Lactantius — Divine Institutes 4.10
First, then, people ought to know that the highest God’s plan proceeded from the beginning this way: as the end of the age drew near, it was necessary for God’s Son to descend to earth in order to constitute a temple for God and teach justice — yet not in an angel’s virtue or heavenly power, but in human form and mortal condition; and when he had finished his teaching office, he would be handed over into the hands of the impious and take up death, so that death too, subdued by virtue, might rise again, and so that to the human whom he had put on and was bearing he might both offer hope of conquering death and admit him to the rewards of immortality.
Lest anyone not know this plan, we will teach that all things we see completed in Christ were foretold. Let no one lend faith to our assertion unless I show that the prophets, long beforehand, foretold that God’s Son would someday be born as a human, do wonders, sow the worship of God through the whole earth, and finally be fixed to the gibbet and rise again on the third day. When I have proven all this from the very writings of those who violated their God while he used a mortal body, what else will stand in the way of it being clear that true wisdom dwells in this religion alone?
Latin
In primis igitur scire homines oportet sic a principio processisse dispositionem summi dei, ut esset necesse adpropinquante saeculi termino dei filium descendere in terram, ut constitueret deo templum doceretque iustitiam, uerum tamen non in uirtute angeli aut potestate caelesti, sed in figura hominis et condicione mortali, et cum magisterio functus fuisset, traderetur in manus inpiorum mortemque susciperet, ut ea quoque per uirtutem domita resurgeret et homini, quem induerat, quem gerebat, et spem uincendae mortis offerret et ad praemia inmortalitatis admitteret. hanc ergo dispositionem ne quis ignoret, docebimus praedicta esse omnia quae in Christo uidemus esse conpleta. nemo adseuerationi nostrae fidem commodet, nisi ostendero prophetas ante multam temporum seriem praedicasse, fore aliquando ut filius dei nasceretur sicut homo et mirabilia faceret et cultum dei per totam terram seminaret et postremo patibulo figeretur et tertio die resurgeret. quae omnia cum probauero eorum ipsorum litteris qui deum suum mortali corpore utentem uiolauerunt, quid aliut obstabit quominus ueram sapientiam clarum sit in hac sola religione uersari?