Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The Latin text of the Apologeticum is the rather elderly 1851 Oehler text; the text of De Spectaculis is that from the serviceable 1890 Vienna edition (CSEL 20). The translation by T.R.Glover is very readable. There are a small number of critical notes at the foot of the Latin, although not a critical apparatus by any means, and a useful preface. Glover draws attention to the difficult problem of the dual Latin text and possible two editions of the Apologeticum. A modern bibliography is on the fly-leaf.
The Apologeticum is Tertullian's most important work, and this is a sterling translation of it. While the edition is now somewhat aged (from the 20's, I would guess), it still is one of the best introductions to Tertullian.
De Spectaculis is a rare work by Tertullian, preserved only in a single manuscript, and this edition makes it readily available.
The volume is completed with a Latin text and pleasant English translation of the Octavius of Minucius Felix. This last work deserves to be better known than it is. Preserved by the slenderest of threads, the little book describes three friends walking along the beach at Ostia, and then holding a Ciceronian debate about the truth or falsehood of the Christians.
Note that, as with all the older editions, a portion of the Latin of the Octavius which is obscene is left untranslated.
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The African Q. Septimus Florens Tertullianus (ca. 150–222 CE), the great Christian writer, was born a soldier's son at Carthage, educated in Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, and medicine, studied law and became a pleader, remaining a clever and often tortuous arguer. At Rome he became a learned and militant Christian. After a visit to churches in Greece (and Asia Minor?) he returned to Carthage and in his writings there founded a Christian Latin language and literature, toiling to fuse enthusiasm with reason; to unite the demands of the Bible with the practice of the Church; and to continue to vindicate the Church's possession of the true doctrine in the face of unbelievers, Jews, Gnostics, and others. In some of his many works he defended Christianity, in others he attacked heretical people and beliefs; in others he dealt with morals. In this volume we present Apologeticus and De Spectaculis.
Of Minucius, an early Christian writer of unknown date, we have only Octavius, a vigorous and readable debate between an unbeliever and a Christian friend of Minucius, Octavius Ianuarius, a lawyer sitting on the seashore at Ostia. Minucius himself acts as presiding judge. Octavius wins the argument. The whole work presents a picture of social and religious conditions in Rome, apparently about the end of the second century.
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