Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus LXVI-LXXXIV

Tractate 66.

On that which follows, Simon Peter says to Him: Lord, where are You going? up to this, Amen, amen I say to you; the cock will not crow until you deny Me three times. Chap. 13, vv. 36-38.

1. When the Lord Jesus was commending to the disciples the holy love with which they should love one another, Simon Peter says to Him: Lord, where are You going? Thus indeed the disciple said this to the Master, and the servant to the Lord, as one ready to follow. For it was for this reason that the Lord, who saw his mind and why he had asked this, answered him thus: Where I am going, you cannot follow Me now: as if He were saying, In respect of that about which you ask, you cannot now. He does not say, you cannot; but, you cannot now: He brought in a delay, He did not take away hope; and that same hope which He did not take away, but rather gave, He confirmed with the following word, by adding and saying, But you shall follow afterwards. Why do you hurry, Peter? The rock has not yet made you solid with His spirit. Do not be lifted up by presuming, you cannot now: do not be cast down by despairing, you shall follow afterwards. But what does he say still? Why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for You. What desire there was in his mind, he saw; what strength, he did not see. The sick man was boasting of his will, but the physician was inspecting his health; the one was promising, the Other was foreknowing: he who did not know was daring; He who foreknew was teaching. How much had Peter taken upon himself by looking at what he wished, while ignorant of what he could do? How much had he taken upon himself, that when the Lord had come to lay down His life for His friends, and thereby for him too, he should be confident of offering this to the Lord: and, while the life of Christ had not yet been laid down for him, should promise that he would lay down his own life for Christ? Jesus therefore answered, Will you lay down your life for Me? Will you do this for Me, which I have not yet done for you? Will you lay down your life for Me? Can you go before, you who cannot follow? Why do you presume so much? What do you think of yourself? What do you believe yourself to be? Hear what you are: Amen, amen I say to you; the cock will not crow until you deny Me three times. See how soon you will be shown to yourself, you who speak great things and do not know that you are a little one. You who promise Me your death will three times deny your life. You who think you can already die for Me, first live for yourself: for by fearing the death of your flesh, you will give death to your soul. For as great a life as it is to confess Christ, so great a death is it to deny Christ.

2. Or did the apostle Peter, as certain people strive with perverse favour to excuse him (Ambrose, on Luke 22), not deny Christ, because when questioned by the maidservant he answered that he did not know the man, as the other evangelists attest more expressly? As if indeed he who denies the man Christ does not deny Christ; and denies Him in that which He became for our sake, lest what He had made, namely us, should perish. Therefore he who confesses Christ as God in such a way as to deny Him as man, for him Christ did not die; for it is according to the man that Christ died. He who denies the man Christ is not reconciled through the mediator

to God. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). Whoever denies the man Christ is not justified; because just as through the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one man many will be made righteous (Rom. 5:19). Whoever denies the man Christ will not rise again to the resurrection of life; because through a man came death, and through a man the resurrection of the dead: for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor. 15:21–22). Through what, moreover, is He the head of the Church, except through the man, in that the Word was made flesh? that is, the Only-begotten God of God the Father was made man. How then is he in the body of Christ who denies the man Christ? For whoever denies the head, how is he a member? But why should I dwell on many things, when the Lord Himself has removed all the windings of human argumentation? For He does not say, The cock shall not crow until you deny the man; or, as He was accustomed to speak with a more familiar condescension towards men, The cock shall not crow until you deny the Son of man three times: but He says, until you deny me three times. What is "me", except what He was? and what was He but Christ? Whatever of Him, then, he denied, he denied Him Himself, he denied Christ, he denied his Lord God. For that fellow disciple of his too, Thomas, when he cried out, My Lord and my God, touched not the Word but the flesh; he handled with curious hands not the incorporeal nature of God, but the body of a man (John 20:27–28). It was a man, therefore, that he touched, and yet he recognized God. If, then, what this one touched, that Peter denied, what this one cried out, that Peter offended against. The cock shall not crow until you deny me three times. Though you say, I do not know the man; though you say, Man, I do not know what you are saying; though you say, I am not one of His disciples (Matt. 26:34, 69–74, and Luke 22:55–60): you will deny me. If, as it is impious to doubt, Christ said this and foretold truly, beyond doubt Peter denied Christ. Let us not accuse Christ when we defend Peter. Let weakness acknowledge sin; for truth has no falsehood. Indeed, the weakness of Peter acknowledged its sin, acknowledged it fully; and how much evil he had committed by denying Christ, he showed by weeping. He himself refutes his defenders, and, to convict them, he brings forward his tears as witnesses. Nor, when we say these things, does it delight us to accuse the first of the Apostles: but by looking upon him we ought to be admonished that no man should trust in human strength. For what else was the purpose of our Teacher and Saviour, except to show us, by the example of the very first of the Apostles, that no one ought by any means to presume on himself? In the soul of Peter, therefore, there happened what he was offering in the body. Yet he did not go ahead for the Lord, as he rashly presumed, but otherwise than he thought. For before the death and resurrection of the Lord he both died by denying and came to life again by weeping: but he died because he himself presumed proudly; he came to life again because that One looked upon him kindly.

Tractate LXVII. On that which the Lord says, Let not your heart be troubled;

up to this: I come again, and I will take you to Myself. Chapter 14, verses 1-3.

1. We must raise towards God a greater attentiveness, brethren, so that we may somehow grasp with the mind also the words of the holy Gospel which have just sounded in our ears. For the Lord Jesus says: Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, and believe in Me. Lest they should fear death as men, and therefore be troubled, He consoles them, testifying also that He Himself is God. Believe, He says, in God, and believe in Me. For it follows that if you believe in God, you ought to believe in Me also: which would not follow if Christ were not God. Believe in God, and believe in Him for Whom it is by nature, not by robbery, to be equal to God: for He emptied Himself; yet not losing the form of God, but taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6–7). You fear death for this form of a servant; let not your heart be troubled, the form of God will raise it up.

2. But what is it that follows, In My Father's house there are many dwelling-places, if not that they were also afraid for themselves? Hence they had to hear, Let not your heart be troubled. For which of them would not be afraid, when it had been said to Peter, the more confident and the readier, The cock will not crow until you deny Me three times (John 13:38)? As though, then, they were going to be lost from Him, they were rightly troubled: but when they hear, In My Father's house there are many dwelling-places: if it were otherwise, I would have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you, they are revived from their perturbation, sure and confident that even after the perils of temptations they will remain with God together with Christ. For although one is stronger than another, one wiser than another, one more just than another, one holier than another, in the Father's house there are many dwelling-places; none of them will be estranged from that house, where each is to receive a dwelling-place according to his own merit. That denarius indeed is equal for all, which the householder orders to be given to all who have worked in the vineyard, not distinguishing in this between those who laboured less and those who laboured more (Matt. 20:9): by which denarius, certainly, eternal life is signified, where no one lives more than another, since in eternity there is no differing measure of living. But the many dwelling-places signify the different dignities of merits in the one eternal life. For there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars: for star differs from star in glory; so also is the resurrection of the dead. Like stars, the saints are allotted different dwelling-places of different brightness in the kingdom, as in the sky; but on account of the one denarius no one is separated from the kingdom: and thus God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:41–42, 28), so that, since God is Charity (1 John 4:8), it may come about through charity that what individuals have is common to all. For in this way each one himself also has it, when he loves in another what he himself does not have. There will therefore be no envy of unequal brightness, since the unity of charity will reign in all.

3. Accordingly, those are to be spat out from the Christian heart who

think that "many mansions" was said for this reason, that outside the kingdom of heaven there will be some place where the blessed innocents may abide who departed this life without Baptism, since without it they will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven. This faith is not faith, since it is not the true and catholic faith. Is it so then, foolish men, blinded by carnal thoughts, that, whereas you would deserve to be condemned if you separated from the kingdom of heaven the mansion, I do not say of Peter and Paul or of any one of the Apostles, but of any baptized little one whatever, you do not think that you deserve to be condemned, you who separate from it the house of God the Father? For the Lord does not say, In the whole world, or, In the whole creation, or, In everlasting life or blessedness there are many mansions; but, In the house, He says, of My Father there are many mansions. Is not this the house where we have a building from God, a house not made by hand, eternal in the heavens (2 Cor. 5:1)? Is not this the house of which we sing to the Lord, Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house; for ages of ages they will praise Thee (Ps. 83:5)? Will you then dare to separate from the kingdom of heaven not the house of each baptized brother, but the house of God the Father Himself, to Whom all of us brothers say, Our Father, Who art in heaven (Matt. 6:9), or so to divide it that some of its mansions are in the kingdom of heaven, but some outside the kingdom of heaven? Far be it, far be it that those who wish to dwell in the kingdom of heaven should wish to dwell with you in this folly: far be it, I say, that, since every house of the reigning sons is nowhere else but in the kingdom, some part of the royal house itself should not be in the kingdom.

4. And if I go away, He says, and prepare a place for you; I come again, and I will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be. And where I go you know, and the way you know. O Lord Jesus, how dost Thou go to prepare a place, if there are already many mansions in Thy Father's house, where Thine own will dwell with Thee! Or if Thou receivest them to Thyself, how dost Thou come again, Who dost not withdraw? These things, dearly beloved, if we attempt to explain them briefly, so far as seems sufficient for today's sermon, will certainly not become clear when compressed, and the brevity itself will be a second obscurity: therefore let us defer this debt, which we may repay to you more opportunely by the bounty of our Householder.

Tractate 68.

On the same reading.

1. We acknowledge, dearest brothers, that what we had deferred is owed to you and is now to be repaid: how these two things may be understood not to be contrary to each other, namely that, when the Lord had said, In My Father's house there are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you that I go to prepare a place for you; whereby He showed clearly enough that He had said this to them for this reason, that there are already many mansions there, and there is no need to prepare any: He says again: And if I go away, and prepare a place for you; I come again, and I will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be. How does He go and prepare a place, if there are already many mansions? If it were not so, He would have said, I go to prepare. Or if it is still to be prepared, why would He not rightly have said, I go to prepare? Do these mansions both

exist and also need preparing? For if they were not, He would have said, I go to prepare. And yet, because they are such that they are to be prepared, He does not go to prepare them as they are: but if He goes away and prepares them as they are to be, coming again He will receive His own to Himself, so that where He Himself is, they too may be. How then are the mansions in the Father's house not other but the same, and without doubt already are, in such a way that they are not to be prepared, and are not yet, in such a way that they are to be prepared? How do we think, except in the way in which the prophet too proclaims God, that He has made the things that are to be? For he does not say, Who will make the things that are to be, but, Who has made the things that are to be (Isa. 45:11, according to the Septuagint). Therefore He both has made them and will make them. For neither have they been made, if He did not make them; nor will they be, if He shall not have made them. He made them, then, by predestining; He will make them by working. Just as the Gospel indicates clearly enough when He chose the disciples: namely then, when He called them (Luke 6:13); and yet the Apostle says, He chose us before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4): by predestining, that is, not by calling. And those whom He predestined, them He also called (Rom. 8:30): He chose by predestining before the foundation of the world, He chose by calling before the consummation of the world. So too He both has prepared the mansions and prepares them; and not other ones, but those which He has prepared, these He prepares, He Who has made the things that are to be: those which He has prepared by predestining, He prepares by working. They already are, therefore, in predestination: if it were otherwise, He would have said, I will go and prepare, that is, I will predestine. But because they are not yet in operation, And if I go away, He says, and prepare a place for you, I come again and will receive you to Myself.

2. But He prepares the mansions in a certain manner by preparing dwellers for the mansions. For when He said, In My Father's house there are many mansions, what do we think the house of God is, if not the temple of God? And what that is, let the Apostle be asked, and let him answer: For the temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor. 3:17). This is also the kingdom of God, which the Son is to hand over to the Father: whence the same apostle says, Christ the beginning, then those who are Christ's at His presence; then the end, when He shall have handed over the kingdom to God and the Father (1 Cor. 15:23–24); that is, those whom He redeemed with His blood, He shall have handed over to His Father also by contemplating. This is the kingdom of heaven, of which it is said, The kingdom of heaven is like a man sowing good seed in his field. And the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom: and although they now have tares mixed in with them, at the end the King Himself will send His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all scandals. Then the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matt. 13:24, 38–43). The kingdom will shine in the kingdom when the kingdom shall have come to the kingdom, that for which we now pray, and say, Thy kingdom come (Matt. 6:10). Now, then, it is already called a kingdom, but it is still being called together: for if it were not called a kingdom, it would not be said, They will gather out of His kingdom all scandals. But this kingdom does not yet reign. Accordingly it is already a kingdom in such a way that, when all scandals have been gathered out of it, then it may attain to the kingdom, so that it may have not only the name of kingdom but also the power of reigning. For to this kingdom, standing at the right hand, it will be said at the end, Come, blessed of My Father, receive