Lactantius’s Power Struggle

political theology, vol. 14, issue 3, 2013, 304-324

© W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2013 doi 10.1179/1462317X13Z.0000000005

Lactantius’s Power struggLe: a theoLogicaL anaLysis of the Divine institutes, Book V

Ben David Wayman1

Saint Louis University221 N. Grand Blvd.St. Louis, MO 63103

[email protected]

abstract

During the Diocletianic Persecution and at the dawn of Constantine’s rise to power, Lactantius penned Book V of the Divine Institutes, in which he offers a striking account of Church-state relations. For Lactantius, impe-rial power is at odds with the Christian “course of life.” To be a people of virtue, Christians must perform justice from below, under the rule of a sec-ular state whose gaze is fixed on its self-preservation at all costs. Lactantius makes clear that if Christians collude with the power of the state, exercising power from above, justice becomes an impracticable virtue. Not only would Christianity’s transition to the imperial seat alter the material conditions which best form Christians in virtue, it would, in Lactantius’s view, cultivate lives of vice and alienation from God. This essay contends that in Book V of the Divine Institutes, Lactantius employs Christian reasoning to demonstrate how secular politics are antithetical to Christian discipleship.

Keywords: Christian; God; justice; Lactantius; political; power; state; virtue.

Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (c. 240–c. 320) was an African who came to Nicomedia to teach rhetoric at the turn of the fourth century.2

1. Benjamin D. Wayman has accepted a position as assistant professor of religion at Greenville College. He holds the Ph.D. in historical theology (early Christianity) from Saint Louis University.

2. In their introduction to Lactantius: Divine Institutes, Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey comment that given Lactantius’s appointment “to an official chair in Latin rheto-ric in Nicomedia, Bithynia, the seat of the emperor Diocletian…he must have been, if not the best in the world at his profession, at least very well known and very well connected—someone with a network of people, especially ex-pupils and protégés, reaching into

Wayman Lactantius’s Power Struggle 305

While in Nicomedia, Lactantius converted to Christianity when “it was not only fashionable but also safe.”3 The religious and political climate soon changed, however, when in 303 Lactantius was forced to resign his chair in rhetoric due to Diocletian’s first edict against the Christians. In the wake of his dismissal and the ensuing Great Persecution, Lactantius composed the Divine Institutes, where in Book V, “Of Justice,” he addresses Christianity’s relationship to political power.4 This essay contends that in Book V of the Divine Institutes, Lactantius employs Christian reasoning to demonstrate how secular politics are antithetical to Christian disciple-ship. For Lactantius, the material conditions critical for Christian forma-tion would be fundamentally altered if Christians came to hold temporal power. My argument unfolds in four movements. In order to best situ-ate my theological reading of Book V, I underscore two relevant features of Lactantius’s life setting related to his project and conclude with a brief discussion of the text itself: its audience, method, structure and chief con-cerns. Next, I identify the kind of justice that Lactantius maintains is con-stitutive of the Christian life and is particularly threatened in the holding of secular power. Third, I elucidate Lactantius’s understanding of how Christians are best developed in the virtue of justice. And finally, I high-light the distinctively Christian logic that leads Lactantius to the conclu-sion that Christians should not hold political power.

Historical Situation

Lactantius lived in a pivotal moment in Christian history. For nearly three centuries, Christians had been regarded by the Roman Empire as a peculiar and superstitious people.5 They had been disparaged, perse-cuted, imprisoned and martyred during this period of Roman “peace” and Christian marginalization. Five years prior to Lactantius’s penning of the Institutes,6 Diocletian enacted the most severe persecution of the church in

powerful places.” Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey, Lactantius: Divine Institutes, in Trans-lated Texts for Historians, vol. 40, trans. and intro. Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey (Liver-pool: Liverpool University Press, 2003), 2.

3. Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-sity Press, 1981), 13.

4. In this essay, I use the modifiers “temporal,” “secular,” and “political” interchange-ably. While I recognize that all social action is political and temporal and impinges on the secular, I intend these terms to refer specifically to the Roman state.

5. See, for example, the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan in “Pliny the Younger: Letters, X.25ff,” Ancient History Sourcebook: Pliny and Trajan: Correspondence, c. 112 ce, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/pliny-trajan1.html.

6. Barnes maintains, “The hypothesis that Lactantius completed the Divine Institutes

306 Political Theology

Roman history. Five years after the Institutes were completed, the Edict of Milan counteracted the Persecution and provided for the upward political movement of Christianity.

Constantine is the stock symbol of Christianity’s political transition from the Roman ghetto to the imperial palace. While ambiguity sur-rounds the question of Constantine’s Christian commitment and political agenda,7 his name alone carries with it marked historical and theologi-cal significance for the church. Constantine came to power in the West in 306 “as an advocate of religious toleration. [He] became ruler of the West before his conversion to Christianity.”8 While the famed battle of the Milvian Bridge was a few short years away, Constantine’s inaugural polit-ical policy did not make it difficult to imagine the possibility of a Chris-tian emperor.

It is difficult, on the other hand, to imagine that Lactantius, who knew Constantine during his teaching days in Nicomedia, would not have con-sidered the possibility of a Christian emperor in the near future.9 Whether or not Lactantius saw this possibility in Constantine himself is not the aim of this essay, however interesting such a line of inquiry might be.10 Rather, this study will address whether Lactantius thought Christians should seek the imperial seat or other such positions of power. The main assertion of this essay is that Lactantius’s Book V of the Divine Institutes subtly answers this very question.11

in Africa in 308/9, even though it cannot be formally proved, best satisfies the available evi-dence.” Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 291.

7. Barnes nicely presents a rounded portrayal of Constantine’s complex person. Barnes concludes, “The Constantine who has emerged in the preceding chapters was nei-ther a saint nor a tyrant.” Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 275.

8. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 245.9. Barnes relays, “Constantine resided in Nicomedia while Lactantius taught rheto-

ric there, and he later chose Lactantius as tutor to his son in Trier.” Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 74.

10. One might consider whether Lactantius considered Constantine a Christian (and if so, at what point). While Lactantius regards Constantine as “the protector of Christian-ity from the day of his accession in 306 (Mort. Pers. 24.9; Div. Inst. 1.1.13)” (Barnes, Constan-tine and Eusebius, 291), such regard does not clarify his evaluation of Constantine’s religious commitments.

11. Bowen and Garnsey observe that Lactantius never provides a “programme of political and legal reforms put together for the benefit of Constantine, when he suddenly and unexpectedly arrived on the scene as a Christian emperor, after the composition of Divine Institutes and before the death of its author.” Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 36. This “observation” is actually an argument, which assumes that the Institutes does not address Lactantius’s views on the fittingness of a Christian emperor. Clearly, I do not share this assumption.


In his comments on justice in Book V of the Institutes, Lactantius pres-ents an implicit warning to the church regarding the peril of political power. His argument, though subtle, is a preemptive theological offen-sive against Christians who might see political power as an attractive vehi-cle for the Christian faith. Accordingly, this essay will discuss Lactantius’s understanding of the relationship between Christian discipleship and high political office and in so doing, will bring into sharp relief Lactan-tius’s deep concern pertaining to the pitfalls of political power.

A second historical event of great import related to Lactantius’s theol-ogy of political power was his dismissal from his teaching post in Nico-media.12 His firsthand experience of the cost of discipleship must not be neglected in any analysis of Book V of the Institutes. Lactantius’s politi-cal descent from the prestigious post at Nicomedia13 to a tenuous exis-tence of subsistent living deeply shaped his view of the Christian life and its fundamental demands.14 Following Jerome’s attestation, one scholar notes, “After his dismissal…he was in consequence reduced to such pov-erty that he at times lacked the necessities of life (St. Jerome, Chron., ad. ann. abr. 2333). In those circumstances, he attempted to eke out a liv-ing by writing.”15 While little is known about the circumstances of his dismissal, Lactantius’s identification with Christianity had cost him his career. More still, there is no reason to suppose that Lactantius resisted the consequences of his faith. His willingness to accept the implications of Christianity reinforced for him a theological understanding of politics that put Christian faith and secular power at loggerheads.16

12. It is unclear whether Lactantius resigned or was removed from his position at the school. For example, Barnes states, “In 303 he lost or resigned his chair and began to com-pose works of Christian apologetic.” Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 13.

13. Remarking on Lactantius’s dismissal from his seat of influence and power, Barnes conveys, “In 303, Lactantius was in Nicomedia, where Diocletian resided, close to the cen-ter of events and acquainted with intrigues within the imperial palace.” Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 149.

14. Bowen and Garnsey maintain, “Conversion to Christianity (and to a brand of Christianity that eschewed political involvement and looked instead to the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God), followed within a short space of time by the shock of the Great Persecution, profoundly transformed his outlook and attitudes. The Lactantius on view in Divine Institutes is in violent reaction against the Roman establishment and its value system.” Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 48.

15. Patrick Healy, “Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius,” in The Catholic Encyclope-dia, vol. 8 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910). February 20, 2010, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08736a.htm.

16. Bowen and Garnsey maintain, “Conversion to Christianity, closely followed by a punishing persecution, radicalised him and led him to write off the establishment and its system of values.” Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 53. This evaluation unhelpfully empha-sizes the historical over against Lactantius’s greater theological insight.


The Divine Institutes is properly read as a catechetical work, instructing Christians in the particulars and distinctiveness of the Christian faith.17 While it is certainly a thorough response to pagan attacks on Christian-ity, I contend that its primary goal is to form the theological identity of the Christian community, and in particular, “studious” Christians who are entrapped by “pernicious” philosophers, orators and poets.18 In his intro-ductory remarks in Book V, Lactantius explains, “Even if we cannot win them back from a death they speed towards…at least we shall strengthen those of our own folk whose understanding is wobbly and not firmly based on solid foundations. Most people waver, especially those of any attainment in literature.”19 Lactantius’s concern to render a Christian account which “combine[s] wisdom with religion”20 establishes his method whereby he uses little scripture and appropriates much classical literature in his thor-oughly Christian argument.21 For Lactantius, “knowledge of literature” has the potential to be “of the greatest profit, if he who has learned it should be more instructed in virtues and wiser in truth.”22 After a brief introduction

17. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser explains, “This goal required, if not actually converting people like Porphyry and Hierocles, at least checking their criticisms, addressing their argu-ments, impelling them to recognize their mistaken opinions and subsequently to correct their errors (v.I.8, 4.2). At the same time, Lactantius hoped to address a number of educated Chris-tians who, he admitted, had found the new political theology seductive (v.I.8-10).” Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius & Rome (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 9. For accounts that emphasize the apologetic genre of the Divine Institutes, see H. A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) and Bowen and Garnsey’s Lactantius.

18. Lactantius insists, “Moreover, even though it should be profitable to no other, it certainly will be so to us: the conscience will delight itself, and the mind will rejoice that it is engaged in the light of truth, which is the food of the soul, being overspread with an incredible kind of pleasantness.” Lactantius, “Divine Institutes,” in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, trans. William Fletcher, eds Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886), V.I.12. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07015.htm.

19. Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.I.9, trans. Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 282. Unless noted otherwise (as in this case), all quotations from Lactantius are taken from Lactantius, “Divine Institutes,” in the Ante-Nicene Fathers series (noted above in note 18). However, quotation formatting follows the book, chapter, line headings from Bowen and Garnsey. This is particularly important to note in chapters fifteen and following where Fletcher’s demarcation differs from that of Bowen and Garnsey. While I continue to quote Fletcher in the main, I follow the chapter and line headings of Bowen and Garnsey.

20. Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.I.11, trans. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers 7.21. Acknowledging the preference among the learned for eloquence and rhetoric,

Lactantius reasons, “For this is especially the cause why, with the wise and the learned, and the princes of this world, the sacred Scriptures are without credit, because the prophets spoke in common and simple language.” Ibid., V.I.15.

22. Ibid., V.I.11.


by which he addresses his audience, Lactantius develops an extended argu-ment whereby he presents the justice constitutive of the Christian life, con-veys the context in which it is best developed, and, finally, demonstrates the logic that Christianity and secular power are diametrically opposed. Accord-ingly, the theological framework within which Lactantius understands jus-tice is critical to understanding clearly the aim of his argument.

Lactantius’s ground for Christian virtue is that justice is informed by and defined within a coherent and consistent philosophical system. In chapter three of Book V, Lactantius explicates that Christianity is persua-sive because it is a coherent and consistent system, rather than a tempo-rally expedient political policy. To be sure, Christianity is a politic, but one quite distinct from the secular politics of power and domination. Lactan-tius maintains that the disciples:

[D]id not therefore devise that religion for the sake of gain and advantage, inasmuch as both by their precepts and in reality they followed that course of life which is without pleasures, and despised all things which are reck-oned among good things, and since they not only endured death for their faith, but also both knew and foretold that they were about to die, and after-wards that all who followed their system would suffer cruel and impious things.23

This telling statement lays the foundation for Lactantius’s portrayal of Christian virtue. First, it conveys that Christian virtue is embedded in a coherent and consistent system in which human wisdom and divine religion are inextricably united. Second, it portrays how Christian virtue is directed toward an eternal, rather than temporal, telos. And finally, it states that disciples formed in the Christian “course of life” will undergo suffering, if not death, as a consequence of Christian faithfulness. These three characteristics of Christian virtue inform my treatment of the justice that Lactantius saw to be constitutive of Christian discipleship and threat-ened by the move from a Christian politic to an imperial politic.

Justice and the Christian Life

Lactantius describes justice as “the greatest virtue, or by itself the foun-tain of virtue.”24 While he acknowledges that philosophers and poets alike have sought justice, Lactantius highlights the peculiarly Christian quality of true justice, and thereby sufficiently distinguishes it as a distinctive vir-tue of the Christian community. He explains that common property and simple living, constitutive practices of just living, are

23. Ibid., V.III.3.24. Ibid., V.V.1.


peculiar to our religion. “It was not even allowed to mark out or to divide the plain with a boundary: men sought all things in common”; since God had given the earth in common to all, that they might pass their life in com-mon, not that mad and raging avarice might claim all things for itself, and that that which was produced for all might not be wanting to any.25

For Lactantius, justice is antithetical to greed and private possession26 because it is ordered by God’s abundant provision in creation and the mutuality of the human community.27

Conversely, the absence of justice, for Lactantius, results in a scarcity that

introduced among men hatred, and envy, and stratagem; so that they were poisonous as serpents, and rapacious as wolves. And they truly do this who persecute those who are righteous and faithful towards God, and give to judges the power of using violence against the innocent.28

Lactantius bemoans that these very practices are executed “under the name of justice.”29 He thereby illuminates a sharp tension between Roman and Christian conceptions of justice. For Lactantius, the absence of jus-tice portrays the political situation of his time. With the “worship of God being taken away,” without which true justice cannot be practiced,

the common intercourse of life perished from among [them], and the bond of human society was destroyed. Then they began to contend with one another, and to plot, and to acquire for themselves glory from the shedding of human blood.30

This describes the governing domain of Roman power; an environ-ment fundamentally opposed to a Christian understanding of justice. Under this Roman system, “unequal and unjust laws” are constructed which maintain and sustain a society averse to true justice.31

25. Ibid., V.V.5-6.26. Lactantius decries private property in chapter six when he states, “they even seized

the property of others, drawing everything to their private gain…that they might make the bounties of heaven their own; not on account of kindness…but that they might sweep together all the instruments of lust and avarice.” Ibid., V.VI.1.

27. In chapter eight, Lactantius maintains that there would not “be these evils on the earth, if there were by common consent a general observance of the law of God, if those things were done by all which our people alone perform.” Ibid., V.VIII.8; emphasis mine.

28. Ibid., V.V.10-11.29. Ibid., V.VI.3.30. Ibid., V.V.13-14.31. Ibid., V.VI.3. Later, he remarks, “Amidst these crimes of such number and magni-

tude, what place is there for justice?” Ibid., V.IX.18.


In the unjust political atmosphere of his time, Lactantius observes that the “impious tyranny by violence and armed men…compelled men to become wicked and impious…[turning] them away from God to the worship of himself; and the terror of his excessive power.”32 For Lac-tantius, true justice is only possible when the true God is rightly wor-shipped.33 Political power is a-theistic when it usurps God’s rightful place and incites fear through tyranny. In a thorough description of justice Lac-tantius explains,

[T]he expulsion of justice is to be deemed nothing else, as I have said, than the laying aside of divine religion, which alone effects that man should esteem man dear, and should know that he is bound to him by the tie of brotherhood, since God is Father to all, so as to share the bounties of the common God and Father with those who do not possess them; to injure no one, to oppress no one, not to close his door against a stranger, nor his ear against a suppliant, but to be bountiful, beneficent, and liberal… This is truly justice…34

For Lactantius, justice is concretely associated with divine allegiance, com-mon property, common humanity, and hospitality toward the stranger.

Lactantius recognizes the unpopularity and peculiarity of the Christian claim that justice is “nothing other than pious and worshipful attention to the one and only God.”35 His understanding of true justice as a dis-tinctively Christian virtue, ordered by the worship of the one true God, provides the framework for his account of the material conditions that best cultivate justice. In Lactantius’s construal, justice is “not given to all mankind,”36 and he reasons that “virtue can neither be discerned, unless it has vices opposed to it; nor be perfect, unless it is exercised by adversity.”37 According to this portrayal, justice is forged in the fires of injustice. For Lactantius, Christian virtues are most clearly seen when contrasted by the vices of those who do not live according to the logic or piety of Christian-ity. While this sharp dualism threatens to make good ontologically depen-dent on evil (a theological problem), it provides philosophical categories for understanding the contingencies of everyday life. Put differently, as a kind of theodicy, injustice and vice, suffering and death, are enclosed and overcome by God’s justice and virtue. By God’s design, Christians are perfected through the misfortunes of a fallen world.

32. Ibid., V.VI.6.33. Lactantius asserts that “justice is nothing else than the pious and religious worship

of the one God.” Ibid., V.VII.2.34. Ibid., V.VI.12-13.35. Ibid., V.VII.2, trans. Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 294.36. Ibid., V.VII.3, trans. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers, 7.37. Ibid., V.VII.4.


By setting virtue in symbiotic apposition to vice, Lactantius portrays the means by which God forms Christians in virtue. Lactantius challenges,

For how could patient endurance retain its meaning and name if there were nothing which we were compelled to endure?… For on this account He permitted the unjust to be more powerful, that they might be able to com-pel to evil; and on this account to be more numerous, that virtue might be precious, because it is rare.38

Here Lactantius not only posits evil as instrumental to Christian dis-cipleship, but he also closely aligns those in positions of power with the unjust, who “compel to evil.” For Lactantius, the power that oppresses and dominates, namely, secular power, is the instrument that shapes Christians in virtue.39

Before we expand in greater detail on the material conditions that cul-tivate justice in Christian practice, we need to address two composite vir-tues of justice. In the fourteenth chapter of Book V, Lactantius states, “Although justice embraces all the virtues together, yet there are two, the chief of all, which cannot be torn asunder and separated from it—piety and equity.”40 In his discussion of piety and equity, Lactantius shows how the two are the “veins” of justice. Piety is the “source” of justice and refers to the right worship of God, while equity is the “force” of justice and refers to “making [oneself] equal to others.”41 What is crucial to note about these two characteristics of justice is that for Lactantius, piety and equity stand in stark contrast to imperial policy.

Early in Book V, Lactantius conveys how in the absence of justice, “the offices of which are humanity, equity, piety, [men] began to rejoice in a proud and swollen inequality, and made themselves higher than other men, by a retinue of attendants, and by the sword, and by the brilliancy of their garments.”42 Here Lactantius not only casts judg-

38. Ibid., V.VII.6-7.39. Lactantius argues, “For if it is virtue to resist with fortitude evils and vices, it is evi-

dent that, without evil and vice, there is no perfected virtue… For, being agitated by evils which harass it, it gains stability; and in proportion to the frequency with which it is urged onward, is the firmness with which it is strengthened…God has not taken away evil, that He might retain that diversity which alone preserves the mystery of a divine religion.” Ibid., V.VII.8-10.

40. Ibid., V.XIV.9. As noted earlier, I am here following the chapter and line citation of Bowen and Garnsey, even when the translations are mostly taken from Fletcher (1886). Fletcher has this block of material under chapter fifteen, rather than chapter fourteen. There is a one-chapter discrepancy between the two translations from chapter fifteen (per Fletcher) on.

41. Ibid., V.XV.15.42. Ibid., V.VI.4.


ment on the vices attenuating high political office,43 but also regards the accoutrements of secular office as symbolic of a disavowal of the com-mon equity among persons.44

In contrast, the Christian community reinforces the right worship of God and the equality of humanity. Lactantius anticipates, “Some one will say, Are there not among you some poor, and others rich; some servants and others masters? Is there not some difference between individuals? There is none; nor is there any other cause why we mutually bestow upon each other the name of brethren, except that we believe ourselves to be equal.”45 In saying this, Lactantius is not proffering a deluded utopia of the Christian community,46 but rather, a theological valuation of each person regard-less of their post in secular life. For Lactantius, the equity which orders the Christian community is not only distinctive, but evidence of its justice.

It is crucial to note that Lactantius’s discussion about equity and its relation to justice is informed by the distinctiveness of the Christian telos. Lactantius reasons that

since all things in this temporal life are frail and liable to decay, men both prefer themselves to others, and contend about dignity; than which noth-ing is more foul, nothing [more] arrogant, nothing more removed from the conduct of a wise man: for these earthly things are altogether opposed to heavenly things.47

In his sharp distinction between the temporal and eternal, Lactantius underscores that the Christian telos is inherently different from that of

43. Lactantius might very well have agreed with Julian’s (later) condemnation of Con-stantine’s rule. Hugo Rahner notes, “Julian’s Constantine is a devotee of sensual pleasure whose idols are Luxury and Wantonness; he confesses his ambition to amass great wealth and to spend it liberally for the enjoyment of himself and his friends, and he goes gladly to a Jesus who promises instantaneous pardon to seducers, the unclean, and murderers.” Hugo Rahner, Church and State in Early Christianity, trans. Leo Donald Davis (San Francisco: Igna-tius Press, 2005), 273.

44. Lactantius concludes, “Therefore neither the Romans nor the Greeks could pos-sess justice, because they had men differing from one another by many degrees, from the poor to the rich, from the humble to the powerful; in short, from private persons to the highest authorities of kings. For where all are not equally matched, there is not equity; and inequality of itself excludes justice.” Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.XIV.19-20, trans. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers 7.

45. Ibid., V.XV.2; emphasis mine.46. Contrary to the claim of Bowen and Garnsey who maintain, “Lactantius’ thought

is on the one hand utopian and on the other destructive of established and traditional polit-ical and social values (and these two strands in his thinking are necessarily interwoven).” Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 53.

47. Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.XV.7, trans. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers 7.


the state. Equity is a Christian virtue because it underscores the created and eternal nature of human beings from a divine vantage point.

Thus far, we have established that for Lactantius, true justice mandates human equality, requires the right worship of the one God, is distinctively Christian, and insists on a sharp, but important, contrast between virtue and vice. We have also seen that through adversity, Christians patiently endure the material conditions (i.e., oppressive political power), which in turn, cul-tivate virtue in the faith community, forming it as a just society. We will now take a closer look at Lactantius’s constructive proposal about why Christians are best shaped in virtue when under the secular power of Rome.48

The Conditions for Making a Just Community

In response to the question, What then, or where, or of what character is piety? Lactantius responds,

Truly it is among those who are ignorant of wars, who maintain concord with all, who are friendly even to their enemies, who love all men as breth-ren, who know how to restrain their anger, and to soothe every passion of the mind with calm government.49

For Lactantius, the material conditions that form the Christian life in virtues such as piety are drastically different from those common to the imperial palace. In depicting piety with such clear lines, Lactantius pres-ents a challenge to the imaginations of those Christians who would dream of wielding secular power. If the character of piety precludes war, insists on befriending enemies and loving all people as kin, how would a person of piety possibly, much less a Christian emperor, navigate the exigencies of the secular state?

To this point, Lactantius’s argumentation has been subtle, requiring his reader to anticipate the consequences and implications of his Christian account of justice. Here Lactantius shows his hand a bit more, however,

48. Bowen and Garnsey do not see a constructive proposal on Lactantius’s part. They insist, “There is no doctrine of citizenship, no ethic of participation, and in general an absence of constructive political thought. It is as if he envisages two alternatives, and no more, for the human race: the rule of injustice where crooked human law is administered and exe-cuted crookedly, or the rule of justice, where divine law prevails, rendering laws, prisons and punishments redundant. Lactantius has not faced up to the challenge of sketching out the appropriate acts and attitudes of Christians in a state which is not bent on persecuting them.” Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 45. While they recognize rightly the role adversity plays for the Christian community in Lactantius’s thought, their preconceptions about what consti-tutes a “constructive proposal” does not appreciate fully the distinctive logic (“folly” for the temporally minded) that drives Lactantius’s construal of Christian discipleship.

49. Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.X.10, trans. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers 7.


when he discusses the perversity of the secular state’s understanding of virtue. After treating the Ciceronian example of a good man who is deemed evil and a wicked man who is wrongly credited with righteous-ness, Lactantius generalizes,

Behold, the state, or rather the whole world itself, is in such error, that it persecutes, tortures, condemns, and puts to death good and righteous men, as though they were wicked and impious. For as to what he says, that no one is so infatuated as to doubt which of the two he would prefer to be, he indeed, as the one who was contending against justice, thought this, that the wise man would prefer to be bad if he had a good reputation, than to be good with a bad reputation.50

Here Lactantius offers a veiled prophecy of the situation in which Chris-tians would find themselves, if they were to move to a place of secular political prominence. If the material conditions were so altered, there would be great temptation to rule in compliance with the flawed logic of the empire.

When injustice is widely acclaimed as justice and justice is publicly ridiculed as impiety, the official court of the empire proves itself to be inhospitable territory for the Christian. Accordingly, Lactantius exhorts his readers:

But may this senselessness be absent from us, that we should prefer that which is false to the true? Or does the character of our good man depend upon the errors of the people, more than upon our own conscience and the judgment of God? Or shall any prosperity ever allure us, so that we should not rather choose true goodness, though accompanied with all evil, than false goodness together with all prosperity? Let kings retain their kingdoms, the rich their riches…51

In his firm warning against Christian accommodation to the impious logic of the state, Lactantius draws a deep line dividing Christian faithful-ness from secular power. His dismissal, Let the kings retain their kingdoms, the rich their riches, portrays Lactantius’s deep-seated misgivings of the allure-ment and trappings of secular power.52

50. Ibid., V.XII.8-9.51. Ibid., V.XII.10-11.52. Lactantius’s premonition is nicely illustrated in Hilary of Poitiers’s critique of

Emperor Constantius. Hilary complains, “He does not stab us in the back but fills our stomachs, does not seize our property to lead us to life but stuffs our pockets to lead us to death, does not free us by putting us in prison but enslaves us by attendance at court, does not lash our bodies but steals our hearts, does not behead us with swords but kills the spirit with gold” (quoted in Rahner, Church and State, 91).


The growth of the Christian community in the midst of the empire’s persecution is evidence of a power of which the state knows not. Lactan-tius muses,

[O]ur number is increased from the worshippers of the gods, but is never lessened, not even in persecution itself—since men may commit sin, and be defiled by sacrifice, but they cannot be turned away from God, for the truth prevails by its own power—who is there, I pray, so foolish and so blind as not to see on which side wisdom is?53

Christian fidelity to God, in the midst of persecution, reveals a power that is infused by divine wisdom. This power is evidenced in Christian faithfulness to God, which embraces death rather than the state’s demands to serve its gods.54 For Lactantius, persecution is not an insurmountable obstacle for theodicy; rather, it is the means by which God shapes the Christian community in justice.

Persecution not only shapes Christians in justice, but it also presents a rival power that proves a striking alternative to the power of the state. Lac-tantius reasons,

For when the people see that men are lacerated by various kinds of tor-tures, and that they retain their patience unsubdued while the execution-ers are wearied, they think, as is really the case, that neither the agreement of so many nor the constancy of the dying is without meaning, and that patience itself could not surmount such great tortures without the aid of God.55

Christian power patiently suffers (i.e., dies for the faith);56 whereas imperial power impatiently oppresses (i.e., kills for the state).

Not only does secular power exercise its will through oppression, but it is fundamentally opposed to the equity constitutive of true justice. Lac-tantius’s discussion of equity and its role as a method of justice is a subtle critique of kingship. By contrasting earthly with heavenly goods, he high-lights the tension inherent to political office regarding the just exercise of equity. Lactantius asserts that,

53. Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.XIII.1, trans. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers 7.54. Lactantius explains, “[T]here is everywhere the same patient endurance, the same

contempt of death—they ought to have understood that there is some reason in that mat-ter, that it is not without a cause that it is defended even to death, that there is some foun-dation and solidity, which not only frees that religion from injuries and molestation, but always increases and makes it stronger.” Ibid., V.XIII.5.

55. Ibid., V.XIII.11.56. Elsewhere, Lactantius maintains that the just man “will rather die than put another

to death.” Ibid., V.XVII.20.


he is low and abject in the sight of God who shall have been conspicu-ous and elevated on earth. For, not to mention that these present earthly goods to which great honour is paid are contrary to virtue, and enervate the vigour of the mind, what nobility, I pray, can be so firm, what resources, what power, since God is able to make kings themselves even lower than the lowest?57

For Lactantius, the veneration of kings is a deluded practice in vice. In fact, to regard a king otherwise than other men is a denial of the equality of all persons.

For Lactantius, the material conditions that constitute life in the impe-rial palace or high political office are in acute tension with those con-ditions that make for the virtuous Christian life. The honor, riches and power, along with imperial assumptions that underwrite inequity and impiety (from a Christian perspective), present an environment alto-gether antagonistic to Christian discipleship. The logic which constitutes Christianity, in all of its distinctiveness, is misshaped for life in politi-cal office, if the assumptions and secular “course of life” are accepted on their own terms. Accordingly, Lactantius’s account of Christianity, and the unique conditions which shape Christians in lives of justice, piety, equity, patience, innocence and charity, presents the temporal power of the state in an unfavorable, if not altogether despicable, light. The logic of the Christian faith renders deeply problematic the Christian’s exercise or possession of secular power.

The Logical End of Christian Reasoning

The logic of Lactantius’s account of justice is that, seen from a temporal viewpoint, true justice is politically disastrous.58 If the exercise of justice is political folly, how (or why) would a Christian exercise such justice from the imperial seat? As presented earlier in the Ciceronian example, either the Christian pursues wickedness for the sake of political expedience (and good reputation), or the Christian pursues justice and forfeits the tem-poral safety and goodwill of the non-Christian citizens of the state. By presenting justice in such stark terms, Lactantius constructs a formidable obstacle to any Christian pining for high political office.

Lactantius addresses head-on the critique that justice appears to be folly and is, by implication, powerless. He challenges the philosophers, “Do you then…think that justice is so useless, so superfluous, and so

57. Ibid., V.XV.8-9.58. Lactantius cites Carneades, who argues that “no one could be just without danger

of his life.” Ibid., V.XVI.9.


despised by God, that it has no power and no influence in itself which may avail for its own preservation?”59 Here Lactantius engages the crit-ical question of whether Christian virtue (here: justice) has any trac-tion in the temporal world. Is true justice so eternally oriented that it is not temporally efficacious? For Lactantius, the answer is both “yes” and “no.”

Lactantius clarifies that true justice is teleologically oriented beyond this present life. This reality is not recognized by those who refer “all things to the present life, they altogether reduce virtue to folly, since it undergoes such great labours of this life in vain and to no purpose.”60 For people with no regard for eternity, justice is indeed folly. So Lactantius here concedes that the exercise of justice, or any virtue, will not elicit the desired consequences of the temporally ambitious statesman.

But Lactantius will not relegate the power of justice to the eternal realm alone. To do so would be to misunderstand the temporal. While Lactan-tius does posit that the just man should enjoy some protection “by the guardianship of Heaven,”61 he makes the stronger claim that wise people pursue, and have the ability to attain, a good life. Hence, Lactantius con-sistently rejects any notion that wisdom and justice are mutually exclu-sive. Rather, he insists,

But man, who has the knowledge of good and evil, abstains from commit-ting an injury even to his own damage…and on this account innocence is reckoned among the chief virtues of man. Now by these things it appears that he is the wisest man who prefers to perish rather than to commit an injury.62

By extolling the life of virtue over the life of temporal expediency, Lac-tantius positions the Christian of virtue at fundamental odds with the pol-itician of convenience.

To be sure, both Lactantius’s “yes” and “no” are eternally oriented.63 The telos of Christian virtue cannot be disregarded, nor can it be enslaved to the finite ends of secular power. Thus, Lactantius is at ideological odds

59. Ibid., V.XVII.14.60. Ibid., V.XVII.16.61. Ibid., V.XVII.19.62. Ibid., V.XVII.31.63. In their introduction to Lactantius: Divine Institutes, Bowen and Garnsey dismis-

sively state that Lactantius’s “vision of an ideal society” and “criticism of the Roman state and its leadership…is more or less what might have been expected of a work written in the midst of persecution by someone with pronounced millenarianist tendencies” (37). By labeling Lactantius as a “millenarianist,” Bowen and Garnsey do not adequately attend to the eternal-oriented teleology inherent to the Christian faith.


with those who think that “man is destroyed by death.”64 He is well aware of the practical implications of this difference:

For if we have no existence after death, assuredly it is the part of the most foolish man not to promote the interests of the present life, that it may be long-continued, and may abound with all advantages. But he who will act thus must of necessity depart from the rule of justice.65

Lactantius cannot be clearer: the ends make all the difference. If, by neces-sity, the state’s rule is oriented toward this present life, it must exercise a temporal power that is diametrically opposed to the justice to which Christians commit themselves.

Given Lactantius’s construal of justice, the wise man holds the pres-ent order in little regard. He explains that, “it is the part of the wise man to despise this present life with its advantages, since its entire loss is com-pensated by immortality.”66 Herein lies the power of true justice that has traction in the temporal order. Because the logic of the wise and just per-son runs counter to temporal reasoning, the wise and just person is liber-ated and empowered to inhabit the world in the power of God rather than in fear of the emperor’s limited power.67

The way in which Christians live in the world is contrary to that of their persecutors who occupy positions of power. Lactantius highlights the vari-ance when he writes, “Torture and piety are widely different; nor is it possi-ble for truth to be united with violence, or justice with cruelty.”68 Lactantius here suggests that not only cruelty, but violence itself have no place in just living.69 He strengthens his statement against violence when he continues,

For religion is to be defended, not by putting to death, but by dying; not by cruelty, but by patient endurance; not by guilt, but by good faith: for the for-mer belong to evils, but the latter to goods; and it is necessary for that which is good to have place in religion, and not that which is evil.70

For Lactantius, the Christian is deeply committed to justice; regard-less of whether a just policy unites and preserves the empire or not. Even

64. Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.XVIII.1, trans. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers 7.65. Ibid., V.XVIII.2-3.66. Ibid., V.XVIII.3.67. Ibid., V.XVIII.6ff.68. Ibid., V.XIX.17.69. Similarly, Oliver Nicholson argues on the grounds of Book IV in the Institutes,

“Lactantius’ conviction expressed in the Institutes that a soldier’s obligation to kill people made the army no place for a righteous man, a Christian, was of a piece with his funda-mental principles.” Oliver Nicholson, “Lactantius on Military Service,” Studia Patristica 24 (1993): 175–83 (178).

70. Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.XIX.22, trans. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers 7.


if unifying the empire religiously would bring a clear political advantage, justice requires that this not be done coercively; and oftentimes, such a policy results in great suffering on behalf of Christians.71

The peculiar manner in which Christians must, by necessity, inhabit the world if they are to live virtuously has drastic implications for the exer-cise of secular rule. For example, if a Christian were to become emperor, such a one is compelled by his faith to act justly. In such a position, there are clear methods that the Christian emperor should exercise. Lactan-tius explains, “The right method therefore is, that you defend religion by patient endurance or by death; in which the preservation of the faith is both pleasing to God Himself, and adds authority to religion.”72 Not only is it contrary to justice to coerce others in matters of faith, particularly the Christian faith,73 but it is most fitting for a Christian ruler to exercise the authority of his faith through martyrdom, rather than violence. What sec-ular state, with its gaze firmly set on the temporal horizon, would allow for this kind of policy?

To this point we have discussed the essential incongruity between true justice and secular rule. For Lactantius’s argument, this lays the ground-work for establishing the tension inherent to Christian participation in secular politics. Lactantius’s final move in his argument is to suggest, first of all, that Christians become more virtuous when under the power of the unjust, and secondly, to reject arguments which make claims to the ben-efits or fittingness of a Christian in political rule.

Lactantius employs the virtue of patience to illustrate why Christian virtue is strengthened under an unjust ruler. Extolling patience as a “great and leading virtue,”74 Lactantius eschews temporal consequentialism. He disparages “those goods, the enjoyment of which by the unjust causes the worship of their gods to be regarded as true and efficacious.”75 The Chris-tian faith and the practice of justice are not validated by temporal success. Rather, Christians find themselves in a subservient position to those who are temporally minded. Thus, Lactantius asserts that “it is necessary that the just and wise man should be in the power of the unjust, for obtaining

71. Lactantius later asserts that “religion cannot be imposed by force” and “nothing is so much a matter of free-will as religion.” Ibid., V.XIX.23.

72. Ibid., V.XIX.24.73. It is worth noting that Lactantius would thoroughly disagree with later edicts that

would enforce Christianity as the official religion of the state. In chapter twenty, Lactantius asserts, “But we, on the contrary, do not require that any one should be compelled, whether he is willing or unwilling, to worship our God, who is the God of all men; nor are we angry if any one does not worship Him.” Ibid., V.XX.9.

74. Ibid., V.XXII.2.75. Ibid., V.XXII.1.


patience; for patience is the bearing with equanimity of the evils which are either inflicted or happened to fall upon us.”76 To insist on the necessity of the unjust in power, for the sake of developing virtue in Christians, is a move that not only dismisses the possibility of a just Christian in power, but also seems to preclude it.

Lactantius’s argument develops from a place of defending the impor-tance of adversity to a strategic offensive against prosperity. He contends that, “the man who lives in prosperity is impatient, and is without the greatest virtue. I call him impatient, because he suffers nothing. He is also unable to preserve innocency, which virtue is peculiar to the just and wise man.”77 Without innocence and patience, the prosperous are disposed to unjust action and impious behavior. Lactantius continues,

But he often acts unjustly also, and desires the property of others, and seizes upon that which he has desired by injustice, because he is without virtue, and is subject to vice and sin; and forgetful of his frailty, he is puffed up with a mind elated with insolence.78

To be sure, this kind of prosperity is not necessarily synonymous with one in high political office. However, the close relation between one who lives prosperously and one who holds high political office in the fourth-century Roman Empire cannot be dismissed.

If one does ignore this connection, Lactantius leaves little room for misunderstanding his point when he describes the lives of the unjust and impious. Lactantius states that “the unjust, and those who are ignorant of God, abound with riches, and power, and honours. For all these things are the rewards of injustice, because they cannot be perpetual, and they are sought through lust and violence.”79 Here Lactantius condemns riches, power and honor, deeming them incompatible with justice and virtue and assessing them as accessories of the unjust alone. Accordingly, the just per-son “seeks no position of power in case of doing someone an injustice.”80

The reasoning behind the rejection of such power and honor is rooted in the Christian understanding of justice itself. Justice requires equity, piety, simple living, common property and love of all people.81 The exer-

76. Ibid., V.XXII.3; emphasis mine. Lactantius continues, “Because a just and wise man is virtuous, so endurance is with him already; but it will be missing entirely if he suf-fers no adversity.” Ibid., V.XXII.4; trans. Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 326.

77. Ibid., V.XXII.5.78. Ibid., V.XXII.6.79. Ibid., V.XXII.6.80. Ibid., V.XXII.7; trans. Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 327.81. Lactantius writes, “For [the just man] knows that all [people] are produced by the

same God, and in the same condition and are joined together by the right of brotherhood.


cise of temporal power mitigates against these virtues. Accordingly, Lac-tantius wages his most clear statement against the Christian exercise of temporal power when he states of the Christian:

He also, having no pride or insolence, does not raise himself too highly, nor lift up his head with arrogance; but he is calm and peaceful, lowly and cour-teous, because he knows his own condition. Since, therefore, he does injury to none, nor desires the property of others, and does not even defend his own if it is taken from him by violence, since he knows how even to bear with moderation an injury inflicted upon him, because he is endued with virtue; it is necessary that the just man should be subject to the unjust.82

Here Lactantius synthesizes his entire argument in a statement that depicts the wise and just life of the Christian. In so doing, he rejects the prospect, much less the aspiration, of the just holding a position from which to exercise secular power.

Lactantius’s politic is informed not only by a Christian view of jus-tice, but also by a confident hope in God’s love. Committed to the teach-ing that God chastises those whom he loves, Lactantius’s understanding of Christians’ proper location under the rule of the unjust is theologically informed. Accordingly, when discussing the prospect of Christians wield-ing secular power, Lactantius asserts,

For when [God] might have bestowed upon His people both riches and kingdoms… He would have them live under the power and government of others, lest, being corrupted by the happiness of prosperity, they should glide into luxury and despise the precepts of God…83

For Lactantius, it is an act of divine favor and charity that Christians do not hold power but, instead, are under the power of the unjust. Ordering the Christian life in this manner, God proves “the devotedness and fidel-ity of His servants, or may strengthen them, until He corrects their wast-ing discipline by the stripes of affliction.”84 Like a Divine Commander, God enlists Christians in an army of virtue that is tried, tested, formed and reformed through the temporal power of the unjust.

This political platform is defensible, according to Lactantius, because of its coherence with true virtue, which lends further credence to the power of Christian witness. Lactantius concludes his argument with a

But being contented with his own, and that a little, because he is mindful of his frailty, he does not seek for anything beyond that which may support his life; and even from that which he has he bestows a share on the destitute, because he is pious.” Ibid., V.XXII.7-8; trans. Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers 7.

82. Ibid., V.XXII.8-10; emphasis mine.83. Ibid., V.XXII.14.84. Ibid., V.XXII.17.


temporally-located but eternally-oriented argument that the Christian practice of justice, in the face of secular power, increases the people of God. The power of Christian witness is due to many qualities, but, pre-eminently, it is credited to the attractiveness of a people who stand fast in their conviction that God’s power, and its truthfulness, belongs to a coherent and consistent system of which the world knows not. Lactan-tius’s penchant for martyrdom over military might is informed by his par-ticipation in a community that acknowledges that God, not the emperor, is the “commander of us all.”85

Writing during the Great Persecution, in the advent of Constantine’s rise to power, Lactantius penned Book V of the Divine Institutes, where he offers a striking account of Church–state relations. For Lactantius, the power of the state is antithetical to the Christian “course of life.” Com-mitted to true virtue, Christians perform justice from below, under a secu-lar state committed to self-preservation at all costs. Lactantius makes clear that if Christians collude with the power of the state, exercising virtue from above, justice becomes an impracticable virtue. Not only would a shift in power alter the material conditions which best form Christians in vir-tue, but it would, in Lactantius’s view, cultivate a life of vice and alienation from God.

While Lactantius does not state explicitly that a Christian emperor is oxymoronic, he leaves little room for Christians to imagine that such a political shift would be practicable, much less coherent with the Chris-tian life. For Lactantius, it seems, a Christian emperor would be fun-damentally conflicted between the telos of the state and the telos of the church. But perhaps more significantly, a Christian emperor who remained faithful to the one true God could not rule in a way other than that which the pagan citizen would descry as sheer folly. In Book V of his Divine Institutes, Lactantius employs Christian reasoning to form in Christians, at this pivotal point in the church’s history, a deep suspicion of the empire’s power.

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85. Ibid., V.XIX.25, trans. Bowen and Garnsey, Lactantius, 322.


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Lactantius’s Power Struggle

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