Cyprian of Carthage, On the Lapsed

Brothers, beloved of my heart, peace has returned to the Church; what the unbelieving and faithless recently thought impossible — our safety restored by God's own help and vengeance — has come to pass. Our minds turn again to joy; the storm of oppression has broken, the cloud has lifted, and tranquility and serenity shine once more. We must give praise to God, celebrate his benefits and gifts with thanksgiving, even though our voice never stopped giving thanks, not even in the persecution. For the enemy cannot be so strong that we who love the Lord with our whole heart and soul and strength should fail to proclaim his blessings and praises always and everywhere, to his glory. The day we all longed for has arrived; after the horrible, dark night, the world has shone radiant with the Lord's light. We gaze with joy on the confessors — renowned for their good name, glorious for their virtues and the praise of their faith — and we cling to them with holy kisses, embracing those we have desired with an unquenchable longing. The white cohort of Christ's soldiers stands here; they broke the fierce, turbulent fury of the persecution by their steadfast stand, ready for the patience of prison, armed for the endurance of death. You have resisted the world bravely; you have offered a glorious spectacle to God; you have become an example for the brothers who will follow. A religious voice has confessed Christ, the one in whom it had once believed. Hands distinguished by 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, wicked veil that covered the heads of the captive sacrificers. Your foreheads, marked with the sign of God and pure, could not bear the devil's crown; they reserved themselves for the Lord's crown. How gladly mother Church welcomes you returning from battle, opening her arms wide! How blessed and joyful she throws open her gates so that you may enter in gathered ranks, carrying trophies from the defeated enemy! Alongside the triumphant men come women who, fighting the world, have conquered even their sex. Virgins arrive, bearing a double glory of service, and boys who have outstripped their years by their virtues. The rest of the standing multitude follows your glory, tracing your footsteps with badges of praise that are near and almost joined to yours. The same sincerity of heart, the same tenacious integrity of faith, is in them. Rooted in the unshaken roots of heavenly precepts and strengthened by evangelical traditions, they were not terrified by prescribed exiles, nor by destined torments, nor by the loss of family property, nor by bodily punishments. Days were appointed for the testing of faith. But the one who remembers that he has renounced the world knows no day of the world; nor does he calculate earthly times, he who hopes for eternity from God. No one, beloved brothers, no one must diminish this glory; no one must weaken the uncorrupted firmness of those who stood by malignant detraction. When the day set for the deniers passed, whoever had not professed within that day confessed himself 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 kept 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. There, fortitude is more prompt; here, solicitude is more secure. There, the one whose hour approaches has already been found mature; here, perhaps, the one who has been delayed — who left his patrimony and withdrew because he would not deny — would certainly have confessed if he had also been detained. These heavenly crowns of martyrs, these spiritual glories of confessors, these greatest and most excellent virtues of the standing brothers — one sorrow afflicts them all: the violent enemy has cast down a torn part of our very bowels by the slaughter of his people. What shall I do here, beloved brothers? My mind tossed by varying waves, 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, the grief for the manifold loss of a people once so numerous. Who is so hard, so iron, so forgetful of brotherly love that, standing amid the manifold ruins and the mournful, squalid remnants of his own, he can keep dry eyes, and not, with tears bursting forth, pour out his groans first in tears rather than in voice? I grieve, brothers; I grieve with you. My own integrity and private health do not comfort me to ease my sorrow, when the pastor is wounded more deeply in the wound of his flock. My heart is joined to each one; I share the mournful, funeral weights of sorrow. I mourn with those who mourn; I lament with those who lament; I count myself as lying down with those who lie prostrate. The javelins of the raging enemy have struck my own members at the same time; the raging swords have passed through my bowels. The mind could not be immune and free from the onslaught of the persecution. In my fallen brothers, affection has laid me low as well.