[Sidenote: Lactantius.] Lactantius (Lucius Cæcilius Firmianus Lactantius) was a pupil of Arnobius, according to Jerome’s statement, and was called by Diocletian with the grammarian Flavius to teach Latin rhetoric at Nicomedia, in Bithynia, a Greek city in which teachers of Latin found few patrons. Lactantius was therefore poor and had leisure for writing. When he was converted to Christianity is not known, but it can not have been before he reached middle life. In his old age he was called by the Emperor Constantine to be the tutor of his son Crispus. Nothing remains of writings by Lactantius before his conversion, but his later works, both prose and verse, are numerous. The most important are the seven books entitled _Institutiones Divinæ_ (_Divine Institutions_, an exhaustive philosophical work in support of Christianity against paganism), after which should be mentioned the treatises _De Opificio Dei_ (_On the Work of God_, a discussion of creation and the nature of man), _De Ira Dei_ (_On the Wrath of God_, dealing with the current theories of Providence), a fanatical work on the deaths of the persecutors from Nero to Galerius (_De Mortibus Persecutorum_), and a curious poem _On the Phœnix_. The treatise _De Opificio Dei_ is Christian only in its general tendency, and contains no direct reference to Christianity. This is probably because it was written at the time of the persecution under Diocletian (303 A. D.). The poem _On the Phœnix_ (that fabulous bird that builds a nest, burns itself up, reappears among the ashes as a worm, grows to an egg, is hatched, and flies away to renewed life) shows many traces of Christianity but contains no direct reference to the new religion. Lactantius was well educated in the learning of the pagans, and when he became a Christian did not forget what he had learned before. His style is purer than that of his Christian predecessors, being modelled upon that of Cicero. For this reason the name “Christian Cicero” has been applied more appropriately to him than to Tertullian, though in power of eloquence Tertullian, with all his harshness of style, is the greater. The second century, which saw the birth of Christian literature in Latin, produced, as we have seen, several writers of real power, and as the third century opened, Christian literature gained, in the person of Lactantius, a writer who possessed at the same time elegance of style. With Lactantius the African school of Christian writing approaches the classical style of Minucius Felix, and the path is made straight for the writings of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. From this time on, the real life of Latin literature is seen in Christian rather than in pagan writings. CHAPTER XIX PAGAN LITERATURE OF THE THIRD CENTURY