The Historians of Late Antiquity

by David Rohrbacher

  Theodoret’s very brief prologue opens with an analogy between painters of historical scenes and writers of history (1.1). While both provide delight and preserve the past, writers provide a more permanent as well as a more vivid record. In a comment familiar to classical historiography, he says that his purpose is to ensure that important events ignored by earlier ecclesiastical historians are not forgotten. He claims to have been often urged by friends to write a church history, and concludes with the similarly classical concern that his talent might not be sufficient for the task. Trust in God, however, will allow him to proceed. Unlike other church historians, Theodoret does not provide other prefaces or notices which address methodological concerns.

  Theodoret’s information is often derived from the earlier church histories as well as from Athanasius (Güldenpenning 1889). He relies, however, on some independent sources, and offers some letters and other primary documents which are found only in his work, most notably a letter written by Arius (1.5.1–4), and other letters or creeds which may derive from the collection of Sabinus but which are not reproduced by Socrates or Sozomen, such as the lengthy letter of Alexander of Alexandria to Alexander of Constantinople (1.4.1–61) and the letter of the synod at Constantinople to George, the bishop of Alexandria, concerning the heresy of Aetius (2.28). He also makes use of lost works which provide local Antiochene material, such as the Against Eunomius of Theodore of Mopsuestia (Bihain 1962a).

  The Ecclesiastical History is divided into five books, with the divisions arranged around the lives of the emperors. The first book ends with the death of Constantine, the second with the death of Constantius II, the third with the death of Julian, and the fourth with the death of Valens at Adrianople. The fifth concludes with praise of the reign of Theodosius II, a notice of Theodotus’ rise to bishop of Antioch, an account of martyrdoms in Persia, and finally a notice of the death of Theodore of Mopsuestia.

  Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History is a stripped-down version of the genre, lacking many of the digressions and secular details which Socrates and Sozomen had experimented with in different ways. It may be that his history was a purposeful reaction against those earlier works (Harries 1991: 276). The work also shows little interest in chronological detail or order, and it has been said that it might be “better described as dogmatic and polemical, rather than apologetic or historical” (Allen 1987: 377). Even when Theodoret uses information from Socrates or Sozomen, he often freely alters it in order to highlight the moral or doctrinal point he wishes to make.

  While all late antique church histories after Eusebius devoted considerable amounts of attention to Arianism, the progress of the heresy in the fourth century is more central to Theodoret’s work than to any other. Rufinus, Socrates, and Sozomen had begun their histories with the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, for example, but Theodoret plunges almost immediately into the actions of Arius in Alexandria (1.2). In his conclusion, he describes his work as beginning “from the commencement of the Arian madness” (5.40). One might also compare the treatment of Ulfila and the Goths in Socrates and in Theodoret. While Socrates admits that the Goths had become “infected” with Arianism, he points out the political circumstances surrounding their conversion and ends by pointing out that many had been admirably martyred owing to their faith in Christ (4.33). Theodoret emphasizes only theological issues, focusing on how the Goths were tricked into Arianism by the wicked bishop Eudoxius (4.37).

  Theodoret has, purposely it seems, avoided bringing his history up to the times of his own doctrinal struggles, and few specific references to those disputes can be found in the work. One of them appears in a discussion of the rise of the Apollinarist heresy. Apollinaris the Younger was a staunch supporter of the Nicene Creed who was held to have too severely downplayed the human nature of Christ, teaching that the Logos substituted for his human soul. The conclusions which followed from this interpretation, according to Theodoret, show that Apollinarianism was “the root from which has sprung up the evil doctrine now prevalent in the church” and such people have excited “great controversy” in the present day (5.3.8). In a broader sense, however, Theodoret’s anti-Arian work served the purpose of championing his own orthodoxy and of allowing him to demonstrate that, despite the dualistic nature of his Christology, he had not fallen into Arianism himself. When Theodoret wrote to Pope Leo to vindicate his orthodoxy after the Robber Synod, he cited his previous writings to demonstrate his good faith, and while he did not refer to the Ecclesiastical History by name, it could easily fit under the category of works written “against the Arians” (ep. 113).

  Theodoret’s history does show evidence of an Antiochene bias, and in a study of Theodoret’s treatment of several bishops of Antioch in the fourth century, Allen has demonstrated that the historian has presented the bishops’ rule in a considerably more favorable light than had Socrates (Allen 1990). Theodoret undoubtedly had access to local traditions concerning these bishops, and would have had both patriotic and doctrinal reasons to overlook the flaws and exaggerate the talents of the anti-Arian holders of the bishopric. Theodoret presents a scene where Theodosius I dreams of being crowned by an unfamiliar bishop, Meletius, whom the emperor later recognizes and greets in a crowd (5.6). This Meletius is praised in Theodoret’s letters and was close to important Antiochenes such as John Chrysostom. Socrates, by contrast, writing from Constantinople, preserves many unflattering details about Meletius, whom he blames for the schism in the anti-Arian forces at Antioch. Theodoret is similarly favorable toward the bishop Flavian, who was an associate of Diodorus and of the monks with whom Theodoret would later be associated. Socrates and Sozomen, on the other hand, portray Flavian as a perjurer and schismatic (Allen 1990: 275–80).

  Although Theodoret’s classical learning is clear from some of his other works, in keeping with the genre, his ecclesiastical history contains few allusions or citations. Exceptions are of the most banal sort, such as the comment that “it would require the magniloquence of Aeschylus and Sophocles” to describe the sufferings of a bishop during the reign of Julian (3.7.6). Theodoret, like Sozomen, includes some discussion of monks and monastic communities in his work, although the two writers have almost no overlap in the monks they discuss. In a list of twenty-three outstanding hermits of the fourth century presented by Theodoret, for example, only two can be found in a similar list in Sozomen (Theod. 4.28; Soz. 6.32–4; Price 1985: xvii–xviii).

  Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History is largely a success if judged on its own terms. The bishop has excised much of the extensive material on political and military events which earlier church historians had included. Emperors and warfare are presented not for their own sake, but to further the historian’s moralizing purposes, and his accuracy concerning secular events is correspondingly low. Theodoret includes the letters and church documents which Eusebius had made an essential part of the genre, but he focuses more narrowly on the Arian heresy and related doctrinal matters, rather than attempting to encompass all of the controversies of the church during the period. Stylistically, he may have been trying to cleanse the genre of what he saw as material extraneous to his definition of church history. Theodoret also wrote for personal reasons, both to demonstrate his own orthodoxy and to correct the record offered by two writers from Constantinople with an Antiochene perspective.

  Text and translation

  Greek text edited by L. Parmentier (1954), Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller. English translation (1843) in Greek ecclesiastical historians of the First Six Centuries. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, translation available on-line at: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-03/Npnf2-03-04.htm#P112_4318.

  12

  OROSIUS

  Life

  Our information about the life of Orosius is almost entirely limited to the period between 414 and 418. Since Augustine describes Orosius during these years as a “young priest” (ep. 169) and as a “son by age” (ep. 166), Orosius was then presumably around 30 years old, and was therefore b
orn around 375. After his departure from Africa for Spain at the beginning of 418, Orosius disappeared from history.

  Contemporaries of Orosius referred to him by the single name, and it is not until the mid-sixth-century history of Jordanes that the historian is referred to as “Paulus Orosius.” This name may, however, be a mistaken expansion of a “P” for “presybter” (priest) (Arnaud-Lindet 1990: xiii). Augustine says that Orosius had come to him “from the shore of the Ocean.” Avitus, a priest of Bracara (modern-day Braga) on the Portuguese coast, wrote a letter in which he called Orosius his fellow priest. Avitus also entrusted Orosius with certain relics of St Stephen to bring to Palchonius, the bishop of Bracara. It can therefore be assumed that Orosius was ordained as a priest in that town. His work suggests that in addition to theological training, he also had at least the rudiments of a classical education.

  The only information we have from Orosius about his life prior to 414 is a cryptic passage lamenting misfortunes he suffered at an unspecified time in the past. “ … how I first saw the unfamiliar barbarians previously unknown to me, how I evaded enemies, how I flattered the powerful, how I guarded against heathens, how I fled from those who would ambush me, and, finally, how hidden in a sudden mist I evaded those pursuing me on sea and seeking me with rocks and javelins, even almost seizing me once” (3.20.6–7). Past interpretations of these lines have often suggested that Orosius is recounting his forced flight from Spain during barbarian invasions. Elsewhere, however, Orosius downplays the problem of barbarian–Roman rapprochement. Arnaud-Lindet suggests that the passage would apply more easily to an escape from captivity than to flight from an invasion. Noting that in his geography Orosius mentions twice, with praise, the relatively insignificant coastal town of Brigantia (1.2.71, 1.2.81), he speculates that Orosius had been captured by Scottish pirates during the invasion of 405 and found refuge in Brigantia after his escape (Arnaud-Lindet 1990: xi–xii). Elsewhere Orosius alludes to disturbances which forced his departure to Africa, which might have been theological controversies rather than military invasions (5.2).

  Orosius arrived in Hippo in 414 and presented Augustine with the first of the three works he is known to have written. The Commonitorium de Errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum is a short “memorandum” to the bishop on heretical ideas which were prominent at the time. In it he claims that neither his will nor accident had brought him to Africa, but the will of God. It seems clear from the introduction that the two had already discussed some of the heretical ideas which Orosius addresses in his pamphlet. Priscillian was a Spaniard born around 340 who preached ascetic renunciation (Burrus 1995; Chadwick 1976). After being condemned, restored, and condemned again after 380, Priscillian and several of his followers were executed in 385 or 386. While Priscillian was revered as a martyr for a time after his death, councils in 400 and afterward condemned his doctrines, which were considered excessively dualistic and “Manichaean.” Orosius’ criticisms of Priscillian in his Commonitorium are sharp but may rely on material falsely attributed to him (Chadwick 1976: 202). Orosius also criticizes Origenist ideas which he claims had been brought to Spain from Jerusalem, and begs Augustine for his thoughts on these errors. Augustine, responding with “as much brevity and clarity as possible” (Aug. Retractiones 2.44), criticizes the Origenist principles as described by Orosius, but refrains from dismissing Origen altogether.

  It is during this year that Orosius was first enjoined by Augustine to compile a list of the misfortunes which the Romans had endured in the past. Augustine desired such a collection to supplement his work in the City of God, which sought to refute pagan charges that the Gothic sack of Rome in 410 had resulted from the abandonment of the traditional gods. This collection was to serve as the seed from which Orosius’ full history would grow.

  Orosius remained with Augustine for about a year. In the spring of 415, he set off to Palestine and to Jerome bearing letters from Augustine. In a letter to Jerome introducing Orosius, Augustine says that he has taught the young priest all that he could and was now handing him over to Jerome for further instruction. Augustine sent along with Orosius information about the dangers of the thought of Pelagius. The theologian Pelagius had rejected interpretations of original sin which deprecated the power and responsibility of Christians to use their free will to act justly, and he demanded that all Christians, not just priests and monks, should perfect themselves (Rees 1988; Evans 1968; Brown 1972: 183–226). Having left Rome, perhaps because of the invasion of 410, Pelagius had gone to Carthage and then to Palestine. Pelagius’ more radical follower Caelestius had been condemned for rejecting infant baptism by a Carthaginian synod, perhaps in 411, and Augustine had been preaching and writing against Pelagianism since that time. Orosius probably brought some of these anti-Pelagian writings with him to strengthen Jerome’s position against Pelagius, at a time when Pelagius’ position was strengthened by the politically powerful patronage of Bishop John of Jerusalem.

  In Palestine Orosius confronted Pelagius directly in an informal meeting before Bishop John in July, and in December a synod formally took up the question of Pelagianism. In both cases Orosius and Jerome were defeated (Hunt 1982: 202–20; Kelly 1975: 317–21). Orosius’ Liber Apologeticus, written at the end of 415, is a pamphlet which tries to explain his loss, in part by claiming that Pelagius’ work, written in Latin, could not be properly understood in the Greek-speaking east. His failures likely made him unwelcome in Jerusalem, and he returned to Africa in 416.

  On his departure from the east, Orosius carried relics of St Stephen, along with an account of their recent discovery by Lucian, which were to be brought to Bishop Palchonius of his native Bracara. After delivering a letter (ep. 134) from Jerome to Augustine, he set out for Africa by way of Minorca. Unable to continue on to Spain, presumably because of barbarian incursions, he was forced to return to Africa and to abandon the relics on the island, where they were responsible for numerous miracles (Hunt 1982). In Africa he wrote his major work, Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, and is not heard from again after its completion in 418. Perhaps he died in a shipwreck on his return to Spain.

  Work

  Orosius’ History was tremendously successful and became one of the primary sources of information about antiquity in the Middle Ages. Its reception among moderns has been substantially cooler. The sources Orosius drew upon have generally survived, and his sloppiness and constant rhetorical asides have not won him favor. But while his recounting of the facts is often unimpressive, his complex systematizing reveals his bold and original mind. The History against the Pagans sought to encompass a large part of world history with a geographical and chronological scope which exceeded most of the other narrative historians of later antiquity.

  The sources upon which Orosius depended are well known. For his treatment of the Roman republic, he drew heavily upon Livy, garnering information from all but eight books of the 142 of the Ab Urbe Condita. Orosius also used Caesar’s Gallic Wars, the republican material of Eutropius, and the second-century epitomator Florus. For the history of the east, of Greece, and of Carthage, Orosius looked particularly to the epitome of Pompeius Trogus prepared by Justin. He also used the Chronicle of Eusebius, as translated and supplemented by Jerome, and found a bit of information about Babylon in Herodotus. For the imperial period, Orosius continued to depend upon the Chronicle, Florus, and Eutropius, with added material from Tacitus and Suetonius. Further information was derived from Rufinus’ translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and, for the fourth century, Rufinus’ continuation of the work. For the last twenty years of the work, Orosius depended upon oral sources and his own recollections.

  Orosius’ style is typical of late Latin rhetorical writers (Bartalucci 1976; Fabbrini 1979: 110–25). Both Augustine (ep. 166) and Gennadius (vir. ill. 39) describe him as “eloquent,” and he displays the expected features of late Latin eloquence: frequent use of chiasmus, alliteration, and personification, elaborate metaphors, and the use of poetic langua
ge and allusions to Vergil to evoke pathos or excitement.

  Orosius dedicates his work to Augustine and reveals that he wrote it in response to a request from the bishop for details to support his position against the pagans. Pagans disturbed by the recent sack of Rome had been claiming that disasters had multiplied as the worship of idols ceased and Christianity spread. It seems that Augustine asked Orosius to research the “histories and annals” and compile a list of all sorts of misfortunes – war, disease, famine, natural disasters – with the goal of demonstrating that misfortunes had not increased with the spread of Christianity, but were constant throughout history. Orosius was asked to list these misfortunes “systematically and briefly.” Orosius’ excessively servile tone in the preface, including a lengthy comparison of himself with a dog, has sometimes blinded readers to the fact that he substantially exceeded Augustine’s mandate both in the length and in the complexity of his work. A hint of what is to come appears in Orosius’ musings toward the end of the prologue. “I discovered that past times were not only equally as grave as those of today, but that they were even more terrible in accordance with how much more distant they were from the assistance of the true religion” (1.pref. 14). In Augustine’s City of God, the bishop would make the case that suffering is found at all times and is a fundamental part of earthly human existence. For Orosius, however, suffering had been endemic in pre-Christian times, but with the coming of Christ and the spread of Christianity, suffering had been substantially reduced and would continue to diminish with the further spread of the gospel.

  Orosius was extremely ambitious, and he set out to write a true universal history which would cover the history of all peoples and of all time. He first postulated a division of time into three great parts: from Adam to Romulus, from Romulus to Christ, and from Christ to the present day (1.1.5–6). The seven books of the history are arranged in accordance with this division: the first division is covered in book 1, the second in books 2 through 6, and the last in book 7. The books vary greatly in length, and in particular the last book is more than two-thirds the length of the second through the sixth books combined.