Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus CXVII-CXXIII

by gazing, or also by touching, "Because you have seen Me," He says, "you have believed." Although it can be said that the disciple did not dare to touch Him when He offered Himself to be touched: for it is not written, And Thomas touched. But whether he saw and believed by looking only or also by touching, what follows rather proclaims and commends the faith of the Gentiles, Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed. He used verbs of the past tense, as One Who knew that what was to come was already done in His predestination. But now this sermon must be restrained from prolixity: the Lord will grant that we discuss at another time the things that remain.

Tractate 122. On what follows, Many other signs too Jesus did; as far as this, And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Chap. 20:30-31, and chap. 21:1-11.

1. After the narration of the event in which the disciple Thomas, when the places of the wounds in Christ's flesh were offered to him to be touched, saw what he was unwilling to believe and believed, the evangelist John inserts these words, and says: "Many other signs too Jesus did in the sight of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, you may have life in His name." This short chapter indicates, as it were, the end of this book: but there is narrated here next how the Lord manifested Himself at the sea of Tiberias, and in the catching of fishes commended the sacrament of the Church, such as it is to be in the last resurrection of the dead. I think, therefore, that it serves to commend this, that what was inserted as though it were the end of the book should also be a kind of preface to the narrative that was to follow, which would in some way give it a more eminent place; and this narrative begins thus: "Afterwards Jesus manifested Himself again at the sea of Tiberias; and He manifested Himself thus: There were together Simon Peter and Thomas, who is called Didymus, and Nathanael, who was from Cana of Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two others of His disciples. Simon Peter says to them: I am going fishing. They say to him: We also are coming with you."

2. It is commonly asked about this fishing of the disciples why Peter and the sons of Zebedee returned to what they had been before they were called by the Lord: for they were fishermen when He said to them, Come after Me, and I will make you fishers of men (Matt. 4:19). For at that time they followed Him so as to cleave to His teaching, having left all things: so much so that when that rich man went away from Him sorrowful, to whom He had said, Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me, Peter said to Him, Behold, we have left all things, and have followed You (Matt. 19:21, 22, 27). Why is it, then, that now, as though the apostleship were abandoned, they become what they had been, and seek again what they had left, as though forgetful of what they had heard, No one putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven

(Luke 9:62)? But if they had done this when Jesus was dead, before He had risen from the dead (which indeed they could not do, since the day on which He was crucified kept them wholly intent until His burial, which took place before evening; and the following day was the sabbath, when for them, keeping the custom of their fathers, it was certainly not lawful to work; but on the third day the Lord rose again and recalled them to the hope which they had already begun no longer to have concerning Him), yet if they had done it then, we would think they had done it out of that despair which had taken hold of their minds. But now, after He had been restored to them alive from the sepulchre; after the most evident truth of the revived flesh had been offered to their eyes and hands, not only to be seen but also to be touched and handled; after the places of the wounds had been examined, even to the confession of the apostle Thomas, who had declared beforehand that he would not believe otherwise; after the Holy Spirit had been received by His breathing on them; after the words uttered by His mouth into their ears, As the Father has sent Me, I also send you: whose sins you remit, they are remitted to them, and whose you retain, they are retained (John 20:21–23): suddenly they become what they had been, fishers not of men but of fish.

3. To those, then, whom this troubles, the answer must be given that they were not forbidden to seek their necessary sustenance by their own craft, which was, of course, lawful and permitted, the integrity of their apostleship being preserved, if at any time they had nothing else from which to live. Unless perhaps someone will dare to think or to say that the apostle Paul did not belong to the perfection of those who, having left all things, followed Christ, because, so as not to burden any of those to whom he was preaching the Gospel, he earned his living with his own hands (2 Thess. 3:8). In this was the more fulfilled what he says, I have laboured more than all of them; and he added, Yet not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Cor. 15:10), so that this too may appear to be ascribed to the grace of God, that both in mind and in body he was able to labour so much more than all of them that he neither ceased from preaching the Gospel nor yet, as they did, sustained this life from the Gospel, while he sowed it far more widely and fruitfully through so many nations in which the name of Christ had not been prophesied. In this he shows that living from the Gospel, that is, having sustenance from it, was not a necessity laid upon the apostles but a power given to them. This power the same apostle mentions, saying: "If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your carnal things? If others share in power over you, do not we rather? But we have not," he says, "used this power." And a little after: "Those who serve the altar," he says, "share with the altar; so too the Lord ordained for those who proclaim the Gospel that they live from the Gospel: but I have used none of these things." It is therefore plain enough that it was not commanded, but placed within the power of the apostles, that they should live from no other source than from the Gospel, and that from those for whom they were sowing spiritual things by preaching the Gospel they should reap carnal things; that is, that they should take the support of this flesh, and as soldiers of Christ receive the pay that was due to them,

as from the provincials of Christ. Hence that same excellent soldier had said a little earlier on this matter, Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? (1 Cor. 9:7, 11–15). Yet he himself was doing this, because he laboured more than all of them. If, then, the blessed Paul, so as not to use along with the rest that power which he certainly had along with the other preachers of the Gospel, but to serve at his own expense, lest his teaching, appearing as if for sale, should give offence to the Gentiles, who were utterly strangers to the name of Christ, though he had been brought up otherwise, learned a craft that he had not known, so that, while the teacher was supported by his own hands, no hearer should be burdened; how much more did the blessed Peter, who had already been a fisherman, do what he knew, if for that present time he found nothing else to live on?

4. But someone will reply: And why did he not find it, since the Lord had promised, saying, Seek first the kingdom and the justice of God, and all these things shall be added to you (Matt. 6:33)? Assuredly the Lord fulfilled what He promised even in this way. For who else supplied the fish that were to be caught? He must be believed to have brought upon them the want by which they would be compelled to go fishing for no other reason than that He wished to display a miracle He had planned: so that He might at once feed the preachers of His Gospel, and enrich the Gospel itself, which He was about to commend by so great a mystery as that which lay in the number of the fish. Concerning this matter we too must now say what He Himself has supplied.

5. Simon Peter therefore says: I am going fishing. Those who were with him say to him: We too are coming with you. And they went out and went up into the boat: and that night they caught nothing. But when morning had now come Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus therefore says to them: Lads, have you anything to eat? They answered Him: No. He says to them: Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find. They cast it therefore, and now they were not able to haul it in for the multitude of fish. That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved says to Peter: It is the Lord. Simon Peter, when he had heard that it was the Lord, girded himself with his tunic, for he was naked, and threw himself into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat (for they were not far from land, but about two hundred cubits), dragging the net of fish. When therefore they came down on to land, they saw hot coals laid there, and a fish laid upon them, and bread. Jesus says to them: Bring some of the fish that you have now caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of great fish, a hundred and fifty-three. And although there were so many, the net was not torn.

6. This is a great mystery in the great Gospel of John; and that it might be commended the more forcefully, it was written in the last place. That there were seven disciples in this fishing, then, Peter, and Thomas, and Nathanael, and the two sons of Zebedee, and two others whose names are passed over in silence, these by their sevenfold number signify the end of time. For the whole of time revolves in seven days. To this belongs the fact that when morning had come Jesus stood

on the shore; because the shore too is the end of the sea, and therefore it signifies the end of the age. The same end of the age is shown also by Peter's drawing the net out onto the land, that is, onto the shore. This the Lord Himself made plain where, in another place, He gave the likeness of the dragnet cast into the sea: And they draw it, He says, to the shore. Explaining what the shore was, He says: So shall it be at the consummation of the age (Matt. 13:48–49).

7. But that is a parable of word, not of deed; by an actual deed, however, just as in this place He signified what the Church will be like at the end of the age, so by another catch of fish the Lord signified what the Church is like now. That He did the former at the beginning of His preaching, but the latter after His resurrection, shows from this that the former catch of fish signifies the good and the bad, whom the Church now holds; but this one only the good, whom she will hold for eternity, when the resurrection of the dead has been accomplished at the end of this age. Accordingly, there Jesus was not standing on the shore, as here, when He ordered the fish to be caught; but going up into one ship, which was Simon's, He asked him to put out a little from the land; and sitting in it He taught the crowds. And when He had ceased speaking, He said to Simon: Put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch. And there what was caught of fish was in the little boats; they did not, as here, draw the net out onto the land. By these signs, and any others that may be found, there the Church in this age, but here the Church at the end of the age, is figured: therefore that was done before, but this after the resurrection of the Lord; because there Christ signified us as called, here as raised up. There the nets are not let down on the right, lest they signify the good alone, nor on the left, lest they signify the bad alone; but without distinction, Let down, He says, your nets for a catch, that we may understand the good and the bad as mingled together: but here, He says, Cast the net on the right side of the vessel, that He might signify those who stood at the right hand, the good alone. There the net was broken for the sake of signifying schisms: but here, since then, in that supreme peace of the saints, there will be no schisms, it belonged to the Evangelist to say, And although they were so many, that is, so large, the net was not torn; as though he were looking back to that occasion when it was torn, and commending this good by comparison with that evil. There so great a multitude of fish was caught that the two vessels, being filled, began to sink (Luke 5:3–7), that is, were weighed down towards sinking: for they did not sink, but yet they were endangered. For whence arise in the Church so many things over which we groan, except that it is impossible to withstand so great a multitude, which enters, almost to the submerging of discipline, with its own ways utterly alien to the path of the saints? Here, however, they cast the net on the right side, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fish. What is, now they were not able to draw it, except that those who belong to the resurrection of life, that is, to the right hand, and who die within the nets of the Christian name, will appear only on the shore, that is, at the end of the age, when they have risen again? Therefore they were not able so to draw the nets as to pour into the ship the fish they had caught, as was done with all those for whom the net was broken and the little boats were weighed down. But the Church holds these of the right hand, after the end of this life, in the sleep

of peace, as if lying hidden in the deep, until the net reaches the shore towards which it was being drawn, as it were from two hundred cubits. And what was signified there by the two little boats, on account of the circumcision and the foreskin, I consider figured in this place by the two hundred cubits, on account of the elect of both kinds, both of the circumcision and of the foreskin, as a hundred and a hundred; because in the reckoning the number of a hundred passes over to the right hand. Lastly, in that fishing the number of the fishes is not expressed, as though there were fulfilled what was foretold by the prophet, I have announced and have spoken; they are multiplied beyond number (Ps. 39:6): but here there are not some beyond number, but the number is fixed, a hundred and fifty-three; and the reason for this number must, with the Lord's help, be given.

8. For if we fix a number to signify the Law, what will it be but ten? For it is most certain to us that the Decalogue of the Law, that is, those ten most famous commandments, were first written by the finger of God on two tables of stone (Deut. 9:10). But the Law, when grace does not help, makes transgressors, and is merely in the letter: for on this account above all the Apostle says, The letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6). Let the spirit, then, be joined to the letter, lest the letter kill the one whom the spirit does not quicken; but so that we may fulfil the commandments of the Law, not by our own strength but by the gift of the Saviour. And when grace is joined to the Law, that is, the spirit to the letter, in a certain manner seven is added to the number ten. For that by this number, that is, seven, the Holy Spirit is signified, the testimonies of the sacred Scriptures, which deserve attention, bear witness. For indeed holiness or sanctification belongs properly to the Holy Spirit: whence, although both the Father is spirit and the Son is spirit, since God is spirit (John 4:24), and both the Father is holy and the Son is holy, yet by a name proper to Him the Spirit of both is called the Holy Spirit. Where, then, did sanctification first sound in the Law, if not on the seventh day? For God did not sanctify the first day, on which He made light; or the second, on which He made the firmament; or the third, on which He separated the sea from the land, and the land brought forth grass and trees; or the fourth, on which the stars were created; or the fifth, on which the animals that live in the waters and fly in the air [were created]; or the sixth, on which the living creature of the earth and man himself [were created]: but He sanctified the seventh day, on which He rested from His works (Gen. 1 and 2:3). Fittingly, therefore, the Holy Spirit is signified by the number seven. The prophet Isaiah too says, The Spirit of God will rest upon him: and then, commending Him by a sevenfold work or gift, he says, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety, and the spirit of the fear of God will fill him (Isa. 11:2–3). What of the Apocalypse? Are not seven spirits of God spoken of (Rev. 3:1), although there is one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one his own as He wills (1 Cor. 12:11)? But the sevenfold operation of the one Spirit was so named by the same Spirit, Who was present to the writer, that they should be called seven spirits. When therefore the Holy Spirit is joined through the number seven to the ten of the Law, there become ten and seven: which number

growing as all the numbers from one up to itself are counted, arrives at one hundred and fifty-three. For if to one you add two, they make of course three; if to these you add three and four, they make ten in all; then if you add all the numbers that follow up to seventeen, the sum is brought to the aforesaid number; that is, if to ten, which you had reached from one up to four, you add five, they make fifteen: to these add six, and they make twenty-one; to these add seven, and they make twenty-eight; to these add eight and nine and ten, and they make fifty-five; to these add eleven and twelve and thirteen, and they make ninety-one; to these again fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, and they make one hundred and thirty-six: to this number add the one that remains, which is under discussion, that is seventeen, and that number of the fish will be completed. It is not, then, only one hundred and fifty-three saints who are signified as about to rise again to eternal life, but thousands of saints belonging to the grace of the Spirit: by which grace agreement is made with the Law of God as with an adversary; so that, with the Spirit giving life, the letter may not kill, but what is commanded through the letter may be fulfilled with the Spirit's help, and if anything falls short, it may be forgiven. All, therefore, who belong to this grace are figured by this number, that is, are signified figuratively. This number also contains the number fifty three times, and besides that the three themselves, on account of the mystery of the Trinity: and fifty is completed by multiplying seven by seven and adding one; for seven times seven make forty-nine. And one is added, so that by it may be signified that He is one Who through seven is shown to be sevenfold on account of His operation: and we know that the Holy Spirit was sent on the fiftieth day after the Lord's ascension, the promised One for Whom the disciples were commanded to wait (Acts 2:2–4; 1:4).

9. Not in vain, then, were these fish said to be both so many and so great, that is, both one hundred and fifty-three and large. For thus it is written: And he drew the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three. For when the Lord had said, I came not to undo the Law, but to fulfil it, being about indeed to give the Spirit through Whom the Law could be fulfilled, as if about to add seven to ten, after a very few words set in between He says, Whoever therefore undoes one of these least commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whoever does and teaches [them] shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Such a one, then, will be able to belong to the number of the large fish. But the least, he who undoes by deeds what he teaches by words, can be in such a Church as that first catch of fish signifies, holding good and bad, since it too is called the kingdom of heaven: for which reason He says, The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering from every kind (Matt. 13:47). Here He wishes the good to be understood, and the bad as well; whom He says are to be separated on the shore, that is, at the end of the world. Finally, to show that these least ones are reprobates, who teach good things by speaking, which they undo by living badly, and not as if they would be least in eternal life, but