28. And oh, mockery of a deceived fraternity! Oh, vain deception of miserable and senseless mourners! Oh, ineffectual and profitless tradition of heretical institution! to exhort to the repentance of atonement, and to take away the healing from the atonement; to say to our brethren, "Mourn and shed tears, and groan day and night, and labour largely and frequently for the washing away and cleansing of your sin; but, after all these things, you shall die without the pale of the Church. Whatsoever things are necessary to peace, you shall do, but none of that peace which you seek shall you receive!" Who would not perish at once? Who would not fall away, from very desperation? Who would not turn away his mind from all design of lamentation? Do you think that the husbandman could labour if you should say, "Till the field with all the skill of husbandry, diligently persevere in its cultivation; but you shall reap no harvest, you shall press no vintage, you shall receive no fruits of your olive-yard, you shall gather no apples from the trees;" or if, urging upon any one the possession and use of ships, you were to say, "Purchase, my brother, material from excellent woods; inweave your keel with the strongest and chosen oak; labour on the rudder, the ropes, the sails, that the ship may be constructed and fitted; but when you have done this, you shall never behold the result from its doings and its voyages?"
29. This is to shut up and to cut off the way of grief and of repentance; so that while in all Scripture the Lord God sooths those who return to Him and repent, repentance itself is taken away by our hardness and cruelty, which intercepts the fruits of repentance. But if we find that none ought to be restrained from repenting, and that peace may be granted by His priests to those who entreat and beseech the Lord's mercy, inasmuch as He is merciful and loving, the groaning of those who mourn is to be admitted, and the fruit of repentance is not to be denied to those who grieve. And because in the place of the departed there is no confession, neither can confession be made there, [2509] they who have repented from their whole heart, and have asked for it, ought to be received within the Church, and to be kept in it for the Lord, who will of a surety judge, when He comes to His Church, those whom He shall find within it. But apostates and deserters, or adversaries and enemies, and those who lay waste the Church of Christ, cannot, even if outside the Church they have been slain for His name, according to the apostle, be admitted to the peace of the Church, since they have neither kept the unity of the spirit nor of the Church.
30. These few things for the present, out of many, dearest brother, I have run over as briefly as I could, that I might thereby both satisfy your desire, and might link you more and more closely to the society of our college and body. [2510] But if there should arise to you an opportunity and power of coming to us, we shall be able to confer more fully together, and to consider more fruitfully and more at large the things which make for a salutary agreement. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.
[2450] Oxford ed.: Ep. lv. a.d. 252.
[2451] That he may induce him to this, he narrates the history of the whole disturbance between Cornelius and Novatian, and explains that Cornelius was an excellent man, and legitimately elected; while Novatian was guilty of many crimes, and had obtained an unlawful election.
[2452] ["Our co-bishop,"--language which reflects our author's idea of Catholic communion. See his Treatise on Unity; also p. 329.]
[2453] [His idea is, that to be in communion with the whole Church, one must be in fellowship with his own lawful bishop.]
[2454] Ep. xiii. 2.
[2455] [The provincial council, clearly.]
[2456] Ep. xxx. p. 310.
[2457] [On principles of Catholic unity expounded in his Treatise.]
[2458] [Note this appeal to Scripture always, as enthroned infallibility, insuring the presence of the Spirit of counsel.]
[2459] [A most important reference to the true position of the Roman See. Elucidation IX.]
[2460] [Novatian and his like.]
[2461] [On the death of Fabian, see Ep. iii. p. 281; sufferings of Cornelius (inference), p. 303; Decius, p. 299.]
[2462] [On the death of Fabian, see Ep. iii. p. 281; sufferings of Cornelius (inference), p, 303; Decius, p. 299.]
[2463] [Not by a mere decision, but by consent of "colleagues."]
[2464] Opprimi.
[2465] [Jude 22.]
[2466] [Episcopo tractante. See Oxford trans., a valuable note, p. 124; also Vincent, Common., cap. 28.]
[2467] [Ezek. xxxiv. 4.]
[2468] 1 Cor. x. 33; xi. 1.
[2469] 1 Cor. ix. 22.
[2470] 1 Cor. xii. 26.
[2471] Col. ii. 8.
[2472] Num. xii. 3.
[2473] Luke vi. 36.
[2474] Matt. ix. 12.
[2475] [Compare Cyprian, in all this, with his less reasonable "master" Tertullian.]
[2476] Apud inferos. See Ps. vi. 5.
[2477] Prov. xviii. 19 (old version).
[2478] Gal. vi. 1, 2.
[2479] 1 Cor. x. 12.
[2480] Rom. xiv. 4.
[2481] 1 John ii. 1, 2.
[2482] Rom. v. 8, 9.
[2483] [I bespeak admiration for this loving spirit of one often upbraided for his strong expressions and firm convictions.]
[2484] These words are variously read, "to be purged divinely," or "to be purged for a long while," scil. "purgari divine," or "purgari diutine." [Candid Romish writers concede that this does not refer to their purgatory; but, the idea once accepted, we can read it into this place as into 1 Cor. iii. 13. See Oxford trans., p. 128.]
[2485] [The unity of the Catholic Church, in his view, consists in this unity of co-bishops in one episcopate, with which every Christian should be in communion through his own bishop.]
[2486] [The independence of bishops, and their intercommunion as one episcopate, is his theory of the undivided sacrament of Catholicity.]
[2487] Apoc. ii. 5.
[2488] Tob. iv. 10.
[2489] Apoc. ii. 20-22.
[2490] Luke xv. 7.
[2491] Wisd. i. 13.
[2492] Joel ii. 12, 13.
[2493] Ps. lxxxix. 32, 33.
[2494] Matt. vii. 9-11.
[2495] [Matt. v. 4. A striking exposition. "The quality of mercy is not strained," etc.]
[2496] [The primitive canons require the consent of a majority of comprovincials, and three at least to ordain.]
[2497] [One of the many aphoristic condensations of the Cyprianic theory. Elucidation X.]
[2498] Eph. iv. 2, 3.
[2499] ["The body of his fellow-bishops," as above.]
[2500] 2 Tim. ii. 20.
[2501] John v. 14.
[2502] 1 Cor. vi. 18.
[2503] 2 Cor. xii. 21.
[2504] Eph. v. 5.
[2505] Col. iii. 5, 6.
[2506] Ezek. xviii. 20.
[2507] Deut. xxiv. 26.
[2508] ["Fools make a mock at sin." But what serious reflections are inspired by the solemn discipline of primitive Christianity! Mercy is magnified, indeed, but pardon and peace are made worth striving after. Repentance is made a reality, and we hear nothing of mechanical penances and absolutions.]
[2509] [He has never heard of indulgences and masses for the dead, nor of purgatorial remission. See p. 332, note 7.]
[2510] [To the unity of our common episcopate. Note this; for, if he had imagined Cornelius to have been a "Pope," he must have said, "to unity with the true pontiff, against whom Novatian has rebelled, and made himself an anti-pope."]