Thanksgiving for the Peace

Thanks be to God for all things, the Almighty and King of the universe, and the greatest thanks to Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of our souls, through whom we pray that peace may always be kept for us, firm and unshaken, both from troubles without and from troubles within the mind.

With prayers, then, we now add this tenth volume to the books of the Church History already completed, and we will dedicate it to you, my most holy Paulinus, hailing you, as it were, as the seal of the whole work. And fittingly, in a perfect number, we will place here the perfect discourse of celebration on the renewal of the churches, obeying the divine Spirit, who commands us in these words: [a] “Sing a new song to the Lord, for he has done wonderful things. His right hand and his holy arm have saved for him. The Lord has made known his rescue; before the nations he has revealed his righteousness.” [c]

In keeping, then, with the oracle that commands the new song, let us now go on to declare that after those terrible and gloomy sights and stories, we have now been counted worthy to see and to celebrate such things as many truly righteous men and martyrs of God before us longed to see on earth and did not see, and to hear and did not hear. [d] But they, hastening on as quickly as they could, obtained far better things, caught up into heaven itself and the paradise of divine delight. We, confessing that even these present things are greater than we deserve, are utterly amazed at the grace of the great generosity of the Author of these gifts, and rightly we marvel at him, worshiping him with all the power of our souls and bearing witness to the truth of the written prophecies, in which it is said: “Come and see the works of the Lord, the wonders he has done on the earth, putting an end to wars as far as the ends of the earth. He will crush the bow and break the weapon, and he will burn the shields with fire.” [e] Rejoicing in these things, so plainly fulfilled in our own day, let us take up the thread of our account.

The whole race of God’s enemies had been wiped out in the way that has been shown, and so suddenly blotted out of human sight that once again a divine saying was fulfilled: “I saw an ungodly person highly exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon. Then I passed by, and look, he was gone; I searched for his place, and it could not be found.” [f] From then on a bright and shining day, overshadowed by no cloud, lit up the churches of Christ throughout the whole world with rays of heavenly light. Nor did anyone begrudge even those outside our fellowship a share—if not in equal blessings, then at least in the overflow of the good things God had granted us, and some part in them. [g]