Octavius 17.10

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

Summary: The landscape and animals' natural defences show design.

BothLatinEnglish

Latin text · CSEL 2:22

quid loquar apte disposita recta montium, collium flexa, porrecta camporum? quidue animantium loquar aduersus sese tutelam multiformem? alias armatas cornibus, alias dentibus saeptas et fundatas ungulis et spicatas aculeis aut pedum celeritate liberas aut elatione pinnarum?

English · Claude translation

Why should I speak of the fitting arrangement of the steep mountains, the curves of the hills, the stretches of the plains? Or why speak of the manifold defences of living creatures against one another: some armed with horns, some hedged with teeth and grounded on hooves and spiked with stings, or set free by speed of foot or by soaring on wings?

About this passage

Source: CSEL 2:22 · 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. 17.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/17/10/).

Plain text

Minucius Felix, Oct. 17.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/17/10/).

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