Augustine, Sermones 89-94 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

Sermon 89. On the words of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21, 19-12, where Jesus withered the tree; and on those of Luke, chapter 24, 28, where He pretended to go further.

1. What the cursing of the fig tree warns us of. The most recent reading of the holy Gospel has warned us, has frightened us, lest we have leaves and not have fruit. This, moreover, is briefly explained thus: lest words be present and deeds be absent. A great terror! Who would not fear, when in the very reading he sees with the eyes of the heart a withered tree, and sees it so that it is said to it: Let no fruit ever grow from you for ever. Let terror correct, let correction bring forth fruits. For without doubt the Lord Christ

foresaw that a certain tree would deservedly become withered, because it had leaves and did not have fruit. That is the Synagogue, not called but rejected. For from it too was called the people of God, which truly and sincerely awaited in the Prophets the salvation of God, Jesus Christ. And because it awaited faithfully, it merited to recognize Him when present. For from there came the Apostles, from there the whole crowd of those going before the Lord's beast and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord (Matt. 21:9). The crowd of faithful Jews was great; before the blood was shed for them, the crowd of those believing in Christ was great. For not in vain had the Lord Himself come only to the sheep that had perished of the house of Israel (Matt. 15:24). In others, however, He, crucified and now exalted in heaven, found the fruit of repentance: and He did not make them withered, but cultivated them in the field and watered them with the word. From there came those four thousand of the Jews who believed after the disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, and those who were with them, spoke in the tongues of all nations, and by that diversity of tongues in a certain manner foretold the Church that was to be throughout all nations. They believed then, and they too were sheep that had perished of the house of Israel; but because the Son of Man had come to seek and to save what had perished (Luke 19:10), He found them too. But somewhere, as though plundered by wolves, they were hiding in the thorn-bushes; and because they were hiding in the thorn-bushes, He therefore did not reach them to find them except torn by the thorns of the passion: yet He reached them, found them, redeemed them. They had killed; not Him more than themselves. They were saved through the One killed for them. For when the Apostles spoke, those who had pierced with the lance were pierced, they were pierced in conscience: and being pierced they sought counsel, received what was given, did penance, found grace, and believing drank the blood which in their raging they had shed (Acts 2). But those who remained, of an evil and barren progeny, until today and until the end, were figured in that tree. Now you come to them, and you find among them all the utterances of the Prophets. But these are leaves: Christ hungers; He seeks fruit; but He therefore does not find fruit in them, because He does not find Himself in them. For it does not have fruit; it does not have Christ. But he does not have Christ who does not hold the unity of Christ, who does not have charity. Therefore by this connection he does not have fruit who does not have charity. Hear the Apostle: But the fruit of the spirit is charity: about to commend as it were a cluster of grapes, that is, fruit. But the fruit, he says, of the spirit is charity, joy, peace, long-suffering (Gal. 5:22). Do not wonder at what follows, where charity has begun.

2. A mountain cast into the sea by the Apostles. Therefore, when the disciples were marvelling at the withering of the tree, He commended faith and said to them, If you have faith and make no distinction, that is, if you believe God in all things: if you do not say, God can do this, He cannot do that, but presume upon the omnipotence of the Omnipotent: not only will you do this, but also if you say to this mountain, Be lifted up and cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever you ask in prayer believing, you will receive. We read of miracles done by the disciples, or rather done by the Lord through the disciples: Because without Me, He says,

you can do nothing (John 15:5). The Lord could do many things without the disciples; the disciples nothing without the Lord. He Who was able to make the disciples themselves was certainly not helped by them in order to make them. We read of the miracles of the Apostles, but nowhere do we read of a tree withered by them, or of a mountain cast into the sea. Let us therefore seek where it was done. For the words of the Lord could not be empty. If you look to these ordinary and familiar trees and these mountains, it was not done. If you look to the tree of which He spoke, and to that mountain of the Lord of which the prophet spoke, In the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest (Isa. 2:2): if you look to these things, if you understand these things, then it was done, and it was done through them. The tree is the Jewish nation, but, I say again, the reprobate, not the called: that tree which we have mentioned is the Jewish nation. The mountain, as the prophetic testimony has taught, is the Lord Himself. The dry tree is the Jewish nation without the honour of Christ: the sea is this world with all the Gentiles. See now the Apostles speaking to the tree so as to wither it, and sending the mountain into the sea. In the Acts of the Apostles they speak to the Jews who contradicted and resisted the word of truth, that is, who had leaves and had no fruit, and they say to them: It was necessary that the word of God should be announced to you first, but since you have rejected it (you speak the words of the Prophets, and do not recognize Him Whom the Prophets foretold, that is, you have leaves): Behold, we turn to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). For this too was foretold through the prophet: Behold, I have set you as a light of the Gentiles, that you may be salvation even to the ends of the earth (Isa. 49:6). Behold, the tree has withered; and Christ [has gone] to the Gentiles, the mountain cast into the sea. For how should the tree not wither, set in the vineyard of which it had been said, I will command My clouds that they rain no rain upon it (ibid. 5:6)?

3. That the cursing of the tree prefigured something to come. That the Lord, in order to commend this, did it prophetically, that is, that in the case of this tree He wished not only to display a miracle but also to commend something to come by the miracle, there are many things which admonish us and persuade us, indeed wring it from us even against our will. First, what sin had the tree committed, since it had no fruit? If it had no fruit in its own season, that is, the season of those fruits, there would surely be no fault in the wood; for wood, being without sense, had no fault. To this is added that, as we read in another evangelist narrating this very thing, It was not the season of those fruits (Mark 11:13). For it was the season when the fig puts forth tender leaves, which we know grow before the fruit: we prove this from the fact that the day of the Lord's passion was drawing near, and we know at what season He suffered; and even if we did not attend to this, we ought surely to believe the Evangelist when he says, It was not the season of figs. Therefore, if only a miracle had been to be commended, and not something to be figured prophetically, it would have been far more merciful of the Lord, and more worthy of His mercy, if He had found some dry tree and made it green; just as He healed the sick, just as He cleansed the lepers, just as He raised the dead. But then, on the contrary, as if against the rule of His own mercy, He found a green tree, outside

time, not yet having fruit, yet not denying fruit to its cultivator, and He made it dry: as if He were saying to man, It was not the dryness of this tree that delighted Me, but I wished to intimate to you that I willed to do this not without cause, but only because I wished to commend to you something to which you should attend more. I did not curse this tree, I did not inflict punishment on a tree that does not feel; but I frightened you, if you pay any attention, so that you should not despise Christ when He hungers, and should prefer to be enriched with fruit rather than to be shaded with leaves?

4. A rule for interpreting the Scriptures. This is the one thing: that the Lord commends [to us] that He wished to signify something. What else? Hungry, He approaches the tree and seeks fruit. Did He not know that it was not yet the time? What the cultivator of the tree knew, did the Creator of the tree not know? He seeks, then, fruit on the tree which it did not yet have. Does He seek, or rather does He feign to seek? For if He truly sought, He erred. But far be it that He should err. Therefore He feigned. Fearing that He may feign, you confess that He erred. You turn away from error, you run into feigning. We are sweltering in the middle. If we are sweltering, let us wish for rain, that we may grow green, lest by saying something unworthy of the Lord we rather wither. The Evangelist indeed says, He came to the tree, and found no fruit on it. Certainly "He did not find" would not be said of Him, unless of one who had either sought to see, or had feigned to seek, what He knew was not there. Hence we have no doubt: let us in no way say that Christ erred. What, do we say that He feigned? Do we really say this? How shall we get out of here? Let us say it, in case the Evangelist has said in another place of the Lord something which we would not dare to say of ourselves. What the Evangelist wrote, let us say; and when we have said it, let us understand. But in order that we may understand, let us first believe. For unless you believe, you will not understand, says the prophet (Is. 7:9, according to the LXX). After the resurrection the Lord Christ was walking on the road with two of His disciples, by whom He was not yet recognized, and whom He accompanied as a third traveller. They came to the place towards which they were heading, and the Evangelist says: But He feigned to go further. But they held Him back, after the custom of kindness, saying that it was already growing towards evening, asking Him to stay there with them: received as a guest, He breaks bread, and when the bread is blessed and broken He is recognized. Let us therefore no longer fear to say, He feigned to seek, if He feigned to go further. But another question arises. Yesterday we commended at length the truthfulness in the Apostles; how do we find feigning in the Lord Himself? It must therefore be said, brothers, and intimated to you according to our modest strength, which the Lord gives us for your sake, and it must be commended to you, what you are to hold as a rule in all the Scriptures. Everything that is said or done is either known according to its proper nature, or signifies something figuratively; or indeed it has both, both its proper understanding and a figurative signification. I have proposed three things; examples must be given, and from where if not from the holy Scriptures? A saying which we are to take properly: that the Lord suffered, that He rose again and ascended into

heaven, because we are going to rise again at the end of the age, because we are going to reign with Him for ever, if we do not despise Him. Take this saying literally, do not look for figures: as it is said, so it also is. So too with deeds. The Apostle went up to Jerusalem to see Peter; the Apostle did this, it was done, it is literally his own act (Gal. 1:18). He tells you a thing done: the deed itself according to its literal sense. Said by way of figure: The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner (Ps. 117:22; Matt. 21:42). If we understand stone literally, what stone did the builders reject, and it became the head of the corner? If we take corner literally, at the head of what corner did this stone become? If we admit that it is said figuratively, and you take it figuratively: the corner-stone is Christ; the head of the corner, the head of the Church. Why is the Church a corner? Because He called the Jews from this side and the Gentiles from that, and, as two walls coming from different directions and meeting in Himself, He bound them together by the grace of His peace. For He is our peace, Who made both one (Eph. 2:14).

5. A figurative deed. You have heard a literal saying, a literal deed, a figurative saying: you are waiting for a figurative deed. There are many, but meanwhile take what occurs to me from the reminder of the corner-stone: when Jacob anointed the stone which he had placed at his head when he slept, in which sleep he had seen a great dream, a ladder rising from earth into heaven and men ascending and descending, with the Lord leaning upon the ladder, he understood what he ought to figure, whereby he might prove to us that he had not been a stranger to the understanding of that vision and revelation: he figured Christ by the stone (Gen. 28:11–18). Do not wonder, then, that he anointed it, because Christ received His name from anointing. Now this Jacob had been called in Scripture a man without guile. This same Jacob, as you know, was named Israel. Therefore the Lord in the Gospel, when He saw Nathanael, said: Behold, a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile. And that Israelite, not yet knowing Who was speaking with him, answered: Whence do you know me? And the Lord to him: When you were under the fig tree, I saw you: as though He were saying, When you were in the shadow of sin, I predestined you. And he, because he remembered that he had been under the fig tree, where the Lord was not, recognized divinity in Him and answered: You are the Son of God, You are the king of Israel. He, under the fig tree, did not become a withered fig: he recognized Christ. And the Lord to him: Because I said, When you were under the fig tree, I saw you, therefore you believe; you will see greater things than these. What are these greater things? Amen I say to you (because that is an Israelite in whom there is no guile; look back to Jacob, in whom there is no guile; and recall what He is speaking from: the stone at the head, the vision in sleep, the ladder from earth into heaven, those descending and ascending; and see what the Lord says to the Israelite without guile), you will see heaven opened: Hear, Nathanael without guile, what Jacob without guile saw: you will see heaven opened, and Angels ascending and descending; to whom? to the Son of Man (John 1:47–51). So He that was anointed at the head was the Son of Man: because the head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ (1 Cor. 11:3). And yet He did not say, Ascending

from the Son of Man and descending to the Son of Man, as though He were only above; but rather, ascending and descending to the Son of Man. Hear the Son of Man crying out from above: Saul, Saul. Hear the Son of Man below: Why do you persecute Me? (Acts 9:4)

6. A deed truly done and nonetheless figurative. You have heard a literal saying, that we shall rise again; a literal deed, that, as has been said, Paul went up to Jerusalem to see Peter. A figurative saying: The stone which the builders rejected; a figurative deed: the anointed stone which was at Jacob's head. It is owed to your expectation [that I give an example] of what is of both kinds, both literally done and signifying something figurative. We know that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman, the other by the free woman; literally done, not only narrated but also done: do you look for the figurative there? These are the two Testaments (Gal. 4:22, 24). What therefore is said figuratively is in a certain way feigned. But since it must [have] an outcome in signification, and the signification itself would keep faith with truth, it avoids the charge of falsehood. Behold, a sower went out to sow; and in his sowing it fell on the path, it fell on stony places, it fell among thorns, it fell on good ground. Who went out to sow, or when did he go out, or among which thorns, or on which stones, or on which path, or onto which field? If you hear it as feigned, you understand it as signifying: it is feigned. For if a man, a sower, had truly gone out and cast seeds, as we have heard, over these different places, it would not have been feigned, but neither would it have been a lie. Not yet, however, feigned, but not a lie. Why? Because it signifies something; what is feigned does not deceive you. It seeks one who understands, it does not make one go astray. Wishing to commend this, Christ sought fruit; He was commending there a figurative, not a deceitful, feigning; and therefore a praiseworthy, not a culpable, feigning; not one by which, when examined, it [turns] into ability, but by which, when searched through, you may find the truth.

7. The same argument is treated. I see what someone is going to say: Explain to me what it signified that He feigned to go further. For if it signified, it is a deceit, it is a lie. By our expositions and most discerning rules we must say this: what a certain feigning of going further signified. He feigned to go further, and He is held back, so that He does not go further. As regards bodily presence, then, the Lord Christ was thought to be absent; He was thought absent, as though He would go further. Hold fast faithfully, hold Him at the breaking of bread. What shall I say? Have you recognized [Him]? If you have recognized [Him], there you have found Christ. There must be no longer talk about the sacrament. Those who put off knowing this sacrament, from them Christ is further away. Let them hold this, let them not let it go; let them invite [Him] to lodging, and they are invited to heaven.