Understanding The Creator

O maxime, o summe rerum invisibilium procreator, o ipse invisus et nullis umquam conprehense naturis, dignus, dignus es vere, si modo te dignum mortali dicendum est ore cui spirans omnis intelligensque natura et habere et agere numquam desinat gratias, cui tota conveniat vita genu nixo procumbere et continuatis precibus supplicare. Prima enim tu causa es, locus rerum ac spatium, fundamentum cunctorum quaecumque sunt, infinitus, ingenitus, inmortalis, perpetuus, solus, quem nulla deliniat forma corporalis, nulla determinat circumscriptio, qualitatis expers, quantitatis, sine situ, motu et habitu, de quo nihil dici et exprimi mortalium potis est significatione verborum, qui ut intellegaris tacendum est atque, ut per umbram te possit errans investigare suspicio, nihil est omnino mutiendum. Da veniam, rex summe, tuos persequentibus famulos: et quod tuae benignitatis est proprium, fugientibus ignosce tui nominis et religionis cultum. Non est mirum, si ignoraris: maioris est admirationis, si sciaris. Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, Liber I Source: Migne PL 5.755a756a

O greatest, O supreme Creator of things invisible, O, unseen and incomprehensible by any nature, you are truly worthy, if only mortal tongue is worthy to speak of you, that all breathing and intelligent nature should never cease to give you thanks, that it should throughout the whole of life fall on bended knee and offer supplication with unceasing prayers. For you are the first cause,the place and space of things, the foundations of all things, whatever they are, infinite, unbegotten, immortal, perpetual, alone, whom no bodily shape may describe, no outline determine; beyond quality and quanity, without position, motion and condition, concerning whom nothing can be said and expressed by the significance of mortal words, you who, that you may be understood, we must be silent; and so that wonder wandering through shadow might seek you, no word must be uttered. Forgive, O supreme King, the persecutors of your servants, and by virtue of your benevolence pardon those who fly from the worship of your name and the observance of your religion. It is not to be wondered if you are unknown, it more greatly astonishes if you are known. Arnobius, Against the Heathen, Book 1

Warnings of Hell

Audetis ridere nos, cum gehennas dicimus et inextinguibiles quosdam ignes, in quos animas deici ab earum hostibus inimicisque cognovimus? Quid Plato idem vester in eo volumine, quod de animae immortalitate conposuit, non Acherontem, non Stygem, non Cocytum fluvios et Pyriphlegethontem nominat, in quibus animas adseverat volvi mergi exuri? Et homo prudentiae non pravae et examinis iudiciique perpensi rem inenodabilem suscipit, ut cum animas dicat immortales perpetuas et ex corporali soliditate privatas, puniri eas dicat tamen et doloris adficiat sensu. Quis autem hominum non videt quod sit immortale, quod simplex, nullum posse dolorem admittere, quod autem sentiat dolorem, immortalitatem habere non posse? Nec tamen eius auctoritas plurimum a veritate declinat. Quamvis enim vir lenis et benivolae voluntatis inhumanum esse crediderit capitali animas sententia condemnare, non est tamen absone suspicatus iaci eas in flumina torrentia flammarum globis et caenosis voraginibus taetra. Iaciuntur enim et ad nihilum redactae interitionis perpetuae frustratione vanescunt. Sunt enim mediae qualitatis, sicut Christo auctore compertum est, et interire quae possint deum si ignoraverint, vitae et ab exitio liberari, si ad eius se minas atque indulgentias adplicarint, et quod ignotum est pateat. Haec est hominis mors vera, haec nihil residuum faciens, nam illa quae sub oculis cernitur animarum est a corporibus diiugatio, non finis abolitionis extremus - haec inquam est hominis mors vera, cum animae nescientes deum per longissimi temporis cruciatum consumentur igni fero, in quem illas iacient quidam crudeliter saevi et ante Christum incogniti et ab solo sciente detecti. Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, Liber II, Cap XIV

You dare laugh at us when we speak of hell, and unquenchable fires, into which we have learned that souls are cast by their foes and enemies? Does not your Plato also, in that book which he wrote on the immortality of the soul, name the rivers Acheron, Styx, Cocytus, and Pyriphlegethon, in which he asserts souls are immersed, rolled along, and burned up?1 But though a man of no small wisdom, and of careful judgment and discernment, he has taken up a knotty matter when he says that the soul is immortal, everlasting, and lacking bodily substance and yet says that they are punished and makes them suffer pain. But what man does not see that that which is immortal, which is simple, cannot be subject to any pain, and that, on the contrary, that cannot be immortal which does suffer pain? And yet his opinion does not stray very far from the truth. For although the gentle and benevolent man thought it inhuman to condemn souls to death, he reasonably supposed that they are thrown into fiery rivers blazing with masses of flame, running filthy from their foul abysses. For they are cast in, and being reduced to nothing, vanish vainly into everlasting destruction. For theirs is an intermediate state, as is understood from Christ's teaching, and they may on the one hand perish if they have not known God, and on the other be delivered from life's end if they have heeded His warnings and kindness, that the unknown may be revealed. This is man's true death, this is what leaves nothing behind, for that which is seen by the eyes is but the separation of soul from the body, not the final end, but this, I say, is man's true death, when souls which do not know God shall be consumed in long torment with raging fire, into which fiercely cruel savages will cast them, unknown before Christ, and revealed only by His wisdom. Arnobius, Against the Heathen, Book II, Chapter 14 1 Phadeo. 113d