Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus LXXXV-CII

There are some evil things which human modesty of whatever kind cannot bear; and there are some good things which the small human understanding cannot bear: the former are done in unchaste bodies, the latter are removed from all bodies; the one is committed by impure flesh, the other is scarcely discerned by a pure mind. "Be renewed, then, in the spirit of your mind" (Eph. 4:23), "and understand what is the will of God, what is good and well-pleasing and perfect" (Rom. 12:2): "that, being rooted and grounded in charity, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length, breadth, height and depth; to know also the charity of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:17–19). For in this way the Holy Spirit will teach you all truth, when He pours charity more and more into your hearts.

Tractate 97.

On the same reading.

1. The Holy Spirit, Whom the Lord promised that He would send to His disciples to teach them all the truth which at that time, when He was speaking with them, they could not bear: of which Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says, we have now received a pledge (2 Cor. 1:22), by which word we were to understand that His fullness is reserved for us in another life: this same Holy Spirit, then, teaches the faithful even now spiritual things, as much as each can grasp; and He kindles their breasts with a greater desire, if each makes progress in that charity by which he both loves what is known and desires what is to be known: so that even those very things which he now knows in whatever way, he knows that he does not yet know as they are to be known in that life which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it gone up into the heart of man (1 Cor. 2:9). If the inner Master wished now to speak these things in that manner of knowing, that is, to open and show them to our mind, human weakness could not bear it. Your Charity remembers that I have already spoken about this, when we were treating the words of the holy Gospel where the Lord says, I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Not that in these words of the Lord we should suspect some very hidden secrets or other, which, though they could be spoken by the teacher, could not be borne by the learner: but those very things which, in the teaching of religion, we read and write, hear and speak within the knowledge of any men whatever, if Christ wished to speak them to us in the way He speaks them to the holy Angels in Himself, the only-begotten Word of the Father and co-eternal with the Father, what men could bear them, even if they were already spiritual, as the Apostles were not yet when the Lord was saying these things to them, and as they afterwards became when the Holy Spirit came? For assuredly whatever can be known about the creature is less than the Creator Himself, Who is the supreme and true and unchangeable God. And who is silent about Him? Where is He not named by those who read, dispute, inquire, answer, praise, sing, converse in whatever way, and finally even by those who blaspheme? And though no one is silent about Him, who is there who grasps Him as He is to be understood, though He does not depart from the mouths and ears of men? Who is there whose mind's sight approaches Him? Who

is it who would have known Him to be the Trinity, had He Himself not willed to make Himself known thus? And who among men is now silent about this Trinity? And yet who among men has knowledge of the Trinity as the angels do? These very things, then, which are said readily and openly without ceasing concerning the eternity, truth and holiness of God, are understood well by some and badly by others; nay rather, by some they are understood, by others they are not understood. For he who understands badly does not understand. And by those very people by whom they are understood well, they are discerned with less vigour of mind by some, with more by others, and by no one among men are they grasped as they are by the angels. In the mind itself, then, that is, in the inner man, there is in a certain manner a growing, not only so that one passes from milk to solid food, but also so that the food itself is taken in more and more. Yet the growing is not in spacious bulk but in luminous understanding; for the food itself too is intelligible light. In order, then, that you may grow and grasp it, and that the more you grow, the more and more you may grasp it, you ought to seek and hope for this not from the teacher who sounds in your ears, that is, who plants and waters by working from outside, but from Him Who gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6).

2. Therefore, as I admonished in the previous sermon, beware, especially you who are little ones and still need the nourishment of milk, lest, because the Lord says, I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now, you lend on this pretext a curious ear to men who are deceived and deceivers, in order to know things unknown, when you have minds too weak to judge between true and false: above all on account of the most obscene foulnesses which Satan has taught to unstable and carnal souls, God permitting it to this end, that His judgements may everywhere be fearful, and that in comparison with impure wickedness the most pure discipline may grow sweet; and that whoever either did not fall into those evils because He was guiding him, or rose out of them because He lifted him up, may give honour to Him, but fear or shame to himself. Beware, by fearing and praying, lest you rush into that riddle of Solomon, where the foolish and bold woman, become destitute of bread, calls together those passing by, saying, Touch hidden loaves gladly, and the sweetness of stolen water (Prov. 9:13–17). For this woman is the vanity of the ungodly, who, though they are most foolish, suppose that they know something, just as it was said of that woman, become destitute of bread. Though she is destitute of bread, she promises loaves; that is, though she is ignorant of the truth, she promises knowledge of the truth. Yet she promises hidden loaves, which she says are gladly touched, and the sweetness of stolen water; so that, namely, those things may be heard and done more gladly and more sweetly which are forbidden to be said and believed openly in the Church. For by the very concealment the wicked teachers in a manner season their poisons for the curious; so that they think they are learning something great for the very reason that it has earned being kept secret, and they drink in more sweetly the folly which they take for knowledge, the hearing of which, being forbidden, they in a manner steal.

3. Hence also the teaching of the magic arts commends its wicked rites to men deceived, or to be deceived, by sacrilegious curiosity. Hence those unlawful divinations by inspecting the entrails of slaughtered cattle, or by the voices and flights of birds, or by the manifold signs of demons,

are whispered into the ears of men who are going to perish, through the conversations of the lost. On account of these unlawful and punishable secrets, that woman is called not only foolish, but also bold. But these things are foreign not only to the reality itself, but also to the name of our religion. What of the fact that this foolish and bold woman, under the Christian name, has founded so many wicked heresies and invented so many unspeakable fables? Would that they were such as are either sung or danced in theatres, or laughed at with mimic buffoonery; and not some of such a kind that we so lament that foolishness for having been able to invent them against God, that we marvel at its boldness. But all the most foolish heretics, who wish to be called Christians, try to colour the audacities of their fictions, from which human sense recoils most of all, by taking occasion from the sentence of the Gospel where the Lord says, I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now: as if these were the very things that the disciples could not then bear, and as if the Holy Spirit had taught those things which, however great the boldness with which he is carried along, the unclean spirit blushes to teach and preach openly.

4. Foreseeing these men in the Holy Spirit, the Apostle says: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires they will heap up teachers for themselves, having itching ears; and they will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned to fables" (2 Tim. 4:3–4). For that mention of secrecy and theft, in which it is said, Touch willingly hidden bread, and the sweetness of stolen water, produces an itch in the hearers, in ears that commit fornication spiritually, just as by a certain itch of lust the integrity of chastity is corrupted in the flesh as well. Hear therefore the Apostle foreseeing such things and wholesomely warning that they are to be avoided: Avoid, he says, profane novelties of words: for they advance greatly towards impiety, and their speech creeps like a cancer (2 Tim. 2:16–17). And he does not say, novelties of words; but he added, profane. For there are also novelties of words that agree with the doctrine of religion, just as it is written when the very name of Christians began to be spoken. For in Antioch, first after the ascension of the Lord, the disciples were called Christians, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 11:26): and hostels for strangers and monasteries were afterwards called by new names, yet the things themselves existed even before their names, and they are made firm by the truth of religion, by which they are also defended against the wicked. Against the impiety of the Arian heretics, too, the Fathers created a new name, Homousion: but they did not mark a new thing with such a name; for that is called Homousion which is, I and the Father are one (John 10:30), namely of one and the same substance. For if all novelty were profane, it would not be said by the Lord, A new commandment I give to you (John 13:34); nor would the Testament be called New, nor would a new Song be sung in all the earth. But the novelties of words are profane where the foolish and bold woman says: Touch willingly hidden bread, and the sweetness of stolen water. From this promise of false knowledge the Apostle also forbids us in that place where he says:

"O Timothy, guard the deposit, avoiding profane novelties of words, and the contradictions of knowledge falsely so called, which some professing have fallen away concerning the faith" (1 Tim. 6:20). For these men love nothing so much as to promise knowledge, and to deride as ignorance the faith in true things which the little ones are commanded to believe.

5. Someone will say: Do spiritual men have nothing in their teaching which they keep silent from the carnal and speak out to the spiritual? If I answer, They have not, at once it will be said to me from the Epistle of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians: "I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal. As to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able; but neither are you able even now; for you are still carnal" (1 Cor. 3:1–2); and that saying, "We speak wisdom among the perfect"; and that, "Comparing spiritual things with spiritual: but the animal man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness to him" (ibid. 2:6, 13 and 14). What all this means must be discussed in another sermon, if the Lord grants it, so that hidden things may not again be sought out in profane novelties of words on account of these words of the Apostle, and so that the things which the spirit and body of the chaste ought to shun may not be said to be what the carnal cannot bear; that we may now at length bring this one to a close.

Tractate 98. On the same reading.

1. I recall that I postponed a difficult question which arose from the words of our Lord where He says, I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now, so that it might be treated from there at greater leisure, because a fitting measure was compelling [me] to finish that sermon. Now therefore, since it is time to render what was promised, let it be thoroughly treated as the Lord Himself shall grant, Who put it into our heart that it should be set forth. Now this is the question: whether spiritual men have anything in their teaching which they keep silent from the carnal and speak to the spiritual. For if we say, They have not, it will be answered to us, What then is it that the Apostle said, writing to the Corinthians: "I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal. As to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able; but neither are you able even now; for you are still carnal" (1 Cor. 3:1–2)? But if we say, They have, it is to be feared and guarded against that under this pretext wicked things be taught in secret, and that under the name of spiritual things, as being things which the carnal cannot grasp, they should seem not only to be whitewashed by excuse, but even to be praised by preaching.

2. First, then, your Charity ought to know that the crucified Christ Himself, with Whom as with milk the Apostle says he nourished the little ones; and indeed His very flesh, in which His true death took place and the true wounds of Him pierced, and the blood of Him struck, is not thought of by the carnal in the same way as by the spiritual, and to the former it is milk, to the latter food; because even if they do not hear more, they understand more. For not

equally by the mind is even that perceived which is received alike by both in faith. So it comes about that Christ crucified, preached by the apostles, was both a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, and, to the called themselves, both Jews and Greeks, the Power of God and the Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:23–24); but to the carnal little ones, who hold this only by believing, and to the spiritual, the more capacious, who also discern it by understanding; to the former, then, as a drink of milk, to the latter as solid food: not because the former came to know this in one way among the people, and the latter in another way in private chambers; but because what both heard in the same way, when it was spoken openly, each took in after his own manner. For since Christ was crucified for this reason, that He might shed His blood for the remission of sins, by which passion of His Only-begotten divine grace is commended, so that no one may glory in man; how did those understand Christ crucified who were still saying, I am of Paul (1 Cor. 1:12)? Was it in the same way as Paul himself, who said, But far be it from me to glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 6:14)? Concerning this same Christ crucified, then, he himself took food according to his capacity, and nourished them with milk according to their weakness. Finally, knowing that what he wrote to the Corinthians could be understood in one way by the little ones themselves and in another way by the more capacious, he says: If anyone among you is a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge what I write to you, that it is the commandment of the Lord: but if anyone does not know, he shall not be known (1 Cor. 14:37–38). He certainly wished the knowledge of the spiritual to be solid, where not faith alone would be applied but sure cognition would be held; and by this means the former believed those very things which the spiritual acknowledged besides. But he shall not be known, he says, who does not know; because it has not yet been revealed to him, so that he may know what he believes. When this happens in a man's mind, he himself is said to be known by God; because God makes him knowing, as he says elsewhere: But now knowing God, or rather known by God (Gal. 4:9). For it was not then that God had come to know them, whom He foreknew and chose before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4); but then He had made them know Himself.

3. This, then, being first recognized, that the very things which the spiritual and the carnal hear together, each takes in according to his own small measure, the former as little ones, the latter as the greater, the former as the nourishment of milk, the latter as the solidity of food: there seems to be no necessity that any secrets of doctrine should be kept silent and hidden from the faithful little ones, to be spoken apart to the greater, that is, to the more intelligent; and that this should be thought necessary to do because the Apostle said, I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal. For this very thing, that he judged himself to know nothing among them but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2), he could not speak to them as to spiritual men, but as to carnal; because they were not able to take it in as spiritual men. But whoever among them were spiritual took in with spiritual understanding the same thing that the others heard as carnal men: so that what he says, I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal, may be understood thus, as if he had said, You could not take in what I was speaking as spiritual men, but as carnal. For the animal man, that is, one who savours according to man, called animal from anima [soul], carnal

from the flesh, because the whole man consists of soul and flesh, does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14), that is, what grace the cross of Christ confers on those who believe; and he thinks that by that cross this alone was done, that an example to be imitated might be offered to us as we strive for the truth even unto death. For if men of this kind, who wish to be nothing but men, knew how Christ crucified has been made for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, Let him who glories glory in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:30–31); without doubt they would not glory in man, nor would they say carnally, I indeed am of Paul; but I of Apollos; and I of Cephas: but spiritually, I am of Christ (1 Cor. 1:12).

4. But this still raises a question, what is read in the Epistle to the Hebrews: 'Although by this very time you ought to be teachers, you again need teaching, as to what are the elements of the words of God; and you have become such as have need of milk, not of solid food. For everyone who is fed on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness; for he is an infant. But solid food is for the perfect, for those who through practice have their senses exercised for distinguishing good from evil' (Heb. 5:12–14). For here we see, as it were defined, what he calls the solid food of the perfect; and that this is what was written to the Corinthians, We speak wisdom among the perfect (1 Cor. 2:6). And whom he wished to be understood as the perfect in this place, he added, saying, Who through practice have their senses exercised for distinguishing good from evil. Those, therefore, who cannot do this with a weak and unexercised mind, unless they are held fast by a certain milk of faith, so that they believe both the invisible things which they do not see and the intelligible things which they do not yet understand, are easily led away to vain and sacrilegious fables by the promise of knowledge: so that they think of both good and evil only by means of bodily images, and suppose God Himself to be nothing but some body, and cannot think of evil except as a substance; whereas it is rather a certain falling away from the immutable substance on the part of mutable substances, which the immutable and supreme substance itself, Who is God, made out of nothing. Whoever not only believes this but also understands, perceives and knows it with the inner senses of the mind exercised, need no longer be feared for, lest he be led astray by those who, by supposing evil to be a substance which God did not make, make God Himself a mutable substance, as the Manichaeans do, or any other plagues that are so foolish.

5. But for those who are still little ones in mind, whom the Apostle calls carnal and to be nourished with milk, every discourse on this matter, in which the aim is that what is said be not only believed but also understood and known, is burdensome, since they are unable to perceive such things, and it weighs them down more readily than it feeds them. Hence it comes about that spiritual men do not altogether keep silent about these things before the carnal, on account of the catholic faith, which is to be preached to all; and yet they do not discourse in such a way that, wishing to bring these things to an understanding not capable of them, they more readily cause the discourse to be loathed in the truth than the truth to be perceived in the discourse. Therefore, writing to the Colossians, he says: Even if I am absent in body, in spirit

I am with you, rejoicing and seeing your ordering, and that which is lacking to your faith in Christ (Col. 2:5). And to the Thessalonians: Night and day, he says, praying more abundantly, that we may see your face, and may supply the things which are lacking to your faith (1 Thess. 3:10). They are certainly to be understood as having been catechized at first in such a way that they were nourished with milk, not with solid food: the abundance of which milk is recalled in the Epistle to the Hebrews to those whom he wished now to feed with the solidity of food. Wherefore he says: « And therefore leaving the word of the beginning of Christ, let us look towards perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith in God, of the teaching of the washing, and of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection also of the dead, and of eternal judgement » (Heb. 6:1–2). This is the abundance of milk, without which those do not live who already indeed use reason so that they can believe, but cannot separate good from evil not only by believing but also by understanding (which pertains to solid food). And as for his having placed teaching too in the mention of the milk, that is the teaching which is handed on through the creed and the Lord's Prayer.

6. But far be it that the food of spiritual things, which is to be taken in by firm understanding, should be contrary to this milk, the food which was lacking to the Colossians and the Thessalonians and had to be supplied. For when what was lacking is supplied, what was there is not disapproved. For even in the very nourishment which we take, solid food is so far from being contrary to milk that it itself turns into milk, so that it may be suited to infants, whom it reaches through the flesh of mother or nurse: just as Wisdom herself, the mother, also did, who, though she is the solid food of the Angels on high, deigned in a certain manner to become milk for little ones, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14). But the very man Christ, Who by true flesh, true cross, true death, true resurrection is called the pure milk of little ones, when He is rightly grasped by the spiritual, is found to be the Lord of the Angels. Accordingly, neither are little ones to be suckled in such a way that they never understand Christ as God; nor to be weaned in such a way that they abandon Christ as man. The same thing can be put in another way thus: neither are they to be suckled in such a way that they never understand Christ as creator; nor to be weaned in such a way that they ever abandon Christ as mediator. For in this respect the likeness of mother's milk and solid food does not fit this matter, but rather that of a foundation: because a boy too, when he is weaned so as now to leave behind the nourishment of infancy, does not, amid solid foods, go back to the breasts which he used to suck; but Christ crucified is both milk to those who suck and food to those who are advancing. The likeness of a foundation is therefore the more apt, because in order that what is being built may be completed, the building is added, the foundation is not taken away.

7. Since these things are so, O whoever you are, you who without doubt are many of you little ones in Christ, advance to the solid food of the mind, not of the belly. Advance to separating good from evil, and cleave more and more to the Mediator, through Whom you are being delivered from evil; which is not

to be separated from you by place, but rather to be healed in you. But whoever says to you, Do not believe that Christ is a true man, or that the body of any man or of any living creature whatever was created by the true God, or that the Old Testament was given by the true God, and anything of this kind; for these things were not told to you before for this reason, when you were being nourished with milk, because you did not yet have a heart fit for grasping true things: such a one is preparing for you not food, but poison. On this account the blessed Apostle, addressing those who already seemed to themselves to be perfect, after he had said that he himself was imperfect, says, As many, therefore, as are perfect, let us be of this mind: and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal this also to you. And lest perhaps they should fall in with seducers, who would wish to turn them away from the faith by promising knowledge of the truth, and should think that this was what the Apostle said, God will reveal this also to you, he immediately added, Nevertheless, whereto we have attained, in that let us walk (Phil. 3:15–16). If, therefore, you have understood something which is not against the rule of the catholic faith, to which you have come as to a way that leads you to the fatherland, and have so understood it that you ought not to doubt about it at all: add to the building, but do not abandon the foundation. So ought the greater to teach something to the little ones, that they do not say that Christ, the Lord of all, and the Prophets and Apostles, far greater than themselves, told any lie. But you ought to beware not only of vain talkers and seducers of the mind, who babble fabulous and false things, and in those vanities promise as it were a lofty knowledge contrary to the rule of faith, which you have received as catholic: but also those who argue truly concerning the very immutability of the divine nature, or concerning incorporeal creation, or concerning the Creator, and prove what they say entirely by the most certain proofs and reasons, and yet try to turn [you] away from the one Mediator of God and men, flee from them as a pest more insidious than the rest. For such are those of whom the Apostle says, Because, knowing God, they did not glorify Him as God (Rom. 1:21). For what does it profit him who does not hold fast Him through Whom he may be freed from evil, to have true understanding concerning the immutable good? By all means let the admonition of the most blessed Apostle not depart from your hearts: If anyone preaches the gospel to you beyond what you have received, let him be anathema (Gal. 1:9). He does not say, more than you have received; but, beyond what you have received. For if he said the former, he would be prejudging himself, who desired to come to the Thessalonians, that he might supply what was lacking to their faith. But he who supplies adds what was less, does not take away what was present: but he who oversteps the rule of faith does not draw nearer on the way, but withdraws from the way.

8. As to what the Lord says, therefore, I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; to them were to be added the things they did not know, not the things they had learned to be overturned. And He indeed, as I have already explained in the former sermon, could say this thus, because, if He wished to open to them the very things which He had taught in such a way as they are grasped in Him by the angels, human weakness, in which they still were, could not bear this. But any spiritual man can teach another man what he knows, if by advancing the Holy Spirit makes him more capable, in Whom also