Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus LXVI-LXXXIV

Tractate 77. On what follows, "These things I have spoken to you, remaining with you," as far as "My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you." (John 14:25–27)

1. In the preceding reading of the holy Gospel, which this one that has just been read follows, the Lord Jesus had said that He and the Father would come to those who love Him, and would make Their dwelling with them. Moreover, He had also said earlier of the Holy Spirit, "But you will know Him, because He will remain with you, and will be in you" (John 14:17); from which we understood that the Trinity, God, dwells together in the saints as in His temple. But now He says, "These things I have spoken to you, remaining with you." That dwelling, then, which He promised as future, is one thing; this one, which He testifies to be present, is another. That one is spiritual, and is rendered to minds inwardly; this one is bodily, and is presented outwardly to eyes and ears. That one makes the delivered blessed for ever; this one visits in time those who are to be delivered. According to that one the Lord does not depart from those who love Him; according to this one He goes and departs. "These things," He says, "I have spoken to you, remaining with you": that is, by bodily presence, in which He spoke with them as a visible person.

2. "But the Paraclete," He says, "the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and will remind you of all things whatever I shall have said to you." Is it then that the Son speaks and the Holy Spirit teaches, so that when the Son speaks we grasp the words, but when the Holy Spirit teaches we understand those same words? As if the Son were to speak without the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit were to teach without the Son; or rather, does not the Son also teach and the Holy Spirit also speak, and when God speaks and teaches anything, does not the Trinity itself speak and teach? But since it is a Trinity, it was fitting that its several persons should be made known, and that we should hear it distinctly, but understand it inseparably. Hear the Father speaking where you read, "The Lord said to me, You are My Son" (Ps. 2:7); hear Him also teaching where you read, "Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned comes to Me" (John 6:45). The Son, indeed, you have just heard speaking, for He says of Himself, "Whatever I shall have said to you"; and if you wish to know Him also as teaching, recall the Master: "One," He says, "is your Master, Christ" (Matt. 23:10). Further, the Holy Spirit, Whom you have just heard teaching where it is said, "He will teach you all things," hear also speaking, where you read in the Acts of the Apostles that the Holy Spirit said to blessed Peter, "Go with them, for I have sent them" (Acts 10:20). The whole Trinity, therefore, both speaks and teaches; but unless it were also commended to us one by one, human weakness could by no means grasp it. Since, then, it is wholly inseparable, it would never be known to be a Trinity if it were always spoken of inseparably; for even when we say "the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit," we certainly do not say them simultaneously, although they themselves cannot be other than together. But as to His having added, "will remind you," we ought to understand also that the very fact that we are commanded not to forget most salutary admonitions belongs to grace, of which the Spirit reminds us.

3. "Peace," He says, "I leave to you, My peace I give to you." This is what we read in the prophet, "Peace upon peace": peace He leaves to us as He is about to go, His own peace He will give to us when He comes at the end. Peace He leaves to us in this world, His own peace He will give to us in the world to come. His own peace He leaves to us, abiding in which we conquer the enemy: His own peace He will give to us when we shall reign without an enemy. Peace He leaves to us, so that here too we may love one another: His own peace He will give to us where we can never disagree. Peace He leaves to us, so that we may not judge one another concerning our hidden things while we are in this world: His own peace He will give to us when He shall make manifest the thoughts of the heart, and then each one shall have praise from God (1 Cor. 4:5). Yet in Him and from Him we have peace, whether that which He leaves to us as He is about to go to the Father, or that which He will give to us when He is about to lead us through to the Father. And what does He leave to us in ascending from us, but Himself, while He does not withdraw from us? For He Himself is our peace, Who has made both one (Eph. 2:14). He Himself, then, is peace to us, both when we believe that He is, and when we see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). For if, as long as we are in the corruptible body which weighs down the soul, while we walk by faith, not by sight, He does not forsake those who are journeying abroad from Him (2 Cor. 5:6–7), how much more, when we have come to that sight itself, will He fill us from Himself?

4. But why is it that where He says, "Peace I leave to you," He did not add "My," whereas where He says, "I give to you," there He said "My"? Is "My" to be understood also where it is not said, because what is said once can be referred to both? Or perhaps here too something lies hidden which is to be asked for and sought, and which is to be opened to those who knock? For what if He wished that to be understood as His own peace which is such as He Himself has? But this peace which He leaves to us in this world is rather to be called ours than His. For to Him nothing in Himself is in conflict, since He has no sin at all: but we now have such a peace that in it we still say, "Forgive us our debts" (Matt. 6:12). There is therefore some peace for us, since we delight in the law of God according to the inner man: but it is not full, since we see another law in our members, warring against the law of our mind (Rom. 7:22–23). Likewise among ourselves there is peace for us, because we believe of one another that we love one another: but neither is that full, since we do not see the thoughts of one another's hearts; and some things about ourselves which are not in us we suppose of one another, either for the better or for the worse. Therefore this peace, even though it has been left to us by Him, is our peace: for unless it were from Him, we should not have even such a peace; but He Himself does not have such a one. If we hold fast to the end such a peace as we have received, we shall have such as He has, where nothing from within us will be in conflict with us, and nothing will lie hidden from one another in our hearts. Nor am I unaware that these words of the Lord can also be taken in such a way that there seems to be a repetition of the same statement, "Peace I leave to you, My peace I give to you": so that what He had said, "peace," He repeated in saying "My peace"; and what He had said, "I leave to you," He repeated in saying "I give to you." Let each

take it as he will; yet it delights me, and I believe you too, my beloved brothers, so to hold this peace, in which we overcome the adversary in concord, that we may long for the peace in which we shall have no adversary.

5. But what the Lord added, saying, Not as the world gives do I give to you; what else is it but, not as men give who love the world, so do I give to you? These give themselves peace for this reason, that without the trouble of lawsuits and wars they may enjoy, not God, but their friend the world; and when they give peace to the just so as not to persecute them, the peace cannot be true where there is no true concord, because the hearts are disjoined. For as he is called a consort who joins his lot [with another], so he is to be called concordant who joins hearts. Let us therefore, dearly beloved, to whom Christ leaves peace and gives His peace, not as the world does, but as He through Whom the world was made, that we may be of one heart: let us join our hearts to one another, and have one heart lifted upward, lest it be corrupted on earth.

Tractate 78. On what the Lord says, Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid, etc. Chapter 14, verses 27-28.

1. We have received, brothers, the words of the Lord saying to His disciples: Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid. You have heard that I said to you, I go, and I come to you: if you loved Me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. From this, then, their heart could be troubled and afraid, that He was going from them, though He was to come to them: lest perhaps in this interval the wolf should attack the flock in the shepherd's absence. But those whom He was leaving as man, He was not forsaking as God; and the same Christ is Himself man and God. Therefore He both went by that which He was as man, and remained by that which He was as God: He went by that by which He was in one place, He remained by that by which He was everywhere. Why then should the heart be troubled and afraid, when He so forsook their eyes as not to forsake their heart? Although God too, Who is contained by no place, departs from the hearts of those who leave Him by their conduct, not by their feet; and comes to those who turn to Him not with the face but with faith, and approach Him with the mind, not the flesh. But that they might understand that He had said according to that which He was as man, I go and I come to you, He added, saying, If you loved Me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. By that, then, by which the Son is not equal to the Father, by this He was to go to the Father, from Whom He is to come to judge the living and the dead; but by that in which the Only-begotten is equal to the One Who begets, He never withdraws from the Father, but is with Him everywhere whole in equal divinity, which no place contains. For though He was in the form of God, as the Apostle says, He did not think it robbery to be equal to God. For how could that be robbery which was a nature not usurped but born? But He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6–7): not therefore losing that, but taking this. He emptied Himself in such a way that here He appeared less than He remained with the Father. For the form of a servant was added, the form of God did not withdraw: this was assumed, that was not consumed. On account of this He says, The Father is greater than I

but on account of that one, I and the Father are one (John 10:30).

2. Let the Arian attend to this, and by attending be sound: lest by contention he be vain, or, what is worse, insane. For this is the form of a servant, in which the Son of God is less, not than the Father alone, but also than the Holy Spirit; and not only that, but even than Himself; because the same He in the form of God is greater than Himself. For the man Christ is not denied the name Son of God, which even His flesh alone in the sepulchre merited to be called. For what else do we confess, when we say that we believe in the only-begotten Son of God, Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried? And what of Him was buried but the flesh without the soul? And therefore, when we believe in the Son of God Who was buried, we certainly call Son of God the flesh too, which alone was buried. Christ Himself, then, the Son of God, equal to the Father in the form of God, because He emptied Himself, not losing the form of God but receiving the form of a servant, is greater even than Himself; because the form of God, which was not lost, is greater than that of the servant, which was received. What wonder, then, or what unworthiness is there, if, speaking according to this form of a servant, the Son of God says, The Father is greater than I; and, speaking according to the form of God, the same Son of God says, I and the Father are one? For They are one according as the Word was God; the Father is greater according as the Word was made flesh (John 1:1, 14). I will say also what the Arians and Eunomians cannot deny: according to this form of a servant the boy Christ was less even than His parents, when, being small, He was, as it is written, subject to His elders (Luke 2:51). Why then, heretic, since Christ is God and man, does He speak as man, and you slander God? He commends human nature in Himself; do you dare to disfigure the divine in Him? Faithless, ungrateful one, do you therefore diminish Him Who made you, because He tells what He was made for your sake? For, equal to the Father, the Son through Whom man was made was made man, that He might be less than the Father: and if this were not done, what would man be?

3. Let our Lord and Master say plainly, If you loved Me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. With the disciples let us hear the words of the teacher; let us not with strangers follow the cunning of the deceiver. Let us acknowledge the twofold substance of Christ: namely the divine, by which He is equal to the Father, and the human, by which the Father is greater. Yet both together are not two, but Christ is one; lest God be a quaternity, not a Trinity. For as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ: and therefore Christ is God, rational soul and flesh. Christ we confess in all these, Christ in each. Who, then, is He through Whom the world was made? Christ Jesus, but in the form of God. Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate? Christ Jesus, but in the form of a servant. Likewise concerning each of the things of which man consists. Who was not left in hell? Christ Jesus, but in the soul alone. Who, being about to rise again, lay three days in the sepulchre? Christ Jesus, but in the flesh alone. Christ, therefore, is spoken of in each of these also. But all these are not two, or three, but Christ is one. Therefore, then,