super omnem carnem.66 Dii estis,67
etc.; and in other places, Omnis caro faenum.68 Homo assimilatus est
jumentis insipientibus, et similis factus est illis.69 Dixi in corde meo
de
filiis hominum.70
Whence it clearly seems that man by grace is made like unto God, and a
partaker in His divinity, and that without grace he is like unto the brute
beasts.
435. Without this divine knowledge what could men do but either become
elated by the inner feeling of their past greatness which still remains to
them, or become despondent at the sight of their present weakness? For,
not
seeing the whole truth, they could not attain to perfect virtue. Some
considering nature as incorrupt, others as incurable, they could not
escape
either pride or sloth, the two sources of all vice; since they cannot but
either abandon themselves to it through cowardice, or escape it by pride.
For if they knew the excellence of man, they were ignorant of his
corruption; so that they easily avoided sloth, but fell into pride. And if
they recognized the infirmity of nature, they were ignorant of its
dignity;
so that they could easily avoid vanity, but it was to fall into despair.
Thence arise the different schools of the Stoics and Epicureans, the
Dogmatists, Academicians, etc.
The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these two vices, not by
expelling the one through means of the other according to the wisdom of
the
world, but by expelling both according to the simplicity of the Gospel.
For
it teaches the righteous that it raises them even to a part
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