---
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: 90 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/90/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 90. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/90/"
---

# 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.

## 90. Book 5 · Chapter 2

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/90/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/90/#p-N

[¶0] For my part, however, fleeing from the first disturbance of any upheaval whatever, since I am secure about a place of refuge, everywhere is my homeland, everywhere my law and my religion.

> Latin: 1 Mihi autem prima qualiscumque motus perturbatione fugienti, quia de confugiendi statione securo, ubique patria, ubique lex et religio mea est.

[¶1] Now Africa has received me as gladly as I approached her confidently; now, I say, this Africa has received me with simple peace, into her own bosom, under common law — this Africa of which it was once said, and truly said: “We are barred from the welcome of the sand; they stir up wars, and forbid us to set foot on the edge of the land.” Now of her own accord she opens wide a kindly lap to receive the partners of her religion and her peace, and of her own accord invites the weary, that she may cherish them.

> Latin: 2 nunc me Africa tam libenter excepit quam confidenter accessi; nunc me, inquam, ista Africa excepit pace simplici, sinu proprio, iure communi, de qua aliquando dictum et uere dictum est hospitio prohibemur harenae, Bella cient primaque uetant consistere terra; nunc ultro ad suscipiendos socios religionis et pacis suae beniuolum late gremium pandit atque ultro fessos, quos foueat, inuitat.

[¶2] The breadth of the East, the abundance of the North, the expanse of the South, the most spacious and secure dwelling-places of the great islands, are under my law and my name, because I come as a Roman and a Christian to Christians and Romans.

> Latin: 3 latitudo orientis, septentrionis copiositas, meridiana diffusio, magnarum insularum largissimae tutissimaeque sedes mei iuris et nominis sunt, quia ad Christianos et Romanos Romanus et Christianus accedo.

[¶3] I do not fear the gods of my host; I do not fear that his religion will be my death; I have no such place to dread, where the owner may do whatever he wishes and the stranger may not have recourse to what is fitting, where the law of my host is not my own;

> Latin: 4 non timeo deos hospitis mei, non timeo religionem eius necem meam, non habeo talem quem pertimescam locum, ubi et possessori liceat perpetrare quod uelit et peregrino non liceat adhibere quod conuenit, ubi sit ius hospitis quod meum non sit;

[¶4] the one God, who in the times in which he willed to make himself known established this unity of the realm, is both loved and feared by all; the same laws, which are subject to the one God, prevail everywhere; wherever I come as a stranger, I do not dread sudden violence as one left without protection.

> Latin: 5 unus Deus, qui temporibus, quibus ipse innotescere uoluit, hanc regni statuit unitatem, ab omnibus et diligitur et timetur; eaedem leges, quae uni Deo subiectae sunt, ubique dominantur; ubicumque ignotus accessero, repentinam uim tamquam destitutus non pertimesco.

[¶5] Among Romans, as I have said, a Roman; among Christians, a Christian; among men, a man: I appeal to the commonwealth through its laws, to conscience through religion, to nature through our common share in it. I make temporary use of every land as my homeland, because the homeland that is true, and that I love, is not on earth at all.

> Latin: 6 inter Romanos, ut dixi, Romanus, inter Christianos Christianus, inter homines homo legibus inploro rempublicam, religione conscientiam, communione naturam. utor temporarie omni terra quasi patria, quia quae uera est et illa quam amo patria in terra penitus non est.

[¶6] I have lost nothing where I loved nothing, and I have everything when he whom I love is with me — above all because he is the same among all, he who makes me not only known to all but a neighbour to them, and does not forsake me in need; for the earth is his, and its fullness, from which he commanded that all things should be common to all.

> Latin: 7 nihil perdidi, ubi nihil amaui, totumque habeo, quando quem diligo mecum est, maxime quia et apud omnes idem est, qui me non modo notum omnibus uerum et proximum facit, nec egentem deserit, quia ipsius est terra et plenitudo eius, ex qua omnibus omnia iussit esse communia.

[¶7] These are the goods of our times, which our ancestors did not have at all — neither in the tranquillity of the present, nor in hope of the future, nor in a common refuge; and for this reason they waged ceaseless wars, because, since they were not free to share in changing their dwelling-places, by holding on in their own homes they were either wretchedly slain or shamefully enslaved. This will be made clearer and more readily apparent once the deeds of the ancients themselves have been set out in order.

> Latin: 8 haec sunt nostrorum temporum bona: quae in totum uel in tranquillitate praesentium uel in spe futurorum uel in perfugio communi non habuere maiores, ac per hoc incessabilia bella gesserunt, quia, mutandarum sedium communione non libera, persistendo in sedibus suis aut infeliciter necati sunt aut turpiter seruierunt. quod clarius promptiusque ipsis ueterum gestis per ordinem explicitis aperietur.