ARNOBIUS OF SICCA, Known as the Elder. - Christian writer and apologist, who lived at Sicca Veneria (today el-Zef) in Proconsular Africa at the beginning of the 4th century, d. around 327. According to what St. Jerome relates, A. was a rhetorician (and in that capacity he also had Lactantius as a disciple) who, after having fought against Christianity, was converted in his later years, and offered to the bishop, as testimony of his conversion, an apologetic work, Adversus nationes, composed by him around 303-305 and which has come down to us through a single codex (ed. by A. Reifferscheid, in CSEL, 4, Vienna 1875, and ed. by C. Marchesi, Turin 1934).
The work consists of 7 books; the last chapters (38-51) of the seventh, of hasty and disorganized compilation, have suggested rather a draft, but their authenticity is beyond question. A. defends Christianity against the accusations of the pagans (I), responds to various objections concerning the salvific work of Christ, the final destinies of humanity and the essence of Christianity (II), turns back the accusation of impiety upon the pagans (III-V), showing how these and not the Christians offend the divinity with the practices of their cult (VI-VII). A., who nevertheless reveals in his work the most unexpected influences of non-Christian authors, especially of Epicureanism, shows a singular lack of skill, not to say ignorance, in his use of the New, but above all of the Old Testament, the latter explicitly repudiated by him. Although his work is not, nor does it intend to be, an exposition of the Christian faith, the theological notions in it often prove superficial or contradictory, so that he has appeared to later Christian tradition as a theological witness of very weak authority. Despite this, the work of A., by its very dramatic quality rich in ferment and suggestions, has a place of singular importance in the history of the literature and thought of Christian Africa and in more than one respect preludes that of St. Augustine.
For A. God is an indifferent being, who is neither moved nor takes vengeance; he cannot have created the human soul, inclined as it is to vice and sin; it is instead the work of inferior divinities and in itself neither mortal nor immortal, although capable of attaining immortality through the practice of good works. For A. Christ is in a subordinate position with respect to the Father; in him two natures coexist, but in the Passion on Golgotha only the man whom Christ bore died; the salvific mission of the Son of God resolves itself into a mission of teaching. It should be remembered that for A. the gods of paganism are creatures of God, immaterial and immortal beings, almost angels having a special character.
Bibliography7 works
Mario Niccoli
ARNOLD (ERNOLD) of BONNEVAL: v. ARNALDO di BONNEVAL.