Cyprian of Carthage, Treatises Treatise 3

My beloved brothers, peace has returned to the Church, and what recently seemed impossible to unbelievers and the faithless has come to pass: our security has been restored through God's help and his vengeance. Joy has returned to our minds; the storm of oppression has blown over and the cloud has lifted, so that 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, not even during the persecution. After all, the enemy cannot be allowed so much power that we who love the Lord with our whole heart and soul and strength would fail to proclaim his blessings and praises everywhere and always, with glory.

The day everyone longed for has arrived. After the horrible, dark gloom of a long night, the world has blazed with the Lord's light. We gaze on the confessors, famous for their good name and glorious for the praise of their virtue and faith. With joyful hearts we cling to them with holy kisses, embracing those we have desired for so long with a longing that could never be satisfied. The white cohort of Christ's soldiers stands here — men who broke the fierce and turbulent fury of the persecution by standing their ground, ready for the patience prison demands, armed for the endurance death demands. You resisted the world with strength. You gave God a glorious spectacle. You became an example for the brothers who would follow.

A religious voice spoke Christ, confessing that it had believed in him once and for all. 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, spat out profane contagions and the remnants of idols. Your heads remained free of the impious, wicked veil that covered the captive heads of those who sacrificed. 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 gladly mother Church welcomes you back from the battle! How blessed, how overjoyed she throws open her gates so that you may enter with gathered ranks, carrying trophies from the prostrate enemy!

With the triumphant men come women who, fighting the world, conquered even their own sex. Virgins come too, bearing the double glory of their warfare, and boys who surpassed their years through virtue. The rest of the multitude standing by follows your glory, treading in your footsteps with honors of praise that nearly join your own. The same sincerity of heart is in them, the same tenacity of faith. Rooted in the unshaken roots of heavenly precepts and strengthened by the traditions of the Gospel, they were not terrified by prescribed exiles, or destined torments, or the loss of their estates, or bodily punishments. Days were set aside to test their faith. But the one who remembers that he has renounced the world knows no day of the world; the one who hopes for eternity from God no longer calculates earthly time.

No one, my beloved brothers, no one should mutilate this glory, no one should weaken the uncorrupted firmness of those who stood firm with malicious detraction. When the day appointed for those who denied had passed, whoever had not professed within that day confessed himself a Christian. The first title of victory is to confess the Lord when he is seized by the hands of the Gentiles. The second step to glory is to be reserved for the Lord by a cautious withdrawal. The former is a public confession; the latter is a private one. The former conquers the judge of the world; the latter, content with God as his judge, guards a pure conscience with the integrity of his heart. There, fortitude is more prompt; here, solicitude is more secure. The former, with his hour approaching, was already found mature. The latter was perhaps delayed — he who abandoned his patrimony withdrew precisely because he was not going to deny; he certainly would have confessed if he had also been detained.