Divine Institutes

Lactantius lays out the united religio and sapientia of Christianity in seven books: the first three demonstrate the falseness of pagan cult and philosophy, the latter four true wisdom and the religion of the One God, its duties and rewards. From an assertion of the unity of God, backed by a wide range of non-Christian witnesses (1.2–8), the reader is led to an exposition of the myths as a garbled account of the deeds of ancient rulers mistakenly honoured as gods.

Oliver Nicholson, “Arnobius and Lactantius,” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. Frances Young, Lewis Ayres, and Andrew Louth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 263.