Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus CXVII-CXXIII

which had been passed over; and yet it was added as though this followed. For when he had already said, they came to the tomb, he went back to narrate how they came; and he says, now the two were running together, etc. Here he shows that, running on ahead, that other disciple arrived first at the tomb, whom he indicates to be himself, though he narrates everything as if about another.

8. "And when he had stooped down," he says, "he saw the linen cloths lying, yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin that had been upon His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but wrapped up separately in one place." Do we suppose these things signify nothing? I would by no means suppose that. But we are hastening on to other things, on which we are compelled to linger by the necessity of some question or obscurity. For to inquire what each detail also signifies in things that are plain in themselves is indeed a holy delight, but one for those at leisure, which we are not.

9. Then therefore that disciple also went in who had come first to the tomb. He came first, and went in later. Nor is this indeed without meaning, but I have no leisure for such things. And he saw, he says, and believed. Here some, paying too little attention, think that John believed that Jesus had risen; but what follows does not indicate this. For what does it mean that he at once added, For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead? So he did not believe that He had risen, Whom he did not know must rise. What then did he see? what did he believe? He saw, namely, the empty tomb, and believed what the woman had said, that He had been taken away from the tomb. For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He had to rise from the dead. And so when they heard it from the Lord Himself, although it was said most plainly, from their habit of hearing parables from Him they did not understand, and believed that He meant something else. But let us defer what follows to another sermon.

Tractate 121. On what follows, Then the disciples went away again to themselves; up to, Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. Chapter 20, verses 10-29.

1. Mary Magdalene had announced to His disciples Peter and John that the Lord had been taken away from the tomb: coming there, they found only the linen cloths in which the body had been wrapped; and what else could they believe but what she had said, what she herself also had believed? Then the disciples went away again to themselves: that is, to where they were staying, and from where they had run to the tomb. But Mary was standing at the tomb outside, weeping. For while the men were going back, a stronger affection fixed the weaker sex in the same place. And the eyes which had sought the Lord and had not found Him were now given over to tears, grieving more that He had been taken away from the tomb than that He had been slain on the tree; since of so great a master, whose life had been withdrawn from them

not even a memory remained. So this grief now held the woman at the tomb. As she wept, then, she bent down and looked into the tomb. Why she did this I do not know. For she was not unaware that He Whom she was seeking was no longer there, since she herself had also reported to the disciples that He had been taken away from there; and they had come to the tomb, and had sought the Lord's body not only by looking but also by going in, and had not found it. What then does it mean that she, as she wept, bent down again into the tomb and looked? Was it that, because she grieved too much, she thought that neither her own eyes nor theirs should easily be believed? Or rather was it brought about in her mind by a divine prompting that she should look? For she looked, And she saw two angels in white, sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been laid. What is it that one sat at the head and the other at the feet? Was it that, since those who in Greek are called angels are in Latin messengers, they signified in this way that the Gospel of Christ was to be announced as it were from the head to the feet, from the beginning to the end? They say to her: Woman, why are you weeping? She says to them: Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him. The angels were forbidding her tears: and in this what else were they announcing but, in a certain manner, the joy to come? For thus they said, Why are you weeping? as if they were saying, Do not weep. But she, thinking that they had asked without knowing, discloses the causes of her tears. Because they have taken away, she says, my Lord: calling the lifeless body of her Lord her Lord, signifying the part by the whole; just as we all confess Jesus Christ the only Son of God our Lord, Who is certainly at once both Word and soul and flesh, yet crucified and buried, though His flesh alone was buried. And I do not know, she says, where they have laid Him. This was the greater cause of her grief, that she did not know where to go to console her grief. But the hour had now come in which that which had in a certain manner been announced by the angels when they forbade her to weep, joy, should succeed to her weeping.

2. Then « when she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, and she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus says to her: Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? She, supposing that He was the gardener, says to Him: Sir, if you have carried Him off, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away. Jesus says to her: Mary. She, turning, says to Him, Rabboni; which means Master. » Let no one find fault with the woman for calling the gardener lord, and Jesus Master. For there she was asking, here she was recognizing: there she was honouring a man from whom she was requesting a favour; here she was recalling the teacher from whom she was learning to distinguish things human and divine. She was calling lord one whose handmaid she was not, so that through him she might come to the Lord Whose handmaid she was. In one sense, then, she said Lord in They have carried off my Lord; in another sense, Sir, if you have carried Him off. For the Prophets too called lords those who were men; but in another sense Him of Whom it is written, The Lord is His name (Ps. 67:5). But this woman, who had already turned round to see Jesus, when she thought Him to be the gardener, and was certainly speaking with Him, how is she said to have turned again, so as to say to Him, Rabboni,

if not because then, turned in body, she thought Him what He was not, and now, turned in heart, she recognized what He was?

3. 'Jesus says to her: Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers, and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' There is in these words something which we ought to treat briefly indeed, but nevertheless rather attentively. For Jesus, when He gave her this answer, was teaching faith to the woman who had recognized Him as master and had called Him so; and that gardener was sowing in her heart, as in His own garden, a grain of mustard seed. What then is Do not touch me? And as though the cause of this prohibition were being asked, He added, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. What is this? If, while standing on earth, He is not touched, how would He be touched by men while seated in heaven? Certainly, before He ascended, He offered Himself to the disciples to be touched, saying, as Luke the evangelist testifies, Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me have (Luke 24:39); or when He said to the disciple Thomas, Put your finger here, and see my hands, and bring your hand, and put it into my side. But who would be so absurd as to say that He was willing to be touched by the disciples before He had ascended to the Father, but unwilling to be touched by the women except when He had ascended to the Father? But not even one who wished to would be allowed to be so foolish. For we read that women too, after the resurrection and before He ascended to the Father, touched Jesus, among whom was Mary Magdalene herself, since Matthew relates that Jesus met them, saying, Hail. And they came up, he says, and took hold of His feet and worshipped Him (Matt. 28:9). This was passed over by John, but truly told by Matthew. It remains, therefore, that some mystery lies hidden in these words; and whether we find it or are quite unable to find it, we ought in no way to doubt that it is there. Either, then, it was said thus, Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father, so that in that woman the Church from the Gentiles might be figured, which did not believe in Christ until He had ascended to the Father; or Jesus wished to be believed in thus, that is, to be touched spiritually thus, namely that He and the Father are one. For in a certain way He ascends to the Father in the inmost perceptions of the one who has so advanced in Him as to acknowledge Him equal to the Father: otherwise He is not rightly touched, that is, otherwise He is not rightly believed in. Now Mary could have believed in such a way as to think Him unequal to the Father, and this is certainly forbidden when it is said to her, Do not touch me: that is, Do not believe in me in the way you still understand; do not extend your thought only as far as what I was made for you, without passing on to that through which you were made. For how was she not still believing in Him carnally, when she was weeping for Him as for a man? For I have not yet ascended, He says, to my Father: there you will touch me, when you have believed me to be God not unequal to the Father. But go to my brothers, and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father. He does not say, Our Father: therefore He is mine in one way, yours in another; mine by nature, yours by grace. And my God and your God. Nor did He say here, Our

God: therefore here too, mine in one way, yours in another; My God, under Whom I too am a man; your God, between whom and Him I am the mediator.

4. « Mary Magdalene came announcing to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and He said these things to me. When therefore it was evening on that day, the first of the week, and the doors were shut where the disciples were gathered for fear of the Jews, Jesus came, and stood in the midst, and says to them: Peace to you. And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and side. » For nails had pierced the hands, a lance had opened His side: and there, for the healing of the hearts of the doubting, the traces of the wounds were preserved. But to the mass of the body in which divinity was, closed doors were no obstacle. For He could enter without their being opened, at Whose birth the virginity of His mother remained inviolate. The disciples therefore rejoiced, when they had seen the Lord. He said therefore to them again: Peace to you. The repetition is a confirmation; for He Himself gives the peace upon peace promised through the prophet (Isa. 26:3). As the Father has sent Me, He says, I also send you. We know the Son to be equal to the Father, but here we recognize the words of the Mediator. For He shows Himself to be in the middle by saying, He Me, and I you. When He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. By breathing on them He signified that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit not of the Father alone, but also His own. Whose sins you forgive, He says, they are forgiven them; and whose you retain, they are retained. The charity of the Church, which is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, forgives the sins of those who share in it, but retains the sins of those who are not sharers in it. Therefore, after He had said, Receive the Holy Spirit, He immediately added this concerning the remission and retention of sins.

5. « But Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came: the other disciples therefore said to him: We have seen the Lord. But he said to them: Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe. And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said: Peace to you. Then He says to Thomas: Bring your finger here, and see My hands, and bring your hand, and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to Him: My Lord and my God. » He saw and touched the man, and confessed the God Whom he neither saw nor touched; but through that which he saw and touched, he now believed the other, doubt having been removed. Jesus says to him: Because you have seen Me, you have believed. He does not say, you have touched Me; but, you have seen Me: since sight is in a certain way the general sense. For it is customarily named also in reference to the other four senses: as when we say, Hear and see how well it sounds, smell and see how well it smells, taste and see how well it tastes, touch and see how warm it is. Everywhere "See" has sounded, although sight is not denied properly to pertain to the eyes. Hence here too the Lord Himself says, Bring your finger here, and see My hands: what else does He say but, Touch and see? Yet he did not have eyes in his finger. Therefore whether