Commodian — Instructiones 28
You put it off, rich man, looking too much at all that is yours, still seeking to pile more on it without being filled. You say: “I do not hope to live after these things when I am dead.” Ungrateful to the highest God — you who so judge God to be — who brought you forth when you did not know, then fed you; he himself your meadows, he himself steers the vines, he himself the flocks and whatever you own — and you have not attended to these. Or do you by chance rule all things? He who made this heaven and earth and the salt seas has decreed to restore us ourselves in a golden age; and if you believe now, one lives into God’s secrets. Learn God, fool, who wants you to be present immortal so you may return thanks to him in the everlasting contest. His law teaches — but because you seek to wander, you disbelieve all things and from there you will go into tartarus: soon you give back the soul, you are led where it grieves you to be. But there an eternal spiritual penalty is paid; there are always mourning-songs, nor do you die through in them — already then too late crying out there to almighty God.
Latin
28 DIVITI INCREDULO MALO. Differ<r>is, diues, nimium tua cuncta uidendo, Insatiabiliter quibus adhuc adicere quaeris. Uiuere post ista, dicis, non spero defunctus. Ingrate summo Deo, qui sic Deum iudicas esse, Te qui nesciente protulit, deinde nutriuit; Ipse prata tua, gubernat uineas ipse, Ipse greges pecorum et quicquid possides ipse, Nec istis adtendistis. Aut tu regis omnia forte? Caelum hoc et terram et maria salsa qui fecit, Reddere decreuit nos ipsos in aureo saeclo Et modo si credis, uiuitur in Dei secreta. Disce Deum, stulte, qui uult te inmortalem adesse Ut gratias illi referas in agone perennis. Lex docet ipsius, sed quia uagari tu quaeris, Omnia discredis et inde in tartara ibis: Mox animam reddis, duceris quo te paenitet esse. At luitur ibi poena spiritalis aeterna; Lugia sunt semper, nec permoreris in illa Omnipotentem Deum iam tunc ibi sero proclamans.