| Keywords |
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| ID |
5826 |
| Text |
Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII (417 - 418) Orosius |
| Quotation |
3 Quapropter omnem potestatem a Deo esse omnemque ordinationem, et qui non legerunt sentiunt et qui legerunt recognoscunt. quod si potestates a Deo sunt, quanto magis regna, a quibus reliquae potestates progrediuntur; 4 Si autem regna diuersa, quanto aequius regnum aliquod maximum, cui reliquorum regnorum potestas uniuersa subicitur, quale a principio Babylonium et deinde Macedonicum fuit, post etiam Africanum atque in fine Romanum quod usque ad nunc manet, 5 eademque ineffabili ordinatione per quattuor mundi cardines quattuor regnorum principatus distinctis gradibus eminentes, ut Babylonium regnum ab oriente, a meridie Carthaginiense, a septentrione Macedonicum, ab occidente Romanum: 6 Quorum inter primum ac nouissimum, id est inter Babylonium et Romanum, quasi inter patrem senem ac filium paruum, Africanum ac Macedonicum breuia et media, quasi tutor curatorque uenerunt potestate temporis non iure hereditatis admissi. quod utrum ita sit, apertissime expedire curabo. |
| Translation |
3. Therefore,
all power and order comes from God. Those who have not read of this, feel
it to be the case, and those who have read it, recognise it to be so.
And if power comes from God, this is especially the case with kingdoms
from which all other power proceeds. 4. So, if there are a number of
kingdoms, it is right that there is one supreme kingdom under which all the
sovereignty of the rest is placed. In the beginning, this was the kingdom of
Babylon, then the kingdom of Macedon, after that the African kingdom,
and finally that of Rome, which remains in place to this day. 5. Through this
same ineffable ordering of things, the four principal kingdoms which have
been pre-eminent to differing degrees, have occurred at the four cardinal
points of the world: the kingdom of Babylon to the east; that of Carthage
to the south; that of Macedon to the north; and that of Rome to the west.
6. Between the first and the last of them, that is to say Babylon and Rome,
just as in the interval of time between an old father and his young son,
come the short-lived and intermediate periods of the African and Macedonian
kingdoms. These fulfilled roles like those of a teacher and guardian,
and came into being through force of circumstances rather than from any
right of succession. I shall now take care to expound as clearly as possible
whether this is true.6 |
| Quotation source |
Lib. 2, Cap. 1, 3-6 (pp. 84-5, trans. Fear, p. 83) |
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| Comment |
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