Cyprian Quotes - Page 2

The Lord withdraws when He is denied, and what is taken by the undeserving does not avail them unto salvation, since the saving grace is turned into ashes and holiness departs.

The beard must not be plucked. Ye shall not deface the figure of your beard.

Our prayers and fastings are of less avail, unless they are aided by almsgiving.

As to what pertains to the case of infants: You [Fidus] said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, that the old law of circumcision must be taken into consideration, and that you did not think that one should be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day after his birth. In our council it seemed to us far otherwise. No one agreed to the course which you thought should be taken. Rather, we all judge that the mercy and grace of God ought to be denied to no man born

It is a persistent evil to persecute a man who belongs to the grace of God. It is a calamity without remedy to hate the happy.

Custom, though never so ancient, without truth, is but an old error.

Whereas there can be but one Baptism, they think they can Baptize; they have abandoned the fountain of life, yet promise the life and grace of the waters of salvation. It is not cleansing which men find there, but soiling; their sins are not washed away, but only added to. That being "born again" does not bring forth sons to God but to the Devil. Born of a lie, they cannot inherit the things which Truth has promised; begotten by the faithless, they are deprived of the grace of faith.

Since the baptismal rebirth takes place only with the one Bride of Christ, where could he be born who is not a son of the Church?

The wretched bodies of the condemned shall simmer and blaze in those living fires.

Murder, considered a crime when people commit it singly, is transformed into a virtue when they do it en masse.

Baptism pertains to the Church alone.

None of us offers resistance when he is seized, or avenges himself for your unjust violence, although our people are numerous and plentiful...it is not lawful for us to hate, and so we please God more when we render no requital for injury...we repay your hatred with kindness.

Knowing that there is one Baptism, we who hold the head and root of the One Church know for certain that to him who is outside the Church nothing is lawful.

"If any man thirst, let him come and drink from the rivers of living water" (cf. John 7:38). Where shall he who thirsts come? To heretics where the fountain and river of water is in no way life-giving? Or to the Church, which is One?