[Footnote 307: "Christianus nullius est hostis, nedum imperatoris, quem ... necesse est ut ... salvum velit cum toto Romano imperio quousque saeculum stabit; tamdiu enim stabit" (Tert. _ad Scapulam_, 2). "Cum caput illud orbis occiderit et [Greek: rhym] esse coeperit, quod Sibyllae fore aiunt, quis dubitet venisse jam finem rebus humanis orbique terrarum?" (Lactantius, _Inst. Div._ vii. 25). "Non prius veniet Christus, quam regni Romani defectio fiat" (Ambrose _ad ep._ i. _ad Thess._).] [Footnote 308: "There is nothing so voluntary as religion."] [Footnote 309: "God does not want unwilling worship, nor does he require a forced repentance."] [Footnote 310: Athanas. i. 363 B and 384 C [Greek: mhe hanagkhazein halla peithein] "not compulsion, but persuasion" (Chrysost. ii. 540 A and C).] [Footnote 311: "If the State of which we are the secular children passes away, that of which we are spiritual children passes not. Has God gone to sleep and let the house be destroyed, or let in the enemy through want of watchfulness? Why fearest thou when earthly kingdoms fall? Heaven is promised thee, that thou mightest not fall with them. The works of God Himself shall pass: how much sooner the works of Romulus! Let us not quail, my brethren: all earthly kingdoms must come to an end."] [Footnote 312: "The cry of the whole world is 'Christ.' The mind is horrified in reviewing the ruins of our age. The Roman world is falling, and yet our stiff neck is not bent. The barbarians' strength is in our sins; the defeat of the Roman armies in our vices. We will not cut off the occasions of the malady, that the malady may be healed. The world is falling, but in us there is no falling off from sin" (St. Jerome, _ep. 35, ad Heliodorum_; _ep. 98, ad Gaudentium_).] [Footnote 313: "None are better witnesses of the words of heaven than we, on whom the end of the world has come. We assist at the world's setting, and diseases precede its dissolution" (_Expos. Ep. sec. Lucam_, x.).] [Footnote 314: "What is well-nigh all Christendom but a sink of iniquity?" (_De Gub. Dei_, iii. 9).] [Footnote 315: "In our age the devil has so defiled everything that scarcely a thing is done without idolatry."] [Footnote 316: "Do we wonder that God has granted all our lands to the barbarians, when they now purify by their chastity the places which the Romans had polluted with their debauchery?"] [Footnote 317: Pope Anastasius writes to Clovis: "Sedes Petri in tanta occasione non potest non laetari, cum plenitudinem gentium intuetur ad eam veloci gradu concurrere" (Bouquet, iv. 50).] [Footnote 318: "The noble people of the Franks, founded by God, converted to the Catholic faith, and free from heresy."] [Footnote 319: "Vetati sunt a Spiritu sancto loqui verbum Dei in Asia ... Tentabant ire in Bithyniam, et non permisit eos spiritus Jesu" (_Acts_ xvi. 6, 7).]