Arnobius, Against the Nations 2.77
77.1. And so that asperity of persecution which you name is our liberation, not persecution, and the vexation will not inflict a penalty but will lead out to the light of liberty.
2. As if some brute and stupid person should think that a man given into prison, for exit from the trials, never afflicts himself with most heavy and monstrous penalties unless he rages against the prison itself, smashes its timber and burns the roof, wall, doors and strips, throws down, and batters other parts of the work, not knowing that by this deed light is given by him to the one he seems to harm and wicked blindness is torn away: likewise also you by flames, exiles, tortures, beasts, with which you lacerate and tear our bodies, do not snatch life from us, but you unknowingly relieve us of little skins and hides, and the more you press on and proceed to rage against these our images and appearances, so much the more you relieve us from artful and heavy bonds and make us, with the knots cut round, fly away to the light.
Latin
77.1. Itaque ista quam dicitis persecutionis asperitas liberatio nostra est, non persecutio, nec poenam vexatio inferet sed ad lucem libertatis educet.
2. Ut si aliquis brutus ac stolidus in carcerem hominem datum in egressum quaestionum numquam adficere se praegravibus atque inmanibus existimet poenis nisi in ipsum saeviat carcerem, materiam eius comminuat atque urat tectum, parietem, ianuas partes que alias operis renudet deiciat adfligat, nesciens hoc facto ei cui videatur officere dari ab se lucem et sceleratam eripi caecitatem: itidem et vos flammis exiliis cruciatibus beluis, quibus corpora lancinatis et divexatis nostra, non vitam eripitis nobis, sed pelliculis relevatis et cutibus nos nescii, et quanto instatis et pergitis in effigies has nostras speciesque saevire, tanto artis et gravibus relevatis nos vinculis et ad lumen efficitis circumcisis nexibus evolare.