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See also:PAULUS See also:OROSIUS (fl. 415)
, historian and theologian, was See also:born in See also:Spain (possibly at See also:Braga in See also:Galicia) towards the See also:close of the 4th See also:century
.
Having entered the See also:Christian priesthood, he naturally took an See also:interest in the Priscillianist controversy then going on in his native See also:country, and it may have been in connexion with this that he went to consult See also:Augustine at See also:Hippo in 413 or 414
.
After staying for some See also:time in See also:Africa as the See also:disciple of Augustine, he was sent by him in 415 to See also:Palestine with a See also:letter of introduction to See also:Jerome, then at See also:Bethlehem
.
Theostensible purpose of his See also:mission (apart, of course, from those of See also:pilgrimage and perhaps relic-See also:hunting) was that he might gain further instruction from Jerome on the points raised by the Priscillianists and Origenists; but in reality, it would seem, his business was to stir up and assist Jerome and others against See also:Pelagius, who, since the See also:synod of See also:Carthage in 411, had been living in Palestine, and finding some See also:acceptance there
.
The result of his arrival was that See also:
When Augustine proposed this task he had already planned and made some progress with his own De civitate Dei; it is the same See also:argument that is elaborated by his disciple, namely, the See also:evidence from See also:history that the circumstances of the See also:world had not really become worse since the introduction of See also:Christianity
.
The work, which is thus a pragmatical See also:chronicle of the calamities that have happened to mankind from the fall down to the See also:Gothic See also:period, has little accuracy or learning, and even less of See also:literary See also:charm to commend it; but it was the first See also:attempt to write the history of the world as a history of See also:God guiding humanity
.
Its purpose gave it value in the eyes of the orthodox, and the Hormesta, Ormesta, or Ormista as it was called, no one knows why (from Or[osii] M[undi] Hist[See also:oria] or from de miseria mundi? see Morner, p
.
18o, for See also:list of guesses), speedily attained a wide popularity
.
Nearly two See also:hundred See also:MSS. of it have survived
.
A See also:free abridged See also:translation by See also: The " See also:sources " made use of by Orosius have been investigated by T. de Morner (De Oroosi vita ejusque hilt. libr. vii. adversus Paganos, 1844) ; besides the Old and New Testaments, he appears to have consulted See also:Caesar, See also:Livy, See also:Justin, See also:Tacitus, Suetonius, Floras and a cosmography, attaching also See also:great value to Jerome's translation of the See also:Chronicles of See also:Eusebius . |
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