ABSTRACT
The judgements of the earlier 'lineages' of Christian historians were piously passed down through subsequent generations. The 'Eusebian tradition', for a start, provided a crucial yardstick by which rulers should be judged, the revision of Eusebius' Vita Constantini providing legitimacy for Byzantine 'Caesaropapism', and Rufinus' special idealization of Constantine for Western Catholic monarchies. In the crisis-ridden West, understandably, what were reckoned to be the judgements of God were obviously going to be crucial for explaining and reconciling groups to the harsh realities of socio-political disturbance. Working within Rome itself, to look at another viewpoint, Salvianus' closer contemporary the western Gallic lay ascetic Prosper of Aquitaine consciously maintained a greater serenity in those trouble-wracked times. In such troubled times Job was a natural Biblical patron of Christian retributive thinking, yet surprisingly, at the hands of the famous Boethius, its newest patron saint became the gentle Philosophia, the visionary maiden who came bearing consolatio to a depressed political prisoner.
