Epistle XIV.
To the Presbyters and Deacons Assembled
at Rome.
Argument.—He Gives an Account of His Withdrawal and of the Things
Which He Did Therein, Having Sent to Rome for His Justification, Copies
of the Letters Which He Had Written to His People; Nay, He Makes Use of
the Same Words Which He Had Employed in Them.
1. Cyprian to his brethren the presbyters and
deacons assembled at Rome, greeting. Having ascertained, beloved
brethren, that what I have done and am doing has been told to you in a
somewhat garbled and untruthful manner, I have thought it necessary to
write this letter to you, wherein I might give an account to you of my
doings, my discipline, and my diligence; for, as the Lord’s
commands teach, immediately the first burst of the disturbance arose, and the people with violent clamour repeatedly demanded me, I, taking into consideration not so much my own safety as the public peace of the brethren, withdrew for a while, lest, by my over-bold presence, the tumult which had begun might be still further provoked. Nevertheless, although absent in body, I was not wanting either in spirit, or in act, or in my advice, so as to fail in any benefit that I could afford my brethren by my counsel, according to the Lord’s precepts, in anything that my poor abilities enabled me.
2. And what I did, these thirteen letters
sent forth at various times declare to you, which I have transmitted to
you; in which neither counsel to the clergy, nor exhortation to the
confessors, nor rebuke, when it was necessary, to the exiles, nor my
appeals and persuasions to the whole brotherhood, that they should
entreat the mercy of God, were wanting to the full extent that, according to the law of faith and the fear of God, with the Lord’s help, my poor abilities could endeavour. But afterwards, when tortures came, my words reached both to our tortured brethren and to those who as yet were only imprisoned with a view to torture, to strengthen and console them. Moreover, when I found that those who had polluted their hands and mouths with sacrilegious contact, or had no less infected their consciences with wicked certificates, were everywhere soliciting the martyrs, and were also corrupting the confessors with importunate and excessive entreaties, so that, without any discrimination or examination of the individuals themselves, thousands of certificates were daily given, contrary to the law of the Gospel, I wrote letters in which I recalled by my advice, as much as possible, the martyrs and confessors to the Lord’s commands. To the presbyters and deacons also was not wanting the vigour of the priesthood; so that some, too little mindful of discipline, and hasty, with a rash precipitation, who had already begun to communicate with the lapsed, were restrained by my interposition. Among the people, moreover, I have done what I could to quiet their minds, and have instructed them to maintain ecclesiastical discipline.