[Rank]
Ss. Cornelii and Cypriani Pontificium Martyrum;;Simplex;;1;;vide C3

[Rule]
vide C3;

[Oratio]
Lord, we beseech thee that the precious testifying of thy blessed Martyrs and~
Bishops Cornelius and Cyprian may profit us, and their godly prayers protect us.
$Per Dominum

[Lectio4]
Cornelius was a Roman who held the Popedom during the reign of the Emperors~
Gallus and Volusian. He, and that most holy Lady Lucina, took the bodies of the~
Apostles Peter and Paul out of the Catacombs and put them in more convenient~
places. Lucina laid the body of Paul in a farm of her own upon the road to Ostia,~
hard by the place where he had received the sword-stroke. Cornelius placed that~
of the Prince of the Apostles hard by where he had been crucified. When this was~
told to the Emperors, and likewise that Cornelius was the means of making many~
Christians, he was banished to Civita Vecchia, where Cyprian, the holy Bishop~
of Carthage, comforted him by letters.

[Lectio5]
They continued thus to write often one to the other, till the Emperors took in~
bad part these exchanges of Christian love, and sent for Cornelius to Rome.~
There they commanded him to be lashed with scourges loaded with lead as though~
he were a traitor, and then to be carried to offer sacrifice before the image of~
Mars. He firmly refused to commit this great wickedness, and was forthwith~
beheaded, upon the 14th day of September, (in the year of our Lord 252.) The~
blessed Lucina, with the help of the clergy, buried his body in the sand-pit on~
her own farm, near the Cemetery of Kallistus. He lived as Pope about two years.

[Lectio6]
Cypriam was an African. He was first distinguished as a teacher of Rhetorick. He~
afterwards became a Christian at the persuasion of the Priest Caecilius, whose~
surname he took, and parted all his goods among the poor. It was not long before~
he was chosen a Priest, and then made Bishop of Carthage. It would be idle to~
enlarge upon his, wit, seeing that his works are as well known as the sun. He~
suffered under the Emperors Valerian and Gallienus, in the eighth persecution,~
and upon the same day, though not in the same year, that Cornelius testified at~
Rome.
