Arnobius and Lactantius

Abstract

Rhetoric was the core of ancient education. Lactantius and Arnobius were both professors of rhetoric; indeed, though neither mentions the other in his surviving works, Arnobius taught Lactantius. Arnobius compares the gods who regulated the practicalities of life in a Roman city to an elevated conception of divinity which owes as much to classical philosophy as it does to Christianity. Romans distinguished between religio, what was done to sustain the relationship between Gods and men, and sapientia, the knowledge of matters human and divine. Lactantius opined that pagan religio lacked any connection with ethics; it subordinated the spiritual to the physical and was concerned merely with matters of ritual. Lactantius lays out the united religio and sapientia of Christianity in seven books: the first three demonstrate the falseness of pagan cult and philosophy, the latter four true wisdom and the religion of the One God, its duties and rewards.

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