2.
If we learn but little from external sources as to the life of Arnobius, we are not more fortunate when we turn to his own writings. One or two facts, however, are made clear; and these are of some importance. "But lately," he says, "O blindness, I worshipped images just brought from the furnaces, gods made on anvils and forged with hammers: now, led by so great a teacher into the ways of truth, I know what all these things are." 1 We have thus his own assurance of his conversion from heathenism. He speaks of himself, however, as actually a Christian,--not as a waverer, not as one purposing to forsake the ancient superstitions and embrace the new religion, but as a firm believer, whose faith is already established, and whose side has been taken and stedfastly maintained. In a word, he refers to himself as once lost in error, but now a true Christian.
Again, in different passages he marks pretty accurately the time or times at which he wrote. Thus, in the first book 2 he speaks of about three hundred years as the time during which Christianity had existed; and in the second, 3 of a thousand and fifty, or not many less, having elapsed since the foundation of Rome. There has been much discussion as to what era is here referred to; and it has been pretty generally assumed that the Fabian must be intended,--in which case 303 would be the year meant. If it is observed, however, that Arnobius shows an intimate acquaintance with Varro, and great admiration for him, it will probably be admitted that it is most likely that the Varronian, or common, era was adopted by him; and in this case the year referred to will be 297 a.d. This coincides sufficiently with the passage in the first book, and is in harmony with the idea which is there predominant,--the thought, that is, of the accusation so frequently on the lips of the heathen, that Christianity was the cause of the many and terrible afflictions with which the empire was visited. These accusations, ever becoming more bitter and threatening, would naturally be observed with care and attention by thoughtful Christians towards the close of the third century; and accordingly we find that the words with which Arnobius begins his apology, express the feeling of awakening anxiety with which he viewed the growth of this fear and hatred in the minds of the heathen. He declares, in effect, that one great object--indeed the main object--which he had proposed to himself, was to show that it was not because of the Christians that fresh evils and terrible calamities were continually assailing the state. And it must be remembered that we cannot refer such a proposal to a later period than that assigned. It would certainly not have occurred to a Christian in the midst of persecution, with death overhanging him, and danger on every side, to come forward and attempt calmly to show the heathen that there was no reason for their complaints against the Christians. In the later books there is a change in tone, upon which we cannot now dwell, although it is marked. In one passage he asks indignantly, 4 "Why should our writings be given to the flames, our meetings be cruelly broken up, in which prayer is offered to the supreme God, peace and pardon are asked for all in authority, for soldiers, kings, friends, enemies?" In the calm tranquillity of the last half of the third century these words could hardly have been written, but they are a striking testimony to the terms of the imperial edict issued in the year 303 a.d. So, too, the popular expression of anger and disgust at the anti-pagan character of some of Cicero's works 5 belongs to the incipient stages of persecution.
Nor must it be supposed that the whole work may be referred to the era which ensued after the abdication of Diocletian, in 305. From this time an apology for Christianity with such a design would have been an anachronism, for it was no longer necessary to disarm the fears of the heathen by showing that the gods could not be enraged at the Christians. It has further to be noticed, that although it is perfectly clear that Arnobius spent much time on his apology, it has never been thoroughly revised, and does not seem to have been ever finished. 6
We surely have in all this sufficient reason to assign the composition of these books adversus Gentes to the end of the third and beginning of the fourth centuries. Beyond this we cannot go, for we have no data from which to derive further inferences.
Book i. sec. 39, p. 423, infra. ↩
i. 13, p. 417. ↩
ii. 71, p. 461. ↩
iv. 36. ↩
Noticed in iii. 7, infra. ↩
Cf. note on book vii. sec. 36, infra. [It is not at all improbable that some sketch of his convictions, written to assure the bishop of his conversion, was the foundation of what afterwards grew into a work.] ↩
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