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| To Antonianus About Cornelius and Novatian.
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Epistle LI.2450
| 2450
Oxford ed.: Ep. lv. a.d.
252. |
To Antonianus About Cornelius and
Novatian.
Argument.—When Antonianus, Having Received Letters from Novatian,
Had Begun to Be Disposed in His Mind Towards His Party, Cyprian
Confirms Him in His Former Opinion, Namely, that of Continuing to Hold
Communion with His Bishop and So with the Catholic Church. He
Excuses Himself for His Own Change of Opinion in Respect of the Lapsed,
and at the End He Explains Wherein Consists the Novatian
Heresy.2451
| 2451 That
he may induce him to this, he narrates the history of the whole
disturbance between Cornelius and Novatian, and explains that Cornelius
was an excellent man, and legitimately elected; while Novatian was
guilty of many crimes, and had obtained an unlawful election. |
1. Cyprian to Antonianus his brother,
greeting. I received your first letters, dearest brother, firmly
maintaining the concord of the priestly college, and adhering to the
Catholic Church, in which you intimated that you did not hold communion
with Novatian, but followed my advice, and held one common agreement
with Cornelius our co-bishop.2452
You wrote, moreover, for me to
transmit a copy of those same letters to Cornelius our colleague, so
that he might lay aside all anxiety, and know at once that you held
communion with him, that is, with the Catholic Church.2453
2. But subsequently there arrived other letters of
yours sent by Quintus our co-presbyter, in which I observed that your
mind, influenced by the letters of Novatian, had begun to waver.
For although previously you had settled your opinion and consent
firmly, you desired in these letters that I should write to you once
more what heresy Novatian had introduced, or on what grounds Cornelius
holds communion with Trophimus and the sacrificers. In which
matters, indeed, if you are anxiously careful, from solicitude for the
faith, and are diligently seeking out the truth of a doubtful matter,
the hesitating anxiety of a mind undecided in the fear of God, is not
to be blamed.
3. Yet, as I see that after the first opinion
expressed in your letter, you have been disturbed subsequently by letters of Novatian, I assert
this first of all, dearest brother, that grave men, and men who are
once established upon the strong rock with solid firmness, are not
moved, I say not with a light air, but even with a wind or a tempest,
lest their mind, changeable and uncertain, be frequently agitated
hither and thither by various opinions, as by gusts of wind rushing on
them, and so be turned from its purpose with some reproach of
levity. That the letters of Novatian may not do this with you,
nor with any one, I will set before you, as you have desired, my
brother, an account of the matter in few words. And first of all
indeed, as you also seem troubled about what I too have done, I must
clear my own person and cause in your eyes, lest any should think that
I have lightly withdrawn from my purpose, and while at first and at the
commencement I maintained evangelical vigour, yet subsequently I seem
to have turned my mind from discipline and from its former severity of
judgment, so as to think that those who have stained their conscience
with certificates, or have offered abominable sacrifices, are to have
peace made easy to them. Both of which things have been done by
me, not without long-balanced and pondered reasons.
4. For when the battle was still going on,
and the struggle of a glorious contest was raging in the persecution,
the courage of the soldiers had to be excited with every exhortation,
and with full urgency, and especially the minds of the lapsed had to be
roused with the trumpet call, as it were, of my voice, that they might
pursue the way of repentance, not only with prayers and lamentations;
but, since an opportunity was given of repeating the struggle and of
regaining salvation, that they might be reproved by my voice, and
stimulated rather to the ardour of confession and the glory of
martyrdom. Finally, when the presbyters and deacons had written
to me about some persons, that they were without moderation and were
eagerly pressing forward to receive communion; replying to them in my
letter which is still in existence,2454
then I added also this: “If
these are so excessively eager, they have what they require in their
own power, the time itself providing for them more than they ask:
the battle is still being carried on, and the struggle is daily
celebrated: if they truly and substantially repent of what they
have done, and the ardour of their faith prevails, he who cannot be
delayed may be crowned.” But I put off deciding what was to
be arranged about the case of the lapsed, so that when quiet and
tranquillity should be granted, and the divine indulgence should allow
the bishops to assemble into one place, then the advice gathered from
the comparison of all opinions being communicated and weighed, we might
determine what was necessary to be done. But if any one, before
our council,2455
| 2455 [The
provincial council, clearly.] | and before the
opinion decided upon by the advice of all, should rashly wish to
communicate with the lapsed, he himself should be withheld from
communion.
5. And this also I wrote very fully to Rome,
to the clergy who were then still acting without a bishop, and to the
confessors, Maximus the presbyter, and the rest who were then shut up
in prison, but are now in the Church, joined with Cornelius. You
may know that I wrote this from their reply, for in their letter they
wrote thus: “However, what you have yourself also declared
in so important a matter is satisfactory to us, that the peace of the
Church must first be maintained; then, that an assembly for counsel
being gathered together, with bishop, presbyters, deacons, and
confessors, as well as with the laity who stand fast, we should deal
with the case of the lapsed.”2456
It was added also—Novatian
then writing, and reciting with his own voice what he had written, and
the presbyter Moyses, then still a confessor, but now a martyr,
subscribing—that peace ought to be granted to the lapsed who were
sick and at the point of departure. Which letter was sent
throughout the whole world, and was brought to the knowledge of all the
churches and all the brethren.2457
6. According, however, to what had been
before decided, when the persecution was quieted, and opportunity of
meeting was afforded; a large number of bishops, whom their faith and
the divine protection had preserved in soundness and safety, we met
together; and the divine Scriptures being brought forward2458
| 2458
[Note this appeal to Scripture always, as enthroned
infallibility, insuring the presence of the Spirit of
counsel.] | on both sides,
we balanced the decision with wholesome moderation, so that neither
should hope of communion and peace be wholly denied to the lapsed, lest
they should fail still more through desperation, and, because the
Church was closed to them, should, like the world, live as heathens;
nor yet, on the other hand, should the censure of the Gospel be
relaxed, so that they might rashly rush to communion, but that
repentance should be long protracted, and the paternal clemency be
sorrowfully besought, and the cases, and the wishes, and the
necessities of individuals be examined into, according to what is
contained in a little book, which I trust has come to you, in which the
several heads of our decisions are collected. And lest perchance
the number of bishops in Africa should seem unsatisfactory, we also
wrote to Rome, to Cornelius our colleague, concerning this thing, who
himself also holding a
council with very many bishops, concurred in the same opinion as we had
held, with equal gravity and wholesome moderation.2459
| 2459 [A
most important reference to the true position of the Roman See.
Elucidation IX.] |
7. Concerning which it has now become necessary to
write to you, that you may know that I have done nothing lightly, but,
according to what I had before comprised in my letters, had put off
everything to the common determination of our council, and indeed
communicated with no one of the lapsed as yet, so long as there still
was an opening by which the lapsed might receive not only pardon, but
also a crown. Yet afterwards, as the agreement of our college,
and the advantage of gathering the fraternity together and of healing
their wound required, I submitted to the necessity of the times, and
thought that the safety of the many must be provided for; and I do not
now recede from these things which have once been determined in our
council by common agreement, although many things are ventilated by the
voices of many, and lies against God’s priests uttered from the
devil’s mouth, and tossed about everywhere, to the rupture of the
concord of Catholic unity. But it behoves you, as a good brother
and a fellow-priest like-minded, not easily to receive what malignants
and apostates may say, but carefully to weigh what your colleagues,
modest and grave men, may do, from an investigation of our life and
teaching.
8. I come now, dearest brother, to the
character of Cornelius our colleague, that with us you may more justly
know Cornelius, not from the lies of malignants and detractors, but
from the judgment of the Lord God, who made him a bishop, and from the
testimony of his fellow-bishops, the whole number of whom has agreed
with an absolute unanimity throughout the whole world.
For,—a thing which with laudable announcement commends our
dearest Cornelius to God and Christ, and to His Church, and also to all
his fellow-priests,—he was not one who on a sudden attained to
the episcopate; but, promoted through all the ecclesiastical offices,
and having often deserved well of the Lord in divine administrations,
he ascended by all the grades of religious service to the lofty summit
of the Priesthood. Then, moreover, he did not either ask for the
episcopate itself, nor did he wish it; nor, as others do when the
swelling of their arrogance and pride inflates them, did he seize upon
it;2460
| 2460
[Novatian and his like.] | but quiet
otherwise, and meek and such as those are accustomed to be who are
chosen of God to this office, having regard to the modesty of his
virgin continency, and the humility of his inborn and guarded
veneration, he did not, as some do, use force to be made a bishop, but
he himself suffered compulsion, so as to be forced to receive the
episcopal office. And he was made bishop by very many of our
colleagues who were then present in the city of Rome, who sent to us
letters concerning his ordination, honourable and laudatory, and
remarkable for their testimony in announcement of him. Moreover,
Cornelius was made bishop by the judgment of God and of His Christ, by
the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the suffrage of the people
who were then present, and by the assembly of ancient priests and good
men, when no one had been made so before him, when the place of Fabian,
that is, when the place of Peter2461
| 2461 [On
the death of Fabian, see Ep. iii. p. 281; sufferings of Cornelius
(inference), p. 303; Decius, p. 299.] | and the degree of the sacerdotal throne
was vacant; which being occupied by the will of God, and established by
the consent of all of us, whosoever now wishes to become a bishop, must
needs be made from without; and he cannot have the ordination of the
Church who does not hold the unity of the Church. Whoever he may
be, although greatly boasting about himself, and claiming very much for
himself, he is profane, he is an alien, he is without. And as
after the first there cannot be a second, whosoever is made after one
who ought to be alone, is not second to him, but is in fact none at
all.
9. Then afterwards, when he had undertaken
the episcopate, not obtained by solicitation nor by extortion, but by
the will of God who makes priests; what a virtue there was in the very
undertaking of his episcopate, what strength of mind, what firmness of
faith,—a thing that we ought with simple heart both thoroughly to
look into and to praise,—that he intrepidly sate at Rome in the
sacerdotal chair at that time when a tyrant, odious to God’s
priests, was threatening things that can, and cannot be spoken,
inasmuch as he would much more patiently and tolerantly hear that a
rival prince was raised up against himself than that a priest of God
was established at Rome. Is not this man, dearest brother, to be
commended with the highest testimony of virtue and faith? Is not
he to be esteemed among the glorious confessors and martyrs, who for so
long a time sate awaiting the manglers of his body and the avengers of
a ferocious tyrant, who, when Cornelius resisted their deadly edicts,
and trampled on their threats and sufferings and tortures by the vigour
of his faith, would either rush upon him with the sword, or crucify
him, or scorch him with fire, or rend his bowels and his limbs with
some unheard-of kind of punishment? Even though the majesty and
goodness of the protecting Lord guarded, when made, the priest whom He
willed to be made; yet Cornelius, in what pertains to his devotion and
fear, suffered2462
| 2462 [On
the death of Fabian, see Ep. iii. p. 281; sufferings of Cornelius
(inference), p, 303; Decius, p. 299.] | whatever he
could suffer, and conquered
the tyrant first of all by his priestly office, who was afterwards
conquered in arms and in war.
10. But in respect to certain discreditable and
malignant things that are bandied about concerning him, I would not
have you wonder when you know that this is always the work of the
devil, to wound God’s servants with lies, and to defame a
glorious name by false opinions, so that they who are bright in the
light of their own conscience may be tarnished by the reports of
others. Moreover, you are to know that our colleagues have
investigated, and have certainly discovered that he has been blemished
with no stain of a certificate, as some intimate; neither has he
mingled in sacrilegious communion with the bishops who have sacrificed,
but has merely associated with us those whose cause had been heard, and
whose innocence was approved.
11. For with respect to Trophimus also, of
whom you wished tidings to be written to you, the case is not as the
report and the falsehood of malignant people had conveyed it to you.
For, as our predecessors often did, our dearest brother, in
bringing together the brethren, yielded to necessity; and since a very
large part of the people had withdrawn with Trophimus, now when
Trophimus returned to the Church, and atoned for, and with the
penitence of prayer confessed his former error, and with perfect
humility and satisfaction recalled the brotherhood whom he had lately
taken away, his prayers were heard; and not only Trophimus, but a very
great number of brethren who had been with Trophimus, were admitted
into the Church of the Lord, who would not all have returned to the
Church unless they had come in Trophimus’ company.
Therefore the matter being considered there with several
colleagues,2463
| 2463
[Not by a mere decision, but by consent of
“colleagues.”] | Trophimus was
received, for whom the return of the brethren and salvation restored to
many made atonement. Yet Trophimus was admitted in such a manner
as only to communicate as a layman, not, according to the information
given to you by the letters of the malignants, in such a way as to
assume the place of a priest.
12. But, moreover, in respect of what has been
told you, that Cornelius communicates everywhere with those who have
sacrificed, this intelligence has also arisen from the false reports of
the apostates. For neither can they praise us who depart from us,
nor ought we to expect to please them, who, while they displease us,
and revolt against the Church, violently persist in soliciting brethren
away from the Church. Wherefore, dearest brethren, do not with
facility either hear or believe whatever is currently rumoured against
Cornelius and about me.
13. For if any are seized with sicknesses,
help is given to them in danger, as it has been decided. Yet
after they have been assisted, and peace has been granted to them in
their danger, they cannot be suffocated by us, or destroyed,2464
or by our force
or hands urged on to the result of death; as if, because peace is
granted to the dying, it were necessary that those who have received
peace should die; although the token of divine love and paternal lenity
appears more in this way, that they, who in peace given to them receive
the pledge of life, are moreover here bound to life by the peace they
have received. And therefore, if with peace received, a reprieve
is given by God, no one ought to complain of the priests for this, when
once it has been decided that brethren are to be aided in peril.
Neither must you think, dearest brother, as some do, that those who
receive certificates are to be put on a par with those who have
sacrificed; since even among those who have sacrificed, the condition
and the case are frequently different. For we must not place on a
level one who has at once leapt forward with good-will to the
abominable sacrifice, and one who, after long struggle and resistance,
has reached that fatal result under compulsion; one who has betrayed
both himself and all his connections, and one who, himself approaching
the trial in behalf of all, has protected his wife and his children,
and his whole family, by himself undergoing the danger; one who has
compelled his inmates or friends to the crime, and one who has spared
inmates and servants, and has even received many brethren who were
departing to banishment and flight, into his house and hospitality;
showing and offering to the Lord many souls living and safe to entreat
for a single wounded one.
14. Since, then, there is much
difference2465
between those
who have sacrificed, what a want of mercy it is, and how bitter is the
hardship, to associate those who have received certificates, with those
who have sacrificed, when he by whom the certificate has been received
may say, “I had previously read, and had been made aware by the
discourse of the bishop,2466
| 2466
[Episcopo tractante. See Oxford trans., a valuable
note, p. 124; also Vincent, Common., cap. 28.] | that we must not sacrifice to idols,
that the servant of God ought not to worship images; and therefore, in
order that I might not do this which was not lawful, when the
opportunity of receiving a certificate was offered, which itself also I
should not have received, unless the opportunity had been put before
me, I either went or charged some other person going to the magistrate,
to say that I am a Christian, that I am not allowed to sacrifice, that I cannot come to the
devil’s altars, and that I pay a price for this purpose, that I
may not do what is not lawful for me to do.” Now, however,
even he who is stained with having received a certificate,—after
he has learnt from our admonitions that he ought not even to have done
this, and that although his hand is pure, and no contact of deadly food
has polluted his lips, yet his conscience is nevertheless polluted,
weeps when he hears us, and laments, and is now admonished of the thing
wherein he has sinned, and having been deceived, not so much by guilt
as by error, bears witness that for another time he is instructed and
prepared.
15. If we reject the repentance of those who
have some confidence in a conscience that may be tolerated; at once
with their wife, with their children, whom they had kept safe, they are
hurried by the devil’s invitation into heresy or schism; and it
will be attributed to us in the day of judgment, that we have not cared
for the wounded sheep,2467
and that on account of a single wounded
one we have lost many sound ones. And whereas the Lord left the
ninety and nine that were whole, and sought after the one wandering and
weary, and Himself carried it, when found, upon His shoulders, we not
only do not seek the lapsed, but even drive them away when they come to
us; and while false prophets are not ceasing to lay waste and tear
Christ’s flock, we give an opportunity to dogs and wolves, so
that those whom a hateful persecution has not destroyed, we ruin by our
hardness and inhumanity. And what will become, dearest brother,
of what the apostle says: “I please all men in all things,
not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be
saved. Be ye followers of me, as I also am of
Christ.”2468
And
again: “To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the
weak.”2469
And
again: “Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer
with it; or one member rejoice, all the members rejoice with
it.”2470
16. The principle of the philosophers and
stoics is different, dearest brother, who say that all sins are equal,
and that a grave man ought not easily to be moved. But there is a
wide difference between Christians and philosophers. And when the
apostle says, “Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy
and vain deceit,”2471
we are to avoid those things which do
not come from God’s clemency, but are begotten of the presumption
of a too rigid philosophy. Concerning Moses, moreover, we find it
said in the Scriptures, “Now the man Moses was very
meek;”2472
and the Lord
in His Gospel says, “Be ye merciful, as your Father also had
mercy upon you;”2473
and again, “They that be whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick.”2474
What medical skill can he
exercise who says, “I cure the sound only, who have no need of a
physician?” We ought to give our assistance, our healing
art, to those who are wounded; neither let us think them dead, but
rather let us regard them as lying half alive, whom we see to have been
wounded in the fatal persecution, and who, if they had been altogether
dead, would never from the same men become afterwards both confessors
and martyrs.2475
| 2475
[Compare Cyprian, in all this, with his less reasonable
“master” Tertullian.] |
17. But since in them there is that, which,
by subsequent repentance, may be strengthened into faith; and by
repentance strength is armed to virtue, which could not be armed if one
should fall away through despair; if, hardly and cruelly separated from
the Church, he should turn himself to Gentile ways and to worldly
works, or, if rejected by the Church, he should pass over to heretics
and schismatics; where, although he should afterwards be put to death
on account of the name, still, being placed outside the Church, and
divided from unity and from charity, he could not in his death be
crowned. And therefore it was decided, dearest brother, the case
of each individual having been examined into, that the receivers of
certificates should in the meantime be admitted, that those who had
sacrificed should be assisted at death, because there is no confession
in the place of the departed,2476
nor can any one be constrained by us to
repentance, if the fruit of repentance be taken away. If the
battle should come first, strengthened by us, he will be found ready
armed for the battle; but if sickness should press hard upon him before
the battle, he departs with the consolation of peace and
communion.
18. Moreover, we do not prejudge when the
Lord is to be the judge; save that if He shall find the repentance of
the sinners full and sound, He will then ratify what shall have been
here determined by us. If, however, any one should delude us with
the pretence of repentance, God, who is not mocked, and who looks into
man’s heart, will judge of those things which we have imperfectly
looked into, and the Lord will amend the sentence of His servants;
while yet, dearest brother, we ought to remember that it is written,
“A brother that helpeth a brother shall be
exalted;”2477
and that
the apostle also has said, “Let all of you severally have regard
to yourselves, lest ye also be tempted. Bear ye one
another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of
Christ;”2478
also
that, rebuking the haughty, and breaking down their arrogance, he says
in his epistle, “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed
lest he fall;”2479
and in another place he says,
“Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? To
his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, he shall stand, for God is
able to make him stand.”2480
John also proves that Jesus Christ
the Lord is our Advocate and Intercessor for our sins, saying,
“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin
not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the Supporter: and He is the propitiation for our
sins.”2481
And Paul
also, the apostle, in his epistle, has written, “If, while we
were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more, being now justified by
His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”2482
19. Considering His love and mercy, we ought
not to be so bitter, nor cruel, nor inhuman in cherishing the brethren,
but to mourn with those that mourn, and to weep with them that weep,
and to raise them up as much as we can by the help and comfort of our
love; neither being too ungentle and pertinacious in repelling their
repentance; nor, again, being too lax and easy in rashly yielding
communion. Lo! a wounded brother lies stricken by the enemy in
the field of battle. There the devil is striving to slay him whom
he has wounded; here Christ is exhorting that he whom He has redeemed
may not wholly perish. Whether of the two do we assist? On
whose side do we stand? Whether do we favour the devil, that he
may destroy, and pass by our prostrate lifeless brother, as in the
Gospel did the priest and Levite; or rather, as priests of God and
Christ, do we imitate what Christ both taught and did, and snatch the
wounded man from the jaws of the enemy, that we may preserve him cured
for God the judge?2483
| 2483
[I bespeak admiration for this loving spirit of one often upbraided for
his strong expressions and firm convictions.] |
20. And do not think, dearest brother, that
either the courage of the brethren will be lessened, or that martyrdoms
will fail for this cause, that repentance is relaxed to the lapsed, and
that the hope of peace is offered to the penitent. The strength
of the truly believing remains unshaken; and with those who fear and
love God with their whole heart, their integrity continues steady and
strong. For to adulterers even a time of repentance is granted by
us, and peace is given. Yet virginity is not therefore deficient
in the Church, nor does the glorious design of continence languish
through the sins of others. The Church, crowned with so many
virgins, flourishes; and chastity and modesty preserve the tenor of
their glory. Nor is the vigour of continence broken down because
repentance and pardon are facilitated to the adulterer. It is one
thing to stand for pardon, another thing to attain to glory: it
is one thing, when cast into prison, not to go out thence until one has
paid the uttermost farthing; another thing at once to receive the wages
of faith and courage. It is one thing, tortured by long suffering
for sins, to be cleansed and long purged by fire;2484
| 2484
These words are variously read, “to be purged
divinely,” or “to be purged for a long while,”
scil. “purgari divine,” or “purgari
diutine.” [Candid Romish writers concede that this does not
refer to their purgatory; but, the idea once accepted, we can read
it into this place as into 1 Cor. iii. 13. See Oxford trans., p. 128.] | another to have purged all sins by
suffering. It is one thing, in fine, to be in suspense till the
sentence of God at the day of judgment; another to be at once crowned
by the Lord.
21. And, indeed, among our predecessors,
some of the bishops here in our province thought that peace was not to
be granted to adulterers, and wholly closed the gate of repentance
against adultery. Still they did not withdraw from the assembly
of their co-bishops, nor break the unity of the Catholic
Church2485
by the
persistency of their severity or censure; so that, because by some
peace was granted to adulterers, he who did not grant it should be
separated from the Church. While the bond of concord remains, and
the undivided sacrament of the Catholic Church endures, every bishop
disposes and directs his own acts, and will have to give an account of
his purposes to the Lord.2486
| 2486
[The independence of bishops, and their intercommunion as one
episcopate, is his theory of the undivided sacrament of
Catholicity.] |
22. But I wonder that some are so obstinate
as to think that repentance is not to be granted to the lapsed, or to
suppose that pardon is to be denied to the penitent, when it is
written, “Remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the
first works,”2487
which certainly is said to him who
evidently has fallen, and whom the Lord exhorts to rise up again by his
works, because it is written, “Alms do deliver from
death,”2488
and not,
assuredly, from that death which once the blood of Christ extinguished,
and from which the saving grace of baptism and of our Redeemer has
delivered us, but from that which subsequently creeps in through
sins. Moreover, in another place time is granted for repentance;
and the Lord threatens him that does not repent: “I
have,” saith He, “many things against thee, because thou
sufferest thy wife Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to
teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat
things sacrificed to idols; and I gave her a space to repent, and she
will not repent of her fornication. Behold, I will cast her
into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great
tribulation, except they repent of their deeds;”2489
whom
certainly the Lord would not exhort to repentance, if it were not that
He promises mercy to them that repent. And in the Gospel He says,
“I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one
sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons that
need no repentance.”2490
For since it is written, “God
did not make death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the
living,”2491
assuredly He
who wills that none should perish, desires that sinners should repent,
and by repentance should return again to life. Thus also He cries
by Joel the prophet, and says, “And now, thus saith the Lord your
God, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with
weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments,
and return unto the Lord your God; for He is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil
appointed.”2492
In the
Psalms, also, we read as well the rebuke as the clemency of God,
threatening at the same time as He spares, punishing that He may
correct; and when He has corrected, preserving. “I will
visit,” He says, “their transgressions with the rod, and
their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness
will I not utterly take from them.”2493
23. The Lord also in His Gospel, setting
forth the love of God the Father, says, “What man is there of
you, whom, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask
a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your
heavenly Father give good things to them that ask Him?”2494
The Lord
is here comparing the father after the flesh, and the eternal and
liberal love of God the Father. But if that evil father upon
earth, deeply offended by a sinful and evil son, yet if he should see
the same son afterwards reformed, and, the sins of his former life
being put away, restored to sobriety and morality and to the discipline
of innocence by the sorrow of his repentance, both rejoices and gives
thanks, and with the eagerness of a father’s exultation, embraces
the restored one, whom before he had cast out; how much more does that
one and true Father, good, merciful, and loving—yea, Himself
Goodness and Mercy and Love—rejoice in the repentance of His own
sons! nor threatens punishment to those who are now repenting, or
mourning and lamenting, but rather promises pardon and clemency.
Whence the Lord in the Gospel calls those that mourn, blessed; because
he who mourns calls forth mercy.2495
| 2495
[Matt. v. 4. A striking exposition.
“The quality of mercy is not strained,” etc.] | He who is stubborn and haughty
heaps up wrath against himself, and the punishment of the coming
judgment. And therefore, dearest brother, we have decided that
those who do not repent, nor give evidence of sorrow for their sins
with their whole heart, and with manifest profession of their
lamentation, are to be absolutely restrained from the hope of communion
and peace if they begin to beg for them in the midst of sickness and
peril; because it is not repentance for sin, but the warning of urgent
death, that drives them to ask; and he is not worthy to receive
consolation in death who has not reflected that he was about to
die.
24. In reference, however, to the character
of Novatian, dearest brother, of whom you desired that intelligence
should be written you what heresy he had introduced; know that, in the
first place, we ought not even to be inquisitive as to what he teaches,
so long as he teaches out of the pale of unity. Whoever he
may be, and whatever he may be, he who is not in the Church of Christ
is not a Christian. Although he may boast himself, and announce
his philosophy or eloquence with lofty words, yet he who has not
maintained brotherly love or ecclesiastical unity has lost even what he
previously had been. Unless he seems to you to be a bishop,
who—when a bishop has been made in the Church by sixteen2496
| 2496
[The primitive canons require the consent of a majority of
comprovincials, and three at least to ordain.] |
co-bishops—strives by bribery to be made an adulterous and
extraneous bishop by the hands of deserters; and although there is one
Church, divided by Christ throughout the whole world into many members,
and also one episcopate diffused through a harmonious multitude of many
bishops;2497
| 2497
[One of the many aphoristic condensations of the Cyprianic
theory. Elucidation X.] | in spite of
God’s tradition, in spite of the combined and everywhere
compacted unity of the Catholic Church, is endeavouring to make a human
church, and is sending his new apostles through very many cities, that
he may establish some new foundations of his own appointment. And
although there have already been ordained in each city, and through all
the provinces, bishops old in years, sound in faith, proved in trial,
proscribed in persecution, (this one) dares to create over these other
and false bishops: as if he could either wander over the whole
world with the persistence of his new endeavour, or break asunder the
structure of the ecclesiastical body, by the propagation of his own
discord, not knowing that schismatics are always fervid at the
beginning, but that they cannot increase nor add to what they have
unlawfully begun, but that they immediately fail together with their
evil emulation. But he could not hold the episcopate, even if he
had before been made bishop, since he has cut himself off from the body
of his fellow-bishops, and from the unity of the Church; since the
apostle admonishes that we should mutually sustain one another, and not
withdraw from the unity which God has appointed, and says,
“Bearing with one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”2498
He then who neither maintains
the unity of the Spirit nor the bond of peace, and separates himself
from the band of the Church, and from the assembly of priests, can
neither have the power nor the honour of a bishop, since he has refused
to maintain either the unity or the peace of the episcopate.2499
| 2499
[“The body of his fellow-bishops,” as above.] |
25. Then, moreover, what a swelling of
arrogance it is, what oblivion of humility and gentleness, what a
boasting of his own arrogance, that any one should either dare, or
think that he is able, to do what the Lord did not even grant to the
apostles; that he should think that he can discern the tares from the
wheat, or, as if it were granted to him to bear the fan and to purge
the threshing-floor, should endeavour to separate the chaff from the
wheat; and since the apostle says, “But in a great house there
are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of
earth,”2500
should think to
choose the vessels of gold and of silver, to despise, to cast away, and
to condemn the vessels of wood and of clay; while the vessels of wood
are not burnt up except in the day of the Lord by the flame of the
divine burning, and the vessels of clay are only broken by Him to whom
is given the rod of iron.
26. Or if he appoints himself a searcher and
judge of the heart and reins, let him in all cases judge equally.
And as he knows that it is written, “Behold, thou art made whole;
sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee,”2501
let him separate
the fraudulent and adulterers from his side and from his company, since
the case of an adulterer is by far both graver and worse than that of
one who has taken a certificate, because the latter has sinned by
necessity, the former by free will: the latter, thinking that it
is sufficient for him that he has not sacrificed, has been deceived by
an error; the former, a violator of the matrimonial tie of another, or
entering a brothel, into the sink and filthy gulf of the common people,
has befouled by detestable impurity a sanctified body and God’s
temple, as says the apostle: “Every sin that a man doeth is
without the body, but he that committeth fornication sinneth against
his own body.”2502
And yet to these persons themselves
repentance is granted, and the hope of lamenting and atoning is left,
according to the saying of the same apostle: “I fear lest,
when I come to you, I shall bewail many of those who have sinned
already, and have not repented of the uncleanness, and fornication, and
lasciviousness which they have committed.”2503
27. Neither let the new heretics flatter
themselves in this, that they say that they do not communicate with
idolaters; although among them there are both adulterers and fraudulent
persons, who are held guilty of the crime of idolatry, according to the
saying of the apostle: “For know this with understanding,
that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, whose guilt
is that of idolatry, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and
of God.”2504
And
again: “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the
earth; putting off fornication, uncleanness, and evil concupiscence,
and covetousness, which are the service of idols: for which
things’ sake cometh the wrath of God.”2505
For as our bodies are members of
Christ, and we are each a temple of God, whosoever violates the temple
of God by adultery, violates God; and he who, in committing sins, does
the will of the devil, serves demons and idols. For evil deeds do
not come from the Holy Spirit, but from the prompting of the adversary,
and lusts born of the unclean spirit constrain men to act against God
and to obey the devil. Thus it happens that if they say that one
is polluted by another’s sin, and if they contend, by their own
asseveration, that the idolatry of the delinquent passes over to one
who is not guilty according to their own word; they cannot be excused
from the crime of idolatry, since from the apostolic proof it is
evident that the adulterers and defrauders with whom they communicate
are idolaters. But with us, according to our faith and the given
rule of divine preaching, agrees the principle of truth, that every one
is himself held fast in his own sin; nor can one become guilty for
another, since the Lord forewarns us, saying, “The righteousness
of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked
shall be upon him.”2506
And again: “The fathers
shall not die for the children, and the children shall not die for the
fathers. Every one shall die in his own sin.”2507
Reading and
observing this, we certainly think that no one is to be restrained from the fruit of
satisfaction, and the hope of peace, since we know, according to the
faith of the divine Scriptures, God Himself being their author, and
exhorting in them, both that sinners are brought back to repentance,
and that pardon and mercy are not denied to penitents.2508
| 2508
[“Fools make a mock at sin.” But what serious
reflections are inspired by the solemn discipline of primitive
Christianity! Mercy is magnified, indeed, but pardon and peace
are made worth striving after. Repentance is made a reality, and
we hear nothing of mechanical penances and absolutions.] |
28. And oh, mockery of a deceived
fraternity! Oh, vain deception of miserable and senseless
mourners! Oh, ineffectual and profitless tradition of heretical
institution! to exhort to the repentance of atonement, and to take away
the healing from the atonement; to say to our brethren, “Mourn
and shed tears, and groan day and night, and labour largely and
frequently for the washing away and cleansing of your sin; but, after
all these things, you shall die without the pale of the Church.
Whatsoever things are necessary to peace, you shall do, but none of
that peace which you seek shall you receive!” Who would not
perish at once? Who would not fall away, from very
desperation? Who would not turn away his mind from all design of
lamentation? Do you think that the husbandman could labour if you
should say, “Till the field with all the skill of husbandry,
diligently persevere in its cultivation; but you shall reap no harvest,
you shall press no vintage, you shall receive no fruits of your
olive-yard, you shall gather no apples from the trees;” or if,
urging upon any one the possession and use of ships, you were to say,
“Purchase, my brother, material from excellent woods; inweave
your keel with the strongest and chosen oak; labour on the rudder, the
ropes, the sails, that the ship may be constructed and fitted; but when
you have done this, you shall never behold the result from its doings
and its voyages?”
29. This is to shut up and to cut off the
way of grief and of repentance; so that while in all Scripture the Lord
God sooths those who return to Him and repent, repentance itself is
taken away by our hardness and cruelty, which intercepts the fruits of
repentance. But if we find that none ought to be restrained from
repenting, and that peace may be granted by His priests to those who
entreat and beseech the Lord’s mercy, inasmuch as He is merciful
and loving, the groaning of those who mourn is to be admitted, and the
fruit of repentance is not to be denied to those who grieve. And
because in the place of the departed there is no confession, neither
can confession be made there,2509
| 2509 [He has
never heard of indulgences and masses for the dead, nor of purgatorial
remission. See p. 332, note 7.] |
they who have repented from their whole heart, and have asked for it,
ought to be received within the Church, and to be kept in it for the
Lord, who will of a surety judge, when He comes to His Church, those
whom He shall find within it. But apostates and deserters, or
adversaries and enemies, and those who lay waste the Church of Christ,
cannot, even if outside the Church they have been slain for His name,
according to the apostle, be admitted to the peace of the Church, since
they have neither kept the unity of the spirit nor of the
Church.
30. These few things for the present, out of
many, dearest brother, I have run over as briefly as I could, that I
might thereby both satisfy your desire, and might link you more and
more closely to the society of our college and body.2510
| 2510 [To the
unity of our common episcopate. Note this; for, if he had
imagined Cornelius to have been a “Pope,” he must have
said, “to unity with the true pontiff, against whom Novatian has
rebelled, and made himself an anti-pope.”] | But if there should arise to you an
opportunity and power of coming to us, we shall be able to confer more
fully together, and to consider more fruitfully and more at large the
things which make for a salutary agreement. I bid you, dearest
brother, ever heartily farewell.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
