Resultados25 letters/passages
jerome · c. 396 · score 0.02
When they came, they spared neither religion, nor rank, nor age; they had no pity even for wailing infants. Children were forced to die before they could be said to have begun living, and little ones, oblivious to their fate, could be seen smiling in the hands of their killers. It was generally believed the invaders we …
salvian_marseille · c. 450 · score 0.02
To the most holy Lord Salonius, bishop of Geneva, from Salvian, greetings. The question you raise about the relationship between divine providence and human freedom in the context of the barbarian catastrophe is one I have been wrestling with in the work I am currently writing, and I want to share my current thinking. …
theodoret_cyrrhus · c. 440 · score 0.02
To Ibas, Bishop of Edessa [one of the major cities of Roman Mesopotamia, modern Urfa in southeastern Turkey], I believe it is part of God's providential care for our common salvation that he allows certain calamities to fall upon some people. For the chastened, such misfortunes become a healing remedy. For those alread …
augustine_hippo · c. 404 · score 0.02
Your letter filled our heart with great sorrow, in which you asked that I reply at some length; yet for such evils, more lengthy groaning and weeping are owed than lengthy books. For the whole world is afflicted by such calamities that almost no part of the earth exists where such things as you described are not commit …
cassiodorus · c. 522 · score 0.02
Under the clemency of a good ruler, nothing is left to the mercy of chance — for those who have resolved to govern most prosperously also correct misfortunes. How could a man stripped bare endure both savage barbarians and a demanding sovereign, when, robbed of his resources, he denies having the means to pay what he o …
synesius_cyrene · c. 411 · score 0.02
To Anysius. Nothing could benefit Pentapolis more than honoring the Unnigardae [a barbarian military unit], who are excellent both as men and as soldiers, above all the other troops — not just the so-called native forces, but every auxiliary unit that has ever been stationed in our region. The proof of their quality is …
synesius_cyrene · c. 409 · score 0.01
To Simplicius. When you asked Cerialis to bring me your congratulations, you did him an unintended favor — you kept me ignorant for five days of what a contemptible man he is. Our cities had some hope for anyone Simplicius deemed worth knowing. But he quickly disgraced not you — may your reputation never depend on any …
chrysostom · c. 380 · score 0.01
For that which has never taken place has now come to pass, the barbarians leaving their own country have overrun an infinite space of our territory, and that many times over, and having set fire to the land, and captured the towns they are not minded to return home again, but after the manner of men who are keeping hol …
augustine_hippo · c. 404 · score 0.01
It was in the hidden judgment and mercy of God to provide for the salvation of those kings in that way. Against King Antiochus, who killed the Maccabees with cruel torments, God chose not to provide in the same way but punished the hard king's heart with more severe judgment through their most glorious suffering. What …
theodoret_cyrrhus · c. 440 · score 0.01
To Apellion. The sufferings of the people of Carthage would demand — and in their magnitude might exceed — the full power of tragic language, even of an Aeschylus or a Sophocles. Carthage was in the old days taken by the Romans only after tremendous effort. Time and again she contended with Rome for mastery of the worl …
ambrose_milan · c. 388 · score 0.01
I replied that I had never deceived anyone: the fact that I had not cooperated with his plans was exactly the point. I had been sent by a legitimate emperor, and I had acted in that emperor's interest. Then he tried a different tactic. He claimed that Bauto, the Frankish general, had invited barbarians into the empire. …
gregory_great · c. 600 · score 0.01
Gregory to Maximus, Bishop of Salona. When our mutual friend the priest Veteranus arrived in Rome, he found me so weakened by gout that I could not personally answer your Fraternity's letters. Regarding the Slavic nation [the Slavs, who were pressing into the Balkans and threatening the Dalmatian coast], from which you …
chrysostom · c. 405 · score 0.01
Moreover she besought me to take refuge in her house, which had a fortress and was impregnable, that I might escape the hands of the bishop and monks. This however I could not be induced to do, but remained in the villa, knowing nothing of the plans which were devised after these things. For even then they were not con …
augustine_hippo · c. 423 · score 0.01
Augustine to Bishop Honoratus, greetings. You have asked me the most difficult practical question a bishop can face: when the barbarians approach, should the bishop flee? I have thought about this for a long time — longer than you might expect, because the question is not hypothetical for us in Africa. The barbarians a …
jerome · c. 413 · score 0.01
Like him too he had with him a Cerberus, not three headed but many headed, ready to seize and rend everything within his reach. He tore betrothed daughters from their mothers' arms and sold high-born maidens in marriage to those greediest of men, the merchants of Syria. No plea of poverty induced him to spare either wa …
augustine_hippo · c. 404 · score 0.01
We should not be so contrary to ourselves as to believe when we read and then complain when they are fulfilled. Rather, even those who were unbelieving when they read or heard these things written in the holy Books should now at least believe when they see them being fulfilled — so that from these great pressures, as i …
augustine_hippo · c. 423 · score 0.01
Their advance is relentless. The cities that stand in their path will face siege, destruction, and massacre. The bishops in those cities will face the question you have asked me. My answer, for myself, is this: I will not flee. I cannot. My people cannot flee, and I will not leave them. If the Lord takes me, he takes m …
jerome · c. 396 · score 0.01
How was it that the soothsayer Balaam, in prophesying the mysteries of Christ [Numbers 24:15-19], spoke more plainly of Him than almost any other prophet? I answered as best I could. Then, unrolling the scroll further, she reached the list of all the halting-places by which the people traveled from Egypt to the waters …
cassiodorus · c. 522 · score 0.01
Under a benevolent ruler, subjects do not even need to ask for relief, because the ruler's humanity anticipates their petitions, and in a wonderful reversal, the benefits come before the requests. Recently, moved by justice, we had ordered that the untouched portion of the province should provide sustenance for our Got …
gregory_great · c. 594 · score 0.01
Gregory to the Emperor Mauricius. Our most devout and God-appointed sovereign, among his many pressing cares, also watches over the preservation of peace among the clergy with genuine spiritual concern -- rightly and wisely recognizing that no one can govern earthly affairs well unless he knows how to handle the things …
cassiodorus · c. 522 · score 0.01
What the invaders suffered is well known -- but I choose to pass over the details, lest the spirit of our allied prince be embarrassed by another's disgrace. How highly the East regarded our court can be understood from this: the Eastern emperor freely granted peace to those who had offended him, though he had refused …
gregory_great · c. 594 · score 0.01
Whatever it was my duty to do in humility, I have not neglected. But if I am disregarded in my reproof, I will have no choice but to bring the matter before the Church. May Almighty God show you, brother, how great a love for you constrains me in saying these things, and how deeply I grieve in this matter -- not agains …
cassiodorus · c. 522 · score 0.01
We also order this inquiry: the accounts between defensores, town councillors, and landowners must be traced, and whatever a landowner can prove he paid above the established tax rate from the recently concluded eighth indiction -- if it was neither deposited in our treasury nor shown by proper accounting to have been …
jerome · c. 390 · score 0.01
Count the disasters of our generation: Adrianople, where an emperor and his army were swallowed by the earth [the Battle of Adrianople in 378 AD, where Emperor Valens was killed by the Visigoths]. The walls of Rome themselves are no longer a guarantee of safety. What the world outside those walls looks like, I do not n …
theodoret_cyrrhus · c. 440 · score 0.01
To Eustathius, Bishop of Aegae, The story of the noble Mary belongs in a tragedy. As she herself says, and as several others confirm, she is a daughter of the distinguished Eudaemon. In the catastrophe that has overtaken Libya [likely the Vandal conquest of North Africa], she has fallen from her father's free estate in …