Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.61

61.1. “What is it to you,” he says, “to investigate and inquire who made the human being, what the origin of souls is, who devised the causes of evils, whether the sun is larger than the world or is measured by the breadth of one foot, whether the moon shines from another’s light or by her own flashes? Things it is no advantage to know and no loss to be ignorant of.

2. Leave these things to God and grant that He Himself know why or whence a thing is, whether it ought to have been or not, whether something is supernaturally produced or has first origins, whether it is fitting that it be abolished or reserved, burned, dissolved, or renewed with recovered integrity. Is it not free for your reasonings to entangle yourselves in such matters and to care for what is so remote from usefulness?

3. Your affair is set in uncertainty—I mean the salvation of your souls—and unless you apply yourselves to the knowledge of God the Prince, a savage death awaits you when you are loosed from bodily bonds, not bringing a sudden extinction but consuming you through a stretch of time by the bitterness of torturing punishment.”