no use, he says, in despising the Goths as heretics, while they are
better men than we. They are better Christians than the Romans,
because they are better men. They pray to God for success, and trust
in him, and we presumptuously trust in ourselves. We swear by
Christ: but what do we do but blaspheme him, when we swear 'Per
Christum tollo eum,' 'I will make away with him,' 'Per Christum hunc
jugulo,' 'I will cut his throat,' and then believe ourselves bound to
commit the murder which we have vowed? . . . 'The Saxons,' he says,
'are fierce, the Franks faithless, the Gepidae inhuman, the Huns
shameless. But is the Frank's perfidy as blameable as ours? Is the
Alman's drunkenness, or the Alan's rapacity, as damnable as a
Christian's? If a Hun or a Gepid deceives you, what wonder? He is
utterly ignorant that there is any sin in falsehood. But what of the
Christian who does the same? The Barbarians,' he says, 'are better
men than the Christians. The Goths,' he says, 'are perfidious, but
chaste. The Alans unchaste, but less perfidious. The Franks are
liars, but hospitable; the Saxons ferociously cruel, but venerable
for their chastity. The Visigoths who conquered Spain,' he says,
'were the most "ignavi" (heavy, I presume he means, and loutish) of
all the barbarians: but they were chaste, and therefore they
conquered.'

In Africa, if we are to believe Salvian, things stood even worse, at
the time of the invasion of the Vandals. In his violent invectives
against the Africans, however, allowance must be made. Salvian was a
great lover of monks; and the Africans used, he says, to detest them,
and mob them wherever they appeared; for which offence, of course, he
can find no words too strong. St. Augustine, however, himself a
countryman of theirs, who died, happily, just before the storm burst
on that hapless land, speaks bitterly of their exceeding profligacy--