Minucius Felix

Footnotes

^[1786] Otherwise, “his approach is drowned.”

^[1787] Otherwise, “do they not show what are the sports and the honours of your gods?”

^[1788] These words are very variously read. Davis conjectures that they should be, “When Feretrius, he does not hear,” and explains the allusion as follows: that Jupiter Feretrius could only be approached with the spolia opima; and Minucius is covertly ridiculing the Romans, because, not having taken spolia opima for so long a time, they could not approach Feretrius.

^[1789] Otherwise, “pointed out,” or “designated.”

^[1790] Otherwise corrupted into Ætna.

Chapter XXII.—Argument: Moreover, These Fables, Which at First Were Invented by Ignorant Men, Were Afterwards Celebrated by Others, and Chiefly by Poets, Who Did No Little Mischief to the Truth by Their Authority. By Fictions of This Kind, and by Falsehoods of a Yet More Attractive Nature, the Minds of Young People are Corrupted, and Thence They Miserably Grow Old in These Beliefs, Although, on the Other Hand, the Truth is Obvious to Them If They Will Only Seek After It.

^[1791] Some read, “and it is marvellous how these have prejudiced,” etc.

^[1792] Some read, “the truth itself.”

^[1793] Plat., de Rep., lib. iii.

^[1794] Otherwise, “Then Vulcan fabricates,” etc.

^[1795] Otherwise, “judgments.”

Chapter XXIII.—Argument: Although the Heathens Acknowledge Their Kings to Be Mortal, Yet They Feign that They are Gods Even Against Their Own Will, Not Because of Their Belief in Their Divinity, But in Honour of the Power that They Have Exerted. Yet a True God Has Neither Rising Nor Setting. Thence Octavius Criticises the Images and Shrines of the Gods.

^[1796] “Be created” is a more probable reading.

^[1797] Otherwise, “that he had rashly been so deceived by the artificer in the material, as to make a god.”

^[1798] [Footbaths. See vol. ii., Theophilus, p. 92, and Athenagoras, p. 143.]

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 of the Due Observance of Superstitions of This Kind. Rather the Romans in Their Origin Were Collected by Crime, and Grew by the Terrors of Their Ferocity. And Therefore the Romans Were Not So Great Because They Were Religious, But Because They Were Sacrilegious with Impunity.

^[1799] Parricidium.

^[1800] Virg., Æneid, viii. 635.

^[1801] Some read “probra” for “morbos,” scil. “reproaches.”

Chapter XXVI.—Argument: The Weapon that Cæcilius Had Slightly Brandished Against Him, Taken from the Auspices and Auguries of Birds, Octavius Retorts by Instancing the Cases of Regulus, Mancinus, Paulus, and Cæsar. And He Shows by Other Examples, that the Argument from the Oracles is of No Greater Force Than the Others.

^[1802] Reipublicæ; but it is shrewdly conjectured that the passage was written, “cum majore R. P. parte”—“with the greater part of the Roman people,” and the mistake made by the transcriber of the ms.

^[1803] Otherwise Hostanes.

^[1804] [Octavius and Minucius had but one mind (see cap. i. supra), and both were philosophers of the Attic Academy reflecting Cicero. See my remarks on Athenagoras, vol. ii. p. 126, this series.]

^[1805] According to some editors, “warns us that the desire of love is received.”

Chapter XXVII.—Argument: Recapitulation. Doubtless Here is a Source of Error: Demons Lurk Under the Statues and Images, They Haunt the Fanes, They Animate the Fibres of the Entrails, Direct the Flights of Birds, Govern the Lots, Pour Forth Oracles Involved in False Responses. These Things Not from God; But They are Constrained to Confess When They are Adjured in the Name of the True God, and are Driven from the Possessed Bodies. Hence They Flee Hastily from the Neighbourhood of Christians, and Stir Up a Hatred Against Them in the Minds of the Gentiles Who Begin to Hate Them Before They Know Them.

^[1806] Some read “slumbers” for “all men.”

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