The Origin of Zealous Intolerance: Paulus Orosius and Violent Religious Conflict in the Early Fifth Century

This article explores the origins of religious intolerance in two episodes from the early fifth century ad: the forcible conversion of 540 Jews in Minorca by Bishop Severus, and the failed attempt by the monk Fronto to uncover heterodox belief in Tarragona, north-east Hispania. With the newly discovered relics of St Stephen, the presbyter Paulus Orosius brought a peculiarly vehement and absolute intolerance of non-orthodox Christianity to Minorca. Intolerance was facilitated and communicated through a trans-Mediterranean network of Christians connected through letter-writing and the exchange of visitors, of which Orosius was a particularly mobile and dynamic participant. In contrast to previous criticism, this article identifies Orosius as a point of intersection within the controversies, and, in the dissemination of his ideology of intolerance, as a catalyst for conflict.

From Crimea to Syria. Re-defining the alleged historical earthquake of 63 B.C.

Within the SGA research on the historical seismicity of the Crimean Peninsula (SGA Report, 1990), interest has been focused on the case of the earthquake of 63 B.C. According to regional seismic catalogues as well as to historic and archaeological literature, two late Roman sources. Dio Cassius and Paulus Orosius, allegedly give evidence of an earthquake which happened in the Crimea in this year; the event was linked to the death of Mithridates V1 Eupator, eventually the king of Pontos. Local archaeologists claimed to have found evidence of this event in the excavations of Panticapaeunl (present-day Ker?). In fact. this is the result of a restricted analysis of the written sources. Thence stems a sort of iivulgatan. currently accepted by scholarship, yet not really supported by the evidence. A re-examination of the whole question, including an analysis of all sources avalaible on earthquakes in the Eastern Mediterranean. showed that in that period no seismic event took place in the Crimea. Dio's and Orosius' accounts are instead concerned with another earthquake, already known for Syria from other sources. This historical case gives a proper methodological example of the problems concerned with the analysis of the evidence in historical seismology. not only of Antiquity, but of almost any premodern period.

‘The Bloody and Cruell Turke’: the Background of a Renaissance Commonplace

'there is no publique calamitie inflicted on man, or other creatures, of which wee may not say as the Prophet of the Assyrian tyrant, that it is the rod of Gods anger.'James Rowlandson (1623)The purpose of God, it has been said, ‘is the meaning of history. History is the arena wherein that Divine purpose is being fulfilled and the Divine judgments are made manifest.’ This statement by William Temple is an adequate summary of the Jewish view of history, subsequently adopted by Christianity and developed further by St. Paul, Eusebius of Caesarea, St. Augustine, Paulus Orosius, and numerous others throughout the millennium until the Renaissance. The first significant links in the chain of tradition were the Hebrew prophets, whose ideas, destined to become commonplaces, were forged by their strict and often militant monotheism.