LACTANTIUS

Form: Firmianus.

A pupil of Arnobius, summoned by Diocletian to teach rhetoric in the school of Nicomedia in Bithynia. Here he embraced Christianity (before A.D. 303), and in his old age (about 317) he became the teacher, in Gaul, of Crispus, the son of Constantine the Great. He is remarkable above all Christian authors for the purity and smoothness of his style, for which he was indebted to the careful study of Cicero, so much so indeed, as to have earned the title of the Christian Cicero. His great work is the "Introduction to Divine Knowledge" (Divinae Institutiones), in seven books. A poem on the phoenix, in eighty-five couplets, is also ascribed to him; but this ascription is doubtful.