r violence remains to raven on the
prey. Then may we say, 'Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the
feeding-place of the young lions?' Upon it has fallen the lot of Judea,
foretold by the prophet: 'Enlarge thy baldness as the eagle'.[182] For man
is wont to be bald upon the head alone; but the eagle's baldness is over
all his body. When very old, his plumes and feathers fall from his whole
body. The city which has lost its inhabitants, in losing its feathers, has
enlarged its baldness as the eagle. Shrunk also are its wings, with which
it used to fly to the prey, for all its men of might, by whom it ravened,
are extinguished."

We may here contrast the language concerning the Rome which lay before
their eyes of the two Popes St. Leo and St. Gregory. They spoke with an
interval between them of 140 years. The first spoke still of the actual
queen of the world, of the secular empire subdued and inherited by the
spiritual. The feathers of Leo's eagle shone to him with celestial light;
the talons of the royal bird traversed the earth not to raven, but to feed
a conquered world with Christian doctrine. St. Gregory speaks of the eagle
as bald; but we shall see that he who day by day guarded the gates of
defenceless Rome against the Lombard spoiler, barbarian also and heretic,
fed no less the ends of the earth with Christian doctrine. It was he who
brought the _Ultima Thule_, and its inhabitants the _penitus toto divisos
orbe Britannos_ again under the yoke of Christ, and taught the sea-kings
humanity.

A little later St. Gregory closed his exposition of the prophet Ezechiel in
St. Peter's with these sorrowful words: "So far, dear brethren, by the gift
of God, we have searched out hidden meanings for you. Let no man blame me
if I close them here, because, as you all witness, our sufferings have
grown enormous. On every side we are encircled with swords: on every side
we are in imminent peril of death. Some return to us maimed of their hands;
of others we hear that they are captured; of others, again, that they are
slain. My tongue can no longer expound, when my spirit is weary of my life.
Let no one ask me to unfold the Scriptures; for my harp is turned to
mourning, and my voice to the cry of the weeper. The eye of my heart no
longer keeps its watch in the discussion of mysteries; my soul droops for
weariness. Study has lost its charm for me. I have forgotten to eat my
bread for the voice of my groaning. How can one who is n