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| Moyses, Maximus, Nicostratus, and the Other Confessors Answer the Foregoing Letter. A.D. 250.
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Epistle
XXV.2290
| 2290 Oxford
ed.: Ep. xxxi. [This epistle shows that
Cyprian’s gentle reproof of their former implied regret at his
retreat (see p. 280, supra) had been effective.] |
Moyses, Maximus, Nicostratus, and the
Other Confessors Answer the Foregoing Letter. a.d. 250.
Argument.—They Gratefully Acknowledge the Consolation Which the
Roman Confessors Had Received from Cyprian’s Letter.
Martyrdom is Not a Punishment, But a Happiness. The Words of the
Gospel are Brands to Inflame Faith. In the Case of the Lapsed,
the Judgment of Cyprian is Acquiesced in.
1. To Cæcilius Cyprian, bishop of the
church of the Carthaginians, Moyses and Maximus, presbyters, and
Nicostratus and Rufinus, deacons, and the other confessors persevering
in the faith of the truth, in God the Father, and in His Son Jesus
Christ our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit, greeting. Placed,
brother, as we are among various and manifold sorrows, on account of
the present desolations of many brethren throughout almost the whole
world,2291
| 2291 [Note
this testimony to the universality of the persecution. Vol. iv.
p. 125, this series.] | this chief
consolation has reached us, that we have been lifted up by the receipt
of your letter, and have gathered some alleviation for the griefs of
our saddened spirit. From which we can already perceive that the grace of divine
providence wished to keep us so long shut up in the prison chains,
perhaps for no other reason than that, instructed and more vigorously
animated by your letter, we might with a more earnest will attain to
the destined crown. For your letter has shone upon us as a calm
in the midst of a tempest, and as the longed-for tranquillity in the
midst of a troubled sea, and as repose in labours, as health in dangers
and pains, as in the densest darkness, the bright and glowing
light. Thus we drank it up with a thirsty spirit, and received it
with a hungry desire; so that we rejoice to find ourselves by it
sufficiently fed and strengthened for encounter with the foe. The
Lord will reward you for that love of yours, and will restore you the
fruit due to this so good work; for he who exhorts is not less worthy
of the reward of the crown than he who suffers; not less worthy of
praise is he who has taught, than he who has acted also; he is not less
to be honoured who has warned, than he who has fought; except that
sometimes the weight of glory more redounds to him who trains, than to
him who has shown himself a teachable learner; for the latter,
perchance, would not have had what he has practised, unless the former
had taught him.
2. Therefore, again, we say, brother Cyprian, we
have received great joy, great comfort, great refreshment, especially
in that you have described, with glorious and deserved praises, the
glorious, I will not say, deaths, but immortalities of martyrs.
For such departures should have been proclaimed with such words, that
the things which were related might be told in such manner as they were
done. Thus, from your letter, we saw those glorious triumphs of
the martyrs; and with our eyes in some sort have followed them as they
went to heaven, and have contemplated them seated among angels, and the
powers and dominions of heaven. Moreover, we have in some manner
perceived with our ears the Lord giving them the promised testimony in
the presence of the Father. It is this, then, which also raises
our spirit day by day, and inflames us to the following of the track of
such dignity.
3. For what more glorious, or what more
blessed, can happen to any man from the divine condescension, than to
confess the Lord God, in death itself, before his very
executioners? Than among the raging and varied and exquisite
tortures of worldly power, even when the body is racked and torn and
cut to pieces, to confess Christ the Son of God with a spirit still
free, although departing? Than to have mounted to heaven with the
world left behind? Than, having forsaken men, to stand among the
angels? Than, all worldly impediments being broken through,
already to stand free in the sight of God? Than to enjoy the
heavenly kingdom without any delay? Than to have become an
associate of Christ’s passion in Christ’s name? Than
to have become by the divine condescension the judge of one’s own
judge? Than to have brought off an unstained conscience from the
confession of His name? Than to have refused to obey human and
sacrilegious laws against the faith? Than to have borne witness
to the truth with a public testimony? Than, by dying, to have
subdued death itself, which is dreaded by all? Than, by death
itself, to have attained immortality? Than when torn to pieces,
and tortured by all the instruments of cruelty, to have overcome the
torture by the tortures themselves? Than by strength of mind to
have wrestled with all the agonies of a mangled body? Than not to
have shuddered at the flow of one’s own blood? Than to have
begun to love one’s punishments, after having faith to bear
them?2292
| 2292
Supplicia sua post fidem amare cœpisse. | Than to
think it an injury to one’s life not to have left it?
4. For to this battle our Lord, as with the
trumpet of His Gospel, stimulates us when He says, “He that
loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he
that loveth his own soul more than me is not worthy of me. And he
that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of
me.”2293
And
again, “Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed shall ye be, when men shall persecute you, and
hate you. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for so did their
fathers persecute the prophets which were before you.”2294
And
again, “Because ye shall stand before kings and powers, and the
brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son,
and he that endureth to the end shall be saved;”2295
and “To
him that overcometh will I give to sit on my throne, even as I also
overcame and am set down on the throne of my Father.”2296
Moreover
the apostle: “Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword? (As it is written, For thy sake
are we killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the
slaughter.) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
for Him who hath loved us.”2297
5. When we read these things,2298
| 2298
[Note the power of Holy Scripture in creating and supporting the
martyr-spirit.] | and things of
the like kind, brought together in the Gospel, and feel, as it were,
torches placed under us, with the Lord’s words to inflame our
faith, we not only do not dread, but we even provoke2299
| 2299 [See
valuable note, Oxford translation, p. 71.] | the enemies of the truth; and we have already
conquered the opponents of God, by the very fact of our not yielding to
them, and have subdued their nefarious laws against the truth.
And although we have not yet shed our blood, we are prepared to shed
it. Let no one think that this delay of our departure2300
| 2300
Lit. “of our postponement.” | is any clemency;
for it obstructs us, it makes a hindrance to our glory, it puts off
heaven, it withholds the glorious sight of God. For in a contest
of this kind, and in the kind of contest when faith is struggling in
the encounter, it is not true clemency to put off martyrs by
delay. Entreat therefore, beloved Cyprian, that of His mercy the
Lord will every day more and more arm and adorn every one of us with
greater abundance and readiness, and will confirm and strengthen us by
the strength of His power; and, as a good captain, will at length bring
forth His soldiers, whom He has hitherto trained and proved in the camp
of our prison, to the field of the battle set before them. May He
hold forth to us the divine arms, those weapons that know not how to be
conquered,—the breastplate of righteousness, which is never
accustomed to be broken,—the shield of faith, which cannot be
pierced through,—the helmet of salvation, which cannot be
shattered,—and the sword of the Spirit, which has never been wont
to be injured. For to whom should we rather commit these things
for him to ask for us, than to our so reverend bishop,2301
| 2301 [I
have amended the translation here from the Oxford trans.] | as destined
victims asking help of the priest?
6. Behold another joy of ours, that, in the
duty of your episcopate, although in the meantime you have been, owing
to the condition of the times, divided from your brethren, you have
frequently confirmed the confessors by your letters; that you have ever
afforded necessary supplies from your own just acquisitions; that in
all things you have always shown yourself in some sense present; that
in no part of your duty have you hung behind as a deserter.2302
But what
more strongly stimulated us to a greater joy we cannot be silent upon,
but must describe with all the testimony of our voice. For we
observe that you have both rebuked with fitting censure, and worthily,
those who, unmindful of their sins, had, with hasty and eager desire,
extorted peace from the presbyters in your absence, and those who,
without respect for the Gospel, had with profane facility granted the
holiness2303
| 2303
“Sanctum.” [Note what follows: a rule for our
times.] | of the Lord
unto dogs, and pearls to swine; although a great crime, and one which
has extended with incredible destructiveness almost over the whole
earth, ought only, as you yourself write, to be treated cautiously and
with moderation, with the advice of all the bishops, presbyters,
deacons, confessors, and even the laymen who abide fast,2304
| 2304 [An
important testimony to the Cyprianic theory from members of the Roman
presbytery.] | as in your
letters you yourself also testify; so that, while wishing unseasonably
to bring repairs to the ruins, we may not appear to be bringing about
other and greater destruction, for where is the divine word left, if
pardon be so easily granted to sinners? Certainly their spirits
are to be cheered and to be nourished up to the season of their
maturity, and they are to be instructed from the Holy Scriptures how
great and surpassing a sin they have committed. Nor let them be
animated by the fact that they are many, but rather let them be checked
by the fact that they are not few.2305
| 2305 [The
extent of the lapses which Cyprian strove to check by due austerity
must be noted.] | An unblushing number has never been
accustomed to have weight in extenuation of a crime; but shame,
modesty, patience, discipline, humility, and subjection, waiting for
the judgment of others upon itself, and bearing the sentence of others
upon its own judgment,—this it is which proves penitence; this it
is which skins over a deep wound; this it is which raises up the ruins
of the fallen spirit and restores them, which quells and restrains the
burning vapour of their raging sins. For the physician will not
give to the sick the food of healthy bodies, lest the unseasonable
nourishment, instead of repressing, should stimulate the power of the
raging disease,—that is to say, lest what might have been sooner
diminished by abstinence, should, through impatience, be prolonged by
growing indigestion.
7. Hands, therefore, polluted with impious
sacrifices2306
must be purified
with good works, and wretched mouths defiled with accursed
food2307
| 2307
[Meats offered to idols.] | must be purged
with words of true penitence, and the spirit must be renewed and
consecrated in the recesses of the faithful heart. Let the
frequent groanings of the penitents be heard; let faithful tears be
shed from the eyes not once only, but again and again, so that those
very eyes which wickedly looked upon idols may wash away, with tears
that satisfy God, the unlawful things that they had done. Nothing
is necessary for diseases but patience: they who are weary and
weak wrestle with their pain; and so at length hope for health, if, by
tolerating it, they can overcome their suffering; for unfaithful is the
scar which the physician has too quickly produced; and the healing is
undone by any little casualty, if the remedies be not used faithfully
from their very slowness. The flame is quickly recalled again to
a conflagration, unless the material of the whole fire be extinguished
even to the extremest spark; so that men of this kind should justly know that
even they themselves are more advantaged by the very delay, and that
more trusty remedies are applied by the necessary postponement.
Besides, where shall it be said that they who confess Christ are shut
up in the keeping of a squalid prison, if they who have denied Him are
in no peril of their faith? Where, that they are bound in the
cincture of chains in God’s name, if they who have not kept the
confession of God are not deprived of communion? Where, that the
imprisoned martyrs lay down their glorious lives, if those who have
forsaken the faith do not feel the magnitude of their dangers and their
sins? But if they betray too much impatience, and demand
communion with intolerable eagerness, they vainly utter with petulant
and unbridled tongues those querulous and invidious reproaches which
avail nothing against the truth, since they might have retained by
their own right what now by a necessity, which they of their own free
will have sought, they are compelled to sue for.2308
| 2308
[Note the profound convictions in these very lapsers of the truth of
the Gospel and of the value of full communion with Christ.] | For the faith which could confess
Christ, could also have been kept by Christ in communion. We bid
you, blessed and most glorious father, ever heartily farewell in the
Lord; and have us in remembrance.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
