Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.76
76.1. "Why then," he says, "if you serve an almighty God and trust that he has care of your salvation and safety, why does he suffer you to endure such great persecutions and undergo all kinds of penalties and tortures?"
2. — Let us ask in turn also why you, when you worship so many and so countless gods and build them sacred temples, fashion images of gold, slaughter flocks of living things, and cast all incense-boxes on altars full of frankincense, why you do not live immune from so many dangers and storms by which deadly and manifold fortunes drive you daily?
3. Why, I say, do your gods cease to turn away from you so many kinds of diseases and illnesses, shipwrecks, ruins, fires, pestilences, barrenness, loss of children and confiscation of goods, discords, wars, grudges, captivities of cities and servitudes with free births taken away?
4. But God also does not at all help us in cases of this kind. The cause is ready and plain. For nothing has been promised us for this life, nor has any help been pledged or aid decreed for those set in this little sack of flesh; rather we have been taught to count all threats of fortune, whatever they are, as small and to value them lightly, and if ever some heavier force should fall which must end in death, to ascribe the pleasure to misfortune and neither to fear nor to flee, so that we may more easily be stripped of bodily bonds and escape dark blindness.
Latin
76.1. ''Cur ergo, inquit, si omnipotenti servitis deo et eum habere confiditis salutis atque incolumitatis vestrae curam, cur persecutiones patitur perpeti vos tantas atque omnia genera poenarum et suppliciorum subire?''.
2. - Perquiramus et nos contra, cur et vos, cum tantos et tam innumeros colatis deos cumque illis aedes constituatis sacras, simulacra effingatis ex auro, animantium mactetis greges, acerras omnes thuris plenis coniciatis altaribus, cur non immunes agitis tot discriminibus et procellis, quibus cotidie vos agunt exitiabiles multiplices que fortunae?
3. Cur, inquam, dii vestri cessant a vobis avertere tot morborum et valetudinum genera, naufragia ruinas incendia pestilentias sterilitatem, amissionem pignorum et proscriptionem bonorum, discordias bella simultates, captivitates urbium et sublatis ingenuitatibus servitutes?
4. Sed et nobis in huiusmodi casibus minime auxiliatur deus. Prompta et manifesta causa est. Nihil est enim nobis promissum ad hanc vitam nec in carunculae huius folliculo constitutis opis aliquid sponsum est auxiliique decretum; quinimmo edocti sumus minas omnes quaecunque sunt parvi ducere atque aestimare fortunae, ac si quando ingruerit vis quaepiam gravior, quam finem necesse sit consequi, adscribere infortunio voluptatem nec timere nec fugere quo facilius exui corporalibus possimus ex vinculis et tenebrosam evadere caecitatem.