Minucius Felix

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marcus Minucius Felix was a Roman Christian apologist probably of the later 2nd, possibly also the early 3rd century. His only surviving writing, Octavius , in Latin , defends Christianity against pagan criticism. In terms of language and form, the dialogue is closely based on the Roman educational world.

Life

Little is known about the life of Minucius Felix. The only source for biographical references is the dialogue Octavius himself, a religious argument between the Christian Octavius ​​Ianuarius and the pagan Caecilius Natalis with the author Minucius Felix as arbitrator. From the introduction and framework of the text (a walk on Ostia beach ) it is concluded that the author was probably a lawyer from North Africa who became a Christian at a young age and worked as a successful lawyer in Rome. All further statements about whether the conversation actually took place and whether the other two people were really alive are controversial in the research. Although the names of the three speakers can be found on inscriptions in the area of ​​the North African Cirta , a clear identification is not possible because of the many different namesake.

Work and reception

The Octavius dialogue is a first high point in the conflict between the Christian religion and the pagan world of education and is rhetorical and philosophical on a remarkable level. In it, a platonically educated pagan is converted to Christianity after Minucius Felix has refuted his allegations against Christian doctrine and the behavior of Christians. However, the text is the only apologetic text that does not contain any Christian dogmatics . Even the central Christian terms are missing, in particular Jesus Christ himself is not mentioned. The text is formally and linguistically based on Cicero and Seneca ; There are also phrases from the classical poetic language. On the one hand, this peculiarity has suggested that Minucius Felix was a syncretic heretic ; It is more likely to be an attempt to carefully introduce pagan readers to a philosophically clad Christian world, the terminology of which is subliminally used in many hints.

Due to the agreement of numerous sentences and argumentative arguments of Octavius with the Apologeticum Tertullian , the question is discussed which of the two writers could have served the other as a model or whether there was a common unknown source. Christian late antiquity argued about this problem, which has not yet been resolved; Jerome thought Tertullian was the older author, Lactantius, however, the Minucius Felix. To this day, the research literature has made a number of arguments for both one and the other position. The experience that a later author usually adorns and expands his model would be an argument for the fact that Octavius is the older source.

The text of Octavius can only be deduced from Codex Parisinus 1661 , a manuscript from the 9th century. There is a Codex Bruxellensis 10847 , but it is a copy of Parisinus. The tradition is due to the fact that the title was confused with the numeral octavus (eighth) and so the work was preserved as part of the preceding seven-part text Adversus nationes (Against the Gentiles) by Arnobius . The dialogue first appeared in Rome in 1542, but the editor Fausto Sabeo considered it to be the final part of the Arnobius manuscript, like his model. It was only François Baudouin who realized that this was an independent work and published the actual first edition of Octavius in Heidelberg in 1560 .

Editions and Commentary

  • Jean Beaujeu (ed.): Minucius Felix. Octavius . Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1964 (critical edition with French translation).
  • Bernhard Kytzler (Ed.): M. Minuci Felicis Octavius . 2nd Edition. Teubner, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-8154-1539-X (authoritative critical edition).
  • Christoph Schubert : Minucius Felix "Octavius" . In: Commentary on early Christian apologists (KfA) , Volume 12, ed. Norbert Brox, Kurt Niederwimmer, Horacio E. Lona, Ferdinand R. Prostmeier, Jörg Ulrich. Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-451-29049-7 (German translation with detailed commentary).

literature

Overview representations

Investigations

  • Carl Becker : The "Octavius" of Minucius Felix. Pagan philosophy and early Christian apologetics . Publishing house of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 1967.
  • Christiane Ingremeau: Minucius Felix et ses sources. Le travail de l'écrivain . In: Revue des études augustiniennes et patristiques 45, 1999, pp. 3–20.
  • Pieter G. van der Nat: On the requirements of Christian Latin literature: The testimonies of Minucius Felix and Laktanz . In: Manfred Fuhrmann (Ed.): Christianisme et formes littéraires de l'antiquité tardive en occident . Fondation Hardt, Geneva 1977, pp. 191-234.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Caecilius Natalis: CIL 8, 6996 , CIL 8, 7094 , CIL 8, 7095 , CIL 8, 7096 , CIL 8, 7097 , CIL 8, 7098 ; Minucius Felix: CIL 8, 1964 ; CIL 8, 12499 ; Octavius ​​Ianuarius: CIL 8, 8962 .
personal data
SURNAME Minucius Felix
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Minucius Felix, Marcus; Felix, Marcus Minucius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Christian writer and lawyer in ancient times
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd century or 3rd century
PLACE OF BIRTH North africa
DATE OF DEATH 2nd century or 3rd century