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 X.—Argument:  Whatever the Christians Worship, They Strive in Every Way to Conceal:  They Have No Altars, No Temples, No Acknowledged Images.  Their God, Like that of the Jews, is Said to Be One, Whom, Although They are Neither Able to See Nor to Show, They Think Nevertheless to Be Mischievous, Restless, and Unseasonably Inquisitive.

“I purposely pass over many things, for those that I have mentioned are already too many; and that all these, or the greater part of them, are true, the obscurity of their vile religion declares.  For why do they endeavour with such pains to conceal and to cloak whatever they worship, since honourable things always rejoice in publicity, while crimes are kept secret?  Why have they no altars, no temples, no acknowledged images?28    Otherwise, “no consecrated images.”  Why do they never speak openly, never congregate freely, unless for the reason that what they adore and conceal is either worthy of punishment, or something to be ashamed of?  Moreover, whence or who is he, or where is the one God, solitary, desolate, whom no free people, no kingdoms, and not even Roman superstition, have known?  The lonely and miserable nationality of the Jews worshipped one God, and one peculiar to itself; but they worshipped him openly, with temples, with altars, with victims, and with ceremonies; and he has so little force or power, that he is enslaved, with his own special nation, to the Roman deities.  But the Christians, moreover, what wonders, what monstrosities do they feign!—that he who is their God, whom they can neither show nor behold, inquires diligently into the character of all, the acts of all, and, in fine, into their words and secret thoughts; that he runs about everywhere, and is everywhere present:  they make him out to be troublesome, restless, even shamelessly inquisitive, since he is present at everything that is done, wanders in and out in all places, although, being occupied with the whole, he cannot give attention to particulars, nor can he be sufficient for the whole while he is busied with particulars.  What! because they threaten conflagration to the whole world, and to the universe itself, with all its stars, are they meditating its destruction?—as if either the eternal order constituted by the divine laws of nature would be disturbed, or the league of all the elements would be broken up, and the heavenly structure dissolved, and that fabric in which it is contained and bound together29    Otherwise, “we are contained and bound together.” would be overthrown.30    [These very accusations, reduced back to Christian language, show that much of the Creed was, in fact, known to the heathen at this period.]

CAPUT X.

ARGUMENTUM.---Quidquid colunt, magnopere occultare nituntur: nullas aras habent, templa nulla, nulla 0264Anota simulacra. Deus illorum, sicut et Judaeorum, unicus esse fertur: quem cum nec videre nec ostendere queant, illum nihilominus molestum, inquietum et praepostere curiosum arbitrantur.

Multa praetereo consulto; nam et haec nimis multa sunt quae aut omnia aut pleraque omnium vera declarat ipsius pravae religionis obscuritas. Cur etenim occultare et abscondere quidquid illud colunt magnopere nituntur, quum honesta semper publico gaudeant, scelera secreta sint? cur nullas aras habent, templa nulla, nulla nota simulacra? numquam palam loqui, numquam libere congregari [sustinent], nisi illud quod colunt et interprimunt, aut puniendum est aut pudendum? Unde autem, vel quis ille, aut ubi Deus unicus, solitarius, destitutus; quem non gens 0265A libera, non regna, non saltem Romana superstitio noverunt? Judaeorum sola et misera gentilitas unum et ipsi Deum, sed palam, sed templis, aris, victimis caerimoniisque coluerunt: cujus adeo nulla vis nec potestas est, ut sit Romanis numinibus cum sua sibi natione captivus. At etiam Christiani quanta monstra, quae portenta confingunt? Deum illum suum, quem nec ostendere possunt nec videre, in omnium mores, actus omnium, verba denique et occultas cogitationes diligenter inquirere, discurrentem scilicet, atque ubique praesentem; molestum illum volunt, inquietum, impudenter etiam curiosum, siquidem adstat factis omnibus, locis omnibus intererrat: cum nec singulis inservire possit, per universa 0266A districtus, nec universis sufficere, in singulis occupatus. (VIII) Quid? quod toto orbi, et ipsi mundo cum sideribus suis minantur incendium, ruinam moliuntur? quasi aut naturae divinis legibus constitutus aeternus ordo turbetur, aut rupto elementorum omnium foedere, et coelesti compage divisa, moles ista qua continetur et cingitur subruatur.