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Preaching to Seneca: Christ as Stoic Sapiens in Divinae Institutiones IV*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2018

Benjamin Hansen
Benjamin Hansen*
Affiliation:
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
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Abstract

Lactantius’s Divine Institutes is a conversation with many partners. His affinity for Stoic thought in general, and Seneca in particular, is especially pronounced. Throughout the Institutes we find a delicate back-and-forth between Lactantius’s claim of a novel philosophy centered on the Christian Gospel and his attraction to—and dependence on—the pagan philosophy he hoped to supplant. This interplay is distinctly relevant to Lactantius’s portrayal of the figure of Jesus in Institutes IV. In this paper, I argue that Lactantius shapes his story of the nature and work of Jesus in part to give an answer to a primary Stoic question: where is the sapiens? Indeed, the figure of the sapiens, the “Stoic sage,” had presented something of a problem for the Stoa: Stoic cosmology demanded he exist while Stoic history had failed to find him. By Seneca’s time, a resigned acceptance of the absence of such figures of incarnate wisdom was commonplace; the figure of the sapiens had begun to fade away into the realm of theory, separated from imperfect human practice. In redressing this concern, Lactantius portrays his Christ: the true sage and exemplum, wisdom and virtue incarnate. In short, to Seneca’s resignation, Lactantius offers a rebuke and a corrective by a clever re-shaping of both Christian and Stoic expectation.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 111 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 541 - 558
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2018 

Introduction: The Sage, the Stoics, and the Rhetor

The existence of a truly wise man, the sapiens, presented something of a problem for the Stoics. Indeed, his very status suffered the awkward disjunction of being both hypothetically posited and historically absent.Footnote 1 At times, of course, an exemplar such as Socrates could fulfill this role (at least rhetorically), but by and large the uncomfortable absence of such a figure was perplexing.Footnote 2 Uncomfortable why? Stoicism prided itself on the strength of its logical coherence, on the comprehensive—indeed universal—scope of its content. It was in a very explicit sense a natural philosophy, and thus the devotees of the logos might have hoped to find such a pillar of manifest virtue more readily apparent in nature. After all, virtus was in need, more than anything else, of instantiation—it was through the exempla of the wise that the invisible principles of the world were made most evident, in the concrete works of flesh governed by reason.Footnote 3 Orthodox Stoicism was not dualist: that which was rational was, in a subtle and ephemeral way, physical. Matter was imbued with a spiritual logic that was not separable from it; rather, this spiritual logic found its expression in the material.Footnote 4 Thus, the manifestation of the sage would, so it seems, follow the simple logic of essential universal principles; that is to say, the very nature of the universe necessitated rational human beings.Footnote 5

In light of this impasse, Stoic thinkers such as Panaetius, and then later Seneca, focused their attention instead on a more pedestrian practitioner of philosophy.Footnote 6 If perfectly-instantiated virtus was to remain a historical rarity, then a more practical approach was called for. Focus of one’s moral attention could be directed to what might be called the “half-wise”—those who, at different times and places, had managed to practice an aspect of virtus (almost) in full.Footnote 7 Thus, while no exemplars could be expected to have practiced all the virtues absolutely, there were nevertheless those who had practiced specific virtues—and this was still remarkably important. These brief appearances of virtue were, so to speak, like great flashes in the night-sky of the moral universe. Brief and brilliant, these epiphanies offered the essential exempla of human nature lived in accordance with the logos.Footnote 8 And, as such, they could help to form a sort of composite puzzle of the virtues: here true courage, there self-control, here endurance, there generosity.Footnote 9 What no one could enact alone, many could approximate together.

This turn to the practical may well have assisted in the diffuse spread of Stoic “culture,” a phenomenon of influence well attested in the late Republic and on into the Empire.Footnote 10 Stoicism provided a metaphysical and ethical vocabulary that was coherent yet flexible, all-encompassing yet variegated. It was, in short, a compelling and very useful vocabulary, a grammar for the official language spoken in the halls of power.Footnote 11 Which brings us to our particular figure: Lactantius. Indeed, the Rhetor of the Imperial Court at Nicomedia (then Diocletian’s headquarters) and eventual tutor of Constantine’s son, Crispus, paced such halls with a canny and lettered confidence.Footnote 12 He played, moreover, the role of witness, polemicist, and apologist for a Christian faith that was becoming an ever more noticeable presence therein.Footnote 13

Of course, the evidence of the significance which Stoicism had for Christianity is overwhelming: Stoic thought was embraced or condemned (or both) by a significant host of early Christian writers.Footnote 14 These writers were confronted by a stark necessity, the need to address Stoicism head-on for what it really was: a competing worldview as demanding and ethically robust as the one with which they themselves were apt to replace it. Lactantius, for his part, was no theologian or philosopher—and we must be clear on this.Footnote 15 Yet as a well-educated man of the Latin-speaking Roman court, the categories of Stoicism were familiar to him; its concerns were pressing and its authority was advantageous (even despite its imperfections). His intellectual interests were not primarily the expounding of the Bible or the interpretation of the subtleties of Greek philosophy—he was neither an exegete, nor a lover of Greek.Footnote 16 Rather his fathers in letters were first Cicero and then Seneca. And it is here, in his dialogue with the latter (and through him with Stoicism in general) that Lactantius’s notion of incarnate and perfect virtue takes on its own distinct force. As I will argue, Lactantius thought that he had found the Stoic sage in the figure of Jesus; to expound this novel revelation to his contemporaries, he would enter into Seneca’s world, borrowing his vocabulary and philosophical assumptions in an effort to offer some resolution to this Stoic impasse, arguing that the sapiens had finally appeared in the surprising and paradoxical life of Christ.

But before analyzing Lactantius’s approach to this Stoic concern, I will offer a few more observations on the place of the sapiens in Stoic thought. Afterwards, I will touch on Lactantius’s own familiarity with Stoic philosophy and will offer examples of the influence of its language and concepts on both his implicit philosophical assumptions as well as his explicit philosophical assertions. It will become clear that Stoicism served for Lactantius as both a willing partner and, at times, a rebarbative enemy. I will also briefly note the special place Seneca had in Lactantius’s work. With these tasks accomplished, I will finally turn to the heart of the paper: the portrayal of Christ in Liber IV of Lactantius’s Institutiones.

The Place of the Sapiens in Stoic Thought

The wise man (sapiens, ὁ σοφός) was, for the Stoics, a divine figure indeed.Footnote 17 His life itself was celestial, both in the virtues he exhibited and the revelatory and didactic nature of his very person. For Seneca, this exemplar was “next-door neighbor to the gods”; his was an affinity linked with proximity.Footnote 18 Wisdom led the sapiens to the Good (bonum), elevating the sapiens to the heavens (cum deo pono).Footnote 19 Seneca, moreover, highlights the ontological blending of his work: the mix of divine and human affairs.Footnote 20 Epictetus, for his part, asserts that this sage should be called god’s very son (υἱὸν τοῦ θɛοῦ);Footnote 21 Participating in the ratio, the sage assimilates himself to the way things are, which is natura, the divine. Musonius’s sage is actualized through divine imitation (μίμημα θɛοῦ), observing the nature of the divine and acting in accordance with it.Footnote 22

Indeed, this participatory proximity to the divine in both thought and deed makes the sapiens a saving and didactic figure. He acts, according to Epictetus, as the paradeigma, a messenger sent as an existential road-map.Footnote 23 He is a herald and teacher sent from Zeus himself.Footnote 24 This teaching, according to Seneca, is the key to a life rightly lived. Indeed, the sage has taught

first, truth and nature—nature which he has not perceived as animals do, with eyes too dull to see its divinity. Next he has taught the law of life, and this law leads to universal principles. And he has taught us not only to know the gods but to follow them and to receive the accidents of fortune as if they were commands. He forbids us from giving heed to false opinions and he has examined what things actually are by a true measurement.Footnote 25

In a very real sense, the Stoic sage is the embodiment of his own teaching. He lives a life imbued with rationality (logos/ratio), and thus his existence is an actual and visible presentation of the logic of the universe; his is a life rightly lived.Footnote 26 Thus, this figure of the sapiens (even as a hypothetical) becomes the canon by which all actions can be judged, and the model for daily imitation. A disciple of Stoic thought ought therefore to ask in any given situation: what would the sage do?Footnote 27

The life of the sapiens, however imagined, is marked in Stoic thought with an especially ethical and often paradoxical aesthetic hue. Here, in particular, we can turn to Seneca for an elaboration of two interesting aspects of the life of the sapiens. First, the wise man cannot be judged by his outward appearance; indeed, many of those who have come close to divine wisdom were sick in body, poor, and frail. These were those who suffered great misfortune and even undignified death. In form, Seneca tells Lucilius, wisdom may hide in the ugly (deformis) and base (humilis).Footnote 28 The sapiens may come to us even poor (pauper) or forsaken (exul).Footnote 29 But such low conditions, hardship, and even torture will neither wither his spirit nor distract him from the duties of virtue.Footnote 30 In particular, for Seneca, the figure of his dear Claranus serves as a flesh-and-blood example of strength in weakness.Footnote 31

Moreover, Seneca’s concept of the wise man as judge deserves comment. Inwood has made the novel observation of the metaphorical use of “judge” and “judgement” in Seneca’s moral vocabulary.Footnote 32 For the purposes of this study, it is important to take notice of how Seneca contrasts the cloudy and always imperfect judgements of non-wise judges with the ideal judgement of the sapiens. Whereas merely human judges must always decide by a species veritatis, or a simulacra of that which is really real, the true judge—the sapiens—is not so limited.Footnote 33 Indeed, law emanates from the sage himself, as his judgement aligns at all times with how things really are.Footnote 34 Thus his judgement is absolute: it is akin to a divine fiat.Footnote 35 In his very person, therefore, the sage establishes perfect law; his presence elevates human law and transforms it in accordance with his absolutely rational example.Footnote 36

Finally, as we noted above, Seneca’s ethics are marked by the practicalities of a world without sages.Footnote 37 The “half-wise” are useful figures for Seneca, and these exempla of imperfect virtue fill his letters and other writings, serving as pillars to his moral edifice.Footnote 38 Importantly, Seneca finds it necessary to offer the observation that, in reality, most human lives do not actually provide the opportunities to exercise virtue in all its aspects.Footnote 39 There are as many sorts of lives as there are people, and to some degree fortune (or fate) will decide what sort of challenges an individual may face. Virtue—though one thing—appears in the variegated unfolding of a life marked by good and bad decisions.Footnote 40 To perceive virtue, therefore, let alone to execute it perfectly, is a difficult task. Thus, for Seneca, we need to make do with “half-wise” though we walk their steps with some trepidation, knowing that every other pace may be in error.Footnote 41 Seneca betrays his own ethical and epistemological humility in this regard. He unabashedly designates himself as something other than a sapiens in his own philosophical endeavor.Footnote 42 Nor did Seneca shy away from denouncing other philosophers whose claims to wisdom were greatly hindered by their own behavior.Footnote 43

Above all else, Seneca was a thoughtful and practical philosopher. He was a man well-aware of the weaknesses of mortality. His own ethical system was, as we have seen, tethered to a notion of the imperfections of human life, even philosophical life. He lived explicitly in the space between what is and what ought to be. His clear perception of sapientia was matched, paradoxically, with his more adumbrated sense of the sapiens.

Lactantius and the Stoics

The Divinae Institutiones is a conversation with many partners. Lactantius’s breathless ability to summon a parade of Classical authors in praise and derision is a testament to his ingenuity, and it has been a boon to those who mine his work as a sort of Classical compendium.Footnote 44 To be sure, Lactantius’s foremost dialogue partner is Cicero: a man he clearly loved to the point of utter frustration, as both a venerable father and a child untimely born.Footnote 45 Lactantius’s absorption of Cicero, however, was in part an absorption of Stoicism through Cicero.Footnote 46 Yet in Lactantius’s case, we have more than just the assumption (however correct) of ideological influence. Lactantius agrees and argues with the Stoics by name repeatedly throughout the Institutiones. He shares a broad swath of philosophical territory with the Stoics, and especially with Seneca.Footnote 47

For Lactantius, Seneca was indeed “of all the Romans, the sharpest Stoic” (qui ex Romanis vel acerrimus Stoicus fuit); in fact, Lactantius felt the need to write it twice.Footnote 48 Like many other early Christian writers, Seneca—perhaps even more than Cicero—was for Lactantius an abeyant-Christian, a near miss among the elect. For Seneca “could have been a worshipper of the true God, if anyone had taught him how.”Footnote 49 Here we can catalogue some basic agreements. Lactantius’s “solution” to the problem of evil matches Seneca’s: evil must exist so that virtue can be exercised.Footnote 50 Next, both men hold a strong conviction that a true and salvific philosophy must be one which is open to all—regardless of position. Lactantius gives a clear nod to all the Stoics here:

If man is naturally competent to be wise, then wisdom ought to be teachable to craftsmen, peasants and women, indeed to all of human shape, and the population of the wise should be a mix of every tongue, condition, sex and age… the Stoics realized as much; they said that philosophy was for both slaves and for women.Footnote 51

The agreements continue. Lactantius summons Seneca as a witness to the power of the spirit that created the universe.Footnote 52 He quotes Seneca in happy confirmation that virtue leads to communion with the gods and a certain sort of immortality.Footnote 53 Seneca, moreover, was right in linking the exercise of virtue to facing death bravely.Footnote 54 And Lactantius agrees with Seneca that misfortune can be considered the mysterious but steadfast providence of God.Footnote 55 Lactantius’s discussion of justice (iustitia), which takes the whole of Liber V, is held within a particularly Stoic framework (often by means of Cicero).Footnote 56

Liber VI, in particular, offers evidence of what might be termed influence by omission.Footnote 57 Here, Lactantius deals explicitly with the love of the neighbor, and castigates both Cicero and “the Stoics” for failing to see the importance of misericordia and humanitas.Footnote 58 In his attempt to exalt a Christian ethics over and against one hindered by Classical expectations of moderation and decorum, Lactantius rather conspicuously ignores Seneca’s writings. Cicero, of course, is taken to task by name.Footnote 59 Seneca, however, remains unnamed, and the Stoicism that Lactantius attacks is much more likely that of Panaetius and other earlier Stoics. For, as Lausberg notes, Seneca’s works are full of appeals to common humanitas.Footnote 60 Thus, when Lactantius finds that he has no charge against his Stoic companion, he attacks the school, not the person, knowing, so Lausberg argues, that Seneca’s moral sense was uncomfortably close to that which he himself wished to display as singular. A complicated relationship, to be sure.

Of course, Lactantius was a Christian, not a Stoic. His Institutiones, therefore, catalogue many incongruities the Christian faith had with Stoic thought, including Seneca’s. At times soft-handed, at times scornful and vitriolic, Lactantius takes his would-be allies to task throughout the work. As a rule, he condemns philosophy whole cloth for its futility, inasmuch as true wisdom, for Lactantius, can only come by revelation.Footnote 61 Thus, all “wise” men hitherto bear that designation falsely (and indeed, the best one, Socrates, knew he was not wise at all).Footnote 62 It followed for Lactantius that philosophy’s inability to know the true God had precluded it from any other form of knowledge. The knowledge of the highest God (summus deus) was prerequisite to any further development.Footnote 63 Thus, anything useful which had hitherto been discovered by philosophy was but an accidental stumbling onto the truth (sed casu inciderunt in veritatem).Footnote 64

The particular Stoic errors are, moreover, inevitable and numerous. Their ethics suffer from desiring the impossible: the removal of the emotions (adfectus).Footnote 65 The Stoic capitulation to suicide is a crime against God, an evil deed embodied particularly by Cato, a man of “Stoic stupidity” (Stoicae vanitatis).Footnote 66 Outside of the Institutiones, moreover, Lactantius develops a uniquely robust account of the righteous anger of God. Though the primary target of his De Ira is the thought of Epicurus, nonetheless he finds the Stoic description of the absolute benignity of the divine wanting.Footnote 67 Thus, shared assumptions aside, Lactantius is explicit in his disagreements with Stoicism. He critiques them, as he does all his opponents, with a noticeably bombastic zeal.Footnote 68

Having established this framework, we are prepared to turn our attention to Liber IV of Lactantius’s Institutiones. Here, we can observe Lactantius working on two levels: he both assumes certain Stoic concepts while at the same time conspicuously re-working these concepts in a pointed answer to Stoic speculation. In Liber IV, he portrays Christ as the perfect instantiation of virtue, an unexpected sapiens whose followers will, by his power, be nothing less than a community of the wise, centered on his exemplum and the rational preaching of his disciples.

Doctor et Magister: The Saving Sapiens in Institutiones IV

Liber IV has a precise place in the argument of the Institutiones. In Liber I, Lactantius spends considerable time assaulting pagan mythology and religious practice. Liber II is an attempt to investigate the origin of these sorts of errors, and Lactantius puts forth his own tentative cosmology as a corrective to the many speculative ideas concerning the nature of creation. In Liber III, Lactantius takes up the task of addressing philosophy: he concludes, as we have seen, that philosophy is, by and large, a failed attempt at establishing a proper understanding of the world which, nevertheless, seeks to rectify the absurdities of pagan religion.Footnote 69 In Liber IV, therefore, Lactantius makes it his goal to tell the true story about religio and sapientia, a story wrapped around the people of Israel and the life of Christ. Like each distinct part of the Institutiones, Liber IV is sundry and, at first glance, can seem bewildering in its choice of topics and strategies.Footnote 70 My argument, consequently, will chart a very particular path, and will leave a good portion of the book unexplored.

Lactantius opens Liber IV by addressing wisdom (sapientia) and the wise man (sapiens). The narrative is clear enough: after wisdom had disappeared from humankind on account of idolatry and greed, the void was filled by those who claimed themselves to be wise.Footnote 71 Thus, the Classical world began to fill up with self-proclaimed sapientes and this was an act of philosophical inflation which emptied the title of its content.Footnote 72 Lactantius allows for the possibility that some very few of these “sages” were able to offer sound moral advice (he references the seven sages of Athens), but he reiterates that their partial grasp of wisdom, in the end, had again paled in comparison with a man like Socrates, whose willingness to confess his own ignorance was, at that time, the closest approximation of a real truth.Footnote 73 Had wisdom, then, completely vanished from the earth? No—and Lactantius explains its whereabouts: God had hid his sapientia among the Jews.Footnote 74 Indeed, even Plato and Pythagoras had both sensed this intuitively, which, for Lactantius, explained their mysterious journeys to the east.Footnote 75 The people of Israel, of course, were a poor and ignoble vessel for such an inheritance. But Lactantius notes God’s habit of hiding sapientia in the trappings of folly (apparet ibi potissimum esse quaerendam ubi stultitiae titulus apparet).Footnote 76

In this way, Lactantius finishes setting the scene: the world is devoid of the wise, with wisdom’s sole dwelling hidden and floundering in the traditions of an obscure eastern people. Only here, at the penultimate point in history (adpropinquante ultimo tempore), does God reveal his wisdom to the nations.Footnote 77 He sends them, at last, a teacher. But before we can consider how Lactantius understands Christ as a teacher and paradigm, we ought to spend some time probing his “metaphysical” understanding of Christ—for these three facets are linked in Lactantius’s thought. This is a fraught task, no doubt. Lactantius’s Christology has a particularly ad hoc nature to it, though it is not without ingenuity. My interests, however, lie in its dialogue with Stoicism.

Lactantius is obviously aware of the philosophical resonance that the term logos has in his argument. In addition to noting the foundational biblical reference in the Gospel of John, he turns to Hermes Trismegistus for corroboration: here he quotes Hermes praising the logos of God, who is a divine power, hidden in God’s wisdom, hitherto unspoken of.Footnote 78 Lactantius goes on to comment on the various Latin renderings of the Greek logos as they relate to Christ, calling him both the verbum and the sermo of God.Footnote 79 He then turns to the Stoics by name and gives this account:

But the Greeks express this better with “logos” than we do with either “word” (verbum) or “speech” (sermo). For logos signifies both speech (sermo) and reason (ratio), since this [logos] is both the voice (vox) and the wisdom (sapientia) of God. The philosophers were not ignorant of this divine wisdom; Zeno preached that the logos was the creator and arranger of all things in the world…. Footnote 80

It is an important endorsement and Lactantius shows that he is quite comfortable with the coalescing of Stoic language and Christian narrative.

This link between what is divine and wise and what is rational is, of course, a Stoic trope. Lactantius could have found it in Seneca as well. Seneca engages this connection with language, which is significant to his understanding of wisdom and its place on earth. He writes that “Reason (ratio) is nothing other than a portion of the divine spirit immersed in the human body.”Footnote 81 Lactantius’s own (often fuzzy) accounts of the incarnation bear a certain resemblance to this rather straightforward understanding. For Lactantius, whatever else the incarnation was, it was certainly not less than the insertion of a divine and rational spirit into a human body.Footnote 82 Lactantius lacked metaphysical subtlety, yes, but he could agree with Seneca that ratio has a fitting place in the human realm. This is an assumption that he shares with John the Evangelist, but also with a host of Stoics.Footnote 83 It provides, therefore, a pagan context in which the idea of incarnation can be expressed in familiar terms. But what was far more important for Lactantius, and for our study, was the intent behind such an incarnation, and the wonders that a living ratio effected.

Lactantius, happily, offers rather thorough synopses of such things throughout Liber IV. Two will serve our purposes well:

When God decided to send a teacher of virtue (doctorem virtutis) to mankind, he arranged for his second birth to be in the flesh, that he himself might become like a human being. He was to be mankind’s leader, companion and teacher (magister).Footnote 84

Since Christ came to earth furnished with this virtue and justice (qua virtute ac iustitia instructus), or, better yet, since he himself is virtue and justice (ipse virtus et ipse iustitia), he descended that he might form and instruct humankind.Footnote 85

For Lactantius, Christ is not only the divine teacher of virtue, but his very person is the locus of virtue itself—virtue incarnate. And Lactantius, as we will see, uses this foundational understanding to great effect through the whole of the book.Footnote 86

With the question of exempla in mind, Lactantius returns to the theme of the paucity of truly wise, and, therefore, truly virtuous human beings. He stages a dialogue, imagining the skeptical response of the would-be disciple to a would-be philosopher: perfect virtue has not been seen; therefore, perfect virtue is impossible.Footnote 87 Thus, for Lactantius, “the result [is] that no one heeds the precepts of the philosophers.”Footnote 88 Lactantius is not being facetious. Here, in his own particular way, he gives voice to the central concern of his philosophical forebears: where is the sapiens? In this dialogue between the skeptical disciple and the self-assured philosopher, the question of the relevance of the hypothetical sage is at stake—that is, his relevance to practical ethical considerations, to life as it actually is. It is in this context, as the answer to this philosophical worry, that Lactantius presents Christ as the figure who breaks the impasse.

At the end of this discussion on the very possibility of the sapiens, Lactantius offers this summary:

There has never been up to this point a perfectly wise man (sapientem), that is one in whom the highest teaching and knowledge are united with perfect virtue and justice—and this indeed was true. For since the world was made, no one of such a sort existed—until Christ. For he by his word gave wisdom and confirms this teaching by his ever-present virtue (qui et verbo sapientiam tradidit et doctrinam praesenti virtute firmavit).Footnote 89

Here is a direct answer to a central Stoic question. Lactantius elaborates on this figure in terms which further betray his intended audience.Footnote 90 He proceeds to bring up the question as to why a god would need to assume a human body to teach and enact this sort of power. Footnote 91 Lactantius’s answer is simple: the divine cannot by its nature experience pain or endure trials; and trials are the sine qua non of the exercise of virtue.Footnote 92 Indeed, there is no moral progress provided for mortals outside of the struggle against the body and its passions. Here again we can recall a similar argument from Seneca, who differentiates the good which the gods experience in the perfect virtue of their divine nature from that which humans gain exercising virtue through struggle (cura).Footnote 93 Human good is bought with a great price.

These curae, therefore, bring us necessarily to the place of the crucifixion in Liber IV and afford correlation with Seneca’s thoughts on pain and death. Much like Seneca’s dear friend Claranus, whose misshapen body hid well the charm of a lovely soul, Lactantius recalls the words of the prophet Isaiah in his exposition of Christ’s humble position.Footnote 94 Jesus’s critics perceived him “low, dirty, and misshapen” (cernerent humilem sordidum informem), unable to discern or guess at a divine glory hidden within.Footnote 95 Nowhere else was this tension between the perceived and the real more sharply expressed than on the cross. For the cross was above all else a divine adoption of “lowliness, fragility, and suffering.”Footnote 96 For Lactantius, the crucifixion is the climactic enactment of virtue. It is the crowning achievement of a life lived against the expectations of the unwise. What is more, through the cross death itself is tamed by virtue (traderetur in manus inpiorum mortemque susciperet, ut ea quoque per virtutem domita resurgeret).Footnote 97 In this final and definitive act of the perfect life of the only wise man, fear of death is once and for all unmasked and undone. Further on in the Institutiones, Lactantius will call on Seneca himself to make this point:

Seneca in his books on moral philosophy says the same: “This is the honorable man: not marked with diadem or purple, not occupied with the insignia of the lictors; he falls short in nothing. When he sees death approaching he is not disturbed… who, even if he must endure the torture of his whole body, or the swallowing of flame by mouth, or the stretching out of his hands on a cross (sive extendendae per patibulum manus), he asks not what he must suffer, but how well.”Footnote 98

Furthermore, this sort of death is egalitarian in its exemplary effect: the lowliness of this divine sapiens is an encouragement to those even at the bottom of the social ladder (humilibus et infimis).Footnote 99 The practice of virtue by means of suffering is a philosophy open to all.Footnote 100

Through life and death, Lactantius’s Christ is a figure in whom resides the seamless presentation of every aspect of virtue. Birth and the grave, poverty and persecution are transformed into mediatory arenas for truly good acts. Here, we remember that Seneca, in his admirable practicality, resigned himself to the quilting together of exempla. He did this, as has been noted, out of the belief that the limited scope of each individual’s life was scarcely likely to provide opportunities to exercise each appearance or pattern (species) of virtue. Footnote 101 Were such a figure to exist, then indeed the crowd of philosophers would have to confess him as truly sapiens. And thus, Lactantius offers Seneca the figure of Christ. This sapiens, through the particular aspects of his birth, life, teaching, and suffering, gave to the world a fitting example (praebuit exemplum).Footnote 102 He offers “his pattern of justice to every duty of life” (in omnibus vitae officiis iustitiae specimen).Footnote 103

In addition, we can recall Seneca’s own speculation about the relation of law and just judgements to the figure of the sapiens.Footnote 104 For Lactantius, Christ is a “living, immediate law” (vivam praesentemque legem) whose role as perfect arbiter grants him the prerogative to surpass Mosaic Law. Christ therefore offers instead his own person as a universal or natural law for the nations.Footnote 105 Law has moved, in particular, from the realm of human judgement to the realm of divine judgement.Footnote 106 Human approximations are thereby made to conform to a rather more ultimate standard. Christ’s vocation as perfect judge, therefore, goes hand in hand with Seneca’s own understanding of the judgement of the sage—the one whose divine likeness merits divine prerogatives.

Overall, this expansive fulfillment of the requirements of the good human life, alongside the redefinition of what, in particular, these requirements truly are, allows Lactantius to claim a coherence and universal appeal for his message. Indeed, a life rightly lived has proven that life can be rightly lived, and thus it provides something of an evangelical zeal: if it has been done by one, it should be done by the many. A society of sapientes, therefore, becomes a real possibility.Footnote 107

This is the very sort of community that Lactantius argues has been established among the followers of Christ. At the ascension, his disciples receive a new vocation: to preach and work miracles: “Departing, he prepared them with virtue and power, so that the ratio of this new preaching could be strengthened and confirmed” (discedens instruxerat eos virtute ac potestate, quo posset novae adnuntiatonis ratio fundari et confirmari).Footnote 108 Indeed, the Christian community represents a movement from ignorance to wisdom. For Lactantius this very movement is the content of salvation: “Hitherto we dwelt in shadow and darkness, bound in stupidity, ignorant of God and truth (carcere stultitiae, ignorantes deum et veritatem).”Footnote 109 But from this point on, that same community will be known as wise, for if “He [Christ] is sapiens, then it follows that his teaching is wisdom—and nothing else is. And thus the wise are those who follow him—and no one else” (et sapientes qui secuntur nec ulli alii).Footnote 110 This submission to a particular wisdom is, ultimately, a universal exhortation. Lactantius considered himself a witness to its slow and steady fulfilment in the establishment of Christian communities throughout the Empire. He writes that “all nations and every tongue venerate his name, confess his glory, follow his teaching and imitate his virtue” (doctrinam secuntur, virtutem imitantur).Footnote 111 In the teaching of God’s sapiens, Lactantius offers wisdom to the philosophers and hope to the nations.

Conclusion: Preaching to Seneca

It is no doubt a mistake indiscriminately to correlate vocabulary to philosophy. Those who share a common vocabulary are not therefore bound to share an identical vision of the world perforce. Indeed, in many ways, the history of philosophy is a history of the varying uses of the same words. Still, in the case of Lactantius’s work in the Institutiones, there is enough corroborating evidence to reinforce my conviction that the Stoic sapiens had an important place in his conceptual framework. For in this case we have not only his philosophical vocabulary, but also a sense of the ideological facets of his intellectual environment, as well as his own explicit embrace of Seneca as both ally and enemy.

Nor does the presence of Stoicism in his portrayal of Christ detract from the depth of that portrayal. What I have argued, instead, is that Lactantius deserves a reputation as, at times, a notably creative thinker whose mind was immersed in the religious, philosophical, and cultural streams of his station. In modern scholarship, of course, his reputation vis-à-vis Christian dogma has been shaky at best.Footnote 112 And though he was not a theologian in the strict sense, and certainly not a “proto-Nicene” thinker, Lactantius nevertheless proves to be something else important: a man of his age whose rhetorical subtlety and intuitive understanding of his audience allowed him to portray the novelties of his persecuted faith in a familiar yet compelling light. In this sense he was both a would-be guide and a popularizer, not unlike his ambiguous ally Seneca, the sharpest of all the Stoics.

Footnotes

*

I owe Oliver Nicholson an inestimable amount of gratitude for his support and guidance in the crafting of this paper. What he inspired has been improved upon by the help and encouragement of Melissa Sellew, Christopher Nappa, and Spencer Cole.

References

1 Pohlenz, Max is rather pointed in his reading of the problem: “Die Stoiker erklärten sogar ausdrücklich, es habe in der Menschengeschichte kaum einen Weisen gegeben” (Die Stoa: Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung, [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1964] 157)Google Scholar. Inwood, Brad makes a similar point: “And wise persons are, as we know, extremely rare (if not altogether unexampled) on the normal Stoic view of things” (Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005] 274–75)Google Scholar. Long’s, A. A. concise study also arrives at the same conclusion: “Stoic ethics is the epitome of idealism. The sage, to whom every commendatory epithet belongs, is not found in everyday life” (Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics [2nd ed.; Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986] 204)Google Scholar. Translations from Greek and Latin sources are my own, unless otherwise noted.

2 Seneca Ben. 5.6, for example. On this point, Runar, M. Thorsteinsonn’s work is illuminating (Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010] 151)Google Scholar.

3 For the place of exempla in this discussion see Heim, François, “Virtus chez Lactance: du vir bonus au martyr,” Aug 36 (1996) 361–75Google Scholar, at 351. For Seneca, the sapiens is a “measuring-stick” (regulam) by which one’s life can be measured (Ep. 11.10). Inwood notes “the exemplary force of those few ‘historical’ sages like Socrates (or Cato) … who have at some point in the past instantiated virtue in a perfected form … these sages have a vital function in our moral epistemology” (Reading Seneca, 295). See Inwood and Donini, Pierluigi on the cosmic significance of wise humans in Stoic theology in “Stoic Ethics,” in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Algra, Keimpe et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 675–738Google Scholar.

4 See Long (Hellenistic Philosophy, 152–63) for a clear and economic description of this line of Stoic thought.

5 A. C. Van Geytenbeek traces out the argument in Musonius Rufus. For Rufus, the nature of the cosmos was such that, in Van Geytenbeek, ’s summation, “life demands not only the philosopher, the specialist of virtue, but every human being to be perfect” (Musonius Rufus and Greek Diatribe [trans. Hijmans, B. L.; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1962]Google Scholar 29).

6 On this trait in Seneca, see Inwood, Reading Seneca, 3–4; for Panaetius, see Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, 213–15; De Lacy, Phillip H., “The Four Stoic Personae,” Illinois Classical Studies 2 (1977) 163–72Google Scholar, at 166 and 169; Straaten, Modestus Van, Panétius: sa vie, ses écrits et sa doctrine, avec une edition des fragments (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij H. J. Paris, 1946) 195–98Google Scholar. A fine summary is found in Inwood and Donini (“Stoic Ethics,” 722–27).

7 “Half-wise” is my own term. For Seneca’s own language concerning these figures, see below. From this point, please note that I will use the English “virtue” for virtus (except when examining the Latin). It is of importance, however, that its connotations of strength, excellence, and power are not lost.

8 Van Getenbeek notes a similar logic in Musonius Rufus: virtue is acquired by imitating the virtuous (Musonius Rufus, 22).

9 See especially Seneca Ep. 120. Even here, though, Seneca allows for some imperfections concealed in the bright light of the almost-perfect. On this point, Van Getenbeek claims that at least implicitly Seneca argues for the actual existence of such a sage (Musonius Rufus, 25). A close reading of the epistle, however, reveals the persistently hypothetical character of Seneca’s sapiens.

10 Thus, Shaw, B. D.: “Stoicism remained the idea system associated with most of the high period of the ancient classical world … its principal claims, even if not fully understood or comprehended by all who availed themselves of Stoic doctrine, formed a general background for all other philosophical claims,” in “The Divine Economy: Stoicism as Ideology,” Latomus 44 (1985) 16–54Google Scholar, at 17 [italics in original].

11 Ibid., 53–55, offers a particularly sharp summary. It is a rough analogy, but one is tempted to portray Stoicism as functioning akin to the “neo-liberalism” of our own age—the unspoken assumption of a ruling elite upon which all other beliefs and opinions are established. Here Van Geytenbeek (Musonius Rufus, 145–46) is helpful vis-à-vis the “cosmopolitanism” of Epictetus and other Stoics in the early imperial period.

12 Lactantius arrived at Nicomedia around 300 CE and was employed by Constantine sometime after 310 (in Trier). The best brief introduction to his life in English is found in Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey’s introduction in Lactantius: Divine Institutes (trans. Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey; Translated Texts for Historians 40; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003) 1–3. These two follow Timothy D. Barnes for this dating of Lactantius’s movement (Constantine and Eusebius [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981]). Eberhard Heck (“Lactantius,” in Der Neue Pauly:Encyclopädie der Antike [ed. Hubert Cancith and Helmuth Schneider; 15 vols.; Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1997] 6:1043–44) assumes an alternative timeline, as does Antonie Wlosok (Laktanz und die philosophische Gnosis [Heidelberg: Abhandlung der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1960]). Seneca himself, of course, was no stranger to these selfsame halls: his involvement in Nero’s imperial court was the inspiration of many of his works and tragically the cause of his death. A fine introduction to Seneca’s career can be found in Griffin, Miriam T., Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (New York and Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

13 Arthur Fisher provides a helpful approach to the Christianization of “middle-brow” Latin governmental culture (“Lactantius’ Ideas Relating Christian Truth and Christian Society,” Journal of Historical Ideas 43 [1982] 355–77)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 See, e.g., Long (Hellenistic Philosophy, 107) for brief comments; or Pohlenz (Stoa, 400–61) for a longer (if, at times, looser) treatment; and Thorsteinsson (Roman Christianity) for a recent and thorough assessment of Stoicism and earliest Christianity.

15 Michel Perrin provides this gentle (but accurate) summation: “qu’il ne’est pas un technicien de la philosphie et de la théologie, ce qui explique l’usage d’un vocabulaire qui n’est pas défini avec toute la precision souhaitable et de formulations susceptibles d’être comprises de plusieurs manières” (“L’image du stoïcien et du stoïcisme chez Lactance,” in Valeurs dans le stoïcisme: du Portique à nos jours. Textes rassemblées en hommage à Michel Spanneut [ed. Michel Soëtard; Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1993] 113–29, at 127). Oliver Nicholson offered the same sentiments in this pithy formula: “A comprehensive introduction to Christianity for middle-brow Latin speakers … ordinary educated men who remember their Cicero”—spoken during his presentation “The Deaths of the Persecutors and the Anger of God: Lactantius and the Great Persecution,” Lecture given for the Center for Medieval Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN, April 28, 2016.

16 Pierre Monat offers the most detailed account of Lactantius and the Bible, though his study focuses primarily on Lactantius’s use of the scriptural passages found in Cyprian’s Testimonia ad Quirinum (Lactance et la Bible: Une propédeutiqe latine à la lecture de la Bible dans l’Occident constantinien (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1982). Of his co-religionist predecessors, Lactantius mentions in the DI three Latin writers (Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and Cyprian) (see esp. DI 5.1.22–28). He offers only one reference to a Greek author, namely Theophilus of Antioch (DI 1.23.2).

17 Thorsteinsson notes as well Epictetus’s occasional use of ὁ φρόνιμος and Musonius’s standard ὁ φιλόσοφος (Roman Christianity, 150). Credit is due to Thorsteinsson for compiling many of these quotations in a helpful (and succinct) manner (Roman Christianity, 152–54).

18 Const. 8.2 (trans. Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity, 151); see also Helv. 5.2.

19 Ep. 124.21. Furthermore, it makes one an aemulator dei, super humana se extollens (124.23).

20 Ep. 68.2

21 Diss. 1.9.6.

22 See the discussion in Van Geytenbeek (Musonius Rufus, 23–28).

23 Diss. 3.22.23.

24 Ibid.

25 Ep. 90.34.

26 So Pohlenz (Stoa, 156–57): “So ist er ein Segen für die Menschheit, der jede seiner Handlungen schon als Vorbild zugute kommt” and 158: “Er ist der ideale Mensch, ja der menschgewordene Logos selbst. … ”

27 See the discussion in Ibid., 157 and Inwood (Reading Seneca, 78–81).

28 See Ep. 66.3–4.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid., 21.

31 Ibid., 1.

32 Here, Inwood (Reading Seneca, 201–23) is essential. In short, Inwood argues that the familiar metaphorical language of “moral judgements” owes much to Seneca, who introduced courtroom imagery into ethical debates in a hitherto unprecedented manner.

33 Ibid., 84, 207, 216.

34 Ibid., 96–97.

35 Ibid., 223, referring specifically to Seneca’s De Ben. 3.6. Inwood writes that for Seneca “only the sage, Zeus’ intellectual equal, can truly judge.” That is to say, having become like the gods in his nature, the sage takes on divine prerogatives as well.

36 Ibid., 227–28, focusing specifically on De Ben. 2.18.4.

37 See Inwood (Reading Seneca, 290-296) for a helpful discussion of the “idealized sage” in Seneca’s Ep. 120, and its relation to figures such as Cato and Socrates.

38 See, e.g., Cato Eps. 115.69 and 118.12 inter alia; Fabricius and Horatius Ep. 120.6–7. As for Seneca’s own terminology concerning these intermediary figures, Eps. 72 and 75 provide us with helpful examples. At times, Seneca is vague, describing such exempla simply as inperfectis adhuc (72.6) or as the one who habet profectum (72.9). In Ep. 72.10, however, Seneca moves into a more striking metaphor: he portrays moral progress as life at sea, distinguishing those who sail on the crests (summos) from those who are caught drowning in the depths (imos). He then comments on a third group, namely those who, somewhere in the middle (medios), fluctuate according to their changing circumstances (sequatur fluctus suus). In Ep 75.8–15, Seneca again divides those on the road to moral perfection into three categories, extolling those who—however imperfect—are the “sort making progress” (genus proficientium, 75.10). On these two letters and their terminology, Scott R. Smith is both succinct and helpful in elaborating (“Moral Progress and the Passions: Plutarch Moralia 76A and Seneca Ep. 75,” Hermes 134 [2006] 246–49).

39 Ep. 70.18.

40 See esp. Ep. 66.7. Again, at Ep. 120.5 Seneca notes that in observing good men, we are given a species of perfection—a glimpse—but only a glimpse. Thus the aforementioned Horatius and Fabricus “offer an image of virtue to us” (imaginem nobis ostendere virtutis). But throughout Ep. 120 Seneca is frank in admitting that these images will prove imperfect under a gaze too critical: below the surface there are “many faults” (suberant illis multa vitia, 120.5).

41 See the discussion in Inwood (Reading Seneca, 290).

42 See, e.g., his confession of his own moral failings in Ep. 7.3, inter alia.

43 See, e.g., Fr. 77, 79, 80 (collected in Vottero, Dionigi, Lucio Anneo Seneca, I frammenti [Bologna: Pàtron Editore, 1998] 194Google Scholar and 196).

44 Jackson Bryce does this with the greatest sobriety (The Library of Lactantius [New York: Garland Publishing, 1990]).

45 His sincere respect for Cicero, coupled with his exasperation at Cicero’s failure to be a Christian is, perhaps, most emotionally elaborated throughout DI 6. In 6.12, for example, Lactantius allows Cicero to guide his entire argument about generosity, while rebuking and chastising him at each point for perpetually being half-right (that is to say, for not being able to offer a Christian solution). This all leads to his melodramatic interjection at 12.10: “O, how many arguments I could make—if I wanted to—to prove the inconsistency of Cicero!” (o quam multis argumentis Ciceronis inconstantia, si id agerem, coargui posset).

46 And here it is helpful to go back to Shaw on the language of Stoicism in the halls of the elite: “It was so commonly employed that more often than not it became the silent medium of thought in which they habitually worked” (“Divine Economy,” 18). Perrin (“L’image,” 129) offers this at the end of his survey: “en lisant Cicéron ou Lactance, on retrouve le stoïcisme antique.”

47 Yet Perrin (“L’image,” 113) makes a brief comment that a good deal of Plato can be found lurking under the much more evident Stoic influence in Lactantius’s work. This is surely true, and for our purposes we do well to note just how much of an influence Plato had on Seneca as well, particularly in his surprising adaptation of a stark body-soul duality (see also Inwood, Reading Seneca, 345–47). Lactantius stands out in this regard as well.

48 Here DI 1.5.26; also 2.8.23.

49 DI 6.24.14.

50 See DI 5.7 and 2.17, inter alia. In Seneca, see De Const. 3.3–5. Pohlenz (Die Stoa, 442) traces this etiology back in Stoic lineage to Chrysippus, as do Bowen and Garnsey (Lactantius, 27, n. 105).

51 DI 3.25.5 and 7 (trans. Bowen and Garnsey). Perhaps Lactantius is thinking of Musonius Rufus’s lecture on the topic of women. Van Geytenbeek (Musonius Rufus, 51–62) offers a good introduction to this aspect of Rufus’s thought. Note, too, Lactantius’s assumption that “man is naturally competent to be wise,” which brings us back to the question of the sapiens posed at the outset.

52 DI 2.8.23, doing, no doubt, some harm to Seneca’s intended meaning.

53 DI 3.12.11, quoting Fr. 62.

54 DI 5.13.20.

55 Ibid., 22.12.

56 Jean-Marie André argues that Lactantius’s inheritance of Cicero’s thinking in respect to justice is, primarily, an inheritance of Panaetius through Cicero (“Lactance et l’idée stoïcienne de justice,” in Valeurs dans le stoïcisme: du Portique à nos jours. Textes rassemblées en hommage à Michel Spanneut [ed. Michel Soëtard; Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1993] 131–48, at 140).

57 The following first noted in Lausberg, Marion, “Christliche Nächstenliebe und hednische Ethik bei Laktanz,” in Studia Patristica (ed. Livingstone, Elizabeth A.; 98 vol.; Papers Presented to the Sixth International Conference on Patristic Studies; Part 2; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1975) 13:29–34Google Scholar.

58 All this esp. in DI 5.10–12. See Lausberg, “Christliche Nächstenliebe,” 30–31.

59 Ibid., 32.

60 Ibid., 33–34. Jean-Marie André alludes to a similar understanding of this section of DI 6 (“Lactance,” 140).

61 Though it is important to note that Lactantius is not here arguing for an apocalyptic, other-worldly sort of revelation. Rather, the revelation of the Christian religion brings back into unity a natural connection which idolatry had broken asunder: namely the partnership of philosophy and religion (sapientia and religio). DI 4.3–4 has much to say on this “restoration.”

62 Lactantius dedicates all of DI 3 to making this point. See esp. 30.1–7 (see also Perrin, “L’image,” 115).

63 See DI 6.6.1–2.

64 Ibid., 3.18.1.

65 Esp. DI 6.14–17. See André, “Lactance,” 137, as well. For Lactantius, these were given by God and thus were good and useful (rightly exercised).

66 DI 3.18.6. That Lactantius can glory in the martyrs yet scorn those who commit suicide is discussed, if briefly, in Nicholson, Oliver, “What Makes a Voluntary Martyr?” Studia Patristica 65 (2013) 159–64Google Scholar.

67 Though this is developed explicitly in his De Ira, his De Mortibus acts as a visceral account of the bloody enactment of such philosophical principles. On this particular contrast with the Stoics see also André (“Lactance,” 144–45) and Perrin (“L’image,” 117 and 126).

68 Lactantius not only used “the spoil of the Egyptians” happily, but condemned his “Egyptians” for claiming to possess such spoils in the first place.

69 That is to say, he portrays philosophy as an attempt to rectify the ills of Liber I and Liber II; it cannot, however, and thus Lactantius establishes his own work as the corrective to all correctives—true sapientia.

70 Pierre Monat offers, however, a remarkably clear outline of the rhetorical scheme of Lactantius’s argument. His whole work remains the most helpful and thorough treatment of DI 4 (Lactance, Institutiones divines, livre 4: introduction, texte critique, traduction, notes, et index. [Sources Chrétiennes 377; Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1992] 20–21).

71 DI 4.1.7–8.

72 DI 4.1.8.

73 DI 4.1.9–14. See especially 14: “Thus greater wisdom was found among those who, in part, saw their own foolishness than among those who had believed that they were wise” (unde multo sapientiores inveniuntur qui se <insipientes esse> alique ex parte viderunt quam illi qui se sapere crediderant).

74 DI 4.2.5–6.

75 DI 4.2.4. Thus, they turned to Magi, Persians, and Egyptians, cultures whose close proximity to Israel had marked them with a certain scent of the truth. Heinrich Dörrie traces the place of Plato’s eastward travels from Justin through Lactantius, (“Platons Reisen zu fernen Völkern: Zur Geschichte eines Motivs der Platon-Legende und zu seiner Neuwendung durch Lactanz,” in Romanitas et Christianitas (ed. den Boer, W. et al.; Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1973) 99–118Google Scholar. See also Nicholson’s, Oliver “Broadening the Roman Mind: Foreign Prophets in the Historical Scheme of Lactantius,” Studia Patristica 36 (2001) 364–74Google Scholar.

76 DI 4.2.3; this is a paradox not foreign to the sentiments of Seneca (see, e.g., Ep. 76.32).

77 DI 4.2.6.

78 DI 4.7.3.

79 DI 4.8.8.

80 DI 4.9.1–2.

81 Ep. 66.12.

82 For the language of the divine spirit and its incarnation in human flesh, see, e.g., DI 4.6.1; 8.9; 12.1; 13.5 inter alia.

83 Pohlenz (Die Stoa, 443) offers helpful words on the concept of the incarnate logos in Lactantius’s thought.

84 DI 4.11.14.

85 DI 4.16.4.

86 Captured well by Heim, François: “L’incarnation a d’abord une function pédagogique … il nous enseigne par la parole et plus encore par l’exemple, la perfection morale” (“Virtus chez Lactance: du vir bonus au martyr,” Aug 36 (1996) 361–375Google Scholar, at 371–72). And again Pohlenz (Die Stoa, 443): “Der Glaube an diesen göttlichen Logos gehört für Lactanz zur sapientia, auch wenn er in Christo nicht den Erlöser und Heiland, sondern nur den himmlischen Lehrer und das ideale Vorbild der Menschen sieht.” This latter is an overstatement, as Lactantius does have a (admittedly underdeveloped) sense of Christ as savior, but for our purposes it is to the point.

87 DI 4.23.4.

88 DI 4.23.8.

89 DI 4.23.9–10. This Christ-teacher motif is not foreign to other Christian authors: one can find similar statements in a host of earlier Christian authors: Clement of Rome (Ep. Cor. 36); Justin (Apol. 1.23); Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 5.2.22.4); and Clement of Alexandria (Prot. 1.7), for example. Yet we have no evidence that Lactantius read these men, particularly as they wrote in Greek (see footnote 16 earlier in this article). Lactantius appears to be evidence of a certain sort of Latin-speaking catechesis with an emphasis on the didactic nature of salvation. His mentor Arnobius’s own work (Adversus Nationes) seems too multifarious to tease out any sure influences.

90 Vincenzo Loi’s work remains the essential treatment of Lactantius’s Christ as magister and doctor sapientiae/doctor virtutis (Lattanzio nella storia del linguaggio e del pensiero teologico pre-Nieceno [Zürich: Pas-Verlag, 1970] esp. 253–64). What is interesting, however, is that Loi does not explicitly link this language in Liber IV to Seneca in particular or Stoicism in general, in spite of the primary place the work of Seneca holds in his study (see his Index, 316). That Loi does not draw this connection may well stem from the fact that in Liber IV, Lactantius essentially cuts out his explicit dialogue with philosophers and philosophical schools. Though the rest of the DI is strewn with quotations from Classical interlocutors, Lactantius frames his argument in this book as a narrative (one patched together from the Christian scriptures and other ancient oracles): that is to say, in this book, Lactantius argues with his philosophical audience not by advancing a series of logical proofs, but by telling a story. There is some analogy here to what Plato does with the narrative of Socrates, especially in the Apologia and parts of the Phaedo. Moreover, Victoria Tietze Larson argues that we should read Seneca’s own portrayal of Hercules in his tragedy Hercules Oetaeus as a conscious attempt to flesh out his thinking vis-à-vis the sage by means of a story. Her article provides both an interesting corollary and notable contrasts to my own argument (“The Hercules Oetaeus and the Picture of the Sapiens in Senecan Prose,” Phoenix 45.1 [1991] 39–49).

91 DI 4.24.1–5.

92 This argument is elaborated through the rest of DI 4.24—most clearly at 24.19: “[it is necessary that he] be subject to death and to every sort of suffering, since in the endurance of suffering and in the entrance into death the duties of virtue are exercised” (subiectum esse morti et passionibus cunctis, quoniam et in passione toleranda et in morte subeunda virtutis officia versantur).

93 Ep. 124.14.

94 See Seneca Ep. 66.1–4.

95 DI 4.16.13.

96 DI 4.26.1.

97 DI 4.10.1.

98 DI 6.17.28, quoting Seneca Fr. 96. Lactantius uses the same term (patibulus) to describe the death of Christ in 6.26.34: patibulo suspenditur. Martin Hengel collects Seneca’s statements on the topic of crucifixion (Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross [trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977] 30–31); Seneca seems to be fully aware of the brutal nature of this imperial punishment.

99 DI 4.26.30.

100 It should be pointed out that I have ignored the very important act of suicide in Seneca’s thought. Indeed, for Seneca, there are times when suffering and pain are useless and fear of death is best met by embrace of death via one’s own hand (see esp. Eps. 70 and 77). Thus, though there is, for both men, a great virtue in facing death courageously, Seneca allows that a quick and clean suicide is a better and “more natural” good than the needless suffering of torture (though, no doubt, it is a great good to suffer well through torture when one has no choice). Lactantius will have no part in this (see footnote 66 earlier in this article). Lactantius is rather explicit about this embrace of suffering at DI 6.24.6–7, 26.29–30; he notes (in the latter) that Christ embraces a suffering which common sense and good manners would normally flee. In short, he establishes a new pattern, one contrary to Stoic good sense and decorum. This difference between the two men is significant, though they both share the same general concept of courage in the face of death, no matter its vehicle. For a very helpful elaboration of Seneca on suicide (including the Stoic balancing of the hierarchy of goods), see Inwood, Reading Seneca, 302–21.

101 See, e.g., Ep. 70.18 (this in contrast to Seneca’s patchwork exempla noted above).

102 DI 4.26.19.

103 DI 4.26.27.

104 See the discussion of Seneca, the sage, and judgement above.

105 Lactantius discusses Jesus’s relation to the Mosaic law in 4.17. He follows Christian precedent in interpreting the Mosaic prescriptions in a spiritual or allegorical manner.

106 DI 4.17.7.

107 Long offers brief but helpful comments on the ideal society of sages in Stoic thought (Hellenistic Philosophy, 205).

108 DI 4.21.2. I leave ratio untranslated, though I take it to mean here something like “sense” or “pattern.”

109 DI 4.20.13.

110 DI 4.13.14.

111 DI 4.12.20.

112 See, e.g., Heck (“Lactantius”), Wlosok (Laktanz), and Arthur Fisher (“Lactantius’ Ideas”), for assessments of Lactantius as gnosticly-inclined, dogmatically confused, embarrassingly earnest, and dreadfully uncreative. These readings, I would argue, have resulted in part from the habit of mining Lactantius for Classical quotations—a habit which ignores Lactantius’s cultural context, his apologetic goals, and his own distinct synthesizing.