[3339] John vi. 38.
[3340] 1 John ii. 15-17.
[3341] Some add "earnestly."
[3342] Gal. v. 17-22.
[3343] [See Hooker (a beautiful passage) in Walton's Life, "on the angels in heaven;" also, E. P., book v. cap. xxxv. at close.]
[3344] Some editions omit this "not."
[3345] This passage is differently read as follows: "And according as we say Our Father, so also we call Christ our bread, because He is ours as we come in contact with His body."
[3346] [Probably in times of persecution. See Freeman, Principles of Divine Service.]
[3347] John vi. 58.
[3348] John vi. 53.
[3349] [Not tied to actual daily reception, however. See the figure, 1 Kings xix. 7, 8. But see valuable note on (epiousios) the supersubstantial bread. Cyril of Jerusalem, p. 277, Oxford trans. of the Mystagogic Lectures.]
[3350] Luke xiv. 33.
[3351] Matt. vi. 34.
[3352] 1 Tim. vi. 7.
[3353] Luke xii. 20.
[3354] Prov. x. 3.
[3355] Ps. xxxvii. 25.
[3356] Matt. vi. 31.
[3357] [Thus the petition covers (1) our spiritual food, John vi. 27; and (2) our bodily sustenance, Matt. vi. 8.]
[3358] Matt. xviii. 32.
[3359] "Although none is innocent" is here added by some.
[3360] 1 John i. 8. [Connect with this, Matt. vi. 15, and compare Freeman on the Principles of Divine Service, vol. i. p. 417.]
[3361] Matt. vii. 2.
[3362] Mark xi. 25. [Elucidation III.]
[3363] [Ps. lxviii. 6. Vulgate and Angl. Psalter.]
[3364] [Cyprian was very mild in his position against the accusations of Stephen. Sec. 26, p. 386, supra; also Treatise ix., infra.]
[3365] Or, "will judge."
[3366] 1 John iii. 15.
[3367] 2 Kings xxiv. 11.
[3368] Isa. xlii. 24.
[3369] 1 Kings xi. 14.
[3370] Job i. 12.
[3371] John xix. 11.
[3372] Mark xiv. 38.
[3373] Verbum.
[3374] Sermonem.
[3375] Isa. x. 22.
[3376] John xvii. 3.
[3377] Matt. xii. 29-31.
[3378] Matt. xxii. 40.
[3379] Matt. vii. 12.
[3380] Luke v. 16.
[3381] Luke vi. 12.
[3382] [Such was the example of Cotton Mather. Magnalia, i. 35.]
[3383] Luke xxii. 31.
[3384] John xvii. 20.
[3385] [Unity again enforced.]
[3386] [The antiquity of the Sursum Corda is here shown. Elucidation IV.]
[3387] Cant. v. 2.
[3388] Col. i. 2.
[3389] [Should not this principle be more effectually taught?]
[3390] Tob. xx. 8.
[3391] Acts x. 2, 4.
[3392] Tob. xii. 12-15.
[3393] Isa. lviii. 6-9.
[3394] Phil. iv. 18.
[3395] [By the apostles, as here mentioned. Acts iii. 1 and passim.]
[3396] Ps. v. 2.
[3397] Hos. vi. 1.
[3398] Ps. cxviii. 22.
[3399] Mal. iv. 2.
[3400] Luke ii. 37.
[3401] [On the Amen see Elucidation V. See vol. i. p. 186.]
Treatise V. [3402]
An Address to Demetrianus.
Argument.--Cyprian, in Reply to Demetrianus the Proconsul of Africa, Who Contended that the Wars, and Famine, and Pestilence with Which the World Was Then Plagued Must Be Imputed to the Christians Because They Did Not Worship the Gods; Fairly Urges (Having Argued that All Things are Gradually Deteriorating with the Old Age of the World) that It Was Rather the Heathens Themselves Who Were the Cause of Such Mischiefs, Because They Did Not Worship God, And, Moreover, Were Distressing the Christians with Unjust Persecutions. [3403]
1. I had frequently, Demetrianus, treated with contempt your railing and noisy clamour with sacrilegious mouth and impious words against the one and true God, thinking it more modest and better, silently to scorn the ignorance of a mistaken man, than by speaking to provoke the fury of a senseless one. Neither did I do this without the authority of the divine teaching, [3404] since it is written, "Speak not in the ears of a fool, lest when he hear thee he should despise the wisdom of thy words;" [3405] and again, "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him." [3406] And we are, moreover, bidden to keep what is holy within our own knowledge, and not expose it to be trodden down by swine and dogs, since the Lord speaks, saying, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." [3407] For when you used often to come to me with the desire of contradicting rather than with the wish to learn, and preferred impudently to insist on your own views, which you shouted with noisy words, to patiently listening to mine, it seemed to me foolish to contend with you; since it would be an easier and slighter thing to restrain the angry waves of a turbulent sea with shouts, than to check your madness by arguments. Assuredly it would be both a vain and ineffectual labour to offer light to a blind man, discourse to a deaf one, or wisdom to a brute; since neither can a brute apprehend, nor can a blind man admit the light, nor can a deaf man hear.
2. In consideration of this, I have frequently held my tongue, and overcome an impatient man with patience; since I could neither teach an unteachable man, nor check an impious one with religion, nor restrain a frantic man with gentleness. But yet, when you say that very many are complaining that to us it is ascribed that wars arise more frequently, that plague, that famines rage, and that long droughts are suspending the showers and rains, it is not fitting that I should be silent any longer, lest my silence should begin to be attributed to mistrust rather than to modesty; and while I am treating the false charges with contempt, I may seem to be acknowledging the crime. I reply, therefore, as well to you, Demetrianus, as to others whom perhaps you have stirred up, and many of whom, by sowing hatred against us with malicious words, you have made your own partisans, from the budding forth of your own root and origin, who, however, I believe, will admit the reasonableness of my discourse; for he who is moved to evil by the deception of a lie, will much more easily be moved to good by the cogency of truth.
3. You have said that all these things are caused by us, and that to us ought to be attributed the misfortunes wherewith the world is now shaken and distressed, because your gods are not worshipped by us. And in this behalf, since you are ignorant of divine knowledge, and a stranger to the truth, you must in the first place know this, that the world has now grown old, and does not abide in that strength in which it formerly stood; nor has it that vigour and force which it formerly possessed. This, even were we silent, and if we alleged no proofs from the sacred Scriptures and from the divine declarations, the world itself is now announcing, and, bearing witness to its decline by the testimony of its failing estate. [3408] In the winter there is not such an abundance of showers for nourishing the seeds; in the summer the sun has not so much heat for cherishing the harvest; nor in the spring season are the corn-fields so joyous; nor are the autumnal seasons so fruitful in their leafy products. The layers of marble are dug out in less quantity from the disembowelled and wearied mountains; the diminished quantities of gold and silver suggest the early exhaustion of the metals, and the impoverished veins are straitened and decreased day by day; the husbandman is failing in the fields, the sailor at sea, the soldier in the camp, innocence in the market, justice in the tribunal, concord in friendships, skilfulness in the arts, discipline in morals. Think you that the substantial character of a thing that is growing old remains so robust as that wherewith it might previously flourish in its youth while still new and vigorous? Whatever is tending downwards to decay, with its end nearly approaching, must of necessity be weakened. Thus, the sun at his setting darts his rays with a less bright and fiery splendour; thus, in her declining course, the moon wanes with exhausted horns; and the tree, which before had been green and fertile, as its branches dry up, becomes by and by misshapen in a barren old age; and the fountain which once gushed forth liberally from its overflowing veins, as old age causes it to fail, scarcely trickles with a sparing moisture. This is the sentence passed on the world, this is God's law; that everything that has had a beginning should perish, and things that have grown should become old, and that strong things should become weak, and great things become small, and that, when they have become weakened and diminished, they should come to an end.
4. You impute it to the Christians that everything is decaying as the world grows old. What if old men should charge it on the Christians that they grow less strong in their old age; that they no longer, as formerly, have the same facilities, in the hearing of their ears, in the swiftness of their feet, in the keenness of their eyes, in the vigour of their strength, in the freshness of their organic powers, in the fulness of their limbs, and that although once the life of men endured beyond the age of eight and nine hundred years, it can now scarcely attain to its hundredth year? We see grey hairs in boys--the hair fails before it begins to grow; and life does not cease in old age, but it begins with old age. Thus, even at its very commencement, birth hastens to its close; [3409] thus, whatever is now born degenerates with the old age of the world itself; so that no one ought to wonder that everything begins to fail in the world, when the whole world itself is already in process of failing, and in its end.
5. Moreover, that wars continue frequently to prevail, that death and famine accumulate anxiety, that health is shattered by raging diseases, that the human race is wasted by the desolation of pestilence, know that this was foretold; that evils should be multiplied in the last times, and that misfortunes should be varied; and that as the day of judgment is now drawing nigh, the censure of an indignant God should be more and more aroused for the scourging of the human race. For these things happen not, as your false complaining and ignorant inexperience of the truth asserts and repeats, because your gods are not worshipped by us, but because God is not worshipped by you. For since He is Lord and Ruler of the world, and all things are carried on by His will and direction, nor can anything be done save what He Himself has done or allowed to be done, certainly when those things occur which show the anger of an offended God, they happen not on account of us by whom God is worshipped, but they are called down by your sins and deservings, by whom God is neither in any way sought nor feared, because your vain superstitions are not forsaken, nor the true religion known in such wise that He who is the one God over all might alone be worshipped and petitioned.
6. In fine, listen to Himself speaking; Himself with a divine voice at once instructing and warning us: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God," says He, "and Him only shalt thou serve." [3410] And again, "Thou shalt have none other gods but me." [3411] And again, "Go not after other gods, to serve them; and worship them not, and provoke not me to anger with the works of your hands to destroy you." [3412] Moreover, the prophet, filled with the Holy Spirit, attests and denounces the anger of God, saying, "Thus saith the Lord Almighty: Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man to his own house, therefore the heavens shall be stayed from dew, and the earth shall withhold her fruits: and I will bring a sword upon the earth, and upon the corn, and upon the wine, and upon the oil, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labours of their hands." [3413] Moreover, another prophet repeats, and says, "And I will cause it to rain upon one city, and upon another city I will cause it not to rain. One piece shall be rained upon, and the piece whereon I send no rain shall be withered. And two and three cities shall be gathered into one city to drink water, and shall not be satisfied; and ye are not converted unto me, saith the Lord." [3414]
7. Behold, the Lord is angry and wrathful, and threatens, because you turn not unto Him. And you wonder or complain in this your obstinacy and contempt, if the rain comes down with unusual scarcity; and the earth falls into neglect with dusty corruption; if the barren glebe hardly brings forth a few jejune and pallid blades of grass; if the destroying hail weakens the vines; if the overwhelming whirlwind roots out the olive; if drought stanches the fountain; a pestilent breeze corrupts the air; the weakness of disease wastes away man; although all these things come as the consequence of the sins that provoke them, and God is more deeply indignant when such and so great evils avail nothing! For that these things occur either for the discipline of the obstinate or for the punishment of the evil, the same God declares in the Holy Scriptures, saying, "In vain have I smitten your children; they have not received correction." [3415] And the prophet devoted and dedicated to God answers to these words in the same strain, and says, "Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; Thou hast scourged them, but they have refused to receive correction." [3416] Lo, stripes are inflicted from God, and there is no fear of God. Lo, blows and scourgings from above are not wanting, and there is no trembling, no fear. What if even no such rebuke as that interfered in human affairs? How much greater still would be the audacity in men, if it were secure in the impunity of their crimes!