Cyprian of Carthage, Treatises Treatise 3

Peace has been restored to the Church, my dearly beloved brothers, and what recently seemed impossible to unbelievers and the faithless has come to pass: divine help and vengeance have repaired our security. Our minds return to joy, and now that the storm of oppression has broken and the cloud has dispersed, tranquility and serenity shine forth again. We must give praise to God and celebrate his benefits and gifts with thanksgiving, even though our voice never ceased giving thanks even during the persecution. For the enemy cannot be allowed so much power that we who love the Lord with our whole heart and soul and strength do not always and everywhere proclaim his blessings and praises with glory. The day that everyone longed for has arrived, and after the horrible, dark gloom of the long night, the world has shone out radiant with the Lord's light. We look upon the confessors with joy, those renowned for their good name and glorious for the praises of virtue and faith; we cling to them with holy kisses and embrace those we have long desired with an insatiable longing. The white cohort of Christ's soldiers stands here, those who broke the fierce and turbulent fury of the persecution by standing their ground, prepared for the patience of prison and armed for the endurance of death. You resisted the world bravely, you offered a glorious spectacle to God, and you became an example for the brothers who follow. A religious voice spoke Christ, confessing that it had once believed in him. Illustrious hands, accustomed only to divine works, resisted 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 that covered the captive heads of those who sacrificed. Your foreheads, pure with the sign of God, could not bear the devil's crown; they reserved themselves for the crown of the Lord. How gladly mother Church receives you as you return from battle! How blessed and rejoicing she opens her gates so that you may enter with assembled ranks, carrying trophies from the prostrate enemy! Triumphant men and women come forward, those who, fighting against the world, also conquered their sex. Virgins come too, bearing the double glory of their warfare, and boys who surpass their years with virtues. And the rest of the great multitude of those who stood firm follows your glory, tracking your footsteps with insignia of praise closely joined. The same sincerity of heart is in them, the same integrity of tenacious faith. Fixed on the unshaken roots of heavenly precepts and strengthened by evangelical traditions, they were not terrified by prescribed exiles, destined torments, loss of property, or bodily punishments. Days were being appointed 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, who hopes for eternity from God. No one, my dearly beloved brothers, no one should mutilate this glory; no one should weaken the incorrupt firmness of those who stood with malicious detraction. When the day appointed for those who deny has passed, whoever has not professed within that day has confessed himself to be a Christian. The first title of victory is to confess the Lord when 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 overcomes the judge of the world; the latter, content with God as his judge, keeps a pure conscience with integrity of heart. There, fortitude is more prompt; here, solicitude is more secure. The one, with his hour approaching, was already found mature; the other, perhaps delayed, who abandoned his patrimony and withdrew for that very reason because he would not deny — he certainly would have confessed if he too had been detained.