Gold Sent to the Mines

Cyprian to Nemesianus, Felix, Lucius, a second Felix, Litteus, Polianus, Victor, Jader and Dativus, his fellow overseers; and to his fellow elders and the deacons; and to the rest of the brothers in the mines, martyrs of God the Father Almighty and of Jesus Christ our Lord and of God our preserver: everlasting greetings.

Your glory would demand, most blessed and dearest brothers, that I come myself to see you and put my arms around you — if the bounds of the place assigned to me did not hold me back, banished as I am for confessing the Name. So I bring myself into your presence in the only way I can. I am not allowed to come to you in body, by my own movement; but I come in love and in spirit, setting my mind down in a letter. And in that mind I rejoice with delight over your brave deeds and the praise they have won, counting myself a partner with you — not in bodily suffering, but in a shared love. Could I be silent, could I hold my voice still, when I am told so many glorious things about my dearest friends — things with which God’s regard has honored you? Some of you have already gone on ahead by finishing their martyrdom, to receive from their Lord the crown they have earned. Others are still held in the cells of the prison, or in the mines and in chains, and by the very slowness of their punishment they set the brothers a larger example, to strengthen them and arm them; they climb by the tedium of their torture to fuller titles of merit, and will receive as many payments in the rewards of heaven as there are days now being counted in their punishment. [e]

I am not surprised, bravest and most blessed brothers, that this has come to you, considering what your religion and your faith deserve — that the Lord should have lifted you to so high a place of glory by the honor of glorifying you. For you have always flourished in his church, guarding the tenor of the faith and keeping the Lord’s commands firmly: in simplicity, innocence; in love, harmony; modesty in your humility, diligence in administration, watchfulness in helping those who suffer, mercy in caring for the poor, steadiness in defending the truth, judgment in the strictness of discipline. And so that nothing should be missing from the example of good deeds in you, now too — by the confession your voice makes and the suffering your body takes — you stir your brothers’ minds toward martyrdom for God, showing yourselves leaders in courage; so that while the flock follows its shepherds and copies what it sees done by those set over it, it may be crowned by the Lord with the same merits of obedience.

That you were first beaten hard with clubs and roughly handled, and so began with sufferings of that kind — the glorious first fruits of your confession — is nothing for us to shudder at. A Christian body is not much frightened by clubs, since all its hope rests on wood. The servant of Christ knows the sacred sign of his own salvation: redeemed by wood for life without end, he is raised by wood to the crown. And what wonder is it if you, vessels of gold and silver, have been consigned to the mine, which is the home of gold and silver? Except that the nature of the mines is now turned around: the places that used to give out gold and silver have begun to take them in. They have put shackles on your feet and bound your blessed limbs, God’s own temples, with degrading chains — as if the spirit could be tied up along with the body, or your gold could be tarnished by the touch of iron. To men given over to God, who bear witness to their faith with a devout courage, such things are jewelry, not chains. They do not bind Christians’ feet for disgrace; they make them glorious for a crown. Feet blessedly bound, to be unfastened not by the blacksmith but by the Lord! Feet blessedly bound, that are being led to paradise along the road of salvation! Feet bound for the present time in the world, so that they may be free with the Lord forever! Feet that linger a while among shackles and cross-bars, only to run swiftly to Christ on a glorious road! Let cruelty, whether it works from envy or from spite, hold you here in its bonds and chains as long as it likes — from this earth and from these sufferings you will come quickly to the kingdom of heaven. In the mines the body is not pampered with couch and cushions, but it is comforted with the refreshment and consolation of Christ. The frame, worn out with hard labor, lies stretched on the ground — but it is no punishment to lie down with Christ. Your limbs go unwashed, foul and disfigured with grime and dirt; but inwardly they are washed in spirit, however the flesh is soiled outside. Bread there is scarce — but a man does not live on bread alone, but on the word of God. You shiver for want of clothes — but the one who puts on Christ is clothed and adorned in plenty. The hair of your half-shaved head looks repulsive — but since Christ is the head of a man, anything at all is bound to suit a head made famous by Christ’s name. All that disfigurement, which the pagans find loathsome and foul, will be repaid with what splendor! This suffering, short and bounded by time, will be exchanged for the reward of a bright and everlasting honor, when, as the blessed apostle puts it, “the Lord will change the body of our humiliation, so that it is formed like the body of his brightness.” [f]

And no loss of religion or of faith can be felt, dearest brothers, in the fact that God’s priests are given no opportunity there to make the offering and celebrate the divine sacrifices. You do celebrate, and you do offer God a sacrifice just as precious and glorious, one that will do you great good toward the repayment of heavenly rewards — since the sacred Scripture says, “The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” This is the sacrifice you offer to God. This is the sacrifice you celebrate without a break, day and night, made victims to God yourselves and presenting yourselves as holy and unblemished offerings — as the apostle urges when he says, “So I beg you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the good and acceptable and perfect will of God is.” [m]

This is what pleases God above all. This is where our works earn God’s good will with the fuller merit. This is the one thing the obedience of our faith and devotion can give back to the Lord for his great and saving benefits — as the Holy Spirit declares and testifies in the Psalms: “What shall I give back to the Lord for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and I will call on the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his holy ones.” Who would not take the cup of salvation gladly and readily? Who would not want, with joy and delight, the very thing in which he too may give something back to his Lord? Who would not receive bravely and without a stumble a death precious in the Lord’s sight, and so please the eyes of the one who looks down on us from above as we stand in the contest for his name — who approves the willing, helps those who are struggling, and crowns the winners with the payment of patience, goodness and affection, rewarding in us whatever he himself gave, and honoring what he himself has brought about? [p]

That it is his doing that we conquer, and that we reach the palm of the greatest contest of all by beating down our opponent, the Lord declares and teaches in his Gospel: “But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to speak; it will be given you in that same hour what you are to speak. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” And again: “Settle it in your hearts, then, not to plan out beforehand what you will answer, for I will give you a mouth and a wisdom that your opponents will not be able to stand against.” Here lies both the great confidence of believers and the gravest fault of the faithless: that they do not trust the one who promises to give his help to those who confess him, and do not, on the other side, fear the one who threatens everlasting punishment to those who deny him. [q]

All of this, bravest and most faithful soldiers of Christ, you have set before your brothers, carrying out in deeds what you had already taught in words; and hereafter you will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, as the Lord promises: “Whoever does and teaches this way will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Besides that, a large part of the people, following your example, have made the same confession with you and been crowned in the same way. They are bound to you in the strongest love, and neither the prison nor the mines have separated them from the leaders set over them. Among them there is no lack of virgins, in whom the hundredfold is added to the sixtyfold yield, and whom a double glory has carried up to the heavenly crown. In boys, too, a courage beyond their age has outrun their years in the praise their confession won — so that every sex and every age might adorn the blessed flock of your martyrdom. [s]

What vigor there must be now, dearest brothers, in the knowledge that you have won! What loftiness of mind, what exultation of feeling, what triumph in the heart — that every one of you stands close to the reward God promised, is safe from God’s judgment, walks about in the mines with the body a prisoner but the heart on a throne; that you know Christ is there with you, glad at the endurance of his servants as they climb by his footprints and along his paths to the everlasting kingdoms! Day by day you look with joy for the saving day of your departure. Already on the point of leaving the world, you are hurrying to the rewards of martyrdom and to the homes of God, to see the purest light after this world’s darkness and to receive a glory greater than all your sufferings and struggles — as the apostle testifies: “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed in us.” And since your word now carries further in prayer, and a petition made under affliction gets what it asks for more quickly, seek more eagerly, and ask that God in his regard would bring the confession of every one of us to its completion; that he would set us free too, along with you, out of this darkness and these traps of the world, sound and glorious; and that we who are joined here in the bond of love and peace, and have stood together against the outrages of the heretics and the pressure of the pagans, may rejoice together in the kingdom of heaven. I wish you farewell in the Lord always, most blessed and dearest brothers, and ask you to remember me always and everywhere. [u]