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Lactantius on the deaths of the persecutors pdf

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Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius

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A Christianapologist of the fourth century. The name Firmianus has misled some authors into believing that he was an Italian from Fermo, whereas he was an African by birth and a pupil of Arnobius who taught at Sicca Veneria. An inscription found at Cirta in Numidia, which mentions a certain L. Caecilius Firminianus, has led to the conclusion in some quarters that his family belonged to that place (Harnack, "Chronologie d. altchr. Lit.", II,416. Lactantius was born a pagan and in his early life taught rhetoric in his native place. At the request of Emperor Diocletian he became an official professor of rhetoric in Nicomedia. One of his poems (Hodoeporicum) is an account of his journey from Africa to his new home. It is probable that his conversion to Christianity did not take place until after his removal to Nicomedia. It see

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De mortibus persecutorum

Christian text by Lactantius

De mortibus persecutorum (On the Deaths of the Persecutors) is a hybrid historical and Christian apologetical work by the Roman philosopher Lactantius, written in Latin sometime after AD 316.

Contents

After the monumental Divine Institutes, the comparatively brief De mortibus persecutorum is probably the most important extant work of Lactantius, a convert to Christianity who served at the courts of both the pagan Diocletian and the Christian Constantine the Great. In this work, Lactantius describes in occasionally lurid detail the downfall and deaths of the most egregious persecutors of Christians. The first few chapters briefly cover the ends of the earliest Christian persecutors: Nero, Domitian, Decius, Valerian, and Aurelian. The bulk of the work, however, concerns the deeds and deaths of the Tetrarchy: Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, Constantius, Maximinus, Constantine and Maxentius. It is one of the most important extant primary sources for the Great Persecution of Christians which was initiat

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Lactantius
by
Stefan Freund
  • LAST REVIEWED: 26 November 2019
  • LAST MODIFIED: 26 November 2019
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0344

  • Bowen, Anthony, and Peter Garnsey. 2003. Lactantius, Divine Institutes. Translated Texts for Historians 40. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool Univ. Press.

    DOI: 10.3828/978-0-85323-988-8

    Offers a precise and helpful introduction.

  • Colot, Blandine. 2016. Lactance. Penser la conversion de Rome au temps de Constantin. Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore.

    A comprehensive study of Lactantius’s political and religious concepts, particularly as they appear in the Divine Institutes.

  • Fontaine, Jacques, and Michel Perrin. 1978. Lactance et son temps. Recherches actuelles. Paris: Éditions Beauchesne.

    A collection of sixteen essays on historical, literary, and religious topics raised by Lactantius and his work. Most contributions are still of fundamental importance.

  • Guillaumin, Jean-Yves, and Stéphane Ratti. 2003. Autour de Lactance. Hommages à Pierre Monat. Besançon, France: Presses Univ. de Franche-C

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