The City of God

are accustomed to be spared by enemies, and that these things were feared for Roman temples not by foreign enemies, but by Catiline and his most noble associates, the senators and Roman citizens. But they were, indeed, lost men and parricides of their fatherland.

That not even the Romans themselves captured any cities in such a way that they spared the vanquished in their temples. Chap. VI

Why, therefore, should my discourse wander through many nations, which have waged wars among themselves, and nowhere spared the vanquished in the seats of their gods? Let us see the Romans themselves, let us recall them, I say; and let us look back at the Romans, of whom it was said that their chief praise was:

And that they preferred to forgive an injury received rather than to pursue it: when they captured and overturned so many and such great cities so that they might rule widely, let it be read to us which temples they were accustomed to spare, so that whoever fled to them might be liberated? Or did they do it, and the writers of those very historical events kept silent about it? Would they, indeed, who sought out most especially those things which they might praise, pass over these most illustrious signs of piety according to themselves? The distinguished Marcus Marcellus, of the Roman name, who captured Syracuse, a most ornate city, is reported to have wept first at its impending ruin, and to have shed his own tears for it before its blood was spilled. He also took care for modesty, to be preserved even in the enemy. For before the victor had ordered the town to be invaded, he had decided by edict that no one should violate a free body. Yet the city was overturned in the manner of wars, nor is it read anywhere that it was commanded by a commander so chaste and merciful that whoever had fled to this or that temple should depart unharmed. Which, in any case, would by no means be passed over, when neither his tears, nor what he had proclaimed for the sake of not violating modesty, could be kept silent. Fabius, the overturner of the city of Tarentum, is praised for having abstained from the plunder of statues. For when his scribe had suggested to him what he should order to be done about the statues of the gods, which had been captured in great number, he seasoned his restraint even with a joke. For he asked what sort they were. And when it was reported to him that there were not only many large ones, but also armed ones, "Let us leave," he said, "the Tarentines their angry gods." Since, therefore, the writers of Roman history could not keep silent about his tears, nor this man's jest, nor the former's chaste mercy, nor the latter's witty restraint, when would it be passed over if they had spared some men in honor of any of their gods in such a way that they prohibited slaughter or captivity in any temple?

That in the overturning of the city, those things which were done harshly happened according to the custom of war, but those things which were done mercifully proceeded from the power of the name of Christ. Chap. VII

Whatever, therefore, of devastation, slaughter, plunder, or burning, affliction, in this most recent Roman disaster was committed, the custom of wars caused this. But that which was done in a new manner, that in the unaccustomed appearance of events, barbarian cruelty appeared so mild that the most spacious basilicas were chosen to be filled with the people to be spared, and were decreed as places where no one should be struck; from whence no one should be seized; where many were led to be liberated by compassionate enemies; from whence none were led away to be taken captive even by cruel enemies: this is to be attributed to the name of Christ, this to the Christian era. Whoever does not see this is blind; whoever sees it and does not praise it is ungrateful; whoever resists one who praises it is insane. Far be it that any prudent person should impute this to the ferocity of the barbarians. He terrified, He restrained, He miraculously tempered the most truculent and savage minds, He who long before predicted through the prophet:

I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges: but my mercy I will not take away from them.

Regarding the benefits and inconveniences, which are for the most part common to the good and the bad. Chap. VIII

Someone will say, "Why, therefore, did this divine mercy reach even to the impious and ungrateful?" Why do we think, except because He provided it, who daily makes His sun rise upon the good and the bad, and rains upon the just and the unjust? For although some of them