Not Mine to Decide

Cyprian to the elders and deacons, my brothers: greetings. [a]

The Lord speaks and says, “Whom will I look upon, if not the man who is humble and quiet and trembles at my words?” All of us ought to be that kind of man. But it belongs above all to those who, after so grave a fall, must work at deserving well of the Lord by true repentance and complete humility.

Now I have read the letter from the whole body of confessors — the one they want me to make known to all my colleagues. In it they ask that the peace they themselves have granted be assured to those whose conduct since their crime has satisfied us. But that question is waiting on the counsel and judgment of all of us together. I do not dare to prejudge it, and so take a matter that belongs to all of us and settle it by my own decision.

So in the meantime, let us hold to the letters I wrote to you recently. I have now sent a copy of them to a good many of my colleagues, who have written back that they are satisfied with what I decided, and that there must be no departing from it — not until the Lord grants us peace and we are able to come together in one place and look into the case of each man.

But so that you may know both what my colleague Caldonius wrote to me and what I wrote back to him, I have enclosed a copy of each with this letter. Read the whole of it, please, to our brothers, so that they may settle down more and more into patience — and not add a second fault to the one already behind them by refusing to obey either me or the good news, and refusing to let their cases be examined the way the letters of all the confessors provide for.

I wish you always well, dearest brothers; and remember me. Greet the whole brotherhood. Farewell.