The Ancient World Online: Laktanz: “Divinae institutions”: introduction, text, translation and notes

Die Divine institutions (“Divine Instructions” or “Textbook of Theology”) of Lactanz were written between 303 and 311, during the last great persecution of Christians, and were revised again in 324/325. The author offers a comprehensive presentation of Christianity for an educated Roman audience in seven books. The work is fundamental to the history of Christian apologetics and represents an important testimony to Christianity’s engagement with ancient culture as well as to the understanding of the Constantinian change. Later authors praised Laktanz as ‘Cicero Christianus’ because of his Latin. He was and is valued as a mediator of otherwise lost texts. In fact, the work contains a wealth of fragments from both Roman (e.g. Cicero and Seneca, as well as Varro, Ennius and Lucilius) and Greek (especially from the Corpus Hermeticum and the Sibyl Oracles) literature. This edition includes an introduction, original text, translation and notes. It represents the first bilingual edition of the Divine institutions and also offers the first German translation since 1818.

Series	Letters of the Christians
Volume	1
ISBN	978-3-515-13253-4
Media type	Book – Hardcover
Edition number	1.
Copyright year	2025
Publisher	Franz Steiner Publishing
Number of volumes	2
Length	VIII, 1086 pages
Size	17.0 x 24.0 cm