The Letters from Hadrumetum

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius: greetings. [a]

I have read your letter, dearest brother, the one you sent by Primitivus, our fellow elder, and I could see from it that you were upset. Letters used to come to you from the colony at Hadrumetum in Polycarp’s name; then, after Liberalis and I arrived there, letters began to be addressed instead to the elders and the deacons.

About that I want you to know — and to be quite sure of it — that it was done out of no thoughtlessness and no contempt. What happened was this. A number of our colleagues had met in one place and decided that, while our fellow overseers Caldonius and Fortunatus were being sent to you as envoys, everything should stay in the meantime exactly as it stood, until those same colleagues came back to us, having either brought matters there to peace or found out the truth about them. The elders and deacons staying at the colony of Hadrumetum, with their fellow overseer Polycarp away, did not know what we had jointly decided. But once we came to them and our intention was understood, they too began to keep to what everyone else was keeping to, so that the agreement of the churches there was not broken at any point.

Still, there are people who now and then unsettle men’s minds and spirits by what they say, because they report things otherwise than they are. For we give everyone who sails from here a rule to sail by, so that nobody gives offense; and we know very well that we urged them to acknowledge the root and the womb of the whole church, and to hold to them.

But our province is a wide one, with Numidia and Mauretania attached to it. So, to keep a split made in the city from confusing men at a distance with opinions that had nothing settled in them, we made a decision: that once we had the truth of the matter through the overseers, and stronger backing for the proof of your ordination, so that at last every doubt would be cleared out of every heart, letters should be sent to you by all who hold a post anywhere in the province. And that is what has been done, so that the whole body of our colleagues might firmly approve of you and stand by you and by your communion — which is to say, stand by the unity of the whole church, and by its love as well. All of it has come about at God’s direction, and our plan has gone forward under his care, and we are glad of it.

For in this way both the truth and the standing of your office as overseer have been settled in the fullest daylight, with approval that is open and solid. So from the replies of our colleagues who have written to us from the province, and from the report and the testimony of our fellow overseers Pompeius and Stephanus, Caldonius and Fortunatus, everyone may know the necessary reason for your ordination, the right order it followed, and, beyond that, its glorious innocence.

That we, with the rest of our colleagues, should carry this office steadily and firmly, and keep it in the harmony and single mind of the whole church — God’s own stooping favor will bring that about. The Lord who stoops to choose priests for himself in his church and appoint them will also protect them once they are chosen and appointed, by his good will and his help. He breathes into them the strength to lead, and supplies both the firmness to hold down the defiance of the wicked and the gentleness to nurse along the repentance of the lapsed.

I wish you always well, dearest brother, with all my heart. Farewell.