Lactantius and Constantine's Letter to Arles: Dating the Divine Institutes

Many scholars have accepted Eberhard Heck's argument that Lactantius added two lengthy dedications to Constantine (1.1.13-16 and 7.27.11-17) when revising the Divine Institutes in C.E. 324 Parallels between this summa and Constantine's letter to the Synod of Aries (314), however, suggest that the rhetorician completed the second edition of the Divine Institutes much earlier, in 313. In this context, the chronological disparity of the dedications is evidence for an ongoing presentation of the material between them: Between 310 and 313, Lactantius may have been teaching the principles of Christianity to Constantine and his court. Thus, the last great Latin apologist may have exerted a significant influence on the first emperor to legalize Christianity.