It has been noted that universal chronology was bound to take into account not only the beginning, but also the end of time; Orosius had to ‗accept or fight a belief in the apocalypse.‘410
However the overriding theme of improving times in the Historiae has been interpreted as explicitly anti-apocalyptic.411 But a sense of the end of the world is brought to the attention of the reader by intermittent allusion; Orosius suggests that the end may not be far off, Roman civilisation is now suffering from ‗the infirmity of old age‘ (2.6.13, p. 54), and he perceives himself as ‗placed at the end of time‘ (4.5.12, p. 129).412 According to Daley, these are ‗simply accepted turns of phrase, rhetorical concessions to an established apocalyptic tradition‘.413
They accordingly have ‗little effect on Orosius‘ interpretation of history or of Christian institutions.‘414
In contrast with this approach it is possible to argue that an eschatological expectation of the end of the world does underlie the Historiae, in spite of Orosius‘s anticipation of this event as deliberately vague and elusive. The subject of the Apocalypse is explicitly discussed in the Prologue, where Orosius echoes the common understanding that it will be a time of chaos and tribulation:
…those remote and very last days at the end of the world and at the appearance of Antichrist, or even at the final judgment when Christ the Lord predicted in Holy Scriptures even by his own testimony that distresses would occur such as never were before...approbation will come to the saints for the intolerable tribulations of those times and destruction to the wicked.415 (Prologue, 15-16, p. 5)
A distinction should be made between the acknowledgement of the end of time as a reflection of contemporary Christian thinking and the active anticipation of the Apocalypse; the gulf in the Historiae is a very wide one.416
410 Momigliano, (1963), p.82. 411 Landes, (1989), p. 160.
412 4.5.12, vol. 2, p. 20: ...nos in ultimo temporum positi... 413 Daley, (1991), p. 152.
414
Daley, (1991), p. 152.
415 Prologue 15-16, vol. 1, p. 9: ...semotisque illis diebus nouissimis, sub fine saeculi et sub apparitione
Antichristi uel etiam sub conclusione iudicii, quibus futuras angustias, quales ante non fuerint, dominus Christus per scripturas sanctas sua etiam contestatione praedixit...per intolerabiles tribulationes temporum illorum sanctos probatio,impios perditio consequetur.
416 For a similar view, see Trompf, (1979), p. 225: ‗In the main, Orosius was resigned to writing the
history of vicissitudes, of ―ups and downs‖ in affairs, with the eschaton as the only end of great moment. That was a position which took a grip on the medievals. It held on even when all Western rulers were avowedly Christian, because it linked biblical assumptions about temporal instabilities with continuing expectations of the Last Time.‘
Crucial to an understanding of the sense of the Apocalyptic in the Historiae is the added dimension of the role of empire, specifically Rome. The text identifies Babylon as the empire that rules at the beginning of time and Rome as the empire that rules at the end: ‗the one God has so disposed the times in the beginning for the Babylonians and in the end for the Romans‘.417
(2.3.5, p. 47) Accordingly Orosius anticipates the destruction of the world within the life-span of the Roman empire. But significantly this does not necessarily determine an increased imminence of the event if Rome is considered to be eternal. Unlike Augustine, who invoked the parallel between Babylon and Rome as an example of the transitory nature of the temporal state, Orosius was unable to divorce himself completely from a confidence in the divine permanence of the Christian empire.418 The teleological position of Rome contradicts the suggestion by Swain that Orosius‘s interpretation included a fifth and final empire.419
Although Swain argues that in Book Seven the fifth empire gradually replaces the fourth, he does not specify what the final empire is. The final empire is Rome, and any apocalyptic anticipation in the text must therefore be bound up with it.
But despite earlier apocalyptic allusions the reality of the denouement of the work in Book Seven does not actively envisage the end of time. Instead the birth of Christ at the beginning of Book Seven suggests a ‗realized eschatology‘, where the hegemony of the Christian Roman empire will continue without the expectation of the end of time. The notion of a fifth empire to replace Rome in Athaulf‘s notorious suggestion of Gothia instead of Romania is immediately repressed:
...that he [Athaulf], at first, was ardently eager to blot out the Roman name and to make the entire Roman Empire that of the Goths alone, and to call it and to make it, to use a popular expression, Gothia instead of Romania, and that he, Athaulf, become what Caesar Augustus had once been. When, however, he discovered from long experience that the Goths, by reason of their unbridled barbarism, could not by any means obey laws...he chose to seek for himself the glory of completely restoring and increasing the
417 2.3.5, vol. 1, p. 89: ...unum Deum disposuisse tempora et in principio Babloniis et in fine Romanis... 418 Fear identifies Orosius‘s apocalyptic views as postmillenarian, ‗where the seventh millennium is again
initiated by the birth of Christ, but what follows is a thousand-year reign of increasing peace and plenty as Christianity spreads across the world.‘ Fear bases this conclusion on the number seven, where the seven books reflect the seven days of creation, and that the seventh millennium will usher in Christ‘s reign of one thousand years followed by the final judgment: ‗His seventh book therefore represents the seventh millennium that will last until the Second Coming...the general sense is that seven is the number of completeness and so marks the end of things.‘ Fear, (2010), pp. 10-11.
Roman name by the forces of the Goths, and to be held by posterity as the author of the restoration of Rome. 420 (7.43.5-7, pp. 361-2)
Perhaps ironically following the Sack of Rome only seven years previously, Orosius‘s approach to the destruction of Rome and the end of time gives the western Roman empire a new lease of life, or at least ‗a new mortgage on time‘.421
Part Two - Time and Dating
Although a sorely neglected topic, a consideration of the more technical aspects of dating and time in the Historiae is rewarding. The second part of this Chapter examines systems for recording time in terms of specific dating, particularly using ab urbe
condita, Consular and Olympiad dating. Like the Chronicon of Eusebius-Jerome the Historiae offers an attempt at an accurate and comprehensive system of dating all
events. The vast majority of chapters opens with the date according to ab urbe condita or some other method of temporal location. The chronological drive and concern with comprehensive coverage therefore means that the frequency of reference to time in an organising fashion is very high. But despite the significance of time in the Historiae Orosius's methodology for dating events and structuring time is ignored by those who study the text. This section hopes to move away from the prevailing critical indifference and offer something new to the subject of time and the Historiae within the context of ancient literature.