Arnobius

Arnobius (1) the Elder, a teacher of rhetoric at Sicca, in Numidia, about 320 A.D. He became a Christian about 300, and died most probably in 327. He wrote, according to Hieronymus, to prove the sincerity of his faith to the bishop who was to baptise him, his seven books, Adversus gentes, in which he meets the objections brought against Christianity, but shows that his own theology was not free from Platonic-gnostic conceptions. His work has great value to the student of the religion of Rome from the materials it contains. The standard edition is that by Reifferscheid (1875). An English translation will be found in vol. xix. of the Ante-Nicene Library.—(2) ARNOBIUS the Younger was a bishop in Gaul in the second half of the 5th century. He wrote a commentary on the Psalms, which is still extant, and which shows traces of semi-Pelagian heresy. It is reprinted in the 53d vol. of Migne's Patrologia Latina.