Synthesis doctrinae Lactantii

And in the fifth book:

Judgement, moreover, being the natural element in prudence, cannot be taught, but it can be polished and refined: first by reading those authors who were most strong in that good, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Seneca, Quintilian, Plutarch; and of our own, Origen, Chrysostom, Jerome, Lactantius, etc.

Joannes Baptista Pius, Annotationes, ch. 98, XVI century:

Lactantius Firmianus, the greatest champion of the true religion.

Gregorius Giraldus of Verona, in the fifth Dialogue on the History of the Poets, XVI century:

At the same time as Juvencus lived Lactantius Firmianus also, the one foremost emulator of Ciceronian eloquence among the Christians, who besides the many things he wrote in prose, which are everywhere in people's hands, also composed verses, etc.

Franciscus Floridus, Lectiones subsecivae, book II, chapter 4, XVI century:

Lactantius Firmianus, the hearer of Arnobius, beyond dispute the most eloquent of all the Latins who have treated theology, and a most vigorous defender of our religion, was held by the followers of Christian piety to be of the most celebrated name while he lived, on account of his singular excellence; and, having published not a few most elegant works, filled with great learning, of which a good part is worn by the hands of the learned, while part has suffered shipwreck in common with the other writings of the Romans, he is so on everyone's lips as one who, overturning with the best of reasons all the doctrines of the philosophers diametrically opposed to Christian teaching, is to be commended uniquely both for the weight of his sentences and for the brilliance of his style. Therefore, although there have been those who cultivated other parts of theology more readily than he, and also more acutely, yet in those things that bear on refuting the tenets of the Gentiles (for so all were called who before the coming of Christ did not embrace the law handed down by Moses), no one has arisen to this day (so far at least as I myself am able to judge) who is to be compared with Lactantius, by a long interval; whether because by the weight of matter and words, and by a certain effective force of nature, he discharges excellently the task undertaken against the most strongly fortified opinions of the heathen, or because he embraces very much in few words, always (as Marcus Tullius says of Thucydides) pressing on himself, and dragging no dross along with him, as many others do. Indeed, had so eminent an author not written very many things in which you would scarcely believe that a man so carefully versed in sacred and profane letters could have slipped, I should judge him the one above all the Latin writers to be chosen, to be always in the hands of boys, so that at the same time they might learn from the reading of one author both the rudiments of the Christian faith and the purity of the Roman tongue, etc.

Gulielmus Canterus, Novae lectiones, book III, chapter 30, XVI century:

The place which Gregory Nazianzen holds among the Greek theologians, one might not undeservedly judge that Firmianus Lactantius holds, more or less, among the Latins.

We have thought it not to the purpose to go further: it is enough to have pointed out that there is no one among the writers of our times who does not mention our Lactantius with praise. Although the learned do not hold him wholly blameless, yet all proclaim his manifold doctrine, his varied learning in profane matters, and finally his supreme eloquence.

SYNTHESIS OF THE DOCTRINE OF LACTANTIUS.

Since Lactantius put more labour into refuting falsehoods than into confirming truths, few heads of our faith have been fully set out by him: most he only touched on; very many he did not understand. Among those which he declared somewhat more fully is his doctrine on the Christian religion, on God in general, on Providence, and on the true interior Worship of God.

The parts, attributes and effects of the Christian religion he has treated admirably. He lays down that the parts of religion are two: the knowledge of God and His worship (Book III, chapter 29; Book IV, chapter 4, etc.). Of the attributes of the religion contained in sacred Scripture he explains these: truth, clarity, antiquity, simplicity. He proves the Christian religion to be true from this, that the prophecies of the prophets have been fulfilled, and that the prophets could not deceive (Book I, chapter 4); that the apostles not only underwent death for the faith, but also both knew and foretold that they would die (Book V, chapter 3); that Christians do not err in all the acts of their life, whence it is probable that they do not err in the chief thing itself, that is, in religion (Book V, chapter 9); that the number of Christians is increased in persecution itself; that they are torn by various kinds of torments and, while the executioners grow weary, keep an unconquered patience, whence even the common people may gather that neither the agreement of so many nor the perseverance of the dying is vain, and that patience itself could not endure such great tortures without God (Book V, chapters 13 and 22).

The clarity of the written religion he asserts (Book VI,

chapter 21). "Can God then," he says, "the artificer of mind and of voice and of tongue, not speak eloquently? Nay rather, by His supreme providence He willed that the things which are divine should be free of embellishment, so that all might understand what He Himself was speaking to all."

The antiquity of Scripture, or of our religion, he draws from the ages of the prophets (Book IV, chapter 5), where, he says, the prophets are found to be older even than the Greek writers. "Let those, therefore, recognize their error who strive to convict sacred Scripture as new and recently invented, not knowing from what spring the origin of the holy religion has flowed."

He teaches that many are offended by the simplicity of Scripture (Book V, chapter 1), but wrongly. For it was not fitting that it should be handed down otherwise than plainly and briefly, so that when God spoke to man He should not support His words with arguments, as though He were not believed, but should speak as the supreme judge of all things: it is His part not to argue but to pronounce the truth (Book III, chapter 1).

What and how great the effects of the Christian religion are, he explains beautifully (Book III, chapter 25). "Give me," he says, "a man who is wrathful, abusive, unbridled: with a very few words of God I will render him as gentle as a sheep. Give me one who is greedy, avaricious, tight-fisted: presently I will give him back to you liberal, and lavishing his money with full hands. Give me one fearful of pain and of death: presently he will despise crosses, and fires, and the bull. Give me one who is lustful, an adulterer, a glutton: presently you will see him sober, chaste, continent. Give me one who is cruel and thirsting for blood

at once that fury will be changed into true clemency. Give me an unjust man, a foolish man, a sinner: forthwith he will be both just, and prudent, and innocent.

Lastly, on the understanding of the Christian religion, his saying is a splendid one: Man cannot arrive at this knowledge by himself, unless he is taught by God (Book 2, ch. 3).

About God he taught quite purely, namely what He is, of what kind He is, and that He is one. God for him is an eternal mind of power perfect and complete in every part (Book 1, ch. 4). And He is likewise eternal and incomprehensible to human senses; for so he writes, Book 2, ch. 9: "God alone is He Who was not made; and therefore He can destroy other things, but He Himself cannot be destroyed: He will remain for ever in that which He was, because He was not begotten from elsewhere, nor does His origin or birth depend on any thing which, being changed, might dissolve Him. He is from Himself; and therefore He is such as He willed Himself to be, impassible, immutable, incorrupt, eternal." And Book 2, ch. 5: "The beginning of God, since it cannot be comprehended, ought not even to be sought. It is enough for man, for full and perfect wisdom, if he understands that God exists, the force and sum of which understanding is this, that he should acknowledge and honour the common parent of the human race and the maker of wonderful things." Further, that God is one he proves learnedly in Book 1, from ch. 3 up to 8: the arguments may be seen in the Analysis.

He professes here and there Christ, the son of this God, Whom he affirms to be both God and man, Book 4, ch. 13. The author writes that God made use of His counsel and work in the fashioning of the world, Book 4, ch. 6; that He is more correctly called Logos by the Greeks than Verbum by the Latins, Book 4, ch. 9; that He proceeded from the mouth of God with voice and sound, ch. 8 of the same book. He assigns these epithets to Christ: he names Him the envoy, and messenger, and priest of the supreme Father, Book 4, ch. 25 and 29; the maker of things, the voice and wisdom of God, the holy and incorruptible spirit, Book 4, ch. 6 and 9; the first and greatest son, Whom the Father used as counsellor and craftsman in the creation of things, Book 2, ch. 9.

He also reconciles an apparent contradiction in our religion, by which we profess indeed one God, and yet call not the Father alone but also the Son God. "When we say," he says, Book 4, ch. 29, "God the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of a different [God], nor do we separate the two, because neither can the Father be without the Son, nor the Son be separated from the Father; since neither can the Father be named without the Son, nor can the Son be begotten without the Father. Since therefore the Father makes the Son, and the Son the Father, both have one mind, one spirit, one substance: but the one is as it were an overflowing fountain, the other as a stream flowing down from it; the one as the sun, the other as a ray stretched out from the sun, Who, since He is both faithful and dear to the supreme Father, is not separated, just as neither the stream from the fountain, nor the ray from the sun: because both the water of the fountain is in the stream, and the light of the sun in the ray." And a little after he illustrates it by this example: "When someone has a son whom he loves exceptionally, who nevertheless is in the house and hand of his father, although he grants him the name of master and power, yet by civil law the house is called one and the master one. So this world is the one house of God, and the Son and the Father, Who of one mind inhabit the world, are one God, because both the one is as two, and the two as one. Nor is that surprising, since both the Son is in the Father, because the Father loves the Son, and the Father in the Son, because He faithfully obeys the will of the Father." And towards the end of the chapter: "There is one alone, free, the supreme God, lacking origin, because He Himself is the origin of things, and in Him both the Son and all things are contained together. Wherefore, since the mind and will of the one is in the other, or rather one in both, both are rightly called one God; because whatever is in the Father He has transferred to the Son, and whatever is in the Son has come down from the Father."

Of the skill of divine Providence he speaks here and there throughout the whole work of the Divine Institutes; nor did he write the book On the Workmanship of God for any other reason than that the providence of God shining in the human body before the eyes

of men he might set, and might meet the sophisms of the Epicureans who deny providence.

On the true inner worship of God this author inserted notable sentences into his writings. And first: 'That supreme and singular God,' he says, 'cannot be worshipped except through the Son: he who thinks that he worships the Father alone, just as he does not worship the Son, so does not worship the Father either' (Book 4, chapter 29). Next he writes that the true worship of God is that in which the mind of the worshipper presents itself to God as a spotless victim (Book 6, chapter 2). And in Book 4, chapter 28: It is certain 'that no other hope of life has been set before man, except that, having cast away vanities and wretched error, he should know God and serve God; except that he should renounce this temporal life and train himself by the rudiments of justice for the worship of the true religion. For on this condition we are begotten, that, being begotten, we should render to God the just and due services, should know Him alone, should follow Him. By this bond of piety we are bound and tied to God, whence religion itself received its name.' And in Book 6, the last chapter: 'To God both must be offered as incorporeal things, for that is what He uses: the gift is integrity of soul, the sacrifice praise and hymn.' Likewise in chapter 1 of the same book: 'That holy and singular majesty desires nothing else from man inwardly but innocence alone; and if anyone has offered this to God, he has sacrificed piously enough, religiously enough.' And these are the four theological topics treated fairly copiously by Lactantius, to which the topic of creation may not unsuitably be added.

For he explains all the causes of creation here and there: the efficient, Book 2, chapters 5 and 9, where: 'God,' he says, 'made [it] out of that which is not, because through His eternity He is strong, etc.;

the material, that He founded all things out of nothing, Book 1, chapter 3: By the power and counsel of God the immensity of the divine work was formed out of nothing (see also Book 2, chapter 9);

the final, that all things were founded for the sake of man, Book 7, chapters 4, 5, 6 (likewise in the book On the Anger of God, chapter 13); the formal, namely in what order God created each thing, Book 2, chapter 9. On the destruction of the world, too, these words of his are read, Book 7, chapter 1: 'Plato, because he did not know the heavenly mystery, therefore said that the world had been made to last for ever, which is far otherwise. For whatever is of solid and heavy body, just as it took a beginning at some time, so it must needs take an end.' The special end of man's creation he everywhere affirms to be this, that he should worship God, Book 7, chapter 5; Book 6, chapter 1, etc.

The topics which he touches on lightly, yet expounds truly, are these: on the Church, on the Object of adoration, on Penance, on Matrimony, on the Law, on the Fall of men, on Sin, on the Last Judgement and certain signs that will precede the end of the world.

On the Church he teaches what it is and what its marks are: 'The Church is the true temple of God, which is not in walls but in the heart and faith of men, who believe in Him and are called faithful' (Book 4, chapter 13). Likewise: 'The Church is the eternal temple established for God by Christ, Who calls all nations together to the true religion of God. This is the faithful house, this the immortal temple, in which if anyone has not sacrificed, he will not have the reward of immortality' (Book 4, chapter 14). The apostles, dispersed through the provinces, laid the foundations of the Church everywhere' (Book 6, chapter 21). The marks of the Church he touches on in chapter 30 of the same book: 'The Catholic Church alone is the one that retains the true worship. Each and every assembly of heretics thinks that they above all are Christians and that theirs is the Catholic Church; but it must be known that that one is true in which there is confession and penance, which heals sins and wounds wholesomely.'

On the object of adoration he discourses in Book 2, chapter 18: 'Let us adore nothing else, let us worship nothing else, but the one sole godhead of our Maker and Father, Who for this reason created man upright, that we might know that we are called to things above and heavenly.' And Book 5, chapter 18: 'They do not know,' he says (he is speaking of the gentiles), 'how much

it is wrong to worship anything other than God, Who founded heaven and earth, Who fashioned the human race, breathed life into it, and endowed it with light.'

He teaches that men are led back to God by penitence, in Book 6, chapter 24, in these words: "Nor let anyone lose heart and despair of himself if, either overcome by greed, or driven by lust, or deceived by error, or compelled by force, he has slipped onto the path of injustice. For he can be led back and set free, if he repents of what he has done and, turned towards better things, makes satisfaction to God"; for God is appeased not by incense (the same author writes in the book On the Anger of God, chapter 21), not by a human victim, not by costly gifts, all of which are corruptible, but by the amendment of conduct. And he who ceases to sin makes the anger of God mortal. For this reason He does not punish every guilty person immediately, so that man may have the opportunity of coming to his senses and correcting himself. Now for Lactantius, to do penance is nothing other than to profess and affirm that one will sin no further (Book 6, chapter 13). For he who truly repents of his deed understands his former error; and therefore the Greeks say better and more expressively μετάνοιαν than we can say resipiscentia [coming to one's senses]. For he comes to his senses and recovers his mind as if from madness who, first, is sorry for his error, then reproaches himself for his folly, and strengthens his mind to live more rightly" (Book 6, chapter 2). It is clear also from Book 5, chapter 13, that those who in the persecutions denied the truth were at that time received into the Church, provided they did penance: "It is permitted," he says, "to make satisfaction to God; and no worshipper of God is so bad that, when the opportunity is given, he does not return to appease God, and indeed often with greater devotion. For the consciousness of sin and the fear of punishment make him more religious."

He teaches that matrimony is necessary for those who cannot bridle their passions: "Let him restrain them within the bounds of the lawful marriage bed, so that he may both obtain that which he eagerly desires and yet not fall into sin," he says in Book 6, chapter 23. And a little after: "Each person ought to set before himself that the union of the two sexes was given to living beings for the sake of begetting; and that this law was laid upon these passions, that they might provide for succession." You will find more in the same place on the duties of chastity.

He teaches that the principal heads of the Law are two, of which one prescribes what is owed to God, the other what is owed to man (Book 6, chapters 9 and 10).

He describes elegantly, following Moses, the fall of our first parents (Book 2, chapter 2): "That accuser," he says, "envying the works of God, directed all his deceits and cunning to deceiving man, so as to take immortality away from him. And first he enticed the woman by guile to eat the forbidden food; and through her he persuaded the man himself also to transgress the law of God, etc."

On Sin he testifies that man is unjust by his own fault (Book 4, chapter 24), and that sin is naturally present in all men (Book 6, chapter 13).

On the Last Judgement and the signs that are to precede it he discourses at length in Book 7, and names very many signs in chapter 15. But all these things are not expressed sufficiently in accordance with the mind of Catholics.

The Blemishes and Errors of Lactantius.

We have stated which heads of the faith he set out fully, and which he touched on lightly, yet truly: it follows that we should also advise the diligent reader about those things which Lactantius seems not to have understood sufficiently, and so lay open his blemishes and errors. Now his blemishes are of three kinds: some are theological, others chronological, some philosophical.

The theological blemishes are:

That by a dangerous form of speech he says that God the Father was begotten of Himself (Book 1, chapter 7).

That he did not assert the eternity of the Son of God clearly enough. For in Book 4, chapter 6, he writes "that God, before He undertook the glorious work of the world, begot a Spirit, whom they called the Son." The same things are found in Book 2, chapter 8.

That, contrary to the testimony of sacred history, he writes that Christ

never called Himself God, because He would not have kept faith if, having been sent to abolish the gods and to assert the one, He were to bring in another besides the one (Book 4, ch. 14).

That he denies that sentence of death upon Christ was pronounced by Pilate (Book 4, ch. 18).

That he says that Christ, having set out into Galilee, was unwilling to show Himself to the Jews, lest He should bring them to repentance (Book 4, ch. 20).

That he does not even name the Holy Spirit; nay more, that in the letters to Demetrianus, on the authority of Saint Jerome, he denied the substance of the Holy Spirit and, by a Jewish error, said that He is referred either to the Father or to the Son, and that the sanctification of each Person is indicated under His name.

That he kept silent about the chief office of the incarnate Christ, namely the priestly one, and maintains that Christ assumed human nature only so that, just as the Father, so the Son Himself too should be fatherless and motherless (Book 4, ch. 13), and so that He might transfer the holy religion of God to the gentiles (Book 4, ch. 11); so that He might reveal to all the nations that are under heaven the holy mystery of the one and true God, and announce to them the one God (Book 4, ch. 12); and finally so that He might be able to offer man examples of virtue (Book 4, ch. 25). How cold all these things are, when the principal end of the incarnation of Christ is left out, there is no one who does not see.

That he says that angels were assigned to man as guardians only when the human race began to grow to a greater number (Book 2, ch. 15).

That he asserts that power over the earth was granted to the devil by God from the beginning, and that two kinds of demons were made, the one earthly, the other heavenly (ibid.).

That he holds that the most deceitful ruler of heaven enticed the good angels, who had been attached to the protection of men, into vices, defiled them by intercourse with women, and made them his attendants and ministers (Book 2, ch. 15).

That he said, in a novel manner, that the day, which the East first supplies, is God's, but the night, which the farthest West brings on, belongs to him who rivals God, namely to the devil (Book 2, ch. 9).

That he thinks that man was made by God out of diverse and conflicting things. For thus he writes, Book 2, ch. 12: « Man was made out of diverse and conflicting things, just as the world itself out of light and darkness, out of life and death; and these two He commanded to fight with each other in man, so that, if the soul, which springs from God, prevails, he should be immortal and dwell in perpetual light; but if the body overcomes the soul and subjects it to its dominion, he should be in everlasting darkness and in death. »

That he affirms that man was fashioned from the earth mortal and imperfect (Book 7, chs. 5 and 14).

That he lays down that the same man attains immortality by his own powers (ibid.).

That he imagines that God created an infinite multitude of souls, which, first bound to frail and feeble bodies, He placed midway between good and evil, so that He might set virtue before beings consisting of both natures, lest they should attain immortality at their ease, etc. (Book 7, ch. 5; but see the note on ch. 18 of Book 3).

That although in Books 5 and 6 he expressly undertook a discourse on the justice of Christians, he nevertheless treats only of philosophical justice, or the justice of the law, and makes not even the slightest mention of the justice of faith, which is proper to the Gospel.

That he asserts that the spirit, or soul, of man earns by works of justice that it should become an eternal spirit (Book 4, ch. 25); and likewise that the sins of the flesh are wiped out by continual almsgiving (Book 6, ch. 13).

That he writes that pardon is granted only to those who slip into sin unwittingly and unwarily, and that he who sins knowingly has no pardon (ibid.).

That he maintains contradictory opinions about the perfection of the reborn man, and that in one and the same book, namely the sixth: he admits that no one can be without fault so long as he is burdened with the garment of the flesh, ch. 13. And yet in the last chapter the true worshipper of God

he would have pray for nothing else but pardon for his sins, although there are none.

That he holds that God permits evil to run riot for this reason, that the principle of virtue may stand (Book 5, chap. 7). To this end he writes that God permits errors (Book 2, chap. 17); to this end he says the devil was raised up by God, in the book On the Workmanship of God, ch. 20. To this end he thinks so great a force of water-snakes and vipers was made by God (Book 7, ch. 4, and in the book On the Wrath of God, ch. 13).

That he will not believe that, whenever we pray, we are tested by God as to whether we are worthy to be heard (Book 6, ch. 13).

That he thinks military service is not lawful for a just man, nor to accuse anyone of a capital crime (Book 6, ch. 20).

That he writes that souls after death are held in one common custody, until the time comes in which the supreme Judge makes examination of their merits (Book 7, ch. 21).

That concerning the end of the world, the last judgement and the reign of a thousand years, he inserted dangerous opinions, Book 7, ch. 14, 15, 16, 17, etc. For from them it is clear that Lactantius, contrary to Scripture, asserted two resurrections, one at the golden age of the millennium, the other at the destruction of the devil and of the impious; likewise two universal judgements. It is clear that he determined that only the pious would be judged, and not the impious as well.

That finally he trifles strangely not only about Antichrist, but also about the coming of Elijah to earth, who is to convert many to the worship of God (Book 7, ch. 17).

There were those who did not hesitate to accuse Lactantius of Manichaeism as well. But since neither Jerome nor anyone else among the ancients noticed this error in Lactantius, and since the old manuscripts likewise do not have those things which in the more recent editions seemed to favour the Manichaeans, it is clear from this that the books of this author too were interpolated by some Manichaean.

Chronological blemishes.

That he writes that Moses preceded the fall of Troy by nearly nine hundred years, whereas Eusebius counts only three hundred and fifty. But this controversy is still undecided. For many are of the same opinion as Lactantius.

That the rule of the kings of the Israelites ended after four hundred and sixty years, although the more learned chronologists count five hundred and fifteen years (Book 4, ch. 5).

The philosophical blemishes are:

That he denies that there are antipodes (Book 3, ch. 22).

That among the other conditions of the highest good he also lays down this one, that it belongs to the mind alone and cannot be shared with the body (Book 3, ch. 9). But, I say, if the highest good of man is being sought, and man consists not of the soul alone but of soul and body together, then the highest good will certainly be not of the mind alone but of mind and body together: just as immortality, which Lactantius names the highest good, will be referred to the body and the soul alike.

That he finds fault with Cicero's definition of the good man, by which the good man is said to harm no one unless provoked by injury (Book 6, ch. 18), whereas Cicero speaks not of private but of public retribution.