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Was the first asserter of them, Justin Martyr more pious, cautious, learned, judicious, or less credulous than Epiphanius? Or were those virtues more conspicuous in Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, than in Athanasius, Gregory, Chrysostom, Jerom, Austin? Nobody, I dare say, will venture to affirm it.
“Your throat, you mean,” said Jucundus; “a cautious man! lest you should steal a draught or two of good strong air.” “And lastly,” said he, “I did not bring my pence, and then he tied my hands to a gibbet, and hung me up in terrorem.” “There I came in,” said Arnobius; “he seemed a pretty boy, so I cut him down, paid his æra, and took him home.” “And now he is your pupil?” asked Jucundus.
Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian’s heart and a Christian’s hope.
Arnobius vindicates, without mentioning their names, the credit of these historians; observing that they were eye-witnesses of the facts which they relate, and that their ignorance of the arts of composition was rather a confirmation of their testimony, than an objection to it.
He said something about the wisdom of ages, the reverence due to authority, the institutions of Rome, and the magistrates of Sicca. “Do not go after novelties,” he said to Arnobius; “make a daily libation to Jove, the preserver, and to the genius of the emperor, and then let other things take their course.”
But there was no attraction in this dissolution, continued after Tertullian's death by his pupil, Saint Cyprian, by Arnobius and by Lactantius.
“I’ll give him the stick worse than Rupilius, if he does not,” said Arnobius. “A bargain,” cried Jucundus; and, waving his hand to them, he stept through the city gate, and they returned to their afternoon amusements. Agellius is busily employed upon his farm.
The Gentiles, says Arnobius, make it their constant business to laugh at our faith, and to lash our credulity with their facetious jokes.
“But you don’t mean I must believe all this man says, because the decurions have put him here?” cried Arnobius. “Here is this Polemo saying that Proteus is matter, and that minerals and vegetables are his flock; that Proserpine is the vital influence, and Ceres the efficacy of the heavenly bodies; that there are mundane spirits, and supramundane; and then his doctrine about triads, monads, and progressions of the celestial gods?”
The Thebans worshipped Bacchus under the form of a rude, square stone. Arnobius says that Cybele was represented by a small stone of a black color. Eusebius cites Porphyry as saying that the ancients represented the deity by a black stone, because his nature is obscure and inscrutable.
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