Français – عربي – ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ – English
Arnobius of Sicca was a famous Numidian rhetorician, who was teaching in Sicca (El Kef). By the end of his life, he caused much surprise in the local Christian community, when he announced his conversion to Christianity, a religion he had fought all his life. To appease the fears of those who doubted his sincerity, he undertook to write a book refuting his former pagan beliefs.
Arnobius was born around 240, in Civitas Popthensis (Henchir Kssiba, close to Ouled Moumen, in the Algerian wilaya of Souk Ahras). After brilliant studies in Latin literature, he taught rhetoric in Sicca (El Kef) and became known around the region for his vast learning. The city of Sicca was very proud of their famous resident.
Despite his Latin education, Arnobius was a worthy son of North Africa, very proud of his Amazigh origins, who saw the Roman conquest of Africa as an accident of history. His writings are full of references to the region’s natural beauty, to the rich harvests, to the flocks of sheep grazing in the mountains and the olive trees growing in the plains, but also to the droughts and the locust invasions ravaging the crops.
At this time, Sicca, like all North African towns, had a quite strong Christian community. Arnobius despised the Christians: he thought they were ignorant, and didn’t hesitate to attack their faith in his speeches. The local Christian leaders, probably uneducated farmers or craftsmen, were unable to answer the arguments of such a formidable adversary.
However, around 295, when he was already quite old, Arnobius surprised the Christian community in Sicca by announcing his conversion! Instead of rejoicing that such an illustrious man had joined their faith after fighting it for so many years, the Christians first refused to believe that he was sincere: they feared he was trying to infiltrate them and destroy them from inside. The bishop of Sicca even refused to baptize him.
Arnobius was so eager to be accepted by the Christian community that he decided to write a vast apologetic book to refute his former pagan beliefs. The result, Against the nations, is a passionate plea for the Christian faith and against the lies of pagan mythology and philosophy. However, to Arnobius himself, is was just as much about convincing the Christians that his faith was sincere than about convincing the pagans of the truth of Christianity. It is also very possible that his book recounts his own spiritual journey, the reasons that led him to abandon his former beliefs and become a Christian – he mentions how several dreams he had decided him to convert.
The heart of Arnobius’ argumentation is that true religion necessarily combines both spiritual power and moral virtue. He knew both the African and the Greek-Roman pagan cults very well, with all their ceremonies and sacrifices, as he had practiced them for so many years. While he was deeply aware of the very real spiritual power wielded by the pagan priests and rites, he found nothing good, no virtue in them. Quite the opposite: mythology was full of stories of deeply immoral gods, who were adulterous and violent murderers. The city of Sicca was actually famous for its temple of Venus, which was full of priestesses practicing prostitution! Philosophy, on the other hand, taught admirable moral principles, but then left man powerless to overcome his egoistic nature and actually practice those virtues.
At this point, Arnobius discovered Christ, whose miracles show a spiritual power greater than that of the pagan priests, while his teaching, on love for our enemies and refusing vengeance, is even more virtuous than the finest philosophy. Finally, through Christ’s resurrection, Christians had a certain hope of eternal life – the quest of all philosophers, although none of them had found it.
Arnobius wrote his book while he was still very newly converted, to defend a faith he hardly knew. His writing is passionate, cultured, and imaginative, but his arguments certainly could have been refined if he had taken more time to think them through.
It took Arnobius several years to write this book, which was still unfinished at his death. After some time, the Christians in Sicca finally accepted him as their brother. One of his students, Lactantius, who was also a Christian, later became an advisor of Emperor Constantine.
