弘明集 4.39

4.39

答曰。且阿保傅愛慎及溷腴。良庖提刀情怵母族。彼聖人者。明並日月化開三統。若令報應必符。亦何妨於教。而緘扃羲唐之紀。埋閉周孔之世。肇結網罟。興累億之罪。仍制牲牢。開長夜之罰。遺彼天厨甘此芻豢。曾無拯溺之仁。橫成納隍之酷。其為不然。宜簡淵慮。若謂窮神之智猶有不盡。雖高情愛奇想。亦未至於侮聖。

[The opponent] answers: Moreover, wet-nurses and tutors extend their loving care even to the pigsty and grease, and a fine butcher lifting his cleaver is moved with pity for the mother beast. Those sages whose brilliance equaled the sun and moon and whose transforming influence inaugurated the Three Eras—if retribution truly corresponded [to deeds], how would it have hindered their teaching? Yet they locked it away during the reigns of Fuxi and Tang Yao, and buried it during the age of the Duke of Zhou and Confucius. In the beginning, nets were knotted, bringing about billions of offenses; then domestic sacrificial beasts were instituted, opening the way for the punishments of the long night. They neglected that heavenly kitchen and relished these fed-and-grain-fed animals, completely lacking the benevolence of rescuing the drowning, and heedlessly bringing about the cruelty of casting them into the moat. That this could not be so should be clarified through profound contemplation. If you claim that the wisdom that exhausts the spiritual still had its shortcomings, then despite your elevated sensibilities and fondness for the extraordinary, I think you would still not go so far as to insult the sages.