Marcus Minucius Felix
Marcus Minucius Felix was a lateinischsprachiger apologist probably late 2nd, possibly even in the early 3rd century. His only surviving writing Octavius defends Christianity against pagan attacks. Language and form, the dialogue closely in line with the Roman world of education.
Life
Little is known about the life of Minucius Felix. The only source for biographical notes is the dialogue Octavius himself, a religious dispute between the Christians and the pagans Octavius Januarius Caecilius Natalis with the author Minucius Felix as arbitrators. From the introduction and background story of the text ( a walk on the beach of Ostia) it is concluded that it probably consisted with the author of a originate from North Africa lawyer who became a Christian at a young age and was a successful lawyer in Rome. All other statements about whether the conversation actually took place and the other two people really lived, are controversial in research. Although the names of the three speakers are found on inscriptions in the area of the North African Cirta, but it is not possible to be uniquely identified because of the many different namesakes.
Work and reception
The Octavius dialogue is a first climax in the confrontation of the Christian religion to the pagan world of education and moves rhetorically and philosophically at significant levels. Therein, a platonic educated Heath is converted to Christianity after Minucius Felix has exhausted its allegations against the Christian doctrine and behavior of Christians. However, the text as a single apologetic document contains no Christian dogmatics. It lacks even the central Christian terms, especially Jesus Christ himself is not mentioned. The text also leans formal language clearly influenced by Cicero and Seneca; also emerge expressions of classical poetic language. This feature has made the one hand suggest that there had been at Minucius Felix is a syncretic heretics; likely it probably involves acting to attempt a careful pre- pagan readers a philosophically be dressed Christian life world whose concepts subliminally brought to bear in many hints.
Given the coincidence of numerous sets and argumentative reasoning of Octavius with the Apologeticum of Tertullian, the question is discussed, which could have served as a template the other of the two writers, or whether there has been a common unknown source. Already late antiquity argued about this unresolved problem; Jerome held Tertullian for the original author, Lactantius, Minucius Felix the. To date, a number of arguments are necessary both for the one as well as the other position from the research literature. The experience that a later author usually embellishes its original and extended, and about an argument that it is the older source at Octavius .
The text of the Octavius is to develop solely from the Codex Pari sine 1661, a manuscript of the ninth century. While there is a Codex Bruxellensis 10847, which is but a copy of the Pari Sinus. The tradition is due to the fact that the title with the number word Octavus (eighth ) was confused and so the work nationes as part of the preceding seven-part writing Adversus ( Against the Pagans ) of Arnobius retained. The dialogue was first published in 1543 in Rome, but held him the editor Fausto Sabeo as his template for the final part of Arnobius manuscript. Only François Baudouin realized that it was a question of an independent work, and published in 1560 in Heidelberg, the actual first edition of Octavius .
Expenditure
- Jean Beaujeu (ed.): Minucius Felix. Octavius . Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1964 ( critical edition with French translation ).
- Bernhard Kytzler (Ed.): M. MINUCI Felicis Octavius . Teubner, 2nd edition, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3- 8154-1539 -X ( authoritative critical edition ).