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From Pagan And Puritan: The “Octavius” of Minucius, Freely Translated by Arthur Aikin Brodribb, London: George Bell & Sons; 1903; pp. v-xiv.
[v]
INTRODUCTION
THE “Octavius,” the only known work of Marcus Minucius Felix, contains two speeches on religion, one from the Pagan, and the other from the Christian point of view. Short as it is, this almost classical dialogue holds an important place in literature as the earliest extant defence of Christianity by a Latin writer; that is, if, as there is reason to believe, Minucius is prior to Tertullian. But, whether prior to Tertullian or not, he was highly esteemed in his own time, and by subsequent writers, one of whom, Cyprian, published a treatise on “Idols,” which is so absolutely plagiarized from the “Octavius” that the text of Cyprian occasionally serves to elucidate that of Minucius.
Minucius, however, was unknown during a great part of the middle ages. The only manuscript of the “Octavius” is a minuscule of the ninth century, and has been for many vi years in the Paris library. It is headed: “Arnobii liber VII explicit. Incipit liber VII feliciter.” Now, Arnobius’s celebrated work against the Pagans contains only seven books; there is no eighth book of Arnobius. Unfortunately, when these seven books were first edited and printed, at Rome in 1543, this manuscript of the “Octavius” was associated with them, and was printed with them as a Liber Octavus; a mistake which was repeated in the two succeeding editions. François Baudouin, or Balduinus, in his Heidelberg edition of 1560, was the first to publish the supposed Liber Octavus of Arnobius as the “Octavius” of Minucius. His edition contains a long Latin dissertation, in which he claims the work for its real author and expresses his surprise that the mistake should have escaped the notice of so great a scholar as Erasmus.
Since 1560 Minucius has received much attention from scholars, but the text, after continual revision and emendation, still offers a great many doubtful readings.
There is no external evidence for so much as a single fact in the life of Minucius. All that is known, or is supposed to be known, vii of him is derived from the introduction to his book. From this we gather that he was a convert to Christianity, a lawyer, and by residence, if not by birth, a Roman. But this is all, and if we hold that the introduction, which certainly resembles a work of art, is only a contrivance for bringing together imaginary opponents for an imaginary debate, we shall have to own that we know nothing of Minucius except his name. That, however, is not the view taken by the best authorities. They do not regard the introduction as fictitious, and their opinion is corroborated by inscriptions found at Cirta in Africa, which showed that one of the speakers, who is described by Minucius as a compatriot of the orator Fronto of Cirta, was, in fact, a native of that place. We may take it, then, that the introduction gives a true account, as far as it goes, of Minucius himself. The speeches, it need hardly be said, owe their literary form to the author, who must have heard many similar arguments in the course of his life.
We do not know in what years Minucius was born and died, and the date of his work has been the subject of much controversy. The statements of Lactantius and Jerome do viii not help us. Apparently, the question is rendered insoluble by the peculiar nature of the book itself. Minucius writes his recollection of a formal argument between two of his friends, one of whom is described as dead at the time of writing, while the other is, presumably, still alive. Internal evidence points to the year 162 or 163 as the probable date of the argument. But the date of the argument, whatever it may be, cannot be the date of the book, which the author expressly declares to be written from memory, he does not say how many years later, after his friend’s death. The interval that separates these two dates must therefore remain uncertain. Perhaps it will be enough to say that most modern critics place Minucius in the second and not in the third century.
In the extremely graceful introduction the three friends, Marcus Minucius Felix, Octavius Januarius and Quintus Caecilius Natalis, take a morning walk on the sands at Ostia, a seaside place at the mouth of the Tiber, not far from Rome. Minucius and Octavius are Christians; Caecilius adheres to the old religion. At the beginning of the walk, Octavius makes a casual remark which sounds like ix a challenge to Caecilius to defend his views. Later on, the subject is referred to again, and is then debated, Minucius remaining neutral, and acting as judge. Caecilius at length owns that he has been induced to change his opinions.
The argument of Caecilius may be thus summarized: “Our knowledge of the universe is necessarily limited, but we have no reason, on any hypothesis, to postulate divine agency. The available evidence suggests that chance prevails rather than providence, but, as the fact cannot be established, our ancestral faith is safer and better than vague speculations. And see how much Rome owes to her ancestral faith, and how invincible it has made her. It is true that we do not now the nature of the gods; but they cannot be ignored, and all history shows that it is prudent to pay attention to their omens. The Christians, certainly, are not entitled to attack them, and they do not seem to have anything better to offer. They belong to the lowest and most ignorant classes, their immorality is notorious, they worship a criminal and his cross, they reverence the head of an ass, they practice the ritual murder of infants, their meetings are nocturnal and secret, their feasts are impure, x their lives are miserable and colourless, and they hold absurd notions as to the end of the world, a resurrection of the dead, and an omniscient and omnipresent God. Such are the people who presume to pronounce an opinion on subjects as to which philosophers have wisely maintained an attitude of reserve.”
Octavius replies, ‘Your expressions are harsh, and I am not sure whether you do or do not believe in the effective existence of your gods. Ignorant as we may be, man’s place in nature compels him to an inquiry into the universe and the attributes of its Governor. For, unquestionably, it has a Governor, whose handiwork it is, and is ruled, not by chance but by Providence. Polytheism is untenable, and has not the support of philosophers, all of whom regard God as some phase of intangible Unity. On the other hand, your own gods, such as Saturn and Jupiter, are only legendary human beings who were deified in an age of credulity. Their rites are undignified, and often shocking. Can you seriously maintain that the Roman power owes anything to their patronage? As to omens and oracles, it is a fallacy to connect them with victory or defeat. The truth is that they are controlled by daemons, fallen xi spirits, who actuate the whole machinery of your religion, and do their utmost to excite prejudice against us. How stale your charges against us are! And how is it that none of them have ever been proved? You say that we worship the head of an ass; that we render divine honours to a crucified criminal; that we murder children; that our meetings are scenes of debauchery. Nothing of the sort. These are imputations the like of which, in an aggravated form, might be retorted against your own impure superstitions. You think that we have some mysterious concealed object of worship. We worship God; how can God be concealed anywhere? You think our doctrines nonsense. The germs of them are to be found in your own philosophers. No; you are doing us a great injustice; you do not understand that, though most of us are poor, we are also sober, clean-living, hopeful, and happy; happy even under persecution and torture. I care nothing for your cautious philosophers who boast of their attitude of reserve. Let them debate away, by all means, as long as ever they like. I am only thankful that God has made us more enlightened.”
These speeches are of course the work of xii Minucius. He has arranged them for publication, and has made them literature; but there is no reason to doubt his statement that they represent the arguments actually used by his friends. From the speech of Caecilius, who is apparently a young lawyer, we may gather the religious views of the average educated Roman. He is called upon, not quite on the spur of the moment, to defend his belief, and, having had time to collect his thoughts, he states his case in an orderly way, at least as well as most young men would have stated it. He knows something of history and philosophy, and, though he is not well-informed about the Christians, one or two of their doctrines are known to him, and he is familiar with all that was commonly reported to their discredit. Like other Romans, he feels sure that when ignorant and eccentric people meet in private their proceedings will not bear investigation. Minucius takes care that he shall repeat all the usual slanders against the Christians, for these he intends to answer fully in the speech of Octavius.
The much longer reply of Octavius, full of learning derived from earlier writers, and especially from Cicero, traverses almost every word xiii that has been uttered by Caecilius. In this respect it is so systematic and precise as to be evidently the work, not of a theologian, but of a lawyer. Caecilius leans to the doctrine of chance, believes in a plurality of gods and despises the Christians. Octavius substitutes providence for chance, one God for many gods, and vindicates the character of the Christian community. Except for the curious passage on daemons, he does not once travel beyond his brief, but contents himself with an argument strictly limited by that of his opponent. But the lawyer is also a literary artist. He puts into the mouth of Octavius a reply that is complete and sufficient for his purpose, and does not concern himself with what has not been advanced, or with doctrines that Caecilius cannot immediately discuss or accept. His object is simply the refutation of Caecilius; to attempt more would spoil the artistic design of the work, and would render it imperfect, introductory, and open to further challenge. The reticence of Minucius, and the fact that he has little or nothing to say of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, have often been remarked, and it has even been suggested that he was himself not so much a Christian xiv as a Theist. But the explanation is that he is not as yet instructing a convert, but is only endeavouring to make one. For the present he is appealing, not altogether on Christian grounds but rather on general grounds, to a hostile audience. And the hostile audience, whose philosophers and poets and historians he summons as witnesses on his own side, though it consists nominally of Caecilius alone, comprises in reality all Rome, where at this time hardly one man in twenty was a Christian. If he can remove prejudice, and show that the new religion is, on the face of it, more rational than the old, he may obtain a hearing. That, and for the present nothing more, seems to be the purpose of the work.
For the following free translation the editions of Baehrens, 1886, and of Waltzing, 1903, have been used. They differ in many places; but a free rendering may perhaps adopt the reading sometimes of the one, and sometimes of the other. The state of the text is such that finality cannot be claimed for any particular edition. The places in which important emendations by Baehrens have been followed are indicated in the notes.
Next:
Part I. The Reason for the Debate
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