Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.4

4.1. But all these things will be recalled more brightly and more plainly when we have been carried further still. For we will show that Christ did not teach the nations impiety, but rescued the folly of wretched humans from the worst robbers. 2. “We do not believe,” you say, “that the things he says are true.” - What then? Do the things you deny are true stand clear among you, when things impending and not yet suffered can be refuted by no arguments? 3. “But even he does not prove what he promises.” - So it is: for there can be, as I said, no proving of future things.

4. Since, then, this is the condition of future things, that they cannot be held and grasped by any touch of anticipation, is it not a purer reason, from two uncertain things hanging in ambiguous expectation, rather to believe that which brings some hopes than that which brings none at all? For in the one there is no danger, if what is said to impend should prove empty and void; in the other there is the greatest loss, that is the loss of salvation, if when the time has come it is disclosed that it was not a lie.