Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Since the Lord warns us and says, "You are the salt of the earth," and since he bids us be innocent in our simplicity yet prudent even within that simplicity, what else befits us, beloved brothers, than to take care for ourselves, keeping anxious watch so that we may both grasp the snares of the crafty foe and guard against them — lest we, clothed as we are in Christ, the wisdom of God the Father himself, should appear to fall short of wisdom in the keeping of our own salvation? Danger is not confined to persecution alone, nor to those assaults that press forward in open warfare to undermine and topple God's servants; where the threat stands plain, vigilance comes easier, and the heart braces itself for the fight the moment an adversary shows himself. Far more to be dreaded and watched against is the enemy who creeps in unseen — who, wearing the mask of peace, worms his way in by secret paths, whence indeed he earned the name of serpent. Such has always been his cunning, such his blind, lurking treachery in circling round mankind. Thus, from the world's earliest days, his deceiving began: flattering with lying words, he ensnared the untried soul through careless trust. In just this way he attempted to tempt the Lord himself, creeping in secretly as though he might again slip by unnoticed and deceive — yet he was recognized and beaten back, and so lay overthrown, because he had been known and exposed.
From this we are given a pattern: to flee the way of the old man, to walk instead in the footsteps of Christ who has already conquered, so that, careless again, we do not slide back into death's trap, but rather, wary of the peril, hold fast to the immortality already granted us. Yet how can that immortality be grasped, if we fail to keep the very precepts of Christ through which death itself is defeated and undone, since he himself gives this warning: "If you would come to life, keep the commandments," and again, "If you do as I command you, I call you servants no longer, but friends"? Such men, at last, he calls strong and unshaken — founded on rock with solid weight, made secure against every storm and gale of the age with a stability nothing can shake or move. "Whoever hears my words and acts on them," he says, "shall be compared, in my telling, to a prudent man who set his house upon rock. Down came the rain, the rivers rose, the winds blew and struck against that house — yet it did not collapse, since it was grounded on rock." We are bound, then, to cling to his words, taking as our lesson both what he taught and what he did, putting it into practice ourselves. For how can anyone claim to believe in Christ, by Christ's own definition of belief, while refusing to do what Christ commanded be done? And how will one reach the reward promised to faith who will not keep faith with its command? Such a person must drift and stagger, carried off by a spirit gone astray, scattered like dust before the wind — his walking will never bring him nearer salvation, since he does not hold to the true path that leads there.
But we must be on guard not only against what is open and manifest, but also against what deceives by the subtlety of cunning fraud. And what is more cunning, what more subtle, than that, once the enemy had been exposed and cast down at the coming of Christ — after light had come to the nations, and the healing light shone forth to save mankind, so that the deaf received the hearing of spiritual grace, the blind opened their eyes to the Lord, the sick recovered lasting health, the lame ran to the church, the mute prayed aloud with clear voices in petition — he, watching his idols stand abandoned and, through the swelling ranks of believers, his shrines and temples emptied, should contrive a fresh deception, cloaking it in the Christian name itself to catch the unwary? Hence his invention of heresies and schisms, meant to topple faith, taint truth, and tear unity apart. Those he cannot restrain within the old road's blindness he snares and misleads through the error of a different one. He plucks men straight out of the church, and even as they imagine themselves already close to the light, already free of the world's night, he unknowingly floods them with fresh darkness, so that, no longer standing on the gospel of Christ, its observance, and its law, they still style themselves Christians — walking in shadow yet supposing they possess light — flattered and duped by the enemy, who, as the apostle says, disguises himself as a bringer of light, dressing up his agents as though they served righteousness: naming night as day, calling ruin salvation, dressing despair in hope's clothing, treachery in faith's guise, and antichrist in Christ's own title, so that through plausible lies he robs men of truth by sheer cunning. This comes about, beloved brothers, because men fail to turn back to where truth begins, fail to look for its head, and fail to hold to the heavenly Master's teaching.
If anyone weighs and studies these matters, no lengthy discourse or elaborate argument is needed. The proof lies ready to hand, compact and convincing in itself. The Lord tells Peter directly: "I say to you that you are Peter, and on this very rock I will raise up my church, and the gates of the underworld will never overpower it. I will hand you the keys to heaven's kingdom: whatever you tie on earth will stand tied in heaven too, and whatever you release on earth will stand released in heaven." He builds his church upon a single man, and though after rising he confers equal authority on all the apostles alike, saying, "Just as the Father sent me, so I now send you; receive the Holy Spirit — if you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you hold anyone's sins bound, they remain bound" — even so, to make unity visible, he fixed by his own authority the starting point of that unity in one single man. The remaining apostles were certainly what Peter was, sharing alike in both honor and authority, yet the origin springs from oneness, so that Christ's church might be revealed as a single body. This same single church the Holy Spirit likewise marks out in the Song of Songs, speaking as the Lord, saying: "My dove, my flawless one, is one alone — she alone belongs to her mother, singled out by the one who bore her." Does the man who will not hold to this unity of the church still suppose himself a believer? Does the man who fights and stands against the church still trust that he belongs within it? For blessed Paul the apostle teaches this same truth, unveiling the mystery of oneness when he says: "One body, a single Spirit, one hope in your calling, a single Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God throughout."
This is the unity we bishops, presiding as we do over the church, must grip fast and defend above all others, so that the episcopate too may be shown as a single undivided whole. No one should mislead the brotherhood with falsehood; no one should taint the faith's truth through deceitful pretense. Bishops are many, yet the office itself cannot be split apart: every single one grasps his portion of it complete and undivided, entire in itself. There is but one church, spreading outward into a great multitude as her fruitfulness grows — much as the sun casts many rays yet gives a single light, or a tree throws out many branches yet draws its strength from one tenacious root; and when countless streams pour down from a single spring, the water may look scattered wide in its overflowing abundance, yet its unity is kept intact at the source. Snap off a ray from the sun's disk — the light's oneness will not permit the beam to stand apart. Snap a branch from its tree — once cut away, it can never bud again. Sever a stream from its spring — once severed, it withers dry. So it is with the Lord's church: flooded with light, she casts her beams across every corner of the earth, and still the light remains one wherever it spreads, nor is the body's unity broken apart by that spreading. She reaches her branches out over the whole earth in the richness of her fruitfulness, and lets her flowing streams run ever wider; and yet there stands a single head, a single source, a single mother, made rich by the ongoing increase of her fruitfulness. From her we take our birth, on her milk we are fed, by her breath we are given life.
Christ's bride cannot be turned into an adulteress; she remains pure and untouched. She knows a single household; with modest restraint she guards one bridal chamber's sanctity. She is the one who keeps us for God, who claims for the kingdom the children she bore. Whoever breaks away from the church to join an adulteress forfeits the church's promises, and no one who has deserted Christ's church will ever reach Christ's rewards — such a man stands outside as a stranger, unholy, an enemy. He cannot claim God as father who will not claim the church as mother. Just as none could have lived through the flood outside Noah's ark, so none can survive standing outside the church either. The Lord gives this warning: "Whoever is not on my side stands against me, and whoever fails to gather with me is scattering." To break the peace and harmony Christ gives is to work against Christ himself; to gather anywhere apart from the church is to scatter what belongs to Christ. As the Lord puts it: "The Father and I are a single one." And again, concerning Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Scripture records: "these three are a single one." Can anyone truly believe that this unity — rooted in divine steadfastness and bound together by heavenly mysteries — could be ripped apart within the church, split by the divorce of colliding human wills? Whoever will not keep this unity keeps neither God's law, nor faith in Father and Son together, nor life, nor salvation.
This mystery of unity, this bond of concord holding together inseparably, is shown forth when, in the gospel, the tunic of the Lord Jesus Christ is not divided at all nor torn, but, as they cast lots over the garment of Christ as to who should rather put Christ on, the garment is received whole, and the tunic is possessed intact and undivided. Divine Scripture speaks and says: concerning the tunic, because from the upper part it was not sewn but woven throughout in one piece, they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be." He bore a unity coming from above, that is, from heaven and from the Father, which could not at all be torn by the one receiving and possessing it, but held its whole and solid strength inseparably, once and for all. No one who rips apart and splits Christ's church can rightly claim to possess Christ's own garment. By contrast, when Solomon died and his kingdom and people were being torn apart, the prophet Ahijah, meeting King Jeroboam in the field, tore his own garment into twelve pieces, saying: "Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord: Behold, I tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and give you ten scepters, and two scepters shall be his, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen, that I might set my name there." When the twelve tribes of Israel were being torn apart, the prophet Ahijah tore his own garment. But because the people of Christ cannot be torn apart, his tunic, woven throughout and holding together, was not divided by those who possessed it; undivided, joined, and knit together, it shows forth the coherent concord of our people, who have put on Christ. By the mystery and sign of the garment he declared the unity of the church.
Who, then, could be so corrupt and disloyal, so crazed by the frenzy of division, as to believe God's unity, the Lord's garment, Christ's church, capable of being torn — or to dare attempt it? He himself gives this warning and teaching in his gospel: "There will come to be a single flock and a single shepherd." Does anyone imagine that in one and the same place there could be several shepherds, or several flocks? In the same way the apostle Paul, pressing this very oneness upon us, pleads and urges: "Brothers, I ask you," he says, "in Christ Jesus our Lord's own name, that you all voice the very same thing, letting no divisions exist among you, but standing united in one mind and one judgment." And elsewhere he adds: "Bear with each other in love, making every effort to guard the Spirit's unity through the tie of peace." Do you suppose that someone who pulls away from the church can go on standing and living, setting up for himself different seats and separate dwellings elsewhere? Recall what was told to Rahab, in whom the church was foreshadowed: "Bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and your father's whole household together to yourself, inside your own house — and whoever steps outside that house's door will bear the guilt himself." In the same way, the Passover mystery in the law of Exodus means nothing else than that the lamb, slain as a type of Christ, must be consumed within a single house. God says: "It is to be eaten in one house; do not carry the meat outside that house." Christ's flesh, the Lord's sacred thing, cannot be thrown outside, nor is there any dwelling for believers apart from the single church. This house, this shared home of one-mindedness, the Holy Spirit points to and announces in the psalms: "God settles those of one mind together in a house." Within God's house, within Christ's church, the like-minded dwell together, persisting in harmony and singleness of heart.
For this reason the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove: a simple and joyful creature, not bitter with gall, not savage in biting, not violent in tearing with claws, loving human dwellings, knowing the fellowship of one house, bringing forth its young together, keeping close together in flight when it comes and goes, spending its life in shared company, recognizing the concord of peace by the kiss of the beak, fulfilling in every respect the law of one-mindedness. This is the simplicity to be recognized in the church, this the love to be attained, so that brotherly affection may imitate doves, and gentleness and mildness match that of lambs and sheep. What business has the ferocity of wolves, the rabid madness of dogs, the deadly venom of serpents, the bloody savagery of beasts, in a Christian breast? We ought to be glad when such men separate themselves from the church, lest they prey with their savage, poisonous contagion upon Christ's own doves and sheep. Bitterness cannot mix and bond with sweetness, nor darkness with light, nor rain with clear skies, nor war with peace, nor barrenness with fertility, nor drought with flowing springs, nor storm with calm. No one should suppose that the righteous are able to leave the church behind: no wind sweeps away the wheat, and no gale topples a tree rooted firmly and deep; it is only the empty husks the storm flings about, only fragile trees the whirlwind's onslaught brings down. Such people the apostle John denounces and condemns: "They departed from our company, yet they never truly belonged to it — had they been part of us, they would have stayed at our side."
From this same source heresies have repeatedly sprung up and go on springing up, since a twisted mind knows no peace, and disloyal unbelief cannot hold to oneness. Yet the Lord permits and allows it to happen, leaving the will's freedom untouched, so that, even as he tests our hearts and minds through the ordeal of truth, the faith of those proven may blaze out manifest in open light. Through the apostle the Holy Spirit gives this advance warning: "Heresies must also exist, so that those tested and proven may stand revealed among you." In this way the faithful are tested, in this way the disloyal are unmasked; in this way, well ahead of judgment day, the souls of both the just and the unjust already stand divided here below, and the chaff is sorted out from the grain. From this same root spring those who, on their own impulse, place themselves at the head of reckless bands of malcontents with no divine sanction, who name themselves leaders without any lawful ordination, who take up for themselves the title of bishop though no one has made them one. Of these the Holy Spirit speaks in the psalms — men enthroned in the seat of pestilence, plagues and blights against the faith, deceiving with a serpent's mouth, craftsmen of corrupted truth, spewing out deadly poisons with pestilential tongues — men whose talk creeps like a cancer, whose discourse pours a deadly venom into the breast and heart of every listener.
Against such men the Lord raises his voice; he holds back and calls home his wandering people, saying: "Pay no attention to what the false prophets speak, since the visions born of their own hearts deceive them. Their words do not come from the Lord's own mouth. To those who throw aside God's word they promise, 'Peace will be yours,' and to everyone walking after his own desires: 'Whoever follows the error of his own heart — no harm will touch you.' I never spoke to them, yet still they prophesied. Had they stood within my counsel, had they truly heard my words, and had they instructed my people, I would have turned them back from their wicked schemes." These very men the Lord again singles out and condemns, saying: "Me they abandoned, the spring of living water, digging for themselves cracked cisterns unable to hold any water at all." Since no baptism can exist except the one true kind, they nevertheless suppose they are baptizing; having turned their backs on life's spring, they hold out the promise of water that gives life and saves. There, men are not cleansed but rather soiled further; sins are not washed away but rather piled higher. That birth comes not from God but breeds children for the devil instead. Begotten through falsehood, they never grasp truth's promises; conceived out of faithlessness, they forfeit faith's own grace. Those who, in discord's madness, have shattered the Lord's peace can never arrive at the reward peace brings.