Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Setting all this aside and treating it with contempt — before the offense is atoned for, before the crime is confessed, before the conscience is purified through sacrifice at the hand of a priest, before the wrath of the offended and threatening Lord has been calmed — his body and blood are subjected to outrage, and such people offend the Lord now with hand and mouth even more than when they first denied him. They imagine this to be peace, a thing certain men peddle with deceitful words. It is not peace; it is war, and no one severed from the gospel remains joined to the church. How is an injury renamed a kindness? How is impiety relabeled piety? Why do they pretend to offer communion to those who instead ought to be weeping without end and pleading with their Lord, shortening the mourning proper to repentance? Such men are to the fallen what hail is to crops, what a dark storm is to trees, what a plague of pestilence is to herds, what a savage tempest is to ships. They strip away the comfort of hope, they overturn from the root, they creep with sickly speech toward a deadly infection, they drive the ship onto the rocks so it cannot reach harbor. Under this so-called leniency, peace is withheld rather than granted, and instead of communion the road to salvation is blocked. This is another kind of persecution, another kind of trial, through which the cunning enemy, still bent on destroying the fallen, wages a hidden campaign of ruin — so that lamenting might cease, so that grief might fall silent, so that memory of the offense might fade, so the groaning of the heart might be stifled, so the weeping of the eyes might be checked, and so the fallen might not, with long and full repentance, beg pardon of the Lord they have gravely offended — even though it is written: remember from where you have fallen, and do penance. Let no one deceive himself, let no one be deceived. Only the Lord can show mercy.
Pardon for sins committed against himself can be granted only by the one who bore our sins, who suffered on our behalf, whom God handed over for our sins. God towers above every man, and no servant may, through his own leniency, remit or excuse what has been committed as a graver offense against the Lord — lest this too be added to the crime of one already fallen, should he fail to know it has been foretold: cursed is the man who places his hope in man. The Lord must be prayed to; the Lord must be appeased through our own satisfaction — he who declared he would deny whoever denies him, to whom the Father alone entrusted all judgment. It is our conviction that the merits of martyrs and the deeds of the righteous will carry great weight in the presence of the Judge — yet only once the day of judgment arrives, when, after this age and this world have passed away, his people stand before the tribunal of Christ.
But if anyone, made reckless by hasty impatience, imagines he can grant everyone forgiveness of sins, or dares to override the Lord's commands, he does the fallen not merely no good but active harm. To incite wrath instead of abiding by the sentence, to refuse to seek the Lord's mercy in prayer first, and instead, spurning the Lord, to rely on one's own leniency — this and nothing else is what such conduct amounts to. Beneath God's altar the souls of martyred believers cry aloud, saying: holy and true Lord, how long before you judge and take vengeance for our blood on the earth's inhabitants? And they are told still to wait in patience and rest. Can anyone then imagine that scattering forgiveness and dispensing pardon without discrimination makes a man good, when it works against the Judge's will — or that, before he is himself vindicated, he can stand as another's defender? If the martyrs ask that something be done, so long as it is just, so long as it is lawful, so long as it does not run counter to the Lord himself through a priest of God, let compliance be ready and willing, provided the petitioner shows devout restraint. If the martyrs ask for something not written into the Lord's law, then before doing what they command, it falls to us to learn first whether they secured it from the Lord — for a pledge made by human promise cannot straightaway be taken as granted by divine majesty.
For Moses too interceded for the sins of the people, yet even after pleading he did not win pardon for those who had sinned. I beg you, Lord, he said: this people has committed a grave transgression. Now if you will pardon their transgression, pardon it — but if not, erase me from the book you have written. And the Lord answered Moses: whoever has transgressed against me, I will erase him from my own book. That friend of God, who spoke with the Lord face to face so often, could not obtain the thing he asked, nor did his own plea soften the offended wrath of God. God praises and exalts Jeremiah, saying: before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came forth from the womb I set you apart and appointed you a prophet to the nations — and yet, to this very man, though he pleaded and prayed again and again for the sins of the people, he said: do not intercede for this people, and do not petition on their behalf in prayer, for I will pay no heed when they call to me in their season of distress. What could be more just, indeed, than Noah — the sole man found righteous on an earth overrun with sin? What more glorious than Daniel? What more resolute in the firmness of a faith able to endure martyrdom, more favored by God, having conquered so many times in the contest and, after conquering, lived on? What more ready in works than Job, more resolute under trial, more patient in suffering, more submissive in fear, more true in faith? Yet God said that even these, were they to plead, would not obtain it. When the prophet Ezekiel interceded over the people's transgression, God said: whatever land sins against me by transgressing, I will stretch out my hand over it, break its store of bread, loose famine upon it, and strip it of both people and livestock. And even if these three — Noah, Daniel, and Job — stood in its midst, they would not rescue son or daughter; only they themselves would be spared. So true it is that nothing requested rests on the claim of the one who requests, but on the judgment of the one who grants — human resolve claims and appropriates nothing to itself unless divine judgment also assents.
In the gospel the Lord speaks, saying: whoever confesses me before men, I too will confess him before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me, I too will deny him. If he does not deny the one who denies, then neither does he confess the one who confesses. The gospel cannot hold firm on one side while wavering on the other — it must be valid throughout, or it forfeits its force entirely. If those who deny are not guilty of the crime, then neither do those who confess receive the reward of their courage. Further, if the faith that has conquered is crowned, then defeated faithlessness must likewise be punished. So the martyrs either have no power at all, if the gospel can be dissolved — or, if the gospel cannot be dissolved, then those who become martyrs through the gospel cannot act against the gospel. Let no one, beloved brothers, let no one defame the dignity of the martyrs, let no one demolish what glory and crowning they have earned; the vigor of their uncorrupted faith stands untouched, and one whose hope, faith, courage, and every glory rest in Christ cannot say or do anything against Christ — so that whatever is done by the bishops against God's command, they cannot be held its authors, since they themselves carried out the commands of God. Or is anyone greater than God, or more merciful than the divine goodness, that he would wish undone what God has allowed to be suffered, or think that God had less power to protect his own church, so that we should suppose ourselves able to be preserved by his help alone?
Unless these things happened without God's knowledge, or all of this came about without his permission — let holy scripture teach the untaught and remind the forgetful, for it speaks and says: who handed Jacob over to plunder, and Israel to those who despoiled him? Was it not God — the very one they sinned against, refusing to walk his paths or heed his law? And so he poured out over them the fury of his indignation. And elsewhere it bears witness and says: is the hand of God not strong enough to save, or has his ear grown heavy so that it cannot hear? But your sins separate you from God, and because of your sins he has turned his face away from you, that he might not show mercy. Let us take account of our offenses, and weighing our deeds and the secrets of our hearts, let us measure what our conscience deserves. Let it return to our hearts that we have not walked in the ways of the Lord, that we have cast off God's law, that we have never wished to keep his commandments and his saving counsels.
What good can you think of such a man — what fear do you suppose he had, what faith do you credit him with — a man whom even fear could not correct, whom persecution itself did not reform? His neck stands high and unbent, not humbled even though he has fallen; his spirit, swollen and proud, is not broken even though it has been defeated. Lying there among those who still stand unhurt, wounded as he is, he makes threats — and because he cannot at once receive the Lord's body with defiled hands, or drink the Lord's blood with a polluted mouth, this sacrilegious man rages against the priests. And — oh, madman, what excessive folly is yours! — you rage against the one who strives to turn God's wrath away from you; you threaten the one who begs the Lord's mercy on your behalf, who feels the wound you yourself do not feel, who sheds for you the tears you perhaps do not shed. You keep piling up and adding to your wrongdoing, and yet, remaining unyielding yourself toward God's bishops and priests, do you suppose the Lord could be softened toward you?
Accept instead, and take to heart, what we say. Why do deaf ears not hear the saving precepts we urge? Why do blind eyes not see the path of repentance we point out? Why does a mind shut off and estranged not perceive the life-giving remedies we learn and teach from the heavenly scriptures? Or if for some unbelievers there is less confidence in what is to come, let them at least be terrified by present things. Consider the punishments we see befalling those who have denied, the grim ends of theirs that we mourn! They cannot even remain here without punishment, though the day of full reckoning has not yet come. Some are struck down meanwhile, that the rest may be set right. The torments of a few stand as an example for all.
One of these, who had climbed the Capitol of his own accord meaning to deny Christ, fell mute the moment he denied him. The punishment began exactly where the crime had begun, so that he could no longer even beg, having no words left for a plea of mercy. Another, a woman, while at the baths — for this alone was missing from her crime and her evils, that she should go straight to the baths after losing the grace of the life-giving washing — there, seized by an unclean spirit, tore with her own teeth at her tongue, the unclean instrument that had wickedly fed and wickedly spoken. Once the accursed food had been taken, the frenzy of her mouth turned its weapon against her own destruction. She became her own executioner, and could not survive long after, wasting away, racked with pain in her stomach and entrails.
Hear now what happened, with myself present as witness. Some parents, fleeing in fear and taking too little thought in their haste, left their small daughter behind in the care of her nurse. The nurse, once she was left with her, brought the child before the magistrates. There, at the idol to which the people were flocking, since she could not yet eat solid food because of her age, they gave her bread mixed with wine — itself left over from the offering made for those who were perishing. Later the mother took her daughter back. But the child could no more tell or reveal the crime committed against her than she had been able earlier to understand it or prevent it. So it happened, through simple ignorance, that the mother brought her along when we were celebrating the sacrifice. But the little girl, mixed in among the saints, could not bear our prayer and our offering — now shaken with weeping, now tossed about in a fevered restlessness of mind — and, as if under the compulsion of some torturer, her still-simple soul, young as it was, betrayed by whatever signs it could the guilt of what had been done. And when, the rites completed, the deacon started offering the cup to those in attendance, and when her turn arrived as the others were receiving it, the little girl, by the prompting of the divine majesty, turned her face away, pressed her lips shut, and refused the cup. Still the deacon persisted, and, though she resisted, poured some of the consecrated cup into her regardless. Then came choking and vomiting. In a body and mouth so violated the eucharist could not remain; the drink made holy in the Lord's blood burst back out from the polluted insides. So immense is the Lord's power, so immense his majesty: the secrets hidden in darkness were exposed beneath his light, and not even hidden crimes could deceive the priest of God.
This happened with an infant, who had not yet reached an age at which she could speak of a wrong not even her own. But there was another, older, a woman fully grown, who slipped in secretly among those offering sacrifice with us, taking not food but, so to speak, a sword — swallowing, as it were, a deadly poison into her throat and breast — and soon began to be choked and gripped by a churning of the spirit, and, suffering the pressure not now of persecution but of her own sin, she collapsed, trembling and convulsed. The crime of a hidden, dissembled conscience was not long unpunished nor long concealed. The one who had deceived a man felt God as her avenger. And when another woman tried with unclean hands to open her own chest, in which something of the Lord's holy sacrament lay, fire rose up from within and drove her back in terror from daring to touch it. And another man, likewise stained by having taken part in a sacrifice performed by a priest, dared to take a portion secretly along with the others — but he could neither eat nor even hold the Lord's holy thing; he found he was carrying only ashes when he opened his hands. This single case made plain that the Lord pulls back once he is disowned, and that what is received brings no benefit toward salvation to one who does not merit it, since saving grace, as the holy thing takes flight, turns to ash. How many every day are filled with unclean spirits, how many are shaken by fits of madness to the point of losing their minds entirely! There is no need to go through the fates of each one, since across the world's countless ruinous falls the punishment of sins varies just as much as the multitude of those who sin is great. Let each one weigh not the suffering another has undergone, but what punishment he himself has earned, and let no one believe he has escaped simply because his punishment has for now been deferred — he should fear all the more, the one whom the wrath of God the Judge has kept in reserve for himself.
Nor should those flatter themselves out of doing penance who, even though they did not defile their hands with the abominable sacrifices, nevertheless entangled their conscience with certificates. That too is a profession of denial, a declaration, made by a Christian, of what had been a refusal. He said he had done what another actually did by doing it, and though it is written, you cannot serve two masters, he served a worldly master, obeyed his edict, gave heed to human command rather than to God. He may see whether he has made public before men, with less shame or less guilt, what he committed — but he will not be able to flee or escape God as judge, since the Holy Spirit says in the psalms: your eyes have seen my imperfection, and in your book all shall be written; and again: man sees the face, but God sees the heart. The Lord himself issues this warning in advance: every church will come to know that I am he who probes the heart and mind. He looks into hidden and secret things and considers what is concealed, and no one can escape the eyes of the God who says: I am a God who draws near, and not a God far off. If a man is hidden in hiding places, shall I then not see him? He sees the hearts and breasts of each person, and, about to judge not only deeds but also words, he examines the intentions and thoughts of everyone, conceived still in the innermost recesses of a closed breast.
In the end, how much greater in faith and better in fear are those who, though bound by no crime of sacrifice or of a certificate, since they had nevertheless even thought of it, confess this very thing before the priests of God with grief and simplicity, making confession of conscience, laying open the weight of their soul, seeking a saving remedy even for wounds that are slight and modest, mindful of the scripture: God cannot be made a fool of. God cannot be mocked or outwitted, nor deceived by any cunning trick. Indeed, the one who sins more gravely is the one who, thinking of God in a merely human way, believes that, having avoided open commission of the deed, he has thereby escaped its punishment. Christ says in his precepts: whoever is ashamed of me, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed. And does someone consider himself a Christian who is ashamed or afraid to be one? How could someone belong with Christ, when he is ashamed or afraid to be counted as Christ's? Clearly he has sinned less by not gazing on idols, by not profaning the sanctity of his faith before the eyes of a surrounding, mocking crowd, by not defiling his hands with accursed sacrifices nor his mouth with wicked food. This makes the guilt lesser, but it does not make the conscience innocent. He can more easily attain pardon for his offense, but he is not free from offense; nor should he cease to perform penance and to beg the Lord's mercy, lest what seems the lesser degree of sin be piled higher by neglected satisfaction.
Let each one, I beg you, brothers, confess his own wrongdoing while the sinner still walks this earth, while his confession still stands a chance of being accepted, while the satisfaction and forgiveness made through the priests are still acceptable before the Lord. Let us direct ourselves toward the Lord with our entire mind, and expressing repentance for our crime with true sorrows, let us beg for God's mercy. Let the soul prostrate itself before him, let it make satisfaction to him with grief, let all hope rest upon him. He himself tells us how we ought to pray: return to me, he says, with your whole heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning, and tear your hearts and not your garments. Let us come back before the Lord wholeheartedly; as he himself instructs, let us calm his wrath and offense through fasting, weeping, and mourning.