'Wisdom,' he says, 'has built her house and set up seven pillars. She has slain her victims, mingled her wine in the bowl, and prepared her table. And she has sent her servants, calling together with lofty proclamation to the bowl, saying: Whoever is foolish, let him turn aside to me. And to those lacking in sense she said: Come and eat of my bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you.' He declares the wine mingled, that is, with prophetic voice he foretells the cup of the Lord mingled with water and wine, so that it may appear that in the Lord's passion that was done which had before been foretold.
In the blessing of Judah too this same thing is signified, where there also the figure of Christ is expressed: that he would be praised and adored by his brethren; that he would press down with his hands the backs of his enemies as they yielded and fled—the hands by which he bore the cross and conquered death; and that he himself is the lion of the tribe of Judah, and reclines sleeping in his passion, and rises again, and is himself the hope of the nations. To which the divine Scripture adds and says: 'He shall wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape.' But when the blood of the grape is mentioned, what else is shown but that the wine of the Lord's cup is his blood? Moreover, with Isaiah also the Holy Spirit testifies the same thing concerning the Lord's passion, saying:
'Why are your garments red, and your raiment as of one who treads a winepress full and trodden down?' Can water make garments red, or is there water in the winepress which is trodden by the feet or pressed out by the press? Mention of wine is set down for this reason, that the Lord's blood may be understood by the wine, and that what was afterward made manifest in the Lord's cup might be proclaimed by the prophets announcing it beforehand. The treading and pressure of the winepress is also marked, because, just as one cannot come to drink wine unless the cluster of grapes is first trodden and pressed, so neither could we drink the blood of Christ unless Christ had first been trodden and pressed, and had himself first drunk the cup which he would offer to those who believe.
But whenever water alone is named in the holy Scriptures, baptism is being proclaimed, as we see signified in Isaiah. 'Do not,' he says, 'remember the former things, and do not consider the things of old. Behold, I do a new thing, which shall now spring forth, and you shall know it; and I will make a way in the desert, and rivers in a waterless place, to give drink to my chosen race, my people whom I have acquired, that it might set forth my mighty deeds.' There God foretold through the prophet that among the nations, in places that had formerly been waterless, rivers should afterward overflow, and should give drink to God's chosen race, that is, to those made sons of God through the generation of baptism.
Again likewise it is foresung and foretold that the Jews, if they should thirst and seek Christ, would have their drink among us, that is, would obtain the grace of baptism. 'If they shall thirst,' he says, 'through the deserts, he will bring them water; from the rock he will produce it for them; the rock shall be cleft, and the water shall flow, and my people shall drink.' This is fulfilled in the Gospel, when Christ, who is the rock, is cleft by the stroke of the lance in his passion; who also, admonishing what was foretold beforehand through the prophet, cries out and says: 'If anyone thirsts, let him come and drink, who believes in me; as the Scripture says, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly.' And, that it might be the more manifest that there the Lord is speaking not of the cup but of baptism, the Scripture added, saying:
'But this he said concerning the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive.' Now through baptism the Holy Spirit is received, and thus, to those baptized and having obtained the Holy Spirit, one comes at length to the drinking of the Lord's cup. But let it move no one that, when the divine Scripture speaks of baptism, it says that we thirst and drink, since the Lord too says in the Gospel: 'Blessed are those who thirst and hunger after righteousness,' because what is received with eager and thirsting desire is drawn in more fully and more abundantly. So too in another place the Lord speaks to the Samaritan woman, saying: 'Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give shall not thirst forever.'
By this very thing also the baptism of saving water is signified, which is received but once and is not again repeated. But the cup of the Lord in the Church is always both thirsted for and drunk. Nor is there need of many arguments, dearest brother, that we should prove that by the appellation of water baptism has always been signified, and that we ought so to understand it, since the Lord, coming, manifested the truth of baptism and of the cup, who appointed that that faithful water, the water of eternal life, should be given to believers in baptism, but taught that the cup should be mingled by the conjunction of wine and water. For receiving the cup on the day of his passion, he blessed it and gave it to his disciples, saying: 'Drink of this, all of you.'
'For this is the blood of the testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins. I say to you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father.' In which passage we find that the cup which the Lord offered was mingled, and that it was wine which he called his blood. Whence it appears that the blood of Christ is not offered if wine be lacking to the cup, nor is the Lord's sacrifice celebrated with lawful sanctification, unless our oblation and sacrifice corresponds to the passion. But how shall we drink the new wine of the fruit of the vine with Christ in the kingdom of the Father, if in the sacrifice of God the Father and of Christ we do not offer wine, nor mingle the cup of the Lord by the Lord's tradition?
The blessed apostle Paul also, chosen and sent by the Lord and appointed a preacher of the evangelical truth, sets down these same things in his epistle, saying: 'The Lord Jesus, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread and gave thanks and broke it, and said: This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup, after he had supped, saying: This cup is the new testament in my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.'
But if it is enjoined by the Lord, and this same thing is confirmed and handed down by his apostle, that, as often as we drink, we should do this in remembrance of the Lord which the Lord also did, we find that what was commanded is not observed by us unless we too do the same things which the Lord did, and, mingling the cup by like reason, do not depart from the divine teaching. But that we must by no means depart from the evangelical precepts, and that the disciples ought also to observe and do the same things which the Master taught and did, the blessed apostle teaches more firmly and strongly in another place, saying:
'I marvel that you are so quickly turned away to another gospel from him who called you to grace—which is not another, except that there are some who trouble you and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you otherwise than what we announced to you, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so now I say again: if anyone announces to you otherwise than what you have received, let him be anathema.'
Since therefore neither the apostle himself nor an angel from heaven can announce or teach otherwise than what Christ once taught and his apostles announced, I marvel greatly whence this practice has been usurped, that, contrary to evangelical and apostolic discipline, in certain places water is offered in the Lord's cup, which alone cannot express the blood of Christ. The sacrament of which matter the Holy Spirit does not keep silent even in the Psalms, making mention of the Lord's cup and saying: 'Your cup that inebriates, how excellent it is.' Now a cup that inebriates is assuredly mingled with wine; for water can inebriate no one. And the Lord's cup so inebriates as Noah too in Genesis was inebriated, drinking wine.
But because the inebriation of the Lord's cup and blood is not such as is the inebriation of worldly wine, since the Holy Spirit, when he said in the Psalm 'Your cup that inebriates,' added 'how excellent it is'—because, namely, the Lord's cup so inebriates as to make men sober, and brings the mind back to spiritual wisdom, so that each one may come to his senses from this worldly taste to the understanding of God; and just as by this common wine the mind is loosed and the soul relaxed and all sadness laid aside, so too, when the blood of the Lord and the cup of salvation has been drunk, the memory of the old man may be laid aside, and there may come a forgetfulness of the former worldly manner of life, and the heart, sad and gloomy, which before was oppressed by anguishing sins, may be released by the gladness of the divine indulgence:
which then at last can gladden him who drinks in the Church of the Lord, if what is drunk holds the Lord's truth. But how perverse and how contrary it is, that, whereas the Lord at the wedding made wine of water, we should make water of wine, when the sacrament of that matter ought also to admonish and instruct us, that in the Lord's sacrifices we should rather offer wine. For because among the Jews spiritual grace had failed, the wine also failed: for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel.
But Christ, teaching and showing that the people of the nations should succeed, and that we should afterward, by the merit of faith, come into the place which the Jews had lost, made wine of water; that is, he showed that at the wedding of Christ and the Church, with the Jews ceasing, the people of the nations should rather flow together and assemble. For that waters signify peoples, the divine Scripture declares in the Apocalypse, saying: 'The waters which you saw, on which that harlot sits, are peoples and a multitude and nations of the heathen and tongues.' Which thing assuredly we perceive to be contained also in the sacrament of the cup. For because Christ bore us all, who also bore our sins, we see that in the water the people is to be understood, but in the wine is shown the blood of Christ.
But when water is mingled with the wine in the cup, the people are made one with Christ, and the multitude of believers is bound and joined to him in whom they have believed. This binding and joining of the water and the wine is so mingled in the Lord's cup that the mixture cannot be parted from one another. Hence nothing shall be able to separate the Church—that is, the people established within the Church, faithfully and firmly persevering in that which they have believed—from Christ, so as to prevent it from ever cleaving to him and abiding in undivided love. So too, in the hallowing of the Lord's cup, water alone cannot be offered, just as wine alone cannot. For if anyone offers wine only, the blood of Christ begins to be without us; but if the water be alone, the people begin to be without Christ.
But when both are mingled and, joined in a blended union, are bound one to another, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is perfected. Thus indeed the Lord's cup is not water alone or wine alone, unless each be mingled with the other—just as neither can the body of the Lord be flour alone or water alone, unless each be made one and bound together and consolidated into the compact mass of a single bread. By this very sacrament our people are shown to be made one; for as many grains, gathered into one and ground together and mingled, make one bread, so let us know that in Christ, who is the heavenly bread, there is one body, to which our number is joined and made one.
Therefore it is not the case, dearest brother, that anyone should judge that the custom of certain persons is to be followed—if any in time past have thought that water alone should be offered in the Lord's cup. For we must ask whom they themselves have followed. For if in the sacrifice which Christ offered none but Christ is to be followed, surely it behooves us to obey and to do what Christ did and what he commanded should be done, since he himself says in the Gospel: 'If you do what I command you, I no longer call you servants, but friends.' And that Christ alone ought to be heard, the Father also testifies from heaven, saying: 'This is my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him.'
Wherefore, if Christ alone is to be heard, we ought not to attend to what another before us thought ought to be done, but to what he who is before all, Christ, first did. For we must not follow the custom of man, but the truth of God, since God speaks through the prophet Isaiah and says: 'But in vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men'; and again the Lord in the Gospel repeats this very thing, saying: 'You reject the commandment of God, that you may establish your own tradition.' But in another place too he sets it down and says: 'Whoever shall loosen one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.'
But if it is not lawful to loosen even the least of the Lord's commandments, how much more is it not permitted to violate things so great, so weighty, so pertaining to the very sacrament of the Lord's Passion and of our redemption, or to change them by human tradition into anything other than what was divinely instituted? For if Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, is himself the high priest of God the Father, and offered himself as a sacrifice to the Father, and commanded this to be done in remembrance of him, then assuredly that priest truly acts in the place of Christ who imitates that which Christ did, and then offers a true and complete sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, if he begins so to offer according as he sees that Christ himself offered.
For the rest, all the discipline of religion and of truth is overturned, unless that which is spiritually enjoined is faithfully kept—unless perhaps in the morning sacrifices someone fears this, lest by the savor of wine he should give off the scent of the blood of Christ. Thus then the brotherhood begins to be held back from the Passion of Christ in persecutions, while in the offerings it learns to be ashamed of his blood and gore. Moreover the Lord says in the Gospel: 'Whoever is ashamed of me, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed.' And the apostle also speaks, saying: 'If I pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.' But how can we shed our blood for Christ, when we blush to drink the blood of Christ?
Or does anyone flatter himself with this consideration, that although in the morning water alone seems to be offered, yet when we come to supper we offer the mixed cup? But when we sup, we cannot summon the people to our banquet, so as to celebrate the truth of the sacrament with all the brotherhood present. And yet it was not in the morning, but after supper, that the Lord offered the mixed cup. Must we then celebrate the Lord's Supper after supper, that we may so offer the mixed cup at the frequent celebration of the Lord's days? It behooved Christ to offer about the evening of the day, that the very hour of the sacrifice might show the setting and the evening of the world; as it is written in Exodus: 'And all the assembly of the multitude of the children of Israel shall slay it toward evening.' And again in the Psalms:
'The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice.' But we celebrate the Lord's resurrection in the morning. And because in all our sacrifices we make mention of his Passion—for the Lord's Passion is the sacrifice which we offer—we ought to do nothing else than what he did. For the Scripture says that as often as we offer the cup in remembrance of the Lord and of his Passion, we should do that which it is established the Lord did. And let it be considered, dearest brother, if any of our predecessors, whether through ignorance or in simplicity, did not observe and hold this which the Lord taught us to do by his example and teaching, pardon may be granted to his simplicity by the Lord's indulgence;
but to us it cannot be forgiven, who have now been admonished and instructed by the Lord that we should offer the Lord's cup mingled with wine, according as the Lord offered, and that concerning this also we should send letters to our colleagues, so that everywhere the evangelical law and the Lord's tradition may be kept, and that there be no departure from what Christ both taught and did. To despise these things any further, and to persevere in the former error, what else is it than to incur the reproach of the Lord rebuking and saying: 'Why do you declare my ordinances, and take up my covenant in your mouth? But you have hated discipline, and have cast my words behind you. If you saw a thief, you ran with him, and you set your portion among adulterers.'
For to declare the ordinances and the covenant of the Lord, and not to do this same thing that the Lord did, what else is it than to cast away his words and to despise the Lord's discipline, and to commit thefts and adulteries—not earthly, but spiritual—when anyone steals from the evangelical truth the words and deeds of our Lord, and corrupts and adulterates the divine precepts? As it is written in Jeremiah: 'What is chaff to the wheat?' he says. 'Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets,' says the Lord, 'who steal my words every one from his neighbor, and lead my people astray by their lies and by their errors.' Likewise in the same prophet, in another place: 'And she committed adultery,' he says, 'with wood and stone, and in all these she did not return to me.'
This theft and adultery we ought carefully and fearfully and religiously to take heed lest it fall upon us also. For if we are priests of God and of Christ, I find none whom we ought rather to follow than God and Christ, since he himself most plainly says in the Gospel: 'I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.' Lest then we walk in darkness, we ought to follow Christ and to observe his precepts, since he himself in another place, sending the apostles, said: 'All power is given to me in heaven and on 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.'
Wherefore, if we wish to walk in the light of Christ, let us not depart from his precepts and admonitions, giving thanks that, while he instructs us for the future as to what we ought to do, he pardons the past in which we erred in simplicity. And because his second coming now draws near to us, more and more does his kindly and bountiful regard illumine our hearts with the light of truth.
It befits, therefore, our religion and our fear, and the very place and office of our priesthood, dearest brother, in mingling and offering the Lord's cup, to keep the truth of the Lord's tradition, and to correct, at the Lord's warning, what previously seems to have been erred in among certain persons; so that when he begins to come in his glory and heavenly majesty, he may find us holding what he admonished, observing what he taught, doing what he did. I wish you, dearest brother, ever to fare well. CYPRIAN AND THE OTHER COLLEAGUES, SIXTY-SIX IN NUMBER, WHO WERE PRESENT IN THE COUNCIL, TO BROTHER FIDUS, GREETING.
We have read your letter, dearest brother, in which you signified concerning Victor, formerly a presbyter, that before he had performed full penance and had made satisfaction to the Lord God against whom he had sinned, our colleague Therapius rashly, at an untimely moment and with over-hasty haste, granted him peace. This matter has greatly disturbed us, that there should have been a departure from the authority of our decree, so that before the lawful and full time of satisfaction, and without the petition and knowledge of the people, with no infirmity pressing and no necessity compelling, peace should have been granted to him. But after long deliberation among ourselves, it was enough to rebuke our colleague Therapius for having rashly done this, and to instruct him to do nothing of the kind henceforth;
yet the peace once given by a priest of God we did not think should in any way be taken away; and on this account we permitted Victor to make use of the communion granted to him. But as far as concerns the case of infants, whom you said ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after they are born, and that the law of the ancient circumcision should be considered, so that you thought one who is born ought not to be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day—a far different view prevailed in our council. For in this which you thought ought to be done no one agreed, but rather we all judged that the mercy and grace of God should be denied to no human being that is born. For when the Lord says in his Gospel:
'The Son of man came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save them,' so far as in us lies, if it can be done, no soul is to be lost. For what does he lack who was once formed in the womb by the hands of God? For to us and to our eyes, those who are born seem to receive their increase according to the course of secular days; but whatever things are made by God are perfected by the majesty and work of God the Maker.
Finally, that there is among all—whether infants or those greater in age—one equality of the divine gift, the faith of divine Scripture declares to us; when Elisha stretched himself out upon the widow's infant son, who lay dead, thus beseeching God, so that head was applied to head and face to face, and the limbs of Elisha, spread over him, were joined to the several limbs of the little one, and feet to feet. If this matter be considered according to the quality of our birth and of our body, an infant could not be made equal to a grown and full-aged man, nor could they cohere, and the small limbs could not suffice for the greater.
But there a divine and spiritual equality is expressed: that all men are alike and equal, since they were once made by God, and that our age can have a difference in the increase of bodies according to the world, but not according to God—unless indeed even the very grace which is given to the baptized be bestowed less or more according to the age of the recipients, whereas the Holy Spirit is given equally to all not according to measure but according to fatherly piety and indulgence. For as God does not accept the person, so neither the age, since he shows himself a Father to all with balanced equality for the attaining of the heavenly grace.
For as to what you said—that the footprint of an infant, set in the first days of its birth, is not clean, which each one of us still shrinks from kissing—neither do we think that this ought to be a hindrance to the giving of heavenly grace. For it is written: 'All things are clean to the clean.' Nor ought any of us to shrink from that which God has deigned to make. For although the infant is still fresh from birth, yet it is not such that anyone ought to shrink from kissing it in giving grace and in making peace, since in the kiss of an infant each one of us, according to his religion, ought to consider the very hands of God, still fresh, which in a man just formed and newly born we in a manner kiss, when we embrace that which God has made.
For as to what was observed in the carnal circumcision of the Jews—that the eighth day was kept—it is a sacrament, sent beforehand in a shadow and image; but with the coming of Christ 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 quicken us and give us the spiritual circumcision, this eighth day—that is, the first after the Sabbath and the Lord's day—went before in an image; which image ceased when the truth afterward came in, and the spiritual circumcision was given to us.
Wherefore we think that no one is to be hindered from obtaining grace by that law which has already been established, nor ought the spiritual circumcision to be hindered by the carnal circumcision, but every single person without exception is to be admitted to the grace of Christ; since Peter also speaks in the Acts of the Apostles and says: 'The Lord has told me that no man is to be called common and unclean.' But if anything could hinder men from the attaining of grace, then graver sins would rather hinder the adult and the advanced and those greater in age.
Moreover, if even to the gravest offenders, and to those who before sinned much against God, when they have afterward believed, the remission of sins is granted, and no one is forbidden from baptism and grace—how much more ought not an infant to be forbidden, who, newly born, has sinned nothing, except that, born carnally according to Adam, he has contracted by his first birth the contagion of the ancient death; who comes to receive the remission of sins all the more easily, in that there are remitted to him not his own but another's sins. And therefore, dearest brother, this was our sentence in the council: that no one ought through us to be forbidden from baptism and from the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and pious to all.
And since this is to be observed and held with regard to all, we think it is the more to be observed with regard to infants themselves and the newly born, who by this very fact deserve more of our help and of the divine mercy, that at the very first beginning of their birth, weeping and wailing, they do nothing else than make supplication. We wish you, dearest brother, ever to fare well. CYPRIAN TO BROTHER EPICTETUS AND TO THE PEOPLE ABIDING AT ASSURAS, GREETING. I have been gravely and grievously moved, dearest brothers, because I have learned that Fortunatianus, formerly bishop among you, after the grievous lapse of his fall, now wishes to act as if whole, and has begun to claim the episcopate for himself.
This matter has saddened me, first on his own account, who—wretched, either utterly blinded by the darkness of the devil, or deceived by the sacrilegious persuasion of certain persons—when he ought to make satisfaction and to be intent day and night upon imploring the Lord with tears and prayers and supplications, dares still to claim for himself the priesthood which he betrayed; as though, after the altars of the devil, it were lawful to approach the altar of God, or as though he did not provoke against himself a greater wrath and indignation of the Lord on the day of judgment—he who, when he could not be a leader of faith and virtue to the brethren, stands forth a master of perfidy and audacity and rashness, and who, having not taught the brethren to stand bravely in battle, teaches those who were conquered and laid low not even to entreat, when the Lord says: