Arnobius

Arnobius

Arnobius of Sicca was an Early Christian apologist, during the reign of Diocletian (284 305). According to Jerome's Chronicle, Arnobius, before his conversion, was a distinguished rhetorician at Sicca Veneria (El Kef, Tunisia), a major Christian center in Proconsular Africa, and owed his conversion to a premonitory dream. Arnobius writes dismissively of dreams in his surviving book, so perhaps Jerome was projecting his own respect for the content of dreams. According to Jerome, to overcome the doubts of the local bishop as to the earnestness of his Christian belief he wrote an apologetic work in seven books that St. Jerome calls Adversus Gentes but which is entitled Adversus Nationes in the only (9th-century) manuscript that has survived. Jerome's reference, his remark that Lactantius was a pupil of Arnobius and the surviving treatise are all that we know about Arnobius.

Arnobius's Books:

[Arnobius Against The Heathen V1 | Arnobius Against The Heathen V2 | Arnobius Against The Heathen V3 | Arnobius Against The Heathen V4 | Arnobius Against The Heathen V5 | Arnobius Against The Heathen V6 | Arnobius Against The Heathen V7]