Concerning the City of God against the Pagans by Augustine

Author:Augustine
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141920627
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2003-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

14. The pride of the transgressor was worse than the sin itself

Even worse, and more deserving of condemnation, is the pride shown in the search for an excuse, even when the sins are clear as daylight. This was shown in the first human beings, when the woman said, ‘The serpent led me astray, and I ate’; and the man said, ‘The woman whom you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’131 There is not a whisper anywhere here of a plea for pardon, nor of any entreaty for healing. True, they did not deny their sin, as Cain did,132 and yet their pride seeks to pin the wrong act on another; the woman’s pride blames the serpent, the man’s pride blames the woman. But in the case of so obvious a transgression of the divine command, to talk like this is really to accuse rather than to excuse oneself. For the fact that the woman committed the offence on the serpent’s suggestion, and the man because of the woman’s offer, did not mean that it was not their own act – as if anything should have priority over God in a claim for credence or obedience!

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.