Cyprian of Carthage, On the Lapsed 16
People despise and scorn every requirement: they receive the Lord's body and blood before their sins have been atoned for, before they have confessed their crime, before the priest's sacrifice and hand have cleansed their conscience, before they have appeased the offense of the indignant and threatening Lord. By doing so they now sin against the Lord with their hands and mouths even more grievously than when they denied him. They mistake for peace the hollow settlement that some peddle with deceitful words, but that is not peace — it is war. No one who is separated from the Gospel is joined to the Church. Why do they call injury a benefit? Why do they label impiety with the name of piety? Why do they pretend to share Communion with those who ought to weep and pray to their Lord without ceasing, cutting short the lamentation of repentance? To the lapsed, such people are what hail is to crops, what a turbulent star is to trees, what a pestilential wasteland is to herds, what a savage storm is to ships. They strip away the comfort of eternal hope, uproot the tree from its foundation, and with diseased speech creep toward lethal contagion; they drive the ship onto rocks so it cannot reach port. This false ease does not grant peace but takes it away; it does not impart communion but hinders it for salvation. This is another persecution, another temptation, through which the subtle enemy ravages the lapsed who are still to be attacked with hidden plundering — so that lamentation may be stilled, pain silenced, the memory of offenses erased, the groaning of hearts suppressed, the weeping of eyes stopped, and so that the Lord, gravely offended, may not be entreated with long and full repentance — since it is written: "Remember from where you have fallen, and repent" (Rev 2:5).
Latin
Spretis his omnibus atque contemptis, ante expiata delicta, ante exomologesin factam criminis, ante purgatam conscientiam sacrificio et manu sacerdotis, ante offensam placatam indignantis Domini et minantis, vis infertur corpori ejus et sanguini, et plus modo in Dominum manibus atque ore delinquunt, quam cum Dominum negaverunt. Pacem putant esse quam quidam verbis fallacibus venditant. Non est pax illa, sed bellum; nec Ecclesiae jungitur qui ab Evangelio separatur. Quid injuriam beneficium vocant? quid impietatem vocabulo pietatis appellant? Quid eis qui flere jugiter et rogare Dominum suum debent, intercepta poenitentiae lamentatione, communicare se simulant? Hoc sunt ejusmodi lapsis quod grando frugibus, quod turbidum sidus arboribus, quod armentis pestilens vastitas, quod navigiis saeva tempestas. Solatium aeternae spei adimunt, arborem a radice subvertunt, sermone morbido ad lethale contagium serpunt, navem scopulis, ne in portum perveniat, illidunt. Non concedit pacem facilitas ista sed tollit, nec communicationem tribuit, sed impedit ad salutem. Persecutio est haec alia et alia tentatio, per quam subtilis inimicus impugnandis adhuc lapsis occulta populatione grassatur, ut lamentatio conquiescat, ut dolor sileat, ut delicti memoria evanescat, ut comprimatur pectorum gemitus, statuatur fletus oculorum, nec Dominum, graviter offensum, longa et plena poenitentia deprecetur, cum scriptum sit: Memento unde cecideris, et age poenitentiam.