Historical Figures

Paul Orosius

On the life of Paulo Orosio we have very little reliable data, except for a short period of time , his biography is built on conjecture and speculation, which explains the divergence of opinions on the same facts.

His place of birth is already subject to controversy (while some place it in Tarragona, others favor the Portuguese city of Braga) as is his date . Based on the references that St. Augustine makes about him, and depending on the age of appointment of priests in Spain, it has been set between the years 383-385 AD. Where, how and in what way he was educated are so many unknowns.

The first certain news we have about him is his arrival in North Africa in the year 414 AD. fleeing from the barbarian incursions that were taking place in the peninsula. Once in Africa he goes to Hippo where he will meet Saint Augustine. Here he will write his works to refute the principles of the Priscilian and Originean heresies, at the same time that he requests spiritual help from Saint Augustine, who advises him to go to Palestine and ask Saint Jerome for advice on the questions of the soul that concern him.

he embarks for Jerusalem, where he arrives in the year 415 AD, when the conflict breaks out between Pelagius, supported by John, bishop of that city, and the orthodox current maintained by St Geronimo. To put an end to the dispute, a synod is held in which he actively participates in defense -when he is not present- of Saint Jerome's theses. He will be accused of heresy by Bishop Juan, who censures him for having defended that man, even with God's help, cannot see himself free from sin.

Solved the previous situation and washed the image of him, he embarks again in the year 416 AD. for Africa with the relics of Saint Stephen, apparently to take them to the Iberian Peninsula. Back in Hippo he will write his best-known work History of the pagans , although it is not clear if he had already started it during his first stay there. Once finished, Paulo Orosio's trail fades again and practically disappears. We know that he continued with his intention to take the relics to the peninsula, specifically to Braga, which he will not achieve because finally the relics are deposited on the Balearic island of Menorca. We do not know the date and circumstances of his death.

As with Eusebius of Caesarea and with all the Christian historians of the time, in order to understand Paulo Orosio one must keep in mind the context that surrounds them. Although the institutions of the Roman Empire remain standing (not for long) and Christianity is already their official religion, the push of the barbarians and the paganism still prevailing in a large part of the Roman population makes the works of these authors, in all fields, have a strong apologetic component. Paulo Orosio is no stranger to this circumstance and his work, although with certain historical traits, is largely a defense and exaltation of the Christian church in which God has an omnipresent role.

History of the pagans It is composed of seven books, six of which relate the events that occurred in the world before the arrival of Christ and the seventh those that occurred after he was born. The objective of his work is not hidden:to demonstrate that the sacking of Rome by Alaric, which had convulsed the Roman Empire and questioned the very foundations of imperial power and of the Christian religion, was not a greater catastrophe than others suffered in Antiquity. and that it was only an intervention of God to completely convert the city and direct it to the correct path marked out by the Church.

Paulo Orosio seeks to counter the idea that pagan gods had aided in the siege. Like Saint Augustine in his City of God , Paulo Orosio writes to placate the apocalyptic fears that had arisen as a result of that event, a purpose that marks the entire History of the pagans . The events, battles and disasters that have occurred have been allowed by the will of God and were worse when Christianity did not exist since, once Jesus Christ was resurrected, the Roman Empire took off and reached all its power.

In his opinion the facts are unimportant and rather serve to prove the thesis he maintains:when, for example, the author deals with the battles, he does not care so much who won or lost, but the casualties and the hardships they caused, in whose details -more than in their own development- he recreates. Since his goal is to show how Christianity has improved and enlarged Rome, the device he uses the most is comparison.

Orosio pours comments when he narrates some facts putting them in perspective with others. In this way he can show the pagans, the public to whom his work is directed, how the arrival of the Savior has improved their lives. He conceives history as a great organic unit subjected to the idea that men have abused, through ambition and greed, the freedoms that God has granted them, being guilty of the calamities that occurred until the appearance of true religion. Since Christianity, the catastrophes that occur are, in his opinion, less bad than the previous ones.

One of the characteristics of Paulo Orosio is the way of facing the chronology of the History of him . On the one hand, and unlike other Christian authors, he does not begin his story with King Nino of Babylon, but goes back to Genesis (for his desire to show the first act of man's disobedience). On the other hand, he divides his narrative into four empires:Babylonian, Macedonian, Carthaginian and Roman, as already proposed by Pompey Trogus. Beyond the providential vision that each one of the preceding empires has in the construction of the Roman one, Orosius considers that for the emergence of an empire it is necessary that it rest on the ashes of a previous one (he anticipates the cyclical vision that historians maintain modern). The Roman Empire represents the culmination of this evolutionary process, since that is how the divine will wanted it.

Another outstanding feature of Paulo Orosio is the treatment he gives to geography. Beyond the quality with which he deals with the description of land and places, he highlights the living treatment that he gives to geographic phenomena in themselves, as instruments of God's design. Earthquakes, floods or any meteorological accident are, for him, intimately linked to the divine plan.

If we want to look at the History of the pagans a work that approaches the minimum criteria that a historiographical work must have, we were wrong. The technical and formal errors and defects committed by Paulo Orosio are frequent and serious:he incurs contradictions, does not apply a critical bias to his sources, there are relevant chronological errors and he subordinates the truth to his interests. The marked apologetic character has even led to not considering this work as a historical work.


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