Complete Works of Saint Cyprian

When I lay in darkness and in blinding night, and when I was drifting, unsteady and doubtful, upon the sea of the tossing age, ignorant of my life, wandering with erring steps, alien to truth and light, I thought it entirely difficult and hard, according to the morals of that time, that which divine indulgence promised for my salvation: that a person could be reborn again, and, having been animated in a new life by the bath of saving water, could put aside what he had previously been, and, while the structure of the body remained, could change the man in spirit and mind. How, I used to say, is such a conversion possible, so that what has hardened, either by the original nature of the material or by the long-standing habit of age, is suddenly and quickly put off? These things were deeply and profoundly rooted. When does he learn frugality who has been accustomed to lavish banquets and rich feasts? And when does he who has shone in gold and purple, conspicuous in precious clothing, put aside such things for common and simple attire? He who has been delighted by the fasces symbols of magisterial authority and honors cannot be private and inglorious. He who is surrounded by wedges of clients, honored by the frequent retinue of an officious crowd, thinks it a punishment when he is alone. It is necessary that he who is bound by persistent allurements should continue as he was accustomed: let drunkenness invite, pride inflate, anger inflame, rapacity disturb, cruelty goad, ambition delight, and lust precipitate.

4 I often thought these things with myself. For I, too, was involved in very many errors of my previous life, from which I did not believe I could be stripped.

Critical apparatus notes: Discusses variant readings for salo (sea), salutaris (saving), and conpage (structure), referencing citations from Augustine's Sermons and notes from Rigaltius and Pamelius.