The Church Fathers · c. 303–311
The Divine Institutes
Divinae Institutiones
Lactantius · c. 250–c. 325
What it is
Seven books written during the Great Persecution, setting out Christianity as a complete philosophy — false religion, the origin of error, justice, true worship, and the life of blessedness — in the most polished Latin any Christian had yet written.
Why it lasted
The first attempt at a systematic Latin theology, and the book that earned its author the title of the Christian Cicero.
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below. The Library catalogues it; it does not host the text.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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