Works (Divine Institutes, On the Death of the Persecutors, etc.)

Lactantius · c. 310 AD

Ante-Nicene Fathers (Roberts–Donaldson), Roberts, Donaldson, and Coxe (eds.), Ante-Nicene Fathers, Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1885–1887; digitized by CCEL.

Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius; the "Christian Cicero." Rhetorician at the court of Diocletian (before his conversion), then teacher of Constantine's son Crispus. His Divine Institutes, in seven books, is the first sustained Latin systematic apologetic; his On the Death of the Persecutors is the principal narrative source for the Great Persecution and the Edict of Milan.

Contents

1. The Divine Institutes(251 chapters)
2. A Treatise on the Anger of God Addressed to Donatus(23 chapters)
3. On the Workmanship of God, or the Formation of Man(21 chapters)
4. Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died(53 chapters)
5. Fragments of Lactantius(4 chapters)