The First Crown in Africa

When he stepped out through the doors of the governor’s headquarters, a crowd of soldiers went with him, and — so that nothing would be missing from his suffering — centurions and tribunes kept guard at his side. The place where he was to die is level ground, so that it makes a fine viewing area, with trees planted thickly all around it. But the open space ran back so far that the packed crowd could not see; so people who were on his side climbed up into the branches of the trees, and even this was not lacking to him — the thing that happened in the case of Zacchaeus — that he was watched from the trees. [a]

By now he had bound his eyes with his own hands, and he was trying to hurry the executioner along. The man whose duty it was to swing the sword could barely keep hold of the blade; his right hand was failing him and his fingers shook. Not until the hour of glory came to its full did power granted from above steady the centurion’s hand to carry out the death of that excellent man, and give him at last the strength he was allowed.

How blessed the people of that church were! They suffered alongside an overseer like theirs — with their eyes, with their hearts, and, more than that, out loud; and they were crowned by God the Judge, exactly as they had always heard him say in his own sermons. What everyone longed for could not happen: that the whole congregation should suffer at once and share one and the same glory. Still, anyone who hungered to suffer under the watching eyes of Christ and within hearing of the priest sent that desire on to God the way a man sends an envoy with a dispatch — the longing itself was testimony enough.

So his martyrdom was finished, and this was the result: Cyprian, who had been an example to every good man, was also the first in Africa to steep a priest’s crown in the blood of martyrdom — because he was the first after the apostles to become such a man. For from the time the line of overseers at Carthage begins to be counted, there is no record of a single one, even among good men and priests, who came to that suffering. It is true that in men set apart for God devotion given over to him is always counted in place of martyrdom; yet Cyprian reached even the crown in its full form, brought to completion by the Lord. So in the very city where he had lived as he did, where he had been the first to do so many noble things, he was also the first to decorate the insignia of his heavenly priesthood with glorious blood. [e]

What am I to do now? Between joy at his suffering and grief that I am still here, my mind is pulled in two directions, and two loves press on a heart too small to hold them both. Am I to grieve that I was not his partner? But I have to celebrate his victory. Am I to celebrate his victory? Then I still grieve that I am not his companion. And yet I have to admit to you plainly what you already know: I meant to be his companion. I am glad at his glory, more than glad; but I grieve more still that I was left behind.