Orosius the Presbyter

Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, a most eloquent man and learned in history, wrote eight books against those enemies of the Christians who say that the decline of the Roman state was caused by the Christian religion. In them he recounts the calamities, miseries and upheavals of wars across nearly the whole world from the creation. He shows that the Roman Empire owed to the Christian religion both its undeserved survival and the peace it enjoyed on account of the worship of God. [a] In the first book he described the world as lying within the ever-flowing stream of Ocean and divided by the Tanais. He gave the positions of places, the names, number and customs of the nations, the character of the various regions, the wars that were begun, and the founding of empires sealed with the blood of kinsmen. [b]

This is the Orosius whom Augustine sent to Jerome on the question of the nature of the soul. On his return he was the first to bring to the West relics of the blessed Stephen, the first martyr, which had recently been found. He flourished almost at the end of the reign of the emperor Honorius. [c]