Video and Podcast Resources On Lactantius' On The Anger Of God

ten lectures on this classic text in video and podcast format

One early (3rd-4th century) Christian philosopher, a contemporary of the emperors Diocletian and Constantine, and of the neo-Platonist Porphyry, whose works I study and teach is Lactantius. His On The Anger Of God is a particularly important work not only in terms of theological speculation about God and emotion, but also for the psychology of that all-too-human emotion as well.

That’s the main text of his that I’ve taught, so far just in the Anger and Justice class that I’ve taught three times at Marquette University, and which I’ll be teaching in the Spring 2025 semester at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. I developed core concept video resources for my own academic students and for other interested students and lifelong learners, and then subsequently converted those lecture videos into downloadable Sadler’s Lectures podcast episodes.

Like most of the authors who we term “early Christian philosophers”, Lactantius was writing from a perspective ultimately oriented by Christianity, but deeply informed by pre-Christian philosophical schools as well as other key elements of ancient culture, particularly the study of rhetoric. He was very conversant with what we can call the “big 5” ancient schools: Platonic, Aristotelian, Epicurean, Skeptic, and Stoic, as we see not only in On the Anger of God, but even more so in his longer Divine Institutes.

In fact, it is to Lactantius - who includes it in On The Anger Of God so that he can subsequently criticize the Epicurean position - that we owe the preservation of Epicurus’ famous “argument from evil”, which some later authors would employ as an argument against the existence of God.

So, here are the ten lectures I have produced on his On The Anger Of God, in both video and podcast formats. Perhaps down the line, if I get ambitious enough, I’ll do something similar for his longer Divine Institutes.

• Why Philosophers Err | watch video | listen to podcast

• Criticisms Of Epicureans | watch video | listen to podcast

• Criticisms Of Stoics | watch video | listen to podcast

• Emotions In God | watch video | listen to podcast

• Defining Just Anger | watch video | listen to podcast

• Human Virtues And Vices | watch video | listen to podcast

• Mercy, Pardon, And Anger | watch video | listen to podcast

• Addressing Arguments From Evil | watch video | listen to podcast

• Humans, Reason, And Religion | watch video | listen to podcast

• Precepts About Anger | watch video | listen to podcast

I hope that you find them useful, and that you’ll consider giving this interesting work a read!