Lactantius
Home > Church Fathers > Lactantius Lactantius At a Glance Treatise Genre: (4/5) ***** Reliability of Dating: (3/5) *** Length of Text: Greek Original Language: Ancient Translations: Modern Translations: English Estimated Range of Dating: 303-316 A.D. Chronological List of Early Christian Writings Discuss this text on the Early Writings forum. Text Ante-Nicene Fathers: Lactantius The Works of Lactantius Latin Text: Lactantius Resources Catholic Encyclopedia: Lactantius Offsite Links The Non-Cyprianic Scripture Texts in Lactantius' Divine Institutes On the Question of Constantine's Conversion to Christianity Lactantius Opposed Prayer to the Dead Was Lactantius an Arian? Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity The Sources for Lactantius - Lactantius as a Source Metaphorical Approach in Lactantius' Theology and Cosmology Lactantius' De Ira Dei: An Explication of the Arguments and Study of Lactantius' Treatment of Greco-Roman Philosophy Lactantius on the Function of the Two Ways Books Lewis Ayres, Frances Young, and Andrew Louth, Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, pp.
259-265 Siegmar Dpp and Wilhelm Geerlings, Dictionary of Early Christian Literature, pp. 366-367 Claudio Moreschini and Enrico Norelli, Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, Vol. 1, pp. 398-405 Johannes Quasten, Patrology (4 Volume Set), Vol. 2, pp. 392-410 Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on Lactantius K. H. Schwarte lists his works as De opificio Dei, which was "composed in 303/304 and emulating Cicero, this is a cryptochristian (because of the persecution) treatise on the human being as a successful work of God that is obliged to venerate its creator"; Divinae institutiones, which was "published in a first version between 304 and 311, expanded beginning in 324 by speeches of the emperor and dualistic additions, and in this version published perhaps only after Lactantius's death"; Epitome divinarum institutionum, which was "a summary of the principal work ...
after 314, probably between the first and second edition of inst."; De ira Dei, "a defense of the biblical picture of an angry and, in his anger, justly punishing God"; De mortibus persecutorum, "a politically inspired medition on persecutions of Christians down to 313 ... the time of composition can be narrowed down to the period from the end of 313 to the summer of 316"; and De ave Phoenice, "a poem of eighty-five distichs, written probably between 303 and 311, on the phoenix, a marvelous bird who appears first in Herodotus 2.37 and, in a Christian interpretation, in 1 Clem 25f." (Dictionary of Early Christianity, pp. 366-367) Claudio Moreschini writes, "As noted above, a bond of teacher and student joined Arnobius to Lactantius, who was likewise an apologist but took a far different approach and had a wider range of views.
Lactantius marks the end of the age of apologetics in the West, but his apologetics are already much more different from those of Tertullian, thus reflecting the changing times. We have seen that apologetics was no longer a matter of defense and controversy but could also be exhortatory, as in Minucius Felix. Now, for Lactantius, it becomes a tool of controversy with pagans and therefore, while more learned, also less specifically Christian. The ability to debate and teach, to broaden the scope of one's research, and to explore problems without aprioristic exclusions, but rather with the outlook of a Christian who lives in this world and peacefully awaits the end time, was not valued in the later centuries of early Christianity.
Jerome writes sourly: 'Would that he had been able to teach our doctrines with the same ease with which he could tear down those of others!' (Epist. 58.10)." (Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, vol. 1, p. 398) Oliver Nicholson writes, "Lactantius, taught by Arnobius at Sicca, had acquired wider horizons than his master by the time he wrote his surviving works in later life. He was called to be professor of Latin rhetoric at the imperial city of Nicomedia in Asia Minor (Jerome, Vir. Ill. 80), in extreme old age he was tutor to the son of the Emperor Constantine (Jerome, Chron. p. 230e Helm), and there may even be political overtones to his elegant elegiacs On the Phoenix.