Letter 46: I will say openly that I have given and continue to give the greatest thanks — without ceasing — to God the Father...

Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greetings. I will say openly that I have given and continue to give the greatest thanks — without ceasing — to God the Father Almighty, and to his Christ, our Lord and God and Savior, that the Church is thus divinely protected, and that its unity and holiness are not constantly or entirely undermined by the stubbornness of faithlessness and heretical wickedness. I have read your letter and received from it the greatest joy at the fulfillment of our shared desire: that Maximus the presbyter and Urbanus the confessor, together with Sidonius and Macarius, have re-entered the Catholic Church — that is, that they have laid aside their error, given up their schismatical madness, and sought again in the soundness of faith the home of unity and truth. They have returned to the place from which they departed for glory; those who confessed Christ have not in the end deserted the camp of Christ. Their praise stands uncontaminated: they have turned away from the deserters and fugitives, from the betrayers of the faith and the assailants of the Catholic Church. With reason — as you write — the people and the brotherhood received them with the greatest joy. For in the same measure in which it would have been sorrowful if the confessors of Christ had remained outside, it is a cause of joy that they have come home. The Church is more beautiful by the return of her children than she was diminished by their absence.

Epistle 46