2018-12-13

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣对群众说：“由洗者若翰的日子直到如今，天国是以猛力去夺取的，以猛力夺取的人，就攫取了它。”

 

弗兰纳里·奥康纳的第二本小说的名字就取自杜埃圣经中对上述经文的译本：“暴力将其攫取。”对于这么奇特又著名的话语，我们该如何理解？

 

很多人认为这是说天国被暴徒侵袭，例如杀死洗者若翰的人那样，这些暴徒威胁要夺走天国。但有人以完全相反的方式来解读，认为这是赞扬那些在灵修上以猛烈的方式得以进入天国的人们。奥康纳赞同后一种解释。在她的一封信中，她写道：“圣多玛斯对这句经文的注释是：基督在此所说的暴徒是那些与纯粹自然作斗争的苦行者。圣奥古斯丁对此表示赞同。”

 

经典基督精神所说的“纯粹自然”是堕落的，是违背天主及其要求的。经文中的“暴徒”指的是那些抗拒纯粹自然的诱惑和倾向、为了进入天国而争取自律的灵修勇士们。

 

Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus says to the crowds: "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force."

 

The name of Flannery O’Connor’s second novel was taken from the Douay-Rheims translation of this last line: "the violent bear it away." What do we make of this strange and famously ambiguous wording?

 

Many have taken it to mean that the kingdom of God is attacked by violent people, such as those who killed John the Baptist, and that they threaten to take it away. But others have interpreted it in the opposite direction, as a word of praise to the spiritually violent who manage to get into the kingdom. O’Connor herself sides with this latter group. In one of her letters, she says, "St. Thomas’s gloss on this verse is that the violent Christ is here talking about represent those ascetics who strain against mere nature. St. Augustine concurs."

 

The "mere nature" that classical Christianity describes is a fallen nature, one that tends away from God and his demands. The "violent," on this reading, are those spiritually heroic types who resist the promptings and tendencies of this nature and seek to discipline it in order to enter into the kingdom of God.