Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
If you wish to hear them and see them, when they are put under oath by us, they are tortured with spiritual scourges and by the torment of our words are driven out of the possessed bodies, when, wailing and groaning, they confess with a human voice but under a divine power, feeling the lashes and the blows, that the coming judgment is real. Come and learn that what we say is true. And because you say you worship the gods in this way, at least believe the very beings you worship. Or if you would rather believe yourself, he who now besieges your breast, who now has blinded your mind with the night of ignorance, will speak about you in your own hearing. You will see us being begged by those you beg, feared by those you adore. Those same beings that you gaze upon with reverence and honor as masters -- you will see them standing bound under our hand and trembling like captives. Surely even in this way you can be confounded in these errors of yours, when you have seen and heard your gods, at our questioning, betray at once what they are, and, unable to conceal their tricks and deceptions, do so in your very presence.
What sluggishness of mind is this, or rather what blind and foolish madness of fools, not to come out of the darkness into the light, and, bound in the snares of eternal death, to refuse to take up the hope of immortality -- not to fear God when he warns and says: whoever sacrifices to gods shall be rooted out, unless to the Lord alone. And again: they worshiped the things their own fingers made, and man was bowed down and made low, and shall I not overlook it for them? Why do you bow and bend yourself before false gods, why do you stoop your captive body before foolish images and earthly figments? God made you upright, and while the other animals are bent forward and pressed down toward the earth by their posture, to you an upright stance has been given, and a face lifted toward heaven and toward the Lord above. Look there, direct your eyes there, seek God in the heights. That you may be free of the underworld, lift your heart, held up toward the high and heavenly things. Why do you cast yourself down to death alongside the serpent that receives your worship? Why, through him and with him, do you collapse into the devil's own ruin? Keep the loftiness with which you were born. Persist as the one God made you to be. Set your soul in accord with the posture of your face and body. That you may know God, first know yourself. Leave behind the idols that human error invented. Turn to God: if you call upon him, he comes to help. Believe in Christ, whom the Father sent to give us life and to restore us. Cease to harm the servants of God and Christ with your persecutions -- those whom, when harmed, divine vengeance defends.
For this is why none of us, when seized, resists, nor does our people -- however great and numerous -- take vengeance against your unjust violence. The certainty of vengeance to come makes us patient. The innocent yield to the guilty; the blameless submit to punishments and torments, sure and confident that whatever we suffer will not go unavenged, and that the greater the wrong of the persecution, the more just and heavy the retribution for it becomes. Never does impious wickedness rise against our name unpunished; divine retribution follows at once, every time. Even setting aside the ancient records, and passing over without any proclaiming voice the vengeances so often repeated on behalf of the worshipers of God, the proof of a recent event is enough -- how swiftly, and in such swiftness how greatly, retribution has just followed, in the ruin of affairs, the loss of resources, the wasting of soldiers, the diminishing of the camps. And let no one think this happened by chance, or suppose it was accidental, for divine Scripture recorded this long ago: the Lord declares, vengeance belongs to me, I myself will render it back. And the Holy Spirit warns again in these words: do not say you will take revenge on your own enemy -- instead, look to the Lord, so that his help may come to you. From this it is clear and evident that all these things which come down from the indignation of God happen not by us but on our behalf.
Nor should anyone think, on this account, that Christians go unavenged for the things that happen, because they too seem to be grazed by the onset of these events. Anyone whose entire delight and honor rests in this world will feel the sting of the world's misfortunes. He mourns and weeps if things go badly for him in this age, since things cannot go well for him after this age -- he whose whole fruit of living is gathered here, whose whole comfort ends here, whose short and perishable life reckons some sweetness and pleasure here, because once he has departed from this life only punishment remains for his grief. But for those who have confidence in the good things to come, there is no grief at all in the onset of present evils. In short, we are neither dismayed by adversity nor broken nor grieved, nor do we murmur at any disaster of circumstance or ill health of body. Living more by the spirit than the flesh, we overcome the weakness of the body with the firmness of the soul. We know and trust that by the very things which torment and wear you down, we are being tested and made strong.
Do you imagine that adversity weighs on us the same way it weighs on you? Look closer: the very same troubles fall on each side quite differently. Among you, impatience is loud and forever complaining; among us, patience stands firm and devoted, quiet at all times and grateful toward God always -- claiming nothing here as its own joy or gain, but mild, gentle, unshaken amid every gust of this unstable world, awaiting the hour that God has promised. So long as this body of ours continues, shared as it is with everyone else, its bodily state too must likewise be shared, and the human race cannot be split apart in that respect until one departs hence from this world. Meanwhile, good and bad alike are contained within one house. Whatever comes into the house we suffer by an equal lot, until, when the end of temporal time is completed, we are divided into the lodgings of either eternal death or immortality. We are not, then, your equals and peers because, while still established in this world and in this flesh, we run into the same troubles of the world and the flesh along with you. For since all that punishes lies in the sensation of pain, it is clear that he is not a partaker of your punishment whom you see not grieving along with you.
In us, hope stands sturdy and faith holds firm; even amid the crumbling ruin of this passing age, the mind stays upright, courage does not waver, patience is never joyless, and the soul rests forever secure in its God -- just as the prophet was moved by the Holy Spirit's own voice, urging us on and confirming, with heavenly speech, the steadiness of our hope and trust. The fig tree, so the prophet says, will yield no fruit, nothing will sprout in the vineyards, the olive's labor will come to nothing, the fields will offer no food, the flocks will run short of pasture, and no cattle will remain in the stalls -- yet I myself will take joy in the Lord, I will delight in God my deliverer. He denies that the man of God, the worshiper of God, propped up by the truth of hope and grounded in the steadfastness of faith, is shaken by the assaults of this world and this age. Though the vine fail and the olive deceive, and the burning field, its plants dying of drought, wither away, what is this to Christians, what is it to the servants of God, whom paradise invites, whom all the grace and abundance of the heavenly kingdom awaits? Forever they find their delight in the Lord, taking pleasure and happiness in their God, bearing the world's evils and hardships with courage as they watch for the good things still to come. For we who, our earthly birth set aside, have been renewed and reborn in spirit, and no longer live for the world but for God, will receive the gifts and promises of God only when we have come to God. And yet, to keep off enemies, and to obtain rain, or to remove or moderate adversities, we always pray and pour out our petitions, and for the peace and welfare of you yourselves, propitiating and appeasing God, we pray continually and earnestly by day and by night.
Let no one, then, flatter himself because for the present, by the shared condition of flesh and body, the lot of worldly troubles is common to us and to the profane, to worshipers of God and to those who set themselves against God, and suppose from this that not all these things that happen to us are inflicted for our sake — since it was foretold beforehand, by God's own proclamation and the testimony of the prophets, that the wrath of God would come upon the unjust, that persecutions which would harm us in human terms would not be lacking, but also that vengeances which would defend the injured, by God's own power, would follow.
And how great are the things that even now happen for our sake in the meantime. Something is given as an example, so that the wrath of the avenging God may be known. Yet still ahead lies the day of judgment, which holy Scripture announces, saying: wail, for the day of the Lord is near, and destruction from God is at hand. For behold, the day of the Lord comes, of incurable indignation and wrath, to make the world a desert and to destroy sinners out of it. And once more: look -- the Lord's day arrives, blazing like a furnace, and all foreigners and all the wicked will be stubble, and the coming day will set them ablaze, says the Lord. The Lord foretells that foreigners will be set ablaze and burned -- that is, those alien to the divine race, and profane, not reborn in spirit nor made sons of God. That only those who have been reborn and marked with the sign of Christ can escape, God says in another place, when, sending his angels for the devastation of the world and the destruction of the human race, he threatens more heavily still, at the last, saying: go and strike, and do not spare your eyes. Do not have pity on the old or the young, and slay virgins and women and little children, that they be utterly destroyed. But do not touch anyone on whom the sign has been marked. God explains elsewhere both the nature of this sign and where on the body it is set, saying: pass through the middle of Jerusalem and mark a sign on the foreheads of the men who groan and grieve over the iniquities being done in their midst. That this mark is tied to Christ's suffering and blood -- and that anyone found carrying it remains safe and untouched -- God's own testimony confirms as well, saying: and the blood shall be a sign for you upon the houses in which you are, and I will see the blood and protect you, and there shall be no plague of destruction upon you, when I strike the land of Egypt. What was fulfilled then, in figure, by the slaying of the lamb beforehand, is fulfilled in Christ, the truth following afterward. Just as there, when Egypt was struck, the people of Judea could escape only by the blood and sign of the lamb, so too, when the world begins to be laid waste and struck down, whoever is found in the blood and sign of Christ alone escapes.
Look, then, while there is time, to true and eternal salvation, and, since the end of the world is now near, let fear of God redirect your thoughts toward him. And do not let this powerless and empty dominion delight you in this age, set as it is among the just and the gentle, just as in a field darnel and wild oats hold sway among the cultivated and fruitful crops; and do not say that misfortunes happen because your gods are not worshiped by us -- recognize instead that this is God's wrath at work, God's own judgment, so that he who is not understood through his kindnesses may at least be understood through his blows. Seek God, even if late, since long ago, through the prophet, God gave this warning and exhortation: seek God, and your soul shall live. Come to know God, even if late, since Christ himself, in coming among us, taught and urged the same lesson, declaring: eternal life consists in this, that they may know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ. Believe him who never at all deceives. Believe him who foretold all these things to come. Believe him who will give the reward of eternal life to those who believe. Believe him who will inflict eternal punishments in the fires of hell upon the unbelieving.
What glory of faith will there be then, what penalty of faithlessness, when the day of judgment comes; what joy for believers, what sorrow for the faithless, that they did not wish to believe here beforehand, and now cannot return to believe. The ever-burning hell will scorch those condemned to it, and a devouring punishment of living flames, and there will be no way for them to have either relief from their torments or ever an end. Souls will be kept, together with their bodies, for unending torments unto grief. He who once watched us for a time will then be watched by us forever, and the brief pleasure taken by cruel eyes in carrying out persecutions will be weighed against an everlasting sight, trusting the word of holy Scripture, where it is written -- their worm does not perish, their flame is never put out, and all flesh will behold them as a spectacle. And again: the just will then stand with great boldness before those who once oppressed them and stripped away the fruit of their labor. Seeing this, their oppressors will be shaken by dreadful fear, astonished at a rescue they never expected, and will say among themselves, groaning in remorse and anguish of soul: here are the very people we once mocked and made a byword of scorn. Fools that we were, we judged their way of life madness and their death dishonorable. Yet how is it they are now counted among God's own children, their place set among the saints? So we ourselves wandered off the path of truth; no light of righteousness ever shone for us, no sun ever rose on us. We wore ourselves out on the road of wrongdoing and ruin, tramping through harsh, empty country, never knowing the Lord's own way. What did our pride get us? What did boasting of riches ever bring us? All of it vanished like a passing shadow. Then the grief of punishment will be without the fruit of repentance, its weeping useless and its pleading ineffective. Too late they believe in eternal punishment, who refused to believe in eternal life.
Provide, then, for your safety and your life while it is allowed. We offer you the saving gift of our mind and counsel. And since we are not permitted to hate, and thereby please God the more, in that we render no requital for injury, we urge you, while the opportunity remains, while something of this age still remains to you, to make your peace with God, and to rise up out of the depths of dark superstition and into religion's own true, shining light. Your advantages are not something we envy, and we do not conceal God's gifts from you. We return goodwill for your hatreds, and for the torments and punishments inflicted on us we point out the paths to salvation. Believe and live, and you who now for a time persecute us, rejoice with us forever. Once someone has left this life behind, no room remains for repentance, no way left to make amends. Here life is either lost or kept; here provision is made for eternal salvation by the worship of God and the fruit of faith. Let no one be held back, either by sins or by years, from coming to obtain salvation. While a person still remains in this world, it is never too late to repent. The way to God's indulgence lies open, and for those who seek and understand the truth the access is easy. Even at the very point of death, at the setting of this temporal life, you may ask for your offenses, and by confession and faith in acknowledging him who alone is true God, implore him -- pardon is given to the one who confesses, and saving indulgence is granted by divine mercy to the one who believes, and even in death itself one passes over into immortality.
This is the favor Christ bestows, the gift that flows from his own mercy: death beaten down beneath the cross's trophy, a ransom of his own blood paid to win back every believer, mankind brought home into God the Father's peace, and mortal creatures quickened through a birth descending from heaven. Let every one of us follow him, if it can be managed; let his mark and mystery be our reckoning. Through him a path opens toward life; through him paradise is restored to us; through him we are led into heaven's own kingdoms. With him we will live forever, made sons of God through him; with him we will exult forever, restored by his own blood. As Christians we will be glorious together with Christ, blessed through God the Father, rejoicing always in everlasting delight in the sight of God and always giving thanks to God. For he who, though once liable to death, has been made secure in immortality, can only ever be joyful and thankful.