Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Arnobius/Adversus Gentes/Book II/Chapter LXXII

by Arnobius

72. But your religion precedes ours by many years, and is therefore, you say, truer, because it has been supported by the authority of antiquity. And of what avail is it that it should precede ours as many years as you please, since it began at a certain time? or what^[1] are two thousand years, compared with so many thousands of ages? And yet, lest we should seem to betray our cause by so long neglect, say, if it does not annoy you, does the Almighty and Supreme God seem to you to be something new; and do those who adore and worship Him seem to you to support and introduce an unheard-of, unknown, and upstart religion? Is there anything older than Him? or can anything be found preceding Him in being,^[2] time, name? Is not He alone uncreated, immortal, and everlasting? Who is the head^[3] and fountain of things? is not He? To whom does eternity owe its name? is it not to Him? Is it not because He is everlasting, that the ages go on without end? This is beyond doubt, and true: the religion which we follow is not new, then, but we have been late in learning what we should follow and revere, or where we should both fix our hope of salvation, and employ the aid given to save us. For He had not yet shone forth who was to point out the way to those wandering from it, and give the light of knowledge to those who were lying in the deepest darkness, and dispel the blindness of their ignorance.

Footnotes

1. Lit., “of what space.”
2. i.e., re.
3. So the ms., according to Crusius and Livineius, reading ac; all edd. except Oehler read aut—“head (i.e., source) or fountain.”