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ARNOBIUS (called Afer, and sometimes ...

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 632 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ARNOBIUS (called See also:Afer, and sometimes " the See also:Elder ") , See also:early See also:Christian writer, was a teacher of See also:rhetoric at Sicca Venerea in proconsular See also:Africa during the reign of See also:Diocletian. His See also:conversion to See also:Christianity is said by See also:Jerome to have been occasioned by a See also:dream; and the same writer adds that the See also:bishop to whom Arnobius applied distrusted his professions, and asked some See also:proof of them, and that the See also:treatise Adversus Genies was composed for this purpose. But this See also:story seems rather improbable; for Arnobius speaks contemptuously of dreams, and besides, his See also:work bears no traces of having been written in a See also:short See also:time, or of having been revised by a Christian bishop. From See also:internal See also:evidence (bk. iv. 36) the time of See also:composition may be fixed at about A.D. 303. Nothing further is known of the See also:life of Arnobius. He is said to have been the author of a work on rhetoric, which, however, has not been preserved. His See also:great treatise, in seven books, Adversus Genies (or Nations), on See also:account of which he takes See also:rank as a Christian apologist, appears to have been occasioned by a See also:desire to See also:answer the complaint then brought against the Christians, that the prevalent calamities and disasters were due to their impiety and had come upon men since the See also:establishment of their See also:religion. In the first See also:book Arnobius carefully discusses this complaint; he shows that the allegation of greater calamities having come upon men since the Christian era is false; and that, even if it were true, it could by no means be attributed to the Christians. He skilfully contends that Christians who See also:worship the self-existent See also:God cannot justly be called less religious than those who worship subordinate deities, and concludes by vindicating the Godhead of See also:Christ. In the second book Arnobius digresses into a See also:long discussion on the soul, which he does not think is of divine origin, and which he scarcely believes to be immortal.

He even says that a belief in the soul's See also:

immortality would tend to remove moral See also:restraint, and have a pre-judicial effect on human life. In the concluding chapters he answers the objections See also:drawn from the See also:recent origin of Christianity. Books iii., iv. and v. contain a violent attack on the See also:heathen See also:mythology, in which he narrates with powerful See also:sarcasm the scandalous See also:chronicles of the gods, and contrasts with their grossness and immorality the pure and See also:holy worship of the Christian. These books are valuable as a repertory of mythological stories. Books vi. and vii. ably handle the questions of sacrifices and worship of images. The confusion of the final See also:chapter points to some interruption. The work of Arnobius appears to have been written when he was a recent convert, for he does not possess a very extensive knowledge of Scripture. He knows nothing of the Old Testament, and only the life of Christ in the New, while he does not quote directly from the Gospels. He is also at See also:fault in regard to. the Jewish sects. He was much influenced by See also:Lucretius and had read See also:Plato. His statements concerning See also:Greek and See also:Roman mythology are based respectively on the Protrepticus of See also:Clement of See also:Alexandria, and on Antistius See also:Labeo, who belonged to the preceding See also:generation and attempted to restore See also:Neoplatonism. There are some pleasing passages in Arnobius, but on the whole he is a tumid and a tedious author.

End of Article: ARNOBIUS (called Afer, and sometimes " the Elder ")

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