Cyprian of Carthage, On the Lapsed

Behold, dearest brothers, peace has returned to the Church, and by God's own aid and vengeance our security has been restored—something that recently seemed impossible to the unbelieving and the faithless. Minds turn back to joy, and now that the storm of oppression has blown over and the cloud has been dispersed, tranquility and serenity shine forth once more. We must give praise to God and celebrate his benefits and gifts with thanksgiving, even though our voice never stopped giving thanks even during the persecution. For the enemy cannot be given so much power that we—who love the Lord with our whole heart and soul and strength—fail to proclaim his blessings and praises always and everywhere with glory. The day that everyone longed for has come, and after the horrible, gloomy darkness of the long night, the world has shone out radiant with the Lord's light. We look upon the confessors with joyful eyes—men renowned for their good name and glorious in the praise of virtue and faith—clinging to them with holy kisses and embracing those we have longed for with an insatiable desire. The white cohort of Christ's soldiers stands here, those who broke the ferocious turbulence of the persecution by their steadfast stand, ready for the endurance of prison, armed for the endurance of death. You resisted the world mightily; you offered a glorious spectacle to God; you became an example for the brothers who follow. A religious voice confessed Christ, in whom it declared it had once believed. Illustrious hands, accustomed only to divine works, refused to take part in sacrilegious sacrifices. Mouths sanctified by heavenly food, after receiving the body and blood of the Lord, rejected profane contagions and the remnants of idols. Your heads remained free from the impious and wicked veil with which the heads of the captive sacrificers were covered. Your foreheads, marked pure with the sign of God, could not bear the devil's crown; they reserved themselves for the Lord's crown. How joyfully mother Church welcomes you, returning from battle! How blessed and rejoicing she opens her gates so that you may enter with gathered ranks, carrying back trophies from the prostrate enemy! Women come alongside the triumphant men—women who, fighting against the world, also conquered their own sex. The virgins come too, bearing the double glory of their warfare, and boys who have spent their years in virtues. The rest of the multitude of the standing follows your glory as well, their insignia of praise so closely joined to yours that they walk in your footsteps. They share the same sincerity of heart, the same integrity of tenacious faith. Rooted in the unshaken roots of the heavenly precepts and strengthened by the evangelical traditions, they were not terrified by prescribed exiles, destined torments, the loss of their family property, or the punishments of their bodies. The days were predetermined for the testing of faith. But whoever remembers that he has renounced the world knows no day of the world; nor does he calculate earthly times, since he hopes for eternity from God. No one, dearest brothers, must mutilate this glory; no one must weaken the incorrupt steadfastness of the standing with malignant detraction. When the day appointed for those who denied had passed, whoever had not professed within that day confessed that he is a Christian. The first title of victory is to confess the Lord, seized by the hands of the Gentiles; the second step toward glory is to be reserved for the Lord by a cautious withdrawal. The former is a public confession, the latter a private one. The former conquers the judge of the world; the latter, content with God as his judge, guards a pure conscience with integrity of heart. In the former, fortitude is more prompt; in the latter, solicitude is more secure. The one was found mature when his hour approached; the other was perhaps delayed—he who, having abandoned his patrimony, withdrew because he would not deny; he would certainly have confessed if he had also been detained. One sorrow afflicts these heavenly crowns of the martyrs, these spiritual glories of the confessors, these greatest and most excellent virtues of the standing brothers: the violent enemy has thrown down a torn part of our own bowels through the slaughter of his people. What shall I do in this place, dearest brothers? My mind tossed by a varied storm, what shall I say, or how? Tears are needed more than words to express the grief with which the wound of our body must be lamented, and the manifold loss of a once numerous people must be mourned. For who is so hard or iron-hearted, who so forgetful of fraternal charity, that standing amid the manifold ruins and the mournful, squalid remnants of his own people he can keep his eyes dry, and not—immediately bursting into weeping—pour out his groans in tears rather than in voice? I grieve, brothers, I grieve with you; my own integrity and private health do not flatter me into easing my grief, when the shepherd is wounded all the more in the wound of his flock. My heart is joined to each of you; I share the mournful weights of sorrow and funeral. I lament with those who lament, I weep with those who weep, I feel that I lie down with those who lie down. The darts of the raging enemy have struck my members at the same time; the raging swords have passed through my own bowels. The mind could not be immune and free from the onslaught of persecution. In my prostrate brothers, affection has prostrated me as well.