Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus LXVI-LXXXIV

compels. For perhaps He spoke of those which He was doing in that hour; but at that time He was doing words of faith, and of these works He had spoken beforehand, saying, The words that I speak to you, I do not speak from Myself; but the Father abiding in Me, He does the works (John 14:10). At that time, therefore, His words were His works. And certainly it is a lesser thing to preach words of righteousness, which He did apart from us, than to justify the ungodly, which He does in us in such a way that we also do it. It remains to inquire how this is to be understood, Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do (John 14:13). For on account of the many things which His faithful ask and do not receive, no small question arises from this; but since this sermon must now be brought to a close, let at least a little delay be granted for considering and treating it.

Tractate 73.

Again on the same reading.

1. The Lord promised a great hope to His own who hope, saying: Because I go to the Father, and whatever you ask in My name, this I will do. Thus, then, He went on to the Father so as not to abandon the needy, but to hear those who ask. But what is whatever you ask, when we see that His faithful very often ask and do not receive? Is it perhaps because they ask wrongly? For the apostle James reproached this, saying: You ask, and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, so as to spend it on your lusts (Jas. 4:3). He, then, who would use wrongly what he wishes to receive, does not receive it, God rather having mercy. Accordingly, if something is asked of Him by which a man would be harmed in being heard, it is the more to be feared lest what He could, being gracious, not give, He give in anger. Do we not see that the Israelites obtained to their own harm what they asked in culpable lust? For they had lusted to eat flesh (Num. 11:32), they on whom manna was rained from heaven. For they loathed what they had, and what they did not have they shamelessly demanded; as though they would not have asked better, not that the food which was lacking be supplied to their unseemly desire, but that the food which was present be taken with their loathing healed. For when evil things delight us and good things do not delight us, we ought rather to ask God that good things may delight us than that evil things may be granted. Not because it is evil to eat flesh, since the Apostle, speaking on this matter, says, Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4:4); but because, as he likewise says, It is evil for the man who eats with offence (Rom. 14:20); and if with offence to man, how much more to God? Towards Whom in the Israelites there was no small offence, to repudiate what wisdom was giving, and to ask for that which lust was gaping after; although they did not even ask, but murmured because it was lacking. But so that we might know that it is not God's creature that is culpable, but defiant disobedience and disordered desire: not on account of a pig, but on account of a fruit did the first man find death (Gen. 3:6), and Esau lost his birthright not on account of a hen, but on account of a lentil dish (Gen. 25:34).

2. How, then, is it to be understood, Whatever you ask, this I will do, if God, even in providing for them, does not do some things for the faithful who ask? Was it perhaps to the Apostles alone

that we ought to take it as said? Far from it. For from where did He come to say this? He had said above, He who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do, and greater than these he will do: a matter we treated in the previous sermon. And lest anyone should attribute this to himself, as though to show that he himself did even those greater works, He added and said: Because I go to the Father; and whatever you ask in My name, this I will do. Did the Apostles alone believe in Him? So He was speaking to them in saying, He who believes in Me, and among these, by His gift, we too are, who certainly do not receive whatever we ask. If we also consider the most blessed Apostles themselves, we find that he who laboured more than all, yet not he, but the grace of God with him (1 Cor. 15:10), asked the Lord three times that the angel of Satan might depart from him, and yet did not receive what he had asked (2 Cor. 12:8). What shall we say, dearly beloved? Shall we suppose that this promise, where He says, Whatever you ask, this I will do, was not fulfilled by Him even for the Apostles? And for whom at last will He fulfil what He promises, if He has cheated His own Apostles of His promise?

3. Wake up, then, faithful man, and listen wakefully to what is set down there, in My name: for He does not say that very whatever you ask in any way at all; but, in My name. What, then, is He called Who promised so great a benefit? Christ Jesus, certainly: Christ signifies King, Jesus signifies Saviour: for it is certainly not just any king that will save us, but the Saviour King; and therefore whatever we ask against the advantage of salvation, we do not ask in the name of the Saviour. And yet He is the Saviour, not only when He does what we ask, but also when He does not do it; since what He sees to be asked against salvation, by not doing it He rather shows Himself the Saviour. For the physician knows what the sick man demands for his health and what against his health; and therefore he does not do the will of one demanding things harmful to him, so that he may bring about health. Wherefore, when we wish Him to do whatever we ask, let us ask not in any way at all, but in His name, that is, let us ask in the name of the Saviour. Let us not, then, ask against our salvation: for if He does that, He does not do it as Saviour, which is His name for His faithful. For He Who deigns to be Saviour to the faithful is also a Condemner to the impious. Whoever, then, believes in Him, whatever he asks in that name which belongs to those who believe in Him, this He does; since this He does as Saviour. But if one who believes in Him asks, through ignorance, something against his own salvation, he does not ask in the name of the Saviour; for He will not be his Saviour, if He does what hinders his salvation. Hence it is then more expedient that, by not doing that for which He is invoked, He should do what He is called. Therefore, not only as Saviour but also as good Master, so that He may do whatever we ask, He has taught us what to ask in the very prayer which He gave us; so that in this way too we may understand that we do not ask in the name of the Master whatever we ask outside the rule of His very teaching.

4. Certainly, some things, although we ask them in His name,

that is, let us ask according to the Saviour and according to the Master; He does not do it at the time when we ask, but nevertheless He does it. For neither, because we also ask that the kingdom of God may come, does He therefore not do what we ask, since we do not at once reign with Him in eternity: what we ask is deferred, not denied. Nevertheless, praying as those who sow, let us not grow weary; for in due season we shall reap (Gal. 6:9). And at the same time, when we ask rightly, let us ask that He may not do what we ask wrongly; for to this also belongs what we say in the same Lord's Prayer, Lead us not into temptation (Matt. 6:9–13). For it is no small temptation if your request is against your own cause. Nor should it be heard carelessly that the Lord, lest anyone should think that what He promised to do for those who ask He would do without the Father, when He had said, Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, immediately added, That the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in My name, this I will do. In no way, then, does the Son do this without the Father, since He does it precisely so that the Father may be glorified in Him. The Father therefore does it in the Son, that the Son may be glorified in the Father; and the Son does it in the Father, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; for the Father and the Son are one.

Tractate 74.

On that which He says, If you love Me, keep My commandments; as far as this, He will abide with you, and will be in you. Chapter 14, verses 15-17.

1. We heard, brethren, when the Gospel was being read, the Lord saying: If you love Me, keep My commandments: and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him, nor know Him. But you shall know Him, because He will abide with you, and will be in you. There are many things to be inquired into in these few words of the Lord; but it is too much for us either to seek all that is to be sought here, or to find all that we seek here. Nevertheless, as far as the Lord deigns to grant to us, according to our capacity and yours, paying heed to what we ought to say and what you ought to hear, take, dearly beloved, through us what we are able to give, and ask of Him what we are not able to give. Christ promised the Spirit, the Paraclete, to the Apostles; but let us observe in what manner He promised Him. If you love Me, He says, keep My commandments: and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of truth. This is certainly the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, Whom the catholic faith confesses to be consubstantial and coeternal with the Father and the Son: He it is of Whom the Apostle says, The charity of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us (Rom. 5:5). How then does the Lord say, If you love Me, keep My commandments: and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete; when He says this of the Holy Spirit, without Whom, unless we have Him, we can neither love God nor keep His commandments? How do we love so that we may receive Him, without Whom, unless we have Him, we are not able to love?

or how shall we keep the commandments so as to receive Him, when unless we have Him we cannot keep the commandments? Or perhaps the charity by which we love Christ comes first in us, so that by loving Christ and doing His commandments we may merit to receive the Holy Spirit, in order that the charity, not of Christ, which had already come first, but of God the Father, may be poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us? That opinion is perverse. For whoever believes that he loves the Son and does not love the Father certainly does not love the Son either, but what he has invented for himself. Then there is the apostolic saying, No one says, Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3): and who says Lord Jesus, if he says it in the way the Apostle meant it to be understood, except one who loves Him? For many say it with the voice, but deny it in heart and deeds: as he says of such people, For they profess that they know God, but in deeds they deny Him (Titus 1:16). If there is denying by deeds, beyond doubt there is also saying by deeds. So no one says, Lord Jesus, in mind, word, deed, in heart, mouth, work, no one says, Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit; and no one says it thus except one who loves. Already, therefore, the apostles were saying, Lord Jesus: and if they said it in such a way that they did not say it feignedly, confessing with the mouth while denying with heart and deeds; if, in short, they said this truthfully, beyond doubt they loved. How then did they love, if not in the Holy Spirit? And yet they are first commanded to love Him and to keep His commandments, in order that they may receive the Holy Spirit: without having Whom they certainly could not have loved and kept the commandments.

2. It remains, then, that we understand that whoever loves has the Holy Spirit, and by having Him merits to have Him more, and by having Him more loves more. So the disciples already had the Spirit Whom the Lord was promising, without Whom they would not have called Him Lord: yet they did not yet have Him as the Lord was promising Him. They both had Him, therefore, and did not have Him, in that they did not yet have Him as fully as He was to be had. They had Him, then, in a lesser measure; He was to be given to them more fully. They had Him hiddenly; they were to receive Him manifestly; for this too belonged to the greater gift of the Holy Spirit, that what they had should become known to them. Speaking of this gift the Apostle says: But we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit Who is from God, that we may know the things that have been given to us by God (1 Cor. 2:12). For the Lord carried out that very manifest imparting of the Holy Spirit not once but twice. For as soon as He had risen from the dead, breathing upon them He said: Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). Does it follow, then, that because He gave Him at that time, He did not also send afterwards the One Whom He had promised? Or is it not the very same Holy Spirit Who was both breathed forth by Him then and afterwards sent by Him from heaven (Acts 2:4)? Why, then, that giving of Him which took place evidently was done twice is another question: perhaps because of the two precepts of love, that is, of neighbour and of God, so that it might be impressed upon us that love belongs to the Holy Spirit, this giving of Him in manifestation was made twofold. And if another reason is to be sought, this sermon is not to be drawn out now by an inquiry into it to a greater length than is fitting: provided, however, it is agreed

that without the Holy Spirit we cannot love Christ and keep His commandments; and that we can do and perform this the less, the less we receive Him, but the more fully, the more fully we receive Him. Accordingly, He is promised not in vain, not only to him who does not have Him, but also to him who has Him: to him who does not have Him, that He may be had; and to him who has Him, that He may be had more fully. For unless He were had less by one and more fully by another, holy Elisha would not say to holy Elijah: "Let the Spirit that is in you be twofold in me" (2 Kgs. 2:9).

3. But when John the Baptist says, "For God does not give the Spirit by measure" (John 3:34), he was speaking of the Son of God Himself, to Whom the Spirit was not given by measure, because in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). For neither is the man Christ Jesus the mediator of God and men without the grace of the Holy Spirit (1 Tim. 2:5): for He Himself also says that that prophetic word was fulfilled concerning Him, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because of which He has anointed me, He has sent me to preach the gospel to the poor" (Luke 4:18, 21). For that He is the Only-begotten, equal to the Father, is not of grace but of nature; but that the man was taken up into the unity of the person of the Only-begotten is of grace, not of nature, as the Gospel acknowledges and says, "And the boy grew and was strengthened, full of wisdom, and the grace of God was in him" (Luke 2:40). But to the rest He is given by measure, and being given He is added, until for each one, according to the mode of his perfection, his own measure is filled up. Hence also the Apostle admonishes, "Not to be wise beyond what one ought to be wise, but to be wise unto temperance; to each one as God has apportioned the measure of faith" (Rom. 12:3). For the Spirit Himself is not divided, but the gifts through the Spirit: for there are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4).

4. But when He says, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete," He shows that He Himself also is a paraclete. For "paraclete" is called in Latin "advocate"; and it has been said of Christ, "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1). But He said that the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit in the way that it has also been said, "The prudence of the flesh is hostile towards God: for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be" (Rom. 8:7); as if we were to say, "Injustice cannot be just." For by "world" in this place He means the lovers of the world, which love is not from the Father (1 John 2:16). And therefore to the love of this world, which we are anxiously striving to have diminished and consumed in us, the love of God is contrary, which is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us. "The world," therefore, "cannot receive Him, because it does not see Him, nor know Him." For worldly love does not have invisible eyes, through which alone the Holy Spirit can be seen, since He cannot be seen except invisibly.

5. "But you," He says, "will know Him, because He will remain with you, and will be in you." He will be in them so that He may remain; He will not remain so that He may be: for to be somewhere comes before remaining. But lest they should think that what was said, "He will remain with you," was said in the way that with a man