Divinity of Christ and the Mortality of the Gods Arnobius’ Response to Porphyry’s Hecatean Oracle and Commentary

This chapter considers the question of whether Porphyry might be the principal opponent in Adversus nationes I. The Hecatean Oracle and Porphyry's commentary upon it served a useful purpose in the anti-Christian propaganda disseminated in Roman North Africa during the period immediately preceding the outbreak of the Diocletianic Persecution. Although scholarship has traditionally focused upon the Contra Christianos as the most important work representing the pagan intelligentsia during this period, the Phil. or. should now be considered as a serious piece of anti-Christian propaganda in its own right. The subtle but vicious attack upon the deity of Christ that Porphyry developed in the Phil. or., accentuating above all his mortality, to which two great doctors of the Church — Eusebius and Augustine — responded with sharp counter-attacks, would perhaps help to explain the absence of any reference to the birth narratives and the name Jesus in the Adversus nationes.

Ancient history · Divinity · Intelligentsia · Period (music) · Persecution · Political science · Scholarship · Theology · Augustinian Studies and Theology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Law · Philosophy