attempt at a philosophy of history; and, again, it has been called the
Cyclopædia of the fifth century. It lays out before us a platform of
instruction on things divine and human, which reigned as a standard for
centuries, even until the theology and philosophy of the school-men had
been summed up by Thomas Aquinas.

To this great work a companion book was written by Orosius, who had been
Augustine's disciple. This was a compendium of Universal History, and it
was designed to exhibit the troubles that had afflicted mankind in the
ages of heathenism. It became the established manual of history, and
continued to be so throughout our period; and Orosius was for ages the
only authority for the general course of history. This explains how it
came to be one of the small list of Latin books translated by Alfred.

We have no sooner reached the culmination of that Christian literature
which began after the depression of A.D. 166, than we find
ourselves in the presence of another great fall. The sack of Rome in 410
shook the minds of men as if it were the end of all things. The fifth
century was a time of ruin, but also it was a time of new beginnings.
Three great events are to be noted in this fifth century: 1. The Western
Empire came to an end; 2. The Franks passed over the Rhine into Gaul,
and became Christian; 3. The Saxons passed over the sea to Britain, and
remained heathen until the close of the sixth century. These three
events group together by a natural connection; it was the expiring
empire that made room for the Frankish and Saxon conquests, and these
two conquests have been, and are, fertile in comparisons and contrasts,
and reciprocal action, not only through our period, but till now and
onward.

About A.D. 500, Avitus, bishop of Vienne, wrote a Latin poem on