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Works Arnobius the Elder (240-330) Adversus Nationes Elucidations - Seven Books Against the Heathens

III.

(The eyes of Jupiter, p. 483.)

Arnobius with remorseless vigour smites Jove himself,--the Optimus Maximus of polytheism,--and, as I have said, with the assurance of one who feels that the Church's triumph over "lords many and gods many" is not far distant. The scholar will recall the language of Terence, 1 where the youth, gazing on the obscene picture of Jupiter and Danäe, exclaims,--

"What! he who shakes high heaven with his thunder

Act thus, and I, a mannikin, not do the same?

Yes, do I, and right merrily, forsooth!"

On which the great African Father 2 remarks pithily, "Omnes enim cultores talium deorum, mox ut eos libido perpulerit, magis intuentur quid Jupiter fecerit, quam quid docuerit Plato, vel censuerit Cato." And here is not only the secret of the impotence of heathen ethics, but the vindication of the Divine Wisdom in sending the God-Man. Men will resemble that which they worship: law itself is incapable of supplying a sufficient motive. Hence, 3 "what the law could not do, in that it was weak,...God sending His own Son," etc. Thus "the foolishness of God is wiser than men," and "the love of Christ constraineth us."

"Talk they of morals? O Thou bleeding Lamb!

The grand morality is love of Thee."

The world may sneer at faith, but only they who believe can love; and who ever loved Christ without copying into his life the Sermon on the Mount, and, in some blest degree, the holy example of his Master?


  1. Eunuch., iii. 5. ↩

  2. August., De Civitate, book ii. cap. 7. ↩

  3. Rom. viii. 3-39. ↩

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Gegen die Heiden (BKV)
The Seven Books of Arnobius Against the Heathen
Commentaries for this Work
Einleitung
Elucidations - Seven Books Against the Heathens
Introduction to Arnobius

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Faculty of Theology, Patristics and History of the Early Church
Miséricorde, Av. Europe 20, CH 1700 Fribourg

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