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| To the Martyrs and Confessors.
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Epistle
VIII.2197
| 2197
Oxford ed.; Ep. x. a.d.
250. |
To the Martyrs and
Confessors.
Argument.—Cyprian, Commending the African Martyrs Marvellously for
Their Constancy, Urges Them to Perseverance by the Example of Their
Colleague Mappalicus.
Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors in Christ our Lord
and in God the Father, everlasting salvation. I gladly rejoice
and am thankful, most brave and blessed brethren, at hearing of your
faith and virtue, wherein the Church, our Mother, glories.
Lately, indeed, she gloried, when, in consequence of an enduring
confession, that punishment
was undergone which drove the confessors of Christ into exile; yet the
present confession is so much the more illustrious and greater in
honour as it is braver in suffering. The combat has increased,
and the glory of the combatants has increased also. Nor were you
kept back from the struggle by fear of tortures, but by the very
tortures themselves you were more and more stimulated to the conflict;
bravely and firmly you have returned with ready devotion, to contend in
the extremest contest. Of you I find that some are already
crowned, while some are even now within reach of the crown of victory;
but all whom the danger has shut up in a glorious company are animated
to carry on the struggle with an equal and common warmth of virtue, as
it behoves the soldiers of Christ in the divine camp: that no
allurements may deceive the incorruptible stedfastness of your faith,
no threats terrify you, no sufferings or tortures overcome you, because
“greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the
world;”2198
nor is the
earthly punishment able to do more towards casting down, than is the
divine protection towards lifting up. This truth is proved by the
glorious struggle of the brethren, who, having become leaders to the
rest in overcoming their tortures, afforded an example of virtue and
faith, contending in the strife, until the strife yielded, being
overcome. With what praises can I commend you, most courageous
brethren? With what vocal proclamation can I extol the strength
of your heart and the perseverance of your faith? You have borne
the sharpest examination by torture, even unto the glorious
consummation, and have not yielded to sufferings, but rather the
sufferings have given way to you. The end of torments, which the
tortures themselves did not give, the crown has given. The
examination by torture waxing severer, continued for a long time to
this result, not to overthrow the stedfast faith, but to send the men
of God more quickly to the Lord. The multitude of those who were
present saw with admiration the heavenly contest,—the contest of
God, the spiritual contest, the battle of Christ,—saw that His
servants stood with free voice, with unyielding mind, with divine
virtue—bare, indeed, of weapons of this world, but believing and
armed with the weapons of faith. The tortured stood more brave
than the torturers; and the limbs, beaten and torn as they were,
overcame the hooks that bent and tore them. The scourge, often
repeated with all its rage, could not conquer invincible faith, even
although the membrane which enclosed the entrails were broken, and it
was no longer the limbs but the wounds of the servants of God that were
tortured. Blood was flowing which might quench the blaze of
persecution, which might subdue the flames of Gehenna with its glorious
gore.2199
| 2199
[There is in the church of S. Stefano Rotondo at Rome a series of
delineations of the sufferings of the early martyrs, poorly executed,
and too horrible to contemplate; but it all answers to these words of
our author. See Ep. xxxiv. infra.] | Oh, what a
spectacle was that to the Lord,—how sublime, how great, how
acceptable to the eyes of God in the allegiance and devotion of His
soldiers! As it is written in the Psalms, when the Holy Spirit at
once speaks to us and warns us: “Precious in the sight of
the Lord is the death of His saints.”2200
Precious is the death which has bought
immortality at the cost of its blood, which has received the crown from
the consummation of its virtues. How did Christ rejoice
therein! How willingly did He both fight and conquer in such
servants of His, as the protector of their faith, and giving to
believers as much as he who taketh believes that he receives! He
was present at His own contest; He lifted up, strengthened, animated
the champions and assertors of His name. And He who once
conquered death on our behalf, always conquers it in us.
“When they,” says He, “deliver you up, take no
thought what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that
hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the
Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.”2201
The present struggle has afforded a
proof of this saying. A voice filled with the Holy Spirit broke
forth from the martyr’s mouth when the most blessed Mappalicus
said to the proconsul in the midst of his torments, “You shall
see a contest to-morrow.” And that which he said with the
testimony of virtue and faith, the Lord fulfilled. A heavenly
contest was exhibited, and the servant of God was crowned in the
struggle of the promised fight. This is the contest which the
prophet Isaiah of old predicted, saying, “It shall be no light
contest for you with men, since God appoints the
struggle.”2202
And in
order to show what this struggle would be, he added the words,
“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and ye shall
call His name Emmanuel.”2203
This is the struggle of our faith
in which we engage, in which we conquer, in which we are crowned.
This is the struggle which the blessed Apostle Paul has shown to us, in
which it behoves us to run and to attain the crown of glory.
“Do ye not know,” says he, “that they which run in a
race, run all indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye
may obtain.” “Now they do it that they may receive a
corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.”2204
Moreover, setting forth his own
struggle, and declaring that he himself should soon be a sacrifice for the Lord’s
sake, he says, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my
assumption is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is
laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them
also that love His appearing.”2205
This fight, therefore, predicted of
old by the prophets, begun by the Lord, waged by the apostles,
Mappalicus promised again to the proconsul in his own name and that of
his colleagues. Nor did the faithful voice deceive in his
promise; he exhibited the fight to which he had pledged himself, and he
received the reward which he deserved. I not only beseech but
exhort the rest of you, that you all should follow that martyr now most
blessed, and the other partners of that engagement,—soldiers and
comrades, stedfast in faith, patient in suffering, victors in
tortures,—that those who are united at once by the bond of
confession, and the entertainment of a dungeon, may also be united in
the consummation of their virtue and a celestial crown; that you by
your joy may dry the tears of our Mother, the Church, who mourns over
the wreck and death of very many; and that you may confirm, by the
provocation of your example, the stedfastness of others who stand
also. If the battle shall call you out, if the day of your
contest shall come engage bravely, fight with constancy, as knowing
that you are fighting under the eyes of a present Lord, that you are
attaining by the confession of His name to His own glory; who is not
such a one as that He only looks on His servants, but He Himself also
wrestles in us, Himself is engaged,—Himself also in the struggles
of our conflict not only crowns, but is crowned. But if before
the day of your contest, of the mercy of God, peace shall supervene,
let there still remain to you the sound will and the glorious
conscience.2206
| 2206
[He contemplates the peace promised in Ep. viii.
supra. But note the indomitable spirit with which, for
successive ages, the Church supplied her martyrs.
Heb. xi. 36, 37.] | Nor let any
one of you be saddened as if he were inferior to those who before you
have suffered tortures, have overcome the world and trodden it under
foot, and so have come to the Lord by a glorious road. For the
Lord is the “searcher out of the reins and the
hearts.”2207
He
looks through secret things, and beholds that which is concealed.
In order to merit the crown from Him, His own testimony alone is
sufficient, who will judge us. Therefore, beloved brethren,
either case is equally lofty and illustrious,—the former more
secure, to wit, to hasten to the Lord with the consummation of our
victory,—the latter more joyous; a leave of absence, after glory,
being received to flourish in the praises of the Church. O
blessed Church of ours, which the honour of the divine condescension
illuminates, which in our own times the glorious blood of martyrs
renders illustrious! She was white before in the works of the
brethren; now she has become purple in the blood of the martyrs.
Among her flowers are wanting neither roses nor lilies. Now let
each one strive for the largest dignity of either honour. Let
them receive crowns, either white, as of labours, or of purple, as of
suffering. In the heavenly camp both peace and strife have their
own flowers, with which the soldier of Christ may be crowned for
glory. I bid you, most brave and beloved brethren, always
heartily farewell in the Lord; and have me in remembrance. Fare ye
well.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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