Refusing the Bitter Medicine

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

You have acted rightly and with discipline, dearest brothers, in deciding — on the advice of my colleagues who were with you — not to be in communion with Gaius, the elder of Didda, and with his deacon. Again and again these two have been caught out in their wicked errors: they have been in communion with the lapsed and have presented their offerings. And when my colleagues warned them not to do it, they held out stubbornly, once and then a second time, as you wrote to me, in their presumption and their nerve, and they have led some of our own people astray with them.

Those are people whose good we want to weigh with all humility, and whose salvation we are looking after — not with flattery got up for the occasion, but in honest faith, so that they may plead with the Lord in real repentance, with groaning and grief. For it is written, “Remember where you have fallen from, and repent.” And again the divine Scripture says, “This is what the Lord says: when you turn back and lament, then you will be saved, and you will know where you have been.”

But how are they to mourn and repent, when some of the elders block their groaning and their tears by deciding rashly that they may be let into communion? Those elders do not know what is written: “Those who call you happy lead you astray, and ruin the path your feet are on.” Naturally our sound and truthful advice gets nowhere, while the truth that would save them is held back by damaging flattery and soft words.

The wounded and unhealthy mind of a lapsed man goes the way a sick body often goes. The patient turns down the food and the drink that would restore him, because they are bitter and unpleasant to him, and craves whatever seems agreeable and sweet for the moment — and so, by his own recklessness and his lack of self-control, he invites harm and death on himself. The skilled doctor’s true remedy cannot save him while the sweet enticement goes on charming him.

So take counsel about this faithfully and soundly, as my letters direct, and do not fall back from the better course. Be careful to read these same letters to my colleagues as well, if any are with you or if any come to you, so that with one mind and in harmony we may hold to one sound plan for soothing and healing the wounds of the lapsed. We intend to deal with all of it fully when, by the Lord’s mercy, we begin to assemble together.

In the meantime, if anyone is so unrestrained and headlong — whether one of our own elders or deacons, or an outsider — as to dare to be in communion with the lapsed before our ruling is made, let him be shut out from our communion, and let him argue the case for his rashness in front of all of us when, by the Lord’s leave, we meet again.

You also wanted my answer about Philumenus and Fortunatus, the sub-deacons, and Favorinus, an acolyte, who withdrew in the middle of the time of trial and have now come back. I cannot make myself the sole judge of that. A great many of the clergy are still away, and even at this late hour have not thought it right to return to their posts; and each man’s case has to be taken on its own and looked into in full — not only with my colleagues, but with the whole body of the people as well. A matter that may afterward stand as a precedent for the church’s ministers has to be weighed and settled with careful deliberation.

For now, let them only keep away from the monthly distribution — not so that they should look as though they had been stripped of the church’s ministry, but so that, with everything left in good order, their case may be held over until I come.

I wish you always well, dearest brothers. Greet the whole brotherhood. Farewell.