The edict was published on May 12, 315 A.D., a few months before his victory over Licinius. The Christians had prophesied to Constantine that he would be victorious and he was more than likely to be influenced by their point of view, especially that of Lactantius, the noted rhetorician and teacher, to whom he had entrusted the education of his son, Crispus. Lactantius had just written his work on _The Divine Institutes_, designed to supersede the less complete treatises of Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and Cyprian. He had dedicated the work to Constantine, and perhaps had conversed with him about it, discussing one particular chapter in which the Christian Father had inveighed, with his accustomed grace but with unusual force, against infanticide and the sale and exposure of infants. A new day, indeed, had come—the proud Emperor of the mighty Romans sits high on his throne, listening to, and moved by—a Christian Father! This is Lactantius’s plea for the new-born, from the sixth book of his _Divine Institutes_[365]: “Therefore let no one imagine that even this is allowed, to strangle newly born children, which is the greatest impiety; for God breathes into their souls for life, and not for death. But men, that there may be no crime with which they may not pollute their hands, deprive souls, as yet innocent and simple, of the light which they themselves have not given. Any one truly may not expect that they would abstain from the blood of others who do not abstain even from their own. But these are without any controversy wicked and unjust. What are they whom a false piety compels to expose their children? Can they be considered innocent who expose their own offspring as a prey to dogs, and as far as it depends upon themselves, kill them in a more cruel manner than if they had strangled them? “Who can doubt that he is impious who gives occasion for the pity of others? For, although that which he has wished should befall the child—namely, that it should be brought up—he has certainly consigned his own offspring either to servitude or to the brothel? But who does not understand, who is ignorant what things may happen, or are accustomed to happen, in the case of each sex, even through error? For this is shown by the example of Œdipus alone, confused with twofold guilt. It is therefore as wicked to expose as it is to kill. But truly parricides complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children; as though, in truth, their means were in the power of those who possess them, or God did not daily make the rich poor, and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from marriage than with wicked hands to mar the work of God.”