Lactantius was a Latin-speaking Christian writer and teacher of rhetoric who lived through the final great persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. He taught in Nicomedia, an imperial center, and later became associated with the household of Constantine.
Writing in an elegant literary style, he defended Christian belief against pagan criticism and argued that worship of the one true God offered a sounder foundation for morality than the traditional religions of Rome. His Divine Institutes presented Christianity as a coherent account of God, human nature, justice, and the proper conduct of life. In On the Deaths of the Persecutors he described the downfall of rulers who had attacked the church, although that polemical account must be read critically.
Lactantius is especially important as an early Latin apologist who helped make Christian ideas intelligible to educated Roman readers during the transition from persecution to imperial toleration.
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