Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus CXVII-CXXIII

is exceeded; and it signifies the supernal end to which all works are referred; since all things that are done well and perseveringly in breadth and length are to be done for the sake of the height of divine rewards: it is deep in that part by which it is fixed in the earth; for there it is hidden and cannot be seen, but all its visible and prominent parts rise up from there; just as all our good things proceed from the depth of the grace of God, which cannot be comprehended or judged. But even if the cross of Christ signified only what the Apostle says, But those who are Jesus Christ's have crucified their flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24), how great a good is it? Yet nothing does this except the good spirit lusting against the flesh, whereas it was the enemy, that is, the evil spirit, who made that cross of Christ. Finally, what is the sign of Christ, which all know, but the cross of Christ? Unless this sign is applied, whether to the foreheads of believers, or to the very water from which they are regenerated, or to the oil with which they are anointed as chrism, or to the sacrifice by which they are nourished, none of these is duly accomplished. How then is nothing good signified by what the wicked do, when through the cross of Christ, which the wicked made, every good is sealed for us in the celebration of His sacraments? But enough of this for now: what follows we shall see at another time by discussing it, as God shall help us.

Tractate 119.

From what follows, And the soldiers indeed did these things; up to this, And having bowed His head He gave up His spirit. Chap. 19, vv. 24-30.

1. The Lord having been crucified, after the division of His garments, even by the casting of a lot, had been completed, let us see what John the evangelist narrates next. 'And the soldiers indeed,' he says, 'did these things. Now there stood beside the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When therefore Jesus had seen His mother and the disciple standing whom He loved, He says to His mother, Woman, behold your son: then He says to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her into his own.' This, surely, is that hour of which Jesus, when about to turn water into wine, had said to His mother, What is there to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come (John 2:4). This hour, then, which at that time had not yet come, He had foretold, in which, being about to die, He was to acknowledge her of whom He had been born mortal. Then, therefore, being about to do divine things, He repelled as though unknown the mother not of His divinity but of His weakness: but now, already suffering human things, He commended with human affection her of whom He had been made man. For then He who had created Mary was making Himself known by power: but now that which Mary had borne was hanging on the cross.

2. A moral lesson, therefore, is conveyed. The good Teacher does what He admonishes to be done, and by His own example He instructed His own, that care should be bestowed by dutiful children on their parents: as though that wood on which the limbs of the dying One were fixed were also the chair of the Master teaching. From this sound doctrine the apostle Paul had learned

what he taught when he said: But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8). And what is so much of one's own household as parents to children, or children to parents? Of this most wholesome precept, then, the Master of the saints Himself set an example from His own person, when, not as God to a handmaid whom He had created and was ruling, but as a man to the mother of whom He had been created and whom He was leaving, He provided in some manner another son in His own place. For why He did this, what follows shows: for the Evangelist says, And from that hour the disciple took her into his own, speaking of himself. For so he is accustomed to mention himself, as the one whom Jesus loved: Who indeed loved all, but loved him beyond the rest and more intimately, so much so that He made him recline upon His breast at the supper (John 13:23); I believe in order that He might in this way commend more highly the divine excellence of this Gospel, which He was to preach through him.

3. But into what things of his own did John take the mother of the Lord? For he too was one of those who said to Him, Behold, we have left all things and have followed Thee. But there he had also heard, Whoever has left these things for My sake shall receive in this world a hundred times as much (Matt. 19:27, 29). That disciple, then, had a hundredfold more than he had left, into which he might receive the mother of Him Who had given him those things. But blessed John had received the hundredfold in that fellowship where no one called anything his own, but they had all things in common; as is written in the Acts of the Apostles. For thus were the Apostles, as having nothing, and possessing all things (2 Cor. 6:10). How then did the disciple and servant take the mother of his Master and Lord into his own, where no one called anything his own? Or, since a little later in the same book it is read, For as many as were owners of lands or houses, selling them, brought the prices of them and laid them at the feet of the Apostles: and distribution was made to each according as there was need (Acts 4:32–35), is it to be understood that what was needed was so distributed to this disciple that there was placed there also the portion of blessed Mary as of his mother; and ought we rather so to take what was said, From that hour the disciple received her into his own, that whatever was necessary for her should belong to his care? He received her, then, into his own, not lands, for he possessed none of his own; but services, which he took care to carry out by his own stewardship.

4. Then he adds: « Afterwards Jesus, knowing that all things were accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, says: I thirst. Now a vessel had been set there full of vinegar; and they, putting a sponge full of vinegar around hyssop, offered it to His mouth. When therefore Jesus had received the vinegar, He said: It is finished. And bowing His head, He gave up the spirit. » Who can so arrange the things he does as this man arranged the things He suffered? But this is the man who is mediator between God and men; the man of whom it is read as foretold, And He is a man, and who shall know Him? since the men through whom these things were being done did not recognize the man as God. For the man was visible Who as God was hidden; He Who was visible suffered all these things, and the very same Who was hidden arranged all these things.

He saw, therefore, that all the things had been accomplished which had to be done before He received the vinegar and gave up the spirit; and so that this too might be accomplished which Scripture had foretold, And in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink (Ps. 68:22), He says, I thirst: as if He were saying, This you have left undone; give what you are. For the Jews themselves were vinegar, degenerating from the wine of the Patriarchs and Prophets; and, filled as from a full vessel with the iniquity of this world, they had a heart like a sponge, deceitful with hollow, as it were, and winding hiding places. But the hyssop, around which they put the sponge full of vinegar, since it is a lowly herb and purges the breast, we fittingly take to be the humility of Christ Himself: this they surrounded, and thought that they had circumvented Him. Hence is that saying in the psalm, Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed (Ps. 50:9). For we are cleansed by the humility of Christ; because unless He had humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8), His blood would certainly not have been poured out for the remission of sins, that is, for our cleansing.

5. Nor let anyone be troubled as to how the sponge could have been brought to His mouth, since He had been lifted up from the earth on the cross. For as is read in the other evangelists, something which this one passed over, it was done with a reed (Matt. 27:48, and Mark 15:36), so that in the sponge such a drink might be raised to the heights of the cross. But by the reed was signified the Scripture, which was being fulfilled by this deed. For just as a tongue is said to be either Greek or Latin, or any other that signifies sound, which is uttered by the tongue; so the letter, which is written with a reed, can be called a reed. But it is most usual for us to call the significant sounds of the human voice tongues; whereas for Scripture to be called a reed, the less usual it is, the more mystically it is figured. An impious people did these things; the merciful Christ suffered these things. He who was doing them did not know what he was doing; but He who was suffering not only knew what was being done and why it was being done, but even Himself did good out of those who did evil.

6. When therefore Jesus had received the vinegar, He said: It is accomplished. What, except what prophecy had foretold so long before? Then, because nothing remained which still had to be done before He died, as He Who had power to lay down His life and to take it up again (John 10:18), all the things having been carried through which He was waiting to have carried through, Having bowed His head He gave up the spirit. Who sleeps when he wishes in the way that Jesus died when He wished? Who puts off his garment when he wishes in the way that He put off the flesh when He wished? Who departs when he wishes in the way that He passed away when He wished? How great a power of the One judging is to be hoped for or feared, if so great a power of the One dying has appeared?

Tractate 120.

From what follows, The Jews therefore, since it was the Preparation, etc.; as far as this, For they did not yet know the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead. Chapter 19, verses 31-42, and chapter 20, verses 1-9.

1. After the Lord Jesus, all the things having been carried through which He foreknew had to be carried through before His death,

when He willed He gave up the spirit, let us see what followed then, as the Evangelist narrates it. 'The Jews therefore,' he says, 'since it was the Preparation, so that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath (for that day of the sabbath was a great one), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.' Not that the legs might be taken away, but those whose legs were broken for this reason, that they might die and be removed from the wood; lest, hanging on crosses, they should defile the great feast day with the horror of their torment by day

2. 'So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with him. But when they had come to Jesus, as they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs: but one of the soldiers opened His side with a lance, and at once there came out blood and water.' The Evangelist used a watchful word, so as not to say, He struck His side, or wounded it, or anything else; but, opened: so that there, in a certain manner, the door of life might be thrown open, from which the Sacraments of the Church flowed forth, without which there is no entering into the life which is true life. That blood was shed for the remission of sins: that water mixes the saving cup; this furnishes both washing and drink. This was foretold by the fact that Noah was commanded to make a door in the side of the ark (Gen. 6:16), through which the animals which were not to perish in the flood might enter, by which the Church was prefigured. For this reason the first woman was made from the side of the man as he slept (Gen. 2:22), and was called life and the mother of the living (Gen. 3:20). For it signified a great good, before the great evil of the transgression. Here the second Adam, His head bowed, slept on the cross, so that a spouse might be formed for Him from that which flowed out of the side of the sleeper. O death, whence the dead come back to life! What is cleaner than this blood? what is more healing than this wound?

3. And he who saw, he says, has borne witness, and his witness is true: and he knows that he says true things, so that you too may believe. He did not say, so that you too may know; but so that you may believe: for he who saw knows, he whose witness he who did not see believes. But believing belongs to faith more than seeing does. For what else is believing than lending trust? For these things were done, he says, so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. You shall not break a bone of Him. And again another Scripture says, They shall look on Him Whom they pierced. He has supplied two testimonies from the Scriptures, one for each of the things which he narrated as having been done. For since he had said, But when they had come to Jesus, as they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs, to this pertains the testimony, You shall not break a bone of Him: which was commanded to those who were ordered to celebrate the Passover by the sacrifice of a sheep in the old Law, which had gone before as a shadow of the Lord's passion. Hence, Christ our Passover has been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7): of Whom the prophet Isaiah also had foretold, As a sheep He was led to be sacrificed (Isa. 53:7). Likewise, since he had added, saying, But one of the soldiers opened His side with a lance; to this pertains the other testimony,

They shall look on Him Whom they pierced: where Christ is promised as one who would come in that flesh in which He was crucified.

4. « And after this Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate (because he was a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews) that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate permitted it. He came therefore, and took away the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus also came, he who had come to Jesus by night at first, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. » It is not to be punctuated so that we say, at first bringing a mixture of myrrh; but so that what was said, at first, belongs to the preceding clause. For Nicodemus had come to Jesus by night at first, as the same John related in the earlier parts of his Gospel (John 3:1–2). Here, then, it is to be understood that Nicodemus came to Jesus not only then, but then for the first time; and that he came often afterwards, so that by listening he might become a disciple: which indeed has just now been made known to almost all nations in the revelation of the body of the most blessed Stephen. They took therefore the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. The Evangelist does not seem to me to have meant to say for nothing, as the custom of the Jews is to bury: for thus, unless I am mistaken, he gave warning that in duties of this kind which are rendered to the dead the custom of each nation is to be kept.

5. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid. Just as in the womb of the Virgin Mary no one before Him and no one after Him was conceived, so in this tomb no one before Him and no one after Him was buried. « There therefore, because of the Preparation of the Jews, since the tomb was near at hand, they laid Jesus. » He wishes the burial to be understood as hastened, lest evening should come on; when, because of the Preparation, which the Jews among us more usually call in Latin the pure supper, it was no longer lawful to do any such thing.

6. And on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early, while it was still dark, to the tomb; and she saw the stone taken away from the tomb. The first day of the week is the one which Christian custom now calls the Lord's day on account of the Lord's resurrection: which Matthew alone among the Evangelists named the first of the week (Matt. 28:1). She ran therefore, and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved; and she says to them: They have taken away the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him. Some codices, Greek ones too, have, They have taken away my Lord, which may seem to have been said from a more inclined affection of love or of service; but we have not found this in the greater number of codices that we had at hand.

7. Peter therefore went out, and that other disciple, and they came to the tomb. And the two were running together, and that other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter, and came first to the tomb. Here the recapitulation is to be noticed and commended, how a return is made to that