Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius

In his own words on Mark

• Mark 5:4

  "Neither could anyone tame him." Give me a reprobate who is impetuous, foul-mouthed and overbearing. With few words the Lord will render him as gentle as a lamb. Give me one who is covetous, avaricious, grasping. The Lord will restore him to liberality, and he will dispose of his resources bountifully of his own hand. Show me one who trembles at the idea of pain and of death, and soon I will show you one who has learned to disdain crosses, flames and the bull of Perillus. Even one who is sensual, adulterous and gluttonous can be made sober, chaste and abstinent.

  DIVINE INSTITUTES 3.26.4

• Mark 7:35

  He thereby declared that it would shortly come to pass, that those who were destitute of the revealed truth would both hear and understand the majestic words of God. Accordingly you may truly call those deaf who do not hear the heavenly things which are true, and worthy of being performed. He loosed the tongues of the dumb. They spoke plainly—a power worthy of admiration even in its ordinary operation. But there was also contained in this display of power another meaning. It would shortly come to pass that those who were previously ignorant of heavenly things, having received the instruction of wisdom, might soon speak God's own truth.

  DIVINE INSTITUTES 4.26

• Mark 7:37

  He loosed the tongues of the dumb, so that they spake plainly. A power worthy of admiration, even when it was in operation: but there was contained in this display of power another meaning, which showed that it would shortly come to pass that those who were lately ignorant of heavenly things, having received the instruction of wisdom, might speak respecting God and the truth. For he who is ignorant of the divine nature, he truly is speechless and dumb, although he is the most eloquent of all men.

  The Divine Institutes Book 4 (Chapter XXVI)

• Mark 14:8

  The last and greatest office of piety is the burying of strangers and the poor; which subject those teachers of virtue and justice have not touched upon at all. For they were unable to see this, who measured all their duties by utility. Moreover, there have not been wanting those who esteemed burial as superfluous, and said that it was no evil to lie unburied and neglected; but their impious wisdom is rejected alike by the whole human race, and by the divine expressions which command the performance of the rite.

  The Divine Institutes Book 6 (Chapter XII)