The Patrologia Latina · Volume VII
The Deaths of the Persecutors
Volume 7 completes Lactantius: On the Deaths of the Persecutors — his eyewitness chronicle of how every emperor who attacked the church came to ruin — with On the Workmanship of God, On the Anger of God, and the poems the manuscripts handed down beside him, from the Phoenix to the hundred riddles of Symphosius. We are translating every one into English.
About this volume
How the persecution ended
Lactantius was in Nicomedia when Diocletian’s persecution began in 303 AD, and he lived to write its obituary. On the Deaths of the Persecutors, written around 313 to 316 AD, walks through the violent ends of every emperor who attacked the church — Nero, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian, Galerius, Maximinus — and preserves the actual texts of Galerius’ edict of toleration and the Milan settlement on religious liberty. It is our chief source for the Great Persecution and for Constantine’s vision before the Milvian Bridge.
Beside it stand his two surviving treatises: On the Workmanship of God, an argument from the design of the human body to divine providence, and On the Anger of God, against the philosophers who imagined a deity too serene to care about evil. The volume closes with the appendix the manuscript tradition attached to his name: the Phoenix, a Passion poem of later centuries, Venantius Fortunatus’ Easter hymn, and the hundred three-line riddles of Symphosius.
As across the whole project, we translate the original works only, in fresh English, and give them away free to read.
Where to start
Three to begin with
The chronicle
On the Deaths of the Persecutors
De Mortibus Persecutorum
Every persecuting emperor’s downfall, told by a man who watched the persecution begin — with the edicts that ended it.
Read →The argument
On the Anger of God
De Ira Dei
Against Epicurus and the Stoics: a God who loves what is good cannot be indifferent to evil.
Read →The curiosity
The Riddles of Symphosius
Enigmata
One hundred three-line riddles from late antiquity — the ancestor of the medieval riddle tradition.
Read →The contents
8 works
Each is a fresh English translation from the Latin, free to read online, in the order Migne printed them.
- 01
On the Workmanship of God De Opificio Dei
Lactantius argues from the design of the human body to the providence of its Maker, against Epicurus.
20 ch. Read free → - 02
On the Anger of God De Ira Dei
Lactantius argues that a God incapable of anger is a God incapable of justice, and that religion cannot survive without both.
23 ch. Read free → - 03
On the Deaths of the Persecutors De Mortibus Persecutorum
Lactantius traces the violent ends of Rome's persecuting emperors, from Nero to Maximinus Daia, preserving the edicts that ended the Great Persecution.
52 ch. Read free → - 04
Fragments Fragmenta
Four surviving quotations from Lactantius's lost works, preserved by later grammarians on the soul, metre, and the Gauls.
2 min Read free → - 05
The Phoenix Phoenix Lactantio Tributus
A Latin poem describing the mythical Phoenix's paradise home, fiery self-renewal, and journey to Egypt, traditionally attributed to Lactantius.
8 min Read free → - 06
Poem on the Passion of the Lord Carmen de Passione Domini
A medieval devotional poem in which the crucified Christ speaks directly to the reader, retracing his life and Passion in vivid verse.
4 min Read free → - 07
On Easter Carmen de Pascha
A 6th-century Gallic poet reads spring's return as a hymn to Christ's resurrection, closing in praise of the missionary bishop who won the Saxons.
6 min Read free → - 08
The Riddles of Symphosius Enigmata
A hundred playful three-line riddles on everyday objects, animals, and plants, composed on the spot at a Saturnalia dinner party.
100 ch. Read free →
Every translation here is free to read, funded by reader donations.
Follow the translation
Subscribe and we will send new works as their English editions are published, volume by volume across the whole Patrologia.
Get translation updates