Primary source · Latin
Arnobius, Against the Pagans (Adversus Nationes)
Arnobius of Sicca · c. AD 297–303
What this text is
Seven books of forensic assault on paganism by Lactantius's own teacher — a convert so recent he cites scripture almost never and gets doctrine charmingly wrong. The whole text hangs by a single thread: one Carolingian manuscript, which also happens to be the sole carrier of Minucius Felix's Octavius.
Profile of Arnobius of Sicca →
Public-domain translations
ANF translation (Bryce & Campbell, 1871, public domain)
But recently, O blindness, I worshipped images just brought from the furnaces, gods made on anvils and by hammers... now, led into the ways of truth by so great a teacher, I know what all these things are.
Manuscript witnesses
Paris, BnF lat. 1661
9th c.The one manuscript — carrying Adversus Nationes and, bound as its 'eighth book', the only copy of the Octavius. Every printed text descends from it.
Editio princeps (Faustus Sabaeus, Rome)
1543First printing, still confusing the Octavius for book eight.
CSEL 4 (Reifferscheid)
1875The standard critical text behind ANF's numbering.
Provenance
Sicca Veneria, Africa; written, says Jerome, as the pledge of a rhetor's sudden conversion
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Arnobius of Sicca: The Case against the Pagans (ACW 7–8)George E. McCracken (tr.), 1949Annotated scholarly translation.
- Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of DiocletianMichael Bland Simmons, 1995The modern monograph — critical control on Jerome's conversion anecdote.