Letters (Epistulae)

But because they gave place to the devil within themselves, they either perish just like that herd of swine, which the crowd of demons drove down from the mountain into the sea, or they are rescued from those deaths and collected into the pious bosom of the Catholic mother, thus being liberated just as he was liberated by the Lord, whom his father brought to be healed from a demon, saying that he was accustomed to fall into the water and sometimes into the fire.

13 Hence, great mercy is shown to them when, even through these laws of the emperors, they are rescued against their will from that sect, where they learned these evils through the doctrines of lying demons, so that afterwards they may be healed in the Catholic Church, becoming accustomed to good precepts and character. For many of them, whose pious fervor of faith and charity we now admire in the unity of Christ, give thanks to God with great joy that they were freed from that error, where they thought these evils were good; which thanks they would not give willingly if they had not first been separated from that nefarious society, even unwillingly. What shall we say of those who confess to us daily that they had long wanted to be Catholics, but lived among those among whom they could not be what they wanted because of the weakness of fear, where, if they said one word for the Catholic Church, both they and their houses would be razed to the ground? Who is so insane as to deny that these people ought to have been helped by imperial commands, so that they might be rescued from such great evil, while those whom they feared are compelled to fear, and by the same fear are either corrected themselves or, at least, when they feign to be corrected, they spare those whom they previously terrified?

Scriptural references: Matt 8:32; Mark 5:13; Matt 17:14-18; Mark 9:16-26.