Ataulf's Declaration
The authenticity of Ataulf's declaration at Narbonne, as Orosius reported it in a rhetorical history that was explicitly written "against pagans" (it was completed in 417/18) has been doubted. Antonio Marchetta concludes that the words are indeed Ataulf's and distinguishes them from their interpretation by Orosius, who was preparing his readers for a conclusion that Christian times were felicitous and who attributed Ataulf's apparent change of heart to the power of his love for Galla Placidia, the instrument of divine intervention in God's plan for an eternal Roman Empire. Marchetta finds the marriage instead an act of hard-headed politics.
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“Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)