The enemy has put his hand to all her desirable things, for she has seen the nations invade and enter her courts, concerning which you had commanded that they should not enter your church. Her ways mourn, because no one assembles on the feast day. All her beauty and her delights have gone forth from her face. Her virgins and her young men, brought up in the halls of the monasteries, have learned to walk the rough ways; they have gone into the captivity of the Moors, while her holy stones are scattered — not only at the heads of all the streets, but even in the squalid places of the mines.
Say to our God, her upholder, having confidence to make supplication, that she is in tribulation and her belly is troubled by her weeping, for she has sat among the nations and found no rest, nor is there any to comfort her. She sought from the regions of the East one who would grieve together with her, and there was none, and one to console her, and she found none, while she ate gall in her food and in her thirst was given vinegar to drink, imitating the sufferings of her Bridegroom and Lord, who suffered for her to this end, that she might follow His footsteps. (V, 20) Make entreaty, you patriarchs, from whose stock by birth was born she who now labours on earth; pray, you holy prophets, recognizing her afflicted, of whom you sang before with prophetic proclamation;
be her advocates, you apostles, you who, to gather her, ran throughout the whole world like swiftest horses, the Lord mounting upon you. Above all you, blessed Peter, why are you silent on behalf of the sheep and lambs entrusted to you by the common Lord with great care and solicitude? You, holy Paul, teacher of the nations, who from Jerusalem even to Illyricum preached the gospel of God, learn what the Arian Vandals are doing, and that your sons groan, mourning in captivity; and all you holy apostles, groan together for us. But we know that it is unworthy for you to pray for us, because these things which have come upon us for our testing were owed as punishments not as to saints, but to evil deserts.
But pray now also for the evil sons, since Christ prayed even for His Jewish enemies. Let the chastisements which have justly been inflicted upon us suffice, and now at last let pardon be sought for the offenders; let it be said to the smiting angel: 'It is enough, now stay your hand.' Who can be ignorant that these sins of our reproaches have brought these things upon us, as we strayed from the commandments of God and were unwilling to walk in His law? But prostrate we beg that you not despise your wretched sinners, by Him who raised you to the apostolic summit, lowly fishermen as you were. (V, 21) [The most wicked Huneric held the dominion of the kingdom seven years and ten months, consummating the death of his deserts.
For, rotted and boiling with worms, not his body but the parts of his body are seen to have been buried. But that transgressor of the law that had been given, who once came over to them from the heresy of the Donatists — a certain Nicasius — perished shortly after in a like death.]