Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus XXVII-XXXIV

God, God with God, co-eternal, immortal, equally unchangeable, equally without time, equally creator and disposer of times; yet because He came in time, and took the form of a servant, and was found in outward bearing as a man (Phil. 2:7), He seeks the glory of the Father, not His own: what ought you to do, man, who, when you do something good, seek your own glory, but when you do something evil, contrive a false charge against God? Look to yourself; you are a creature, acknowledge the Creator: you are a servant, do not despise the Lord: you are adopted, but not by your own merits; seek the glory of Him from Whom you have this grace, adopted man, the glory of Him Whose glory was sought by the One Who is the only-begotten from Him. But He Who seeks the glory of Him Who sent Him, He is truthful, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. In Antichrist, however, there is unrighteousness, and he is not truthful; because he will seek his own glory, not the glory of him by whom he is sent: for he is not sent, but permitted to come. Let all of us, then, who belong to the body of Christ, so that we may not be led into the snares of Antichrist, not seek our own glory. But if He sought the glory of Him Who sent Him, how much more ought we to seek the glory of Him Who made us?

Tractate 30. From the place, Did not Moses give you the Law, and none of you does the Law? as far as, Do not judge according to appearance, but judge a just judgement. Chapter 7, verses 19-24.

1. The reading of the holy Gospel about which we spoke to your Charity lately is followed by today's, this one which has just been read. Both disciples and Jews heard the Lord speaking; both the truthful and the liars heard the Truth speaking; both friends and enemies heard Love speaking; both the good and the wicked heard the Good speaking. They heard, but He discerned; and He saw and foresaw to whom the discourse was profitable and would be profitable. For in those who were then He saw, in us who were to be He foresaw. Let us therefore so hear the Gospel as though the Lord were present; and let us not say, O happy those who were able to see Him! For many among those who saw Him also killed Him; but many among us who have not seen Him have also believed. For what sounded precious from the mouth of the Lord was both written for our sake, and kept for us, and recited for our sake, and will be recited also for the sake of our posterity, and until the world comes to an end. The Lord is above: but the Lord, the Truth, is also here. For the body of the Lord in which He rose again can be in one place: His truth is spread abroad everywhere. Let us, then, hear the Lord, and let us too speak what He Himself shall have granted from His words.

2. Did not Moses, He says, give you the Law, and none of you does the Law? Why do you seek to kill Me? For this is why you seek to kill Me, because none of you

keeps the Law: for if you kept the Law, you would recognize Christ in the very letters, and you would not kill Him when He is present. And they answered: The crowd answered Him. It answered as a crowd, belonging not to order but to disturbance: in short, see what the disturbed crowd answered: Thou hast a demon; who seeks to kill Thee? As if it were not worse to say, Thou hast a demon, than to kill Him. For it was said to Him that He had a demon, He Who was casting out demons. What else could a turbulent crowd say? What else could stirred-up mud smell of? The crowd was disturbed; by what? By the truth. The brightness of the light disturbed the crowd of bleary eyes. For eyes that do not have health cannot bear the brightness of light.

3. But the Lord, not at all disturbed, but tranquil in His truth, did not return evil for evil, nor curse for curse (1 Pet. 3:9). If He had said to them, You have a demon; He would certainly have said what was true. For they would not have said such things to the Truth, unless the falsehood of the devil were provoking them. What then did He answer? Let us listen tranquilly, and let us drink in the Tranquil One: I have done one work, and you all marvel. As though saying, What if you saw all My works? For the works which they saw in the world were His, and Him Who made all things they did not see: He did one thing, and they were disturbed, because He made a man whole on the sabbath. As if indeed, if any sick man were to become sound on the sabbath, someone other had made him healthy than He Who scandalized them because He made one man whole on the sabbath. For who else made others whole than Health itself; Who gives to beasts of burden too that health which He gave to this man? For it was bodily health. The health of the flesh is both restored and dies; and when it is restored, death is postponed, not taken away. Yet, brethren, even that health is from the Lord, through whomever it may be given: by whosever care and ministry it may be imparted, it is given by Him from Whom is all health, to Whom it is said in the Psalm, Men and beasts of burden Thou wilt save, O Lord; as Thou hast multiplied Thy mercy, O God. For because Thou art God, Thy multiplied mercy reaches even to the health of human flesh, reaches even to the health of dumb animals: but Thou Who givest health of the flesh common to men and beasts of burden, is there no health which Thou keepest for men? There certainly is another, which not only is not common to men and beasts of burden, but is not common even among men themselves, to good and bad. In short, when he had spoken there of that health which cattle and men receive in common, on account of that health which men ought to hope for, but good men, he went on to add, But the sons of men shall hope under the shelter of Thy wings: they shall be made drunk with the abundance of Thy house, and Thou wilt give them to drink of the torrent of Thy pleasure; for with Thee is the fountain of life, and in Thy light we shall see light (Ps. 35:7–10). This is the health which

pertains to the good, whom he called sons of men; since he had said above, Men and beasts Thou wilt save, O Lord. For what? Were those men not sons of men, so that when he had said Men, he should go on and say, But the sons of men; as though men were one thing and sons of men another? Yet I do not think that the Holy Spirit said this without some significance of a distinction. Men belong to the first Adam, sons of men to Christ. For perhaps men pertain to the first man, but sons of men pertain to the Son of Man.

4. One work I have done, and you all marvel. And straightway He adds: Therefore Moses gave you circumcision. It was well done that you received circumcision from Moses. Not because it is from Moses, but from the Fathers. For Abraham first received circumcision from the Lord (Gen. 17:10). And on the sabbath you circumcise. Moses has convicted you. In the Law you received that you should circumcise on the eighth day (Lev. 12:3); you received in the Law that you should rest on the seventh day (Exod. 20:10): if the eighth day of one who has been born falls on the seventh day, the sabbath, what will you do? Will you rest, so as to keep the sabbath; or will you circumcise, so as to fulfil the sacrament of the eighth day? But I know, He says, what you do. You circumcise a man. Why? Because circumcision pertains to a certain sign of salvation, and men ought not on the sabbath to rest from salvation. Therefore do not be angry with Me either, because I have made a whole man well on the sabbath: if, He says, a man receives circumcision on the sabbath, so that the law of Moses may not be broken (for something was wholesomely instituted through Moses in that ordinance of circumcision), why are you indignant with Me for working salvation on the sabbath?

5. For perhaps that circumcision signified the Lord Himself, with Whom those men were indignant as He cured and healed. For circumcision was commanded to be applied on the eighth day: and what is circumcision but a stripping off of the flesh? This circumcision therefore signifies the stripping off of carnal desires from the heart. Not without cause, then, was it given, and commanded to be done on that member; since through that member is procreated the creature of mortals. And through one man came death, as through one man the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:21): and through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death (Rom. 5:12). Therefore everyone is born with a foreskin, because every man is born with the fault of descent: and God does not cleanse either from the fault with which we are born, or from the faults which we add by living badly, except through a knife of stone, the Lord Christ. For the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). For they circumcised with knives of stone, and by the name of rock they prefigured Christ: and when He was present they did not recognize Him, but moreover desired to kill Him. But why on the eighth day, except because after the seventh day of the sabbath the Lord rose again on the Lord's day? Therefore the resurrection of Christ, which took place on the third day indeed from the passion, but on the eighth day among the days of the week, itself circumcises us. Hear those circumcised with the true rock, as the Apostle admonishes: If then you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; savour the things that are above, not those upon the earth (Col. 3:1–2).

He speaks to the circumcised: Christ has risen, He has taken away from you carnal desires, He has taken away evil concupiscences, He has taken away the superfluity with which you were born, and the much worse thing which you had added by living badly; circumcised by the rock, why do you still savour the earth? And finally, since Moses gave the Law, and you circumcise a man on the sabbath, understand that this signifies a good work, namely that I made a whole man well on the sabbath; for he was both cured, so that he might be sound in body, and he believed, so that he might be sound in soul.

6. Do not judge according to persons, but judge right judgement. What is this? Now you who by the law of Moses circumcise on the sabbath are not angry with Moses; and because I made a man well on the sabbath day, you are angry with Me. You judge according to persons; attend to the truth. I do not prefer Myself to Moses, says the Lord, Who was the Lord even of Moses himself. Regard us two in this way as men, as though both of us were men: judge between us, but judge true judgement; do not condemn him in honouring Me, but honour Me by understanding him. For this He said to them in another place: If you believed Moses, you would surely believe Me also; for he wrote of Me (John 5:46). But in this place He did not wish to say this, as though He and Moses had been set before them. On account of the law of Moses you circumcise, even when the sabbath falls; and you do not want Me to show the beneficence of working cures on the sabbath? For the Lord of circumcision and the Lord of the sabbath is the author of salvation: and you have been forbidden to do servile works on the sabbath; if you truly understand servile works, you do not sin. For whoever commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34). Is it a servile work to heal a man on the sabbath? You eat and drink (to say something from the admonition of our Lord Jesus Christ, and from His words); why indeed do you eat and drink on the sabbath, unless because what you do pertains to well-being? By this you show that works of well-being are in no way to be omitted on the sabbath day. Therefore do not judge according to persons, but judge right judgement. Regard Me as a man, regard Moses as a man: if you judge according to truth, you will condemn neither Moses nor Me; and when the truth is known you will know Me, because I am the truth (John 14:6).

7. This fault, brethren, which the Lord noted in this place, is a matter of great labour to escape in this world: not to judge according to persons, but to hold to right judgement. The Lord indeed admonished the Jews, but He warned us too: them He convicted, us He instructed; them He refuted, us He sharpened. Let us not think that this was not said to us because we were not there at the time. It is written, it is read; when it was recited we heard it; but we heard it as said to the Jews: let us not put ourselves behind ourselves, and as it were watch our enemies to reprove them, and ourselves do what the truth itself would reprove in us. The Jews indeed judged according to persons, but for that reason they do not belong to the New Testament, for that reason they do not have the kingdom of heaven in Christ, for that reason they are not joined to the fellowship of the holy Angels: they sought earthly things from the Lord; for the land of promise, victory over enemies, fruitfulness