Elizabeth DePalma Digeser

Lactantius, Porphyry, and the Debate over Religious Toleration

Did the events surrounding Diocletians persecution of 303–311 launch a debate over religious toleration? The first suggestion that they did occurs in Porphyrys Philosophy from Oracles , a defence of traditional religion and theology in three books. Writing before the persecution, the celebrated Neoplatonist philosopher from Tyre, a man whom several Christian emperors and church councils would soon condemn, asked the question that stood at the heart of the persecution: How can these people [i.e., Christians] be thought worthy of forbearance (συϒϒώμη) ? They have not only turned away from those who from earliest time are referred to as divine among all Greeks and barbarians … and by emperors, law-givers and philosophers—all of a common mind. But also, in choosing impieties and atheism, they have preferred their fellow creatures [i.e., to worshipping the divine]. And to what sort of penalties might they not justly be subjected who … are fugitives from the things of their fathers?

Lactantius and Constantine's Letter to Arles: Dating the Divine Institutes

Many scholars have accepted Eberhard Hecks argument that Lactantius added two lengthy dedications to Constantine (1.1.13-16 and 7.27.11-17) when revising the Divine Institutes in C.E. 324 Parallels between this summa and Constantines letter to the Synod of Aries (314), however, suggest that the rhetorician completed the second edition of the Divine Institutes much earlier, in 313. In this context, the chronological disparity of the dedications is evidence for an ongoing presentation of the material between them: Between 310 and 313, Lactantius may have been teaching the principles of Christianity to Constantine and his court. Thus, the last great Latin apologist may have exerted a significant influence on the first emperor to legalize Christianity.

An Oracle of Apollo at Daphne and the Great Persecution

ccording to the emperor Constantine (306–37 c.e.), the immediate cause for Rome’s “Great Persecution” was a Pythian oracle’s complaint that Christians were preventing accurate prophecies. Constantine’s claim, articulated in a 324 edict “To the Eastern Provincials” (apud Euseb. Vit. Const. 2.48–60), has usually been conflated with an episode from Lactantius’ De mortibus persecutorum (10.1–6). According to the latter account, early in 303 the emperor Diocletian (284–305 c.e.) was pressured by his junior colleague Galerius to launch a general persecution. To resolve the issue, Diocletian sent a haruspex, or soothsayer, from his palace in Nicomedia to consult with Apollo at Didyma. Lactantius says that the oracle answered as an “enemy” of God, and as a result Diocletian issued the edicts that increasingly targeted Christians in the general population (De mort. pers. 11– 15). Despite the long history of linking these two accounts, however, clues in the emperor’s letter and several other fourth-century texts—both Christian and pagan—suggest that Constantine was describing a separate and earlier prophecy from an oracle of Apollo at Daphne near Antioch in 299. This prophecy, in turn, triggered a purge of Christian soldiers from the army,1 an event that both Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea mark as the true beginning of Diocletian’s persecution.2 Although it seems a minor adjustment to the historical record, locating Constantine’s oracle at Daphne in 299 has significant implications for the history of the early fourth century. For example, pagan and Christian texts from this period, from Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles to Lactantius’ccording to the emperor Constantine (306–37 c.e.), the immediate cause for Rome’s “Great Persecution” was a Pythian oracle’s complaint that Christians were preventing accurate prophecies. Constantine’s claim, articulated in a 324 edict “To the Eastern Provincials” (apud Euseb. Vit. Const. 2.48–60), has usually been conflated with an episode from Lactantius’ De mortibus persecutorum (10.1–6). According to the latter account, early in 303 the emperor Diocletian (284–305 c.e.) was pressured by his junior colleague Galerius to launch a general persecution. To resolve the issue, Diocletian sent a haruspex, or soothsayer, from his palace in Nicomedia to consult with Apollo at Didyma. Lactantius says that the oracle answered as an “enemy” of God, and as a result Diocletian issued the edicts that increasingly targeted Christians in the general population (De mort. pers. 11– 15). Despite the long history of linking these two accounts, however, clues in the emperor’s letter and several other fourth-century texts—both Christian and pagan—suggest that Constantine was describing a separate and earlier prophecy from an oracle of Apollo at Daphne near Antioch in 299. This prophecy, in turn, triggered a purge of Christian soldiers from the army,1 an event that both Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea mark as the true beginning of Diocletian’s persecution.2 Although it seems a minor adjustment to the historical record, locating Constantine’s oracle at Daphne in 299 has significant implications for the history of the early fourth century. For example, pagan and Christian texts from this period, from Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles to Lactantius’