Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.16
16.1–2. And while we slip and hurry toward human bodies, from the worldly circles causes follow us by which we are evil and worst, burn with desires and anger, spend life in outrages, and are condemned to public lust by prostitution of bodies for sale. And how can bodies join themselves to incorporeals, or things made by God the Prince be led by weaker causes into the dishonors of vices?
16.3–6. Will you humans put down the inborn puff and eyebrow—you who claim God as father for yourselves and contend with Him that you have one immortality? Will you seek, track, and probe what you yourselves are, whose you are, by what father you are rated, what you do in the world, by what reason you are born, by what pact you spring forth to life? Will you, favor laid aside, perceive with silent thoughts that we are animals either like the rest or not distant by very much difference? For what is it that shows us differing from their likeness? Or what eminence so great is in us that we disdain to be enrolled in the number of animals?
16.7–12. From bones those bodies were founded and bound with sinews: and for us by like reason from bones bodies were founded and bound with sinews. They take breaths with nostrils and return them by panting: and we likewise draw spirit and breathe with frequent passages. They are distinguished into feminine and masculine kinds: into as many sexes we too were formed by our author. They bring forth offspring through wombs and procreate by bodily unions; and we are born by joinings of bodies and are poured out from mothers’ bellies. They are sustained by food and drink and drive out superfluous foulnesses below: and we are sustained by food and drink and pour out what nature rejects through the same paths. They all have care to forbid death-bearing hunger and watch for food: what else do we do in such occupations of life except seek things by which hunger’s danger is avoided and unhappy anxiety set down? They feel diseases and starvations and at last are loosed by old age: what then? are we immune from these evils and not by the same reason broken by diseases and destroyed by old age’s wasting?
16.13. But if that also is true which is said in more secret mysteries—that the souls of the wicked go into cattle and other beasts after they are severed from human bodies—it is more plainly proven that we are neighbors and not parted by longer intervals, since the same one thing is for us and for them through which we are said to be animals and to drive vital motion.
Latin
16.1. Ac dum ad corpora labimur et properamus humana, ex mundanis circulis secuntur nos causae, quibus mali simus et pessimi, cupiditatibus atque iracundia ferveamus, exerceamus in flagitiis vitam et in libidinem publicam venalium corporum prostitutione damnemur. 2. Et quemadmodum se possunt incorporalibus corpora coniungere aut a deo principe res factae ab infirmioribus causis ad vitiorum dehonestamenta traduci?
3. Vultis homines insitum typhum superciliumque deponere, qui deum vobis adsciscitis patrem et cum eo contenditis immortalitatem habere vos unam? 4. Vultis quaerere pervestigare rimari, quid sitis vos ipsi, cuius sitis, censeamini quo patre, quid in mundo faciatis, quanam ratione nascamini, quo pacto prosiliatis ad vitam? 5. Vultis favore deposito cogitationibus tacitis pervidere animantia nos esse aut consimilia ceteris aut non plurima differitate distantia? 6. Quid est enim, quod nos ab eorum indicet similitudine discrepare? Vel quae in nobis eminentia tanta est, ut animantium numero dedignemur adscribi?
7. Ex ossibus illis fundata sunt corpora et nervorum conligatione devincta: et nobis comparili ratione ex ossibus fundata sunt corpora et nervorum conligatione devincta. 8. Auras accipiunt naribus et per anhelitum reciprocatas reddunt: et nos spiritum consimiliter ducimus et respiramus commeatibus crebris. 9. Femininis generibus masculinisque distincta sunt: in totidem et nos sexus nostro sumus ab auctore formati. Edunt per uteros fetus et corporalibus conciliis procreant; et nos corporum coniugationibus nascimur et ex alveis fundimur atque emittimur matrum. 10. Cibo sustentantur et potu et superfluas foeditates inferioribus egerunt abiciuntque posticis: et nos cibo sustentamur et potu et quod natura iam respuit per eosdem effundimus tramites. 11. Cura illis est omnibus famem prohibere mortiferam et necessario invigilare pro victu: quid aliud nos tantis agimus in occupationibus vitae, nisi ut ea quaeramus quibus famis periculum devitetur et infelix sollicitudo ponatur? 12. Morbos illa et inedias sentiunt et ad ultimum senectute solvuntur: quid enim? nos immunes malis ab his sumus et non eadem ratione morborum incommoditatibus frangimur et senectutis destruimur tabe?
13. Quod si et illud est verum, quod in mysteriis secretioribus dicitur, in pecudes atque alias beluas ireanimas improborum, postquam sunt humanis corporibus seiunctae, manifestius comprobatur vicinos nos esse neque intervallis longioribus disparatos. Siquidem res eadem nobis et illis est una, per quam esse animantia dicimur et motum agitare vitalem.