"A terrible rumour," wrote Jerome in 410 AD, "reaches me from the West, telling of Rome besieged, bought for gold, besieged again, life and property perishing together.
Augustine seeks, in his magnum opus, to explain not only why Rome had fallen, but why humanity should eventually turn from hoping in a temporal City to.
My voice falters, sobs stifle the words I dictate; for she is a captive, that City which enthralled the world..." After the world-shattering sack of Rome by the Visigoths, St. "A terrible rumour," wrote Jerome in 410 AD, "reaches me from the West, telling of Rome besieged, bought for gold, besieged again, life and property perishing together