Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.22
22.1. Where then do these things look? So that, since it has been believed that souls are divine, immortal from God, and fly to human bodies with all disciplines, we may test from that one whom we have wished to be raised in this manner whether the matter takes faith or has been lightly believed and presumed by a frustrable expectation.
2. Let there come forth for us one nourished in a covered solitude for as many years as you wish—twenty, thirty, nay when he has measured forty years—let him be brought into assemblies of mortals, and if it is true that he is a portion of principal substance, already living here derived glad from fountains of life, before he takes acquaintance of any thing or is imbued with human speech, let him give answer when asked who he himself is or by what father, in what regions he was brought forth, how or by what reason nourished, what work or business he celebrated as he ran through the age of prior time:
3. will he not then stand duller and blunter than every beast, log, rock—sent into new things never known to him before—about to be ignorant first of all of himself? Will he be able, if you ask, to show what the sun is, earth, seas, stars, clouds, mist, rains, thunders, snow, hail? will he be able to know what trees are, herbs or grasses, bull, horse or ram, camel, elephant or kite?
Latin
22.1. Quorsum igitur haec spectant? Ut, quoniam creditum est animas divinas a deo immortales esse et ad hominum corpora disciplinis cum omnibus advolare, experiamur ex isto quem hoc genere voluimus educari, capiatne res fidem an sit leviter credita et frustrabili expectatione praesumpta.
2. Procedat igitur nobis solitudine in operta nutritus quot vultis annos agens, vultis vicenarius, vultis tricenarius, immo cum annos fuerit quadraginta permensus, mortalium conciliis inferatur, et si verum est illum principalis esse substantiae portionem, iam laetae ex fontibus vitae derivatum hic agere, antequam notitiam rei sumat alicuius aut sermone imbuatur humano, det responsum rogatus, quisnam sit ipse aut quo patre, quibus sit in regionibus editus, quo pacto aut quanam ratione nutritus, quid operis aut negotii celebrans ante acti temporis decurrerit aevitatem:
3. ita ille non omni pecore ligno saxo obtunsior atque hebetior stabit, non missus in res novas et numquam sibi ante eognitas ipsum sese est ante omnia nesciturus? Poteritne, si quaeras, sol quid sit ostendere, terra maria sidera nubes nebula pluviae tonitrua nix grando? poterit arbores scire quid sint, herbae aut gramina, taurus equus aut aries, eamellus elephantus aut milvus?