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202

The providence of God over the appointment of Bishops.

EPIST. LXVI. A. 254.

29.

EPISTLE LXVI.

Cyprian, who is also Thascius", to his brother Florentius, who is also Papianus, greeting.

I had thought, brother, that you were now at length turned to repentance, for having rashly in times past either listened or given credit to things concerning me so abominable, so base, so execrable even to Gentiles. But even now I perceive by your letter that you are still the same as before, that you believe the same things of me, and persist in what you believed; and lest perchance the excellence of your lustre as a martyr might be tarnished by communion with me, that you are enquiring diligently into my conduct, and, after the judgment of God Who maketh Bishops, are desirous of judging, I say not of me, (for of what account am I?) but of the judgment of God and of Christ. This is not to believe in God, this is to be a rebel against Christ, and against His Mat. 10, Gospel, that whereas He says, Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? yet neither of them falls to the ground without the will of the Father, and His majesty and truth prove that even the smallest things do not come to pass without the cognizance and permission of God, you suppose that the Priests of God are, without His cognizance, ordained in the Church? For to believe that those who are ordained are unworthy and incestuous, what else is it but to believe that not by God or through God are His Bishops appointed in the Church? Suppose you that my own testimony of myself is greater than God's? whereas the Lord Himself teacheth and saith, that if any one is a witness of himself, his testimony is not true, for that indeed every one would favour himself, nor would any bring forward things prejudicial and adverse against himself; but the trustworthiness of truth is then clear, when in the things avouched of us, another is our voucher and John 5, witness. If, He saith, I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true: there is Another that beareth witness of Me. But if the Lord Himself, Who will hereafter judge all things, would not be believed on His own testimony, but had rather

31. 32.

"St. Cyprian's heathen name, which he had exchanged for Cæcilius, that of the good old presbyter by whom he was

converted. The inscription is probably a tacit rebuke of Florentius, who had so addressed him. [Pam.]

Who believe calumnies of the profane, will share their judgment. 203

be approved on the judgment and testimony of God the Father, how much more does it behove His servants to attend to this, who are not only approved by the judgment and testimony of God, but even therein glory? With thee, however, the inventions of hostile and malignant men has prevailed against the Divine sentence, and against our conscience, stayed by the strength of its own faith; as if among lapsed and profane persons, removed without the Church, from whose breasts the Holy Spirit has departed, there could be other than a depraved mind, and a deceitful tongue, and envenomed hatred, and sacrilegious falsehoods, which whoso believes, must needs be found with them when the Day of Judgment shall come.

2. But as to thy saying, that Bishops should be humble, because both the Lord and His Apostles were humble, not only all the brethren but the Gentiles also very well know and love my humility; and you too once knew it and loved it, while you were yet in the Church and held communion with me. But which of us is far from humility, I, who daily serve the brethren, and with kindness and good wishes and joy receive all that come to the Church, or you who set yourself up as a Bishop of a Bishop, and as a judge of the judge for the time appointed by God? Whereas the Lord God says in Deuteronomy, And the man that will do presump- Deut. tuously, and will not hearken unto the priest or unto the judge?? who shall be in those days, even that man shall die, and all the people when they hear shall fear, and do no more presumptuously. And again He speaks to Samuel, and says, They have not despised thee, but they have despised Me. And moreover the Lord in the Gospel, when it was said unto Him, Answerest Thou the High Priest so? maintaining the honour John18, of the priesthood, and teaching that it ought to be upheld, said 22. 23. nothing against the High Priest, but only clearing His own innocence, answered, saying, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou Me? The blessed Apostle also, when it was said to him, Revilest thou Acts 23, God's High Priest? spake nothing reproachful against the High Priest, whereas he might stedfastly have put himself forth against those who had crucified the Lord, and had now lost God and Christ, and the temple, and the priesthood. Yet, even though in false and deprived priests, respecting, if

4.

204

To despise the Bishop is to despise God.

LXVI.
A. 254.

EPIST. but the very empty shadow of the priestly name, he said, I wist not, brethren, that he was the High Priest: for it is Acts 23, written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy

5.

people.

3. Unless perhaps I were a Priest to you before the persecution, when you held communion with me, but after the persecution I ceased to be a Priest! For the persecution coming raised you to the highest eminence of martyrdom, but me it sunk with the weight of proscription, when it was 1 see ab. publicly proclaimed, "If any one holdeth or possesseth Ep. 59. §. 7. any of the goods of Cæcilius Cyprian, a Bishop of the Christians;" so that even they who believed not in God appointing a Bishop, might yet believe the devil proscribing a Bishop. Nor do I boast of these things, but bring them forward with sorrow, since you set yourself up as a judge of God and Christ, Who says to the Apostles, and thereby to all Prelates, who by vicarious ordination are successors of the Luke10, Apostles, He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that heareth Me, heareth Him that sent Me: and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me.

16.

4. For thence have schisms and heresies arisen and do arise, in that the Bishop, who is one and presides over the Church, is by the proud presumption of some persons held in contempt, and a man, honoured by the favour of God, is by man deemed unworthy. For what swelling of pride is this, what arrogance of spirit, what inflation of the mind, to call prelates and priests to one's own cognizance, and if I am not cleared in your sight and absolved by your sentence, lo, for these six years past, neither has the brotherhood had a Bishop, nor the people a Prelate, nor the flock a shepherd, 2 antis- nor the Church a governor, nor Christ an Overseer2, nor tes, Bishop. God a priest! Pupianus must come in aid and pronounce

sentence, and accept the judgment of God and Christ, lest so large a number of believers as have been summoned away under my rule, should appear to have departed without hope of salvation and peace; and the multitude of new believers be adjudged to have attained no grace of Baptism

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Obedience of animals and of evil men a lesson.

205

and of the Holy Spirit by my ministry': lest the peace granted and communion allowed, on our examination, to so many lapsed and penitents, be annulled by the authority of your judgment. Vouchsafe at length and deign to pronounce on us, and to confirm our Episcopate by the authority of your hearing, that God and His Christ may give you thanks, for that through you a president and ruler has been restored as well to Their Altar as to Their people.

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5. Bees have a king, and herds a leader, and robbers keep faith. To a mercenary leader they submit with the full deference of humility. How much more simple and better than you are the brutes and dumb animals, and robbers though blood-stained and raging in the midst of swords and war? Among them a chief is acknowledged and feared, whom the Divine sentence has not appointed, but in whom an abandoned faction and a guilty crew have consented.

6. You say in truth, that a scruple on which you have fallen must be removed from your mind. You have fallen on it, but through your own irreligious credulity. You have fallen on it, but through your own sacrilegious mind and will, in that you easily listen to, readily believe, incestuous, impious, unutterable things against a brother, against a Priest; in that you defend other men's lies as if they were your own, your property; nor remember that it is written, Hedge in thine ears with thorns, and hearken not to a wicked tongue": and again, A wicked doer giveth heed Prov.

y Presbyters could not baptize with out consent of the Bishop, (F.) (as our own Church requires in the Office for the Baptism of Adults,) see Ignat. Ep. ad Smyrn. c. 8. Tert. de Bapt. c. 17. p. 275. Oxf. Tr. S. Jerome c. Lucif. c. 9. It would seem, however, from this place, as if St. C. himself baptized; else the supposed nullity of his Episcopate would not have affected the act. In the Exhort. Mart. also (Pref. p. 280. Oxf. Tr.) he speaks of it as his own act.

z See de Idol. Van. §. 5. p. 17.

a The text of Rig. and Fell has been followed, "et fidem servant Latrones; mancipi, obsequio pleno humilitatis obtemperant." The style is somewhat more broken than is usual with St. C. yet there may be an indignant

emphasis on mancipi, lit. "their hirer,"
a term used of the captain of banditti, by
Cic. Orat. pro domo s. and Lucif. Calar.
Apol. 2. pro S. Athanasio. The 2 oldest
Edd. Spir. and Innom. ap. F. Memm.
and Erasm. have "et ei fidem servant,"
a very bold metaphor, "the very beasts
keep faith to their leader," but neither
F. nor B. give any Ms. authority for
it, amid much other variation.

b Ecclus. 28, 28. so quoted by St. C.
Ep. 59. fin. Testim. iii. 95. S. Ambr.
in S. Luc. 3. and 2 other places;
the Auct. Op. Imp. in S. Matt. Hom.
51. The LXX. has περίφραξον τὸ
xμá cov àxávtars only. S. Hil. in
Ps. 140. S. Amb. de Off. i. 3. Cassiod. in
Ps. 40. follow the LXX. see Sabatier
ad loc. The Syr. and Arab. vary in
order from the LXX.

17, 4. lxx.

A. 254.

206 Chaff alone carried out of the floor of the Church.

EPIST. to the tongue of the unjust, but a righteous man regards LXVI. not lying lips. Why did not martyrs, full of the Holy Ghost, and now by their passion very near the Presence of God and His Christ, fall on this scruple? These sent letters from their prison to Bishop Cyprian, acknowledging him to be a priest of God, and bearing witness to him. Why have not so many Bishops my colleagues fallen on this scruple, who, when they withdrew out of the way, were proscribed, or being seized, were cast into prisons and were in chains; or who, driven into exile, marched on in their glorious rank to the Lord; or who in some places sentenced to death, received heavenly crowns, being glorified by the Lord? Why have not any fallen on this scruple, among His own people who are with us and have by the favour of God been committed to us, among whom are so many confessors that have been put to the question and tortured, glorious through the memory of renowned wounds and scars? so many chaste virgins? so many praiseworthy widows? Lastly, why have not all the Churches throughout the whole world, who are joined with us in the bond of unity? Except indeed, as you have written, all these, holding communion with me, have become polluted by my polluted mouth, and by the contagion of my communion have lost the hope of eternal life; Papianus alone, sound, inviolate, holy, chaste, in that he would not mix himself with us, shall dwell alone in paradise and in the kingdom of heaven!

7. You have written too that the Church now hath a portion of herself in dispersion through my means; whereas the whole people of the Church are collected and united and joined together in undivided concord, they only remain without, who although they were within, ought to be cast out: nor doth the Lord, the Protector and Guardian of His people, suffer the wheat to be swept away from His floor, but the chaff alone can be separated from the Church, for that the Apostle says, For what if some have fallen from the faith? shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect? God forbid: yea, for God is true, but every man a liar. The Lord also in the Gospel, when His disciples forsook Him for His words, turning to the twelve John 6, said, Will ye also go away? Then Peter answered Him,

Rom. 3,

3. 4.

67-69.

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