2. But as we have already, in a way proportionate to the brevity of our discourse, spoken of the objects of the promise, and of its own stability; let us now look at this one point, as far as we are able, what it is that He was pleased to promise when He said, " I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am." As far as pertains to the creaturehood wherein He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, = not even He Himself was yet, where He would afterwards be: but He could say in this way, " where I am," to let us understand that He was soon to ascend into heaven, so tlint He spake of Himself as being;drcady there, where He was presently to be. He could do so also in the same way as He had said on a former occasion, when speaking to Nicodemus, '* No man ascendetli into heaven, save He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven. "^ For there also He did not say, Will be, but *' is," because of the oneness of i)erson, wherein Gpd is at once man, and man God. He I Matt. xxvi. 39.
2 Rom.
I. 3- 3 Chap. iii. ij.
promised, therefore, that we should be in heaven; for thither the servant-form, which He received of the Virgin, has been elevated, and set at the right hand of the Father. Because of the same blessed hope the apostle also says: " But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by whose grace we are saved; and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. "■♦ And so accordingly we may understand the Lord to have said, " That where I am, there they may be also." He, indeed, said of Himself that He w-as there already; but of us He merely declared that He wished us to be there with Him, without any indication that we were there already. But what the Lord said that He wished to be done, the apostle spake of as already accomplished. For he said not. He will yet raise us up, and make us sit in heavenly places; but, " hath raised us up, and made us sit in heavenly places:'' for it is not without good grounds, but in believing assurance, that he reckons as already done what he is certain will yet be done. But if it is in respect of the form of God, wherein He is equal to the Father, that we would be inclined to understand His words, " I will that they also be with me, where I am," let our mind get quit of every thought of material images: whatever the soul has had presented to it, that is endowed with length, or breadth, or thickness, tinted by the light with any sort of bodily hue, or diffused througii local space of any kind, u'hether finite or infinite, let it, as far as possible, turn away from all such notions the glance of its contemplation on the inward bent of its thoughts. And let us not be making incjuiries as to where the Son, the Father's co-equal, is, since no one has yet found out where He is not. But if any one would inquire, let him inquire rather how he may be with Him; not everywhere as He is, but wherever He may be. For when He said to the man that was expiating his crimes on the tree, and making confession unto salvation, " To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise, "^ in respect to His human nature His own soul was on that very day to be in hell," His flesh in the sepulchre; but as respected His Godhead He was certainly also in paradise. And therefore tlie soul of the thief, absolved from his by-gone crimes, and already in tlie blessed enjoyment of His grace, although it could not be everywhere as He was, yet could on that very day be also with Him in paradise, from which He, who is always everywhere, had not 4 Eph. ii. '4-6.
S Luke xxiii. 43.
6 /« in/erno.
[Tractate CXI.
withdrawn. On this account, doubtless, it was not enough for Him to say, " I will that they also be where I am;" but He added, " with me." For to be with Him is the chief good. For even the miserable can be where He is, since wheresoever any are, there is He also; but the blessed only are with Him, because it is only of Him that they can be blessed. Was it not truly said to God, " If I ascend into heaven. Thou art there; and if I go down into hell, Thou art present? " ' or is not Christ after all that Wisdom of God which " penetrateth everywhere because of its purity "?^ But the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not.^ And similarly, to take a kind of illustration from what is visible, although greatly unlike, as the blind man, even though he be where the light is, is yet not himself with the light, but is really absent from that which is present; so the unbeliever and profane, or even the believer and pious, because not yet competent to gaze on the light of wisdom, although he cannot be anywhere that Christ is not there likewise, yet is not himself with Christ, I mean in actual sight. For we cannot doubt that the true believer is with Christ by faith; because in reference to this He saith, " He that is not with me is against me."-* But when He said to God the Father, " I wdll that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am,'' He spake exclusively of that sight wherein we shall see Him as He is. 5 3. Let no one disturb the clearness of the meaning by any cloudy contradiction; but let what follows furnish its testimony to the words that precede. For after saying, '' I will that they also be with me where I am,'' He went on immediately to add, " That they may behold my glory, which Thou gavest me: for Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." " That they may behold," He said; not, that they may believe. This is faith's wages,* not faith itself. For if faith has been correctly defined in the Epistle to the Hebrews as " the assurance [conviction] of things that are not seen,"'' why may not the wages of faith be defined, the beholding of things which were hoped for in faith? For when we shall see the- glory which the Father hath given the Son, even though we may understand what is spoken of in this passage, not as that [glory] which the Father gave His co-equal Son in begetting Him, but as that which He gave Him, when become the Son of man, after the death of the cross; — when, I say, we shall see that glory of the Son, then of a cer- ' Ps. cxxxix. 8.
4 Matt. xii. 30. 7 Heb. xi. I.
tainty shall take place the judgment of the quick and the dead, and then shall the wicked be taken away that he may not behold the glory of the Lord;^ and what [glory], save that of His Godhead? For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God:' and because the wicked are not pure in heart, therefore they shall not see Then shall they go away into everlasting punishment; for so shall the wicked be taken away, that he may not behold the glory of the Lord: but the righteous shall go into life eternal.'" And what is life eternal? " That they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (ver. 3): not, indeed, as those knew Him, who although impure in heart, yet were able to see Him as He sat in judgment in His glorified servant- form; but as Fie is yet to be known by the pure in heart, as the only true God, the Son along with the Father and Holy Spirit, because the Trinity itself is the only true God. If, then, it is in reference to His Godhead as the Son of God, equal and co -eternal with the Father, that we take the words, " I will that they also be with me where I am," we shall be with Christ in the Father; but He in His own way, we in ours, wherever we may be in body. For if localities are to be understood, and such as contain incorporeal beings, and everything has a place where it is, the eternal place of Christ where He always is, is the Father Himself, and the place of the Father is the Son; for "I," He said, "am in the Father, and the Father in me;"" and in this prayer, "As Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee: " and they are our place, because there follows, " That they also may be one in us: " and we are God's place, inasmuch as we are His temple; even as He, who died for us and liveth for us, also prayeth for us, that we may be one in them; because " His [dwelling] place was made in peace,''' and His/habitation in Zion," '= which we are. But who is qualified to think on such places or what is in them, apart from the idea of space-defined capacities and material masses? Yet no little progress is made, if at least, when any such idea presents itself to the eye of the mind, it is denied, rejected, and reprobated: and a certain kind of light is, as far as possible, thought of, in which such things are perceived as deserving only to be denied, rejected, and reprobated; and the certainty of that light is known and loved, so that from thence an upward movement is begun in us, and an effort made 10 Matt. XXV. 46.. " Chap. xiv. 10.
1= Ps. Ixxvi. 2: in ^ace, '^'^"^'2 \ rather as in English versipn, " in Salem " (Jerusalem). — Tk.
Tractate CXI.]
ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN'.
to reach into places farther within: and when the mind through its own infirmity and still inferior purity has failed to penetrate them, it is driven back again, not without the sighings of love and the tears of ardent longing, and continues to bear in patience until it is purified by faith, and prepared by the holiness of the inward life to be able to take up its abode therein.
4. How, then, shall we not be with Christ where He is, when we shall be with Him in the Father in whom He is? On this, also, the apostle is not without something to say to us, although we are not yet in possession of the reality, but only cherishing the hope. For he says, " If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God: set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye have died," he adds, " and your life is hid with Christ in God." Here, you see, our life is meanwhile in faith and hope with Christ, where He is; because it is with Christ in God. That, you see, is as if already accomplished for which He prayed, when He said, " I will that they also be with me where lam;" but now only by faith. And when will it be accomplished by actual sight? "When Christ,'' he says, "[who is] your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.''' Then shall we appear as that which we then shall be; for it shall then be apparent that it was not without good grounds that we believed and hoped we should become so, before it actually took place. He will do this, to whom the Son, after saying, "That they may behold my glory, which Thou gavest me,'' immediately added, " For Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." For in Him He loved us also before the foundation of the world, and then foreordained what He was to do in the end of the world.
5. "O righteous Father," He saith, "the world hath not known Thee." Just because Thou art righteous it hath not known Thee. It is as that world which has been predestined to condemnation really deserved, that it hath not known Him; while the world which He hath reconciled unto Himself through Christ hath known Him not of merit, but by grace. For what else is the knowing of Him, but eternal life? which, while He undoubtedly withheld it from the condemned world, He bestowed on the reconciled. On that very account, therefore, the world hath not known Thee, because Thou art righteous, and hast rendered unto it according to its deserts, that it^hould not know 'i'iiee: while on the same ' Col. iii. 1-4.
account the reconciled world hath known Thee, because Thou art merciful, and, not for any merit of its own, but by grace, hast supplied it with the needed help to know Thee. And then there follows, " But I have known Thee." He is the Fountain of grace, who is by nature God, and, by grace ineffable, man also of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin: and then on His own behalf, because the grace of God is through Jesus Christ our Lord, He adds, "And these have known that Thou hast sent me." Such is the reconciled world. But it is because Thou hast sent me that they have known: by grace, therefore, have they known.
6. "And I have made known to them," He says, " Thy name, and will make it known.'' I have made it known by faith, I wmII make it known by sight: I have made it known to those whose present sojourn in a strange land has its appointed end, I will make it known to those whose, reign as kinos shall be endless. "That the love," He adds, " wherewith [literally, which] Thou hast loved me/ may be in them, and I in them. (The form of speech is unusual, "the love, wJiich Thou liast Icroed me, may be in tliem, and I in them;" for the common way of speaking is, the love wherewith thou hast loved me. Here, of course, it is a translation from the Greek: but there are similar forms also in Latin; as we say. He served a faithful service, He served as a soldier a strenuous soldierservice; when apparently we ought to have said, He served with a faithful service, he served as a soldier with a strenuous soldierservice. But such as the form of expression is, "the love which Thou hast loved me;'' one similar to it is also used by the apostle, " I have fouglit a good fight; "^ he does not say, /// a good fight, which would be the more usual and perhaps correcter form of expression.) But how else is the love wherewith the Father loved the Son in us also, but because we are His members and are loved in Him, since He is loved in the totality of His person, as both Head and members? Therefore He added, "and I in them;" as if saying, Since I am also in them. For in one sense He is in us as in His temple; but in another, because we are also Himself, seeing that, in accordance witl^ His becoming man, that He might be our Head, we are His body. The Saviour's prayer is finished, His passion begins; let us, therefore, also finish the present discourse, that we may treat of His passion, as He granteth us grace, in others to follow.
' Qiiiiiii dilfxisti Die. The part which follows, which %ve h.ive enclosed wilhin parentheses, may heomittril by the English reader, as it only deals with the Latin idiom.— Tu.
3 1 Tim. iv. 7.
4i6 [Tractate CXII, TRACTATE CXII.
Chapter XVIII. 1-12.
I. AVhen the grand and lengthened discourse was concluded which the Lord delivered after supper, and on the eve of shedding His blood for us, to the disciples who were then with Him, and had added the prayer addressed to His Father, the evangelist John began thereafter the narrative of His passion in these words: '' When Jesus had so spoken, He went forth with His disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which He entered, and His disciples. And Judas also, who betrayed Him, knew the place; for Jesus oft-times resorted thither with His disciples." What he here relates of the Lord entering the garden with His disciples did not take place immediately after He had brought the prayer to a close, of which he says, " When Jesus had spoken these words: " but certain other incidents were interposed, which are passed over by the present evangelist and found in the others; just as in this one are found many things on which the others are similarly silent in their own narratives. But any one who desires to know how they all agree together, and the truth which is advanced by one is never contradicted by another, may seek for what he wants, not in these present discourses, but in other elaborate treatises;' but he will master the subject not by standing and listening, but rather by sitting down and reading, or by giving his closest attention and tliought to one who does so. Yet let him believe before he know, whether he be able also to come to such a knowledge in this life, or find it impossible through some existing entanglements, that there is nothing written by any one evangelist, as far as regards those who have been received by the Church into canonical authority, that can be contrary to his own or another's equally veracious narrative.
At present, therefore, let us look at the narrative of the blessed John, which we have undertaken to expound, without any comparison with the others, and without lingering over anything in it that is already sufficiently clear; so that where it is needful to do so, we may the better answer the demand. Let us, therefore, not take His words, " When Jesus 'Augustin refers to his books " On the Harmony of the Evangelists."
had spoken these words, He went forth with His disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which He entered, and His disciples,^' as if it were immediately after the utterance of these words that He entered the garden; but let the clause, " When Jesus had spoken these words," bear this meaning, that we are not to suppose Him entering the garden before He had brought these words to a close.
2. " Judas also, 'Mie says, "who betrayed Him, knew the place;- for Jesus oft-times resorted thither with His disciples." There, accordingly, the wolf, clad in a sheep's skin, and tolerated among the sheep by the profound counsel of the Father of the family, learned where he might opportunely scatter the slender flock, and lay his coveted snares for the Shepherd. "Judas then," he adds, " having received a cohort, and officers from the chief men and the Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns, and torches, and weapons." It was a cohort, not of Jews, but of soldiers. We are therefore to understand it as having been received from the governor, as if for the purpose of securing the person of a criminal, and by preserving the forms of legal power, to deter any from venturing to resist his captors: although at the same time so great a band had been assembled, and came armed in such a way as either to terrify or even attack any one who should dare to make a stand in Christ's defense. For only in so far was His power concealed a;^d prominence given to His weakness, that these very measures were deemed necessary by His enemies to be taken against Him, for whose hurt nothing would have sufficed but what was pleasing to Himself; in His own goodness making a good use of the wicked, and doing what was good in regard to the wicked, that He might transform the evil into the good, and distinguish between the good and the evil.
3. " Jesus, therefore,'' as the evangelist proceeds to say, "knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth and saith unto them. Whom seek ye? They answered '■! The text nins thus: Sciebat^ ingicit, et Judas, qui tradebat €u»t, locitin. Ordo verboruvi est, Sciebat locum, qui tradebat euin: which could not be intelligibly translated into Engfth. — Tk.
Tractate CXII.]
Him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am [He]. And Judas also, who betrayed Him, stood with them. As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward, and fell to the ground." Where now were the military cohort, and the servants of the chief men and the Pharisees? where the terror and protection of weapons? His own single voice uttering the words, " I am [He]," without any weapon, smote, repelled, prostrated that great crowd, with all the ferocity of their hatred and terror of their arms. For God lay hid in that human flesh; and eternal day was so obscured in those human limbs, that with lanterns and torches He was sought for to be slain by the darkness. "I am [He]," He says; and He casteth the wicked to the ground. What will He do when He cometh as judge, who did this when giving Himself up to be judged? What will be His power when He cometh to reign, who had this power when He came to die? And now everywhere through the gospel Christ is still saying, " I am [He]; " and the Jews are looking for antichrist, that they may go backward and fall to the ground, as those who have abandoned what is heavenly, and are hankering after the earthly. It was for the very purpose of apprehending Jesus that His persecutors accompanied the traitor: they found the One they were seeking, for they heard, "I am [He]." Why, then, did they not seize Him, but went backward and fell, but just because so He pleased, who could do whatever He pleased? But had He never permitted them to apprehend Him, they would certainly not have done what they came to do, but no more would He be doing what He came to do. They, verily, in their mad rage, sought for Him to put Him to death; but He, too, in giving Hmiself to death, was seeking for us. Accordingly, having thus shown His power to those who had the will, but not the power, to hold Him; let them now hold Him that He may work His own will with those who know it not.
4. " Then asked He them again. Whom seek ye? And tiiey said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am [He]. If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way: that the saying might be fulfilled which He spake, That of those whom Thou hast given me I have lost none." "' If ye seek me," He says, " let these go their way." He sees His enemies,' and they do what He bids them: they let those go their way, whom He would not have perish. Put were they not afterwards to die? How tiicn, if they •I'homas Aquinas in the Casena reads here, He commands his enemies, iind not altogether unsuitably. — Mignk.
died now, should He lose them, were it not that as yet they did not believe in Him, as all believe who perish not?
5. " Then Simon Peter, having a swordj drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. And the servant's name was Malchus." This is the only evangelist who has given us the very name of this servant, as Luke is the only one who tells us that the Lord touched his ear and healed him.^ The interpretation of Malchus is, one who is destined to reign. What, then, is signified by the ear that was cut off in the Lord's behalf, and healed by the Lord, but the renewed hearing that has been pruned of its oldness, that it may henceforth be in the newness of the spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter? ^ Who can doubt that he, who had such a thing done for him by Christ, was yet destined to reign with Christ? And his being found as a servant, pertains also to that oldness that gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.* But when healing came, liberty also was shadowed forth. Peter's deed, however, was disapproved of by the Lord, and He prevented Him from proceeding further by the words: "Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" For in such a deed that disciple only sought to defend his Master, without any thought of what it was intended to signify. And he had therefore to be exhorted to the exercise of patience, and the event itself to be recorded as an exercise of understanding. But when He says that the cup of suffering was given Him by the Father, we have precisely the same truth as that which was uttered by the apostle: "If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all."s But the originator of this cup is also one with Him who drank it; and hence the same apostle likewise says, "Christ loved us, and gave Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor." * 6. *' Then the cohort, and the tribune, and the officers of the Jews, took Jesus, and bound Him." They took Him to whom they hatl never found access: for He continued the day, while they remained as darkness; neither had they given heed to the words, "Come unto Him, and be enlightened."' For had they so approached Him, they wouUl have taken Him, not with their hands for the purpose of murder, but with their hearts for the purpose of a welcome reception. Now, however, when they laid hold of Him in this way, their distance from Him was vastly in- 32- 4i8 [Tractate CXIil.
creased: and they bound Him by whom they themselves ought rather to have been loosed. .And perhaps there were those among them who then fastened their fetters on Christ, and yet were afterwards delivered by Him, and could say, "Thou hast loosed my bonds."' Let this be enough for to-day; we shall deal, God willing, with what follows in another discourse.
1 Ps. cxvi. i6.
TRACTATE CXIIL Chapter XVHI. 13-27.
1. After that His persecutors had, through the treason of Judas, taken and bound the Lord, who loved us, and gave Himself for us,^ and whom the Father spared not, but gave Him up for us all:"" that we may understand that there was no praise due to Judas for the usefulness of his treachery, but damnation for the willfulness of his wickedness: " They led Him," as John the evangelist tells us, "to Annas first." Nor does he withhold the reason for so doing: " For he was fatherin-law to Caiaphas, who was the high priest that same year. Now Caiaphas was he," he says, " who gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people." And properly enough Matthew, when wishing to say the same in fewer words, tells us that He was led to Caiaphas; ^ for He was also taken in the first place to Annas, simply because he was his father-in-law; and where we have only to understand that such was the very thing that Caiaphas wished to be done.
2. "But Jesus was followed," he says, "by Simon Peter, and another disciple." Who that other disciple is, we cannot affirm with confidence, because it is left unnoticed here. But it is in this way that John usually refers to himself, with the addition, "whom Jesus loved."'' Perhaps, therefore, it is he also in the present case; but whoever it is, let us look at what follows. "And that disciple," he says, "was known unto the high oriest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high priest; but Peter stood at the door without. Then went out that other disciple, who was known unto the high priest, and spake unto her that kept the door, and brought in Peter. Then saith the damsel that kept the door unto Peter, Art thou also one of this man's disciples? He saith, I am not." Lo, the pillar of greatest strength has at a single I Eph. V. 2.
3 Matt. xxvi. 57.
2 Rom. viii. 32.
4 Chap. xiii. 23, and xix. 26.