'You have poured out libations to them, and to them you have offered sacrifices: shall I not be indignant at these things?' says the Lord. And in another place: 'He that sacrifices to gods shall be rooted out, save to the Lord alone.' Likewise the Lord again speaks and says: 'They worshipped those whom their fingers made, and man bowed down and the man was humbled, and I will not release them.' In the Apocalypse too we read of the wrath of the Lord threatening and saying: 'If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives the mark on his forehead and on his hand, he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, mixed in the cup of his wrath, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone before the eyes of the holy angels and before the eyes of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torments shall ascend forever and ever;
and they who worship the beast and his image shall have no rest day and night.' When therefore the Lord threatens these torments, these punishments, on the day of judgment to those who obey the devil and sacrifice to idols, how does he think he can act on behalf of God's priest, who has obeyed and served the priests of the devil? Or how does he think his hand can be transferred to the sacrifice of God and to the prayer of the Lord, when it has been a captive to sacrilege and to crime—since in the divine Scriptures God forbids priests, even those established in a lighter crime, to approach to the sacrifice, and in Leviticus says: 'A man in whom there is a blemish and a spot shall not approach to offer gifts to God.' Likewise in Exodus:
'And let the priests who approach to the Lord God be sanctified, lest perchance the Lord forsake them.' And again: 'And those who approach to minister at the altar of the holy place shall not bring sin upon themselves, lest they die.' Those therefore who have brought grave sins upon themselves—that is, who by sacrificing to idols have made sacrilegious sacrifices—cannot claim for themselves the priesthood of God, nor make any prayer in his sight on behalf of the brethren, since in the Gospel it is written: 'God does not hear a sinner; but if anyone worships God and does his will, him he hears.'
Although the deep gloom of encroaching darkness has so blinded the hearts of certain persons that they admit no light from wholesome precepts, but, once turned aside from the straight track of the true way, are swept headlong and over the precipice by the night and error of their own crimes. Nor is it any wonder if those who have denied the Lord now refuse our counsels or the Lord's precepts. They long for fees and offerings and gains, over which they formerly brooded insatiably; and even now they gape after dinners and feasts, with the surfeit of which, lately surviving, they belched daily from indigestion—now most plainly proving that before they served not religion, but rather the belly and gain with profane greed.
Whence we perceive and believe that the very censure has come from God's examination, that they should no longer persist in standing at the altar and handling—they, the shame of incest, the perfidious as to faith, the profane as to religion, the earthly as to things divine, the sacrilegious as to holy things. Lest such men return again to the defilements of the altar and to the contagion of the brethren, we must keep watch with all our strength, and strive with all our vigor that, as far as we can, we may beat them back from this audacity of their own wickedness, lest they still attempt to act as priest—men who, cast down to the extremity of death, have rushed into a greater ruin than the lapsed laity by the weight of their fall.
But if among these madmen an incurable frenzy persists, and, with the Holy Spirit withdrawing, the blindness which has begun remains in its own night, our counsel will be to separate the individual brethren from their deceit, and—lest anyone fall into the snares of error—to sever them from their contagion; since neither can the offering be sanctified there where the Holy Spirit is not, nor can the Lord profit anyone through the prayers and supplications of one who has himself violated the Lord.
But if Fortunatianus, whether forgetful of his crime through the blindness of the devil, or made a minister and slave of the devil to deceive the brotherhood, persists in this frenzy of his, do you labor as much as you can, and in this gloom of the raging devil recall the minds of the brethren from error, lest they easily consent to another's madness, lest they make themselves partakers in the offenses of the desperate; but let them hold whole the tenor of their own salvation and the perpetual vigor of an integrity preserved and guarded by themselves. But let the lapsed, recognizing the greatness of their offense, not depart from imploring the Lord, nor forsake the catholic Church, which is one and alone, established by the Lord:
but, persevering in satisfactions and imploring the Lord's mercy, let them knock at the Church, that they may be received back there where they once were, and may return to Christ from whom they departed. And let them not listen to those who deceive themselves with a false and deadly seduction, since it is written: 'Let no one deceive you with empty words; for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience. Be not therefore partakers with them.' Therefore let no one keep company with the disobedient, who do not fear God and who depart wholly from the Church.
But if anyone be impatient in imploring the Lord who has been offended, and refuse to obey us, and follow the desperate and the lost, he will impute it to himself when the day of judgment comes. For how shall he be able on that day to implore the Lord, who has denied both Christ before this and now also the Church of Christ, and, not obeying bishops sound and whole and living, has shown himself a companion and partaker of those who are dying? I wish you, dearest brothers, ever to fare well. CYPRIAN, WHO IS ALSO THASCIUS, TO FLORENTIUS, WHO IS ALSO PUPIANUS, BROTHER, GREETING.
I had believed, brother, that you had at last been converted to repentance, in that, concerning what in time past was so unspeakable, so foul, so to be execrated even by the heathen, you had either heard it about us rashly or had believed it. But now also I observe in your letter that you are still the same as you were before, that you believe the same things about us, and persevere in what you had believed; and lest perchance the dignity of your renown and martyrdom be stained by our communion, you diligently inquire into our morals and—after God the Judge, who makes priests—you wish, I will not say of me—for how great am I?—but of the judgment of God and of Christ, to judge.
This is to disbelieve in God; this is to stand forth a rebel against Christ and against his Gospel: that, whereas he says, 'Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and neither of them falls to the ground without the Father's will?'—and his majesty and truth prove that even lesser things do not happen without the knowledge and permission of God—you should suppose that the priests of God are ordained in the Church without his knowledge. For to believe that those who are ordained are unworthy and impure, what else is it than to contend that God's priests are not appointed in the Church by God nor through God?
Or do you think that my testimony about myself is greater than God's, when the Lord himself teaches and says that testimony is not true if anyone be a witness of his own self, in that everyone surely favors himself, nor does anyone bring forth hostile and adverse things against himself, whereas the faith of truth is sincere if in our proclamations there be another as preacher and witness? 'If I,' he says, 'give testimony of myself, my testimony is not true. For there is another who is witness of me.'
But if the Lord himself, who is afterward to judge all things, thus would not have himself believed upon his own testimony, but preferred to be approved by the judgment and testimony of God the Father, how much more ought his servants to observe this, who are not only approved by the judgment and testimony of God, but even glory therein. But there prevailed with you, against the divine sentence, against our conscience resting upon the strength of its own faith, the contrivance of enemies and malicious men—as though among the lapsed and the profane and those placed outside the Church, from whose breasts the Holy Spirit has departed, there could be anything else but a depraved mind and a lying tongue and venomous hatreds and sacrilegious falsehoods; and whoever believes these, must needs be found with them when the day of judgment comes.
But as to what you said—that priests ought to be humble, because both the Lord and the apostles were humble—my humility both all the brethren and the heathen too know full well and love; and you too once knew and loved it, when you were still in the Church and held communion with me. But which of us is far from humility—I, who daily serve the brethren and kindly and with rejoicing receive every one who comes to the Church, or you, who set yourself up as bishop of a bishop and judge of a judge given for a time by God, when the Lord God in Deuteronomy says:
'And any man whatsoever who shall act in pride, so as not to hearken to the priest or to the judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die; and all the people, when they hear, shall fear, and shall not act impiously any more.' And again he speaks to Samuel and says: 'They have not spurned you, but they have spurned me.' And further, the Lord in the Gospel, when it was said to him, 'Do you answer the high priest so?'—keeping and teaching that priestly honor ought to be preserved—said nothing against the high priest, but, clearing only his own innocence, answered, saying: 'If I have spoken ill, give testimony of the evil; but if well, why do you strike me?' Likewise the blessed apostle, when it was said to him:
'Do you so insult the priest by reviling him?'—spoke nothing insulting against the priest, although he might have steadfastly exerted himself against those who had crucified God and who had now lost the Lord and Christ and the temple and the priesthood; yet, considering even the empty shadow itself of the priestly name in those false and despoiled priests, he said: 'I knew not, brethren, that he is the high priest. For it is written: You shall not revile the ruler of your people.' Unless perhaps I was a priest to you before the persecution, when you held communion with me, but after the persecution I ceased to be a priest. For the persecution, coming, advanced you to the highest sublimity of martyrdom, but pressed me down with the burden of proscription, when it was publicly read:
'If anyone holds or possesses any of the goods of Caecilius Cyprian, bishop of the Christians' — so that even those who did not believe in God when He appointed a bishop might at least believe the devil when he proscribed a bishop. Nor do I boast of these things, but I bring them forth in grief, since you set yourself up as judge of God and of Christ, who says to the apostles, and through them to all the leaders who succeed the apostles by the ordination that follows in their place: 'He who hears you hears me; and he who hears me hears Him who sent me. And he who rejects you rejects me, and Him who sent me.' For whence have schisms and heresies arisen, and whence do they keep arising? From this: that the bishop, who is one and presides over the Church, is despised through the proud presumption of certain men, and the man honoured by God's regard is judged unworthy by men.
For what swelling of pride is this, what arrogance of soul, what inflation of mind, to summon the leaders and priests of the Church to one's own examination — so that, unless we have been cleared before you and absolved by your sentence, behold, for six years now the brotherhood has had no bishop, nor the people a leader, nor the flock a shepherd, nor the Church a governor, nor Christ a prelate, nor God a priest!
Let Pupianus come to the rescue and pronounce his sentence; let him bring in the judgement of God and of Christ as already given, lest so great a number of the faithful, who have been called together under us, seem to have departed without hope of salvation and peace; lest the new people of believers be judged to have obtained through us no grace of baptism and of the Holy Spirit; lest the peace granted to so many lapsed and penitent, and our communion conceded after due examination, be dissolved by the authority of your judgement. Consent at last, and deign to pronounce concerning us, and to confirm our episcopate by the force of your examination, so that God and His Christ may be able to give you thanks that through you a prelate and ruler has been restored alike to their altar and to their people! Bees have a king, and cattle keep a leader and keep faith;
robbers obey their chief with full and humble compliance. How much more simple and better than you are the brute beasts and dumb animals, and the bandits — bloody though they be and raging amid swords and arms! There a leader is acknowledged and feared, one whom no divine sentence appointed, but whom a desperate faction and a guilty band agreed upon. You have indeed said that there was a scruple you had to remove from your mind, into which you had fallen. You have fallen — but by your own irreligious credulity. You have fallen — but by your own sacrilegious mind and will: while you readily hear, and gladly believe, things incestuous, impious, and unspeakable against a brother, against a priest; while you defend others' lies as if they were your own and private, and do not remember that it is written:
'Hedge your ears about with thorns, and refuse to hear a wicked tongue'; and again: 'The evil man gives heed to the tongue of the unrighteous, but the just man pays no attention to lying lips.' Why have these martyrs, full of the Holy Spirit and already near, by their passion, to the sight of God and of His Christ, not fallen into this scruple — those who from prison directed letters to Cyprian the bishop, acknowledging him as a priest of God and bearing witness to him?
Why have so many of my fellow-bishops, my colleagues, not fallen into this scruple — those who, whether they were proscribed when they withdrew from public life, or were seized and held in prison and in chains, or were banished into exile and journeyed to the Lord by a glorious road, or in certain places were put to death and received heavenly crowns from the Lord's glorification? Why have they not fallen into this scruple — of this our own people who are with us and have been entrusted to us by God's regard — so many confessors put to the question and tortured and glorious in the memory of their notable wounds and scars, so many unblemished virgins, so many praiseworthy widows, and finally all the Churches throughout the whole world joined to us by the bond of unity?
Unless indeed all these, communicating with me, were — according to what you have written — defiled by our defiled mouth, and lost the hope of eternal life through the contagion of our communion! Pupianus alone is whole, inviolate, holy, chaste — he who would not mingle himself with us — and he alone shall dwell in paradise and in the kingdom of heaven! You have also written that the Church now, on my account, has a portion of itself in dispersion, whereas the whole people of the Church is both gathered and made one, and joined to itself in undivided concord; only those have remained outside who, even had they been within, would have had to be cast out. Nor does the Lord, the protector and guardian of His people, suffer the wheat to be torn from His threshing-floor, but only the chaff can be separated from the Church — since the Apostle too says:
'For what if some of them have fallen away from the faith? Has their unfaithfulness made void the faith of God? God forbid! For God is true, but every man a liar.' And the Lord too in the Gospel, when His disciples were forsaking Him as He spoke, turned to the Twelve and said: 'Do you also wish to go?' Peter answered Him, saying: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the word of eternal life; and we believe and have known that you are the Son of the living God.'
It is Peter who speaks there — he upon whom the Church had been built — teaching in the name of the Church and showing that, even though a stubborn and proud multitude of those unwilling to obey departs, yet the Church does not depart from Christ; and they are the Church, a people united to its priest and a flock cleaving to its shepherd. Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church and the Church in the bishop, and that whoever is not with the bishop is not in the Church; and that those flatter themselves in vain who, not having peace with God's priests, creep in and secretly believe they are in communion with certain people — when the Church, which is one and catholic, is not split nor divided, but is altogether joined together and bound by the cement of priests cleaving to one another.
Wherefore, brother, if you will consider the majesty of God who ordains priests, if you will at some time look back to Christ who governs by His will and nod and presence both the leaders themselves and the Church together with the leaders, if you will believe concerning the innocence of priests not by human hatred but by divine judgement, if you will begin even late to do penance for your rashness and pride and insolence, if you will most fully make satisfaction to the Lord and to His Christ, whom I serve and to whom with a pure and unstained mouth I unceasingly offer sacrifices both in persecution and in peace — then we shall be able to take account of your communion, the regard and fear of the divine censure nevertheless abiding with us; and I shall first consult my Lord whether He permits, by His showing and admonition, that peace be granted to you and that you be admitted to the communion of His Church.
For I remember what has already been shown to me, nay rather what has been commanded by the dominical and divine authority to me His obedient and fearing servant; who, among the other things which He deigned to show and reveal, added this also: 'And so he who does not believe Christ when He makes a priest, shall afterwards begin to believe Christ when He avenges the priest.' Although I know that dreams seem ridiculous and visions foolish to certain men — but assuredly to those who prefer to believe against the priests rather than to believe the priest. Yet it is no wonder, since concerning Joseph his brothers said:
'Behold, that dreamer comes; now therefore come, let us kill him' — and yet the dreamer afterwards attained to what he had dreamed, while those who slew and sold him were put to confusion, so that they who at first had not believed his words might afterwards believe his deeds. But concerning the things which you have done, whether in persecution or in peace, it would be foolish for me to wish to judge you — since you have rather set yourself up as our judge. And out of the pure conscience of my mind, and out of confidence in my Lord and my God, I have written back. You have my letter, and I have yours. On the day of judgement, before the tribunal of Christ, both shall be read out.
Cyprian, Caecilius, Primus, Polycarp, Nicomedes, Lucilianus, Successus, Sedatus, Fortunatus, Januarius, Secundinus, Pomponius, Honoratus, Victor, Aurelius, Sattius, Petrus, another Januarius, Saturninus, another Aurelius, Venantius, Quietus, Rogatianus, Tenax, Felix, Faustus, Quintus, another Saturninus, Lucius, Vincentius, Libosus, Geminius, Marcellus, Iambus, Adelphius, Victoricus, and Paulus — to Felix the presbyter and to the people residing at Legio and Asturica, and likewise to Aelius the deacon and to the people residing at Emerita, brothers in the Lord, greeting.
When we had come together into one place, we read your letter, most beloved brothers, which you sent to us through Felix and Sabinus our fellow-bishops, out of the integrity of your faith and out of the fear of God, signifying that Basilides and Martialis, defiled by the certificates of idolatry and bound by the consciousness of unspeakable crimes, ought not to bear the episcopate nor to administer the priesthood of God; and you desired that we write back to you upon these matters, and that your just and likewise necessary anxiety be relieved by the solace or the help of our judgement.
But indeed it is not so much our counsels as the divine precepts that answer to this desire of yours — precepts whereby it has long since been commanded by a heavenly voice and prescribed by the law of God who and what manner of men ought to serve at the altar and to celebrate the divine sacrifices. For in Exodus God speaks to Moses and warns, saying: 'Let the priests who approach the Lord God be sanctified, lest perchance the Lord forsake them.' And again: 'And when they approach to minister at the altar of the holy things, they shall not bring guilt upon themselves, lest they die.' Likewise in Leviticus the Lord enjoins and says: 'The man in whom there is a blemish and a defect shall not approach to offer gifts to God.'
Since these things have been foretold and made manifest to us, our obediences must serve the divine precepts; nor can favouritism be shown in matters of this kind, nor can anything be granted to anyone by human indulgence, where the divine prescription intervenes and assigns the law. For neither ought we to be unmindful of what the Lord spoke to the Jews through the prophet Isaiah, rebuking and indignant that, despising the divine precepts, they followed human teachings. 'This people,' He says, 'honours me with their lips, but their heart is far separated from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of men.' This too the Lord repeats in the Gospel and says: 'You reject the commandment of God, that you may establish your own tradition.'
Having these things before our eyes, and considering them anxiously and religiously, in the ordinations of priests we ought to choose none but unblemished and upright prelates, who, offering sacrifices to God in holiness and worthily, may be able to be heard in the prayers which they make for the safety of the Lord's people — since it is written: 'God does not hear the sinner; but whoever worships God and does His will, him He hears.' For which reason, with full diligence and sincere scrutiny, those ought to be chosen for the priesthood of God who, it is established, are heard by God.
Nor let the people flatter themselves that they can be immune from the contagion of sin when communicating with a sinful priest and lending their consent to the unjust and unlawful episcopate of their leader — since the divine censure threatens and says through the prophet Hosea: 'Their sacrifices shall be as the bread of mourning; all who eat of them shall be defiled' — teaching, namely, and showing that absolutely all are bound to sin who have been defiled by the sacrifice of a profane and unjust priest. This same thing we find made manifest in Numbers, when Korah and Dathan and Abiram claimed for themselves the licence of sacrificing against Aaron the priest.
There too the Lord commands through Moses that the people be separated from them, lest, joined to wicked men, the people too be entangled in the same wickedness. 'Separate yourselves,' He says, 'from the tents of these most hardened, unjust men, and touch nothing of all that is theirs, lest you perish together in their sin.' For which reason the people, obeying the dominical precepts and fearing God, ought to separate themselves from a sinful leader, and not to mingle themselves with the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest — since they especially have the power either of choosing worthy priests or of rejecting the unworthy.
And this very thing we see descends from divine authority: that a priest be chosen in the presence of the people, under the eyes of all, and be approved as worthy and fit by public judgement and testimony — as in Numbers the Lord commands Moses, saying: 'Take Aaron your brother and Eleazar his son, and set them upon the mountain in the sight of all the congregation, and strip Aaron of his robe and clothe Eleazar his son with it; and let Aaron, being thus set apart, die there.'
God orders a priest to be appointed before the whole congregation; that is, He instructs and shows that priestly ordinations ought not to take place except with the awareness of the assisting people, so that, the people being present, either the crimes of the wicked may be uncovered or the merits of the good proclaimed, and that ordination may be just and lawful which shall have been examined by the suffrage and judgement of all. This afterwards, according to the divine teachings, is observed in the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter speaks to the people about ordaining a bishop in the place of Judas. 'Peter,' it says, 'stood up in the midst of the disciples, and the multitude was in one place.'
And we observe that the apostles kept this not only in the ordinations of bishops and priests, but also in those of deacons; concerning which very thing it is likewise written in their Acts. 'And those twelve,' it says, 'called together the whole multitude of the disciples and said to them...' This indeed was done so diligently and carefully, with the whole people convoked, lest any unworthy person should creep in to the ministry of the altar or to the priestly office. For that unworthy men are sometimes ordained, not according to the will of God but according to human presumption, and that those things displease God which do not come from a lawful and just ordination, God Himself makes manifest through the prophet Hosea, saying: 'They have set up for themselves a king, and not by me.'
For which reason, concerning the divine tradition and apostolic observance, this must be kept and held — which among us also and almost throughout all the provinces is held — that for the right celebration of ordinations the neighbouring bishops of the same province should come together to that people for whom a leader is to be ordained, and that the bishop be chosen in the presence of the people, who most fully know the life of each one and have looked into the conduct of every man by his manner of living. This we see was done also among you in the ordination of our colleague Sabinus, so that by the suffrage of the whole brotherhood and by the judgement of the bishops who had assembled in person, and who had written to you concerning him, the episcopate was conferred upon him and a hand laid upon him in the place of Basilides.
Nor can the fact rescind an ordination rightly accomplished — that Basilides, after his crimes were detected and laid bare even by the confession of his own conscience, going to Rome, deceived Stephen our colleague, who was far away and ignorant of the affair and the truth, so that he might canvass to be unjustly restored to the episcopate from which he had been justly deposed. This amounts to Basilides' offences being not so much abolished as heaped up, so that to his earlier sins there has been added also the crime of deceit and circumvention. But if Basilides could creep up upon men, he cannot do so upon God — since it is written: 'God is not mocked.'
But neither could the deceit have profited Martialis, so as to make him able to hold the episcopate though he too is entangled in grave offences — since the Apostle also warns and says: 'A bishop ought to be without crime, as the steward of God.'