Wait, Unless You Are Dying

Cyprian to the elders and deacons, his brothers: greetings. I have read your letter, dearest brothers, in which you wrote that our brothers have not gone without sound advice from you — that they should put aside every kind of reckless haste and show God the patience their faith requires, so that when by his mercy we are able to come together, we may take up the whole range of questions according to the discipline of the church. That is all the more necessary because it stands written: “Remember where you have fallen from, and repent.” The man who repents is the one who remembers what God has commanded, who is gentle and patient, who obeys God’s priests — and who, by that obedience and by doing what is right, earns the Lord’s favor. [a]

You go on to say that some are being brazen about it, pressing impatiently to be admitted to communion, and that in this matter you would like a rule laid down for you by me. I think I wrote enough on the subject in the last letter that was sent to you. Those who have received a certificate from the martyrs, and who can be helped before the Lord by the martyrs’ support in the matter of their sins, are to be treated this way: if they begin to be in the grip of some illness or danger, then once they have made their confession and you have laid hands on them in acknowledgment of their repentance, let them be sent on to the Lord with the peace the martyrs promised them. But the others, who have received no certificate from the martyrs and are stirring up ill will — since this case belongs not to a few people, nor to one church, nor to one province, but to the whole world — must wait, trusting the Lord’s protection, for the public peace of the church itself. That is what fits the modesty and the discipline, and indeed the whole way of life, of all of us: that those set over the churches should meet together with the clergy, and in the presence too of the people who have stood firm — who are themselves owed honor for their faith and their fear of God — so that we can settle everything with the reverence that belongs to a decision taken in common.

But think how irreverent it is, and how damaging even to the eager ones themselves, that while men who are in exile, driven out of their own country, stripped of all their property, have still not come back to the church, some of the lapsed should be in such a hurry that they get in ahead of the confessors themselves and enter the church before them. If they are so anxious about it, what they are asking for is already in their own hands — the times themselves are offering them, free of charge, more than they ask. The contest is still being fought. The struggle is put on daily. If they truly and steadily repent of what they have done, and the heat of their faith wins out, then a man who cannot be made to wait can be crowned. I wish you well always, dearest brothers, and remember me. Greet the whole brotherhood in my name, and tell them to keep me in mind. Farewell.