Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 24.--Whether the Angels Can Be Said to Be the Creators of Any, Even the Least Creature.

But in this book we have nothing to do with those who do not believe that the divine mind made or cares for this world. As for those who believe their own Plato, that all mortal animals--among whom man holds the pre-eminent place, and is near to the gods themselves--were created not by that most high God who made the world, but by other lesser gods created by the Supreme, and exercising a delegated power under His control,--if only those persons be delivered from the superstition which prompts them to seek a plausible reason for paying divine honors and sacrificing to these gods as their creators, they will easily be disentangled also from this their error. For it is blasphemy to believe or to say (even before it can be understood) that any other than God is creator of any nature, be it never so small and mortal. And as for the angels, whom those Platonists prefer to call gods, although they do, so far as they are permitted and commissioned, aid in the production of the things around us, yet not on that account are we to call them creators, any more than we call gardeners the creators of fruits and trees.

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XXV: An ullius uel minimae creaturae possint dici angeli creatores.

Sed cum his nullum nobis est in his libris negotium, qui diuinam mentem facere uel curare ista non credunt. illi autem qui Platoni suo credunt non ab illo summo deo, qui fabricatus est mundum, sed ab aliis minoribus, quos quidem ipse creauerit, permissu siue iussu eius animalia facta esse cuncta mortalia, in quibus homo praecipuum disque ipsis cognatum teneret locum, si superstitione careant, qua quaerunt unde iuste uideantur sacra et sacrificia facere quasi conditoribus suis, facile carebunt etiam huius opinionis errore. neque enim fas est ullius naturae quamlibet minimae mortalisque creatorem nisi deum credere ac dicere, et antequam possit intellegi. angeli autem, quos illi deos libentius appellant, etiamsi adhibent uel iussi uel permissi operationem suam rebus quae gignuntur in mundo, tam non eos dicimus creatores animalium, quam nec agricolas frugum atque arborum.