Preaching to Seneca: Christ as Stoic Sapiens in Divinae Institutiones IV

Lactantius's Divine Institutes is a conversation with many partners. His affinity for Stoic thought in general, and Seneca in particular, is especially pronounced. Throughout the Institutes we find a delicate back-and-forth between Lactantius's claim of a novel philosophy centered on the C...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hansen, Benjamin (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press [2018]
In: Harvard theological review
Year: 2018, Volume: 111, Issue: 4, Pages: 541-558
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Lactantius, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus 250-317, Divinae institutiones / SenecalRhetor, Lucius A. 55 BC-40 / Jesus Christus / Wise person / Stoa / Apologetics
RelBib Classification:KAB Church history 30-500; early Christianity
NAB Fundamental theology
NBF Christology
TB Antiquity
VA Philosophy
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Summary:Lactantius's Divine Institutes is a conversation with many partners. His affinity for Stoic thought in general, and Seneca in particular, is especially pronounced. Throughout the Institutes we find a delicate back-and-forth between Lactantius's claim of a novel philosophy centered on the Christian Gospel and his attraction to-and dependence on-the pagan philosophy he hoped to supplant. This interplay is distinctly relevant to Lactantius's portrayal of the figure of Jesus in Institutes IV. In this paper, I argue that Lactantius shapes his story of the nature and work of Jesus in part to give an answer to a primary Stoic question: where is the sapiens? Indeed, the figure of the sapiens, the "Stoic sage," had presented something of a problem for the Stoa: Stoic cosmology demanded he exist while Stoic history had failed to find him. By Seneca's time, a resigned acceptance of the absence of such figures of incarnate wisdom was commonplace; the figure of the sapiens had begun to fade away into the realm of theory, separated from imperfect human practice. In redressing this concern, Lactantius portrays his Christ: the true sage and exemplum, wisdom and virtue incarnate. In short, to Seneca's resignation, Lactantius offers a rebuke and a corrective by a clever re-shaping of both Christian and Stoic expectation.
ISSN:1475-4517
Contains:Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0017816018000263