Handout #89
The Barbarians in the churches
Yet if the Barbarians had been let loose upon the roman lands simply because the churches of Christ throughout the East and the West were filled with Huns, Suebi, Vandals and Burgundians, and with believers belonging to various and innumerable races, it would seem that the mercy of God ought to be praised and glorified in that so many nations would be receiving, even at the cost of our own weakening, a knowledge of the truth which they never could have had but for this opportunity. Orosius, Seven Books of History against the Pagans, ed. W. Raymond, Columbia University Press 1936, VII, 41.