Epistle XXV.
Moyses, Maximus, Nicostratus, and the
Other Confessors Answer the Foregoing Letter. 250.
Argument.—They Gratefully Acknowledge the Consolation Which the
Roman Confessors Had Received from Cyprian’s Letter. Martyrdom is Not a Punishment, But a Happiness. The Words of the Gospel are Brands to Inflame Faith. In the Case of the Lapsed, the Judgment of Cyprian is Acquiesced in.
1. To Cæcilius Cyprian, bishop of the
church of the Carthaginians, Moyses and Maximus, presbyters, and
Nicostratus and Rufinus, deacons, and the other confessors persevering
in the faith of the truth, in God the Father, and in His Son Jesus
Christ our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit, greeting. Placed, brother, as we are among various and manifold sorrows, on account of the present desolations of many brethren throughout almost the whole world, this chief consolation has reached us, that we have been lifted up by the receipt of your letter, and have gathered some alleviation for the griefs of our saddened spirit. From which we can already perceive that the grace of divine providence wished to keep us so long shut up in the prison chains, perhaps for no other reason than that, instructed and more vigorously animated by your letter, we might with a more earnest will attain to the destined crown. For your letter has shone upon us as a calm in the midst of a tempest, and as the longed-for tranquillity in the midst of a troubled sea, and as repose in labours, as health in dangers and pains, as in the densest darkness, the bright and glowing light. Thus we drank it up with a thirsty spirit, and received it with a hungry desire; so that we rejoice to find ourselves by it sufficiently fed and strengthened for encounter with the foe. The Lord will reward you for that love of yours, and will restore you the fruit due to this so good work; for he who exhorts is not less worthy of the reward of the crown than he who suffers; not less worthy of praise is he who has taught, than he who has acted also; he is not less to be honoured who has warned, than he who has fought; except that sometimes the weight of glory more redounds to him who trains, than to him who has shown himself a teachable learner; for the latter, perchance, would not have had what he has practised, unless the former had taught him.
2. Therefore, again, we say, brother Cyprian, we
have received great joy, great comfort, great refreshment, especially
in that you have described, with glorious and deserved praises, the
glorious, I will not say, deaths, but immortalities of martyrs. For such departures should have been proclaimed with such words, that the things which were related might be told in such manner as they were done. Thus, from your letter, we saw those glorious triumphs of the martyrs; and with our eyes in some sort have followed them as they went to heaven, and have contemplated them seated among angels, and the powers and dominions of heaven. Moreover, we have in some manner perceived with our ears the Lord giving them the promised testimony in the presence of the Father. It is this, then, which also raises our spirit day by day, and inflames us to the following of the track of such dignity.