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Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VII: Lactantius: Chap. XV.—Of the affections, and the opinion of the Peripatetics respecting them

Ante-Nicene FathersApostolic ConstitutionsLactantius

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This is an excerpt from early Christian apologetic literature, most likely Lactantius's *Divine Institutes* (early 4th century CE), a Latin theological-philosophical work engaging with classical schools of thought. The passage argues against the Stoic ideal of extirpating the passions entirely, defending instead the Peripatetic (Aristotelian) position that emotions are natural, God-given endowments requiring regulation rather than elimination. The author's central and distinctive claim is that vices are a necessary precondition for virtue: without anger, there is nothing for patience to master; without lust, no continence; without grief, no equanimity — virtue, like victory, requires an adversary. He supports this with an agricultural metaphor: emotions are the natural fertility of the mind, which produces weeds when uncultivated but fruit when tended by "the true cultivator." The author also lands a pointed dialectical blow against the Stoics by showing that their substitute terms — "inclination" for desire, "caution" for fear, "gladness" for joy — are functionally identical to what they replaced, meaning the Stoics covertly arrive at the Peripatetic position of moderation rather than the abolition they claimed. Anyone interested in the history of philosophical debates about emotion, virtue ethics, or early Christian engagement with Greco-Roman philosophy would find the passage substantive and argumentatively sharp.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol VII: Lactantius: Chap. XV.—Of the affections, and the opinion of the Peripatetics respecting them

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