LACTANTIUS, LUCIUS CORLIUS FIRMIANUS, an eminent father of the church, at the beginning of the fourth century, was, according to Baronius, an African; but, according to others, was born at Fermo, in the March of Ancona, whence it is imagined he was called Firmianus. He studied rhetoric under Arnobius, and was afterwards professor thereof in Africa and Nicomedia, where he was so much admired that the Emperor Constantine chose him as preceptor to his son Crispus Caesar. Lactantius was so far from seeking the pleasures and riches of a court, that he lived there in poverty, and, according to Eusebius, frequently wanted the necessaries of life. He is justly accounted the most eloquent of all the ecclesiastical authors who have written in the Latin language. He formed himself upon Cicero as a model, and wrote in a style so remarkable for its purity, natural grace, and smoothness, that he is generally distinguished by the denomination of the Christian Cicero. Several works of his are still extant, the principal of which are, 1. his Institutiones Divinae, a treatise in seven books, of which he made an abridgment, adding thereto another tract, De Ira Divina; 2. De Asseribus Dei, in which he treats of the creation of man, and of divine providence; 3. Two books to Æscapiades, eight books of letters, a poem in hexameter verse, a treatise entitled The Grammarian, and another De Persecutione. It is also believed that the treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum was written by Lactantius. Some works, however, have been erroneously attributed to this father of the church. Amongst these may be mentioned the Phœnix, which is the production of a Pagan, not of a Christian; the poem upon Easter; that on the Passion of Christ; the Arguments upon the Metamorphoses of Ovid; and the Notes upon the Thebaid of Statius. Of the two last productions, the real author was Lactantius Placidus the grammarian. The prominent characteristic of Lactantius as a Christian writer is, that he exposes the illusions of Paganism with great force of reasoning. But he treats theology more like a philosopher than a divine. He did not thoroughly understand the nature of the Christian mysteries, nor distinguish between the respective provinces of faith and of reason; and hence he was betrayed into some errors, of which advantage has been taken by
persons who either knew not, or chose to make no allowance for, the circumstances in which they originated. The best edition of his works is that published at Paris in 1748, in two vols. 4to.