Cyprian of Carthage, On the Lapsed 6

They strained to swell their private fortunes, forgetting what believers had done under the apostles or what they have always been bound to do, and with an insatiable hunger they schemed to expand their holdings. No devoted religion marked the priests, no intact faith the ministers, no mercy the works, no discipline the morals. Men corrupted their beards, women painted their faces; eyes were falsified after God's hands laid on them, hair dyed with a lie. Cunning tricks were devised to deceive simple hearts, subtle designs to circumvent brothers. They bound themselves in marriage to unbelievers and prostituted the members of Christ to pagans. They not only swore rashly but also committed perjury; they despised their superiors with proud arrogance; they cursed with venomous mouths and tore at one another in stubborn hatreds. Many bishops, who should have been an exhortation and an example to the rest, scorned the divine charge and became managers of secular affairs; they abandoned their chairs, deserted their people, wandered through foreign provinces chasing profitable markets, while brothers starved in the Church. They craved money in abundance, seized estates by insidious fraud, and multiplied interest through compounding usury. What would we not deserve to suffer for such sins, when the divine censure has long since warned and declared: "If they forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they profane my statutes and do not keep my commandments, I will punish their transgressions with a rod and their iniquities with stripes" (Ps 89:31-32).