e. The bishop =Victorinus of Pettau= (Petavium in Styria), who died a martyr during the Diocletian persecution in A.D. 303, wrote commentaries on the Old and New Testament books that are no longer extant. Only a fragment _De fabrica mundi_ on Gen. i. and Scholia on the Apocalypse have been preserved. f. =Lucius Cœlius Firmianus Lactantius= († about A.D. 330), probably of Italian descent, but a pupil of Arnobius in Africa, was appointed by Diocletian teacher of Latin eloquence at Nicomedia. At that place about A.D. 301 he was converted to Christianity and resigned his office on the outbreak of the persecution. Constantine the Great subsequently committed to him the education of his son Crispus, who, at his father’s command, was executed in A.D. 326. From his writings he seems to have been amiable and unassuming, a man of wide reading, liberal culture and a warm heart. The purity of his Latin style and the eloquence of his composition, in which he excels all the Church Fathers, has won for him the honourable name of the Christian Cicero. We often miss in his writings grip, depth and acuteness of thinking; especially in their theological sections we meet with many imperfections and mistakes. He was not only carried away by a fanatical chiliasm, but adopted also many opinions of a Manichæan sort. The _Institutiones divinæ_ in seven bks., a complete exposition and defence of the Christian faith, is his principal work. The _Epitome div. inst._ is an abstract of the larger works prepared by himself with the addition of many new thoughts. His book _De mortibus persecutorum_ (Engl. trans. by Dr. Burnett, “Relation of the Death of the Primitive Persecutors.” Amsterdam, 1687), contains a rhetorically coloured description of the earlier persecutions as well as of those witnessed by himself during his residence in Nicomedia. It is of great importance for the history of the period but must be carefully sifted owing to its strongly partisan character. Not only the joy of the martyrs but also the proof of a divine Nemesis in the lives of the persecutors are regarded as demonstrating the truth of Christianity. The tract _De ira Dei_ seeks to prove the failure of Greek philosophy to combine the ideas of justice and goodness in its conception of God. The book _De opificio Dei_ proves from the wonderful structure of the human body the wisdom of divine providence. Jerome praises him as a poet; but of the poems ascribed to him only one on the bird phœnix, which, as it rises into life out of its own ashes is regarded as a symbol of immortality and the resurrection, can lay any claim to authenticity.