De peste themata sacra tria

evil creeps in, and many are beginning to be infected by that crime of inhumanity, which would have been unheard of to our fathers a few years ago. Furthermore, booklets are already being disseminated in our language and in others, which praise and approve of this inhumanity, and persuade others to adopt it, so that one must fear that our fatherland, hitherto illustrious among other peoples for its proclamation of humanity toward the sick, may allow its praise to be infected, and provoke the judgment of the Lord upon itself through a common evil. Therefore, one must resist with all one's strength so that this evil does not spread further. But let no one blame me for descending into this arena (unless I am mistaken), for anyone who considers more diligently what must be done, rather than what I might have been able to achieve in such a great matter, will understand. And whatever I have done, most noble sir, I wished to publish under your patronage, for you accumulate the ancestral praise of your family in promoting piety and studies, and furthermore, you can be a most ample witness to the cruelty with which the plague-stricken are deserted by other peoples—people you knew well when you administered the government of Aelen last year. Those who were entrusted to you were not immune to this wickedness, as happens when minds are hardened by the example of a neighbor and by custom, and although you wished to deter them from it by the order of our most noble Magistrate, you could barely accomplish anything. You easily know, as do all who saw that beastly inhumanity, that such a great evil