De Mortibus Persecutorum,We generally find included among the writings of Lactantius a book divided into fifty-two
chapters, entitled
De Mortibus Persecutorum, containing an
outline of the career of those emperors who displayed active hostility towards the church,
an account of the death of each, together with a sketch of the different persecutions from
Nero to Diocletian. The object of the narrative is to point out that the signal vengeance of
God in every case overtook the enemies of the faith, and to deduce from this circumstance,
from the preservation of the new religion amidst all the dangers by which it was surrounded,
and all the attacks by which it was assailed, and from its final triumph over its foes, an
irresistible argument in favour of its heavenly origin. The work appears from internal
evidence to have been composed after the victory of Constantine over Maxentius, and
before his quarrel with Licinius, that is to say, between
A. D.
312 and 315. The text is corrupt and mutilated, and the statements which it contains
must be received with a certain degree of caution in consequence of the declamatory tone in
which they are delivered, and the high colouring and trimming employed throughout to suit
the particular design proposed. But notwithstanding these drawbacks, the treatise is
extremely valuable on account of the light which it sheds on many obscure passages of
ecclesiastical and civil history, and is peculiarly famous as containing a contemporary
record of the alleged vision of Constantine before the battle of the Milvian bridge, in
consequence of which he ordered the soldiers to engrave upon their shields the well-known
monogram representing the cross together with the initial letters of the name of Christ
(100.44).
Editions
This piece is altogether wanting in the earlier editions of Lactantius, and was
first brought to light by Stephen Baluze, who printed it at Paris in his Miscellanea
(vol. ii., 1679) from a very ancient MS. in the
Bibliotheca Colbertina, bearing simply the inscription Lucii Cecilii incipit Liber ad Donatum confessorem de mortibus
persecutorum. Baluze entertained no doubt that he had discovered the tract
of Lactantius quoted by Hieronymus as
De Persecutione Librum
Unum, an opinion corroborated by the name prefixed [
LACTANTIUS], by the date, by the dedication to Donatus, apparently the same person
with the Donatus addressed in the discourse
De Ira Dei, and by
the general resemblance in style and expression, a series of considerations no one of which
would be in itself conclusive, but which when combined form a strong chain of
circumstantial evidence.
Le Nourry, however, sought to prove that the production in question must be assigned to
some unknown L. Caecilius altogether different from Lactantius, and published it at Paris
in 1710 as " Lucii Cecilii Liber ad Donatum Confessorem de Mortibus Persecutorum hactenus
Lucio Caecilio Firmiano Lactantio adscriptus, ad Colbertinum codicem denuo emendatus," to
which is prefixed an elaborate dissertation. His ideas have been adopted to a certain
extent by Pfaff, Walch, Le Clerc, Lardner, and Gibbon, and controverted by Heumann and
others. Although the question cannot be considered as settled, and indeed does not admit of
being absolutely determined, the best modern critics seem upon the whole disposed to
acquiesce in the original hypothesis of Baluze.
The most complete edition of the De Mortibus Persecutorum in a
separate form, is that published at Utrecht in 1693, under the inspection of Bauldri, with
a very copious collection of notes, forming one of the series of Variorum Classics in
8vo.
Other editions are enumerated in the account given of the works of LACTANTIUS.