Octavius 5.10 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Disasters kill good and bad without distinction.

Latin text · CSEL 2:8

quid tempestates loquar uarias et incertas, quibus nullo ordine uel examine rerum omnium impetus uolutatur? in naufragiis bonorum malorumque fata mixta, merita confusa? in incendiis interitum conuenire insontium nocentiumque? et cum tabe pestifera caeli tractus inficitur, sine discrimine omnes deperire? et cum belli ardore saeuitur, meliores potius occumbere?

English · Claude translation

Why should I speak of the varied and uncertain storms, by which the onset of all things is tossed about without order or weighing? In shipwrecks, are not the fates of good and bad mixed together, their deserts confused? In fires, do not innocent and guilty meet the same death? And when a tract of the sky is infected with a pestilent plague, do not all perish without distinction? And when war rages hotly, do not the better men rather fall?

About this passage

Source

CSEL 2:8 · 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. 5.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/5/10/).

Plain text

Minucius Felix, Oct. 5.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/minucius-octavius/5/10/).