Treatise
IX.
On the Advantage of Patience.
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.” 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.
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.” 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.” 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.” Wherefore if the wisdom among them be not true, the patience also cannot be true. For if he is wise 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.