Lactantius

Abstract

Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius (c. 250–c. 325 ce) was a Christian Latin author during the Diocletianic persecution and the times of Constantine the Great. Lactantius was born in Africa, studied with the rhetor Arnobius in Sicca Veneria, and became a teacher of rhetoric himself. In about 290, Emperor Diocletian offered him a chair at the court at Nicomedia, one of the new imperial residences of the Tetrarchy. There, in 303 the author faced the beginning of the Diocletianic persecution. The injustice he believed was being done to the Christians is of utmost importance for Lactantius. In order to become the champion of the oppressed, he resolved to defend and explain the Christian faith. His first two writings conceal their Christian character: The elegy on the Phoenix (De ave Phoenice) tries to illustrate the idea of resurrection by retelling the myth of the fabulous bird which dies and comes to life again; with it Lactantius establishes a Christian Latin poetry in the classical manner. His treatise On the Workmanship of God (De opificio dei) gives a detailed account of human physiology, which suggests that it was created through the working of God’s providence. In his magnum opus, the seven books entitled Divine Institutes (Divinae institutiones), consisting of more than six hundred modern pages, Lactantius gives an apologetic overall sketch of Christian teaching for pagan readers. The Divine Institutes were finished before 311, as the whole work suggests that persecution was still in progress while it was being written. Soon after the end of persecution, i.e., in 313/314, Lactantius composed his brief work On the Deaths of the Persecutors (De mortibus persecutorum), the first Latin treatise on ecclesiastical history. When Constantine appointed Lactantius to be tutor to his son Crispus, Lactantius came to the imperial court at Trier. In the following years, Lactantius wrote On the Anger of God (De ira dei), which argues that God does indeed show wrath, and also a short version of his Divine Institutes (Epitome divinarum institutionum). An unfinished second edition of the whole Divine Institutes, which contains dedications to the emperor Constantine and passages explaining the author’s dualistic worldview, presupposes the political conditions of 324 and thus dates the author’s death to 324/325. Lactantius was read in Late Antiquity, but was often supposed to be theologically outdated or problematic. In the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, however, the “Christian Cicero,” as he was called then, was greatly admired for the way he used classical style, rhetoric, poetry, education, and mythology to explain Christianity. The Divine Institutes are contained in the first book which was printed in Italy.