Against the Pagans

by Robert Parker and Mark Edwards

Book cover: Against the Pagans

Extent: 520 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Subjects: Religious Studies

Series: Brepols Library of Christian Sources

Series volume number: 15

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(December 2025)

ISBN: 9782503617909

Price: $113.00

Out of stock

In this volume, Arnobius deploys all his rhetorician’s powers of exaggeration and ridicule to mock pagan beliefs, representations of their gods, and rituals.


Arnobius was an originally pagan teacher of rhetoric who, after his conversion, was asked to demonstrate his commitment to his new faith by a work of Christian apology. He therefore turned all his rhetorical skills to defence of his new religion and, more effectively, mockery of the pagan gods. Like his fellow African Tertullian, he represents a Christian continuation of the great pagan tradition of satirical writing in Latin. One does not read Arnobius for deep or precise knowledge of Christian doctrine or history. His strength is in attack: nowhere are pagan myths and cult practices more cruelly and effectively ridiculed.

  • By (author) Arnobius of Sicca
  • By (author) Mark Edwards
  • By (author) Robert Parker