Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Letter V. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his dearest brothers, greeting. I greet you in good health by the grace of God, dearest brothers, and I am glad to have learned that everything concerning your own well-being likewise stands sound. Since the circumstances of my situation do not now permit me to be present among you, I ask that, out of your faith and devotion, you carry out there both your own responsibilities and mine, so that nothing be lacking either in discipline or in diligence. As for supplying what is needed - whether for those who have confessed the Lord with glorious voice and are now held in prison, or for those poor and needy ones who labor yet persevere in the Lord - I ask that nothing be wanting, since the whole sum that has been gathered there has been placed in the hands of the clergy precisely for such occasions, so that more of them might have the means to work toward relieving the necessities and hardships of each individual. I ask also that your careful attention not fail in seeing to the maintenance of order. For even though the brothers, out of their affection, are eager to gather and visit the good confessors whom divine favor has already made illustrious by their glorious beginnings, I nevertheless think this ought to be done cautiously, not in crowds nor through a great multitude joined together at once, lest this very thing stir up ill will, and access be denied, and while we want too greedily to have everything, we lose it all. Take counsel, then, and see to it that this can be done more safely with some restraint, so that the presbyters too, who make the offering there in the presence of the confessors, take turns one at a time along with a single deacon each, since both the change of persons and the rotation of those who come reduces resentment. In everything, indeed, we ought - as befits servants of God - to be gentle and humble, deferring to the circumstances, providing for quiet, and looking out for the people. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, always to fare well in the Lord and to remember me. Greet the whole brotherhood. The deacon sends greetings, and my companions here alongside me send theirs as well. Farewell.
Letter VI. Cyprian to Sergius, Rogatianus, and the rest of the confessors, everlasting greeting in God. Dearest brothers, I greet you, longing myself to look upon you, had the circumstances of my situation allowed me to reach you. For what would delight me and gladden me more than being at your side this very hour, so that I might be embraced by those hands which, pure and innocent, holding fast to the Lord's faith, refused sacrilegious compliance? What could be sweeter or loftier than kissing now those mouths which confessed the Lord with a voice full of glory, and beholding you present before my own eyes, you who scorned the world and were found worthy to gaze upon God? But since no means is given me to take part in that joy, I send instead this letter, standing in for my presence, to reach your ears and your eyes - through it I congratulate you, while at the same time urging you to stay strong and unwavering in confessing the glory of heaven, and, having set out on the road of the Lord's favor, to push forward with spiritual courage toward winning the crown, keeping as your protector and guide the Lord, who declared: 'And look, I am with you every single day, right to the world's very end.' Blessed is the prison your presence has lit up! Blessed is the prison that sends men of God up to heaven! O darkness more brilliant than the sun, shining brighter than this world's own light - where your bodies have just now been fashioned into God's temples and made holy through divine confession! Let nothing now fill your hearts and minds except the divine precepts and heaven's commands, by which the Holy Spirit has forever stirred us to bear up under suffering. Let death be far from anyone's thoughts - think instead of immortality; not of fleeting punishment, but glory without end - for as scripture attests: 'Precious in God's sight is the death of those who belong to him in righteousness.' And again: 'A broken spirit is God's own sacrifice; a heart crushed and humbled, God will not despise.' And once more, where divine scripture tells of the torments that consecrate God's martyrs and, through the very trial of their suffering, make them holy: 'Even though before human eyes they were made to suffer torment, their hope brims with immortality. Tested briefly, they will be greatly rewarded, since God tried them and judged them worthy of himself; like gold he proved them in the furnace, and welcomed them as though a whole burnt offering. A time will come when they are regarded with favor: they will pass judgment on nations and hold sway over peoples, and their Lord will reign without end.' Considering, then, that you are destined to judge and to reign alongside Christ the Lord, joy is the only fitting response, and you must tread present agonies underfoot for the sake of the gladness still to come - it has been decreed from the world's very beginning that justice must struggle through worldly conflict - already at the outset Abel, a just man, was struck down, and after him one just man after another, prophets and apostles alike, went to their deaths, and in his own person the Lord set the pattern for them all, showing that his kingdom belongs only to those who followed the path he trod, when he said: 'Whoever cherishes his life in this age will lose it, and whoever despises his life in this age will keep it safe for life everlasting.' Elsewhere he taught the same lesson differently: those who merely kill the body but cannot touch the soul are nothing to fear; dread instead falls due to the one who has power to ruin soul and body together in hell. Paul, too, urges those of us eager to reach the Lord's promises that we owe the Lord our imitation in every respect. 'We,' he says, 'are children of God - and if children, heirs also: heirs of God, sharing the inheritance with Christ, provided we suffer alongside him so that we may also share in his splendor.' He went on to set the present age against the glory to come, saying: 'What we suffer now carries no weight against the glory yet to be revealed in us.' Weighing the splendor of that glory, it falls to us to bear every hardship and persecution, since, however many the trials of the righteous, all who trust in God are rescued out of every one of them. Blessed, too, are the women at your side, set in that same glory of confession - women who, holding to the Lord's faith and outdoing their own sex in strength, stand not only near the crown themselves but have given the rest of womankind a model in their own constancy. And so that your company's glory might lack nothing, so that every age and every sex among you might have its honor, divine favor has joined boys to you as well in glorious confession, showing us again something like what those illustrious boys Ananias, Azarias, and Misael once did: shut inside the furnace, the flames retreated before them and turned to refreshment, with the Lord standing beside them as witness that hell's burning has no power over his confessors and martyrs, but that those who trust in God remain forever whole and safe in every circumstance. And I ask, for the sake of your own devotion, that you weigh carefully what kind of faith those boys had, able to win God's approval so completely. Prepared for anything, as we all should be, they told the king: 'Nebuchadnezzar, O king, we owe you no answer on this score. There is a God we serve, able to pull us from the blazing furnace, and he will rescue us out of your hands, O king. But should that not happen, know this: we will not serve your gods, nor will we bow to the golden image you have raised.' Though they both believed, and knew from their faith, that they might even be freed from the punishment right before them, they refused to boast of it or claim it as their due, adding 'but should that not happen' - so that the strength of their confession would not be diminished for lack of the witness that suffering gives. They affirmed that God can do anything, yet did not rest their trust on being rescued then and there, but fixed their minds instead on that everlasting glory of freedom and security. Holding to this same faith, and turning it over day and night, let us, wholly given over to God with our whole heart and despising what is present, fix our thoughts only on what lies ahead - the reward of the eternal kingdom, the Lord's embrace and kiss, the vision of God - so that in everything you may follow the example of Rogatianus the presbyter, that glorious elder who, through his devout courage and by divine favor, clears the road ahead of you toward the glory belonging to our age; who, alongside our brother Felicissimus, ever composed and steady, was first to meet the onslaught of the raging crowd and made ready lodging for you in prison, and who even now still goes before you in a sense, as your guide. That this work may reach completion in you, we beseech the Lord with unceasing prayer, that he who caused you to confess him at the outset may, as your beginnings press on toward their summit, grant you also to be crowned. I wish you, dearest and most blessed brothers, to fare well always in the Lord and to reach the glory of the heavenly crown.
Letter VII. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, his dearest brothers, greeting. I greet you, dearest brothers, in good health by the grace of God, hoping to come to you soon, so that the longing both of myself and of you and of all the brothers may be satisfied. Yet we must have regard for the common peace, and sometimes, however much it grieves my own spirit, keep away from you, lest my presence provoke the resentment and violence of the pagans, and we become the cause of breaking the peace - we who ought rather to look out for everyone's quiet. So once you have written to tell me that matters have calmed and that my coming is called for - or once the Lord, should he so choose, has shown this to me beforehand - I shall set out to join you. For no place could hold more good or more joy for me than the very spot where God first willed both my faith and my growth. I ask that you take diligent care of the widows and the sick and all the poor. And if there are any travelers in need, supply their expenses from that sum of my own which I left with our fellow presbyter Rogatianus. And in case that whole amount should already have been spent, I have sent him, through the acolyte Naricus, a further portion, so that help toward those in distress may be carried out more generously and promptly. I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well [and to remember me. Greet our brotherhood in my name, and urge them to keep us in mind.]
Letter VIII. We have learned that the blessed Pope Cyprian has withdrawn on account of Crementius the subdeacon, who came to us from you for a definite reason - and no doubt he acted rightly in this, since he is a person of note, and given the contest now pressing upon us, which God has permitted in this world so that the adversary might wrestle together with his own servants, wishing also to make this struggle known to angels and to men, so that whoever conquers may be crowned, while whoever is conquered will bring upon himself the sentence that has been made known to us. And since it falls upon us, who seem to hold the office of leaders and to keep watch over the flock in place of shepherds, that if we are found negligent, it will be said of us what was also said of our predecessors, who were such negligent leaders - that we did not seek out the lost, did not correct the erring, did not bind up the lame, yet ate their milk and clothed ourselves with their wool. Indeed the Lord himself, carrying out what the Law and the Prophets had set down, teaches as follows, saying: 'I am the good shepherd, who lays down my life for my sheep. But the hired hand, whose own the sheep are not, when he sees the wolf coming, abandons them and flees, and the wolf scatters them.' And to Simon he likewise says: 'Do you love me?' He answered, 'I love you.' He said to him, 'Feed my sheep.' We recognize this saying borne out by the very act of his own departure from life, and the other disciples followed his course as well. We do not wish, then, dearest brothers, to be found hired hands, but good shepherds - since you know that no small danger presses upon us if we do not exhort our brothers to stand unshaken in the faith, lest, rushing headlong into idolatry, the brotherhood be uprooted altogether. Nor is it in words alone that we press this on you; rather, you can learn it from the numerous people traveling to you from our side, since, with God's help, we have carried out and go on carrying out every one of these things with the utmost diligence, even at worldly risk, holding the fear of God and everlasting punishment before our eyes more than any fear of men or passing harm - never forsaking the brotherhood, and pressing them to hold their ground in faith, staying prepared to walk wherever the Lord leads. And even those who were on their way to comply we have called back. The church stands firm in the faith, although some, driven by sheer terror - whether because they were persons of prominence, or because they were seized by fear of men - have fallen; and though we have set them apart, we have not abandoned them, but have urged and continue to urge them to do penance, so that they might somehow receive pardon from him who alone can grant it, lest, if left by us, they should become worse. You see, then, brothers, that you too must do this - that even those who have fallen, their minds set right by your encouragement, may confess again if seized a second time, so as to be able to correct their former error. There are also other matters that fall to you, which we have likewise set down: that if those who have fallen into this trial begin to be seized by weakness, and do penance for what they have done and desire communion, they should certainly be helped - whether widows, or the afflicted who cannot support themselves, or those in prison, or those shut out of their own homes - they ought certainly to have someone to minister to them. Even catechumens, if overcome and led astray by weakness, ought not to be left without help. And what matters most - if the bodies of the martyrs or of others go unburied, great danger threatens those upon whom this task falls. Whichever of you, then, on whatever occasion, brings this work to completion, we are confident will be judged a good servant - as one faithful in the least being set over ten cities. May God, who grants all things to those who hope in him, grant that all of us be found engaged in these works. The brothers who are in chains greet you, and the presbyters, and the whole church, which itself keeps watch with the utmost care over all who call upon the name of the Lord. And we for our part ask that you, in turn, keep us in mind. Know also that Bassianus has reached us; and we ask that you, who have zeal for God, pass a copy of this letter, whenever suitable opportunities allow, to as many as you can - either by your own hand or by sending a messenger - so that they may stand strong and unshaken in the faith. We wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well.
Letter IX. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and brothers residing at Rome, greeting. Since a report of the passing of my good colleague was uncertain among us, dearest brothers, and rumor wavered in doubt, I received a letter sent to me by you through Crementius the subdeacon, by which I was fully informed of his glorious departure, and I rejoiced greatly that, in keeping with the integrity of his administration, his end too proved an honorable one. In this too I congratulate you very much, that you have pursued his memory with such a widely known and distinguished testimony, so that through you it might become known to us what would be, for us as well, a glorious remembrance of a leader, and would also offer us an example of faith and virtue. For just as it is a ruinous thing, harmful to the fall of those who follow, when a leader collapses, so, by contrast, it proves helpful and wholesome when a bishop's steadfast faith holds him out to the brothers as a pattern worth following. I have also read the letter, in which neither who wrote it nor to whom