Like all the first Latin apologists, Tertullian and Lactantius came from Africa but the former was a man of the church and his militant writing places him concretely in Carthage whereas the latter, a secular theologian, went to Nicomedia where he had been called at the imperial court to teach rhetoric. Educated and assimilated to the Roman culture, both differ in the way they write and refer to authors, notably philosophers: Tertullian uses these references as an auxiliary and temporary means to truly target heretics. On the contrary Lactantius invokes Cicero’s name to claim his authority and targets the philosophers directly to object the truth of his discourse elaborated according to the ratio of the Revelation to what he casts as their false science or their ignorance; he thus strives to reverse balance of power between the Pagan and the Christian elite that is present in the highest reaches of power. If Tertullian could not envisage the Christian universality on earth, Lactantius did; but both may have received part of their ideal of universality that had been supported by the stoicism of the Severan dynasty before them from their African origins
