Augustine, Sermones 234-243 (Classis II, de Tempore)

will be there. Wherever you wish, you will be: but you will not withdraw from God. Wherever you wish, you will be: but wherever you go, you will have your God. From Him you will be blessed; you will always be with Him.

12. The promise of the resurrection is confirmed by so many other promises of God already fulfilled. Let no one therefore deceive, let no one argue, let no one rave in his own suspicion: what God has promised us, let us hold most certainly that it will come. When Christ was seen, my brethren, when He was thought to be a spirit, in order to persuade them that He was a body, He offered Himself not only to the eyes to be seen, but also to the hands to be handled. For their sake, to display the truth of faith in the body, He deigned even to take food, not out of necessity but out of power: yet while they were still trembling for joy, He applied a strengthening of the heart from the holy Scriptures; and He said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you: that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me. Then He opened their understanding, as the Gospel says, which has just been read, that they might understand the Scriptures; and He said to them, That thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:44–47). That we have not seen, but this we see. When these things were being promised, they were not yet being seen. The apostles saw Christ present: but they did not see the Church spread throughout the whole world: they saw the head, and believed concerning the body. We have our turns, we have the grace of our dispensation and distribution: for believing on most certain proofs, the times have been distributed to us in one faith. They saw the head, and believed concerning the body: we see the body; let us believe concerning the head.

Sermon 243. On the Paschal Days, 14. On the resurrection of the Lord according to John, on the text, chapter 20:17, Do not touch Me; for I have not yet ascended to My Father. And on the use of the members after the resurrection.

Chapter I. — 1. The difficulty in the words of the Lord, Who did not wish to be touched by Mary before the ascension. The narrative of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the evangelist John began to be read today. For you know this, and I had commended it to you, that on these days the resurrection of the Lord is recited according to all four Evangelists. In these things, then, which we have heard, this alone usually troubles people: why the Lord Jesus said to the woman who was seeking His body, and who now recognized Him as living: Do not touch Me; for I have not yet ascended to My Father. Now I told you, and you ought to remember, that not all say all things; but that things are said by some which have been passed over by others. Not, however, in such a way that they are to be believed to contradict one another, if contention is absent, and there is present

the devotion of one who understands. For as we read in the evangelist Matthew, after He had risen He met two women, among whom she too was; and He said to them, Hail. And they came up, and took hold of His feet, and worshipped Him (Matt. 28:9): and certainly He had not yet ascended to the Father. How then is it now said to this woman, Do not touch Me; for I have not yet ascended to My Father? For these words seem to sound as if Mary could touch Him then, when He had ascended into heaven. If she does not touch Him when He is placed on earth, which of mortals can touch Him when He is seated in heaven?

Chapter II. — 2. What it is to touch Christ. But that touch signifies faith. He touches Christ who believes in Christ. For that woman too who suffered from a flow of blood said within herself: If I touch the fringe of His garment, I shall be safe (Matt. 9:21). She touched by faith, and the health she had confidently expected followed. Then, so that we might know what it truly is to touch, the Lord at once said to His disciples: Who touched Me? And the disciples said: The crowds press upon You, and You say, Who touched Me? And He: Someone touched Me (Luke 8:43–46). As if saying: The crowd presses, faith touches. This Mary, then, to whom the Lord said, Do not touch Me; for I have not yet ascended to My Father, seems to bear the person of the Church, which believed in Christ at the time when He had ascended to the Father. See, I ask you when you believed; I ask the Church spread through the whole world, whose person was in one woman: and with one voice she answers me, I believed then, when Jesus had ascended to the Father. What is, I believed then, if not, I touched then? Many carnal people thought Christ only a man; they did not understand the divinity hidden in Him. They did not touch well, because they did not believe well. Do you want to touch well? Understand Christ where He is coeternal with the Father, and you have touched. But if you think Him a man, and think nothing more, for you He has not yet ascended to the Father.

Chapter III. — 3. A difficulty about the use of the members after the resurrection. So the Lord Jesus presented the appearance of His body to human senses, to confirm the resurrection of the flesh. He wished to teach us nothing else, by showing Himself alive in the body after His resurrection, than that the resurrection of the dead should be believed by us. Since, then, all things are to be restored whole, a difficult question about the use of the members is often asked by those who desire to know, and again is often put forward by those who desire to dispute. For they say that our body has all its members, and that it is evident which members are necessary for which works. For who does not know, who does not see, that we have eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, a tongue for speaking, nostrils for smelling, teeth for chewing, hands for working, feet for walking; and those members too which are called shameful, for begetting? Furthermore, the inner organs as well, which God willed to be covered so that they should not horrify the sight; for what uses our inward parts and what are called the intestines are fit, both many people and, better, physicians have come to know. So they argue and say to us: If we shall have ears

so that we may hear, eyes so that we may see, a tongue so that we may speak; why shall we have teeth if we shall not eat, the throat, lungs, stomach, intestines by which food passes through and is changed for the right balance of our health; lastly those very members which are called shameful, why, they say, shall we have them, where there will be no generation, no digestion?

Chapter IV. — 4. The members of the body will be either for use or for comeliness. The harmony of the members. What are we to answer them? Are we going to say that we shall rise again without intestines, after the likeness of statues? For about the teeth the answer is easy. For teeth help us not only for chewing but also for speaking, striking our tongue so that it sounds out syllables, as the plectrum strikes the strings. Our other members, therefore, will be for comeliness, not for use; for the commending of beauty, not for the want of necessity. Will they be unseemly just because they will be idle? And indeed now, because we are unskilled and ignorant of the causes of things, if our inward parts are seen, they are shuddered at rather than loved. For who knows how the members are joined to one another, and by what numbers they are fitted together? Hence it is also called harmony; a word which is taken from music, where we certainly see strings stretched on the lyre. If all the strings sound alike, there is no melody. Different tension produces different sounds; but different sounds joined by a rational principle produce, not beauty for those who see, but sweetness for those who hear. Whoever has learned this principle in the human members marvels so much, delights so much, that this principle is preferred by those who understand to all visible beauty. Now we do not know it; but then we shall know it: not because they will be laid bare, but because even when covered they will not be able to lie hidden.

Chapter V. — 5. Neither the inward members nor the hearts themselves will lie hidden after the resurrection. All will be known to one another. Someone will answer me and say: How, if they are covered, will they be unable to lie hidden? Will our hearts not lie hidden, and yet our innards lie hidden? Thoughts, my brothers, thoughts which now no one sees but God, all will see in one another in that fellowship of the saints. No one there wishes what he thinks to be covered, because no one there thinks evil. Hence the Apostle says, Judge nothing before the time: that is, Do not judge rashly, since you do not see with what heart someone acts. If something is done which can also be done with a good heart, do not censure it: do not claim for yourself more than human nature requires. To see the heart belongs to God; but it does not belong to men, except to judge of those things which are manifest. Judge nothing therefore, he says, before the time. What is before the time? He continues and says: Until the Lord comes and illumines the hidden things of darkness. What darkness he meant he shows plainly in the words that follow: He will illumine, he says, the hidden things of darkness. What is this? Hear what follows: And He will make manifest the thoughts of the heart (1 Cor. 4:5). This is to illumine the hidden things of darkness: to make manifest the thoughts of the heart. Now therefore our thoughts are in light to ourselves, to each one of us, because we know them: but to our neighbours in darkness

they are, because they do not see them. There, what you know you are thinking, another too will know. What are you afraid of? Now you want to hide, now you are afraid that your thoughts will be made public: for perhaps you sometimes think something evil, perhaps something shameful, perhaps something vain. Nothing but good, nothing but honourable, nothing but true, nothing but pure, nothing but sincere will you think, when you are there. As you now want your face to be seen, so then you will want your conscience to be seen.

Chapter VI. For that very recognition too, dearly beloved, that very recognition, will it not belong to all of us? Do you think that you will recognize me because you know me, and that you will not recognize my father, whom you do not know, or some bishop or other who was in this church many years ago? You will know all. Those who will be there will not recognize one another because they will see faces: the mutual recognition there will come from a greater knowledge. So will all see, and far more excellently, as the Prophets are accustomed to see here. They will see divinely, when they are full of God. There will be nothing to give offence, nor anything to escape the one who recognizes.

6. Some members are for use, others for adornment. So there will be members there entire, even those which are shameful here, but there they will not be shameful. There the adornment of wholeness will not be anxious, where there will be no disgrace of lust. Look, even here, where necessity is in a certain manner the mother of all our works (a necessity which then will not exist), we nevertheless find some things which God has placed in bodies for no uses, but for adornment alone.

Chapter VII. A little while ago I was running through the members: now let us go over them again a little more carefully. We have eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, nostrils for smelling, mouth and tongue for speaking, teeth for chewing, throat for swallowing, stomach for receiving and digesting, intestines for passing food down to the lowest parts, and those which are called shameful, either for excretion or for generation; hands for working, feet for walking. What use has the beard, unless it is solely beauty? Why did God create the beard in man? I see the comeliness; I do not ask the use. It is evident why women have breasts, namely so that they may suckle little ones: why do men have nipples? Ask about the use: there is none. Ask about the comeliness: a chest with nipples befits men too. Take the nipples away from a man's chest, and see how much beauty you would have removed, how much ugliness you would have brought in.

Chapter VIII. 7. In the bodies of the blessed, beauty will be complete in every respect. So then, dearly beloved, so believe, so hold: that the use of many members will not exist there, but the adornment of none will be lacking. Nothing unseemly will be there; there will be supreme peace, nothing discordant, nothing monstrous, nothing to offend the sight; in all things God will be praised. For if now, in this weakness of the flesh and the delicate working of the members, so great a beauty of body appears, which entices the lustful and stirs both the studious and the curious to inquiry; and if a rational order of numbers is found in the body, one is not found to be the craftsman of these and another of the heavens, but the very same creator of the lowest things and

of the highest things: how much more there, where there will be no lust, no corruption, no misshapen depravity, no wretched necessity, but endless eternity, beautiful truth, supreme happiness?

Chapter IX.—8. What the activity of the blessed will be. Lent before Easter and the fifty days after Easter. Alleluia. In the future life the praise of God without ceasing, without weariness. But you say to me: What shall I do? There will be no use of the limbs there; what shall I do? Does it seem to you no activity to stand, to see, to love, to praise? Behold, these holy days, which are celebrated after the resurrection of the Lord, signify the future life after our resurrection. For just as the days of Lent before Easter signified the toilsome life in this mortal misery, so these joyful days signify the future life, where we shall reign with the Lord. The life which is signified by Lent before Easter is had now; the life which is signified by the fifty days after the resurrection of the Lord is not had, but is hoped for, and by hoping is loved; and in that very love God, Who promised these things, is praised, and those very praises are Alleluia. For what is Alleluia? It is a Hebrew word, Alleluia, Praise God. Allelu, Praise; Ia, God: so with Alleluia we sound out "praise God", and we rouse one another to praise God: with hearts in concord, better than with the strings of the lyre, we speak praises to God, we sing Alleluia. And when we have sung, on account of weakness we withdraw, so that we may refresh our bodies. Why do we refresh ourselves, unless because we fail? Then, so great is the weakness of the flesh, so great the burden of this life, that any great thing whatever comes to be wearisome. How we longed for these days to come round with the year, though just now they were departing; and with what eagerness we come to them through the interval of time! If it were said to us, Say Alleluia without ceasing, we would excuse ourselves. Why would we excuse ourselves? Because, being tired, we would not be able, because even with that very good we would be worn out by weariness. There, no failing, no wearinesses. Stand, praise, you who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God (Ps. 133:1). Why do you ask what you will do there? Blessed, it says, are those who dwell in Thy house, O Lord; for ages of ages they will praise Thee (Ps. 83:5).