Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol 5) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Treatise II and III.
My summary
Today we read two more treatises from Cyprian.
The first gives counsel to young women on sexual purity, which includes dressing modestly.
The second treatise speaks about the dangers of accepting the lapsed too hastily into the churches. Much of the content is familiar to us from his letters
What grabbed me
I was interested to read Cyprian's accounts of unbelievers taking part in the Lord's Supper: 'But the woman who in advanced life and of more mature age secretly crept in among us when we were sacrificing, received not food, but a sword for herself; and as if taking some deadly poison into her jaws and body, began presently to be tortured, and to become stiffened with frenzy; and suffering the misery no longer of persecution, but of her crime, shivering and trembling, she fell down. The crime of her dissimulated conscience was not long unpunished or concealed. She who had deceived man, felt that God was taking vengeance. And another woman, when she tried with unworthy hands to open her box, in which was the holy (body) of the Lord, was deterred by fire rising from it from daring to touch it. And when one, who himself was defiled, dared with the rest to receive secretly a part of the sacrifice celebrated by the priest; he could not eat nor handle the holy of the Lord, but found in his hands when opened that he had a cinder. Thus by the experience of one it was shown that the Lord withdraws when He is denied; nor does that which is received benefit the undeserving for salvation, since saving grace is changed by the departure of the sanctity into a cinder. How many there are daily who do not repent nor make confession of the consciousness of their crime, who are filled with unclean spirits! How many are shaken even to unsoundness of mind and idiotcy by the raging of madness! Nor is there any need to go through the deaths of individuals, since through the manifold lapses occurring in the world the punishment of their sins is as varied as the multitude of sinners is abundant. Let each one consider not what another has suffered, but what he himself deserves to suffer; nor think that he has escaped if his punishment delay for a time, since he ought to fear it the more that the wrath of God the judge has reserved it for Himself.'
If anyone eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord they eat and drink judgment on themselves.
Next week's reading
Read Treatise IV.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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