Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 63.3 (Cup of the Lord)
It is no wonder that they now reject our plans or the Lord's commandments, since they have denied the Lord. They crave fees, offerings, and profits, wallowing in them with the same insatiable greed as before. Even now they pant after dinners and feasts; they used to belch out the gluttony of those banquets in crude daily fashion, and now they prove most clearly that they served not religion before, but rather their belly and their gain with profane desire. We perceive and believe that a censure has come from God's scrutiny, lest they persist in standing at the altar and further handling the shame of incest, the faith of the perfidious, the religion of the profane, divine things as earthly, and holy things as sacrilegious. So that such people may not return again to the impious desecrations and contaminations of the brothers at the altar, we must stand guard with all our strength and strive with all our vigor to repel them, as far as we can, from the audacity of their own crime, lest they attempt to act as priests—men who, having been cast down to the very brink of death, have fallen beyond the fallen laity under the weight of a greater ruin.
Latin
Nec mirum si consilia nostra aut Domini praecepta nunc abnuunt qui Dominnm negaverunt: stipes et oblationes et lucra desiderant, quibus prius insatiabiles incubabant; et coenis atque epulis etiam nunc inhiant, quarum crapulam superstite nuper in dies cruditate ructabant, nunc manifestissime comprobantes nec ante se religioni, sed ventri potius et quaestui profana cupiditate servisse. Unde et ipsam venisse perspicimus et credimus de Dei exploratione censuram, ne apud altare consistere et contrectare ulterius perseverarent pudorem incesti, fidem perfidi, religionem profani, divina terreni, sancta sacrilegi. Quod ne tales ad altaris impiamenta et contagia fratrum denuo redeant, omnibus viribus excubandum est, et omni vigore nitendum ut quantum possumus ab hac eos sui sceleris audacia retundamus, ne adhuc agere pro sacerdote conentur qui ad mortis extrema dejecti, ultra lapsos laicos ruinae majoris pondere proruerunt.