Traduction
Masquer
La cité de dieu
CHAPITRE XII.
COMPARAISON DE LA FÉLICITÉ DES JUSTES SUR LA TERRE ET DE CELLE DE NOS PREMIERS PARENTS AVANT LE PÉCHÉ.
Nous ne bornons même pas la béatitude aux bons anges. Et qui oserait nier que nos premiers parents, avant la chute, n’aient été heureux dans le paradis terrestre1, tout en étant incertains de la durée de leur béatitude, qui aurait été éternelle, s’ils n’eussent point péchés2 ? Aujourd’hui même, nous n’hésitons point à appeler heureux les bons chrétiens qui, pleins de l’espérance de l’immortalité future, vivent exempts de crimes et de remords, et obtiennent aisément de la miséricorde de Dieu le pardon des fautes attachées à l’humaine fragilité. Et cependant, quelque assurés qu’ils soient du prix de leur persévérance, ils ne le sont pas de leur persévérance même. Qui peut, en effet, se promettre de persévérer jusqu’à la fin, à moins que d’en être assuré par quelque révélation de celui qui, par un juste et mystérieux conseil, ne découvre pas l’avenir à tous, mais qui ne trompe jamais personne? Pour ce qui regarde la satisfaction présente, le premier homme était donc plus heureux dans le paradis que quelque homme de bien que ce soit en cette vie mortelle; mais quant à l’espérance du bien avenir, quiconque est assuré de jouir un jour de Dieu en la compagnie des anges, est plus heureux, quoiqu’il souffre, que ne l’était le premier homme, incertain de sa chute; dans toute la félicité du paradis3.
Traduction
Masquer
The City of God
Chapter 12.--A Comparison of the Blessedness of the Righteous, Who Have Not Yet Received the Divine Reward, with that of Our First Parents in Paradise.
And the angels are not the only members of the rational and intellectual creation whom we call blessed. For who will take upon him to deny that those first men in Paradise were blessed previously to sin, although they were uncertain how long their blessedness was to last, and whether it would be eternal (and eternal it would have been had they not sinned),--who, I say, will do so, seeing that even now we not unbecomingly call those blessed whom we see leading a righteous and holy life, in hope of immortality, who have no harrowing remorse of conscience, but obtain readily divine remission of the sins of their present infirmity? These, though they are certain that they shall be rewarded if they persevere, are not certain that they will persevere. For what man can know that he will persevere to the end in the exercise and increase of grace, unless he has been certified by some revelation from Him who, in His just and secret judgment, while He deceives none, informs few regarding this matter? Accordingly, so far as present comfort goes, the first man in Paradise was more blessed than any just man in this insecure state; but as regards the hope of future good, every man who not merely supposes, but certainly knows that he shall eternally enjoy the most high God in the company of angels, and beyond the reach of ill,--this man, no matter what bodily torments afflict him, is more blessed than was he who, even in that great felicity of Paradise, was uncertain of his fate. 1
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With this chapter compare the books De Dono Persever, and De Correp. et Gratia. ↩