Which Catholic saint wrote The City of God after the Visigoths captured Rome in 410?

Augustine of Hippo wrote The City of God after the Visigoths captured Rome in 410. The work was composed between about 413 and 426 to address the political and religious questions raised by the sack of Rome.

Rome’s capture shocked the Roman world, and some pagans blamed Christianity for the empire’s decline. Augustine responded by distinguishing the earthly city, shaped by pride and temporal power, from the City of God, oriented toward divine love and eternal life.

Augustine was born in 354 at Thagaste in Roman North Africa. He became bishop of Hippo in 395 and produced influential works including Confessions, a theological autobiography completed around 400.

The City of God is not simply a history of Rome or a prediction of the empire’s collapse. It is a broad Christian interpretation of history, politics, human desire, and salvation. Jerome translated biblical texts into Latin, but Augustine—not Jerome—is associated with this response to Rome’s sack.