O Blessed Prison

Cyprian to Sergius and Rogatianus, and to the rest of the confessors in the Lord: everlasting greetings.

I greet you, dearest and most blessed brothers. I would gladly have the sight of you myself, if the position I am in allowed me to come to you. What could happen to me that I would want more, or that would make me happier, than to be standing beside you now — to have you take hold of me with those hands of yours, clean and guiltless, hands that have kept faith with the Lord and refused to obey a sacrilegious order? What could be finer or higher than to kiss your lips this minute, lips that have confessed the Lord with a glorious voice, and to be looked at, face to face, by your eyes, eyes that have thought little of the world and so have become worthy to look at God? [e]

But since I am not given the chance to share that joy, I am sending this letter in my place, to your ears and to your eyes. In it I congratulate you and urge you on: hold out, strongly and steadily, in the confession of the glory of heaven. You have set out on the road that the Lord’s own favor opened for you; go on down it in the strength of the Spirit until you receive the crown, with the Lord for your guard and your guide — the Lord who said, “Look, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” O blessed prison, which your presence has lit up! O blessed prison, which sends men of God to heaven! O darkness brighter than the sun itself and clearer than the daylight of this world — for God’s temples are standing in it now, and your own bodies are being made holy there by confessing God.

Let nothing turn over in your hearts and minds now except God’s own instructions and the commands of heaven, the ones the Holy Spirit has always used to rouse you to endure what you suffer. Let no one think about death; think about immortality. Not about punishment that lasts a while, but about glory that lasts forever. For it is written, “Precious in the Lord’s sight is the death of his holy ones.” And again, “A broken spirit is a sacrifice to God; a heart crushed and brought low God does not despise.” And again, where the sacred writings speak of the tortures that make God’s martyrs holy and set them apart in the very testing of their suffering: “Even if in the sight of others they were tormented, their hope is full of immortality. Disciplined a little, they will be greatly rewarded, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself. He tried them like gold in a furnace and took them as a whole burnt offering, and in due time he will look on them. The righteous will shine out, and they will run like sparks through stubble. They will judge nations and rule over peoples, and their Lord will reign forever.” [j]

So when you reflect that you are going to judge and to reign with Christ the Lord, you cannot help being glad, and trampling present sufferings underfoot for joy at what is coming. You know that from the beginning of the world it was settled this way: that righteousness would suffer here, in the struggle of this world. At the very start it was the righteous Abel who was killed, and after him every righteous man, and the prophets, and the apostles who were sent out. The Lord set the example for all of them in himself, teaching that no one reaches his kingdom except those who have followed him along his own road. He said, “The one who loves his life in this world will lose it; and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for life everlasting.” And again he said: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Fear instead the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Paul too urges us that if we want to reach what the Lord promised, we ought to imitate the Lord in everything. “We are children of God; and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, provided that we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” Then he added a comparison between the present time and the glory to come: “The sufferings of this present time are not worth weighing against the glory to come, which will be revealed in us.” When we consider the brightness of that glory, we have to carry every hardship and every persecution — because although the troubles of the righteous are many, everyone who trusts in God is rescued out of them all.

Blessed are the women too, who stand with you in the same glory of confession — who have kept faith with the Lord and, braver than their sex, are not only close to the crown of glory themselves but have set an example for other women by holding firm. And so that nothing would be missing from the glory of your company, so that every sex and every age would be there with you in the honor, God has stooped to join boys to you as well in a glorious confession. He is putting before us something of the same kind that Ananias, Azarias, and Misael once were, those famous young men. When they were shut up in the furnace, the fire gave way to them and the flames were a relief, because the Lord was there with them, proving that against his confessors and his martyrs the heat of hell can do nothing, and that people who trust in God come through every danger unhurt and safe. [p]

And I ask you to think more carefully, as your faith requires, about what the faith of those young men must have been, to earn such open acknowledgment from the Lord. Ready for whatever came — as all of us ought to be — they said to the king, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. Our God whom we serve is able to rescue us from the furnace of burning fire, and he will rescue us out of your hand, king. But if he does not, know this, king: we will not serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden statue you have set up.” They believed, and their faith told them that they might even be delivered from the punishment standing right in front of them. Still they would not boast of that or claim it for themselves, which is why they said, “But if he does not.” So that the strength of their confession would not be any less for lacking the witness of suffering, they said that God can do anything; and yet they refused to lean on it and ask to be delivered on the spot. They were thinking of that other glory, the freedom and safety that last forever.

You too, then: hold on to this same faith. Turn it over day and night. Keep your whole heart ready for God. Think of what is coming and count the present as nothing, so that you may reach the fruit of the everlasting kingdom, and the embrace, and the kiss, and the sight of the Lord. Follow in everything the example of Rogatianus the elder, that splendid old man, who by his devout courage and by the honor God has shown him is opening the way for you, to the glory of our own time. Along with Felicissimus our brother — always calm, always steady — he took the shock of a savage mob, and he was the first to get a lodging ready for you in the prison. He marked out the ground for you, in a manner of speaking, and now he goes ahead of you again. [s]

We keep asking the Lord in unbroken prayers that this may be brought to completion in you: that he would carry you on from your beginnings to the highest end, and crown the ones he has made confess. Dearest and most beloved brothers, I wish you always well in the Lord, and from the heart; and may you reach the crown of the glory of heaven. Victor the deacon and those who are with me send you their greetings.