To them no bounds of empire I assign, Nor term of years to their immortal line.

Most certainly truth makes no such answer. This empire which you have given without term of years, is it on earth, or in heaven? On earth assuredly. And even if it were in heaven, yet heaven and earth shall pass away. Those things shall pass away which God has Himself made; how much more rapidly shall that pass away which Romulus founded! Perhaps if we had a mind to press Virgil on this point, and tauntingly to ask him why he said it; he would take us aside privately, and say to us, I know this as well as you, but what could I do who was selling words to the Romans, if by this kind of flattery I did not promise something which was false? And yet even in this very instance I have been cautious, when I said, ‘I assigned to them an empire without term of years,’ I introduced their Jupiter to say it. I did not utter this falsehood in my own person, but put upon Jupiter the character of untruthfulness: as the god was false, the poet was false. For would ye know that I well knew the truth of it? In another place, when I did not introduce this stone, called Jupiter, but spoke in my own person, I said,

‘Th’ impending ruin of the Roman state.’

See how I spoke of the impending ruin of the state. I spoke of its impending ruin. I did not suppress it. When he spoke in truth he was not silent as to its ruin; when in flattery, he promised that it should abide forever.

11. Let us not then faint, my Brethren: an end there will be to all earthly kingdoms. If that end be now, God knows. For perhaps it is not yet, and we, through some infirmity, or mercifulness, or misery, are wishing that it may not be yet; nevertheless will it not therefore some day be? Fix your hope in God, desire the things eternal, wait for the things eternal. You are Christians, Brethren, we are all Christians. Christ did not come down into the flesh that we might live softly; let us endure rather than love the things present; manifest is the harm of adversity, deceitful is the soft blandishment of prosperity. Fear the sea, even when it is a calm. On no account let us hear in vain, Let us lift up our hearts. Why place we our hearts in the earth, when we see that the earth is being turned upside down? We cannot but exhort you, that you may have something to say and answer in defense of your hope against the deriders and blasphemers of the Christian name. Let no one by his murmuring turn you back from waiting for the things to come. All who by reason of these adversities blaspheme our Christ, are the scorpion’s tail. Let us put our egg under the wings of that Hen of the Gospel, which cries out to that false and abandoned city, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen her chickens, and you would not! Let it not be said to us, How often would I, and you would not! For that hen is the Divine Wisdom; but assumed flesh to accommodate Itself to its chickens. See the hen with feathers bristling, with wings hanging down, with voice broken, and tremulous, and faint, and languid, accommodating herself to her little ones. Our egg then, that is, our hope, let us place beneath the wings of this Hen.

12. You have noticed, it may be, how a hen will tear a scorpion in pieces. O then that the Hen of the Gospel would tear in pieces and devour these blasphemers, creeping out of their holes, and inflicting hurtful stings, would pass them over into Her Body, and turn them into an egg. Let them not be angry; we seem to be excited; but we do not return curses for curses. We are cursed, and we bless, being defamed, we entreat. But let him not speak of Rome, it is said of me: O that he would hold his tongue about Rome; as though I were insulting it, and not rather entreating the Lord for it, and exhorting you all, unworthy as I am. Be it far from me to insult it! The Lord avert this from my heart, and from the grief of my conscience. Have we not had many brethren there? Have we not still? Does not a large portion of the pilgrim city Jerusalem live there? Has it not endured there temporal afflictions? But it has not lost the things eternal. What can I say then, when I speak of Rome, but that is false, which they say of our Christ, that He is Rome’s destroyer, and that the gods of wood and stone were her defenders? Add what is more costly, gods of brass. Add what is costlier still, of silver and gold: the idols of the nations are silver and gold. He did not say, stone; he did not say, wood; he did not say, clay; but, what they value highly, silver and gold. Yet these silver and golden idols have eyes, and see not. The gods of gold, of wood, are as regards their costliness unequal; but as to having eyes, and seeing not, they are equal. See to what sort of guardians learned men have entrusted Rome, to those who have eyes, and see not. Or if they were able to preserve Rome, why did they first perish themselves? They say; Rome perished at the same time. Nevertheless they perished. No, they say, they did not perish themselves, but their statues. Well, how then could they keep your houses, who were not able to keep their own statues? Alexandria once lost such gods as these. Constantinople some time since, ever since it was made a grand city, for it was made so by a Christian Emperor, lost its false gods; and yet it has increased, and still increases, and remains. And remain it will, as long as God pleases. For we do not to this city either promise an eternal duration because we say this. Carthage remains now in its possession of the Name of Christ, yet once on a time its goddess Cælestis was overthrown; because celestial she was not, but terrestrial.

13. And that which they say is not true, that immediately on losing her gods Rome has been taken and ruined. It is not true at all; their images were overthrown before; and even so were the Goths with Rhadagaisus conquered. Remember, my Brethren, remember; it is no long time since, but a few years, call it to mind. When all the images in the city of Rome had been overthrown, Rhadagaisus king of the Goths came with a large army, much more numerous than that of Alaric was. Rhadagaisus was a Pagan; he sacrificed to Jupiter every day. Everywhere it was announced, that Rhadagaisus did not cease from sacrificing. Then said they all, Lo, we do not sacrifice, he does sacrifice, we, who are not allowed to sacrifice must be conquered by him who does sacrifice. But God making proof that not even temporal deliverance, nor the preservation of these earthly kingdoms, consist in these sacrifices, Rhadagaisus, by the Lord’s help, was marvellously overcome. Afterwards came other Goths who did not sacrifice, they came, who though they were not Catholics in the Christian faith, were yet hostile and opposed to idols, and they took Rome; they conquered those who put their trust in idols, who were still seeking after the idols they had lost, and desiring still to sacrifice to the lost gods. And among them too were some of our brethren, and these were afflicted also: but they had learned to say, I will bless the Lord at all times. They were involved in the afflictions of their earthly kingdom: but they lost not the kingdom of heaven; yea, rather, they were made the better for obtaining it through the exercise of tribulations. And if they did not in their tribulations blaspheme, they came out as sound vessels from the furnace, and were filled with the blessing of the Lord. Whereas those blasphemers, who follow and long after earthly things, who place their hope in earthly things, when these they have lost, whether they will or no, what shall they retain? Where shall they abide? Nothing without, nothing within; an empty coffer, an emptier conscience. Where is their rest? Where their salvation? Where their hope? Let them then come, let them give over blaspheming, let them learn to adore; let the scorpions with their stings be devoured by the Hen, let them be turned into His body who makes them pass over into it; let them on earth be exercised, in heaven be crowned.