Octavius 27.2 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Demons cause illness and then 'cure' it to win worship.

Latin text · CSEL 2:39–40

nam et falluntur et fallunt, ut et nescientes sinceram ueritatem et quam sciunt, in perditionem sui non confitentes. sic a caelo deorsum grauant et a Deo uero ad materias auocant, uitam turbant, somnos inquietant, inrepentes etiam corporibus occulte ut spiritus tenues morbos fingunt, terrent mentes, membra distorquent, ut ad cultum sui cogant, ut nidore altarium uel hostiis pecudum saginati, remissis quae constrinxerant, curasse uideantur.

English · Claude translation

For they are both deceived and deceive, being both ignorant of the pure truth and, what truth they know, not confessing it, to their own ruin. So they drag men down from heaven and call them away from the true God to material things; they disturb life, trouble sleep; creeping secretly into bodies too, as subtle spirits, they feign diseases, terrify minds, twist limbs, so as to force men to worship them; so that, fattened by the smoke of altars and the victims of cattle, when they have loosed what they had bound, they may seem to have cured it.

About this passage

Source

CSEL 2:39–40 · 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. 27.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/27/2/).

Plain text

Minucius Felix, Oct. 27.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/27/2/).