itself cry out, I will none of thine honor; do not tread on me? Now say if thou canst, How have I trodden upon thee? say that to the head: I wanted to kiss thee, I wanted to embrace thee. But seest thou not, O fool, that what thou wouldest embrace does in virtue of a certain unity, which knits the whole frame together, reach to that which thou treadest upon? Above " thou honorest me, beneath'- thou treadest upon me. That on which thou treadest pains more than that which thou honorest rejoiceth. In what sort does the tongue cry out? *' It hurts me."
10 Credis in Bened. '' Susuin.
9 Luke xxiv. 47. '2 fusutn.
Homily X.]
It saith not, " It hurts my foot," but, " It hurts me," saith it. O tongue, who has touched thee? who has struck? who has goaded? who has pricked? No man, but I am knit together with the parts that are trodden upon. How wouldest thou have me not be pained, when I am not separate?
9. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, ascending into heaven on the fortieth day. did for this reason Commend to us His Body where it would continue to lie, because He saw that many would honor Him for that He is ascended into heaven: and saw that their honoring Him is useless if they trample upon His members here on earth. And lest any one should err. and, while he adored the Head in heaven should trample upon the feet on earth, He told us where would be His members. For being about to ascend, He spake His last words on earth: after those same words He spake no more on earth. The Head about to ascend into heaven commended to us His members on earth and departed. Thenceforth thou findest not Christ speaking on earth; thou findest Him speaking, but from heaven. And even from heaven, why? Because His members on earth were trodden upon. For to the persecutor Saul He said from on high, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?'' ' I am ascended into heaven, but still I lie on earth: here I sit at the right hand of the Father, but there I yet hunger, thirst, and am a stranger. In what manner then did He commend to us His Body, when about to ascend into heaven? When the disciples asked Him. saying, " Lord, wilt thou at this time present- thyself, and when shall be the kingdom of Israel? " ^ He made answer, now at the point to depart, "It is not for you to know the time which the Father hatli put in His own power: but ye shall receive strength of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and ye shall be witnesses to me." See where His Body is spread abroad, see where He will not be trodden upon: " Ye shall be witnesses to me, unto Jerusalem, and unto Judea, and even unto all the earth." Lo, where I lie tiiat am ascending! For I ascend, because I am the Head: my Body lies yet beneath. Where lies? Throughout the whole earth. Beware thou strike not, beware thou hurt not, beware thou trample not: these be tlie last words of Christ about to go into heaven.
Look at a sick man languishing on his bed, lying in his house, and worn out with sickness, at death's door, his soul as it were even now between his teeth: who, an.xious, it may be, about something that is dear to him, 'i Preesentalieris, Supra, which he greatly loves, and it comes into his mind, calls his heirs, and says to them, I pray you, do this. He, as it were, detains his soul by a violent effort, that it may not depart ere those words be made sure. When he has dictated those last words, he breathes out his soul, he is borne a corpse to the sepulchre. His heirs, how do they remember the last words of the dying man? How, if one should stand up and say to them, Do it not: what would they say? " What? shall I not do that which my father, in the act of breathing out his soul, commanded me with his last breath, the last word of his that sounded in my ears when my father was departing this life?' Whatever other words of his I may not regard, his last have a stronger hold upon me: since which I never saw him more, never more heard speech of his. Brethren, think with Christian hearts; if to the heirs of a man, hiswords spoken when about to go to the tomb are so sweet, so grateful, so weighty, what must we account of the last words of Christ, spoken not when about to go back to the tomb, but to ascend into heaven! As for the man who lived and is dead, his soul is hurried off to other places, his body is laid in the earth, and whether these words of his be done or not, makes no difference to him: he has now something else to do, or something else to suffer: either in Abraham's bosom he rejoices, or in eternal fire he longs for a drop of water, while his corpse lies there senseless in the sepulchre; and yet the last words of the dying man are kept. What have those tO' look for, who keep not the last words of Him that sitteth in heaven, who seeth from on high whether they be despised or not despised? The words of Him, who said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME?" who keeps account, unto the judgment, of all that He seeth His members suffer?
10. And what have we done, say they? We are the i:)ersecuted, not the persecutors. Ye are the persecutors, O wretched men. In the first place, in that ye have divided the Church. Mightier the sword of the tongue than the sword of steel. Agar, Sarah's maid, was proud, and siie was afllicted by her mistress for her pride. That was discipline, not punishment. •• Accordingly, when she had gone away from her mistress, what said the angel to her? "Return to thy mistress. "^ Then, O carnal soul, like a proud bondwoman, suppose thou have suffered any trouble for discipline' sake, why ravest thou? " Return to thy mistress," hold fast the peace of the Church.' Lo, the gospels are pro- 4 Suf-ra.
5 Gen. xvi. 4-9.
* Doininicain fiiieiii.
s26 :) [Homily X.
duced, we read where the Church is spread abroad: men dispute against us, and say to us, "Betrayers!"' Betrayers of what? Christ commendeth to us His Church, and thou be- Hevest not: shall I believe thee, when thou revilest my parents? Wouldest thou that I should believe thee about the "betrayers "? Do thou first believe Christ. What is worth believing? Christ is God, thou art man: which ought to be believed first? Christ has spread His Church abroad over all the earth: I say it — despise me: the gospel speaks — beware. What saith the gospel? "It behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name."^ Where remission of sins, there the Church is. How the Church? Why, to her it was said, " To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.'' '• Where is this remission of sins spread abroad? *' Through all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. " Lo, believe Christ! But, because thou art well aware that if thou shalt believe Christ, thou wilt not have anything to say about *' betrayers," thou wilt needs have me to believe thee when thou speakest evil against my parents, rather than thyself believe what Christ foretold!
[The remainder of the Homily is wanting in all the manuscripts. It seems also that St. Augustin was hindered from completing the exposition of the entire epistle, as he had undertaken to do: at least Possidius specifies this work under the title, " In Epist. Joaniiis ad Parthos Tractaius decern^'' and it is scarcely likely that the whole of the fifth chapter was expounded in this tenth Homily. — Of the " Sermons," there are none upon the remaining part of this epistle: the following extracts from other works of St. Augustin will supply what will be most desiderated: namely, his exposition of the text on " the Three Witnesses," of "the sin unto death," and of the twentieth verse].
Contra Maximinum, lib. ii. c. 22 ^. 3.
I. Joann. v. 7. 8. Tres stent testes; spiritiis^ et aqua, et sanguis; et tres mmm stint.''
I would not have thee mistake that place in the epistle of John the apostle where he " Traditores. = Luke xxiv. 47. 3 Matt. xvi. 19.
4 The clause of '' the Three Heavenly Witnesses," v. 7, appears to be wholly unknown to St. Augustin: a circumstance left unexplained by Mill, who asserts that copies which had the clause "abounded in Africa" in the interval between St. Cyprian and the close of the fifth century.
saith, "There are three witnesses: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three are one." Lest haply thou say that the Spirit and the water and the blood are diverse substances, and yet it is said, " the three are one: " for this cause I have admonished thee, that thou mistake not the matter. For these are mystical expressions, s in which the point always to be considered is, not what the actual things are, but what they denote as signs: since they are signs of things, and what they are in their essence is one thing, what they are in their signification another. If then we understand the things signified, we do find these things to be of one substance. Thus, if we should say, the rock and the water are one, meaning by the Rock, Christ; by the water, the Holy Ghost: who doubts that rock and water are two different substances? yet because Christ and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same nature, therefore when one says, the rock and the water are one, this can be rightly taken in this behalf, that these two things of which the nature is diverse, are signs of other things of which the nature is one. Three things then we know to have issued from the Body of the Lord when He hung upon the tree: first, the spirit: of which it is written, "And He bowed the head and gave up the spirit:"* then, as His side was pierced by the spear, "blood and water." Which three things if we look at as they are in themselves, they are in substance several and distinct, and therefore they are not one. But if we will inquire into the things signified by these, there not unreasonably comes into our thoughts the Trinity itself, which is the One, Only, True, Supreme God, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, of whom it could most truly be said, "There are Three Witnesses, and the Three are One: " so that by the term Spirit we should understand/God the Father to be signified; as indeed it was concerning the worshipping of Him that the Lord was speaking, when He said, " God is a Spirit: "'' by the term, blood, the Son; because "the Word was made flesh: "^ and by the term water, the Holy Ghost; as, when Jesus spake of the water which He would give to them that thirst, the evangelist saith, "But this said He of the Spirit which they that believed on Him were to receive. "^ Moreover, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are " Witnesses," who that believes the Gospel can doubt, when the Son saith, "I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me. He beareth witness of me."" Where, though the Holy Ghost is not men- 7 John iv. 24. 10 John viii. iJ Homily X.J Homily X.J tioned, yet He is not to be thought separated from them. Howbeit neither concerning the Spirit hath He kept silence elsewhere, and that He too is a witness hath been sufficiently and openly shown. For in promising Him He said, "He shall bear witness of me.''' These are the "Three Witnesses, and the Three are One, because of one substance. But whereas, the signs by which they were signified came forth from the Body of the Lord, herein they figured the Church preaching the Trinity, that it hath one and the same nature: since these Three in threefold manner signified are One, and the Church that preacheth them is the Body of Christ. In this manner then the three things by which they are signified came out from the Body of the Lord: like as from the Body of the Lord sounded forth the command to '' baptize the nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."- " In the name: " not, In the names: for " these Three are One," and One God is these Three. And if in any other way this depth of mystery which we read in John's epistle can be expounded and understood agreeably with the Catholic faith, which neither confounds nor divides the Trinity, neither believes the substances diverse nor denies that the persons are three, it is on no account to be rejected. For whenever in Holy Scriptures in order to exercise the minds of the faithful any thing is put darkly, it is to be joyfully welcomed if it can be in many,vays but not unwisely expotmded.
I Joann. v. 16. Si q ins scit peccare f rat rem suum pcccatum non ad tnorton, postiiiabit, et dab it I Hi Do minus vitam qui pec cat non ad mortem; est autem peccatum ad mortem; non pro illo dico ut roget.
But wnat presses harder upon the present question [in the Lord's command of praying for enemies and persecutors] is that saying of the apostle John, "If any man know that his brother sinneth a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and the Lord will give life to that man who sinneth not unto death: but there is a sin unto death: not for that do I say that he should ask." For it manifestly shows that there are some "brethren'' whom we are not commanded to pray for, whereas the Lord bids us pray even for our persecutors. Nor can this question be solved except we acknowledge, that there are some sins in brethren that are worse than tiie sin of enemies in persecuting. That "brethren" mean Chris- ' John XV. 26.
tians, may be proved by many texts of Holy Writ; the plainest, however, is that of the apostle which he puts thus: " For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother. "3 For he has not added f//ry but thought it plain enough, when by the term brother he spake of the Christian that should have an unbelieving wife. And accordingly he says just afterwards, " But if the unbelieving depart, let her depart: but a brother or sister is not put under servitude in a matter of this sort." The "sin," therefore, of a brother, "unto death, " I suppose to be when, after the acknowledging of God through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, one fights against the brotherhood, and is set on by the fire-brands of hatred "* against the very grace through which he was reconciled to God.^ But " a sin not unto death " is when a person, not having alienated his love from his brother, yet through some infirmity of mind may have failed to exhibit the due offices of brotherhood. Wherefore, on the one hand, the Lord on the cross said, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,"^ since they had not yet, by being made partakers of the grace of the Holy Spirit, entered into the fellowship of holy brotherhood; and blessed Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles prays for them who are stoning him;' because they had not yet believed Christ, and were not fighting against that grace of communion. On the other hand, the apostle Paul does not pray for Alexander, and the reason I suppose, is, tliat this man was a brother, and had sinned "unto death,'' />. by opposing the brotherhood in a spirit of hatred.* Whereas for such as had not broken off the bonds of love, but had given way through fear, he prays that they may be forgiven. For so he says: "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works: of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words."' Then he subjoins for whoni he prays, saying, "At my first answer no man 5 In the Retractations, \. 7, he remarks on this passage: "I have not positively aflirincd it to be so, for I have said, ' I suppose:' still it should have been added, ' if in this so wicked perversity of mind he departs this life:' since we have certainly no riifht to despair of any ever so wicked man so lonjj as he is in this life, and it cannot be unwise to pray for that man of whom we do not despair." Comp. Serm. I.\.\i. 21.
° Luke xxiii. 34. 7 Acts vii. 50.
8 So the traditional interpretation of the Cireeks in (Kcumenius. "This 'alone' is 'the sin unto death,' r'/s. sin which has no thought of repentance: which sin J udasbeinK diseased withal, was l>rotiv;ht to eternal death." lOspecially (he adds) the sin of an unfnr>;iviM!.; spirit, iinpinilently persisted in: " I'or the ways of the resentful arc unto death," saith Solomon (I'rov. xii. 28, I, XX ). So 'Iheopliylact. — The Scholia a/> Matt/iai, p. 1.^6, 230: " ' The sin unto death ' is, when a person having sinned is callous in impenitence." Comp. S. Hilar, 'J'r. in J's. cxl, sec. 8.
9 2 Tim. iv. 14-16.
THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN, [Homily X.
Stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray. God that it may not be laid to their charge." This difference of sins it is that distinguishes Judas with his treason from Peter with his denial. Not that to him who repenteth there is to be no forgiveness: lest we go against that sentence of the Lord, in which He commands always to forgive the brother who asks his brother's forgiveness:' but that the mischief of that sin is, that the man cannot submit to the humiliation of begging for pardon, even when he is forced by his evil conscience both to acknowledge and to publish his sin. Forwhen Judas had said, "I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood," = he went and hanged himself in desperation, rather than pray for forgiveness in humiliation. Wherefore it makes a great difference, what sort of repentance God forgives. For many are much quicker than others to confess that they have sinned, and are angry with themselves in such sort that they vehemently wish they had not sinned, while yet they cannot lay down their pride, and submit to have the heart humbled and l)roken so as to implore pardon: a state of mind which one may well believe to be, for the greatness of their sin, a part of their already begun damnation.
And this, perhaps, it is " to sin against the Holy Ghost: "^ i.e. through malice and envy to fight against brotherly charity after receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit: that sin which the Lord saith hath no forgiveness, either here or in the world to come For the Lord in saying to the Pharisees, " Whosoever shall speak an evil word against the Son of Man,"'* &c., may have meant to warn them to come to the grace of God, and having received it, not to sin as they have now sinned. For now they have spoken an evil word against the Son of Man, and it may be forgiven them, if they be converted and believe and receive the Holy Spirit: which when they have received, if they will then have ill-will against the brotherhood and oppose the grace they have received, there is no forgiveness for them, either in this world or in the world to come.
Liber de Correptione et Gratia, § 35.
By this grace such is the liberty they receive, that although as long as they live here they have to fight agamst the lusts of sins, and are overtaken by some sins for which they 3 Comp. Serm. Ixxi. Scholl. ap Mattkdi, p. 230. "By 'the A Matt. xii. 24-33 must daily pray, " Forgive us our debts," yet they no longer serve the sin which is unto death, of which the apostle John saith, " There is a sin unto death, I do not say that he shall ask for that." Concerning which sin (since it is not expressed) many different opinions maybe formed: but I affirm that sin to be the forsaking until death^ the "faith which worketh by love.
I Joann. v, 20. " Ut simus in vero Filio ejus Jesu Chris to j ipse est verus JDeus et vita cBterna. ' ' ^ When ye read, " That we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ,^' think of the "true Son" of God. But this Son ye in no wise think to be the true Son of God, if ye deny Him to be begotten of the substance of the Father. For was He already Son of Man and by gift of God became Son of God, begotten indeed of God, but by grace, not by nature? Or, though not Son of Man, yet was He some sort of creature which, by God's changing it, was converted into Son of God? If you mean nothing of this sort, then was He either begotten of nothing, or of some substance. But thou hast relieved us from all fear of having to suppose that you affirm the Son of God to be of nothing, for thou hast declared that this is not your meaning. Therefore, He is of some substance. If not of the substance of the Father, then of what? Tell me. But ye cannot find any other...Consequently, the Father and the Son are of one and the same sulistance. This is the Homci-Hsion...In the Scriptures both you and 5 So in the Retractations, supra, note b. Si in hac tatn scelerata mentis perversitate finicrit hanc vitavi: "unto death," in tlie sense, " until death."
6 St. Hilary de Trin. vi.43, cites the passage with additions, of which there are no traces in the Mss. dx\A other authorities; Quia, sciinus quod Filius Dei venit et concarnntus est propter nos, ef passu s est, et resurgetis de mcrtuis assutiipsit nos, et dedit nobis intellectutn optimutii, ut intelligainus Teru7ti, et siinus in vero Jilio ejus Jesu Christo: hie est verus \_Deus o>n.^, et 7'ita interna, et resurrectio nostra: and it is remarkable that his contemporary Faustinus (the Luciferian) in his work de 'frinitate, gives the passage totidein verbis, except that it is doubtful whether he read verus Deus, and that after resurrectio?iostra he adds in ipso. — Vulg. et simus in 7'ero Filio ejus. Hie est 7ierus Deus, et vita eeterna. In the Greek, the second iv rip is omitted by St. Cyril, Alex. St. Basil, adv. Eunom. and others; and this is the received reading of the Latins. — There isnocertain evidence to show how the text was interpreted -by the ante-Nicene Fathers. St. Athanasius Orat. c. A nan. iii. 24, sec. 4; 25, sec. 16; iv. 9, init. and St. Basil adv. Eunom. iv. p. 294, unhesitatingly refer the oIto? to the nearest antecedent: "And we are in Him the 'J rue," (even) " in His Son Jesus Christ: this" (Jesus Christ) "is the True God and eternal Life:" and the Latin Fathers from St.
Hilary and St.."Vmbrose downward allege the text as an explicit declaration of the true Godhead of the Son. —St. Epiphanius A ncorat. c. 4, seems to have read in his copy, oCtos icr-rtv 6 o.K-r\Gi.vo>; Kol (tui-i aiujiads, omitting ©ebs (as Hilary): for he says: "And though the epithet ' Very God ' (0eb? oAtjOii'o;) is not added," i. e. though this 0VT05, meaning Jesus Christ, is not expressly called the true God (as in v. 20, where he seems to have had in his copy the reading a.k-t\Si.vov ©edr), " we do but accumulate madness if we dare to blaspheme and to say that the Son is not Very God. For it IS enough that in the One [who is so called] we take in the whole Trinity, and from the Father [as Very God] understand the Son also to be Very God."
Homily X.]
we read, " That we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ; He is the true God and Eternal Life," Let both parties yield to such weighty evidence. Tell us then, whether this " true Son" of God, discriminated as He is by the property of this name from those who are sons by grace,' be of no substance or of some substance. Thou sayest, " I do not say that He is of no substance, lest I should say that He is of nothing." He is therefore of some substance: I ask, of what? If not of the substance of the Father, seek another. If thou fmdest not another, as indeed thou canst find none at all, then ackiiowledge it to be the Father's, and confess the Son Homousios, "of one substance with the Father." Flesh is begotten of flesh, the Son of flesh is begotten of the substance of the flesh. Set aside corruption, reject from the eye of the mind all carnal passions, and behold " the invisible things of God understood by the means of the things that are made.''- Believe that the Creator who hath given flesh power to beget flesh, who hath given parents power of the substance of the flesh to generate "true sons" of flesh, much more had power to beget a " true Son " of His own substance, and to have one substance with the true Son, the spiritual incorruption remaining and carnal corruption being altogether alien therefrom. 3 Collailo cum Maxiinino, § 14.
If He is begotten, He is Son: if He is Son, He is the "true Son," because Only- Begotten. For we also are called sons: He Son by nature, we sons by grace...To say that because He is begotten, He is of another nature, is to deny that He is the " true Son.'' Now we have the Scripture: " That we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ; He is the true God and Eternal Life."* Why "true God "? because " true Son " of God. For if He has given to animals this property, that ' Serm. cxl. 3. " Seek in the Epistle of this same John what he hath said of Christ. ' Believe ' (crcdatiius) saith he, ' on His true Son Jesus Christ, He is the True (lod and Eternal Life!' What meaneth, ' True C>od and Eternal Life?' The ' 'I'rue Son ' of God is'tlie True (lod and Eternal Life.' Why has he said, ' On His True Son?' Because flod hath many sons, therefore He was to be distin),;uished by adding that He was the ''I'rue Son.' Not just by saying that He is the Son, but by add'uv;, as I said, that He is the ' i'rue Son': He was tf> he distini;uishe(l because of the many sons whom (lod halh. Eor we are sons by ^race, He by Nature. We, made such by the Father throuKh Him; lie, what the Father is, Himself is also: what CJod is, are we also?"
4 C. Serm, Arian, sec. I.
what they beget shall be none other than what they themselves are: man begets man, dog begets dog, and should God not beget God? If then He is of the same substance, why callest thou Him less? Is it because when a human father begets a soh, though human beget human, yet greater begets less? If so, then let us wait for Christ to grow as human beings grow whom human beings beget! ^ But if Christ, ever since He was begotten (and this was not in time but from eternity), is what He is, and yet is less than the Father, at that rate the human condition is the better of the two: for a human being at any rate can grow, and has the property of sooner or later attaining to the age, to the strength of the father; but He never: then how is He a "true Son"?
And if the Son be not of the same substance as the Father, then is He a made substance: if a made substance, then not "all things were made by Him: " but, " all things were made by Him;"*^ therefore. He is of one and the same substance with the Father. And therefore, not only God, but True (or, Very) God. Which the same John doth most openly affirm in his epistle: Scimus quod Filius Dei venerit et dederit?iobis intellectum ut cognoscamus verum JDeu7tt, et simus in vero Filio ejus Jesu Christo. Hie est verus Deus et vita cete7'na." "We know that the Son of God is come; and hath given us an understanding that we may (learn to) know the True God.^ and may be in His true Son Jesus Christ. This is the True God and Eternal Life."
10. Hence also by consequence we understand, that what the apostle Paul saith, " Who only hath immortality,"^ he saith not merely of the Father, but of the One and Only God, which the Trinity itself is. For neither is the " Eternal Life'' itself mortal in respect of any mutability: and consequently, since the Son of God "is Eternal Life," He also is to be understood together with the Father, where it is said, "Who only hath immortality.
7 So Toi' a.Ki\6i.vav Wtbi'. Si. Basil. St. Cyril. Al. I'l-rs. Arab. Acih. C^Jf/. /!/. {.\.M!flEINONWN, which abbreviated manner of writinjf may explain the omission) and.several other mss. Beda, veruiit Deutn. FacunJus: t/uodest verum (to a\r]6iv6v).
>* 1 Tim. i. 16.
TWO BOOKS OF • SOLILOQUIES.
TRANSLATED BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, A.M..
ANDOVER, MASS.
PREFACE TO SOLILOQUIES.
The two books of the Soliloqiiia were, by the statement of the author himself (Lib. I. 17), written in his thirty-third year. They were therefore written immediately after his baptism, evidently in the rural retreat of Cassiacum, in Upper Italy, belonging to his friend Verecundus, to which we know that he retreated for awhile after he had been received into the Church. It is therefore his earliest Christian work. And as it is early, so it is raw. His new-found faith struggles to justify itself through an intricate course of reasoning, in which he confuses helplessly the forms of logic with the substance of truth. However, though crude, his essential characteristics appear distinctly in it; his power of reasoning, his wide observation of fundamental facts, and of mental processes and experiences, his love of his friends, and above all of Alypius, his ardent aspirations after supernal light, his deep devotion, which, however, has not availed to subdue the artificialities of rhetoric into childlike simplicity.