Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus VII-XII

it is for you" (2 Cor. 5:13). What is "we went beyond ourselves in mind, for God"? That we may see those things "which it is not lawful for a man to speak." What is "we are temperate, for you"? "Did I judge myself to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2)? If the Lord Himself ascends and descends, it is plain that His preachers too ascend by imitation and descend by preaching.

24. And if we have kept you somewhat longer, the plan was that the unseasonable hours should pass by: we think that those people have by now finished their vanity. But let us, brethren, since we have been fed with wholesome banquets, do what remains, so that we may fulfil the Lord's day solemnly in spiritual joys, and compare the joys of truth with the joys of vanity: and if we shudder, let us grieve; if we grieve, let us pray; if we pray, may we be heard; if we are heard, we gain those people too.

Tractate VIII.

From that passage of the Gospel, And on the third day a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee; as far as this, What is that to me and to you, woman? my hour has not yet come. (John 2:1–4).

1. The miracle indeed of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which He made wine from water, is no wonder to those who know that God did it. For He made wine on that day at the wedding in those six water-jars which He commanded to be filled with water (John 2:6–11), He Who every year does this in the vines. For just as what the servants put into the water-jars was turned into wine by the work of the Lord, so too what the clouds pour out is turned into wine by the work of the same Lord. But at that we do not wonder, because it happens every year: by its constancy it has lost admiration. And yet it meets with greater consideration than what was done in the jars of water. For who is there who considers the works of God, by which this whole world is ruled and governed, and is not astounded and overwhelmed by miracles? If he considers the power of a single grain, of any seed you like, it is a great thing, it is a source of awe to the one considering it. But because men, intent on something else, have lost the consideration of the works of God, in which they might daily give praise to the Creator, God has, as it were, kept for Himself certain unusual things to do, so that by more wonderful means He might rouse men, as though sleeping, to worship Him. A dead man rose again, men marvelled: so many are born every day, and no one marvels. If we consider more wisely, it is a greater miracle for one to be who was not, than for one who was to live again. Yet the same God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, does all these things through His Word, and He Who created rules. The earlier miracles He did through His Word, God with Him; the later miracles He did through that same Word of His, incarnate and made man for our sake. As we marvel at the things that were done through the man Jesus, let us marvel at the things that were done through God Jesus. Through God Jesus were made heaven and earth, the sea, and all the adornment of heaven, the richness of the earth, the fruitfulness of the sea; all these things that lie before our eyes were made through Jesus God. And we see these things, and if there is in us the Spirit

of His, they please us in such a way that the Craftsman is praised: not so that, turned towards the works, we are turned away from the Craftsman, and, setting our face, as it were, towards the things He made, set our back towards Him Who made them.

2. And these things indeed we see, and they lie before our eyes: what of those things which we do not see, such as the Angels, Virtues, Powers, Dominions, and every inhabitant of this supercelestial building, not lying before our eyes? Although the Angels too have often shown themselves to men, when it was fitting. Did not God make all these things through His Word also, that is, His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ? What of the human soul itself, which is not seen, and yet through the works which it displays in the flesh affords great wonder to those who consider well: by whom was it made, if not by God? and through whom was it made, if not through the Son of God? I do not yet speak of the soul of man. How the soul of any beast rules its bulk! it puts forth all the senses, the eyes for seeing, the ears for hearing, the nostrils for perceiving smell, the judgement of the mouth for distinguishing flavours, and lastly the limbs themselves for performing their functions. Is it the body that does these things, and not the soul, that is, the dweller in the body? And yet it is not seen with the eyes, and from the things it does it moves wonder. Let your consideration now come also to the human soul, to which God has granted understanding for knowing its Creator, for discerning and distinguishing between good and evil, that is, between just and unjust: how great are the things it does through the body! Consider the whole world ordered in the human commonwealth itself: with what administrations, what ranks of authorities, what constitutions of cities, laws, customs, arts! All this is carried on through the soul, and this power of the soul is not seen. When it is withdrawn from the body, the corpse lies there: but when it is present to the body, first of all it seasons, as it were, against stench. For all flesh is corruptible, it flows away into putrefaction, unless it is held together by a certain seasoning of the soul. But this it has in common with the soul of a beast: more to be wondered at are those things which I have spoken of, which pertain to the mind and understanding; where it is also renewed after the image of its Creator, after Whose image man was made (Col. 3:10). What will this power of the soul be, when this body too shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:53–54)? If it can do such great things through corruptible flesh, what will it be able to do through a spiritual body after the resurrection of the dead? Yet this soul, as I have said, of a wonderful nature and substance, is an invisible and intelligible thing: and yet this too was made through Jesus God, because He is the Word of God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made (John 1:3).

3. Since, then, we see such great things made through Jesus God, why do we wonder at water turned into wine through Jesus the man? For He was not made man in such a way that He lost what He was as God: man was added to Him, God was not lost. He therefore did this Who did all those things. Let us not, then, wonder that God did it; but let us love Him because He did it among us, and did it for the sake of our restoration. For He also hints something to us in the deeds themselves. I think that it was not without cause that He came to the wedding. Apart from the miracle, something of mystery and sacrament in the very deed

lies hidden. Let us knock, that He may open, and make us drunk with the invisible wine: for we too were water, and He made us wine, He made us wise; for we have the taste of His faith, we who before were unwise. And perhaps it belongs to that very wisdom, with honour to God, and with praise of His majesty, and with love of His most mighty mercy, to understand what was done in this miracle.

4. The Lord, being invited, came to a wedding. What wonder if He came to a wedding in that house, Who came into this world to a wedding? For if He did not come to a wedding, He has no bride here. And what is it that the Apostle says, I have fitted you to one husband, to present a chaste virgin to Christ? What is it that he fears, lest the virginity of Christ's bride be corrupted through the cunning of the devil? I fear, he says, lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds too be corrupted from the simplicity and chastity which is in Christ (2 Cor. 11:2–3). He has therefore a bride here, whom He redeemed with His blood, and to whom He gave the Holy Spirit as a pledge (2 Cor. 1:22). He rescued her from bondage to the devil: He died for her offences, He rose again for her justification (Rom. 4:25). Who would offer such things to his bride? Let men offer whatever ornaments of the earth they please: gold, silver, precious stones, horses, slaves, farms, estates: would anyone offer his own blood? For if he gives his own blood to his bride, there will be no one to take a wife. But the Lord, dying without care, gave His blood for her whom He would have when rising again, whom He had already joined to Himself in the womb of the Virgin. For the Word is the bridegroom, and the bride is human flesh; and both together are the one Son of God, and the same the son of man: where He was made head of the Church, that womb of the virgin Mary was His bridal chamber; thence He came forth as a bridegroom from His chamber, as Scripture foretold, And he, as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, has exulted as a giant to run the way (Ps. 18:6); from the chamber He came forth as a bridegroom, and, being invited, came to the wedding.

5. For the sake of a certain mystery, He seems not to acknowledge the mother from whom the bridegroom came forth, and to say to her, What is it to Me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come. What is this? Did He come to the wedding for this, to teach that mothers are to be despised? Surely he to whose wedding He had come was taking a wife for this purpose, that he might beget children; and by those whom he wished to beget he surely desired to be honoured: had He then come to the wedding to dishonour His mother, when weddings themselves are celebrated, and wives are taken, for the sake of having children, whom God commands to render honour to their parents? Beyond doubt, brethren, something lies hidden there. For so great a matter is it, that certain men, against whom the Apostle warned beforehand that we should be on guard, as we recalled above, saying, I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds too be corrupted from the simplicity and chastity which is in Christ, disparaging the Gospel, and saying that Jesus was not born of the Virgin Mary, tried to take from this an argument for their error, so as to say, How was she His mother, to whom He said, What is it to Me and to you, woman? We must therefore answer them, and explain why the Lord said this; lest to themselves

they may seem, in their madness against sound faith, to have found something whereby the chastity of the virgin bride may be corrupted, that is, whereby the faith of the Church may be violated. For truly, brethren, the faith of those who prefer falsehood to truth is corrupted. For these men, who seem to honour Christ in such a way as to deny that He had flesh, proclaim Him to be nothing other than a liar. Those, then, who build up falsehood in men, what do they drive out of them, if not the truth? They let in the devil, they shut out Christ; they let in the adulterer, they shut out the bridegroom: groomsmen, forsooth, or rather pimps of the serpent. For they speak to this end, that the serpent may take possession and Christ be shut out. How does the serpent take possession? When falsehood takes possession. When falsity takes possession, the serpent takes possession: when truth takes possession, Christ takes possession. For He Himself said, I am the truth (John 14:6); but of the other He said, And he did not stand in the truth, because the truth is not in him (ibid. 8:44). Now Christ is the truth in such a way that you are to take everything in Christ as true. True Word, God equal to the Father, true soul, true flesh, true man, true God, true birth, true passion, true death, true resurrection. If you say that any of these is false, rottenness enters, from the serpent's venom are born the worms of falsehoods, and nothing will remain whole.

6. What is it, then, he says, that the Lord says, What is there to Me and to you, woman? Perhaps in what follows the Lord shows us why He said this: Not yet, He says, has My hour come. For thus He says, What is there to Me and to you, woman? not yet has My hour come. And why this was said must be inquired into. First, then, let us on this point resist the heretics. What does the sluggish old serpent say, the ancient hisser-in and breather-in of poisons? what does he say? Jesus did not have a woman for His mother. Whence do you prove it? Because, he says, He said, What is there to Me and to you, woman? Who related this, that we should believe that He said it? who related this? John the evangelist, of course. But that same John the evangelist said, And the mother of Jesus was there. For thus he related: On the next day a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now He had come there, invited to the wedding with His disciples. We hold two statements put forth by the Evangelist. The mother of Jesus was there, the Evangelist said; what Jesus said to His mother, the Evangelist himself said. And see, brethren, how he said that Jesus answered His mother, so that he first said, His mother said to Him, that you may have the virginity of your heart fortified against the serpent's tongue. There, in the Gospel itself, with that very evangelist relating it, it is said, The mother of Jesus was there; and, His mother said to Him. Who related this? John the evangelist. And what did Jesus answer His mother? What is there to Me and to you, woman? Who relates this? The same John the evangelist. O most faithful and most truthful Evangelist, you relate to me that Jesus said, What is there to Me and to you, woman? why did you attach to Him a mother whom He does not acknowledge? For you said that the mother of Jesus was there, and that His mother said to Him: why did you not rather say, Mary was there; and, Mary said to Him? You relate both things: both, His mother said to Him; and, Jesus answered her, What is there to Me and to you, woman? Why this, unless because

both are true? But they are willing to believe the Evangelist in this, that he relates that Jesus said to His mother, What is it to Me and to you, woman? and they are unwilling to believe the Evangelist in what he says, The mother of Jesus was there; and, His mother said to Him. Who, then, is it that resists the serpent and holds the truth, whose virginity of heart is not corrupted by the cunning of the devil? He who believes both to be true: both that the mother of Jesus was there, and that Jesus gave that answer to His mother. But if he does not yet understand in what sense Jesus said, What is it to Me and to you, woman? let him meanwhile believe that He said it, and that He said it to His mother. Let there first be piety in the one believing, and there will be fruit in the one understanding.

7. I ask you, O faithful Christians: Was the mother of Jesus there? Answer: She was. How do you know? Answer: The Gospel says this. What did Jesus answer His mother? Answer: What is it to Me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come. And how do you know this? Answer: The Gospel says this. Let no one corrupt this faith in you, if you wish to keep a chaste virginity for the Bridegroom. But if you are asked why He gave this answer to His mother, let him who understands say: but let him who does not yet understand nevertheless most firmly believe that Jesus gave this answer, and yet that He gave it to His mother. By this piety he will also merit to understand why He answered so, if he knocks by praying and approaches the door of truth not by quarrelling. Only let him beware lest, while he thinks he knows, or is ashamed not to know, why He answered so, he be compelled to believe either that the Evangelist lied who says, The mother of Jesus was there; or that Christ Himself suffered a false death for our offences, and showed false scars for our justification, and spoke falsely when He said, If you remain in My word, you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:31–32). For if the mother is false, the flesh false, the death false, the wounds of the passion false, the scars of the resurrection false, then not truth but rather falsehood will set free those who believe in Him. Nay rather, let falsehood give way to truth, and let all be confounded who wish to seem truthful for this reason, that they try to show Christ deceitful; and who are unwilling to be told, We do not believe you, because you lie, when they say that Truth itself has lied. Yet if we say to them, How do you know that Christ said, What is it to Me and to you, woman? they answer that they have believed the Gospel. Why do they not believe the Gospel when it says, The mother of Jesus was there; and, His mother said to Him? Or if the Gospel lies in this, how is it believed in saying that Jesus said, What is it to Me and to you, woman? Why do the wretched men not rather faithfully believe that the Lord gave this answer not to a stranger but to His mother, and piously inquire why He answered so? For there is a great difference between one who says, I wish to know why Christ gave this answer to His mother; and one who says, I know that Christ did not give this answer to His mother. It is one thing to wish to understand what is closed, another to be unwilling to believe what is open. He who says, I wish to know why Christ answered His mother so, wishes the Gospel which he believes to be opened to him: but he who says, I know that Christ did not give this answer to His mother, accuses of lying the very Gospel in which he believed that Christ answered so.

8. Now therefore, if you please, brethren, with those men repelled and ever wandering in their blindness unless they are humbly healed, let us inquire why our Lord answered His mother thus. He was singularly born of the Father without a mother, of a mother without a father; without a mother God, without a father man; without a mother before the ages, without a father at the end of the ages. What He answered, He answered to His mother: for, The mother of Jesus was there; and, His mother said to Him. The whole Gospel says this. There we know that the mother of Jesus was there, where we know that He said to her, What is it to Me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come. Let us believe the whole, and what we do not yet understand let us search out. And first see to this: lest perhaps, just as the Manichaeans found an occasion for their faithlessness because the Lord said, What is it to Me and to you, woman? so the astrologers find an occasion for their deceit because He said, My hour has not yet come. And if He said this according to the astrologers, we committed sacrilege in burning their books. But if we did rightly, as was done in the times of the Apostles (Acts 19:19), then the Lord did not say according to them, My hour has not yet come. For the vain talkers, seduced seducers, say: You see that Christ was under fate, Who says, My hour has not yet come. Which, then, must be answered first: the heretics, or the astrologers? For both come from that serpent, wishing to corrupt the virginity of heart of the Church, which she holds in entire faith. First, if you please, those whom we had set before us, to whom indeed we have already replied in great part. But lest they think that we have nothing to say about these words which the Lord answered to His mother, we instruct you the more against them: for to refute them, I think that what has already been said suffices.

9. Why then does the son say to His mother, What is it to Me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come. Our Lord Jesus Christ was both God and man: according as He was God, He had no mother; according as He was man, He had one. She was therefore the mother of the flesh, the mother of the humanity, the mother of the weakness which He took up for our sake. But the miracle which He was about to do, He was about to do according to the divinity, not according to the weakness; according as He was God, not according as He had been born weak. But the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Cor. 1:25). The mother, then, was demanding a miracle; but He, as it were, does not acknowledge the human womb, being about to work divine deeds; as though saying: That in Me which works the miracle, you did not bear; My divinity you did not bear: but because you bore My weakness, I will acknowledge you then, when that very weakness will hang upon the cross: for this is, My hour has not yet come. For then He acknowledged her, He Who indeed had always known her. Both before He was born of her, He knew His mother in predestination; and before He Himself as God created her of whom He Himself as man was to be created, He knew His mother: but until a certain hour He does not acknowledge her in a mystery; and at a certain hour which had not yet come, He acknowledges her again in a mystery. For He acknowledged her then, when that which she had borne was dying. For it was not that through which Mary had been made that was dying, but that which had been made from Mary was dying: it was not eternity that was dying

of the divinity, but the weakness of the flesh was dying. That, therefore, is what He answered, distinguishing in the faith of believers who He was and by what way He had come. For He came through a woman as His mother, He who is God and Lord of heaven and earth. Inasmuch as He is Lord of the world, inasmuch as He is Lord of heaven and earth, He is certainly Lord of Mary too; inasmuch as He is creator of heaven and earth, He is creator of Mary too; but inasmuch as it was said, Made of a woman, made under the Law (Gal. 4:4), He is the son of Mary. He Himself is the Lord of Mary, He Himself the son of Mary; He Himself the creator of Mary, He Himself created from Mary. Do not wonder that He is both son and Lord: for as He is called the son of Mary, so too is He called the son of David; and He is the son of David for this reason, that He is the son of Mary. Hear the Apostle saying openly, Who was made for him of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom. 1:3). Hear that He is also the Lord of David; let David himself say this: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand (Ps. 109:1). And Jesus Himself put this to the Jews, and refuted them by it (Matt. 22:45). As, then, He is both son and lord of David, son of David according to the flesh, lord of David according to the divinity, so He is son of Mary according to the flesh, and Lord of Mary according to the majesty. Since, then, she was not the mother of the divinity, and it was through the divinity that the miracle she was asking for was to come about, He answered her, What is there to me and to you, woman? But lest you think that I deny you are my mother, My hour has not yet come: for there I shall acknowledge you, when the weakness whose mother you are begins to hang on the cross. Let us test whether this is true. When the Lord suffered, as the same evangelist says, he who had known the mother of the Lord, and who made known to us the mother of the Lord at this wedding too, he himself relates: There was, he says, by the cross the mother of Jesus, and Jesus said to His mother, Woman, behold your son; and to the disciple, Behold your mother (John 19:25–27). He commends His mother to the disciple: He commends His mother, being about to die before His mother, and about to rise again before His mother's death; a man commends a man to a man. This was what Mary had borne. That hour had now come of which He had then said, My hour has not yet come.

10. As far as I judge, brothers, the heretics have been answered: let us answer the astrologers. And they too, from what do they try to prove that Jesus was under fate? Because He Himself said, they say, My hour has not yet come. So we believe Him; and if He had said, I have no hour, He would have shut out the astrologers: but see, they say, He Himself said, My hour has not yet come. If, then, He had said, I have no hour, He would have shut out the astrologers, and they would have no ground for slander: but now, since He said, My hour has not yet come, what can we say against His own words? It is a wonder that the astrologers, by believing the words of Christ, try to convince Christians that Christ lived under a fated hour. Let them then believe Christ when He says, I have power to lay down my soul, and to take it up again: no one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself, and I take it up again (John 10:18). Is this power, then, under fate? Let them show a man who has power over when he dies and how long he lives: they will not show one at all. Let them then believe God when He says, I have power to lay down my soul, and to take it up again: and let them ask why it was said, My hour has not yet come; and let them not on that account now place under fate the maker of heaven, the creator

and orderer of the stars. For if fate came from the stars, the founder of the stars could not be under the necessity of the stars. Add that not only did Christ not have what you call fate, but neither do you, or I, or he, or any one of men.

11. Nevertheless, the seduced seduce, and set deceits before men: they lay snares to catch men, and that in the streets. For those who lay snares to catch wild beasts do it in the woods and in solitude: how unhappily vain are men, for the catching of whom snares are laid in the market-place! Men receive money when they sell themselves to men; these give money so as to sell themselves to vanities. For they go in to the astrologer to buy themselves masters, such as it pleases the astrologer to give: either Saturn, or Jupiter, or Mercury, or whatever else of sacrilegious name. He went in free, so that, having paid his money, he might come out a slave. Nay rather, he would not have gone in if he were free; but he went in whither his master error and his mistress greed dragged him. Hence the Truth also says: Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34).

12. Why then did He say, My hour has not yet come? Rather because He had it in His power when He should die, He did not yet see it to be opportune to use that power. Just as we, brothers, for example, speak thus: Now there is a fixed hour at which we should go out to celebrate the sacraments? If we go out before there is need, are we not perverse and preposterous? Since, then, we do not do it except when it is opportune, do we therefore, when we speak thus in doing these things, take account of fate? What then is, My hour has not yet come? When I know it to be opportune for Me to suffer, when My passion will be useful, that very hour has not yet come; then I will suffer by My will: so that you may keep both, both, My hour has not yet come, and, I have power to lay down My life, and to take it up again. He had come, then, having in His power when He should die. But if He had died before He had chosen disciples, it would certainly have been preposterous: if He were a man who did not have his hour in his power, he could die before he had chosen disciples; and if perhaps he died when the disciples were already chosen and instructed, it would be granted to him, not that he himself did this. But He who had come having in His hand when He should go, when He should return, how far He should range, to Whom the underworld lay open, not only as He died but also as He rose again, in order to show us the hope of immortality of His Church, showed in the head what the members ought to expect. He will rise also in the other members, Who rose in the head. The hour, then, had not yet come, the opportunity was not yet there. The disciples were to be called, the kingdom of heaven was to be announced, mighty works were to be done, the divinity of the Lord was to be commended in miracles, the humanity of the Lord was to be commended in His very sharing of mortality. For He Who hungered because He was man fed so many thousands with five loaves because He was God; He Who slept because He was man commanded the winds and waves because He was God. All these things had to be commended first, so that there might be something for the Evangelists to write, something to be preached to the Church. But when He had done as much as He judged to suffice, there came the hour not of necessity but of