此书是17世纪西班牙修女Sister Mary Jesus Agreda 所著. 她得到天主默感启示, 看到圣母和耶稣的一生, 包括天上及人间的生平; 还有天主创造世界, 魔鬼和背叛天主的堕落天神等事情经过. 这一切详详细细地记录在这四巨册中.
这套书在1949得到罗马教庭认可, 列为圣书,是天主教经典,三百多年来影响天主教主流思想. 这书中所记载耶稣和圣母的人间生活,完全苦行: 终生吃素, 手不沾金钱, 自给自足.
天主的奥秘之城第一章 第一节
SPECIAL NOTICE TO THE READER REVELATIONS
启示读者特别注意事项
NOTHING that essentially differs fromthe teachings of the Catholic Church can rightfully be taught or believed byany man or under any pretext.
任何本质上不同于大公教会教导的东西,都不能被任何人或以任何借口,正当地用来传授或相信。
Moreover, even the essential doctrinescan be taught and expounded only in the sense and spirit approved, or at leastnot disapproved, by the Church.
此外,即使是最基本的教义,也只有在教会意识及精神认可,或者至少不是不认可之下,才能被传授和阐述。
This at once will establish the positionwhich private revelations, whether coming from Heaven or originating fromhallucination, merely human or devilish, hold in the Church of God.
这就立即确立了私人启示在天主的教会中占有的地位,无论是来自于上天的启示,还是来自幻想,或仅是人或鬼的启示。
There can be no doubt that God can anddoes manifest to chosen souls hidden things in addition to what He teachesthrough the public ministry of His Church.
毫无疑问,除了通过教会公开事工的传授,天主也能而且确实向祂拣选的人显明隐藏的事。
It is also an accepted truth that Hesometimes reveals them to his friends for the express purpose of communicatingthis extra knowledge to other well disposed persons through the natural andhuman means at the disposal of those receiving his revelations.
这也是一个公认的事实,祂有时向祂的朋友快速传递特殊的知识,通过那些接受祂启示的人,使用自然和人的手段,把这些额外的知识传达给其他有开放之心的人。
These manifestations He invariablysurrounds with enough evidence to satisfy all requirements of a cautious andwell founded human belief.
祂总是以足够的证据围绕着这些显现,以满足人们在相信上,曾有的谨慎和充分根据的要求。
It follows naturally that whenever Hethus surrounds private revelations with evidences of their heavenly origin, Hewill be pleased with a rational and loving belief and dissatisfied with acaptious and obstinate unbelief of the facts or truths thus privately revealed.
很自然地,每当天主用属天的证据围绕着私人启示时,祂对理性和充满爱的信者感到高兴,但对私人启示的事实或真相的吹毛求疵和顽固不信者感到不满。
Where, however, these external evidencesare wanting, or wherever holy Church intimates the least direct or indirectdisapproval, there any faith in private revelation would be not only foolish,but positively wrong.
然而,在外部证据不足,或圣教会暗示有一丝丝直接或间接的反对,任何对私人启示的相信不仅是愚蠢的,而且是肯定错误的。
FULL APPROVAL
完全批准
The Church has as yet given no publicand full approval to private revelations of any kind; nor will she ever do so,since that would be really an addition to the deposit of faith left by Christ.
教会至今还没有对私人启示给予公开和充分任何形式的认可;她也永远不会这样做,因为这私人启示真正是基督留下的额外信仰寄託。
But tacitly and indirectly she hasapproved many private revelations, and among them the writings of Mary ofAgreda.
但教会她默许了许多私人的启示,其中包括艾吉达的玛利亚著作。
She could well do so, since there are nowritings of that kind which exhibit more reliable human proofs of divine originthan the “Ciudad de Dios” of the Venerable Servant of God, Mary of Jesus of Agreda.
教会她完全可以这样做,因为出自人手并能展示源自神圣、可靠的这类著作中,莫过于尊贵的主仆,艾吉达的耶稣.玛利亚所著作的《天主之城》。
The existence of the Bible justifies thequery, whether there are not other books that have been written under supernaturalguidance, though we know of course that none of them can ever have the sameimportance and authenticity as the Bible.
《圣经》的存在证明了这个疑问,是否有其他的书是在超然的指引下写的,尽管我们当然知道它们都不可能如圣经一样的重要和真实。
For the Bible was provided as the recordof the general revelations of God to mankind at all its stages to the end oftimes.
因为《圣经》是天主对人类所有阶段,且一直到世界末日,而提供的一般启示的记录。
A VAST FIFLD BETWEEN
介于两者之间
Evidently there remains an immensedomain of truths outside the range of natural human knowledge and not speciallyrevealed in the Bible.
显然,在人类的自然知识范围之外,还有大量的真理没有被特别揭示在《圣经》中。
You will at once say: that whole fieldis covered by the one true religion.
那么你会立刻说:整个领域都被真信仰所覆盖。
Of course it is. The teaching andministry of men especially appointed for that purpose, the practice and exampleof those eminent in the Christian virtues, the writings of those versed inhigher truths, are the ordinary means of spreading truth and leading men totheir great destiny.
当然是的。专门为此目的而指定者的教导和事工,那些在基督徒德性方面杰出者的实践和榜样,那些精通更高真理者的著作,都是传播真理和引导人们走向伟大命定的普通手段。
But besides all this, history provesthat God, for special purposes, often grants to his friends higher insight intosupernatural truths and facts, which, if at his command they are recorded inwriting, are intended by Him as an additional source of higher knowledge andwell deserve to be considered as private revelations.
但除此之外,历史证明,出于特殊目的,天主经常给予祂的朋友对超然真理和事实的更高洞察力,如果在祂的命令下,这些事实被记录下来,祂的意图是作为更高知识的额外来源,就完全值得被认为是私人启示。
EARMARKS OF DECEIT
欺骗的特征
Past ages simply teem with writings thatclaim to be derived from or based on divine revelation or inspiration. Many ofthem are clearly nothing but frauds, showing the signs of conscious orunconscious hallucination.
古往今来,充斥着各种声称源自或基于天主的启示或灵感的作品。他们中的许多人显然只是骗子,表现出有意识或无意识的幻觉。
Many again seem beyond mere naturalhuman powers of insight, but at the same time in their authorship andtendencies show nothing divine or beneficent, thus proving that besides humanerror and malice the sinister and treacherous knowledge of malign spirits oftenfinds its way into such writings. Ancient sorcery and magic and modernspiritism have their root in this sort of preternatural communication.
许多作品似乎又超越了人类天然的洞察力,但与此同时,作品的作者身份和作者倾向却没有显示神圣或有裨益,从而证明,除了人的错误和恶意之外,恶灵的邪恶、奸诈的知识也常常进入这些作品中。古代的巫术和魔法,以及现代的招魂术,都起源于这种超自然的交流。
TO BE CLOSELY SCRUTINIZED
要仔细查验
Hence it would be foolish not to demandthe closest inquiry into anything put forward as private revelation.
因此,如果不要求对任何私人启示提出的问题进行最密切的查验,那将是愚蠢的。
Fortunately it is easy to apply sure andunfailing tests.
幸运的是,施以确实且可靠的测试是很容易的。
All that is necessary, is to ascertainthe character and motives of the writer and the result or drift of hiswritings.
我们所要做的就是弄清作者的性格和动机,以及他的作品的结果或主旨。
Mahomet proves himself an epilepticadventurer and his Koran a travesty of Judaism and Christianity, settling likea blight upon civilization.
穆罕默德证明了自己是一个癫痫病的冒险家,他的《可兰经》是对犹太教和基督教的嘲弄,就像文明的一场瘟疫。
Joseph Smith and his companions turn outto be rebellious incendiaries and murderers and their book of Mormon aridiculous fake, establishing a fanatic and bigamous theocracy.
若瑟.史密斯和他的同伴们被证明是反叛的煽动者和谋杀者,他们的《摩门经》是荒谬的赝品,建立了一个狂热的重婚的神权政体。
The fakir Dowie pretending prophecy,ends as a lunatic in a bankrupt Zion, yet leaving millions to his relatives.
骗子道伊假装预言,以一个破产的锡安,以疯子的身份结束,但给他的亲戚留下了数百万美元。
The humbugging Eddy, aftercrazy-quilting scraps from the Bible with shreds of Buddhism, Brahmanism andTheosophy, shuffles off her wrinkled coil amid a numerous following of dupeswho rather expected her faked science to keep her perpetually alive or raiseher up from the dead,Is there any difficulty in discovering the fraud in revelations ofsuch a kind?
骗子埃迪,用佛教、婆罗门教和通神论的碎片,疯狂地缝上圣经的碎片后,在无数的追随者中拖着她皱巴巴的圈套,这些追随者宁愿指望她捏造的科学让她长生不老,或者让她起死回生,在这样的“启示”中发现欺诈有困难吗?
Yet they claim divine inspiration andvery often contain passages which show sources of information and deceit notaltogether human.
然而,他们声称是神圣的启示,却经常包含一些文字,而这些文字显示了不完全是人的信息和欺骗的来源。
The sinister manifestation of spiritismand the astounding information often furnished by mediums, are not all sleightof hand or illusion of the senses; some of these things can be explained onlyby assuming interference of a sinister spirit world.
巫术的邪恶表现和通常灵媒提供的惊人信息,并不都是花招或感官的幻觉;因为这些事情中的一些,只能通过假设是由一个邪恶灵界的干涉来解释。
REALLY ANOTHER ARGUMENT FOR PRIVATEREVELATIONS
关于私人启示的其他实在的论证
Would it not be absurd to concede thecommunication with evil spirits or departed souls, damned or otherwise, (andall reasonable people concede it), and deny the possibility of communing withthe good spirits or souls and with God?
承认与邪灵、亡灵,下地狱的灵或其他的灵沟通,(有理性的人都会承认这些),却否认人和善灵或人和天主交流的可能性,这难道不是荒谬的吗?
Who would want to limit the power of Godin this way?
谁愿意这样限制天主的能力呢?
It will not do to claim that all thecommunication of God and the good spirits takes the ordinary course provided inthe public ministry of the true religion.
不能说所有与天主和善灵的沟通,都按照真信仰的公开事工所提供的一般程序而有。
For it does not. Saint Paul saw thingsthat he dared not reveal, though he was not slow in writing down his otherrevelations.
因为事实并非如此。圣保禄就看到了他不敢透露的事情,尽管他很快就把其它(可以)启示的东西写了下来。
The doctrine of the ImmaculateConception and the Infallibility was privately revealed many times before theywere officially defined and accepted as self-understood truths by allreasonable men.
“圣母始胎无染原罪”和“绝对正确”的教义在正式确认,和被所有理性的人接受为‘自我理解’的真理之前,就曾多次私下启示过。
Before these doctrines were defined, whohad the greater prudence and insight?
在这些教义被界定之前,谁有更大的智德和洞察力?
Those people who refused to believethese truths because they were privately revealed, or those who examined thoserevelations and finding them humanly credible, and not contrary to the truereligion, simply accepted them as revealed by God?
是那些因为这些真理是私下启示的而拒绝相信它们的人,还是那些查验这些启示并发现它们是合乎人性的可信的,不是与真正的信仰相违背,並单纯地接受它们是天主启示的人?
I should think the latter showedthemselves ahead of their times and far more enlightened in their belief thanthe former, who persisted in a finical unbelief concerning all privaterevelations.
我认为后者走在时代的前列,在信仰上比前者开明得多,前者对所有私人启示都有一种顽固的不信。
NO DIFFICULTY TO DISTINGUISH THE TRUEFROM THE FALSE
辨别真伪没有困难
If we find that the author of allegedprivate revelations has been a faithful adherent of the one true religionestablished by God, that he has led a good and blameless life, that hiswritings do not run counter to the Bible nor to the public teachings of thetrue Church, that he was not actuated by motives of selfish gain, pecuniary orotherwise, that the writings themselves tend toward the practice of perfectionboth as far as the writer as well as the reader is concerned, that they havenot been openly disapproved by the Church;
如果我们发现所谓的私人启示的作者是天主建立的唯一真正信仰的忠实追随者,他引导一个好的和无可指责的生活,他的著作既不违背《圣经》,也不违背真教会的公开教导,他不是出于自私的利益、金钱或其他方面的动机,就作者和读者而言,作品本身都趋向于成全的操练,他们没有被教会公开反对过;
then certainly, if the informationrecorded is such that it would presuppose supernatural inspiration or directcommunication with the higher world, we are not justified in immediatelyrejecting the writings as fraudulent.
那么当然,如果所记录的信息前提是超自然的灵感,或与高层天界的直接交流,我们就没有理由立即以欺诈为由拒绝这些著作。
Closer examination may easily lead toreasonable certainty that they are privately revealed.
若更仔细的调查很容易得出合理的结论,即这些信息是私下启示的。
But we all know that this acceptance cannever mean anything more than a mere human belief, not the belief of faith,such as for instance is demanded by holy Scripture.
但我们都知道,接受私下启示仅仅意味着人的信念,而不是信仰,如圣经所要求的信仰。
In fact, as soon as any such writinglays claim to implicit faith, it certainly is no revelation and ought to berejected at once as spurious.
事实上,任何类似的写作一旦自称是信仰,就确定没有启示,而应立即以虚假的理由予以拒绝。