Français – عربي – ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ – English
Translation: Ibrahim Ait Dami
Lactantius was a North African writer and rhetorician of the 4th Century. After beginning his career in his native Africa, he went on to become a counselor to the Roman Emperor Constantine. Having himself been a victim, as a Christian, of religious persecution under Constantine’s predecessors, he exerted significant influence on the policies of the first Christian emperor, encouraging him to adopt religious tolerance toward all his subjects—Christians, Jews, and pagans alike.
The Life of Lactantius
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus, known as Lactantius, was born around 250 in Roman Africa, into a family of Amazigh or Punic origin, depending on the sources. His birthplace is unknown: an inscription discovered at Cirta (modern Constantine) mentions an individual named L. Caecilius Firmianus, but it is uncertain whether this refers to him.
In his youth, he studied rhetoric under Arnobius of Sicca. It is not known whether he converted to Christianity under Arnobius’ influence or whether he was already a Christian beforehand. He later taught rhetoric in his native city.
Around the year 300, the Roman Emperor Diocletian recruited him to teach rhetoric at the imperial court. There he came into contact with many high-ranking figures, including the future Emperor Constantine. In 303, Diocletian issued an edict against Christians, ordering the destruction of their places of worship, the burning of their sacred texts, the prohibition of their assemblies, and the exclusion of all Christians serving in the imperial administration. Lactantius, having foreseen the publication of this edict, resigned from his position at court shortly before it was issued. In the years that followed, more than three thousand Christians throughout the Empire—many of them in Africa—were put to death for their faith. Lactantius witnessed this persecution and would later write a book on the subject.
Diocletian abdicated in 305. His successor, Galerius, continued the persecution of Christians. Under increasing pressure from Constantine, he was eventually forced to issue an edict of tolerance in 311, just days before his death. For the first time in Roman history, Christianity became a legally recognized religion.
At the Court of Constantine
The new emperor, Constantine, himself converted to Christianity in 312. His interest in the new religion dated back earlier: as early as 310, at the height of the persecution, he had chosen the Christian Lactantius as tutor to his son. After the emperor’s conversion, Lactantius became his main adviser on matters of religious policy.
The context in which Lactantius exercised these responsibilities was highly unusual. Christians were no longer persecuted, and the imperial administration even favored the new religion; yet the majority of the Empire’s population was still pagan. The elite, in particular, remained attached to ancient religious traditions. In this new situation, the emperor wondered how he should treat subjects who did not share his faith. Should he attempt to impose it by force, persecuting pagans as his pagan predecessors had persecuted Christians? Lactantius, on the contrary, advised him to pursue a policy of religious tolerance, based on the voluntary nature of worship offered to God: coercion does not create new believers, only hypocrites.
Lactantius set out his vision of religious tolerance in Book V of his Divine Institutes. The following excerpts summarize his thought: “Force must not be used, since religion must be free. Words should be employed rather than blows, so that those who embrace it may do so willingly. […] There is an extreme difference between cruelty and piety. Truth and justice are incompatible with harshness and violence. […] Religion must be defended not by killing others, but by dying for it; not by the severity of punishments, but by patience; not by crimes, but by faith. Since religion is good, it does not wish to be defended by evil. If you undertake to defend it by shedding blood, by exercising cruelty, and by committing crimes, far from defending it, you violate it. There is nothing so voluntary as religion, and it is entirely destroyed as soon as the freedom of the one who offers sacrifice is constrained. The best way to defend religion is to die for it. In this way it is upheld before human beings, and at the same time fidelity is kept to God. […] The faith we keep toward God is followed by a reward all the more solid and glorious in that it lasts not only as long as the present life, which is very short, but as long as the future life, which is eternal.”
Lactantius’s argument is based on the Christian conception of God and of man as His creature, called to worship Him in justice and in truth, ae God is justice and truth. True worship offered to God must be voluntary: if it is coerced, it will not be sincere and therefore will have no value. Moreover, by persecuting Christians, pagans have thereby shown that they are in error, since violence is contrary to the justice of God.
Constantine sought to put these principles into practice in his religious policy. His laws and official speeches regularly affirm the truth of Christianity, yet no penalties are imposed on those who refused to accept it. Christians who abused their new influence by treating Jews or pagans unjustly were punished. This is not religious neutrality in the sense of Western secularism, but rather religious freedom, founded on the right to error.
The same principle is found in the Qur’an: “لَآ إِكْرَاهَ فِى ٱلدِّينِ قَد تَّبَيَّنَ ٱلرُّشْدُ مِنَ ٱلْغَىِّ “There is no compulsion in religion; the right path has become distinct from error.” (Qur’an 2:256) The Pact of ʿUmar, concluded between the second Caliph, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, and the Christian and Jewish communities of Syria, applies this principle by recognizing the rights of religious minorities in Islamic lands. Lactantius, however, goes even further by affirming that religion is entirely a matter of individual conscience, not merely a communal one—thus excluding, for example, the prohibition of apostasy.
Nowadays, as increasing numbers of North Africans living abroad choose to return home because of growing discrimination against Muslims in the West, while more and more voices are calling for the respect of individual freedoms and the right to choose one’s religion in our countries, the reflections of our North African “compatriot” Lactantius offer us another model of tolerance and coexistence among fellow citizens with differing convictions and ways of life.
