ORION OROSIUS, PAULUS 157
viii. 234 ; Le Quien, Or. Chr. ii. 625.) [Svne-Sius.] [R. J. K.]
ORION (2), a wealthy and leading citizenof Aila on the Red Sea, said to have been restoredafter possession by a legion of devils throughthe prayers of Hilarion, the hermit of Palestine,in the end of the 4th century (Jerom. Vit. Hilar.§ 18 [Hilarion]). ‘ [W. H. F.]
ORION (3), addressed by Isidore of Pelu-sium in several letters (lib. i. epp. 264, 293),another (v. 193), a deacon (ii. 16), a monk(i. 181, 194, 195, 468, ii. 159, 268, iii. 45, iv.137, 155). [C. H.]
ORONTIANUS (Horontianus), addressedby St. Ambrose, c. 387, on the nature of thesoul (ep. 34) and on some passages in St. Paul(35, 36); in 389 on the question why man, themost perfect of creatures, should have beenformed last (43), and on the succession of God’screative acts (44); the epp. 77, 78 discuss thesubject of the old and new dispensations, buttheir date is not apparent. (Ceill. v. 493, 496,503.) [0. H.]
ORONTIUS (1), Jan. 22, martyr during theDiocletian persecution with Vincentius andVictor in Spain under the governor Rufinus.(AA. SS. Bol). Jan. ii. 390-393; Ceill. xi. 306.)
[G. T. S.]
ORONTIUS (2), a man of rank and landedproprietor, a friend of St. Augustine, but pro-bably not yet having made up his mind to be-come a Christian. In his state of doubt he ap-pears to have consulted Augustine, and to haveasked permission to pav him a visit. (Aug. Ep.257 al. 123.) ' [H. W. P.]
ORONTIUS (3), an Italian bishop and aPelagian. He accompanied Julianus, of Eclana,in his exile, and with him visited Theodore oiMopsuestia, and the patriarch Nestorius. Cf.Julianus (15) in. t. iii. p. 470 of this Dictionary,where the story is fully told. He causedAnianus, the Pelagian, to translate St. Chryso-stom’s Homilies on St. Matthew. He dedicatedthe translation to Orontius. (Cf. Migne’s Pat.Lat. xlviii. 626; Ceill. vii. 211.) [G. T. S.]
ORONTIUS (4), bishop of Seville, a.d. 462-472). (Florez, Esp. Sagr. ix. 138.) [F. I).]
ORONTIUS (5), bishop Elvira (Illiberitanus),subscribes the council of Tarragona in 516(Hard. ii. 1014). But another reading makeshim of Lerida (Ilerditanus). [C. H.]
ORONTIUS (6), bishop, probably of Le-rida, signs seventh the canons of the Councils ofTarragona and Gerona, in a.d. 516, 517. In theformer he is described as bishop “ Eliberitanaecivitatis ” (Elvira, Granada), but this is pro-bably a mistake for Ilerditanae (Ilerda, Lerida),as it is improbable that a bishop of Elvirashould have attended so distant a council,whereas Lerida is near Tarragona. Further, thename Orontius is wanting in the lists of thebishops of Granada (Tejada y Ramiro, Col. deCan. de la Igl. Esp., ii. 115, 122 ; Esp. Sag .xlvi. 93). [F. d.}
ORONTIUS (7), bishop of Merida, was re-presented by a priest at the 6th Council ofToledo, in January a.d. 638. He also preside lover the 7th and 8th Councils of Toledo, in a.d.646 and 653. By his influence with kingRekesvinth he obtained the restoration of theprovince of Lusitania, of which Merida was themetropolis, to its ancient limits, which had beencurtailed by the severance of the sees which fellwithin the Suevic dominions. These wereLamego, Viseo, Egitania, and Coimbra. (Tejaday Ramiro, Col. de Can. de la Igl. Esp. ii. 349,358, 385, 709; Esp. Sag. iv. 176, xiii. 214;Gams, Kirchengeschichte von Spanien, ii. (2) 140.)
[F. D.]
OROSIUS, PAULUS, was a native of Tarra-gona, in Spain, as he himself says (Hist. vii. 22),though an expression in a letter of Avitus maybe thought to connect him with Braga. (Ep.Aviti, Aug. Opp. vol. vii. p. 806 ; Baronius, vol.v. p. 435, a.d. 415.) When the Alani and Van-dals were introduced into Spain, a.d. 409,Orosius, though his language is somewhat rhe-torical, appears narrowly to have escaped theirviolence (Hist. iii. 20; v. 2; vii. 40). But adanger, more serious in his opinion than thatof the barbarian invasion, soon threatened todisturb the church in Spain, viz., the heresies ofthe Prisciilianists, and of the book by Origenirepl apx&v, lately translated by St. Jerome, andwhich had been brought from Jerusalem byAvitus, presbyter of Braga in Portugal, at thesame time as another book by Victorinus wasbrought by another Avitus from Rome. Bothof these books condemned the doctrines of Pris-cillian, but both contained errors of their own.The book by Victorinus attracted but littlenotice, but the one by Origen, on which someremarks had been made by St. Basil, but whe-ther the great father of that name is not cer-tain, was much more widely read, both in Spainand elsewhere. Two Spanish bishops, Paulusand Eutropius, had already presented to theAfrican church a memorial on heretical doc-trines ; but not including all that were nowcurrent in Spain, and to this St. Augustinehad replied in his treatise De Perfectione justiticeHominis(Opp. vol. x. 294), and Orosius, in his zealagainst error, proceeded, not as commissioned todo so by the church of Spain, but on his own ac-count, to Africa, to consult St. Augustine as to thebest manner of refuting these heretical doctrines,a.d. 415. Augustine speaks of him as young inyears, but a presbyter in rank, zealous, alert inintellect, ready of speech, and fitted to be usefulin the work of the Lord. He gave a partialreply to this appeal in his treatise contra Pns-cillianistas et Ongenistas , saying but little on thesubject which forms its title. He referred Oro-sius to his books against Manicheism, and forfurther satisfaction, recommended him to goonto Palestine, the seat itself of the errors inquestion, and there consult St. Jerome, to whomhe made him the bearer of two letters, one onthe origin of the soul (Ep. 166.) [Optatus],the other on the meaning of the passage Jamesii. 10. (Ep. 167 ; see also Ep. 169, 13 ; Retract.xi. 44; Consultatio or Commonitorium Oros. andthe reply of Augustine to the same c. Priscill. etGrig. opp. vol. viii. pp. 666-678, and Oros. opp.p. 1211, ed. Migne.) The letters were conveyed