Sophia Scriptura

Octavius 28.3

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

Summary: As advocates they defended criminals but tortured Christians to make them deny their faith.

Latin text · CSEL 2:41

nos tamen cum sacrilegos aliquos et incestos, parricidas etiam defendendos et tuendos suscipiebamus, hos nec audiendos in totum putabamus, nonnumquam etiam miserantes eorum crudelius saeuiebamus, ut torqueremus confitentes ad negandum, uidelicet ne perirent, exercentes in his peruersam quaestionem, non quae uerum erueret, sed quae mendacium cogeret.

English · Claude translation

Yet when we undertook to defend and protect some who were sacrilegious and incestuous, even parricides, we thought these people should not be heard at all; sometimes even, pitying them, we raged more cruelly, so as to torture those who confessed into denying, that is, so that they would not perish, exercising on them a perverse inquiry, not one that would dig out the truth but one that would compel a lie.

About this passage

Source
CSEL 2:41 · 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.
Topics
Persecution, Martyrdom

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (OCR: words run together.): etincestos → et incestos.

Cite this passage

Minucius Felix, Oct. 28.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/28/3/).

Plain text
Minucius Felix, Oct. 28.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/28/3/).

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