The Apology (Liber Apologeticus)

ON THE LATINITY OF THE AFRICAN FATHERS.

these and other writers of Latin which appears to me most idiomatic in character is not in words, nor in their government, but in the construction of sentences of which the involution is sometimes so intricate and strange, that it seems hardly possible to attribute it to any fanciful collocation of words, but we are compelled to refer it to some other influence, and, most probably, that of another tongue. I had, at one time, collected a few of these sentences to illustrate my remarks, but I found that I could make no arrangement or classification of them, and that I could give no general rule towards their quicker comprehension; and as their quotation would thus be only a simple specimen of what the student will readily enough find for himself, I thought they would be uselessly inserted. There are of course many words and expressions occurring in the African Fathers which will be new to a beginner, but I know of no general formula by which these can be summarily explained; such as are most remarkable in the present treatise are arranged in the index to the volume, and if the corresponding notes be referred to, a short illustration will be found of each, with occasional observations on its usage and date. As I have quoted freely, too, from other authors of this character, some idea may be formed of their ordinary style and idiom, and

CHAP. II.

acquaintance with the poetry, but a presumption of some such knowledge in those whom they addressed. For instance, Minutius Minutius Felix, a 2nd or 3rd-century Christian apologist (c. 18) writes, "When was there ever a partnership of a kingdom that began with trust, or ended without bloodshed? ... The wars of the son-in-law and the father-in-law Refers to Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great have spread over the whole world, and fortune could not contain two in so great an empire," which is a paraphrase of Lucan Roman poet, 39–65 AD (bk. 1, lines 92, 109):

No faith exists among those who share a kingdom, and all power
Will be impatient of a partner.
...
And of a powerful people
Which possesses the sea, which possesses the lands, which possesses the whole world,
Fortune could not contain two.

Lucan indeed seems to have been a favourite author with them, and Lucretius Roman philosopher and poet, c. 99–55 BC even more especially so. The fact was that the poets (Juv.