History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

Felix.

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 The first two books are apologetic, the other five chiefly polemic. Arnobius shows

great familiarity with Greek and Roman mythology and literature, and quotes freely from Homer,

Plato, Cicero, and Varro. He ably refutes the objections to Christianity, beginning with the popular

charge that it brought the wrath of the gods and the many public calamities upon the Roman empire.

He exposes at length the absurdities and immoralities of the heathen mythology. He regards the

gods as real, but evil beings.

The positive part is meagre and unsatisfactory. Arnobius seems as ignorant about the Bible

as Minucius Felix. He never quotes the Old Testament, and the New Testament only once.

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He knows nothing of the history of the Jews, and the Mosaic worship, and confounds the Pharisees

and Sadducees. Yet be is tolerably familiar, whether from the Gospels or from tradition, with the

history of Christ. He often refers in growing language to his incarnation, crucifixion, and exaltation.

He represents him as the supreme teacher who revealed God to man, the giver of eternal life, yea,

as God, though born a man, as God on high, God in his inmost nature, as the Saviour God, and the

object of worship.

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 Only his followers can be saved, but he offers salvation even to his enemies.

His divine mission is proved by his miracles, and these are attested by their unique character, their

simplicity, publicity and beneficence. He healed at once a hundred or more afflicted with various

diseases, he stilled the raging tempest, he walked over the sea with unwet foot, he astonished the

very waves, he fed five thousand with five loaves, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments that

remained, he called the dead from the tomb. He revealed himself after the resurrection "in open

day to countless numbers of men;" "he appears even now to righteous men of unpolluted mind who

love him, not in any dreams, but in a form of pure simplicity."

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His doctrine of God is Scriptural, and strikingly contrasts with the absurd mythology. God

is the author and ruler of all things, unborn, infinite, spiritual, omnipresent, without passion, dwelling

in light, the giver of all good, the sender of the Saviour.

As to man, Arnobius asserts his free will, but also his ignorance and sin, and denies his

immortality. The soul outlives the body but depends solely on God for the gift of eternal duration.

The wicked go to the fire of Gehenna, and will ultimately be consumed or annihilated. He teaches

the resurrection of the flesh, but in obscure terms.

Arnobius does not come up to the standard of Catholic orthodoxy, even of the ante-Nicene

age. Considering his apparent ignorance of the Bible, and his late conversion, we need not be

surprised at this. Jerome now praises, now censures him, as unequal, prolix, and confused in style,

method, and doctrine. Pope Gelasius in the fifth century banished his book to the apocryphal index,

and since that time it was almost forgotten, till it was brought to light again in the sixteenth century.

Modern critics agree in the verdict that he is more successful in the refutation of error than in the

defense of truth.

1576

In the Nation. Libr. of Paris, No. 1661. The copy in Brussels is merely a transcript. The MS., though well written, is very

corrupt, and leaves room for many conjectures. Reifferscheid has carefully compared it at Paris in 1867.

1577

"Has that well-known word (illud vulgatum) never struck your ears, that the wisdom of man is foolishness with God?" II.

6; comp. 1 Cor. 3:19.

1578

The strongest passages for the divinity of Christ are I. 37, 39, 42 and 53. In the last passage he says (Reifferscheid, p. 36):

"Deus ille sublimis fuit [Christus], deus radice ab intima, deus ab incognitis regnis et ab omnium principe deo sospitator est

missus"

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"per purae speciem simplicitatis, " I.46. This passage speaks against the story, that Arnobius was converted by a dream.

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Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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But the honesty, courage, and enthusiasm of the convert for his new faith are as obvious as

the defects of his theology. If be did not know or clearly understand the doctrines of the Bible, be

seized its moral tone.

1580

581 "We have learned," he says, "from Christ’s teaching and his laws, that

evil ought not to be requited with evil (comp. Matt. 5:39), that it is better to suffer wrong than to

inflict it, that we should rather shed our own blood than stain our hands and our conscience with

that of another. An ungrateful world is now for a long period enjoying the benefit of Christ; for by

his influence the rage of savage ferocity has been softened, and restrained from the blood of a

fellow-creature. If all would lend an ear to his salutary and peaceful laws, the world would turn the

use of steel to occupations of peace, and live in blessed harmony, maintaining inviolate the sanctity

of treaties."

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 He indignantly asks the heathen, "Why have our writings deserved to be given

to the flames, and our meetings to be cruelly broken up? In them prayer is offered to the supreme

God, peace and pardon are invoked upon all in authority, upon soldiers, kings, friends, enemies,

upon those still in life, and those released from the bondage of the flesh. In them all that is said

tends to make men humane, gentle, modest, virtuous, chaste, generous in dealing with their substance,

and inseparably united to all that are embraced in our brotherhood."

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 He uttered his testimony

boldly in the face of the last and most cruel persecution, and it is not unlikely that he himself was

one of its victims.

The work of Arnobius is a rich store of antiquarian and mythological knowledge, and of

African latinity.

§ 203. Victorinus of Petau.

(I.) Opera in the "Max. Biblioth. vet. Patrum." Lugd. Tom. III., in Gallandi’s "Bibl. PP.," Tom.

IV.; and in Migne’s "Patrol. Lat.," V. 281–344 (De Fabrica Mundi, and Scholia in Apoc. Joannis).

English translation by R. E. Wallis, in Clark’s "Ante-Nicene Library," Vol. III., 388–433; N. York

ed. VII. (1886).

(II.) Jerome: De. Vir. ill., 74. Cassiodor: Justit. Div. Lit., c. 9. Cave: Hist. Lit., I., 147 sq. Lumper’s

Proleg., in Migne’s ed., V. 281–302, Routh: Reliq., S. I., 65; III., 455–481.

Victorinus, probably of Greek extraction, was first a rhetorician by profession, and became

bishop of Petavium, or Petabio,

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 in ancient Panonia (Petau, in the present Austrian Styria).

He died a martyr in the Diocletian persecution (303). We have only fragments of his writings, and

they are not of much importance, except for the age to which they belong. Jerome says that he

understood Greek better than Latin, and that his works are excellent for the sense, but mean as to

the style. He counts him among the Chiliasts, and ascribes to him commentaries on Genesis, Exodus,

1580

I must differ from Ebert (p 69), who says that Christianity produced no moral change in His heart."In seinem Stil ist Arnobius

durchaus Heide, und auch dies ist ein Zeugniss für die Art seines Christenthums, das eben eine innere Umwandlung nicht bewirkt

hatte. Das Gemüth hat an seinem Ausdruck nirgends einen Antheil."

1581

I. 9.

1582

IV. 36.

1583

Vict. Petavionensis orPetabionensis; notPictaviensis (from Poictiers), as in the Rom. Martyrologium and Baronius. John

Launoy (d. 1678) is said to have first corrected this error.

535

Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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