Editing Lactantius (section)

==Works==
Like many of the early Christian authors, Lactantius depended on [[classical antiquity|classical]] models. [[Saint Jerome]] praised his writing style while faulting his ability as a Christian apologist, saying: "Lactantius has a flow of eloquence worthy of [[Cicero|Tully]]: would that he had been as ready to teach our doctrines as to pull down those of others!"<ref>Lactantius. Lord Hailes (transl.) (2021) [http://www.evolpub.com/CRE/CREseries.html#CRE14 ''On the Deaths of the Persecutors: A Translation of De Mortibus Persecutorum by Lucius Cæcilius Firmianus Lactantius''] Evolution Publishing, Merchantville, NJ {{ISBN|978-1-935228-20-2}}, p. xviii.</ref> Similarly, the early [[humanism|humanists]] called him the "Christian [[Cicero]]" (''Cicero Christianus'').<ref name=Healy/> A translator of the ''[[The Divine Institutes|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."<ref name=Fletcher>
{{cite book|title=The Works of Lactantius|author=W. Fletcher|year=1871|url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.iii.i.html}}
</ref>

===Prophetic exegesis===
[[File:Lactantius, Divinarum institutionum ... liber primus, manuscript, Florence 1420-1430 ca.jpg|thumb|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 [[Premillennialism|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."<ref>[http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/eschatology/why_the_early_church_finally_rejected_premillennialism.shtml Hill, Charles E., "Why the Early Church Finally Rejected Premillennialism", ''Modern Reformation'', Jan/Feb 1996, p. 16]</ref> Lactantius quoted the [[Sibyl]]s 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.<ref name=McGinn>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZoNNVZ7MG5cC&dq=Lactantius+Prophetic+exegesis&pg=PA25 McGinn, Bernard. ''Visions of the End'', Columbia University Press, 1998] {{ISBN|9780231112574}}</ref>

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,"<ref name=McGinn/> 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 [[religion in ancient Rome|traditional religions of the Empire]]. He defended Christian beliefs against the criticisms of [[Hellenistic philosophy|Hellenistic philosophers]]. His ''Divinae Institutiones'' ("Divine Institutes") were an early example of a systematic presentation of Christian thought.
*''De Opificio Dei'' ("On the Workmanship of God"), an apologetic work, written in 303 or 304 during Diocletian's persecution and dedicated to a former pupil, a rich Christian named Demetrianius. The apologetic principles underlying all the works of Lactantius are well set forth in this treatise.<ref name=Healy/>
*''[[Institutiones Divinae]]'' ("The Divine Institutes"), written between 303 and 311.<ref name=Healy/> This is the most important of the writings of Lactantius. It was "one of the first books printed in Italy and the first dated Italian imprint."<ref>{{cite book
| title = The Rubrics of the First Book of Lactantius Firmianus's On the Divine Institutes Against the Pagans Begin
| work = World Digital Library
| access-date = 2014-03-01
| date = 2011-10-17
| url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/4172/#languages=lat&page=8
}}</ref> As an apologetic treatise, it was intended to point out the futility of pagan beliefs and to establish the reasonableness and truth of Christianity as a response to pagan critics. It was also the first attempt at a systematic exposition of Christian [[theology]] in Latin and was planned on a scale sufficiently broad to silence all opponents.<ref>Lactantius ''The Divine Institutes'', translated by Mary Francis McDonald [[Catholic University of America Press]] (1964)</ref> [[Patrick Francis Healy|Patrick Healy]] argues that "The strengths and the weakness of Lactantius are nowhere better shown than in his work. The beauty of the style, the choice and aptness of the terminology, cannot hide the author's lack of grasp on Christian principles and his almost utter ignorance of Scripture."<ref name=Healy/> Included in this treatise is a quote from the nineteenth of the [[Odes of Solomon]], one of only two known texts of the Odes until the early twentieth century.<ref>Charlesworth, James Hamilton, ''The Odes of Solomon'',  Oxford: Oxford UP, 1973, pp. 1, 82</ref> However, his mockery of the idea of a [[Spherical Earth|round Earth]]<ref>
{{citation|title=Divine Institutes, Book III Chapter XXIV|author=Lactantius|url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.iii.ii.iii.xxiv.html}}
</ref> was criticised by [[Nicolaus Copernicus|Copernicus]] as "childish".<ref>{{citation|author=Nicholas Copernicus|title=The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres|year=1543|url=http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/year-text-Copernicus.html}}</ref>

*''[[De mortibus persecutorum]]'' ("On the Deaths of the Persecutors") has an apologetic character but given Lactantius's presence at the court of Diocletian in Nicomedia and the court of Constantine in Gaul, it is considered a valuable primary source for the events it records. Lactantius describes the goal of the work as follows: <blockquote>"I relate all those things on the authority of well-informed persons, and I thought it proper to commit them to writing exactly as they happened, lest the memory of events so important should perish, and lest any future historian of the persecutors should corrupt the truth."<ref>Lactantius. [http://www.evolpub.com/CRE/CREseries.html#CRE14 ''On the Deaths of the Persecutors''], p. xix.</ref></blockquote> The point of the work is to describe the deaths of the persecutors of Christians before Lactantius ([[Nero]], [[Domitian]], [[Decius]], [[Valerian (emperor)|Valerian]], [[Aurelian]]) as well as those who were the contemporaries of Lactantius himself: Diocletian, [[Maximian]], [[Galerius]], [[Maximinus Daia|Maximinus]] and [[Maxentius]]. This work is taken as a chronicle of the last and greatest of the persecutions in spite of the moral point that each anecdote has been arranged to tell. Here, Lactantius preserves the story of [[Constantine I of the Roman Empire|Constantine's]] vision of the [[Chi Rho]] before his [[religious conversion|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''.<ref name=Healy/>
[[File:Auct. L 3.33 f3v.jpg|thumbnail|right|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.<ref name=Fletcher/>

===Other works===
*''De ira Dei'' ("On the Wrath of God" or "On the Anger of God"), directed against the [[Stoicism|Stoics]] and [[Epicurean]]s.<ref name=Fletcher/>
*Widely attributed to Lactantius although it shows only cryptic signs of Christianity, the poem ''The Phoenix'' (''de Ave Phoenice'') tells the story of the death and rebirth of [[Phoenix (mythology)|that mythical bird]]. That poem in turn appears to have been the principal source for the [[Phoenix (Old English poem)|famous Old English poem to which the modern title ''The Phoenix'']] is given.