Biographies
An Index of Notable Authors
Lucius Caelius Lactantius
240-320 a.d.Lucius Caelius Firmianus Lactantius was an early Christian author. Lactantius, a native of North Africa, was apparently a student of Arnobius and taught rhetoric in various cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, ending in Constantinople. He wrote apologetic works explaining Christianity in terms that would be palatable to educated pagans while defending it from pagan philosophers. His Divinae Institutiones ("Divine Institutions") is an early example of a systematic presentation of Christian thought. Lactantius was born a pagan and in his early life taught rhetoric in his native place. Lactantius had a successful public career at first. At the request of Emperor Diocletian he became an official professor of rhetoric in Nicomedia, the voyage from Africa described in his poem Hodoeporicum. Having converted to Christianity, he would have been dismissed after the publication of Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" (February 24, 303), and as a Latin rhetor he lived in poverty according to Jerome and eked out a living by writing, until Constantine became his patron. The new emperor appointed the aged scholar 311 or 313 he had to find a home elsewhere. The friendship of the Emperor Constantine raised him from penury and he became tutor in Latin to his son Crispus, whom Lactantius may have followed to Trier in 317, when Crispus was made Caesar and sent to the city. Crispus was put to death in 326, but when Lactantius died and in what circumstances is not known.
