ARNOBIUS of SICCA, known as the ELDER. — Christian writer and apologist, who lived at Sicca Veneria (now el-Zef) in Proconsular Africa at the beginning of the 4th century, and died around 327. According to St Jerome, A. was a rhetorician (and in that capacity had Lattanzio as a pupil) who, after having fought against Christianity, converted in his old age and offered the bishop, as proof of his conversion, an apologetic work, *Adversus nationes*, composed by him around 303–305 and preserved for us in a single manuscript (ed. by A. Reifferscheid, in CSEL, 4, Vienna 1875, and ed. by C. Marchesi, Turin 1934).
The work consists of 7 books; the final chapters (38–51) of the seventh, hastily and poorly compiled, have led some to think it a draft, but their authenticity is beyond question. A. defends Christianity against pagan accusations (I), replies to various objections about the salvific work of Christ, the final destiny of humanity, and the essence of Christianity (II), refutes the charge of impiety against the pagans (III–V), showing how it is they, not the Christians, who offend the divinity through the practices of their cult (VI–VII). A., who in his work reveals the most unexpected influences of non-Christian authors, especially Epicureanism, displays a singular ineptitude, to say the least ignorance, in his use of the New Testament, but especially of the Old Testament, which he explicitly repudiates. Although his work is neither intended nor meant to be an exposition of Christian faith, theological notions often emerge from his experience of opposition, so that later Christian tradition has viewed him as a theological witness of very weak authority. Despite this, A.’s work, with its dramatic richness of ferment and insight, occupies a singularly important place in the history of the literature and thought of Christian Africa and, in more than one respect, anticipates that of St Augustine.
For A., God is an indifferent being, who neither is moved nor takes vengeance; He cannot have created the human soul, which is prone to vice and sin; the soul is instead the work of inferior deities and is in itself neither mortal nor immortal, though capable of attaining immortality through the practice of good works. For A., Christ is subordinate to the Father; in Him two natures coexist, but at the Passion on Golgotha only the man whom Christ bore died; the salvific mission of the Son of God resolves into a mission of teaching. It should be noted that, for A., the gods of paganism are creatures of God, immaterial and immortal beings, almost angels with a special character.
ARNOLD (ERNOLD) of BONNEVAL: V. ARNALDO of BONNEVAL.