Emotion in Lactantius: Vulnerability in Virtue and Worship
This article explores emotion in Lactantius’s Divinae institutiones6 in light of his De ira Dei and in the context of true worship. For Lactantius, emotion involves vulnerability. Emotion is necessary for virtue because it is necessary to caring. Worship requires virtue and recognising one’s creatur...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2017
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| In: |
Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum
Year: 2017, Volume: 21, Issue: 2, Pages: 272-303 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Lactantius, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus 250-317, Divinae institutiones
/ Stoicism
/ Emotion
/ Idea of God
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| RelBib Classification: | CD Christianity and Culture KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity NBC Doctrine of God VA Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Lactantius
emotion
Stoicism
vulnerability
divine passibility
Christianity and Roman Culture
philosophy
image of God
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | This article explores emotion in Lactantius’s Divinae institutiones6 in light of his De ira Dei and in the context of true worship. For Lactantius, emotion involves vulnerability. Emotion is necessary for virtue because it is necessary to caring. Worship requires virtue and recognising one’s creatureliness before God, both of which involve vulnerability. Lactantius’s treatment of emotion, true worship, and virtue is framed by a theology of the divine likeness in humankind. Seeking to be invulnerable to others’ concerns denigrates God’s image in other people; also, in ourselves because it is in God’s image that we respond emotionally to others. Failure to acknowledge vulnerability to personal injury denies our creatureliness. Both are idolatrous. Lactantius’s understanding of the vulnerability, virtue, and emotion matrix engages and reworks a Stoic emphasis on virtue and a Platonic otherworldliness, and reflects his and his community’s experience in the Diocletianic persecution. |
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| ISSN: | 1612-961X |
| Contains: | In: Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/zac-2017-0017 |