Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Letter I. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and the people residing at Furni, greeting. We were deeply troubled, both I and the colleagues who were present with me and the fellow presbyters who sat with us, dearest brothers, when we learned that our brother Geminius Victor, departing this life, had named the presbyter Geminius Faustinus as guardian in his will, even though it had already been decreed some time ago in a council of bishops that no cleric or minister of God should be appointed guardian or curator in anyone's will, since those who are honored with the divine priesthood and established in clerical ministry ought to devote themselves to nothing but the altar and the sacrifices, and to spend their time in prayer and supplication. As scripture states: no soldier of God entangles himself in worldly affairs, so that he may please the one to whom he has proved himself. And if this is said of all believers, how much more should those not be bound by worldly cares and snares who, being occupied with divine and spiritual matters, cannot withdraw from the church to attend to earthly and secular business. The pattern of this ordinance and religious observance the Levites held earlier under the law, so that when the land was divided and the possessions apportioned among the eleven tribes, the Levitical tribe, which was devoted to the temple and the altar and the divine ministries, received no share in that division, but while the others tilled the land, that tribe alone served God, and received tithes from the produce that grew, from the eleven tribes, for its food and sustenance. Divine authority and providence ordained the whole of this arrangement, so that nothing might distract those engaged in divine works, and they would not be forced to occupy their thoughts with secular affairs or undertake them. That very rationale and pattern is upheld today among the clergy: those raised within the Lord's church through priestly ordination are to be pulled from divine service by nothing whatsoever, so that worldly concerns and affairs cannot entangle them; instead, taking what amount to tithes from the brothers' offerings given in their honor, they must remain constant at the altar and the sacrifices, devoting themselves night and day to heavenly and spiritual matters. Our predecessor bishops, weighing this matter with due reverence and providing wisely for our welfare, decreed that no brother departing this life should name a cleric as his guardian or curator; should anyone act otherwise, they ruled that no offering ought to be made in his name, and the sacrifice for his repose should not be celebrated. For one who wished to draw priests and ministers away from the altar does not deserve to be named at God's altar in the priests' prayer. And therefore, since Victor dared to appoint the presbyter Geminius Faustinus as guardian, contrary to the pattern recently established by the priests in council, no offering should be made for his repose among you, nor should any prayer be made frequently in his name in the church, so we might uphold this ruling the priests made out of conscientious necessity, while simultaneously setting a model for the other brothers: that God's priests and ministers, given over to his altar and church, must never be summoned away into worldly affairs by anyone. For it will be possible to guard against this happening any further with regard to the person of clerics, if what has now been done is duly enforced. I wish you, dearest brothers, always good health.
Letter II. Cyprian to his brother Eucratius, greeting. Out of your affection and mutual regard, dearest brother, you thought I should be consulted as to what I think about a certain actor who, established among you, still persists in the disgrace of his own profession, and, being a master and teacher not of instructing but of ruining boys, also instills in others what he himself has wrongly learned - whether such a man ought to have communion with us. To my mind this squares with neither the majesty of God nor the gospel's discipline -- that so shameful and disgraceful a contagion should stain the church's modesty and honor. For since men are forbidden by the law to put on women's clothing, and those who do are judged accursed, how much greater a crime is it not merely to put on women's garments, but also, through the teaching of a shameless art, to display shameful, soft, and womanish gestures? Nor can anyone excuse himself on the ground that he himself has ceased to appear on the stage, when nonetheless he teaches this to others. A man who has installed others to stand in for him cannot truly be said to have stopped -- one who, rather than continuing alone, supplies many successors, teaching and training them, against God's own ordinance, in how a man may be reshaped into a woman, and how sex may be changed by artifice, and how the devil, defiler of the divine handiwork, might take pleasure in the failings of a body ruined and weakened by such acts. Yet should this same man plead poverty and dire need, his necessity too can be relieved among the others who are sustained by the church's provisions, provided that he is content with more frugal and innocent food, and does not think that he must be paid a salary in order to cease from sin - since by ceasing he benefits not us but himself. As for the rest, let him seek as much as he wishes from that occupation - but consider what kind of gain it is, that snatches men away from the table of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and, having wickedly and ruinously fattened them in this world, leads them to the everlasting torments of hunger and thirst. And so, as far as you are able, call him back from this depravity and disgrace to the path of innocence and to the hope of his own life, so that he may be content with the church's more modest, but wholesome, provision. Should the church in that place lack the means to sustain someone in want, he is free to come over to us instead, where he can obtain what he needs for food and clothing -- no longer instructing others in deadly error outside the church, but rather learning what is wholesome within it. I wish you, dearest son, always good health.
Letter III. Cyprian to his brother Rogatianus, greeting. We were deeply and sorrowfully troubled, both I and the colleagues who were present, dearest brother, upon reading your letter, in which you complained about your deacon, that forgetful of your priestly office and unmindful of his own duty and ministry, he provoked you with his insults and injuries. And indeed you acted honorably toward us and in keeping with your usual humility, in preferring to complain to us about him, when, by the strength of your episcopate and the authority of your chair, you had the power to have him punished at once, being certain that all your colleagues would approve whatever you did against that insolent deacon by your priestly authority - having, with regard to such men, divine precepts, since the Lord God says in Deuteronomy: whoever behaves so arrogantly as to refuse to heed the priest or the judge presiding in those days, that person must be put to death, so that the whole people, on hearing of it, will be afraid and stop acting wickedly. And that we may know that this word of God proceeded with his true and supreme majesty for the honoring and vindicating of his priests: when three men from among the ministers, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, dared to rise up in pride against the priest Aaron and lift up their necks and make themselves equal to the priest set over them, they at once paid the penalty of their sacrilegious audacity, swallowed and devoured by a gaping chasm in the earth. And not they alone, but the other two hundred fifty as well, who had joined them in that audacity, were consumed by fire bursting forth from the Lord, proving that God's priests find their vindication in the very one who makes them priests. In the book of Kingdoms too, when the priest Samuel was despised by the people of the Jews on account of his old age, just as you now have been, the Lord was angered and cried out and said: it is not you they have despised, but me they have despised. And to avenge this, he raised up King Saul for them, who afflicted them with grievous injuries and trampled and oppressed the proud people with every kind of insult and punishment, so that the priest who had been despised might be vindicated by divine retribution against the proud people. Solomon as well, filled with the Holy Spirit, both testifies to and teaches the authority and power belonging to the priesthood, in these words: fear God with your whole soul, and sanctify his priests. And again: honor God with your whole soul, and hold his priests in honor. Recalling these precepts, the blessed apostle -- as the Acts of the Apostles record -- when confronted with the charge, do you dare curse and insult God's priest this way, replied: brothers, I was unaware that he held the high priesthood. Scripture says: do not curse a ruler of your people. Christ our Lord, who is at once our king, our judge, and our God, showed honor to the high priests and priests all the way to the day he suffered, even though they had shown neither fear of God nor recognition of Christ. For when he had cleansed a leper, he said to him: go and show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift - out of that humility by which he also taught us to be humble, he still called him priest, whom he knew to be sacrilegious. So too, in the very hour of his passion, after being struck and asked, is that how you answer the high priest, he uttered no insult toward the high priest's person, defending his own innocence instead: if I have said something wrong, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why strike me? In all this he acted with humility and patience, leaving us a pattern to imitate in both. He taught that true priests should be honored lawfully and fully, precisely by showing himself so even toward false priests. Deacons, moreover, ought to remember that the Lord chose the apostles - that is, the bishops and those set over the church - but that the apostles, after the Lord's ascension into heaven, appointed for themselves deacons as ministers of their episcopate and of the church. And if we, who make bishops, can dare anything against God, then deacons too, who are made by us, can dare something against us. And so it is fitting that the deacon about whom you write should repent of his audacity, that he may acknowledge the honor due the priest, and give satisfaction, in full humility, to the bishop set over him. For these are the beginnings of heretics, and the origin and first attempts of schismatics with evil designs, who please themselves and, in the swelling of pride, despise the one set over them. In this way a man separates from the church; in this way an unholy altar gets erected outside it; in this way revolt rises against Christ's peace and against God's ordinance and unity. But if he provokes and further exasperates you with his insults, you shall exercise against him the power of your office, whether to depose him or to exclude him from communion. For if Paul the apostle told Timothy in writing, let no one look down on your youth, then all the more should your colleagues say to you: let no one look down on your age. And since you have written that a certain man joined himself with that same deacon and became a partner in his pride and audacity, this man too, and any others who prove to be of the same kind and who act against a priest of God, you shall have the power either to restrain or to exclude from communion - except that we instead urge and admonish them to own that they have done wrong, offer amends, and let our resolve stand undisturbed. For we desire and wish rather to overcome the insults and injuries of individuals by merciful patience than to avenge them by priestly authority. I wish you, dearest brother, always good health.
Letter IV. Cyprian, Caecilius, Victor, Sedatus, Tertullus, together with the presbyters who were present, to their brother Pomponius, greeting. Your letter has reached us, dearest brother -- the one carried by our brother Paconius -- and in it you ask, wanting our reply, what view we hold about those virgins who, having once resolved to keep their state continently and firmly, were afterward discovered to have remained lying together in the same bed with men - one of whom, you say, is a deacon - while these same women, who confessed to having slept with men, plainly assert that they are still intact. Since you have wanted our counsel in this matter, be assured that we hold firmly to the gospel and the apostles' traditions, so that our brothers and sisters may receive steadfast and resolute guidance, and that ecclesiastical discipline may be observed in every way conducive to usefulness and salvation - for the Lord himself declares: shepherds after my own heart I will give you, and they will tend you, feeding you with discipline. And again it is written: whoever casts off discipline is unhappy. And in the psalms too the Holy Spirit instructs, saying: cling to discipline, so the Lord does not grow angry and you stray from the correct path once his fury flares swiftly upon you. First of all, then, dearest brother, both those set over the people and the people themselves must labor at nothing else than this: that we who fear God should hold to the divine precepts with every observance of discipline, and not allow our brothers to go astray and live according to their own whim and appetite, but should faithfully take counsel for the life of each one - not allowing virgins to share a roof with men -- let alone share a bed, which goes without saying -- not even ordinary cohabitation, since both the weaker sex and an age still unsteady ought in every respect to be restrained and governed by us, lest occasion be given to the devil, who lies in wait and is eager to rage and do harm - since the apostle also says: give no place to the devil. A ship in danger must be freed watchfully from perilous places, lest it be broken among reefs and rocks. A burden must be quickly stripped off in a fire, before the flames overtake and consume it. No one is safe for long who is close to danger. Nor can a servant of God escape the devil, who has entangled himself in the devil's snares. Such persons must be intervened with quickly, so that they may be separated while the innocent can still be separated, because afterward they cannot be parted by our intervention once they have become bound together by a most grievous conscience. In short, we see with the greatest sorrow of mind how many serious ruins arise from this, and how many virgins are corrupted through unlawful and dangerous unions of this kind. But if they have dedicated themselves to Christ in faith, let them persevere chaste and modest, without any scandalous talk, so that, being strong and steadfast in this way, they may look forward to virginity's reward. Where they lack the will or the strength to persist, marriage serves them better than falling, through their own faults, into the fire. Certainly let them give no scandal to the brothers or sisters, since it is written: if food scandalizes my brother, I will not eat meat in this world, lest I scandalize my brother. Nor should any of them think she can defend herself with the excuse that it can be examined and proved whether she is a virgin, since both the hand and the eye of midwives are often deceived, so that even if she is found uncorrupted in that part of the body by which a woman can be a virgin, she could still have sinned in another part of the body, which can be corrupted and yet cannot be examined. Certainly the very lying together, the very embracing, the very conversation and kissing, and the shameful and foul sleeping of two people lying together - how much disgrace and how much guilt does this confess? If a husband returning home should see his betrothed lying with another man, would he not be indignant and furious, and perhaps, in the anguish of jealousy, even take up a sword in his hands? How much more, then, does Christ our Lord and judge burn with fury and outrage on seeing his own virgin -- consecrated and reserved for his holiness -- sleeping beside another man, and what penalties does he threaten for such incestuous unions - whose spiritual sword and coming day of judgment each one of our brothers ought to take every counsel and effort to escape? And since all, without exception, ought to hold to discipline, it is much more fitting that those set over the church and the deacons should take care of this, since they are to provide to the rest an example and a model in their conduct and character. For how can they preside over integrity and continence, if corruptions and the teaching of vices should begin from themselves? And therefore you acted wisely and with due firmness, dearest brother, in excluding from communion the deacon who repeatedly stayed with the virgin, and likewise the others who had made a habit of sleeping with virgins. But if they do penance for this unlawful cohabitation of theirs and withdraw from one another, let the virgins meanwhile be carefully examined by midwives, and if they are found to be virgins, let them, once they have received communion, be admitted to the church - but with this warning, that if they should afterward return to the same men, or should dwell together with them in the same house and under the same roof, they should be expelled with a more severe censure, and should not thereafter be readily received back into the church. But if any of them should be found to have been corrupted, let her do full penance, since she who has committed this crime is an adulteress not of a husband but of Christ, and therefore, after a just period of time has been reckoned, and confession made, let her afterward return to the church. But if they persist obstinately and do not separate from one another, they should understand that such brazen stubbornness will forever bar them from admission to the church at our hands, lest their own failings become a model leading others to ruin. Nor let them think that the reckoning of their life or salvation is secure if they are unwilling to obey their bishops and priests, since the Lord God says in Deuteronomy: anyone who acts with such arrogance that he will not listen to whichever priest or judge is presiding at that time -- such a man must die, so that the whole people, hearing of it, will be afraid and act wickedly no more. God commanded that those disobedient to his priests be put to death; he set a time for his judgment upon the disobedient. And indeed at that time they were slain by the sword, when carnal circumcision still remained; but now, since spiritual circumcision has begun to belong to the faithful servants of God, the proud and rebellious are struck down by a spiritual blade whenever they are expelled from the church, for outside it they have no life: God's house is singular, and salvation exists nowhere but within the church. Moreover, that the undisciplined perish, since they do not hear or obey wholesome precepts, the divine scripture testifies, which says: the undisciplined man does not love the one who corrects him. But those who hate correction shall be consumed shamefully. Therefore, that the undisciplined may not be consumed and perish, take pains, dearest brother, to govern the brotherhood with wholesome counsels as far as you are able, and to take thought for the salvation of each. Narrow and confined is the way by which we enter into life, but great and abundant is the fruit when we arrive at glory. Those who have, for the kingdom of heaven's sake, made themselves eunuchs ought in every respect to be pleasing to God, and should not offer scandal to the priests of God or to the church, nor to their brothers, through their own conduct. And for the present, if they seem to be saddened by us, let us nonetheless admonish them with wholesome persuasion, knowing that the apostle too said: have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? But if they obey, it is most welcome to us; by the value of our word we have confirmed them, standing, unto salvation. But if some of the perverse are unwilling to obey, then, according to the same apostle who says: if I were pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ - if we cannot persuade some to make themselves pleasing to Christ, we at least, for our part, keeping his commandments, will please Christ our Lord and God. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brother, always good health in the Lord.