Lactantius

Biography

Lactantius (Lucius Caecilius Firmianus), from a pagan family, was born in Africa around 250 B.C. A pupil of Arnobius, he became, like his master, a teacher of Latin rhetoric. He acquired a reputation, no doubt quite considerable, since the emperor Diocletian sent him to Nicomedia to teach Latin rhetoric there, between 290 and 300. In 303, when Diocletian's persecution began, Lactantius, apparently a recent convert to Christianity, had to lose his official position. Although he then lived in poverty, it does not seem that he had to suffer personally from the persecution: during this period he remained in Bithynia, where he wrote most of his works.

At the end of his life, around 316 or 317, the Emperor Constantine, whom he must have met at the court of Nicomedia in 306, brought him to Trier to become tutor to his son, Caesar Crispus, until 320. With Crispus' education completed, Lactantius, who was at least 70 years old, seems to have ended his days in Trier.

Works

• De aue Phoenice
• De ira Dei
• De mortibus persecutorum
• De motibus animi (fragm.)
• De opificio Dei

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Quotations

• [OBNIl]
• [JB] Ge 1
• [JB] Ge 1:1
• [JB] Ge 1:11-12
• [JB] Ge 1:14-18

Browse 1096 quotations

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