Complete Works of Lactantius, Vol. I

Lactantius was celebrated with the most splendid praises, and Leonardus Aretinus original: "Leonardo Bruni" embraced him with the most ardent zeal; anyone who read his books seemed to be "steeped in their sweetness as if by ambrosia and nectar" original: De studiis et litteris. And when Antonius Raudensis, of the Order of Friars Minor, had stood out as a most bitter censor of the theologian Lactantius—publishing in 1433 three dialogues "On the Errors of Lactantius," dedicated to Pope Eugenius IV—a certain Adam, a Genoese monk, attacked the man in harsh verses, saying he should be treated with hellebore. Francesco Filelfo, in a letter sent to him, said that this detractor seemed to be "inspired by a certain hostile and inimical spirit," because "he had inveighed against that most learned and eloquent man so insolently, so injuriously, so impiously."

Indeed, Gian Francesco Pico della Mirandola even surpasses these men, when he says: "Who among us does not see that he is a Cicero, but a Christian—that is, someone who has expressed him to a hair's breadth? For who does not notice that Lactantius Firmianus has equaled, and perhaps excelled, him in eloquence?"—in which passage the name of "Christian Cicero" seems to occur for the first time—or he even thinks it a matter of doubt whether he or Cicero was the more excellent in eloquence; he pronounced this opinion even more confidently in another place. Other things can also be brought forward original: Digna etiam est quae legatur Betuleii by which...

1: De studiis et litteris, in the collection titled Collection of Rare Pedagogical Writings of the 16th and 17th Centuries, ed. Israel, fasc. 6 (Zschopau, 1880), p. 5.
2: Besides the editors of Lactantius, Le Brun-Lenglet (I, p. VII) recount this controversy; see G. Voigt, The Revival of Classical Antiquity I² (1880), p. 512. G. F. H. Beck, On the Sources and Authority of the Historian Orosius and on an Unpublished Work of Antonius Raudensis (Marburg Dissertation, 1832), p. 9ff., edited certain parts of the three dialogues of Antonius Raudensis, which have been added to some more recent codices of Lactantius. The individual errors, enumerated through three books, were already prefixed to the editio princeps (first printed edition) of Lactantius (1465) with this inscription: "The errors of Lactantius Firmianus by which he himself was deceived, collected and written down by Brother Antonius Raudensis, theologian."
3: On the Study of Divine and Human Philosophy, Book I, ch. 7 (Opera omnia of Io. Franc. Pico della Mirandola, Basel 1573, p. 21).
4: Letters, Book III, 7 (ibid., p. 1334).
5: Also worthy of reading is Betuleius (ed. 1563, fol. b), "Preface: Where it is debated whether it is fitting that Lactantian writings be correctly read and expounded to youth in schools, instituted against the 'Lactantiomastiges' scourgers of Lactantius."