Saint Cyprian of Carthage

But this rest, which the Church enjoyed for some time, was soon disturbed by the cr uel De Décius Roman emperor who initiated a rigorous persecution of Christians. cius, who invaded the empire after the death of Philip (249); for, no sooner did this tyrant see himself in a position to issue edicts, than he published very rigorous ones against the Christians: this unleashed the fury of the idolaters against them, and filled all the provinces with frightful carnage. Only demons could have invented such torments; many Christians were in danger of losing their faith along with the crown of martyrdom. This is how Saint Cyprian speaks of it, and he further remarks that the first who allowed themselves to be carried away by this storm to deny Jesus Christ were those who, in the calm of peace, had already denied Him through a wicked life, and who, having attached themselves to their possessions, their families, and their pleasures by bonds condemned by the Gospel, could not resolve to lose, for the sake of defending it, the things they loved with such passion. The holy bishop spared nothing then to strengthen his flock against such a violent attack: he animated them to victory through his powerful exhortations; he prepared them for penance, and rendered them worthy of martyrdom through the practice of all Christian virtues.

The idolaters, who knew how much such a vigilant and generous pastor gave courage to the faithful, tried by all sorts of means to seize him, and their desire to put him to death was so violent that it was cried out several times from the middle of the amphitheater to bring him forth to be devoured by wild beasts. He would have willingly exposed himself to it; but, instead of following his own zeal, he followed the movement of the Holy Spirit and the advice of those who, judging by inspiration from above, persuaded him to withdraw in order to preserve himself for his flock. Indeed, what would his poor sheep have done if, in such a terrible conjuncture, they had seen themselves deprived of their pastor? Who would have taken care of the purity of the virgins, whom the pagans were striving to seduce? Who would have brought back to penance those whom fear or weakness caused to succumb to the rigor of the torments? Who would have defended the truth against the heretics? Who would have maintained unity against the schismatics? Who would have maintained peace and the evangelical law among his people? Who would have consoled those who had been robbed of all their goods in hatred of the religion? Who would have animated the confessors, who already bore on their foreheads the marks of their faith and their constancy, to sustain a second martyrdom to which they were reserved? Finally, who would have led souls to patience, fidelity, and perseverance, if the Church of Carthage had lost this admirable bishop? He did not absent himself to avoid martyrdom, but to postpone it to another occasion less prejudicial to his people. It was not the fear of death that gave him this thought, but the desire to serve the Christians more. He reserved himself to restore the sick, to heal the wounded, to strengthen the wavering, to raise up those who had fallen, and to maintain his entire flock in an unshakable firmness in the midst of the storm.

He therefore left Carthage after having assembled the faithful to tell them the subject and motives of his retreat, and remained hidden in a place of safety, from where he constantly provided for their needs, by watching over them and writing them admirable epistles that had the same effects as if he had been present. He would have them come to secluded places, sometimes one group, sometimes another, to exhort them to suffer the torments of the persecutors with constancy. He took care that, during the night, there were persons designated to bury those who had died in the rigor of the tortures; that those who had endured only the pains of the rack were carefully dressed to heal their wounds; and, finally, that those who had lost their goods through the injustice of the tyrants were assisted by the alms of others. A furious plague, which ravaged the whole city at the same time, provided him with new occasions to make his pastoral zeal shine forth. He provided for the spiritual and temporal needs of the sick, who were abandoned by everyone. He divided the tasks of those he had charged to assist them, so that no one would lack help, not even the idolaters; and everyone, animated by his letters all filled with the fire of charity, moved with incredible fervor to execute the instructions he gave them. As the persecution had taken away Pope Saint Fabian, he consulted the clergy of Rome regarding his retreat during the vacancy of the Apostolic See: he was ready to sacrifice himself, if it were judged necessary, for the good of his Church. His retreat was praised and approved by these venerable ecclesiastics, who recognized the need the faithful had for the vigilance of such a good pastor.

These misfortunes were followed by another even more dangerous, since it tended to overturn the ecclesiastical discipline that no tortures had been able to shake. Many Christians of Carthage, who were not firm in the faith, fearing the loss of their goods, their positions, and their lives, denied their faith. Some did so openly; others, thinking to diminish their crime, obtained from the magistrates certificates attesting that they had obeyed the edicts of the emperor, having in secret, either by themselves or by proxy, protested in their presence that they renounced Jesus Christ; thus delivering themselves, by money, from making this renunciation in public, as the general law ordered. Hence they were called Libellatici (from libellus, certificate). The Church of Africa did not receive them to communion until after a long penance; but, as it obliged them to very harsh satisfactions, they often addressed themselves to the confessors and martyrs who were in prison or who were going to their deaths, to obtain, by their intercession, the remission of the canonical penalties that remained for them to suffer. The respect held for persons who suffered for the glory of Jesus Christ was so great that, upon their recommendation, penitents were received into ecclesiastical communion, even though they had not completed the time prescribed by the canons. But this indulgence of the holy confessors produced a very bad effect: those who had sacrificed or who had received certificates from the magistrates were admitted too easily.

Saint Cyprian was warned of this in his retreat, and tried to remedy it through three excellent epistles that he wrote to his clergy, to the martyrs, to the confessors, and to his people, exhorting them not to relax the discipline, without considering the difference of the fall and the time elapsed in penance. Felicissimus, a turbulent man who, with five priests, had opposed the election of Saint Cyprian, and, since then, had not let any occasion pass to cause trouble for the holy Bishop, rose up against him and did everything he could to put him at odds with the confessors of Jesus Christ. For, not content with working toward this division, which did not succeed, he openly formed a schism, set up altar against altar, assembling his party on a mountain outside the city, and excommunicated all those who did not adhere to him. But, as much as his excommunication was frivolous, so just and terrible was that of our Saint, who, unable to hide any longer the disorder that this rebel was causing among the people, nor the other crimes of which he was guilty, struck him with anathema. However, seeing that those who had obtained these recommendations from the confessors were making great entreaties to him and to the other bishops to be admitted to the communion of the Church, and that his authority alone could not appease the trouble that had arisen for this reason in Carthage, he wrote again to the clergy of Rome, the Holy See being still vacant. This illustrious clergy judged his rigor very sound, and replied to him that to use the leniency of which he complained was not to heal, but to kill the patient; that the penitents must knock at the doors of the Church and not strive to break them down; that they should prostrate themselves on the threshold, but not undertake to go further; that they should watch at the entrance of the heavenly camp, but armed with modesty and remembering that they had been deserters; that they should use their tears as ambassadors, and their groans, drawn from the depths of their chests, as advocates, in order to prove the greatness of their sadness and to erase the shame of their sin. Finally, it concluded that, by the advice of several neighboring bishops, it had been found appropriate to innovate nothing until the election of a successor in the place of Fabian, and that in the meantime the reconciliation of those who could wait should be prolonged, and that it should be granted to those who were near death, provided they had given worthy fruits of a true penance. Saint Cyprian followed this arrangement, by which he retained and preserved ecclesiastical discipline in its ancient integrity.

In his excellent treatise on those who had fallen during the persecution, he reports terrible punishments by which God punished the irreverence of persons who, after having defiled themselves with meats offered to idols, dared to receive Jesus Christ without having been purified by a true penance and without having merited reconciliation. He recounts, among others, that a man guilty of crime having received the Eucharist in his hand found only ashes when he wanted to eat it, and that a little girl, who had been carried by her nurse to the temple of the gods, and who had been made to taste some liquor offered to the idols, could never swallow the blood of Jesus Christ that the deacon presented to her in the church, according to the custom of the time, and that she resisted so much that she forced the nurse to confess what had happened.

This conduct of Saint Cyprian, so conformable to the Canons and authorized by the Church of Rome, should have shielded him from censure; but the spirit of schismatics never spares anyone, and the most eminent holiness is exposed to their malice. Privatus, whom the holy Bishop had not wanted to admit to a synod, caballed with five bishops guilty of apostasy to put another on the seat of Carthage, and Fortunatus, one of the priests who had already formed the schism with Felicissimus, appearing suitable for their design, they ordained him bishop, and immediately they sent the same Felicissimus to Rome, to Cornelius, who had succeeded Fabian, to obtain his communion by surprise and to accuse Saint Cyprian. Corneille Pope contemporary with Dionysius, opposed to Novatian. This embassy was rejected at first; but the schismatics, not losing courage, importuned the Pope with such ardor that, seeing no one arrive on behalf of our Saint, and being astonished at his silence in such an important matter, he wrote to him in terms that testified to some dissatisfaction with him; but Saint Cyprian justified himself, and replied to him with such modesty that Cornelius was entirely disabused.

As the Church enjoyed a fairly great peace in the first years of the reign of Valerian, who had succeeded Gallus and Volusianus, our holy prelate took advantage of this calm and applied himself to establishing good discipline in his diocese. He refuted, among others, the error of those who offered only water in the sacrifice of the altar; he proved to them, by a multitude of passages from the Holy Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testaments, that wine was absolutely necessary for this mystery, and that without this element one could not have the Blood of Jesus Christ. He himself testifies, in his LXIIIrd epistle to Caecilius, that this abuse might have come from the fact that, during the persecution, the faithful, who gathered at night to celebrate the divine mysteries and to participate in the Eucharist, feared, in the morning, being discovered by the smell of wine. He also assembled a synod to remedy several other abuses that had crept in among the people. Geminius Victor was excommunicated there; after his death, it was forbidden to offer the oblation for the rest of his soul and to make any prayer in the Church for his relief, because, against the Canons, he had appointed a priest as guardian of his children. "He," say the bishops, "does not deserve to be named at the altar of God, in the prayer of the priests, who wanted to divert the ministers of the Lord from the altar and burden them with the care of temporal affairs, completely removed from their profession." They did not trouble themselves with civil laws, which exempted no one from the charge of wards; but they had regard only for the good of the Churches and the spiritual assistance of the faithful, through the care and prayers of their pastors. He had those who were called Libellatici condemned again in this synod, as guilty of infidelity and apostasy. He assembled several others as well, concerning the baptism conferred by heretics, which he believed to be null and to be reiterated when the baptized returned to the Church. He had, on this subject, great contentions with Pope Saint Stephen, who maintained, f pape saint Étienne Pope in office at the time of the events. ounded on tradition, and defined that this baptism was valid; but as this question concerns purely ecclesiastical history, which we do not intend to treat here, it suffices to say with Saint Augustine, in his XLVI IIth epistle, saint Augustin Cited for his definition of fraternal charity. that, if one does not find that Saint Cyprian changed his sentiment, it is nevertheless true that he did so, that those to whom his opinion was pleasing may well have suppressed his retraction, and that many even have advanced that he had never held this error, but that impostors, to cover themselves with his authority, had attributed to him what he had never believed. Here are the very remarkable words of this great Doctor: "Either Saint Cyprian never had the opinion that you attribute to him, or, if he had it, he reformed it according to the rule of truth, or finally he covered this stain of his very candid and very sincere conscience with the anointing of his charity, since he perpetually maintained himself in the unity of the Church."

Our holy prelate was thus working tirelessly for the salvation of his people and the restoration of discipline, when the proconsul Aspasius Paternus, after having used threats and promises in vain to shake his firmness, sent him into exile. He withdrew to Curubis, a s mall t Gurube Place of exile of Saint Cyprian. own situated on the promontory of Mercury, opposite Sicily, and only fifty miles from Carthage. There, having received a revelation that in one year he would be crowned with martyrdom, he spent all that time preparing for it through all kinds of charitable works. He wrote to the other bishops and priests of Africa who had been relegated to wild places, where they suffered great miseries, a letter of consolation that it is impossible to read without feeling inflamed by that divine fire which burned within him and an ardent desire to suffer for Jesus Christ. He also sent them many things they needed for their subsistence. He further extended his charitable care to the Christians who were in prison, writing to them in very pressing terms to strengthen them in the confession of their faith and to animate them to patience. When he learned that Galerius Maximus had succeeded Aspasius, he returned to Carthage and hid in the gardens that had once belonged to him, and which he had sold to assist the poor, so that from there he could watch over his people who often came to find him there. But, having learned that an order had been given to seize him to take him to Utica, where the proconsul was, he withdrew elsewhere, to a place of safety, to await the opportunity to suffer death in his city, in the presence of his dear flock; and, for fear that his retreat might be misinterpreted by the faithful, he wrote them a letter to explain his reasons. "Having been warned," he told them, "that soldiers were being sent to take us to Utica, we absented ourselves on the advice of our friends, deeming it more fitting that we should confess the truth in the principal city of our diocese than in another place, in order to instruct the people there by the example of our death, and to strengthen the weak there by our confession; because at this moment, what the bishop who confesses Jesus Christ says, he says as the mouth of all. The honor of our Church, which is now so glorious, would be much diminished if we were made to die in a foreign land. It is therefore appropriate that we receive the crown of martyrdom in the sight of Carthage. This is the grace that we continually ask of God for ourselves and for you, so that, dying before your eyes, we may show you the way to heaven." He did not, however, die in Carthage; but it was in a place so close and in the presence of so many people from the city that one can say his wish was fulfilled.

The proconsul had him taken and brought before him to a country house in the vicinity of which he had withdrawn. The one who had taken him prisoner kept him the first night in his dwelling; this house was immediately surrounded by men, women, children, and the elderly who rushed there to see what would become of their holy bishop. There were many young girls in the crowd; and, as the fear of death did not prevent him from watching over his flock, he gave orders that they be separated and kept in the dark, for fear that the soldiers might do them some violence. Saint Augustine admirably praises this vigilance of the holy Martyr. Morning having come, he was led before the proconsul, who showed him the order he had from the emperors to force him to sacrifice to the gods. But, finding him insensible to all his remonstrances and threats, he condemned him to have his head cut off. Saint Cyprian heard this cruel sentence calmly, and, raising his heart to God: "I give you thanks," he said, "my Lord, that you deign to withdraw my soul from the prison of this mortal body." The faithful, who did not abandon him, cried out on their side with one voice: "Let us go, and let us be beheaded with him!" The executioner appeared trembling when he had to perform his office, but the martyr encouraged him to deliver the blow; and, to reward him for the grace he was about to procure for him, he had twenty-five gold pieces distributed to him. After this heroic action, he stripped off his clothes, which consisted of a dalmatic, a mantle, and a linen robe. Cardinal Baronius believes that the mozzetta and rochet of today's bishops have some relation to them. All those who saw this spectacle burst into tears, while he alone was in extreme joy which appeared even on his face. Everyone threw cloths to receive his blood, in order to keep it as a precious treasure. He bandaged his own eyes and had his hands tied by one of his priests, then, having knelt down, he generously received the blow of death. As soon as his head had been struck off, the clerics, accompanied by Christians, took his body and buried it with great solemnity, carrying lighted candles in their hands; they were all the more bold in rendering him these last duties in public, without caring about the proconsul or the fury of the idolaters, as they all ardently wished to die for Jesus Christ, following the example of their holy Pastor. His martyrdom occurred on September 14.

The name of Saint Cyprian is one of the most beautiful names in Christianity, and this great man is one of those whom we admire and, above all, love the most. God, who delights in manifesting Himself through His mercy more than through His justice, also willed that, in man, goodness should be the most powerful attraction to win hearts. Cyprian occupied the see of Carthage for only ten years; but how laborious and fruitful his ministry was in its results! His final gaze rested with joy upon a church more numerous, more devoted, and more faithful than he had received it, and the tears of the pagans that flowed at his execution foreshadowed for him that Carthage would soon be entirely Christian.

He is represented: 1st, holding a sword in his hand, to designate the manner of death he endured; 2nd, holding a crown, according to a mosaic in Ravenna.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS. — ABBEY OF MOISSAC. — WRITINGS.]

Since the 5th century, the feast of Saint Cyprian has been celebrated on the 16th of this month. After his glorious martyrdom, two churches were built in his honor: one at the place where he had suffered, which was called the Table of Saint Cyprian, not, says Saint Augustine, because he had eaten there, but because he had been immolated there; and the other, on the spot where he had been buried. His relics were brought to France in the 9th century and transported to the city of Lyon, where they were placed behind the altar of Saint John the Baptist. Later they were transferred to Compiègne by King Charles the Bald, and deposited in the church of Saint-Corneille, as Adon states in his martyrology.

"The parish church of Saint-Jacques in this city," writes the Abbé Bourgeois, vicar general and archpriest of Compiègne, "has possessed them since the abbey of Saint-Corneille has existed only in part and has changed its purpose. The old church was demolished to make way for a commercial street called Rue Saint-Corneille; only a fragment of this church remains, recalling the style of the 17th century, against which some stalls of the Herb Market lean.

"The buildings of the old abbey that survive the demolitions and alienations that have taken place, now known as the 'manutention' (supply depot), belong to the military administration. The cloisters, which exist in large part, have been disfigured by walls that close each of the bays, and are transformed into ovens and offices, and the existing buildings, of a fairly recent date, are far from offering the interest of the cloisters, the construction of which can be attributed to the end of the 14th century.

"Inside, one sees a stone staircase of grandiose proportions, which recalls the workmanship of the 18th century. The excavation of a plot of land, called the Cour Saint-Corneille, recently led to the discovery of considerable bones which seem to reveal the location of the abbey's old cemetery, which had in its church a chapel called the Parish of the Crucifix, and which exercised parochial jurisdiction, not within a territorial district, but over the abbey's dependents, who formed the abbot's court in all civil and religious ceremonies.

"The abbatial house, which still preserves its coat of arms, after having been modernized, serves today as a notary's residence."

However, we read in the lessons of the office of Saint Cyprian, from the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre of Moissac, and in a report dated Sep tember Moissac Town housing a famous abbey that holds the saint's relics. 21, 1817, deposited in the archives of this church and the bishopric of Montauban, the following details concerning the relics of Saint Cyprian: "Abbot Roger solemnly had the body of Saint Cyprian of Carthage and several other Saints transferred to Moissac in 1122, which had been taken from Lyon when it was threatened by the barbarians, and deposited not far from Cabars, in a place dependent on the abbey, which is called the valley of Lascabanes (current parish). This translation, celebrated annually on July 5, is called by the people: the feast of San-Cypris of Segarous, or of the harvests, while that of September 16 bears the name of San-Cypris of Bondognos, or of the grape harvests. In 1791, following the suppression of the monastic Orders, and as there were threats to pillage the church of the illustrious abbey, a venerable priest saved several of the relics that had been honored there for centuries by hiding them elsewhere. In 1793, this same priest returned the said relics to the church of Saint-Pierre, recording his restitution in the baptismal register, where it can still be read. This sacred deposit remained buried in the sacristy until, by order of Mgr de Greuville, Bishop of Cabars, an inquiry was made into its identity. On September 21, 1817, the Abbé de Trélissac, vicar general, later Bishop of Montauban, drew up and signed the report of authenticity concerning the preserved relics, and in particular the most important one, which was the very head of Saint Cypria chef même de saint Cyprien Principal relic preserved in Moissac. n of Carthage, in the presence of reputable witnesses who had seen this head when it was publicly venerated before the year 1791, the time of its disappearance. In 1864, Mgr Doucy, Bishop of Montauban, after further information, confirmed the authenticity of a head and that of several other bones of the same Saint, but mingled with others just as venerable, without it being possible to specify anything individually. The solemn reinstallation of all these relics took place at Moissac on October 15, 1864, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Toulouse, assisted by several other prelates.

"The head of Saint Cyprian, composed of the upper and posterior part of the skull, is currently enclosed in a ciborium or oblong silver globe, surmounted by a cross. In 1843, a fragment had been detached from this bone to be given to Mgr Dupuch, Bishop of Algiers, who had urgently requested it to bring it back to the church of Africa. On the day of the two feasts of Saint Cyprian (July 5 and September 16), the illustrious relic was carried solemnly in procession through the streets of Moissac. It was also carried during times of public calamity, and particularly during droughts. The chapter, the councils, and all the people accompanied the reliquary, and care was taken to immerse the skull in the waters of the Tarn, which bathes the walls of the city, in memory, no doubt, of a singular circumstance reported by Pamelius, biographer of Saint Cyprian, who says that in Africa, around the feast of this Saint, an abundant thunderstorm usually falls, to which the sailors had given the name of Cypriona. The patronage of Saint Cyprian is still very popular in Moissac, and the two traditional processions are not neglected."

Now, let us say a word about this famous abbey which gave birth to the town of Moissac, today the seat of an arrondissement in the department of Tarn-et-Garonne, in the diocese of Montauban. It was formerly in the diocese of Cahors.

Few monasteries have equaled the fame of the Abbey of Moissac; a metropolis of Cluny in the south of France, it is called *Magistralis ecclesia* in a charter of the 11th century. According to the chronicle of Aimey de Peyrac, the fortieth abbot of Moissac (1377-1406), King Clovis Clovis First king of the Franks to convert to Catholicism. , victor over Alaric at Voulon (506), was traveling from Bordeaux to Toulouse when, upon arriving at Moissac, he was inspired to raise a church in this place under the patronage of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul. This is why, ever since, two candles burned constantly in his honor before the high altar of Saint Peter; each day a mass was celebrated for his intention, and he was commemorated at all the canonical hours of the day and night, and he was venerated almost as a Saint. Between 630 and 640, Saint Amand, later Bishop of Maastricht, exiled to Varconte by King Dagobert, whom he had dared to reproach for his disorders, is said by some authors to have taken advantage of this banishment to found the Abbey of Moissac. Saint Amand, Saint Ansbert, Saint Léothade, Saint Paterne, and Saint Amarante were the first abbots of Moissac.

Burned in the 8th century by the Saracens, the abbey owed its restoration to the devoted zeal of Pepin. Louis the Pious honored it with his predilection and favors. In the acts of the Council of Aachen, held in 817, it appears among those that owe the emperor neither military service nor fiscal tribute, but only the tribute of their prayers. In the year 1030, the abbey church collapsed. Around 1047, Saint Odilo of Cluny visited the community to prepare it for reform; Saint Hugh, his successor, also came to Moissac in 1052 and succeeded in rallying the monks to the observances of Cluny; upon leaving, he left them as abbot, Durand de Bredon, one of his most faithful disciples. The latter rebuilt the ruined church and became Bishop of Toulouse without returning to the government of the abbey; he celebrated the dedication of the new basilica on December 6, 1062, with pomp unheard of, even for first-rate cathedrals. Since then, donations flowed in, and monastic colonies multiplied; powerful abbeys, priories, lordships, churches, etc., came to place themselves under the dependence of the Abbot of Moissac. Pope Urban II, traveling from Toulouse to Clermont to preside over the Council of the Crusade (1095), stopped for several days at Moissac.

At the end of the 13th century, the Abbey of Moissac was at the height of its splendor. Its abbots were at once high religious dignitaries and powerful feudal lords. They then surrounded themselves with fortifications, the remains of which can still be seen. When, after their election, they went to the mother abbey for the first time, the monks of Cluny would come to meet them in procession to present them with the keys to the town; they had the right to release prisoners from behind bars, and the next day they presided over the chapter. Pope Innocent IV granted the abbots of Moissac, in 1250, the right to officiate with the miter, the crozier, the ring, the gloves, and shoes adorned with the cross, and to give the pastoral blessing to the people.

So much greatness prepared the way for decadence. In 1295, the illustrious abbey had more than one hundred and twenty monks; in 1449, it had only twenty. Pope Paul V, in 1618, secularized it and replaced the monks of Cluny with Canons Regular of Saint Augustine. The traditional title and honors were, by privilege, preserved for the new abbots of Moissac. Cardinals Mazarin, Prince Rinaldo d'Este, and Loménie de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse and minister to King Louis XVI, were commendatory abbots of Moissac. Under the last of the three, the suppression of the abbey took place.

Since the Concordat of 1801, the abbey church, a splendid monument of the transitional ogival style, has become a first-class deanery. The cloister, a rare and marvelous jewel of stone, is still intact in its entirety and in almost all its details. What remains of the monastery, first assigned to the various services of a Courthouse, has just received a destination more in keeping with its centuries-old traditions; it is a magnificent rectory, a sort of bishop's house for the use of the parish clergy.

## Writings of Saint Cyprian:

1° The letter or treatise on the Contempt of the World or the Grace of God. The Saint composed this work shortly after his conversion and addressed it to Donatus, who had been baptized with him and who appears to have been his companion in the study of rhetoric. The style is brilliant and pompous; one recognizes a professor of eloquence, accustomed to declamations, who had only just left his profession. The author gives the history of his conversion and declares that the difficulties he experienced from his passions vanished as soon as he had seriously resolved to give himself to God. He exhorts his friend not to set limits on his fervor, because God will then set none on His graces. He then speaks of the power Christians have to force the impure spirits that possess bodies to confess what they are, to cast them out, and to increase their torments by means of the spiritual weapons that God places in their hands. He depicts the vices that desolate the earth; he speaks to his friend of the barbaric entertainments of the circus, of the fights with beasts, of the corruption of the theater, where the fire of an impure passion is ignited, where the heart is softened, where the poison of vice enters the soul through all the senses, and where the spectators become accustomed to loving the abominations represented before their eyes. He reminds his friend that families and the most secret retreats are often defiled by jealousy, pride, and impurity, etc.

To this picture of vices, he opposes that of piety, which is the only means of attaining happiness, which frees the soul from the bonds that attach it to the world, which purifies it from the stains of sin, which renders it worthy of immortality, which is, in a word, that salutary port where one finds an inseparable peace. Whoever wishes to make himself capable of piety must rise above the world by despising it; be assiduous in prayer and in the reading of the holy law; speak sometimes to God, and at other times listen to Him.

2° The book on the Vanity of Idols, composed by Saint Cyprian when he was still only a layman. The Saint's goal is to show that one cannot regard as gods those who were only men and who committed the most abominable crimes. He proves that the pagans often worshipped demons, the very ones who sometimes possessed bodies. He appeals to his adversaries who had often heard demons confess what they were when Christians employed exorcisms.

3° It appears that he was a catechumen when he composed the two books of Testimonies. It is a collection of passages from the Old Testament relating to Jesus Christ and His Church. There is a third book of Testimonies, which is likewise a collection of passages from which a system of morality results.

4° The book on the Conduct of Virgins was written immediately after the Saint's elevation to the episcopal dignity, according to Pamelius, Pearson, and Tillemont. But Dom Maran places it a little before the holy doctor's episcopate, and he bases this on the fact that the author does not attribute any power to himself and that he only follows the outpouring of his heart. Tertullian had given a work on the necessity of veiling virgins, in which he proved the holiness of their state, "by Holy Scripture, by the nature of God, and by the discipline that God has established among men." Saint Cyprian, after having described the glory of virginity, invites virgins to watch over themselves and reminds them of the reward that awaits them in heaven.

He makes severe reproaches to women who paint their hair or faces, pretending thereby to disguise or correct the work of God. He rises against the affectation of finery that causes the ruin of so many souls.

5° The book on the Unity of the Church, writ ten shortly before Saint Cypria Le livre de l'Unité de l'Église Major treatise on the unity of the Church founded upon Saint Peter. n left his retreat to return to Carthage. The author observes first that the demon sows heresies and schisms to destroy the souls that have escaped the snares of idolatry; after which, he demonstrates that the Church of Jesus Christ is essentially one. He says that to make this unity visible, the Savior built His Church upon Saint Peter and gave him the power of the keys; and that, although He gave the same power to all the Apostles, He willed that the source of unity should derive from one, and that the whole edifice should rest upon this foundation. He establishes as a general rule: "that in matters of faith, the path that leads to truth is short and easy, and that facts take the place of all other proof." Coming then directly to the unity of the Church, founded on Saint Peter, he says: "One cannot obtain the reward that Jesus Christ has promised to His disciples when one abandons the Church."

6° The book on those who have fallen. The Saint, after having lifted up the crown of the martyrs, bitterly deplores the fall of those who had apostatized.

He then passes to the remedies proper to expiate this fault and rises against those who ask for a reconciliation that is too hasty. To frighten sinners, he reports several examples of persons severely punished in a truly miraculous manner for having received the body and blood of Jesus Christ unworthily.

From all that he has said, he concludes the necessity of penance.

7° The book on the Lord's Prayer, written shortly after the previous work. Saint Hilary and Saint Augustine strongly recommend its reading. The latter exhorted the monks of Adrumetum to learn it by heart. Saint Cyprian shows there the excellence of the Lord's Prayer and gives the explanation of all the petitions that form its subject. In speaking of the different times when one prayed during the day, he distinguishes the first, the third, the sixth hour, etc. The principal conditions he requires in prayer are humility, respect, attention, fervor, and perseverance. He teaches us that in his time the priest said, as today, in the preface of the Mass: *Elevate corda vestra*, and that the people answered: *Habemus ad Dominum*. Our prayers, according to him, cannot ascend to the throne of grace unless they are accompanied by almsgiving and other good works. One also finds excellent maxims on the same subject in the Saint's letters, and especially in his exhortation to continual prayer which he sent to his clergy, recommending that they communicate it to the laity.

8° The book on Mortality, written on the occasion of a horrible plague that devastated Africa. It is shown that the servants of God must rejoice in calamities, because they provide them with the means to practice heroic virtues and to merit heaven. "As for death," he says, "it is only formidable to him who does not care to go to Jesus Christ; and one is in this disposition only when one has reason to believe that one will have no part in the heavenly kingdom." He describes the felicity of those who, after having escaped the storms and reefs of this world, have arrived at the port of eternity, have clothed themselves in blessed immortality, and have nothing more to fear from the efforts of their enemies. He attributes the excessive fear of death in a Christian to the lack of that living faith and firm hope which fortify the soul and render it capable of despising the queen of terrors. During this plague, while the pagans abandoned their friends and their relatives, the Christians, thanks to the maxims of the Gospel and the exhortations of Saint Cyprian, devoted themselves heroically to the service of the plague-stricken.

The book on Mortality and that on the Lord's Prayer were translated into French by the Duke of Luynes, who disguised himself under the name of Laval, and printed in 1664.

9° The Exhortation to Martyrdom, written in 252, during the renewal of the persecution under Gallus and Volusianus. This work, made to fortify the faithful, is a tissue of passages from Scripture.

10° The book to Demetrianus. This Demetrianus was a magistrate of Carthage who, although a zealous pagan, was linked with the holy bishop. The work in question is a response to the invectives of this magistrate against our faith; and it is proven therein that the Christian religion is not the cause of the public calamities of the empire. One also finds there a beautiful exhortation to penance.

11° The book on Almsgiving and Good Works, written around the year 254. It is a pathetic exhortation to both, which Scripture recommends to us and represents to us as means of obtaining mercy. The Saint says there that one is ordinarily inexcusable to claim to celebrate the Lord's Day without making an offering for the poor. He refutes the objections that avarice suggests.

12° The book on the Good of Patience, composed around the year 256, on the occasion of the disputes that had arisen concerning the baptism of heretics. According to the holy bishop, patience does not consist only in stifling resentment or vengeance, but it is also taken for the assemblage of virtues that contribute to making a man charitable, gentle, and honest, which put him in the disposition to restrain himself and to forgive, which finally inspire in him a courage superior to all kinds of trials. The pagan philosophers did not know true patience, which supposes in the one who possesses it, gentleness and humility; they could not please God because they were filled with presumption and love for themselves. A Christian must be in reality what they were only in appearance, and acquire this degree of virtue which was unknown to them in practice. To excite to patience, he cites the example of God, who is its principle and who communicates to it all its dignity; he reports the precepts of the Gospel; he shows this virtue in Jesus Christ, in the Apostles, and in the Patriarchs; he finally appeals to the Last Judgment.

13° The book on Jealousy and Envy, composed shortly after the previous work, and with the same design. Saint Cyprian shows there that envy is the source of a great number of evils, and that it is at the same time a grievous sin and its own torment.

14° The persecution having ceased at the death of Gallus, which occurred at the beginning of the year 253, Saint Cyprian held a Council at Carthage, composed of sixty-six bishops, to re-establish the affairs of the Church. During the holding of this Council, Fidus, an African bishop, consulted him concerning the Baptism of children. He asked him if one should administer baptism after birth, according to what was practiced in the old law regarding circumcision. The Saint answered with the other Fathers of the assembly that one could not refuse anyone participation in the grace of God... That one should especially grant it to children who, by the tears they shed as soon as they see the light, seem to ask for mercy in a very touching manner. One does not refuse, he says, pardon to the greatest sinners, how would one refuse it to children who have just been born and who have no other fault than the original stain? The difficulty proposed to Saint Cyprian did not have as its object to know if one should baptize children, but on what day one would baptize them; and even regarding this point, the unanimity of the Council shows what was the general tradition of the Church. Tertullian himself, who pleaded for the delay of Baptism, treats as a murderer the one who would refuse to administer this Sacrament in case of necessity. See Count Acami's *Prædebaptismo solemni in Ecclesia Latina et Graeca*, Rome, 1753. It is an excellent refutation of a letter from an English Anabaptist on the point in question.

15° Letters, eighty-one in number in the Oxford edition, and eighty-three in that of Baluze. They have as their object points of dogma, discipline, and piety.

Among the works of Saint Cyprian, several have been printed that have been attributed to him, although they are not his. The principal ones are: 1° the treatise against Public Spectacles, which was written by a bishop contemporary of our Saint, who had been separated from his flock by the persecution; 2° the discourse against Novatian, which appears to be of the same style as the previous work, although it is not of the same time; 3° the book on the Celibacy of the Clergy, which is from the 8th century and which contains things that are extremely useful.

Saint Jerome and Lactantius give just praise to the eloquence of Saint Cyprian. "He has," according to the latter, "an easy, varied, and pleasant invention, and what is most essential, much clarity and sharpness in his ideas, that is to say, the principal quality required of any writer. His narration is ornate, and becomes even more interesting through the ease of expression. His reasoning is strong and tight; so that he unites everything that makes an orator; he knows how to please, instruct, and persuade; one could not even decide which of these three talents he possessed to a more eminent degree." There is too much labor in his letter to Donatus; but, although it cannot serve as a model, it is nonetheless true that it announces a truly eloquent author.

God, according to Saint Augustine, allowed Saint Cyprian to escape with a few vain ornaments of rhetoric in the first work he wrote after his conversion, to show how much the spirit of Christian simplicity influenced his style and had the power to contain it within the bounds of true eloquence; and this is the character of the letters of the holy bishop of Carthage that were written thereafter: thus Fénelon observes that we can safely admire and imitate their style. However, this great master remarks that the language of Saint Cyprian reflects the harsh genius of the Africans, and that it is not always free from that sought-after subtlety for which authors of the same time are reproached. These observations do not prevent us from recognizing in the works of this Father a sweet, natural eloquence, which has nothing in common with that of declaimers. One perceives nothing trivial there, nothing that does not announce an uncommon literature. One sees everywhere a great soul, filled with beautiful sentiments expressed in a noble and touching manner. The author always speaks from the abundance of the heart. Although he sometimes uses words that seem to depart from the purity of the Latin language, it is nonetheless true that, after Lactantius, he occupies the first place among the Latin Fathers who wrote in this language.

The first edition of the works of Saint Cyprian, which appeared shortly after the invention of the printing press, and which bears neither the name of the printer nor the name of the place, is more correct than most of those that followed. The works of the same Father were reprinted through the efforts of Erasmus, Manutius, Morel, Pamelius, and Rigault. The latter editor is a disguised Calvinist, according to Fell. One finds, in fact, in his notes on Tertullian and on Saint Cyprian, many things that favor certain principles of Calvinism. See de l'Aubespine, Grotius, Ep. ad Salmas., and Petitdidier, Rem. sur la Bibl. de Dupin.

In the edition of Pamelius, the letters of Saint Cyprian are placed first and arranged in chronological order; they do not occupy the same place in most of the earlier and later editions.

The Oxford edition appeared in 1681. We owe it to the learned Fell, bishop of the same city, who added new notes, along with the Annales Cyprianici of Pearson, and the thirteen Dissertationes Cyprianicae of Dodwell, which have the object of clarifying certain points of fact and discipline.

Baluze was preparing a new edition of Saint Cyprian when death took him. Dom Moran, a Benedictine of the Congregation of Saint-Maur, put the finishing touches to his work. He also corrected some of Baluze's notes and added new ones. He further enriched his edition with a new life of Saint Cyprian. It appeared in Paris in 1756, in-folio, under the following title: Sancti Cypriani opera recognita per Baluzium, iterum illustrata (per D. Moran) unum e monachis sancti Mauri, qui præfationem et vitam sancti Cypriani adornavit. It was reprinted in Venice in 1758. In 1835, Messrs. Cailleau and Guillou produced a new edition of the works of Saint Cyprian, 2 vols. in-12; in 1844, Mr. Migne published an edition of the works of Saint Cyprian based on Baluze and Fell, the fourth volume of the Patrologie. The most remarkable notes and works published to date have been added to this edition. Several letters of Saint Cyprian and several dissertations on this Father are also found in the third and fifth volumes of the Patrologia Latina of Mr. Migne.

We have used, to compose this biography, the sermons of Saint Augustine, Saint Maximus, and Saint Peter Chrysologus, in praise of Saint Cyprian, published by Pamelius, canon of Bruges, and by Rigault; and we have enriched it: 1st with Notes on the Abbey of Moissac and on the relics it possesses, thanks to the kindness of Mr. Penjade, cellarer of the Dames du Saint-Enfant Jésus, in Montauban; and of the Reverend Father Carles, of Toulouse; 2nd with Notes on the Abbey of Compiègne and on the relics of Saint Cyprian, by Mr. Bourgeois, vicar general, archpriest of Compiègne. — Cf. Saint Cyprien et l'Église d'Afrique, by Abbé Frappel, now bishop of Angers.