Octavius 30.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Only someone capable of killing an infant could believe Christians do it.

Latin text · CSEL 2:43

Illum iam uelim conuenire, qui initiari nos dicit aut credit de caede infantis et sanguine. putas posse fieri, ut tam molle, tam paruulum corpus fata uulnerum capiat? ut quisquam illum rudem sanguinem nouelli et uixdum hominis caedat, fundat, exhauriat? nemo hoc potest credere nisi qui possit audere.

English · Claude translation

"Now I should like to meet the man who says or believes that we are initiated by the slaughter and blood of an infant. Do you think it possible that so tender, so tiny a body could receive fatal wounds? That anyone could slay, shed, and drain the fresh blood of a new-born and scarcely human being? No one can believe this except one who could dare to do it.

About this passage

Source

CSEL 2:43 · 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. 30.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/30/1/).

Plain text

Minucius Felix, Oct. 30.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/30/1/).