Your Letter Reached the Mine

Nemesianus, Dativus, Felix, and Victor, to their brother Cyprian: everlasting greetings in the Lord. [a]

Dearly loved Cyprian, you always write with weight, as the times require, and the steady reading of your letters both corrects the wicked and strengthens men of good faith. Since you never stop laying bare the hidden mysteries in what you write, you make us grow in faith, and you bring men out of the world close to belief. Whatever good things you have set down in your many books, you have described yourself to us without meaning to. For you are greater than anyone in what you say, more eloquent in speech, wiser in counsel, more straightforward in your patience, more open-handed in what you do, holier in self-denial, humbler in obedience, and more blameless in your conduct. And you know yourself, dear friend, how much we longed to see you — our teacher, and the man who loves us — reach the crown of a great confession.

For in the proceedings before the proconsul you were the good and true teacher: you were the first to say what we, your students, are to say after you when we stand before our own governor. Like a trumpet sounding, you roused God’s soldiers, armed with heaven’s weapons, for close fighting; and fighting in the front rank you cut the devil down with a spiritual sword. With your words you drew up the ranks of the brothers on this side and on that, so that traps were laid for the enemy on every side, and the common foe had the sinews of his very carcass cut through and was trampled underfoot. Believe us, dearest brother: your blameless spirit is not far from the hundredfold reward. It did not fear the world’s first assaults, or shrink from going into exile, or hesitate to leave the city, or dread living in a deserted place; and since it gave so many an example of confessing, it was itself the first to speak a martyr’s word. By its own example it stirred others up to acts of martyrdom, and it did not only become a companion of the martyrs already leaving the world — it also bound a heavenly friendship with those who were still to go.

So the men who were condemned along with us give you the greatest thanks before God, dear Cyprian, because your letter refreshed their aching chests, healed the limbs the clubs had beaten, loosened their feet from the fetters, smoothed down the hair of their half-shaved heads, lit up the darkness of the pit, brought the mountains of the mine down to level ground, and even held sweet-smelling flowers to their noses and shut out the foul reek of the smoke. And your gifts, which keep coming, and those of our dear Quirinus — sent to be handed out by Herennianus the subdeacon and by Lucian, Maximus, and Amantius the acolytes — supplied whatever their bodies still lacked.

So let us help one another in our prayers, and let us ask, as you told us to, that we may have God and Christ and the angels standing by us in everything we do. We wish you always well, our lord and brother, and ask you to keep us in mind. Greet everyone who is with you. All our people here love you, and greet you, and want to see you.