Augustine, Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John

your God. He withstood the tempter: for if He had worked a miracle, He would have seemed only either to have yielded or to have done it out of curiosity; for He worked miracles when He willed, as God, but as one healing the sick. For had He done it then, He would have been thought to have wished merely to work a miracle. But lest men should think this, mark what He answered; and when such a temptation befalls you, say that too yourself: Go back behind me, Satan; for it is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God; that is, if I do this, I shall be tempting God. He said what He wished you to say. When the enemy suggests to you, What sort of man, what sort of Christian are you? Have you now worked even one miracle, or have the dead risen at your prayers, or have you healed the feverish? If you were truly of any account, you would work some miracle: answer and say, It is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God; I shall not, then, tempt God, as though I should belong to God if I work a miracle, and not belong to Him if I do not. And where are His words, Rejoice that your names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20)? How was the Lord tempted by the ambition of the world? When he set Him up on a height and said to Him: All these things I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me. With the exaltation of an earthly kingdom he wished to tempt the King of ages; but the Lord, Who made heaven and earth, trod the devil underfoot. What great thing is it, that the devil should be conquered by the Lord? What then did He answer the devil, but what He taught you to answer? It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve (Matt. 4:1–10). Holding to these things, you will not have the lust of the world; by not having the lust of the world, neither the desire of the flesh, nor the desire of the eyes, nor the ambition of the world will bring you under the yoke; and you will make room for charity as it comes, that you may love God. For if the love of the world is there, the love of God will not be there. Hold rather to the love of God, that as God is eternal, so you too may abide for ever: for such as his love is, such is each man. Do you love the earth? You will be earth. Do you love God? What shall I say? You will be a god? I do not dare to say it of myself; let us hear the Scriptures: I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High (Ps. 81:6). If then you wish to be gods and sons of the Most High, do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the ambition of the world, which is not from the Father but from the world: that is, from men who love the world. And the world passes away, and its desires; but he who does the will of God abides for ever, as God too abides for ever.

TRACTATE III.

On what follows, Children, it is the last hour, up to the words, His anointing teaches you about all things. Chapter II, verses 18-27.

1. Children, it is the last hour. In this reading he addresses children, that they may hasten to grow, because it is the last hour. The age of the body does not lie in the will. So no one grows according to the flesh when he wills, just as no one is born when he wills; but where birth lies in the will, growth too lies in the will. No one from

water and the Spirit is born except willingly. So, if he wills, he grows; if he wills, he dwindles. What is it to grow? To advance. What is it to dwindle? To fall away. Whoever knows that he has been born, let him hear that he is a child and an infant; let him gape eagerly at his mother's breasts, and he grows quickly. Now the mother is the Church, and her breasts are the two Testaments of the divine Scriptures. From here let the milk be sucked of all the sacraments wrought in time for our eternal salvation, so that, nourished and strengthened, he may come to the eating of solid food, which is: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Our milk is the humble Christ; our food is the same Christ, equal to the Father. He nourishes you with milk, that He may feed you with bread: for to touch Jesus spiritually with the heart is this, to know that He is equal to the Father.

2. For this reason too He forbade Mary to touch Him, and said to her: Do not touch Me; for I have not yet ascended to the Father. What is this? He offered Himself to be handled by the disciples, and avoided Mary's touch? Is He not the one who said to the doubting disciple, Put in your fingers, and feel the scars (John 20:17, 27)? Had He already ascended to the Father? Why then does He forbid Mary, and say, Do not touch Me; for I have not yet ascended to the Father? Or are we to say this, that He did not fear to be touched by men, and feared to be touched by women? His touch cleanses all flesh. Did He fear to be handled by those to whom He willed first to be made manifest? Was not His resurrection announced to men through women, that the serpent might be overcome by the contrary art? For since he announced death to the first man through a woman, life too was announced to men through a woman. Why then did He not wish to be touched, unless because He wished that touch to be understood as spiritual? Spiritual touch is from a clean heart. He reaches Christ from a clean heart who understands Him to be co-equal with the Father. But he who does not yet understand the divinity of Christ comes as far as the flesh, does not come as far as the divinity. And what great thing is it, to reach as far as the persecutors who crucified Him reached? This is the great thing: to understand the Word, God with God in the beginning, through Whom all things were made; such as He wished Himself to be known when He said to Philip, Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who sees Me sees the Father also (John 14:9).

3. But lest anyone be sluggish in advancing, let him hear: Children, it is the last hour. Advance, run, grow: it is the last hour. This very last hour is long-lasting; yet it is the last. For he put "hour" for the last time; because in the last times our Lord Jesus Christ will come. But some will say: How is it the last time? How is it the last hour? Surely Antichrist will come first, and then the day of judgement will come. John saw these thoughts: lest they become as it were secure, and therefore think it was not the last hour because Antichrist was yet to come, he says to them, And as you have heard that Antichrist is to come, now many antichrists have arisen. Could it have many antichrists, unless it were the last hour?

4. Whom did he call antichrists? He goes on, and explains: Whence we know that it is the last hour. Whence? Because

many antichrists have arisen. They went out from us: see the antichrists. They went out from us: so we lament the loss. Hear the consolation: But they were not of us. All heretics, all schismatics went out from us, that is, they go out from the Church; but they would not go out if they were of us. Before they went out, then, they were not of us. If before they went out they were not of us, many are within, have not gone out, and yet are antichrists. We dare to say this: to what end, but that each one, while he is within, may not be an antichrist? For he is about to describe and mark out the antichrists; and we shall see them now. And each one ought to question his own conscience whether he is an antichrist. For in Latin Antichrist means one contrary to Christ. Not as some understand it, that he is called Antichrist because he is to come before Christ, that is, that Christ is to come after him: it is not so said, nor so written; but Antichrist, that is, contrary to Christ. Who is contrary to Christ you now perceive as he himself explains it, and you understand that none can go out but antichrists, while those who are not contrary to Christ can in no way go out. For he who is not contrary to Christ cleaves to His body, and is counted a member. Members are never contrary to one another. The wholeness of the body consists of all its members. And what does the Apostle say of the concord of the members? If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it (1 Cor. 12:26). If then at the glorifying of a member the other members rejoice with it, and at its suffering all the members suffer, the concord of the members has no antichrist in it. And there are some who are within the body of our Lord Jesus Christ in this way (seeing that His body is still under cure, and its health will not be perfect except in the resurrection of the dead): they are in the body of Christ as bad humours are. When they are vomited out, then the body is relieved: so too when the wicked go out, then the Church is relieved. And when the body vomits them out and casts them off, it says: These humours went out from me, but they were not of me. What is, they were not of me? They were not cut off from my flesh, but they weighed on my chest while they were in it.

5. They went out from us; but (do not be sad) they were not of us. How do you prove it? For if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us. From this, then, let your Charity see that many who are not of us receive the Sacraments with us, receive Baptism with us, receive with us what the faithful know that they receive, the Blessing, the Eucharist, and whatever there is in the holy Sacraments; they receive with us the communion of the altar itself, and they are not of us. Temptation proves that they are not of us. When temptation comes upon them, as at the chance of a wind, they fly outside, because they were not grain. But all of them will fly then (as must often be said) when the Lord's threshing-floor begins to be winnowed on the day of judgement. They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us. For do you wish to know, dearly beloved, how most surely this is said, so that those who perhaps have gone out and come back are not antichrists, are not contrary to Christ? Whoever

are not antichrists, it cannot be that they remain outside. But each one, of his own will, is either an antichrist or in Christ. Either we are among the members, or among the bad humours. He who changes himself for the better is a member in the body; but he who abides in malice is a bad humour, and when he goes out, those who were weighed down will be relieved. They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us; but that they might be made manifest, that not all were of us. Therefore he added, that they might be made manifest, because even when they are within they are not of us; yet they are not manifest, but by going out they are made manifest. And you have an anointing from the Holy One, that you may be manifest to yourselves. The spiritual anointing is the Holy Spirit Himself, Whose sacrament is in the visible anointing. All who have this anointing of Christ, he says, know the bad and the good; and they have no need to be taught, because the anointing itself teaches them.

6. I write to you, not because you have not known the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. See, we have been told how we may recognize Antichrist. What is Christ? Truth. He Himself said, I am the truth (John 14:6). But no lie is of the truth: all, therefore, who lie are not yet of Christ. He did not say that one lie is of the truth and another lie is not of the truth. Mark the sentence; do not stroke yourselves, do not flatter yourselves, do not deceive yourselves, do not delude yourselves: No lie is of the truth. Let us see then how the antichrists lie, for there is not just one kind of lie. Who is the liar, but he who denies, [saying] that Jesus is not the Christ? Jesus has one meaning, Christ has another: though our Saviour Jesus Christ is one, yet Jesus is His proper name. As Moses was called by a proper name, as Elijah, as Abraham, so our Lord has, as it were, a proper name, Jesus; but Christ is the name of a sacrament. As if one should say prophet, as if one should say priest, so by Christ is set forth the Anointed, in Whom should be the redemption of the whole people of Israel. This Christ was hoped for by the people of the Jews as one to come; and because He came humble, He was not acknowledged; because He was a small stone, they stumbled on Him and were broken. But the stone grew, and became a great mountain (Dan. 2:35); and what does the Scripture say? Whoever stumbles on this stone will be shattered; and on whomever this stone comes, it will crush him (Luke 20:18). The words must be distinguished: he said that he who stumbles is shattered, but he on whom it comes is crushed. At first, because He came humble, men stumbled on Him; because He will come exalted to judgement, on whomever He comes, He will crush him. But when He comes He will not crush him whom He did not shatter when He came. He who does not stumble on the humble One will not dread the exalted One. You have heard it briefly, brethren: he who does not stumble on the humble One will not dread the exalted One. For to all the wicked Christ is a stone of stumbling; whatever Christ says is bitter to them.

7. For hear, and see. Certainly all who go out

from the Church and are cut off from the unity of the Church are antichrists: let no one doubt it; for he himself has marked them out: They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us. Whoever, then, do not remain with us, but go out from us, it is manifest that they are antichrists. And how are they proved antichrists? By the lie. And who is the liar, but he who denies, [saying] that Jesus is not the Christ? Let us question the heretics: what heretic do you find who denies, [saying] that Jesus is not the Christ? Let your Charity see a great mystery. Mark what the Lord God has inspired in us, and what I would convey to you. See, they went out from us and became Donatists: we ask them whether Jesus is the Christ; at once they confess that Jesus is the Christ. If then he is antichrist who denies that Jesus is the Christ, neither can they call us antichrists, nor we them; for both we confess it and they do. If then neither do they call us so, nor we them, then neither did they go out from us, nor we from them. If then we did not go out from one another, we are in unity: if we are in unity, what are two altars doing in this city? What are divided houses doing, divided marriages? What is a common bed doing, and a divided Christ? He admonishes us; he wishes us to confess what is true. Either they went out from us, or we from them. But far be it that we went out from them: for we have the testament of the Lord's inheritance; we read it aloud, and there we find ourselves: I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession (Ps. 2:8). We hold the inheritance of Christ: they do not hold it; they are not in communion with the whole world, they are not in communion with the whole body redeemed by the blood of the Lord. We have the Lord Himself rising from the dead, Who offered Himself to be handled by the hands of His doubting disciples. And while they still doubted, He said to them: It was necessary that the Christ should suffer, and rise on the third day, and that repentance and the remission of sins should be preached in His name. Where? By what way? To whom? Among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46–47). We are secure about the unity of the inheritance. Whoever is not in communion with this inheritance has gone out.

8. But let us not be saddened: They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us. If then they went out from us, they are antichrists; if they are antichrists, they are liars; if they are liars, they deny that Jesus is the Christ. Again we come back to the difficulty of the question. Question them one by one: they confess that Jesus is the Christ. A narrow understanding hems us in in this Epistle. You surely see the question; this question troubles both us and them, if it is not understood. Either we are antichrists, or they are antichrists: they call us antichrists, and say that we went out from them; we say the like of them. But this Epistle has marked out the antichrists: whoever denies, [saying] that Jesus is not the Christ, he is antichrist. Let us now, then, seek who denies it; and let us attend not to the tongue but to deeds. For if all are questioned, all with one mouth confess that Jesus is the Christ. Let the tongue be quiet a little; question the life. If we find this, if Scripture itself tells us that denial

is made not only with the tongue but also with deeds, then surely we find many antichrists who profess Christ with the mouth and dissent from Christ in their conduct. Where do we find this in Scripture? Hear Paul the apostle: speaking of such men, he says, For they profess that they know God, but in deeds they deny Him (Titus 1:16). We find these too to be antichrists: whoever denies Christ by deeds is an antichrist. I do not listen to what he sounds, but I see what he lives. Works speak, and do we ask for words? For what bad man does not wish to speak well? But what does the Lord say to such men? Hypocrites, how can you speak good things, when you are evil (Matt. 12:34)? You bring your voices to My ears; I look into your thoughts: I see an evil will there, and you show false fruits. I know what I gather and from where; I do not gather figs from thistles, I do not gather grapes from thorns. For every tree is known by its fruit (Matt. 7:16). The more a liar is the antichrist who professes with his mouth that Jesus is the Christ, and denies it by his deeds. A liar for this reason, that he says one thing and does another.

9. Now then, brethren, if deeds are to be questioned, we find not only that many antichrists have gone out, but that many are not yet manifest, who have by no means gone out. For as many as the Church has who are perjurers, cheats, sorcerers, seekers after fortune-tellers, adulterers, drunkards, usurers, slave-dealers, and all that we cannot number, these things are contrary to the teaching of Christ, contrary to the word of God: and the Word of God is Christ: whatever is contrary to the Word of God is in Antichrist. For Antichrist is contrary to Christ. And do you wish to know how openly these men resist Christ? Sometimes it happens that they do some evil and begin to be rebuked; because they do not dare to blaspheme Christ, they blaspheme His ministers, by whom they are rebuked: but if you show them that you are speaking Christ's words, not your own, they try as hard as they can to convict you of speaking your own words, not Christ's: and if it becomes manifest that you are speaking Christ's words, they go on even against Christ, they begin to find fault with Christ: How, they say, and why did He make us such? Do not men say this every day when convicted of their deeds? Perverted by a depraved will, they accuse the Maker. The Maker cries to them from heaven (for He Who made us is He Who remade us): What did I make you? I made a man, not avarice; I made a man, not robbery; I made a man, not adultery. You have heard that My works praise Me. From the mouth of the three children the very hymn was what defended them from the flames (Dan. 3:24–90). The works of the Lord praise the Lord; heaven, earth, sea praise Him; all things that are in heaven praise Him; the Angels praise, the stars praise, the lights praise; whatever swims, whatever flies, whatever walks, whatever creeps praises, all these praise the Lord. Have you heard that avarice praises the Lord? Have you heard that drunkenness praises the Lord, that lust praises, that frivolity praises? Whatever you do not hear there giving praise to the Lord, the Lord did not make. Correct what you have made, that what God made in you may be saved. But if you will not, and you love and embrace your sins, you are contrary to Christ. Whether you are within or without, you are an antichrist: whether you are within, outside

you are chaff. But why are you not outside? Because you have not found the chance of a wind.

10. These things are now manifest, brethren. Let no one say: I do not worship Christ, but I worship God His Father. Everyone who denies the Son has neither the Son nor the Father; and he who confesses the Son has both the Son and the Father. He is addressing you, the grain; and let those who were chaff hear, and become grain. Let each one, considering his own conscience, if he is a lover of the world, be changed; let him become a lover of Christ, that he may not be an antichrist. If someone tells him that he is an antichrist, he is angry, he thinks a wrong has been done him; perhaps he threatens a formal charge, if he hears from an opponent at law that he is an antichrist. Christ says to him: Be patient; if what you heard is false, rejoice with Me, for I too hear false things from the antichrists: but if what you heard is true, take your conscience to task; and if you fear to hear it, fear more to be it.

11. Therefore let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. This is the promise which He Himself has promised us. For perhaps you might ask for a reward, and say: See, I keep in myself what I heard from the beginning, I obey; I bear dangers, toils, temptations for the sake of this abiding: with what fruit? With what reward? What will He give me afterwards, since I see myself toiling in this world amid temptations? I do not see that there is any rest here; mortality itself weighs down the soul, and the body which is corrupted presses it down to lower things: but I endure all things, that what I heard from the beginning may abide in me; and I shall say to my God, For the sake of the words of Thy lips I have kept hard ways (Ps. 16:4). For what reward, then? Hear, and do not faint. If you were fainting in your toils, be strong at the reward promised. Who is there who works in a vineyard and lets slip from his heart what he is to receive? Suppose him to have forgotten his wages: his hands fail. The remembrance of the promised wages makes him persevere in the work: and it was a man who promised, who can deceive you. How much stronger ought you to be in God's field, when the Truth has promised, Who can have no successor, nor die, nor deceive him to whom the promise was made? And what is promised? Let us see what He promised. Is it gold, which men love so much here, or silver? Or estates, for which men pour out gold, however much they love gold? Or pleasant farms, large houses, many slaves, numerous beasts? This is not the sort of reward to which He exhorts us, that we may endure in toil. What is this reward called? Eternal life. You have heard, and have cried out for joy: love what you have heard, and you are set free from your toils into the rest of eternal life. See what God promises: eternal life. See what God threatens: eternal fire. What to those set at the right hand? Come, blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world. What to the left? Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:34, 41). If you do not yet love the one, at least fear the other.

12. Remember then, my brethren, that Christ has promised us eternal life: This, he says, is the promise which He Himself has promised us, eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who lead you astray. Let no one lead you astray

unto death; desire the promise of eternal life. What can the world promise? Let it promise whatever it pleases, perhaps it is promising to one who will die tomorrow. And with what face will you go out to Him Who abides for ever? But a powerful man threatens me, to make me do some evil. What does he threaten? Prisons, chains, fires, torments, wild beasts: does he threaten eternal fire? Shudder at what the Almighty threatens, love what the Almighty promises; and the whole world grows worthless, whether promising or terrifying. These things I have written to you concerning those who lead you astray; that you may know that you have an anointing, and that the anointing which we have received from Him may abide in us. Of the anointing there is a sacrament; the power itself is invisible; the invisible anointing is the Holy Spirit; the invisible anointing is that charity which, in whomever it is, will be to him as a root: however burning the sun, it cannot wither. Everything that is rooted is nourished by the sun's heat; it does not wither.

13. And you have no need that anyone should teach you, because His anointing teaches you about all things. What then are we doing, brethren, in teaching you? If His anointing teaches you about all things, it seems we toil without cause. And to what end do we cry out so much? Let us leave you to His anointing, and let His anointing teach you. But now I put a question to myself, and I put it to that apostle himself: let him deign to hear a little one asking of him; to John himself I say: Had they the anointing, those to whom you were speaking? You said, Because His anointing teaches you about all things. To what end did you write such an Epistle? What were you teaching them? What were you instructing? What were you building up? Here now see a great mystery, brethren: the sound of our words strikes the ears; the Master is within. Do not think that anyone learns anything from a man. We can admonish by the noise of our voice; if there is not One within Who teaches, our noise becomes empty. Do you wish to know how true this is, brethren? Have you not all heard this sermon? How many will go out from here untaught? As far as concerns me, I have spoken to all; but those to whom that anointing does not speak within, those whom the Holy Spirit does not teach within, go back untaught. Teachings from outside are a kind of help, and admonitions. He Who teaches hearts has His chair in heaven. Therefore He Himself says in the Gospel: Do not call anyone on earth your master; one is your Master, Christ (Matt. 23:8–9). Let Him, then, speak to you within, when no man is there; for even if someone is at your side, no one is in your heart. And let there not be no one in your heart: let Christ be in your heart; let His anointing be in the heart, lest the heart be thirsting in a wilderness, and have no springs to water it. It is, then, the inner Master Who teaches; Christ teaches, His inspiration teaches. Where His inspiration and His anointing are not, words make an empty noise outside. So are these words, brethren, which we speak outside, as the husbandman is to the tree: he works outside, he applies water and careful cultivation; whatever he applies outside, does he form the fruit? Does he clothe the bareness of the branches with the shade