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The habits of trade, and the abuse of luxury, had corrupted their manners; but their impious contempt of monks, and the shameless practice of unnatural lusts, are the two abominations which excite the pious vehemence of Salvian, the preacher of the age. After he had permitted his licentious troops to satiate their rage and avarice, he instituted a more regular system of rapine and oppression.
Remember the years in which Salvian lived from 416 perhaps to 490.
We must believe that they were better than the Romanised nations whom they conquered, because the writers of those nations, Augustine, Salvian, and Sidonius Apollinaris, for example, say that they were such, and give proof thereof.
I have little doubt that Salvian was a prudent man, when he thought fit to bring no more human beings into the world. That is an ugly thought I trust that you feel how ugly, unnatural, desperate a thought it is. If you do not, think over it till you do, till it frightens you. You will gain a great step thereby in human sympathy, and therefore in the understanding of history.
His father-in-law, Hypatius, quarrelled with him on this account; and the letter in which he tries to soothe the old man is still extant, a curious specimen of the style of cultivated men in that day. Salvian then went down to the south of France and became a priest at Marseilles, and tutor to the sons of Eucherius, the Bishop of Lyons.
But I adhere to my statement, and rejoin And how much more rapidly have the morals of Europe improved, since that doctrine has been swept away; and woman, and the love of woman, have been restored to their rightful place in the education of man? But if we do not praise Salvian, we must not blame him, or any one else who meant to be an honest and good man.
Laws of economy, of polity, of health, of all which makes human life endurable, may be ignored and trampled under foot, and are too often, every day, for the sake of present greed, of present passion; self-interest may become, and will become, more and more blinded, just in proportion as it is not enlightened by virtue; till a nation may arrive, though, thank God, but seldom, at that state of frantic recklessness which Salvian describes among his Roman countrymen in Gaul, when, while the Franks were thundering at their gates, and starved and half-burnt corpses lay about the unguarded streets, the remnant, like that in doomed Jerusalem of old, were drinking, dicing, ravishing, robbing the orphan and the widow, swindling the poor man out of his plot of ground, and sending meanwhile to the tottering Caesar at Rome, to ask, not for armies, but for Circensian games.
The many bad were openly blaspheming, throwing off in despair all faith, all bonds of religion, all common decency, and crying, Let us eat and drink, for to- morrow we die. Salvian answers them like an old Hebrew prophet: 'The Lord's arm is not shortened. The Lord's eyes are not closed. The Lord is still as near as ever.
And Salvian desired to know the reason why the Lord had spoken that word, and read his Bible till he found out, and wrote thereon his book De Gubernatione Dei, of the government of God; and a very noble book it is. He takes his stand on the ground of Scripture, with which he shews an admirable acquaintance. The few good were expecting the end of the world.
All was possest by carelessness and sloth, gluttony, drunkenness, sleep, according to that which the prophet saith: A sleep from the Lord had come over them. It is credible, however shocking, that though Treves was four times taken by the barbarians, it remained just as reckless as ever; and that I quote Salvian still when the population was half destroyed by fire and sword, the poor dying of famine, corpses of men and women lying about the streets breeding pestilence, while the dogs devoured them, the few nobles who were left comforted themselves by sending to the Emperor to beg for Circensian games.
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