Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/746

 Still more may the same be said of Eucherius, who speaks of Minucius (Ep. ad Valer. in Patr. Lat. l. 719). The gens Minucia was widely spread at Rome, and an inscription (Gruter, p. 918) shows among its families one with the cognomen Felix.

The only extant work of Minucius is a dialogue entitled "Octavius," modelled on the philosophical works of Cicero, whose writings, particularly de Natura Deorum and de Divinatione, Minucius has carefully studied. Minucius recalls a conversation of his lately deceased friend Octavius which resulted in the conversion to Christianity of their common friend Caecilius. He tells how Octavius had come to Rome, and gives a charming description of the morning walk on the beach taken by the three friends after they had gone from Rome to Ostia, until at last they sat down for rest and serious discussion on large stones placed for protection of the baths. At the beginning of the walk the heathen Caecilius, as they were passing an image of Serapis, had saluted it, as was customary, by kissing hands, whereupon Octavius charged Minucius with culpable negligence in having allowed his friend to continue in such degrading superstition. Caecilius challenges Octavius to a formal dispute.. The little treatise then divides itself into two parts, containing first a lively attack by Caecilius on the Christian doctrines and practices, then a reply, about twice as long, by Octavius, refuting and retorting the heathen arguments. Each point of the attack is dealt with in order. Caecilius confesses himself vanquished, gladly ranging himself on the conquering side.

The following is an abstract of the arguments used by Caecilius on the heathen side. He censures the presumption of the Christians, who, though unlettered men, venture to pronounce positively on questions about which the greatest philosophers have doubted; he denies that there is any good ground for believing in the existence of a God, since the chance concourse of atoms will sufficiently account for the origin of the world, while the prosperity of the wicked and the misfortunes of the good shew that the world is governed by no Providence. Then shifting his ground, he urges the duty of worshipping the gods whom their ancestors had worshipped, and the folly of rejecting what universal experience and the consent of all nations had found to be salutary. Each nation had its peculiar god: the Romans, the most religious of all, worshipped gods of all nations, and so had attained the highest prosperity. The power of their deities bad been exhibited in many oracles and prodigies; only one or two philosophers had ventured to deny their agency, and one of these, Protagoras, had in consequence been banished by the Athenians. Was it not then deplorable that the gods should be assailed by men of the dregs of the people, who, collecting credulous women and silly men, banded them in a fearful conspiracy, cemented by secret and detestable rites? Tales are repeated, for some of which the authority of Fronto is cited, of the initiation of Christian neophytes by partaking of the blood of a slaughtered infant, and other customary charges. If these things were not true, at least the obscurity in which they shrouded their rites shewed that they were such as they had cause to be ashamed of. These members of an illegal society dreaded to bring their doctrines into the light of day; they had no altars, no temples, no images, and were not even in their manner of worship like the Jews, the only people besides themselves who worshipped that wretched lonely God Who had not been able to save His own people from captivity; yet wished to meddle with everything and pry into every thought and every action. Nor was this the only absurdity of Christian doctrine. They threatened destruction to the world, which always had lasted and was bound together by fixed laws, and said that one day it would be burnt up. Yet for themselves, who were not eternal like the world, but were seen to be born and die, they dared to hope for immortality, and expect that their dust and ashes would live again. In the prospect of this imaginary life they gave up all enjoyment of their real present life, trusting in a God Whose impotence was exhibited in their daily sufferings from which He was unable to save His worshippers. In fine, if the Christians had any modesty, let them give up philosophy, of which their want of education had made them incapable; or if they must philosophize, let them fallow that greatest of philosophers, Socrates, whose maxim was, "What is above us we have nothing to do with," otherwise the result will be either the destruction of all religion or the adoption of anile superstition.

Octavius replies that a hearing shall not be refused to the arguments of Christians because of their low worldly condition. Reason is the common property of all men. It is the rich who, intent on their wealth, are too often unable to lift their eyes to things divine. Some of those afterwards recognized as the greatest philosophers were at first despised as poor and plebeian. He then establishes, by the ordinary arguments from the order of the universe, the existence and providence and unity of God, confirming his conclusions by the authority of various philosophers, whose opinions respecting the Deity he extracts from Cicero's treatise. In proof how natural is the belief in God's unity, he appeals to the common use of the singular Deus, both in common speech and in the writings of the poets. He shews that the gods whom the heathen worshipped were but deified men, and exposes the absurdity of the fables commonly told of them, the folly of image-worship, and the cruelty and licentiousness of the rites by which the gods were honoured. He shews that it is false that the Romans owed their prosperity to their religion, since it was by a multitude of irreligious acts that their empire grew, and because their original native gods, to whom, if to any, must be ascribed the origin of their greatness, had been deposed from their position by the adoption of gods of the conquered peoples. He traces the source of all idolatry to the operation of the demons who, having lost their first estate, desired to draw others into the same ruin as themselves, who inspired oracles, wrought fictitious cures and other pretended miracles to deceive men, and were also the inventors and instigators of