35. But you, beloved brethren, whose fear is ready towards God, and whose mind, although it is placed in the midst of lapse, is mindful of its misery, do you in repentance and grief look into your sins; acknowledge the very grave sin of your conscience; open the eyes of your heart to the understanding of your sin, neither despairing of the Lord's mercy nor yet at once claiming His pardon. God, in proportion as with the affection of a Father He is always indulgent and good, in the same proportion is to be dreaded with the majesty of a judge. Even as we have sinned greatly, so let us greatly lament. To a deep wound let there not be wanting a long and careful treatment; let not the repentance be less than the sin. Think you that the Lord can be quickly appeased, whom with faithless words you have denied, to whom you have rather preferred your worldly estate, whose temple you have violated with a sacrilegious contact? Think you that He will easily have mercy upon you whom you have declared not to be your God? You must pray more eagerly and entreat; you must spend the day in grief; wear out nights in watchings and weepings; occupy all your time in wailful lamentations; lying stretched on the ground, you must cling close to the ashes, be surrounded with sackcloth and filth; after losing the raiment of Christ, you must be willing now to have no clothing; after the devil's meat, you must prefer fasting; be earnest in righteous works, whereby sins may be purged; frequently apply yourself to almsgiving, whereby souls are freed from death. [3296] What the adversary took from you, let Christ receive; nor ought your estate now either to be held or loved, by which you have been both deceived and conquered. Wealth must be avoided as an enemy; must be fled from as a robber; must be dreaded by its possessors as a sword and as poison. [3297] To this end only so much as remains should be of service, that by it the crime and the fault may be redeemed. Let good works be done without delay, and largely; let all your estate be laid out for the healing of your wound; let us lend of our wealth and our means to the Lord, who shall judge concerning us. Thus faith flourished in the time of the apostles; thus the first people of believers kept Christ's commands: they were prompt, they were liberal, they gave their all to be distributed by the apostles; and yet they were not redeeming sins of such a character as these.
36. If a man make prayer with his whole heart, if he groan with the true lamentations and tears of repentance, if he incline the Lord to pardon of his sin by righteous and continual works, he who expressed His mercy in these words may pity such men: "When you turn and lament, then shall you be saved, and shall know where you have been." [3298] And again: "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord, but that he should return and live." [3299] And Joel the prophet declares the mercy of the Lord in the Lord's own admonition, when he says: "Turn ye to the Lord your God, for He is merciful and gracious, and patient, and of great mercy, and repenteth Him with respect to the evil that He hath inflicted." [3300] He can show mercy; He can turn back His judgment. He can mercifully pardon the repenting, the labouring, the beseeching sinner. He can regard as effectual whatever, in behalf of such as these, either martyrs have besought or priests have done. Or if any one move Him still more by his own atonement, if he appease His anger, if he appease the wrath of an indignant God by righteous entreaty, He gives arms again whereby the vanquished may be armed; He restores and confirms the strength whereby the refreshed faith may be invigorated. The soldier will seek his contest anew; he will repeat the fight, he will provoke the enemy, and indeed by his very suffering he is made braver for the battle. He who has thus made atonement to God; he who by repentance for his deed, who by shame for his sin, has conceived more both of virtue and of faith from the very grief of his fall, heard and aided by the Lord, shall make the Church which he had lately saddened glad, and shall now deserve of the Lord not only pardon, but a crown.
[3211] [Written a.d. 251.]
[3212] Cyprian had frequently promised, that as soon as peace should be restored to the Church, he would write something definite on the subject of the lapsed; and in the following treatise he fulfils his promise.
[3213] Now that they had been polluted with sacrifices, contrary to the law of the Gospel, before their sins were atoned for, before confession of their crime had been made, they were doing violence to the body and blood of the Lord, and were extorting communion and peace from certain presbyters, without the bishop's judgment. He exhorts them accordingly, in many words, that,--deterred by the divine vengeance on certain of the lapsed who had communicated unworthily, and animated by the example of those, who, although under the bondage of no crime, either of sacrifice or of certificate, yet, because they had even thought of these things, confessed with grief and sincerity the actual sin to God's priests and made avowal,--they should confess their sin, to public repentance and full satisfaction.
[3214] The veiled head was the sign of Roman worship.--Oxford trans. [This helps to interpret 1 Cor. xi. 4 which was equally against the Jewish practice.]
[3215] Some read, with very uncertain authority, "with the virtues of continency."
[3216] [This and the whole passage which follows are cited by Wordsworth, to illustrate the times that produced a Callistus. See his Hippol., p. 140.]
[3217] Some read, "to suffer."
[3218] A late version gives, "in the ministries."
[3219] [Vol. iv. p. 22. Here Cyprian's "master" seems to speak again.]
[3220] [The state of things at Rome under Callistus and his predecessor is here very delicately reflected.]
[3221] Or, "brought no aid to starving brethren in the Church."
[3222] Ps. lxxxix. 30.
[3223] "Christi sacramentum." [Like a panic in an undisciplined army.]
[3224] Deut. vi. 13.
[3225] Isa. ii. 8, 9.
[3226] Ex. xxii. 20.
[3227] [Mark viii. 36.]
[3228] [The baptism of infants seems now to be general, and also the communion of infants. See sec. 25, infra.]
[3229] Some read, "evil."
[3230] Isa. lii. 11.
[3231] Apoc. xviii. 4.
[3232] According to some, for "things" read "desires."
[3233] Matt. xix. 21.
[3234] Otherwise, "could be bound."
[3235] Some substitute, "have made shipwreck of."
[3236] 1 Tim. vi. 9.
[3237] Or, "a hundred-fold."
[3238] Mark x. 29.
[3239] Luke vi. 22.
[3240] "Were at hand."
[3241] Or, "the scourges were lacerating my already wearied body."
[3242] Isa. iii. 12.
[3243] Apoc. iii. 19.
[3244] Lev. vii. 20.
[3245] 1 Cor. x. 21.
[3246] 1 Cor. xi. 27.
[3247] By some, the rest of the sentence after this word ("priest") is placed at the beginning of the paragraph, after the word "contemned."
[3248] Venditant.
[3249] Apoc. ii. 5.
[3250] Jer. xvii. 5. [Here is an emphatic repudiation of what produced mediæval indulgences, saint-worship, and Mariolatry. Of the latter, so pre-eminently the system of modern Rome, not a syllable in all these Fathers. "Quam ritus eccles. nescit." Bernard, Ep. clxxiv., Opp.., i. 389.]
[3251] [All the whole base on which "indulgences" and the like rest, is here shown to be worthless.]
[3252] "To any."
[3253] "On his facility;" v. l.
[3254] Apoc. vi. 10.
[3255] "Worthy of."
[3256] [i.e., the confessors awaiting martyrdom. See vol. iv. p. 693, note 2.]
[3257] Ex. xxxii. 31.
[3258] Jer. i. 5.
[3259] Jer. vii. 16.
[3260] Ezek. xiv. 13.
[3261] Luke xii. 8.
[3262] Isa. xlii. 24.
[3263] Isa. lix. 1.
[3264] "And are angry."
[3265] Some omit "and priests."
[3266] [There can be no doubt where Cyprian would have been found in the times of Savonarola. See Perrens, Vie, etc., tom. ii. p. 350.]
[3267] [See p. 340, note 2, supra.]
[3268] Otherwise, "for the mercifulness of prayers."
[3269] Some read, "and fell down."
[3270] [What Cyprian testifies as of his own knowledge, we must accept as fact, however it be accounted for. For the rest, we may believe that the terrible excitements of the times led him to accept as real the exaggerated stories which became current. In our own days "the faith-cure" excites a like credulity.]
[3271] Some read, "of themselves;" others, "of their belongings."
[3272] [Infant communion.]
[3273] "And receiving the blood as if some deadly poison," etc.; v. l.
[3274] [They carried the sacred bread in this manner to invalids at home. The idea of "worshipping the host," therefore, could not have been possible.]
[3275] Or, "a certain one."
[3276] [The holy bread was delivered into the hands of the recipient. See Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagog., xxiii. 21.]
[3277] [Luke xi. 20. The whole of scriptural teachings concerning these, requires renewed study. Consult Tillotson, Works, ii. 508, ed. 1722.]
[3278] [The kindly but unwise interposition of the confessors in their behalf. See vol. iii. p. 693, note 2.]
[3279] Matt. vi. 24.
[3280] Ps. cxxxix. 16.
[3281] 1 Sam. xvi. 7.
[3282] Apoc. ii. 23.
[3283] Jer. xxiii. 23.
[3284] Gal. vi. 7.
[3285] Mark viii. 83.
[3286] [See sec. 32, p. 446, infra. Note, not after this life.]
[3287] Joel ii. 12.
[3288] Lev. xix. 27.
[3289] Song of the Three Children.
[3290] Some add, "to Thee, glory."
[3291] Dan. ix. 4.
[3292] [Sec. 29, supra. "While still in this world."]
[3293] Isa. xxix. 10; Vulg. "transpunctionis."
[3294] 2 Thess. ii. 10.
[3295] [2 Tim. ii. 17.]
[3296] [In view of Matt. xxv. 36.]
[3297] Instead of "and a poison," some read, "and sold."
[3298] Isa. xxx. 51.
[3299] Ezek. xxxiii. 11.
[3300] Joel ii. 13.
Treatise IV. [3301]
On the Lord's Prayer.
Argument.--The Treatise of Cyprian on the Lord's Prayer Comprises Three Portions, in Which Division He Imitates Tertullian in His Book on Prayer. In the First Portion, He Points Out that the Lord's Prayer is the Most Excellent of All Prayers, Profoundly Spiritual, and Most Effectual for Obtaining Our Petitions. In the Second Part, He Undertakes an Explanation of the Lord's Prayer; And, Still Treading in the Footsteps of Tertullian, He Goes Through Its Seven Chief Clauses. Finally, in the Third Part, He Considers the Conditions of Prayer, and Tells Us What Prayer Ought to Be. [3302] --
1. The evangelical precepts, beloved brethren, are nothing else than divine teachings,--foundations on which hope is to be built, supports to strengthen faith, nourishments for cheering the heart, rudders for guiding our way, guards for obtaining salvation,--which, while they instruct the docile minds of believers on the earth, lead them to heavenly kingdoms. God, moreover, willed many things to be said and to be heard by means of the prophets His servants; but how much greater are those which the Son speaks, which the Word of God who was in the prophets testifies with His own voice; not now bidding to prepare the way for His coming, but Himself coming and opening and showing to us the way, so that we who have before been wandering in the darkness of death, without forethought and blind, being enlightened by the light of grace, might keep the way of life, with the Lord for our ruler and guide!
2. He, among the rest of His salutary admonitions and divine precepts wherewith He counsels His people for their salvation, Himself also gave a form of praying--Himself advised and instructed us what we should pray for. He who made us to live, taught us also to pray, with that same benignity, to wit, wherewith He has condescended to give and confer all things else; in order that while we speak to the Father in that prayer and supplication which the Son has taught us, we may be the more easily heard. Already He had foretold that the hour was coming "when the true worshippers should worship the Father in spirit and in truth;" [3303] and He thus fulfilled what He before promised, so that we who by His sanctification [3304] have received the Spirit and truth, may also by His teaching worship truly and spiritually. For what can be a more spiritual prayer than that which was given to us by Christ, by whom also the Holy Spirit was given to us? What praying to the Father can be more truthful than that which was delivered to us by the Son who is the Truth, out of His own mouth? So that to pray otherwise than He taught is not ignorance alone, but also sin; since He Himself has established, and said, "Ye reject the commandments of God, that ye may keep your own traditions." [3305]
3. Let us therefore, brethren beloved, pray as God our Teacher has taught us. It is a loving and friendly prayer to beseech God with His own word, to come up to His ears in the prayer of Christ. Let the Father acknowledge the words of His Son when we make our prayer, and let Him also who dwells within in our breast Himself dwell in our voice. And since we have Him as an Advocate with the Father for our sins, let us, when as sinners we petition on behalf of our sins, put forward the words of our Advocate. For since He says, that "whatsoever we shall ask of the Father in His name, He will give us," [3306] how much more effectually do we obtain what we ask in Christ's name, if we ask for it in His own prayer! [3307]