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 …
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 …
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 …
chrysostom · c. 380 · score 0.02
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 0.02
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 0.02
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 …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
But if verses devoid of ease and happiness cannot win approval, you too will find nothing pleasing on the page I append below. [The poem that follows describes the barbarian peoples gathered at the court of Euric in Bordeaux:] Why do you try to rouse the Muses now, Lampridius, glory of our poetry, and force me to compo …
chrysostom · c. 405 · score 0.01
And when day dawned all the city was migrating outside the walls under trees and groves, celebrating the festival, like scattered sheep. 4. All which happened afterwards I leave you to imagine; for as I said before it is not possible to describe each separate incident. The worst of it is that these evils, great and ser …
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 …
basil_caesarea · c. 371 · score 0.01
I will not describe them one by one, lest the weakness of my account make the evidence of our catastrophe less convincing. Here is the sum of it: congregations have been driven from their houses of worship and are gathering in the open wilderness. It is a terrible sight -- women, children, the elderly, and the infirm e …
athanasius_alexandria · c. 339 · score 0.01
Upon this license of iniquity and disorder, their deeds were worse than in time of war, and more cruel than those of robbers. Some of them were plundering whatever fell in their way; others dividing among themselves the sums which some had laid up there ; the wine, of which there was a large quantity, they either drank …
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 …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
To the Lord Bishop Graecus [Bishop of Marseille]. Here once again our Amantius — that gossipmonger of ours — returns to his Marseille, doubtless planning to bring home some profit from the city's markets, if only a favorable cargo-ship should arrive. Through him I would chatter at length in a lighter vein, if my heart …
epistulae_wisigothicae · c. 633 · score 0.01
An epistola from the Fourth Council of Toledo [633] addressed to the Visigothic clergy, communicating the council's... [This letter from the Epistulae Wisigothicae (Letter 24) represents official correspondence of the Visigothic clergy in Spain. The full Latin text requires further translation.]
basil_caesarea · c. 371 · score 0.01
No respect is shown to gray hair, to a lifetime of practical godliness, to a life lived according to the Gospel from youth to old age. No criminal is condemned without evidence, but bishops are being convicted on slander alone. Some have been banished without even the pretense of a trial. Others have been carried off t …
athanasius_alexandria · c. 339 · score 0.01
The church and the holy Baptistery were set on fire, and straightway groans, shrieks, and lamentations, were heard through the city; while the citizens in their indignation at these enormities, cried shame upon the governor, and protested against the violence used to them. For holy and undefiled virgins were being stri …
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 …
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 …
jerome · c. 413 · score 0.01
Families that had been wealthy for generations found themselves refugees overnight. Noble women who had never walked anywhere except in a litter ended up walking across Campania with nothing. Among them were women whose entire sense of identity had been built around their social position, their marriages, their househo …
chrysostom · c. 405 · score 0.01
And women from the oratories who had stripped themselves for baptism just at that time, fled unclothed, from terror at this grievous assault, not being permitted to put on the modest apparel which befits women; indeed many received wounds before they were expelled, and the baptismal pools were filled with blood, and th …