Milanski edikt i/li religijska tolerancija u svjetlu Laktancijeve kritike paganstva

Abstract

Lucius Caecilius Lactantius Firmianus was an early Christian scholar, a renowned
Roman rhetor and a tutor of Constantine’s son Crispus. He was a passionate apologists
and one of the fiercest critics of paganism. In his apologetic works, particularly
in Institutiones divinae and De mortibus persecutorum, Lactantius justified the
persecution of pagans by divine justice, i.e. retribution for the persecution of Christians
in the earlier periods of the Roman Empire.
In this context, the author elaborates on the concept of religious tolerance in general,
and provides a critical commentary on Lactantius’ arguments on the discrepancy
between wisdom and philosophy (which is the idea taken over from Tertullian). In
that context, the author of this paper considers that it is unjustifiable and quite
intolerant to reduce paganism to an act of worshiping God’s creations rather than
God himself. Besides, the author draws attention to Lactantius’ opinion, expressed in
his Institutiones divinae, that philosophers are incapable of distinguishing between
good and evil because their research is basically concerned with mundane rather
than divine issues. Lactantius claims that, for this reason, philosophers are unable
to reveal the complete truth but may (at best) reach only half-truths.