ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 turns to the interrelation of Christian monotheism and imperial authority in the Historiae, foregrounding the redemptive figure of the emperor Augustus. The reign of Augustus, together with the beginning of the Roman empire, is the crucial pivot of the text. The pre-Christian world was a dark place illuminated only by the fires of its own destruction, but, following Augustus’s accession and the Incarnation in the Christian Roman empire, everything is better than it used to be and is getting better still. Even Mount Etna, which used to boil over in frequent eruptions, now only smokes innocently. The philosophy of history that emphasizes the providential coincidence of Christ and Augustus is often dismissed as ‘Eusebian’. This chapter returns to the parallelism of the beginnings of empire and Christianity that is central to Orosius’s political theology, illuminating the long shadow it casts over the text. The figure of Augustus is deliberately, precisely, and arduously interwoven with the concept of a universal peace, the birth of Christ, the role of empire, and a monotheism that transcends heaven and earth. The imagery of the temple of Janus, the titling of Augustus, and miracles associated with his accession are reappropriated from their pagan origins in the rewriting of the Roman imperial past to complement a new Christian agenda.
