The “Octavius” of Minucius Felix is one of the most attractive works of early Latin Christianity. It features three friends going to the baths at Ostia, when one of them kisses his hand to a statue of Serapis. Reproved by the other, the three settle down to debate the merits of paganism and Christianity. There is a lovely translation included in the Loeb Tertullian volume.
The “Octavius” is preserved in a 9th century manuscript of the work of Arnobius the Elder against the pagans. This manuscript is now in Paris, where it is BNF lat. 1661, and online. In this manuscript, Minucius Felix appears without identification as “book 8”. It would appear that, when Arnobius was copied from a collection of scrolls into a parchment codex, the modern book form, the scribe found an extra roll in the box. Presuming that it belonged with the rest, he copied it too.
Here’s the beginning of the work, on f.162r:
and here’s the end on folio 190r.
There is no external evidence as to when Minucius Felix wrote. The Quod idola dii non sint attributed to Cyprian makes extensive use of it, or so I understand; but this work itself may not be authentic. If it is, it perhaps dates to 248-9, after Cyprian’s conversion and before his ordination.[1].
But the really thorny question is whether the work is considerably earlier. Is it, in fact, second century, dating to 150 AD or later? Or is it later than Tertullian, whose Apologeticum is securely dated to 197 AD? For quite a large chunk of material that appears in Tertullian’s Apologeticum also appears in Minucius Felix.
As long ago as 2001, I wrote a page online with whatever quotes on the date of the work I could find. It is still here. The tendency was to place Minucius Felix later. Tertullian makes the same arguments in his earlier Ad Nationes, but extends them in the Apologeticum. It is hard to think that Tertullian borrowed some of Minucius Felix in his first work; and then went back and borrowed some more in the second!
But the classic discussion is in C. Becker, Der “Octavius” des Minucius Felix, (1967), p.74–97. I have a feeling that many anglophone scholars have rather shied away from a volume of German. Indeed I have myself not felt any urge this evening to go through 25 pages of German.
Fortunately T. D. Barnes summarises the key points for us, in a review of M. Edwards, M. Goodman, S. Price and C. Rowland, “Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity” in Phoenix 55 (2001), pp.142-162 (JSTOR). On p.150-1 we read (paragraphing mine):
Price reverts to the untenable view that Minucius Felix wrote his Octavius in the late second century before Tertullian (p.111-112). He makes it transparently clear that he has either not read Carl Becker’s proof that Minucius Felix copies Tertullian or not understood the force of Becker’s arguments when he asserts “‘parallels’ cannot establish the priority of either author” (112).
That observation applies only to cases where priority is inferred from a comparison of two texts or authors without any external control.
But Becker did not merely compare the two Christian writers with each other. He first analysed how Minucius Felix adapts Plato, Cicero’s De natura deorum and Seneca (1967: 10-74); only then did he turn to the relationship between Minucius Felix and Tertullian in order to show that the former adapts the latter in exactly the same way as he adapts Plato, Cicero, and Seneca and, furthermore, that in some passages he has combined his Christian model with his pagan sources (1967: 74-97).
It was the introduction of Plato, Cicero, and Seneca into the argument that provided undeniable proof of the priority of Tertullian – as Becker himself explicitly observed (1967: 79-80, 90, 94).
To paraphrase, Minucius is adapting material from Plato, Cicero, and Seneca in a very particular way. The “parallel” material, taken from Tertullian, relates to the text of Tertullian in the same manner as his excerpts from Plato / Cicero / Seneca relate to the original text of Plato / Cicero / Seneca . Indeed he is combining Tertullian with these pagan writers. Tertullian on the other hand is simply writing what he wants to say, and is adapting nobody.