Paulus Orosius. Seven Books of History Against the Pagans

Paulus Orosius.

Seven Books of History Against the Pagans

Paulus Orosius (commonly known simply as 'Orosius') lived in the 5th century CE and was a Christian theologian and historian of note and also a close friend of St. Augustine. He is best known for his work Seven Books of History Against the Pagans in which he argued, primarily, that the fall of Rome had nothing to do with the Roman adoption of Christianity (a claim popularly supported among the pagans of the day). This work was the first world history by a Christian and was completed in 418 CE, shortly after the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410. Using material taken from Livy, Caesar, Tacitus, Justin, and others (who were all pagans) as well as Suetonius, Florus, Justin, the Holy Scripture and the History of the Church by Eusebius, Orosius supported his claim that Christianity had done more good than harm and, certainly, had no hand in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Orosius argued strongly that his anti-Christian opposition had no tenable ground by giving specific examples and illustrations of cultural calamities that happened long before the rise of Christianity.

His work was very popular and, owing to his friendship with St. Augustine, was accepted easily by the early church as 'true' history and, eventually, found its way into the accepted history of the fall of the Roman Empire until Edward Gibbon published his famous six-volume The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (between 1776 and 1788 CE) which presented a vastly different view of the situation and has, since, influenced other historians to re-evaluate Orosius' interpretation of earlier sources. Even so, Orosius remains an important writer of his time and his work is still often referenced in theological, philosophical and historical works.

http://www.ancient.eu/Orosius/

Seven Books of History against the Pagans
Paulus Orosius, A. T. Fear
Liverpool University Press, 2010 - 456 páginas

This book is a new annotated translation of Orosius's Seven Books of History against the Pagans. Orosius's History, which begins with the creation and continues to his own day, was an immensely popular and standard work of reference on antiquity throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Its importance lay in the fact that Orosius was the first Christian author to write not a church history, but rather a history of the secular world interpreted from a Christian perspective. This approach gave new relevance to Roman history in the medieval period and allowed Rome's past to become a valued part of the medieval intellectual world.

The structure of history and methodology deployed by Orosius formed the dominant template for the writing of history in the medieval period, being followed, for example, by such writers as Otto of Freising and Ranulph Higden. Orosius's work is therefore crucial for an understanding of early Christian approaches to history, the development of universal history, and the intellectual life of the Middle Ages, for which it was both an important reference work and also a defining model for the writing of history.

The Sources
    Paulus Orosius - Historium adversum paganos book vii
(AD 417)
Robert Vermaat

"..but as for the quality of my books, you who bade me write them shall see; if you publish them, they shall be approved by you; if you destroy them, they shall be condemned by you."

Paulus Orosius was a native of Spain and wwas born probably in the town of Bracara, now in Portugal, between 380 and 390. His first name, Paulus, has been known only since the eighth century. The dates of his birth and death are not being precisely known, but he lived around the turn of the fifth century, being both a historian and a priest. He was ordained, and fled from Spain to Africa in 413 or 414, probably because of the Vandal invasion of 414. In Hippo (in modern Tunisia), he worked closely together with bishop Augustine, whom he befriended, to question him as to certain points of doctrine, concerning the soul and its origin, attacked by the Priscillianists.

Detail from Gordan MS 51It was Augustine that sent Orosius to St. Jerome in Bethlehem, Palestine, after 414 in order to become better acquainted with these questions concerning the soul and its origin. Here he argued against Pelagius, whose heretical doctrines of anti-predestination had infuriated Augustine and which were to become popular in Britain as well. Orosius aided St. Jerome and others in their struggle against this heresy, trying to have the teaching condemned, but without success. In 415 Bishop John of Jerusalem, summoned a council at Jerusalem. Here Orosius sharply attacked the teachings of Pelagius, who defended himself by stating that he believed it impossible for man to become perfect and avoid sin without God's assistance. Orosius was drawn into conflict with Bishop John, who accused him of having maintained that it is not possible for man to avoid sin, even with God's grace. In answer to this charge, Orosius wrote his Liber apologeticus contra Pelagium de Arbitrii libertate, in which he gives a detailed account of the Council of 415 at Jerusalem.

In the spring of 416 Orosius left Palestine, to return to Augustine in Africa, and thence home after a short stay with Augustine at Hippo. However, on reaching Minorca, Orosius heard of the wars and devastations of the Vandals in Spain, and he returned to Africa.

Here he began his Histories. Orosius, was the author of the Historiarum adversus paganos libri septem (Seven Books of History Against the Pagans), the first world history by a Christian, which was influenced by his friend Augustine. Orosius was writing his history shortly after Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410. The work, completed in 418, shows signs of some haste. He attempted, like Augustine later did in his Civitas Dei, to counter the view that Rome had fallen because of the adoption of the Christian faith by the Emperor and the people. Using material taken from Livy, Caesar, Tacitus, Justin, and Eutropius (all of them pagans), besides Suetonius, Florus, Justin, the Holy Scripture and the chronicle of Eusebius revised by St. Jerome. Orosius shows that this anti-Christian opinion was groundless, by giving examples of disasters that happened long before the rejection of paganism. In pursuance of the apologetic aim, all the calamities suffered by the various peoples are described.

Orosius’ work is important both theologically (it served as a prelude to Augustine's City of God) as well as an independent historical source. Although the work contains many errors, it is very useful for the period between 378 and 417. It was used extensively by both Gildas (De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae – ca.520-40) and Bede (Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum - ca. 735 AD). In the late 9th century (ca. 890-891) Alfred the Great had both Orosius and Bede translated into Old English. It was used largely during the Middle Ages as a compendium, and nearly 200 manuscripts of the Old English version of Orosius are still in existence today. Orosius' other works (ca. 414) include the Reminder to Augustine Concerning the Error of the Priscillianists and the Origenists, and the Apology Against the Pelagians.

Britain
Orosius writes about Britain only sparingly, apart from the campaigns of Caesar and Claudius. He has this note on Magnus Maximus:

Historium adversum paganos, book VII, 34

Maximus, an energetic man, indeed, and honourable and worthy of the throne had he not arrived at it by usurpation contrary to his oath of allegiance, was made emperor almost against his will..

His dealing with the fifth century in Britain are foremost in connection of the usurpation by Constantine III, of which he provides many details.

Historium adversum paganos, book VII, 40

While these [Alans, Suebi, Vandals] were running wild over the Gauls, in Britain Gratian, a citizen of the island, was made a usurper and was killed. In his place Constantine, a man of the lowest military rank, on account of the hope alone which came from his name and without any merit for courage, was elected. He, as soon as he entered upon his office, crossed over into Gaul.

Unfortunately Orosius never refers to Britain again after Constantine III leaves for Gaul in 407. Though his history ends in 417 within a few chapters after this one (43), he never mentions whether Britain was lost to the empire.

Bibliography

Paulus Orosius: The Seven Books of History against the Pagans, ed. and trans. Roy J. Deferrari, The fathers of the Church vol. 50, (Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC, 1964).
Snyder, Christopher A. (1998): An Age of Tyrants, Britain and Britons AD 400-600, (Stroud).*
    Paulus Orosius (fl. AD 414-417) - Late Roman and Dark Age Historians of Britain, in: Athena
    Review  Vol.I, no.2, at: http://www.athenapub.com/darkhist.htm. 

Paulus Orosius - Historium adversum paganos book vii is Copyright © 2002, Robert Vermaat. All rights reserved.
   

Jacques Bossuet

Jacques Bossuet

 Fue uno de los más acérrimos defensores del absolutismo monárquico durante el siglo XVII. Fue básicamente un hombre de la iglesia, que se dedicó a la evangelización, a difundir el mensaje de Dios, y por otra parte también teorizó sobre varios aspectos de su tiempo, especialmente aquellos religiosos vinculados a la política y por ello es que también se lo considera un destacado intelectual de su tiempo en esta materia.

Bossuet defendía por sobre todas las cosas que la autoridad y la legitimidad del monarca devenían de Dios. Ningún mortal ni ninguna clase social tenía nada que ver con esa legitimidad sino únicamente Dios se la daba al rey y ante él mismo debía rendir cuentas el monarca…

Esa idea, Bossuet, la defendió a ultranza en tiempos del gobierno del Rey Luis XIV, de quien fue un gran preferido.

Por otra parte y ante la asamblea eclesiástica de su país se ocupó de defender la idea de separación de Francia de la Iglesia con sede en Roma y también cuestionó la figura del Papa que estaba ciertamente enfrentado con el rey de Francia.

Su nacimiento se produjo en la ciudad francesa de Dijon, un 27 de septiembre del año 1627, en el seno de una familia vinculada a la justicia.

Profundizó estudios de teología y de filosofía durante su adolescencia, luego estudió derecho y finalmente decidió seguir su vocación religiosa, ordenándose como sacerdote en el año 1652.

Gracias a su tarea evangelizadora y a los reconocidos sermones que solía difundir se gana una notable repercusión en el ambiente religioso y político de su época, convirtiéndose en uno de los preferidos de la familia real, como ya señalamos. Incluso por esa cercanía con los monarcas se convirtió en el preceptor del heredero al trono.

En 1670 se lo consagra como obispo de la comuna francesa de Condom. Y once años después es nombrado obispo de la ciudad de Meaux.

Sus obras, de una prosa lírica y vehemente, muchas de ellas inspiradas en la elocuencia de Cicerón y San Agustín, incluyen las Oraciones fúnebres de Enriqueta de Francia (1669), que constituyen un modelo del género, Política deducida de las propias palabras de la Sagrada Escritura (1709) y Del conocimiento de Dios y de sí mismo (1722).

Numerosos historiadores lo reconocen como uno de los principales teóricos del sistema político del Antiguo Régimen o monarquía absoluta de derecho divino, cuyos conceptos dominaron la teoría política del siglo XVII en toda Europa y se mantuvieron hasta la época de la Revolución Francesa. El ideario de Jacques Bénigne Bossuet defendía la igualdad entre todos los hombres, pero entendía que la única forma de garantizar la paz y la seguridad era la implantación de un Estado gobernado por un rey cuya autoridad le era dada por Dios, y en quien los hombres debían depositar su derecho natural a regirse.

Entre sus escritos polémicos contra los protestantes los dos más destacados son Exposition de la doctrine de l'Église catholique sur les matières de controverse (1671) e Histoire des variations des Églises protestantes (2 volúmenes, 1688). Esta última fue especialmente criticada por Jurieu y Basnage, envolviendo a su autor en una larga y vehemente controversia. A la revocación del Edicto de Nantes (1685) la denomina "le plus bel usage de l'autorité,", aunque él no fuera ultramontanista.

Presidió en 1682 la asamblea del clero francés, que el rey había convocado, para defender las prerrogativas reales y las libertades galicanas contra las pretensiones del papa. Sus ataques contra Fénelon y los quietistas estuvieron muy cerca de convertirse en persecución. Fue uno de los más grandes y distinguidos hombres que dieron brillo al siglo de Luis XIV, pero fue un producto de su tiempo y sus ideas de política eclesiástica se corresponden al adagio del rey "l'état, c'est moi."

..
Fuente http://www.quien.net/jacques-bossuet.php
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02698b.htm

Obras:
•    Daily Meditations for Calming Your Angry Mind: Mindfulness Practices to Free Yourself from Anger
•    Jacques Benigne Bossuet Author Christopher Blum Editor‎
•    ‎‎Discours sur L'histoire Universelle. French Edition‎
•    ‎Meditaciones sobre el evangelio o exposición literal y mística de los evangelios. Obra póstuma
     del illmo señor Jacobo Benigno Bossuet obispo de meaux; y la más acreditada de cuántas escribió
     en este género. Traducidas del Francés al Español.
•    ‎Sermons et Oraisons funebres‎

Jacob Burckhardt: historiador del Renacimiento:

Comparto información sobre la obra de Jacob Burckhardt, historiador suizo descubridor de la edad del Renacimiento. Su obra es un testimonio de como tratar un periodo de la historia no solo en relacion a la pintura, escultura, y arquitectura sino a las instituciones sociales de su época.

Jacob Burckhardt

Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (May 25, 1818 – August 8, 1897) was a Swiss historian of art and culture and an influential figure in the historiography of both fields. He is known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history.[1] Sigfried Giedion described Burckhardt's achievement in the following terms: "The great discoverer of the age of the Renaissance, he first showed how a period should be treated in its entirety, with regard not only for its painting, sculpture and architecture, but for the social institutions of its daily life as well."[2] Burckhardt's best known work is The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860).

Life

The son of a Protestant clergyman, Burckhardt was born and died in Basel, where he studied theology in the hope of taking holy orders; however, under the influence of Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette, he chose not to become a clergyman. He finished his degree in 1839 and went to the University of Berlin to study history,[3] especially art history, then a new field. At Berlin, he attended lectures by Leopold von Ranke, the founder of history as a respectable academic discipline based on sources and records rather than personal opinions. He spent part of 1841 at the University of Bonn, studying under the art historian Franz Theodor Kugler, to whom he dedicated his first book, Die Kunstwerke der belgischen Städte (1842). He taught at the University of Basel from 1843 to 1855, then at the Federal Polytechnic School. In 1858, he returned to Basel to assume the professorship he held until his 1893 retirement. He started to teach only art history in 1886. He twice declined offers of professorial chairs at German universities, at the University of Tübingen in 1867 and Ranke's chair at the University of Berlin in 1872.

Burckhardt is currently featured on the Swiss thousand franc banknote.

Work

Burckhardt's historical writings did much to establish the importance of art in the study of history; indeed, he was one of the "founding fathers of art history" but also one of the original creators of cultural history. According to John Lukacs, he was the first master of cultural history, which seeks to describe the spirit and the forms of expression of a particular age, a particular people, or a particular place. His innovative approach to historical research stressed the importance of art and its inestimable value as a primary source for the study of history. He was one of the first historians to rise above the narrow 19th-century notion that "history is past politics and politics current history."[4] Burckhardt's unsystematic approach to history was strongly opposed to the interpretations of Hegelianism, which was popular at the time; economism as an interpretation of history; and positivism, which had come to dominate scientific discourses (including the discourse of the social sciences).

In 1838, Burckhardt made his first journey to Italy and published his first important article, "Bemerkungen über schweizerische Kathedralen" ("Remarks about Swiss Cathedrals"). Burckhardt delivered a series of lectures at the University of Basel, which were published in 1943 by Pantheon Books Inc., under the title Force and Freedom: An Interpretation of History by Jacob Burckhardt. In 1847, he brought out new editions of Kugler's two great works, Geschichte der Malerei and Kunstgeschichte, and in 1853, he published his own work, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen ("The Age of Constantine the Great"). He spent the greater part of the years 1853 and 1854 in Italy, collecting materials for his 1855 Der Cicerone: Eine Anleitung zum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens (7th German edition, 1899)("The Cicerone: or, Art-guide to painting in Italy. For the use of travellers" Translated into English by A. H. Clough in 1873), also dedicated to Kugler. The work, "the finest travel guide that has ever been written"[5] which covered sculpture and architecture, and painting, became an indispensable guide to the art traveller in Italy.

About half of the original edition was devoted to the art of the Renaissance. Thus, Burckhardt was naturally led to write the two books for which he is best known, his 1860 Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien ("The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy") (English translation, by S. G. C. Middlemore, in 2 vols., London, 1878), and his 1867 Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien ("The History of the Renaissance in Italy"). The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy was the most influential interpretation of the Italian Renaissance in the 19th century and is still widely read. While quite controversial, its scholarly judgements are sometimes considered to be justified by subsequent research according to historians including Desmond Seward and art historians notably Kenneth Clark. Burckhardt and the German historian Georg Voigt founded the historical study of the Renaissance. In contrast to Voigt, who confined his studies to early Italian humanism, Burckhardt dealt with all aspects of Renaissance society.

Burckhardt considered the study of ancient history an intellectual necessity and was a highly respected scholar of Greek civilization. "The Greeks and Greek Civilization" sums up the relevant lectures, "Griechische Kulturgeschichte", which Burckhardt first gave in 1872 and which he repeated until 1885. At his death, he was working on a four-volume survey of Greek civilization.

"Judgments on History and Historians" is based on Burckhardt's lectures on history at the University of Basel between 1865 and 1885. It provides his insights and interpretation of the events of the entire sweep of Western Civilization from Antiquity to the Age of Revolution, including the Middle Ages, History from 1450 to 1598, the History of the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth Centuries.[6]

Friedrich Nietzsche, appointed professor of classical philology at Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, admired Burckhardt and attended some of his lectures. Both men were admirers of the late Arthur Schopenhauer. Nietzsche believed Burckhardt agreed with the thesis of his The Birth of Tragedy, that Greek culture was defined by opposing "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" tendencies. Nietzsche and Burckhardt enjoyed each other's intellectual company, even as Burckhardt kept his distance from Nietzsche's evolving philosophy. Their extensive correspondence over a number of years has been published. Burckhardt's student, Heinrich Wölfflin, succeeded him at the University of Basel at the age of only 28.

Politics

There is a tension in Burckhardt's persona between the wise and worldly student of the Italian Renaissance and the cautious product of Swiss Calvinism, which he had studied extensively for the ministry. The Swiss polity in which he spent nearly all of his life was a good deal more democratic and stable than was the norm in 19th-century Europe. As a Swiss, Burckhardt was also cool to German nationalism and to German claims of cultural and intellectual superiority. He was also amply aware of the rapid political and economic changes taking place in the Europe of his day and commented in his lectures and writings on the Industrial Revolution, the European political upheavals of his day, and the growing European nationalism and militarism. Events amply fulfilled his prediction of a cataclysmic 20th century, in which violent demagogues (whom he called "terrible simplifiers") would play central roles. In later years, Burckhardt found himself unimpressed by democracy, individualism, socialism and a great many other ideas fashionable during his lifetime.

He also observed over a century ago that "the state incurs debts for politics, war, and other higher causes and 'progress'.... The assumption is that the future will honor this relationship in perpetuity. The state has learned from the merchants and industrialists how to exploit credit; it defies the nation ever to let it go into bankruptcy. Alongside all swindlers the state now stands there as swindler-in-chief".[7]

Philosophy of History Part XII: Jacob Burckhardt: Civilization, Art, and Power Politics.

October 1, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 4 Comments

    I know too much of history to expect anything from the despotism of the masses but a future tyranny, which will be the end of history. –Jacob Burckhardt

Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) is the historian who, more than any other, is responsible for the concept of the Renaissance as a distinct historical epoch. Other historians had written about fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy, to be sure, but Burckhardt was the first to see the period as a unit, characterized not by the “rebirth” of antiquity, as Petrarch thought, but by the invention of something entirely new—modernity, which meant the birth of the individual and of the modern bureaucratic state.

He was born into one of the oldest and proudest families of Basel, which, with a few other families, ruled the city as a closed oligarchy until they were forced to grant a liberal constitution in 1847. This background led him, as it did many other aristocratic historians, to emphasize the role of the extraordinary individual in history, and to warn against the amorality and vulgarity of the newly enthroned “masses.” He studied under Leopold von Ranke as a young man, but his thought diverged sharply from his mentor’s. Where for Ranke the history that mattered was political history, for Burckhardt real history was the history of civilization, of high culture—compared to which politics was simply a monotonous record of crime and folly. Similarly, where for Ranke factual accuracy was everything, Burckhardt would have never dreamed of leaving out a revealing anecdote simply because it may not have actually happened. What mattered was to communicate the vital spark, the spirit of the age. And, where Ranke tried to treat the past systematically and exhaustively, Burckhardt never pretended to offer more than a general impression.

While visiting Italy, Burckhardt was inspired by its art, and, like another Gibbon, resolved to tell the story behind the monuments left behind by a forgotten era. He made his reputation with the two books that followed: The Age of Constantine (1853), and The Civilization of Renaissance Italy (1860), which studied the transition into, and out of, the Middle Ages, respectively. These won him a professorship in Basel, where he spent most of his life. He taught much, but wrote little, afterward. Offered Ranke’s old chair at the University of Berlin in 1874—then the very pinnacle of the historical profession—he turned it down. “In Basel,” he said, “I can say what I like.”

High culture was so important for Burckhardt because he believed it expressed, whether in a painting, a story, or a piece of music, the entire worldview of the artist, and more importantly, of the people who valued his art. Even though they might not be able to articulate their own thoughts and feelings so beautifully, they showed, by admiring and preserving it, that it spoke to them, and for them. But it was just because the Renaissance saw the birth of the individual that such art became possible. 

Medieval man, Burckhardt argued, thought of himself entirely in terms of society—his religion, his locality, his king, his order (i.e., aristocrat, clergy, or serf). The sum of these affiliations was the person. Dante, Petrarch, and Mirandola taught him to see in himself a unique and irreplaceable individual, who therefore had something unique and irreplaceable to express to his fellow men—something that had to be said before death foreclosed the possibility of speech forever.

This realization was not without its price, for it was not simply artists and authors, but also mercenaries, demagogues, and tyrants who felt the need for creative self-expression. They too had their art, and their plan to cheat death—the art of power, which they hoped would win them the immortality of fame. So the age of Michelangelo, Vasari, and Botticelli was also the age of Machiavelli, who instructed the world in the dark arts of power, of Cesare Borgia, who raped his sister, murdered his brother, and gleefully slaughtered civilians during every campaign, and of Julius II, who, though a pope, thought nothing of leading his armies in person, or of blessing the cannon before every battle. “How many,” Machiavelli wrote, “who could not gain distinction by praiseworthy acts, strove for it through disgraceful acts!”

According to Burckhardt, this is the essence of the modern state—a thoroughly amoral, power-obsessed monstrosity, only too ready to destroy the individual, and itself, simply because there is nothing to stop it. Certainly “the people” are not going to stop it, for they know everything, and, knowing everything, know nothing. It is only too easy for demagogues to get power over them by flattering their prejudices, and experience shows they will submit to practically anything that is packaged cleverly enough. Never particularly enthusiastic about liberalism, he became deeply hostile after the Franco-Prussian war (1871)—for Bismarck, that modern Machiavelli, used the war to transform a temporary alliance between petty German statelets into the German Empire. For

Burckhardt, its democratic politics, militarist foreign policy, and materialist philosophy perfectly expressed the brutal stupidity of the modern age, and heralded even worse things to come. He was sure that Germany would see the rise of a new kind of state, ruled by a “terrible simplifier,” and which knew no law but power.

Burckhardt’s views stood in direct opposition not only to those of Ranke, but also to the new positivist history of Karl Marx, which stressed the importance of economics and sought to reduce all history to a formula. He also rejected liberal history, which saw in the past nothing but the slow, steady march of reason through progress to the present. This was, for Burckhardt, simply history written by the winners, which ruthlessly and falsely silenced the voices of the vanquished. Needless to say, the historian of art championed the rights of history as art, and of the historian to rule, rather than to be ruled by, “mere facts.”

He was in many ways a reactionary who was out of step with his times, but it was just because of his isolation that he was immune to its worst vices. Blood and iron militarism, xenophobia, vulgar materialism, social Darwinism, and the mania for “scientific” socialism all passed him by, while he delivered prophetic but unheeded warnings about the slow, grim slide of democracy into tyranny. His influence is still felt in history and in political conservatism, but it remains most powerful in philosophy, where it was carried forward by his most brilliant student, Friedrich Nietzsche.

This post is the twelfth is a series on the philosophy of history; the previous article in the series is here, the next is here.

Daniel Halverson is a graduate student studying the history of Science and Technology of nineteenth-century Germany. He is also a regular contributor to the PEL Facebook page.

http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2015/10/01/philosophy-of-historty-part-xii-jacob-burckhardt-civilization-art-and-power-politics/