Treatises & Letters 12 part 16/21

Wherefore, since — as you write, most beloved brothers, and as Felix and Sabinus our colleagues affirm, and as another Felix of Caesaraugusta, a cultivator of the faith and defender of the truth, signifies in his letters — Basilides and Martialis have been contaminated by the abominable certificate of idolatry; since Basilides, moreover, besides the stain of the certificate, when he lay sick with an infirmity, blasphemed against God and confessed that he had blasphemed, and of his own accord, on account of the wound of his conscience, laid down the episcopate and turned to do penance, beseeching God and counting himself well content if it should fall to him to communicate even as a layman; since Martialis too, besides his long and frequent attendance at the foul and filthy banquets of the gentiles in their guild, and the burial of his sons in that same guild after the manner of foreign nations, laid away among profane sepulchres and buried together with aliens, and besides — by public records drawn up before the ducenary procurator — having attested that he had submitted to idolatry and denied Christ; and since there are many other grave offences in which Basilides and Martialis are held entangled:

such men try in vain to usurp the episcopate for themselves, since it is quite manifest that men of this kind can neither preside over the Church of Christ nor ought to offer sacrifices to God — especially since already long ago, together with us and with absolutely all the bishops appointed throughout the whole world, Cornelius too our colleague, a peaceable and just priest, honoured moreover with martyrdom by the regard of the Lord, decreed that men of this kind can indeed be admitted to do penance, but are to be barred from the ordination of the clergy and from priestly honour. Nor let it move you, most beloved brothers, if among certain men in these last times either a slippery faith wavers, or an irreligious fear of God falters, or peaceable concord does not endure.

These things were foretold as about to be at the end of the age; and by the voice of the Lord and the testimony of the apostles it was predicted that, as the world now fails and Antichrist draws near, all good things should fail, but evil and adverse things should increase. Yet not even so, although it is the last times, has the evangelical vigour fallen in the Church of God, nor the strength of Christian virtue or of faith grown faint, so that there should not remain a portion of priests who in no way succumb to these ruins of affairs and these shipwrecks of faith, but, strong and steadfast, guard the honour of the divine majesty and the priestly dignity with the full observance of fear. We remember and hold that, though others were succumbing and yielding, Mattathias vindicated the law of God

valiantly fought; that Elijah, when the Jews fell away and departed from the divine religion, stood firm and contended sublimely; that Daniel, deterred neither by the solitude of a foreign land nor by the harassment of constant persecution, frequently and bravely set forth glorious martyrdoms; and that the three young men likewise, broken neither by their years nor by threats, faithfully withstood the Babylonian fires, and conquered the conquering king in the very midst of their captivity.

Though the number of prevaricators or of traitors prevails — those who now rise up in the Church against the Church and have begun alike to undermine faith and truth — yet among very many there remains a sincere mind and an unimpaired religion, and a soul devoted to none but its Lord and God; nor does the perfidy of others press the Christian faith down to ruin, but rather rouses and exalts it to glory, according to what the blessed Apostle exhorts and says: 'For what if some of them have fallen away from the faith? Has their unfaithfulness made void the faith of God? God forbid! For God is true, but every man a liar.'

But if every man is a liar and God alone is true, what else ought we, His servants — and especially the priests of God — to do, save to forsake human errors and lies, and, keeping the dominical precepts, to abide in the truth of God? Wherefore, even though some of our colleagues have appeared, most beloved brothers, who think the divine discipline is to be neglected and rashly communicate with Basilides and Martialis, this matter ought not to disturb our faith — since the Holy Spirit threatens in the Psalms against such men, saying: 'But you have hated discipline, and have cast my words behind you. If you saw a thief, you ran with him, and with adulterers you placed your portion.'

He shows that those become consorts and partakers of others' offences who have been joined to the delinquents. But Paul the Apostle also writes and says this same thing: 'whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, injurious, proud, boastful of themselves, inventors of evil things; who, although they had known the justice of God, did not understand that those who do such things are worthy of death — they not only do evil, but also consent to those who do these things.' 'Since those who do such things,' he says, 'are worthy of death.'

He makes manifest and proves that not only those who do evil are worthy of death and come to punishment, but also those who consent to men doing such things; who, while they mingle themselves by unlawful communion with the wicked and with sinners not doing penance, are polluted by contact with the guilty, and, while they are joined in fault, are likewise not separated in punishment. For which reason we both praise and approve the religious anxiety of your integrity and faith, most beloved brothers, and exhort you as much as we can by our letter, that you mingle not yourselves by sacrilegious communion with profane and stained priests, but keep the whole and sincere firmness of your faith with religious fear.

I wish you, dearest brothers, ever to fare well. Cyprian to Stephen his brother, greeting.

Faustinus our colleague, residing at Lyons, dearest brother, has written to me once and again, signifying those things which I know have surely been reported to you also, both by him and by our other fellow-bishops appointed in the same province: namely, that Marcianus, residing at Arles, has joined himself to Novatian and has departed from the truth of the Catholic Church and from the concord of our body and priesthood, holding the most hardened depravity of heretical presumption — so that to God's servants who are penitent and grieving, and knocking at the Church with tears and groaning and sorrow, the consolations and aids of divine mercy and fatherly gentleness are shut off, and the wounded are not admitted for the tending of their wounds, but, left without hope of peace and communion, are cast out to the rapine of wolves and the prey of the devil.

It is our part to take counsel for this matter and to come to its aid, dearest brother — we who, considering the divine clemency and holding the balance for the governing of the Church, so exercise the censure of severity upon sinners that nevertheless we do not deny the medicine of divine goodness and mercy for raising up the lapsed and curing the wounded.

Wherefore you ought to write fullest letters to our fellow-bishops appointed in Gaul, that they no longer suffer Marcianus — obstinate and proud, and an enemy of divine mercy and of brotherly salvation — to insult our college, since he does not yet seem to have been cut off by us, though he has long boasted and proclaimed that, zealous for Novatian and following his obstinacy, he has separated himself from our communion — whereas Novatian himself, whom he follows, was long ago cut off and judged an enemy of the Church; and when he had sent legates to us in Africa, desiring to be admitted to our communion, he thereupon, from a council of very many priests who were present, carried back the sentence that he had begun to be outside and that he could be in communion with none of us — he who, when Cornelius had been ordained bishop in the Catholic Church by the judgement of God and by the suffrage of clergy and people, attempted to erect a profane altar and to set up an adulterous chair and to offer sacrilegious sacrifices against the true priest; and accordingly, if he should be willing to come to his senses and return to the counsel of a sound mind, he should do penance and return as a suppliant to the Church.

How vain it is, dearest brother, that, when Novatian has lately been beaten back and refuted and cut off by the priests of God throughout the whole world, we should now suffer his flatterers still to mock us and to pass judgement upon the majesty and dignity of the Church! Let letters be directed by you into the province and to the people residing at Arles, whereby, Marcianus being cut off, another may be substituted in his place, and the flock of Christ — which to this day is despised, scattered and wounded by him — may be gathered together. Let it suffice that many of our brethren there in these recent years have departed without peace. Let aid at least be brought to the rest who remain and who day and night groan, and, imploring the divine and fatherly mercy, demand the solace of our help.

For this reason indeed, dearest brother, the body of priests is copious, bound together by the cement of mutual concord and the bond of unity, so that if any one of our college should attempt to make a heresy and to tear and lay waste the flock of Christ, the rest may come to its aid and, like useful and merciful shepherds, gather the Lord's sheep into the flock. For what if in the sea some harbour, its defences broken, should begin to be hostile and dangerous to ships — do not those who sail direct their ships to other nearby harbours, where there is safe access and a saving entrance and a secure anchorage?

Or if on the road some inn should begin to be beset and held by robbers, so that whoever enters is caught there by the harassment of those lying in wait — do not travellers, on learning of this report, make for other safer inns on the journey, where there are trusty lodgings and safe shelters for travellers? This must needs be the case among us, dearest brother: that we receive to ourselves, with ready and kindly humanity, our brethren who, avoiding the rocks of Marcianus, seek the saving harbours of the Church, and that we furnish to travellers such an inn as is in the Gospel, where those wounded and hurt by robbers may be received and cherished and protected by the innkeeper.

For what greater or better care belongs to those set over the Church than to provide for the cherishing and preserving of the sheep by diligent solicitude and a wholesome remedy, since the Lord speaks and says: 'That which was made weak you did not strengthen, and that which was sick you did not make strong, and that which was bruised you did not comfort, and that which went astray you did not call back, and that which perished you did not seek out; and my sheep were scattered, because there were no shepherds, and they became food for all the beasts of the field, and there was none who would seek them out nor any who would call them back. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hands, and I will turn them away that they may feed my sheep no more:'

'and they shall feed them no more, and I will deliver them out of their mouth, and I will feed them with judgement.' Since, then, the Lord thus threatens such shepherds, through whom the Lord's sheep are neglected and perish, what else ought we to do, most dear brother, than to display full diligence in gathering and cherishing the sheep of Christ, and to apply the medicine of a father's tender love to the healing of the wounds of the lapsed, since the Lord also admonishes in the Gospel and says: 'They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.' For although we shepherds are many, yet we feed one flock, and all the sheep whom Christ by his blood and passion

sought out — we ought to gather and cherish them all, and not to suffer our suppliant and sorrowing brothers to be cruelly despised and trampled down by the proud presumption of certain men, since it is written: 'But he who is stubborn and boasts of himself shall accomplish nothing at all, who has enlarged his soul like hell.' And all of this sort the Lord in the Gospel rebukes and condemns, saying: 'You are they that justify yourselves in the sight of men; but God knows your hearts, for that which is lofty among men is an abomination in the sight of God.' He declares them accursed and detestable who please themselves, who, puffed up and swollen, arrogantly claim something for themselves.

Since Marcianus has begun to be of this number, and, joining himself to Novatian, has shown himself an adversary of mercy and tenderness, let him not pronounce sentence but receive it; nor let him act as though he himself had passed judgement upon the college of priests, seeing that he himself has been judged by all the priests. For the glorious honour of our predecessors, the blessed martyrs Cornelius and Lucius, must be preserved; and while we honour their memory, much more ought you, most dear brother, to honour and preserve it by your gravity and authority, you who have been made their vicar and successor.

For they, filled with the Spirit of the Lord and established in glorious martyrdom, judged that peace should be granted to the lapsed, and signified by their letters that, after penance has been performed, the benefit of communion and peace ought not to be denied — a thing which we all without exception everywhere have decreed. Nor could there be among us a divergent sentiment, in whom there was one Spirit; and therefore it is manifest that he does not hold the truth of the Holy Spirit together with the rest, whom we see to hold a different opinion. Make plain to us clearly who has been substituted at Arles in the place of Marcianus, that we may know to whom we should direct our brethren and to whom we ought to write. I pray, most dear brother, that you may ever fare well. CYPRIAN TO HIS SON MAGNUS, GREETING.

In your religious diligence you have consulted our humble self, most dear son, whether, among the other heretics, those also who come from Novatian, after his profane washing, ought to be baptized and sanctified in the Catholic Church by the lawful and true and only baptism of the Church. Concerning this matter, so far as the capacity of our faith and the holiness and truth of the divine Scriptures suggest, we say that all heretics and schismatics whatsoever have no power or right at all. For which reason Novatian neither ought nor can be excepted, so as not to be reckoned among the adversaries and antichrists, since he too stands outside the Church and acts against the peace and love of Christ.

For when our Lord Jesus Christ testified in his Gospel that those were his enemies who were not with him, he did not single out any one species of heresy, but showed that all without exception who were not with him, and who, not gathering with him, scattered his flock, were adversaries, saying: 'He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathers not with me scatters.' Likewise the blessed apostle John himself neither distinguished any heresy or schism, nor set apart any particular kinds, but called all who had gone out from the Church and who acted against the Church 'antichrists,' saying: 'You have heard that antichrist comes; but now there are many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour.'

'They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.' Whence it appears that all those are adversaries of the Lord and antichrists who are established to have withdrawn from the charity and from the unity of the Catholic Church. And further the Lord in his Gospel sets down and says: 'But if he shall despise even the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican.'

But if those who despise the Church are held as heathens and publicans, how much more surely must rebels and enemies, who forge false altars and unlawful priesthoods and sacrilegious sacrifices and adulterated names, of necessity be reckoned among heathens and publicans, when those who sin in lesser things and are merely despisers of the Church are judged to be heathens and publicans by the sentence of the Lord. That the Church is one, the Holy Spirit declares in the Song of Songs, speaking in the person of Christ: 'One is my dove, my perfect one; she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her.' Of which again he says afresh: 'A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a fountain sealed, a well of living water.'

But if the spouse of Christ, which is the Church, is an enclosed garden, that which is shut up cannot lie open to strangers and the profane. And if it is a sealed fountain, he who is placed outside, having no access to the fountain, can neither drink thereof nor be sealed thereby. And if there is but one well of living water, which is within, he who is placed outside cannot be made alive and sanctified by that water, of which the entire use and drinking is granted to those alone who are within. This Peter also set down, showing that the Church is one and that those only who are in the Church can be baptized, when he said:

'In the ark of Noah a few, that is, eight souls of men, were saved through water; which baptism shall in like manner save you also,' proving and witnessing that the one ark of Noah was a type of the one Church. If anyone who was not in the ark of Noah could then be saved through water in that baptism of a world expiated and purified, then he who is not in the Church, to whom alone baptism has been granted, can now also be made alive through baptism. But Paul too, manifesting this same thing yet more openly and clearly, writes to the Ephesians and says: 'Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the washing of water.'

But if there is one Church which is loved by Christ and alone cleansed by his washing, how can he who is not in the Church be either loved by Christ or washed and cleansed by his washing? Wherefore, since the Church alone has the water of life and the power of baptizing and cleansing a man, whoever says that someone can be baptized and sanctified in Novatian's communion must first show and prove that Novatian is in the Church or presides over the Church. For the Church is one, and being one it cannot be both within and without. For if it is with Novatian, it was not with Cornelius.

But if it was with Cornelius, who succeeded the bishop Fabian by lawful ordination, and whom, besides the honour of the priesthood, the Lord glorified also by martyrdom, then Novatian is not in the Church, nor can he be reckoned a bishop, who, despising the evangelical and apostolic tradition, succeeding no one, sprang from himself. For he can in no way have or hold the Church who has not been ordained in the Church. And that the Church is not outside, and cannot be cut against itself or divided, but holds the unity of an inseparable and indivisible house, the faith of divine Scripture makes manifest, where, concerning the sacrament of the Passover and of the lamb — which lamb signified Christ — it is written: 'In one house shall it be eaten; you shall not cast forth the flesh out of the house.'

The same thing we see expressed concerning Rahab, who herself also bore a type of the Church, to whom it is commanded and said: 'Your father and your mother and your brothers and all your father's house you shall gather to yourself into your house; and everyone who shall go forth out of the door of your house shall be guilty unto himself.' By which sacrament it is declared that those who are to live, and to escape from the destruction of the world, must be gathered into one house alone, that is, into the Church; but whoever of those who were gathered shall go forth outside — that is, if anyone, though he has obtained grace in the Church, withdraws and goes out from the Church — shall be guilty, that is, shall impute to himself the very thing whereby he perishes.

This the apostle Paul explains, teaching and enjoining that a heretic must be avoided as perverse and a sinner and condemned by his own self. For this is he who shall be guilty unto himself, cast out not by the bishop, but a fugitive of his own accord from the Church, condemned by his own self through heretical presumption. And therefore the Lord, instilling into us a unity that comes from divine authority, lays it down and says: 'I and the Father are one.' And reducing his Church to that unity, he says again: 'And there shall be one flock and one shepherd.'

But if the flock is one, how can he be numbered with the flock who is not in the number of the flock? Or how can he be regarded as a shepherd who — while the true shepherd remains and presides in the Church of God by succession in ordination — succeeding no one and beginning from himself, becomes an alien and profane person, an enemy of the Lord's peace and of divine unity, not dwelling in the house of God, that is, in the Church of God, in which none dwell save the concordant and unanimous, the Holy Spirit speaking in the Psalms and saying: 'God who makes the unanimous to dwell in a house'? And further, the unanimity of Christians, bound to itself by a firm and inseparable charity, the very sacrifices of the Lord declare.

For when the Lord calls his body bread, compacted out of the union of many grains, he points to our people, whom he bore, as made one; and when he calls his blood wine, pressed out of many clusters and berries and gathered into one, he likewise signifies our flock, joined together by the commingling of a united multitude. If Novatian is made one with this bread of the Lord, if he too is mingled with the cup of Christ, then it might be seen that he could have the grace of the one ecclesiastical baptism, if it were established that he holds the unity of the Church.

Finally, how inseparable is the sacrament of unity, and how without hope and acquiring for themselves the greatest perdition from the indignation of God are those who make a schism and, forsaking the bishop, set up another false bishop for themselves outside — the divine Scripture declares in the books of Kings, where ten tribes were rent away from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, and, forsaking their king, set up another for themselves outside: 'And the Lord,' it says, 'was angry with all the seed of Israel, and removed them, and gave them over to plunder, until he cast them out from his face, because Israel was rent away from the house of David, and they set up for themselves a king, Jeroboam the son of Nebat.'

He said that the Lord was angry and gave them over to destruction because they had been rent away from unity and had set up another king for themselves. And so great was the indignation of the Lord against those who had made the schism, that even when a man of God had been sent to Jeroboam to reproach him for his sins and to foretell the vengeance to come, he was forbidden to eat bread or drink water among them. And when he had not observed this and had dined contrary to the precept of God, he was immediately struck by the majesty of divine censure, so that, returning, he was killed on the way by the onset and bite of a lion.

And does any of you dare to say that the saving water of baptism and heavenly grace can be common with schismatics, with whom not even earthly nor secular drink ought to be shared? Further, the Lord satisfies us in his Gospel and shows a still greater light of understanding, in that the same men who had then rent themselves from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, and, leaving Jerusalem, had withdrawn to Samaria, were reckoned among the profane and the Gentiles. For when he first sent his disciples on the ministry of salvation, he charged them and said: 'Go not into the way of the nations, and into the city of the Samaritans enter not.' Sending them first to the Jews, he bids the Gentiles be passed over for the present:

and by adding that the city of the Samaritans, where the schismatics were, ought also to be omitted, he showed that schismatics are placed on a level with the Gentiles. But if anyone objects this, so as to say that Novatian holds the same law which the Catholic Church holds, baptizes with the same creed by which we too baptize, knows the same God the Father, the same Son Christ, the same Holy Spirit, and on this account can usurp the power of baptizing because he seems not to differ from us in the questioning of baptism — let whoever thinks this should be objected know, first, that there is not one law of the creed for us and for the schismatics, nor the same interrogation.

For when they say, 'Do you believe in the remission of sins and life eternal through the holy Church?' they lie in the questioning, since they have no Church. Then further, by their own voice they themselves confess that the remission of sins cannot be given save through the holy Church; and not having it, they show that sins cannot there be remitted. But as for the fact that they are said to know the same God the Father, the same Son Christ, the same Holy Spirit whom we also know — neither can this avail such men. For Korah and Dathan and Abiram also knew the same God together with the priest Aaron and Moses, living by the same law and religion, and invoked the one and true God who ought to be worshipped and invoked:

yet because, transgressing the ministry of their station, they claimed for themselves licence to sacrifice against Aaron the priest, who had received the lawful priesthood by the favour of God and the ordination of the Lord, they were smitten by God and immediately paid the penalty for their unlawful attempts; nor could the sacrifices, offered irreligiously and unlawfully against the right of the divine ordinance, be valid or profit. The censers themselves, too, in which incense had been unlawfully offered, lest they should thereafter be for the use of the priests, but rather should hold forth a memorial of God's indignation and vengeance for the correction of posterity, were by the Lord's command melted and purged by fire, drawn out into beaten plates, and fastened to the altar, according to what the divine Scripture speaks.

'It is,' he says, 'a memorial to the children of Israel, that no stranger, who is not of the seed of Aaron, may draw near to put incense before the Lord, that he may not be as Korah.' And yet they had not made a schism, nor had they gone forth outside to rebel impudently and as enemies against the priests of God — a thing which these men now do, who, rending the Church and rebelling against the peace and unity of Christ, attempt to set up a chair for themselves and to assume the primacy, and to claim the licence of baptizing and of offering. How can they accomplish what they do, or obtain anything from God by unlawful attempts, who against God contrive what is not lawful for them?

Wherefore those who patronize Novatian or the rest of such schismatics contend in vain that anyone can there be baptized and sanctified by the saving baptism, where it is established that the one baptizing does not have the licence to baptize. And, that it might the more be understood what is the divine censure against such audacity, we find that in such a crime not only the leaders and authors, but also the participants, are destined to punishments, unless they have separated themselves from the communion of the wicked, the Lord enjoining through Moses and saying: 'Separate yourselves from the tents of these most hardened men, and touch nothing of all that is theirs, lest you perish together in their sin.'