Appendix quarta: Oxoniensis editionis selectae in Cyprianum notae; J. M. Routh, notae; J. Trombelli, praefatio in Exhortationem ad poenitentiam

Luke 20:21, "to accept the face [of a person]". To which is opposed "to teach the way of God in truth". God is not a respecter of persons.

They lie in wait for. Rigaltius says: What a foul stain laid low even the martyrs of that Church! For Cyprian means this: that even among the martyrs there were some who had certificates of peace for sale. But it is far more shameful if the bishops themselves are the agents and retailers of those wares.

To the clergy and to the people. That this was written at the same time as the two following is shown from this: that although Cyprian mentions them in this one, he also, conversely, makes mention of this one in them. See Ep. 16 and 17 towards the end.

Letter 16.

For a long time I have kept my patience. Our author had earlier written several letters from his retreat to the presbyters and deacons; but in the matter of the lapsed, after receiving the insolent demand of Donatus, Fortunatus, Novatus and Gordius, which he had hoped to satisfy, since he had said that it should be deferred until his return, he now for the first time writes a letter to them.

Some of the presbyters. Namely those named in the preceding letter, among whom some are known to be those very men who afterwards were hostile to our Cyprian, and who are distinguished by the title of the five presbyters; yet in order to soften them he calls them fellow presbyters.

Nor mindful of their place. Rigaltius says: The presbyteral rank, which is subordinate to the episcopal. For such was the ecclesiastical order under Cyprian, and the very same had already obtained in the age of Tertullian. For where he discusses the power of giving baptism, he says: The highest priest, who is the bishop, has the right of giving it; then the presbyters and deacons, yet not without the authority of the bishop, on account of the honour of the Church; while this is kept safe, peace is kept safe. Indeed this was the order from the first beginnings of Christian piety, at least from the time when the bishops admitted presbyters to a share in their cares. Hence he says that this attempt of the presbyters was never at all made under his predecessors. Ignatius says that it is permitted to do nothing without the judgement of the bishop, neither to baptize, nor to offer, nor to bring the sacrifice.

In contempt of their superior they claim everything for themselves. They do not stay within the limits of a request, so that they leave nothing to the bishop except the glory of compliance or the necessity of obeying.

Without the principle of restoring salvation. Rigaltius says: that is, of communion, outside which there is no salvation.

All sins shall be forgiven to the sons of men. Rigaltius says: These are the words of Mark, chapter 3: "all sins shall be forgiven to the sons of men". The author of the Vulgate version made the sense of these words ambiguous by transposing the verb "shall be forgiven", an order which Cyprian has kept here. But in Book 3 to Quirinus he said most plainly that one who has sinned against God cannot be forgiven in the Church; then he cites from the Gospel according to Matthew: Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come. And immediately he adds from Mark: All sins shall be forgiven to the sons of men, and blasphemies, etc. From which it is most manifest, from this letter and from the book to Quirinus, that this is Cyprian's mind: that all sins which anyone has committed against the sons of men, that is, against men, are forgiven, but not those against the Holy Spirit. This indeed Cyprian has from his master. For in the book On Modesty he says: You forgive, so that it may be forgiven you by God. Those offences are cleansed which one has committed against a brother, not against God. Finally, in prayer we profess that we will forgive our debtors. Without doubt Septimius understood: our debtors, not God's. With all due respect to Rigaltius, such a sense ought to be assigned to these words of Cyprian as can stand with his purpose. He cites this passage to show that pardon is not to be granted rashly to the lapsed, yet in such a way that it is not denied to the penitent. I think, therefore, it must be said that our author held that to blaspheme the Spirit

Holy, is entirely the same as to deny Christ. And indeed in Luke 12 these words are immediately joined to those: Whoever shall have confessed Me before men, the Son of man also will confess him before the Angels of God; and he who shall have denied Me before men will be denied before the Angels of God. Moreover, where the same saying of the Lord occurs in Matthew 12 and Mark 3, it is directed at those who blaspheme against Him. See what is noted on book 3 To Quirinus, chapter 28: He will not have remission. Because he is to be cast out of the Church, and cannot be restored except through penance, which is the one plank after shipwreck.

Of eternal sin. So some Greek copies read ἁμαρτίας. By eternal sin he understands that supreme wickedness of idolatry, which banishes [one] from the Church.

They will fall further. Rigault says: Those who have already fallen away from the faith pledged to Christ now fall away also from the discipline of the Church of Christ.

In lesser sins. At least when regard is had to Apostasy, for he means among other things adultery and homicide. Cyprian draws the same comparison in the next Letter.

Their name is offered. Rigault says: They are named among the sacrifices of prayers. Prayers or petitions for them are presented to God by name through the Presbyters. Their name is offered together with the prayers which are offered for them. As for what Pamelius observes, that in manuscript books the Canon is worded thus: Remember, O Lord, Thy servants and handmaids; names, it must be understood thus: that after the words, Remember, O Lord, Thy servants and handmaids, the word "names" was written by way of direction; by which, namely, the presbyter who makes [intercession] for the people would be reminded that mention of certain persons by name was to be made at this place.

When the exomologesis has been made. We noted above, on the book On the Lapsed, that public confession is meant here. So in the Letter to Antonianus: It was resolved that those who had sacrificed should be helped at their departure, because there is no exomologesis among the dead: where it is entirely clear that those words of the Psalmist are cited: In hell who will confess to Thee? Then in express words it is added: And because there is no confession among the dead, nor can exomologesis be made there. So in the book On the Lapsed: How much greater in faith, and better in fear, are those who, although bound by no crime of sacrifice or certificate, yet because they even thought of it, confessing this very thing sorrowfully and simply before the priests of God, make the exomologesis of conscience and lay bare the burden of their mind. And immediately he says of the three youths: They made exomologesis to God in the midst of the fire And likewise he says of Daniel: Making exomologesis sorrowfully, he said: O Lord, great God, etc. We have sinned, we have committed a crime, etc.

They set the servants of God at odds with the priest of God. Rigault says: That is, with the Bishop. So in Letter 52, the priest of God appointed at Rome. It is to be noticed here that the servants of God are set at odds with the priest of God. But the priest of God ought to remember that he too is a servant of God.

Mindful of our place. Rigault says: [The place] of the Bishop, and indeed of the Church of Carthage, which was the first see of the province, and therefore bore the care of many Churches. So in the Code of the African Church, Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage: I, by the favour of God, as you know, brethren, bear the solicitude of all the Churches. In the same place, Numidius the Bishop to Aurelius: this see has always had this right, to ordain a Bishop according to the wish of each Church. Likewise Epigonius the Bishop: You must support all the Churches. Thus Cyprian himself begins Letter 15 so: The solicitude of our place and the fear of the Lord compel [me].

Daily too among us the innocent age of boys is filled with the Holy Spirit, which sees in ecstasy. Rigault says: Not only from dreams but also from frenzy, men most praised for Christian piety have conceived divine presages of various events. And the examples of dreams which our Caecilius relates to the presbyters of his Church we have noted above. This Letter, through the ecstatic utterances of innocent boys, urges certain admonitions or commands. Daily, he says, there is filled among

us by the Holy Spirit the innocent age of boys, which in ecstasy sees with its eyes, and hears and speaks those things by which the Lord deigns to warn and instruct us. Rightly, "in ecstasy". For the power of the divine Spirit, coming upon the boys, put out whatever there was in them of mind, whether lodger or member of the household: so that each, no longer master of himself, filled with that great indweller, perceived nothing but his guest, and neither saw nor spoke anything else. How nearly Aristotle had this grace of divine frenzy ascertained, in the book On Divination through Sleep, where he admits that ecstatics sometimes foresee things to come. "The reason," he says, "why some of the ecstatics foresee is that their own movements do not trouble them but are beaten back; so they perceive the foreign ones most of all." But whence come those "foreign" things, unless brought and carried in by that divine guest? Excellently Philo in his dissertation Who is the Heir of Divine Things: "For the mind in us is evicted at the arrival of the divine Spirit; for it is not lawful for the mortal to dwell together with the immortal. For this reason the setting of reasoning and the darkness around it brought forth ecstasy and God-borne madness." The same author says that this frenzy is "a divine and possessing madness". And for this reason Tertullian, against Marcion, also maintains this, that ecstasy, that is, loss of mind, befits grace. "For a man set in the spirit," he says, "must needs fall out of sense." Therefore in ecstatics wisdom dies for a while. Clearly the human is so darkened and overshadowed by the coming of the divine that it seems for the time to have departed. Chrysostom, where he speaks of the vision in which Peter beheld a huge vessel let down from heaven: "An ecstasy, a spiritual vision, came upon him; the soul, as one might say, went out of the body."

Letter 17.

"Those standing among the people." See what was said on Letter 1.

"To whom the divine mercy is able to give healing." Even the followers of Montanus and Novatian were of that opinion, that those convicted of the gravest crimes, although they may not obtain pardon from the Church, can nevertheless obtain it from God: the question, therefore, did not turn on this; and rightly our author sets this check against the lapsed who were hastening to peace, that the salvation of those who happened to die before the completion of penance had not been given up for lost.

Letter 18.

"That summer had begun." Another reason for relaxing discipline is supplied by the twentieth Letter, in Pamelius's numbering 15: namely that not only the lapsed and very many of the Carthaginian presbyters, but also the Roman Church had judged that indulgence should be used; and it would be altogether hard to incur, at one and the same time, the ill will and anger not only of his own people but also of the neighbouring Church, with which his withdrawal was even then in bad repute

"To make confession before a deacon also." Rigaltius says: "For there is priesthood also in the diaconate." So Letter 20: "Likewise the vigour of the priesthood was not lacking to the presbyters and deacons." Rigaltius must be read with caution here, when he says that there is priesthood in the diaconate. Whatever necessity compels, it also justifies, but only so long as it presses. Well known is the story in Eusebius, book 6, chapter 44, of the Eucharist sent to Serapion by a boy: yet no one will say that it is lawful for boys to distribute those sacred mysteries. And he goes far from the truth when, in support of his statements, he adduces the words found below: "The vigour of the priesthood was not lacking to the presbyters and deacons." For Cyprian there means that his own authority over the offenders themselves, whether they were presbyters or deacons, had not been lacking, since he had admonished both. Further, confession is said to be made before a deacon, not as though he alone were privy to it, for the penance even of the sick, so far as could be done in those ages, was public; but because, in the absence of the presbyter, to whom that office chiefly belonged, the presence of a deacon was held altogether necessary, however many of the people happened to be present. For since the Church

was comprised in the clergy and the people, it was fitting that when satisfaction was made to it through exomologesis, those should be present who represented both parts. The form was given by Cyprian the bishop: that is, he prescribed the condition under which the lapsed were to be received into the Church, as is abundantly clear from this letter and the following one, and from very many others. Of the form or condition having been fulfilled, the witnesses and judges in the name of the Church were the deacon and the lay brethren summoned for this matter. This was the ancient system of ecclesiastical discipline, that the prelates, meeting with the clergy, with the people of those who stood firm also present, to whom also honour is to be paid for their faith and fear, should arrange all things by the sacred bond of common counsel. Thus in the conferring of sacred orders, the appointment (katastasis) belonged to the bishops, the consent (syneudokesis) to the people. See Ep. 67, and also Clement's Epistle to the Romans, paragraph 44.

The part of the people which has lapsed. In the second class were the lapsed commended by no suffrages of the martyrs, or even not yet admitted to penance; but, warned of their danger by the terror of approaching death, they were suppliants that they might be admitted to peace. Although these were not to be received on equal terms, they were nevertheless to be commended to the divine mercy; by whose protection their minds were to be supported, until such time as fuller remedies could be procured. That this is the sense of the words is clearly evident from the following letter.

To the hearers also. The third order is that of the catechumens; who, since they had not yet pledged their faith to Christ, seemed to have lapsed more lightly than the rest; and therefore could expect a readier pardon.

Letter 20.

The account of our conduct. Rigaltius says: By "conduct" he means ministry, administration, discipline. And towards the end of this letter: Our conduct, which ought to be united and to agree in all things. So also Ep. 26: They desire their conduct to be approved even by their own brethren.

As the commands of the Lord instruct. Namely Matt. 10:23, to which may be added also His example, which is equivalent to a command: Luke 4:30 and elsewhere. Hence Origen, on John 18:12, says: "He teaches us in persecutions and in the plots against us to withdraw." To this purpose Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 4, giving the reason why the Lord commanded flight, says: "He wishes us to be neither the cause nor the joint cause of any evil to anyone, whether to ourselves, or besides to the persecutor and the slayer. For in a manner He forewarns that one should take care of oneself. But he who disobeys is rash and foolhardy. And if he who slays a man of God sins against God, he also becomes guilty of the one who kills him, who brings himself before the tribunal. Such would be he who does not shun persecution, but through boldness offers himself to be caught; this man, as far as lies in him, becomes a fellow worker in the wickedness of the persecutor." Similarly the Church of Smyrna, describing the passion of Polycarp, which indeed took place after his withdrawal, calls it "the martyrdom according to the Gospel." Adding: "For he waited to be betrayed, as the Lord also was, that we too might become imitators of him, looking not only to what concerns ourselves, but also to what concerns our neighbours," etc. The things which are brought forward with great pomp on the other side savour more of Montanus than of Christ.

Had defiled their hands and mouths with sacrilegious contacts. Rigaltius says: Those were called "sacrificati" who had defiled their hands by placing incense on the censer, or had defiled their mouths by eating things offered to idols.

Thousands of certificates were given daily. How great was the number of the lapsed in the Decian persecution may be established even from this; especially since the martyrs everywhere included whole families in a single certificate. "Let him communicate with his own." See Ep. 15, and elsewhere Ep. 23: "We have granted peace to all." And further: "Let not only these have peace, but also those whom you know to be dear to our heart." Ep. 22. Certainly, thousands of certificates of this kind would seem sufficient for the lapsed human race.