Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.57
57.1. Since therefore these things are so and it cannot be otherwise than that one among all is true, yet all fight with arguments, and individuals do not lack what they may say with probability, whether when they assert their own matters or when they contradict others' opinions.
2. In no other or unlike way is the condition of souls treated by them. For this one thinks they both are perpetual and survive the function of mortals; that one does not believe they survive but perish with the bodies themselves; but another's opinion is that they suffer nothing at once, but after the human is laid down something is given them for life, then they succeed into the rights of mortality. And though all cannot share in the true, yet all argue with such strong and most valid proofs that you cannot find what seems false to you, though you see things said diverse on every side and dissonant with contrarieties of matters. Which would certainly not happen if human curiosity could hold something certain, or what seemed found were approved by the assent of all others.
3. It is therefore a most empty thing and of superfluous work to put forth something as if you know it, or to strive to wish to know what, even if it be true, you may see can be destroyed, or to accept as true that which perhaps is not and is brought forth in the manner of those who dream. And deservedly the matter is so. For we do not weigh and conjecture divine things by divine reasons but by human ones, and as we think something deserved to happen, so we contend that it ought to be.
Latin
57.1. Cum ergo haec ita sint neque aliter fiat, quin sit unum ex omnibus verum, pugnant tamen argumentis omnes, neque singulis deest id quod probabiliter dicant, sive cum suas res adserunt sive cum alienis opinionibus contradicunt.
2. Non alia neque absimili ratione de animarum ab his condicione disseritur. Hic enim eas retur et esse perpetuas et superesse mortalium functioni, superesse ille non credit, sed cum ipsis corporibus interire: alterius vero sententia est nihil eas continuo perpeti, sed post hominem positum aliquid eis ad vitam dari, mortalitatis deinde in iura succedere. Et cum omnia nequeant veri esse consortia, ita tamen fortibus et validissimis probationibus omnes agunt, ut repperire non possis quidnam tibi videatur falsum, quamvis ex omni parte diversa dici aspicias et rerum contrarietatibus dissonare. Quod utique non fieret, si certum aliquid tenere curiositas posset humana, vel quod videretur inventum, aliorum omnium comprobaretur adsensu.
3. Inanissima igitur res est et supervacui operis, tamquam scias aliquid promere, aut velle scire contendere quod, etsi sit verum, posse videas destrui, aut acceptare pro vero id quod forsitan non sit et ex more halucinantium proferatur. Et merito res ita est. Non enim divina divinis sed rationibus pendimus et coniectamus humanis atque ut fieri meruisse quid remur, ita esse oportere contendimus.