ABSTRACT
In an age of religious conflict when men claiming divine assistance competed for the Roman throne, Euhemerism became a powerful rhetorical tool. Part of L. Caelius Firmianus Lactantius’ argument promoting Christian law and ethics rested on his critique of the polytheism that legitimized the persecution and its sponsoring emperors. Although no one has done a study of Lactantius’ reception in the Middle Ages, it’s clear that Jerome’s and Augustine’s engagement with Lactantius kept his influence alive. Just as Euhemerism gave Lactantius the means to wage a veiled critique of the persecuting emperors, it also primed his auditors to interpret accounts of supernatural beings in Christian Scripture as representing human actors of his day. Lactantius’ auditors – the elites of Constantine’s court – would have known the poets’ stories about Jupiter; but they also would have caught the veiled references to Diocletian.
