Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.74
74.1. “And why,” he says, “did it seem good to God the King and Prince that before a few little hours, as the saying goes, Christ the Savior should be sent to you from the citadels of heaven?” — We ask in turn: what cause, what reason is there that the seasons are not sometimes restored to their own months, but winters come later, summer and autumn later?
2. Why after harvests dried up and grain extinguished do rains sometimes fall that ought to have slid upon things still safe and been supplied at the season’s opportunities? Rather we ask this: why, if Hercules had to be born, if Aesculapius, Mercury, Liber, and some others who would be joined to the councils of the gods and bring mortals some usefulness, were they produced by Jupiter so late that only posterity would know them, while the antiquity of earlier people would be ignorant?
3. You will say there was some reason. Therefore there was also a reason here why not recently but today the Savior of our race arrived. “What then is the reason?” — We do not deny that we do not know. For it is not ready for anyone to see God’s mind, nor can a human—a blind animal and not knowing even himself—attain by any reasonings the ways He ordered His affairs: what ought to be done, when or in what kind, the Father of all things Himself, the Governor and Lord, alone knows.
4. And if I cannot set out for you the causes why something happens in that way or this, it does not at once follow that what has been done becomes undone, and that the matter loses the credit which has been shown indubitable by such great kinds of virtues and powers.
Latin
74.1. ''Et quid, inquit, est visum deo regi ac principi, ut ante horas, quemadmodum dicitur, pauculas sospitator ad vos Christus caeli ex arcibus mitteretur?''. - Interrogamus et nos contra: quae causa, quae ratio est, ut non suis aliquando reddantur mensibus tempora, sed serius hiemes, serius aestas atque autumnitas fiant?
2. Cur post messes arefactas atque extincta frumenta nonnumquam decidant pluviae, quas rebus oportuit incolumibus labi et temporis opportunitatibus ministrari? Immo illud exquirimus potius, cur, si Herculem oportuit nasci, si Aesculapium Mercurium Liberum aliosque nonnullos, qui et conciliis adiungerentur deorum et mortalibus aliquid utilitatis adferrent, tam sero a Iove sint proditi, ut sola illos posteritas sciret, superiorum vero ignoraret antiquitas?
3. Rationem aliquam fuisse dicetis. Ratio ergo et hic fuit, cur non nuper sed hodie sospitator nostri generis adveniret. ''Quaenam igitur ratio est?''. - Non imus infitias nescire nos. Neque enim promptum est cuiquam dei mentem videre, aut quibus modis ordinaverit res suas homo animal caecum et ipsum se nesciens ullis potest rationibus consequi: quid oporteat fieri, quando vel quo genere, ipse rerum cunctarum pater, moderator et dominus scit solus.
4. Nec si ego nequivero causas vobis expromere, cur aliquid fiat illo vel hoc modo, continuo sequitur ut infecta fiant quae facta sunt et amittat res fidem quae generibus virtutum tantis et [potestatibus] potestatum indubitabilis esse monstrata est.