Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol 5) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Epistles XIX to XXIX.
My summary
Today we read letters from:
(i) Cyprian to Caldonius;
(ii) Celerinus to Lucian;
(iii) Lucian to Celerinus;
(iv) Cyprian to the clergy at Rome;
(v) Cyprian to Moyses, Maximus, Nicostratus and other confessors;
(vi) Cyprian to the lapsed.
Once again, most of the letters today are concerned with encouraging saints not to welcome back the lapsed too easily - true repentance should be evident.
Cyprian also has encouragement for newly ordained ministers and those who have not bowed under persecution.
What grabbed me
I enjoyed this encouragement to confessors: 'This is to be a confessor of the Lord; this is to be a martyr of Christ—to keep the firmness of one's profession inviolate among all evils, and secure. For to wish to become a martyr for the Lord, and to try to overthrow the Lord's precepts; to use against Him the condescension that He has granted you—to become, as it were, a rebel with arms that you have received from Him—this is to wish to confess Christ, and to deny Christ's Gospel. I rejoice, therefore, on your behalf, most brave and faithful brethren; and as much as I congratulate the martyrs there honoured for the glory of their strength, so much do I also equally congratulate you for the crown of the Lord's discipline. The Lord has shed forth His condescension in manifold kinds of liberality. He has distributed the praises of good soldiers and their spiritual glories in plentiful variety. We also are sharers in your honour; we count your glory our glory, whose times have been brightened by such a felicity, that it should be the fortune of our day to see the proved servants of God and Christ's soldiers crowned. I bid you, most brave and blessed brethren, ever heartily farewell; and remember me.'
To die in the faith is to glory in the faith.
Next week's reading
Read Epistles XXX to XL.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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