Roman Virtue in the Early Christian Thought of Lactantius

Known since the Renaissance as the "Christian Cicero," Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius was a professor of Latin rhetoric, Christian apologist, and theologian at the court of Emperor Constantine.In this historical study, Jason M. Gehrke examines the central notion ofvirtusin Lactantius's major work,The Divine Institutes of the Christian Religion. This book begins by tracing the reception of classical Roman political and philosophical arguments about divinevirtusfrom their classical sources into the apologetic, exegetical, and doctrinal writings of Lactantius's predecessors - Tertullian, Minucius Felix, and Cyprian.Recognition of their influence illuminates the fundamental notion ofvirtusthat animates Lactantius's doctrine of God and his Christology.In this context, Lactantius's account of divinevirtusrevealed in Christ indicates the profound influence of classical Roman literature, philosophy, and politics upon the development of Christian thought in the third-century Latin West.