Let Them Copy the Letters

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

Dearest brothers, I want you to know what letters I have sent to the clergy at Rome and what they have written back to me, and also what Moyses and Maximus the elders, and Rufinus and Nicostratus the deacons, and the rest of the confessors held in prison with them, wrote in reply to my letters. So I have sent you copies of them all to read. Take as much care over it as you possibly can, so that what I wrote, and what they wrote back, are made known to our brothers.

And if any overseers from abroad — my colleagues — or any elders or deacons are with you, or arrive among you, let them hear the whole of it from you. If they want to copy the letters out and carry them home to their own people, give them the chance to make the copies. In any case I have already told our brother Saturus, the reader, to let anyone who wishes copy them. This is so that, however the church’s affairs are ordered for the present, one and the same faithful agreement may be kept by all.

As for the other matters that have to be settled, we will take them up more fully in a common council, as I have written to several of my colleagues as well — once, if the Lord allows it, we begin to gather in one place.

I hope you are always well, brothers, dearly loved and greatly missed. Greet the brotherhood for me. Farewell.