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Lactantius
I relate all those things on the authority of well-informed persons; and I thought it proper to commit them to writing exactly as they happened, lest the memory of events so important should perish, and lest any future historian of the persecutors should corrupt the truth, either by suppressing their offences against God, or the judgment of God against them. To His everlasting mercy ought we to render thanks, that, having at length looked on the earth, He deigned to collect again and to restore His flock, partly laid waste by ravenous wolves, and partly scattered abroad, and to extirpate those noxious wild beasts who had trod down its pastures, and destroyed its resting-places.[1998] Where now are the surnames of the Jovii and the Herculii, once so glorious and renowned amongst the nations; surnames insolently assumed at first by Diocles and Maximian, and afterwards transferred to their successors? The Lord has blotted them out and erased them from the earth. Let us therefore with exultation celebrate the triumphs of God, and oftentimes with praises make mention of His victory; let us in our prayers, by night and by day, beseech Him to confirm for ever that peace which, after a warfare of ten years, He has bestowed on His own: and do you, above all others, my best beloved Donatus, who so well deserve to be heard, implore the Lord that it would please Him propitiously and mercifully to continue His pity towards His servants, to protect His people from the machinations and assaults of the devil, and to guard the now flourishing churches in perpetual felicity.
(On the tenth of the kalends of April, p. 301.)
Serious difficulties are encountered by the learned in reconciling Lactantius with himself, if, indeed, the fault be not one of his copyists rather than his own. In the fourth book of the Institutes[1999] his language is thus given by Baluzius:[2000]—
“Extremis temporibus Tiberii Cæsaris, ut scriptum legimus, Dominus noster Jesus Christus, a Judæis cruciatus est post diem decimum kalendarum Aprilis, duobus Geminis consulibus.”
Lactantius was writing in Nicomedia, and may have quoted from memory what he had read, perhaps in the report of Pilate himself. The expression post diem decimum kalendarum Aprilis is ambiguous: and Jarvis says, “My impression is, that it means ‘after the tenth day before the kalends of April;’ that is, after the 23d of March.”[2001]
But here our author says, according to the accurate edition of Walchius[2002] (a.d. 1715),—
“Exinde tetrarchas habuerunt usque ad Herodem, qui fuit sub imperio Tiberii Cæsaris: cujus anno quinto decimo, id est duobus Geminis consulibus, ante diem septimam Calendarum Aprilium, Judæi Christum cruci affixerunt.”
But here, on the authority of forty manuscripts, Du Fresnoy reads, “ante diem decimam,” which he labours to reconcile with “post diem decimum,” as above. Jarvis adheres to the reading septimam, supported by more than fifty manuscripts, and decides for the 23d of March.
He cites Augustine to the same effect in the noted passage:[2003]—
“Ille autem mense conceptum et passum esse Christum, et Paschæ observatio et dies ecclesiis notissimus Nativitatis ejus ostendit. Qui enim mense nono natus est octavo kalendas Janvarias profecto mense primo conceptus est circa octavum kalendas Aprilis, quod tempus passionis ejus fuit.”
This, Augustine considers to be “seething a kid in mother’s milk,” after a mystical sense; cruelly making the cross to coincide with the maternity of the Virgin, who beheld her Son an innocent victim on the anniversary of her salutation by the angel.
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