old gods could only bring disaster upon the empire (Croke and
Harries 1982: 28–51). There was plainly a need for a reassessment
of the role of God in human history.
The most systematic response came from perhaps the finest
mind that Latin Christianity ever produced, the north African
bishop Augustine of Hippo (354–430). His response to the cata-
strophe of 410 was to result in his City of God, a massive
meditation on human history and the nature of God’s role in it
(O’Daly 1999). In it, Augustine thoroughly rejected the positive
model, evinced by Eusebius amongst others, that the successes
of the Roman empire were easily comprehensible as part of God’s
grand scheme for humanity (see chapter 6). For all that, positive
views along the Eusebian model continued to assert that the
Roman empire had an important place in God’s plan for human
history. Emblematic of these was the Seven Books of Histories
Against the Pagansby the Spanish priest Paulus Orosius. It was
composed in the immediate aftermath of the sack of Rome, in
order to refute pagan complaints that blame for the event should
be laid at the door of Christian ‘atheism’.
Orosius’ extraordinary contention was that, far from demon-
strating that the positive Christian view of Roman history was
misconceived, the sack of Rome had actually reinforced its
validity. In Orosius’ version, the gloomy reaction to the sack of
Rome was entirely misplaced. What this event had actually shown
was that faith in the Christian God had guaranteed survival. In
addition to contending that the sack had been no cataclysm,
Orosius argued that the Goths had been particularly scrupulous
not to harm any Romans who had sought refuge in the city’s
churches (Seven Books of Histories Against the Pagans7.39–40).
Orosius thus maintained Eusebius’ positive view of the Roman
empire in God’s plan for humankind. He agreed with Eusebius,
for example, that the peaceful conditions obtaining in the Roman
empire at the time of the Incarnation had been part of God’s plan.
But he went further (muchfurther) than Eusebius (or anyone else
for that matter) when he made the erroneous assumption, on
the basis of the Gospel of Luke’s account of Mary and JosephTHE HISTORICAL QUEST FOR EARLY CHRISTIANITY
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