153 OROSIUS, PAULUS

OROSIUS, PAULUS

duly by their bearer, and their receipt acknow-ledged in due time -by St. Jerome ; who, however,excused himself from replying to them at lengthon the ground of the pressure of troublesomebusiness, by which, no doubt, he meant the de-bates in Palestine on the Pelagian controversy,including the attack made upon him by John ofJerusalem. (Hieron. Ep. 134; Aug. Ep. 172.)On arriving in Palestine, Orosius was kindly re-ceived by St. Jerome, and took up his residenceat Bethlehem, desiring to sit at his feet andlisten to his instruction. But being summonedby the clergy, he attended a synod at Jerusalemon July 28, in which he took his seat under thedirection of John the bishop, and informed theassembly of what had taken place in Africa re-specting Coelestius and Pelagius, viz., thatOoelestius had been condemned by a council heldA.D. 412 (Aug. Ep. 175, 176), and had abruptlydeparted from the country, that Augustine hadwritten a book against Pelagius, and furthersent a letter to the clergy in Sicily, treating ofthis and other heretical questions, which letterOrosius read to the meeting at the request ofthe members. He also quoted the judgment ofSt. Jerome on the Pelagian question, expressedin his letter to Ctesiphon and his Dialogue againstthe Pelagians. (Hieron. vol. i. Ep. 133 ; vol. ii.p. 495.) The proceedings of the meeting andthe decision given by bishop John, will befound above (vol. iii. p. 280), but it may beadded to this account that Orosius, apparentlyon the information of Posserius, Avitus, andDominus ex duce, perhaps Domninus, believedthe interpreter to be both ignorant and dis-honest. (Orosius, Apol. 3-6; Cod. Theod. vi.30, 19 ; Tillemont, vol. xiii. 254.) Forty-sevendays after this, viz., on Sept. 13, the feast ofthe dedication of the church of the Holy Sepul-chre (Holy-Cross day), when Orosius presentedhimself for the purpose of assisting bishop Johnat the altar, he was at once attacked by him asa blasphemer, a charge which Orosius not onlydenied, but refuted on the ground that as hespoke only in Latin, John, who only spoke Greek,could not have understood what he said. Thatthere should be false witnesses in Jerusalem isnot unlikely, but Orosius did not venture toaccuse the bishop of seeking such. The rest ofthe book is taken up with arguments againstPelagianism, including two long passages identi-cal with some in the book of Aug. De Natura etGratia, c. 12—19, and 3-12, vol. x. p.249. Atthe council of 14 bishops held at Diospolis(Lydda) in December of the same year, Orosiuswas not present (Aug. De Gest. Pelag. c. 16);but he returned to Africa early in 416, bearingwith him probably the answer of St. Jerome tothe letter of St. Augustine, perhaps also his bookagains.t the Pelagians, and also the supposedrelics *of St. Stephen, which had been discoveredin the course of the previous December, andwhich at the request of Avitus he was to conveyto the church of Braga, in Portugal. [Lucianus(15) vol. iii. p. 349.] Tillemont, vol. xiii. 262.He was also the bearer of a letter from Herosand Lazarus, which he laid before a synod assem-bled at Carthage about the month of June.(Aug. Epp. 175-180; Tillemont, 1. c. 263.) Hehad also received from St. Jerome a letter to St.Augustine concerning the resurrection of thebody; which, however, he had handed to Oro-

sius for transcription, and did not deliver *Augustine at the same time as the other left.(Aug. Ep. 180.) About this time, on rquest of Augustine, conveyed to him by a deaennamed Julian, he undertook his history chieflin order to confirm by historical facts the doltrine maintained by St. Augustine in hiswork De Civitate Dei, on the 11th book of winchhe was at that time employed. We learn thesfacts from what Orosius himself says in his1st chapter, and from a passage in the 5th bookthat he wrote his history chiefly if not entirelyin Africa. It could not have been begun earlierthan 416, and must have been finished in 417 forit concludes with an account of the treaty made in416 between Wallia, the Gothic king, and theEmperor Honorius. (Oros. Hist. v. 2; vii. 43*Clinton, F. B .) Having finished his task, Orosiusproceeded to fulfil his undertaking of conveyingto Spain the relics of St. Stephen. On his wayhe touched at Port Mahon in Minorca, andbeino-deterred by the accounts of the disturbed stateof Spain through the occupation of that countryby the Vandals, left his precious treasure thereand returned to Africa, after which timenothing more is known of his history. (Ep.Severi, Aug. Opp. vol. vii. App. Baronius, 418.4.) Written within the space of little morethan a year, and for a special historical purpose,this work of Orosius deserves to be called a his-torical treatise rather than a formal history,which indeed, it does not pretend to be, thoughas it includes a portion of the subject belongingto Scripture ami to Jewish affairs, its area coverswider space than any other ancient epitome.Besides the Old and New Testaments, he quotesJosephus, the church historians, and writers, asTertullian, Hegesippus, and Eusebius; and ofother writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, Sallust, Caesar,Cicero, and he was no doubt largely indebted toLivy. But he was perhaps not well acquaintedwith Greek, and for Greek and Oriental historymade use of the works of Justin, or ratherTrogus Pompeius, and Quintus Curtius, and forRoman affairs, the works of Latin compi-lers, as Eutropius, Florus, and ValeriusPaterculus, together with others of inferiorvalue, as Valerius Antias, Valerius Maximus, andAurelius Victor. The work in later times be-came known by the name of Ormesta (mundi)atitle which under its various forms of Ormista,Ormesia, Hormesta, Hormista, caused muchdifficulty and many conjectures to later writers.The most likely explanation is that it representsin a contracted form Or. m. ista, i.e. Orosiimumistoria , or perhaps Orosii miseriarum (mundi)istoria, but Pighius thought that the true worwas Orchestra, i.e. a stage on which the .affairsof the world are set forth, and to this conjectureAndrew Schott, one of the early editors, lent isauthority, but the former view seems more probable. Written under the express sanction oSt. Augustine, in a pleasing style and at conV ®nient length, and recommended by church athorities as an orthodox Christian wor *’i,ihistory of Orosius became during the miages, the standard text-book on the subjec , *is quoted largely by Bede, and other n ieaiae ,writers. But while on the one hand he is for

last few years of his history a contemporary an

an original authority, and also undoubtedly splies some points on which existing writers are