accordance with the custom of war, whereas the acts of clemency
resulted from the influence of Christ's name._
All the spoiling, then, which Rome was exposed to in the recent
calamity--all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and misery--was
the result of the custom of war. But what was novel, was that savage
barbarians showed themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest
churches were chosen and set apart for the purpose of being filled with
the people to whom quarter was given, and that in them none were slain,
from them none forcibly dragged; that into them many were led by their
relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from them none were
led into slavery by merciless foes. Whoever does not see that this is
to be attributed to the name of Christ, and to the Christian temper, is
blind; whoever sees this, and gives no praise, is ungrateful; whoever
hinders any one from praising it, is mad. Far be it from any prudent
man to impute this clemency to the barbarians. Their fierce and bloody
minds were awed, and bridled, and marvellously tempered by Him who so
long before said by His prophet, "I will visit their transgression
with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes; nevertheless my
loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them."[42]