Lactantius was a major public figure in late antiquity who converted to Christianity. Best known for his Divine Institutes projecting a Roman Empire reformed from false gods, philosophical errors, and immorality by the influence of Christianity, not least through Constantine, Lactantius inveighed against taxes in On the Death of Persecutors. What kind of negation was that? Reference to Newton and Einstein sharpens the need for hermeneutics to guide inquiry. Both critical awareness of difference and post-critical openness to the present and future are needed. Lactantius’s statements against Diocletian’s and Galerius’s taxes can be situated within the theological horizon of the Divine Institutes. On that basis, dialogue with Allen Calhoun’s Tax law, religion, and justice (Calhoun, Allen. 2021. Tax Law, Religion, and Justice: An Exploration of Theological Rreflections on Taxation. Abingdon, UK: Routledge; e-book.) takes a turn from the economy to the complementary field of church-state relations and the connection between taxes and the sovereignty authorizing them. Criticisms in On the Death of Persecutors are less an instance of Christian negation of taxes and more a critique of debased sovereignty. There was no general rejection of the authorizing power of Emperors in taxation nor of taxes, only of those Emperors and the specific tax abuses they perpetrated under the auspices of their gods. Attention to sovereignty finds footing in New Testament passages on Christ’s reply on a tax, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” Discussion of several receptions of that principle pins down Lactantius’s position and leads into the dual sovereignties in Empire and church.