A Road Home for Others

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius: greetings. [a]

I say it openly, dearest brother: I have given thanks, and I go on giving the greatest thanks without a break, to God the Father Almighty and to his Christ, the Lord and our God and Savior, that the church is guarded like this by God, and that its unity and its holiness are not being spoiled — not for good and not altogether — by stubborn treachery and by the wickedness of the heretics.

We have read your letter, and out of it we have taken the greatest joy, exulting that what we both wanted has come about: that Maximus the elder and Urbanus, confessors both, along with Sidonius and Macarius, have come back into the universal church. That is to say, they have laid down their error, they have given up the madness of their split — or rather of their heresy — and in soundness of faith they have gone looking again for the home of unity and truth. The place they went out from to win glory is the very place they have come back to in glory. Men who had confessed Christ were not, after that, to desert Christ’s camp; and men who had not been beaten in strength and courage were not to put to the test the faithfulness of their own love and unity.

Look at the praise they have earned, whole and unstained and safe. Look at the dignity of these confessors, unspoiled and solid: they have walked away from the deserters and the runaways, they have left behind the men who betray the faith and attack the universal church. No wonder both the people and the brotherhood welcomed them back, as you write, with the greatest joy. When confessors have kept their glory and come home to unity, there is nobody who does not count himself a partner and a sharer in it.

We can measure the joy of that day by what we felt ourselves. If here every one of the brothers was glad at the letter you sent about their confession, and took that news of a joy we all share with the greatest eagerness, what must the joy have been there, where the thing itself and the gladness of everybody were going on in front of all their eyes?

The Lord says in his Gospel that the highest joy of all is this: “There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.” If that is so, how much greater is the joy on earth — and in heaven no less — over confessors who come back to the church of God with their glory and with praise, and who, by the faith and the approval their example wins, open a road home for others?

For this error had led some of our brothers astray, so that they supposed they were keeping the common life with confessors. Now that the error is cleared away, light has been poured into everybody’s heart, and the universal church has been shown to be one, and to be a thing that can neither be cut apart nor divided. From now on nobody will be easily fooled by the wordy talk of a raving schismatic, since it has been proved that good and glorious soldiers of Christ could not be held outside the church for long by other men’s trickery and treachery.

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