The works of Nathaniel Lardner - The Christian Researcher - Home

1 32 Credibility of the Gospel History.
He speaks loosely*^ of its being then two hundred years
from Christ to his own time. It is likely, therefore, that"^
it was not quite three hundred years since Christ when he
wrote : nor are there any expressions throughout the work
that should induce us to think he lived after the alteration
of the state of things made by the conversion of Constantine.
Cave therefore seems to have rightly concluded that he wrote
about the year 270.
It is no improbable conjecture, that Commodian was a
native of Africa : it is certain he'^ was originally a heathen :
it appears from his acknowledgments in many places.
It may be argued that he was not an illiterate person
for, as he himself says, he*^ was converted by reading the
law ; that is, as=
of the Old and
Rigaltius understands him, the scriptures
New Testament. Gennadius plainly supposeth
him to have been acquainted with secular authors
before he read the sacred scriptures.
The only work of this author mentioned by Gennadius is
still in being ; consisting of eighty sections, or instructions,
all acrostics, in a style between verse and prose.
Gennadius calls it a little book against the Pagans ; but no
one can suppose that to have been the. title originally : it is
more likely that'^ it was in general entitled, Instructions.
Nor is it against heathens only ; christians likewise are here
instructed and admonished, as' Rigaltius clearly perceived.
In the former part of the work Commodian derides and
exposes the heathen deities and their worship ; this was an
easy thing : herein, for certain, the christians triumphed ;
magis illorum destruere potiiit dogmata, quam nostra firmare. Unde et de
divinis repromissionibus advereum illos vili satis et crasso, ut ita dixerim, sensu
disseruit, illis stuporem et nobis desperationem incutiens, TertuUianmn, et
Lactantium, et Papiam, auctores secutus. IMoralem sane doctrinam, et maxima
voluntariae paupertatis araorem optime prosecutus, studentibus inculcavit.
Gennad. De V. I cap. 15.