Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.69
69.1. "But our name is novel and the religion we follow was born a few days ago." — That I may meanwhile grant that what is objected to us is not of false intention: for what is there in human affairs, which either is done by work of body and hands or is held by discipline and knowledge of mind alone, that did not begin from some time and go out into use and experience of mortals? Medicine, philosophy, music, and all the other arts by which common life has been built and polished—were they born with humans, and not rather recently, indeed almost a little before, begun to be practiced, understood, and celebrated?
2. Before Tages the Tuscan touched the shores of light, did any human know or care that it must be learned and thoroughly taught whether something was signified in the veins by cases of thunderbolts or of entrails? When did the motion of the stars or genethlialogical reckoning begin to be known? Not after Theut the Egyptian or after Atlas, as some report—that bearer, porter, piper and prop of heaven?
Latin
69.1. ''Sed novellum nomen est nostrum et ante dies paucos religio est nata quam sequimur.'' - Ut interim concedam id quod nobis obicitur intentionis esse non falsae quid est enim in negotiis hominum, quod vel opera corporis et manibus fiat vel solius animi disciplina et cognitione teneatur, quod non ex aliquo coeperit tempore et in usum exierit experientiamque mor talium? Medicina philosophia musica ceteraeque omnes artes quibus vita est exstructa et expolita communis cum hominibus natae sunt, et non potius nuper, quinimmo paene paulo ante agitari, intellegi celebrari que coeperunt?
2. Antequam Tages Tuscus oras contingeret luminis [Lucret. I 22], quisquam hominum sciebat aut esse noscendum condiscendunlque curabat, an fulminum casibus aut extorum aliquid significaretur in venis? Quando siderum motus aut ratio coepta est genethliaca sciri? non post Theutin Aegyptium aut post Atlantem, ut quidam ferunt, gestatorem, baiulum, tibi cinem illum ac destinam caeli?