apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS. 535
Protest. Theol. 1881, p. 485 sq) has attempted to answer Ebert, and he has succeeded
in convincing Salmon (Smith and Wace Diet, of Christ. Biogr. s. v. Minucius Felix).
Again Schultze himself has been answered by Schwenke [yahrb. f. Protest. Theol.
1883, p. 263 sq), and his reply is as convincing as it is acute. The relation of
Minucius Felix to Celsus has been considered by Keim (I.e. p. 157 sq), and his
resemblances to Athenagoras are discussed by Loesche {Jahrb. f. Protest. Theol.
1882, p. 168 sq), but nothing tangible is elicited, so far as regards the date (see above,
P- 530).
The priority of Minucius being assumed, Keim saw reasons for dating the
Oetavius x.T). 177. One of his strongest arguments was the supposed mention of a
'
divided sovereignty in § 29 principibus et regibus ', § 33 ' reges statum regni sui etc.',
§ 37 'adversus reges et principes'; but these are obviously general expressions and
have no reference whatever to the actual sovereignty of Rome at the time (see above,
p. 530). Yet this frail
argument is repeated by Aube, Gorres, and Schultze, without
misgiving. The last-mentioned writer even sees a reference in 'reges et principes'
to the two Augusti and two Cassars of the time of Diocletian, to which age he assigns
the work ;
but in doing so, he is obliged to condemn as spurious Cyprian's work De
Idolorum Vanitate, which is largely indebted to the Oetaviics. On this point see
MoUer (Jahrb.f. Protest. Theol. 1881, p. 757). Schultze has not succeeded, so far
as I have observed, in carrying any one with him in his view as to the late date. On
the other hand Schwenke (p. 289) points to another passage, which shows clearly that
there cannot have been a divided sovereignty when Minucius wrote. In § 18 speaking
societas aut cum fide
of the unity of the Deity he writes, ' Quando umquam regni
coepit aut sine cruore desiit' After giving some illustrations, and among these the
wars of Caesar
'
and Pompeius, generi et soceri bella toto orbe diffusa sunt, et tani
magni imperii duos fortuna non cepit,' he continues, ' Vide cetera : rex unus apibus,
dux unus in gregibus, in armentis rector unus : tu in caelo summam majestatem dividi
credas et scindi veri illius ac divini imperii totam potestatem How ' could he possibly
have asked the question ' Quando umquam ', if he were actually living under the
joint sovereignty of M. Aurelius and Commodus — (a.d. 177 180), and had witnessed
—
only a few years before (a.d. 161 169) the joint sovereignty of M. Aurelius and
L, Verus In neither case did the partnership of the empire commence in distrust or
end in bloodshed. For this reason Schwenke is disposed to place the Octavitis
at the close of the reign of Antoninus Pius (about a.d. 160) ;
and I see no better
solution.
It can hardly be placed much earlier, owing to the mention of Fronto (§§ 9, 31;
see above, p. 529), ' '
Cirtensis noster ', tuus Fronto '. The last we hear of Fronto is
in A.D. 166, and it is not probable that he survived much later. The references to
him in the Oetaviiis do not require us to suppose him dead at the time, but rather
suggest that he was still living. It was an ' Oration ' written or delivered by Fronto,
in which he had attacked the Christians. The reference therefore is much more
natural soon after the attack, than it would be if this Apology were written much
later, say in the reign of Diocletian, or even in that of Alexander Severus. In favour
of this last-mentioned date it has been urged that a Csecilius Natalis (the name of the
interlocutor in this dialogue) is mentioned in several inscriptions at Cirta (C /. L.
6996, 7094 — 7098), one of them dated a.d. 210 (Dessau in Hermes 1880, p. 471 sq ;
comp. Salmon I.e. p. 924). But the M. Ccecilius Q. F. Natalis of these inscriptions,
though doubtless a member of the same family, may just as well have been the son
or grandson of the interlocutor, as the interlocutor himself.