Arnobius wikisource autobiography

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Arnobius wikisource autobiography

Tools Tools. In other projects. Wikidata item. Parvis Historica, Biblica, Ascetica Et Hagiographica. Peeters Publishers. ISBN Retrieved 11 March Oliver, reviewing George E. McCracken tr. References [ edit ]. External links [ edit ]. Wikiquote has quotations related to Arnobius. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arnobius. Authority control databases.

Toggle the table of contents. Theologian , writer. Roman philosophy. Where grief and sorrow exist, there is already room for weakening and decay; and if these two harass them, extinction is at hand, viz. A similar line of argument pervades later books of the work. In Book Interestingly, however, unlike other philosophers and theologians, Arnobius has absolutely no interest in employing allegorical or metaphorical interpretive strategies when it comes to the pagan divinities.

His criticisms of such allegorical readings are in fact just as vicious as his decimation of the various elements of Roman pagan religious behavior, at one point equating this type of hermeneutic with sophistry and thus positing his own non-allegorical interpretations as valid in the same way that philosophers claimed validity for their schools of thought over and against those of the sophists: AN V.

For the apologist, it is not only that the stories of the gods and goddesses describe dishonorable deeds and qualities but that there was no clear way in which the interpretive method was learned or passed on and that the allegorical strategy for interpretation fails as a systematic way to make sense of those tales. Taking this line of inquiry further, Arnobius maintains that a lack of consistency i.

Some doubt may, perhaps, be thrown over the extent of these ascriptions of deity by the vague language with which Arnobius speaks of the gods see below. But with every deduction they are magnificent, and at least lie in the direction of the fullest orthodoxy. The allusions to the incarnation, life, and death of the Redeemer are numerous.

The first is somewhat vaguely described as the assumption of a man to the self , the God; its motive was the presentation of the God to human senses, and the general performance of Christ's mission. His resurrection and the subsequent appearances are insisted upon; it is asserted apparently that He still appears to the faithful. To the Second Advent there is at most only a doubtful allusion i.

See generally, i. On the origin of the Soul he is far more speculative than is his wont. Its sin, imperfection, and inborn infirmity he holds forbid the belief that it comes direct from the Supreme Cause. It cannot for the like reasons be immortal i. After death there awaits the evil a second death, a Gehenna of unquenchable fire, in which gradually they are consumed and annihilated see especially ii.

The resurrection of the flesh is emphatically asserted, but in somewhat obscure terms ii. Of the existence of gods he speaks with much ambiguity. The actual objects of heathen worship he concludes from the nature of their mythology and ritual to be real but evil beings. But he nowhere denies that there exist also dii boni ; only he views them if existent as mere reflexes of the Supreme Nature, and as in no sense distinct objects of worship and prayer.

In worshipping the Supreme he argues , we worship by implication—if to be worshipped they are—such gods as are gods indeed. On the nature and efficacy of prayer he uses perplexing language. His belief apparently is that in the present life all externals are fixed by an immovable destiny vii.