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Marci Minucii Felicis Octavius

Caput primum

ARGUMENTUM. — Ab ipso dialogi exordio, narrat Minucius quam jucunda eorum quae sibi cum Octavio, dum apud se Romae ageret, contigerant, ac potissimum hujusce disputationis recordatione oblectaretur.

COGITANTI mihi, et cum animo meo Octavii, boni et fidelissimi contubernalis, memoriam recensenti, tanta dulcedo et affectio hominis inhaesit, ut ipse quodammodo mihi viderer in praeterita redire, non ea quae jam transacta et decursa sunt, recordatione revocare. Ita ejus contemplatio, quantum subtracta est oculis, tantum pectori meo, ac pene intimis sensibus, implicata est. Nec immerito discedens vir eximius et sanctus immensum sui desiderium nobis reliquit: utpote quum et ipse tanto nostri semper amore flagraverit, ut et in ludicris et seriis pari mecum voluntate concineret, eadem vellet vel nollet. Crederes unam mentem in duobus fuisse divisam: sic solus in amoribus, conscius ipse, socius in erroribus, et quum, discussa caligine, de tenebrarum profundo in lucem sapientiae et veritatis emergerem, non respuit comitem, sed, quod est gloriosius, praecucurrit. Itaque, cum per universam convictus nostri et familiaritatis aetatem mea cogitatio volveretur, in illo praecipue sermone ejus mentis meae resedit intentio, quo Caecilium, superstitiosis vanitatibus etiam nunc inhaerentem, disputatione gravissima ad veram religionem reformavit.

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The Octavius of Minucius Felix

Chapter I.

--Argument: Minucius Relates How Delightful to Him is the Recollection of the Things that Had Happened to Him with Octavius While He Was Associated with Him at Rome, and Especially of This Disputation.

When I consider and mentally review my remembrance of Octavius, my excellent and most faithful companion, the sweetness and charm of the man so clings to me, that I appear to myself in some sort as if I were returning to past times, and not merely recalling in my recollection things which have long since happened and gone by. Thus, in the degree in which the actual contemplation of him is withdrawn from my eyes, it is bound up in my heart and in my most intimate feelings. And it was not without reason that that remarkable and holy man, when he departed this life, left to me an unbounded regret for him, especially since he himself also glowed with such a love for me at all times, that, whether in matters of amusement or of business, he agreed with me in similarity of will, in either liking or disliking the same things. ¹ You would think that one mind had been shared between us two. Thus he alone was my confidant in my loves, my companion in my mistakes; and when, after the gloom had been dispersed, I emerged from the abyss of darkness into the light of wisdom and truth, he did not cast off his associate, but--what is more glorious still--he outstripped him. And thus, when my thoughts were traversing the entire period of our intimacy and friendship, the direction of my mind fixed itself chiefly on that discourse of his, wherein by very weighty arguments he converted Caecilius, who was still cleaving to superstitious vanities, to the true religion. ²