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| To the People, Concerning Five Schismatic Presbyters of the Faction of Felicissimus.
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Epistle
XXXIX.2385
| 2385
Oxford ed.: Ep. xliii. a.d.
251. |
To the People, Concerning Five
Schismatic Presbyters of the Faction of Felicissimus.
Argument.—In Like Manner, as in the Epistle But One Before This,
Cyprian Told the Clergy, So Now He Tells the People, that Felicissimus
is to Be Avoided, Together with Five Presbyters of His Faction, Who Not
Only Granted Peace to the Lapsed Without Any Discrimination, But
Stirred Up Sedition and Schism Against Himself.
1. Cyprian to the whole people,
greeting. Although, dearest brethren, Virtius,2386
| 2386
Some read “Britius” or “Briccius.” | a most faithful and upright
presbyter, and also Rogatianus and Numidicus, presbyters, confessors,
and illustrious by the glory of the divine condescension, and also the
deacons, good men and devoted to the ecclesiastical administration in
all its duties, with the other ministers, afford you the full attention
of their presence, and do not cease to confirm individuals by their
assiduous exhortations, and, moreover, to govern and reform the minds
of the lapsed by their wholesome counsels, yet, as much as I can, I
admonish, and as I can, I visit you with my letters. By my
letters I say, dearest brethren; for the malignity and treachery of certain of the
presbyters has accomplished this, that I should not be allowed to come
to you before Easter-day; since mindful of their conspiracy, and
retaining that ancient venom against my episcopate, that is, against
your suffrage and God’s judgment, they renew their old attack
upon me, and once more begin their sacrilegious machinations with their
accustomed craft. And, indeed, of God’s providence, neither
by our wish nor desire, nay, although we were forgiving and silent,
they have suffered the punishment which they had deserved; so that, not
cast out by us, they of their own accord have cast themselves
out. They themselves, before their own conscience, have passed
sentence on themselves in accordance with your suffrages and the
divine. These conspirators and evil men of their own accord have
driven themselves from the Church.
2. Now it has appeared whence came the faction of
Felicissimus; on what root and by what strength it stood. These
men supplied in former times encouragements and exhortations to certain
confessors, not to agree with their bishop, not to maintain the
ecclesiastical discipline with faith and quietness according to the
Lord’s precepts, not to keep the glory of their confession with
an uncorrupt and unspotted conversation. And lest it should be
too little to have corrupted the minds of certain confessors, and to
have wished to arm a portion of our broken fraternity against
God’s priesthood, they have now turned their attention with their
envenomed deceitfulness to the ruin of the lapsed, to turn away from
the healing of their wound the sick and the wounded, and those who, by
the misfortune of their fall, are less fit and less sturdy to take
stronger counsel; and invite them, by the falsehood of a fallacious
peace, to a fatal rashness, leaving off prayers and supplications,
whereby, with long and continual satisfaction, the Lord is to be
appeased.
3. But I pray you, brethren, watch against
the snares of the devil, and, taking care for your own salvation, be
diligently on your guard against this death-bearing fallacy. This
is another persecution and another temptation. Those five
presbyters are none other than the five leaders who were lately
associated with the magistrates in an edict, that they might overthrow
our faith, that they might turn away the feeble hearts of the brethren
to their deadly nets by the prevarication of the truth. Now the
same scheme, the same overturning, is again brought about by the five
presbyters, linked with Felicissimus, to the destruction of salvation,
that God should not be besought, and that he who has denied Christ
should not appeal for mercy to the same Christ whom he had denied; that
after the fault of the crime, repentance also should be taken away; and
that the Lord should not be appeased through bishops and priests, but
that the Lord’s priests being forsaken, a new tradition of a
sacrilegious appointment should arise, contrary to the evangelical
discipline. And although it was once arranged as well by us as by
the confessors and the city2387
| 2387
“Clericis urbicis,” scil. the “Roman
city clergy.” [A very important example of the concurrent
action of the clergy of the metropolis with those of sister
churches.] | clergy, and moreover by all the
bishops appointed either in our province or beyond the sea,2388
| 2388
“Romæ” scil. “across the sea,
at Rome.” [The African canons forbade appeals to any
bishop beyond seas.] | that no
novelty should be introduced in respect of the case of the lapsed
unless we all assembled into one place, and our counsels being
compared, should decide upon a moderate sentence, tempered alike with
discipline and with mercy;—against this our counsel they have
rebelled, and all priestly authority and power is destroyed by factious
conspiracies.
4. What sufferings do I now endure, dearest
brethren, that I myself am not able to come to you at the present
juncture, that I myself cannot approach you each one, that I myself
cannot exhort you according to the teaching of the Lord and of His
Gospel! An exile of, now, two years2389
| 2389
[Concerning this exile, see p. 270, supra.] | was not sufficient, and a mournful
separation from you, from your countenance, and from your
sight,—continual grief and lamentation, which, in my loneliness
without you, breaks me to pieces with my constant mourning, nor my
tears flowing day and night, that there is not even an opportunity for
the priest, whom you made with so much love and eagerness, to greet
you, nor to be enfolded in your embraces. This greater grief is
added to my worn spirit, that in the midst of so much solicitude and
necessity I am not able myself to hasten to you, since, by the threats
and by the snares of perfidious men, we are anxious that on our coming
a greater tumult may not arise there; and so, although the bishop ought
to be careful for peace and tranquillity in all things, he himself
should seem to have afforded material for sedition, and to have
embittered persecution anew. Hence, however, beloved brethren, I
not only admonish but counsel you, not rashly to trust to mischievous
words, nor to yield an easy consent to deceitful sayings, nor to take
darkness for light, night for day, hunger for food, thirst for drink,
poison for medicine, death for safety. Let not the age nor the
authority deceive you of those who, answering to the ancient wickedness
of the two elders;2390
as they attempted to corrupt and violate the chaste Susannah,2391
are thus also
attempting, with their adulterous doctrines, to corrupt the
chastity of the Church and
violate the truth of the Gospel.
5. The Lord cries aloud, saying,
“Hearken not unto the words of the false prophets, for the
visions of their own hearts deceive them. They speak, but not out
of the mouth of the Lord. They say to them that despise the word
of the Lord, Ye shall have peace.”2392
They are now offering peace who
have not peace themselves. They are promising to bring back and
recall the lapsed into the Church, who themselves have departed from
the Church. There is one God, and Christ is one, and there is one
Church, and one chair founded upon the rock by the word of the
Lord.2393
| 2393
[See Treatise on Unity. Cyprian considers the
universal episcopate as one cathredra, like “Moses’
seat” in the Church of the Hebrews. This one chair he calls
“Peter’s chair.”] | Another
altar cannot be constituted nor a new priesthood be made, except the
one altar and the one priesthood. Whosoever gathereth elsewhere,
scattereth. Whatsoever is appointed by human madness, so that the
divine disposition is violated, is adulterous, is impious, is
sacrilegious. Depart far from the contagion of men of this kind,
and flee from their words, avoiding them as a cancer and a plague, as
the Lord warns you and says, “They are blind leaders of the
blind. But if the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into
the ditch.”2394
They
intercept your prayers, which you pour forth with us to God day and
night, to appease Him with a righteous satisfaction. They
intercept your tears with which you wash away the guilt of the sin you
have committed; they intercept the peace which you truly and faithfully
ask from the mercy of the Lord; and they do not know that it is
written, “And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, that hath
spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, shall be put to
death.”2395
Let no
one, beloved brethren, make you to err from the ways of the Lord; let
no one snatch you, Christians, from the Gospel of Christ; let no one
take sons of the Church away from the Church; let them perish alone for
themselves who have wished to perish; let them remain outside the
Church alone who have departed from the Church; let them alone be
without bishops who have rebelled against bishops; let them alone
undergo the penalties of their conspiracies who formerly, according to
your votes, and now according to God’s judgment, have deserved to
undergo the sentence of their own conspiracy and malignity.
6. The Lord warns us in His Gospel, saying,
“Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may establish your own
tradition.”2396
Let
them who reject the commandment of God and endeavour to keep their own
tradition be bravely and firmly rejected by you; let one downfall be
sufficient for the lapsed; let no one by his fraud hurl down those who
wish to rise; let no one cast down more deeply and depress those who
are down, on whose behalf we pray that they may be raised up by
God’s hand and arm; let no one turn away from all hope of safety
those who are half alive and entreating that they may receive their
former health; let no one extinguish every light of the way of
salvation to those that are wavering in the darkness of their
lapse. The apostle instructs us, saying, “If any man teach
otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus
Christ and His doctrine, he is lifted up with foolishness: from
such withdraw thyself.”2397
And again he says, “Let no
man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the
wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye
therefore partakers with them.”2398
There is no reason that you
should be deceived with vain words, and begin to be partakers of their
depravity. Depart from such, I entreat you, and acquiesce in our
counsels, who daily pour out for you continual prayers to the Lord, who
desire that you should be recalled to the Church by the clemency of the
Lord, who pray for the fullest peace from God, first for the mother,
and then for her children. Join also your petitions and prayers
with our prayers and petitions; mingle your tears with our
wailings. Avoid the wolves who separate the sheep from the
shepherd; avoid the envenomed tongue of the devil, who from the
beginning of the world, always deceitful and lying, lies that he may
deceive, cajoles that he may injure, promises good that he may give
evil, promises life that he may put to death. Now also his words
are evident, and his poisons are plain. He promises peace, in
order that peace may not possibly be attained; he promises salvation,
that he who has sinned may not come to salvation; he promises a Church,
when he so contrives that he who believes him may utterly perish apart
from the Church.
7. It is now the occasion, dearly beloved
brethren, both for you who stand fast to persevere bravely, and to
maintain your glorious stability, which you kept in persecution with a
continual firmness; and if any of you by the circumvention of the
adversary have fallen, that in this second temptation you should
faithfully take counsel for your hope and your peace; and in order that
the Lord may pardon you, that you should not depart from the priests of
the Lord, since it is written, “And the man that will do
presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest or unto the judge that shall be in
those days, even that man shall die.”2399
Of this persecution this is the
latest and final temptation, which itself also, by the Lord’s
protection, shall quickly pass away; so that I shall be again presented
to you after Easter-day with my colleagues, who, being present, we
shall be able as well to arrange as to complete the matters which
require to be done according to your judgment and to the general advice
of all of us as it has been decided before.2400
| 2400
[The high official tone with which Cyprian upholds his own
authority is always balanced by equal zeal for the presbyters and the
laity. On which compare Hooker, Polity, book viii. cap.
vi. 8.] | But if anybody, refusing to repent and
to make satisfaction to God, shall yield to the party of Felicissimus
and his satellites, and shall join himself to the heretical faction,
let him know that he cannot afterwards return to the Church and
communicate with the bishops and the people of Christ. I bid you,
dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell, and that you plead with me in
continual prayer that the mercy of God may be
entreated.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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