I think there is no one now from whom it can be hidden that God made man in this world. Hence, too, when man sins the world is reproached, and, to restrain our intemperance, this earth on which we live is chastised by the failing of the other animals and the barrenness of its own fruits.
1 Neminem iam esse hominum arbitror, quem latere possit, quia hominem in hoc mundo Deus fecerit. unde etiam peccante homine mundus arguitur ac propter nostram intemperantiam conprimendam terra haec, in qua uiuimus, defectu ceterorum animalium et sterilitate suorum fructuum castigatur.
Therefore, if we are the creation of God, we are rightly also the stewardship of God; for who loves more than he who made? And who rules in better order than he who both made and loves? And who can order and rule what has been made more wisely and more mightily than he who both foresaw what was to be made and brought to completion what he had foreseen?
2 itaque si creatura Dei, merito et dispensatio Dei sumus; quis enim magis diligit, quam ille qui fecit? quis autem ordinatius regit, quam is qui et fecit et diligit? quis uero sapientius et fortius ordinare et regere facta potest, quam qui et facienda prouidit et prouisa perfecit?
Wherefore, that all power and every ordinance is from God, those who have not read it perceive and those who have read it recognize. And if powers are from God, how much more so kingdoms, from which the remaining powers proceed;
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;
and if kingdoms are diverse, how much more fittingly some one greatest kingdom, to which the whole power of the other kingdoms is subjected: such as was, from the beginning, the Babylonian, and then the Macedonian, afterwards also the African, and in the end the Roman, which remains to this day;
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,
and by the same ineffable ordinance the principates of four kingdoms stand out, at distinct stages, across the four cardinal points of the world: the Babylonian kingdom in the east, the Carthaginian in the south, the Macedonian in the north, the Roman in the west.1
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:
1Orosius adapts the four kingdoms of Daniel (Daniel 2 and 7) into a scheme of four empires set at the four cardinal points: Babylon in the east, Carthage in the south, Macedonia in the north and Rome in the west. He returns to it at 7.2.
Between the first and the last of these, that is, between the Babylonian and the Roman — as between an aged father and a little son — the African and the Macedonian came in, brief and intermediate, like a guardian and a trustee, admitted by the power of the times and not by right of inheritance. Whether this is so, I shall take care to set out most plainly.
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.