On Sin 论原罪 ----奥古斯丁

on sin 论原罪
奥古斯丁
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....

上文中我已说过，上帝使所有人源于一人，目的有二。其一是以共同的人性统一人类。其二是通过血缘关系，用和平的纽带使人类结为和谐的整体。我还进而指出，若不是两位始祖【亚当和夏娃】——前者从虚无中创造，后者则从前者创造——因忤逆上帝的旨意而理当死罪，所有人本可以长生不死。他们犯下的原罪如此深重，以至于玷污了全部人性——在此意义上，这一本性已播及后代子孙，使他们有犯罪的倾向和死亡的必然。……
当人“按人的意志”而非“按上帝的意志”生活时，他与魔鬼无异。……
当人按自己的意志，也就是按人的方式而非上帝的意志生活时，那他无疑是在奉谬误为准则。当然，人本身并非是一个谎言，因为他的创造者上帝不可能是谎言的创造者。恰恰相反，人创造于真实之中，他本应按他的创造者上帝的意志而不是按自己的意志去生活——也就是说，他本应去实践上帝的意志而非自己的意志。真正的谎言乃是违背人的初衷去生活。

人的确渴望幸福，即便其所作所为与幸福背道而驰。……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，我们的始祖【亚当和夏娃】只不过公开地犯下了忤逆上帝旨意的原罪，因为他们在内心深处早已有罪。事实上，他们若不是有恶意在先，恶行便不可能发生；进而言之，其恶意之根源全在骄傲二字。因为，“骄傲乃万恶之源。”而所谓骄傲，难道不就是沉迷于过渡的自负？自负过分之时，灵魂自绝其理应坚守的源泉【上帝】，而无意中使自己成为自己的目的。当其发生之时，灵魂过分地取悦于自身；而如此自我取悦之表现，乃因灵魂偏离了永恒不变的善，而后者本应比灵魂本身带给灵魂更大的愉悦。那么，这一偏离当是灵魂自身所为，因为，假若意志始终坚定不移地爱着那更高的永恒不变的善——后者用知识照亮其心灵，用爱温暖其意志 ——，它便不会转而向自身追求满足，并因而失去了那光明和温暖。因此，夏娃本不会对毒蛇的谎言信以为真，而亚当本不会把妻子的意志置于上帝的意志之上。……

我们的人生——假若如此灾难深重的人生能被恰当地称为人生——证明了如下事实，自其初始之时，寿数有限的人类已戴罪在身。首先，想想那可怕的愚昧之渊，这里谬误横生，将亚当的子孙们淹没于黑暗的泥沼之中，任何人若不付出劳碌、泪水和恐惧的代价均无法脱身。再看看我们贪恋的一切，最终都证明是如此的徒劳、有害，并滋生出这许多的心痛、烦恼、忧伤与恐惧；这般疯狂地沉溺于争执、倾扎与战乱；这般纠缠于敌人、骗子和献媚之徒的愤怒与阴谋；这般尔虞我诈、盗窃抢掠；这般背叛与骄傲、忌妒与野心、屠戮与谋杀、残忍与野蛮、违法与贪婪；所有无耻、肮脏的激情——淫乱与私通、 乱伦与种种伤天害理的罪恶、强奸以及无数令人难以启齿的卑劣行径；针对信仰的种种邪恶——亵渎神灵与异端邪说、目无上帝与违背誓言；针对邻居的不义之举——毁谤与欺骗、谎言与伪证、杀人越货；还有法庭的不公以及无数其它充斥这个世界却不为人注意的种种苦难与疾病。

的确，此类行径乃邪恶之徒所为，然而这一切罪恶实根源于亚当的每一个子孙心灵与意志之中所固有的顽疾【原罪】。……
然而，虽饱受上述种种无知与愚昧的摧残，堕落的人并未因此而失去神圣教会的引导，而上帝在愤怒之中也并未收回他的慈悲。只要人不辞辛劳和困苦，他依然可以获得法律和教育的双重援助。有了前者，他可以向人的激情宣战；有了后者，他可以在哪怕是我们天生愚昧的黑暗之中点亮学问之光。……
任何东西都不能把我们从这无边的苦海中拯救出来，惟有我们的救世主和上帝耶稣基督的恩赐。事实上，基督之本义便是救世主；当我们说“拯救”时，我们不过是指他拯救我们，使我们不至从此生的苦难滑向更加痛苦的境地，那样其实生不如死。……
作者简介：

奥古斯丁（354—430年）是西方神学史上最重要的思想家之一。本文（题目为译者所加）节选自其名著《上帝之城》（the city of god）。在该书中，他设计了一整套基督徒的人生观，其影响波及罗马帝国崩溃后近一千年的中世纪西方文明。奥古斯丁虽然崇尚古希腊苏格拉底和柏拉图的成就，但拒绝接受他们的根本主张，这就是，个人只需依靠理性便可探求真理。他的神学信仰可以简略地概括为：如果人类离开上帝，像亚当和夏娃那样追随自己的欲望，他们就会堕入邪恶的深渊，遭受种种苦难的折磨；惟有上帝的恩赐能拯救人类于苦海之中。从奥古斯丁的神学中不难看出，中世纪已用“信仰”取代古希腊所张扬的“理性 ”，西方文明由此进入所谓“信仰的时代”（the age of faith）。但同时我们也应看到，奥古斯丁在其神学中还是为“法律”与“教育”保留了一席之地。