2. An Ejntome of the Institutes, dedicated to Pentadius, is appended to the larger work, and is attributed to Lac- tantius by Jerome, who describes it as being even in his time ciKe^aKog. All the early editions of this abridg- ment begin at the sixteenth chapter of the fifth book of the original. But in the 18th centurj' a IMS. con- taining nearly the entire work was discovered in the royal library at Turin, and was published bj' C. M. Pfaff, chancellor of the University of Tiibingen (Paris, 1712). Walchius and others have doubted the genuineness of this Epitome, but Jerome's assertion appears to us con- clusive.
3. De Jra Dei (On the Anger of God). It has often been observed how the Greek philosophy, and, follow- ing its lead, the heretical Gnosis, could not reconcile jus- tice and goodness. This had also struck Lactantius, and awakened in him the thought of proving in this treatise that the abhorrence of evil and primitive jus- tice are necessarj' and fundamental attributes of the di- vine Being. In the judgment of Jerome, this work is composed with equal learning and elofiuence. Its date is probably somewhat later than that of the Institutes.
The system both of the Epicureans and of the Stoics excluded all reaction of God against the wicked. The former, in order not to disturb God's indolent repose; the latter, in order not to transfer to the idea of God hu- man characteristics, would know nothing of any vital or essential manifestation of the Deity in the course of the world or towards mankind. Lactantius showed how, on the contrary, in the worthy idea of God's essence and operation, the conception of providence cannot be want- ing ; and how, moreover, complacency towards the good has, as its natural countcr|iart, the detestation of its op- posite, the evil. Bcf ides, religion is incontcstably found- ed in the nature of man ; but, if we assume that God is not angry with the wicked, or does not avenge the trans- gressions of his commands, from religion are withdrawn, by consequence, its rational motive and all its founda- tions. If there is a moral distinction among actions, it is impossible that God should stand affected in the same manner towards the one as towards the other, and that without its being necessar}', in consequence, to ascribe to God likewise passions or affections which consist in a weakness, as, for example, fear. When Epicurus objects that God could punish — if punish he must — without any emotion within himself, Lactantius replies : the view of the evil must of itself provoke the will of any being who is good to a counter emotion, and it cannot be indifler- ent to the lawgiver how his precepts shall be observed. The disproportion of the external fortunes of the good and the bad in the present life proves nothing to the contrary when we consider the proper attitude and es- sence of virtue, etc. The whole he confirms by declara- tions of the prophets, and especially of the sibyls.
4. De Opijicio Dei, rel forviatione hoviinis (On Cre- ation).— This is thought to be the first-fruits of the Christian genius of Lactantius, since, judging from the introduction, the persecution was still in progress. The book is dedicated to a certain Demctrianus, who, having been his disciple, w-as now an officer of state ; it is espe- cially directed against the prevailing philosophy, and therefore the presentation of the subject is kept, in form and spirit, upon this basis. Tlie subject of the treatise is the organization of human nature, which Cicero, he says, has more than once superficially touched upon in
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his philosophical writings, but never thoroughly inves- tigated. He first draws a general parallel between the organism of the beasts and that of man ; to the latter God, in connection with an apparently scantier outfit, has given, in his reason, a pre-eminence far outweighing all tlie superiority of the beasts in physical force. Wlien philcisophy, particularly the Epicurean, reminds us of the helplessness of human infancy, of man's weakness and early dissolution, the author shows, on the other hand, that these objections rest upon a one-sided mode of regarding, partly the phenomena in question con- sidered aljsolutely, and partly the essence and the end of man and of his nature (c. 1-4). Having thus, in a preliminary way, disposed of these possible objections against his subsequent exhibition of the subject, he pro- ceeds to his proper business, the consideration of the human body as the habitation and organ of the soul. He indulges in a detailed investigation and analysis of its wonderful structure ; shows the beauty and symme- try of its several limbs, their adaptation to their corre- sponding functions, and their admiral)le connection with the totality of the organism. Hence he establishes, what the Epicureans denied, that a divine creation, and an ordering and guiding providence, are active through- out the universe (c. 5-17). In conclusion, he dilates u)K>n the essence of our soid, upon its distinction from spirit (animus), and, finally, upon its propagation. He liere reviews the opposing philosophical theories, and declares himself thoroughly opposed to generationism or traducianism (c. 17-20). In this treatise he has caught the grand idea, and furnished the leading materials of Paley's famous teleologlcal argument; and, what is more surprising, has anticipated some of the most striking an(l comprehensive ideas of modern scientific and zoolog- ical classification.