006 THIliD TEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Bliip.' In Lis manlioud, probably shortly before or during the persecution under Dioclcsian, he embraced Christianity ; hfl was witness of the cruel scenes of that persecution, though not himseU' a sufferer in it; and he wrote in defence of the hated and reviled religion.
Constantine subsequently (after 312) brought him to his court in Gaul, and committed to him the education of his son Crispns, whom the emperor caused to be executed in 330. At court he lived very simply, and withstood the temptations of luxury and avarice. He is said to have died in the imperial residence at Treves at a great age, about the year 330.
Jerome calls Lactantiiis the most learned man of his time.' His writings certainly give evidence of varied and thorough knowledge, of fine rhetorical culture, and particularly of eminent power of statement in clear, pure, and elegant style. In this last respect he surpasses almost all the Latin fathers, except Jerome, and has not unjustly been called the Christian Cicero.' His is the famous derivation of the word 7'digioti from religare^ defining it as the reunion of man with God, reconciliation ; answering to the nature of Christianity, and including the three ideas of an original unity, a separation by sin, and a restoration of the unity again.*
' He Siiys of his heathen Hfe, Inst. div. i. 1, that he trained youth by his rhetoric " non ad virtutem, sed plane ad argutam malitiam."
^ Catal. c. 80: "Lact. vir omnium suo tempore eruditissimus." In Ep. 58 ad Paulinum (ed. Vail.), c. 10, he gives the following just view of him: "Lact. quasi quidam fluvius eloquentiae Tullianae, utinam tam nostra affirraare potuisset, quam facile aliena dcstruxit." 0. Friedol. Fritzsche, in the Praefatio of his edition of his Opera, thus estimates him : " Finn. Lactantius, qui Ciceronis felicissimus exstitit imitator, non solum sermonis castitate et elegantia orationisque fluminc, sed, qua erat summa cniditionc, rerum etiani copia et varietate inter reliquos ecclesiie latinna Bcriptores maxime eminuit, eoque factum est, ut, qnamvis doctrinam ejus non sati.H esse sanam viros pios hand lateret, nunquam tamen prorsus ncgligerotur."
' Or, as Jerome, 1. c., calls him: "Fluvius eloquentiae Tullianae."
* Instit. div. 1. iv. cap. 28 (vol. i. p. 223, ed. Fritzsche) : " Hoc vinculo pietatia obstricti Deo et religati sumus ; unde ipsa religio nomen accepit, non ut Cicero interpretatus est, a relegendo." Cicero says, De natura deorum, ii. 28 : " Qui omnia quae ad cultura deorum pertinerent, diligenter retractarent et tamquara relegerent, reliffiosi dicti sunt ex relegendo, ut elegantes ex eligendo, itemque ex diligendp diligcntea." This derivation is net im{)0ssible, since we have legio from Icr/erc, and several nouns ending in io from verba of the third conjugation, as rcffio, contagia.
§ 173. LACTANTirs. 957
But lie is far more tlie rlietorieian than the philosopher or theologian, and, as Jerome observes, has greater skill in the refutation of error than hi the establishment of truth. The doctrinal matter of his writings, as in the case of his preceptor Arjiobius, is very vague and unsatisfactory, and he does not belong to the narrower circle of the fathers, the authoritative teachers of the^church. Pope Gelasius counted his works among the apocrypha, i. e., writings not ecclesiastically received.
Notwithstanding this, his Institutes, on account of their elegant style, have been favorite reading, and are said to have appeared in more than a hundred editions. His mistakes and errors in tlie exposition of points of Christian doctrine do not amount to heresies, but are mostly due to the crude and unsettled state of the church doctrine at the time. In the doctrine of sin he borders upon Manichseisjii. In anthropology and soteriology he follows the synergism which, until Augustine, was almost universal. In the doctrine of the Trinity he was, like most of the ante-Nicene fathers, subordinationist. He taught a dujplex nativitas of Christ, one at the creation, and one at the incarnation. Christ went forth from God at the creation, as a word from tlie mouth, yet hypostatically.'
His most important work is his Divine Institutes, a comprehensive refutation of heathenism and defence of Christianity, designed to make Christianity better known among the cultivated classes, and to commend it by scholarship and attractive style.' He seems to have begun the work during the Dio-
oblivio. But the derivation of Lactantius gives a more correct and profound Idea of religion, and etymologically it is equally admissible ; for although religare would rather yield the noun religatio, yet we have optio from optare, rebeUio from rcbellare internecio from internecare, &c. Augustine (Retract, i. 13), Jerome (Ad Amos, c. 9), and the majority of Christian divines have adopted the definition of Lactantius.
' According to a statement of Jerome (Ep. 41 ad Pammach. et Ocean.) he denied the personaUty of the Holy Ghost.
^ lustitutionum diviiiarum hbri vii. The title was chosen with reference to the Institutiones juris civilis (i. 1). The several books then bear the following superscriptious: 1. De falsa religione; 2. De origme erroris; 3. De ft\sa sapientia; 4. De vera sapientia ; 5. De justitia ; 6. De vero cultu ; 7. De vita bcata. Lactan- "JUS himself made an abstract of it under the title : Epitome ad Pentadium fratrem axFritzsche, Pars ii. pp. 114-171.