Christ's sake spared when they stormed the city._
For to this earthly city belong the enemies against whom I have to
defend the city of God. Many of them, indeed, being reclaimed from
their ungodly error, have become sufficiently creditable citizens
of this city; but many are so inflamed with hatred against it, and
are so ungrateful to its Redeemer for His signal benefits, as to
forget that they would now be unable to utter a single word to its
prejudice, had they not found in its sacred places, as they fled from
the enemy's steel, that life in which they now boast themselves. Are
not those very Romans, who were spared by the barbarians through
their respect for Christ, become enemies to the name of Christ? The
reliquaries of the martyrs and the churches of the apostles bear
witness to this; for in the sack of the city they were open sanctuary
for all who fled to them, whether Christian or Pagan. To their very
threshold the bloodthirsty enemy raged; there his murderous fury
owned a limit. Thither did such of the enemy as had any pity convey
those to whom they had given quarter, lest any less mercifully
disposed might fall upon them. And, indeed, when even those murderers
who everywhere else showed themselves pitiless came to these spots
where that was forbidden which the licence of war permitted in every
other place, their furious rage for slaughter was bridled, and their
eagerness to take prisoners was quenched. Thus escaped multitudes
who now reproach the Christian religion, and impute to Christ the
ills that have befallen their city; but the preservation of their own
life--a boon which they owe to the respect entertained for Christ
by the barbarians--they attribute not to our Christ, but to their
own good luck. They ought rather, had they any right perceptions, to
attribute the severities and hardships inflicted by their enemies, to
that divine providence which is wont to reform the depraved manners
of men by chastisement, and which exercises with similar afflictions
the righteous and praiseworthy,--either translating them, when they
have passed through the trial, to a better world, or detaining them
still on earth for ulterior purposes. And they ought to attribute
it to the spirit of these Christian times, that, contrary to the
custom of war, these bloodthirsty barbarians spared them, and
spared them for Christ's sake, whether this mercy was actually
shown in promiscuous places, or in those places specially dedicated
to Christ's name, and of which the very largest were selected as
sanctuaries, that full scope might thus be given to the expansive
compassion which desired that a large multitude might find shelter
there. Therefore ought they to give God thanks, and with sincere
confession flee for refuge to His name, that so they may escape
the punishment of eternal fire--they who with lying lips took upon
them this name, that they might escape the punishment of present
destruction. For of those whom you see insolently and shamelessly
insulting the servants of Christ, there are numbers who would not
have escaped that destruction and slaughter had they not pretended
that they themselves were Christ's servants. Yet now, in ungrateful
pride and most impious madness, and at the risk of being punished in
everlasting darkness, they perversely oppose that name under which
they fraudulently protected themselves for the sake of enjoying the
light of this brief life.