Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius

Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius , c.260-AD 340, Christian author and apologist, b. Africa. He taught rhetoric at Diocletian's school in Nicomedia and during the persecutions was converted to Christianity. Later (c.316) he was Latin tutor at Trier to Crispus, Constantine's son. His works, which were influenced by Cicero and Seneca, were sincere, well-written expositions of Christian doctrine, but some of his theological details have been pronounced erroneous. Among his works are The Divine Institutions ( Divinae institutiones ), the Epitome, and On God's Wrath ( De ira Dei ). On the Death of the Persecutors ( De mortibus persecutorum ), telling of the horrible end of such emperors as Nero, Domitian, and Decius, is a chief source for the history of the persecutions. The poem On the Phoenix ( De ave pheoenice ), a source of Cynewulf's Christ, is possibly by Lactantius.

Bibliography: See Excerpts from the Works of Lactantius, tr. by W. Fletcher (1972).

Lactantius (c.250–c.325), Christian apologist. Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius was a teacher of rhetoric at Nicomedia. He is generally thought to have been a convert to Christianity. He was tutor to Constantine's son Crispus. His main surviving works are his Divinae Institutions, which sought to commend Christianity to men of letters and thereby for the first time set out in Latin a systematic account of the Christian attitude to life; De Opificio Dei,, an attempt to prove the existence of God from the marvels of the human body; De Ira Dei, on God's punishment of human crime; and De Mortibus Persecutorum, which describes the deaths of the persecutors of the Church.