authority of the Christian religion is superior. Therefore I beg you
not to attempt something that you will later regret having undertaken."
When he heard what she had to say, he looked at her with anger in
his eyes and said, "Why do you weave these old wives' tales? You are
raving, I suggest, insanely pouring forth words without understanding.
All the men in their army do not amount even to the number of noble
leaders from the cities who are fighting under my command. And do
you, in your insanity, think that Christian presumption will obscure
my power?" She said, "Oh most dearly beloved son, I place little
value on the names of the people about whom we are speaking, but
I beg you not to shun their leader, Christ. Perhaps they themselves
do not have the power to fight you, but victory is certain for their
God, if he wishes to prevail. He customarily defends his own men,
though they be weak and ignorant, purely for his own glory, and
watches over and protects them, whose shepherd, or rather redeemer,
he says he is. Do you think that he who has looked after the empires
of his faith, who has thus far granted them victory over us, is
incapable at this very moment of easily overturning our efforts? For
it was said to him by the Father, as though to a God about to rise
again from the dead, 'Arise God, and judge the earth, for you will
inherit it among the nations of men.'[169] Therefore, if he judges
the earth, he sees and sets apart some from the mass doomed to
destruction, while others he condemns, and he takes as his
inheritance not all nations, but only a portion of the whole. May
your foresight hear, my son, how severely he punishes those whom he
permits to be ignorant of him. The prophet David says, 'Pour forth
thy wrath against the nations that have not known thee, and against
the kingdoms that have not cried out thy name.'[170] You do not
condemn these Franks because they are strangers and you are gentiles;
you do not reject them because their arms are humble or because they