The Church Fathers · c. 160s; lost, echoed in Minucius Felix
Oration Against the Christians
Marcus Cornelius Fronto · c. 100 – c. 170
What it is
A speech by Marcus Aurelius's own tutor, known only through the charges Minucius Felix puts in a pagan's mouth in order to refute them: the infant covered in dough and stabbed by an initiate who does not know what he is cutting, and the lamp overturned at the feast.
Why it lasted
The source of the cannibalism and incest slanders in their most respectable form. That the emperor's rhetoric master made them explains why they were so hard for the apologists to shake off.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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