St. Cyprian of Carthage

St. Cyprian of Carthage is one of the early lights of the entire Christian world. A disciple of the early Christian leader Tertullian, St. Cyprian later became a bishop, a prolific writer and teacher of the entire Church, and in A.D. 258 yielded his righteous soul into God’s hands through martyrdom. To read the writings of St. Cyprian is to drink from the well of African Christianity. From this land that would later give us Sts. Anthony, Athanasius, and Augustine, St. Cyprian thundered out as a spiritual trumpet from Carthage.

Following in the footsteps of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity, and his own teacher Tertullian in his earlier days, Cyprian also gave to Carthage, Africa and the rest of the world a living legacy. In St. Cyprian, we find an African lawyer, well-versed in Latin, classical culture, and rhetoric, who converted to the kind of Christianity that produced tens of millions of martyrs.

Through St. Cyprian, we gain insight into the mindset that enabled Christians of the Catacomb period of the Church to die as martyrs. Three of the cruelest persecutions occurred during this period in the third century. For Cyprian and the other martyrs, merely to live as confessing Christians was a life-and-death struggle. (What was later gained by years of monastic struggle, they acquired by virtue of their martyrdom.)

The writings of St. Cyprian reveal a Christian waging spiritual war with the spirit of the world-system around him. In his letter to Donatus we get a glimpse into his personal transformation contrasted with the prevailing pagan culture around him. His evaluation of violence, sexual promiscuity, lawlessness and injustice in society and the courts is applicable to the decay of spiritual life and values in our times. Consider his reflections: "Look down at the roads full of robbers, the sea infested with pirates and military bases spreading war and slaughter everywhere. It is a world wet with the blood of people slaughtering each other, where murder is regarded as a crime if committed by individuals but is called a public service when carried out en masse, as if it were not the question of innocence but the extent of the savagery that determines freedom from guilt."

And on the driving passion of lust, he writes: "If only from your high vantage point you could penetrate the most secret places, unbolt the doors of bedrooms and expose the most hidden recesses to the full glare of vision, you would see the shameless commit acts which would revolt a modest glance. You would see what is a crime even to look at; you would see what people, crazed by the fires of their lust, deny and yet rush headlong to commit. Deranged by desire they thrust themselves at each other. Acts are committed which even their perpetrators dislike."

His treatise On the Death Rate, written in the aftermath of a major plague that swept through Carthage, addresses the reality of physical suffering and death from a martyr’s point of view. Consider the faith he applies to the tragedies affecting both Christians and non-Christians alike: "There are certain people who have been troubled by the fact that this disease has attacked believers and nonbelievers alike. It would seem as if the purpose of our whole life as Christians were to enjoy the happiness of this world, and as if we were immune from any contact with its evils, not having to endure all the adversities we meet here. Indeed, it would seem as if our full happiness were not reserved for a future time! Yet what is there in this world which is not common to us all, so long as we all are subject to the same law of birth and remain on earth, although we may indeed share our bodily form with the rest of humanity, our spiritual form sets us apart."

In the aftermath of the plague in Carthage, the resulting poverty tested the reality of the Christians’ confession of love. In his On Works and Alms, St. Cyprian speaks of "the healing gift of compassion." Drawing from a multitude of Scriptural passages, he strikes the reader with the stunning clarity of Christ’s teaching and the moral obligation of helping the poor. He exhorts us to the love of Christ, writing: "What greater inducement to good works could Christ offer us than by saying that whatever is given to the needy and poor, is given to Himself; and in saying that He is offended, if the needy and poor are not supplied? And so He ensured that looking on Christ might nevertheless move anyone who is not moved in church by the sight of his or her brother or sister. And also He ensured that anyone who might ignore a fellow-servant who is in difficulties and in need, may still consider the Lord who stands in that rejected person."

One of the most beautiful and inspiring writings of St. Cyprian is his On the Benefit of Patience. He shows how the Messiah Jesus patiently bore all the sufferings of His passion and death so as to give to us the corresponding spiritual reality. Thus, "He, in whose name the devil and his angels are at this very moment being scourged, had to suffer being whipped himself. He was crowned with thorns who crowns martyrs with eternal flowers."

In one of his letters to those just about to be martyred, he writes, "We are both behind bars, you through your witness and myself through my affection for you. Mindful of you by day and by night, we ask God both when we are praying with others during the Eucharist and when we are praying alone, to grant you honor and the crown of victory."

In the very last letter of St. Cyprian, he prepared others as well as himself for martyrdom while he was waiting to be arrested. His advice was to "remain calm, conforming to the evangelical discipline which you have always received from me, and to the teachings which you have so often learned from me."

Thus, this apostolic man gave his life for the Truth, thereby sanctifying Africa and the world with his holy blood. His legacy and life still speak to us, giving us guiding words and light in these times.