3. "And he that saw it," he says, "bare record, and his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye also might believe." He said not, That ye also might know, but " that ye might believe; " for he knoweth who hath seen, that he who hath not seen might believe his testimony. And believing belongs more to the nature of faith than seeing. For what else is meant by believing than giving to faith a suitable reception? "For these things were done," he adds, " that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him ye shall not break. And again, another scripture saith, They shall look on Him whom they pierced." He has furnished two testimonies from the Scriptures for each of the things which he has recorded as having been done. For to the words, "But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs,'' belongeth the testimony, "A bone of Him ye shall not break:'' an injunction which was laid upon those who were commanded to celebrate the passover by the sacrifice of a sheep in the old law, which went before as a shadow of the passion of Christ. Whence " our passover has been offered, even Christ." ^ of whom the prophet Isaiah also liad predicted, " He shall be led as a lamb to the slaughter." ^ In like manner to the words whicli he subjoined, "But one of the soldiers laid open His side with a spear," belongeth the other testimony, " They shall look on Him whom they pierced;" where Christ is promised in the very flesh wherein He was afterwards to come to be crucified.
4. "And after this, Joseph of Arimathea (being a disciple of Jesus, but secrerly for fear of the Jews) besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, who came to Jesus ])y night at first, bringing a mixture of myrrh and ^loes, about an hundred pound weight." We are not to explain the meaning by saying, " first bringing a mixture of myrrh," but by attaching the word "first" to tiie preceding clause. For Nicodemus had at first come to ' This last clause is found only in tlirrc of the Au^uslinian MSS.
2 I C»r. V. 7.
3 Isa. liii. 7.
Jesus by night, as recorded by this same John in the earlier portions of his Gospel.'* By the statement given us here, therefore, we are to understand that Nicodemus came to Jesus, not then only, but then for the first time; and that he \vas a regular comer afterwards, in order by hearing to become a disciple; which is certified, nowadays at least, to almost all nations in the revelation of the body of the most blessed Stephen. s " Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury," The evangelist, I think, was not without a purpose in so framing his words, " as the manner of the Jews is to bury;" for in this way, unless I am mistaken, he has admonished us that, in duties of this kind, which are observed to the dead, the customs of every nation ought to be preserved.
5. " Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid." As in the womb of the Virgin Mary no one was conceived before Him, and no one after Him, so in this sepulchre there was no one buried before Him, and no one after Him. " There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews' preparation; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand." He would have us to understand that the burial was hurried, lest the evening should overtake them; when it was no longer permitted to do any such thing, because of the preparation, which the Jews among us are more in the habit of calling in Latin, ca' no pur a (the pure meal).
6. "And on the first of the week came Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and saw the stone taken away from the sepulchre.'' The first of the week^ is what Christian practice now calls the Lord's day, because of the resurrection of the Lortl.' " She ran, therefore, and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them. They have taken the I.^rd out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him." Some of the (ireek codices have, " They have taken my Lord," which may likely enough have been said by the stronger than ordinary affection of love and handmaid relationship; but we have not found it in the several codices to whicli we have had access.
4 Chap. iii. i, a.
4 Chap. iii. i, a.
5 'I'his revelation, whereby the body of Nii-odenius was discovered, is referred to the close of the year 41^, by those who trust in the authority of the Presbyter l.ucian, ni a small bonk written on the subject. — Mi(;nh.
<5 Una Sahhati.
7 Au^ustin here adds, i7;/<v//.^fattlurus solus in I'.-.utiif^i'listis priinam Snliluiti iioiiiintivit (Matt, xxviii. i),contrastinir/<-;«/ij/« with una.
[Tractate CXXI.
7. " Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and that other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre." The repetition here is worthy of notice and of commendation for the way in which a return is made to what had previously been omitted, and yet is added just as if it followed in due order. For after having already said, " they came to the sepulchre," he goes back to tell us how they came, and says, "so they ran both together," etc. Where he shows that, by outrunning his companion, there came first to the sepulchre that other disciple, by whom he means himself, while he relates all ' as if speaking of another.
8. "And he stooping down,^' he says, " saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and saw the linen clothes lying, and the napkin, which had been about His head, not lying with the linen clothes, but folded up in one place by itself.'^ Do we suppose these things have no meaning? I can suppose no such thing. But we hasten on to other points, on which we are compelled to linger by the need there is for investigation, or some other kind of obscurity. For in such things as are self-manifest, the in- • Some editions here insert into the text, More sanctte Scripturn, " after the manner of Holy Scripture."' Others enclose it within brackets. — Migne.
quiry into the meaning even of individual details is, indeed, a subject of holy delight, but only for those who have leisure, which is not the case with us.
9. " Then went in also that other disciple who had come first to the sepulchre." He came first, and entered last. This also of a certainty is not without a meaning, but I arn without the leisure needful for its explanation. "And he saw, and believed." Here some, by not giving due attention, suppose that John believed that Jesus had risen again; but there is no indication of this from the words that follow. For what does he mean by immediately adding, " For as yet they knew not the scripture, that He must rise again from the dead "? He could not then have beHeved that He had risen again, when he did not know that it behoved Him to rise again. What then did he see? what was it that he believed? What but this, that he saw the sepulchre empty, and believed what the woman had said, that He had been taken away from the tomb? ' ' For as yet they knew not the scripture, that He must rise again from the dead." Thus also when they heard of it from the Lord Himself, although it was uttered in the plainest terms, yet from their custom of hearing Him speaking by parables, they did not understand, and believed that something else was His meaning. But we shall put off what follows till another discourse.
TRACTATE CXXI.
Chapter XX. 10-29.
I. Mary Magdalene had brought the news to His disciples, Peter and John, that the Lord was taken away from the sepulchre; and they, when they came thither, found only the linen clothes wherewith the body had been shrouded; and what else could they believe but what she had told them, and what she had herself also believed? " Then the disciples went away again unto their own" (home); that is to say, where they were dwelling, and from which they had run to the sepulchre. " But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping." For while the men returned, the weaker sex was fastened to the place by a stronger affection. And the eyes, which had sought the Lord and had not found Him, had now nothing else to do but weep, deeper in their sorrow that He had been taken away from the sepulchre than that He had been slain on the tree; seeing that in the case even of such a Master, when His living presence was withdrawn from their eyes. His remem.hrance also had ceased to remain. Such grief, therefore, now kept the woman at the sepulchre. "And as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre.'' Why she did so I know not. For she was not ignorant that He whom she sought was no longer there, since she had herself also* carried word to the disciples that He had been taken from thence; while they, too, had come to the sepulchre, and had sought the Lord's body, not merely by looking, but also by entering, and had not found it. What then does it mean, that, as she wept, she stooped down, and looked again into the sepulchre?
Tractate CXXI.]
Was it that her grief was so excessive that she hardly thought she could believe either their eyes or her own? Or was it rather by some divine impulse that her mind led her to look within? For look she did, "and saw two angels in white, sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain." Why is it that one was sitting at the head, and the other at the feet? Was it, since those who in Greek are called angels are in Latin 7iuiitii [in English, newsbearers], that in this way they signified that the gospel of Christ was to be preached from head to foot, from the beginning even to the end? "They say to her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him." The angels forbade her tears: for by such a position what else did they announce, but that which in some way or other was a future joy? For they put the question, " Why weepest thou?" as if they had said. Weep not. But she. supposing they had put the question from ignorance, unfolded the cause of her tears. " Because," she said, " they have taken away my Lord:" calling her Lord's inanimate body her Lord, meaning a part for the whole; just as all of us acknowledge that Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord, who of course is at once both the Word and soul and flesh, was nevertheless crucified and buried, while it was only His flesh that was laid in the sepulchre. "And I know not," she added, " where they have laid Him." This was the greater cause of sorrow, because she knew not where to go to mitigate her grief. But the hour had now come when the joy, in some measure announced by the angels, wlio forbade her tears, was to succeed the weeping.
2. Lastly, "when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her. Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to lie the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, If thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master." Let no one speak ill of the woman because she called the gardener. Sir {doininr), ■ and Jesus, Master. For there she was asking, here she was recognizing; there she was showing respect to a person of whom she was asking a favor, here she was recalling the Teacher of whom she was learning to discern things human and divine. She called one lord (sir), whose handmaid she was not, in order by him to get at the Lord to whom she belonged. In one sense, tlierefore, she used the word Lord when she said, "They have taken away my Lord; and in another, when she said, Sir (lord), if thou hast borne Him hence." For the prophet also called those lords who were mere men, but in a different sense from Him of whom it is written, " The Lord is His name."' But how was it that this woman, who had already turned herself back to see Jesus, when she supposed Him to be the gardener, and was actually talking with Him, is said to have again turned herself, in order to say unto Him "Rabboni." but just because, when she then turned herself in body, she supposed Him to be what He was not, while now, when turned in heart, she recognized Him to be what He was.
3. " Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not: for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; to my God, and your God." There are points in these words which we must examine with brevity indeed, but with somewhat more than ordinary attention. For Jesus was giving a lesson m faith to the woman, who had recognized Him as her Master, and called Him so in her reply; and this gardener was sowing in her heart, as in His own garden, the grain of mustard seed. What then is meant by " Touch me not "? And just as if the reason of such a prohibition would be sought. He added, " for I am not yet ascended to my Father." What does this mean? If, while standing on earth. He is not to be touched, how could He be touched by men when sitting in heaven? For certainly, before He ascended, He presented Himself to the touch of the disciples, when He said, as testified by the evangelist Luke, "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have;" - or when He said to Thomas the disciple, " Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and put forth thy hand, and thrust it into my side.".-Xud who could be so absurd as to affirm that He was willing indeed to be touched by the disciples before He ascended to the Father, but refused it in the case of women till after His ascension? But no one, even had any the will, was to be allowed to run into such folly. For we read that women also, after His resurrection and before ilis ascension to the Fatlier, touched Jesus, among whom was Mary Magdalene herself; for it is related by ^Iatthew tliat Jesus met them, and said. "All hail. And they apjiroached, antl held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him."' This was ■ Ps. Ixv III. 4.
» Luke xxiv. 39.
3 Matt, xxviii. g.
[Tractate CXXI.
passed over by John, but declared as the truth by Matthew. It remains, therefore, that some sacred mystery must lie concealed in these words; and whether we discover it or utterly fail to do so, yet we ought to be in no doubt as to iis actual existence. Accordingly, either the words, " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father," had this meaning, that by this woman the Church of the Gentiles was symbolized, which did not believe on Christ till He had actually ascended to the Father, or that in this way Christ wished Himself to be believed on; in other words, to be touched spiritually, that He and the Father are one. For He has in a manner ascended to the Father, to the inward perception of him who has made such progress in the knowledge of Cnrist that he acknowledges Him as equal with the Father: in any other way He is not rightly touched, that is to say, in any other way He is not rightly believed on. But Mary might have still so believed as to account Him unequal with the Father, and this certainly is forbidden her by the words, " Touch me not; " that is, Believe not thus on me according to thy present notions; let not your thoughts stretch outwards to what I have been made in thy behalf, without passing beyond to that whereby thou hast thyself been made. For how could it be otherwise than carnally that she still believed on Him whom she was weeping over as a man? " For I am not yet ascended," He says, " to my Father: " there shalt thou touch me, when thou believest me to be God, in no wise unequal with the Father. " But go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father." He saith not. Our Father: in one sense, therefore, is He mine, in another sense, yours; by nature mine, by grace yours. "And my God, and your God." Nor did He say here. Our God: here, therefore, also is He in one sense mine, in another sense yours: my God, under whom I also am as man; your God, between whom and you I am mediator.
4. " Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and He hath spoken these things unto me. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them. Peace be unto. you. And when He had so said, He showed unto them His hands and His side." For nails had pierced His hands, a spear had laid open His side: and there the marks of the wounds are preserved for healing the hearts of the doubting.
But the shutting of doors presented no obstacle to the matter of His body, wherein Godhead resided. He indeed could enter without their being opened, by whose birth the virginity of His mother remained inviolate. " Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. Then said He unto them again. Peace be unto you." Reiteration is confirmation; for He Himself gives by the prophet a promised peace upon peace.' "As the Father hath sent me," He adds, "even so send I you." We know the Son to be equal to the Father; but here we recognize the words of the Mediator. For He exhibits Himself as occupying a middle position when He says. He me, and I you. "And when He had said this. He breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost." By breathing on them He signified that the Holy Spirit was the Spirit, not of the Father alone, but likewise His own. "Whose soever sins," He continues, "ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever ye retain, they are retained." The Church's love, which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, discharges the sins of all who are partakers with itself, but retains the sins of those who have no participation therein. Therefore it is, that after saying " Receive ye the Holy Ghost,'' He straightway added this regarding the remission and retention of sins. 5. " But Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him. We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them. Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of tlie nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe. And after eight days, again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut,?iyid stood in the midst, and said. Peace be uhto you. Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God."^ He saw and touched the man, and acknowledged the God whom he neither saw nor touched; but by the means of what he saw and touched, he now put far away from him every doubt, and believed the other. " Jesus saith unto him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed." He saith not. Thou hast touched me, but, " Thou hast seen me," because sight is a kind of general sense. For sight is also habitually named in connec- ' Isa. xxvi. 3, margin.
Tractate CXXIL] tion with the other four senses: as when we say. Listen, and see how well it sounds; smell it, and see how well it smells; taste it, and see how well it savors; touch it, and see how hot it is. Everywhere has the word, See, made itself heard, although sight, properly speaking, is allowed to belong only to the eyes. Hence here also the Lord Himself says, " Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands:" and what else does He mean but. Touch and see? And yet he had no eyes in his finger. Whether therefore it was by looking, or also by touching, " Because thou hast seen me," He says, "thou hast believed." Although it may be affirmed that the disciple dared not so to touch, when He offered Himself for the purpose; for it is not written. And Thomas touched Him. But whether it was by gazing only, or also by touching that he saw and believed, what follows rather proclaims and commends the faith of the Gentiles: " Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." He made use of words in the past tense, as One who, in His predestinating purpose, knew what was future, as if it had already taken place. But the present discourse must be kept from the charge of prolixity: the Lord will give us the opportunity to discourse at another time on the topics that remain.
TRACTATE CXXIL Chapter XX. 30, 31, and XXI. i-ii I. After telling us of the incident in connection with which the disciple Thomas had offered to his touch the places of the wounds in Christ's body, and saw what he would not believe, and believed, the evangelist John interposes these words, and says: "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life through His name." This paragraph indicates, as it were, the end of the book; but there is afterwards related how the Lord manifested Himself at the sea of Tiberias, and in the draught of fishes made special reference to the mystery of the Church, as regards its future character, in the final resurrection of the dead. I think, therefore, it is fitted to give special prominence thereto, that there has been thus interposed, as it were, an end of the book, and that there should be also a kind of preface to the narrative that was to follow, in order in some measure to give it a position of greater eminence. The narrative itself begins in this way: "After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise showed He (Himself). Tiiere were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zciiedee, and two other of His disciples. Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fisiiing. They say unto him, We also go with thee."
2. The inquiry is usually made in connection with this fishing of the disciples, why Peter and the sons of Zebedee returned to what they were before being called by the Lord; for they were fishers when He said to them, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men." ' And they put such reality into their following of Him then, that they left all in order to cleave to Him as their Master: so much so, that when tlie rich man went away from Him in sorrow, because of His saying to him, "Go sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come follow me," Peter said unto Him, " Lo, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee."= Why is it then that now, by the abandonment as it were of their apostleship, they become what they were, and seek again what they had forsaken, as if forgetful of the words they had once listened to, " No man, putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven "P^ Had they done so when Jesus was lying in the grave, before He rose from the dead, — which of course they could not have done, as the day wliereon He was crucified kei)t them all in closest attention till His burial, wiiich took place before evening; while the next day was the Sabbath, when it was unlawful for those who observed the ancestral custom to work at all; and on the third day the Lord rose again, and re- ' Matt. iv. 19.
3 Luke ix. 62.
[Tractate CXXII.
called them to the hope which they had not yet begun to entertain regarding Him; — yet had they then done so, we might suppose it had been done under, the influence of that despair which had taken possession of their minds. But now, after His restoration to them alive from the tomb, after the most evident truth of His revivified flesh offered to their eyes and hands, not only to be seen, but also to be touched and handled; after inspecting the very marks of the wounds, even to the confession of the Apostle Thomas, who had previously declared that he would not otherwise believe; after the reception by His breathing on them of the Holy Spirit, and after the words poured from His lips into their ears, "'As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever ye retain, they are retained:" they suddenly become again what they had been, fishers, not of men, but of fishes.
3. We have therefore to give those who are disturbed by this the answer, that they were not prohibited from seeking necessary sustenance by their manual craft, when lawful in itself, and warranted so long as they preserved their apostleship intact, if at any time they had no other means of gaining a livelihood. Unless any one have the boldness to imagine or to affirm, that the Apostle Paul attained not to the perfection of those who left all and followed Christ, seeing that, in order not to become a burden to any of those to whom he preached the gospel, he worked with his own hands for his support: ' wherein we find rather the fulfillment of his own words, " I labored more abundantly than they all;" and to which he added, " yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me: " ^ to make it manifest that this also was to be imputed to the grace of God, that both with mind and body he was able to labor so much more abundantly than they all, that he neither ceased from preaching the gospel, nor drew, like them, his present support out of the gospel; while he was sowing it much more widely and fruitfully through multitudes of nations where the name of Christ had never previously been proclaimed. Whereby he showed that living, that is, deriving their subsistence, by the gospel, was not imposed on the apostles as a necessity, but conferred on them as a power. And of this power the same apostle makes mention when he says: " If we have sown to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your carnal things? If others are partakers of this power among you, are not we I 2 Thess. iii.
2 1 Cor. XV. 10.
rather? But," he adds, "we have not used this power." And a little afterwards he says: " They who serve the altar are partakers with the altar: even so hath the Lord ordained, that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel; but I have used none of these things." It is clear enough, therefore, that it was not enjoined on the apostles, but put in their power, not to find their living otherwise than by the gospel, and of those to whom by preaching the gospel they sowed spiritual things, to reap their carnal things; that is, to take their bodily support, and, as the soldiers of Christ, to receive the wages due to them, as from the inhabitants of provinces subject to Christ. 3 Hence that same illustrious soldier had said a little before, in reference to this matter, " Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges?" * Which he nevertheless did himself; for he labored more abundantly than they all. If, then, the blessed Paul — that he might not use with them the power which he certainly possessed along with the other preachers of the gospel, but went a warfare at his own charges, that the Gentiles, who were utterly averse to the name of Christ, might not take offense at his teaching, as something offered them for a money equivalent, — in a way very different from that in which he had been educated, learned an altogether new art, that while the teacher supports himself with his own hands, none of his hearers might be burdened; how