Arnobius

“We may therefore reckon Arnobius among those, who hold that the souls of beasts are rational. It is from him, without doubt, that Lactantius learned to put no other difference between them and man, but religion.”

“Will you, laying aside all partiality, consider in the silence of your thoughts that we [humans] are creatures either quite like the rest [of animals], or separated by no great difference? For what is there to show that we do not resemble them? or what excellence is in us, such that we scorn to be ranked as creatures? Their bodies are built up on bones, and bound closely together by sinews; and our bodies are in like manner built up on bones, and bound closely together by sinews.”