From "The World's Great Letters"
Well may we be unhappy, for it is our sins that have made the barbarians strong; as in the days of Hezekiah, so today is God using the fury of the barbarian to execute His fierce anger. Rome's army, once the lord of the world, trembles today at sight of the foe.Saint Jerome, letter to a friend, 410A.D.
"... the wolves of the North have been let loose..." writes Saint Jerome as he hears of the first sack of Rome. Among his accomplishments was the first translation of the Holy Bible into latin, the Vulgate; Saint Jerome had lived much of the first 70 years of his life under the safe and wealthy governance of the "mother of nations." And yet his Christian faith assures his eternal service to the one eternal God- he tells this tale after the second sack "to those that come after..."
"... so that they may know that even in the midst of swords and deserts and wild beasts virtue is never made a captive, and that he who has surrendered himself to Christ may be slain but cannot be conquered."
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