• Paul Orosius. He was a Spanish presbyter, born at Tarragona near the close of the fourth century. In his youth he visited St. Augustine in Africa, who in one of his books describes him thus:⁠— “There came to me a young monk, in the catholic peace our brother, in age our son, in honor our fellow-presbyter, Orosius, alert in intellect, ready of speech, eager in study, desiring to be a useful vessel in the house of the Lord for the refutation of false and pernicious doctrines, which have slain the souls of the Spaniards much more unhappily than the sword of the barbarians their bodies.” On leaving St. Augustine, he went to Palestine to complete his studies under St. Jerome at Bethlehem, and while there arraigned Pelagius for heresy before the Bishop of Jerusalem. The work by which he is chiefly known is his “Seven Books of Histories”; a world-chronicle from the creation to his own time. Of this work St. Augustine availed himself in writing his “City of God”; and it had also the honor of being translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred. Dante calls Orosius “the advocate of the Christian centuries,” because this work was written to refute the misbelievers who asserted that Christianity had done more harm to the world than good. ↩