The Octavius of Minucius Felix.

 The Octavius of Minucius Felix.

 Chapter II.—Argument:  The Arrival of Octavius at Rome During the Time of the Public Holidays Was Very Agreeable to Minucius.  Both of Them Were Desir

 Chapter III.—Argument:  Octavius, Displeased at the Act of This Superstitious Man, Sharply Reproaches Minucius, on the Ground that the Disgrace of Thi

 Chapter IV.—Argument:  Cæcilius, Somewhat Grieved at This Kind of Rebuke Which for His Sake Minucius Had Had to Bear from Octavius, Begs to Argue with

 Chapter V.—Argument:  Cæcilius Begins His Argument First of All by Reminding Them that in Human Affairs All Things are Doubtful and Uncertain, and tha

 Chapter VI.—Argument:  The Object of All Nations, and Especially of the Romans, in Worshipping Their Divinities, Has Been to Attain for Their Worship

 Chapter VII.—Argument:  That the Roman Auspices and Auguries Have Been Neglected with Ill Consequences, But Have Been Observed with Good Fortune.

 Chapter VIII.—Argument:  The Impious Temerity of Theodorus, Diagoras, and Protagoras is Not at All to Be Acquiesced In, Who Wished Either Altogether t

 Chapter IX.—Argument:  The Religion of the Christians is Foolish, Inasmuch as They Worship a Crucified Man, and Even the Instrument Itself of His Puni

 Chapter X.—Argument:  Whatever the Christians Worship, They Strive in Every Way to Conceal:  They Have No Altars, No Temples, No Acknowledged Images. 

 Chapter XI.—Argument:  Besides Asserting the Future Conflagration of the Whole World, They Promise Afterwards the Resurrection of Our Bodies:  and to

 Chapter XII.—Argument:  Moreover, What Will Happen to the Christians Themselves After Death, May Be Anticipated from the Fact that Even Now They are D

 Chapter XIII.—Argument:  Cæcilius at Length Concludes that the New Religion is to Be Repudiated And that We Must Not Rashly Pronounce Upon Doubtful M

 Chapter XIV.—Argument:  With Something of the Pride of Self-Satisfaction, Cæcilius Urges Octavius to Reply to His Arguments And Minucius with Modesty

 Chapter XV.—Argument:  Cæcilius Retorts Upon Minucius, with Some Little Appearance of Being Hurt, that He is Foregoing the Office of a Religious Umpir

 Chapter XVI.—Argument:  Octavius Arranges His Reply, and Trusts that He Shall Be Able to Dilute the Bitterness of Reproach with the River of Truthful

 Chapter XVII.—Argument:  Man Ought Indeed to Know Himself, But This Knowledge Cannot Be Attained by Him Unless He First of All Acknowledges the Entire

 Chapter XVIII.—Argument:  Moreover, God Not Only Takes Care of the Universal World, But of Its Individual Parts.  That by the Decree of the One God Al

 Chapter XIX.—Argument:  Moreover, the Poets Have Called Him the Parent of Gods and Men, the Creator of All Things, and Their Mind and Spirit.  And, Be

 Chapter XX.—Argument:  But If the World is Ruled by Providence and Governed by the Will of One God, an Ignorant Antipathy Ought Not to Carry Us Away i

 Chapter XXI.—Argument:  Octavius Attests the Fact that Men Were Adopted as Gods, by the Testimony of Euhemerus, Prodicus, Persæus, and Alexander the G

 Chapter XXII.—Argument:  Moreover, These Fables, Which at First Were Invented by Ignorant Men, Were Afterwards Celebrated by Others, and Chiefly by Po

 Chapter XXIII.—Argument:  Although the Heathens Acknowledge Their Kings to Be Mortal, Yet They Feign that They are Gods Even Against Their Own Will, N

 Chapter XXIV.—Argument:  He Briefly Shows, Moreover, What Ridiculous, Obscene, and Cruel Rites Were Observed in Celebrating the Mysteries of Certain G

 Chapter XXV.—Argument:  Then He Shows that Cæcilius Had Been Wrong in Asserting that the Romans Had Gained Their Power Over the Whole World by Means o

 Chapter XXVI.—Argument:  The Weapon that Cæcilius Had Slightly Brandished Against Him, Taken from the Auspices and Auguries of Birds, Octavius Retorts

 Chapter XXVII.—Argument:  Recapitulation.  Doubtless Here is a Source of Error:  Demons Lurk Under the Statues and Images, They Haunt the Fanes, They

 Chapter XXVIII.—Argument:  Nor is It Only Hatred that They Arouse Against the Christians, But They Charge Against Them Horrid Crimes, Which Up to This

 Chapter XXIX.—Argument:  Nor is It More True that a Man Fastened to a Cross on Account of His Crimes is Worshipped by Christians, for They Believe Not

 Chapter XXX.—Argument:  The Story About Christians Drinking the Blood of an Infant that They Have Murdered, is a Barefaced Calumny.  But the Gentiles,

 Chapter XXXI.—Argument:  The Charge of Our Entertainments Being Polluted with Incest, is Entirely Opposed to All Probability, While It is Plain that G

 Chapter XXXII.—Argument:  Nor Can It Be Said that the Christians Conceal What They Worship Because They Have No Temples and No Altars, Inasmuch as The

 Chapter XXXIII.—Argument:  That Even If God Be Said to Have Nothing Availed the Jews, Certainly the Writers of the Jewish Annals are the Most Sufficie

 Chapter XXXIV.—Argument:  Moreover, It is Not at All to Be Wondered at If This World is to Be Consumed by Fire, Since Everything Which Has a Beginning

 Chapter XXXV.—Argument:  Righteous and Pious Men Shall Be Rewarded with Never-Ending Felicity, But Unrighteous Men Shall Be Visited with Eternal Punis

 Chapter XXXVI.—Argument:  Fate is Nothing, Except So Far as Fate is God.  Man’s Mind is Free, and Therefore So is His Action:  His Birth is Not Brough

 Chapter XXXVII.—Argument:  Tortures Most Unjustly Inflicted for the Confession of Christ’s Name are Spectacles Worthy of God.  A Comparison Instituted

 Chapter XXXVIII.—Argument:  Christians Abstain from Things Connected with Idol Sacrifices, Lest Any One Should Think Either that They Yield to Demons,

 Chapter XXXIX.—Argument:  When Octavius Had Finished This Address, Minucius and Cæcilius Sate for Some Time in Attentive and Silent Wonder.  And Minuc

 Chapter XL.—Argument:  Then Cæcilius Exclaims that He is Vanquished by Octavius And That, Being Now Conqueror Over Error, He Professes the Christian

 Chapter XLI.—Argument:  Finally, All are Pleased, and Joyfully Depart:  Cæcilius, that He Had Believed Octavius, that He Had Conquered And Minucius,

Chapter XXXV.—Argument:  Righteous and Pious Men Shall Be Rewarded with Never-Ending Felicity, But Unrighteous Men Shall Be Visited with Eternal Punishment.  The Morals of Christians are Far More Holy Than Those of the Gentiles.

“And yet men are admonished in the books and poems of the most learned poets of that fiery river, and of the heat flowing in manifold turns from the Stygian marsh,—things which, prepared for eternal torments, and known to them by the information of demons and from the oracles of their prophets, they have delivered to us.  And therefore among them also even king Jupiter himself swears religiously by the parching banks and the black abyss; for, with foreknowledge of the punishment destined to him, with his worshippers, he shudders.  Nor is there either measure or termination to these torments.  There the intelligent fire113    πῦρ σωφρονοῦν is an expression of Clemens Alexandrinus, so that there is no need for the emendation of “rapiens” instead of “sapiens,” suggested by one editor. burns the limbs and restores them, feeds on them and nourishes them.  As the fires of the thunderbolts strike upon the bodies, and do not consume them; as the fires of Mount Ætna and of Mount Vesuvius, and of burning lands everywhere, glow, but are not wasted; so that penal fire is not fed by the waste of those who burn, but is nourished by the unexhausted eating away of their bodies.  But that they who know not God are deservedly tormented as impious, as unrighteous persons, no one except a profane man hesitates to believe, since it is not less wicked to be ignorant of, than to offend the Parent of all, and the Lord of all.  And although ignorance of God is sufficient for punishment, even as knowledge of Him is of avail for pardon, yet if we Christians be compared with you, although in some things our discipline is inferior, yet we shall be found much better than you.  For you forbid, and yet commit, adulteries; we are born114    “Are known as” is another reading.men only for our own wives:  you punish crimes when committed; with us, even to think of crimes is to sin:  you are afraid of those who are aware of what you do; we are even afraid of our own conscience alone, without which we cannot exist:  finally, from your numbers the prison boils over; but there is no Christian there, unless he is accused on account of his religion, or a deserter.

CAPUT XXXV.

ARGUMENTUM.---Ostendit deinde Octavius justos piosque homines sempiterna felicitate donandos, injustos vero poenis afficiendos aeternis. Tum luculenter demonstrat multo sanctiores esse Christianorum mores quam ethnicorum.

Et tamen admonentur homines, doctissimorum [impr. libris] et carminibus poetarum, illius ignei fluminis, et de Stygia palude saepius ambientis ardoris, 0348B quae cruciatibus aeternis praeparata, et daemonum indiciis et de oraculis Prophetarum cognita tradiderunt. Et ideo apud eos etiam ipse rex Jupiter per torrentes ripas et atram voraginem jurat religiose; destinatam enim sibi cum suis cultoribus poenam, praescius, perhorrescit. Nec tormentis aut modus ullus, aut terminus. Illic sapiens ignis membra urit et reficit; carpit et nutrit, sicut ignes fulminum corpora tangunt, 0349A nec, absumunt; sicut ignes Hennei montis et Lesui montis [impr. Aetnae et Vesuvii montis], et ardentium ubique terrarum flagrant, nec erogantur: ita poenale illud incendium non damnis ardentium pascitur, sed inexesa corporum laceratione nutritur. Eos autem merito torqueri qui Deum nesciunt, ut impios, ut injustos, nisi profanus, nemo deliberat, cum Parentem omnium et omnium Dominum non minoris sceleris sit ignorare quam laedere. Et quamquam imperitia Dei sufficiat ad poenam, ita ut notitia prosit ad veniam, tamen, si vobiscum Christiani comparemur, quamvis in nonnullis disciplina nostra minor est, multo tamen vobis meliores deprehendemur. Vos enim adulteria prohibetis, et facitis; nos uxoribus nostris solummodo viri nascimur: vos scelera 0349B admissa punitis; apud nos et cogitare, peccare est: vos conscios timetis, nos etiam conscientiam 0350A solam, sine qua esse non possumus. Denique de vestro numero carcer exaestuat: Christianus ibi nullus, nisi aut reus suae religionis, aut profugus.