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Lactantius
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Introductory Notice To Lactantius.
[1216] The allusion is to the Philippics of Cicero, a title borrowed from Demosthenes.
[1217] Sustentatio sui.
[1218] Quoad fieri potest. Others read, “quod fieri potest.”
[1219] Maturius sopiatur.
[1221] Cicero, Pro Ligar., 12.
Chap. XIX.—Of the Affections and Their Use; And of the Three Furies.
[1222] [Rather, indignation, cupidity, and concupiscence, answering to our author’s “ira, cupiditas, libido.” The difference involved in this choice of words, I shall have occasion to point out.]
[1223] [Here he treats the “three furies” as not in themselves vices, but implanted for good purposes, and becoming “diseases” only when they pass the limits he now defines. Hence, while indignation is virtuous anger, it is not a disease; cupidity, while amounting to honest thrift, is not evil; and concupiscence, until it becomes “evil concupiscence” (επιθυμίαν κακὴν, Col. iii. 5), is but natural appetite, working to good ends.]
[1224] Desire. [See note 6, supra.]
[1225] Lust.
[1226] Anger.
[1227] [Quæ, nisi in metu cohibetur.]
[1228] [Assiduis verberibus. This might be rendered “careful punishments.”]
[1229] [Quod ignorantes Deum facere non possunt. In a later age Lactantius might have been charged with Semi-Pelagianism, many of his expressions about human nature being unstudied. But I note this passage, as, like many others, proving that he recognizes the need of divine grace.]
[1230] C. 12.
[1231] Cœlum potius quàm cœlata. There appears to be an allusion to the supposed derivation of “cœlum” from “cœlando.”
[1232] [Intermicantibus astrorum luminibus. It does not seem to me that the learned translator does full justice here to our author’s idea. “Adorned with the twinkling lights of the stars” would be an admissible rendering.]
[1233] [It is unbecoming for a Christian, unless as an officer of the law or a minister of mercy, to be a spectator of any execution of criminals. Blessed growth of Christian morals.]
[1234] Dissipari. [A very graphic description of the brutal shows of the arena, which were abolished by the first Christian emperor, perhaps influenced by these very pages.]
[1235] Lactrocinari.
[1236] i.e., without reference to the manner in which death is inflicted. [Lactantius goes further here than the Scriptures seem to warrant, if more than private warfare be in his mind. The influence of Tertullian is visible here. See Elucidation II. p. 76, and cap. xi. p. 99, vol. iii., this series.]
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