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On Sin 論原罪

奧古斯丁

I have already said, in previous Books, that God had two purposes in deriving all men from one man. His first purpose was to give unity to the human race by the likeness of nature. His second purpose was to bind mankind by the bond of peace, through blood relationship, into one harmonious whole. I have said further that no member of this race would ever have died had not the first two (Adam and Eve)---one created from nothing and the second from the first---merited this death by disobedience. The sin which they committed was so great that it impaired all human nature---in this sense, that the nature has been transmitted to posterity with a propensity to sin and a necessity to die....

When a man lives “according to man”---and not “according to God”---he is like the Devil....

When man lives according to himself, that is to say, according to human ways and not according to God’s will, then surely he lives according to falsehood. Man himself, of course, is not a lie, since God who is his Author and creator could not be the Author and Creator of a lie. Rather, man has been so constituted in truth that he was meant to live not according to himself but to Him who made him---that is, he was meant to do the will of God rather than his own. It is a lie not to live as a man was created to live.

Man indeed desires happiness even when he does so live as to make happiness impossible.... The happiness of man can come not from himself but only from God, and that to live according to oneself is to sin, and to sin is to lose God....

Moreover, our first parents (Adam and Eve) only fell openly into the sin of disobedience because, secretly, they had begun to be guilty. Actually, their bad deed could not have been done had not bad will preceded it; what is more, the root of their bad will was nothing else than pride. For, “pride is the beginning of all sin.”---And what is pride but an appetite for inordinate exaltation? Now, exaltation is inordinate when the soul cuts itself off from the very Source (God) to which it should keep close and somehow makes itself and becomes an end to itself. This takes place when the soul becomes inordinately pleased with itself, and such self-pleasing occurs when the soul falls away from the unchangeable Good which ought to please the soul far more than the soul can please itself. Now, this falling a way is the soul’s own doing, for, if the will had merely remained firm in the love of that higher immutable Good which lighted its mind into knowledge and warmed its will into love, it would not have turned away in search of satisfaction in itself and, by so doing, have lost that light and warmth. And thus Eve would not have believed that the serpent’s lie was true, nor would Adam have preferred the will of his wife to the will of God....

This life of ours---if a life so full of such great ills can properly be called a life---bears witness to the fact that, from its very start, the race of mortal men has been a race condemned. Think, first, of that dreadful abyss of ignorance from which all error flows and so engulfs the sons of Adam in a darksome pool that no one can escape without the toll of toils and tears and fears. Then, take our very love for all those things that prove so vain and poisonous and breed so many heartaches, troubles, griefs, and fears; such insane joys in discord, strife, and war; such wrath and plots of enemies, deceivers, sycophants; such fraud and theft and robbery; such perfidy and pride, envy and ambition, homicide and murder, cruelty and savagery, lawlessness and lust; all the shameless passions of the impure---fornication and adultery, incest and unnatural sins, rape and countless other uncleannesses too nasty to be mentioned; the sins against religion---sacrilege and heresy, blasphemy and perjury; the iniquities against our neighbors---calumnies and cheating, lies and false witness, violence to persons and property; the injustices of the courts and the innumerable other miseries and maladies that fill the world, yet escape attention.

It is true that it is wicked men who do such things, but the source of all such sins is that radical canker (sinfulness) in the mind and will that is innate in every son of Adam....

Yet, for all this blight of ignorance and folly, fallen man has not been left without some ministries of Providence, nor has God, in His anger, shut up His mercies. There are still within the reach of man himself, if only he will pay the price of toil and trouble, the twin resources of law and education. With the one, he can make war on human passion; with the other, he can keep the light of learning lit even in the darkness of our native ignorance....

From this all but hell of unhappiness here on earth, nothing can save us but the grace of Jesus Christ, who is our Saviour, Lord and God. In fact, the very meaning of the name, Jesus, is Saviour, and when we say “save”, we mean, especially, that He saves us from passing from the misery of this mortal life to a still more miserable condition, which is not so much a life as death....

上文中我已說過，上帝使所有人源于一人，目的有二。其一是以共同的人性統一人類。其二是通過血緣關系，用和平的紐帶使人類結為和諧的整體。我還進而指出，若不是兩位始祖【亞當和夏娃】——前者從虛無中創造，后者則從前者創造——因忤逆上帝的旨意而理當死罪，所有人本可以長生不死。他們犯下的原罪如此深重，以至于玷污了全部人性——在此意義上，這一本性已播及后代子孫，使他們有犯罪的傾向和死亡的必然。……

當人“按人的意志”而非“按上帝的意志”生活時，他與魔鬼無異。……

當人按自己的意志，也就是按人的方式而非上帝的意志生活時，那他無疑是在奉謬誤為準則。當然，人本身并非是一個謊言，因為他的創造者上帝不可能是謊言的創造者。恰恰相反，人創造于真實之中，他本應按他的創造者上帝的意志而不是按自己的意志去生活——也就是說，他本應去實踐上帝的意志而非自己的意志。真正的謊言乃是違背人的初衷去生活。

人的確渴望幸福，即便其所作所為與幸福背道而馳。……人之幸福不可能源于自身，而只能源于上帝。按自己的意志生活即是犯罪，犯罪便是失去上帝。……

而且，我們的始祖【亞當和夏娃】只不過公開地犯下了忤逆上帝旨意的原罪，因為他們在內心深處早已有罪。事實上，他們若不是有惡意在先，惡行便不可能發生；進而言之，其惡意之根源全在驕傲二字。因為，“驕傲乃萬惡之源。”而所謂驕傲，難道不就是沉迷于過渡的自負？自負過分之時，靈魂自絕其理應堅守的源泉【上帝】，而無意中使自己成為自己的目的。當其發生之時，靈魂過分地取悅于自身；而如此自我取悅之表現，乃因靈魂偏離了永恒不變的善，而后者本應比靈魂本身帶給靈魂更大的愉悅。那么，這一偏離當是靈魂自身所為，因為，假若意志始終堅定不移地愛著那更高的永恒不變的善——后者用知識照亮其心靈，用愛溫暖其意志 ——，它便不會轉而向自身追求滿足，并因而失去了那光明和溫暖。因此，夏娃本不會對毒蛇的謊言信以為真，而亞當本不會把妻子的意志置于上帝的意志之上。……

我們的人生——假若如此災難深重的人生能被恰當地稱為人生——證明了如下事實，自其初始之時，壽數有限的人類已戴罪在身。首先，想想那可怕的愚昧之淵，這里謬誤橫生，將亞當的子孫們淹沒于黑暗的泥沼之中，任何人若不付出勞碌、淚水和恐懼的代價均無法脫身。再看看我們貪戀的一切，最終都證明是如此的徒勞、有害，并滋生出這許多的心痛、煩惱、憂傷與恐懼；這般瘋狂地沉溺于爭執、傾扎與戰亂；這般糾纏于敵人、騙子和獻媚之徒的憤怒與陰謀；這般爾虞我詐、盜竊搶掠；這般背叛與驕傲、忌妒與野心、屠戮與謀殺、殘忍與野蠻、違法與貪婪；所有無恥、骯臟的激情——淫亂與私通、 亂倫與種種傷天害理的罪惡、強奸以及無數令人難以啟齒的卑劣行徑；針對信仰的種種邪惡——褻瀆神靈與異端邪說、目無上帝與違背誓言；針對鄰居的不義之舉——毀謗與欺騙、謊言與偽證、殺人越貨；還有法庭的不公以及無數其它充斥這個世界卻不為人注意的種種苦難與疾病。

的確，此類行徑乃邪惡之徒所為，然而這一切罪惡實根源于亞當的每一個子孫心靈與意志之中所固有的頑疾【原罪】。……

然而，雖飽受上述種種無知與愚昧的摧殘，墮落的人并未因此而失去神圣教會的引導，而上帝在憤怒之中也并未收回他的慈悲。只要人不辭辛勞和困苦，他依然可以獲得法律和教育的雙重援助。有了前者，他可以向人的激情宣戰；有了后者，他可以在哪怕是我們天生愚昧的黑暗之中點亮學問之光。……

任何東西都不能把我們從這無邊的苦海中拯救出來，惟有我們的救世主和上帝耶穌基督的恩賜。事實上，基督之本義便是救世主；當我們說“拯救”時，我們不過是指他拯救我們，使我們不至從此生的苦難滑向更加痛苦的境地，那樣其實生不如死。……

作者簡介：

奧古斯丁（354—430年）是西方神學史上最重要的思想家之一。本文（題目為譯者所加）節選自其名著《上帝之城》（The City of God）。在該書中，他設計了一整套基督徒的人生觀，其影響波及羅馬帝國崩潰后近一千年的中世紀西方文明。奧古斯丁雖然崇尚古希臘蘇格拉底和柏拉圖的成就，但拒絕接受他們的根本主張，這就是，個人只需依靠理性便可探求真理。他的神學信仰可以簡略地概括為：如果人類離開上帝，像亞當和夏娃那樣追隨自己的欲望，他們就會墮入邪惡的深淵，遭受種種苦難的折磨；惟有上帝的恩賜能拯救人類于苦海之中。從奧古斯丁的神學中不難看出，中世紀已用“信仰”取代古希臘所張揚的“理性 ”，西方文明由此進入所謂“信仰的時代”（the Age of Faith）。但同時我們也應看到，奧古斯丁在其神學中還是為“法律”與“教育”保留了一席之地。

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