Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But perhaps someone will raise an objection: what troubles me in this present mortal state is that I, who had readied myself for confession and had pledged my whole heart and full strength to endure suffering, find myself deprived of martyrdom because death arrived first. In the first place, martyrdom is not within your own power to grant, but rests on God's judgment — you cannot claim to have lost something you cannot even know whether you deserved to receive. Furthermore, God examines the depths of the mind and heart, beholding and understanding what is hidden; he sees you, commends you, approves you, and rewards with the wages of courage the one whose readiness for it he alone perceived. Did not Cain already carry murder within before he had actually slain his brother, even as he brought his offering to God? Yet God in his foreknowledge had already condemned the fratricide his mind had conceived. Just as that wicked thought and destructive intention were foreseen by God before it happened, so among God's servants — those whose confession is inwardly resolved and whose martyrdom is formed in thought alone — a spirit given over to good receives its crown from the Judge who is God. It is one thing for the resolve toward martyrdom to be absent from the soul, another for the martyrdom itself simply not to occur. Whatever condition God discovers you in at the moment he summons you is also the condition by which he passes judgment on you, for he himself declares this truth in scripture: 'and all the assemblies will recognize that I am the one who searches heart and mind.' What God seeks from us, after all, is faith, not blood — Abraham was not put to death, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, yet through the merit of their faith and righteousness they were honored as first among the patriarchs, and to their banquet gathers everyone found faithful, righteous, and worthy of praise.
We must remember that it is not our own will we are to carry out but God's, since the Lord himself taught us to pray for this every day. How backward and twisted it is that, while asking for God's will to be accomplished, we refuse to yield instantly to what he commands the moment he summons and calls us out of this world! We push back and struggle, and like unruly servants we are dragged into the Lord's presence in sorrow and grief, departing under compulsion rather than through willing consent — and yet we still want heavenly rewards from the very one we approach so unwillingly. Why, then, do we beg in prayer for the coming of heaven's kingdom, if captivity to this earth is what pleases us? Why do we ask and plead, repeating our prayers again and again, for the swift arrival of that kingdom's day, if what we truly want more, what we long for more strongly, is serving the devil down here instead of ruling alongside Christ?
Finally, so that the marks of divine providence might appear even more plainly — since the Lord, foreseeing what is to come, looks after the true salvation of his own — a certain one of our fellow priests and colleagues, worn down by sickness and troubled about his nearing death, was praying for some respite, when, as he prayed and lay almost at the point of death, a young man appeared beside him, venerable in honor and majesty, tall of stature and shining in appearance — one whom the human eye could hardly bear to look upon with mortal sight, except that a man on the verge of leaving this world could already glimpse such a vision. With a voice and bearing touched by something like indignation, he cried aloud: 'You dread suffering, you refuse to go — what then am I to do with you?' This was the voice of one both rebuking and warning: a man untroubled about the summons of death, though anxious about persecution, does not yield to the wish of the present moment but takes thought for what lies ahead. Our brother and colleague, though dying, heard this said for the sake of others; the one about to die heard it so that he might pass it on — he heard it not for his own benefit but for ours. What, after all, would he still need to learn, standing already at the point of departure? Rather, he learned it on behalf of those left behind, so that, once we discovered that the priest who had asked for respite was rebuked, we might know what serves us all.
To us too, though we are the humblest and last of all, revelation has come again and again — God's condescension has instructed us plainly and repeatedly — that I should testify without ceasing, that I should declare openly, that we ought not to grieve for our brothers when the Lord's call releases them from this world, since we know they are not lost but sent on ahead, that those who depart merely go before us, just as travelers setting out on a journey or a sea voyage are typically missed rather than mourned, and that mourning clothes should not be worn here once they have already put on white garments there; that no excuse should be handed to the pagans to reproach us — justly so — for weeping over as though extinguished and lost those whom we ourselves claim live on with God, and for failing to demonstrate through the witness of heart and chest the faith we proclaim with mouth and voice. We betray our own hope and faith if what we say comes across as pretense, falsehood, and disguise. Displaying courage in speech accomplishes nothing if our deeds undermine the truth.
The apostle Paul indeed condemns, rebukes, and blames those who grieve at the passing of their own. 'We do not wish you to remain ignorant, brothers,' he writes, 'about those who have fallen asleep, so that you do not grieve as the rest do, who have no hope: since we hold as true that Jesus died and was raised, God in that same way will bring along with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.' According to him, grief over the death of one's own belongs to those without hope. We, however, live on hope: we hold that God is real, and we are confident Christ suffered on our behalf and was raised, remaining joined to Christ and rising both through him and within him — so why would we refuse to leave this world ourselves, or grieve and lament over our own as though they were lost, when Christ our very Lord and God gives this warning: 'I am the resurrection. Whoever puts faith in me, even having died, will live, and everyone living and believing in me will never die.'? If we put our faith in Christ, let us trust his sayings and his assurances, so that — since death will never truly hold us and we are instead to live and reign with him without end — we may approach Christ with a confidence full of joy.
Our dying now, for a time, is simply the passage by which death leads us into immortality, and eternal life has no way to follow unless we first manage to leave this place. This is not termination but transition — a crossing into eternity once the course allotted by time has run out. Who would refuse to hurry toward something better? Who would not want, as soon as possible, to be transformed and refashioned after Christ's own likeness and the dignity granted by heavenly grace? As the apostle Paul proclaims: 'our citizenship exists in heaven, and it is from there that we await the Lord Jesus Christ, who will reshape our lowly body, making it conform to his own body of glory.' This is the future Christ the Lord himself promises us, since he petitions the Father on our behalf so that we may dwell with him and share his joy in the everlasting abodes and celestial realms, saying: 'Father, I want those you gave me to be with me where I am, and to see the glory you gave me before the world came to be.' Someone approaching the throne of Christ, entering the splendor of the heavenly realms, has no cause for grief or lament — rather, trusting the Lord's promise and true faith, such a person should welcome with gladness this departure and passing over.
In just this way we learn of Enoch's removal, granted because he found favor with God, as sacred scripture attests in Genesis: 'Enoch found favor with God, and afterward could not be located, since God had taken him away.' Standing in God's favor meant earning release from this world's corrupting touch. Through Solomon, too, the Holy Spirit teaches the same lesson — that those favored by God are withdrawn from here earlier and released all the sooner, so that lingering too long in this world will not stain them: 'he was carried off,' the text says, 'so that malice would not warp his mind, since his soul stood in favor with God — for this reason God hurried to bring him out from the midst of wickedness.' In the Psalms likewise, a soul devoted to God through spiritual conviction rushes toward him, as it is written: 'How dear are your dwelling places, Lord of hosts — my soul longs and races toward the courts of the Lord.'
Wanting a long stay in this world is fitting only for someone the world charms — someone the age flatters, deceives, and lures in with the bait of earthly pleasure. But given that the world despises the Christian, why keep loving something that despises you, instead of following Christ, who both ransomed you and loves you? John, in his letter, calls out and urges us against loving the world through the pursuit of fleshly desires: 'Have no love,' he writes, 'for the world, nor for what belongs to the world. Whoever loves the world does not have the Father's love within him, since everything the world contains — bodily craving, the craving of the eyes, and worldly ambition — comes not from the Father but from the world's own desire. And the world is passing away, together with its desire, while whoever carries out God's will remains forever, just as God himself remains forever.' Instead, dearest brothers, let us stand ready for the entirety of God's will with an undivided mind, unwavering faith, and sturdy courage; shutting out the dread of death, let us fix our thoughts on the immortality it opens onto. Let our conduct match our convictions, so that we do not grieve the loss of those we love, and when the day of our own calling arrives, we may go to the Lord promptly and gladly at his summons.
Since this is something a servant of God ought always to do, it should be done all the more now, when the world is already collapsing and is beset by the whirlwinds of assailing evils, so that we who see that heavy trials have already begun and know that heavier ones are imminent may reckon it the greatest gain if we depart quickly from here. If the walls of your dwelling were tottering with age, if the roof above were shaking, if the house, already worn out and weary, threatened imminent ruin as its structure gave way with old age, would you not move out with all speed? If, while you were sailing, a turbulent and stormy tempest with waves violently roused announced shipwrecks to come, would you not make for harbor all the faster? Behold, the world totters and is collapsing, and testifies to its own ruin not now from the old age of things but from their end; and yet you do not give thanks to God, you do not congratulate yourself that, by a more timely departure, you are being withdrawn and freed from the ruins and shipwrecks and imminent plagues that threaten?
It must be considered, beloved brothers, and pondered again and again, that we have renounced the world and for the present dwell here as guests and strangers. Let us embrace the day that assigns each of us to his own dwelling, that restores us, snatched away from here and freed from worldly snares, to paradise and to the kingdom. Who, established abroad, would not hasten to return to his homeland? Who, hurrying to sail to his own people, would not eagerly wish for a favorable wind, that he might quickly embrace his loved ones? Paradise, we reckon, is our true homeland; already we have started to regard the patriarchs as parents of our own. So why do we hold back from rushing there at a run, eager to look upon our homeland and to greet our own kin? A great company of our loved ones awaits us there — a full and abundant crowd of parents, brothers, and children longs for us, secure now of their own safety, yet still anxious for ours. What great joy, both for them and for us together, to come into their sight and embrace! What pleasure of the heavenly kingdoms is there, without the fear of dying and with the certainty of living forever — how supreme and everlasting a happiness! There is the glorious choir of the apostles; there the exulting company of the prophets; there the innumerable people of the martyrs, crowned for the glory and victory of their struggle and suffering; there the triumphant virgins who subdued the desire of flesh and body by the strength of their self-control; there the merciful rewarded, who did the works of righteousness with food and gifts for the poor; there those who, keeping the Lord's commands, transferred their earthly inheritance to heavenly treasures. Toward these, beloved brothers, let us hasten with eager longing, that we may wish to be with them soon, to come to Christ soon. May God see this our thought; may Christ look upon this purpose of mind and faith, ready to grant the greater rewards of his love to those whose longing for him has been the greater.