upwards of 7000 Pages, well printed, the Notes as well as the Text in 
 clear and distinct type, on good paper, forming Nine Imperial 8vo. volumes, and hand- 
 somely bound in cloth. Price 3, 3s., cloth. 
 
 ** The work may also be had in a variety of extra bindings, of which a list will be 
 forwarded on appication. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE BIBLE MANUAL : An Expository and Practical Commentary on the 
 Books of Scripture, arranged in Chronological Order; forming a Hand-book of 
 Biblical Elucidation for the Use of Families, Schools, and Students of the Word of God. 
 Translated from the German Work; Edited by the late Dr. C. G. BAKTH of Cahv, Wur- 
 temberg. Imperial 8vo, 12s., cloth. 
 
 ' The work is very cheap, and will prove a valuable boon to Bible students with small 
 libraries.' Journal of Sacred Literature. 
 
 \. 
 
 OT. PAUL THE APOSTLE : A Biblical Portrait, and a Mirror of the 
 Manifold Grace of God. By W. F. BESSER, D.D. Translated by FREDERICK 
 BULTJIANN, Missionary of the Church Mission Society. With an Introductory Notice 
 by the Kev. J. S. HOWSON, D.D. Post 8vo, 5s., cloth. 
 
 ' This is a well executed translation of a valuable contribution to sacred literature, 
 from the pen of a thoughtful and eloquent Lutheran divine.' Record. 
 
 VI. 
 
 mHE RISEN REDEEMER : The Gospel History from the Resurrection to 
 JL the Day of Pentecost By F. W. KIIOI.MACHEK, D*D. Translated by J. T. BETTS. 
 Post 8vo, 5s., cloth. 
 
 ' The new work by this warm-hearted, imaginative, and earnest divine, appears to us 
 worthy of his well-earned reputation.' Evangelical Magazine. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE QANON OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, from the Double Point of View 
 of Science and of Faith. By the Eev. L. GAUSSEN of Geneva. 8vo, 10s. 6d., cloth. 
 ' We set a very high value on this noble work, so replete with a truly Christian spirit, 
 and so correct in every opinion formed and in every judgment given ; while the learning 
 which the book evinces is ample, varied, and many-sided,' British and Foreign Evan- 
 gelical Review. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 OUR CHRISTIAN CLASSICS : Readings from the Best Divines, with 
 Notices, Biographical and Critical. By the late JAMES HAMILTON, D.D. Complete 
 in Four Volumes, crown 8vo, IGs., cloth. 
 
 LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21, BERNERS STREET, W.
 
 6g'. anu tl. Oatfc, 
 
 In demy 8vo, price 9s., 
 
 THE SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY TO THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 BY JAMES MORGAN, D.D., BELFAST. 
 
 ' Controversy and criticism are avoided. Scripture ideas are unfolded in a clear and 
 popular way, so as not only to inform the judgment, but also to purify the heart.' 
 Evangelical Maga-.ine. 
 
 ' Dr. Morgan's book is one of the best works on the subject of the Holy Spirit which 
 has appeared since the days of Dr. Owen, and may well become a standard work of 
 reference on our book-shelves.' Christian Advocate. 
 
 'It is thorough in its scope, and so exhaustive that there is not a passage of importance 
 which has not come under consideration.' Wesleyan Times. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 In demy 8vo, price 9s., 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST, JOHN. 
 
 ' These lectures are written in a perspicuous, terse, and homely style ; each subject 
 divided with great skill.' Record. 
 
 ' The tone, spirit, and manner of the lectures will commend themselves to the pious 
 reader, and to the minister of Christ's flock ; to the former they will furnish abundant 
 spiritual food, while the latter may advantageously consult them for hints and sugges- 
 tions.' Evangelical Christendom. 
 
 In demy 8vo, price 9s., 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLE OF JAMES, 
 
 IN A SEEIES OF DISCOURSES. WITH AN APPENDIX OF DISSEETATIONS. 
 BY EEV. JOHN ADAM, D.D. 
 
 ' The book is perfectly readable from beginning to end ; while, at the same time, the 
 treatment is so thorough, that the instructed student cannot but derive profit from its 
 perusal. The language is copious, varied, and cultivated, and possesses the vital qualities 
 of clearness and vigour; and both the interpretation and the practical treatment of the 
 epistle are marked by discrimination, sagacity, independence of thought, and high prin- 
 ciple ; with constant evidence of ample research, and no slight mastery of a difficult theme. 
 .... It is to such free, full, and powerful preaching of God's word, that Scotland owes 
 whatever she has of moral health and vigour.' British and Foreign Evangelical Review. 
 
 ' This is a thoroughly and carefully written work, and will be of much service to the 
 earnest Christian reader, inasmuch as it throws light upon the meaning of many, at first 
 sight, obscure passages, and points out what may reasonably be presumed to be the 
 under current of thought and purpose which renders this epistle at once so beautiful and 
 so complete. We have much pleasure in commending this volume to the notice of our 
 readers.' Christian Observer. 
 
 In demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d., 
 
 THE APOLOGETICS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, 
 
 BY THE LATE WILLIAM M. HETHERINGTON, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW. 
 
 'It is impossible candidly and carefully to peruse the volume, without feeling at every 
 step that the reader is under the spell and fascination of a master, who, in exercising an 
 imperial sway over the copious materials at his command, displays a thorough compre- 
 hension of the lofty task which he has assigned to himself, and no ordinary powers in 
 the tact, skill, and ability with which it is prosecuted to a successful issue. With the 
 tone and spirit which pervade the work throughout, every lover of truth must cordially 
 sympathize. Taking it all in all, as we find it, it ought to be gratefully hailed, as 
 perhaps the weightiest contribution to the general cause of Apologetical Christianity 
 which has appeared in our strangely chequered and eventful times.' DR. DUFF. 
 
 ' We think we have said enough to show that Dr. Duff is right in his estimate of the 
 value of Dr. Hetherington's Christian Apologetics, and that it is, as he states, admirably 
 fitted for missionaries labouring amongst the educated natives of India, as well as for the 
 libraries of Working Men's Institutes and Christian Young Men's Associations.' Record 
 
 2 H
 
 BURNS' (REV, JABEZ, D,D.) SELECT WORKS, 
 
 In Sixteen Volumes, crown 8vo, cloth, at 3s. M. each. 
 
 Clergymen, Ministers of all Denominations, Lay Preachers, Sunday School Teachers, 
 and' Heads of Families, will find these Works of real permanent value. 
 
 i. 
 
 Christian Exercises for Every Lord's Day. 
 
 With Portrait. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 1 1 have read your new book with pleasure, and, I trust I may say, with profit. The 
 explanations are natural and practical, and must tend to promote the best interest 
 and edification of those who love evangelical and spiritual truth.' The Rev. Canon 
 Jenkins, M.A. 
 
 'I think it delightfully simple, evangelical, and refreshing.' Rev. H. Gale, B.C.L. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Christian Philosophy; or, Materials for Thought. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 'Well arranged, well thought, and well expressed.' Free Church Magazine. 
 ' I esteem it highly, and trust so much solid matter and forceful truth will find appre- 
 ciating readers.' Rev. James Hamilton, Author of 'Life in'Earnest.' 1 
 ' A book of ideas.' Wesleyan Magazine. 
 
 m. 
 
 Fifty- two Sermons for Family Reading, the Sick Room, 
 
 etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 ' Good currents of thought, and the pulsations of a manifestly honest, generous, and 
 devout heart.' Homilist. 
 
 iv. to vn. 
 
 Pulpit Cyclopaedia, and Christian Minister's Companion. 
 
 Four Volumes, crown 8vo, cloth, each 3s. 6d. 
 
 'To that most useful class, lay preachers, it is a treasure.' Christian Witness. 
 'We know of no book, the Bible of course excepted, which would be more useful to 
 preachers than this.' American Morning Star. 
 
 vni. to xi. 
 
 Sketches and Skeletons of 400 Sermons. 
 
 Texts and Subjects. Four Volumes, crown 8vo, cloth, each 3s. 6d. 
 
 xn. 
 
 Sketches of Sermons on Types and Metaphors. 
 
 New Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 xni. 
 
 Sketches of Sermons on Christian Missions. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Sketches of Sermons on Special Occasions. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Sketches of Sermons on the Parables and Miracles of 
 
 our Lord. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Sketches of Sermons on Scripture Characters and In- 
 cidents. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. 
 
 'Fine examples of careful and judicious preparations for the pulpit, and important help 
 to those who devote a portion of their Sabbaths to village preaching.' Revivalist. 
 
 LONDON: HOULSTON AND BRIGHT, 65, PATERNOSTER ROW.
 
 BURNS' (REV, JABEZ, D,D.) SELECT WORKS, 
 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 Christian's Daily Portion; or, Golden Pot of Manna. 
 
 Containing Three Hundred and Sixy-five Exercises on the Person, Work, and Glory 
 of the Eedeemer. Fourth Edition. Foolscap 8vo, cloth, 5s. 
 
 ' I have no hesitation in saying that it fully makes good the promise of its title, and is 
 indeed a "Golden Pot of Manna."' Rev. Dr. Harris, Author of 1 ' Mammon,' etc. 
 
 Good Child's Gift Book. 
 
 Eeligious Stories, in Prose and Verse, for Young Children. New Edition, revised 
 and enlarged. Demy 18mo, cloth, Is. 6d. 
 
 'Interspersed with a number of appropriate illustrations, and calculated to win the 
 attention of children.' Glasgow Herald. 
 
 Hints to Church Members on the Duties of Christian 
 
 Fellowship. New Edition, revised and enlarged. Demy 18mo, sewed, Fourpence. 
 ' Unequalled by anything of the sort it was ever our lot to read.' Br itish Banner. 
 
 Light for the Sick Room. 
 
 A Book for the Afflicted. Foolscap 8vo, cloth, red edges, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Light for the House of Mourning. 
 
 A Book for the Bereaved. Foolscap 8vo, cloth, red edges, 2s. 6d. 
 
 ' These are in every way calculated, by the Divine blessing, to acomplish the great end 
 contemplated.' Rtv. Alexander Fletcher, D.D., Finsbury Chapel. 
 
 Marriage Gift Book and Bridal Token. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, 5s. 
 
 None but Jesus; or, Christ All in All. 
 
 New Edition, revised. Demy 18ino, cloth, One Shilling ; sewed, Sixpence. 
 
 Sabbath Treasure. 
 
 A Scripture Text, Original Hymn, and Questions and Counsels for every Lord's Day 
 in the Year. New Edition. Demy 18mo, sewed, Fourpence. 
 
 Sunday Schools and Village Preaching. 
 
 Sketches of Discourses for Sunday Schools and Village Preaching. New Edition, 
 revised and enlarged. Demy' 18mo, cloth, Is. 6d. 
 
 ' It is enough to say that this volume is by Dr. Burns, the Simeon of our day. It is all 
 that it ought to be, and is greatly adapted for usefulness.' Christian Witness. 
 
 Universal Love of God, 
 
 And Responsibility of Man, illustrated in a Series of Doctrinal Conversations. New 
 Edition, revised and enlarged. Demy 18mo, cloth, One Shilling. 
 
 'A useful book for inquirers, as Dr. Burns intended it should be. Even those who 
 differ from his views must admire his noble Christian spirit.' Christian World. 
 
 Youthful Christian. 
 
 Instructions, Cautions, and Examples suitable for Young Persons. Demy 18mo, 
 cloth, Is. 6d. 
 
 Youthful Piety. 
 
 Illustrative Anecdotes for the Young. New Edition. Demy 18mo, cloth, One 
 Shilling ; sewed, Sixpence. 
 
 LONDON : HOULSTON AND WRIGHT, 65, PATERNOSTER ROW.
 
 PUBLISHED BY J. MASTERS. 
 
 History of the Holy Eastern Church. General Introduction, con- 
 taining its Geography, Ecclesiology, Liturgies, Calendars, and Office Books. By the 
 Rev. J. M. NEALE, D.D. Two vols., 2. 
 
 The History of the Patriarchate of Alexandria. By the Rev. J. M. 
 
 NEALE, D.D. Two vols. 24s. 
 Hierurgia Anglicana ; or, Documents and Extracts Illustrative of the 
 
 Ritual of the Church of England after the Reformation. 8vo, cloth, with Illustra- 
 tions, 13s. . 
 
 An Introduction to the Study of Dogmatic Theology. By the Rev. 
 
 ROBERT OWEN, B.D. ^Demy 8vo, price 12s. 
 
 The Victory of the Spirit : A Course of Short Sermons by way of 
 
 Commentary on the Eighth Chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. By J. i'l. 
 
 ASHLEY. B.C.L. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 2s. 
 
 These short sermons are a humble attempt to express, in the plainest language, and in 
 the simplest manner, the teaching of the leading Fathers of the Church upon that portion 
 of Holy Scripture of which they treat. Preface. 
 
 Eighteen Sermons of S. Leo the Great on the Incarnation. Trans- 
 lated with Notes and with the ' Tome ' of S. Leo in the original. By the Rev. W. 
 BRIGHT, M.A. 8vo, cloth, 5s. 
 
 The Day Hours of the Church of England, according to the Prayer 
 
 Book and the Authorized Translation of the Bible. Second Edition. Cloth, 2s. ; 
 wrapper, Is. 6d. 
 
 Sermons for the Seasons of the Church. Translated from S. 
 Bernard. By the Rev. W. B. FLOWER. 8vo, 6s. 
 
 The Three Books of Theophilus to Autolycus on the Christian 
 
 Religion. Translated, with Notes, by the Rev. W. B. FLOWER. 3s. Gd. 
 
 Memoriale Vitce Sacerdotalis ; or, Solemn Warnings of the Great 
 
 Shepherd, Jesus Christ, to the Clergy of His Holy Church. Translated from the 
 Latin by the BISHOP OF BRECHIN. Fcap. 8vo, 6s. 6d. 
 
 The Great Truths of the Christian Religion. Edited l)y the Rev. 
 
 W. U. RICHARDS. Second Edition. Cloth, 3s. ; or in five parts, wrappers, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Holy Thoughts and Musings in Foreign Lands. Edited by the Kev. 
 
 T. HUTCHISON, M.A. Dedicated by permission to the Bishop of Oxford. Second 
 Edition, with six Photographs. Fcap. 8vo, 5s. 
 
 The most complete Manual of Devotion ever issued. 
 
 The Churchman s Guide to Faith and Piety. A Manual of Instruc- 
 tions and Devotions. Compiled by R. B. Third Edition. Cloth, 4s. 6d. ; antique 
 calf or plain morocco, 8s. Two vols., cloth, 5s. ; limp calf, lls. ; limp morocco, 12s. 
 
 Prayers for a Christian Household, chiefly taken from the Scriptures, 
 
 from the Ancient Liturgies, and the Book of Common Prayer. By the late Rev. T. 
 BOWDLER, M.A. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 2s. 
 
 The Theory of Christian Worship. By the Rev. T. CHAMBERLAIN, 
 
 M.A. Second Edition, 5s. 
 
 The Love of the Atonement : A Devotional Exposition of the 53d 
 
 Chapter of Isaiah. By the BISHOP OF CALCUTTA. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 
 3s. 6d. 
 
 A Catechism of Theology. ] Smo, Is. Qd. 
 
 The Gospels, etc. Illustrated from Ancient and Modern Authors, 
 
 chiefly in the Doctrinal and Moral Sense. By the Rev. James Ford, M.A., Pre- 
 bendary of Exeter. 8vo, cloth. 
 
 St. Matthew. 2d Edition, lls. 
 St. Mark. 2d Edition. 10s. 
 St. Luke. 12s. 
 
 St. John. 13s. 
 
 Acts of the Apostles. 13s. 
 
 St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. 12s. 
 
 Legueris Sermons, A.D. 1679. Translated from the Italian by 
 
 the Rov. JAMES FORD, M.A. Three vols., 8vo, 6s. each; complete in One vol., 15s. 
 
 LONDON : J. MASTERS, A.LDERSGATE STREET, AND NEW BOND STREET.