Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus XXXVI-XLV

let Thy shoots enter into the granary. Temptations abound in the world; but greater is He Who made the world: temptations abound; but he does not fail who places his hope in Him in Whom there is no failing.

11. I have urged these things for this reason, brethren, because the freedom of which our Lord Jesus Christ speaks is not of this time. See what He added: You will truly be My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will free you. What is "will free you"? It will make you free. Then the carnal Jews, and those judging according to the flesh, not those who had believed, but those who were in that crowd who did not believe, thought that an injury had been done to them, because He said to them, The truth will free you. They were indignant that they had been indicated to be slaves. And truly they were slaves: and He explains to them what slavery is, and what is the future freedom which He Himself promises. But it is far too long for us to discuss today concerning this freedom and concerning that slavery.

Tractate 41. Again on that [passage], But Jesus said to those who believed; up to this, If therefore the Son has freed you, you will truly be free. (John 8:31–36).

1. What follows from the earlier reading, and was recited to us today from the holy Gospel, I put off saying at that time, since I had already said many things, and the freedom into which the grace of the Saviour calls us was not to be discussed in passing or negligently: hence today, with the Lord's help, we have resolved to speak to you. For those to whom the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking were Jews, for the greater part indeed enemies, but in some part already made friends, and to be [friends]: for He saw some there, as we have already said, who were going to believe after His passion. Looking on these He had said: When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am (John 8:28). There were also there those who believed at once while He was saying these things; to them He spoke what we have heard today: Jesus therefore said to those Jews who had believed in Him: If you remain in My word, you will truly be My disciples. By remaining you will be: for since now you are believers, by remaining you will be seers. Therefore there follows, And you will know the truth. Truth is unchangeable. Truth is bread, it refreshes minds and does not fail: it changes the one who feeds, it is not itself changed into the one who feeds. The Truth itself is the Word of God, God with God, the only-begotten Son. This Truth was clothed with flesh for our sake, so that He might be born of the Virgin Mary, and the prophecy might be fulfilled, Truth has sprung from the earth (Ps. 84:12). This Truth, then, when He was speaking with the Jews, lay hidden in the flesh: but He lay hidden not so as to be denied, but so as to be deferred; deferred, so that He might suffer in the flesh; and He suffered in the flesh so that the flesh of sin might be redeemed. Standing therefore, visible according to the weakness of the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, and hidden according to the majesty of His divinity, said to those who had believed in Him while He was saying these things, If you remain in My word, you will truly be My disciples. For he who perseveres

to the end, he shall be saved (Matt. 10:22). And you shall know the truth, which is now hidden from you, and is speaking to you. And the truth shall free you. The Lord set this word from [the idea of] freedom: shall free you. For "frees", properly speaking, is nothing other than "makes free". Just as "saves" is nothing other than "makes safe"; as "heals" is nothing other than "makes sound"; "enriches" is nothing other than "makes rich" (ditem, that is, divitem): so "frees" is nothing other than "makes free". In the Greek word this is plainer. For in Latin usage we commonly say that a man is freed, which does not pertain to freedom but only to safety: as someone is said to be freed from an infirmity; it is said by custom, yet not properly. But the Lord set this word in such a way, saying, And the truth shall free you, that in the Greek language no one may doubt that He spoke of freedom.

2. Indeed the Jews too understood it so, and they answered Him: not those who had already believed, but those in the crowd who were not yet believing: they answered Him, We are the seed of Abraham, and we have never been slaves to anyone; how do you say, You shall be free? Now the Lord had not said, You shall be free; but, The truth shall free you. Yet in that word they, because, as I have said, it is plain in the Greek, understood nothing but freedom; and they exalted themselves because they were the seed of Abraham, and said, We are the seed of Abraham; and we have never been slaves to anyone; how do you say, You shall be free? O puffed-up skin! That is not greatness but swelling. And even in respect of the freedom of this present time, how have you spoken truly, We have never been slaves to anyone? Was Joseph not sold (Gen. 37:28)? Were the holy prophets not led into captivity (2 Kgs. 24)? Then, is this not that very people which made bricks in Egypt, and served harsh kings not even in gold and silver, but in mud (Exod. 1:14)? If you have never been slaves to anyone, O ungrateful ones, why is it that God continually reminds you that He freed you from the house of slavery (ibid. 13:3; Deut. 5:6, etc.)? Or perhaps your fathers were slaves, but you who are speaking have never been slaves to anyone? How then were you already paying tribute to the Romans, whence you even set before the Truth Himself a snare as of a trap, saying, Is it lawful to render tribute to Caesar? so that if He had said, It is lawful, you would hold Him as having wished ill to the freedom of the seed of Abraham; but if He said, It is not lawful, you would bring false charges before the kings of the earth, that He forbade tribute to be paid to kings. Rightly were you defeated when the coin was brought forth, and you yourselves were compelled to answer your own trap. For there it was said to you, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's; when you yourselves had answered that the coin bore the image of Caesar (Matt. 22:15–21). For just as Caesar seeks his image on the coin, so God seeks His own in man. This, then, He answered the Jews. For the vain pride of men moves me, brethren, because even about that very freedom of theirs, which they understood carnally, they lied, saying, We have never been slaves to anyone.

3. But what the Lord answered, let us rather and more attentively hear this, lest we ourselves too be found slaves.

For Jesus answered them: Amen, amen I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. He is a slave; would that it were of a man and not of sin! Who would not tremble at these words? May the Lord our God grant to us, that is, both to me and to you, that I may speak as befits this saying about this freedom that is to be sought, and about that slavery that is to be shunned. Amen, amen I say to you, the Truth says: and what manner of thing is it for the Lord our God to say, Amen, amen I say to you? He greatly commends what He pronounces in this way; in a certain manner, if it is lawful to say so, His oath is, Amen, amen I say to you. For Amen is translated, True: and yet it has not been translated, though it could have been said, True I say to you. Neither the Greek translator dared to do this, nor the Latin: for this word that is Amen is neither Greek nor Latin, but Hebrew. Thus it has remained, it has not been translated, so that it might have honour through the veil of secrecy: not so that it should be denied, but lest, laid bare, it should become cheap. Yet it was said by the Lord not once but twice, Amen, amen I say to you. How greatly this has now been commended, recognize from the very doubling.

4. What, then, has been commended? True, true I say to you, the Truth says; Who certainly, even if He did not say, True I say, could not lie at all: yet He commends it, He impresses it; in a certain manner He rouses the sleeping, He makes them attentive, He does not wish to be disregarded. Saying what? Amen, amen I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. O wretched slavery! Often men, when they suffer bad masters, ask to be put up for sale; seeking not to have no master, but at least to change him; what is the slave of sin to do? to whom is he to appeal? before whom is he to appeal? before whom is he to ask to be put up for sale? Again, the slave of a man, sometimes wearied by the harsh commands of his master, finds rest by fleeing: whither does the slave of sin flee? He drags himself with himself wherever he has fled. A bad conscience does not flee itself; there is nowhere for it to go, it follows itself; nay, it does not withdraw from itself: for the sin that he commits is within. He committed sin in order to gain some bodily pleasure: the pleasure passes, the sin remains; what delighted has gone by, what may sting has remained. Evil slavery! Sometimes men flee to the Church, and often we put up with them as undisciplined: wishing to be without masters, who do not wish to be without sins. But sometimes also men subjected to an unlawful and wicked yoke flee to the Church, because freeborn men are held in slavery, and the bishop is appealed to: and unless he takes care to spend effort lest freeborn status be oppressed, he is reckoned merciless. Let us all flee to Christ, let us appeal to God the deliverer against sin: let us ask to be put up for sale, that we may be redeemed by His blood. For the Lord says, You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without silver (Isa. 52:3). Without price, but [without] yours; because [with] Mine. This the Lord says: for He Himself gave the price, not silver, but His own blood. For we had remained both slaves and needy.

5. Therefore the Lord alone delivers from this slavery:

He who did not have it, He Himself sets free from it; for He alone came in this flesh without sin. For the little ones whom you see carried in their mothers' arms do not yet walk, and already they are fettered; for they have drawn from Adam what is to be loosed by Christ. This grace which the Lord promises pertains to them also, when they are baptized; because He alone can set free from sin who came without sin, and was made a sacrifice for sin. For you heard, when the Apostle was read: For Christ, he says, we are performing an embassy, as though God were exhorting through us; we beseech you for Christ; that is, as though Christ were beseeching you. What? To be reconciled to God. If the Apostle exhorts and beseeches that we be reconciled to God, we were enemies to God. For no one is reconciled except out of enmities. Now it was not nature but sins that made us enemies. Whence enemies of Him, thence slaves of sin. God does not have free enemies; they must be slaves: and slaves they will remain unless they are set free by Him to Whom they chose by sinning to be enemies. We beseech you therefore, he says, for Christ, to be reconciled to God. But how are we reconciled, unless what separates between us and Him is loosed? For He says through the prophet: He has not made His ear heavy, that He should not hear, but your sins separate between you and God (Isa. 59:1–2). Because, then, we are not reconciled except when what is in the middle is taken away, and what should be in the middle is put there. For there is a separating middle, but against it there is a reconciling mediator; the separating middle is sin, the reconciling mediator is the Lord Jesus Christ: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). So, in order that the separating wall, which is sin, might be taken away, that mediator came, and He, the priest, was Himself made the sacrifice. And because He was made a sacrifice for sin, offering Himself as a holocaust on the cross of His passion, the Apostle continues and says, after he had said, We beseech you for Christ, to be reconciled to God: as if we were saying, how shall we be able to be reconciled? Him, he says, that is, Christ Himself, Who had not known sin, He made sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:20–21). Him Himself, he says, Christ God, Who had not known sin. For He came in the flesh, that is, in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3), yet not in sinful flesh, having no sin at all: and therefore He was made a true sacrifice for sin, because He Himself had no sin.

6. But perhaps I have spoken from my own sense in saying that sin is a sacrifice for sin. Let those who have read it recognize it; let those who have not read it not be lazy: let them not be lazy, I say, in reading, so that they may be truthful in judging. For when God was giving commands concerning the sacrifices to be offered for sin, in which sacrifices there was no expiation of sins but a shadow of things to come, those very sacrifices, those very offerings, those very victims, those very animals which were brought forward to be slaughtered for sins, in whose blood that Blood was prefigured, the Law calls sins: so much so that in certain places it is written thus, that the priests, when about to sacrifice, should lay their hands upon the head of the sin, that is, upon the head of the victim to be sacrificed for sin.

Such a sin, then, that is, a sacrifice for sin, was our Lord Jesus Christ made, Who had not known sin.

7. Rightly does He free from this slavery of sin Who says in the Psalms: I am become as a man without help, free among the dead (Ps. 87:5–6). For He alone is free, because He had no sin. For He Himself says in the Gospel: Behold, the prince of this world comes, signifying the devil, who was to come in the Jews, His persecutors; behold, He says, he comes, and in Me he will find nothing (John 14:30–31). Not as in those whom he killed, even the just, he found some sin or other, [so] in Me he will find nothing. And as though it were said to Him: If he will find nothing in Thee, why will he kill Thee? He added, and says: But that all may know that I do the will of My Father, arise, let us go hence. I do not, He says, pay the debt of death by necessity of My own sin, but in that I die, I do the will of My Father: and I do more there than I suffer, because if I had not willed it, I would not even have suffered. You have Him saying in another place: I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it up again (John 10:18). Behold, truly free among the dead.

8. Since, then, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin, hear what hope of freedom there is for us. But the slave, He says, does not remain in the house for ever. The Church is the house, the slave is the sinner. Many sinners enter the Church. So He did not say, The slave is not in the house, but, does not remain in the house for ever. If, then, no slave will be there, who will be there? For when the just king sits upon the throne, as Scripture says, who will boast that he has a chaste heart? or who will boast that he is clean from sin (Prov. 20:8–9)? He has greatly terrified us, O my brethren, by saying, The slave does not remain in the house for ever. But He adds, and says, But the Son remains for ever. Will Christ, then, be alone in His house? Will no people cleave to Him? Of what will He be the head, if there is no body? Or is perhaps the Son this whole, head and body? For not without cause did He both terrify and give hope: He terrified, that we might not love sin; He gave hope, that we might not despair of the loosing of sin: Everyone, He says, who commits sin is the slave of sin. But the slave does not remain in the house for ever. What hope, then, is there for us, who are not without sin? Hear your hope: The Son remains for ever. If, then, the Son sets you free, then you will be truly free. This is our hope, brethren, that we may be freed by the Free One, and that in freeing us He may make us slaves: for we were slaves of cupidity; freed, we are made slaves of charity. This the Apostle too says: But you, brethren, have been called into freedom; only do not give freedom as an occasion for the flesh, but through charity serve one another (Gal. 5:13). Let the Christian not say, then: I am free, I have been called into freedom: I was a slave, but I have been redeemed, and by that very redemption I have been made free; I will do what I will; let no one hinder me from my will, if I am free. But if with that will you commit sin, you are the slave of sin. Do not, then, abuse freedom to sin freely, but use it so as not to sin. For your will shall be free if it is godly. You will be free if you are a slave; free of sin, a slave of justice:

as the Apostle says, When you were slaves of sin, you were free of righteousness; but now, set free from sin and made slaves of God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life (Rom. 6:20, 22). Let us strive for this, let us do this.

9. The first freedom is to be without crimes. Attend, my brothers, attend, so that perhaps I may be able to bring you to an understanding both of what sort this freedom is now and of what sort it will be. Examine anyone you please who is very righteous in this life: although he is already worthy of the name of righteous, he is nevertheless not without sin. Hear holy John himself, whose this Gospel also is, saying in his Epistle: If we say, he says, that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). He alone could say this who was free among the dead; of Him alone could it be said that He had not known sin; of Him alone could it be said: for He was tried in all things according to likeness, without sin (Heb. 4:15). He alone could say, Behold, the prince of the world will come, and in Me he will find nothing. Whatever other man you examine, though he be righteous, he is not altogether without sin. Not even such a one as Job was, to whom the Lord bore such testimony that the devil envied him and asked for him to be tempted, so that the tempter should be overcome and he should be proved (Job 1-2). And he was proved for this reason, not because it was hidden from God that he was to be crowned, but that he might become known to men as one to be imitated. What does even Job himself say? For who is clean? Not even an infant, whose life upon the earth is of one day (Job 14:4, according to the Septuagint). But plainly many righteous men have been called without complaint, which is understood as without crime; for in human affairs there is no just complaint against those who have no crime. Now a crime is a grave sin, most worthy of accusation and condemnation. God, therefore, does not condemn some sins and justify and praise others: He praises none, He hates all. As a physician hates the sickness of the sick man, and by his curing works to this end, that the sickness be driven out and the sick man be relieved, so God by His grace works this in us, that sin be consumed and man set free. But when is it consumed, you will say? If it is diminished, why is it not consumed? Now that is diminished in the life of those who are making progress which is consumed in the life of the perfect.

10. The first freedom, then, is to be without crimes. For this reason too the apostle Paul, when he chose men to be ordained, whether presbyters or deacons, and whoever is to be ordained to the governance of the Church, does not say, If anyone is without sin; for if he said this, every man would be rejected, none would be ordained; but he says, If anyone is without crime (1 Tim. 3:10, and Titus 1:6), such as is homicide, adultery, any uncleanness of fornication, theft, fraud, sacrilege, and the rest of this kind. When a man has begun not to have these (and every Christian man ought not to have them), he begins to lift up his head towards freedom; but this is freedom begun, not perfected. Why, someone says, is it not perfect freedom? Because "I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind; for I do not do what I will, he says, but what I hate, that I do" (Gal. 5:17). "The flesh, he says, lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that you do not do the things that you will." In part freedom,

in part servitude: not yet entire, not yet pure, not yet full freedom, because not yet eternity. For in part we have infirmity, in part we have received freedom. Whatever sin was committed by us has already been blotted out in Baptism. Because all iniquity has been blotted out, has no infirmity remained? If it had not remained, we would live here without sin. But who would dare to say this except the proud man, except one unworthy of the mercy of the Liberator, except one who wishes to deceive himself and in whom the truth is not? Therefore, from the fact that something of infirmity has remained, I dare to say that in the part in which we serve God we are free, and in the part in which we serve the law of sin we are still slaves. Hence the Apostle says what we had begun to say: I delight in the law of God according to the inner man. See whence we are free, whence we delight in the law of God: for freedom delights. For as long as you do what is just out of fear, God does not delight you. As long as you still act as a slave, He does not delight you: let Him delight you, and you are free. Do not fear punishment, but love justice. Can you not yet love justice? Fear at least punishment, so that you may come to loving justice.

11. So he already felt himself to be free in the higher part, whence he said, I delight in the law of God according to the inner man. The law delights me, what the law commands delights me, justice itself delights me. But I see another law in my members: this is the infirmity that has remained: fighting against the law of my mind, and taking me captive in the law of sin, which is in my members. In this part he feels captivity, where justice has not been fulfilled: for where he delights in the law of God, he is not a captive but a friend of the law; and therefore free, because a friend. What then of that which remains? What, except that we look to Him Who said, If the Son sets you free, then you will be truly free? Indeed he too who was speaking looked to Him: "Unhappy man that I am, who will set me free," he says, "from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, if the Son sets you free, then you will be truly free." Finally he concluded thus: "So then I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin" (Rom. 7:19–25). I myself, he says: for we are not two opposed to each other, coming from different principles; but I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin, as long as weakness struggles against health.

12. But if with the flesh you serve the law of sin, do what the Apostle himself says: Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body so as to obey its desires, nor present your members as weapons of iniquity to sin (Rom. 6:12–13). He does not say, Let it not be; but, Let it not reign. As long as sin must be in your members, at least let its reign be taken away from it, let what it commands not be done. Does anger rise up? Do not give anger your tongue for cursing; do not give anger your hand or foot for striking. This irrational anger would not rise up unless sin were in the members: but take away its reign, let it not have weapons with which to fight against you; it will learn even not to rise up, when it begins to find no weapons. Do not present your members

your weapons of iniquity to sin; otherwise you will be wholly captives, and it will not be possible to say, With the mind I serve the law of God. For if the mind holds the weapons, the members are not moved into the service of raging sin. Let the inner commander hold the citadel, for he stands by to be helped under a greater Commander; let him bridle anger, let him restrain concupiscence. Yet there is in us what is to be bridled, there is what is to be restrained, there is what is to be held. But what did that just man, serving the law of God with his mind, want, except that there should be nothing at all to be bridled? And everyone who strives towards perfection ought to endeavour this, that even concupiscence itself, to which the members are not given for obeying, may be diminished daily in the one who makes progress. To will, he says, is present to me, but to accomplish the good is not (Rom. 7:18). Did he say, To do good is not present to me? If he had said this, there would be no hope. He does not say, To do is not present to me, but, To accomplish is not present to me. For what is the accomplishment of good, except the consuming and end of evil? And what is the consuming of evil, except what the Law says, You shall not covet (Exod. 20:17)? Not to covet at all is the accomplishment of good, because it is the consuming of evil. This is what he was saying, To accomplish the good is not present to me; because he could not bring it about that he should not covet: he brought about only that he should rein in concupiscence, that he should not consent to concupiscence, and should not offer his members to concupiscence as its retinue. To accomplish the good, therefore, he says, is not present to me: I cannot fulfil what was said, You shall not covet. What, then, is needed? That you fulfil, Do not go after your concupiscences (Ecclus. 18:30). Do this in the meantime, as long as unlawful concupiscences are in your flesh: Do not go after your concupiscences. Remain in the service of God, in the liberty of Christ; with your mind serve the law of your God. Do not give yourself up to your concupiscences: by following them you add strength to them; by giving them strength, how do you conquer, when you nourish enemies against yourself with your own strength?

13. What, then, is the full and perfect liberty in that Lord Jesus Who said, If the Son sets you free, then you will be truly free; when will liberty be full and perfect? When there are no enmities, when «the last enemy, death, will be destroyed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality: and when this mortal has put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your contention» (1 Cor. 15:26, 53, 54, 55)? What is, Where, O death, is your contention? The flesh lusted against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, but that was when the flesh of sin flourished. Where, O death, is your contention? Now we shall live, now we shall not die, in Him Who died for us and rose again: that those who live, he says, may no longer live for themselves, but for Him Who died for them and rose again (2 Cor. 5:15). Let us, being wounded, entreat the Physician; let us be carried into the inn to be cured. For it is He Who promises health, Who had pity on the man left half-dead on the road by robbers: He poured in oil and wine, He tended the wounds, He lifted him onto the beast, He brought him to the inn, He entrusted him to the innkeeper. To which innkeeper? Perhaps to him who said, We discharge an embassy for Christ (2 Cor. 5:20).