Divine Institutes

Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones

Lactantius

The best Latin prose any Christian wrote that century, and its author knew it.

Catch rate: 70 / 255
Base research: 170
Stat total: 258

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina70

Contend62

Defend66

Popularity60

Total258

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 70

Seven books, entire — the first attempt anybody made at a systematic defence of the faith in Latin.

Contend 62

Lactantius writes the best Latin prose of any Christian of his century and is not the best theologian of any decade of it. Fine Contend, and not more than fine.

Popularity 60

Read steadily ever since, largely by people who came for the style.

Cited for this book

They called him the Christian Cicero, and he had earned it — Constantine hired him to tutor his son. He also watched the Great Persecution from inside Diocletian’s own capital and wrote down who died and how. And he quotes Cicero constantly, including a lost book of his that survives nowhere else in one piece.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Wisdom and Religion	Rationality	Argument	66	100%	15
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
9	Their Own Poets	Rationality	Argument	65	100%	10
10	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
16	One Ruler	Natural Theology	Argument	55	100%	20
20	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
24	Steelman	Rationality	Type shift	—	—	10
28	Martyr’s Resolve	Ethics	Argument	50	100%	15
36	Sarcasm	Rationality	Argument	60	95%	15
50	Speak Latin	History	Status	—	100%	5

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“That is not to be deemed true religion, because it instructs and improves men by no precepts of righteousness and virtue. Thus philosophy, inasmuch as it does not possess true religion, that is, the highest piety, is not true wisdom.”
Lactantius, Divine Institutes 4.3 (trans. William Fletcher, ANF 7, public domain).public domain

Wisdom and Religion

RationalityArgument · power 66 · 100% accurate

In the gamePhilosophy without worship has nothing to obey; worship without philosophy has nothing to think. Lactantius takes seven books to argue they were never two subjects.

“As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’”
Acts 17:28 (WEB), Paul before the Areopagus.

Their Own Poets

RationalityArgument · power 65 · 100% accurate

In the gamePaul on Mars Hill: quote their poets, then preach the risen Christ.

Strong against

×2Platoa book · why?

Paul did not argue the Athenians out of their poets. He quoted them, agreed with them, and then said the one thing the poets had never reached.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“The bees have one king; the flocks one leader; among the herds there is one ruler. Can you believe that in heaven there is a division of the supreme power, and that the whole authority of that true and divine empire is broken apart, when it is plain that God, the Parent of all, has neither beginning nor end?”
Minucius Felix, Octavius 18 (trans. Wallis, ANF 4, public domain, lightly modernized).public domain

One Ruler

Natural TheologyArgument · power 55 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe argument from monarchy: every ordered thing in nature answers to one head, and the world is the most ordered thing there is. Octavius reasons up from the hive to the throne of heaven.

“Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.”
James 1:19 (WEB).

Steelman

RationalityType shift

In the gameRestate the foe’s position in its strongest form — exposing its true weak point. Lowers the foe’s Defend. Always fair; never a bad move to use.

“Eighty and six years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”
Martyrdom of Polycarp 9 (public domain trans.).public domain

Martyr’s Resolve

EthicsArgument · power 50 · 100% accurate

In the game"Eighty and six years…" Strikes half again as hard when the book is nearly spent.

“At noon Elijah mocked them, ‘Yell louder! After all, he is a god; he may be deep in thought, or perhaps he stepped out for a moment or has taken a trip. Perhaps he is sleeping and needs to be awakened.’”
1 Kings 18:27 (NET) — the oldest sarcasm in the canon, and the warrant for every apologist who has used it since.

Sarcasm

RationalityArgument · power 60 · 95% accurate

In the gameSay the argument back to it, straight-faced and in full, until the shape of it does the refuting. Often finds the telling stroke — and occasionally goes too far and misses.

Read it: Wisdom and Religion, Not Separated

The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Latin.

“I have believed that these errors should be encountered, that both the learned may be directed to true wisdom, and the unlearned to true religion.”
Lactantius, Divine Institutes, preface (trans. Fletcher, ANF 7, public domain, lightly modernized).

“…in this government of the affairs of nature, unless there shall be one to whom the care of the whole is referred, all things will be dissolved and fall to decay.”
Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.3 (trans. Fletcher, ANF 7, public domain, lightly modernized).

“Thus philosophy, inasmuch as it does not possess true religion, that is, the highest piety, is not true wisdom.”
Lactantius, Divine Institutes 4.3, the chapter he headed “Wisdom and Religion Cannot Be Separated” (trans. Fletcher, ANF 7, public domain).

“For when the people see that men are lacerated by various kinds of tortures, and that they retain their patience unsubdued while the executioners are wearied…”
Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5.13 (trans. Fletcher, ANF 7, public domain, lightly modernized).

“Justice by its own nature has a certain appearance of folly.”
Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5.15 (trans. Fletcher, ANF 7, public domain).

Notes

Seven books, written while the Great Persecution was still running, by a professor of rhetoric who had lost his chair for being a Christian and wrote the first systematic Latin defence of the faith anyway.

His thesis fits in one sentence: pagan religion has no ethics and pagan philosophy has no piety, so neither of them is wisdom. Only the two together, which he calls true religion.

Note who he is writing for — the learned and the unlearned, named separately in the same sentence of the preface. He is doing two jobs at once and says so.

He is also the man who preserved a line of Cicero’s lost Hortensius by arguing with it. If you are carrying that book, this is one of the two men you have to thank for it existing at all.