Judea:' and as yet children - praised not the name of the Lord from the rising of the sun to its going down.= But inasm.uch as this was effected by the gospel of Christ, to wit, that the Father became known through the Son to the Gentiles, assuredly the Son also glorified the Father. Had the Son, however, only died, and not risen again, He would without doubt have neither been glorified by the Father, nor have glorified the Father; but now having been glorified through His resurrection by the Father, He glorifies the Father by the preaching of His resurrection. For this is disclosed by the very order of the words: "Glorify," He says, " Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee;" saying, as it were, Raise me up again, that by me Thou mayest become known to all the world.
2. And then expanding still further how it was that the Father should be glorified by the Son, He says: "As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to all that Thou hast given Him." By all flesh. He meant every man, signifying the whole by a part; as, on the other hand, the whole man is signified by the superior part, when the apostle says, " Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. ' ' ^ For what else did He mean by " every soul," save every man? And this, therefore, that power over all flesh was given to Christ by the Father, is to be understood in respect of His humanity; for in respect of His Godhead all things were made by Himself, and in Him were created all things in heaven and in earth, visible and invisible.-* "As," then, He says, "Thou hast given Him power over all flesh,'' so may Thy Son glorify Thee, in other words, make Thee known to all flesh whom Thou hast given Him. For Thou hast so given, " that He should give eternal life to all that Thou hast given Him."
3. "And this," He adds, " is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." The proper order of the words is, " That they may know Thee and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent, as the only true God." Consequently, therefore, the Holy Spirit is also understood, because He is the Spirit of the Father and Son, as the substantial and consubstantial love of both. For the Father and Son are not two Gods, nor are the Father and Son and Holy Spirit three Gods; but t*he Trinity itself is the one only true God. And yet the Father is not the same as the Son, nor ' Ps. Ixxvi. I.
- Ps. cxiii. 3, I: iueri^ from the LXX. TraiSes. The Hebrew is *'"l3r, " servants."-TR.
3R.
om. xiii. I.
4 Col. i. 16.
the Son the same as the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the same as the Father and the Son-, for the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are three [persons], yet the Trinity itself is one God. If, then, the Son glorifies Thee in the same manner " as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh," and hast so given, " that He should give eternal life to all that Thou hast given Him," and "this is life eternal, that they may know Thee;" in this way, therefore, the Son glorifies Thee, that He makes Thee known to all whom Thou hast given Him. Accordingly, if the knowledge of God is eternal life, we are making the greater advances to life, in proportion as we are enlarging our growth in such a knowledge. And we shall not die in the life eternal; for then, when there shall be no death, the knowledge of God shall be perfected. Then will be effected the full effulgence of God, because then the completed glory, as expressed in Greek by 8<j'=a. For from it we have the word 8u'=a<nr^, that is used here, and which some Latins have interpreted by '''' clarifica'' (make effulgent), and some by '"'' glorifica^' (glorify). But by the ancients, glory, from which men are st)']ed glorious, is thus defined: Glory is the widely-spread fame of any one accompanied with praise. But if a man is praised when the fame regarding him is believed, how will God be praised when He Himself shall be seen? Hence it is said in Scripture, " Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house; they will be praising Thee forever and ever."s There will God's praise continue without end, where there shall be the full knowledge of God; and because the full knowledge, therefore also the complete effulgence or glorification.
4. But God is first of all glorified here, while He is being made known to men by word of mouth, and preached through the faith of believers. Wherefore/He says, " I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." He does not say. Thou orderedst; but, " Thou gavest: " where the evident grace of it is commended to notice. For what has the human nature even in the Only-begotten, that it has not received? Did it not receive this, that it should do no evil, but all good things, when it was assumed into the unity of His person by the Word, by whom all things were made? But how has He finished the work which was committed unto Him to do, when there still remains the trial of the passion wherein He especially furnished His martyrs with the example they were to follow, 5 Ps. Ixxxiv. 4.
Tractate CV.]
whereof, says the apostle Peter, "Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps: " ' but just that He says He has finished, what He knew with perfect certainty that He would finish? Just as long before, in prophecy, He used words in the past tense, when what He said was to take place very many years afterwards: "They pierced," He says, "my hands and my feet, they counted^ all my bones; "= He says not. They will pierce, and, They will count. And in this very Gospel He says, "All things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you;"^ ^q whom He afterward declares, " I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.*'-* For He, who has predestinated all that is to be by sure and unchangeable causes, has done whatever He is to do: as it was also declared of Him by the prophet, " VVho hath made the things that are to be." ^ 5. In a way similar, also, to this, He proceeds to say: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." For He had said above, " Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee:" in which arrangement of the words He had shown that the Father was first to be glorified by the Son. in order that the Son might glorify the Father. But now He said, " I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do; and now glorify Tliou me; " as if He Himself had been the first to glorify the Father, by whom He then demands to be glorified. We are therefore to understand that He used both words above in accordance with that which was future, and in the order in which they were future, " Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee: " but that He now used the word in the past tense of that which was still future, when He said, " I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." And then, when He said, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self," as if He were afterwards to be glorified by the Father, whom He Himself had first glorified; what did He intimate but that, when He said above, " I have glorified Thee on the earth," He had so spoken as if He had done what He was still to do; but that liere 1 I Pet. ii. 21.
2 Ps. xxii. 16, 17. Di'numerm'erunt Ufiey countpd), in accordance witli a icadinji of ihv ScptuaKint— that fdiind in tlir printed text -«fi7pifl)xT)<Ta>'. A better reading, however, is also found in Mss., (^r)pi.Hfiri<ja. ronforminK in person, though not in tense, to the Hel)rew T^^X (I may count).— Tr.
3 Chap. XV. 15. 4 Chap. xvi. 12.
5) Isa. xlv. II, according to the Septuajjint. See note. Tract. LXVIII.sec. I.
He demanded of the Father to do that whereby the Son should yet do so; in other words, that the Father should glorify the Son, by means of which glorification of the Son, the Son also was yet to glorify the Father? In fine, if, in connection with that which was still future, we put the verb also in the future tense, where He has used the past in place of the future tense, there will remain no obscurity in the sentence: as if He had said, " I will glorify Thee on the earth: I will finish the work which Thou hast given me to do; and now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self." In this way it is as plain as when He says, "Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee: " and this is indeed the whole sentence, save that here we are told also the manner of that same glorification, which there was left unnoticed; as if the former were explained by the latter to those whose hearts it was able to stir, how it was that the Father should glorify the Son, and most of all how the Son also should glorify the Father. For in saying that the Father was glorified by Himself on the earth, but He Himself by the Father with the Father's very self, He showed them assuredly the manner of both glorifications. For He Himself glorified the Father on earth by preaching Him to the nations; but the Father glorified Him with His own self in setting Him at His own right hand. But on that very account, v/hen He says afterward in reference to the glorifying of the Father, " I have glorified Thee," He preferred putting the verb in the past tense, in order to siiow that it was already done in the act of predestination, and what was with perfect certainty yet to take place was to be accounted as already done; namely, that the Son, having been glorified by the Father with the Father, would also glorify the Father on the earth.
6. But this predestination He still more clearly disclosed in respect of His own glorification, wherewith He was glorified by the Father, when He added, " With the glory which I had, before the world was, with Thee." The proper order of the words is, '' which I had with Thee before the world was." To this apply His words, "And now glorify Thou me; '' that is to say, as then, so also now: as then, by predestination; so also now, by consummmation: do Thou in the world what had already been done with Thee before the world: do in its own time what Tliou hast determined before all times. This, some have imagined, should be so understood as if the human nature, which was assumed by the Word, were converted into the Word, and the man were changed into God; yea, [Tractate CV.
were we reflecting with some care on tlie opinions they have advanced, as if the humanity were lost in the Godhead. For no one would go the length of saying that out of such a transmutation of the humanity the Word of God is either doubled or increased, so that either what was one should now be two, or what was less should now be greater. Accordingly, if vvitli His human nature changed and converted into the Word, the Word of God will still be as great as He was, and what He was, where is the humanity, if it is not lost?
7. But to this opinion, which I certainly do not see to be conformable to the truth, there is nothing to urge us, if, when the Son says, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was," we understand the predestination of the glory of His human nature, as thereafter, from being mortal, to become immortal with the Father; and that this had already been done by predestination before the world was, as also in its own time it was done in the world. For if the apostle has said of us, "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,"' why should it be thought incongruous with the truth, if the Father glorified our Head at the same time as He chose us in Him to be His members? For we were chosen in the same way as He v/as glorified; inasmuch as before the world was, neither we nor the Mediator between God and men, the ma?i Christ Jesus, ^ were yet in existence. But He who, in as far as He is His Word, of His own self " made even those things which are yet to come," and " calleth those things which are not as though they were,'* ^ certainly, in respect of His manhood as Mediator between God and men, was Himself glorified on our behalf by God the Father before the foundation of the world, if it be so that we also were then chosen in Him. For what saith the apostle? "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren: and whom He did predestinate, them He also called." " 8. But perhaps we shall have some fear in 2 I Tim. ii. 5.
4 Rom. viii. 28-30.
saying that He was predestinated, because the apostle seems to have said so only in reference to our being made conformable to His image. As if, indeed, any one, faithfully considering the rule of faith, were to deny that the Son of God was predestinated, who yet cannot deny that He was man. For it is rightly said that He was not predestinated in respect of His being the Word of God, God with God. For how could He be predestinated, seeing He already was what He was, without beginning and without ending, everlasting? But that, which as yet was not, had to be predestinated, in order that it might come to pass in its time, even as it was predestinated so to come before all times. Accordingly, whoever denies predestination of the Son of God, denies that He was also Himself the Son of man. But, on account of those who are disputatious, let us also on this subject listen to the apostle in the exordium of his epistles. For both in the first of his epistles, which is that to the Romans, and in the beginning of the epistle itself, we read: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called [to be] an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was made for Him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated 5 the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." ^ In respect, then, of this predestination also, He was gloried before the world was, in order that His glory might be, by the resurrection from the dead, with the Father, at whose right hand He sitteth. Accordingly, when He saw that the time of this, His predestinated glorification, was now come, in order that what had already been done in predestination might also be done now in actual accomplishment, He said in His prayer, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was: " as if He had said, The glory which I had with Thee, that is, that glory which I had with Thee in Thy predestination, it is time that I should have with Thee also in sitting at Thy right hand. But as the discussion of this question has already kept us long, what follows must be taken into consideration in another discourse.
5 Rom. i. 1-4: opto'flei'Tos, determined, declared, not " ^redesii>tated," which is a mistalce of the Latin version used by Augustin.~TR.
I Tractate CVL] TRACTATE CVL Chapter XVII. 6-8.
1. In this discourse we purpose speaking, as He gives us grace, on these words of the Lord which run thus; " I have manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world." If He said this only of those disciples with whom He had supped, and to whom, before beginning His prayer. He had said so much, it can have nothing to do with that clarification, or, as others have translated it, glorification, whereof He was previously speaking, and whereby the Son clarifies or glorifies the Father. For what great glory, or what like glory, was it to become known to twelve, or rather eleven mortal creatures? But if, in saying, " I have manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world,'' He wished all to be understood, even those who were still to believe on Him, as belonging to His great Church which was yet to be made up of all nations, and of which it is said in the psalm, " I will confess to Thee in the great Church [congregation];"' it is plainly that glorification wherewitii the Son glorifies the Father, when He makes His name known to all nations and to so many generations of men. And what He says here, " I have manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world," is similar to what He had said a little before, " I have glorified Thee upon the earth " (ver. 4); putting both here and there the past for the future, as One who knew that it was predestinated to be done, and therefore saying that He had done what He had still to do, though without any uncertainty, in the future.
2. But what follows makes it more credible that His words, " I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world," were spoken by Him of those who were already His disciples, and not of all who were yet to believe on Him. For after these words. He added: "Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me; and they have kept Thy word. Now they have known that all things, whatsoever Thou hast given me, are of Thee: for I have given unto them the words which Tliou gavest me; ani.1 they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send me." Al- • Ps. XXXV. 18.
though all these words also might have been said of all believers still to come, when that which waf now a matter of hope had been turned into fact, inasmuch as they were words that still pointed to the future; yet we are impelled the more to understand Him as uttering them only of those who were at that time His disciples, by what He says shortly afterwards: " While I was with them, I kept them in Thv name, those that Thou gavest me I have kept, and none of tiiem is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled '' (ver. 12); meaning Judas, who betrayed Him, for He was the only one of the apostolic twelve that perished. And then He adds, "And now come I to Thee," from which it is manifest that it was of His own bodily presence that He said, " While I was with them, I kept them," as if already that presence were no longer with them. For in this way He wished to intimate His own ascension as in the immediate future, when He said, "And now come I to Thee:" going, that is, to the Father's right hand; whence He is hereafter to come to judge the quick and the dead in the self-same bodily presence, according to the rule of faith and sound doctrine: for in His spiritual presence He was still, of course, to be with them after His ascension, and with the whole of His Church in this world even to the end of time.- We cannot, therefore, rightly understand of whom He said, "While I was with them, I kept them," save as those only who believed on Him, whom He had already begun to keep by His bodily presence, but was now to leave witiiout it, in order that He might keep them with the Father by His spiritual presence. Thereafter, indeed. He also unites with them the rest of His disciples, when He says, " Neither pray I for these alone, but for those also who shall believe on me through their word." Where He shows still more clearly that He was not speaking before of all who belonged to Him, in tlie [)assage where He saith, " I have manifested Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me," but of those only who were listening to Him when He so spake.
3. From the very outset, therefore, of His prayer, when " He lifted up His eyes to ' Matt,.xxviii. 20.
[Tractate CVI.
heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee," on to what He said a little afterwards, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was," He wished all His disciples to be understood, to whom He makes the Father known, and thereby glorifies Him. For after saying, "That Triy Son may glorify l*ee," He straightway showed how that was to be done, by adding, "As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him: and this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." For the Father cannot be glorified through any knowledge attained by men, unless He also be known by whom He is glorified, that is to say, by whom He is made known to the nations of the world. The glorification of the Father is not that which was displayed in connection with the apostles only, but that which is displayed in all men, of whom as His members Christ is the head. For the words cannot be understood as applied to the apostles only, "As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him;" but to all, assuredly, on whom, as believing on Him, eternal life is bestowed.
4. Accordingly, let us now see what He says about those disciples of His who were then listening to Him. " I have manifested," He says. "Thy name unto the men whom Thou gavest me." Did they not, then, know the name of God when they were Jews? And what of that which we read, " God is known in Judah; His name is great in Israel"?' Therefore, "I have manifested Thy name unto these men whom Thou gavest me out of the world," and who are now hearing my words: not that name of Thine whereby Thou art called God, but that whereby Thou art called my Father: a name that could not be manifested without the manifestation of the Son Himself. For this name of God, by which He is called, could not but be known in some way to the whole creation, and so to every nation, before they believed in Christ. For such is the energy of true Godhead, that it cannot be altogether and utterly hidden from any rational creature, so long as it makes use of its reason. For, with the exception of a few in whom nature has become outrageously depraved, the whole race of man acknowledges God as the maker of this world.
' Ps. Ixxvi. I.
In respect, therefore, of His being the maker of this world that is visible in heaven and earth around us, God was known unto all nations even before they were indoctrinated into the faith of Christ. But in this respect, that He was not, without grievous wrong being done to Himself, to be worshipped alongside of false gods, God was known in Judah alone. But in respect of His being the Father of this Christ, by whom He taketh away the sin of the world, this name of His, previously kept secret from all, He now made manifest to those whom the Father Himself had given Him out of the world. But how had He done so, if the hour were not yet come, of which He had formerly said that the hour would come, " when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of my Father" P'^ Can it be supposed that the proverbs themselves contained such a plain anouncement? Why, then, is it said, " I will declare to you openly," but just because that " in proverbs '^ is rot "openly"? But when it is no longer concealed in proverbs, but uttered in plain words, then without a doubt it is spoken openly. How, then, had He manifested what He had not as yet openly declared? It must be understood, therefore, in this way, that the past tense is put for the future, like those other words, "All things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you:"^ as something He had not yet done, but spake of as if He had, because His doing of it He knew to be infallibly pre-determined.
5. But what are we to make of the words. " Whom Thou gavest me out of the world "? For it is said of them that they were not of the world. But this they attained to by regeneration, and not by generation. And what, also, of that which follows, " Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me ' '? Was there a time when they belcmged to the Father, and not to His only-begotten Son; and had the Father once on a time anything apart from the Son? Surely not. Nevertheless, there was a time when God the Son had something, which that same Son as man possessed not; for He had not yet become man of an earthly mother, when He possessed all things in common with the Father. Wherefore in saying, "Thine they were," there is thereby no self-disruption made by God the Son, apart from whom there was nothing ever possessed by the Father; but it is His custom to attribute all the power He possesses to Him, of whom He Himself is, who has the power. For of whom He has it that He is, of 2 Chap, xvi. 25.
3 Chap. XV. 15.
Tractate CVI.]
Him He has it that He is able; and both together He always had, for He never had being without having ability. Accordingly, what ever the Father could [do], always side by side with Him could the Son; since He, who never had being without having ability, was never without the Father, as the Father never was without Him. And thus, as the Father is eternally omnipotent, so is the Son co-eternally omnipotent; and if all-powerful, certainly all-possessing.' For such rather, if we would speak exactly, is the word by which we translate what is called by the Greeks -ayroxpdrcup; which our writers would not interpret by the term omnipotent, seeing that -(v^nr/.iidroip is all-possessing, were it not that they felt it to be equivalent in meaning. What, then, could the eternal all-possessing ever have, that the co-eternal all-possessing had not likewise? In saying, therefore, *'And Thou gavest them me," He intimated that it was as man He had received this power to have them; seeing that He, who was always omnipotent, was not always man. Accordingly, while He seems rather to have attributed it to the Father, that He received them from Him, since all that is, is of Him, of whom He is; yet He also gave them to Himself, that is, Christ, God with the Father, gave men to the manhood of Christ, which had not its being with the Father. Finally, He who says in this place, " Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me,^' had already said in a previous passage to the same disciples, "I have chosen you out of the world. "^ Here, then, let every carnal thought be crushed and annihilated. The Son says that the men were given Him by the Father out of the world, to whom He says elsewhere, " I have chosen you out of the world." Those whom God the Son chose along with the Father out of the world, the very same Son as man received out of the world from the Father; for the Father had not given them to the Son had He not chosen them. And in this way, as the Son did not thereby set the Father aside, when He said, " I have chosen you out of the world." seeing that they were simultaneously chosen by the Father also: as little did He thereby exchule Himself, when He said, " Thine they were," for they were equally also the jiroperty of the Son. But now that same Son as man received tliose who belonged not to Himself, because He also as God received a servantform which was not originally His own.