Octavius 24.1

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

Summary: Animals treat idols as senseless objects, nesting on them.

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Latin text · CSEL 2:34

Quanto uerius de diis uestris animalia muta naturaliter iudicant! mures, hirundines, milui non sentire eos sciunt: rodunt, inculcant, insident, ac nisi abigatis, in ipso dei uestri ore nidificant: araneae uero faciem eius intexunt et de ipso capite sua fila suspendunt.

English · Claude translation

"How much more truly do dumb animals judge naturally about your gods! Mice, swallows, and kites know that they have no feeling: they gnaw them, trample them, sit on them, and unless you drive them off they build their nests in your god's very mouth; and spiders weave over its face and hang their threads from its very head.

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.

Extrabiblical texts

Ep Jer 22 (Letter of Jeremiah) · echo, low confidence

Cite this passage

Minucius Felix, Oct. 24.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/24/1/).

Plain text

Minucius Felix, Oct. 24.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/24/1/).

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