Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 7.--That the Cruelties Which Occurred in the Sack of Rome Were in 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." ¹

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput VII: Quod in euersione urbis, quae aspere gesta sunt, de consuetudine acciderint belli; quae uero clementer, de potentia prouenerint nominis Christi.

Quidquid ergo uastationis trucidationis depraedationis concremationis adflictionis in ista recentissima Romana clade commissum est, fecit hoc consuetudo bellorum; quod autem nouo more factum est, quod inusitata rerum facie inmanitas barbara tam mitis apparuit, ut amplissimae basilicae inplendae populo cui parceretur eligerentur et decernerentur, ubi nemo feriretur, unde nemo raperetur, quo liberandi multi a miserantibus hostibus ducerentur, unde captiuandi ulli nec a crudelibus hostibus abducerentur: hoc Christi nomini, hoc Christiano tempori tribuendum quisquis non uidet, caecus, quisquis uidet nec laudat, ingratus, quisquis laudanti reluctatur, insanus est. absit, ut prudens quisquam hoc feritati inputet barbarorum. truculentissimas et saeuissimas mentes ille terruit, ille frenauit, ille mirabiliter temperauit, qui per prophetam tanto ante dixit: uisitabo in uirga iniquitates eorum et in flagellis peccata eorum; misericordiam autem meam non dispergam ab eis,