Augustinus, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus CXVII-CXXIII

as not going to be there at all: when He had said, He shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, He at once added, For I say to you, that unless your righteousness abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:17–20). Those, surely, are the scribes and Pharisees who sit on the chair of Moses, and of whom He says, What they say, do; but what they do, do not do: for they say and do not do (Matt. 23:2, 3): they teach by their words what they break by their conduct. It follows, therefore, that he who is least in the kingdom of heaven, such as the Church now is, does not enter into the kingdom of heaven, such as the Church will then be; because, by teaching what he breaks, he will not belong to the company of those who do what they teach: and therefore he will not be in the number of the great fishes; since he who does and teaches shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And because he will be great here, therefore he will be there, where that least one will not be. So much indeed will they be great there, that he who is less there is greater than he than whom no one here is greater (Matt. 11:11). But yet those who are great here, that is, who in the kingdom of heaven, where the net gathers good and bad, do the good things they teach, will themselves be greater in that eternity of the kingdom of heaven; and these fishes, belonging to the right hand and to the resurrection of life, signify them. There follows the Lord's meal with these seven disciples, and the things He spoke after the meal, and the end of the Gospel itself, that we may discourse on them as God shall grant: but this is not to be crammed into this sermon.

Tractate 123.

On that which Jesus says, Come, dine; as far as this, And this He said, signifying by what death he should glorify God. Chap. 21, vv. 12-19.

1. With the third time that the Lord, after the resurrection, showed Himself to His disciples, the Gospel of the blessed apostle John is ended: and in it we have already treated, as we were able, the earlier part, as far as the place where it is told that a hundred and fifty-three fishes were caught by the disciples to whom He showed Himself, and that, though they were large, the nets were not broken. Next, what follows is to be considered, and, so far as the Lord helps, discussed as the matter shall seem to require. For when that fishing was done, Jesus says to them: Come, dine. And none of those reclining dared ask Him, Who art Thou? knowing that it is the Lord. If, then, they knew, what need was there for them to ask? but if there was no need, why is it said, they did not dare; as though there were need, but out of some fear they did not dare? This, then, is the sense: so great was the evidence of the truth with which Jesus appeared to those disciples, that not one of them dared, not merely to deny it, but even to doubt it; since if anyone doubted, he would certainly have to ask. So, then, it is said, None dared ask Him, Who art Thou? as if it were said, None dared doubt that it was He.

2. And Jesus comes, and takes bread, and gives it to them, and fish likewise. See, it has been told also what they dined on: and of this meal we too shall say something sweet and wholesome, if He feeds us too. It was told above that these disciples, when they came down onto the land, saw

live coals laid, and a fish laid on them, and bread. Here it is not to be understood that the bread too was laid on the coals, but only "They saw" is to be supplied. If we repeat that word in the place where it is to be supplied, the whole can be said thus: They saw live coals laid, and a fish laid on them, and they saw bread. Or rather thus: They saw live coals laid, and a fish laid on them; they saw bread too. At the Lord's bidding, too, they brought some of the fishes which they themselves had caught: and though it was not expressly stated by the narrator that they did this, yet it is not passed over in silence that the Lord ordered it. For He says: Bring some of the fishes which you have now caught (John 21:9, 10). And who would believe that they did not do it when He bade them? From this, then, the Lord made a meal for those seven disciples of His: from the fish, that is, which they had seen laid on the coals, adding to it some of those which they had caught, and from the bread which, likewise, it is told that they had seen. The roasted fish is Christ who suffered. He is also the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:41). To Him the Church is incorporated, to share in everlasting blessedness. This is why it is said, Bring some of the fishes which you have now caught; that all of us who bear this hope may know, through that sevenfold number of the disciples, by which in this place our whole body can be understood as figured, that we share in so great a Sacrament, and are joined in fellowship to the same blessedness. This is the Lord's meal with His disciples, with which John, though he had many other things to say about Christ, closes his Gospel: great things, as I think, and with the contemplation of great matters. For here the Church, such as it will be in the good alone, is signified by the catch of a hundred and fifty-three fishes; and to those who believe, hope and love these things, the sharing in so great a blessedness is shown by this meal.

3. This is now the third time, he says, that Jesus was manifested to His disciples, after He had risen from the dead. This we ought to refer not to the showings themselves but to the days (that is, on the first day, when He rose; and after eight days, when the disciple Thomas saw and believed; and on this day, when He did this concerning the fishes; but after how many days He did it is not said): for on that first day itself He was seen not once only, as the testimonies of all the Evangelists, compared together, show: but, as has been said, His manifestations are to be counted by days, so that this is the third; for the first is to be reckoned, and that as one on account of the one day, however often and to whomever He showed Himself on that day on which He rose; the second after eight days, and this the third, and thereafter as often as He willed up to the fortieth day, on which He ascended into heaven, although not all are written.

4. "When therefore they had dined, He says to Simon Peter: Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these? He says to Him: Yes, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He says to him: Feed My lambs. He says to him again: Simon son of John, do you love Me? He said to Him: Yes, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. He says to him: Feed My lambs. He says to him the third time: Simon son of John, do you love Me? Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, Do you love Me? and he says to Him: Lord, Thou knowest all things,

Thou knowest that I love Thee. He says to him: Feed My sheep. Amen, amen I say to you: when you were younger, you girded yourself, and walked where you would: but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you, and lead you where you do not wish. And this He said, signifying by what death he should glorify God." This end did that denier, and lover, find; lifted up by presuming, laid low by denying, cleansed by weeping, proved by confessing, crowned by suffering: this end he found, that with perfect love he should die for the name of Him with whom, in perverse haste, he had promised to die. Let him, made firm by His resurrection, do what in his weakness he was promising before the time. For it behoved that first Christ should die for Peter's salvation, then Peter for the preaching of Christ. What human rashness had begun to dare was out of order, since the Truth had disposed this order. Peter thought that he would lay down his life for Christ (John 13:37), the one to be set free for the Liberator; whereas Christ had come to lay down His life for all His own, among whom was Peter also; and see, this has now been done. Now let firmness of heart to undergo death for the Lord's name be taken up, true, by His gift, not presumed, false, by us in our error. Now it is for us not to fear the ending of this life; for in the Lord's rising the example of another life has gone before. Now, Peter, it is for you not to fear death; for He lives whom you grieved for as dead, and whom out of fleshly love you would have prevented from dying for us (Matt. 16:21, 22). You dared to go before your Leader, you dreaded His persecutor: now that the price has been poured out for you, now it is for you to follow your Purchaser, and follow wholly, even to the death of the cross. You have heard the words of Him whom you have already proved truthful; He who had foretold that you would deny Him has Himself foretold that you will suffer.

5. But first the Lord asks what He knew, and not once, but a second and a third time, whether Peter loves Him; and He hears nothing else so often from Peter than that He is loved; and He commends nothing else so often to Peter than that His sheep be fed. To the threefold denial a threefold confession is returned, lest the tongue serve love less than fear, and imminent death seem to have drawn out more speech than present life. Let it be the office of love to feed the Lord's flock, if it was the sign of fear to deny the Shepherd. Those who feed the sheep of Christ with this intent, that they would have them be their own, not Christ's, are convicted of loving themselves, not Christ; out of desire of glorying, or of lording it, or of gaining, not out of the charity of obeying and helping and pleasing God. Against these, then, this voice of Christ, so often impressed, keeps watch: these the Apostle laments as seeking their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:21). For what else is, Do you love Me? feed My sheep, than if it were said, If you love Me, do not think of feeding yourself: but feed My sheep as Mine, not as yours; seek My glory in them, not your own; My dominion, not yours; My gains, not yours; lest you be in the company of those who belong to the perilous times, lovers of themselves, and the rest that is joined to this beginning of evils? For when the Apostle had said, "For men shall be lovers of themselves;"

he went on to add: "Lovers of money, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, irreligious, without affection, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, insolent, blinded, lovers of pleasures more than of God; having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power" (2 Tim. 3:1–5). All these evils flow, as from a fountain, from that which he set first, lovers of themselves. Rightly is it said to Peter, Do you love (diligis) Me? and he answers, I love (amo) Thee; and it is returned to him, Feed My lambs: and this a second time, this a third time. Where it is also shown that love (amor) and loving (dilectio) are one and the same: for the Lord too, at the last, does not say, Diligis me; but, Amas me? Let us then love not ourselves but Him; and in feeding His sheep let us seek the things that are His, not the things that are ours. For in some way that cannot be explained, whoever loves himself and not God does not love himself; and whoever loves God and not himself, he loves himself. For he who cannot live from himself surely dies by loving himself: he, then, does not love himself who loves himself so as not to live. But when He is loved from whom one lives, he loves himself the more by not loving himself, who for this reason does not love himself, that he may love Him from whom he lives. Let not those, then, who feed the sheep of Christ be lovers of themselves, lest they feed them as their own and not as His; and wish to seek their own gains from them, as lovers of money; or to lord it over them, as the haughty; or to glory in the honours they receive from them, as the proud; or to go so far as even to make heresies, as blasphemers: lest they not yield to the holy fathers, as disobedient to parents; and render evil for good to those who wish to correct them because they do not wish them to perish, as the ungrateful: kill souls both their own and others', as the wicked; tear apart the motherly bowels of the Church, as the irreligious; have no compassion on the weak, as those without affection; try to stain the good name of the saints, as slanderers; not rein in the worst desires, as the incontinent; carry on quarrels, as the unmerciful; not know how to give help, as those without kindness; disclose to the enemies of the godly what they have learned is to be kept hidden, as traitors; disturb human modesty with shameless harassment, as the insolent; understand neither what they say nor whereof they affirm (1 Tim. 1:7), as the blinded; put carnal pleasures before spiritual joys, as lovers of pleasures more than of God. For these and such vices, whether they all befall one man, or some rule in these and others in those, spring up in some fashion from that root, when men are lovers of themselves. This vice is above all to be guarded against by those who feed the sheep of Christ, lest they seek their own things, not those of Jesus Christ; and turn to the uses of their own desires those for whom the blood of Christ was shed. The love of Him, in one who feeds His sheep, ought to grow into so great a spiritual ardour as to overcome even the natural fear of death, by which we are unwilling to die, even when we wish to live with Christ. For the apostle Paul also says that he has a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ (Phil. 1:23): yet he groans, being burdened, and does not wish to be unclothed, but clothed over, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life (2 Cor. 5:4). And to him the Lord

to the one who loved Him, 'When you have grown old,' He says, 'you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you, and lead you where you do not wish.' For this He also said, signifying by what death he was to glorify God. 'You will stretch out,' He says, 'your hands', that is, you will be crucified. But that you may come to this, 'another will gird you, and lead you', not where you wish, but 'where you do not wish'. He said first what would happen, and then how it would happen. For it was not when crucified, but when certainly about to be crucified, that he was led where he would not: for once crucified he departed not where he would not, but rather where he wished. For, released from the body, he wished to be with Christ, but, if it could be done, he desired eternal life without the distress of death: to which distress he was led unwilling, but from it he was led out willing: unwilling he came to it, but willing he conquered it; and he left behind this feeling of weakness by which no one wishes to die, so natural that not even old age could take it away from blessed Peter, to whom it was said, 'When you have grown old, you will be led where you do not wish.' For the sake of consoling us the Saviour Himself transfigured this too into Himself, saying, 'Father, if it can be done, let this cup pass from Me' (Matt. 26:39): He Who had certainly come to die, and had not the necessity of death but the will for it, being about to lay down His life by His power, and by His power to take it up again. But however great the distress of death may be, the force of love ought to overcome it, the love by which He is loved Who, though He is our life, willed also to endure death for us. For if there were no distress of death, or only a slight one, the glory of the martyrs would not be so great. But if the good shepherd, Who laid down His life for His sheep (John 10:18, 11), made so many martyrs for Himself out of those very sheep, how much more ought those to strive even unto death for the truth, and even unto blood against sin, to whom He entrusts the sheep themselves to be fed, that is, to be taught and ruled? And therefore, since the example of His passion has gone before, who does not see that shepherds ought all the more to cleave to the Shepherd by imitating Him, since many sheep also have imitated Him, under Whom as the one Shepherd in the one flock even the shepherds themselves are sheep? For He made all men His sheep, for all of whom He suffered; since He too, that He might suffer for all, was made a sheep.