Sophia Scriptura

Octavius 24.2

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

Summary: People worship out of habit and inherited error, and many Roman rites are ridiculous or pitiable.

Latin text · CSEL 2:34

uos tergetis, mundatis, eraditis et illos, quos facitis protegitis, et timetis, dum unusquisque uestrum non cogitat prius se debere deum nosse quam colere, dum inconsulte gestiunt parentibus oboedire, dum fieri malunt alieni erroris accessio quam sibi credere, dum nihil ex his quae timent norunt. sic in auro et argento auaritia consecrata est, sic statuarum inanium consignata forma, sic nata Romana superstitio: quorum ritus si percenseas, ridenda quam multa, quam multa etiam miseranda sunt!

English · Claude translation

You wipe, clean, and scrape them, and you protect and fear those whom you make; while none of you considers that he ought to know God before he worships him; while they are rashly eager to obey their parents; while they prefer to become an addition to another's error rather than trust themselves; while they know nothing of what they fear. So in gold and silver avarice has been consecrated; so the form of empty statues has been set up; so Roman superstition was born. If you review its rites, how many are ridiculous, how many even pitiable!

About this passage

Source
CSEL 2:34 · 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.

Notes

Translation notes

  • The digital text has no section 24.3.

Cite this passage

Minucius Felix, Oct. 24.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/24/2/).

Plain text
Minucius Felix, Oct. 24.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/24/2/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage