Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus LXXXV-CII

though he is chaste, is believed by us to be unchaste. For without doubt, if I love the chaste man, this is he himself whom I love: therefore I love him himself too, and do not know it. And if I hate the unchaste man, then it is not him himself that I hate; for he is not what I hate: and yet to my beloved, with whom my soul always dwells in the charity of chastity, I unknowingly do injury, not erring in the discernment of virtues and vices, but in the darkness of human hearts. Accordingly, just as it can happen that a good man hates a good man without knowing it, or rather loves him without knowing it (for he loves him himself when he loves the good, since what that man is, this is what this man loves), but hates, without knowing it, not him himself, but what he thinks him to be: so it can happen that an unjust man too hates a just man, and while he supposes that he loves an unjust man like himself, unknowingly loves a just man; and yet, while he believes him unjust, he loves not him himself, but what he thinks him to be. And as with a man, so also with God. Finally, if the Jews were asked whether they loved God, what else would they answer but that they loved Him, not lying deliberately, but rather supposing it in error? For how could they love the Father of truth, who held the truth in hatred? For they do not want their deeds to be condemned, and truth has this property, that such deeds are condemned: they therefore hate the truth as much as they hate their own punishments, which truth imposes on such men. But they do not know that that is the truth which condemns such men as they themselves are: they therefore hate what they do not know; and since they hate it, surely they cannot but hate Him also from Whom it was born. And for this reason, because they do not know that the truth, by whose judgement they are condemned, was born of God the Father, assuredly they both do not know Him also and hate Him. O wretched men, who, while they want to be evil, do not want the truth to exist by which the evil are condemned! For they do not want it to be what it is, when they ought rather not to want themselves to be what they are; so that, while it remains, they may be changed, lest by its judgement they be condemned.

Tractate 91. On these words: If I had not done among them the works which no other did; as far as this: Because they hated Me without cause. Chapter 15, verses 24, 25.

1. The Lord had said: He who hates Me hates My Father also. For assuredly he who hates the truth must also hate Him from Whom the truth was born: on which we have already spoken, as far as was granted. Then He added that on which we must now speak: If I had not done among them the works which no other did, they would not have sin. That great sin, that is, of which He also said above, If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. This is the sin by which they did not believe in Him as He spoke and worked. For it is not that they had no sin before He spoke to them and worked among them; but this sin, by which they did not believe in Him, is mentioned in this way because by this very sin they are held fast in the rest also. For if they did not have this, and believed in Him, the rest also would be forgiven.

2. But what is this, that when He had said, If I had not done among them the works, He at once added, which no other did? For none among the works of Christ seem to be greater than the raising of the dead; which we know that even the ancient

prophets did. For Elijah did it (1 Kgs. 17:21–22); Elisha did it both when he was living in this flesh (2 Kgs. 4:35) and when he was lying buried in his tomb. For when certain men carrying a dead man had fled there from enemies rushing upon them, and had laid him there, he immediately rose again (2 Kgs. 13:21). Yet Christ did some things which no one else did: that He fed five thousand men from five loaves, and four thousand from seven (Matt. 14:15–21, and 15:32–38); that He walked upon the waters, and granted Peter to do this (Matt. 14:25 and 29); that He changed water into wine (John 2:9); that He opened the eyes of a man born blind (John 9:7); and many other things which it would take long to recount. But the reply is made to us that others too did things which He did not do, and which no one else did. For who but Moses struck the Egyptians with so many and so great plagues (Exod. 7-12), led the people through the divided sea (Exod. 14:21–29), obtained manna from heaven for the hungry (Exod. 16), poured out water from the rock for the thirsty (Exod. 17:6)? Who but Jesus Nave divided the streams of the Jordan for the people about to cross (Josh. 3), and, by a prayer sent forth to God, checked the running sun and fixed it (Josh. 10:12–14)? Who besides Samson, because of his thirst, was satisfied from the jawbone of a dead ass overflowing [with water] (Judg. 15:19)? Who besides Elijah was carried up on high in a chariot of fire (2 Kgs. 2:11)? Who besides Elisha, as I mentioned a little before, when his own corpse had been buried, restored the corpse of another to life? Who besides Daniel lived unharmed amid the mouths of hungry lions shut in with him (Dan. 6:22)? Who besides the three men, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, walked about unhurt in flames that blazed and did not burn (Dan. 3:93)?

3. I pass over the rest, since I judge these to be enough to show that some saints too did certain wonderful works which no one else did. But no one at all among the ancients is read of who healed so many defects and bad illnesses and afflictions of mortals with such power. For, to say nothing of those whom, as they came to Him, He made whole one by one by His command, Mark the evangelist says in a certain place: But when evening had come, when the sun had set, they brought to Him all who were ill, and who had demons; and the whole city was gathered at the door: and He cured many who were afflicted with various sicknesses, and cast out many demons (Mark 1:32–34). And when Matthew had recorded this, he also added a prophetic testimony, saying: That what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, who said, He Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses (Matt. 8:17). Likewise in another place Mark says: And wherever He entered, into villages, or into country estates, or into cities, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch even the fringe of His garment; and as many as touched Him were made whole (Mark 6:56). These things no one else did in them. For so is what He says, in them, to be understood: not among them or in their presence, but precisely in them, because He healed them. For He wished those works to be understood which not only caused wonder but also conferred manifest health; and for these benefits they surely ought to have returned love, not hatred. Indeed, it surpasses all the miracles of the others that He was born of a virgin,

and He alone could leave His mother's integrity unviolated both in being conceived and in being born: but this was done neither before them nor among them. For the Apostles came to know the truth of this miracle not by a sight shared with them, but by a discipleship set apart from them. Moreover, that on the third day He restored Himself living from the tomb in the flesh in which He had been slain, and, never to die thereafter, ascended with it into heaven, surpasses even all the things that He did: but neither was this done among the Jews, nor before them; and He had not yet done it when He was saying, If I had not done among them the works that no one else has done.

4. Doubtless, then, these are the works: that in their infirmities He showed miracles of healing so great as no one had ever before bestowed among them: for these they saw, and reproaching them with this He adds and says, But now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father: but that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their Law, That they hated Me without cause. He calls it their Law, not as invented by them, but as given to them: just as we say, Our daily bread; which nevertheless we ask from God, adding, give us (Matt. 6:11). Now he hates without cause who seeks no advantage from his hatred, nor flees any disadvantage: thus the ungodly hate the Lord; thus the just love Him, that is, without cause, so that they expect no other goods besides Him, since He Himself will be all in all. But whoever attends more deeply to Christ saying, If I had not done among them the works that no one else has done (but even if the Father or the Holy Spirit did these, no one else did them, because of the whole Trinity there is one substance), will find that He Himself did it, whenever any man of God did any such thing. For He can do all things in Himself through Himself; but no one can do anything without Him. For Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit are not three gods, but one God, of Whom it is written, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, Who alone does wonders (Ps. 71:18). No one else, then, did whatever works He did among them; since whatever other man did any of them, did it with Him doing it. But these He Himself did, not they doing them.

Tractate 92. On these words, But when the Paraclete comes, Whom I shall send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, etc. Chapter 15, verses 26, 27.

1. The Lord Jesus, in the discourse which He spoke to His disciples after supper, close to His passion, as one about to go and to leave them in bodily presence, but to be with all His own until the consummation of the age in spiritual presence, exhorted them to endure the persecutions of the ungodly, whom He called by the name of the world: out of which world, nevertheless, He said that He had chosen the disciples themselves, so that they might know that what they are they are by the grace of God, but what they had been they had been by their own vices. Then He plainly designated the Jews as persecutors both of Himself and of them, so that it might be entirely apparent that they too were included under the name of the damnable world, which persecutes the saints. And when He was saying of them that they did not know Him by Whom He was sent, and yet hated

both the Son and the Father, that is, both Him Who was sent and Him by Whom He was sent, about all of which we have already discoursed in other sermons; He came to this point where He says, That the word may be fulfilled which is written in their Law, They hated Me without cause. Then, as if in consequence, He added the passage on which we have now undertaken to discourse: "But when the Paraclete comes, Whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth Who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness concerning Me; and you will bear witness, because you are with Me from the beginning." What does this have to do with what He had said, "But now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father: but that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their Law, They hated Me without cause"? Is it that the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, when He came, convicted those who had seen and hated by a more manifest testimony? Nay rather, by the manifestation of Himself He even converted some of those who had seen and still hated to the faith that works through love (Gal. 5:6). That we may understand it so, we recall that so it came to pass. For on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon a hundred and twenty men gathered together, among whom were also all the apostles; and when, filled with Him, they were speaking in the tongues of all nations, many of those who had hated, astounded by so great a miracle (since they saw that, as Peter spoke, so great and divine a testimony was borne to Christ that He Who had been slain by them and was reckoned among the dead was proved to have risen and to be alive), were pierced in heart and converted; and they received pardon for so much blood so impiously and savagely shed, redeemed by the very blood which they had shed (Acts 2:2). For the blood of Christ was so shed for the remission of all sins that it could blot out even the very sin by which it was shed. Looking to this, then, the Lord said, They hated Me without cause: but when the Paraclete comes, He will bear witness concerning Me: as though He were saying, They hated Me and killed Me while they saw Me; but the Paraclete will bear such testimony concerning Me that He will make them believe in Me without seeing.

2. And you, He says, will bear witness, because you are with Me from the beginning. The Holy Spirit will bear witness, and you too will bear witness. For because you are with Me from the beginning, you are able to preach what you know: and that you do not do so now is because the fullness of that Spirit is not yet present with you. He therefore will bear witness concerning Me, and you will bear witness: for the love of God, poured out in your hearts through the Holy Spirit Who will be given to you (Rom. 5:5), will give you confidence to bear witness. This was certainly still lacking to Peter when, terrified by the questioning of a woman, a maidservant, he could not bear true witness, but, contrary to his own promise, was driven by great fear to deny three times (Matt. 26:69–74). But this fear is not in love; rather, perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Finally, before the Lord's passion, his servile fear was questioned by a woman of servitude; but after the Lord's resurrection his free love was questioned by the very Prince of freedom (John 21:15): and therefore there he was troubled, here