Augustine, Sermones 172-178 (Classis I, de Scripturis)

(John 3:6). And if our outer man, says the Apostle, is corrupted, yet the inner is renewed from day to day (2 Cor. 4:16). From that which is renewed in you, you do not beget a little one: from that which is corrupted in you, you beget a little one. You were born and reborn so that you might not die for ever: he is as yet born, not yet reborn. If you live by being reborn, allow him too to be reborn and to live; allow him, I say, to be reborn, allow him to be reborn. Why do you contradict? Why do you try with new disputations to break the ancient rule of faith? For what is it that you say, Little ones have not even original sin at all? What is it that you say, except that they should not come to Jesus? But Jesus cries out to you, Allow the little ones to come to Me (Mark 10:14). Turning to the Lord, etc.

Sermon 175. On the same words of the Apostle, A faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, etc. 1 Tim. 1:15-16.

Chapter I.— 1. The cause of Christ's incarnation. What was read just now from the holy Gospel, this the apostle Paul also says, whose words are these: A faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. There was no cause for Christ the Lord's coming except to save sinners. Take away diseases, take away wounds, and there is no cause for medicine. If a great physician came from heaven, a great sick man was lying throughout the whole world. That sick man is the human race. But faith is not of all (2 Thess. 3:2). The Lord knows who are His (2 Tim. 2:19). The Jews were proud, they exalted themselves, they set their minds on high things, they reckoned themselves just, and moreover they accused the Lord for gathering sinners. Those therefore who were proud and set their minds on high things were left on the mountains; they belong to the ninety-nine (Matt. 18:12). What is 'they were left on the mountains'? They were left in earthly fear. What is 'they belong to the ninety-nine'? They are on the left, not on the right. For ninety-nine are counted on the left; add one, and it passes over to the right. He came therefore, as He Himself says in another place, The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which had perished (Luke 19:10). For the whole had perished: from the time that one sinned, in whom the whole was, the whole perished. But there came One without sin, to save from sin. These, however, by being proud, which is worse, were both sick and believed themselves to be healthy.

Chapter II. — 2. The more dangerous sickness of the Jews. The Jews raging against the physician. More dangerously sick are those who have lost their mind through fevers. They laugh, and the healthy weep. For the frenzied man laughs; but he is not healthy. Moreover he who is of sound mind weeps over the frenzied man as he laughs. First, if you propose these two things, Which is better, to laugh or to weep? who would not choose laughing for himself? Then, on account of the wholesome pain of penitence, the Lord placed duty in weeping, benefit in laughter. How? When He says in the Gospel,

Blessed are they who weep, for they shall laugh (Luke 6:21). Therefore in weeping is the duty, in laughter is the reward of wisdom. For He put laughter for joy, not guffawing, but exultation. So if you propose these two things, and ask which of them is better, to laugh or to weep, every man is unwilling to weep, and willing to laugh. But if you add persons to these feelings, and so propose them with the persons, "Which is better, for a madman to laugh, or for a sane man to weep?", a man chooses for himself weeping with sanity rather than laughter with madness. So much is soundness of mind worth that it is chosen even with lamentation. These men, then, who thought themselves sane were sick far more dangerously and more desperately; and in the very sickness by which they had lost their minds, they were even beating the physician. It is too little to say they were beating Him: I will say the whole; they were not only beating Him, but even killing Him. But He, even when He was being killed, was a physician; He was being flogged, and He was healing; He bore with the madman, and did not abandon the sick man: He was seized, He was bound, He was struck with blows of the fist, He received strokes with a reed, He was mocked, He was insulted, at last He was heard, He was condemned, He was hung on the wood, He was roared at from every side; and He was a physician.

Chapter III. — 3. Christ prepares for His slayers a medicine from His own blood. You recognize the madmen; recognize also the physician. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). They were raging with minds lost, and in raging they were shedding the physician's blood: but He, from that very blood of His, was making medicines for the sick. For truly it was not in vain that He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. A Christian prays, and is heard; Christ prays, and is He not heard? For He who hears together with the Father, because He is God, how is He not heard as man, which He was made for us? He was heard entirely. They were there, there they were raging: among them were those who found fault with Him and said, Behold, He eats with publicans and sinners (Mark 2:16). They were among that very people by whom the physician Himself was being killed, and in His blood an antidote was being prepared even for them. For when the Lord not only shed His blood, but also spent His very death on the making of the medicine, He rose again to show an example of resurrection. By His patience He suffered, that He might teach our patience; and in His resurrection He showed the reward of patience. Likewise, as you know and as we all confess, He ascended into heaven; then the Holy Spirit was sent by Him, having been promised beforehand. For He had said to His disciples: Sit in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). So His promise came, the Holy Spirit came, He filled the disciples, they began to speak in the languages of all nations: in them there went forth a sign of unity. For then one man was speaking in all languages, because the unity of the Church was going to speak in all languages. Those who heard were terrified. For they knew that they had been unlettered men, of one language only; and they wondered and were astonished that men of one language, or at most of two, were speaking in the languages of all nations: they were held fast in astonishment, they lost their pride,

from a mountain they were made valleys. Now if they are humble, they are valleys; what you pour in they take in, they do not let it go. If water comes upon a height, it runs down and flows off; if water comes to a hollow and low place, it is both caught and stays. Such were they now; they were stunned, they were amazed, they had lost their savagery.

Chapter IV. — 4. The conversion of Christ's slayers. Then, when Peter spoke to them, they were pierced to the heart, and there came to pass in them what the Psalm had foretold: I was turned into misery, while the thorn was being driven in (Ps. 31:4). What is the thorn? The piercing of repentance. So you have also the very words of Scripture in the Acts of the Apostles: They were pierced in heart, and they said to the Apostles, What shall we do? Why did they say, What shall we do? We know what we have done: What shall we do? As far as our deed is concerned, there is despair of salvation: let there be, then, in your counsel, if it can be, some hope of healing. We know what we have done; tell us what we are to do. What is it that we have done? For it is not just any man that we have killed; and we would have done much evil if we had killed just any innocent man. We chose a robber, we killed an innocent man; we chose a dead man, we killed the physician: tell us, What shall we do? And Peter: Do penance, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; that you may pass over from the ninety-nine to the hundred: for when you were the ninety-nine, you did not think penance necessary for you, and you even insulted the Lord as He gathered sinners and willed to make them penitent. Now therefore, pierced to the heart, because you have recognized your sin, Do penance, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; let him be baptized in the name of Him Whom you killed without crime: and your sins are forgiven you. They were brought back into hope: they grieved, they groaned, they were converted, they were healed (Acts 2). They were the very ones [of whom it was said]: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

Chapter V. — 5. Christ loves sinners so that they may not always be sinners. Let each one, then, dearly beloved, when he hears that the Lord Jesus Christ came not for the sake of the just but for the sake of sinners, not love being a sinner: lest perhaps he say in his heart, If I am just, Christ does not love me; if I am a sinner, He loves me: because He came down for the sake of sinners, not for the sake of the just. For He answers you: If you recognized the physician, why did you not fear the fever? Certainly the physician comes to the sick man, that is agreed: but the physician comes to the sick man for this reason, that he may not always be sick. What then do we say? What do we pronounce? What do we define? Does the physician love the sick man, or the healthy one? He loves what he wills to make, not what he finds. To the sick man indeed he comes, to the healthy man he does not come: do not pay attention to the fact that to the one he comes, to the other he does not come; for he loves the healthy man more than the sick. For, that you may know that he loves the healthy man more than the sick: would he make what he hated?

6. How Paul is the first of sinners. So then, attend to the apostle Paul: A faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to make sinners safe, of whom I am the first. He said, of whom I am the first. How was he the first? Were there not so many Jews who were sinners before him? Were there not sinners in the human race before him? Was no one among all men before him held by sin? Was not Adam before him, who sinned first and cast us all headlong into death? What does it mean, Of whom I am the first? Am I the first of those to whom He came? But this is not true either. Peter was chosen first, Andrew first (Matt. 4:18), the other apostles first; you are the last apostle: how do you say, Of whom I am the first? So the last apostle, the first sinner. And how is this the first sinner? Peter sinned before you, when he denied the Lord Himself three times (ibid. 26:70–74). I will not say that he too, had he not been found a sinner, would not have passed over from the left to the right.

Chapter VI. — 7. The first of sinners, because worse than all. What then does it mean, Of whom I am the first? Because I am worse than all. So he wished "the first" to be understood as the worst. As among craftsmen: whoever wants to build, what does he say? Who is the first builder here? Who is the first workman? Or if he wants to be cured: Who is the first physician here? He certainly does not ask who is prior in age, or who is prior in profession, but who is prior in skill. As they are first in skill, so this man is first in iniquity. Why is Paul first in iniquity? Recall Saul, and you will find out. You attend to Paul, you have forgotten Saul; you attend to the shepherd, you have forgotten the wolf. Is he not the one for whom one hand was not enough for stoning Stephen, and who kept the garments of the others? Is he not the one who persecuted the Church everywhere? Is he not the one who had received letters from the chief priests? Because it was too little for him to persecute the Christians who were in Jerusalem, he wanted to go to other places as well, where he might find them, and bind them, and bring them to be punished. Was it not while he was on his journey, breathing and panting slaughter, that he was struck from heaven, and, thunderstruck, heard the voice of the Lord unto salvation? While he walks, he is thrown down; that he may see, he is blinded. He then is the one who was the first persecutor; there was none worse than he.

Chapter VII. — 8. The conversion of Paul. Listen, so that you may understand more. The Lord Christ Himself was speaking to Ananias, when that man had already been thrown down and already raised up, and He said to him: Go to that street; there you will find Saul of Tarsus in Cilicia; speak to him. For he had seen a man, Ananias, coming in to him and baptizing him. Ananias heard the name of Saul, and trembled in the very hands of the Physician. But what is sweeter: whence Saul was so named, I believe you recall, and for the sake of those who do not recall, let me mention it. Saul was that persecutor of David. In David was Christ, in David Christ was prefigured; in Saul, Saul [of Tarsus] was prefigured. as David to Saul, from heaven: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? Ananias