Flatteringly, Vergil predicted an eternal empire for Rome.
Those who have promised this to earthly kingdoms were not led by truth, but lied with flattery. One of their poets introduced Jupiter speaking, and said about the Romans:
I set neither limits to things nor times;
I have given an empire without end.
Truth does not entirely respond in this way. This kingdom, which you have given without end, O you who have given nothing, is it on earth or in heaven? Certainly on earth. And if it were in heaven: Heaven and earth will pass away. Those things which God Himself made will pass away; how much sooner what Romulus established? Perhaps if we wanted to criticize Virgil from here and mock why he said this; partly he would lift us up and say to us: And I know; but what was I to do, who sold words to the Romans, if not by promising something with this flattery that was false? And yet in this I was cautious, when I said: I have given an empire without end, I introduced their Jupiter, who would say this. I did not say the false thing in my own person, but I attributed the false person to Jupiter: just as there was a false god, so there was a lying prophet. For do you wish to know that I knew these things? Elsewhere, when I did not introduce Jupiter the stone speaking, but spoke from my own person, I said:
The Roman affairs and kingdoms doomed to perish.
See that I said kingdoms will perish. I said kingdoms will perish, I did not keep silent. They will perish, the truth has not kept silent: they will promise to last forever, with flattery.
Constancy in bearing adverse things.
Therefore, let us not lose heart, brothers: there will be an end to all earthly kingdoms. Now, if it is the end, God sees. Perhaps it has not yet come, and because of some weakness, or mercy, or misery we wish that it has not yet come: but will it therefore not come? Set your hope in God, desire the eternal, wait for the eternal. You are Christians, brothers, we are Christians. Christ did not descend into the flesh for pleasures: let us rather endure the present than love it: adversity is manifest destruction, the flatteries of prosperity are false. Fear the sea even when it is calm. Let us by no means hear in vain: Lift up your hearts. Why do we set our hearts on the earth when we see that the earth is being overturned? We can only exhort you so that you have something to say, and something to answer for your hope to those who insult and blaspheme the name of Christ. Let no one turn you away from the expectation of things to come by their murmuring. All who blaspheme our Christ because of these adversities are like the tail of a scorpion. Let us place our egg under the wings of that evangelical hen, which cries: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, false and lost, how often have I wanted to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not? Let it not be said to us: How often have I wanted, and you would not? For that hen is Divine Wisdom: but it took on flesh to be suitable for the chicks. See the hen with rough feathers, wings down, voice broken, and thus fitting its little ones. Therefore, let us place our egg, that is, our hope, under the wings of that hen.
The devastation of Rome was falsely attributed either to the Christian religion or to the extinction of idolatry.
Perhaps you have noticed how a hen crushes a scorpion. May that hen also crush and devour those blasphemers crawling on the ground, coming out of their holes, and stinging maliciously; may she take them into her body and turn them into an egg. Let them not be angry: we seem stirred, but we do not return curses for curses. We are cursed and we bless, we are reviled and we pray. But let no one say of Rome, as they say of me: "Oh, if he would only be silent about Rome," as if I were an insulter and not rather an intercessor for the Lord and your humble exhorter. May it be far from me to insult. May God avert it from my heart and from the pain of my conscience. Did we not have many brothers there? Do we not still have them? Does not a large portion of the pilgrim city of Jerusalem live there? Did they not suffer temporal things there but did not lose eternal ones? Why then do I speak of her, if not to say that it is false what they say about our Christ, that He destroyed Rome, that stone gods and wooden gods protected Rome? Add the price, bronze. Add more, silver and gold: The idols of the nations are silver and gold. It did not say: Stone; it did not say: Wood; it did not say: Pottery; but what they held as great, silver and gold. Yet, even silver and gold have eyes and do not see. Golden gods and wooden gods differ in value: in having eyes and not seeing, they are alike. Behold what kind of guardians learned men entrusted Rome to, having eyes and not seeing. Or if they were able to save Rome, why did they perish first? They say: Rome perished then. Yet they perished. They say, not they themselves perished, but their images. How therefore could those who could not save their own images save your roofs? Alexandria lost such gods long ago. Constantinople, since its founding as a great city by a Christian emperor, lost those false gods long ago: yet it grew, and grows, and remains. It remains as long as God wills. For we do not promise eternity to that city either, because we say this. Carthage remains in the name of Christ, and the heavenly city that was destroyed long ago, because it was not heavenly but earthly.
The overthrow of the idols did not cause the Roman disaster from that point on.
And that which they say is not true, because with the gods having been destroyed, Rome was taken, afflicted. Absolutely it is not true: before the idols themselves were overthrown; and thus the Goths were defeated with Rhadagausus. Remember, brothers, remember: it has not been long, a few years it has been, recall. When all the idols in the city of Rome had been overthrown, Rhadagausus, the king of the Goths, with a huge army, much larger than that of Alaric, came. Rhadagausus was a pagan man: he sacrificed to Jupiter daily. It was being reported everywhere that Rhadagausus would not cease from sacrifices. Then all these [people said]: Behold, we do not sacrifice, he sacrifices, we have to be defeated by the sacrificing one, to whom it is not permitted to sacrifice. God showing that temporal salvation, and the earthly kingdoms are not in these sacrifices, Rhadagausus was defeated in a marvelous way, with the Lord helping. Afterwards the Goths, who did not sacrifice, even if they were not Catholics in Christian faith, yet were enemies of idols; came adverse to idols, and they who took: conquered those presuming upon idols, and still seeking destroyed idols, and still desiring to sacrifice to the lost. But there also were ours, and they were afflicted: but they knew to say: I will bless the Lord at all times. They were afflicted in the earthly kingdom: but they did not lose the kingdom of heaven: rather they became better for that to be achieved through the exercise of tribulations. And if they did not blaspheme in tribulations, as if they came out of the furnace intact vessels, and were filled with the Lord's blessing. But these blasphemers, seeking earthly things, desiring earthly things, placing hope in earthly things, when they lost whether they wanted or not, what will they hold? Where will they remain? Nothing outside, nothing inside: an empty chest, a more empty conscience. Where is the rest? Where is the safety? Where is the hope? Therefore let them come, let them cease to blaspheme, let them learn to worship: scorpions, stinging, are eaten by the hen, turned into the body of the one ingesting; they are exercised on earth, they are crowned in heaven.