23. Is it not on this account that Maximus was
forsaken, who, before the days of the expedition, hearing that a
synagogue had been burnt in Rome, had sent an edict to Rome, as if he
were the upholder of public order? Wherefore the Christian people
said, No good is in store for him. That king has become a Jew, we
have heard of him as a defender of order, and Christ, Who died for
sinners, soon tested him. If this was said of words, what will be
said of punishment? And then at once he was overcome by the
Franks and the Saxons, in Sicily, at Siscia, at Petavio, in a word
everywhere. What has the believer in common with the
unbeliever? The instances of his unbelief ought to be done away
with together with the unbeliever himself. That which injured
him, that wherein he who was conquered offended, the conqueror ought
not to follow but to condemn.