and [the eye] itself? For though men see with their eyes, yet their own eyes they see not. The eye of the flesh sees other things, itself it cannot [see]: but the intellect under- stands itself as well other things. In the same way as the intellect seeth itself, so also doth Christ preach Himself. If He preacn- eth Himself, and by preaching entereth into thee, He entereth into thee by Himself. And He is the door to the Father, for there is no way of approach to the Father but by Him. " For there is one (jod and one Medi- ator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." 3 Many things are expressed by a word: all that I have just said, I have said, of course, by means of words. If I were wishing to speak also of a word itself, how could I do so but by the use of the word? And thus both many things are expressed by a word, which are not the same as the word, and the word itself can only be expressed by means of the word. By the Lord's help we inive been copious in illustration. Remember, then, how the Lord Jesus Christ is both the door and the Shepherd: the door, in pre- senting Himself to view; the Shepherd, in entering in by Himself. And indeed, breth- ren, because He is the Shepherd, He hath given to His members to be so likewise.
» Chap. i. 18.
2 Matt. xi. 27.
J I Tim. ii. 5.
For both Peter, and Paul, and the other apos- tles were, as all good bishops are, shepherds. But none of us calleth himself the door. This — the way of entrance for the sheep — He has retained as exclusively belonging to Himself. In short, Paul discharged the office of a good shepherd when he preached Christ, because he entered by the door. But when the undisciplined sheep began to create schisms, and to set up other doors before them, not of entrance to their joint assembly, but for falling away into divisions, saying, some of them, " I am of Paul; " others, "I am of Cephas; " others, " lof Apollos; " others, " I of Christ: " terrified for those who said, "I am of Paul," — as if calling out to the sheep, Wretched ones, whither are you going? I am not the door,^ — he said, " Was Paul cru- cified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?"* But those who said, "I am of Christ," had found the door.
4. But of the one sheepfold and of the one Shepherd, you are now indeed being con- stantly reminded; for v/e have commended much the one sheepfold, preaching unity, that all the sheep should enter by Christ, and none of them should follow Donatus. Never- theless, for what particular reason this was said by the Lord, is sufficiently apparent. For He was speaking among the Jews, and had been specially sent to the Jews, not for the sake of that class who were bound up in their inhuman hatred and persistently abiding in darkness, but for the sake of some in the nation whom He calls His sheep: of whom He saith, " I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. "^ He knew them even amid the crowd of His raging foes, and foresaw them in the peace of believ- ing. What, then, does He mean by saying. " I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," but that He exhibited His bodily presence only to the people of Israel? He did not proceed Himself to the Gentiles, but sent: to the people of Israel He both sent and came in person, that those who proved despisers should receive the greater judg- ment, because favored also with the sight of His actual presence. The Lord Himself was there: there He chose a mother: there He wished to be conceivcil, to be born, to shed His blood: there are His footprints," now ob- jects of adoration where last He stooil, and "Of Christ's fuotprints on Mounl ( )livci, iinprcssi-d on thr jjround, tlurc is montiun iiiadr in the works nf Jcronu', in the book on " Hebrew places," and in Itede, in the names of places in the Acts of the Apostles; as likewise in the saireil history of Sulpitius Severiis, Hook ii. — MliiNi;. The text is somewhat nncertain, but indicates the existence of " holy ()liices"in An^ustin's day, and certain acts of worship performed ni their honor. — I'k.
262 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Tractate XLVII, whence He ascended to heaven: but to the Gentiles He only sent.
5. But perhaps some one thinks that, as He Himself came not to us, but sent, we have not heard His own voice, but only the voice of those whom He sent. Far from it: let such a thought be banished from your hearts; for He Himself was in those whom He sent. Listen to Paul himself whom He sent; for Paul was specially sent as an apos- tle to the Gentiles; and it is Paul who, terri- fying them not with himself but with Him, saith, " Do ye wish to receive a proof of Him who speaketh in me, that is, of Christ? " ' Listen also to the Lord Himself. "And other sheep I have,'' that is, among the Gen- tiles, "which are not of this fold," that is, of the people of Israel: "them also must I bring.'' Therefore, even when it is by the instrumentality of His servants, it is He and not another that bringeth them. Listen fur- ther: " They shall hear my voice." See here also, it is He Himself who speaks by His ser- vants, and it is His voice that is heard in those whom He sends. " That there may be one fold, and one shepherd." Of these two flocks, as of two walls, is the corner-stone formed.^ And thus is He both door and the corner-stone: all by way of comparison, none of them literally.
6. For I have said so before, and earnestly pressed it on your notice, and those who com- prehend it are wise, yea, those who are wise do comprehend it; and yet let those who are not yet intellectually enlightened, keep hold by faith of what they cannot as yet under- stand. Christ is many things metaphorically, which strictly speaking ^ He is not. Meta- phorically Christ is both a rock, and a door, and a corner-stone, and a shepherd, and a lamb, and a lion. How numerous are such similitudes, and as many more as would take too long to enumerate! But if you select the strict significations of things as you are accus- tomed to see them, then He is neither a rock, for He is not hard and senseless; nor a door, forno artisan made Him; nor a corner-stone, for He was not constructed by a builder; nor a shepherd, for He is no keeper of four- footed animals; nor a lion, as it ranks among the beasts of the forest; nor a lamb, as it belongs to the flock. All such, then, are by way of comparison. But what is He properly? " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God [God was the Word]." And what, as He ap- peared in human nature? "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us [in us]."''
I 2 Cor. xiii. 3.
I 2 Cor. xiii. 3.
7. Hear also what follows. " Therefore doth my Father love me," He saith, "be- cause I lay down my life, that I might take it again. " What is this that He says? " There- fore doth my Father love me:" because I die, that I may rise again. s For the " I '' is uttered with special emphasis: "Because / lay down," He saith, "/lay down my life,'* " 7 lay down." What is that " I lay down "? I LAY it down. Let the Jews no longer boast: they might rage, but they could have no power: let them rage as they can; if I were unwilling to lay down my life, what would all their raging effect } By one answer of His they were prostrated in the dust: when they were asked, "Whom seek ye?" they said, "Jesus;" and on His saying to them, "I am He, they went backward, and fell to the ground."^ Those who thus fell to the ground at one word of Christ when about to die, what will they do at the sound of His voice when coming to judgment? "I, I," I say, " lay down my life, that I may take it again." Let not the Jews boast, as if they had pre- vailed; He Himself laid down His life. "I laid me down [to sleep]," He says [else- where]. You know the psalm: "I laid me down and slept; and I awaked [rose up], for the Lord sustaineth me." What of that — "I lay down "? Because it was my pleasure, I did so. What does " I lay down " mean? I died. Was it not a lying down to sleep on His part, who, when He pleased, rose from the tomb as He would from a bed? But He loves to give glory to the Father, that He may stir us up to glorify our Creator. For in adding, " I arose, for the Lord sustaineth me;" think you there was here a kind of failing in His power, so that, while He had it in His own power to die. He had it not in His power to rise again? So, indeed, the words seem to imply when not more closely considered. " I lay down to sleep; " that is, I did so, because I pleased. '/And I arose:" why? "Because the Lord sustaineth [will sustain] me."'' What then? wouldst Thou not have power to rise of Thyself? If Thou hadst not the power. Thou wouldst not have said, "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again.'' But, as showing that not only did the Father raise the Son, but the Son also raised Himself, 5 Migne says that " there is, perhaps, in this passage something- either superfluous or lacking." But there does not seem any real cause for such a supposition. —Tr.
6 Chap, xviii. 4-6.
7 Ps. iii. 5. It need scarcely be said that this psalm cannot bear the Messianic interpretation attached to it by Augu.stin, any more than Prov.. x.xiii. i, 2, similarly applied in Sec. 2 of this lec- ture; and frequently elsewhere. But the accommodation at the will of the writer of all Old Testament Scripture equally to such a purpose was characteristic of the age.— Tr.
Tractate XLVII.]
ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
263 hear how, in another passage in the Gospel, He saith, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And the evangelist adds: "But this He spake of the temple of is body."' For only that which died was restored to life. The Word is not mortal, His soul is not mortal. If even thine dieth not, could the Lord's be subject to death?
8. How can I know, thou wilt say, tliat mine dieth not? Slay it not thyself, and it cannot die. How, thou asketh, can I slay my soul? To say nothing meanwhile of other sins, " The mouth that lieth, slayeth the soul." = How, thou sayest, can I be sure that it dieth not? Listen to the Lord Himself giving security to His servant: " Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." But what in the plainest terms does He say? " Fear Him who hath power to slay both soul and body in hell."^ Here you have the fact that it dieth, and that it doth not die. What is its dying? What is dying to thy flesh? Dying, to thy flesh, is the losing of its life: dying to thy soul, is the losing of its life. The life of thy flesh is thy soul: the life of thy soul is thy God. As the flesh dies in losing the soul, which is its life, so the soul dieth in losing God, who is its life. Of a certainty, then, the soul is immortal. Man- ifestly^ immortal, for it liveth even when dead. For what the apostle said of the luxurious widow, may also be said of the soul if it has lost its God, " she is dead while she liveth." * 9. How, then, does the Lord lay down His life [soul]? 5 Let us, brethren, inquire into this a little more carefully. The time is not so pressing as is usual on the Lord's day: we have leisure, and theirs will be the profit who have assembled to-day also to wait on the Word of God. " I lay down my life," He says. Who lays down? What lays He down? What is Christ? The Word and man. Not man as being flesh alone: but as man con- sists of flesh and soul, so, in Christ there is a complete humanity. For He would not have assumed the baser part, and left the better behind, seeing that the soul of man is cer- tainly superior to the body. Since, then, there is entire manhood in Christ, what is Christ? The Word, I repeat, and man. What is the Word and man? The Word, soul, and flesh. Keep hold of that, for tliere has been no lack of heretics on this point also, expelled as they were some time ago from the catholic truth, but still persisting, 5 The word aniiiia, accordinii to AuKUStin's explanation of it above, may be rendered in tiiese sections cither "soul "or "life." The original also is i/(uxi- — '"xlike thieves and robbers who enter not by the door, to lay their snares around the fold. These heretics are termed Apollinarians,'^ and have ventured to a-ssert dogmatically that Christ is only the word and flesh, and con- tend that He did not assume a human soul. And yet some of them could not deny that there was a soul in Christ. See their intol- erable absurdity and madness. They would have Him to possess an irrational soul, but deny Him a rational one. They allowed Him a mere animal, they deprived Him of a human, soul. But they took away Christ's reason by losing their own. Let it be other- wise with us, who have been nourished and established in the catholic faith. Accord- ingly, on this occasion I would remind your Charity, that, as in former lectures, we have given vou sufficient instruction against the Sabellians and Arians, — the Sabellians, who say. The Father is the same as the Son — -the Arians, who say. The Father is one being, the Son is another, as if the Father and Son were not of the same substance-- and also, provided you remember as you ought, against the Photinian heretics, who have asserted that Christ was mere man, and destitute of Godhead: 7 and against the Manicheans, who maintain that He was God only without any true humanity: we may, on this occasion, in speaking about the soul, give you some in- struction also in opposition to the Apollina- rians, who say that our Lord Jesus Christ had no human soul, that is, a rational intelligent soul, — that soul, I mean, by which, as men, we differ from the brutes.
10. \\\ what sense, then, did our Lord say here, " I have power to lay down my soul [life]"? Who lays down his soul, and takes it again? Is it as being the Word that Christ does so? Or is it the human soul He pos- sesses that lays down and resumes its own existence? Or is it His fleshly nature that lays down its life and takes it again? Let us sift each of the three, questions I have sug- gested, and choose that which conforms to the standard of truth. For if we say that the Word of God laid down His soul, and took it again, we should have to fear the entrance of a wicked thought, and have it said to us: Then there was a time wlien that soul was separated from the Word, and a time, after His assumption of that soul, wlien He was without a soul. I see, indeed, that the Word ^ From Apollinaris, bishop of Alexandria, who held th.it the body which Christ assumed had only a sensitive, and not a rational soul, and that His divine nature supplied the plac<- of the latter. His doctrines were condemned by the Council of Alexandria, A.n. 362, and he himself was deposed by the Council of Rome, a.d.
378. -tr.
7 Sine ilfo: which, however, is wantiii).,' in all the MSS.
264 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Tractate XLVII.
was once without a human soul, but only so, when " in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But from the time that the Word was made flesh, to dwell amongst us,' and man- hood was assumed by the Word, that is, our whole nature, soul and flesh, what more could His passion and death do than separate the body from the soul? It separated not the soul from the Word. For if the Lord died, yea, because He died (for He did so for us on the cross), doubtless His flesh breathed out that which was its life: for a short time the soul forsook the flesh, although destined by its own return to raise the flesh again to life. But I cannot say that the soul was sep- arated from the Word. He said to the soul of the thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." - He forsook not the believing soul of the robber, and did He abandon His own? Surely not; but when the Lord took that of the other into His keeping. He cer- tainly retained His own in indissoluble union. If, on the other hand, we say that the soul laid down and reassumed itself, we fall into the greatest absurdity; for what was not sep- arated from the Word, was inseparable from itself.
II. Let us turn, then, to what is true and easily understood. Take the case of any man, who does not consist of the word and soul and flesh, but only of soul and flesh; and let us inquire how any such man lays down his life. Can no ordinary man do so? Thou ' mayest say to me: No man has power to lay 1 down his life [soul], and to take it again.! But were not a man able to lay down his life,! the Apostle John would not say, "As Christ' laid down his life for us, even so ought we ' also to lay down our lives for the brethren." 3; Therefore may we also (if only we are filled i with His courage, for without Him we can do nothing) lay down our lives for the brethren, i When some holy martyr has laid down his ^ life for the brethren, who laid it down, and what laid he down? If we understand this, we shall perceive in what sense it was said by Christ, " I have power to lay down my life." Art thou prepared, O man, to die for Christ? I am prepared, he replies. Let me repeat the question in other words. Art thou pre- pared to lay down thy life for Christ? And to these words he makes me the same reply, I am prepared, as he had, when I said, Art thou prepared to die? To lay down one's life [soul], is, then, the same as to die. But in whose behalf is the sacrifice in this case?! For all men, when they die, lay down their life; but it is not all who lay it down for Christ. And no one has power to resume what he has laid down. But Christ both laid it down for us, and did so when it pleased Him; and when it pleased Him, He took it again. To lay down one's soul then, is to die. As also the Apostle Peter said to the Lord: " I will lay down my life [soul] for Thy sake;"'* that is, I will die for Thy sake. View it, then, as referable to the flesh: the flesh layeth down its life, and the flesh taketh it again; not, indeed, the flesh by its own power, but by the power of Him that inhab- iteth it. The flesh, then, layeth down its life in expiring. Look at the Lord Himself on the cross: He said, "I thirst: " those who were present dipped a sponge in vinegar, fastened it to a reed, and applied it to His mouth; then, having received it, He said, " It is finished; " meaning. All is fulfilled which had been prophesied regarding me as, prior to my death, still in the future. And because He had the power, when He pleased, to lay down His life, after He had said, " It is finished," what adds tne evangelist? "And He bowed His head, and gave up the spirit. "5 This is to lay down the soul [life]. Only let your Charity attend to this. " He bowed His head, and gave up the spirit." Who gave up? what gave He up? He gave up the spirit; His flesh gave it up..What means, the flesh gave it up? The flesh sent it forth, breathed it out. For so, in becom- ing separated from the spirit, we are said to expire. Just as getting outside the paternal soil is to be expatriated, turning aside from the track is to deviate; so to become sepa- rated from the spirit is to expire; and that spirit is the soul [life]. Accordingly, when the soul quits the flesh, and the flesh remains without the soul, then is a man said to lay down his soul [his human life]. When did Christ lay down His life? When it pleased the Word. For sovereign authority resided in the Word; and therein lay the power to de- termine when the flesh should lay down its life, and when it should take it again.
12. If, then, the flesh laid down its life, how did Christ lay down His life? For the flesh is not Christ. Certainly in this way, that Christ is both flesh, and soul, and the Word; and yet these three tnings are not three Christs, but one. Ask thine own human nature, and from thyself ascend to what is above thee, and which, if not yet able to be understood, can at least be believed. For in the same way that one man is soul and body, is one Christ both the Word and man.
5 Chap. xix. 28-30.
Tractate XLVII.]
ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
265 Consider what I have said, and understand. The soul and body are two things, but one man: the Word and man are two things, but one Christ. Apply, then, the subject to any man. Where is now the Apostle Paul? If one answer, At rest with Christ, he speaics truly. And likewise, should one reply. In the sepulchre at Rome, he is equally right. The one answer I get refers to his soul, the other to his flesh. And yet we do not say that there are two Apostle Pauls, one who rests in Christ, another who was laid in the sepulchre; although we may say that the Apostle Paul liveth in Christ, and that the same apostle lieth dead in the tomb. Some one dieth, and we say, He was a good man, and faithful; he is in peace with the Lord: and then immediately, Let us attend his ob- sequies, and lay him in the sepulchre. Thou art about to bury one whom thou hadst just declared to be m peace with God; for the lat- ter regards the soul which blooms eternally, and the other the body, which is laid down in corruption. But while the partnership of the flesh and soul has received the name of man, the same name is now applied to either of them, singly and by itself.
13. Let no one, then, be perplexed, when he hears that the Lord has said, " I lay down my life, and I take it again.'' The flesh lay- eth it down, but by the power of the Word: the flesh taketh it again, but by the same power. Even His own name, the Lord Christ, was applied to His flesh alone. How can you prove it? says some one. We believe of a certainty not only in God the Father, but also in Jesus Christ His Son, our only Lord: and this that I have just said contains the whole, in Jesus Christ His Son, our only Lord. Understand that the whole is here: the Word, and soul, and flesh. At all events thou confessest what is also held by the same faith, that thou believest in that Christ who was crucified and buried. Ergo, thou deniest not that Christ was buried; and yet it was the burial only of His flesh. For had the soul been there, He would not have been dead: but if it was a true death, and its resurrec- tion real, it was previously without life in the tomb; and yet it was Christ that was buried. And so the flesh apart from the soul was also Christ, for it was only the flesh that was buried. Learn the same likewise in the words of an apostle. " Let this mind," he says, "be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, tiiought it not robbery to^be equal with God." ^^'ho, save Christ Jesus, as respects His nature as the Word, is God with God? But look at what follows: " But emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant; being made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man." And who is this, but the same Christ Jesus Himself? But here we have now all the parts, both the Word in that form of God which assumed the form of a servant, and the soul and the flesh in that form of a servant which was assumed by the form of God. " He humbled Him- self, and became obedient unto death."' Now in His death, it was His flesh only that was slain by the Jews. For if He said to His disciples, " Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul," '^ how could they do more in His own case than kill the body? And yet in the slaying of His flesh, it was Christ that was slain. Accordingly, when the flesh laid down its life, Christ laid it down; and when the flesh, in order to its res- urrection, assumed its life, Cnrist assumed it. Nevertheless this was done, not by the power of the flesh, but of Him who assumed both soul and flesh, that in them these very things might receive fulfillment.
14. "This commandment," He says, " have I received of my Father.'" The ^\'ord received not the commandment in word, but in the only- begotten Word of the Father every commandment resides. But when the Son is said to receive of the Father what He possesses essentially in Himself, as it is said, "As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Him- self," 3 while the Soli is Himself the life, there is no lessening of His authority, but the set- ting forth of His generation. For the Father added not after-gifts as to a son wliose state was imperfect at birth, but on Him whom He begat in absolute perfection He bestowed all gifts in begetting. In this manner He gave Him equality with Himself, and yet begat Him not in a state of inequality. But while the Lord thus spake, for the light was shining in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not,* "there was a dissen- sion again created among the Jews for these sayings, and many of them said. He hath a devil, and is mad: why hear ye him? " This was the thickest darkness. Others said, " These are not the words of him that hath a devil; can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" The eyes of such were now begun to be opened.
266 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Tractate XLVIII.
TRACTATE XLVIII.
Chapter X. 22-42.
I. As I have already charged you, beloved, you ought steadfastly to bear in mind that Saint John the evangelist would not have us be always nourished with milk, but fed with solid food. Still, whoever is hardly able as yet to partake of the solid food of God's word, let him find nourishment in the milk of faith; and the word which he cannot under- stand, let him not hesitate to believe. For faith is the deserving: understanding, the reward. In the very labor of intent applica- tion the eye of our mind struggles ' to get rid of the foul films of human mists, and be cleared up to the word of God. Labor, then, will not be declined if love is present; for you know that he who loves his labor is insensible to its pain. For no labor is grievous to those who love it. If cupidity on the part of the avaricious endures so great toils, what in our case will not love endure?