Peace Given Too Soon

Cyprian to the elders and deacons, his brothers: greetings.

I have been patient a long time, dearly loved brothers, hoping that my silence and forbearance would help keep things quiet. But some men’s unreasonable and reckless presumption is now trying, by sheer boldness, to upset the honor of the martyrs, the restraint of the confessors, and the calm of the whole people. So it is no longer right for me to say nothing: too much holding back would end in danger both to the people and to us. What have we not to fear from the Lord’s displeasure, when some of the elders — with no thought for the good news and no thought for their own place, weighing neither the Lord’s judgment to come nor the overseer now set over them — claim the whole authority for themselves, and do it to the overseer’s discredit and contempt? Nothing of the kind was ever done under our predecessors. [e]

I only wish — if it could be done without costing our brothers their safety — that they could make good their claim to everything. I could look the other way and put up with the slight to my authority as overseer, as I have always looked away and put up with it. But this is no time to pretend not to see, when our brotherhood is being deceived by some of you. You have no means of restoring anyone to salvation, and yet you set out to please; and so you become a still greater stumbling block to the lapsed. That what the persecution forced people into is an enormous crime, the men who did it know perfectly well. Our Lord and Judge has said: “Whoever confesses me before men, I will confess him too before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me, I will deny him too.” And again he said: “All sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and blasphemies as well; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not have forgiveness — he is guilty of an everlasting sin.” The blessed apostle said as well: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot share the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” Anyone who keeps these words back from our brothers deceives them, poor wretches that they are. Men who could have made amends to God by truly repenting, by their prayers and by their works, and found him both a Father and merciful, are instead lured further on to their ruin; men who could have raised themselves up fall further down. [h]

With smaller sins, it is true, the sinner does penance for a set length of time; then, by the rule of discipline, he comes to open confession; then the overseer and the clergy lay hands on him, and he receives the right to communion. But now, with the set time still unserved, while the persecution is still raging, while the church’s own peace has not yet been restored, these people are admitted to communion and their names are presented. The penance has not been carried out, the confession has not been made, the hands of the overseer and the clergy have not yet been laid on them — and the thanksgiving is handed to them. And it is written: “Whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”

As things stand, the guilt does not fall on the people who keep the law of Scripture so poorly. It will fall on the men who hold office and do not put these things to the brothers, so that the brothers, taught by those set over them, might do everything in the fear of God and keep the observance God himself gave and prescribed. On top of that, these men bring ill will down on the blessed martyrs, and set God’s glorious servants at odds with God’s priest. The martyrs kept my position in mind: they wrote to me, and asked that their requests be examined then and peace granted them — once our Mother the Church herself had first received peace by the Lord’s mercy, and God’s protection had brought me back to his church. But these elders have no regard for the honor the blessed martyrs and the confessors keep for me. They despise the Lord’s law, and the very observance those same martyrs and confessors tell them to keep. Before the fear of the persecution has died down, before my return, almost before the martyrs have even gone to their death, they share communion with the lapsed, make the offering on their behalf, and give them the thanksgiving. And even if the martyrs, in the heat of their glory, were to weigh the Scriptures less carefully and to want more than they should, the elders and deacons ought to be the ones warning them and setting them right, as was always done in the past. [p]

This is why God’s rebuke does not stop correcting us, night or day. Besides the visions that come at night, in the daytime too there are boys among us, children at an age still innocent, filled with the Holy Spirit; in a trance they see with their eyes, and hear, and speak the things by which the Lord is good enough to warn us and teach us. You will hear all of it when the Lord, who told me to withdraw, brings me back to you. In the meantime, those among you who are rash and careless and full of their own importance, who have no regard for any man — let them at least fear God. They should know that if they keep on in the same course I will use the power of correction the Lord tells me to use: for the present they will be held back from making the offering, and they will have to plead their case before me, before the confessors themselves, and before the whole people, when God allows us to begin gathering together again in the lap of our Mother the Church. I have written letters about this matter to the martyrs and confessors and to the people, and I have given orders that both be read to you. I wish you well, dearly loved brothers whom I long to see, always and heartily in the Lord; and remember me. Farewell. [r]