History Against the Pagans

Orosius wrote an influential book on the history of the world, Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII, or "Seven Books of History Against the Pagans." The aim was to show how Christianity had made the world better. It was influenced by talks he had with Augustine of Hippo, whom he visited more than once. The opening shows Augustine's influence in its writing:

I have obeyed your instructions, blessed Augustine, and may my achievement match my good intentions.

... 

You bade me reply to the empty chatter and perversity of those who, aliens to the City of God*, are called "pagans" [pagani] because they come from the countryside [ex pagis] and the crossroads of the rural districts, or "heathen" because of their knowledge of earthly matters. Although these people do not seek out the future and moreover either forget or know nothing of the past, nevertheless they charge that the present times are unusually beset with calamities for the sole reason that men believe in Christ and worship God while idols are increasingly neglected.

He decided to start his history from "the beginning of man's misery from the beginning of his sin":

From Adam, the first man, to Ninus, whom they call "The Great" and in whose time Abraham was born, 3,184 years elapsed, a period that all historians have either disregarded or have not known. But from Ninus, or from Abraham, to Caesar Augustus, that is, to the birth of Christ, which took place in the forty-second year of Caesar's rule, when, on the conclusion of peace with the Parthians, the gates of Janus were closed and wars ceased over all the world, there were 2,015 years.**

We started talking about Orosius a couple days ago because of his reference to Noah. Curiously, not only does Orosius refer to the Flood and the repopulating of the world in his first of seven books without mentioning Noah by name, he also offers evidence for the Flood with:

Other writers, too, have testified to this truth. Though ignorant of the past and even of the very Creator of the ages, they have nevertheless learned about the flood by drawing logical inferences from the evidence offered by stones which, encrusted with shells and often corroded by water, we are accustomed to see on far-away mountains.

Orosius' History was a valuable resource in the Middle Ages; we've seen it mentioned here and here. We'll talk more about its use tomorrow.

*City of God was Augustine's major work.

**I want to point out that Orosius' gives a longer period of time prior to Jesus' birth than that of James Ussher (1581 - 1656), the Archbishop of Armagh who calculated Creation as taking place on 22 October 4004 BCE)