Sophia Scriptura

Octavius 22.2

Minucius Felix · Octavius · ca. 197–250 · Rome · Read in context

Summary: It is absurd to mourn one's gods; the Eleusinian rites act out Ceres' search for her daughter.

Latin text · CSEL 2:31

nonne ridiculum est uel lugere quod colas uel colere quod lugeas? haec tamen Aegyptia quondam nunc et sacra Romana sunt. Ceres facibus accensis et serpente circumdata errore subreptam et corruptam Liberam anxia et sollicita uestigat: haec sunt Eleusinia. et quae Iouis sacra sunt?

English · Claude translation

Is it not ridiculous either to mourn what you worship or to worship what you mourn? Yet these rites, once Egyptian, are now Roman too. Ceres, with lighted torches and girt with a serpent, anxiously and fearfully tracks Libera, stolen away and defiled in her wandering: these are the Eleusinian rites. And what are the rites of Jupiter?

About this passage

Source
CSEL 2:31 · Karl Halm, ed., M. Minucii Felicis Octavius; Iulii Firmici Materni Liber de errore profanarum religionum, CSEL 2 (Vienna: Gerold, 1867), 1–56 · Latin text: K. Halm (CSEL 2, 1867), digitized by Open Greek and Latin, University of Leipzig (csel-dev), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in CSEL 2. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Latin text of CSEL 2; made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made) · Divided there by chapter only.

Cite this passage

Minucius Felix, Oct. 22.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/22/2/).

Plain text
Minucius Felix, Oct. 22.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/22/2/).

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