Lactantius — Divine Institutes 6.14
If therefore mercy is a splendid and excellent good in the human, and by divine testimonies and by the agreement of good and bad it is judged best, it is clear that the philosophers were far from the human good, who neither taught anything of this kind nor did it, but always held as a vice the virtue that is almost singular in the human. Here I wish to insert one place from philosophy, so that we may more fully refute the errors of those who call mercy, desire, and fear diseases of the mind. They do try to distinguish virtues from vices — which is indeed very easy. For who cannot separate the liberal from the prodigal, as they do, or the thrifty from the sordid, or the quiet from the idle, or the cautious from the timid, because these goods have their limits? If they exceed them, they slip into vices, so that constancy, unless undertaken for truth, becomes shamelessness. Likewise courage, if with no forcing necessity or not for an honorable cause it undergoes a certain danger, turns into rashness. Freedom too, if it attacks others rather than resists attackers, is obstinacy. Severity also, unless it restrains itself within fitting punishments of the guilty, becomes fierce cruelty. And so they say those who seem evil do not sin of their own will and do not choose evils rather, but slipped by the look of goods fall into evils while they do not know the difference of goods and evils.
These things are indeed not false, but they are all referred to the body. For to be thrifty or constant or cautious or quiet or brave or severe are virtues indeed, but of this temporary life. We however, who despise this life, have other virtues set before us, of which the philosophers could not even suspect by any reasoning. And so they held certain virtues for vices and certain vices for virtues.
For the Stoics remove from the human all the affections by whose impulse the mind is moved — desire, joy, fear, grief — of which the first two are from goods either future or present, the later from evils. In the same way they call these four diseases, as I said, not so much planted by nature as taken up by a crooked opinion, and therefore they judge they can be torn out by the root if the false opinion of goods and evils is removed. For if the wise person judges nothing good, nothing evil, he will neither burn with desire nor exult with joy nor be terrified by fear nor shrink with distress. Soon we will see whether they achieve what they want or what they achieve; meanwhile the plan is arrogant and almost mad — of those who think they can heal and strive against the force and reason of nature.
Latin
Si ergo in homine praeclarum et excellens est bonum misericordia idque diuinis testimoniis et bonorum malorumque consensu optimum iudicatur, adparet philosophos longe afuisse ab humano bono, qui neque praeceperunt eiusmodi quicquam neque fecerunt, sed uirtutem quae in homine propemodum singularis est pro uitio semper habuerunt. libet hic interponere unum de philosophia locum, ut illorum plenius coarguamus errores qui misericordiam cupiditatem metum morbos animi appellant. conantur illi quidem uirtutes a uitiis distinguere: quod est sane facillimum. quis enim non possit liberalem a prodigo separare, ut illi faciunt, aut parcum a sordido aut quietum ab inerti aut cautum a timido, quod haec quae sunt bona fines suos habent ? quos si excesserint, in uitia labuntur, ita ut constantia nisi pro ueritate suscepta sit, fit inpudentia. item fortitudo si nulla necessitate cogente aut non pro causa honesta certum periculum subierit, in temeritatem conuertitur. libertas quoque si alios insectetur potius quam insectantibus resistat, contumacia est. seueritas etiam nisi se intra congruentes nocentium poenas coerceat, fit saeua crudelitas. itaque dicunt eos qui mali uideantur non sua sponte peccare nec mala potius eligere, sed bonorum specie lapsos incidere in mala, dum bonorum ac malorum discrimen ignorant.
haec quidem falsa non sunt, sed ad corpus cuncta referuntur. nam parcum esse aut constantem aut cautum aut quietum aut fortem aut seuerum uirtutes sunt quidem, sed huius temporariae uitae. nos autem, qui hanc uitam contemnimus, alias nobis uirtutes propositas habemus, de quibus philosophi ne suspicari quidem ulla ratione potuerunt. itaque et uirtutes quasdam pro uitiis et uitia quaedam pro uirtutibus habuerunt.
nam Stoici adfectus omnes quorum inpulsu animus commouetur ex homine tollunt, cupiditatem laetitiam metum maestitiam, quorum duo priora ex bonis sint aut futuris aut praesentibus, posteriora ex malis. eodem modo haec quattuor morbos, ut dixi, uocant non tam natura insitos quam praua opinione susceptos et idcirco eos censent extirpari posse radicitus, si bonorum malorumque opinio falsa tollatur. si enim nihil censeat sapiens bonum, nihil malum, nec cupiditate ardescet nec laetitia gestiet nec metu terrebitur nec aegritudine contrahetur. mox uidebimus an efficiant quod uelint aut quid efficiant, interim propositum adrogans ac paene fnrios(or)um, qui se putent mederi et eniti posse contra uim rationemque naturae.