Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Letter 39. Cyprian to the presbyters, deacons, and the whole people, brothers, greeting. Beloved brothers, we ought to recognize and embrace the divine favors with which the Lord has deigned to make his church illustrious and honored in our own times, granting relief to his good confessors and glorious martyrs, so that those who confessed Christ so nobly might afterward adorn the clergy with the ministries of the church. Rejoice, then, and be glad with us on reading this letter, in which I and my colleagues who were present report to you that our brother Celerinus, glorious both in virtue and in character, has been joined to our clergy not by human vote but by divine appointment. When he hesitated to consent, the church itself, urging and admonishing him through a nighttime vision, drove him to stop refusing. I too urged him — though the vision had the greater right, and it compelled him — because it was neither right nor fitting that a man whom the Lord had honored with the dignity of heavenly glory should be without ecclesiastical honor. This is the man who was first into the battle of our own time, first among the standard-bearers of Christ's soldiers, who in the earliest and hottest days of the persecution grappled with the very author and prince of the assault; and while he overcame his adversary with an unconquerable steadfastness in the contest, he opened the way of victory for the rest — a victor not by a brief tally of wounds, but a triumphant conqueror through the miracle of a long struggle, under torments that clung to him and lasted. For nineteen days he was shut up under guard in prison, bound in fetters and iron. Yet though chains confined his body, his spirit stayed unbound and free. Through long days without food or drink his flesh withered, yet God nourished the soul within him — a soul kept alive by faith and courage — with food of the spirit. He lay among his torments, stronger than his torments; shut in, greater than those who shut him in; lying down, loftier than those who stood; bound, firmer than those who bound him; condemned, more exalted than his judges. And though his feet were fastened in the stocks, the helmeted serpent was crushed and defeated. On his glorious body the bright marks of his wounds still shine; across the sinews and limbs that long decay had worn down, the marks remain visible for anyone to see. Great and wonderful are the things the brotherhood may hear of his courage and his praises. And if there is anyone like Thomas who trusts his ears too little, the evidence of his eyes is not lacking, so that he may see with his own eyes what he hears with his ears. In this servant of God, glory came from the victory of his wounds, and the memory of his scars preserves that glory. Nor is this title of glory new or unfamiliar to our dearest Celerinus. He walks in the footsteps of his own kin; he is matched by his parents and relatives in an equal honor of divine appointment. His grandmother Celerina was crowned with martyrdom long ago. Likewise his uncles Laurentinus and Egnatius, who had once soldiered in the world's camps yet served, in truth, as God's own soldiers of the spirit, while overthrowing the devil by their confession of Christ, earned the Lord's palms and crowns through a glorious death. As you remember, we always offer sacrifices for them, as often as we celebrate the anniversaries and commemorations of the martyrs' sufferings. He could not, then, be unworthy or lesser, when the dignity of his family and its noble generosity called him on by such examples of courage and faith within his own household. For if it is a matter of praise and renown in a worldly family to be of patrician rank, how much greater is the praise and honor of becoming noble in the proclamation of heaven. I cannot say which I should call more blessed — those for so illustrious a posterity, or this man for so glorious an origin. So evenly does divine favor pass and return among them, that the rank of their offspring illuminates their crown, and the loftiness of his lineage lights up his glory. Beloved brothers, when this man came to us with so great a mark of the Lord's favor, made illustrious by the testimony and the very miracle of the one who had persecuted him, what else was fitting than to set him upon the platform, that is, upon the tribunal of the church, so that, raised up by the height of that loftier place and visible to the whole people because of the brightness of his honor, he might read the precepts and the gospel of the Lord which he follows so bravely and so faithfully? Let the voice that confessed the Lord be heard daily in the very words the Lord himself spoke. Whether some further rank still awaits him within the church's order remains to be seen. Nothing gives a confessor greater power to help his brothers than this: while the gospel reading is heard from his mouth, each hearer may imitate the faith of the one reading it. He was to be joined in this reading office to Aurelius, with whom he is already united in the fellowship of divine honor, with whom he is bound together by every mark of virtue and praise. Both are equals, and each resembles the other: as lofty as they are in glory, so humble in modesty; as much advanced by divine favor, so much subdued in their own quiet and calm, each offering the others examples of virtue and character alike, fit both for combat and for peace — praiseworthy there for strength, here for modesty. In such servants the Lord rejoices, in such confessors he takes glory, whose way of life and conduct so advance the proclamation of his glory that they offer a lesson in discipline to others. For this purpose Christ has long wished them to remain here in the church; for this purpose, snatched back from the midst of death, kept safe as though by a kind of resurrection worked upon them, he has preserved them, so that, since nothing loftier is seen among the brothers in honor, nothing more humble in modesty, the brotherhood that follows them may accompany these same men. Know, however, that they have for now been appointed as readers, because it was fitting that a lamp be set upon a lampstand, whence it may shine on all, and that glorious faces be placed in a higher position, where, seen by all who stand around, they may offer an incentive of glory to those who behold them. For the rest, know that we have already marked out for them the honor of the presbyterate, so that they may be honored with the same allowances as the presbyters and share in the monthly distributions in equal amounts, destined to sit with us once their years have advanced and been strengthened, although a man who has completed the full measure of his years by the dignity of glory can in no way seem lesser in the ripeness of his age. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, always to fare well.
Letter 40. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons and the whole people, dearest and most longed-for brothers, greeting. It was necessary to announce to you, dearest brothers, a matter that concerns both our common joy and the greatest glory of our church. For know that we have been admonished and instructed by divine appointment that the presbyter Numidicus be enrolled among the number of the presbyters of Carthage and take his seat with us in the clergy, bright with the clearest light of confession, illustrious and exalted in the honor of both courage and faith — he who, by his own exhortation, sent ahead of him a glorious company of martyrs killed by stoning and by fire, and who, when his wife was burned alive at his side by that same fire along with the rest — though I would rather say preserved than destroyed — looked on her with joy. He himself, half-burned and buried under stones, was left for dead; but afterward, when his daughter, with the anxious devotion of filial love, went searching for her father's body, he was found still half-alive, drawn out, and revived by companions whom he himself had sent ahead — remaining behind against his own will. But we see the reason he remained: it was so that the Lord might join him to our clergy and, with the falling away of some of our presbyters, might replenish the depleted ranks with glorious priests. And he will indeed be advanced, when God permits, to a fuller place of his priestly office, once we have come, under the Lord's protection, into his presence. Meanwhile let what is now shown be done, so that we may take up this gift from God gratefully, trusting the Lord's mercy will grant still more such honors, so that, with the strength of his church restored, he may make men so gentle and humble flourish in the honor of our assembly. I wish you, dearest and most longed-for brothers, always to fare well.
Letter 41. Cyprian to his colleagues Caldonius and Herculanus, and likewise to his fellow presbyters Rogatianus and Numidicus, greeting. I was deeply grieved, dearest brothers, on receiving your letter, since it has always been my purpose and desire to keep our whole brotherhood safe and whole and to preserve the flock undamaged, as charity demands; and now you report to me that Felicissimus has been scheming much, wickedly and treacherously, so that, beyond his frauds and thefts, of which I had already learned much long ago, he has now also attempted, together with a portion of the people, to strike against the bishop — that is, to cut the sheep off from their shepherd, to pull children from their parent, and to break apart the members of Christ. And when I sent you in my place as deputies, so that you might settle the needs of our brothers with those funds, and, for any who also wished to practice their trades, assist their wants with such supplement as was sufficient, while also taking into account their ages, their circumstances, and their merits — so that even now I, on whom this care rests, might wish to know all of them and to advance to the offices of church administration those who are worthy, humble, and gentle — that man has interfered, so that no one who deserved relief could be relieved, nor could the matters I had wished be sorted out by your careful examination; he has even threatened our brothers who were first to come forward to be relieved, with wicked power and violent intimidation, that they would have no share with him in death if they chose to obey us. And after all this, neither moved by the honor of my office nor daunted by your authority and presence, acting on nothing but his own impulse and unsettling the brothers' peace, he has torn himself away with a great many followers, proclaiming himself, in reckless madness, the leader of a faction and the chief of a schism — in which, indeed, I rejoice that a great many brothers have withdrawn from his rashness and preferred to side with you, choosing instead to stay under the church as their mother and take their support from what the bishop distributed; and I know for certain that the rest, too, will do the same in peace and will soon abandon their rash error. Meanwhile, since Felicissimus has threatened that those who obeyed us — that is, who remained in communion — would have no share with him in death, let him receive the sentence he himself pronounced first: let him know that he is cut off from us, since to the frauds and thefts we have clearly established against him is now added the charge of adultery, which our brothers, men of weight, have reported that they detected and have affirmed they will prove. All this we shall investigate fully when, by the Lord's permission, we have met together with many colleagues. But Augendus too, who, giving no thought to the bishop or the church, joined himself in the same conspiracy with that man — if he persists further with him — let him receive the sentence which that factious and reckless man invites upon himself. But let anyone who joins his conspiracy and faction know that he will have no communion with us in the church, since he has chosen of his own will to separate himself from the church. Have these words of mine read out to our brothers, then forward them to the clergy at Carthage, adding the names of all those who have joined themselves to Felicissimus. I wish you, dearest brothers, always to fare well.
Letter 42. Caldonius, together with his colleagues Herculanus and Victor, and likewise with the presbyters Rogatianus and Numidicus. We have withheld communion from Felicissimus and Augendus, and likewise from Repostus, one of the exiles, and from Irene of the Rutili and Paula the seamstress, as you ought to know from my notation. We have likewise withheld it from Sophronius, himself also one of the exiles, and from Soliassus the baker.