Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus XIII-XIX

(1 Cor. 3:7). And does any one of us say that he is something? If we say that we are something, and do not give the glory to Him, we are adulterers; we want ourselves to be loved, not the bridegroom. You, love Christ, and us in Him, in Whom you too are loved by us. Let the members love one another, but let all live under the head. Out of grief, indeed, my brothers, I have been compelled to say much, and I have said little: I could not finish the reading; the Lord will be present so that it may be finished at a fitting time. For I did not want to burden your hearts further, which I want to be free for groans and for prayers on behalf of those who are still deaf and do not understand.

Tractate XIV.

On that passage of the Gospel, This my joy therefore is fulfilled, etc., up to this, But he who is unbelieving towards the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. Chap. 3, vv. 29-36.

1. This reading from the holy Gospel teaches us the excellence of the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the humility of the man who deserved to be called the friend of the bridegroom; so that we may distinguish what difference there is between a man who is man and a man who is God. For the man God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is God before all ages, and man in our age: God from the Father, man from the Virgin, yet one and the same Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Son of God, God and man. John, however, a man of excellent grace, was sent before Him; enlightened by Him Who is the light. For of John it was said, He was not the light, but [came] that he might bear witness of the light (John 1:8). He can indeed be called a light, and he too is rightly called a light; but a light enlightened, not enlightening. For the light which enlightens is one thing, and the light which is enlightened is another: for our eyes too are called lights, and yet in darkness they are open and do not see. But the enlightening light is light from itself, and is light to itself, and does not need another light in order to be able to shine, but all other things need it in order to shine.

2. John therefore confessed, as you have heard, that when Jesus was making many disciples, and this was reported to him as if to provoke him (for they told it to him as to one envious: Behold, he makes more disciples than you), he confessed what he was, and thereby deserved to belong to Him, because he did not dare to say that he was what He is. This therefore is what John said: "A man cannot receive anything, unless it has been given to him from heaven." Therefore Christ gives, man receives. "You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I have been sent before Him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice" (John 3:26–29). He did not make himself a joy from himself. For he who wants to rejoice in himself will be sad: but he who wants to rejoice in God will always rejoice; because God is everlasting. Do you want to have everlasting joy? Cleave to Him Who is everlasting. Such did John declare himself to be. Because of the bridegroom's voice the friend of the bridegroom rejoices, he says, not because of his own voice: and he stands, and hears him. If therefore he falls, he does not

hears Him: for of that certain one who fell it was said, And he did not stand in the truth (John 8:44); it was said of the devil. Therefore the friend of the bridegroom must stand and hear. What is it to stand? To abide in His grace which he has received. And he hears a voice at which he may rejoice. So was John: he knew whence he rejoiced; he did not claim for himself what he himself was not; he knew himself to be one enlightened, not the enlightener. But that was the true light, says the Evangelist, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9). If then every man, John himself also; for he too is of men. For although there has risen no one greater than John among those born of women (Matt. 11:11), yet he too is one of those who were born of women. Is he to be compared with Him Who, because He willed it, was born, and therefore by a new birth, because He was born new? For both generations of the Lord are unwonted, both the divine and the human: the divine has no mother, the human has no father. Therefore John, one of the rest, but yet of greater grace, so that among those born of women no one should rise greater than he, gave such testimony to our Lord Jesus Christ as to call Him the bridegroom, himself the friend of the bridegroom, yet not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoe. On this Your Charity has already heard much: let us see what follows; for it is somewhat dense to understand. But since John himself says that a man cannot receive anything unless it has been given him from heaven, whatever we do not understand, let us ask of Him Who gives from heaven: for we are men, and we cannot receive anything unless He gives it Who is not man.

3. This, then, follows, and John says, This my joy therefore is fulfilled. What is his joy? That he should rejoice at the voice of the bridegroom. It is fulfilled in me; I have my grace; I take no more to myself, lest I lose even what I have received. What is this joy? He rejoices with joy because of the voice of the bridegroom. Let a man therefore understand that he ought to rejoice not in his own wisdom, but in the wisdom which he has received from God. Let him seek nothing more, and he does not lose what he has found. For many have become foolish for this very reason, that they said they were wise. The Apostle rebukes them, and says of them: "For what is known of God," he says, "is manifest to them: for God has manifested it to them." Hear what he says of certain ungrateful, impious men: "For God has manifested it to them. For His invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made; His eternal power also and divinity, so that they are without excuse." Why "without excuse"? Because "knowing God"; he did not say that they did not know; "knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks; but they became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened: for saying that they were wise, they became fools" (Rom. 1:19–22). For if they had known God, they had known at the same time that none but God had made them wise. They should not, then, have attributed to themselves what they did not have of themselves, but to Him from Whom they had received it. But by not giving thanks they became foolish. Therefore what God had given freely, He took away from the ungrateful. John did not wish to be this; he wished to be grateful:

he confessed that he had received, and he said that he rejoiced because of the bridegroom's voice, and he says, This my joy therefore is fulfilled.

4. He must increase, but I must decrease. What is this? He must be exalted, but I must be humbled. How does Jesus increase? How does God increase? The perfect does not increase. But God neither increases nor decreases. For if He increases, He is not perfect; if He decreases, He is not God. But how does Jesus, being God, increase? If in age, because He deigned to be a man and was a boy; and though He is the Word of God, He lay as an infant in a manger, and though He Himself created His mother, He sucked the milk of infancy from His mother: since therefore Jesus grew in the age of the flesh, perhaps for that reason it was said, He must increase, but I must decrease. But why this too? John and Jesus, as far as the flesh is concerned, were of the same age: they had six months between them (Luke 1:36), they had grown up alike; and if our Lord Jesus Christ had wished to be here longer before His death, and John himself to be here with Him, then as they had grown up alike, so they could have grown old alike: why then, He must increase, but I must decrease? First, because the Lord was already thirty years old (ibid. 3:23): does a young man, if he is already thirty years old, still grow? From that very age men begin to turn downwards and to decline towards a heavier age, and thence to old age. But even if they had both been boys, he would not say, He must increase, but I must decrease; but he would say, We must increase together. But as it is, the one is thirty years old, and the other thirty: the six months that lay between them make no distinction of age; reading discovers this rather than looking.

5. What then is, He must increase, but I must decrease? This is a great mystery! Let Your Charity understand. Before the Lord Jesus came, men gloried in themselves: that Man came so that the glory of man might be lessened and the glory of God increased. For He came without sin, and He found all with sin. If He came thus in order to forgive sins, let God bestow and let man confess. For the confession of man is the humility of man; the compassion of God is the loftiness of God. If therefore He came to forgive man his sins, let man acknowledge his humility, and let God show His mercy. He must increase, but I must decrease: that is, He must give, but I must receive; He must be glorified, but I must confess. Let man understand his rank, and confess to God, and hear the Apostle saying to a man who is proud and puffed up and wishing to exalt himself: For what do you have that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it (1 Cor. 4:7)? Let man therefore understand that he has received, he who wished to call his own what is not his, and let him decrease: for it is good for him that God be glorified in him. Let him decrease in himself, that he may be increased in God. These testimonies and this truth Christ and John signified also by their passions. For John was diminished by the head, Christ was exalted on the cross; so that there too it might appear what is meant by, He must increase, but I must decrease. Then Christ was born when the days were already beginning to increase; John was born when the days began to decrease. But

the creation itself and the passions themselves have borne witness to the words of John, who says, He must increase, but I must decrease. Let the glory of God, then, increase in us, and let our own glory decrease, so that ours too may increase in God. For this is what the Apostle says, this is what holy Scripture says: He who glories, let him glory in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:31, and Jer. 9:23–24). Do you wish to glory in yourself? You wish to grow: but you grow badly, to your own harm. For he who grows badly is justly diminished. Let God, then, who is always perfect, grow; let Him grow in you. For the more you understand God, and the more you take Him in, the more God seems to grow in you: but in Himself He does not grow, but is always perfect. Yesterday you understood a little, today you understand more, tomorrow you will understand much more: the very light of God grows in you; thus God grows, as it were, Who remains always perfect. Just as, if someone's eyes were being cured of a long-standing blindness, and he began to see a little of the light, and on another day saw more, and on the third day more still, the light would seem to him to grow: yet the light is perfect, whether he sees or does not see. So it is also with the inner man: he makes progress indeed in God, and God seems to grow in him; yet he himself decreases, so that he may fall from his own glory and rise into the glory of God.

6. And now what we heard just now appears distinctly and plainly. He who comes from above is above all. See what he says of Christ. What does he say of himself? He who is of the earth is of the earth, and speaks of the earth. He who comes from above is above all; that is Christ: But he who is of the earth is of the earth, and speaks of the earth; that is John. And is this the whole of it, that John is of the earth and speaks of the earth? Does the whole testimony that he bears about Christ speak of the earth? Are not the words of God heard from John when he bears testimony about Christ? How, then, does he speak of the earth? But he was speaking of man. So far as the man himself is concerned, he is of the earth, and speaks of the earth: but if he speaks any divine things, he has been enlightened by God. For if he were not enlightened, earth would speak earth. Therefore the grace of God is one thing, the nature of man another. Question the nature of man now: he is born and grows, he learns these customary things of men. What does he know except earth from earth? He speaks human things, knows human things, savours human things; being carnal, he judges carnally, he supposes carnally: behold, that is the whole man. Let the grace of God come, let it enlighten his darkness, as he says, Thou wilt light my lamp, O Lord; my God, enlighten my darkness (Ps. 17:29); let it take up the human mind, let it turn it towards its own light: he begins now to say what the Apostle says, Yet not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Cor. 15:10); and, Now I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20). This is, He must increase, but I must decrease. Therefore John, so far as John is concerned, is of the earth and speaks of the earth: if you have heard anything divine from John, it belongs to the one who enlightens, not to the one who receives.

7. He who comes from heaven is above all; and what He has seen and heard, to this He testifies; and His testimony

no one receives. He Who comes from heaven is above all, our Lord Jesus Christ: of Whom it was said above, No one has ascended into heaven, except He Who descended from heaven, the Son of Man Who is in heaven (John 3:13). And He is above all; and what He has seen and heard, this He speaks. For the Son of God Himself also has a Father; He both has a Father and hears from the Father. And what is it that He hears from the Father? Who can explain this? When can my tongue, when can my heart suffice, either the heart for understanding or the tongue for uttering, what it is that the Son heard from the Father? Perhaps the Son heard the Word of the Father? Nay rather, the Son is the Word of the Father. You see how here every human effort grows weary; you see how here every conjecture of our breast fails, and every straining of the darkened mind. I hear Scripture saying that the Son speaks this, which He hears from the Father; and again I hear Scripture saying that the Son Himself is the Word of the Father: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We speak words that fly and pass away: as soon as your word has sounded from your mouth, it passes; it makes its noise and passes into silence. Can you follow your sound, and hold it so that it stands still? Yet your thought remains, and from that same abiding thought you speak many passing words. What are we saying, brethren? When God spoke, did He employ a voice, did He employ sounds, did He employ syllables? If He employed these, in what tongue did He speak? Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin? Tongues are necessary there, where there is a distinction of nations. But there no one can say that God spoke in this tongue or in that tongue. Attend to your own heart. When you conceive a word that you are to say (for I will say, if I can, what we may observe in ourselves, not how we may comprehend that), when, then, you conceive a word that you are to utter, you wish to say a thing, and the very conception of the thing in your heart is already a word; it has not yet gone forth, but it is already born in the heart, and it remains in order to go forth: but you consider to whom it is to go forth, with whom you are speaking; if he is a Latin, you seek a Latin expression; if he is a Greek, you ponder Greek words; if he is a Carthaginian, you consider whether you know the Punic tongue; according to the diversity of your hearers you employ diverse tongues, in order to utter the word conceived: but that which you had conceived in the heart was held by no tongue. Since, then, God in speaking sought no tongue and took on no kind of speech, how was He heard by the Son, when it is the Son Himself that God has spoken? For just as you have in your heart the word that you speak, and it is with you, and the conception itself is spiritual (for just as your soul is spirit, so also the word that you have conceived is spirit; for it has not yet received sound so as to be divided into syllables, but remains in the conception of the heart and in the mirror of the mind), so God put forth the Word, that is, begot the Son. And you indeed beget a word in time, even in the heart: God without time begot the Son, through Whom He created all times. Since, then, the Son is the Word of God, and the Son has spoken to us, not His own word

but the Word of the Father, He willed to speak to us, He Who was speaking the Word of the Father. This, then, John said as was fitting and as was proper; we have expounded it as we could. He to whose heart an understanding worthy of so great a matter has not yet come has where to turn, has where to knock, has of Whom to inquire, has of Whom to ask, has from Whom to receive.

8. He Who comes from heaven is above all: and what He has seen and heard, to this He bears witness; and no one receives His testimony. If no one, why did He come? No one, then, of certain people. There is a certain people prepared for the wrath of God, to be damned with the devil: of these no one receives the testimony of Christ. For if absolutely no one, not a single man, what is it that follows, But he who has received His testimony has set his seal that God is true? Certainly, then, not no one, if you yourself say, He who has received His testimony has set his seal that God is true. John, then, if he were asked, would perhaps reply and say, I know what I said: no one. For there is a certain people born for the wrath of God, and foreknown for this. For who are going to believe and who are not going to believe, God knows; who are going to persevere in what they have believed and who are going to fall away, God knows: and all who are going to be in eternal life are numbered by God; and He already knows that people as set apart. And if He Himself knows, and has given to the Prophets to know through His Spirit, He has given it also to John. John, then, was looking, not with his own eye; for as far as he himself is concerned, he is earth and speaks of the earth: but in that grace of the Spirit which he received from God he saw a certain people, ungodly, unbelieving; looking at them in their unbelief, he says, His testimony Who comes from heaven no one receives. No one of whom? Of those who are going to be on the left, of those to whom it will be said, Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. Who, then, receive it? Those who are going to be on the right, those to whom it will be said, Come, blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the world (Matt. 25:41, 34). He looked, then, in the spirit at the division, but in the human race at the mixture; and what has not yet been separated in place, he separated by understanding, he separated by the gaze of the heart; and he saw two peoples, of the faithful and of the unfaithful: he looked at the unfaithful, and said, He Who comes from heaven is above all: and what He has seen and heard, to this He bears witness; and no one receives His testimony. Then he moved himself away from the left, and looked towards the right, and went on to say, He who has received His testimony has set his seal that God is true. What is has set his seal that God is true, if not, man is a liar, and God is true? For no one among men can say what belongs to truth unless he is enlightened by Him Who cannot lie. God, then, is true, and Christ is God. Do you wish to prove it? Receive His testimony, and you find: For he who has received His testimony has set his seal that God is true. Who? He Himself Who comes from heaven and is above all, is God, true. But if you do not yet understand Him as God, you have not yet received His testimony: receive it, and you set your seal, you understand by anticipation, you acknowledge decisively that God is true.

9. For He Whom God has sent speaks the words of God. He Himself

is true God, and God sent Him: God sent God. Join the two, one God, true God sent by God. Ask about each singly: God; and ask about both: God. Not each singly God and both together gods, but each one singly God and both together God. For so great there is the charity of the Holy Spirit, so great the peace of unity, that when the question is asked about each singly, the answer given you is God; when the question is asked about the Trinity, the answer given you is God. For if the spirit of a man, when it cleaves to God, is one spirit, as the Apostle plainly says, He who adheres to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), how much more is the Son, equal and adhering to the Father, together with Him one God? Hear another testimony. You know how many believed, when they sold all that they had and laid it at the feet of the Apostles, that it might be distributed to each as there was need; and what does Scripture say of that congregation of saints? They had one soul and one heart in the Lord (Acts 4:32). If charity made of so many souls one soul, and of so many hearts one heart, how great is the charity between the Father and the Son? Surely it can be greater than between those men who had one heart. If therefore the heart of many brethren is one because of charity, and the soul of many brethren is one because of charity, are you going to say of God the Father and God the Son that they are two? If they are two gods, there is not the highest charity there. For if here charity is so great that it makes your soul and the soul of your friend one soul, how is it that there the Father and the Son are not one God? Far be it that faith unfeigned should think this. Understand from this how far that charity excels. The souls of many men are many, and if they love one another, it is one soul; but they can also be called many souls, they can among men, because the union is not so great; there, however, you may say one God; you may not say two or three gods. Hence is commended to you the pre-eminence and supremacy of charity, so great that there cannot be a greater.

10. For He Whom God has sent speaks the words of God. This he was saying, of course, about Christ, so as to distinguish himself from Him. For what? Did not God send John himself? Did he not himself say, I am sent before Him (John 3:28), and, He Who sent me to baptize in water (ibid. 1:33)? And of him it was said, Behold, I send My angel before Thee, and he shall prepare Thy way. Does not he too speak the words of God, he of whom it was also said that he is more than a prophet (Mal. 3:1; Matt. 11:10, 9)? If therefore God sent him too, and he speaks the words of God, how do we take it that he said of Christ by way of distinction, For He Whom God has sent speaks the words of God? But see what he adds: For God does not give the Spirit by measure. What is this, For God does not give the Spirit by measure? We find that God does give the Spirit by measure. Hear the Apostle saying, According to the measure of the gift of Christ (Eph. 4:7). To men He gives by measure; to the only Son He does not give by measure. How to men by measure? To one indeed is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith in the same Spirit,

to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another the gift of healings. Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? do all have gifts of healings? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret (1 Cor. 12:8–10, 29–30)? This one has one thing, that one another; and what that one has, this one does not have: there is a measure, there is a certain division of gifts. Therefore to men it is given by measure, and concord there makes one body. Just as the hand receives one thing, that it may work, the eye another, that it may see, the ear another, that it may hear, the foot another, that it may walk; yet the soul is one which does all things, in the hand that it may work, in the foot that it may walk, in the ear that it may hear, in the eye that it may see: so too the gifts of the faithful are diverse, distributed as to members, to each by its own measure. But Christ, Who gives, does not receive by measure.

11. For hear further what follows; since he had said of the Son, For God does not give the Spirit by measure: The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. He added, He has given all things into His hand, that you might know here too with what distinction it was said, The Father loves the Son. For why? Does the Father not love John? and yet He has not given all things into his hand. Does the Father not love Paul? and yet He has not given all things into his hand. The Father loves the Son: but as the Father loves the Son, not as a master a servant; as the Only One, not as one adopted. And so He has given all things into His hand. What is "all things"? That the Son should be as great as the Father is. For He begot Him for equality with Himself, Him for Whom it was not robbery, being in the form of God, to be equal to God (Phil. 2:6). The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand. Therefore, since He deigned to send the Son to us, let us not think that anything less has been sent to us than the Father is. The Father, sending the Son, sent another Himself.

12. For the disciples, still thinking that the Father is something greater than the Son, seeing the flesh and not understanding the divinity, said to Him: Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. As if they were saying, We already know Thee, and we bless Thee, because we know Thee: for we give Thee thanks, because Thou hast shown Thyself to us; but the Father we do not yet know: therefore our heart burns, and is busy with a certain holy longing to see Thy Father Who sent Thee; show Him to us, and we shall desire nothing more from Thee: for it is enough for us when He has been shown, than Whom no one can be greater. A good longing, a good desire; but a small understanding. For the Lord Jesus Himself, attending to the little ones seeking great things, and to Himself great among the little ones and little among the little ones, said to Philip, who had said this, one of the disciples: So long a time I am with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? Here Philip could have answered, We have known Thee; but did we say to Thee, Show us Thyself? Thee we have known, but the Father we seek. He added at once: He who has seen Me has seen the Father also (John 14:8–9). If therefore He was sent equal to the Father, let us not judge Him by the weakness of the flesh, but let us think of majesty clothed with flesh, not oppressed