Primary source · Latin
The Octavius
Minucius Felix · c. AD 197–230
What this text is
A seaside walk at Ostia becomes the most elegant apology in Latin: the pagan Caecilius and the Christian Octavius debate before their advocate friend — and the pagan concedes.
Interlinear passages
Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.
Chapter 38 — the Christian difference
nonnoteloquimurwe speakmagnagreat thingssedbutvivimuswe live them
Public-domain translations
Robert Ernest Wallis (ANF, 1885)
We do not preach great things — we live them… Caecilius broke in: 'I congratulate my Octavius, and myself no less: I have conquered in this sense, that I am conquered by truth.'
Manuscript witnesses
Paris, BnF lat. 1661
9th c.The Octavius survives as 'book VIII' of Arnobius in one Carolingian codex — misfiled, and so preserved.
Provenance
Rome, c. AD 200–240 — the seaside dialogue at Ostia
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- The Octavius of Marcus Minucius Felix (ACW 39)G. W. Clarke, 1974The standard annotated translation.
- Tertullian, Minucius Felix (Loeb 250)G. H. Rendall, 1931Latin text with facing English.