Han-luen Kantzer Komline: Arnobius and the Argument from Antiquity

Nowadays, people often think “novelty” is good.All things being equal, creativity is a virtue.But in the ancient world this assumption did not hold. As the slogan went, “older is better.” This assumption served as the basis for the argumentum ad antiquitatem, which sought to prove superiority based on longevity. This way of arguing, which had been employed also in Greek literature, Roman literature, and in the literature of Hellenistic Judaism, was picked up by the early apologists, including Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tertullian and Minucius Felix. But what was the fate of the argument from antiquity as Christianity moved toward the fourth century?How did Christians appropriate or alter this cultural assumption, and how did their reactions develop over time?In order to move toward answering these larger questions, this paper investigates the theme of the argument from antiquity in Arnobius of Sicca’s Adversus nationes.In Adversus nationesbook two, Arnobius argues for the mortality of the soul against those he calls uiri noui. The very use of this name for his opponents relies on a derogatory association with the new. However, elsewhere in the same book, one finds an extended discussion of the alleged novelty of Christianity in which Arnobius suggests that age is not absolute but rather a relative and subjective matter, an observation that complicates simplistic versions of the argument from antiquity, as well as simplistic understandings of how Christians like Arnobius employed it.