Editing Orosius (section)

=== Universalism ===
The Universalist nature of Orosius's work is perhaps its most notable aspect. In fact, despite the lack of agreement regarding all other aspects of Orosius's life, including his biography and his works, most experts agree on the universalist nature of this work, including classicists such as [[Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo]] and even more modern historians such as Torres Rodríguez.<ref name="torres75">Torres Rodríguez, Casimiro, "Paulo Orosio…", p. 75.</ref> In addition, his works are not only identified as universalist but as the first Christian universalist history, or put another way, the last classical universalist history.<ref name="alonso373">Alonso Ñúñez, José Miguel, "La metodología…", p. 373.</ref>

Paulus Orosius is not only a widely studied author he also described his own thoughts on his historical methodology in some of the prologues to the volumes that comprise his "Histories". He was always clear in his objectives, he wanted to write the history starting with the creation and leading up to the times in which he lived, which is a clear declaration of his universalist intentions as a historian.<ref name="alonso379">Alonso Ñúñez, José Miguel, "La metodología…", p. 379.</ref>

Orosius uses the so-called "succession of the four world empires theory" throughout his works,<ref name="rabade378">Rábade Navarro, Miguel Ángel, "Una interpretación…", pp. 378.</ref> which traced world history based on the premise that out of the ruins of one great civilization another arose.  Therefore, his theory was based on four historical empires, [[Babylonia]], pagan Rome, [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)|Macedonia]] and [[Carthage]], with a fifth empire, that of Christian Rome as the inheritor of all these.<ref name="rabade381">Rábade Navarro, Miguel Ángel, "Una interpretación…", pp. 381.</ref>  In fact, during the narration of their histories the four empires develop in the same way and there are a number of striking parallels between them that are markedly different from Rome, which Orosius praises.<ref name="rabade377"/>

Orosius's basic innovation in dealing with the four empires theory was to introduce Carthage between Macedonia and Rome, which is something that scholars such as García Fernández point out as one of Orosius's defining and definitive acts.<ref name="garcia287"/>