Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 15.--That Everything Which the Grace of God Does in the Way of Rescuing Us from the Inveterate Evils in Which We are Sunk, Pertains to the Future World, in Which All Things are Made New.

Nevertheless, in the "heavy yoke that is laid upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's womb to the day that they return to the mother of all things," there is found an admirable though painful monitor teaching us to be sober-minded, and convincing us that this life has become penal in consequence of that outrageous wickedness which was perpetrated in Paradise, and that all to which the New Testament invites belongs to that future inheritance which awaits us in the world to come, and is offered for our acceptance, as the earnest that we may, in its own due time, obtain that of which it is the pledge. Now, therefore, let us walk in hope, and let us by the spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, and so make progress from day to day. For "the Lord know eth them that are His;" ¹ and "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God," ² but by grace, not by nature. For there is but one Son of God by nature, who in His compassion became Son of man for our sakes, that we, by nature sons of men, might by grace become through Him sons of God. For He, abiding unchangeable, took upon Him our nature, that thereby He might take us to Himself; and, holding fast His own divinity, He became partaker of our infirmity, that we, being changed into some better thing, might, by participating in His righteousness and immortality, lose our own properties of sin and mortality, and preserve whatever good quality He had implanted in our nature perfected now by sharing in the goodness of His nature. For as by the sin of one man we have fallen into a misery so deplorable, so by the righteousness of one Man, who also is God, shall we come to a blessedness inconceivably exalted. Nor ought any one to trust that he has passed from the one man to the other until he shall have reached that place where there is no temptation, and have entered into the peace which he seeks in the many and various conflicts of this war, in which "the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." ³ Now, such a war as this would have had no existence if human nature had, in the exercise of free will, continued steadfast in the uprightness in which it was created. But now in its misery it makes war upon itself, because in its blessedness it would not continue at peace with God; and this, though it be a miserable calamity, is better than the earlier stages of this life, which do not recognize that a war is to be maintained. For better is it to contend with vices than without conflict to be subdued by them. Better, I say, is war with the hope of peace everlasting than captivity without any thought of deliverance. We long, indeed, for the cessation of this war, and, kindled by the flame of divine love, we burn for entrance on that well-ordered peace in which whatever is inferior is for ever subordinated to what is above it. But if (which God forbid) there had been no hope of so blessed a consummation, we should still have preferred to endure the hardness of this conflict, rather than, by our non-resistance, to yield ourselves to the dominion of vice.

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XV: Quod omne opus gratiae dei eruentis nos de profunditate ueteris mali ad futuri saeculi pertineat nouitatem.

Verumtamen in graui iugo, quod positum est super filios Adam a die exitus de uentre matris eorum usque in diem sepulturae in matrem omnium, etiam hoc malum mirabile reperitur, ut sobrii simus atque intellegamus hanc uitam de peccato illo nimis nefario, quod in paradiso perpetratum est, factam nobis esse poenalem totum que, quod nobis cum agitur per testamentum nouum, non pertinere nisi ad noui saeculi hereditatem nouam, ut hic pignore accepto illud cuius hoc pignus est suo tempore consequamur, nunc autem ambulemus in spe et proficientes de die in diem spiritu facta carnis mortificemus. nouit enim dominus qui sunt eius; et quotquot spiritu dei aguntur, hi filii sunt dei, sed gratia, non natura. unicus enim natura dei filius propter nos misericordia factus est hominis filius, ut nos, natura filii hominis, filii dei per illum gratia fieremus. manens quippe ille inmutabilis naturam nostram, in qua nos susciperet, suscepit a nobis et tenax diuinitatis suae nostrae infirmitatis particeps factus est; ut nos in melius commutati, quod peccatores mortalesque sumus, eius inmortalis et iusti participatione amittamus et, quod in natura nostra bonum fecit, inpletum summo bono in eius naturae bonitate seruemus. sicut enim per unum hominem peccantem in hoc tam graue malum deuenimus, ita per unum hominem eundemque deum iustificantem ad illud bonum tam sublime ueniemus. nec quisquam se debet ab isto ad illum transisse confidere, nisi cum ibi fuerit, ubi tentatio nulla erit; nisi pacem tenuerit, quam belli huius, in quo caro concupiscit aduersus spiritum et spiritus aduersus carnem, multis et uariis certaminibus quaerit. hoc autem bellum numquam ullum esset, si natura humana per liberum arbitrium in rectitudine, in qua facta est, perstitisset. nunc uero, quae pacem felix cum deo habere noluit, se cum pugnat infelix, et cum sit hoc malum miserabile, melius est tamen quam priora uitae huius. melius confligitur quippe cum uitiis, quam sine ulla conflictione dominantur. melius est, inquam, bellum cum spe pacis aeternae quam sine ulla liberationis cogitatione captiuitas. cupimus quidem etiam hoc bello carere et ad capessendam ordinatissimam pacem, ubi firmissima stabilitate potioribus inferiora subdantur, igne diuini amoris accendimur. sed si, quod absit, illius tanti boni spes nulla esset, malle debuimus in huius conflictationis molestia remanere quam uitiis in nos dominationem non eis resistendo permittere.