Sermons & Letters 56

Among all the teachings of the apostolic institution, dearly beloved, which have flowed from the fount of divine instruction, there is no doubt that, by the influence of the Holy Spirit upon the leaders of the Church, this observance was first conceived by them: that by the holy observance of fasting they might inaugurate the rules of all the virtues; since it would greatly profit toward carrying out the precepts of God if the Christian soldiery should fortify itself by the sanctification of continence against all the incentives of the vices. For since the first cause of sin crept in through the enticement of food, by what more wholesome gift of God does redeemed liberty avail itself than to learn to abstain from things permitted, since it knew not how to restrain itself from things forbidden?

Every creature of God indeed is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4:4); but we were not created for this, that with foul and shameless greed we should crave all the world's plenty, as though what is permitted to be taken were not permitted to be foregone. Let God be praised, who has bestowed so many things for human use; but let the rational soul acknowledge that greater delights have been given to the mind than to the flesh. And when it hears said to itself through the Holy Spirit: 'Go not after thy lusts, and turn away from thine own will' (Sir. 18:30)...

...let it understand that against all things which flatter the bodily senses, the virtue of temperance is to be pursued, through which, while the pleasure of the outer man is diminished, the wisdom of the inner man is increased. For the vigor of the heart is not the same under the burden of food as under the lightness of fasting; nor can satiety beget the same feeling as frugality. For when the flesh, lusting against the spirit, is overcome by spiritual desire (Gal. 5:17), a free health and a healthy freedom are obtained: so that both the flesh may be governed by the judgment of the mind, and the mind by the help of God.

To this benefit, therefore, dearly beloved, the present season invites us, that from the Lord's resurrection until the coming of the Holy Spirit, the fifty days being passed which we have spent in the joy of the chief festival, we may have recourse to the remedies of fasting: lest perchance, through the occasion of a more indulgent liberty, the practice of delightful things may have fallen into some faults of negligence. For the earth of our flesh, unless it be subdued by constant cultivation, quickly from sluggish idleness produces thorns and thistles, and by a degenerate offspring yields a fruit not to be brought into the barns but to be burned with fire, as the Lord says: 'Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up' (Matt. 15:13).

We must therefore guard the nobility of all the shoots and seeds which we conceived from the planting of the supreme Husbandman, and with vigilant care provide that God's gifts be not violated by any fraud of the envious enemy, and that in the paradise of the virtues a forest of vices grow up. To avert this evil, however, nothing is more powerful than alms and fasting, since continence slays carnal desires, and the care of mercy multiplies the fruits of spiritual longings. Wherefore we solemnly admonish your charity that, desiring to be cleansed from the filth of all sins through the chastisement of the body and through works of piety, you fast on the fourth and sixth day of the week;

and on the Saturday let us keep vigils at the tomb of the most blessed Apostle Peter: by whose merits and prayers we believe ourselves to be so aided in all things, that the mercy of God may attend both our fasts and our vows, through Christ our Lord. Amen. Of all the holy solemnities indeed, dearly beloved, the whole world is a partaker, and the piety of one faith demands that whatever is commemorated as done for the salvation of all should everywhere be celebrated with common joys. Nevertheless today's festival, besides that reverence which it has merited throughout the whole world, is to be venerated with a special and particular exultation of our city: so that where the glorified passing of the chief apostles took place, there on the day of their martyrdom might be the primacy of gladness.

For these are the men through whom the Gospel of Christ shone upon thee, O Rome; and thou who wast the mistress of error hast been made the disciple of truth. These are thy holy fathers and true shepherds, who founded thee, to be engrafted into the heavenly kingdoms, far better and far more happily than those by whose zeal the first foundations of thy walls were laid: of whom he who gave thee thy name defiled thee with a brother's murder. These are they who advanced thee to this glory, that being a holy nation, a chosen people, a priestly and royal city, and made through the sacred See of blessed Peter the head of the world, thou mightest preside more widely by divine religion than by earthly dominion.

For although, augmented by many victories, thou hast extended the right of thine empire over land and sea, yet less is that which warlike toil has subjected to thee than that which the Christian peace has subdued. For God, good and just and almighty, who never denied his mercy to the human race, and who has ever instructed all mortals in common toward the knowledge of himself by most abundant benefits, took pity by a more secret counsel and a deeper mercy upon the voluntary blindness of the erring and their proneness to worse things, by sending his Word, equal to himself and coeternal. Which, made flesh, so united the divine nature to the human, that His inclination to the lowest things might become our advancement to the highest.

But that the effect of this unspeakable grace might be diffused throughout the whole world, divine providence prepared the Roman empire; whose growth was extended to those limits by which the whole company of all the nations everywhere was near and adjoining. For it especially befitted the divinely disposed work, that many kingdoms should be confederated under one empire, and that the general preaching might swiftly reach the peoples made accessible, over whom the government of one city held sway.

But this city, ignorant of the author of its own advancement, while it ruled over almost all nations, was in bondage to the errors of all nations, and seemed to itself to have embraced a great religion because it rejected no falsehood. Whence, the more tenaciously it was bound by the devil, so much the more marvelously was it set free through Christ.

For when the twelve apostles, having received through the Holy Spirit the speech of all tongues, had undertaken to imbue the world with the Gospel, dividing among themselves the parts of the earth, the most blessed Peter, prince of the apostolic order, is appointed to the citadel of the Roman empire: so that the light of truth, which was being revealed for the salvation of all nations, might pour itself forth more effectively from the very head through the whole body of the world. Of what nation were there not men then in this city? or what peoples anywhere were ignorant of what Rome had learned?

Here the opinions of philosophy were to be trodden down, here the vanities of earthly wisdom were to be dissolved, here the worship of demons was to be confuted, here the impiety of all sacrifices was to be destroyed, where with the most diligent superstition had been gathered together whatever anywhere had been established by various errors. To this city, therefore, O most blessed apostle Peter, thou dost not fear to come, and, while thy partner in glory the apostle Paul was still occupied with the ordering of other churches, thou dost enter this forest of raging beasts and this ocean of most turbulent depth, more steadfast than when thou didst walk upon the sea (Matt. 14:30). Nor dost thou fear Rome, the mistress of the world, thou who in the house of Caiaphas didst tremble before the priest's servant-maid (Matt. 26:70).

Was the power in Claudius, or the cruelty in Nero, any less than the judgment of Pilate or the savagery of the Jews? The force of love therefore overcame the matter of dread; nor didst thou reckon those to be feared whom thou hadst received to be loved. This affection of undaunted charity thou hadst assuredly conceived even then, when the profession of thy love toward the Lord was made firm by the mystery of the threefold questioning (John 21:15-17). Nor was anything sought from this intent of thy mind but that, in feeding the sheep of Him whom thou didst love, thou shouldst expend the food with which thou thyself wast enriched. Thy confidence, too, was increased by so many signs of miracles, so many gifts of graces, so many proofs of powers. Already thou hadst instructed the people who had believed from the circumcision;

already thou hadst founded the Church of Antioch, where first the dignity of the Christian name arose (Acts 11:26); already thou hadst imbued Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia with the laws of evangelical preaching; and neither doubtful of the outcome of thy work, nor ignorant of the span of thine age, thou wast bearing the trophy of Christ's cross into the citadels of Rome, whither by the divine foreordinations both the honor of power and the glory of suffering went before thee. To which thy blessed fellow-apostle Paul, the vessel of election (Acts 9:15), and the special teacher of the nations, hastening, was joined to thee at that time when now all innocence, all modesty, and all liberty labored under the empire of Nero.

Whose fury, inflamed by the excess of all vices, hurled him headlong into such a torrent of madness, that he was the first to inflict the atrocity of a general persecution upon the Christian name, as if the grace of God could be extinguished by the slaying of the saints: to whom this very thing was the greatest gain, that the contempt of this fleeting life became the attainment of eternal happiness. 'Precious therefore in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints' (Ps. 115:15); nor by any kind of cruelty can the religion founded upon the sacrament of Christ's cross be destroyed. The Church is not diminished by persecutions but increased; and ever is the Lord's field clothed with a richer harvest, while the grains that fall singly rise again multiplied.

Whence, into how great an offspring these two illustrious shoots of the divine seed have sprung up, the thousands of blessed martyrs testify, who, rivals of the apostolic triumphs, have encircled our city with peoples clad in purple and gleaming far and wide, and have crowned it, as it were, with one diadem woven from the honor of many gems. Concerning which protection, dearly beloved, divinely prepared for us as an example of patience and a confirmation of faith, we must indeed rejoice universally in the commemoration of all the saints; but in the excellence of these fathers we must deservedly glory with greater exultation, whom the grace of God has advanced to so lofty a summit among all the members of the Church, that it has set them, in the body whose head is Christ (Eph. 1:22)...

...it has established them as, so to speak, the twin light of the eyes. Concerning whose merits and virtues, which surpass all faculty of speech, we ought to think nothing diverse, nothing separate; because election made them equal, labor made them alike, and the end made them equal. And as we too have experienced, and our forefathers have proved, we believe and are confident that, among all the labors of this life, for obtaining the mercy of God, we shall ever be aided by the prayers of our special patrons: so that by however much we are weighed down by our own sins, by so much we may be raised up by the apostolic merits. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit is the same power, one Godhead for ever and ever. Amen.

In this place Quesnel set an admonition in his editions, to give the reason why he had withdrawn the following sermon from here and relegated it to the appendix. These are his words: 'There follows, in all the editions that have hitherto appeared, Sermon 2 on the Nativity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, whose beginning is: Let us exult in the Lord, etc., which we have therefore removed from our collection, because, except for the exordium—which is doubtless not Leo's—and about five lines, which are taken from Sermon 2 (now 3) on the Anniversary of his assumption, the rest have been transcribed from Sermon 3 (now 4) on the Anniversary of the same. Nevertheless we will give it a place in a little appendix. In a single manuscript codex...'

'...which belongs to the Royal Library, this sermon was found by us, which it is thereby manifest was compiled for the use of some particular church, because in that part of the exordium where we read: He deigned to grant blessed Peter first to this city, there is had in the manuscript codex: He deigned to grant to the City of Rome—which change indicates that it was not read at Rome.' Thus far he (Quesnel). We were for some time in doubt over these matters. But then, weighing that this sermon is constantly attributed to Leo not only in all four manuscripts of the collections of different origin 1, 2, 3, and 4, but also in very many Lectionaries of the best repute, both Vatican and external, as many as we found containing this sermon, we did not dare, with Quesnel, to judge it away from Leo;

and therefore we thought it should be left in that place which it held in the earlier editions. This the authority of the most excellent Lectionary Vat. 3835 especially seemed to demand, which, certainly Roman, attributes nothing but what is genuine to Leo; and, written more than a thousand years ago, it sufficiently betrays a yet more ancient origin from a peculiar annotation described in the preface, no. 6, by which the holy pontiff, by a formula almost coeval with himself, is called not 'sanctus' nor 'beatus,' but 'domnus.' This testimony is to be held above all.

For although it was easy to err in noting the authors of other churches as regards sermons that were received from elsewhere, yet an error will not easily be found in the names of the authors of one's own church, since the more ancient and (as happens in this codex) the copies near to Leo were being transcribed. And so much the more must the authority of this Lectionary be reckoned, inasmuch as another part of the same Lectionary, marked no. 3836, detected a sermon on the Maccabees falsely attributed to Leo, which it ascribes not to Leo, as in other codices and thence in all the printed editions, but to Augustine: so accurate are these two most ancient Roman Lectionaries found to be in inscribing Leo's name. The style indeed of this sermon is plainly Leonine;

nor do we understand what in the exordium offended Quesnel, so that he affirmed, with no reason adduced, that it is doubtless not Leo's. That which seems to raise no small difficulty is this one thing: that, apart from the exordium of the sermon, the rest are found transcribed partly from the third sermon, partly from the fourth on his own Nativity (anniversary). But that it was customary for Leo to repeat and transcribe his own things is clear from the Epistles. For in Epistle 28, to Flavian, chapters 3 and 4, several sentences are covered which are taken word for word from Sermons 21 and 22. In Epistle 124, to the Palestinians, seven chapters are contained which in just as many words (a few excepted) are found in Epistle 165, to Leo Augustus;

and in these two epistles there occurs a long text of Sermon 65, which makes up two whole chapters. Epistles 30 and 31 also present not a few repetitions; and Epistle 18 repeats some things from Epistles 1 and 2. Who then would wonder if the same thing happened in this sermon? But if nothing of this kind is detected in the other sermons of Leo that have appeared, this seems to have that cause, that things recited on one solemnity would not so suit another, as those things could be accommodated to the Nativity of St. Peter which he had once, on his own anniversary, discoursed concerning the praises of Peter. In this it was enough to compose a new exordium fitting the feast of St. Peter; but the rest, which here and there from the sermons...

...3 and 4 were excerpted, are connected so aptly and coherently that they display the same author and master; nor do they anywhere admit anything incongruous, as happened in the sermon (no. 1) to be inserted in the appendix, which, though woven from various fragments of Leo, nevertheless somewhere betrays an incautious patcher-together, as we shall note in its place. What of the fact that we have probably conjectured, in annotation 13 on Sermon 90, that Leo repeated certain sermons with some changes, just as we know that several other Fathers also employed repetitions of this kind, as from Ss. Zeno and Ambrose we learn? Why then should not our holy...

...pontiff, excerpting and joining together many things from one and another sermon, with a new exordium prefixed proper to another festivity, have fashioned a certain new form and a new sermon? Moreover the words 'He deigned to grant blessed Peter to this city first,' which are retained in our codices, declare the sermon to have been delivered at Rome and by the pontiff; nor is there any doubt that the change of words in the codex which Quesnel saw is to be attributed to the discretion of the copyist, who, writing a Lectionary for another particular church, wished to indicate that Peter was set over not his own, but the Roman city. Let us exult in the Lord, dearly beloved, and rejoice with spiritual gladness:

for the only-begotten Son of God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, in order to impart to us the mysteries of His dispensation and Divinity, deigned to grant blessed Peter, first of the apostolic order, to this city, whose solemnity today, with the recurring triumph of martyrdom, has conferred a distinction and an honor upon the whole world. For this, dearly beloved, that confession obtained, which, inspired by God the Father into the apostolic heart, transcended all the uncertainties of human opinions, and received the firmness of the rock, which could be shaken by no assaults. For, as the evangelical history discloses, the Lord asks all the apostles what men think of Him.

And so long as the discourse of the respondents is common, so long is the ambiguity of human understanding unfolded. But when it is required what the sense of the disciples has, he is first in the confession of the Lord who is first in apostolic dignity. And when he had said: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' Jesus answered him: 'Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven' (Matt. 16:16-17); that is, for this thou art blessed, because my Father hath taught thee, nor did earthly opinion deceive thee, but heavenly inspiration instructed thee; and neither flesh nor blood, but He whose only-begotten I am, hath pointed me out to thee. And I, he says, say to thee;

that is, as my Father hath manifested to thee my Divinity, so I make known to thee thine own excellence. 'For thou art Peter'; that is, though I am the inviolable rock, I the corner-stone who make both one (Eph. 2:14), yet thou also art a rock, because thou art made firm by my strength, so that the things which are proper to me by power may be common to thee with me by participation. 'Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' Upon this strength, he says, I will build an eternal temple, and the loftiness of my Church, to be inserted into heaven, shall rise up in the firmness of this faith. This confession the gates of hell shall not hold, the bonds of death shall not bind.

For that voice is the voice of life, and as it advances its confessors into the heavenly things, so it plunges its deniers into the infernal. Wherefore it is said to the most blessed Peter: 'To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.' The right of this power passed indeed also into the other apostles, but not in vain is that commended to one which is intimated to all. For to Peter this is singularly entrusted, because to all the rulers of the Church the figure of Peter is set forth. Peter's privilege therefore remains, wherever judgment is rendered from his equity;

nor is there any excessive severity or remission, where nothing will be bound, nothing loosed, except what blessed Peter shall have bound or loosed. But as His passion was drawing near, which was to disturb the constancy of His disciples, the Lord says: 'Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath demanded to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren, that ye enter not into temptation' (Luke 22:31-32). Common to all the apostles was the peril from the temptation of dread, and they equally needed the aid of divine protection, since the devil desired to harass all, to dash all to pieces;

and yet a special care of Peter is undertaken by the Lord, and prayer is offered particularly for Peter's faith, as if the state of the others would be more assured if the mind of the chief were not overcome. In Peter therefore the fortitude of all is fortified, and the aid of divine grace is so ordered, that the firmness which through Christ is bestowed upon Peter may through Peter be conferred upon the apostles. For after His resurrection too the Lord said three times to the blessed apostle Peter, after the keys of the kingdom, unto the threefold profession of eternal love, by a mystical suggestion: 'Feed my sheep' (John 21:17): which he doubtless does even now, and the pious shepherd carries out the Lord's command, confirming us by exhortations and not ceasing to pray for us, that we may be overcome by no temptation.

But if he extends this care of his loving-kindness everywhere to all the people of God, as is to be believed, how much more does he deign to bestow his help upon us, his nurslings, among whom, on the sacred couch of his blessed repose, he rests in the same flesh in which he presided? Since therefore, dearly beloved, we see so great a protection divinely established for us, we reasonably and justly rejoice in the merits and dignity of our leader, giving thanks to the everlasting King, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, that He gave such great power to him whom He made the prince of the whole Church, unto the glory and praise of His name: to whom is honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. To the title of the following sermon Quesnel appended this lengthy annotation:

Cardinal Baronius judges that the things said in this sermon are to be referred to the Attilan disaster, at the years 452 and 455. But certain words of the sermon persuade that they are rather to be understood of the Vandal plundering. For it signifies that the people had been accustomed, in previous years namely, to flock together to render thanks to God, on account of the day of chastisement and deliverance. He grieves that the Romans are neither pricked with compunction over the chastening nor rejoice over the remission. Against them he casts this prophetic voice: 'Thou hast scourged them, and they have not grieved; thou hast chastised them, and they refused to receive discipline.' To the mercy of God he imputes it that He deigned to soften the hearts of the raging barbarians.

All these things seem to accord rather with the devastation brought upon the city of Rome by the Vandals than with the invasion of Attila, by whom the City suffered no injury, since that barbarian was mitigated by divine intervention before he burst in upon it. But this shines out yet more clearly from these words of the first chapter: 'Who,' he says, 'restored this city to safety? who rescued it from captivity? who defended it from slaughter?' These words, I say, plainly intimate that Leo's sermon is to be understood of the City occupied by the Vandals. For no one is restored to safety, no one is rescued from captivity, who has not been in the power of the enemy and whose safety has not been brought into the utmost peril. Finally, that he commemorates the city as defended from slaughter agrees entirely with the narrative of Marcellinus's history, which runs thus:

«Gaiseric forthwith seized the city, which was empty of any garrison, and, being mollified by the meeting with Pope Leo, he kept the city immune from burning, slaughter, and torments.» Furthermore, that this very sermon was delivered by our Leo on the octave of the Apostles, the title alone indicates; concerning the truth of which, on account of the scarcity of manuscript codices, it was not permitted to inquire: for the single Victorinus, and that a rather recent one, was at hand for us. If you attend to Leo's words alone, one thing is clear: that this sermon was delivered a little after the solemnity of the public supplication appointed at St Peter's in thanksgiving for the City delivered from the hostile army.

That this discourse was delivered by our pontiff at a time other than that assigned either to the feast or to the octave of the Apostles seems capable of being proved from this: that at that time the Circensian games were being celebrated in the City, which games, on the Kalends of March, were customarily given, as Julius Caesar Bulengerus deduces from the second book of Ovid's Fasti, in his book On the Roman Circus and the Circensian Games, chapter one. On other days too the Circensian games are noted in the Roman Calendar published by the Aldi and by others from the Maffeian marble; but neither on the third day before the Kalends of July, on which the feast of the Apostles falls, nor on the day before the Nones of that same month, on which the octave falls. For to this last day alone are the Apollinarian games recorded as assigned.» Three things here Quesnel noted:

First, that it is most true that the things contained in this sermon are to be understood of the invasion of the Vandals. As for the second point, namely the title, 'On the Octave of the Apostles Peter and Paul,' it must be premised that this sermon, of which Quesnel saw the single codex Victorinus of collection 5, was found by us in four manuscripts of collections 2, 3, 4, and 5, and moreover in the Vallicellian Lectionary A. 6. Indeed only the codices of collections 3, 4, and 5 bear that title. But although another title is read in the manuscript index of the Casanatensian codex of collection 2 and in the Vallicellian Lectionary, this sermon was not on that account to be excluded from the day of the octave of the Apostles. For while the index of the Casanatensian codex

presents a title agreeing with the very argument of the sermon, 'On the Neglected Solemnity,' this is by no means opposed to the day of the octave. And while the Vallicellian manuscript describes the same sermon under the sixth Sunday after the Nativity of the Apostles, with the title 'Sermon of St Leo the Pope to the People,' it must be observed that this sermon, delivered on the octave, was in the same place, in a later age, transferred to the use of the divine offices upon the aforesaid sixth Sunday, just as the three sermons on the Collects, most certainly delivered within the octave of the same Apostles, are for the same reason found described in the same codex on the second, third, and first Sundays after their Nativity—concerning which see the admonition prefixed to sermon 6. Hence there is no doubt that such a sermon was recited on the octave of the Apostles, that is, on the day before the Nones of

July, was recited—of this nothing is to be doubted. And we have retained both the title of the octave day and that of the neglected solemnity. The third point, from which Quesnel indeed confesses it to be clear from Leo's words that this sermon was delivered a little after the solemnity of the public supplication appointed at St Peter's for thanksgiving for the City delivered from the hostile army; but he raises a difficulty from the date, since in the sermon mention is made of the Circensian games; these, however, are not noted in the ancient Calendars as held on the octave day of the Apostles, to which alone the Apollinarian games are assigned. This third point, I say, in order that it may be duly reconciled, certain things must be premised. Since in the opening of the sermon the

pontiff complains of the fewness of those flocking to Peter's church, whither once the whole people used to gather to give thanks, he sufficiently indicates that the sermon was delivered not in the first year in which Rome was captured and delivered by the Vandals, that is, the year 455 (for at that beginning the concourse to the Church was greater), but some years afterwards, when the former devotion had cooled; and therefore this sermon belongs to Leo's last years. And though the church of St Peter is not expressly named, the thanksgiving seems to have been appointed to it for this reason: that on the very feast-day of St Peter Rome was delivered. For on the 12th of June the emperor Maximus died, as the anonymous author of Cuspinianus testifies, whom the Bollandists published in full from the Caesarean manuscript, in volume VI of June, part II, page 187.

Theophanes relates that three days after his death Gaiseric with the Vandals occupied Rome. That he plundered it for fourteen days is handed down both by the praised anonymous author of Cuspinianus and by St Prosper in his Chronicle, where moreover he sufficiently indicates that these same Vandals departed from Rome after the aforesaid fourteen days, writing in one continuous passage: 'For fourteen days, therefore, with secure and free scrutiny, Rome was emptied of all its wealth, and many thousands of captives... were led to Carthage.' Now if the reckoning of three and fourteen days be made from the murder of Maximus, that is, from the 12th of June, to the emptying and liberation of the city of Rome, you will find this to have fallen on the 29th of that same month. Therefore, the city having been delivered on the day of St

Peter's day, soon after a thanksgiving was appointed at St Peter's on some subsequent day within the octave of the same Apostle. But the Circensian games, which are indicated in this sermon, must by no means be understood as games coinciding on the same day to which this supplication had been assigned; but they can be referred to the Apollinarian games, which began on the octave day, and were at least on the thirteenth day held in the Circus, as we said from the ancient Calendars in the admonition to the sermons on the Collects. That is, the holy pontiff instituted a mere comparison between the Circensian games and other spectacles at which there was a great throng, and the aforesaid supplication, which had lately been neglected by almost all;

where the word 'lately' designates the day appointed a little before that supplication. CHAPTER I. — The religious devotion, beloved, with which, on account of the day of our chastisement and deliverance, the whole people of the faithful used to flock together to render thanks to God, has of late been neglected by almost all—the very scantiness of the few who were present has shown this: and it has brought much sadness to my heart, and struck into it very great fear. For it is a great peril for men to be ungrateful to God, and, through forgetfulness of His benefits, to be neither pricked with compunction at His reproof nor to rejoice at His remission. I fear, therefore, beloved, lest that prophetic voice may seem to have rebuked such as these, which says: 'Thou hast scourged them, and they have not grieved;'

thou hast chastised them, and they refused to receive discipline' (Jer. v, 3). For what correction is shown in those in whom so great an aversion is found? It is a shame to say, but it is necessary not to keep silent: more is expended upon demons than upon the Apostles, and mad spectacles obtain a greater frequency than the blessed martyrdoms. Who restored this city to safety? who rescued it from captivity? who defended it from slaughter? The games of the Circus, or the worship of the saints? By whose prayers, assuredly, the sentence of the divine censure was bent, so that we who deserved wrath were preserved unto pardon. CHAPTER II.

— Let that saying of the Saviour, I beseech you, beloved, touch your heart—He who, when by the power of His mercy He had cleansed ten lepers, said that one only of them returned to give thanks (Luke xvii, 15): signifying, namely, of the ungrateful, that even if they obtained the health of their body, they yet did not fail to be wanting in this duty of piety, not without impiety of soul.

Lest, therefore, that mark of the ungrateful should be able to be ascribed also to you, beloved, return to the Lord, understanding the marvels which He has deigned to work in us, and, attributing our deliverance not, as the impious suppose, to the effects of the stars, but to the ineffable mercy of Almighty God, who deigned to soften the hearts of the raging barbarians, apply yourselves with all the vigour of faith to the memory of so great a benefit. Grave negligence must be remedied by greater satisfaction. For our amendment let us make use of the leniency of Him who spares us:

that blessed Peter and all the saints, who have always been present to us in many tribulations, may deign to aid our supplications on your behalf before the merciful God, through Christ our Lord. Amen.