Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.44
44.1. "But," you say, "they came by their own will, not by the king's sending." — And where was the almighty Father, where the authority of royal loftiness, that He should forbid them to depart and not permit them to slip into headlong pleasures?
2. For if He knew they would become degenerate by changes of places—and as constitutor of all causes He ought to have known—or that something from outside would approach them which would make them forget their dignity and beauty—may He forgive a thousand times—He Himself is none other than the cause of all evils: seeing that He suffered them to have free right of wandering whom He foresaw would not keep the habit of their integrity, and so it is accomplished that it makes no difference at all whether they came voluntarily or obeyed His command, since by not prohibiting what ought to have been prohibited He made the crime His own by cessation and by pretending not to retain He first permitted it.
Latin
44.1. ''Sed sua, inquitis, voluntate, non regis missione venerunt''. - Et ubi pater omnipotens fuit, ubi regiae sublimitatis auctoritas, ut eas prohiberet abscedere nec in praecipites labi permitteret voluptates?
2. Si enim degeneres futuras locorum immutationibus sciebat - scire autem debuerat causarum ut omnium constitutor - aut extrinsecus aliquid accessurum his esse, | f. 49 / quod eas faceret oblivisci suae dignitatis et decoris - milies ut ignoscat oraverim - universorum <malorum> non alius quam ipse est causa: siquidem perpessus est evagandi eas habere ius liberum quas retenturas non esse integritatis suae habitum providebat, atque ita perficitur, ut nihil intersit omnino voluntariae venerint an illius obtemperaverint iussioni, cum non prohibendo quod oportuerat prohiberi cessatione crimen fecerit proprium et retentionis dissimulatione permiserit prius.