"Romanaque Samnis Ultra Caudinas superavit vulnera furcas." Another reading is "speravit."] But after that the intestine quarrels of Italy had ceased, and while the issue of the strife with Greece and Carthage was not yet made certain by the judgment of God--for both Greece and Carthage aimed at empire--then Fabricius for Rome, and Pyrrhus for Greece, fought with vast hosts for the glory of empire, and Rome gained the day. And when Scipio for Rome, and Hannibal for Carthage, fought man to man, the Africans fell before the Italians, as Livy and all the other Roman historians strive to tell. Who then is so dull of understanding as not to see that this glorious people has won the crown of all the world, by the decision of combat? Surely the Roman may repeat Paul's words to Timothy: "There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness," laid up, that is, in the eternal providence of God. Let, then, the presumptuous Jurists see how far they stand below that watch-tower of reason whence the mind of man regards these principles: and let them be silent, content to show forth counsel and judgment according to the meaning of the law. It has now become manifest that it was by combat of man against man that the Romans gained their empire: therefore it was by right that they gained it, and this is the principal thesis of the present book. Up to this point we have proved our thesis by arguments which mostly rest on principles of reason; we must now make our point clear by arguments based on the principles of the Christian faith. XII.--For it is they who profess to be zealous for the faith of Christ who have chiefly "raged together," and "imagined a vain thing" against the Roman empire; men who have no compassion on the poor of Christ, whom they not only defraud as to the revenues of the Church; but the very patrimonies of the Church are daily seized upon; and the Church is made poor, while making a show of justice they yet refuse to allow the minister of justice to fulfil his office. Nor does this impoverishment happen without the judgment of God. For their possessions do not afford help to the poor, to whom belongs as their patrimony the wealth of the Church; and these possessions are held without gratitude to the empire which gives them. Let these possessions go back to whence they came. They came well; their return is evil: for they were well given, and they are mischievously held. What shall we say to shepherds like these? What shall we say when the substance of the Church is wasted, while the private estates of their own kindred are enlarged? But perchance it is better to proceed with what is set before us; and in religious silence to wait for our Saviour's help.