Lactantius, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Take the first question as I wrote it in the second book. God, having in Him the fountain of complete goodness, willed that this goodness should flow out as a stream, and so He produced a Spirit like to Himself, endowed with the perfections of the Father.1 Then He made another being, in whom the disposition of the divine origin did not remain.
That one was infected with his own envy as with poison, passed from good to evil, and by the will God had given him unfettered, took to himself a contrary name.2 The source of all evils is envy; he envied his predecessor, who through steadfastness is dear to the Father. The Greeks call him diabolus; we call him accuser, because he reports to God the very faults to which he himself entices us.2
He is a creature, not a rival god. God made him as He made everything, out of nothing, and I forbade any man to ask of what materials the works were fashioned.3 Whoever reads two principles into this has read his own century's quarrels into mine; I never made evil eternal or equal to God. As to the Son, I said at the second book that I speak sparingly of Him there, because in the fourth I must relate His excellence, His name and His nature.
I set Him over the whole fabric of the world as counsellor and artificer, complete in knowledge, judgment and power.3 That is the Son whom the adversary envied. What the Holy Spirit is, in the later councils' sense, I do not unfold in these books; I wrote for readers who had not yet learned that God is one, and I taught them what they could first receive.
On evil and virtue I have said it more than once and will say it again, because the whole matter turns on this point. There could be no virtue unless God had made contrary things; the power of good is manifest only by comparison with evil, and evil is nothing else but the explanation of good.4 Cut off the left hand and the body is not entire.
Make all the chessmen alike and no one will play; give the circus one colour and no one will care to watch.4 Where an enemy and a fight are wanting, there is no victory; take away the contest and virtue is nothing. So He gave both together, that virtue might be strengthened by continual exercise and perfected in conflict.4 Hence the just man must be subject to evils, for virtue is the enduring of evils.5
Observe what this does not say. Evil is not good, nor willed for itself. Good things come from God and tend to immortality, the greatest good; evils come from the adversary, whose office is to call man from heavenly things, sink him in earthly things and consign him to the punishment of everlasting death.6 God permits the contest; He does not share the enemy's purpose.
And the contest is fought by patience: he who returns an injury imitates the man who injured him, and he who imitates a bad man can by no means be good.7
Before the world God produced a Spirit like himself, the first and greatest Son, through whom he made all things, and then another in whom the divine disposition did not remain, who envied his elder and became the adversary. God permits him, because without evil there is no virtue and without the knowledge of evil no wisdom; the world is a field of contraries set before free creatures so that immortality may be a reward and not a gift.8 The Son is the Word and the Spirit of God, one with the Father as the stream with the spring.9
in order that goodness might spring as a stream from Him, and might flow forth afar, He produced a Spirit like to Himself, who might be endowed with the perfections of God the Father.The Divine Institutes, Book II, Of the Origin of Error
Then He made another being, in whom the disposition of the divine origin did not remain. Therefore he was infected with his own envy as with poison, and passed from good to evilThe Divine Institutes, Book II, Of the Origin of Error
God, therefore, when He began the fabric of the world, set over the whole work that first and greatest Son, and used Him at the same time as a counsellor and artificerThe Divine Institutes, Book II, Of the Origin of Error
there could be no virtue unless He had made contrary things; nor can the power of good be at all manifest, except from a comparison with evil. Thus evil is nothing else but the explanation of good.The Divine Institutes, Book VII, Of a Happy Life
it is necessary that the just man should be subject to evils, that he may exercise the virtue with which he is endued. For virtue is the enduring of evils.The Epitome of the Divine Institutes
Those which proceed from God have this object, to procure immortality, which is the greatest good; but those which arise from the other have this office, to call man away from heavenly things and sink him in earthly thingsThe Divine Institutes, Book VI, Of True Worship
he who endeavours to return an injury, desires to imitate that very person by whom he has been injured. Thus he who imitates a bad man can by no means be good.The Divine Institutes, Book VI, Of True Worship
On this account, therefore, God seeks to be worshipped, and to be honoured by man as a Father, that he may have virtue and wisdom, which alone produce immortality.The Divine Institutes, Book VII, Of a Happy Life
But I will retrace the matter far back from its source; that if any, unacquainted with the truth and ignorant, shall apply himself to the reading of this book, he may be instructed, and may understand what can in truth be "the source and origin of these evils;" and having received light, may perceive his own errors and those of the whole human race.The Divine Institutes, Book II, Of the Origin of Error
The doctrinal pages that later theology judged most harshly, once thought interpolated and now read as his own revision; the ground of the verdict that he was an apologist and not a theologian.