Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus XXVII-XXXIV

Tractate 28.

From that place of the Gospel, And after these things Jesus walked into Galilee; up to this, No one, however, spoke openly about Him, for fear of the Jews. Chap. 7, vv. 1-13.

1. In this chapter of the Gospel, brothers, our Lord Jesus Christ has, as man, very greatly commended Himself to our faith. For He always does this by His words and deeds, that He may be believed God and man: God Who made us, man Who sought us; God always with the Father, man with us from time. For He would not seek him whom He had made, unless He Himself became what He had made. But remember this, and do not let it go from your hearts, that Christ was made man in such a way that He did not cease to be God. Remaining God, He Who made man took man. When therefore He hid as a man, He is not to be thought to have lost His power, but to have offered an example to weakness. For He was held when He willed, He was killed when He willed. But since there were going to be His members, that is, His faithful, who would not have that power which He Himself, our God, had; the fact that He hid, that He concealed Himself as if so as not to be killed, this indicated that His members would do so, in which members of His He Himself certainly was. For Christ is not in the head and not in the body, but Christ is whole in the head and in the body. What, then, His members are, He is; but what He is, His members are not straightway. For if His members were not He, He would not say: Saul, why do you persecute Me (Acts 9:4)? For Saul was persecuting not Him, but His members, that is, His faithful, on earth. Yet He did not wish to say, My saints, My servants; finally, more honourably, My brothers: but, Me, that is, My members, of which I am the head.

2. These things having been said beforehand, I think that we shall not have to labour over this chapter which has just been read: for it has often been signified in the head what was going to be in the body. After these things, it says, Jesus walked into Galilee: for He did not wish to walk into Judaea, because the Jews were seeking to kill Him. This is what I said; He was offering an example to our weakness. He had not lost His power, but He was consoling our frailty. For it was going to happen, as I said, that some faithful one of His would hide himself, so as not to be found by persecutors; and lest his hiding place be thrown at him as a crime, there went before in the head what would be confirmed in the member. For thus it was said, He did not wish to walk into Judaea, because the Jews were seeking to kill Him: as if Christ could not both walk among the Jews and not be killed by the Jews. For He displayed this power when He willed: for when they wished to seize Him as He was now about to suffer, He said to them, Whom do you seek? They answered: Jesus. And He: I am He; not hiding Himself, but making Himself manifest. Yet they did not stand firm before that manifestation, but going back they fell backwards (John 18:4–6). And yet, because He had come to suffer, they rose, they held Him, they led Him to the judge, and they killed Him. But what did they do? What a certain Scripture says, The earth has been delivered into the hands of the wicked man

(Job 9:24): the flesh was given into the power of the Jews. And this was so in order that, as it were, a little bag might be torn open, from which our price might flow out.

3. Now the feast day of the Jews, the Scenopegia, was near. What the Scenopegia is, those who have read the Scriptures know. On the feast day they used to make tabernacles, in the likeness of the tabernacles in which they had dwelt when, led out of Egypt, they were journeying as pilgrims in the desert. This was the feast day, a great solemnity. The Jews celebrated it as if remembering the benefits of the Lord, they who were about to kill the Lord. On this feast day, then (for there were several feast days; for among the Jews it was called the feast day in such a way that it was not one day, but several), His brothers spoke to the Lord Christ. Understand "His brothers" in the way you know: for what you are hearing is nothing new. The blood relatives of the Virgin Mary were called the Lord's brothers. For it was the custom of the Scriptures to call any blood relatives and near kin "brothers", outside our usage and not in the manner in which we speak. For who would call a maternal uncle and a sister's son "brothers"? Yet Scripture calls even kinships of this sort "brothers". For Abraham and Lot were called brothers, although Abraham was Lot's paternal uncle (Gen. 11:27, 31; 13:8; and 14:14); and Laban and Jacob were called brothers, although Laban was Jacob's maternal uncle (ibid. 28:2; and 29:10, 15). So when you hear "the Lord's brothers", think of Mary's blood relationship, not of her giving birth again to any offspring. For just as in the tomb where the Lord's body was laid no dead man lay either before or after, so the womb of Mary conceived nothing mortal either before or after.

4. We have said who the brothers were; let us hear what they said. "Pass over from here, and go into Judaea, so that Thy disciples too may see Thy works which Thou doest." The Lord's works were not hidden from the disciples, but they were hidden from these men. For these brothers, that is, blood relatives, were able to have Christ as a blood relative, but because of that very nearness they disdained to believe in Him. It has been said in the Gospel (for we do not venture to suppose this ourselves); you have just heard it. They go on, and admonish: "For no one does anything in secret and himself seeks to be in the open: if Thou doest these things, show Thyself to the world." And immediately: "For neither did His brothers believe in Him." Why did they not believe in Him? Because they were seeking human glory. For even in that the brothers seem to admonish Him, they are looking out for His glory: Thou doest wonders, make Thyself known; that is, appear to all, that Thou mayest be praised by all. Flesh was speaking to flesh: but flesh without God to flesh with God. For the prudence of the flesh was speaking to the Word which was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

5. What did the Lord say to this? "So Jesus says to them: My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready." What is this? Had Christ's time not yet come? Why then had Christ come, if His time had not yet come? Have we not heard the Apostle saying, "But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son" (Gal. 4:4)? If, then, He was sent in the fullness of time, He was sent when He ought to have been, He came when it was fitting: what is "My time has not yet come"? Understand,

brethren, in what spirit those men spoke who seemed, as it were, to be admonishing their brother. They were giving Him counsel for attaining glory, admonishing Him as if in a worldly way and with earthly affection, that He should not be obscure and stay hidden: so when the Lord said, My time has not yet come, He was answering those who were giving Him counsel about glory, The time of My glory has not yet come. See how deep this is: they were admonishing Him about glory, but He willed to precede loftiness with humility, and to lay down the way to that very height through humility. For those disciples too were certainly seeking glory, who wished to sit one at His right hand and the other at His left: they were looking to where, and did not see by which way; the Lord called them back to the way, so that they might come to the homeland in due order. For the homeland is lofty, the way lowly. The homeland is the life of Christ, the way is the death of Christ: the homeland is the abiding of Christ, the way is the passion of Christ. He who refuses the way, why does he seek the homeland? In short, to them too, seeking loftiness, He gave this answer: Can you drink the cup which I am about to drink (Matt. 20:21–22)? See, this is the way by which one comes to the height which you desire. For He was speaking of the cup of humility and of passion.

6. So here too: My time has not yet come; but your time, that is, the glory of the world, is always ready. This is the time of which Christ speaks in prophecy, that is, the body of Christ: When I shall have received the time, I will judge justices (Ps. 74:3). For now is not the time for judging, but for bearing with the wicked. Let the body of Christ therefore bear now, and endure the wickedness of those who live evilly. Yet let it have justice now, before it has judgement: for through justice it will arrive at judgement. For what does holy Scripture say in the Psalm to the members who bear with the wickedness of this world? The Lord will not cast off His people. For His people labours among the unworthy, among the wicked, among blasphemers, among murmurers, detractors, persecutors, and, if it were permitted, killers. It labours indeed; but the Lord will not cast off His people, and He will not forsake His inheritance, until justice be turned into judgement (Ps. 93:14–15). Until the justice which is now in His saints be turned into judgement; when that will be fulfilled which was said to them, You shall sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28). The Apostle had justice, but not yet that judgement of which he says, Do you not know that we shall judge angels (1 Cor. 6:3)? Let now, then, be the time for living justly; afterwards will be the time for judging those who have lived evilly. Until justice, it says, be turned into judgement. This will be the time of judgement, of which the Lord just now said, My time has not yet come. For there will be a time of glory, so that He who came in humility may come in loftiness. He who came to be judged will come to judge: He who came to be killed by the dead will come to judge the living and the dead. God, says the Psalm, will come manifest, our God, and He will not keep silence (Ps. 49:3). What is, will come manifest? Because He came hidden. Then He will not keep silence: for when He came hidden

as a sheep He was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer He did not open His mouth (Isa. 53:7). He will come and will not be silent. I have been silent, He says, shall I always be silent? (Isa. 42:14, according to the Septuagint).

7. But now what is necessary for those who have righteousness? What is read in that very psalm: Until righteousness be turned into judgement; and those who have it are all the upright in heart. Perhaps you ask who are the upright in heart? We find in Scripture that those are upright in heart who endure the evils of the world and do not accuse God. See, brethren: this of which I speak is a rare bird. For I know not how it is that, when something bad befalls a man, he runs to accuse God, when he ought to accuse himself. When you do something good, you praise yourself; when you suffer something bad, you accuse God. This, then, is a twisted heart, not an upright one. If you are corrected from this distortion and perversity, what you used to do will be turned into its contrary. For what did you do before? You praised yourself in the good things of God, you accused God in your own evils; with your heart converted and set straight, you will praise God in His good things, you will accuse yourself in your own evils. These are the upright in heart. Indeed, that man who was not yet upright in heart, who was displeased by the prosperity of the wicked and the toil of the good, says when corrected: How good is the God of Israel to the upright in heart! But as for me, when I was not upright in heart, my feet were almost moved, my steps had well-nigh slipped. Why? Because I was envious towards sinners, seeing the peace of sinners (Ps. 72:1–3). I saw, he says, the wicked happy, and God displeased me: for I wanted this, that God should not permit the wicked to be happy. Let man understand: God never permits this; but the wicked man is thought happy for this reason, that what happiness is remains unknown. Let us therefore be upright in heart: the time of our glory has not yet come. Let it be said to the lovers of this world, such as were the brethren of the Lord: Your time is always ready; our time has not yet come. For let us too dare to say this. And since we are the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, since we are His members, since we gladly acknowledge our Head, let us say it outright; since for our sake He too deigned to say this. When the lovers of this world insult us, let us say to them: Your time is always ready; our time has not yet come. For to us the Apostle has said: For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When will our time come? When Christ, he says, your life, shall appear, then you too shall appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:3–4).

8. What does He add next? The world cannot hate you. What is this, except: The world cannot hate its own lovers, false witnesses? For you call good the things that are evil, and evil the things that are good. But Me it hates, because I bear witness of it, that its works are evil. Go you up to this feast day. What is "this"? Where you seek human glory. What is "this"? Where you wish to spread out carnal joys, not to think on eternal things. I do not go up to this feast day, because My time is not yet fulfilled. On this feast day you seek human glory; but My

time, that is, of My glory, has not yet come. That will be My feast day, not running on ahead and passing away in these days, but abiding for ever: that will be the festivity, joy without end, eternity without blemish, serenity without cloud. When He had said these things, He Himself remained in Galilee. But when His brothers had gone up, then He too went up to the feast day; not openly, but as it were in secret. Therefore [He did] not [go up] to this feast day, because He desired not to glory in a temporal way, but to teach something for salvation, to correct men, to admonish them about the eternal feast day, to turn love away from this world and to turn it towards God. But what does it mean that He went up to the feast day as if secretly? This too of the Lord's is not without purpose. It seems to me, brothers, that even by this, that He went up as if secretly, He wished to signify something: for what follows will show that He went up in such a way, the feast day being half over, that is, when those days were half over, that He even taught openly. But it says 'as if secretly', so that He would not show Himself to men. It is not without purpose that Christ went up secretly to the feast day, for He Himself lay hidden in that feast day. Even what I have said is still in hiding. Let it be made manifest, then; let the veil be removed, and let what was secret appear.

9. All the things that were said to the ancient people of Israel in the manifold scripture of the holy Law, the things they were to do whether in sacrifices, or in priesthoods, or in feast days, and altogether in whatever things by which they worshipped God, whatever was said and commanded to them, were shadows of things to come. Of what things to come? Those which are fulfilled in Christ. Hence the Apostle says, For however many are the promises of God, in Him too (2 Cor. 1:20): that is, they have been fulfilled in Him. Then he says in another place: All things happened to them in figure; but they were written for our sake, upon whom the end of the ages has come (1 Cor. 10:11). He said also elsewhere: For Christ is the end of the Law (Rom. 10:4). Likewise in another place: Let no one judge you in food, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbaths, which is a shadow of things to come (Col. 2:16–17). If, then, all those things were shadows of things to come, the Scenopegia too was a shadow of things to come. So this feast day: let us ask of what thing to come it was the shadow. I have explained what the Scenopegia was: it was the celebration of tabernacles, because the people, freed from Egypt and making its way through the desert to the land of promise, dwelt in tabernacles. Let us consider what it is, and we shall be [it]; we, I say, who are members of Christ, if we are: but we are so by His deigning it, not by our deserving it. Let us look to ourselves, then, brothers: we have been led out of Egypt, where we served the devil as though Pharaoh, where we did works of clay in earthly desires, and laboured much in them. For Christ cried out to us, as to men making bricks: Come to Me, all you who labour and are burdened (Matt. 11:28). Led out from there through Baptism as through the Red Sea, red for this reason, that it is consecrated by the blood of Christ, all our enemies who pursued us being dead, that

is, with all our sins blotted out, we have been brought across. Now therefore, before we come to the homeland of the promise, that is, the eternal kingdom, we are in the desert in tents. Those who recognize these things are in tents: for it was to come about that some would recognize this. For he is in tents who understands that he is a stranger in the world. He understands that he is on pilgrimage who sees himself sighing for the homeland. But when the body of Christ is in tents, Christ is in tents. But at that time not openly, but hiddenly. For as yet the shadow obscured the light: when the light came, the shadow was removed. Christ was in secret; at the Scenopegia Christ was there, but Christ hidden. Now, since these things have been made manifest, we recognize that we are making our journey in the wilderness: for if we recognize it, we are in the wilderness. What is "in the wilderness"? In the desert. Why in the desert? Because [we are] in this world, where there is thirst on a waterless way. But let us thirst, that we may be filled. For blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be filled (Matt. 5:6). And our thirst is satisfied from the rock in the wilderness: for the Rock was Christ, and it was struck with a rod, that water might flow. But that it might flow, it was struck twice (1 Cor. 10:4; Num. 20:11), because there are two beams of the cross. All these things, therefore, which were done in figure, are made manifest in us. And it is not without purpose that it was said of the Lord, He went up to the feast day, not openly, but as it were in secret. For that very "in secret" was a figure, because on the very feast day Christ lay hidden; because the feast day itself signified the members of Christ who were to be on pilgrimage.

10. The Jews therefore were seeking Him on the feast day: before He went up. For His brothers went up first, and He did not go up then, when they thought and wished: so that this too might be fulfilled which He said, Not to this, that is, to the one you wish, the first or second day. But He went up afterwards, as the Gospel says, when the feast was half over; that is, when as many days of that feast had already passed as remained. For they celebrated that festival, as far as can be understood, over several days.

11. They said therefore: Where is He? And there was much murmuring about Him in the crowd. Whence the murmuring? From contention. What was the contention? For some said, He is good; but others, No, but He leads the crowds astray. This is to be understood of all His servants: it is said now. For whoever stands out in some spiritual grace, assuredly some say, He is good; others, No, but he leads the crowds astray. Whence this? Because our life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). Therefore men may say during the winter, This tree is dead, for example a fig tree, a pear tree, and fruit trees of this kind; it is like a dry one; and as long as it is winter, it is not apparent. Summer proves it, judgement proves it. Our summer is the revelation of Christ: God will come manifest, our God, and He will not keep silence (Ps. 49:3); fire will go before Him: that fire will set His enemies ablaze (Ps. 96:3); fire will seize the dry trees. For then they will appear dry, when it is said to them, I was hungry, and you did not give