Octavius 17.3

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

Summary: Those who think the world arose by chance are blind.

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Latin text · CSEL 2:21

sacrilegii enim uel maximi instar est, humi quaerere quod in sublimi debeas inuenire. quo magis mihi uidentur qui hunc mundi totius ornatum non diuina ratione perfectum uolunt, sed frustis quibusdam temere cohaerentibus conglobatum, mentem, sensum, oculos denique ipsos non habere.

English · Claude translation

for it is like the greatest sacrilege to seek on the ground what you ought to find on high. So all the more do those seem to me to lack mind, sense, and even eyes themselves, who hold that this ordered beauty of the whole world was not perfected by divine reason but lumped together from certain fragments that happened to stick together.

About this passage

Source: CSEL 2:21 · 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. 17.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/17/3/).

Plain text

Minucius Felix, Oct. 17.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/17/3/).

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