Lactantius, Teleology, and American Literature
2005; Pittsburg State University; Volume: 46; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0026-3451
Autores Tópico(s)American Constitutional Law and Politics
ResumoIN THE EARLY FOURTH century, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius lost his job as a professor rhetoric, a position he had been invited to assume years earlier by the Roman emperor Diocletian. Lactantius was not native to the area, nor was he native to Christianity, but in the midst his professional life he had arrived at both. He had been born a pagan in North Africa around 240 A.D. He studied under Arnobius--the renowned rhetor and, later, apologist who taught at Sicca (Tunisia) in Roman Africa--and over time his own reputation as a learned rhetorician caught the attention the Roman leadership, resulting in an invitation from Diocletian to teach at Nieomedia. All might have gone well for Lactantius had he not subsequently discovered Christianity. His conversion put him at odds with the Emperor, and when Diocletian issued his first edict against Christianity in 303 A.D., it was clear Lactantius's tenure at Nicomedia would be revoked. With the loss his professorship, Lactantius was soon reduced to abject poverty, from which he would not successfully recover until late in his life when the Emperor Constantine remembered his skills as a teacher and appointed him a tutor to his son Crispus. Having followed his charge Crispus to Trier, Germany, in 317, Lactantius spent his final months in that city and died circa 320 A.D. Only Lactantius's writings survive, and, although not known for the depth and originality his theological vision, Lactantius made a lasting mark through his style--he was dubbed the Christian Cicero during the Renaissance--and for his work in apologetics. In particular, Lactantius focused on defending Christianity against polytheistic pagan religions, and it is this combination graceful style steeped in classical learning with his systematic dismantling the theories and creeds held by the best minds the classical era that likely resulted in his popularity in the Renaissance and established Lactantius as one the more oft-quoted and oft-reprinted the early church fathers. Around 314 A.D., Lactantius wrote a volume entitled De ira Dei (A Treatise on the Anger God). The stated purpose this treatise is to refute the arguments of those who believe God does not act in wrath either because (1) God is all-benevolent, or (2) God is set apart from the direct affairs humankind. Much of the text is given over to a point-by-point answer to the Stoics, the Epicureans, and a handful other classical philosophers who in one form or another argued that God cannot or does not experience wrath. About halfway through his discourse, Lactantius tackles what we would refer to now as the problem pain. He brings this part his treatise to a point by introducing a formulation Lactantius attributes to Epicurus. Lactantius writes: God, he [Epicurus] says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God, if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if tie is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? Or why does tie not remove them? (Lactantius, 28) The problem pain, as set forth here by Lactantius, is often framed, or answered, with an appeal to questions teleology. In other words, the dilemma might be reconceived thus: by, revealing some greater design or discovering some remarkable end or purpose--a teleos--for pain, can we explain adequately why, if God is both benevolent and omnipotent, that He does not remove pain from the world? Lactantius thinks so. Having earlier in his treatise argued that the universe is divinely ordered and governed by God's providence, Lactantius proposes that the existence evil in the world serves the purpose forcing humanity to exercise wisdom. …
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