Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 22.--Of the Fall of the Sons of God Who Were Captivated by the Daughters of Men, Whereby All, with the Exception of Eight Persons, Deservedly Perished in the Deluge.

When the human race, in the exercise of this freedom of will, increased and advanced, there arose a mixture and confusion of the two cities by their participation in a common iniquity. And this calamity, as well as the first, was occasioned by woman, though not in the same way; for these women were not themselves betrayed, neither did they persuade the men to sin, but having belonged to the earthly city and society of the earthly, they had been of corrupt manners from the first, and were loved for their bodily beauty by the sons of God, or the citizens of the other city which sojourns in this world. Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked. And thus, when the good that is great and proper to the good was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good which is not peculiar to the good, but common to the good and the evil; and when they were captivated by the daughters of men, they adopted the manners of the earthly to win them as their brides, and forsook the godly ways they had followed in their own holy society. And thus beauty, which is indeed God's handiwork, but only a temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not fitly loved in preference to God, the eternal, spiritual, and unchangeable good. When the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through no fault of the gold, but of the man; and so with every created thing. For though it be good, it may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately. It is this which some one has briefly said in these verses in praise of the Creator: ¹ "These are Thine, they are good, because Thou art good who didst create them. There is in them nothing of ours, unless the sin we commit when we forget the order of things, and instead of Thee love that which Thou hast made."

But if the Creator is truly loved, that is, if He Himself is loved and not another thing in His stead, He cannot be evilly loved; for love itself is to be ordinately loved, because we do well to love that which, when we love it, makes us live well and virtuously. So that it seems to me that it is a brief but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love; and on this account, in the Canticles, the bride of Christ, the city of God, sings, "Order love within me." ² It was the order of this love, then, this charity or attachment, which the sons of God disturbed when they forsook God, and were enamored of the daughters of men. ³ And by these two names (sons of God and daughters of men) the two cities are sufficiently distinguished. For though the former were by nature children of men, they had come into possession of another name by grace. For in the same Scripture in which the sons of God are said to have loved the daughters of men, they are also called angels of God; whence many suppose that they were not men but angels.

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XXII: De lapsu filiorum dei alienigenarum mulierum amore captorum, unde et omnes exceptis octo hominibus diluuio perire meruerunt.

Hoc itaque libero uoluntatis arbitrio genere humano progrediente atque crescente facta est permixtio et iniquitate participata quaedam utriusque confusio ciuitatis. quod malum a sexu femineo causam rursus inuenit; non quidem illo modo quo ab initio - non enim cuiusquam etiam tunc fallacia seductae illae feminae persuaserunt peccatum uiris - ; sed ab initio quae prauis moribus fuerant in terrena ciuitate, id est in terrigenarum societate, amatae sunt a filiis dei, ciuibus scilicet peregrinantis in hoc saeculo alterius ciuitatis, propter pulchritudinem corporis. quod bonum dei quidem donum est; sed propterea id largitur etiam malis, ne magnum bonum uideatur bonis. deserto itaque bono magno et bonorum proprio lapsus est factus ad bonum minimum, non bonis proprium, sed bonis malisque commune; ac sic filii dei filiarum hominum amore sunt capti, atque ut eis coniugibus fruerentur, in mores societatis terrigenae defluxerunt, deserta pietate, quam in sancta societate seruabant. sic enim corporis pulchritudo, a deo quidem factum, sed temporale carnale infimum bonum, male amatur postposito deo, aeterno interno sempiterno bono, quemadmodum iustitia deserta et aurum amatur ab auaris, nullo peccato auri, sed hominis. ita se habet omnis creatura. cum enim bona sit, et bene amari potest et male: bene scilicet ordine custodito, male ordine perturbato. quod in laude quadam cerei breuiter uersibus dixi: haec tua sunt, bona sunt, quia tu bonus ista creasti. 4 nil nostrum est in eis, nisi quod peccamus amantes ordine neglecto pro te, quod conditur abs te.4 creator autem si ueraciter ametur, hoc est si ipse, non aliud pro illo quod non est ipse, ametur, male amari non potest. nam et amor ipse ordinate amandus est, quo bene amatur quod amandum est, ut sit in nobis uirtus qua uiuitur bene. unde mihi uidetur, quod definitio breuis et uera uirtutis ordo est amoris; propter quod in sancto cantico canticorum cantat sponsa Christi, ciuitas dei: ordinate in me caritatem. huius igitur caritatis, hoc est dilectionis et amoris, ordine perturbato deum filii dei neglexerunt et filias hominum dilexerunt. quibus duobus nominibus satis ciuitas utraque discernitur. neque enim et illi non erant filii hominum per naturam; sed aliud nomen coeperant habere per gratiam. nam in eadem scriptura, ubi dicti sunt dilexisse filias hominum filii dei, idem dicti sunt etiam angeli dei. unde illos multi putant non homines fuisse, sed angelos.