professor of rhetoric at Sicca, in Numidia, towards the end of the third century. It was owing to certain dreams which he had that he became desirous of embracing Christianity. For this purpose he applied to the bishops to be admitted into the church. But they remembering the violence with which he had always opposed the true faith, had some distrust of him; and before they would admit him, insisted on some proofs of his sincerity. In compliance with this demand, he wrote against the Gentiles; wherein he has refuted the absurdities of their religion, and ridiculed their false gods. In this treatise he has employed all the flowers of rhetoric, and displayed great learning: but from an impatience to be admitted into the body of the faithful, he is thought to have been in too great a hurry in composing his work, and thence it is that there does not appear in this piece such an exact order and disposition as could be wished; and not having a perfect and exact knowledge of the Christian faith, he published some very dangerous errors. Mr Bayle remarks, that his notions about the origin of the soul, and the cause of natural evil, and several other important points, are highly pernicious. St Jerom, in his epistle to Paulinus, is of opinion that his style is unequal and too diffuse, and that his book is written without any method; but Dr Cave thinks this judgment too severe, and that Arnobius wants neither elegance nor order in his composition. Vossius styles him the Varro of the ecclesiastical writers. Du Pin observes that his work is written in a manner worthy of a professor of rhetoric: the turn of his sentiments is very oratorical; but his style is a little African, his expressions being harsh and inelegant. We have several editions of this work of Arnobius against the Gentiles, one published at Rome in 1542, at Basil in 1546 and 1560, at Paris in 1570, at Antwerp in 1582, and one at Hamburg in 1610, with notes by Gebhard Elmenhorstius, besides many others. He wrote also a piece entitled De rhetorice institutio; but this is not extant.