Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput V: De sociali uita, quae, cum maxime expetenda sit, multis offensionibus saepe subuertitur.

Quod autem socialem uitam uolunt esse sapientis, nos multo amplius adprobamus. nam unde ista dei ciuitas, de qua huius operis ecce iam undeuicensimum librum uersamus in manibus, uel inchoaretur exortu uel progrederetur excursu uel adprehenderet debitos fines, si non esset socialis uita sanctorum? sed in huius mortalitatis aerumna quot et quantis abundet malis humana societas, quis enumerare ualeat? quis aestimare sufficiat? audiant apud comicos suos hominem cum sensu atque consensu omnium hominum dicere: duxi uxorem; quam ibi miseriam uidi. nati filii, alia cura. quid itidem illa, quae in amore uitia commemorat idem Terentius, iniuriae suspiciones, inimicitiae bellum, pax rursum, nonne res humanas ubique inpleuerunt? nonne et in amicorum honestis amoribus plerumque contingunt? nonne his usquequaque plenae sunt res humanae, ubi iniurias suspiciones, inimicitias bellum mala certa sentimus; pacem uero incertum bonum, quoniam corda eorum, cum quibus eam tenere uolumus, ignoramus, et si hodie nosse possemus, qualia cras futura essent utique nesciremus. qui porro inter se amiciores solent esse uel debent, quam qui una etiam continentur domo? et tamen quis inde securus est, cum tanta saepe mala ex eorum occultis insidiis exstiterint, tanto amariora, quanto pax dulcior fuit, quae uera putata est, cum astutissime fingeretur? propter quod omnium pectora sic adtingit, ut cogat in gemitum, quod ait Tullius: nullae sunt occultiores insidiae quam hae, quae latent in simulatione officii aut in aliquo necessitudinis nomine. nam eum, qui palam est aduersarius, facile cauendo uitare possis; hoc uero occultum intestinum ac domesticum malum non solum exsistit, uerum etiam obprimit, antequam prospicere atque explorare potueris. propter quod etiam diuina uox illa: et inimici hominis domestici eius cum magno dolore cordis auditur, quia, etsi quisque tam fortis sit, ut aequo animo perferat uel tam uigilans, ut prouido consilio caueat, quae aduersus eum molitur amicitia simulata, eorum tamen hominum perfidorum malo, cum eos esse pessimos experitur, si ipse bonus est, grauiter excrucietur necesse est, siue semper mali fuerint et se bonos finxerint, siue in istam malitiam ex bonitate mutati sint. si ergo domus, commune perfugium in his malis humani generis, tuta non est, quid ciuitas, quae quanto maior est, tanto forum eius litibus et ciuilibus et criminalibus plenius, etiamsi quiescant non solum turbulentae, uerum saepius et cruentae seditiones ac bella ciuilia, a quorum euentis sunt aliquando liberae ciuitates, a periculis numquam?

Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 5.--Of the Social Life, Which, Though Most Desirable, is Frequently Disturbed by Many Distresses.

We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that the life of the wise man must be social. For how could the city of God (concerning which we are already writing no less than the nineteenth book of this work) either take a beginning or be developed, or attain its proper destiny, if the life of the saints were not a social life? But who can enumerate all the great grievances with which human society abounds in the misery of this mortal state? Who can weigh them? Hear how one of their comic writers makes one of his characters express the common feelings of all men in this matter: "I am married; this is one misery. Children are born to me; they are additional cares." ¹ What shall I say of the miseries of love which Terence also recounts--"slights, suspicions, quarrels, war to-day, peace to-morrow?" ² Is not human life full of such things? Do they not often occur even in honorable friendships? On all hands we experience these slights, suspicions, quarrels, war, all of which are undoubted evils; while, on the other hand, peace is a doubtful good, because we do not know the heart of our friend, and though we did know it to-day, we should be as ignorant of what it might be to-morrow. Who ought to be, or who are more friendly than those who live in the same family? And yet who can rely even upon this friendship, seeing that secret treachery has often broken it up, and produced enmity as bitter as the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet by the most perfect dissimulation? It is on this account that the words of Cicero so move the heart of every one, and provoke a sigh: "There are no snares more dangerous than those which lurk under the guise of duty or the name of relationship. For the man who is your declared foe you can easily baffle by precaution; but this hidden, intestine, and domestic danger not merely exists, but overwhelms you before you can foresee and examine it." ³ It is also to this that allusion is made by the divine saying, "A man's foes are those of his own household," ⁴ --words which one cannot hear without pain; for though a man have sufficient fortitude to endure it with equanimity, and sufficient sagacity to baffle the malice of a pretended friend, yet if he himself is a good man, he cannot but be greatly pained at the discovery of the perfidy of wicked men, whether they have always been wicked and merely feigned goodness, or have fallen from a better to a malicious disposition. If, then, home, the natural refuge from the ills of life, is itself not safe, what shall we say of the city, which, as it is larger, is so much the more filled with lawsuits civil and criminal, and is never free from the fear, if sometimes from the actual outbreak, of disturbing and bloody insurrections and civil wars?