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The "Divine Institutes" of Lactantius was a vigorous riposte to pagan criticism and persecution of Christianity, which came to a head in the "Great" Persecution of Diocletian in the early fourth century AD. This edition has been prepared with students and scholars of intellectual history in mind, but it will also appeal to those concerned with ecclesiastical history and patristics, and to anyone interested in tracing the impact of classical philosophy and literature on an early Christian thinker.
Lactantius has always commanded respect and admiration for his Latinity, but of his numerous works on various subjects only his Christian writings survive. He lived (c. AD 240-320) in an age of bureaucracy, inflation and narrow-minded ideology when civilized men had lost confidence in their world and when powerful forces were threatening the very existence and freedom of the Roman way of life. At such a time of crisis, with all the resources of the classical inheritance behind him, he turned to the god of the Christians. This makes his writing all the more significant for us today.Lactantius was not a great thinker, but he is very representative of his times, and he is perhaps the most Classical of all early Christian writers. This study provides a detailed analysis of his literary background and of the books that he actually read.
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius was an early Christian author (c. 250 - c. 325) who became an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I, guiding his religious policy as it developed, and tutor to his son. In The Divine Institutes, Lactantius expected an earthly reign of the resurrected saints with Jesus after His second advent for the thousand years before the universal judgment. He presented, in sharp chronological summary, the premillennial advent, the two resurrections, the millennial period, and the reign of the saints with Christ, with surprising astuteness, reflecting the unsettled doctrine of the time. With the conversion of Constantine, the Christians were no ...
This Elibron Classics title is a reprint of the original edition published by T. & T. Clark, 1871, Edinburgh
"The Making of a Christian Empire is the first full-length book to interpret the Divine Institutes as a historical source. Exploring Lactantius's use of theology, philosophy, and rhetorical techniques, Digeser perceives the Divine Institutes as a sophisticated proposal for a monotheistic state that intimately connected the religious policies of Diocletian and Constantine, both of whom used religion to fortify and unite the Roman Empire."--BOOK JACKET.