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| (1) Opinantes autem, non sine ratione tam ex superioribus quam inferioribus sumpta, ad ipsum Deum primitus primum hominem direxisse locutionem, rationabiliter dicimus ipsum loquentem primum, mox, postquam afflatus est ab animante virtute, incunctanter fuisse locutum. Nam in homine sentiri humanius credimus quam sentire, dummodo sentiatur et sentiat tanquam homo. Si ergo faber ille atque perfectionis principium et amator, afflando, primum nostrum omni perfectione complevit, rationabile nobis apparet nobilissimum animal non ante sentire quam sentiri cepisse. | (1) Thinking, therefore, not without reasonable grounds derived both from above and from below, that the first man addressed his first speech to God Himself, I say, equally reasonably, that this first speaker spoke immediately - as soon, indeed, as God's creative power had been breathed into him. For we hold that it is more truly human for a human being to be perceived than to perceive, as long as he or she is perceived and perceives as a human being. So if our creator, that source and lover of perfection, completed our first ancestor by infusing all perfection into him, I find it reasonable that this most noble creature should not have begun to perceive before he was perceived. | |
| (2) Si quis vero fatetur contra obiciens quod non oportebat illum loqui, cum solus adhuc homo existeret et Deus omnia sine verbis archana nostra discernat etiam ante quam nos, cum illa reverentia dicimus qua uti oportet cum de eterna voluntate aliquid iudicamus, quod licet Deus sciret, ymo presciret, quod idem est quantum ad Deum, absque locutione conceptum primi loquentis, voluit tamen et ipsum loqui, ut in explicatione tante dotis gloriaretur ipse qui gratis dotaverat. Et ideo divinitus in nobis esse credendum est quod in actu nostrorum affectuum ordinato letamur. | (2) If, though, someone should object to this, saying that there was no need for him to speak, since he was the only human being yet in existence, and since God knows all our secrets without our putting them into words (indeed, before we know them ourselves), I reply, with all the reverence that we must feel when expressing an opinion about the eternal will of God, that even if God knew (or rather foreknew, which is the same thing where God is concerned) the first speaker's conception without his having to speak, yet He still wished that Adam should speak, so that He who had freely given so great a gift should be glorified in its employment. And likewise, we must believe that the fact that we rejoice in the ordered activity of our faculties is a sign of divinity in us. | |
| (3) Et hinc penitus elicere possumus locum illum ubi effutita est prima locutio: quoniam, si extra paradisum afflatus est homo, extra; si vero intra, intra fuisse locum prime locutionis convicimus. | (3) And from this we can confidently deduce where the first speech was uttered: for I have clearly shown that, if God's spirit was breathed into man outside Paradise, then it was outside Paradise that he spoke; if indeed inside, then the place of the first speech was in Paradise itself. | |