ABSTRACT
Written in fervent defence of Christianity, the catalyst for the composition of the Historiae is disaster, principally the sack of Rome in 410 CE. The theme of disaster thoroughly preoccupies the text, with the entirety of history conceived in unmitigated terms of bad times and good, a catalogue of calamities that could only be terminated by the birth of Christ. Orosius’s principal task is to explain the vicissitudes of humanity, such as the rise and fall of empires, the fates of individual rulers, the wars fought between and within nations, and natural disasters like famine or flood. The Orosian vision of history holds the authority of the Christian God at its core: all power and order are from God, and the mysterious will of the divine determines events. But the fall of Rome, occurring almost 400 years after the Incarnation, threatens the credibility of Orosius’s polemical design. How could a civilization such as Rome suffer such catastrophe and destruction if the coming of Christ had already effected the miraculous improvement of human affairs? Chapter 5 illuminates the theosophical system that Orosius develops in response, representing human sin as the cause of the disaster, and compelling the interference of God in human affairs to bless with peace and punish with war. Positioned at the culmination of this scheme, the sack is transformed from a destructive invasion by a hostile enemy into a peaceful non-event that cleanses Rome of the scourge of paganism.
