Lactantius, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Justice has two veins, piety and equity, and the whole of it is contained in these two fountains: its source and origin is in the first, all its force and method in the second.1 The one who does not know God does not know justice, for how can he know justice who is ignorant of the source from which it arises? Equity follows from the Father. God produces and gives breath to all, and has set on all the same condition of living, promised immortality to all, and shut no one out from His heavenly benefits; as He sends the one light and the fountains to all alike, so He bestows equity and virtue on all.2
In His sight no one is a slave and no one a master; if we have the same Father, we are by an equal right all children. No one is poor before God but he who is without justice, and no one rich but he who is full of virtues.2 That is why neither Romans nor Greeks could possess justice. They had men differing by many degrees, from the poor to the rich and from private persons to kings, and where all are not equally matched there is no equity; inequality of itself excludes justice.2
Do not suppose that I have dissolved the household and divided the estates by edict. The objector asks whether there are not among us some poor and some rich, some servants and some masters. We call one another brethren for one reason only, that we believe ourselves equal. We measure all human things not by the body but by the spirit; though the condition of bodies differs, we have no servants, but regard them and speak of them as brothers in spirit and fellow-servants in religion.3
Nor does wealth make a man illustrious, except that it can make him more conspicuous by good works; men are rich not because they possess riches but because they spend them on works of justice.3 Before God we are distinguished by virtue alone, and he who puts himself on a level with his inferiors, and even beneath them, will stand highest in God's judgment.4
On killing, I make no exception, and I will not soften it. When God forbids us to kill, He prohibits not only open violence, which the public laws themselves do not allow, but also the things that men esteem lawful.5 It will therefore be lawful neither for a just man to engage in warfare, since his warfare is justice itself, nor to accuse anyone of a capital charge, since it makes no difference whether you put a man to death by word or by the sword; the act of putting to death is itself what is forbidden.5
Of this precept there ought to be no exception at all, for it is always unlawful to kill a man whom God willed to be a sacred animal.5 I wrote this against the crowd at the arena, who have lost their humanity by learning to thirst for blood, and who then spare not even the innocent.5 The just man may not be a companion and sharer in public homicide.
Justice has two parts, piety toward God and equity toward men, and they are one: whoever knows the one Father knows all men as his children and therefore as brothers. In his sight no one is a slave and no one a master, no one poor but the unjust and no one rich but the virtuous. Justice fled the earth when the worship of the one God was abandoned and returned with Christ.
It includes harmlessness without exception: the just man may not kill, not as a soldier, not as an accuser in a capital case, not by exposing an infant, not by watching the arena, because a man is a sacred animal.67
piety and equity are, as it were, its veins: for in these two fountains the whole of justice is contained; but its source and origin is in the first, all its force and method in the second.The Divine Institutes, Book V, Of Justice
In His sight no one is a slave, no one a master; for if all have the same Father, by an equal right we are all children. No one is poor in the sight of God, but he who is without justice; no one is rich, but he who is full of virtuesThe Divine Institutes, Book V, Of Justice
we have no servants, but we both regard and speak of them as brothers in spirit, in religion as fellow-servants. Riches also do not render men illustrious, except that they are able to make them more conspicuous by good works.The Divine Institutes, Book V, Of Justice
Though, therefore, in lowliness of mind we are on an equality, the free with slaves, and the rich with the poor, nevertheless in the sight of God we are distinguished by virtue.The Divine Institutes, Book V, Of Justice
it will be neither lawful for a just man to engage in warfare, since his warfare is justice itself, nor to accuse any one of a capital charge, because it makes no difference whether you put a man to death by word, or rather by the swordThe Divine Institutes, Book VI, Of True Worship
But if either he himself or any other person had wished to complete the defence of justice, he ought first of all to have overthrown the religions of the gods, because they are opposed to piety. And because Socrates indeed tried to do this, he was thrown into prison; that even then it might be seen what was about to happen to those men who had begun to defend true justice, and to serve the only God.The Divine Institutes, Book V, Of Justice
But Carneades, that he might refute Aristotle and Plato, the advocates of justice, in that first disputation collected all the arguments which were alleged in behalf of justice, that he might be able to overthrow them, as he did. For it was very easy to shake justice, having no roots, inasmuch as there was then none on the earth, that its nature or qualities might be perceived by philosophers.The Divine Institutes, Book V, Of Justice
The ethical core of the Institutes and its most radical demands; read as a social programme or as an apology for Christians accused of injustice, and set against the later Church's acceptance of the soldier and the judge.