Orosius: History as Apologetics

The final history I have read to catch up to 383 is that by Paulus Orosius, called The Seven Books of History Against the Pagans (translated by Roy J. Deferrari for the Catholic University of America Press). Of those seven books, I read about six and three-quarters, but I will be considering him my lead source for the final portions of the book, which occurred during his lifetime. As the introduction explains, Orosius was born sometime during the decade of the 380s, in what is now either Portugal or Spain (xv). His homeland was invaded by the Barbarians when he was a young adult, and already ordained a priest, he left – whether it was intentional or not, he arrived at Hippo in North Africa to learn from Augustine (xv-xvi), who we have already seen in my post on Optatus. A year or two later, in 415, he wished to learn from Jerome as well, who was then near Jerusalem; Augustine trusted him with some of his own correspondence as well as a recommendation (xvi-xvii). While in the Holy Land, Orosius took part in the Council of 415 at Jerusalem, on which he wrote the Liber apologeticus, then returned to Augustine with responses from Jerome; his departure from Hippo was cut short due to continuing turmoil in the Iberian peninsula (xviii). Augustine accepted him back, and commissioned him to write the History to flesh out some of the arguments he was working on in his own City of G-d (xviii-xix and Prologue to Book I, page 3-5). As I have mentioned, some writing by both Augustine and Jerome – two of the most important theologians in the history of the Latin church – also make a part of my reading project.

The basic problem that Orosius is using his History to solve for the church is to refute the pagan belief that "present times [are] most unusually beset, as it were, by evils because there is belief in Christ and worship of G[-]d, and increasingly less worship of idols" (Prologue to Book I). While the (Western) Empire had not yet fallen by the time he wrote the book, and at least up to the narrative through Gratian's death he doesn't seem to think it inevitable, he's basically trying to preempt people from blaming Christianity for the fall of the Roman Empire. Toward the end of the 5^th century, the pagan and Byzantine historian Zosimus believed just that; modern historians, such as Henry Adams, have made a similar claim. Of course, Orosius and Zosimus were looking at the issue providentially – "my deity is stronger than your deity" and all that – while the modern argument is more cultural – to wit, the religious conversion in the Empire accompanied a cultural transformation that undermined the values and institutions vital to Rome's military greatness. His method is to show how war and other disasters existed in every period, and also to an extent to minimize the problems of his own time. Secondarily, he attempts to explain the ways that history shows positive proof of Christianity.

The first of these is the bulk of the work, but is utterly derivative at least until the point that Eutropius ends during the reign of Valens, for which reason I have not found it necessary to get the book until now. With the end, he is putting his own knowledge into the narrative. The sources he names are not any different from the ones available to us, and for the most part those I have already read. He uses both pagan and ecclesiastical historians, including at least one Greek (Polybius), though the citation may itself be derivative (or through translation). As the special index for it attests, the number of direct quotations from Scripture is rather low, and I assume he had access to Jerome's Vulgate, rather than any of the earlier translations of the Bible into Latin that were considered quite inferior. Thus, Orosius' History's survival and influence (in the Middle Ages, at least) is due not to his originality or quality, but Saint Augustine's imprimatur.

Augustine focused on the city of G-d; for Orosius, the "City" (I.1, passim) is Rome. He is writing a full history, abbreviated as it is compared to his ultimate sources like Livy, not a chronicle. Still, his dating system by Roman years, before or after the founding of the city, is instructive compared to John's Biblical and imperial system and the Chronicon Paschale's consular years and years from creation. Even amid the beginning of the breakup of the Western Roman Empire, Orosius sees it as the goal toward which history has been driving. Nevertheless, his project is a full world history.

Rather than using mythology to display geology as John of Nikiu did, Orosius actually elaborates a full description of the known world's regions to begin his narrative in Book I Chapter 2. Although the Romans had some limited contact with China, Orosius doesn't extend beyond India to the east.

At II.1 and VII.2, he explains that he conceptualizes history as beginning with the Babylonian Empire and ending with the Roman Empire. He finds parallels between these empires of East and West, some in year counts, others that Babylon fell as Rome rose. As lesser empires, he also finds a place for Macedonia/Greece in the North and Africa/Carthage in the South. The last is a bit out of place, both from the Biblical idea (e.g. Daniel) that would have the fourth (second chronologically) empire as Persia/Medea. Carthage is also out of place due to the information Orosius gives on it. He on discusses Carthage in context of the Punic Wars, which cover the bulk of the fourth book; even the foundation story of Dido doesn't come until IV.6, rather than other events before the beginning of Rome. While he makes clear that Carthaginian power had come to extend over much of North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and other islands by the time the First Punic War began in 264 BCE, he does very little to vitiate the paucity of historical knowledge on Carthage at its apex, compared to the other empires, either in his own narrative or by pointing to another, as he does at times.

As the title of the history might be trying to suggest, there is little about Jewish history. Rather, the Jewish Bible is used to talk about Adam (I.1,3), Noah (I.3), Sodom and Gomorrah (I.5), and Joseph (I.8) and Moses (I.10) in order to discuss Egypt. Egyptian legend and Greek mythology also inform Egyptian history, and Greek mythology also informs ancient Greek and Trojan history; Orosius is better able to escape from Hesiod than John, but he cannot ignore the mythological foundations completely. At least indirectly, though, he does begin within his system. To start the narrative in Book I Chapter 1, he writes, "Since nearly all men interested in writing, among the Greeks as among the Latins, who have perpetuated in words the accomplishments of kings and peoples for a lasting record, have made the beginning of their writing with Ninus, the son of Belus, king of the Assyrians, because they wish it to be believed in their blind opinion that the origin of the world and creation of mankind were without beginning; yet they explain that kingdoms and wars began with him as if, indeed, the human race up to that time lived in the manner of beasts, and then for the first time, as if shaken and aroused, awoke to a new wisdom." He, instead, calculates that Ninus was a contemporary of Abraham, some 3,184 years after Adam, the first man; those years "have been omitted or unknown by all historians," though he is able to refer to Noah later. Two thousand and fifteen years after that, Augustus Caesar was emperor of Rome and Jesus was born. The geography in I.2 associates Assyria with the Iranian lands; at II.2, Semiramis, the wife and successor of Ninus as ruler of Assyria "restored the city of Babylon"; and VII.2 calls Babylon "a city of the Assyrians." Thus, we can see that Orosius, in calling Babylonia the important Eastern Empire in his system of history, intends to at least roughly include Assyria and Medea/Persia in the equation.

Before turning to the main subject – Rome – I just want to state my disappointment in his treatment of Classical Greece and Hellenistic history. Orosius does nothing to supplement the gap in history between the end of the first generation of the successors to Alexander the Great and the end of the 3^rd century when the Hellenistic kingdoms start to appear in Roman history.

Just like the other empires, Orosius' history of the City of Rome and the Empire it won is derivative, and although it is treated more comprehensively, I will not go through the entire narrative. As elsewhere, he constantly compares the wars Rome faces with those of his own time, and prefers the latter. Yet, as he goes through a litany at the end of Book V (24^th chapter) of all the wars Rome was fighting simultaneously early in the first century before the common era – civil wars, wars against slaves, against Mithridates, wars in Spain, in Macedonia, in Dalmatia, in Pamphylia – one can't help but feeling how impressive and vast Rome's military resources were to not only fight in so many places at the same time, but win. Unwittingly, he proves the dictum of Pyrrhus still applied two centuries later: "if I conquer again in the same manner, I shall return to Epirus without a soldier" (IV.1) – Rome's reserve of soldiers appeared inexhaustible. For all Orosius' optimism, one doesn't have the sense that it is still true in the fourth century of the Common Era.

Since I have already written more than I expected, I will save my comments on the Christian era to the next post.

A different translation is hosted by Google.