Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7 (Lactantius, Venantius, Victorinus, Dionysius)

In short, the day had come in which it could no longer be said with strict accuracy that “not many mighty, not many noble, are called”; and Lactantius accepted, as his mission, the enforcement of despised truths before such a class—truths which the great had persecuted in vain for centuries. He drew them to the conclusion that God had indeed “chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are.” Such was the prophecy of St. Paul, and the Labarum The imperial standard of Constantine bearing the Chi-Rho symbol. uplifted by Caesar's legions proclaimed its fulfillment.

I have little doubt that Lactantius was of heathen parentage and was converted late in life. To his eternal honor, he was not a “fair-weather Christian” but boldly confessed the faith amid the fires of the last and most terrible of the great persecutions. Its probable date suggests that his treatise on the persecutors may have been a far-reaching effort to dissuade the Caesars of a later age from trying to restore “the gods to Latium.” I confess my own partiality to our author, and the interest with which his writings continue to impress me even now. In my youth, I brought to his pages an enthusiastic appreciation of the genius that had adorned the very dawn of Christian civilization with works of literary merit not inferior to those of the Augustan age. The crabbed Latin of Tertullian has charms, indeed, of its own sort; it was the shaggy raiment of the ascetic and the confessor, “always bearing about in his own body the dying of the Lord Jesus.” It befitted the age and the man, and those awful realities with which Christians then had to deal. Not words, but things, were their one concern. It is pleasant to find, however, that Christianity is not incapable of meeting all sorts and conditions of men; and Lactantius was doubtless the instrument of Providence in bearing the testimony of Jesus, “even before kings,” in language that promised to Roman letters the new and commanding development imparted by Christianity—a development that has made it imperishable, and more truly “eternal” than Rome itself.

The following is the INTRODUCTORY NOTICE of the reverend translator:

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. It appears, therefore, more remarkable that so little is known with certainty respecting his personal history. We are unable to fix with precision either the place or time of his birth, and even his name has been the subject of much discussion. It is known that he was a pupil of Arnobius, who gave lectures in rhetoric at Sicca in Africa. Hence, it has been supposed that Lactantius was a native of Africa, while others have maintained that he was born in Italy, and that his birthplace was probably Firmium, on the Adriatic. He was likely born about the middle of the third century, since he is spoken of as far advanced in life about A.D. 315. He is usually called “Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius”; but the name Caecilius is sometimes substituted for Caelius, and it is uncertain whether Firmianus is a family name or a local designation. Some have even supposed that he received the name of Lactantius from the “milky” softness of his style.

He attained great eminence as a teacher of rhetoric, and his fame far outstripped the reputation of his master, Arnobius. Such, indeed, was his celebrity that he was invited by the Emperor Diocletian to settle at Nicomedia and there practice his art. He appears, however, to have met with so little success in that city that he was reduced to extreme poverty. Abandoning his profession as a pleader, he devoted himself to literary composition.