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AChristianapologist, flourished during the reign ofDiocletian (284-305).St. Jerome says, in his Chronicle, that before hisconversion Arnobius was a distinguished rhetorician at Sicca in Proconsular Africa, and owed thegift ofChristianfaith to adream. To overcome thedoubts of the localbishop as to the earnestness of hisChristianbelief he wrote (about 305) an apologetic work in seven books thatSt. Jerome calls (Illustrious Men 79) "Adversus Gentes" but is entitled "Adversus Nationes" in the only (ninth-century)manuscript that has reached us. Arnobius is a vigorousapologist for theChristian Faith, defends and expounds its noblemonotheism (deus princeps, deus summus), the Divinity of Christ and of theChristian religion,proved by its rapid diffusion, its incredible influence over uncivilized peoples, and its agreement with the views of the bestphilosophers. Apropos of theChristian tendencies ofPlato, he has left us a very remarkable treatise on thenature of thesoul (II, 14-62).Heathenidolatry he refutes as filled with contradictions and openly immoral. His work, especially Books III-IV, abounds with curious information gathered from reliable sources (e.g. Cornelius Labeo) concerning the forms ofidolatrous worship,temples, idols, and the Graeco-Roman mythology of his time, for which reason it is much esteemed by Latin philologists and antiquarians. Arnobius is more earnest in his defence ofChristianity than correct in his tenets. Thus, he holds theheathen gods to be real beings, but subordinate to thesupreme Christian God; thehumansoul is not the work ofGod, but of an intermediate being, and is notimmortal by nature, but capable of putting onimmortality as a grace.
F. SABAEUS (Rome, 1543) is the editio princeps. It is found in P.L., V. The best edition is that of A. REIFFERSCHEID, Corpus script. eccl. Lat., IV (Vienna, 1875). See BARDENHEWER, Gesch. d. altchr. Litt. (Freiburg, 1903), II, 464-72, and his Patrologie (ibid., 1901), 175-77; MOULE in Dict. of Christ. Biogr., 167-69; EBERT, Allg. Gesch. d. lat. Litt. des Mittelalters (2d ed., Leipzig, 1889), I, 64-72.
APA citation.Shahan, T.(1907).Arnobius. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01746c.htm
MLA citation.Shahan, Thomas."Arnobius."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 1.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1907.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01746c.htm>.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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