Universal Call and Human Refusal
Minucius Felix, Octavius 33
Nor should we flatter ourselves about our throng: we seem many to ourselves, but to God we are quite few. We distinguish peoples and nations; for God this whole world is one house. Kings, for all that, know the affairs of their realm through ministers’ offices; God needs no informants: we live not only in his eyes but in his bosom.
But it did the Jews no good that they too worshipped one God with altars and temples in the greatest superstition. You err by ignorance if, forgetful or unaware of earlier things, you recall only later ones. For they too forsook our God — for he is the God of all — and as long as they worshipped him chastely, harmlessly, and religiously, as long as they obeyed wholesome precepts, from few they became countless, from needy rich, from slaves kings; the small overthrew the many, the unarmed the armed, while they fled pursuers, by God’s command and with the elements assisting. Reread their writings, or to pass over the ancients, Flavius Josephus, or if you prefer Romans, consult Antonius Julianus on the Jews: you will already know they earned this fortune by their wickedness, and that nothing happened which was not foretold if they persisted in stubbornness. So you will understand they deserted before they were deserted, and that they were not, as you speak impiously, captured with their God, but delivered by God as deserters from discipline.
Latin
XXXIII. "Nec nobis de nostra frequentia blandiamur: multi nobis videmur, sed deo admodum pauci sumus. Nos gentes nationesque distinguimus: deo una domus est mundus hic totus. Reges tamen regni sui per officia ministrorum universa noverunt, deo indiciis opus non est: non solum in oculis eius, sed in sinu vivimus. "Sed Iudaeis nihil profuit, quod unum et ipsi deum aris atque templis maxima superstitione coluerunt. Ignorantia laberis si, priorum aut oblitus aut inscius, posteriorum recordaris. Nam et ipsi deum nostrum, idem enim omnium deus est, [dereliquerunt] -- quamdiu enim eum caste, innoxie religioseque coluerunt, quamdiu praeceptis salubribus obtemperaverunt, de paucis innumeri facti, de egentibus divites, de servientibus reges: modici multos, inermi armatos, dum fugiunt insequentes, dei iussu et elementis adnitentibus obruerunt.
Scripta eorum relege, vel, ut transeamus veteres, Flavi Iosephi, vel, si Romanis magis gaudes, Antoni Iuliani de Iudaeis require: iam scies, nequitia sua hanc eos meruisse fortunam, nec quidquam accidisse quod non sit his, si in contumacia perseverarent, ante praedictum. Ita prius eos deseruisse conprehendes quam esse desertos nec, ut impie loqueris, cum deo suo captos, sed a deo ut disciplinae transfugas deditos.