Arnobius — Against the Nations 2.52
52.1. And yet lest you think that only you are allowed to use conjectures and suspicions, we also can do the same, since what you ask is common to set forth. "Whence," you say, "are humans, and of those humans themselves what or whence are the souls?" — Whence are elephants, bulls, stags, mules, asses? Whence lions, horses, dogs, wolves, panthers, and of those that live what or whence are the souls?
2. For the matter has no faith that either the souls of these came from that Platonic bowl which Timaeus prepares and mixes, or that a locust, mouse, shrew, cockroach, frog, centipede are believed animated and alive—indeed for them there is cause and origin of being born from the elements themselves, if for generating animals that live in each of these there are hidden and most obscure reasons.
3. For we also see some of the wise say that earth is mother of humans, others then join water, others join aerial breath to them, but some that the sun is their craftsman and that they are animated from his fires and moved by his vital agitation. What then if these also are not, and there is some other thing, another cause, another reason, finally another power of a name unheard and unknown to us, which shaped the race of humans and applied them to the constitutions of things?
4. Cannot it be that humans arose thus and that the authority of their birth not be referred to the first God? For what reason do we think that great Plato, piously and holily wise, had when he removed the fashioning of the human from the greatest God and transferred it to I-know-not-what lesser ones, and when he did not wish the mixtures of the human race's souls to be of the same sincerity as the soul of this universe which he had made—because he judged the fabric of the human unworthy of God and the fashioning of a flabby thing not to suit his greatness and eminence?
Latin
52.1. Ac ne tamen vobis tantummodo censeatis coniecturis uti ac suspicionibus licere, et nos isdem possumus, quoniam commune est quod interrogatis expromere. ''Unde, inquitis, homines et ipsorum hominum quid aut unde sunt animae?''. - Unde sunt elephanti tauri lscervi muli asini? unde leones equi canes lupi pantherae eorumque quae vivunt quid aut unde sunt animae?
2. Neque enim fidem res habet, ut Platonico ex illo cratere quem conficit miscetque Timaeus [Plat. Tim. 41 d] aut horum animae venerint aut lucusta mus sorex blatta rana centipeda animata esse credantur et vivere, quidem ex elementis ipsis causa est illis atque origo nascendi, si ad animalia gignenda, quae in singulis his degunt, insunt abditae atque obscurissimae rationes.
3. Nam et videmus alios ex sapientibus dicere, tellurem esse hominum matrem, aquam tum alios, aerium spiritum his alios iungere, solem vero nonnullos esse horum opificem et ex ignibus animatos eius vitali agitatione motari. Quid? si et haec non sunt et est aliqua res alia, alia causa, alia ratio, potestas alia denique inauditi nobis atque incogniti nominis, genus quae hominum finxerit et rerum constitutionibus adplicarit?
4. Nonne fieri potis est, ut exorti homines ita sint nec ad deum primum nativitatis eorum referatur auctoritas? Quid enim putamus habuisse rationis Platonem illum magnum pie sancte que sapientem, cum hominis fictionem deo removit a maximo et ad minores nescio quos transtulit cumque eiusdem noluit sinceritatis esse mixturas humani animas generis, cuius animam fecerat universitatis istius, quam quod hominis fabricam indignam esse rebatur deo nec rei flaccidae fictionem magnitudini eius et eminentiae convenire? [Plat., Tim. 41 b-c]