Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5.12

What would you do with those who call 'law' the butcheries of old tyrants raging madly against the innocent? And though they are teachers of injustice and cruelty, they still want to seem just and prudent — blind and dull and ignorant of things and of truth. Is justice so hated by you, O ruined minds, that you equate it with the highest crimes? Has innocence so perished among you that you judge it not even worthy of a simple death, but hold it above all deeds to commit no crime and to keep a heart too little clear of every contagion of crime? And since we speak in common with the worshipers of the gods, let it be allowed through you to do good with you: for this is our law, this work, this religion. If we seem wise to you, imitate; if foolish, scorn or even laugh, if you like: for our folly profits us. Why do you tear? Why do you strike? We do not envy your wisdom: we prefer this folly, we embrace it, we believe this benefits us, that we love you and confer all things on you yourselves who hate.

There is in Cicero a place not far from the truth in that dispute which Furius holds against justice. I ask, he says, if there are two, of whom one is the best man, most equitable, of highest justice, of singular faith, the other of outstanding crime and boldness, and if the city is in this error, that it thinks that good man criminal, wicked, nefarious, and on the contrary judges him who is most wicked to be of highest honesty and faith, and according to this opinion of all citizens that good man is harassed, seized, finally his hands are cut off, his eyes dug out, he is condemned, bound, burned, banished, lacks, and at last by the best right seems to all most wretched, and on the contrary that wicked one is praised, cultivated, loved by all, all honors, all commands, all wealth, all resources from everywhere are conferred on him, and finally he is judged the best man in everyone's estimate and most worthy of every fortune: who at last will be so mad as to doubt which he would rather be? Indeed as if he foresaw what evils and how they would come to us because of justice, he set this example. For our people suffers all these things by the perversity of those who err. See: the city — or rather the whole world itself — is in this error, that it persecutes, tortures, condemns, kills good and just men as if evil and impious.

As for his saying that no one is so mad as to doubt which he would rather be, he indeed, as one who argued against justice, felt this: that the wise man would rather be evil with a good reputation than good with a bad one. But far from us be this madness, that we prefer the false to the true. Will the quality of our good hang on the people's errors rather than on our conscience and God's judgment? Or will any happiness ever entice us so that we would not rather prefer true goodness with every evil than false with every prosperity? Let kings keep their kingdoms for themselves, the rich their riches, as Plautus says, and the prudent their prudence: let them leave us our folly, which even from this appears to be wisdom, that they envy it for us. For who would envy a fool unless he himself were most foolish? But they are not so foolish as to envy fools, but from this, that they persecute carefully and anxiously, they grant that they are not fools. Why else would they rage so cruelly unless they fear that, justice growing stronger day by day, they may be left with their decaying gods? If therefore the worshipers of the gods are wise and we are fools, why do they fear that the wise may be enticed by fools?