“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shalluffer, on account be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise s of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”

So reads the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, drafted by American founding father and third President Thomas Jefferson, and passed in 1786.

Secular folks sometimes today sometimes imagine that Thomas Jefferson—a good Enlightenment humanist—more or less invented religious freedom with this passage. 

But in fact, the idea goes back at least 1,500 years, to an African man living and writing in the court of the Roman Emperor Constantine: Lactantius.

Compare the Jefferson passage with the one below, taken from Lactantius’early 4th century masterwork Divine Institutes:

There is no need for violence and brutality: worship cannot be forced; it is something to be achieved by talk rather than blows, so that there is free will in it.”  – Lactantius, Divine Institutes, Book 5

Lactantius’ ideas were so influential that they found their way into Emperor Constantine’s imperial policies.

The Edict of Milan, issued in 313, guaranteed tolerance for all faiths.

“We believed that we should give both to Christians and to all men the freedom to follow religion, whichever one they choose … so that whatever sort of Divinity there is in heavenly regions may be gracious and propitious to us and to all who live under our government.” 

Constantine – one of history’s great champions for freedom of faith?

Contrary to popular belief, Christianity didn’t become the official religion of the Empire under Constantine. That happened in the 390s – more than half a century after Constantine – under Emperor Theodosius. 

Even when Constantine became the sole emperor of East and West in 324, he could’ve imposed Christianity, but he didn’t.

In fact, he wrote to the Eastern provinces to assure them that, although he would love everyone to become a Christian, he knew that would not create peace. 

These ideas around freedom of religion almost certainly came from Lactantius, who was in the emperor’s inner circle.

Lactantius scholar Elizabeth DePalma Digeser goes one step further, positing that Divine Institutes is a manual (of sorts) for a Christian ruler like Constantine.

“The kind of outreach that Lactantius is doing in the Divine Institutes is that over time, especially if you have effective, tolerant Christian leadership, society will change, and you’ll achieve the end of a Christian state. 

“I would say that the fundamental principle is this idea of volitas, which is Latin for ‘the will’. Everyone has a will, and you can’t force the will to do a thing. It has to come from the person.”

The significance of Lactantius’ arguments is heightened by the fact that, when he wrote them, Christianity was undergoing a brutal persecution (which Constantine eventually put a stop to).

“Lactantius’ big view about what makes religion meaningful is that religious decisions have to be made through reason,” Kirsten Mackerras, another Lactantius scholar, said on Undeceptions.

“If the true part of worship happens in the mind, violence can’t actually coerce meaningful worship – it can only compel external behaviour. 

“Religious acts require free choice to be meaningful, and so the state should ensure that people have the freedom to make those choices freely. 

“No God who wants to be worshipped through violence deserves to be worshipped anyway –  they’re obviously not a good being that you would want to follow.”

Lactantius deserves the same airtime we usually give to more famous early Christian thinkers— like Gregory of Nyssa or Augustine of Hippo. Lactantius can be mentioned in the same breath. His writing on equality, justice, and ethics were breakthroughs we now take for granted. 

This legacy is perhaps most clearly seen today in our ideas around freedom of religion.

A right that many people take for granted today actually had its origins in the murky, chaotic world of Antiquity – and they were further championed by a Christian Roman Emperor.

Not enough people know about Lactantius today, but his ideas around freedom of religion are now upheld as fundamental, universal rights for all. That’s a legacy that he’d surely be happy with.

By the way, Jefferson owned a beautiful leather-bound copy of Lactantius’ Divine Institutes. So we know where he was getting his ideas from! 

Adapted by Alasdair Belling from Undeceptions episode 169, ‘ Against Coercion’. You can listen to the full episode here.

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