The Deeds of God Through the FranksGuibert, Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy
History
The Deeds of God Through the Franks
Guibert, Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy
Crusades -- First, 1096-1099
that drives a whole community unless it is that simplicity and unity
which compels the hearts of so many people to desire one and the same
thing? Although the call from the apostolic see was directed only to
the French nation, as though it were special, what nation under
Christian law did not send forth throngs to that place? In the
belief that they owed the same allegiance to God as did the French,
they strove strenuously, to the full extent of their powers, to share
the danger with the Franks. There you would have seen the military
formations of Scots, savage in their own country, but elsewhere
unwarlike, their knees bare, with their shaggy cloaks, provisions
hanging from their shoulders, having slipped out of their boggy
borders, offering as aid and testimony to their faith and loyalty,
their arms, numerically ridiculous in comparison with ours. As God
is my witness I swear that I heard that some barbarian people from I
don't know what land were driven to our harbor, and their language
was so incomprehensible that, when it failed them, they made the sign
of the cross with their fingers; by these gestures they showed what
they could not indicate with words, that because of their faith they
set out on the journey. But perhaps I shall treat these matters at
greater length when I have more room. Now we are concerned with the
state of the church of Jerusalem, or the Eastern church, as it was
then.
In the time of the faithful Helen, the mother of the ruler
Constantine, throughout the regions known for the traces of the
Lord's sufferings, churches and priests worthy of these churches were
established by this same Augusta.[57] From church history we learn
that, for a long time after the death of those just mentioned, these
institutions endured while the Roman Empire continued. However, the
faith of Easterners, which has never been stable, but has always been
variable and unsteady, searching for novelty, always exceeding the
bounds of true belief, finally deserted the authority of the early
fathers. Apparently, these men, because of the purity of the air and
the sky in which they are born, as a result of which their bodies are
lighter and their intellect consequently more agile, customarily
abuse the brilliance of their intelligence with many useless
commentaries. Refusing to submit to the authority of their elders or
peers, "they searched out evil, and searching they succumbed."[58]
Out of this came heresies and ominous kinds of different plagues.
Such a baneful and inextricable labyrinth of these illnesses existed
that the most desolate land anywhere could not offer worse vipers and
nettles. Read through the catalogues of all heresies; consider the
books of the ancients against heretics; I would be surprised if, with
the exception of the East and Africa, any books about heretics could
be found in the Roman world. I read somewhere that Pelagius, unless
I am mistaken, was a British heretic; but I believe that no one has
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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