Mind-Benders of Christian History
He learned Rome had fallen from his monastery in Bethlehem
When Alaric and the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 CE, Jerome was some 1,400 miles away in his monastery at Bethlehem, at work translating and writing. Recording his shock, he wrote that “the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken.”
How we know
Sack of Rome by Alaric, August 410 CE; Jerome (c. 347–420) lived at his Bethlehem monastery from c. 386; the line is from the preface to his Commentary on Ezekiel.
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