The Church Fathers · 252
On Mortality
De Mortalitate
Cyprian of Carthage · c. 210–258
What it is
Written during a plague that killed Christians and pagans alike, answering the complaint that the faithful were not being spared, and asking why people who say they long for heaven grieve at going there.
Why it lasted
The church's first pastoral response to an epidemic, and the reason Carthaginian Christians were remembered for burying the pagan dead.
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below. The Library catalogues it; it does not host the text.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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