---
title: "Seven Books of History against the Pagans"
author: "Paulus Orosius"
translator: "S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026)"
title_ru: "История против язычников"
title_fr: "Histoires contre les païens"
title_de: "Sieben Bücher Geschichte gegen die Heiden"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 155 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/155/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 155. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/155/"
---

# Seven Books of History against the Pagans

*Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026)*

Russian: История против язычников · French: Histoires contre les païens · German: Sieben Bücher Geschichte gegen die Heiden

Augustine's pupil tells the whole of world history to prove that the Christian times are not the worst.

## 155. Book 7 · Chapter 21

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/155/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/155/#p-N

[¶0] In the year 1004 from the founding of the City, Decius, both the instigator and the suppressor of a civil war, after the Philips had been killed, seized the empire, the twenty-fifth from Augustus, and held it for three years.

> Latin: 1 Anno ab urbe condita millesimo quarto Decius, ciuilis belli incentor et repressor, occisis Philippis uicensimus quintus ab Augusto inuasit imperium tenuitque annis tribus.

[¶1] At once, in a way that showed he had killed the Philips for this reason as well, he — the seventh from Nero — sent out deadly edicts for persecuting and killing the Christians, and sent very many of the saints from their crosses to the crowns of Christ.

> Latin: 2 idem continuo, in quo se etiam ob hoc Philippos interfecisse docuit, ad persequendos interficiendosque Christianos septimus post Neronem feralia dispersit edicta plurimosque sanctorum ad coronas Christi de suis crucibus misit.

*Note: Our source reads Philippum (“Philip”); Zangemeister’s text has Philippos, both Philips, father and son, as at 7.21.1, and that reading is followed here.*

[¶2] He also chose his son as Caesar; and together with him he was soon killed in the very heart of the barbarians’ territory.

> Latin: 3 idemque filium suum Caesarem legit: cum quo simul continuo in medio barbarorum sinu interfectus est.

[¶3] In the year 1007 from the founding of the City, Gallus Hostilianus, the twenty-sixth from Augustus, obtained the rule and held it, with his son Volusianus, for scarcely two years.

> Latin: 4 Anno ab urbe condita millesimo septimo Gallus Hostilianus uicensimus sextus ab Augusto regnum adeptus uix duobus annis cum Volusiano filio obtinuit.

*Note: Orosius runs together Trebonianus Gallus and Hostilian, the surviving son of Decius, whom Gallus took as colleague in 251 and who soon died of the plague. Gallus’s son was Volusianus.*

[¶4] The vengeance for the violated Christian name was unsheathed, and as far as the edicts of Decius had run for the ruin of the churches, so far the plague of incredible diseases spread: there was scarcely any Roman province, any city, any house that was not seized and emptied by that general pestilence.

> Latin: 5 exeritur ultio uiolati nominis Christiani et usquequo ad profligandas ecclesias edicta Decii cucurrerunt, eatenus incredibilium morborum pestis extenditur: nulla fere prouincia Romana, nulla ciuitas, nulla domus fuit, quae non illa generali pestilentia correpta atque uacuata sit.

[¶5] Gallus and Volusianus, distinguished by this ruin alone, were killed while they were undertaking a civil war against Aemilianus, who was aiming at revolution. Aemilianus, however, perished in the third month of the tyranny he had seized.

> Latin: 6 hac sola pernicie insignes Gallus et Volusianus dum contra Aemilianum nouis rebus studentem bellum ciuile moliuntur, occisi sunt. Aemilianus tamen tertio mense inuasae tyrannidis extinctus est.