ABSTRACT
THE position which Arnobius occupies in Christian antiquity is exceptional and very curious. After having taught rhetoric all his life a t Sicca-Veneria, in proconsular Africa, Arnobius was converted late in about his sixtieth year. His Bishop, a little distrustful of this labourer who had engaged a t the eleventh hour, whom he had always known as being very violcut against the Christians, demanded from him a pledge of his sincerity.l Arnobius thought he could do no better than to transfer to the service of the cause which he had just embraced his sustained eloquence, his concise erudition and his heavy irony. I-Ie wrote a work, the Adversus ~Vationes, which appeared about the year 300.2 It is amusing to observe what this old man and improvised apologist understood of Christianity, and how he mingled adventitious ideas without troubling himself over their incongruities and without considering that his Christian readers might be offended.
