Chap. LII.

I relate all those things on the authority of well-informed persons; and I thought it proper to commit them to writing exactly as they happened, lest the memory of events so important should perish, and lest any future historian of the persecutors should corrupt the truth, either by suppressing their offences against God, or the judgment of God against them. To His everlasting mercy ought we to render thanks, that, having at length looked on the earth, He deigned to collect again and to restore His flock, partly laid waste by ravenous wolves, and partly scattered abroad, and to extirpate those noxious wild beasts who had trod down its pastures, and destroyed its resting-places.40    [Let us recall our Lord’s forewarning: Matt. x. 16 and Luke x. 3.]   Where now are the surnames of the Jovii and the Herculii, once so glorious and renowned amongst the nations; surnames insolently assumed at first by Diocles and Maximian, and afterwards transferred to their successors? The Lord has blotted them out and erased them from the earth. Let us therefore with exultation celebrate the triumphs of God, and oftentimes with praises make mention of His victory; let us in our prayers, by night and by day, beseech Him to confirm for ever that peace which, after a warfare of ten years, He has bestowed on His own: and do you, above all others, my best beloved Donatus, who so well deserve to be heard, implore the Lord that it would please Him propitiously and mercifully to continue His pity towards His servants, to protect His people from the machinations and assaults of the devil, and to guard the now flourishing churches in perpetual felicity.  

LII. Quae omnia secundum fidem (scienti enim loquor), ita ut gesta sunt mandanda litteris credidi; ne aut memoria tantarum rerum interiret, aut, si quis historiam scribere voluisset, corrumperet veritatem, vel peccata illorum adversus Deum, vel judicium Dei adversus illos reticendo. Cujus aeternae pietati gratias agere debemus, qui tandem respexit in terram, quod gregem suum partim vastatum a lupis rapacibus, partim vero dispersum, reficere ac recolligere dignatus est, et bestias malas extirpare, quae divini 0274B gregis pascua protriverant, cubilia dissipaverant. Ubi sunt modo magnifica illa et clara per gentes Joviorum et Herculiorum cognomina, quae primum a Dioclete ac Maximiano insolenter assumpta, ac postmodum ad successores eorum translata, viluerunt? Nempe delevit ea Dominus, et erasit de terra.

Celebremus igitur triumphum Dei cum exultatione, victoriam Domini cum laudibus frequentemus, diurnis nocturnisque precibus celebremus; celebremus, ut pacem post annos decem plebi suae datam confirmet in saeculum. Tu praecipue, Donate charissime, qui a Deo mereris audiri, Dominum deprecare, ut 0275A misericordiam suam servet aeternam famulis suis propitias ac mitis; ut omnes insidias atque impetus 0276A diaboli a populo suo arceat; ut florescentes Ecclesias perpetua quiete custodiat.