Lactantius: Divine Institutes. Translated with an Introduction and notes by Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey. Pp. xiv + 472. Frontispiece. (Translated Texts for Historians, 40.) Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003. isbn 0 85323 988 6. Paper £20
For anyone interested in early fourth-century Christian thought, this new translation of Lactantius’ Divine Institutes is welcome indeed. Lactantius’ proficiency as a professor of Latin rhetoric in Africa brought him an appointment in Nicomedia (c.299), one of the emperor Diocletian's new admin...
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| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2006
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| In: |
The journal of theological studies
Year: 2006, Volume: 57, Issue: 2, Pages: 713-715 |
| Review of: | Divine institutes (Liverpool : Liverpool Univ. Press, 2007) (Digeser, Elizabeth)
Divine institutes (Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2003) (Digeser, Elizabeth) |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | For anyone interested in early fourth-century Christian thought, this new translation of Lactantius’ Divine Institutes is welcome indeed. Lactantius’ proficiency as a professor of Latin rhetoric in Africa brought him an appointment in Nicomedia (c.299), one of the emperor Diocletian's new administrative centres. The force and fluidity of his prose justly earned him the epithet ‘the Christian Cicero’, from Pico della Mirandola. Yet until now, English translations of the Divine Institutes have poorly served their subject. The nineteenth-century translation in the Ante-Nicene Fathers series (originally published in Edinburgh by T & T Clark) is accurate; yet it makes Lactantius sound like a florid and sanctimonious preacher—not the sober, fluent advocate that the Latin reveals. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4607 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of theological studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jts/fll029 |