24. And therefore, dearest brethren, whose fear is inclined towards God, and who having already despised and trampled under foot the world, have lifted up your mind to things heavenly and divine, let us with full faith, with devoted mind, with continual labour, give our obedience, to deserve well of the Lord. Let us give to Christ earthly garments, that we may receive heavenly raiment; let us give food and drink of this world, that we may come with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob to the heavenly banquet. That we may not reap little, let us sow abundantly. Let us, while there is time, take thought for our security and eternal salvation, according to the admonition of the Apostle Paul, who says: "Therefore, while we have time, let us labour in what is good unto all men, but especially to them that are of the household of faith. But let us not be weary in well-doing, for in its season we shall reap." [3580]
25. Let us consider, beloved brethren, what the congregation of believers did in the time of the apostles, when at the first beginnings the mind flourished with greater virtues, when the faith of believers burned with a warmth of faith as yet new. Then they sold houses and farms, and gladly and liberally presented to the apostles the proceeds to be dispensed to the poor; selling and alienating their earthly estate, they transferred their lands thither where they might receive the fruits of an eternal possession, and there prepared homes where they might begin an eternal habitation. Such, then, was the abundance in labours, as was the agreement in love, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles: "And the multitude of them that believed acted with one heart and one soul; neither was there any distinction among them, nor did they esteem anything their own of the goods which belonged to them, but they had all things common." [3581] This is truly to become sons of God by spiritual birth; this is to imitate by the heavenly law the equity of God the Father. For whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from His benefits and His gifts, so as to prevent the whole human race from enjoying equally the divine goodness and liberality. Thus the day equally enlightens, the sun gives radiance, the rain moistens, the wind blows, and the sleep is one to those that sleep, and the splendour of the stars and of the moon is common. In which example of equality, [3582] he who, as a possessor in the earth, shares his returns and his fruits with the fraternity, while he is common and just in his gratuitous bounties, is an imitator of God the Father.
26. What, dearest brethren, will be that glory of those who labour charitably--how great and high the joy when the Lord begins to number His people, and, distributing to our merits and good works the promised rewards, to give heavenly things for earthly, eternal things for temporal, great things for small; to present us to the Father, to whom He has restored us by His sanctification; to bestow upon us immortality and eternity, to which He has renewed us by the quickening of His blood; to bring us anew to paradise, to open the kingdom of heaven, in the faith and truth of His promise! Let these things abide firmly in our perceptions, let them be understood with full faith, let them be loved with our whole heart, let them be purchased by the magnanimity of our increasing labours. An illustrious and divine thing, dearest brethren, is the saving labour of charity; a great comfort of believers, a wholesome guard of our security, a protection of hope, a safeguard of faith, a remedy for sin, a thing placed in the power of the doer, a thing both great and easy, a crown of peace without the risk of persecution; the true and greatest gift of God, needful for the weak, glorious for the strong, assisted by which the Christian accomplishes spiritual grace, deserves well of Christ the Judge, accounts God his debtor. For this palm of works of salvation let us gladly and readily strive; let us all, in the struggle of righteousness, run with God and Christ looking on; and let us who have already begun to be greater than this life and the world, slacken our course by no desire of this life and of this world. If the day shall find us, whether it be the day of reward [3583] or of persecution, furnished, if swift, if running in this contest of charity, the Lord will never fail of giving a reward for our merits: in peace He will give to us who conquer, a white crown for our labours; in persecution, He will accompany it with a purple one for our passion.
[3519] [Numbered x. in Oxford ed., assigned to a.d. 254.]
[3520] A slight and scarcely noticeable difference occurs here in the Oxford text, which reads the passage, "that the Son was sent, and willed to be called the Son of man."
[3521] Portaverat; "had brought" (Oxf. transl.).
[3522] "Poisons of the old serpent."
[3523] [The beauty of Cyprian's exordiums and perorations proves that he was a true orator. "Great and manifold," etc., Translators of King James.]
[3524] Prov. xvi. 6. ["By mercy and truth," etc., Eng. Version.]
[3525] Ecclus. iii. 30.
[3526] Luke xi. 41.
[3527] Prov. xx. 9.
[3528] 1 John i. 8, 9. Oxford editors add: "If we confess our sins, the Lord is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." [They remind us that this passage is expounded in the Anglican Book of Homilies, Hom. xi. part ii. p. 347, ed. Philadelphia, 1844.]
[3529] Isa. lviii. 1.
[3530] Isa. lviii. 1-9.
[3531] Ecclus. xxix. 12.
[3532] Prov. xxi. 13.
[3533] Ps. xli. 1.
[3534] Some editors read "parcens" instead of "patiens," making the meaning "sparing to thy sins."
[3535] Dan. iv. 27.
[3536] Tob. xii. 8, 9.
[3537] Some have read for "satientur," "farciantur," and others "socientur," "be filled up," or "be associated."
[3538] Other translators read, "in the upper chamber."
[3539] Acts ix. 40.
[3540] Luke xii. 33.
[3541] Matt. vi. 19-21.
[3542] "When He would show to one who had observed the law how to become perfect and finished" (Oxf. transl.).
[3543] Matt. xix. 21.
[3544] Matt. xiii. 45, 46.
[3545] Luke xix. 8, 9.
[3546] Luke xvi. 11, 12.
[3547] Prov. xxviii. 27.
[3548] 2 Cor. ix. 10.
[3549] 2 Cor. ix. 12.
[3550] Matt. vi. 31-33.
[3551] 1 Tim. vi. 7-10.
[3552] Some editors read, "the resources of life."
[3553] Prov. x. 3.
[3554] Matt. v. 26.
[3555] Luke xvi. 14.
[3556] "Him who knows it," Oxford translation.
[3557] [Prov. i. 19. "The eagle stole a lamb from the altar," say the Rabbims, "to feed his young; but a coal from the altar came with it, and burnt up nest and all."]
[3558] According to Manutius, Pamelius, and others, "too heavily" is here added.
[3559] Luke xii. 20.
[3560] Rev. iii. 17, 18.
[3561] These words, "in Christ's Church," are omitted in a few texts.
[3562] [See Tertullian, vol. iv. p. 19; and for men, p. 22. Also, "eyelid-powder," p. 23.]
[3563] "Corban." [The note of the Oxford translation is useful in this place, quoting from Palmer, Antiq., iv. 8. But see Pellicia, Polity, etc., p. 237, trans. London, Masters, 1883.]
[3564] Luke xxi. 3, 4.
[3565] This is differently read "a widow, a poor widow is found," etc.; or, "a woman widowed and poor."
[3566] Matt. x. 37.
[3567] Deut. xxxiii. 9.
[3568] 1 John iii. 17.
[3569] 1 Kings xvii. 14.
[3570] [See p. 479, supra, note 7. [Prov. xi. 24.]
[3571] Job i. 5, LXX.
[3572] ["The howse shall be preserved and never will decaye Wheare the Almightie God is honored and served, daye by daye." This motto I copied from an old oaken beam in the hall of Rockingham Castle, with date a.d. 1579. In 1875 I saw the householder kneeling under this motto, with all his family and servants, daily.]
[3573] The original is variously read "foenerat" and "commodat."
[3574] Ps. xxxvii. 25, 26.
[3575] Prov. xx. 7.
[3576] Tob. xiv. 10, 11.
[3577] Tob. iv. 5-11.
[3578] Some editors add here, "warned by Thy precepts, and who shall receive heavenly things instead of earthly."
[3579] Matt. xxv. 31-46.
[3580] Gal. vi. 10, 9.
[3581] Acts iv. 32.
[3582] This appears to be the less usual reading, the ordinary one being "equity."
[3583] A more ancient reading seems to be, "of return" (scil. "reditionis").
Treatise IX.
On the Advantage of Patience. [3584]
Argument.--Cyprian Himself Briefly Sets Forth the Occasion of This Treatise at the Conclusion of His Epistle to Jubaianus as Follows: "Charity of Spirit, the Honour of Our College, the Bond of Faith, and Priestly Concord, are Maintained by Us with Patience and Gentleness. For This Reason, Moreover, We Have, with the Best of Our Poor Abilities, by the Permission and Inspiration of the Lord, Written a Pamphlet On the Benefit of Patience,' Which, for the Sake of Our Mutual Love, We Have Transmitted to You." a.d. 256.
1. As I am about to speak, beloved brethren, of patience, and to declare its advantages and benefits, from what point should I rather begin than this, that I see that even at this time, for your audience of me, patience is needful, as you cannot even discharge this duty of hearing and learning without patience? For wholesome discourse and reasoning are then effectually learnt, if what is said be patiently heard. Nor do I find, beloved brethren, among the rest of the ways of heavenly discipline wherein the path of our hope and faith is directed to the attainment of the divine rewards, anything of more advantage, either as more useful for life or more helpful to glory, than that we who are labouring in the precepts of the Lord with the obedience of fear and devotion, should especially, with our whole watchfulness, be careful of patience. [3585]
2. Philosophers also profess that they pursue this virtue; but in their case the patience is as false as their wisdom also is. For whence can he be either wise or patient, who has neither known the wisdom nor the patience of God? since He Himself warns us, and says of those who seem to themselves to be wise in this world, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will reprove the understanding of the prudent." [3586] Moreover, the blessed Apostle Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, and sent forth for the calling and training of the heathen, bears witness and instructs us, saying, "See that no man despoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ, because in Him dwelleth all the fulness of divinity." [3587] And in another place he says: "Let no man deceive himself; if any man among you thinketh himself to be wise, let him become a fool to this world, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, I will rebuke the wise in their own craftiness." And again: "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are foolish." [3588] Wherefore if the wisdom among them be not true, the patience also cannot be true. For if he is wise [3589] who is lowly and meek--but we do not see that philosophers are either lowly or meek, but greatly pleasing themselves, and, for the very reason that they please themselves, displeasing God--it is evident that the patience is not real among them where there is the insolent audacity of an affected liberty, and the immodest boastfulness of an exposed and half-naked bosom.
3. But for us, beloved brethren, who are philosophers, not in words, but in deeds, and do not put forward our wisdom in our garb, but in truth--who are better acquainted with the consciousness, than with the boast, of virtues--who do not speak great things, but live them,--let us, as servants and worshippers of God, show, in our spiritual obedience, the patience which we learn from heavenly teachings. For we have this virtue in common with God. From Him patience begins; from Him its glory and its dignity take their rise. The origin and greatness of patience proceed from God as its author. Man ought to love the thing which is dear to God; the good which the Divine Majesty loves, it commends. If God is our Lord and Father, let us imitate the patience of our Lord as well as our Father; because it behoves servants to be obedient, no less than it becomes sons not to be degenerate.
4. But what and how great is the patience in God, that, most patiently enduring the profane temples and the images of earth, and the sacrilegious rites instituted by men, in contempt of His majesty and honour, He makes the day to begin and the light of the sun to arise alike upon the good and the evil; and while He waters the earth with showers, no one is excluded from His benefits, but upon the righteous equally with the unrighteous He bestows His undiscriminating rains. We see that with undistinguishing [3590] equality of patience, at God's behest, the seasons minister to the guilty and the guiltless, the religious and the impious--those who give thanks and the unthankful; that the elements wait on them; the winds blow, the fountains flow, the abundance of the harvests increases, the fruits of the vineyards ripen, [3591] the trees are loaded with apples, the groves put on their leaves, the meadows their verdure; and while God is provoked with frequent, yea, with continual offences, He softens His indignation, and in patience waits for the day of retribution, once for all determined; and although He has revenge in His power, He prefers to keep patience for a long while, bearing, that is to say, mercifully, and putting off, so that, if it might be possible, the long protracted mischief may at some time be changed, and man, involved in the contagion of errors and crimes, may even though late be converted to God, as He Himself warns and says, "I do not will the death of him that dieth, so much as that he may return and live." [3592] And again, "Return unto me, saith the Lord." [3593] And again: "Return to the Lord your God; for He is merciful, and gracious, and patient, and of great pity, and who inclines His judgment towards the evils inflicted." [3594] Which, moreover, the blessed apostle referring to, and recalling the sinner to repentance, sets forward, and says: "Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the patience and goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up unto thyself wrath in the day of wrath and of revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who shall render to every one according to his works." [3595] He says that God's judgment is just, because it is tardy, because it is long and greatly deferred, so that by the long patience of God man may be benefited for life eternal. [3596] Punishment is then executed on the impious and the sinner, when repentance for the sin can no longer avail.