Mark Alexander
September 11, 2001, is frequently compared to December 7, 1941, as a day that will "live in infamy." But a more appropriate analogy might be August 24, 410, when the city of Rome was besieged and pillaged by an army of 40,000 "barbarians" led by the Osama bin Laden of late antiquity, a wily warrior named Alaric. One can still see the effects of this cataclysmic event when walking through the ruins of the Roman Forum today. The Basilica Aemilia was the Wall Street of ancient Rome, a beautiful structure in the Forum with a marble portico. One can still see the green stains of copper coins melted into the stone from the conflagrations set by Alaric and his marauders.
Before then, Roman coins bore the legend Invicta Roma Aeterna: eternal, unconquerable Rome. It had been more than 800 years since the Eternal City had fallen to an enemy's attack. In many ways, Rome was like America prior to 9/11, the world's only superpower. But in 410, Rome's military power could not prevent its walls being breached, its women raped, and its sacred precincts burned and sacked.
When Jerome heard about the fall of Rome in faraway Bethlehem, he put aside his Commentary on Ezekiel and sat stupefied in total silence for three days. "Rome was besieged," Jerome wrote to a friend. "The city to which the whole world fell has fallen. If Rome can perish, what can be safe?" The British monk Pelagius, who was in Rome when the attack occurred, gave this report: "Every household had its grief, and an all-pervading terror gripped us."
Responding to those who said Rome fell as the gods' punishment against the ascendant Christians, Augustine, the bishop of Hippo in North Africa, began writing The City of God, an opus magnum et arduum, as he called it—a "great and laborious work." Augustine completed the book shortly before his death in 430. Its influence extended to the Reformation and beyond. For 1,500 years, it has been the bedrock of a Christian philosophy of history. Theology for an Age of Terror
Thursday, September 21, 2006
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3 comments:
BaconBlaster:
Oh, I think it's a swell idea! In the present, tense climate, you're destined to make a fortune!
May I take this opportunity of wishing you all the success in the world with it. Good business ideas are hard to come by; this one simply has the touch of genius about it!
Though I have to say, I would watch those lawyers if I were you; they'll surely accuse you of being less than PC, and of being inhuman in that you are upsetting the sensibilities of our religious, 'Muslim brethren'.
Do you know how the al-qaedians are going to defeat us?
It´s very simple: "we will conqueror Europe by our women's wombs" (Osama Ben Laden). And it´s exactly what's going to happen.Have you read the famous Mark Steyn article "It's the demography, stupid"? You can find it easy in Google. It´s very... educative.Do you know that the european guy is a near-extinction specimen? Do you know that we don't reach the minimum birth rate since decades ago? Look for that article. And if you understand spanish language go to this site:
http://www.espacioblog.com/holocausto_demografico
Anonymous:
It's just what I have been saying all along. If you have followed what I have written, then you will have understood that I have written about the same problem many times.
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