1 Pohlenz, Max is rather pointed in his reading of the problem: “Die Stoiker erklärten sogar ausdrücklich, es habe in der Menschengeschichte kaum einen Weisen gegeben” (Die Stoa: Geschichte einer geistigen Bewegung, [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1964] 157)Google Scholar. Inwood, Brad makes a similar point: “And wise persons are, as we know, extremely rare (if not altogether unexampled) on the normal Stoic view of things” (Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005] 274–75)Google Scholar. Long’s, A. A. concise study also arrives at the same conclusion: “Stoic ethics is the epitome of idealism. The sage, to whom every commendatory epithet belongs, is not found in everyday life” (Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics [2nd ed.; Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986] 204)Google Scholar. Translations from Greek and Latin sources are my own, unless otherwise noted.

2 Seneca Ben. 5.6, for example. On this point, Runar, M. Thorsteinsonn’s work is illuminating (Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010] 151)Google Scholar.

3 For the place of exempla in this discussion see Heim, François, “Virtus chez Lactance: du vir bonus au martyr,” Aug 36 (1996) 361–75Google Scholar, at 351. For Seneca, the sapiens is a “measuring-stick” (regulam) by which one’s life can be measured (Ep. 11.10). Inwood notes “the exemplary force of those few ‘historical’ sages like Socrates (or Cato) … who have at some point in the past instantiated virtue in a perfected form … these sages have a vital function in our moral epistemology” (Reading Seneca, 295). See Inwood and Donini, Pierluigi on the cosmic significance of wise humans in Stoic theology in “Stoic Ethics,” in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Algra, Keimpe et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 675–738Google Scholar.

4 See Long (Hellenistic Philosophy, 152–63) for a clear and economic description of this line of Stoic thought.

5 A. C. Van Geytenbeek traces out the argument in Musonius Rufus. For Rufus, the nature of the cosmos was such that, in Van Geytenbeek, ’s summation, “life demands not only the philosopher, the specialist of virtue, but every human being to be perfect” (Musonius Rufus and Greek Diatribe [trans. Hijmans, B. L.; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1962]Google Scholar 29).

6 On this trait in Seneca, see Inwood, Reading Seneca, 3–4; for Panaetius, see Long, Hellenistic Philosophy, 213–15; De Lacy, Phillip H., “The Four Stoic Personae,” Illinois Classical Studies 2 (1977) 163–72Google Scholar, at 166 and 169; Straaten, Modestus Van, Panétius: sa vie, ses écrits et sa doctrine, avec une edition des fragments (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij H. J. Paris, 1946) 195–98Google Scholar. A fine summary is found in Inwood and Donini (“Stoic Ethics,” 722–27).

7 “Half-wise” is my own term. For Seneca’s own language concerning these figures, see below. From this point, please note that I will use the English “virtue” for virtus (except when examining the Latin). It is of importance, however, that its connotations of strength, excellence, and power are not lost.

8 Van Getenbeek notes a similar logic in Musonius Rufus: virtue is acquired by imitating the virtuous (Musonius Rufus, 22).

9 See especially Seneca Ep. 120. Even here, though, Seneca allows for some imperfections concealed in the bright light of the almost-perfect. On this point, Van Getenbeek claims that at least implicitly Seneca argues for the actual existence of such a sage (Musonius Rufus, 25). A close reading of the epistle, however, reveals the persistently hypothetical character of Seneca’s sapiens.

10 Thus, Shaw, B. D.: “Stoicism remained the idea system associated with most of the high period of the ancient classical world … its principal claims, even if not fully understood or comprehended by all who availed themselves of Stoic doctrine, formed a general background for all other philosophical claims,” in “The Divine Economy: Stoicism as Ideology,” Latomus 44 (1985) 16–54Google Scholar, at 17 [italics in original].

11 Ibid., 53–55, offers a particularly sharp summary. It is a rough analogy, but one is tempted to portray Stoicism as functioning akin to the “neo-liberalism” of our own age—the unspoken assumption of a ruling elite upon which all other beliefs and opinions are established. Here Van Geytenbeek (Musonius Rufus, 145–46) is helpful vis-à-vis the “cosmopolitanism” of Epictetus and other Stoics in the early imperial period.

12 Lactantius arrived at Nicomedia around 300 CE and was employed by Constantine sometime after 310 (in Trier). The best brief introduction to his life in English is found in Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey’s introduction in Lactantius: Divine Institutes (trans. Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey; Translated Texts for Historians 40; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003) 1–3. These two follow Timothy D. Barnes for this dating of Lactantius’s movement (Constantine and Eusebius [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981]). Eberhard Heck (“Lactantius,” in Der Neue Pauly:Encyclopädie der Antike [ed. Hubert Cancith and Helmuth Schneider; 15 vols.; Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1997] 6:1043–44) assumes an alternative timeline, as does Antonie Wlosok (Laktanz und die philosophische Gnosis [Heidelberg: Abhandlung der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1960]). Seneca himself, of course, was no stranger to these selfsame halls: his involvement in Nero’s imperial court was the inspiration of many of his works and tragically the cause of his death. A fine introduction to Seneca’s career can be found in Griffin, Miriam T., Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (New York and Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

13 Arthur Fisher provides a helpful approach to the Christianization of “middle-brow” Latin governmental culture (“Lactantius’ Ideas Relating Christian Truth and Christian Society,” Journal of Historical Ideas 43 [1982] 355–77)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 See, e.g., Long (Hellenistic Philosophy, 107) for brief comments; or Pohlenz (Stoa, 400–61) for a longer (if, at times, looser) treatment; and Thorsteinsson (Roman Christianity) for a recent and thorough assessment of Stoicism and earliest Christianity.

15 Michel Perrin provides this gentle (but accurate) summation: “qu’il ne’est pas un technicien de la philosphie et de la théologie, ce qui explique l’usage d’un vocabulaire qui n’est pas défini avec toute la precision souhaitable et de formulations susceptibles d’être comprises de plusieurs manières” (“L’image du stoïcien et du stoïcisme chez Lactance,” in Valeurs dans le stoïcisme: du Portique à nos jours. Textes rassemblées en hommage à Michel Spanneut [ed. Michel Soëtard; Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1993] 113–29, at 127). Oliver Nicholson offered the same sentiments in this pithy formula: “A comprehensive introduction to Christianity for middle-brow Latin speakers … ordinary educated men who remember their Cicero”—spoken during his presentation “The Deaths of the Persecutors and the Anger of God: Lactantius and the Great Persecution,” Lecture given for the Center for Medieval Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN, April 28, 2016.

16 Pierre Monat offers the most detailed account of Lactantius and the Bible, though his study focuses primarily on Lactantius’s use of the scriptural passages found in Cyprian’s Testimonia ad Quirinum (Lactance et la Bible: Une propédeutiqe latine à la lecture de la Bible dans l’Occident constantinien (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1982). Of his co-religionist predecessors, Lactantius mentions in the DI three Latin writers (Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and Cyprian) (see esp. DI 5.1.22–28). He offers only one reference to a Greek author, namely Theophilus of Antioch (DI 1.23.2).

17 Thorsteinsson notes as well Epictetus’s occasional use of ὁ φρόνιμος and Musonius’s standard ὁ φιλόσοφος (Roman Christianity, 150). Credit is due to Thorsteinsson for compiling many of these quotations in a helpful (and succinct) manner (Roman Christianity, 152–54).

18 Const. 8.2 (trans. Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity, 151); see also Helv. 5.2.

19 Ep. 124.21. Furthermore, it makes one an aemulator dei, super humana se extollens (124.23).

20 Ep. 68.2

21 Diss. 1.9.6.

22 See the discussion in Van Geytenbeek (Musonius Rufus, 23–28).

23 Diss. 3.22.23.

24 Ibid.

25 Ep. 90.34.

26 So Pohlenz (Stoa, 156–57): “So ist er ein Segen für die Menschheit, der jede seiner Handlungen schon als Vorbild zugute kommt” and 158: “Er ist der ideale Mensch, ja der menschgewordene Logos selbst. … ”

27 See the discussion in Ibid., 157 and Inwood (Reading Seneca, 78–81).

28 See Ep. 66.3–4.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid., 21.

31 Ibid., 1.

32 Here, Inwood (Reading Seneca, 201–23) is essential. In short, Inwood argues that the familiar metaphorical language of “moral judgements” owes much to Seneca, who introduced courtroom imagery into ethical debates in a hitherto unprecedented manner.

33 Ibid., 84, 207, 216.

34 Ibid., 96–97.

35 Ibid., 223, referring specifically to Seneca’s De Ben. 3.6. Inwood writes that for Seneca “only the sage, Zeus’ intellectual equal, can truly judge.” That is to say, having become like the gods in his nature, the sage takes on divine prerogatives as well.

36 Ibid., 227–28, focusing specifically on De Ben. 2.18.4.

37 See Inwood (Reading Seneca, 290-296) for a helpful discussion of the “idealized sage” in Seneca’s Ep. 120, and its relation to figures such as Cato and Socrates.

38 See, e.g., Cato Eps. 115.69 and 118.12 inter alia; Fabricius and Horatius Ep. 120.6–7. As for Seneca’s own terminology concerning these intermediary figures, Eps. 72 and 75 provide us with helpful examples. At times, Seneca is vague, describing such exempla simply as inperfectis adhuc (72.6) or as the one who habet profectum (72.9). In Ep. 72.10, however, Seneca moves into a more striking metaphor: he portrays moral progress as life at sea, distinguishing those who sail on the crests (summos) from those who are caught drowning in the depths (imos). He then comments on a third group, namely those who, somewhere in the middle (medios), fluctuate according to their changing circumstances (sequatur fluctus suus). In Ep 75.8–15, Seneca again divides those on the road to moral perfection into three categories, extolling those who—however imperfect—are the “sort making progress” (genus proficientium, 75.10). On these two letters and their terminology, Scott R. Smith is both succinct and helpful in elaborating (“Moral Progress and the Passions: Plutarch Moralia 76A and Seneca Ep. 75,” Hermes 134 [2006] 246–49).

39 Ep. 70.18.

40 See esp. Ep. 66.7. Again, at Ep. 120.5 Seneca notes that in observing good men, we are given a species of perfection—a glimpse—but only a glimpse. Thus the aforementioned Horatius and Fabricus “offer an image of virtue to us” (imaginem nobis ostendere virtutis). But throughout Ep. 120 Seneca is frank in admitting that these images will prove imperfect under a gaze too critical: below the surface there are “many faults” (suberant illis multa vitia, 120.5).

41 See the discussion in Inwood (Reading Seneca, 290).

42 See, e.g., his confession of his own moral failings in Ep. 7.3, inter alia.

43 See, e.g., Fr. 77, 79, 80 (collected in Vottero, Dionigi, Lucio Anneo Seneca, I frammenti [Bologna: Pàtron Editore, 1998] 194Google Scholar and 196).

44 Jackson Bryce does this with the greatest sobriety (The Library of Lactantius [New York: Garland Publishing, 1990]).

45 His sincere respect for Cicero, coupled with his exasperation at Cicero’s failure to be a Christian is, perhaps, most emotionally elaborated throughout DI 6. In 6.12, for example, Lactantius allows Cicero to guide his entire argument about generosity, while rebuking and chastising him at each point for perpetually being half-right (that is to say, for not being able to offer a Christian solution). This all leads to his melodramatic interjection at 12.10: “O, how many arguments I could make—if I wanted to—to prove the inconsistency of Cicero!” (o quam multis argumentis Ciceronis inconstantia, si id agerem, coargui posset).

46 And here it is helpful to go back to Shaw on the language of Stoicism in the halls of the elite: “It was so commonly employed that more often than not it became the silent medium of thought in which they habitually worked” (“Divine Economy,” 18). Perrin (“L’image,” 129) offers this at the end of his survey: “en lisant Cicéron ou Lactance, on retrouve le stoïcisme antique.”

47 Yet Perrin (“L’image,” 113) makes a brief comment that a good deal of Plato can be found lurking under the much more evident Stoic influence in Lactantius’s work. This is surely true, and for our purposes we do well to note just how much of an influence Plato had on Seneca as well, particularly in his surprising adaptation of a stark body-soul duality (see also Inwood, Reading Seneca, 345–47). Lactantius stands out in this regard as well.

48 Here DI 1.5.26; also 2.8.23.

49 DI 6.24.14.

50 See DI 5.7 and 2.17, inter alia. In Seneca, see De Const. 3.3–5. Pohlenz (Die Stoa, 442) traces this etiology back in Stoic lineage to Chrysippus, as do Bowen and Garnsey (Lactantius, 27, n. 105).

51 DI 3.25.5 and 7 (trans. Bowen and Garnsey). Perhaps Lactantius is thinking of Musonius Rufus’s lecture on the topic of women. Van Geytenbeek (Musonius Rufus, 51–62) offers a good introduction to this aspect of Rufus’s thought. Note, too, Lactantius’s assumption that “man is naturally competent to be wise,” which brings us back to the question of the sapiens posed at the outset.

52 DI 2.8.23, doing, no doubt, some harm to Seneca’s intended meaning.

53 DI 3.12.11, quoting Fr. 62.

54 DI 5.13.20.

55 Ibid., 22.12.

56 Jean-Marie André argues that Lactantius’s inheritance of Cicero’s thinking in respect to justice is, primarily, an inheritance of Panaetius through Cicero (“Lactance et l’idée stoïcienne de justice,” in Valeurs dans le stoïcisme: du Portique à nos jours. Textes rassemblées en hommage à Michel Spanneut [ed. Michel Soëtard; Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1993] 131–48, at 140).

57 The following first noted in Lausberg, Marion, “Christliche Nächstenliebe und hednische Ethik bei Laktanz,” in Studia Patristica (ed. Livingstone, Elizabeth A.; 98 vol.; Papers Presented to the Sixth International Conference on Patristic Studies; Part 2; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1975) 13:29–34Google Scholar.

58 All this esp. in DI 5.10–12. See Lausberg, “Christliche Nächstenliebe,” 30–31.

59 Ibid., 32.

60 Ibid., 33–34. Jean-Marie André alludes to a similar understanding of this section of DI 6 (“Lactance,” 140).

61 Though it is important to note that Lactantius is not here arguing for an apocalyptic, other-worldly sort of revelation. Rather, the revelation of the Christian religion brings back into unity a natural connection which idolatry had broken asunder: namely the partnership of philosophy and religion (sapientia and religio). DI 4.3–4 has much to say on this “restoration.”

62 Lactantius dedicates all of DI 3 to making this point. See esp. 30.1–7 (see also Perrin, “L’image,” 115).

63 See DI 6.6.1–2.

64 Ibid., 3.18.1.

65 Esp. DI 6.14–17. See André, “Lactance,” 137, as well. For Lactantius, these were given by God and thus were good and useful (rightly exercised).

66 DI 3.18.6. That Lactantius can glory in the martyrs yet scorn those who commit suicide is discussed, if briefly, in Nicholson, Oliver, “What Makes a Voluntary Martyr?” Studia Patristica 65 (2013) 159–64Google Scholar.

67 Though this is developed explicitly in his De Ira, his De Mortibus acts as a visceral account of the bloody enactment of such philosophical principles. On this particular contrast with the Stoics see also André (“Lactance,” 144–45) and Perrin (“L’image,” 117 and 126).

68 Lactantius not only used “the spoil of the Egyptians” happily, but condemned his “Egyptians” for claiming to possess such spoils in the first place.

69 That is to say, he portrays philosophy as an attempt to rectify the ills of Liber I and Liber II; it cannot, however, and thus Lactantius establishes his own work as the corrective to all correctives—true sapientia.

70 Pierre Monat offers, however, a remarkably clear outline of the rhetorical scheme of Lactantius’s argument. His whole work remains the most helpful and thorough treatment of DI 4 (Lactance, Institutiones divines, livre 4: introduction, texte critique, traduction, notes, et index. [Sources Chrétiennes 377; Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1992] 20–21).

71 DI 4.1.7–8.

72 DI 4.1.8.

73 DI 4.1.9–14. See especially 14: “Thus greater wisdom was found among those who, in part, saw their own foolishness than among those who had believed that they were wise” (unde multo sapientiores inveniuntur qui se <insipientes esse> alique ex parte viderunt quam illi qui se sapere crediderant).

74 DI 4.2.5–6.

75 DI 4.2.4. Thus, they turned to Magi, Persians, and Egyptians, cultures whose close proximity to Israel had marked them with a certain scent of the truth. Heinrich Dörrie traces the place of Plato’s eastward travels from Justin through Lactantius, (“Platons Reisen zu fernen Völkern: Zur Geschichte eines Motivs der Platon-Legende und zu seiner Neuwendung durch Lactanz,” in Romanitas et Christianitas (ed. den Boer, W. et al.; Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1973) 99–118Google Scholar. See also Nicholson’s, Oliver “Broadening the Roman Mind: Foreign Prophets in the Historical Scheme of Lactantius,” Studia Patristica 36 (2001) 364–74Google Scholar.

76 DI 4.2.3; this is a paradox not foreign to the sentiments of Seneca (see, e.g., Ep. 76.32).

77 DI 4.2.6.

78 DI 4.7.3.

79 DI 4.8.8.

80 DI 4.9.1–2.

81 Ep. 66.12.

82 For the language of the divine spirit and its incarnation in human flesh, see, e.g., DI 4.6.1; 8.9; 12.1; 13.5 inter alia.

83 Pohlenz (Die Stoa, 443) offers helpful words on the concept of the incarnate logos in Lactantius’s thought.

84 DI 4.11.14.

85 DI 4.16.4.

86 Captured well by Heim, François: “L’incarnation a d’abord une function pédagogique … il nous enseigne par la parole et plus encore par l’exemple, la perfection morale” (“Virtus chez Lactance: du vir bonus au martyr,” Aug 36 (1996) 361–375Google Scholar, at 371–72). And again Pohlenz (Die Stoa, 443): “Der Glaube an diesen göttlichen Logos gehört für Lactanz zur sapientia, auch wenn er in Christo nicht den Erlöser und Heiland, sondern nur den himmlischen Lehrer und das ideale Vorbild der Menschen sieht.” This latter is an overstatement, as Lactantius does have a (admittedly underdeveloped) sense of Christ as savior, but for our purposes it is to the point.

87 DI 4.23.4.

88 DI 4.23.8.

89 DI 4.23.9–10. This Christ-teacher motif is not foreign to other Christian authors: one can find similar statements in a host of earlier Christian authors: Clement of Rome (Ep. Cor. 36); Justin (Apol. 1.23); Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 5.2.22.4); and Clement of Alexandria (Prot. 1.7), for example. Yet we have no evidence that Lactantius read these men, particularly as they wrote in Greek (see footnote 16 earlier in this article). Lactantius appears to be evidence of a certain sort of Latin-speaking catechesis with an emphasis on the didactic nature of salvation. His mentor Arnobius’s own work (Adversus Nationes) seems too multifarious to tease out any sure influences.

90 Vincenzo Loi’s work remains the essential treatment of Lactantius’s Christ as magister and doctor sapientiae/doctor virtutis (Lattanzio nella storia del linguaggio e del pensiero teologico pre-Nieceno [Zürich: Pas-Verlag, 1970] esp. 253–64). What is interesting, however, is that Loi does not explicitly link this language in Liber IV to Seneca in particular or Stoicism in general, in spite of the primary place the work of Seneca holds in his study (see his Index, 316). That Loi does not draw this connection may well stem from the fact that in Liber IV, Lactantius essentially cuts out his explicit dialogue with philosophers and philosophical schools. Though the rest of the DI is strewn with quotations from Classical interlocutors, Lactantius frames his argument in this book as a narrative (one patched together from the Christian scriptures and other ancient oracles): that is to say, in this book, Lactantius argues with his philosophical audience not by advancing a series of logical proofs, but by telling a story. There is some analogy here to what Plato does with the narrative of Socrates, especially in the Apologia and parts of the Phaedo. Moreover, Victoria Tietze Larson argues that we should read Seneca’s own portrayal of Hercules in his tragedy Hercules Oetaeus as a conscious attempt to flesh out his thinking vis-à-vis the sage by means of a story. Her article provides both an interesting corollary and notable contrasts to my own argument (“The Hercules Oetaeus and the Picture of the Sapiens in Senecan Prose,” Phoenix 45.1 [1991] 39–49).

91 DI 4.24.1–5.

92 This argument is elaborated through the rest of DI 4.24—most clearly at 24.19: “[it is necessary that he] be subject to death and to every sort of suffering, since in the endurance of suffering and in the entrance into death the duties of virtue are exercised” (subiectum esse morti et passionibus cunctis, quoniam et in passione toleranda et in morte subeunda virtutis officia versantur).

93 Ep. 124.14.

94 See Seneca Ep. 66.1–4.

95 DI 4.16.13.

96 DI 4.26.1.

97 DI 4.10.1.

98 DI 6.17.28, quoting Seneca Fr. 96. Lactantius uses the same term (patibulus) to describe the death of Christ in 6.26.34: patibulo suspenditur. Martin Hengel collects Seneca’s statements on the topic of crucifixion (Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross [trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977] 30–31); Seneca seems to be fully aware of the brutal nature of this imperial punishment.

99 DI 4.26.30.

100 It should be pointed out that I have ignored the very important act of suicide in Seneca’s thought. Indeed, for Seneca, there are times when suffering and pain are useless and fear of death is best met by embrace of death via one’s own hand (see esp. Eps. 70 and 77). Thus, though there is, for both men, a great virtue in facing death courageously, Seneca allows that a quick and clean suicide is a better and “more natural” good than the needless suffering of torture (though, no doubt, it is a great good to suffer well through torture when one has no choice). Lactantius will have no part in this (see footnote 66 earlier in this article). Lactantius is rather explicit about this embrace of suffering at DI 6.24.6–7, 26.29–30; he notes (in the latter) that Christ embraces a suffering which common sense and good manners would normally flee. In short, he establishes a new pattern, one contrary to Stoic good sense and decorum. This difference between the two men is significant, though they both share the same general concept of courage in the face of death, no matter its vehicle. For a very helpful elaboration of Seneca on suicide (including the Stoic balancing of the hierarchy of goods), see Inwood, Reading Seneca, 302–21.

101 See, e.g., Ep. 70.18 (this in contrast to Seneca’s patchwork exempla noted above).

102 DI 4.26.19.

103 DI 4.26.27.

104 See the discussion of Seneca, the sage, and judgement above.

105 Lactantius discusses Jesus’s relation to the Mosaic law in 4.17. He follows Christian precedent in interpreting the Mosaic prescriptions in a spiritual or allegorical manner.

106 DI 4.17.7.

107 Long offers brief but helpful comments on the ideal society of sages in Stoic thought (Hellenistic Philosophy, 205).

108 DI 4.21.2. I leave ratio untranslated, though I take it to mean here something like “sense” or “pattern.”

109 DI 4.20.13.

110 DI 4.13.14.

111 DI 4.12.20.

112 See, e.g., Heck (“Lactantius”), Wlosok (Laktanz), and Arthur Fisher (“Lactantius’ Ideas”), for assessments of Lactantius as gnosticly-inclined, dogmatically confused, embarrassingly earnest, and dreadfully uncreative. These readings, I would argue, have resulted in part from the habit of mining Lactantius for Classical quotations—a habit which ignores Lactantius’s cultural context, his apologetic goals, and his own distinct synthesizing.