Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus CIII-CXVI

the rest of His members He begins to speak: which, by His gift, is to be treated in another sermon.

Tractate 109. On the words, But not for these only do I ask, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word. Chapter 17, verse 20.

1. The Lord Jesus, His passion now drawing near, when He had prayed for His disciples, whom He also named Apostles, with whom He had eaten the last supper, from which His betrayer, made manifest by the morsel, had gone out, and with whom, after his departure and before He prayed for them, He had already spoken many things, added also the others who were to believe in Him, and said to the Father, But not for these only do I ask, that is, for the disciples who were then with Him; but also for those, He says, who will believe in Me through their word. By this He willed all His own to be understood, not only those who were then in the flesh, but also those who were yet to be. For as many as afterwards believed in Him believed without doubt through the word of the Apostles, and until He comes will believe; for to them He had said, And you will bear witness, because you are with Me from the beginning (John 15:27); and through these the Gospel was ministered, even before it was written, and certainly whoever believes in Christ believes the Gospel. Therefore those whom He says will believe in Him through their word are not to be understood as only those who heard the Apostles themselves while they lived in the flesh; but after their death we too, born long after, have believed in Christ through their word. For those who were then with Him preached to the rest what they heard from Him; and so their word, that we too might believe, has come even to us, wherever His Church is; and it will come to those after us, whoever and wherever will afterwards believe in Him.

2. It may therefore seem that Jesus in this prayer did not pray for some of His own, unless we diligently examine His words in the same prayer. For if He first prayed, as we have already shown, for those who were then with Him, and afterwards also for those who were to believe in Him through their word, it can be said that He did not pray for those who were neither with Him at that time when He was saying these things, nor [believed] through their word afterwards, but had nevertheless believed in Him before, whether through them or in whatever way. For was Nathanael with Him then? Was that Joseph of Arimathea, who asked Pilate for His body, whom this same John the evangelist testifies to have already been His disciple (John 19:38)? Was Mary His mother, and the other women, whom we have learned from the Gospel to have been His disciples already then? Were those with Him then of whom the same John the evangelist often says, Many believed in Him (John 2:23; 4:39; 7:31; 8:30; and 10:42)? For whence was that multitude of those who with branches partly went before, partly followed Him as He sat upon the beast, saying, Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord; and with them the children, of whom He Himself said it had been foretold, Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise (Matt. 21:7, 16; Ps. 8:3)? Whence the five hundred brethren, to whom all together He would not have appeared after the resurrection (1 Cor.

15:6), unless they had believed in Him beforehand? Where did those hundred and nine come from, who together with these eleven made a hundred and twenty, when, gathered together after His ascension, they waited and received the promised Holy Spirit (Acts 1:15, and 2:4)? Where did all these come from, if not from those of whom it was said, Many believed in Him? It was not, then, for them that the Saviour prayed at that time, since He prayed for those who were with Him then, and for others who had not yet believed in Him through their word but were going to believe. These, however, were not with Him then, and had already believed in Him before. I pass over speaking of the aged Simeon, who believed in the little infant; of Anna the prophetess (Luke 2:25–38); of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who prophesied of Him before He was born of the Virgin (Luke 1:41–45, 67–79); of their son John, His forerunner, the friend of the bridegroom, who both recognized Him in the Holy Spirit, and preached Him when absent, and showed Him to others to be recognized when He was present (John 1:19–36, and 3:26–36): these I pass over, since it can be answered that there was no need to pray for such dead, who had departed hence with their great merits and, having been received, were at rest; for this same answer is given concerning the righteous of old as well. For which of them could have been saved from the condemnation of the whole mass of perdition, which came about through one man, unless, by the revelation of the Spirit, he had believed in the one Mediator of God and men who was to come in the flesh? But was He obliged to pray for the Apostles, and was He not obliged to pray for so many who were still in this life, and were not with Him then, and had already believed before? Who would say this?

3. It is to be understood, therefore, that they had not yet believed in Him in the way He wished Himself to be believed in: seeing that even Peter himself, to whom, as he confessed and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, He had borne so great a testimony, was more unwilling that He should die than he believed that, having died, He would rise again; whence he was soon called Satan by Him (Matt. 16:16, 23). And so those are found more faithful who had already died and, by the revelation of the Spirit, had no doubt at all that Christ would rise again, than those who, though they had believed that He would redeem Israel, on seeing His death lost all the hope they had placed in Him. Nothing better, therefore, do we believe than that after His resurrection, when the Holy Spirit had been imparted, and the Apostles had been taught and confirmed, and appointed as the first teachers in the Church, others believed through their word in the way in which it was fitting to believe in Christ, that is, so as to hold the faith of His resurrection. And by this means all those also who seemed already to have believed in Him belonged to the number of those for whom He prayed, saying, Yet not for these only do I ask, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.

4. But there still remain for us, in order to settle this question, the blessed Apostle, and that thief, cruel in crime, faithful on the cross. For Paul the apostle says that he was made an Apostle not by men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ: and speaking of his very gospel he says, For I neither received it from man, nor did I learn it; but through the revelation of Jesus

of Christ (Gal. 1:1, 12). How then was he among those of whom it was said, they will believe in Me through their word? But that thief believed at the very time when, in the teachers themselves, the faith that there had been, such as it was, failed. So neither did he believe in Christ Jesus through their word: and yet he believed in such a way that the One Whom he saw crucified he confessed would not only rise again but also reign, saying, Remember me, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom (Luke 23:42).

5. It remains, therefore, that if the Lord Jesus is to be believed to have prayed with this prayer for all His own, whoever in this life, which is a trial upon the earth (Job 7:1), either were then or were going to be, we should understand what was said, through their word, in such a way as to believe that the very word of faith which they preached in the world is signified here; and that it was called their word because it was first and chiefly preached by them. For it was already being preached by them on earth when Paul received that very word of theirs through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Hence too he compared the Gospel with them, lest perhaps he should have run or should be running in vain; and they gave him their right hands: because in him too, although it had not been given to him through them, they had nevertheless found their own word, which they were already preaching and on which they had been founded (Gal. 2:2, 9). Of this word of the resurrection of Christ the same apostle says, 'Whether I or they, so we preach, and so you believed' (1 Cor. 15:11); and again, 'This is,' he says, 'the word of faith which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved' (Rom. 10:8–9). And in the Acts of the Apostles it is read that in Christ God determined faith for all, raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:31). This word of faith, because it was preached principally and first through the Apostles, who had clung to Him, was for that reason called their word. For it is not therefore not the word of God because it was called their word; since the same apostle says that the Thessalonians had received it from him, not as the word of men, but, as it is, truly the word of God (1 Thess. 2:13). It is therefore God's because God gave it; but it was called their word because God first and chiefly entrusted it to them to be preached. And by this that thief too had their word in his faith: which had been called theirs for this reason, that preaching it belonged first and chiefly to their office. Lastly, when a murmuring had arisen from the widows of the Greeks about the ministry of tables, before Paul had believed in Christ, the Apostles, who had clung to the Lord before, answered: It is not good that we should leave the word of God and serve tables (Acts 6:1–4). Then they provided for deacons to be ordained, so that they themselves should not be called away from the office of preaching the word. Hence it is rightly called their word, that is, the word of faith, through which all, from wherever they have heard it, have believed in Christ, or are going to hear and believe. Therefore with that prayer our Redeemer prayed for all whom He redeemed, whether those then living in the flesh or those who were to come afterwards, when, asking for the Apostles who were then with Him, He

joined also those who through their word were going to believe in Him. But what He then says after joining these must be treated in another discourse.

Tractate 110. On what follows, That they all may be one, etc., up to this: And Thou hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me also. Chapter 17, verses 21-23.

1. When the Lord Jesus had prayed for His disciples whom He then had with Him, and had added His others, saying, But not for these only do I ask, but also for those who are going to believe in Me through their word; as though we were asking what, or why, He was asking for them, He went straight on, saying: That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us. And earlier, while He was still praying only for the disciples whom He had with Him, He says: Holy Father, keep in Thy name those whom Thou gavest Me, that they may be one as We also are (John 17:11). This, therefore, He now asked for us too, which He then asked for them, that all of us, that is, both we and they, may be one. Here it must be carefully noticed that the Lord did not say, that we all may be one; but, That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee (it is understood, are one; which is said more openly afterwards): for He had also said earlier of the disciples who were with Him, That they may be one as We also are. Wherefore the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, in such a way that They are one, because They are of one substance; but we can indeed be in Them, yet we cannot be one with Them; because we and They are not of one substance, in so far as the Son is God with the Father. For in so far as He is man, He is of the same substance as we also are. But now He wished rather to commend what He says in another place, I and the Father are one (ibid. 10:30); where He signified that the nature of the Father and His own is the same. And accordingly, even when the Father and the Son, or the Holy Spirit too, are in us, we must not think that They are of one nature with us. Thus, then, They are in us, or we in Them, in such a way that They are one in Their nature, we one in ours. For They are in us as God in His temple; but we are in Them as the creature in its Creator.

2. Then, when He had said, That they also may be one in Us, He added, That the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. What is this? Is the world really going to believe at that time, when we shall all be one in the Father and the Son? Is not that the everlasting peace, and the reward of faith rather than faith? For we shall be one, not in order that we may believe, but because we have believed. But even if in this life, on account of that common faith, all of us who believe in the One are one, according to that saying of the Apostle, For you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28); even so it is not in order that we may believe, but because we believe, that we are one. What then is, That they all may be one, that the world may believe? For they themselves, all of them, are the believing world. For it is not that some are those who will be one, and another is the world that is to believe because those will be one; since beyond doubt He says, That they all may be one, of those of whom He had said, But not for these only do I ask, but also for those who are going to believe

in Me through their word, immediately adding, That all may be one. But what is this "all", except the world, not a hostile one, certainly, but a faithful one? For see, He Who had said, I pray not for the world (John 17:9), prays for the world that it may believe. For there is a world of which it is written: That we may not be condemned with this world (1 Cor. 11:32). For that world He does not pray: for He is not unaware of what it has been predestined to. And there is a world of which it is written, For the Son of man came not to judge the world, but that the world may be saved through Him (John 3:17): whence also the Apostle says, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19). For this world He prays, saying, That the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. For through this faith the world is reconciled to God, when it believes in Christ, Who was sent by God. How then are we to understand what He says, That they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me: unless it is that He did not place the cause of the world's believing in this, that they are one, as though it believes for this reason, that it sees them to be one; since the world itself is all those who by believing become one: but praying He said, That the world may believe; just as praying He said, That all may be one; praying He said, That they also may be one in us? For "that all may be one" is the same as "that the world may believe": since by believing they become one; perfectly one, who, though they were one by nature, by dissenting from the One were not one. Finally, if we understand the word He uses, I pray, a third time, or rather, so that it may be fuller, place it everywhere, the exposition of this sentence will be clearer: I pray that all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee: I pray that they also may be one in us: I pray that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. For this is why He added what He said, in us, so that we might know that our being made one by most faithful charity is to be attributed to the grace of God, not to ourselves: just as the Apostle, when he had said, For you were once darkness, but now light, and lest they should attribute this to themselves, added, in the Lord (Eph. 5:8).

3. Then our Saviour, by praying to the Father, was showing Himself to be man: now, showing that He Himself also, since He is God with the Father, does what He prays for, He says, And I have given them the glory which Thou gavest Me. What glory, except immortality, which human nature was to receive in Him? For not even He Himself had yet received it, but in His usual manner, on account of the immovability of predestination, He signifies future things by words of past time, because He was now to be glorified, that is, to be raised up by the Father, and He Himself was to raise us up to that glory at the end. This is like what He says elsewhere, As the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will. And to whom, if not to the same as the Father? For whatever the Father does, not other things, but these the Son also does; nor otherwise, but He does them likewise (John 5:21, 19). And therefore He also raised up Himself. For hence it is that He says, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19). Accordingly, the glory of immortality which He says was given Him by the Father, He Himself also is to be understood to have given Himself, even though He does not say so. For this is why He more often says that the Father alone does what He Himself also does with the Father, so that He may attribute whatever He is to Him from Whom He is. But sometimes also

even when the Father is passed over in silence, He says that He does what He does with the Father: so that we may understand that the Son is no more to be separated from the Father's work when He says, passing over Himself in silence, that the Father works something, than the Father is separated from the work of the Son when, He Himself being passed over in silence, the Son is said to work, since they nonetheless work equally. When, therefore, the Son is silent about His own working in the work of the Father, He commends humility, that it may be the more wholesome for us; but when in turn He is silent about the working of the Father in His own work, He commends His equality, lest He be believed inferior. In this way, then, in this place too He neither makes Himself a stranger to the Father's work, although He said, The glory which Thou hast given Me, since He also gave it to Himself; nor does He make the Father a stranger to His own work, although He said, I have given them, since the Father also gave it to them. For inseparable are the works not only of the Father and the Son, but also of the Holy Spirit. And just as, from the fact that He asked the Father for all His own, He willed this to come about, That they all may be one: so from this His own benefaction also, in that He says, The glory which Thou hast given Me I have given them, He nonetheless willed that same thing to come about; for He at once added, That they may be one, even as We also are one.

4. Then He added: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one. Here He briefly indicated that He is the Mediator between God and men. For this was not said as though the Father were not in us, or we were not in the Father; since in another place too He said, We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him (John 14:23); and here, a little before, He did not say, I in them and Thou in Me, which He has said now, or, They in Me and I in Thee, but, Thou in Me and I in Thee, and they in Us. What He now says, therefore, I in them and Thou in Me, is said in the person of the Mediator, just as is that which the Apostle says, You are Christ's, and Christ is God's (1 Cor. 3:23). But what He added, That they may be made perfect in one, shows that the reconciliation which is made through the Mediator is brought to this end: that we may enjoy perfect blessedness, to which nothing can any longer be added. Hence what follows, That the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, I think is not to be taken as though He had said again, That the world may believe; for sometimes knowing is also put for believing, as in what He says somewhat earlier, And they have known truly that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me (John 17:8). He said afterwards they have believed for what He had said before, they have known. But here, since He is speaking of the consummation, the knowledge is to be understood as such as it will be by sight, not such as it now is by faith. For an order seems to have been kept in His saying a little before, That the world may believe, but here, That the world may know. For there, although He said, That they all may be one, and that they may be one in Us, yet He did not say, Let them be made perfect in one; and so He subjoined, That the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me: but here He says, That they may be made perfect in one, and then did not add, That the world may believe, but, That the world may know that Thou hast sent Me. For as long as we believe what we do not see, we are not yet made perfect in the way we shall be when we have merited to see what we believe. Most rightly, then, there, That the world may believe; here, That the world may know: yet even there

and here, that Thou hast sent Me; so that we may know that, as far as concerns the inseparable love of the Father and the Son, we now believe what by believing we strive to know. But if He had said, That they may know that Thou hast sent Me, it would have been worth just as much as what He says, That the world may know. For they themselves are the world: not the world that remains an enemy, such as is the world predestined to damnation, but the world made a friend out of an enemy, for whose sake God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Therefore He said, I in them, and Thou in Me: as though He were saying, I in those to whom Thou hast sent Me; and Thou in Me, reconciling the world to Thee through Me.

5. For this reason there follows also what He says, And Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me also. For in the Son the Father loves us, because in Him He chose us before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). For He who loves the Only-begotten certainly loves also His members, whom He has adopted into Him through Him. Yet we are not on that account equal to the only-begotten Son, through Whom we were created and re-created, because it is said, Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me also. For one who says, As this, so also that, does not always signify equality; but sometimes only, Because this is, that also is; or, Because this is, so that that also may be. For who would say that the Apostles were sent into the world by Christ in exactly the same way as He Himself was sent by the Father? For, to pass over other differences, which it would take long to recount, they certainly were sent when they were already men, whereas He Himself was sent so that He might be man; and yet He said above, As Thou hast sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world (John 17:18), as though He were saying, Because Thou hast sent Me, I have sent them. So also in this place, Thou hast loved them, He says, as Thou hast loved Me; which is nothing else than, Thou hast loved them, because Thou hast loved Me also. For He who loves the Son could not fail to love the members of the Son; nor is there any other cause of loving His members, except that He loves Him. But He loves the Son according to His divinity, because He begot Him equal to Himself; He loves Him also according to that which He is as man, because the only-begotten Word Himself was made flesh, and for the sake of the Word the flesh of the Word is dear to Him; but us He loves because we are members of Him Whom He loves; and so that we might be such, for this reason He loved us before we existed.

6. Therefore the love with which God loves is incomprehensible, and not changeable. For it was not from the time when we were reconciled to Him through the blood of His Son that He began to love us; but before the foundation of the world He loved us, so that together with His Only-begotten we too might be His sons, before we were anything at all. That we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then, let it not be heard thus, let it not be taken thus, as though the Son reconciled us to Him so that He might now begin to love those whom He had hated, as an enemy is reconciled to an enemy, so that they may thenceforth be friends and those who hated one another may love one another; but we were reconciled to Him Who already loved us, with Whom we were at enmity because of sin. Whether I speak truly, let the Apostle bear witness: He commends,

he says, God His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8–9). He had, therefore, love towards us even when, practising enmities against Him, we were working iniquity; and yet it was most truly said to Him, Thou hatest, O Lord, all who work iniquity (Ps. 5:7). Accordingly, in a wondrous and divine manner, even when He hated us, He loved us: for He hated us as such as He Himself had not made us; and because our iniquity had not consumed His work in every part, He knew how at once, in each one of us, both to hate what we had made and to love what He had made. And this indeed can be understood in all things of Him to Whom it is truly said, Thou hatest nothing of the things which Thou hast made (Wis. 11:25). For He would not have willed anything to exist which He hated, nor would anything exist at all which the Omnipotent had not willed to exist, unless even in that which He hates there were also something which He might love. For He rightly hates, and as it were reproves vice as alien from the rule of His art; yet even in the vicious He loves His own, whether benefit in healing or judgement in condemnation. Thus God both hates nothing of the things which He has made, for, being the founder of natures, not of vices, He did not Himself make the evils which He hates; and of those same evils, whether by healing them through mercy or by ordering them through judgement, the very things which He does are good. Since, then, He hates nothing of the things which He has made, who could worthily declare how much He loves the members of His Only-begotten; and how much more the Only-begotten Himself, in Whom were founded all things visible and invisible, which, ordered in their kinds, He loves most orderly? For the members of the Only-begotten He leads by the largess of His grace to equality with the holy Angels; but the Only-begotten, since He is Lord of all, is beyond doubt Lord of the Angels, by the nature by which He is God equal not to the Angels but rather to the Father; but by the grace by which He is man, how does He not exceed the excellence of any angel whatsoever, since there is one person of flesh and Word?

7. And yet there are not lacking those who set even us above the Angels, because, they say, Christ died for us, not for the Angels. What else is this than to wish to glory in impiety? For Christ, as the Apostle says, in due time died for the impious (Rom. 5:6). Here, therefore, not our merit but God's mercy is commended. For what sort of thing is it to wish to be praised on this account, that one fell sick by one's own vice so detestably that one could not be healed otherwise than by the death of the physician? This is not the glory of our merits but the medicine of our diseases. Or do we set ourselves above the Angels on this account, that, although angels also sinned, nothing such was bestowed on them whereby they might be healed? As if anything, even a little, had been bestowed on them, and more on us. But even if this had been done, it could still be asked whether it had been done because we had stood more excellently, or because we lay more desperately. But since we know that the Creator of all good things conferred no grace for the restoration of the evil angels, why do we not rather understand that their fault was judged the more damnable the more sublime their nature was? For they ought to have sinned so much the less than we