N. Lenglet du Fresnoy, Monitum (Prolegomena in librum de Mortibus persecutorum)

PROLEGOMENA

TO THE BOOK ON THE DEATHS OF THE PERSECUTORS.

LENGLET'S NOTICE.

This golden book is so composed, so sincerely worked out, that not only do you see expressed in it the particular events of the persecution, that is, its ill-omened beginning, its dark course and its happy end, but also the right hand of the Almighty everywhere stands out as avenger against tyrants, and how everywhere God shows Himself the champion of piety and the repeller of the injuries which are inflicted on His worshippers by wicked princes. On the other hand it shines forth with how much care and how much zeal the Supreme Divinity cherished those princes who were well disposed to the faithful, such as Constantine always was, or those who were only so moderate that they gave Christians free liberty to practise their religion without molestation, such as Licinius seemed to be at that time.

My view is that this book is the legitimate offspring of Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius. So all the more learned have thought, and it is not for us to depart from their opinion. The most illustrious Stephanus Baluzius found it in a manuscript codex of the Colbert library, which formerly belonged to the ancient monastery of Moissac in the diocese of Cahors. For many centuries that treasure had lain hidden, unknown, in the corners of the library of this monastery. Scarcely had it come to light when at once not only did all the men of letters of the various nations eagerly receive it, to be read with zeal, but both the English and the Swedes also took care that it be printed again; indeed it was even translated into the French and English languages. Most learned men, whether they be French or Dutch, illustrated it with learned notes. In the year 1710 Dom Nicolas le Nourry, a Benedictine monk of the Congregation of Saint Maur, published it again; but he not only doubted, nay he even asserted, that this book is not by our Lactantius but by a certain

Lucius, or rather Lycius, Caecilius, an unknown writer. But Nourry brought few, that is, three or four, over to his opinion. For certain more learned men refuted his error more sharply than is fitting, and harried him in such a way that no room remains for an open and probable reply. Nor indeed was the refutation difficult; for everywhere the style of Lactantius, everywhere his cast of mind, everywhere Lactantian, and those distinctive, turns of speech are found scattered through this little book, of which a single manuscript codex survives, complete indeed and ancient, but so disfigured by the copyist's inexperience and by certain gaps that very often, in explaining it, one must resort either to conjectures or even to guesses. But since we think it worthwhile to refute the arguments of Nicolas le Nourry, although they are of slight weight, we have therefore had printed here the learned dissertation of the most distinguished Nicolas de Lestocq, doctor and fellow of the Sorbonne, dean of the Church of Amiens, and abbot of Saint-Acheul, with whom I have had an old intimacy of fifty years and more and the closest familiarity. Let the learned reader not suppose, however, that anything is lacking to this edition because I have passed over the preface of Dom Thierry Ruinart, a Benedictine monk of the Congregation of Saint Maur, to the Acta Martyrum vera et sincera published by him in the year 1689, and often reprinted either at Amsterdam, or at Venice, or even at Paris, and translated into French. This preface is indeed excellent; but although it was printed by Paul Baudri at the end of his edition of Lactantius, I nevertheless did not think it to the purpose to print it yet a seventh time, since, though once somewhat rare, it is now common and in everyone's hands, and contributes nothing, or little, to the understanding of our author.