On The Workmanship Of God Or The Formation Of Man

On The Workmanship Of God Or The Formation Of Man, in Latin De Opificio Dei, is one of Lactantius’s earliest substantial works, written around 303 or 304, before he undertook the much longer Divinae Institutiones. The text is a relatively short treatise, dedicated to a former pupil named Demetrianus, that takes up the question of how the human body is constructed and what the design of the human form reveals about the wisdom and intention of its creator.

Lactantius works through the human body system by system, examining the design of the eyes, the ears, the various organs, the limbs, and the wider anatomical structure with the kind of detailed attention that the natural theology tradition of his era encouraged. The basic argument is that the careful design of each part of the human body points to a creator whose intelligence and benevolence are demonstrated by the workmanship visible in the result. The argument draws on the wider Hellenistic philosophical tradition of design arguments, including Stoic versions and the related Platonic accounts of the cosmos as the product of divine reason, and connects these classical sources to the Christian doctrine of creation that Lactantius wanted to defend.

The text is interesting both for its specific anatomical observations, which reflect the state of the art of medical knowledge in the late third and early fourth centuries, and for its position as one of the early Christian uses of the design argument that would later become so important to the natural theology tradition. Lactantius was writing centuries before the more famous design arguments of William Paley and others, and his version of the argument has the particular flavor of late antiquity, with extensive citation of classical philosophical sources and the kind of formal Latin prose that earned Lactantius the nickname the Christian Cicero.

For students of late antiquity, of patristic literature, of the history of the design argument and natural theology, or of the wider development of Christian engagement with classical philosophy, On The Workmanship Of God is worth knowing. The text is shorter and more accessible than the much longer Divinae Institutiones, and it gives readers a sense of Lactantius’s voice and method in a more manageable single sitting. The English translation is generally readable. Anyone working with the text in a serious way will want a good edition with notes that flag Lactantius’s anatomical and philosophical sources.