Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol 5) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Epistles LV to LXI.
My summary
Today we read letters from Cyprian to:
(i) the people of Thibaris;
(ii) Cornelius;
(iii) Lucius;
(iv) Fidus;
(v) the Numidian bishops;
(vi) Euchratius;
(vii) Pomponius.
The first few letters were concerned once again with encouraging saints to stand firm against persecution.
While the later letters included Cyprian's thoughts on:
(i) the baptism of infants;
(ii) the sin of acting;
(iii) sexual sin.
What grabbed me
I was interested in Cyprian's thoughts on infant baptism: ' For which reason we think that no one is to be hindered from obtaining grace by that law which was already ordained, and that spiritual circumcision ought not to be hindered by carnal circumcision, but that absolutely every man is to be admitted to the grace of Christ, since Peter also in the Acts of the Apostles speaks, and says, "The Lord hath said to me that I should call no man common or unclean." But if anything could hinder men from obtaining grace, their more heinous sins might rather hinder those who are mature and grown up and older. But again, if even to the greatest sinners, and to those who had sinned much against God, when they subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted—and nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace—how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins—that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another.'
Too much talk of grace being given through baptism for my liking.
Next week's reading
Read Epistles LXII to LXVI.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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