Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.51
51.1. But our answer is a laugh to you, because when we deny that souls are royal offspring we do not bring against you from what causes and origins they were procreated. — For what kind of crime is it either to be ignorant of some matter or to profess without dissembling that you do not know what you do not know: or who seems more worthy of mockery, he who assumes for himself no knowledge of some dark matter, or he who thinks that from himself he most openly knows that which leaps over human notion and which is wrapped in blind obscurities?
2. If the nature of each thing is thoroughly looked at, you also are in a similar cause to that which you rebuke in us. For because you say that souls descend from the king himself and succeed into human forms, you do not say something explored and set in the light of most manifest truth. For you conjecture, you do not know; you suspect, you do not hold: for if to know is to contain in the mind that which you yourself have seen or learned, you can say you have never seen any of the things you assert—that is, souls descending from the upper seat and region.
3. You therefore use suspicion, not the faith of expressed cognition. And what is suspicion except an uncertain opinion of things and a casting of the mind brought in upon nothing set forth? Therefore he who suspects does not hold and does not walk set in the light of cognition. And if that is true and fixed, before right and most wise judges that suspicion of yours also in which you trust is to be held for ignorance.
Latin
51.1. Sed risui vobis est nostra responsio, quod cum regias suboles esse animas abnegemus, non referamus contra, ex quibus sint causis atque originibus procreatae. - Quod est enim criminis genus, aut rei esse alicuius ignarum aut ipsum quod nescias sine aliqua profiteri dissimulatione nescire: aut uter magis videtur inrisione esse dignissimus vobis, qui sibi scientiam nullam tenebrosae rei alicuius adsumit, an ille qui retur se ex se apertissime scire id quod humanam transiliat notionem et quod sit caecis obscuritatibus involutum?
2. Si penitus spectetur rei cuiusque natura, in simili et vos estis quam in nobis reprehenditis causa. Non enim quia dicitis ab ipso animas rege descendere ac succedere in hominum formas, exploratum aliquid dicitis et in luce positum manifestissimae veritatis. Conicitis enim, non scitis; suspicamini, non tenetis: nam si scire est illud quod ipse tu videris aut cognoveris animo continere, nihil eorum quae adseritis potestis vos dicere aliquando vidisse, id est, animas sede ab supera et regione descendere.
3. Suspicione ergo utimini, non cognitionis expressae fide. Quid est autem suspicio, nisi opinatio rerum incerta et <in>nihil expositum iaculatio mentis inlata? Ergo qui suspicatur, non tenet nec in lumine positus cognitionis incedit. Quodsi verum et fixum est, apud rectos et sapientissimos iudices et ista vestra qua fiditis pro ignoratione est habenda suspicio.