Augustine, Sermones 217-233 (Classis II, de Tempore)

Sermon 217. On the prayer of Christ, "Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I am, there they also may be." John 17:24. Preached shortly before Easter.

1. Christ prays, and gives what He prays for. The Lord Christ, Who hears us together with the Father, deigned to pray to the Father for us. What is more certain than our happiness, when He Who gives what He prays for prays for us? For Christ is man and God: He prays as man; He gives what He prays for as God. Now, as you ought to hold, He assigns the whole to the Father for this reason, that the Father is not from Him, but He is from the Father. To the fount from which He was born He gives the whole. But He too is a fount, a fount that was born. For He is the fount of life. Therefore the Father, a fount, begot a fount. A fount indeed begot a fount; but both the begetter is a fount and the begotten is a fount: just as the begetter is God and the begotten is God, yet God is one. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Holy Spirit of both is neither the Father nor the Son: but the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. Be built up in unity, lest you fall in separation.

2. The good place, to which we must migrate from this bad place. You have heard what He prayed for on our behalf, or rather what He willed. He said: Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I am, there they also may be. I will, He says, that where I am, they too may be with Me. O blessed home! O secure homeland! It has no enemy, it has no plague. There we shall live secure, we shall not seek to migrate, we shall find no safer place. Whatever you choose here on earth, you choose for fear, not for security. Choose yourself a place while you are in a bad place, that is, in this world, in this life full of temptations; choose, in this mortality full of groans and fears, while you are in a bad place, choose yourself a place to which you may migrate from the bad place. You will not be able to migrate from the bad place to the good place unless you have done good in the bad place. What sort of place is that, where no one hungers? Therefore, if you wish to dwell in the good place, where no one hungers, in the bad place break your bread to the hungry. In that blessed place no one is a stranger: all live in their own homeland. If therefore you wish to be in the good place, where no one is a stranger, in the bad place take into your house him who has nowhere to enter. Offer hospitality to the stranger in the bad place, that you may come to the good place, where you cannot be a guest. In the good place no one needs clothing: there is no cold there, there are no heats there: why a roof, why a garment? There there will be no roof, but protection. Behold, even there we find a roof: Under the shadow of Thy wings I will hope (Ps. 56:2). Therefore in this bad place offer a roof to him who has none, that you may be in the good place, where you may have such a roof that you will not seek to keep a roof in repair: for no rain drips through there. There is an everlasting fount of truth: but that rain gladdens, it does not drench: that rain is itself the fount of life. For what is meant by, With Thee is the fount of life (Ps. 35:10); and, The Word was with God (John 1:14)?

3. By doing good in a bad place one arrives at a good place. The days of Quadragesima. The days of Quinquagesima after Easter. Therefore, dearly beloved, do good in a bad place, that you may come to a good place, of which He Who is preparing it for us says, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me. He ascended to prepare it, so that we might come secure to what has been prepared. He Himself has prepared it: abide in Him. Is Christ too small a house for you? Do you now fear His passion? He rose from the dead, and dies no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9). A bad place, bad days: this world. But let us do good in the bad place, and let us live well in the bad days. The bad place and the bad days pass away: and there will come a good place, eternal, and good days, eternal: and those good days will themselves be one day. For why are the days bad here? Because one passes, so that another may come. Today passes, so that tomorrow may come: yesterday passes, so that today may come. Where nothing passes, there is one day. And Christ is day, and the Father is day: but the Father is day from no day, the Son day from day. The Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, commended to us in His passion the toils and contritions of the present age: in His resurrection He commended the eternal and blessed life of the age to come. Let us endure the present things, let us hope for the future ones. Therefore in these days we keep days that signify the toil of the present age, wearing down our souls in fasts and observance; but in the days to come we signify the days of the age to come, [though] we are not yet there. I said 'we signify'; not 'we hold'. For up to the passion there is contrition: after the resurrection, praise.

Sermon 218. On the Passion of the Lord, on the day of Preparation.

Chapter I. — 1. The mysteries of the Lord's passion are to be explained. The passion of Him by Whose blood our sins have been blotted out is solemnly read, is solemnly celebrated, so that by yearly devotion our memory may be more joyfully renewed, and by the very thronging of the peoples our faith may be more brightly illuminated. The solemnity therefore requires of us that we render to you a sermon on the passion of the Lord, such as He Himself grants. And indeed, for our salvation and for the benefit of passing through this life, our Lord deigned, in the things He suffered from His enemies, to offer us an example of patience, so that for the dignity of the Gospel, if He Himself should will it, we may refuse to endure nothing of the kind. Nevertheless, since even in the mortal flesh itself He endured nothing out of necessity, but all things by His will, it is rightly believed that He also willed to signify something in each and every one of the deeds that were done and written down concerning His passion.

Chapter II. — 2. What it signifies that Christ carried His cross. And first, that, having been handed over to be crucified, He carried His cross Himself (John 19:17);

gave a sign of continence, and, going before, showed what he who wishes to follow Him ought to do. He also urged this in word, where He says: He who loves Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me (Matt. 16:24). For in a certain manner he takes up his cross who governs his mortality.

Chapter III. — 3. The place of Calvary. That He was crucified in the place of Calvary (John 19:17–18) signified in His passion the remission of all sins, of which it is said in the Psalm: My iniquities are multiplied above the hairs of my head (Ps. 39:13).

Chapter IV. — 4. Thieves on the right and on the left. That two were crucified with Him, one on either side (John 19:18), showed that some would suffer on His right, others on His left: on the right, those of whom it is said, Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness (Matt. 5:10); but on the left, those of whom it is said, And if I hand over my body so that I burn, but do not have charity, it profits me nothing (1 Cor. 13:3).

Chapter V. — 5. The title above the cross. That a title was placed above His cross, on which was written, King of the Jews (John 19:19), shows this: that not even by killing Him could they bring it about that they should not have Him as king, who, most manifestly and with most eminent power, will render to them according to their works. Hence it is sung in the Psalm: But I have been established king by Him upon Sion, His holy mountain.

Chapter VI. — 6. Why it was written in three languages. Why King of the Jews, and not of the Gentiles. That the title was written in three languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin (John 19:20), declared that He would reign not only over the Jews but also over the Gentiles. Accordingly, in the same psalm, when it had said, But I have been established king upon Sion, His holy mountain, namely where the Hebrew language reigned, at once, as though adding the Greek and the Latin, it says: The Lord said to Me: You are My Son, today I have begotten You; ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as Your possession (Ps. 2:6–7). Not because Greek and Latin are the only languages of the nations, but because they excel most: Greek on account of the pursuit of letters, Latin on account of the skill of the Romans. Although in those three languages the whole body of all the nations to be made subject to Christ was being shown, nevertheless there was not written there "and King of the Gentiles", but only "of the Jews", so that the origin of the seed might be commended in the proper sense of the name. For it has been said, The law will go forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isa. 2:3). For who are they who say in the Psalm, He has subjected peoples to us, and Gentiles under our feet (Ps. 46:4), if not those of whom the Apostle says, For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they ought also to minister to them in carnal things (Rom. 15:27)?

Chapter VII. — 7. The Jews dealing with Pilate about changing the title. That the chief men of the Jews suggested to Pilate that he should not write absolutely that He is King of the Jews, but that He Himself said that He was King of the Jews

(John 19:21); with those branches broken off, Pilate was in this way figuring the wild olive that was to be grafted in: because he was a man from the Gentiles, writing the confession of the Gentiles, of whom the Lord Himself rightly said, The kingdom shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation that does justice (Matt. 21:43). Yet not for that reason is He not the King of the Jews. For the root bears the wild olive, not the wild olive the root. And although those branches were broken off through unbelief, God has not for that reason cast away His people, whom He foreknew. And I too, he says, am an Israelite (Rom. 11:1, 2, 17). And although the sons of the kingdom, who did not want the Son of God to reign over them, go into the outer darkness, yet many will come from the East and the West, and will recline, not with Plato and Cicero, but with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 8:12, 11). Pilate indeed wrote King of the Jews, not King of the Greeks or of the Latins, although He was to reign over the Gentiles. And what he wrote, he wrote, nor did he change it at the suggestion of the unbelievers (John 19:22): to him it had been foretold so long before in the Psalms, Do not corrupt the inscription of the title (Ps. 56:1; 57:1). All nations believe in the King of the Jews: He reigns over all nations, but nevertheless He is the King of the Jews. So strong has that root been that it can change into itself the wild olive grafted onto it, while the wild olive cannot take away the name of the olive.

Chapter VIII. — 8. The garments divided into four parts. That the soldiers took away His garments divided into four parts (John 19:23) signified His sacraments, which were to travel through the four parts of the world.

Chapter IX. — 9. The seamless tunic committed to the lot. By the fact that they cast lots for the one seamless tunic, woven from the top, rather than dividing it (ibid. 19:23–24), it has been sufficiently shown that the visible sacraments, although they too are garments of Christ, can nevertheless be possessed by anyone at all, whether good or bad; but that the most sincere faith, which through love works the integrity of unity, because the love of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us (Rom. 5:5), does not belong to just anyone, but is bestowed by the hidden grace of God as if by lot. Hence to Simon, who had Baptism and did not have this, it was said by Peter, You have no lot nor part in this faith (Acts 8:21).

Chapter X. — 10. The mother commended by the dying [Son]. That on the cross He commended the mother whom He acknowledged to the beloved disciple (John 19:26–27): fittingly He showed human affection then, when He was dying as a man. That hour had not yet come when, being about to turn water into wine, He had said to the same mother: What is it to Me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come (ibid. 2:4). For He had not taken from Mary what He had in His divinity, as He had taken from Mary what hung upon the cross.

Chapter XI. — 11. Vinegar given in a sponge. That He said, I thirst: He was seeking faith from His own; but because He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him (ibid. 1:11), instead of the sweetness of faith they gave the vinegar of faithlessness, and that in a sponge. Truly they are to be compared to a sponge, not solid but swollen; not open by the straight entrance of confession, but full of hollows with the winding twists of treachery. Indeed that