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| To Father Stephanus, Concerning Marcianus of Arles, Who Had Joined Himself to Novatian.
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Epistle LXVI.2739
| 2739
Oxford ed.: Ep. lxviii. This epistle does not appear
in many mss., and its genuineness has been
therefore doubted. But the style points to Cyprian as its author,
and the documents where it is found are among the oldest, one the most
ancient of all. a.d. 254. |
To Father Stephanus, Concerning
Marcianus of Arles, Who Had Joined Himself to Novatian.
Argument.—As Marcianus, Bishop of Arles, When He Followed the Sect
of Novatian, Had Seduced Many, and by His Schism Had Separated Himself
from the Communion of the Rest of the Bishops, Cyprian Warns Stephanus,
that He Should by Announcing the Excommunication of the Offender, Alike
by Rome and Carthage, Enable the Church at Arles, to Elect Another in
His Place; And that So Peace Might Be Granted, as Well to the Lapsed as
to Those Seduced by Him, Upon Their Repentance, and a Return to the
Church Conceded to Them.
1. Cyprian to his brother Stephen, greeting.
Faustinus our colleague, abiding at Lyons, has once and again written
to me, dearest brother, informing me of those things which also I
certainly know to have been told to you, as well by him as by others
our fellow-bishops established in
the same province, that Marcianus, who abides at Arles, has associated
himself with Novatian, and has departed from the unity of the Catholic
Church, and from the agreement of our body and priesthood, holding that
most extreme depravity of heretical presumption, that the comforts and
aids of divine love and paternal tenderness are closed to the servants
of God who repent, and mourn, and knock at the gate of the Church with
tears, and groans, and grief; and that those who are wounded are not
admitted for the soothing of their wounds, but that, forsaken without
hope of peace and communion, they must be thrown to become the prey of
wolves and the booty of the devil; which matter, dearest brother, it is
our business to advise for and to aid in, since we who consider the
divine clemency, and hold the balance in governing the Church, do thus
exhibit the rebuke of vigour to sinners in such a way as that,
nevertheless, we do not refuse the medicine of divine goodness and
mercy in raising the lapsed and healing the wounded.
2. Wherefore it behoves you2740
| 2740
[With all Cyprian’s humility and reverence for the mother See, to
which the Church of North Africa owed its origin, he yet, as an older
bishop, reminds Stephen of what he ought to do to succour the Church of
Irenæus.] | to write a
very copious letter to our fellow-bishops appointed in Gaul, not to
suffer any longer that Marcian, froward and haughty, and hostile to the
divine mercy and to the salvation of the brotherhood, should insult our
assembly, because he does not yet seem to be excommunicated by
us;2741
in that he now
for a long time boasts and announces that, adhering to Novatian, and
following his frowardness, he has separated himself from our communion;
although Novatian himself, whom he follows, has formerly been
excommunicated, and judged an enemy to the Church; and when he sent
ambassadors to us into Africa, asking to be received into our
communion, he received back word from a council of several priests who
were here present, that he himself had excluded himself, and could not
by any of us be received into communion, as he had attempted to erect a
profane altar, and to set up an adulterous throne, and to offer
sacrilegious sacrifices opposed to the true priest; while the Bishop
Cornelius was ordained in the Catholic Church by the judgment of God,
and by the suffrages of the clergy and people. Therefore, if he
were willing to return to a right mind, and to come to himself, he
should repent and return to the Church as a suppliant. How vain
it is, dearest brother, when Novatian has lately been repulsed and
rejected, and excommunicated by God’s priests throughout the
whole world, for us still to suffer his flatterers now to jest with us,
and to judge of the majesty and dignity of the Church!
3. Let letters be directed by you into the
province and to the people abiding at Arles, by which, Marcian being
excommunicated, another may be substituted in his place, and
Christ’s flock, which even to this day is contemned as scattered
and wounded by him, may be gathered together. Let it suffice that
many of our brethren have departed in these late years in those parts
without peace; and certainly let the rest who remain be helped, who
groan both day and night, and beseeching the divine and fatherly mercy,
entreat the comfort of our succour. For, for that reason, dearest
brother, the body of priests is abundantly large, joined together by
the bond of mutual concord, and the link of unity; so that if any one
of our college should try to originate heresy, and to lacerate and lay
waste Christ’s flock, others may help, and as it were, as useful
and merciful shepherds, gather together the Lord’s sheep into the
flock. For what if any harbour in the sea shall begin to be
mischievous and dangerous to ships, by the breach of its defences; do
not the navigators direct their ships to other neighbouring ports where
there is a safe2742
| 2742
Suppl. “access,” according to Baluzius. | and
practicable entrance, and a secure station? Or if, on the road,
any inn should begin to be beset and occupied by robbers, so that
whoever should enter would be caught by the attack of those who lie in
wait there; do not the travellers, as soon as this its character is
discovered, seek other houses of entertainment on the road, which shall
be safer, where the lodging is trustworthy, and the inns safe for the
travellers? And this ought now to be the case with us, dearest
brother,2743
that we should
receive to us with ready and kindly humanity our brethren, who, tossed
on the rocks of Marcian,2744
| 2744
Some old editions read, “who, having avoided the rocks of
Marcian.” | are seeking the secure harbours of the
Church; and that we afford such a place of entertainment for the
travellers as is that in the Gospel, in which those who are wounded and
maimed by robbers may be received and cherished, and protected by the
host.
4. For what is a greater or a more worthy care of
overseers, than to provide by diligent solicitude and wholesome
medicine for cherishing and preserving the sheep? since the Lord
speaks, and says, “The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither
have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which
was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away,
neither have ye sought that which was lost. And my sheep were
scattered because there is no shepherd; and they became meat to all the
beasts of the field, and none did search or seek after them.
Therefore thus saith the
Lord, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my flock
at their hands, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither
shall they feed them any more: for I will deliver them from their
mouth, and I will feed them with judgment.”2745
| 2745
Ezek. xxxiv. 4–6, 10,
16. | Since therefore the Lord thus
threatens such shepherds by whom the Lord’s sheep are neglected
and perish, what else ought we to do, dearest brother, than to exhibit
full diligence in gathering together and restoring the sheep of Christ,
and to apply the medicine of paternal affection to cure the wounds of
the lapsed, since the Lord also in the Gospel warns, and says,
“They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are
sick?”2746
For
although we are many shepherds, yet we feed one flock,2747
| 2747
[“We, many shepherds (one episcopate), over one
flock.” Cyprian’s theory is never departed from,
practically.] | and ought to
collect and cherish all the sheep which Christ by His blood and passion
sought for; nor ought we to suffer our suppliant and mourning brethren
to be cruelly despised and trodden down by the haughty presumption of
some, since it is written, “But the man that is proud and
boastful shall bring nothing at all to perfection, who has enlarged his
soul as hell.”2748
And the Lord, in His Gospel,
blames and condemns men of that kind, saying, “Ye are they which
justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts: for
that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of
God.”2749
He
says that those are execrable and detestable who please themselves,
who, swelling and inflated, arrogantly assume anything to
themselves. Since then Marcian has begun to be of these, and,
allying himself with Novatian, has stood forth as the opponent of mercy
and love, let him not pronounce sentence, but receive it; and let him
not so act as if he himself were to judge of the college of priests,
since he himself is judged by all the priests.
5. For the glorious honour of our
predecessors, the blessed martyrs Cornelius and Lucius, must be
maintained, whose memory as we hold in honour, much more ought you,
dearest brother, to honour and cherish with your weight and authority,
since you have become their vicar and successor.2750
| 2750
[“You ought,” etc. Does any modern bishop of the
Roman obedience presume to speak thus to the “infallible”
oracle of the Vatican?] | For they, full of the Spirit of
God, and established in a glorious martyrdom, judged that peace should
be granted to the lapsed, and that when penitence was undergone, the
reward of peace and communion was not to be denied; and this they
attested by their letters, and we all everywhere and entirely have
judged the same thing. For there could not be among us a diverse
feeling in whom there was one spirit; and therefore it is manifest that
he does not hold the truth of the Holy Spirit with the rest, whom we
observe to think differently. Intimate plainly to us who has been
substituted at Arles in the place of Marcian, that we may know to whom
to direct our brethren, and to whom we ought to write. I bid you,
dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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