The Octavius of Minucius Felix: my favorite writing from Second Century
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2023 2:56 pm
I thought I'd share my favorite piece of writing from the Second/Third Century: the Octavius of Minucius Felix. It shares themes with Tertullian's Apology suggesting influence. Depending on which way the influence goes, M. Felix wrote either late Second Century CE or around mid-Third Century CE.
Note: I debated the contents of Octavius with Earl Doherty over a lot of years, but this thread isn't about HJ/MJ so I'm not interested in discussing that side. Octavius is just a great read, and one that gives an idea of what pagans believed about Christianity in early times. Quotes are from here: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... avius.html
I'll remind people that I have no academic qualifications in ancient literature and have no knowledge of the ancient languages involved.
Octavius is a discussion between two people, one Christian and one pagan. It's similar in style to Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, in that it provides criticisms of Christian beliefs followed by a Christian's response.
The story starts with the narrator on a walk along the Tiber with his two friends: Octavius (Christian) and Caecilius (pagan). Caecilius, observing an image of Serapis, raised his hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss on it with his lips. Octavius criticises Caecilius for his superstition.
This leads into Caecilius first defending pagan beliefs and then attacking Christian ones. Caecilius makes the point that it is better to believe the gods of tradition rather than new ones:
Caecilius believes that the Romans allowing the conquered nations to follow their traditional beliefs is why Rome dominates the world:
But Christians want to destroy the beliefs of tradition! So they should be rooted out and destroyed:
Caecilius then levels his charges against Christians (all quotes below formatted for ease of reading):
Caecilius continues on with criticisms against the idea of the Christian God:
Octavius then responds. He starts by defending the idea of the Christian God by extensive use of ancient Greek philosophers, concluding that they are in general agreement with Christian ideas about God:
Octavius then responds that Rome isn't great because it lets others worship their own gods, but it is in fact corrupted by this:
Octavius states that the pagans believe malicious lies about Christians. Pagans form a judgement without understanding the truth:
The "Egyptians... are not more afraid of Isis than they are of the pungency of onions" is such a great line!
At the end, not unexpectedly, Caecilius the pagan admits that he was wrong and Octavius the Christian was right. Caecilius rejoices in this, since he is freed from error and now understands the truth.
There is a lot, lot more in the text than I covered above. Both sides refer to the beliefs of ancient writers and philosophers to make their cases, and there are many additional points that are covered by both. For anyone interested in ancient beliefs, it's a wonderful read. Highly recommended!
Note: I debated the contents of Octavius with Earl Doherty over a lot of years, but this thread isn't about HJ/MJ so I'm not interested in discussing that side. Octavius is just a great read, and one that gives an idea of what pagans believed about Christianity in early times. Quotes are from here: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... avius.html
I'll remind people that I have no academic qualifications in ancient literature and have no knowledge of the ancient languages involved.
Octavius is a discussion between two people, one Christian and one pagan. It's similar in style to Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, in that it provides criticisms of Christian beliefs followed by a Christian's response.
The story starts with the narrator on a walk along the Tiber with his two friends: Octavius (Christian) and Caecilius (pagan). Caecilius, observing an image of Serapis, raised his hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss on it with his lips. Octavius criticises Caecilius for his superstition.
This leads into Caecilius first defending pagan beliefs and then attacking Christian ones. Caecilius makes the point that it is better to believe the gods of tradition rather than new ones:
Since, then, either fortune is certain or nature is uncertain, how much more reverential and better it is, as the high priests of truth, to receive the teaching of your ancestors, to cultivate the religions handed down to you, to adore the gods whom you were first trained by your parents to fear rather than to know with familiarity; not to assert an opinion concerning the deities, but to believe your forefathers, who, while the age was still untrained in the birth-times of the world itself, deserved to have gods either propitious to them, or as their kings. Thence, therefore, we see through all empires, and provinces, and cities, that each people has its national rites of worship, and adores its local gods
Caecilius believes that the Romans allowing the conquered nations to follow their traditional beliefs is why Rome dominates the world:
Thus, in that they [the Romans] acknowledge the sacred institutions of all nations, they have also deserved their dominion. Hence the perpetual course of their veneration has continued, which is not weakened by the long lapse of time, but increased, because antiquity has been accustomed to attribute to ceremonies and temples so much of sanctity as it has ascribed of age.
But Christians want to destroy the beliefs of tradition! So they should be rooted out and destroyed:
And now, as wickeder things advance more fruitfully, and abandoned manners creep on day by day, those abominable shrines of an impious assembly are maturing themselves throughout the whole world. Assuredly this confederacy ought to be rooted out and execrated.
Caecilius then levels his charges against Christians (all quotes below formatted for ease of reading):
They know one another by secret marks and insignia, and they love one another almost before they know one another.
Everywhere also there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust, and they call one another promiscuously brothers and sisters, that even a not unusual debauchery may by the intervention of that sacred name become incestuous: it is thus that their vain and senseless superstition glories in crimes.
Nor, concerning these things, would intelligent report speak of things so great and various, and requiring to be prefaced by an apology, unless truth were at the bottom of it.
I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion,--a worthy and appropriate religion for such manners.
Some say that they worship the virilia of their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their common parent.
I know not whether these things are false; certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rites; and he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve.
Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal, with dark and secret wounds... Thirstily--O horror!--they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs.
Everywhere also there is mingled among them a certain religion of lust, and they call one another promiscuously brothers and sisters, that even a not unusual debauchery may by the intervention of that sacred name become incestuous: it is thus that their vain and senseless superstition glories in crimes.
Nor, concerning these things, would intelligent report speak of things so great and various, and requiring to be prefaced by an apology, unless truth were at the bottom of it.
I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion,--a worthy and appropriate religion for such manners.
Some say that they worship the virilia of their pontiff and priest, and adore the nature, as it were, of their common parent.
I know not whether these things are false; certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rites; and he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that they may worship what they deserve.
Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to harmless blows on the surface of the meal, with dark and secret wounds... Thirstily--O horror!--they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs.
Caecilius continues on with criticisms against the idea of the Christian God:
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.
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.
Octavius then responds. He starts by defending the idea of the Christian God by extensive use of ancient Greek philosophers, concluding that they are in general agreement with Christian ideas about God:
For Cleanthes discoursed of God as of a mind, now of a soul, now of air, but for the most part of reason.
Zeno, his master, will have the law of nature and of God, and sometimes the air, and sometimes reason, to be the beginning of all things. Moreover, by interpreting Juno to be the air, Jupiter the heaven, Neptune the sea, Vulcan to be fire, and in like manner by showing the other gods of the common people to be elements, he forcibly denounces and overcomes the public error.
Chrysippus says almost the same. He believes that a divine force, a rational nature, and sometimes the world, and a fatal necessity, is God; and he follows the example of Zeno in his physiological interpretation of the poems of Hesiod, of Homer, and of Orpheus.
Moreover, the teaching of Diogenes of Babylon is that of expounding and arguing that the birth of Jupiter, and the origin of Minerva, and this kind, are names for other things, not for gods.
For Xenophon the Socratic says that the form of the true God cannot be seen, and therefore ought not to be inquired after. Aristo the Stoic says that He cannot at all be comprehended. And both of them were sensible of the majesty of God, while they despaired of understanding Him.
Plato has a clearer discourse about God, both in the matters themselves and in the names by which he expresses them; and his discourse would be altogether heavenly, if it were not occasionally fouled by a mixture of merely civil belief. Therefore in his Timoeus Plato's God is by His very name the parent of the world, the artificer of the soul, the fabricator of heavenly and earthly things, whom both to discover he declares is difficult, on account of His excessive and incredible power; and when you have discovered Him, impossible to speak of in public. The same almost are the opinions also which are ours.
Zeno, his master, will have the law of nature and of God, and sometimes the air, and sometimes reason, to be the beginning of all things. Moreover, by interpreting Juno to be the air, Jupiter the heaven, Neptune the sea, Vulcan to be fire, and in like manner by showing the other gods of the common people to be elements, he forcibly denounces and overcomes the public error.
Chrysippus says almost the same. He believes that a divine force, a rational nature, and sometimes the world, and a fatal necessity, is God; and he follows the example of Zeno in his physiological interpretation of the poems of Hesiod, of Homer, and of Orpheus.
Moreover, the teaching of Diogenes of Babylon is that of expounding and arguing that the birth of Jupiter, and the origin of Minerva, and this kind, are names for other things, not for gods.
For Xenophon the Socratic says that the form of the true God cannot be seen, and therefore ought not to be inquired after. Aristo the Stoic says that He cannot at all be comprehended. And both of them were sensible of the majesty of God, while they despaired of understanding Him.
Plato has a clearer discourse about God, both in the matters themselves and in the names by which he expresses them; and his discourse would be altogether heavenly, if it were not occasionally fouled by a mixture of merely civil belief. Therefore in his Timoeus Plato's God is by His very name the parent of the world, the artificer of the soul, the fabricator of heavenly and earthly things, whom both to discover he declares is difficult, on account of His excessive and incredible power; and when you have discovered Him, impossible to speak of in public. The same almost are the opinions also which are ours.
Octavius then responds that Rome isn't great because it lets others worship their own gods, but it is in fact corrupted by this:
All their temples are built from the spoils of violence, that is, from the ruins of cities, from the spoils of the gods, from the murders of priests. This is to insult and scorn, to yield to conquered religions, to adore them when captive, after having vanquished them. For to adore what you have taken by force, is to consecrate sacrilege, not divinities.
As often, therefore, as the Romans triumphed, so often they were polluted; and as many trophies as they gained from the nations, so many spoils did they take from the gods. Therefore the Romans were not so great because they were religious, but because they were sacrilegious with impunity.
As often, therefore, as the Romans triumphed, so often they were polluted; and as many trophies as they gained from the nations, so many spoils did they take from the gods. Therefore the Romans were not so great because they were religious, but because they were sacrilegious with impunity.
Octavius states that the pagans believe malicious lies about Christians. Pagans form a judgement without understanding the truth:
BUT how unjust it is, to form a judgment on things unknown and unexamined, as you do! Believe us ourselves when penitent, for we also were the same as you, and formerly, while yet blind and obtuse, thought the same things as you; to wit, that the Christians worshipped monsters, devoured infants, mingled in incestuous banquets...
For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on mortal man, for all his help is put an end to with the extinction of the man...
Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods...
But do you think that we conceal what we worship, if we have not temples and altars? And yet what image of God shall I make, since, if you think rightly, man himself is the image of God? What temple shall I build to Him, when this whole world fashioned by His work cannot receive Him?... certainly the God whom we worship we neither show nor see. Verily for this reason we believe Him to be God, that we can be conscious of Him, but cannot see Him...
These same Egyptians, together with very many of you, are not more afraid of Isis than they are of the pungency of onions, nor of Serapis more than they tremble. at the basest noises produced by the foulness of their bodies. He also who fables against us about our adoration of the members of the priest, tries to confer upon us what belongs really to himself...
For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on mortal man, for all his help is put an end to with the extinction of the man...
Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods...
But do you think that we conceal what we worship, if we have not temples and altars? And yet what image of God shall I make, since, if you think rightly, man himself is the image of God? What temple shall I build to Him, when this whole world fashioned by His work cannot receive Him?... certainly the God whom we worship we neither show nor see. Verily for this reason we believe Him to be God, that we can be conscious of Him, but cannot see Him...
These same Egyptians, together with very many of you, are not more afraid of Isis than they are of the pungency of onions, nor of Serapis more than they tremble. at the basest noises produced by the foulness of their bodies. He also who fables against us about our adoration of the members of the priest, tries to confer upon us what belongs really to himself...
The "Egyptians... are not more afraid of Isis than they are of the pungency of onions" is such a great line!
At the end, not unexpectedly, Caecilius the pagan admits that he was wrong and Octavius the Christian was right. Caecilius rejoices in this, since he is freed from error and now understands the truth.
There is a lot, lot more in the text than I covered above. Both sides refer to the beliefs of ancient writers and philosophers to make their cases, and there are many additional points that are covered by both. For anyone interested in ancient beliefs, it's a wonderful read. Highly recommended!