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1Inst. 6.4,3ff.2Inst. 6.7,33Inst. 7.1,3.4 Besides, in book 4 ofDivine Institutions we learn that God has opened the way to overcom-

ing the flesh by sending His Son. See Inst. 4.25.

Lactantius on the Function of the Two Ways

GborKendeffy, Budapest

The main point of this paper is that the doctrine of the two ways plays a keyrole in Lactantius theological system. I will first give a survey of the maincharacteristics of Lactantius version of the doctrine; second, I will comparehis discussions of the doctrine with several passages concerning the theory

of the two Spirits and the providential function of evil; and finally, I hope toshow how the doctrine of the two ways serves as a background for the authorsconception of his own task as apologist.

I.

1. In this earthy life, the smooth and sloping way which leads to Hell, guidedby the Devil himself, offers (e.g.posuit,proposuit, ostendit) all kinds of advan-tages, including wealth, reputation, pleasure and even quiet, but also all manner

of vices. The steep, bumpy, and narrow way that leads to Heaven, guided byChrist, offers all kind of disadvantages, but also virtues. Thus, in this worldthe life of the pious man is bound to be full of misery, whereas the wicked livesin the midst of pleasures. Both ways continue into the other world, where theexperience of suffering is reversed. The good obtains eternal happiness, whilethe others finds perpetual misery.1

2. Since his Fall, the Devil has been the guide on the path to Hell.2 As forthe right but difficult road, Christ is our guide (praecursor), not as the incor-poreal, but as the incarnated Son of God.3 Christ set an example to followexactly by sustaining every torture that a man could conceivably endure on the

road to Heaven.4 Thus this way by contrast to the other has been open onlyfrom the Incarnation. To translate the metaphor: the possibility of travellingthe right road is not a given, but has existed only since Christs coming intothe world.

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5Inst. 6.7,2-7; 7,1-2.6Inst. 6.4,4.7Inst. 6.4,3. See 6.2,1-2.8Inst. 6.4,20.9Inst. 5.21,1-6 (SC 204, 244-6); 5.22.5-6 (SC 204, 248-50); 6.4,9.

3. Further, Satan does not want to deceive only those who indulge in carnaldesires or other earthly passions. He exploits even some noble inclinations of

the pagans for his purposes, like their sense of transcendence and their yearn-ing for wisdom. A certain kind of philosopher becomes an appropriate targetof Satans allurement by his very effort to distinguish good and evil. For him,Satan opens up a special path which, by being steep and bumpy, imitates theway that leads to Heaven.5

4. Lactantius version of the doctrine emphasises the opposition of the eternaland the temporary, as well as that of future and present goods. On each of thetwo ways God offers a choice of good and evil, but in reversed order. On theright way, He sets out a program of temporary evils followed by eternal goods.On the wrong way He offers us first temporary goods and later eternal evils.6

5. With the opposition of the temporary and the eternal goes another: that ofappearance and reality. Lactantius describes the temporary goods as anythingthat on earth is regarded as good. One who has chosen these alleged goods iscaptivated by the appearance of present goods.7 This aspect is even morestrongly emphasised in the case of the diversions on the wrong way.

6. This latter opposition entails the idea of a deceitful God. According to theapologist, God too, and not only the Devil deceives mortals, because Godhimself has concealed the real value of things, in order to educate and trainhumanity.8

7. In this system the sins of the wicked serve as instruments for the educativetorture of the pious. For the larger part of the blows which the righteous mustsustain are in fact caused by the vices of the wicked.

8. Due to the nature of the two ways, it is much easier for the impious to achievetheir wrong aims than it is for the pious to realize their noble purposes. Hencethe former receive much more encouragement than the good from the outsideworld. Moreover, the steadiness of the righteous does not but fuel the wickednessof the impious, because the latter are at heart aware that they are on the rightpath.9 The mechanism of the two ways therefore seems more appropriate for themaximisation of crime and for shaking the faith of Christians than for advancing

conversion, a subject about which Lactantius himself reports with enthusiasm.

9. For the sake of my further argument, a trait of Lactantius terminology mustbe highlighted. This is the fact that the blows suffered by the pious are often

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Lactantius on the Function of the Two Ways 3

10Inst. 6.3,4; 6.3,8; 6.4,3; 6.4,7; 6.4,17; 6.4,20.11Inst. 2.9,2-3.12Inst. 3.29; 6.23.

referred to as bitterness, in contast to the sweetness experienced by those onthe other way.10

10. At this point, we can resume what I would call the logic of the two ways:everyone is confronted with a choice whether to choose present, temporary, andapparent advantages while drawing upon oneself disadvantages which arefuture, eternal, and real; or to suffer present, temporary, apparent disadvantagesin order to earn advantages that are future, eternal, and real.

II.

In what follows I try to show that this logic of the two ways permeates Lactan-tius entire theological system.

1. In the longer version of book 2 ofDivine Institutions we read that the pro-creation of the two Spirits before Creation has a cosmological and an ethicalpurpose. From the ethical point of view, the evil Spirit came to being so thatvirtue might exist and develop, which could not happen without the movingforce of suffering (nisi malis agitetur).At first sight, the role here attributed tothe Devil seems to consist not in alluring, as is the case in the passages on thetwo ways, but exclusively in persecuting mankind for the sake of virtue, whichLactantius identifies with the ability to endure suffering. But the argument that

follows, based on the logical interdependence of good and evil, raises doubtsabout the viability of this interpretation. After some examples like that of healthand illness which seem to point merely to external goods and evils, the keysentence reads as follows: Neither can good be grasped or perceived withoutavoiding and escaping from evil, nor evil be kept away and overcome unlessby means of grasping and perceiving the good.11 In my view, in this utterancethe words bonum and malum admit a moral, rather than a physical interpreta-tion. The good which must be grasped and perceived can hardly be only exter-nal if the development of virtue depends on it. Similarly, the evil to be avoidedand overcome is more likely to be of a moral character if the virtue is at stake;for according to the author, virtue consists not of avoiding and keeping awayexternal evils, but in the endurance of them. Consequently, the agitation ofvirtue by the evil Spirit must lie not only in persecution, but also in allurement.To be sure, the function of the Devil as torturer is stressed on several occa-sions, but his stratagem of ensnaring with desire and lust is also emphasized12An analysis of the famous addition ofDe opificio Dei would also show that the

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4 G. Kendeffy

13 Opif. 19bis (SC 213, 212).14Inst.7.5*.15De ira 13.13ff.16 This is a reminiscence of a quasi-theodicy of the Stoics. See Cicero, De finibus bonorum

et malorum 3.18,60f.

verb agito has a double meaning with respect to the role of the Devil as a trainerof human virtue.13

2. According to a passage, occurring only in the longer versions of the work,Man has experienced evil as a result of the fall. He is therefore given the taskof choosing between good and evil. The ability to do this is wisdom whichitself could not be exerted without the existence of evil. According to this text,the first sin has an educative function, for it is due to the sin that man hasreceived (accepit) the knowledge of good and evil: that is, the ability to distin-guish between them. This gift made the human creature, who before was onlya baby, into Man. But God has made the use of this power of distinctionbetween good and evil more difficult, by mingling advantages of appearancewith real disadvantages and disadvantages of appearance with real advantages.

So the deceptive conjunction of reality and appearance is a fundamental char-acteristic of human existence on earth. For advantages and disadvantages theauthor uses among others the word suavitas and acerbitas, terms which clearlypoint to the doctrine of the two ways.14

3. The famous chapter 13 of Lactantius On the Anger of Godmakes clearerthat, for the author, the logic of the two ways forms the core of the plan ofdivine providence.15 This text discusses the question how one can maintain thateverything is created for the use of man, if there are many things in Creationwhich are harmful to us. The answer is that God set (proposuit) both good andevil before man for the sake of wisdom, defined as the ability to distinguish

between them. At this stage, both are to be understood in an external, physicalsense (see for example the following passage: wisdom desires the good forusefulness, but rejects evil for safety.For evil things are the material of wis-dom.16 If only good things were available, wisdom would be unnecessary. Thisstatement is illustrated by an example. As Lactantius writes, if one places beforelittle children (infantes), who as yet have no real intelligence, meals whichconsist exclusively of foods which are useful and salutary to them, there willbe for them to grow up mentally. But Lactantius continues if you add amixture (admisceas)either of bitter, useless, or even poisonous things, they are

plainly deceived through their ignorance of good and evil Thus we finally

learn what wisdom is for: It causes us to know God, and by that knowledge toattain to immortality, which is the chief good.The simile of the childrens dinner represented a world where the real and

the apparent are never in conflict. This world would need no wisdom, nor the

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Lactantius on the Function of the Two Ways 5

17Inst.1. praef. 7

power of decision between good and evil, because everything would be whatit claims to be. The dinner after the addition of a mixture of bitter, useless

or poisonous things is the image of our real world where nothing is what itappears to be, for apparent advantages are connected with real disadvantagesand apparent disadvantages are tied to real advantages, so that man is easilydeceived. That is the logic of the two ways. Even the terminology calls to onesmind the language and imagery of the two ways metaphor (proposuit; amara).The children represent pre-lapsarian man, who was compared to a child in inst.7.5*. But we should also understand that certain key terms slip from a lower,material level to a higher, moral one in the course of the simile, for wisdom inthe second part is no practical, but moral; and its objects are no longer tempo-rary and apparent goods and evils, but rather the reality of eternal Good and

Evil. Concepts like usefulness and safety (salus) are also transposed to a higherlevel of significance. The most striking feature of the text is that it enacts aprocess in the reader which is somehow analogous to the path which leads fromimpiety to piety. At first deceived by the apparent, earthly meaning of thewords, he comes to grasp their real connotations. He is invited to travel fromappearance to reality. Thus Lactantius teaches that God, by concealing the realvalues of things, does not simply make the practice of wisdom more difficult,as inst. 7,5* seems to suggest. Instead, he makes it possible.

From this it also follows that although the capacity to choose the correct wayis given to man only at the Incarnation, the deceptive conjunction of reality andappearance and the obligation to choose between them influences the entire

history of fallen Man.

III.

In the preface of Divine Institutions, Lactantius explains why he felt obliged towrite his apologetic work for convincing the Pagans and affirming the faith ofChristians whose faith was shaken by the persecutions. Because, he writes, bit-terness (amaritudo) is mixed with virtues (permixta est), while vices are seasonedwith pleasure, offended by the former and soothed by the latter, these people are

borne headlong, and deceived by the appearance of good things, embracing evilsfor goods. I believe that these errors ought to be encountered 17

This means that in Lactantius view his apologetic work is necessitated bythe very logic of the two ways. This point becomes clearer if we take a brieflook at some passages from book 5, where he reveals more about his apologeticaims and strategies. Here he complains that pagan philosophers and orators areeasily able to ensnare unwary souls by the sweetness of their discourse: all

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18Inst. 5.1,10-1 (SC 204, 128-30).19Inst. 5.1,17 (SC 204, 130).20Inst. 5.1,14 (SC 204, 130).

this is honey he adds which conceals poison.18 The parallelism with theactivity of the Devil on his false way is obvious, and Lactantius terminology is

actually very similar.Lactantius continues that since educated people consider as true only what

is sweet to hear (auditu suave est), they are inclined to reject the Bible, whichis written in the simple Latin of the masses.19 Therefore he has chosen themethod of Lucretius: Only let the cup be anointed with the heavenly honey ofwisdom, that the bitter remedies may be drunk by them unawares, without anyannoyance, whilst the first sweetness of taste by its allurement conceals, underthe cover of pleasantness (suavitatis), the bitterness (acerbitatem) of the harsh

flavour.20 This strategy resembles that used by the enemies of Christianityinasmuch as what is sweet is in both cases on top, in order to allure and deceive

the unsuspicious tongue. There is however a great difference. Lactantius sweet-ness conceals something bitter, while the other hides poison: the poison ofDamnation itself. The bitter medicine offered by Lactantius is Christian doc-trine, with its austere moral requirements. This latter element suggests thatLactantus trick is not only a reply to the strategies of the pagan philosophersand the orators. By connecting the manifest sweetness of rhetoric with the realgood, which is the eternal happiness promised by the Christian doctrine, hedoes something which is naturally quite opposed to the logic of the two ways.One may say that Lactantius as apologist offers an antidote to the mechanismof the two ways, which, as we saw, seems in itself more suited to maximisingcrime than to advancing the cause of mass conversion.