Lactantius

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For the 4th-century author, see Lactantius Placidus.
Fourth-century mural possibly depicting Lactantius

Lucius Caecilius Firmianus signo Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) was an

Institutiones Divinae ("The Divine Institutes"), an apologetic
treatise intended to establish the reasonableness and truth of Christianity to pagan critics.

He is best known for his apologetic works, widely read during the

The Phoenix, which is based on the myth of the phoenix from Egypt and Arabia.[2] Though the poem is not clearly Christian in its motifs, modern scholars have found some literary evidence in the text to suggest the author had a Christian interpretation of the eastern myth as a symbol of resurrection.[3]

Biography

Lactantius was of Punic

Sicca Veneria, an important city in Numidia (corresponding to today's city of El Kef in Tunisia). In his early life, he taught rhetoric in his native town, which may have been Cirta in Numidia, where an inscription mentions a certain "L. Caecilius Firmianus".[7]

Lactantius had a successful public career at first. At the request of the

persecutions.[9] Having converted to Christianity, he resigned his post[10] before Diocletian's purging of Christians from his immediate staff and before the publication of Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" (February 24, 303).[11]

As a Latin rhetor in a Greek city, he subsequently lived in poverty according to

Constantine I in 326. The time and circumstances of Lactantius' death are unknown.[13]

Works

Like many of the early Christian authors, Lactantius depended on

Saint Jerome praised his writing style while faulting his ability as a Christian apologist, saying: "Lactantius has a flow of eloquence worthy of Tully: would that he had been as ready to teach our doctrines as to pull down those of others!"[14] Similarly, the early humanists called him the "Christian Cicero" (Cicero Christianus).[13] A translator of the Divine Institutes wrote: "Lactantius has always held a very high place among the Christian Fathers, not only on account of the subject-matter of his writings, but also on account of the varied erudition, the sweetness of expression, and the grace and elegance of style, by which they are characterized."[15]

Prophetic exegesis

Beginning of Lactantius’ Divinae institutiones in a Renaissance manuscript written in Florence ca. 1420–1430 by Guglielmino Tanaglia

Like many writers in the first few centuries of the early church, Lactantius took a premillennialist view, holding that the second coming of Christ will precede a millennium or a thousand-year reign of Christ on earth. According to Charles E. Hill, "With Lactantius in the early fourth century we see a determined attempt to revive a more “genuine” form of chiliasm."[16] Lactantius quoted the Sibyls extensively (although the Sibylline Oracles are now considered to be pseudepigrapha). Book VII of The Divine Institutes indicates a familiarity with Jewish, Christian, Egyptian and Iranian apocalyptic material.[17]

Attempts to determine the time of the End were viewed as in contradiction to Acts 1:7: "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority,"[17] and Mark 13:32: "But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Apologetics

He wrote

apologetic works explaining Christianity in terms that would be palatable to educated people who still practiced the traditional religions of the Empire. He defended Christian beliefs against the criticisms of Hellenistic philosophers
. His Divinae Institutiones ("Divine Institutes") were an early example of a systematic presentation of Christian thought.

  • Constantine's vision of the Chi Rho before his conversion to Christianity. The full text is found in only one manuscript, which bears the title Lucii Caecilii liber ad Donatum Confessorem de Mortibus Persecutorum.[13]
Page from the Opera, a manuscript from 1465, featuring various colours of pen-work
  • An Epitome of the Divine institutes is a summary treatment of the subject.[15]

Other works

Later heritage

For unclear reasons, he became considered somewhat heretical after his death. The Gelasian Decree of the 6th century condemns his work as apocryphal and not to be read.[24] Renaissance humanists took a renewed interest in him, more for his elaborately rhetorical Latin style than for his theology. His works were copied in manuscript several times in the 15th century and were first printed in 1465 by the Germans Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweynheim at the Abbey of Subiaco. This edition was the first book printed in Italy to have a date of printing, as well as the first use of a Greek alphabet font anywhere, which was apparently produced in the course of printing, as the early pages leave Greek text blank. It was probably the fourth book ever printed in Italy. A copy of this edition was sold at auction in 2000 for more than $1 million.[25]

See also

References

  1. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser
    , The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000.
  2. ^ Shumaker, Heather. "The Phoenix through the Ages". Swarthmore College Bulletin. Retrieved 17 Nov 2022.
  3. ISBN 9780415187824
    .
  4. ^ Thompson, James Westfall; Holm, Bernard J. (1967). A History of Historical Writing: From the earliest times to the end of the seventeenth century. P. Smith.
  5. ^ Annales de la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de l'arrondissement de Saint-Malo (in French). 1957. p. 83.
  6. ^ Dérives (in French). 1985. p. 15.
  7. ^ Harnack, Chronologie d. altchr. Lit., II,416
  8. ISBN 0-8018-6253-1
    . Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  9. ^ Paul Stephenson, Constantine, Roman Emperor, Christian Victor, 2010:104.
  10. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (15th ed.). 1993.
  11. ^ Stephenson 2010:106.
  12. ^ Barnes, Timothy, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire, 2011, p. 177-8.
  13. ^ a b c d e f  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Healy, Patrick (1910). "Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  14. ISBN 978-1-935228-20-2
    , p. xviii.
  15. ^ a b c W. Fletcher (1871). The Works of Lactantius.
  16. ^ Hill, Charles E., "Why the Early Church Finally Rejected Premillennialism", Modern Reformation, Jan/Feb 1996, p. 16
  17. ^
    ISBN 9780231112574
  18. ^ The Rubrics of the First Book of Lactantius Firmianus's On the Divine Institutes Against the Pagans Begin. 2011-10-17. Retrieved 2014-03-01. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  19. Catholic University of America Press
    (1964)
  20. ^ Charlesworth, James Hamilton, The Odes of Solomon, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1973, pp. 1, 82
  21. ^ Lactantius, Divine Institutes, Book III Chapter XXIV
  22. ^ Nicholas Copernicus (1543), The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
  23. ^ Lactantius. On the Deaths of the Persecutors, p. xix.
  24. ^ Gelasian Decree
  25. ^ "Lot 65 Sale 6417 LACTANTIUS, Lucius Coelius Firmianus (c. 240–c. 320). Opera". Retrieved 2010-12-29.

Sources

External links

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