Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus XX-XXV

you wish to draw examples for divine things. A man who sends remains where he is, and he who is sent goes: does the man go along with the one whom he sends? But the Father who sent the Son did not withdraw from the Son. Hear the Lord Himself saying, Behold, the hour will come, that each one may depart to his own, and you leave Me alone: but I am not alone, because the Father is with Me (John 16:32). How did He send Him with Whom He came? How did He send Him from Whom He did not withdraw? In another place He said, But the Father abiding in Me does His works (ibid. 14:10). Behold, He is in Him; behold, He works. The sender did not withdraw from the one sent, because the one sent and the sender are one.

Tractate 22.

From that which is written, Amen, amen I say to you, that he who hears My word and believes Him Who sent Me has eternal life; as far as this, That I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him Who sent Me. Chapter 5, verses 24-30.

1. Upon the sermons delivered to you the day before yesterday and yesterday there follows today's Gospel reading, which let us treat thoroughly in order, not according to its dignity, but according to our strength: since you too take in, not according to the bounty of the overflowing fountain, but according to the small measure of your own capacity. And we do not speak into your ears as much as the fountain itself pours forth; but as much as we can take in, that we may pass it on into your understandings, He Himself working more abundantly in your hearts than we in your ears. For a great matter is being treated, and not by great men, nay, by very small ones: yet He gives us hope and confidence Who, being great, was made small for our sake. For if we were not exhorted by Him, nor invited to understand Him, but He abandoned us as contemptible; since we cannot take in His divinity, had He not Himself taken on our mortality, and come to us to speak the Gospel to us; if He had been unwilling to share with us what in us is abject and least; we would think that He had been unwilling to give us what is great in Him, Who took up what is small in us. I have said these things, lest anyone should either reproach us for treating these matters, as being very bold; or despair of himself that he can take in, by the gift of God, what the Son of God has deigned to speak to him. Therefore what He has deigned to speak to us, we ought to believe, because He willed that we should understand. But if we cannot, He grants understanding when asked, Who granted the word unasked.

2. Behold, attend to what the secrets of these words are. Amen, amen I say to you, that he who hears My word and believes Him Who sent Me has eternal life. Towards eternal life surely we all strive; and He says, He who hears My word and believes Him Who sent Me has eternal life. Did He then will that we should hear His word, and not will that we should understand it? Since, if eternal life is in hearing and believing, much more is it in understanding. But faith is a step of piety, understanding the fruit of faith, that we may arrive at eternal life, where the Gospel will not be read to us; but He Who now has dispensed the Gospel to us, all the pages of reading removed, and the voice of the reader and of the expounder, will appear

to all His own who stand by Him with cleansed heart, and who in an immortal body will now never die, cleansing them, and enlightening them as they live and see that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God (John 1:1). Now therefore let us attend to who we are, and consider Whom we are hearing. Christ is God, and He speaks with men: He wishes to be grasped, let Him make [them] able to grasp; He wishes to be seen, let Him open [their] eyes. Yet He does not speak to us without cause, but because what He promises us is true.

3. My words, He says, whoever hears, and believes Him Who sent Me, has eternal life, and will not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life. Where, when do we come from death to life, so that we do not come into judgement? In this life one passes from death to life; in this life which is not yet life, from here one passes from death to life. What is that passing? Whoever hears My words, He said, and believes Him Who sent Me. Keeping these things you believe, and you pass over. And is there one who passes over by standing still? Plainly there is: for he stands in body, he passes over in mind. Where was he, from where he might pass over, and to where does he pass over? He passes from death to life. See one man standing, in whom all this that is said is carried out. He stands, he hears; perhaps he did not believe, by hearing he believes: a little before he did not believe, now he believes; as it were from the region of unbelief he has made a passage to the region of faith, with his heart moved, not his body moved, moved for the better: because again those who desert the faith are moved for the worse. Behold, in this life, which, as I said, is not yet life, one passes from death to life, so that one does not come into judgement. But why did I say that it is not yet life? If this were life, the Lord would not say to a certain man, If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments (Matt. 19:17). For He did not say to him, If you wish to come to eternal life; He did not add "eternal", but said only "life". Therefore this [life] is not even to be named life, because it is not true life. What is true life, except that which is eternal life? Hear the Apostle saying to Timothy: Command the rich of this world not to think proudly, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, Who furnishes us all things abundantly to enjoy: let them do good, let them be rich in good works, let them give readily, let them share. To what end this? Hear what follows: Let them treasure up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold of true life (1 Tim. 6:17–19). If they ought to treasure up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold of true life, assuredly this [life] in which they were is a false life. For to what end would you wish to lay hold of the true, if you already hold the true? Is the true to be laid hold of? One must migrate from the false. And by what way must one migrate? To where? Hear, believe; and you make the passage from death to life, and you do not come into judgement.

4. What is this, And you do not come into judgement? And who will be better than Paul the apostle, who says: We must all be presented before the judgement seat of Christ, that each one may there receive the things he did through the body, whether good or evil (2 Cor. 5:10)? Paul says: We must all be presented before the judgement seat of Christ; and you dare to promise yourself

that you will not come into judgement? Far be it, you say, that I should dare to promise myself this: but I believe the One Who promises. The Saviour speaks, the Truth pledges, He Himself has said to me, He who hears My words, and believes Him Who sent Me, has eternal life, and makes the passage from death into life, and will not come into judgement. I therefore have heard the words of my Lord, I have believed; whereas I was once unbelieving, I have been made a believer: as He admonished me, I have passed from death to life, I do not come to judgement; not by my own presumption, but by His promise. But does Paul speak against Christ, the servant against the Lord, the disciple against the master, man against God, so that, while the Lord says that he who hears and believes passes from death to life, and will not come into judgement, the Apostle should say, We must all be presented before the tribunal of Christ? Or if he who is presented at the tribunal does not come to judgement, I do not know how I am to understand it.

5. Our Lord God therefore reveals, and through His Scriptures admonishes us, how it is to be understood when judgement is spoken of. I urge you therefore to pay attention. Sometimes punishment is called judgement: sometimes discrimination is called judgement. According to that sense in which discrimination is called judgement, we must all be presented before the tribunal of Christ, that there a man may receive the things he did through the body, whether good or evil: for this is the discrimination itself, that good things are distributed to the good, evil things to the evil. For if judgement were always taken in a bad sense, the Psalm would not say, Judge me, O God. Perhaps someone hears a person saying, Judge me, O God, and is astonished. For a man is accustomed to say, May God pardon me; Spare me, O God: who is there that would say, Judge me, O God? And sometimes in a Psalm this very verse is placed at the diapsalma, to be given out by the reader and answered by the people. Is not perhaps someone's heart struck, and does he not fear to sing to God and say, Judge me, O God? And yet the believing people sing it, and do not think that they wish themselves ill in what they have learned from the divine reading: and if they understand little, they believe that what they sing is something good. And yet the Psalm itself has not left a man without understanding. For, continuing, it showed by the words that follow what kind of judgement it meant; namely that it is not of condemnation, but of discernment. For it says, Judge me, O God. What is, Judge me, O God? And discern my cause from a nation not holy. Therefore according to this judgement of discernment, we must all be presented before the tribunal of Christ. But according to the judgement of condemnation, He who hears My words, He says, and believes Him Who sent Me, has eternal life, and will not come into judgement, but makes the passage from death to life. What is, will not come into judgement? He will not come into condemnation. Let us prove from the Scriptures that judgement is spoken of where punishment is understood: although in this very reading also you will shortly hear the word judgement itself used only for condemnation and punishment (below, n. 13). Yet the Apostle says in a certain place, writing to those who were treating badly the Body which you the faithful know; and because they were treating it badly, they were chastised by the scourge of the Lord: for he says to them, For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and sleep sufficiently.

For many were also dying on that account. And he went on: For if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged by the Lord; that is, if we corrected ourselves, we would not be corrected by the Lord. But when we are judged, we are corrected by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned with this world (1 Cor. 11:30–32). There are, then, those who are judged here according to punishment, so that they may be spared there; there are those who are spared here, so that they may be tormented more abundantly there; but there are those to whom the punishments themselves are dealt out without the scourge of punishment, if they have not been corrected by the scourge of God, so that, since here they have despised the Father who beats them, there they may feel the Judge who punishes them. There is, therefore, a judgement into which God, that is, the Son of God, is to send at the end the devil and his angels, and all the unbelieving and ungodly with him: to this judgement he will not come who, believing now, makes the passage from death to life.

6. For lest you should think that by believing you will not die according to the flesh, and, taking it carnally, should say to yourself, "My Lord said to me, He who hears my words and believes Him who sent me has passed from death to life; therefore I have believed, I am not going to die": know that you will pay in full the death which you owe through the punishment of Adam; for he, in whom we all then were, received: You shall die by death (Gen. 2:17); nor can the divine sentence be made void. But when you have paid in full the death of the old man, you will be taken up into the eternal life of the new man, and you will make the passage from death to life. Now, meanwhile, make the passage of life. What is your life? Faith: The just man lives by faith (Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17). What of unbelievers? They are dead. Among such dead was that man in body of whom the Lord says: Leave the dead; let them bury their dead (Matt. 8:22). Therefore even in this life there are the dead, there are the living, and yet all seem to live. Who are the dead? Those who have not believed. Who are the living? Those who have believed. What is said to the dead by the Apostle? Arise, you who sleep. But, someone says, he spoke of sleep, not of death. Hear what follows: Arise, you who sleep, and rise up from the dead. And as if one were to say, "Where shall I go?": And Christ will enlighten you (Eph. 5:14). Now when Christ has enlightened you as a believer, you make the passage from death to life: remain in that into which you have passed, and you will not come to judgement.

7. He now explains this Himself, and continues: Amen, amen I say to you. Lest perhaps, because He said, has passed from death to life, we should understand this of the future resurrection, wishing to show how he who believes passes over, and that this is to pass from death to life, to pass from unbelief to faith, from injustice to justice, from pride to humility, from hatred to charity, He now says: Amen, amen I say to you, that the hour comes, and now is. What could be plainer? Now surely He has disclosed what He was saying, that what Christ exhorts us to is taking place now. The hour comes. What hour? And now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live. We have already spoken of these dead. What do we think, my brothers? In this crowd which hears me, are there none dead? For those who believe and

act according to the true faith live and are not dead; but those who either do not believe, or believe as the demons do, trembling (Jas. 2:19), and living wickedly, confessing the Son of God and not having charity, are rather to be reckoned dead. And yet that hour is still going on. For the hour of which the Lord spoke will not be one hour out of the twelve hours of a single day. From the time He spoke until this time, and until the end of the age, that one hour is going on, of which John says in his Epistle, Little children, it is the last hour (1 John 2:18). Therefore it is now. Let him who lives, live; let him who was dead, live; let him who lay dead hear the voice of the Son of God, rise, and live. The Lord cried out at the tomb of Lazarus, and a man four days dead rose again. He who stank came forth into the open air; he had been buried, a stone had been laid upon him, the voice of the Saviour broke through the hardness of the stone: and is your heart so hard that that divine voice does not yet break you open! Rise in your heart, come forth from your tomb. For you lay dead in your heart as in a tomb, and you were weighed down as by the stone of evil habit. Rise, and come forth. What is, Rise, and come forth? Believe, and confess. For he who has believed has risen; he who confesses has come forth. Why have we said that the one confessing has come forth? Because before he confessed he was hidden; but when he confesses, he comes forth from darkness to light. And when he has confessed, what is said to the ministers? What was said at the burial of Lazarus, Loose him, and let him go (John 11:38–44). How? It was said to the Apostles as ministers, What you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven (Matt. 18:18).

8. The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have heard will live. Whence will they live? From the life. From what life? From Christ. How do we prove that [they live] from the life, Christ? I am, He says, the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). Do you wish to walk? I am the way. Do you not wish to be deceived? I am the truth. Do you not wish to die? I am the life. This your Saviour says to you: There is nowhere for you to go, except to Me; there is no way by which you may go, except through Me. Now therefore that hour is going on, this is plainly going on, and it does not cease at all. Men rise who were dead, they pass over to life, at the voice of the Son of God they live, from Him, persevering in faith in Him. For the Son has life; He has that from which believers may live.

9. And how does He have it? As the Father has it. Hear Him saying, For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has given also to the Son to have life in Himself. Brethren, I shall speak as I am able. For these are those words which disturb a small understanding. Why did He add, in Himself? It would have sufficed for Him to say, For as the Father has life, so He has given also to the Son to have life. He added, in Himself: for the Father has life in Himself, and the Son too has it in Himself. He wished us to understand something in His saying, in Himself. And here a secret is shut up in this word: let it be knocked at, that it may be opened. O Lord, what is it that Thou hast said? In Himself, why didst Thou add it? For did the apostle Paul, whom Thou didst make to live, not have life? He had it, one says. As for men dead, that they may come to life again and at Thy word pass over by believing: when they have passed over, will they not have life in Thee?

They will have it; for I too said a little before, He who hears My words, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life. Therefore those who believe in Thee have life: and Thou didst not say, in themselves. But when Thou wast speaking of the Father, As the Father has life in Himself: again, when Thou wast speaking of Thyself, Thou saidst, so He has given also to the Son to have life in Himself. As He has, so He has given to have. Where does He have it? In Himself. Where has He given to have it? In Himself. Where does Paul have it? Not in himself, but in Christ. You, the faithful one, where do you have it? Not in yourself, but in Christ. Let us see whether the Apostle says this: I live, yet now not I, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20). Our life as our own, that is, from our own will, will be nothing but evil, sinful, wicked: but good life is from God in us, not from us; it is given to us by God, not by ourselves. But Christ has life in Himself as the Father does, because He is the Word of God. He does not at one time live ill and at another time live well: but man lives now ill, now well. He who was living ill was in his own life: he who lives well has passed over to the life of Christ. Having been made a partaker of life, you were not that which you received, and you were one who might receive: but the Son of God was not, as it were, first without life, and then received life. For if He had received it in that way, He would not have it in Himself. For what is in Himself? That He Himself should be life itself.

10. I shall say something else, perhaps more plainly. Someone lights a lamp: for example, that lamp, as far as concerns the little flame which shines there, that fire has light in itself; but your eyes, which in the lamp's absence lay idle and saw nothing, now they too have light, but not in themselves. Accordingly, if they turn away from the lamp, they are darkened; if they turn towards it, they are illuminated. But that fire, so long as it exists, shines: if you wish to take the light from it, you extinguish the fire itself at the same time; for it cannot remain without light. But Christ is light inextinguishable and coeternal with the Father, always glowing, always shining, always burning: for if He did not burn, would it be said in the Psalm, Nor is there anyone who may hide himself from His heat (Ps. 18:7)? But you in your sin were cold, you are turned that you may grow warm: if you withdraw, you grow cold. In your sin you were dark, you are turned that you may be illuminated: if you turn yourself away, you will be darkened. Accordingly, since in yourself you were darkness, when you are illuminated you will not be the light, although you are in the light. For the Apostle says: You were once darkness; but now light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8). When he had said, but now light: he added, in the Lord. In yourself therefore darkness, light in the Lord. Why light? Because by participation in that light you are light. But if you withdraw from the light by which you are illuminated, you return to your own darkness. Not so Christ, not so the Word of God. But how? As the Father has life in Himself, so He has given also to the Son to have life in Himself: so that He lives not by participation, but lives unchangeably; and is Himself wholly life. So He has given also to the Son to have life. As He has, so He has given. What is the difference? That the one gave, the other received. Was He already in existence when He received? Do we understand that Christ was at some time

without light, since He is the Wisdom of the Father, of whom it is said, She is the brightness of eternal light (Wis. 7:26)? Therefore what is said, He gave to the Son, is as if it were said, He begot the Son: for by begetting He gave. As He gave that He should be, so He gave that He should be life, and so He gave that He should be life in Himself. What is "He should be life in Himself"? That He should not need life from elsewhere, but should Himself be the fullness of life, from which others, believing, might live while they lived. He gave therefore to Him to have life in Himself: He gave as to whom? As to His Word, as to Him Who in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

11. Next, because He was made man, what did He give Him? And He gave Him power to do judgement, because He is the son of man. According as He is the Son of God, as the Father has life in Himself, so also He gave to the Son to have life in Himself: but according as He is the son of man, He gave Him power of doing judgement. This is what I expounded yesterday to your Charity, that in the judgement the man will be seen, but God will not be seen: but after the judgement God will be seen by those who have conquered in the judgement; by the ungodly, however, God will not be seen (in the preceding Tractate). Because, therefore, the man will be seen in the judgement in that form in which He will come just as He ascended, therefore He had said above: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son (John 5:22). This He also repeats in this place, when He says, And He gave Him power of doing judgement, because He is the son of man. As if you were to say, He gave Him power of doing judgement, why? When did He not have this power of doing judgement? When in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, when all things were made through Him (ibid. 1:1, 3), did He not have power of doing judgement? But I say it according to this, He gave Him power of doing judgement, because He is the son of man: according to this He received power of judging, because He is the son of man. For according as He is the Son of God, He always had this power. He Who was crucified received it. He Who was in death is in life: the Word of God never in death, always in life.

12. Now therefore, concerning the resurrection, perhaps one of us was saying: Behold, we have risen; he who hears Christ, who believes, both passes from death to life and will not come into judgement; the hour comes, and now is, that he who hears the voice of the Son of God may live; he was dead, he heard, behold, he rises: what is it that is said, that afterwards there is a resurrection to come? Spare yourself, do not rush your judgement, lest you go on after it. There is indeed this resurrection which takes place now: the unbelievers were dead, the wicked were dead; the just live, they pass from the death of unbelief to the life of faith: but do not on that account believe that there is no resurrection of the body to come afterwards; believe that the resurrection of the body too is to come. For hear what follows after the commendation of this resurrection which takes place through faith, lest anyone should think that this alone exists, and fall into that despair and error of men who perverted the minds of others, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, of whom the Apostle says: And they overturn the faith of some (2 Tim. 2:18). For I believe that they said such words to them: Behold, the Lord

where He says, And he who believes in Me has passed from death to life; already the resurrection has taken place in faithful men who had been unfaithful: how is another resurrection spoken of? Thanks be to the Lord our God; He props up the wavering, directs the hesitating, strengthens the doubting. Hear what follows, since you have no ground from which to make for yourself the darkness of death. If you have believed, believe the whole. What whole, you say, do I believe? Hear what He says: Do not marvel at this, because He has given the Son power to make judgement. At the end, I say, He says. How at the end? Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming. Here He did not say, and now is. In that resurrection of faith what did He say? The hour is coming, and now is. In this resurrection of the bodies of the dead, which He commends as future, The hour is coming, He said; He did not say, now is; because it is to come at the end of the world.

13. And from where, you say, do you prove to me that He spoke of that very resurrection? If you listen patiently, you will now prove it to yourself. Let us follow on, then: Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs. What is plainer than this resurrection? A little before He had not said, those who are in the tombs; but, the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who have heard will live. He did not say, some will live, others will be condemned; because all who believe will live. But of the tombs what does He say? All who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth. He did not say, they will hear and live. For if they lived wickedly and were lying in the tombs, they will rise to death, not to life. Let us see, then, who will come forth. Although a little before the dead were living by hearing and believing, no distinction was made there: it was not said, The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and when they have heard, some will live, others will be condemned; but, All who have heard will live: because those who believe will live, those who have charity will live, and no one will die. But of the tombs, they will hear the voice, and those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life; those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgement. This is the judgement, that punishment of which He had said a little before, He who believes in Me has passed from death to life, and will not come into judgement.

14. I cannot do anything of Myself: as I hear I judge, and My judgement is just. If Thou judgest as Thou hearest, from whom dost Thou hear? If from the Father, surely the Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son. Since Thou art, as it were, the herald of the Father, dost Thou speak what Thou hearest? What I hear, this I speak, because what the Father is, this I am: for to speak is, for Me, to be; because I am the Word of the Father. For this is what Christ says to you. Thence from your own. What is, As I hear, so I judge, if not, As I am? For how does Christ hear? Brethren, let us inquire, I beg you. Does Christ hear from the Father? How does the Father speak to Him? Surely, if He speaks to Him, He addresses words to Him: for everyone who says something to someone says it with a word. How does the Father speak to the Son, when the Son is the Word of the Father? Whatever the Father says to us, He says by His Word: the Son is the Word of the Father; by what other word does He speak to the Word Himself? God is one, He has one Word, in one Word He contains all things. What, then, is, As I hear, so I judge? As I am from the Father, so I judge. Therefore