57. Consider another struggle between our champion
and his persecutor. His ragged pallium having been ordered to be
torn away, “I will also, if you wish it, strip off my
coat,” said he. His fleshless form was threatened with
blows, and he offered to submit to be torn with combs, and he said,
“By such laceration you will cure my liver, which, as you see, is
wearing me away.” Such was their argument. But when
the city perceived the outrage and the common danger of all—for
each one considered this insolence a danger to himself, it became all
on fire with rage; and, like a hive roused by smoke, one after another
was stirred and arose, every race and every age, but especially the men
from the small-arms factory and from the imperial weaving-sheds.
For men at work in these trades are specially hot-tempered and daring,
because of the liberty allowed them. Each man was armed with the
tool he was using, or with whatever else came to hand at the
moment. Torch in hand, amid showers of stones, with
cudgel’s ready, all ran and shouted together in their united
zeal. Anger makes a terrible soldier or general. Nor were
the women weaponless, when roused by such an occasion. Their pins
were their spears, and no longer remaining women, they were by the
strength of their eagerness endowed with masculine courage. It is
a short story. They thought that they would share among
themselves the piety of destroying him, and held him to be most pious
who first laid hands on one who had dared such deeds. What then
was the conduct of this haughty and daring judge? He begged for
mercy in a pitiable state of distress, cringing before them to an
unparalleled extent, until the arrival of the martyr without bloodshed,
who had won his crown without blows, and now restrained the people by
the force of his personal influence, and delivered the man who had
insulted him and now sought his protection. This was the doing of
the God of Saints, Who worketh and changeth all things for the best,
who resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. S. James iv. 6. And why should not He, Who divided the
sea and stayed the river, and ruled the elements, and by stretching out
set up a trophy, to save His exiled people, why should not He have also
rescued this man from his perils?