Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.29
29.1. Since things are so, cease, I ask, cease valuing small things and of slight name at huge prices; cease enrolling the proletarian man among the first classic and head-counted orders when he is needy, poor of household and of a poor hut, and never deserved to be named of patrician brightness. For when you ought, as true authors of right and integrity, to break the puff and arrogance on whose wings we all are lifted and swollen with emptiness of vanities, you not only think those evils happen, but—what is far heavier—you have added causes by which vices would grow and incorrigible wickedness would remain.
2. For who of humans, though he be of a character always fleeing by infamy and ignominy, when he hears it said especially by wise men that souls are immortal and not subject to the laws of the fates, will not rush headlong into all outrages, not meet and attempt illicit things secure and unshaken, and finally not lavish on his desires all that powerless lust has ordered, fortified besides by the freedom of impunity?
3. For what will forbid him from doing these things? Fear of a higher power and divine judgment? And how will he be terrified by the horror of any dread, who has been persuaded that he is as immortal as the first God Himself and that nothing about him can be judged by Him, since there is one immortality in both and the one cannot be vexed by equality of the other’s condition?
Latin
29.1. Quae cum ita se habeant, desinite, quaeso, desinite res parvas atque exigui nominis immanibus pretiis aestimare, desinite hominem proletari<us> cum sit classicis et capite < cum > censeatur adscribere ordinibus primis, cum sit inops, pauper lare et tugurii pauperis nec patriciae claritatis unquam meritus nuncupari. Cum enim vos oporteret veros recti atque integritatis auctores typhum et adrogantiam frangere, quorum alis cuncti extollimur et inanium distendimur vanitate, non tantum ** accidere mala ista censetis, verum, quod gravius multo est, addidistis causas quibus et vitia crescerent et inemendabilis nequitia permaneret.
2. Quis est enim hominum, quamvis ille sit indolis infamia semper atque ignominiosa fugientis, qui cum dici exaudiat viris ab sapientibus maxime, immortalis animas esse nec fatorum esse obnoxias legibus, non in omnia flagitia praeceps se ruat, non securus, intrepidus res obeat atque adgrediatur inlicitas, non denique omnia suis cupiditatibus largiatur quae libido inpotens iusserit, inpunitatis praeterea etiam libertate munita?
3. Quid enim prohibebit quominus haec faciat? metus supernae potestatis iudiciumque divinum? et qui poterit territari formidinis alicuius horrore, cui fuerit persuasum tam se esse immortalem quam ipsum deum primum nec ab eo iudicari quicquam de se posse, cum sit una immortalitas in utroque nec in alterius altera condicionis possit aequalitate vexari?