to itself, to live, so that alone which is superior to the soul can cause that same soul to live happily. For the soul is higher than the body, and higher than the soul is God. It bestows something on its inferior, while there is something bestowed on itself by the superior. Let it serve its Lord, that it may not be trampled on by its own servant. This, brethren, is the Christian religion, which is preached through the whole world, while its enemies are dismayed; who, where they are conquered, murmur, and fiercely rage against it where they prevail. This is the Christian religion, that one God be worshipped, not many gods, because only one God can make the soul happy. It is made happy by par- ticipation of God. Not by participation of a holy soul does the feeble soul become happy, nor by participation of an angel does the holy soul become happy; but if the feeble soul seeks to be happy, let it seek that by which the holy soul is made happy. For thou art made happy, not of an angel, but the angel as well as thou of the same source.
6. These things being premised and firmly established, — that the rational soul is made happy only by God, that the body is enlivened only by the soul, and that the soul is a some- thing intermediate between God and the body, — direct your thoughts to, and recollect with me, not the passage read to-day, of which we have spoken enough, but that of yesterday, which we have been turning over and handling these three days, and, to the best of our abilities, digging into until we should come to the rock. The Word Christ, Christ the Word of God with God, Christ the Word and the Word God, Christ and God and Word one God. To this press on; O soul, despising, or even transcending all things else, to this press on. There is nothing more powerful than this creature, which is called the rational mind, nothing more sub- lime: whatever is above this, is but the Crea- tor. But I was saying thaft Christ is the Word, and Christ is the Word of God, and Christ the Word is God; but Christ is not only the Word, since "the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us:"-* therefore Christ is both Word and flesh. For when " He was in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God." And what of us in our low estate, who, feeble and crawling on the ground, were not able to reach unto God, were we to be abandoned? God forbid. " He emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant; " ^ not, therefore, by losing the form of God. He I Ps. xlii 2 Ps. X.XV. I Wisd. ix. 15 4 John i. 14.
i 5 Phil, ii 6 Tractate XXIII.]
ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
153 became man who was God, by receiving what He was not, not by losing what He was: so God became man. There thou hast some- thing for thy weakness, something for thy perfection. Let Christ raise thee by that which is man, lead thee by that \vhich is God- man, and guide thee through to that which is God. And the whole preaching and dis- pensation by Christ is this, brethren, and there is not another, that souls may be raised again, and that bodies also may be raised again. For each of the two was dead; the body by weakness, the soul by iniquity. Be- cause each was dead, each may rise again. What each? Soul and body. By what, then, can the soul rise again but by Christ God? By what the body, but by the man Christ? For there was also in Christ a human soul, a whole soul; not merely the irrational part of the soul, but also the rational, which is called mind. For there have been certain heretics, and they have been driven oui of the Church, who fancied that the body of Christ did not have in it a rational mind, but, as it were, the animal life of a beast; since, without the rational mind, life is only animal life. But because they were driven out, and driven out by the truth, accept thou the whole Christ, Word, rational mind, and flesh. This is the whole Christ. Let thy soul rise again from iniquity by that which is God, thy body from corruption by that which is man. There, most beloved, hear ye what, so far as it ap- pears to me, is the great profundity of this passage; and see how Christ here speaks to the effect, that the only reason why He came is, in order that souls may have a resurrec- tion from iniquity, and bodies from corrup- tion. I have already said by what our souls are raised, by the very substance of God; by what our bodies are raised, by the human dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
7. " Verily, verily, I say unto you. The Son cannot of Himself do anything, but what He seeth the Father doing; for what things soever He has done, these also the Son doeth in like manner." Yes, the heaven, the earth, the sea; the things that are in heaven, on the earth, and in the sea; the visible and invisible, the animals on the land, the plants in the fields, the creatures that swim in the waters, that fly in the air, that shine in heaven; besides all these, angels, virtues, thrones, dominations, princi- palities, powers; "all were made by Him." Did God make all these, and show them when made to the Son, that He also should make another world full of all these? Certainly not. But, on the contrary, what does He say? '' For what things soever He has made, these," not others, but "these also the Son doeth," not differently, " but in like manner." " For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things which Himself doeth." The Father showeth to the Son that souls may be raised, for souls are raised up by the Father and the Son; nor can souls live except God be their life. If souls, then, cannot live unless God be their life, just as themselves are the life of bodies; what the Father shows to the Son, that is, what He doeth, He doeth through the Son. For it is not by doing that He shows to the Son, but by showing He doeth through the Son. For the Son sees the Father show- ing before anything is done; and from the Father's showing and the Son's vision, is done what is done by the Father through the Son. So are souls raised up, if they can see that conjunction of unity, the Father show- ing, the Son seeing, and the creature made by the Father's showing and the Son's seeing; and that thing made by the Father's showing and the Son's seeing, which is neither the Father nor tlie Son, but beneath the Father and the Son, whatever is made by the Father through the Son. Who sees this?
8. Behold, again we humble ourselves to carnal notions, and descend to you, if indeed we had at any time ascended somewhat from you. Thou wishest to show something to thy son, that he may do what thou doest; thou art about to do, and thus to show the thing. Therefore, what thou art about to do, in order to show it to thy son, thou doest not surely Ifj thy son; but thou alone doest that thing which, when done, he may see, and do an- other such thing in like manner. This is not the case there; why goest thou on to thy own similitude, and blottest out the similitude of God within thee? There, the case is wholly otherwise. Find a case in which thou showest to thy son what thou doest before thou doest it; so that, after thou hast shown it, it will be by the son thou doest. Perhaps something like this now occurs to thee: Lo, sayest thou, I think to make a house, and I wish it to be built by my son: before I build it myself, I point out to my son what I mean to do: both he doeth, and I too by him. to whom I pointed out my wish. Thou hast retreated, indeed, from the former similitude, but still thou liest in great dissimilitude. For, lo, before thou canst make tiie house, thou dost inform thy son, and point out to him what thou meanest to do; that, upon thy showing before thou makest, he may make what thou hast shown, and so thou mayest make by him: but thou wilt speak words to thy son, words will have to pass between thee and iiini; between the [icrson showing and the person seeing, be- tween sjjeaker and hearer, flies articulate 154 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Tractate XXIII.
sound, which is not what thou art, nor what he IS. That sound, indeed, which goes out of thy mouth, and by the concussion of the air touches thy son's ear, and filling the sense of hearing, conveys thy thought to his heart; that sound, I say, is not thyself, nor thy son. A sign is given from thy mind to thy son's mind, but that sign not either thy mind or thy son's mind, but something else. Is it thus that we think the Father has spoken to the Son? Were there words between the Father and the Word? Then how is it? Or, whatever the Father would say to the Son, if He would say it by a word, the Son Himself is the ^Vord of the Father, would He speak by a word to the Word? Or, since the' Son is the great Word, had smaller words to pass between the Father and Son? Was it so, that some sound, as it were a temporal, fleeting creature, had to issue from the mouth of the Father, and strike upon the ear of the Son? Has God a body, that this should proceed, as it were, from His lips? And has the Word the ears of a body, into which sound may come? Lay aside all notions of corporeal forms, regard simplicity, if thou art single- minded. But how wilt thou be single- minded? If thou wilt not entangle thyself with the world, but disentangle thyself from the world. For by disentangling thyself, thou wilt be single-minded. And see, if thou canst, what I say; or if thou canst not, be- lieve what thou dost not see. Thou speakest to thy son; thou speakest by a word: neither art thou, nor is thy son, the word that sounds. 9. I have, sayest thou, another method of showing; for so well instructed is my son, that he hears without my speaking, but I show him by a nod what to do. Lo, show him by a nod what thou wilt, yet certainly the mind holds within itself that which it would show. By what dost thou give this nod? With the body, — namely, with the lips, the look, the brows, the eyes, the hands. All these are not what thy mind is: these, too, are media; there was something understood by these signs which are not what thy mind is, not what the mind of thy son is; but all this which thou doest by the body is beneath thy mind, and beneath the mind of thy son: nor can thy son know thy mind, unless thou give him signs by the body. What, then, do I say? This is not the case there; there all is simplicity. The Father shows to the Son what He is doing, and by showing begets the Son. I see what I have said; but because I see also to whom I have said it, may such understanding be some time or other formed in you as to grasp it. If ye are not able now to comprehend what God is, comprehend at least what God is not: you will have made much progress, if you think of God as being not something other than He is. God is not a body, not the earth, not the heaven, not the moon, or sun, or stars — not these corporeal things. For if not heavenly things, how much less is He earthly things! Put all body out of the question. Further, hear another thing: God is not a mutable spirit. For I confess,— and it must be confessed, for it is the Gospel that speaks it, — " God is a Spirit." But pass beyond all mutable spirit, beyond all spirit that now knows, now knows not; that now remembers, now forgets; that wills what before it willed not, that wills not what before it willed; either that suffers these mutabilities now or may suffer them: pass beyond all these. Thou findest not any mutability in God; nor aught that may have been one way before, and is otherwise now. For where thou findest alternation, there a kind of death has taken place: since, for a thing not to be what it was, is a death. The soul is said to be immortal; so indeed it is, because it ever lives, and there is in it a cer- tain continuous life, but yet a mutable life. According to the mutability of this life, it may be said to be mortal; because if it lived wisely, and then becomes foolish, it dies for the worse; if it lived foolishly, and becomes wise, it dies for the better. For the Scrip- ture teaches us that there is a death for the worse, and that there is a death for the better. In any case, they had died for the worse, of whom it said, " Let the dead bury their dead; " ' and, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light; " ^ and from this passage before us, " When the dead shall hear, and they that hear shall live." For the worse they had died; therefore do they come to life again. By coming to life they die for the better, be- cause by coming to life again they will not be what they were; but for that tabe, wnich was not, is death. But perhaps /t is not called death if it is for the better? The apostle has called that death: "But if ye be dead with Christ from the elements of this world, why do ye judge concerning this world as if ye were still living? " ^ And again, " For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." He wishes us to die that we may live, because we have lived to die. Whatever therefore dies, both from better to worse, and from worse to better, is not God; because neither can supreme goodness proceed to better, nor true eternity to worse. For true eternity is, where is nothing of time. But was there now ' jSIatt. viii. 22.
Eph.
V. 14.
3 Coi. li. 20.
Tractate XXIII.]
ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
155 this, now that? Immediately time is ad- mitted, it is not eternal. For that ye may know that God is not thus, as the soul is, — certainly the soul is immortal, — what, how- ever, saith the apostle of God, "Who alone hath immortality," unless that he openly says this, He alone hath unchangeableness, be- cause He alone hath true eternity? There- fore no mutability is there.
10. Recognize in thyself something which I wish to say within, in thyself; not within as if in thy body, for in a sense one may say, "in thyself.^' For there is in thee health, thy age whatever it be, but this in regard to the body. In thee is thy hand and thy foot; but there is one thing in thee, within; another thing in thee as in thy garment. But leave outside thy garment and thyself, descend into thyself, go to thy secret place, thy mind, and there see, if thou canst, what I wish to say. For if thou art far from thyself, how canst thou come near to God? I was speaking of God, and thou believedst that thou wouldst understand. I am speaking of the soul, I am speaking of thyself: understand this, there I will try thee. For I do not travel very far for examples, when I mean to give thee some similitude to thy God from thy own mind; because surel}'' not in the body, but in tiiat same mind, was man made after the image of God. Let us seek God in His own similitude; let us recognize the Creator in His own image. There within, if we can, let us find this that we speak of, — how the Father shows to the Son, and how the Son sees what the Father shows, before anything is made by the Father through the Son. But when I shall have spoken, and thou hast un- derstood, thou must not think that spoken of to be something just such as our example, that thou mayest therein keep piet}', wlych I wish to be kept by thee, and earnestly ad- monish thee to keep: that is, if thou art not able to comprehend wliat God is, do not think it a small matter for thee to know what He is not.
11. Behold, in thy mind, I see some two things, thy memory and thy thought, which is, as it were, the seeing faculty and the vision of thy soul. Thou seest something, and per- ceivest it by the eyes, and thou committest it to the care of the memory. There, within, is that which thou hast committed to thy memory, laid up in secret as in a storehouiie, as in a treasury, as in a kind of secret cham- ber and inner cabinet. Thou thinkest of something else, thy attention is elsewiiere; what thou didst see is in thy memory, but not seen liy thee, because thy thought is bent on another thing. I prove this at once. I speak to you who know; I mention by name Carthage; all who know it have instantly seen Carthage within the mind. Are there as many Carthages as there are minds of you? You have all seen it by means of this naaie, by means of these syllables known to you, rushing forth from my mouth: your ears were touched; the sense of the soul was touched through the body, and the mind bent back from another object to this word, and saw Carthage. Was Carthage made there and then? It was there already, but latent in the memory. Why was latent there? Because thy mind was engaged on another matter; but when thy thought turned back to that which was in the memory, thence it was shaped, and became a kind of vision of the mmd. Before, there was not a vision, but there was memory; the vision was made by the turning back of thought to memory. Thy memory, then, showed Carthage to thy thought; and that which was in it before thou didst direct thy mind to the memory, it ex- hibited to the attention of thy thought when turned upon it. Behold, a showing is effected by the memory, and a vision is produced in thought; and no words passed between, no sign was given from the body: thou didst neither nod, nor write, nor utter a sound; and yet thought saw what the memory showed. But both that which sliowed, and that to which it showed, are of the same substance. But yet, that thy memory might have Car- thage in it, the image was drawn in through the eyes, for thou didst see what thou didst store up in thy memory. So hast thou seen the tree which thou rememberest; so the moun- tain, the river; so the face of a friend, of an enemy, of father, mother, brother, sister, son, neighlior; so of letters written in a book, of the book itself; so of this church: all these thou didst see, and didst commit to thy memory after they were seen; and didst, as it were, lay up there what thou mightst by thinking see at will, even when they shoukl be absent from these eyes of the body. Thou sawest Carthage when thou wast at Carthage; thy soul received the image by the eyes; this image was laid up in thy memory; and thou, tlie person who wast present at Carthage, didst keep something within thee which thou mightst be able to see with thyself, even when thou shouldst not be there. All these tb.ings thou didst receive from without. What the Father shows to the Son, He does not receive from without: all comes to pass within, be- cause there would be no creature at all with- out, unless the Father had made it by the Son. Every creature was made by God; before it was made it was not in being. It m6 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Tractate XXIII.
was not therefore seen, after being made and retained in memory, that the Father might show it to the Son, as the memory might show to thought; but, on the contrary, the Father showed it to be made, the Son saw it to be made; and the Father made it by showing, because He made it by the Son seeing. And therefore we ought not to be surprised that it is said, " But what He seeth the Father doing," not shmving. For by this it is inti- mated that, with the Father, to do and to show is the same thing; that hence we may under- stand that He doeth all things by the Son seeing. Neither is that showing, nor that seeing, temporal. Forasmuch as all times are made by the Son, they could not certainly be shown to Him at any point of time to be made. But the Father's showing begets the Son's seeing, just in the same manner as the Father begets the Son. For the showing produces the seeing, not the seeing the show- ing. And if we were able to look into this matter more purely and perfectly, perhaps we should find that the Father is not one thing, His showing another; nor the Son one thing, His seeing another. But if we have hardly apprehended this, — if we have hardly been able to explain how the memory exhibits to the thought what it has received from, without, — how much less can we take in or explain how God the Father shows to the Son, what He has not from elsewhere, or that which is not other than Himself! We are only little ones: I tell you what God is not, I do not show you what God is. What shall we do, then, that we may apprehend what He is? Can ye do this by or through me? I say this to the little ones, both to you and to myself; there is by whom we can: we have just now sung, just now heard, "Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He will nourish thee.'" The reason why thou art not able, O man, is because thou art a little one; being a little one, thou must be nourished; being nourished, thou wilt become full-grown; and what as a little one thou couldst not, thou shalt see when full-grown; but that thou ma}^est be nourished, "cast thy care upon the Lord, and He will nourish thee."
12. Therefore let us now briefly run over what remains, and do you see how the Lord makes known to us the things which I have been here commending to your attention. " The Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things which Himself doeth." Him- self raiseth up souls, but by the Son, that the souls raised up may enjoy the substance of God, that is, of the Father and of the Son.
I Ps. liii. 23.
I Ps. liii. 23.
" And greater works than these He will shovv Him." Greater than which? Than healings of bodies. We have treated of this already, and must not linger upon it now. Greater is the resurrection of the body unto eternity than this healing of the body, wrought in that im- potent man, to last only for a time. "And greater works than these He will show Him, that ye n-^ay marvel. " "Will show," as if the act were temporal, therefore as to a man made in time, since God the Word is not made. He by whom all times were made. But Christ was made man in time. We know in what consulship the Virgin Mary brought forth Christ, conceived of the Holy Ghost. Wherefore He, by whom as God the times were made, was made man in time. Hence, just as in time, " He will show Him greater works," that is, the resurrection of bodies, " that ye may marvel " at the resurrection of bodies wrought by the Son.
13. He then returns to that resurrection of souls: " For as the Father raiseth the dead, and quickeneth them, so also the Son quick- eneth whom He will;" but this according to the Spirit. The Father quickeneth, the Son quickeneth; the F''ather whom He will, the Son whom He will; but the Father quickeneth the same as the Son, because all things were made by Him. " For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, so also the Son quickeneth whom He will." This is said of the resurrection of souls; but what of the resurrection of bodies? He returns, and says: " For the Father judgeth not any man, but all judgment hath He given to the Son." The resurrection of souls is effected by the eternal and unchangeable substance of the Father and Son. But the resurrection of bodies is effected by the dispensation of the Son's, humanity, which dispensation is tem- poral, not co-eternal with the Father. There- fore, when He mentioned judgment, in which there should be a resurrection of bodies. He saith, " For the Father judgetii not any man, but all judgment hath He given to the Son;" but concerning the resurrection of souls, He saith, " Even as the Father raiseth the dead, and quickeneth them, so also the Son quick- eneth whom He will." That, then, the