Minucius Felix was a very early Christian apologist; we know next to nothing about him, which made him a candidate for a very brief article in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Why, you ask, would I put such a squib online, considering that the EB1911 entry was copied by Wikipedia and updated, and from there it spread to the four corners of the Net by what is euphemistically called “cloning”? Well, the original article didn’t seem to be online any more; and, as usual, it was far better.
Don’t believe me? Compare them! Here’s the virginal 1911, and here’s the meretricious modern version. I like WP’s nifty touch of deleting the argument for dating it in comparison with Tertullian, then adding “[citation needed]”. Correcting Cyprian’s title is a nice touch too, and disabbreviating the Lactantius title incorrectly: a little learning is a dangerous thing.
A better article than either is to be found in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
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