The Voice That Confessed

Cyprian to the elders and deacons, and to the whole people: greetings. [a]

In ordinations among the clergy, dearest brothers, our custom is to consult you beforehand and to weigh each man’s character and record with the advice of all. But there is no need to wait for human testimony when God’s own approval has come first.

Aurelius, our brother, is a young man of distinction, already approved by the Lord and dear to God. In years he is still very young, but in the praise of courage and of faith he is far advanced. He has less than others of what his age can naturally give, and more than others of the honor he has earned. Here he has fought a double contest. Twice he confessed, and twice he came away glorious in the victory of his confessing: first when he won on the course and was sent into exile, and then when at last he fought a harder contest and came through the battle of suffering triumphant and victorious. As often as the adversary wanted to call God’s servants out to fight, so often this ready and brave soldier both fought and won.

It would have been a small thing to have fought earlier under the eyes of a few, when he was banished. He deserved to fight in the forum as well, where his courage would show more brightly — so that after beating the magistrates he might triumph over the proconsul too, and after exile might defeat torture too.

I cannot work out what I ought to speak of most in him: the glory of his wounds, or the modesty of his character; whether he is more distinguished by the honor his courage won, or more to be praised for how remarkable his modesty is. He stands so high in dignity and so low in humility that he seems to have been kept back by God on purpose, as an example to everyone else of how the church’s discipline works — how God’s servants ought to win by their courage in confessing, and after confessing ought to stand out by their character.

A man like this is to be measured by what he has earned and not by his years, and he deserved higher ranks among the ordained clergy and a larger advance than this. But for now I judged it right that he should begin with the office of reading. Nothing suits a voice that has confessed the Lord in a glorious declaration better than to sound him out in the solemn reading of the divine lessons. Nothing suits it better, after the towering words that spoke out his witness to Christ, than to read the Gospel of Christ, from which martyrs are made — to come to the reading desk after the torture platform. There he was on show to a crowd of the nations; here he is looked at by the brothers. There he was heard while the people standing around wondered at him; here he is heard with the joy of the brotherhood.

So know, dearest brothers, that this man has been ordained by me and by the colleagues of mine who were there at the time. I know you will be glad to hear it, and that you want as many men like him as possible ordained in our church. And since joy is always in a hurry and gladness can put up with no delay, he is reading for me on the Lord’s day in the meantime — that is, he has taken the first good omen of peace in formally entering on his office of reading.

Keep pressing your requests again and again, and back up my prayers with your own, so that the Lord’s mercy may favor us and soon give back both the priest, safe, to his people, and the martyr, as reader, at the priest’s side. I wish you well always, dearest brothers, in God the Father and in Jesus Christ. Farewell.