The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1
I. Lactantius-Millenarian Spokesman in Transition Hour
It was in this period that Lactantius (c. 250-c. 330), born of heathen parentage in Africa, was converted to Christianity in his manhood. His long life spans three epochs: the uneasy truce of the church, the crowning persecution of pagan Rome, and the preferment of Christianity in the Constantinian period—Constantine’s espousal of Christianity introducing within a single generation the most remarkable revolution in the thoughts, laws, and manners of an empire recorded in ancient history. Consequently, it parallels that of Eusebius, for both witnessed first the anguish of persecution and then the elevation of Christianity to imperial patronage—Lactantius writing in Latin, and Eusebius in Greek. PFF1 352.1
Lactantius was a pupil of Arnobius, noted rhetorician of Africa, and eloquent defender of Christianity, but Lactantius’ fame soon surpassed that of his master, and reached the ear of the emperor Diocletian, who invited the pagan Lactantius to come and teach Latin. Preferring Nicomedia to Rome, he had fixed his court there, and embellished the city with noted teachers and palaces of learning. But Latin had little appeal for this Greek city. Having few pupils, Lactantius was reduced to want, and betook himself to writing. PFF1 352.2
Christianity was assailed by heathen philosophy. Porphyry and Hierocles employed their pens to hold up Christianity to scorn and to expose the Scriptures to ridicule as a conglomeration of inconsistency and contradiction. Scurrilous reflections upon Christ appeared, and Lactantius resolved to thrust his pen into the conflict. It was doubtless his defense of Christianity that led him to become a convert to the faith about 301, if not during the persecution of Diocletian. PFF1 352.3
1. WROTE INSTITUTES WHILE TUTORING CONSTANTINE’S SON
Constantine is said to have met Lactantius at the court at Nicomedia, where he had attained fame as a teacher, and called him, now as a Christian, about 312, to come to his own court in Gaul to tutor his eldest son, Crispus, particularly in Latin. Unquestionably this had an influence upon the emperor’s espousal of Christianity. 3 His most noted work, The Divine Institutes, in seven books, was largely composed before the close of Diocletian’s persecution. About 321 he enlarged and improved it 4 and dedicated it, including its section on prophecy, to Constantine, hoping to win the emperor, who was still “a pagan at heart,” to a deeper and purer conviction of divine truth. PFF1 353.1
“We now commence this work under the auspices of your name, O mighty Emperor Constantine, who were the first of the Roman princes to repudiate errors, and to acknowledge and honour the majesty of the one and only true God.” 5 PFF1 353.2
Designed to supersede the less complete treatises of Tertullian and Cyprian, the Institutes are systematic as well as apologetic. Pointing out the futility and falsehood of pagan superstition, and the vanity of heathen philosophy, they seek to establish the reasonableness of Christianity. They constitute, in fact, the first Latin attempt at a systematic Christian theology, and the elegance of the writing gained for Lactantius the title the “Christian Cicero.” 6 More than a hundred editions appeared, as well as many translations. An Epitome, later prepared by Lactantius himself, on request, summarizes the larger treatise. PFF1 353.3
2. THOUSAND-YEAR REIGN OF SAINTS FOLLOWS ADVENT
Book 7 deals with immortality, the end of the world, the return of Christ, and the signs and portents that precede His advent. A zealous and sometimes fanciful chiliast, Lactantius expected a terrestrial reign of the resurrected saints with Christ after His second advent, for the millennial thousand years before the general judgment. Nevertheless, he treats, in sharp chronological outline, the premillennial advent, the two resurrections, the millennial period, and the reign of the saints with Christ. PFF1 354.1
“After these things God will renew the world, and transform the righteous into the forms of angels, that, being presented with the garment of immortality, they may serve God for ever; and this will be the kingdom of God, which shall have no end. Then also the wicked shall rise again, not to life but to punishment; for God shall raise these also, when the second resurrection takes place, that, being condemned to eternal torments and delivered to eternal fires, they may suffer the punishments which they deserve for their crimes.” 7 PFF1 354.2
Though but a layman and rhetorician, he handles, with surprising penetration, these intricate subjects, reflecting the unsettled doctrine of the time. PFF1 354.3
3. BEWILDERED BY CESSATION OF PERSECUTION
In another work, Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died, Lactantius traces the oppression of the Christians under paganism, closing with the violent Diocletian persecution. He recounts the dreadful punishments that had come upon Diocletian and his colleagues, and the success and victory attending Constantine as he exalted truths despised and assailed for centuries by the mighty. Lactantius claims freedom for all religions, representing the transition viewpoint of the Constantinian edicts of toleration. PFF1 354.4
And now world conditions have suddenly been reversed. 8 The Christians are no longer persecuted. Their adversaries are destroyed, and tranquillity reigns. The world’s favor, rather than its hatred, becomes the church’s peril. Multitudes flock into the church because it is now fashionable, and the church, long habituated to persecution and expected martyrdom, becomes worldly. As a reaction to this, the more earnest Christians turn to asceticism to foster the fervent martyr spirit. The hermitage and later the monastery attract the pious. New errors commingle with older ones, and with truth. Ecclesiastics begin to reason that, instead of delivering persecuted Christians by His advent in glory, Christ has sent relief in this unexpected way. A long stride is taken toward the darkness and perversion soon to encompass a church that is already seriously losing her bearings. PFF1 354.5
4. CLEAR TESTIMONY ON THE TWO ADVENTS
With the church now enjoying surcease from her conflict, Lactantius begins to reflect on the darkness and tempestuousness of the prophesied “last end.” In his outline he deals with the plan of salvation, the origin of sin, creation, probation in Eden, the fall, and the incarnation of Christ. 9 After avowing his faith in the harmonious predictions of the prophets, 10 he makes an extended treatise on the first advent, based on Old Testament prophecies and their fulfillment-Christ’s earthly life, death, resurrection, and ascension. 11 His testimony is clear and sharp as to the two advents, his conclusions being based largely on Daniel. 12 He also refers to predictions by the Sibyls and similar writings. 13 PFF1 355.1
5. PREVAILING WICKEDNESS MARKS WORLD’S END
Lactantius declares that “as the end of this world approaches, the condition of human affairs must undergo a change, and through the prevalence of wickedness become worse.” 14 This he expands at considerable length, and with much fanciful detail, noting earthquakes, famines, pestilences, and celestial phenomena. 15 PFF1 355.2
6. ROME TO DIVIDE INTO TEN KINGDOMS
As to Rome’s destiny in relation to the approaching end, Lactantius boldly declares that the grand preliminary to that consummation of all things will be the fall, or breakup, of the Roman Empire. 16 He contends that the Roman world would be divided into ten contemporaneous kingdoms, which would mark the beginning of disastrous times—a declaration that would be ventured only at gravest peril prior to Constantine’s “conversion.” PFF1 356.1
“First, the kingdom [Rome] will be enlarged, and the chief power, dispersed among many and divided, will be diminished. Then civil discords will perpetually be sown; nor will there be any rest from deadly wars, until ten kings arise at the same time, who will divide the world, not to govern, but to consume it.” 17 PFF1 356.2
To ensure the permanence of Roman rule, her statesmen made her supremacy almost a matter of faith—Rome was invicta et aeterna. But Christian prophetic expositors refused to recognize this principle of permanency; they knew that Rome would crumble. And after Rome’s breakup, they declared, Antichrist would appear, and afterward the saints would take the kingdom, although this belief was not infrequently concealed from the pagans. Lactantius, who began his writing during the time of Diocletian’s persecution, said that they were ridiculed because they did not publicly maintain these things, but in obedience to God, hid His secret in silence. PFF1 356.3
7. POWERFUL NORTHERN ENEMY DESTROYS THREE
Three of the ten kingdoms would be destroyed by a powerful northern enemy-the concept evidently drawn from the prophecy of Daniel—that would harass the world, changing laws, assuming the government, and ruling with intolerance, oppressing mankind. 18 PFF1 356.4
8. ANTICHRIST’S TYRANNICAL RULE 42 MONTHS
From chapters 17 to 19, it is evident that Lactantius regards the false prophet, the Beast of Revelation 13, and the Antichrist to be the same malign power. He will destroy what was left by “the former evil,” and this tyrannical rule will prevail for “forty-two months,” he declares, obviously drawing this particular phrasing of the period from Revelation 13. PFF1 357.1
“And power will be given him to desolate the whole earth for forty-two months. That will be the time in which righteousness shall be cast out, and innocence be hated: in which the wicked shall prey upon the good as enemies; neither law, nor order, nor military discipline shall be preserved; no one shall reverence hoary locks, nor recognize the duty of piety, nor pity sex or infancy; all things shall be confounded and mixed together against right, and against the laws of nature. Thus the earth shall be laid waste, as though by one common robbery. When these things shall so happen, then the righteous and the followers of truth shall separate themselves from the wicked, and flee into solitudes.” 19 PFF1 357.2
9. ANTICHRIST’S REIGN DEPICTED FROM Revelation 13
The miraculous powers displayed, and the “image” and the “mark” predicted, are tersely touched as Antichrist’s reign of terror is forecast, followed by the glorious deliverance. 20 Such are among the early attempts to fathom the mysteries of the Apocalypse, and to parallel them with the outline prophecies of Daniel, that both culminate in the advent. PFF1 357.3
10. MILLENNIAL REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FOLLOWS ADVENT
None of the fathers had thus far been more diffuse on the subject of the millennial kingdom than Lactantius, or more particular in describing the times and events preceding and following, including the assault against the Holy City and the destruction of the wicked at the millennium’s close. But he intermingles unwarranted fancies, doubtless derived from non-Christian traditions, although by this time, at the beginning of the fourth century, they had become so embedded in millenarian thinking that their origin was probably not recognized. He holds, however, to the fundamental apostolic belief that the millennial period commences with the second advent of Christ, and marks the destruction of the wicked, the binding of the devil, and the raising of the righteous dead. PFF1 357.4
11. RESURRECTED SAINTS RULE SURVIVING RIGHTEOUS
He pictures Christ reigning with the resurrected righteous on this earth during the seventh thousand years, before the general judgment—the resurrected saints ruling over the not yet glorified righteous who remain alive at the end, the latter producing a multitude of offspring and subjecting the survivors of the unregenerate nations to slavery. He sees the sun and moon shining with increased brilliance, the mountains dripping with honey, the streams flowing with wine and milk, the beasts feeding together in peace. 21 PFF1 358.1
12. DEVIL LOOSED AT MILLENNIUM’S CLOSE
At the end the devil, having been bound during the thousand years, is loosed; the nations rebel against the righteous, who hide under ground until the host attacking the Holy City are overwhelmed by fire and brimstone and mutual slaughter, and buried altogether by an earthquake—rather unnecessarily, it would seem, since the wicked are thereupon raised again to be sent into eternal punishment. 22 PFF1 358.2
13. WICKED PUNISHED AND EARTH RENEWED
Next God renews the earth, after the punishment of the wicked, and the Lord is thenceforth worshiped in the renovated earth as the eternal kingdom. PFF1 358.3
“But when the thousand years shall be completed, the world shall be renewed by God, and the heavens shall be folded together, and the earth shall be changed, and God shall transform men into the similitude of angels, and they shall be white as snow; and they shall always be employed in the sight of the Almighty, and shall make offerings to their Lord, and serve Him for ever. At the same time shall take place that second and public resurrection of all, in which the unrighteous shall be raised to everlasting punishments. These are they who have worshipped the works of their own hands, who have either been ignorant of, or have denied the Lord and Parent of the world. But their lord with his servants shall be seized and condemned to punishment, together with whom all the band of the wicked, in accordance with their deeds, shall be burnt for ever with perpetual fire in the sight of angels and the righteous.” 23 PFF1 358.4
This, he declares, is the teaching of the prophets that the Christians of his day follow. PFF1 359.1
“This is the doctrine of the holy prophets which we Christians follow; this is our wisdom, which they who worship frail objects, or maintain an empty philosophy, deride as folly and vanity, because we are not accustomed to defend and assert it in public, since God orders us in quietness and silence to hide His secret, and to keep it within our own conscience; and not to strive with obstinate contention against those who are ignorant of the truth, and who rigorously assail God and His religion not for the sake of learning, but of censuring and jeering.” 24 PFF1 359.2
14. MILLENNIAL REST DURING SEVENTH MILLENARY
As to the proximity of the last times and the great consummation of the second advent, Lactantius follows the prevalent, though unscriptural, Jewish six-thousand-year theory. Taking the six days of creation week as symbolical of the world’s history, he closes them with a seventh thousand years of respite after the six thousand years of wickedness; he emphatically denies the Graeco-Chaldean theory of hundreds of thousands of years for earth’s history, declaring that the Scriptures alone reveal the world’s age, which he reiterates is approaching its six-thousand-year limit. 25 He stresses the approaching end in the light of this premise. 26 Following the lengthened Septuagint reckoning—a thousand years longer than the Hebrew chronology—he places the first advent in the year of the world 5500. Like Hippolytus, he then calculates the world’s end and the second advent at about A.D. 500—two hundred years beyond his day—though not, as he avers, until after the city of Rome shall have fallen. 27 The climax of this growing theory will be traced later. PFF1 359.3
Picture 2: CONSTANTINE PROFOUNDLY CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY
Well known statue of Constatine the great, whose professed espousal of the christian faith changed the attitude of empire toward the church and whose shift of capital from Rome to Constantinople, in 330 gave the Bishop of Rome place of foremost influence in the old.
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