ORO'SIUS, A Spanish cleric and historian. He was born at Tarragona. in the latter part. 01 the fourth century. lie went t1 Africa in 415 to get the advice of Augustine at Hippo as to the suppression of heresy in Spain. and thence. on Augustine's advice, to Palestine to con-lilt Jerome, then living at Bethlehem. De went back to Africa in 416, and is heard from in 4 1 7, but the date and place of his death are unknown. chief work, the tdorsus Paymws Historian/fa Libri I., Ira, intended to refute the current notion that the of the Roman Empire and the '1% rct Of the masses were due to the anger of the gods at the abandonment of their worship and the profanation of their The work is a trivial, inaccurate, uncritical miscellany of yet it has obtained a place in literature from being a favorite text-book of universal his tory during the Aliddle Ages, and was translated into Anglo-saxon by Alfred the Great (Eng.
by BO5W'Qrth. 1.011(10/1, 1858; also edited hy Sweet. ih., 1883). Some manuscripts bear the title of norlo,zto or Orin ista, conjec tured by some to be a corruption of Or. m. ista., i.e. I trosii .11 undi istoria 'History of the World), The rditio princeps of the work is Augsburg, 1471. other are attributed to ()rosins. Those with best reason are polo ticuR dr .1rhitrii LilorloE. and the Com mon i toria de Errore Priseillianistarum ct :arum. an explanation of religious affairs in Spain addre—ed to Augustine. These three works are reprinted in Align)), Pat. Lat., xxxi., but the hest. eritical editions are, of the His /twit/ and Lila r .1 poloyct icus by Zangemekter (Vienna, ISS21: of the former alone, id. (Leip zig. 1559) ; of the conimonitorium by Seheps in his edition of Priscillian (Vienna, 1889).