Treatises & Letters 12 part 5/21

After these letters, as though something more moderate and more temperate were being done, Lucianus wrote a letter in the name of all the confessors, by which almost every bond of faith, the fear of God, the commandment of the Lord, and the holiness and firmness of the Gospel would be loosed. For he wrote in the name of them all that they had all granted peace, and that they wished this form to be made known through me to the other bishops; a copy of which letter I have transmitted to you. There was plainly added: 'to those concerning whom the account of what they have done after their offence has been established.' This matter brews up greater ill-will against us, so that when we begin to hear and sift the cases of individuals, we may seem to deny to many what they all now boast to have received from the martyrs and confessors.

In short, the origin of this sedition has already begun. For in our province, throughout several cities, an assault has been made by the multitude upon those set over them, and they have at once compelled to be presented to themselves the peace which they loudly claimed had been granted once to all by the martyrs and confessors, their overseers being terrified and subdued, who prevailed too little in strength of mind and firmness of faith to resist. Among us too certain turbulent men, who in time past were scarcely governed by us and were being deferred until our coming, kindled as it were by certain firebrands through this letter, have begun to blaze out the more and to wrest for themselves the peace granted to them. Concerning these, the copy of the kind of letters I have made to the clergy I have sent you.

But also what my colleague Caldonius has written to me in keeping with his integrity and faith, and what I have written back to him, both I have transmitted to you to be read. Copies too of the letter of Celerinus, a good and robust confessor, which he wrote to Lucianus the same confessor, and likewise what Lucianus wrote back to him, I have sent you, that you might know that our diligence labours about all things, and might learn from the very truth how moderate and cautious Celerinus the confessor is, and how modest in the humility and fear of our way of life, but how Lucianus, as I said, is less skilled concerning the understanding of the Lord's word, and concerning the laying aside of any ill-will against our scrupulousness, is immoderate through his own easygoing nature.

For whereas the Lord said that the nations should be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and that past sins should be forgiven in baptism, this man, ignorant of the precept and the law, bids peace to be granted and sins to be forgiven in the name of Paulus, and says that this was charged to him by him—as you will observe in the letters of the same Lucianus made to Celerinus, in which he considered too little that it is not the martyrs who make the Gospel, but through the Gospel that martyrs are made; since even Paul the apostle, whom the Lord called the vessel of his election, set down in his epistle, saying: 'I marvel that you are so quickly thus removed from him who called you into grace, unto another gospel, which is not another;

unless there be some who trouble you and wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach otherwise than what we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so now I say again: if anyone preach to you otherwise than what you have received, let him be anathema.' Opportunely indeed did your letters come upon us, which I received made to the clergy, and likewise those which the blessed confessors Moyses, Maximus, Nicostratus, and the rest sent to Saturninus and Aurelius and the others, in which is contained the full vigour of the Gospel and the robust discipline of the Lord's law.

While we here labour and resist with all the forces of faith against the assault of ill-will, your message has greatly helped us, so that a divine shortening of the way was made; and before the letters I lately sent you reached you, you declared to us that your judgement too stands with us bravely and unanimously according to the law of the Gospel. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brethren, ever to fare well. Cyprian to Moyses and Maximus the presbyters and to the rest of the confessors, the most beloved brethren, greeting.

The glory of your faith and valour, most brave and most blessed brethren, I had long since learned from report, rejoicing greatly and most heartily congratulating you, that a singular condescension prepared you for the crown of our Lord by the confession of his name. For you, made foremost leaders for the battle of our time, set in motion the standards of the heavenly host. You imbued with your valour the spiritual contest which God willed now to be waged. You broke with immovable strength and unshaken steadfastness the first assaults of the rising war. Thence happy beginnings of the fighting arose; thence the auspices of conquering began. Here it has come to pass that martyrdoms were consummated through torments;

but he who, going before in the encounter, became to the brethren an example of valour, is in honour shared in common with the martyrs. The crowns wreathed by your hand you have thence handed over to this place, and from the cup of salvation you have given the brethren to drink. To the glorious beginnings of confession and the auspices of the victorious warfare there was added the steadfastness of discipline, which we have perceived from the vigour of your letter that you have just now sent with anxious admonition to your colleagues joined with you in the confession of the Lord, that the holy precepts of the Gospel and the life-giving commands once delivered to us may be held with strong and stable observance.

Behold another sublime step of your glory; behold once more, joined with confession, a title to deserving God's favour: to stand on firm footing, and in this battle-line which strives to break into the Gospel, and to thrust away by the strength of faith the impious hands brought to overthrow the Lord's precepts—to have furnished before the beginnings of virtues, and now to furnish also the lessons of conduct. The Lord, after his resurrection, sending forth the apostles, charges and says: 'All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.' And John the apostle, mindful of the commandment, sets down afterward in his epistle:

'Hereby,' he says, 'we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments. He who says that he has known him, and keeps not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.' These precepts you urge to be kept; these divine and heavenly commands you keep. This is to be a confessor of the Lord, this is to be a martyr of Christ: to keep the inviolate and solid firmness of one's word concerning all things, and not, through the Lord becoming a martyr, to attempt to destroy the Lord's precepts. To use against him the favour which he has given you, and with arms received from him to become in some sort a rebel—this is to wish to confess Christ and to deny the Gospel of Christ.

I rejoice therefore in you, most brave and most faithful brethren; and as much as I congratulate the martyrs there honoured for the glory of their strength, so much do I likewise congratulate you for the crown also of the Lord's discipline. The Lord has poured out his favour with manifold bounty; he has distributed the praises and spiritual glories of good soldiers with abundant variety. We too are sharers in your honours; we reckon your glory our glory, whose times so great a felicity has illumined, that it has befallen us in our age to see the approved servants of God and the soldiers of Christ crowned. I wish you, most brave and most blessed brethren, ever to fare well and to remember us. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, the brethren, greeting.

Lest anything should be hidden from your conscience, dearest brethren, what has been written to me and what I have written back, I have sent you a copy of each letter; and I believe that what I wrote back does not displease you. But this also I ought to convey to you by my letter: that, the case pressing, I sent letters to the clergy residing in the city. And since it behoved me to write through the clerics, but I know that very many of ours are absent, and that the few who are there scarcely suffice for the daily ministry of the work, it was necessary to appoint some new men who might be sent.

Know, moreover, that I have made Saturus a reader and Optatus the confessor a subdeacon—men whom we had already some while ago, by common counsel, made next to the clergy, when either we gave Saturus the reading once and again on the day of Pascha, or when of late, together with the presbyter-teachers, we carefully tested readers, and appointed Optatus among the readers of the catechumens who are hearers, examining whether all those things agreed in them which ought to be in those who were being prepared for the clergy. Nothing therefore has been done by me, in your absence, that is new; but what had already long ago begun by the common counsel of us all has, under pressing necessity, been advanced. I wish you, dearest brethren, ever to fare well and to remember us. Greet the brotherhood. Farewell.

To Cyprian the Pope, the presbyters and deacons residing at Rome, greeting. Although a mind well aware of itself, and resting upon the vigour of evangelical discipline, and made a true witness to itself in the heavenly decrees, is wont to be content with God alone as its judge, and neither to seek the praises nor to dread the accusations of another, yet they are worthy of doubled praise who, though they know their conscience to owe its account to God alone as judge, yet desire their acts to be approved also by their very brethren.

That you, brother Cyprian, should do this is no wonder, who, out of your modesty and inborn diligence, wished us to be found not so much judges of your counsels as partakers, so that in your deeds we might find praise together with you while we approve them, and might be co-heirs—since also approvers—of your good counsels. For we shall all be believed to have wrought the same, in that we are all apprehended as allied in the same agreement of censure and discipline. For what is more fitting in peace, or more necessary in the war of persecution, than to maintain the due severity of divine vigour?

He who has relaxed it must needs ever wander in an unstable course of affairs, and be scattered hither and thither by the various and uncertain storms of business, and, as though the helm of counsels were wrested from his hands, dash the ship of ecclesiastical safety upon the rocks; so that it appears that the safety of the Church cannot otherwise be provided for, unless those who act against it be driven back as it were by certain adverse waves, and the rule of discipline itself, ever guarded, be kept as a kind of saving helm in the tempest.

Nor has this counsel now been newly devised by us, nor have these sudden remedies against the wicked only just now come upon us; but this severity is ancient among us, ancient the faith, ancient the discipline that is read of—since the apostle would not have brought forth such great praises of us, saying, 'Because your faith is proclaimed in all the world,' unless even from that time this vigour had borrowed the roots of faith from those days; from which praises and glory it is a very great crime to have degenerated. For it is less of disgrace never to have attained to the proclamation of praise than to have fallen from the height of praise. It is less of crime not to have been honoured by a good testimony than to have lost the honour of good testimonies.

It is less to have lain ignoble without praise, with no prejudice to one's virtues, than, made disinherited of faith, to have lost one's own praises. For those things which are brought forth unto anyone's glory, unless they be guarded with anxious and solicitous labour, swell up into the ill-will of the greatest crime.

That we say this not falsely, our former letters have proved, in which we set forth to you our judgement by a clear exposition against those who had betrayed themselves as faithless by the unlawful profession of nefarious certificates, as though they were to escape, and to be seen escaping, those entangling snares of the devil—whereas they were held no less than if they had approached the nefarious altars, by this very thing, that they had attested it; but also against those who had had certificates procured, although they had not been present when these were made, since they had nevertheless rendered their presence, as it were, by giving the charge that they should be so written. For he is not free from guilt who procured that it should be done, nor is he a stranger to the crime by whose consent—though the crime was not committed—it is nevertheless publicly read of;

and since the whole sacrament of faith is understood to be comprised in the confession of the name of Christ, he who seeks deceptive tricks for his excuse has denied, and he who wishes to be seen as having satisfied the edicts or laws set forth against the Gospel, by this very thing has already obeyed that whereby he wished to be seen to have obeyed. Moreover, against those also who had polluted their hands and lips with unlawful sacrifices—their own minds being polluted beforehand, whence too those very hands and lips are polluted—we have shown our faith and our consent.

For far be it from the Roman Church to relax its vigour with so profane a facility, and to dissolve the sinews of severity by overturning the majesty of faith—so that, while the ruins of the overthrown brethren not only still lie but even keep falling, remedies of communion, over-hastened and assuredly of no profit, should be granted, and new wounds, through a false mercy, be pressed upon the old wounds of transgression, so that even penance should be snatched from the wretched to their greater overthrow. For where shall the medicine of indulgence be able to proceed, if the physician himself, by intercepting penance, indulges perils—if he only covers the wound and does not allow the remedies necessary for time to draw a scar over it? This is not to heal, but, if we will speak truth, to slay.

Moreover, of the confessors too—whom the dignity of their confession has here still shut up in prison, and whom their faith in confession has already once gloriously crowned for the evangelical contest—you have letters concurring with our letters, in which they have set forth the severity of evangelical discipline and have recalled the unlawful petitions from the modesty of the Church; lest, if they had done this readily, they should not readily repair the ruins of evangelical discipline—especially since to none was it more fitting to keep undiminished the dignity of evangelical vigour by its very tenor than to those who had delivered themselves to be tortured and torn in pieces for the Gospel by raging men, lest they should deservedly lose the honour of martyrdom, if in the very occasion of martyrdom they had been willing to be betrayers of the Gospel.

For he who does not guard what he has, in him from whom he possesses it, while he violates that from which he possesses it, loses what he possessed. In which matter we ought to render, and do render, the greatest and most abundant thanks to you, that you have illumined the darkness of their prison with your letters, that you have come to them in such manner as you could enter, that you have refreshed by your addresses and letters their minds, robust in their own faith and confession, that, having attended their felicities with worthy praises, you have kindled them to a far more ardent desire of heavenly glory, that you have urged them on as they pressed forward, that—as we believe and hope they will be victors—you have animated them by the strength of your discourse;

so that, although all this seems to come from the faith of those who confess and from the divine indulgence, yet in their martyrdom they may seem to have been made debtors to you in some degree. But that the discourse may return again to the point from which it seemed to have digressed, what kind of letters we have sent into Sicily also you shall have appended. Although a greater necessity of deferring this matter presses upon us, for whom, after the death of the man of most noble memory Fabian, a bishop is not yet appointed, on account of the difficulties of affairs and of the times, who might moderate all these things and might be able to keep account, with authority and counsel, of those who have lapsed.

Although in so vast a matter it pleases us—what you yourself also have treated—that first the peace of the Church should be awaited, and then, by a conference of counsels with bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and likewise with the laity who stand firm, the case of the lapsed should be dealt with. For it seems to us both very invidious and burdensome not to examine through many what seems to have been committed through many, and to pronounce sentence as one man, when so great a crime, spread through many, is noted to have gone forth; since neither can a decree be firm which shall not be seen to have had the consent of very many.

Look upon almost the whole world laid waste, and everywhere the relics and ruins of the fallen lying about; and therefore so great a counsel is required, in proportion as the offence is seen to have been spread so widely. Let the medicine not be less than the wound is; let the remedies not be less than the deaths—so that, as those who have fallen have fallen in this, that with blind rashness they were too incautious, so those who strive to dispose of this may use every moderation of counsels, lest anything not done as it ought be judged by all as void.

With one and the same counsel, therefore, with the same prayers and weepings, let both we, who so far seem to have escaped the ruins of this time, and they, who seem to have fallen into these disasters of the time, beseeching the divine majesty, ask for peace for the Christian name. Let us cherish, guard, and arm one another with mutual vows. Let us pray for the lapsed, that they may be raised up; let us pray for those who stand, that they be not tempted even to ruin; let us pray that those who are reported to have fallen, acknowledging the greatness of their offence, may understand that they are not to desire a momentary nor an over-hasty medicine.

Let us pray that the effect of indulgence may follow the penance of the lapsed, and that, understanding their crime, they may be willing meanwhile to grant us patience, and not disturb the still-fluctuating state of the Church, lest they should seem themselves to have kindled an inner persecution against us, and lest there be added to the heap of crimes that they were also unquiet—for to those especially does modesty befit whose unmodest mind is condemned in their offences. Let them indeed knock at the doors, but not assuredly break them down. Let them approach the threshold of the Church, but not assuredly leap over it. Let them keep watch at the gates of the heavenly camps, but armed with the modesty by which they may understand that they have been deserters. Let them take up again the trumpet of their prayers, but with one by which they do not sound the war-blast.

Let them arm themselves indeed with the weapons of modesty, and take up again the shield which, by denying through fear of death, they had let go of their faith; but so that they may believe themselves to be armed even now against the enemy the devil, not against the Church which grieves over their fall. A modest petition, a scrupulous request, a necessary humility, a patience not idle, shall greatly profit them. Let them send tears as envoys for their sorrows; let groans brought forth from the inmost breast act as advocates, proving their grief and shame at the crime committed. Nay, if they shudder at the greatness of the disgrace they have admitted, if they truly treat with a healing hand the deadly stroke of their breast and conscience and the deep recesses of the winding wound, let them blush even to ask;

except that it is a matter of greater both peril and shame not to have sought the help of peace at all. But let all this be done within the sacrament, within the law of the petition itself, with a temperance suited to the occasion, with a humble request, with a submissive prayer: since both he who is petitioned ought to be moved, not provoked, and as the divine clemency ought to be regarded, so ought the divine censure also to be regarded; and as it is written, 'I forgave you all the debt, because you besought me,' so it is written, 'He who shall deny me before men, I also will deny him before my Father and before his angels.'

For God, as he is indulgent, so is he an exactor of his precepts, and indeed a diligent one; and as he calls to the banquets, so he casts forth, bound hand and foot, outside the assembly of the saints, him who has not the garment of the wedding. He has prepared heaven, but he has also prepared Tartarus. He has prepared refreshments, but he has also prepared eternal torments. He has prepared inaccessible light, but he has also prepared the vast and eternal darkness of perpetual night. Seeking to maintain here the governance of this temperament, long and indeed many, and indeed with certain bishops near and adjoining us, and whom the heat of this persecution had cast down from other far-distant provinces,

before the appointment of a bishop, we thought that nothing should be innovated, but believed that the care of the lapsed should be moderately tempered, so that meanwhile, while a bishop is awaited to be given us by God, the case of those who can endure the delay of postponement should be held in suspense; but as for those whose pressing end of life cannot bear delay—penance having been done and the detestation of their deeds frequently professed, if by tears, if by groans, if by weepings, grieving and truly repenting, they have shown the signs of a contrite mind, when no hope of living according to man remains—then at last they should be succoured cautiously and solicitously, God himself knowing what he will do concerning such, and how he weighs the balances of his judgement; we, however, anxiously taking care that neither should wicked men praise our easy compliance, nor truly penitent ones accuse us of a harsh cruelty as it were.

We pray, most blessed and most glorious pope, that you may ever fare well in the Lord and be mindful of us. To Cyprian the pope, from Moyses and Maximus the presbyters, and Nicostratus and Rufinus and the rest of the confessors who are with them, greeting. Amid the varied and manifold sorrows, brother, which beset us on account of the present ruins of so many throughout almost the whole world, this chief consolation came upon us: that, upon receiving your letter, we were raised up, and we received soothing remedies for the griefs of a sorrowing soul.

Hence we are now able to understand that the grace of divine providence perhaps willed to keep us so long shut up in the bonds of prison for no other cause than that, instructed and more sturdily emboldened by your letter, we might be able with readier desire to attain the crown appointed for us. For your letter shone upon us as a clear sky amid a storm, as the longed-for calm upon a troubled sea, as rest amid toils, as health amid perils and pains, as a bright and gleaming light amid the thickest darkness. So thirstily did our soul drink it in, and with so hungry a longing did we receive it, that we rejoice to go forth to the contest with the enemy well fed and fattened by it.

The Lord will render to you a reward for this your love, and will repay the due fruit of so good a work. For he who exhorted is no less worthy of the crown's reward than he who also suffered; he who did the deed is no more worthy of praise than he who also taught. He who admonished is to be honoured no less than he who obeyed the one exhorting—except that sometimes a greater heap of glory overflows to him who instructed than to him who showed himself a teachable disciple. For this latter would perhaps not have had that which he practised, had not the former taught him.

We have therefore received—again we say it, brother Cyprian—great joys, great consolations, great comforts, especially in that you have followed up with glorious and worthy praises the glorious—I will not say deaths, but immortalities—of the martyrs. For such departures were to be proclaimed with such words, that the things related might be told just as they were done. From your letter, then, we beheld those glorious triumphs of the martyrs, and with our own eyes we somehow followed them as they sought heaven, and we contemplated them, as it were, set among the angels and the powers and the heavenly dominions. Nay, we even perceived, somehow with our own ears, the Lord bearing before his Father the testimony promised to them.

This, then, is what daily lifts up our spirit also, and inflames us to attain the steps of so great a dignity.

For what could befall any man, by divine favour, more glorious or more blessed than to confess the Lord God undaunted in the very midst of the executioners; than, amid the varied and exquisite torments of a raging worldly power, to confess Christ the Son of God even with the body wrenched and racked and torn to pieces, with the spirit departing yet still free; than, having left the world, to have sought heaven; than, having forsaken men, to stand among the angels; than, with all worldly hindrances broken, to present oneself already free in the sight of God; than to hold the heavenly kingdom without any delay; than to have been made a partner of the Passion with Christ in Christ's name; than to have been made, by divine favour, a judge of one's own judge,

than to have carried away an unstained conscience from the confession of the Name; than not to have obeyed human and sacrilegious laws against the faith; than to have borne witness to the truth with a public voice; than, by dying, to have subdued that very death which all men dread; than, through that very death, to have attained immortality; than, torn to pieces and wrenched by every instrument of cruelty, to have overcome the torments by the very torments; than, with all the pains of a mangled body, to have resisted by strength of soul; than not to have shuddered at one's own flowing blood; than, after the confession of faith, to have begun to love one's own sufferings; than to have reckoned it a loss of one's life to have gone on living?

For to this battle the Lord arouses us as if by a certain trumpet of his Gospel, saying: 'He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves his own life more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.' And again: 'Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men persecute you and hold you in hatred. Rejoice and exult; for so also they persecuted the prophets who were before you.' And: 'For you shall stand before kings and governors, and brother shall deliver brother to death, and a father his son; and he who shall persevere unto the end, the same shall be saved.' And:

'To him that overcomes I will grant to sit upon my throne, even as I also overcame and sat down upon my Father's throne.' But the Apostle also says: '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 we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome, because of him who loved us.' When we read these and suchlike things gathered together in the Gospel, we feel them set beneath us by the Lord's own words like torches, as it were, to kindle our faith: