Lactantius — Divine Institutes 6.8
This is the way which the philosophers seek, but they do not find it for this reason, that they seek on earth rather, where it cannot appear. They wander therefore as on a great sea and do not understand whither they are borne, because they neither discern the way nor follow any guide. For this way of life ought to be sought by the same reason by which a course for ships is sought on the deep: which unless they watch some light of heaven wander with uncertain courses.
But whoever strives to hold the right journey of life ought not to look at earth but at heaven and, to speak more openly, ought not to follow a human but God, not to serve these earthly images but the heavenly God, not to refer all things to the body but to the mind, not to give effort to this life but to the eternal. And so if you always stretch your eyes to heaven and watch the sun where it rises and have it as guide of life as of a ship, the feet will of their own accord be directed into the way and that heavenly light, which for sound minds is a much brighter sun than this which we see with mortal flesh, will so rule, so govern, that it leads through to the highest harbor of wisdom and virtue without any error.
God's law is therefore to be undertaken, which may direct us to this journey — that holy, that heavenly law, which Marcus Tullius in the third book On the Republic painted with an almost divine voice: whose words I have subjoined, lest I say more. 'True law is right reason, congruent with nature, poured out into all, constant, everlasting, which calls to duty by commanding, by forbidding frightens from fraud; which yet neither commands or forbids the upright in vain nor moves the wicked by commanding or forbidding. It is not lawful for this law to be repealed nor is it permitted that something be taken from it nor can it be wholly abrogated, nor indeed can we be released from this law either through the senate or through the people, nor is an explainer or interpreter Sextus Aelius to be sought, nor will there be one law at Rome, another at Athens, one now, another afterward, but both all nations and every time one law both everlasting and unchangeable will hold, and there will be one common as it were master and commander of all, God: he the finder, arbiter, proposer of this law, whom who will not obey will flee himself and, having spurned human nature, will by this itself pay the greatest penalties, even if he has escaped the other punishments that are thought such.' Who knowing God's oath could set out God's law so tellingly as that man far removed from knowledge of the truth expressed it? But I think those who speak true things unawares are to be held as if they divine, prompted by some spirit. But if as he saw through the force and reason of the holy law, so he had also known or unfolded in what precepts the law itself consisted, he would have fulfilled not a philosopher's office but a prophet's. Which because he could not do, must be done by us, to whom the law itself has been handed down by that one master and commander of all, God.
Latin
Haec est uia quam philosophi quaerunt, sed ideo non inueniunt, quia in terra potius ubi apparere non potest quaerunt. errant ergo uelut in mari magno nec quo ferantur intellegunt, quia nec uiam cernunt nec ducem sequuntur ullum. eadem namque ratione hanc uitae uiam quaeri oportet qua in alto iter nauibus quaeritur: quae nisi aliquod caeli lumen obseruent, incertis cursibus uagantur.
quisquis autem rectum iter uitae tenere nititur, non terram debet aspicere, sed caelum et, ut apertius loquar, non hominem sequi debet, sed deum, non his terrestribus simulacris, sed deo seruire caelesti, non ad corpus referre omnia, sed ad mentem, non huic uitae dare operam, sed aeternae. itaque si oculos in caelum semper intendas et solem qua oritur observes eumque habeas uitae quasi nauigii ducem, sua sponte in uiam pedes dirigentur et illut caeleste lumen, quod sanis mentibus multo clarior sol est quam hic quem carne mortali uidemus, sic reget, sic gubernabit, ut ad summum sapientiae uirtutisque portum sine ullo errore perducat.
suscipienda igitur dei lei est, quae nos ad hoc iter dirigat, illa sancta, illa caelestis, quam Marcus Tullius in libro de re publica tertio paene diuina uoce depinxit: cuius ego, ne plura dicerem, uerba subieci. est quidem uera lei recta ratio, naturae congruens, diffusa in omnis, constans, sempiterna, quae uocet ad officium iubendo, uetando a fraude deterreat, quae tamen neque probos frustra iubet aut uetat nec inprobos iubendo aut uetando mouet. huic legi nec obrogari fas est neque derogari aliquid ex hac licet neque tota abrogari potest, nec uero aut per senatum aut per populum solui hac lege possumus, neque est quaerendus explanator aut inter- pres Sextus Aelius, nec erit alia lex Romae alia Athenis, alia nunc alia posthac, sed et omnes gentes et omni tempore una lex et sempiterna et inmutabilis continebit unusque erit communis quasi magister et imperator omnium deus: ille legis huius inuentor disceptator lator, cui qui non parebit, ipse se fugiet ac naturam hominis aspernatus hoc ipso luet maximas ( poenas, etiamsi cetera supplicia quae putantur effugerit. quis sacramentum dei sciens tam significanter eDarrare legem dei posset quam illam homo longe a ueritatis notitia remotus expressit? ego uero eos qui uera inprudentes loquuntur sic habendos puto, tamquam diuinent spiritu aliquo instincti. quodsi ut legis sanctae uim rationemque peruidit, ita illut quoque scisset aut explicasset, in quibus praeceptis lex ipsa consisteret, non philosophi functus fuisset officio, sed prophetae. quod quia facere ille non poterat, nobis faciendum est, quibus ipsa lex tradita est ab illo uno magistro et imperatore omnium deo.