Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Letter X. Cyprian to the martyrs and confessors of Jesus Christ our Lord, in God the Father, everlasting greeting. I rejoice with gladness and congratulate you, bravest and most blessed brothers, now that your faith and courage are known — the very qualities in which mother church glories, and lately gloried again when, amid a steadfast confession, a punishment was undergone that made confessors of Christ exiles. Yet a confession endured in the present life, the stronger it is in suffering, the more brilliant and greater it is in honor. The struggle grew, and the glory of those who struggled grew with it. Nor were you held back from the battle-line by fear of torment; rather the very torments spurred you on the more to the fight, and with ready devotion you went forth strong and steadfast to the contest of the greatest struggle. Of these I have already learned that some are crowned, some are near to the crown of victory, and all — whom the prison enclosed in a glorious company — are fired with an equal and like warmth of courage to wage the contest, just as soldiers of Christ ought to be within the divine encampment — their faith's untainted steadiness not undone by flattery, not shaken by threats, not overwhelmed by cruelty and torment, because greater is he who is in us than he who is in this world, and earthly punishment has no more power to cast down than divine protection has to raise up. The matter was proved in the glorious contest of the brothers, who, in overcoming their torments, became leaders for the rest, offering an example of courage and faith, engaging in the battle-line until the line of their enemies gave way, defeated. With what praises, then, should I proclaim you, bravest brothers? With what herald's voice should I adorn the strength of your hearts and the perseverance of your faith? You endured, even to the completion of glory, the harshest interrogation, and you did not yield to the torments — rather the torments yielded to you. The crown gave an end to sufferings that the torments themselves did not give. That harsher butchery persisted so long, not that it might cast down a standing faith, but that it might send God's men to the Lord all the more swiftly. The admiring crowd of onlookers saw a heavenly and spiritual contest of God, a battle of Christ — his servants standing with free voice, unblemished mind, and divine strength, stripped indeed of worldly weapons but armed as believers with the weapons of faith. Those who were tortured stood stronger than their torturers, and the limbs that were struck and torn overcame those who struck and tore them. The repeated blow, however long it raged, could not overcome an unconquerable faith, though in God's servants, with the frame of their bodies broken, it was no longer limbs but wounds that were being tortured. The blood flowed that would quench the fire of persecution, that would put out with its glorious shedding the flames and fires of hell. Oh, what a spectacle that was for the Lord — how lofty, how great, how acceptable in God's eyes, given the devotion and consecration of his soldier, just as it is written in the Psalms, the Holy Spirit speaking to us and admonishing us alike: precious in the sight of God is the death of his righteous ones. Precious is this death, which purchases immortality at the price of its own blood, which receives God's crown at the completion of its courage. How glad Christ was there, how willing in such servants of his both to fight and to conquer — the protector of the faith, giving to believers as much as the one who receives believes himself capable of holding. Present in that very contest of his, he lifted up, gave strength to, and inspired those who fought and bore witness in his name; and the one who defeated death for our sake now conquers without end within us. When they hand you over, he says, do not think about what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you should say. For the words are not your own; it is your Father's Spirit speaking within you. The present battle furnished proof of this. Bursting forth from that martyr was a voice charged with the Holy Spirit, uttered as the most blessed Mappalicus, in the midst of his torments, told the proconsul: you will see tomorrow's contest. What Mappalicus had spoken, attesting his courage and conviction, the Lord himself brought to fulfillment: a contest from heaven stood displayed, and within the very struggle that contest promised, God's servant won his crown. This is the contest that the prophet Isaiah foretold long ago, saying: it is no small contest for you with men, since God grants the contest. And to show what this contest would be, he added, saying: behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel. This is the contest of our faith by which we engage, by which we conquer, by which we are crowned. This is the contest that the blessed apostle Paul also showed us, in which we must run and attain to the glory of the crown. Do you not know, he says, that those who run in the stadium all run, yet only one receives the prize? Run so as to win it. They run to win a crown that perishes; ours does not. Again, showing his own contest and promising that he would soon become an offering to the Lord, he says: Already I am being poured out as a libation, and my hour of departure draws near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. Now only the crown of righteousness remains for me — a reward the righteous judge, the Lord, will bestow on me on that day, and not on me alone but on all who have cherished his coming. This contest, then, foretold beforehand through the prophets, entrusted through the Lord, carried out through the apostles, Mappalicus made that pledge to the proconsul, speaking both for himself and for his fellow martyrs. Nor did that faithful voice fail in its promise. He displayed the fight he had pledged and received the palm he had earned. This most blessed martyr, and the others who shared in the same struggle, his companions steadfast in faith, patient in suffering, victorious under interrogation, I both wish and urge that the rest of you follow, so that those whom the bond of confession and the shared shelter of the prison have joined together, the completion of their courage and the heavenly crown may join as well — that you may wipe away with your own joy the tears of mother church, who mourns the ruin and the deaths of so many, and that you may strengthen the firmness of the others still standing by the incitement of your example. If the battle-line calls you, if the day of your contest comes, fight bravely, struggle steadfastly, knowing that you struggle under the eyes of the Lord who is present, and that by the confession of his name you attain to his own glory — he who does not merely watch his servants from afar, but himself wrestles in us, himself engages, himself both crowns and is crowned in the struggle of our contest. The glorious blood of the martyrs makes her illustrious. Once she was white through the deeds of the brothers; now the martyrs' blood has dyed her purple. Neither lilies nor roses are absent from her blossoms. Let each now strive for the fullest dignity of either honor. Let them receive crowns — white ones earned by their deeds, purple ones earned by their suffering. Within that heavenly encampment, both peace and battle yield their own blossoms, the flowers by which Christ's soldier is crowned unto glory. I wish you, bravest and most blessed brothers, to be always well in the Lord and to remember us. Farewell.
Letter XI. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, brothers, greeting. Although I know, dearest brothers, that out of the reverence each of us owes to God you too are there pressing on urgently with constant prayers and earnest petitions, still I myself also remind your devoted concern that, to appease and entreat God, we must groan not with voice alone but with fasting and tears and every kind of supplication. For it must be understood and confessed that this turbulent devastation of our present distress, which has laid waste the greater part of our flock and still continues to lay it waste, has come upon us according to our sins, since we do not keep to the Lord's way nor observe the heavenly commands given us for salvation. The Father's will, our Lord carried out; God's will, we fail to carry out — chasing after inheritance and profit, courting pride, absorbed in rivalry and discord, indifferent to simplicity and faith, forsaking the world only in speech and never in deed, each of us content with himself and irksome to everyone else. We are beaten, then, as we deserve, since it is written: but that servant who knows his master's will and does not comply with his will shall be beaten with many blows. And what blows, what lashes do we not deserve, when even the confessors, who by their example ought to have been a model of good conduct for the rest, do not keep discipline? And so, while the swollen and shameless boasting of some confessors' pride puffs them up beyond measure, torments have come — torments without end from the torturer, without escape by condemnation, without the comfort of death; torments that do not easily release to the crown but torture as long as it takes to bring men down, unless someone, withdrawn by divine favor, makes progress in the very midst of the cruelty and attains glory not by the limit of the punishment but by the speed of dying. We suffer these things through our own fault and our own desert, just as the divine warning foretold, saying: should they abandon my law and refuse to walk by my judgments, should they defile my statutes and disregard my commands, I will punish their wrongdoing with the rod and their offenses with the scourge. We feel, then, rods and scourges, we who please God neither by good deeds nor make amends for our sins. Let us entreat God's mercy with our whole heart and the whole of our mind, since he himself has also added, saying: but my mercy I will not take away from them. Let us make our request and we will obtain it; and should the answer be slow in coming or delayed, because our offense has been grave, let us knock, for the door opens to whoever knocks — so long as it is our prayers, our groans, and our tears that knock upon it — prayers on which we must persist and dwell, and provided the prayer is united in heart. Now you should know what above all persuaded and impelled me to send you this letter, — as the Lord deigns to show and reveal — namely that a vision declared: seek and you will be granted it; and then the people standing by were bidden to ask for certain named persons, but in their asking there were discordant voices and differing wishes, and this greatly displeased him who had said: ask, and you shall obtain, because the inequality of the people jarred and there was no single, simple agreement among the brothers joined in harmony — for it stands written that God settles the like-minded together in a household, and in the Acts of the Apostles we find that the whole company of believers were of a single soul and mind, and the Lord himself decreed in his own voice: my commandment is this, that you love one another, and again: I say to you, if two among you on earth are of one accord about whatever you ask, it will be given you by my Father in heaven. Yet if agreement between a mere two accomplishes this much, what would the harmony of all together achieve? And if, in keeping with the peace the Lord has given us, all the brothers were in agreement, we would have secured long since, from God's mercy, the very thing we now request, and we would not still be tossed about in this danger to our salvation and our faith — indeed these evils would not even have come upon the brothers, if the brotherhood had been of one mind together. For this too was shown: that a father of the household sat, with a young man sitting at his right, who, anxious and somewhat downcast with a certain indignation, sat holding his jaw in his hand with a sorrowful face. Another, however, standing on the left side, carried a net which he threatened to cast so as to seize the surrounding people. And when the one who saw this wondered what it meant, he was told that the young man sitting so at the right was grieved and sorrowful because his commands were not being kept, while the one on the left rejoiced that an opportunity was being given him to seize from the father of the household the power to rage. This was shown well before the storm of this present devastation arose. And we see fulfilled what was shown — that while we scorn the Lord's commands, while we do not keep the saving precepts of the given law, the enemy has received the power to do harm, covering with the cast of his net those less armed and less wary against resistance. Let us pray urgently and groan with constant prayers. For you should know, dearest brothers, that we were reproached not long ago through a vision for this very thing — that we drowse in our prayers and do not pray watchfully. And God, indeed, who loves the one he corrects, when he corrects, corrects to this end, that he may amend; he amends to this end, that he may preserve. Let us shake off, then, and break the bonds of sleep, and pray urgently and watchfully, just as Paul the apostle directs, saying: continue steadfastly in prayer, keeping watch in it — for the apostles likewise never gave up praying both day and night, and the Lord himself also, the teacher of discipline and the way of our example, prayed often and watchfully, and, as the Gospel tells us, he withdrew to the mountainside to pray and passed the night there in prayer to God. And surely what he prayed, he prayed for us, since he himself was not a sinner but bore our sins. Indeed, so greatly did he plead on our behalf that elsewhere we find this recorded: to Peter the Lord declared, Satan has sought leave to sift you as one sifts wheat; yet I have prayed on your behalf, that your faith not give way. But if he labors and watches and prays for us and for our offenses, how much more ought we to press on in prayer, and pray, and first ask the Lord himself, and only afterward, by means of him, render satisfaction to God the Father? We have as advocate and intercessor for our sins Jesus Christ our Lord and God, provided only we repent of our past sins, and confessing and understanding the offenses by which we now offend the Lord, pledge for the rest to walk in his ways and fear his commandments. The Father both corrects and protects us, so long as we stand firm in faith and, though under pressures and hardships, cling steadfastly to his Christ, as it stands written — what shall part us from Christ's love? tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or want of clothing, or peril, or the sword? None of these things can separate believers, none can tear away those who cling to his body and blood. This persecution is a testing, and God has wished by this testing to shake out and prove our sin, just as he has always proved his own; yet help to believers has never at any time been lacking in his testings. Finally, to his least servant — one set, though most unworthy of his regard, amid very many faults — he has, out of his own goodness toward us, deigned to give a command. Tell him, he said, let him be untroubled, for peace is coming; but the reason for the present delay is that there still remain some who must be proved. But we are also warned by divine admonitions about sparing food and sober drink — namely, lest a heart already raised on high by heavenly vigor be weakened by worldly allurement, or lest a mind weighed down by over-generous feasting be less alert for the vigil of prayer. I ought not to conceal these particulars, nor keep them hidden in my own conscience alone, since by them each of us can be instructed and guided; nor should you yourselves keep this letter hidden among us, but you should have it read to the brothers. For to intercept what the Lord deigns to use to admonish and instruct us belongs to one who does not wish his brother to be admonished and instructed. Let them know that we are being proved by our Lord, and let none, in the struggle of the present distress, fall away from the faith by which we once believed in him — rather let each acknowledge his own sins, or at least now set aside the manner of life of the old man. For no one who looks back and puts his hand to the plow while looking behind is fit for the kingdom of God. Finally, Lot's wife, who, though freed, looked back against the command, lost what she had escaped. Let us attend not to what lies behind, to which the devil calls us back, but to what lies ahead, to which Christ calls us. Let us lift our eyes to heaven, lest the earth deceive us with its delights and allurements. Let each one pray to God, not for himself alone but for all the brothers, as the Lord taught us to pray, where he does not command each a private prayer, but bids us pray for all in a common prayer, with united and harmonious petition. Should the Lord find us humble and calm, joined to one another, in awe of his anger, set right and improved by this present ordeal, he will hold us safe against the enemy's onslaughts. Discipline has gone before; pardon will follow. Let us only, asking without ceasing and receiving with faith, in simplicity and unity of mind, entreat the Lord, entreating with groaning and weeping together, as it befits those to entreat who are set among the ruins of the mourning and the fears of those who remain, among the great multitude of the fallen and the small band of the steadfast still standing. Let us pray that peace be restored the sooner, that swift help come to our hiding places and our dangers, that what the Lord deigns to show his servants be fulfilled — the restoration of his church, the security of our salvation, calm after the rains, light after the darkness, gentle stillness after storms and whirlwinds, the loving help of the Father's affection, the accustomed great works of the divine majesty, by which the blasphemy of our persecutors may be beaten back, the penitence of the lapsed be restored, and the brothers who persevere, strong and steadfast, may glory. I wish you, dearest brothers, to be always well and to remember us. Give my greeting to the brotherhood on my behalf, and urge them to keep us in memory. Farewell.