On the Workmanship of God, or the Formation of Man
325
L
Lactantius
Lactantius
250 CE–325 CE · North Africa (Numidia / Africa Proconsularis)
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (c. 250–325 CE) was a North African Latin rhetorician and Christian apologist, a pupil of Arnobius of Sicca. Summoned by Emperor Diocletian to teach Latin rhetoric at the imperial capital Nicomedia, he converted to Christianity there and endured poverty during the Diocletianic persecution. He composed his major apologetic works, including the Divine Institutes and De Mortibus Persecutorum, at Nicomedia. In old age he was called by Constantine to tutor the imperial prince Crispus at Trier, where he is believed to have spent his final years and died.
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Stop 1 of 3250–290Birthplace, Early Education
North Africa (Numidia / Africa Proconsularis)Algeria/Tunisia
What they did here
Lactantius was African by birth and a pupil of Arnobius, who taught at Sicca Veneria (modern El Kef, Tunisia); an inscription at Cirta (modern Constantine, Algeria) mentioning a 'L. Caecilius Firmianus' has led some scholars to associate his family with Numidia, but the exact city of birth is unattested — the coordinate is placed between Cirta and Sicca to reflect regional uncertainty.
About North Africa (Numidia / Africa Proconsularis)
Roman North Africa (Numidia and Africa Proconsularis, in modern Tunisia and eastern Algeria). It was a major centre of the early Latin church, producing Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius and Augustine, and the Donatist controversy.
See other sages who lived in North Africa (Numidia / Africa Proconsularis)→
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Lactantius’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works(4)
Fragments of Lactantius
325
A Treatise on the Anger of God Addressed to Donatus
325
Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died
325