Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.8

And since you are accustomed to laugh at our faith and to slash at credulity itself with joking strokes, say, O merry ones dyed and filled with wisdom’s neat wine: is there any busy and active kind of work in life that actors take up, seize, and approach without faith going before?

Do you travel and sail without believing you will return home when business is done? Do you split the earth with iron and fill it with variety of seeds without believing you will take fruit in the turns of seasons? Do you join marital partnerships without believing they will be chaste and of dutiful bond toward husbands? Do you take on the offspring of children without believing it will be safe and come through the grades of age to the bounds of old age? Do you commit the body’s illnesses to physicians’ hands without believing diseases can be eased when harshness is softened? Do you wage wars with enemies without believing you will bring back victory by the successions of battles?

Do you reverence and cultivate the gods without believing they exist and turn favorable ears to your prayers?