|
All the spoiling, then, which Rome was exposed to in the recent
calamity, all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and misery, was
the result of the custom of war. But what was novel, was that savage
barbarians showed themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest
churches were chosen and set apart for the purpose of being filled with
the people to whom quarter was given, and that in them none were
slain, from them none forcibly dragged; that into them many were led
by their relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from them
none were led into slavery by merciless foes. Whoever does not see
that this is to be attributed to the name of Christ, and to the
Christian temper, is blind; whoever sees this, and gives no praise,
is ungrateful; whoever hinders any one from praising it, is mad. Far
be it from any prudent man to impute this clemency to the barbarians.
Their fierce and bloody minds were awed, and bridled, and
marvellously tempered by Him who so long before said by His prophet,
"I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquities
with stripes; nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take
from them."
|
|