The Making of a Christian Empire
Subtitle: Lactantius and Rome
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: November 18, 1999
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 199
ISBN-13: 9780801435942
Subjects: Early Church; European history: BCE to c 500 CE; Political structure & processes; Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church; BCE to c 500 CE; History; Ancient Rome - History; Early Church (To 476); Rome; Religion - Church History; Religion; Europe; Influence; Ancient - Rome; Christianity - History - General; Religious; ca. 240-ca. 320; Church history; Divinae institutiones; Lactantius,; Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600
First sentence: The accounts of Diocletian's rise to power give no indication that he would in any way distinguish himself from the twenty ruthless military emperors of the previous fifty years.
Description: "The work of the Christian scholar Lactantius provides an ideal lens through which to study how Rome became a Christian empire. Elizabeth DePalma Digeser shows how Lactantius's Divine Institutes - seditious in its time - responded to the emperor Diocletian's persecution and then became an important influence on Constantine the Great, Rome's first Christian emperor."--BOOK JACKET.

"The Making of a Christian Empire is the first full-length book to interpret the Divine Institutes as a historical source. Exploring Lactantius's use of theology, philosophy, and rhetorical techniques, Digeser perceives the Divine Institutes as a sophisticated proposal for a monotheistic state that intimately connected the religious policies of Diocletian and Constantine, both of whom used religion to fortify and unite the Roman Empire."--BOOK JACKET.