Free for the Altar

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

My colleagues who were with me and I were deeply troubled, dearest brothers, and so were our fellow elders who sat with us, when we were told that our brother Geminius Victor, as he was leaving this life, had named Geminius Faustinus, an elder, executor of his will. And yet it had been decided long ago, in a council of the overseers, that no one is to name any of the clergy, the ministers of God, as executor or guardian in his will. A man honored with the divine priesthood and ordained to the service of the clergy ought to serve only the altar and the sacrifices, and to keep his time free for prayers and petitions.

For it is written: “No one serving as a soldier for God entangles himself in the affairs of this life, so that he may please the one to whom he has pledged himself.” If that is said of everyone, how much more should these men be kept from being bound by worldly worries and entanglements — men who are taken up with divine and spiritual things, and who cannot pull away from the church to make time for earthly, secular business.

The Levites kept this same pattern of ordination and commitment long ago, under the law. When the eleven tribes divided the land and shared out the holdings, the tribe of Levi, left free for the temple and the altar and the divine services, received nothing out of that division. While the others worked the soil, that one tribe worked only at cultivating the favor of God, and took the tithes from the eleven tribes, out of the crops that grew, for its food and support. All of it was done by God’s own authority and arrangement, so that the men who waited on the divine services would not be called away from them for anything, or forced to think about secular business or handle it.

The same plan and the same rule are kept now for the clergy. Men promoted by ordination in the church of the Lord are not to be called off from the divine administration for anything, or tied down by worldly worries and matters. Instead, supported by the honor of the brothers who contribute, receiving what amounts to tenths of the crops, they are not to withdraw from the altars and the sacrifices, but to serve day and night in heavenly and spiritual things.

The overseers before us weighed this with reverent care and made a sound provision for it. They decided that no brother, on leaving this life, should name a member of the clergy as executor or guardian; and that if anyone did, no offering should be made for him and no sacrifice celebrated for his rest. A man who has wanted to call the priests and the ministers away from the altar does not deserve to be named at God’s altar in the priests’ prayer.

And so, since Victor has dared to appoint Geminius Faustinus, an elder, as his executor, against the rule the priests made in council not long ago, you are not permitted to make any offering for his rest or to say any prayer in the church in his name. In this way the decree the priests made, a careful decree and a needed one, will be kept by us. At the same time the rest of the brothers will be given an example, so that no one will call away to secular worries the priests and ministers of God, who are occupied with the service of his altar and his church. For care will very likely be taken from now on that this does not happen again where clergy are concerned, if what has now been done is punished.

I wish you well always, dearest brothers. Farewell.