Lactantius Quotes
But some one will say that this supreme Being, who made all things, and those also who conferred on men particular benefits, are entitled to their respective worship.
Lactantius. The Divine Institutes. Translated by William Fletcher, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.
See John Leland for opposition to this clause: {608955}
Backus was the first of the American clerics to espouse the position that in order for there to be a Christian nation, the state must be separate from the Church.
He was favoring state confiscation of land holdings in excess of four times the value of the standard land allotment. What is most interesting about this quotation is that the maximum ratio Plato would allow was 4 times the average. However in the 21st century, there were corporate executives being paid at 1000 times the averate wage with most conservatives believing that this (or any other ratio) was not excessive.
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus signo Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) was an early Christian author who became an advisor to Roman emperor, Constantine I, guiding his Christian religious policy in its initial stages of emergence, and a tutor to his son Crispus. His most important work is the Institutiones Divinae ("The Divine Institutes"), an apologetic treatise intended to establish the reasonableness and truth of Christianity to pagan critics.
