Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus LI-LXIV

he may be with Him. For that greatest ministry of the passion, too, many of your number have ministered: many who were not bishops or clerics, young men and virgins, elders with juniors, many married men and married women, many fathers and mothers of families, ministering to Christ, have even laid down their lives in His martyrdom, and, with the Father honouring them, have received most glorious crowns.

Tractate 52.

From what is written, Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? as far as, These things Jesus spoke, and went away, and hid Himself from them. Chapter 12, verses 27-36.

1. After the Lord Jesus Christ, in the words of yesterday's reading, had exhorted His ministers to follow Him, when He had thus foretold His passion, that unless a grain of wheat falling into the ground has died, it remains alone; but if it has died, it bears much fruit: whereby He roused those who wished to follow Him to the kingdom of heaven to hate their soul in this world, if they had it in mind to keep it unto eternal life: He again tempered His feeling to our weakness, and said, where today's reading began, Now is my soul troubled. Why, Lord, is Thy soul troubled? Surely a little before Thou saidst, He who hates his soul in this world keeps it unto eternal life. Is Thy soul then loved in this world, and therefore troubled as the hour approaches in which it is to go out of this world? Who would dare to assert this of the soul of the Lord? But He transferred us into Himself, our Head took us up into Himself, He took up the feeling of His members: and therefore it was not troubled by anyone; but, as was said of Him when He was raising Lazarus, He troubled Himself (John 11:33). For it was fitting that the one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, just as He roused us to the highest things, so should also suffer with us the lowest.

2. I hear Him saying above, The hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified: if the grain has been put to death, it bears much fruit. I hear, He who hates his soul in this world keeps it unto eternal life. Nor am I permitted merely to wonder, but I am commanded to imitate. Then by the following words, If anyone ministers to Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there also shall My minister be; I am kindled to despise the world, and in my sight the whole vapour of this life, however long it may be, is nothing; for love of eternal things all temporal things grow worthless to me: and again I hear my Lord Himself, Who by those words snatched me from my weakness to His strength, saying, Now is my soul troubled. What is this? How dost Thou bid my soul follow, if I see Thy soul troubled? how shall I bear what so great a strength feels as heavy? what foundation shall I seek, if the rock gives way? But I seem to myself to hear in my thought the Lord answering me, and in a manner saying: You follow the more, because I thus put Myself in between so that you may bear it: you have heard addressed to you the voice of My strength, hear in Me the voice of the weakness

that is yours: I supply strength so that you may run, and I do not hold back what you hasten; but I transfer to Myself what you tremble at, and I lay down [a way] by which you may pass across. O Lord Mediator, God above us, man for our sake, I acknowledge Thy mercy! For in that Thou, so great as Thou art, art troubled by the will of Thy charity, Thou consolest many in Thy body who are troubled by the necessity of their own infirmity, lest they perish through despairing.

3. So then, let the man who wishes to follow hear by what way he is to follow. Perhaps a terrible hour has come; the choice is set before you either of doing iniquity or of undergoing suffering; the weak soul is troubled, for whose sake the unconquered soul was troubled of its own accord: set the will of God before your own will. For mark what your Creator and your Master adds next, He Who made you, and Who, to teach you, Himself became what He had made: for He Who made man was made man; yet He remained the unchangeable God, and changed man for the better. Hear, then, what He adds after that, when He had said, Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say, He says? Father, save Me from this hour: but for this cause I came to this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. He has taught you what to think, He has taught you what to say, Whom to call upon, in Whom to hope, Whose sure and divine will you are to set before your own human and weak will. Let Him not therefore seem to you to be falling short from on high, because He wishes you to make progress from below. For He also deigned to be tempted by the devil, by whom He would surely not have been tempted had He not willed it, just as He would not have suffered had He not willed it: and He answered the devil with those things which you ought to answer in temptations (Matt. 4:1–10). And He indeed was tempted, but not put in peril; so that He might teach you, when you are in peril in temptation, to answer the tempter, and not to go after the tempter, but to come out of the peril of temptation. And just as here He said, Now is My soul troubled, so also where He says, My soul is sorrowful even unto death; and, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: He took on the infirmity of man, so that He might teach one thus saddened and troubled to say what follows, Nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt, Father (Matt. 26:38–39). For thus man is directed from human things to divine, when the divine will is set before the human will. And what is, Glorify Thy name, unless in His passion and resurrection? What else then is it, but that the Father should glorify the Son, Who glorifies His own name also in the like sufferings of His servants? Hence it is written of Peter that He said of him, Another shall gird you, and carry you where you do not wish, for this reason: because He wished to signify by what death he was to glorify God (John 21:18–19). Therefore in him too God glorified His name, because thus He glorifies Christ also in His members.

4. There came then a voice from heaven, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. I have both glorified it, before I made the world: and will glorify it again, when He shall rise from the dead and ascend into heaven. It can also be understood otherwise. I have both glorified it, when He was born of the Virgin, when He worked mighty works

when, with heaven as His indicator, He was worshipped by the Magi by means of a star; when He was recognized by holy men filled with the Holy Spirit; when He was declared by the Spirit descending in the form of a dove; when He was pointed out by a voice sounding from heaven; when He was transfigured on the mountain; when He did many miracles; when He healed and cleansed many; when from very few loaves He fed so great a multitude; when He commanded the winds and the waves; when He raised the dead: and I will glorify it again, when He shall rise from the dead, when death shall no more have dominion over Him, when God shall be exalted above the heavens, and His glory above all the earth.

5. The crowd therefore that stood by and had heard said that it had thundered: others said, An angel has spoken to Him. Jesus answered and said: This voice came not for My sake, but for yours. Here He shows that by that voice there was made known, not to Himself what He already knew, but to those to whom it needed to be made known. And just as that voice was brought about by the divinity not for His sake but for the sake of others, so His soul was troubled by His will not for His sake but for the sake of others.

6. Attend to the rest. Now, He says, is the judgement of the world. What then is to be awaited at the end of the age? But the judgement that is awaited at the end will be the judgement of the living and the dead who are to be judged; it will be a judgement of eternal rewards and punishments. What kind of judgement, then, is it now? Already in the earlier readings, as far as I was able, I reminded your Charity that there is also called judgement one not of condemnation but of discernment: whence it is written, Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from a nation not holy (Ps. 42:1). Now the judgements of God are many: whence it is said in the Psalm, Thy judgements are a great deep (Ps. 35:7). The Apostle also says, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgements (Rom. 11:33)! Among these judgements is also this which the Lord says here, Now is the judgement of the world; that judgement at the end being reserved, when at the last the living and the dead are to be judged. The devil, then, possessed the human race, and held them liable to punishments by the bond of their sins; he ruled in the hearts of unbelievers, and dragged them, deceived and captive, to the worship of the creature, the Creator being forsaken: but through faith in Christ, which was confirmed by His death and resurrection, through His blood, which was shed for the remission of sins, thousands of believers are set free from the dominion of the devil, are joined to the body of Christ, and under so great a Head the faithful members are quickened by His one Spirit. This He called judgement, this discernment, this the expulsion of the devil from His redeemed.

7. Finally, attend to what He says. As though we were asking what it was that He said, Now is the judgement of the world, He went on and explained it: for He says, Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. We have heard what kind of judgement He said it was. Not, therefore, that which is to come at the end, when the living and the dead are to be judged, some separated to the right hand, others to the left; but the judgement by which the prince of this world shall be cast out. How then was he within, and whither did He say he was to be cast out? Was he in the world, and was he sent out beyond the world? For if He were speaking of that judgement which is to come at the end

someone might suppose that the eternal fire into which the devil is to be sent with his angels, and with all who are of his party (not by nature but by vice; not because he created or begot them, but because he persuaded and held them), someone, then, might suppose that this eternal fire is outside the world, and that this is what was meant by "he shall be cast out." But since He says, "Now is the judgement of the world," and, explaining what He had said, "Now," He says, "shall the prince of this world be cast out," this is to be understood of what is happening now, not of what is to be so long afterwards, on the last day. The Lord, therefore, was foretelling what He knew: that after His passion and glorification many peoples throughout the whole world would believe, in whose hearts the devil was within; and when they renounce him by faith, he is cast out.

8. But someone says: Was he not cast out from the hearts of the Patriarchs and Prophets and of the righteous of old? He was cast out, plainly. How, then, was it said, "now shall he be cast out"? How do we think, unless that what was then done in very few men was now foretold as soon to come about in many great peoples? So also that which was said, "But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified" (John 7:39), can have a like question and a like solution. For it was not without the Holy Spirit that the Prophets foretold things to come; nor was it otherwise than in the Holy Spirit that the aged Simeon and the widow Anna recognized the Lord as an infant (Luke 2:25–38); and Zachary and Elizabeth, who through the Holy Spirit foretold such great things of Him when He was not yet born but already conceived (ibid. 1:41–45, 67–79). But "the Spirit had not yet been given," that is, that abundance of spiritual grace by which those gathered together would speak in the tongues of all, and so the Church to come would be foretold in the tongues of all nations: the spiritual grace by which peoples would be gathered together, by which sins would be forgiven far and wide, and thousands of thousands would be reconciled to God.

9. What then, says someone, because the devil shall be cast out from the hearts of believers, does he now tempt none of the faithful? Nay rather, he does not cease to tempt. But it is one thing to reign within, another to assault from without: for even a very well fortified city an enemy sometimes assaults, yet does not storm it. And if some of his darts that are shot reach us, the Apostle advises us how they may not harm us; he reminds us of the breastplate and the shield of faith (1 Thess. 5:8). And if he sometimes wounds, He is at hand Who heals. For just as it was said to those who fight, "These things I write to you, that you may not sin," so those who are wounded hear what follows: "And if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; He is the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2:1–2). For what do we pray when we say, "Forgive us our debts," except that our wounds may be healed? And what else do we ask when we say, "Bring us not into temptation" (Matt. 6:12–13), except that he who lies in wait, or contends from without, may break in from no side, may be able to overcome us by no fraud and by no strength? Yet however many engines he may raise against us, when he does not hold the place of the heart where faith dwells, he has been cast out. But unless the Lord guard

the city, in vain will he keep watch who guards [it] (Ps. 126:1). Do not, then, presume upon yourselves, if you do not wish to call back inside again the devil who has been cast out.

10. But far be it from us to suppose that the devil is called the prince of the world in such a way that we should believe him able to rule over heaven and earth. Rather, the world is so called in respect of evil men, who are spread throughout the whole circle of the earth: just as a house is so called in respect of those by whom it is inhabited, according to which we say, It is a good house, or, it is a bad house, not when we find fault with or praise the building of walls and roofs, but when [we find fault with or praise] the morals either of good men or of bad. So, then, it was said, The prince of this world: that is, the prince of all the evil who dwell in the world. The world is also so called in respect of the good, who are likewise spread throughout the whole circle of the earth: hence the Apostle says, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19). These are they from whose hearts the prince of this world is cast out.

11. When, then, He had said, Now the prince of this world shall be cast out; And I, He says, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things after Me. What all things, if not those from which he is cast out? He did not, however, say, all men, but, all things: for not all men have faith (2 Thess. 3:2). He did not, therefore, refer this to the whole of mankind, but to the wholeness of the creature; that is, spirit, and soul, and body; both that by which we understand, and that by which we live, and that by which we are visible and tangible. For He Who said, A hair of your head shall not perish (Luke 21:18), draws all things after Him. Or if by all things men themselves are to be understood, we can say all things predestined to salvation: of all of which He said that none would perish, when He was speaking above of His sheep (John 10:28). Or certainly all kinds of men, whether in all tongues, or in all ages, or in all grades of honours, or in all diversities of talents, or in all professions of lawful and useful arts, and whatever else can be named according to the innumerable differences by which men differ among themselves apart from sins alone, from the most exalted to the most lowly, from the king to the beggar; all things, He says, will I draw after Me: that He may be their head, and they His members. But if I be lifted up, He says, from the earth; that is, when I shall be lifted up: for He does not doubt that what He came to fulfil will come to pass. This refers to what He said above, But if the grain shall have died, it bears much fruit. For what else did He call His lifting up but His passion on the cross? Which the Evangelist himself also did not pass over in silence: for he added, and said, Now this He said, signifying by what death He was to die?

12. The crowd answered Him: We have heard out of the Law that the Christ remains for ever; and how sayest Thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? And who is this Son of man? They had retained in memory that the Lord constantly said that He was the Son of man. For in this place He does not say, If the Son of man be lifted up from the earth: but He had said above, which was read and expounded yesterday, when those Gentiles who desired to see Him were announced to Him, The hour has come that the Son of man may be glorified