The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory IAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
History
The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600
For when the dwellers have fallen away even the walls fall.
But where are those who once rejoiced in its glory? Where is their pomp and
pride, and those ecstasies of frequent transport?
"In Rome are fulfilled the prophet's words against Niniveh: 'Where is the
dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions?'[181] Were
not its commanders and its princes lions who overran the whole world, and
ravened, and slaughtered the prey? Here the young lions found their
feeding-place, because the boyhood, the youth, the flower of manhood, from
generation to generation, flocked hither, when they sought to get on in the
world. Now Rome is desolate, worn down, full of sorrows. No one comes to it
to get on in the world; no man of power or violence remains to raven on the
prey. Then may we say, 'Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the
feeding-place of the young lions?' Upon it has fallen the lot of Judea,
foretold by the prophet: 'Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle'.[182] For man
is wont to be bald upon the head alone; but the eagle's baldness is over
all his body. When very old, his plumes and feathers fall from his whole
body. The city which has lost its inhabitants, in losing its feathers, has
enlarged its baldness as the eagle. Shrunk also are its wings, with which
it used to fly to the prey, for all its men of might, by whom it ravened,
are extinguished."
We may here contrast the language concerning the Rome which lay before
their eyes of the two Popes St. Leo and St. Gregory. They spoke with an
interval between them of 140 years. The first spoke still of the actual
queen of the world, of the secular empire subdued and inherited by the
spiritual. The feathers of Leo's eagle shone to him with celestial light;
the talons of the royal bird traversed the earth not to raven, but to feed
a conquered world with Christian doctrine. St. Gregory speaks of the eagle
as bald; but we shall see that he who day by day guarded the gates of
defenceless Rome against the Lombard spoiler, barbarian also and heretic,
fed no less the ends of the earth with Christian doctrine. It was he who
brought the _Ultima Thule_, and its inhabitants the _penitus toto divisos
orbe Britannos_ again under the yoke of Christ, and taught the sea-kings
humanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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