Français – عربي – ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ – English
During the first centuries of the Christian era, North Africa, from its large, cosmopolitan cities to its most remote rural areas, proved to be an especially fertile ground for the Christian Gospel. Minucius Felix, a Roman African Christian, wrote one of the first Christian apologies against Roman paganism.
Marcus Minucius Felix was born around 180, in Thiava, close to Thagaste (Souk Ahras), Numidia. While he had Amazigh origins, his name shows that he was related to the gens Minucia, an old Roman family. He worked as a lawyer in Rome under Emperor Septimius Severus. Originally a pagan, he became a Christian close to the end of his life.
He wrote Octavius, a fictional dialogue between a Christian and a pagan. This book was written for an educated pagan public, in order to convince them of the truth of Christianity. The arguments are mostly inspired from Cicero, as well as from older Greek apologists; a Stoic influence can also be perceived. The author tries to demonstrate that Christianity is compatible with philosophy, by explaining how the truth, the object of the quest of all philosophers, which they all approached without fully finding it, is now revealed in Christ.
Minucius Felix’ Octavius is the first Christian text to condemn abortion.
Minucius Felix’ Octavius might be the oldest Christian apology written in Latin. Tertullian of Carthage‘s Apologetica was written at about the same time, and there are many similarities between both works, which shows that one of the two authors used the other as an inspiration; but we don’t know which one of them wrote first. In both cases, as Tertullian was also African, it is certain that the first Latin-language Christian apology was written by a North African author.
