Lactantius, Divine Institutes 7.22

Some dismiss these accounts as mere poetic fictions, ignorant of the source from which the poets drew them, and deny that such things can happen. It is no wonder they see it that way. The poets transmit reality in a distorted form. Although they are far older than historians, orators, and other writers, they knew nothing of the mystery of the divine sacrament. The news of a future resurrection reached them only as an obscure rumor, and they rashly passed on what they had lightly heard as if it were a fabricated tale. Yet the poets themselves testified that they followed no single authoritative source, but general opinion — as Vergil says: 'May it be right for me to speak what I have heard.' Consequently, though they corrupted the secrets of truth in part, the matter itself proves more true because it agrees in part with the prophets; that partial agreement is sufficient for us as proof.

Nevertheless, a not insignificant reason underlies their error. The prophets had ceaselessly proclaimed that the Son of God would judge the dead, and this announcement was not hidden. Because the poets believed the ruler of heaven, God, was none other than Jupiter, they handed down that Jupiter's son would judge in the underworld. Yet they did not assign this role to Apollo, Liber, or Mercury, who are considered heavenly, but to one who was both mortal and just — either Minos, Aeacus, or Rhadamanthus. Thus poetic license corrupted what they had received, or opinion altered the truth after it had been dispersed through various mouths and speeches. They sang that after a thousand years souls would be restored to life again, Vergil saying: 'When a thousand years have rolled around, God calls them all in a great throng to the river Lethe, so that, forgetful, they may revisit the upper world and begin to wish to return to bodies.' This reasoning deceived them, because the dead will rise not after a thousand years of their death, but, once restored, will reign with God for a thousand years. God will come to purify this world from every stain and raise the revived souls of the just, with bodies renewed, to eternal blessedness. So, except for the water of forgetfulness, the other details are true. The poets invented that water for a reason: lest anyone object, 'Why then do they not remember that they once lived, or who they were, or what they did?' Even so, the whole account is not thought to resemble the truth and is rejected as if it were a licentious, fictional fabrication.

But when we affirm and teach that souls are not forgetful of themselves, but will return to another life in the same sense and figure, the objection is raised: 'So many ages have passed: who has ever risen from the underworld, that we might believe it can happen by his example?' Yet resurrection cannot happen while injustice still reigns. In this age men are killed by force, iron, ambushes, and poisons, and are afflicted by injuries, poverty, prisons, torments, and proscriptions. To this is added that justice is hated: all who wish to follow God are not only hated but harassed by every insult and tortured by multiple kinds of punishments, and are forced into the impious worship of handmade gods — not by reason or truth, but by nefarious laceration of their bodies. Should men therefore rise again or return to a life in which they cannot be safe? When the just are held so vile and so easily removed, what do we think would happen if someone returning from the underworld received life again by restoration? He would certainly be taken from the eyes of men, lest, seeing or hearing him, all would abandon their gods and convert to the worship and religion of the one God. Therefore resurrection must happen once, when evil has been removed, since it is not right that those who have risen should die again or be violated in any way, so that they may lead a blessed life whose death has been annulled.

The poets, since they knew this age abounds with every evil, introduced the river of forgetfulness so that souls, mindful of evils and labors, would not refuse to return to the world above. Hence Vergil: 'O father, is it to be thought that some souls go from here to heaven and return again to sluggish bodies? What dire desire for light is this for wretched men?' They were ignorant of how or when this should happen, and so they thought souls were reborn and returned again to the womb and regressed to infancy. Hence also Plato, discussing the soul, argues from this that souls can be known to be immortal and divine, because in children talents are mobile and easily perceived, and because they seize what they learn so quickly that they seem not to be learning it for the first time, but recognizing and remembering it. In this, a wise man most foolishly believed the poets.