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

Letter 21.

Celerinus to Lucianus. This letter, sent by Celerinus while he was staying at Rome to Lucianus the Carthaginian confessor, together with those that follow, does much to explain the controversy over restoring the lapsed, and shows the singular shamelessness of Lucianus in stirring it up: matters which caused a great deal of trouble to Cyprian and his Church. Hence it was to the purpose that he should collect these letters and see to their being joined to his own. See Ep. 37 and 39.

Of this world. This correction of the received reading, like the following ones too, is so manifest that there is no need to defend or illustrate them with commentary.

In so flowering a confession. Rigaltius says: That is, purple; one in which blood has been shed for the name of Christ. So Tertullian, in the book On the Crown, said that the soldier of Christ is reddened with the hope of his own blood. And a little later our Caecilius will speak of flowering martyrs, or confessors, made purple by shed blood. Indeed Salmasius long ago proved that Greek writers said anthēran, the purple of true light, that is, of a colour excellent and most perfectly in flower. So also Latin authors, about the age of Cyprian, called verses distinguished by exquisite sentiments "florid"; and certain excerpts of Apuleius [are called] Florida. And a florid colour is opposed to an austere one. Pliny, book 35, chap. 6.

I ask, however, dearest one, of the Lord. As if he had said: If you undergo martyrdom before my letter reaches you, I ask the Lord to have mercy on my wretched sisters. But if my letter reaches you alive, I beg you to send a reply, and to ask of God that I too may be worthy to be crowned, and to grant my desire on behalf of my sisters.

And therefore I ask that you grant my desire. [That is,] that you grant a certificate to Numeria and Candida, who had lapsed. On the origin of these certificates the most illustrious Baronius offers a fairly apt conjecture, under the year of Christ 253, paragraph 60. The custom seems to have arisen from this, that the lapsed were sent by the bishops to the confessors to obtain peace before they were reconciled to the Church, so that they might first ask pardon of those against whom they had offended so shamelessly when, while those men confessed bravely, they themselves had cravenly denied. Certainly a punishment of this kind seemed especially great. that they, defiled by a shameful denial, should even look upon the faces of those men, shining and adorned with the glory of confession. By this way provision was made both for the dignity of the confessors and for the benefit of the lapsed, who would thus be compelled, as the vanquished, to submit themselves to the victors, and by that humility of mind to earn pardon from the Church through their prayers. But what had once been introduced as a remedy, human wickedness began to turn into an offence, when the lapsed, despising the bishop and the other priests, flocked of their own accord to the martyrs, and, having extorted from them certificates of supplication to the bishop concerning communion, demanded from the Church rather than asked for a communion as if it had been pledged to them and was owed to the prayers of the martyrs. And indeed that the confessors enlarged their privileges from small beginnings to an immense degree is made credible by what they attempted at Rome at almost this very time, where by their certificates they were thrusting a pseudo-bishop upon the Church. So Pacianus, Ep. 2, says that Novatian was made bishop through the letter of those who pretended to be confessors. And Ep. 3: He, on the authority of letters, while [a bishop] was already sitting at Rome, against the law of the singular priesthood, assumes to himself the name of a second bishop. But in the present case something unexpected occurs for a peculiar reason. Celerinus, staying at Rome, asks of Lucianus, the Carthaginian confessor, that peace be granted to Numeria and Candida, who had lapsed at Rome and remained there driven out of the Church. This prerogative indeed far surpasses the rights of bishops, whose power is confined within the limits of their own dioceses. But in truth martyrs were reckoned, from the first ages of the Christian faith, as belonging not to any one Church but to all: for we see that the Acts of the martyrs were sent from one Church to others, and that the martyrologies of individual Churches contained the names not only of their own people but also of men far removed. Moreover there were close at hand Moyses and Maximus, and others at Rome

confessors, of whom some, Moyses at least, were being crowned with martyrdom; why then does Celerinus not ask pardon for his lapsed sisters from them? Did this happen because Numeria and Candida were Africans, and, although they had sinned at Rome, were reckoned to the Church of Carthage, and were therefore to be relieved by the suffrages of the martyrs of the Church of Carthage? Or was a milder persecution threatened at Rome, so that capital punishments were not expected there? Certainly Moyses seems to have died of disease after long squalor of prison; and the rest had at length got free. Or finally, because there was no bishop at Rome, nor yet any hope that the lapsed women would be restored to their full standing until a bishop should be appointed, did they therefore look elsewhere and implore the good faith of the prelate of Carthage? On these matters I have no wish to decide anything: let the learned reader examine them.

Until the help of our Lord Jesus Christ. Understand "be"; or "be granted".

The ministry of the flourishing ones. Rigaltius says: So we judge it should be read. He calls "flourishing" those confessors already conspicuous for a flourishing confession, who, already tortured on the rack or torn with hooks, had kept faith with Christ most constantly, and so were awaiting the proconsul's decision in prison: meanwhile feeding their constancy on the sacred Scriptures, raising up hope, fixing confidence: in short, handling all the things which the character of the present times urged them either to give warning of beforehand or to recognize. To these duties of Christian piety, then, Lucianus, made overseer over them, himself also distinguished by a flourishing confession, ministered for the brethren shut in with him, and wrote out the desires of the confessors to the brethren who perhaps close by had retained the form of the Church, or dispensed the refreshments sent from the breasts of their lady mother the Church.

Made overseer of God. Perhaps in the same sense in which in Rev. 5:10 the martyrs are called kings and priests to God. Or he means in particular the ministry of the flourishing ones, by which he was made overseer over the martyrs, that is, undertook the management on their behalf. But in truth the passage is corrupt, nor can any good sense easily be extracted from what follows. Perhaps "friend of God" should be restored, for the martyrs are constantly honoured with this title.

Because he paid out gifts for himself, so as not to sacrifice. Rigaltius says: He had bought off the necessity of sacrificing with money. So most were accustomed to do who distrusted their own strength to endure torments. They therefore bargained with the informer, or the soldier, or some petty thief of a governor. Towards these our Caecilius was much more humane and kind than Tertullian, who held that persecution was neither to be fled nor bought off. The price makes the difference, he says: but just as flight is a redemption without payment, so a redemption with money is flight. Peter of Alexandria, canon 12, not only excuses but defends the buying off of harassment with money, by the example of Jason, Acts 17, who was let go when money had been given; and by that passage of Holy Scripture, The price of the redemption of a man's soul is his own riches. Of those indeed who gave money in this way he says expressly: "It is not possible to bring an accusation."

Sixty-five. All who had been proscribed after confession were held to be exiles, even if they went on to Rome. Nor were hiding places anywhere safer than in the City. Those who looked to their own safety by flight before they were dragged to the tribunal were called fugitives. By this no ordinary expense, and lavish bounty towards so great a number of confessors, those sisters were trying to redeem the wrong they had committed.

Letter 22.

If I shall be worthy to be called colleague. Rigaltius says: Celerinus had written to Lucianus: That even from the lowest place your own one may call you brother, if I, Celerinus, shall be worthy to be so called. Lucianus therefore returns his own words to Celerinus, in a beautiful contest of Christian humility, which the letter itself will presently make plain, no more elegant than the preceding one, but no less Christian.

I have received your letter in which you have so greatly burdened me. Rigaltius says: The diction of this whole letter is very harsh and unpolished, but the beginning especially is most tangled: yet the mind is worthy of a good confessor of Christ. Lucianus replied

to the letter of Celerinus, and says that he was burdened with such great shame by it, as soon as he read those words of Celerinus: If I should be worthy to hear myself called your brother, that, weighed down thereafter by lasting shame, he almost fell away from the joy, very great, which he had conceived from the letter he had longed to read after so long a time. I was exulting, he says, on reading the most honourable mention of me; but on account of so great a kindness of your humility, by which you think so lowly of yourself or so grandly of me that you said: If I should be worthy to be named your brother, I was so given over to blushing that all my joy, thrown into confusion, almost collapsed. For what is my confession before a petty little magistrate, compared with that of yours, which confessed the name of Christ not only before a soldier or before some governor, but before Caesar himself, and that with noble utterances and plainly divine words, by which, I know, you conquered that greater serpent, the harbinger of antichrist. And this indeed I know, with what confidence the lovers of the faith and those jealous for the discipline of Christ know it: in which vigour of steadfastness I rejoice again and again that you too are engaged.

The harbinger of antichrist. Rigaltius says: For according to the words of Paul to the Thessalonians, antichrist [comes] from the end of the Roman empire. And he cleverly says serpent, as if the line or cord of the one marking out [a camp]. And he alludes to the devil, whom the sacred Scriptures name the serpent. Rather, the metator of antichrist is his forerunner, just as the metatores went ahead of an army to mark out places suitable for pitching camp. See what was said at Epistle 6.

By confessing you deterred. An incurable sore, for which neither the Vatican nor the Bodleian library supplies a remedy, in which alone we have found copies of this and the preceding Epistle. If room be given to conjecture, I would think that those words, I know as it were (or, them) lovers of the faith. And jealous for the discipline of Christ, were the words of Celerinus before the emperor, when he was being questioned about the affairs of the Christians. So then the period should be framed thus: For you, God willing, not only by confessing deterred that greater serpent himself, the harbinger of antichrist, but also by those utterances and deifying words, by which, I know, as lovers of the faith, and, jealous for the discipline of Christ (in which vigour of steadfastness I rejoice that you are engaged), you conquered. By his confession he deterred Decius, but by his defence he conquered him. Or else let it be written, by which I know what an animator of the faith you are, and one jealous for the discipline of Christ, so that the words are Lucianus'. But others will perhaps offer more correct readings than these.

After my summoning. Rigaltius says: After the Lord has called me. Christians are unwilling to say death, and martyrs least of all, for whom the crown is at hand.

If anyone asks peace of you, give it in my name. Rigaltius says: Rather, it ought to have been given in the name of Christ, if it was expedient to give it; not in the name of that Paul, however blessed a martyr. And for this reason Cyprian rightly censures the presumption of Lucianus in the Epistle immediately following, full of gravity and Christian prudence.

Of Bassus in the stone-quarry. Rigaltius says: It must be seen in the exemplar whether any traces of the writing survive: in petrario, because he was in the mine. Having consulted the manuscript codices, since one reads perario, the other pegrario, and the printed editions pejerario, with no sense at all, there is not the least doubt that the true reading is the one we have given. It is well enough known that among Greek and Latin writers the word latomiae signifies a prison, or the mines. Plautus in the Captivi: You will go off, then, to the stone-quarries.

Of Paul after the torture. Rigaltius says: So in the synodal Acts collected by Hilary of Poitiers, Liberius from exile. But since Mappalicus is said to have died in the torture, Paul after the torture, it seems likely that the one died amid the torments, the other after the torments.

When the case has been set out before the bishop. Pamelius says: You see here that by Lucianus, however indiscreet, that was nevertheless observed which Cyprian so often censures in the presbyters [for neglecting], namely that the hearing of cases before the bishop and the exomologesis should come first, before peace was given, even at the request of martyrs. Although the persecution was still being pressed, at least against those who had been consigned to custody, yet affairs seemed to be tending towards peace, so that thereafter Christians were not sought out; so far that Lucianus asks peace for the lapsed already

to be granted 'when the Lord has begun to give peace to the Church itself'; not, that is, after awaiting its full arrival and the return of the bishop and the confessors. Otherwise there would be no dispute between Cyprian and Lucianus, since he [Cyprian] contended that the lapsed were to be restored once peace had been given back to the Church.

Letter 23.

What they have done after the offence. Those who, having been admitted to penance, have so conducted themselves in it that they have given no offence to the bishop and the faithful, are to be received forthwith, even though they have by no means completed the time assigned to them. And this not only at Carthage, but everywhere throughout Africa.

We desire that you have peace with the holy martyrs. These words contain a threat: namely, that if Cyprian failed to perform these things, the martyrs would not hold communion with him; as though it lay in their power not only to grant communion to anyone they pleased, but even to snatch it away from the bishops themselves.

One of the clergy being present. In former times the dealings of Christians were carried on not without the greatest danger; and therefore their letters were always entrusted to the good faith of clerics, and were for that reason also called 'clerical': so much so that Cyprian found it necessary to ordain a lector for this very purpose, that he might carry letters to Rome. See Letter 29. Lucian, however, in order to win some authority for his letters, brings in witnesses who belonged to the clergy; but these by no means weighty ones: a certain unnamed exorcist, and also a lector likewise unnamed.

Letter 24.

To Cyprian and his fellow presbyters. I punctuate so that 'residing at Carthage' belongs to the presbyters, and not to Cyprian. For it is clear from its opening words that this letter was written while the persecution was raging. That Caldonius was a bishop, though of which city is little known, we learn from Letters 41 and 48. Wishing to consult the church of Carthage on a doubtful matter, as to what ought to be done about it, he thought it right to address his letter not only to Cyprian, who was in hiding, but also to his presbyters, who were at Carthage; especially since it could scarcely be delivered otherwise than by their help. This same Caldonius, towards the end of this persecution, received delegated power from Cyprian to administer, in his name and in his stead, the business of restoring the lapsed; and accordingly, at that time at least, he was sufficiently instructed as to what ought to be done in that whole matter. Saint Peter, in his first Epistle, chapter 5, calls himself a fellow presbyter.

Felix, who served the presbyter. Pamelius says that 'to serve the presbyter' seems to mean nothing other than what we today call acting as a presbyter's vicar. Such, among us, appear to be the curates of parish priests. Rigaltius says: 'One who attended the presbyters in frequent ministry.' So in the letter of Celerinus, which comes next, Numeria and Candida are said to have ministered to sixty-five confessors and to have cherished them in all things. Perhaps 'to serve the presbyterium' will be the same as to minister, or to discharge that office: so that this Felix was presbyter to Decimus, who was the predecessor of Caldonius in the episcopate. Meanwhile it must be recognized that in Cyprian's age 'presbyterium' denoted the ecclesiastical consistory. So in the letter of Cornelius about the confessors who returned to unity it is said, 'it was decided that the presbyterium be convened'; and it may be that the scribe or notary of this assembly is said 'to serve the presbyterium'. But if it were permitted to proceed by conjecture in the writings of the ancients, I would hold that the genuine reading was: 'Felix, who served the presbyter for Decimus'; that is, one who, when the martyr Decimus was at the point of death, arranged that a presbyter should attend him.

Letter 25.

As if prostrate they ought not. The very dress and bearing of penitents proclaimed a fall; who [were] therefore 'those who fall prostrate'