§3Itaque nos hoc prius affirmare debemus quod occulte subrui periclitatur, quantum ualeat apud deum inanitas ista, et ante omnia, unde ratio ipsa processerit hoc modo promerendi deum.
Therefore, we must first affirm this which is in danger of being secretly undermined: how much that emptiness of ours avails with God, and above all, whence the very reason proceeded of earning God's favor in this manner.
tunc enim agnoscetur obseruationis necessitas, cum eluxerit rationis auctoritas a primordio recensendae.
For then the necessity of the observance will be recognized, when the authority of the reason, which must be traced back from the beginning, has shone forth.
acceperat Adam a deo legem non gustandi de arbore agnitionis boni et mali, moriturus si gustasset.
Adam had received from God the law of not tasting of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, being destined to die if he should taste of it.
uerum et ipse tunc in psychicum reuersus post ecstasin spiritalem, in qua magnum illud sacramentum in Christum et ecclesiam prophetauerat, nec iam capiens quae erant spiritus, facilius uentri quam deo cessit, pabulo potius quam praecepto annuit, salutem gula uendidit.
But he himself too, having then returned to a psychic state after the spiritual ecstasy in which he had prophesied that great sacrament concerning Christ and the Church, and no longer receiving the things that were of the spirit, yielded more easily to his belly than to God, nodded to food rather than to the precept, and sold his salvation for gluttony.
manducauit denique et periit, saluus alioquin, si uni arbusculae ieiunare maluisset; ut iam hinc animalis fides semen suum recognoscat exinde deducens carnalium adpetitionem et spiritalium recusationem.
Finally he ate and perished, who would otherwise have been safe, if he had preferred to fast from a single little tree; so that from this very point the animal faith may recognize its own seed, deriving from thence the desire for carnal things and the refusal of spiritual things.
teneo igitur a primordio homicidam gulam tormentis atque suppliciis inediae puniendam, etiamsi deus nulla ieiunia praecepisset.
I hold, therefore, that from the beginning homicidal gluttony is to be punished with the torments and punishments of hunger, even if God had commanded no fasts.
ostendens tamen, unde sit occisus Adam, mihi reliquerat intellegenda remedia offensae, qui offensam demonstrarat.
Yet, by showing whence Adam was slain, He who had demonstrated the offense had left to be understood by me the remedies for the offense.
ultro cibum, quibus modis quibusque temporibus potuissem, pro ueneno deputarem et antidotum famem sumerem, per quam purgarem mortis a primordio causam in me quoque cum ipso genere transductam, certus hoc deum uelle cuius contrarium noluit satisque confidens placituram illi continentiae curam, a quo damnatam comperissem incontinentiae culpam.
Of my own accord I would regard food as poison, in what manners and at what times I could, and take hunger as an antidote, through which I might purge the cause of death derived from the beginning in me also along with the race itself, certain that God wills this whose contrary He did not will, and fully trusting that the care of continence would please Him, by whom I had found the fault of incontinence condemned.
porro, cum et ipse ieiunium mandet et animam conquassatam proprie utique cibi angustiis sacrificium appellet, quis iam dubitabit omnium erga uictum macerationum hanc fuisse rationem, qua rursus interdicto cibo et obseruato praecepto primordiale iam delictum expiaretur, ut homo per eandem materiam causae satis deo faciat per quam offenderat id est per cibi interdictionem, atque ita salutem aemulo modo redaccenderet inedia, sicut extinxerat sagina, pro unico inlicito plura licita contemnens?
Furthermore, since He himself both commands fasting and properly calls a bruised soul a sacrifice especially through the straits of food, who will now doubt that this was the reason for all macerations concerning diet, by which, food being again forbidden and the precept observed, the primordial offense might now be expiated, so that man, through the same material of the cause, might make satisfaction to God through which he had offended, that is, through the interdiction of food, and thus hunger might rekindle salvation in a rival manner, just as gluttony had extinguished it, by despising many lawful things for the sake of a single unlawful one?
§4Haec ratio seruabatur apud prouidentiam dei pro temporibus omnia modulantis, ne quis ex diuerso ad deiciendam propositionem nostram, cur ergo, dicat, non statim deus aliquam uictus constituit castigationem, quin immo et auxit permissionem? nam in primordio quidem herbidum solummodo et arboreum homini pabulum addixerat: ecce dedi uobis omne faenum sementiuum seminans semen quod est super terram, et omne lignum quod habet in semetipso fructum seminis sementiui uobis erit in escam. postea uero ad Noe enumerata subiectione omnium bestiarum terrae et uolatilium caeli et mouentium in terra et piscium maris et omnis serpentis, erunt, inquit, uobis in escam: uelut holera faeni dedi uobis uniuersa, uerum carnem in sanguine animae suae non edetis. nam et hoc ipso, quod eam solam carnem esui eximit, cuius anima non per sanguinem effunditur, omnis reliquae carnis usum concessisse manifestum est.
This reason was preserved in the providence of God who modulates all things according to the times, lest anyone from the opposite side, in order to cast down our proposition, should say, "Why then did God not immediately appoint some chastisement of diet, but on the contrary even increased the permission?" For in the beginning indeed He had assigned to man only herbage and tree-food: "Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing grass sowing seed which is upon the earth, and every tree which has in itself the fruit of seed-bearing seed, it shall be to you for food." But afterwards to Noah, having enumerated the subjection of all the beasts of the earth, and of the fowls of the air, and of things moving on the earth, and of the fishes of the sea, and of every creeping thing, He said, "They shall be to you for food: as the green herbs I have given you all things; but flesh in the blood of its life you shall not eat." For by this very fact, that He exempts from eating only that flesh whose life is not poured out through blood, it is manifest that He conceded the use of all remaining flesh.
ad haec respondemus non competisse onerari hominem aliqua adhuc abstinentiae lege, qui cum maxime tam leuem interdictionem unius scilicet pomi tolerare non potuit; remissum itaque illum libertate ipsa corroborandum.
To these things we answer that it was not fitting for man to be burdened with any law of abstinence as yet, who just at that moment could not tolerate so light an interdiction as that of a single fruit; and therefore he was let go, to be strengthened by that very liberty.
aeque post diluuium in reformatione generis humani suffecisse unam interim legem a sanguine abstinendi permisso usu ceterorum.
Equally after the deluge, in the reformation of the human race, it sufficed in the meantime to have one law of abstaining from blood, the use of other things being permitted.
iam enim iudicium dominus ostenderat per diluuium, adhuc etiam comminatus fuerat per exquisitionem sanguinis de manu fratris et de manu bestiae omnis.
For the Lord had already shown His judgment through the deluge, and had even threatened still further through the requisition of blood from the hand of a brother and from the hand of every beast.
itaque iustitiam iudicii praeministrans materiam libertatis emisit per ueniam supparans disciplinam, permittens omnia, ut demeret quaedam, plus exacturus, si plus commisisset, abstinentiam imperaturus, cum indulgentiam praemisisset, quo magis, ut diximus, primordiale delictum expiaretur maioris abstinentiae operatione in maioris licentiae occasione.
Therefore, pre-administering the justice of judgment, He sent forth the material of liberty, preparing discipline under the cover of pardon, permitting all things in order to take away certain things, intending to exact more if He had committed more, destined to command abstinence when He had premised indulgence, so that, as we have said, the primordial offense might be the more expiated by the operation of greater abstinence in the opportunity of greater license.