Cyprian quotes

Cyprian was a prominent early Christian bishop, theologian, and writer from Carthage. His works and leadership played a crucial role in shaping early Christian doctrine and handling church crises. He became recognized as a martyr and saint for his unwavering faith during times of persecution. Here are 42 of his quotes:

Be constantly committed to prayer or to reading [Scripture]; by praying, you speak to God, in reading, God speaks to you.

Cyprian

The world is going mad in mutual extermination, and murder, considered as a crime when committed individually, becomes a virtue when it is committed by large numbers. It is the multiplication of the frenzy that assures impunity to the assassins.

Cyprian

There is no salvation outside the Church.

Cyprian

Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become their religion.

Cyprian

No one can have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.

Cyprian

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

Cyprian

This supernatural bread and this consecrated chalice are for the health and salvation of mankind.

Cyprian

He [Christ] protects their faith and gives strength to believers in proportion to the trust that each man who receives that strength is willing to place in him.

Cyprian

No one is strong in his own strength, but he is safe by the grace and mercy of God.

Cyprian

Think not that you are thus maintaining the Gospel of Christ when you separate yourselves from the flock of Christ.

Cyprian

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.

Cyprian

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.

Cyprian

When we pray to God with entire assurance, it is Himself who has given us the spirit of prayer.

Cyprian

If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner to pray!

Cyprian

Peter, in showing that the Church is one and that only those who are in the Church can be saved, said: "In the Ark of Noah certain persons, numbering only eight, were saved by water, which Baptism effects in like manner for you" (1 Peter 3:20). He proves and demonstrates that the solitary Ark of Noah was the figure of the One Church. If, at the time of this Baptism of the world anyone could have been saved without having been in the Ark of Noah, then he who is outside the Church could now be brought to life by Baptism.

Cyprian

Baptism pertains to the Church alone.

Cyprian

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.

Cyprian

"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?

Cyprian

The spouse of Christ cannot be defiled; she is uncorrupted and chaste.

Cyprian

Persevere in labors that lead to salvation. Always be busy in spiritual actions. In this way, no matter how often the enemy of our souls approaches, no matter how many times he may try to come near us, he'll find our hearts closed and armed against him.

Cyprian

If a murder is committed privately it is considered a crime. But if it happens with the authority of the state, they call it courage.

Cyprian

Let us, then, who in Baptism have both died and been buried in respect to the carnal sins of the old man, who have risen again with Christ in the heavenly regeneration, both think upon and do the things that are Christ's.

Cyprian