[1642] John vii. 6, 7.
[1643] Jer. xvii. 16.
[1644] John viii. 56.
[1645] John vii. 34.
[1646] John vii. 28.
[1647] John vii. 28.
[1648] Luke x. 20.
[1649] Se esse principium quod et loqueretur eis, as the rendering of the ten archen ho ti kai lalo humin in John viii. 25.
[1650] Matt. v. 14, 15.
[1651] John v. 35.
[1652] John i. 16.
[1653] John viii. 36.
[1654] John x. 24.
[1655] John x. 30.
[1656] John xi. 25, 26.
[1657] John xii. 1-9; Matt. xxvi. 6-13; Mark xiv. 3-9.
[1658] John xii. 20-50.
[1659] John xiv. 9.
[1660] John xviii. 36, 37.
[1661] The text gives vitans. Many mss. and editions read visitans =coming to Mary.
[1662] John xx. 17.
[1663] John xx. 22.
[1664] John xxi. 23.
[1665] Some mss. insert secretam = secret.
[1666] Reading, lucem liquidissimam verbi sublimiter. But various mss. and editions give verbi sublimitate fertur, etc. = borne aloft in the sublimity of the word into the most liquid light.
[1667] 1 Cor. xiii. 12.
[1668] Col. iii. 4.
[1669] 2 Cor. v. 6, 7.
[1670] John xvi. 13.
[1671] Rom. viii. 10, 11.
[1672] Wisd. of Sol. ix. 13.
[1673] Ecclus. xxiv. 3.
[1674] Contemperata = attempered to.
[1675] 1 Cor. xiii. 12, 9, 10.
[1676] 1 Cor. xii. 8.
[1677] Rom. xiv. 6.
[1678] 2 Cor. xii. 2-4.
[1679] 2 Cor. v. 6.
[1680] John xiv. 21.
[1681] Ecclus. iii. 18.
[1682] John xiii. 5.
St. AUGUSTIN:
sermons on selected lessons of the new testament
translated by
the rev. r. g. macmullen, m.a.,
edited by
philip schaff, d.d.
advertisement.
------------------------
The Sermons of St. Augustin, besides their other excellencies, furnish a beautiful picture of perhaps the deepest and most powerful mind of the Western Church adapting itself to the little ones of Christ. In them, he who has furnished the mould for all the most thoughtful minds for fourteen hundred years, is seen forming with loving tenderness the babes in Christ. Very touching is the child-like simplicity, with which he gradually leads them through what to them were difficulties, watching all the while whether he made himself clear to them, keeping up their attention, pleased at their understanding, dreading their approbation, and leading them off from himself to some practical result. Very touching the tenderness with which he at times reproves, the allowance which he makes for human infirmities and for those in secular life, if they will not make their infirmities their boast, or in allowed duties and indulgences forget God. But his very simplicity precludes the necessity of any preface. His Sermons explain themselves. They appear from a passage in the Commentary on the Psalms to have been often taken down in writing at the time by the more attentive sort of hearers (as were those of St. Chrysostom); Possidius states that this was done from the commencement of his presbyterate, and that "thence [1683] through the body of Africa, excellent doctrine and the most sweet savour of Christ was diffused and made manifest, the Church of God beyond seas, when it heard thereof, partaking of the joy." Those on the New Testament have been now selected, both as furnishing a comment, and as a gradual introduction to what is found in a larger measure elsewhere, the spiritual interpretation of Holy Scripture. It will doubtless seem strange to some at first sight that the spiritual meaning of numbers, for instance, should be made a part of religious instruction. And yet, it might not require any great diffidence to think that St. Augustin knew better than any of us, the tendency and effects of his mode of teaching upon minds, which he evidently treated with such tender care, and that they who have entered into that system can estimate its value better than they who have not. It will appear also, probably, that a system which sees a meaning everywhere in Holy Scripture is more reverential than one which overlooks it; as, on the other hand, as a fact, the anti-mystical interpretation has both in ancient and modern times stood connected with a cold rationalism, and with heresy. This is, however, a large subject, upon which this does not seem the place to enter, since such interpretations are here only incidental and subordinate, and it is here intended only to give a practical warning. Those who close their eyes, of course, never see. The eye also requires to be insensibly familiarized with what, as new, is strange to it. But whoever will not set himself against what is in fact the received mode of interpretation of the Church, will be insensibly won by it, and will have his reward. The interpretations of St. Augustin were, as he himself often says, sought by his own prayers and the prayers of his people, and will, to those who receive them, open a rich variety of meaning and instruction. One might instance, of the most solemn sort, the analogy of the three dead, whom our Lord raised, with the three stages of sin, consent, act, and habit, as an affecting and impressive specimen of this mode of instruction, which has been adopted, in a manner, by the spiritual perception of the Western Church.
On his directly practical teaching, it will be borne in mind, that to him the Church is mainly indebted for the overthrow of Pelagianism, and the vindication of the doctrine of the free grace of God. When then he insists, as he does so frequently, on the value of good works and especially almsgiving, to which he seems to recur with such especial sympathy, it will not be hastily thought that so deep and consistent a thinker, and so imbued with Divine truth, was at variance with himself and with it, and we may in his teaching gain more constraining motives to encourage ourselves and others, if so one great stain of our times, the neglect of Christ's poor, may be mitigated or effaced. On the other hand, when he speaks of heresy, he speaks of what he had himself been; of the nothingness of this world's pleasures and applause, of what he had himself, when unbaptized, too miserably tasted; of Christ's power to save out of them, what he had himself felt; of the grace of God, what he had himself used; of the value of alms, as having himself given up what was his; [1684] of humility, as showing it in the very language in which he praises it; of the joys of Heaven, and the love of God, as that for which he had abandoned freely and for ever all on earth, for which he was daily labouring, enduring, sighing.
It remains to say, that the text used is that of the Benedictines, in which their large resources in mss. have been so excellently employed, and that the Editors are indebted for the translation to the Rev. R. G. Macmullen, M.A., Fellow of Corpus Christi College.
E. B. Pusey.
Christ Church, Oxford, Feast of St. Barnabas, 1844.
[1683] Vit. c. 7.
[1684] This he did immediately on his conversion. Possidius says, "He made no will, because as a poor man of God (pauper Dei) he had nothing whereof to make one" (c. ult.). The poor, Possidius calls his "compauperes," of whom he says "he was ever mindful, and supplied them out of the same sources as himself and all who lived with him [his clergy under monastic rule],--out of the returns of the possessions of the Church, or the oblations of the faithful" (c. 23). Possidius speaks (c. 4), how the report of "the continency and deep poverty of his monastery" won those separated from the Church.
sermons on selected lessons of the new testament.
------------------------
Sermon I.
[LI. Benedictine Edition.]
Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations of the Lord.
1. May He, beloved, fulfil your expectation who hath awakened it: for though I feel confident that what I have to say is not my own, but God's, yet with far more reason do I say, what the Apostle in his humility saith, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." [1685] I do not doubt accordingly that you remember my promise; in Him I made it through whom I now fulfil it, for both when I made the promise, did I ask of the Lord, and now when I fulfil it, do I receive of Him. Now you will remember, beloved, that it was in the matins of the festival of the Lord's Nativity, that I put off the question which I had proposed for resolution, because many came with us to the celebration of the accustomed solemnities of that day to whom the word of God is usually burdensome; but now I imagine that none have come here, but they who desire to hear, and so I am not speaking to hearts that are deaf, and to minds that will disdain the word, but this your longing expectation is a prayer for me. There is a further consideration; for the day of the public shows [1686] has dispersed many from hence, for whose salvation I exhort you to share my great anxiety, and do you with all earnestness of mind, entreat God for those who are not yet intent upon the spectacles of the truth, but are wholly given up to the spectacles of the flesh; for I know and am well assured, that there are now among you those who have this day despised them, and have burst the bonds of their inveterate habits; for men are changed both for the better and the worse. By daily instances of this kind are we alternately made joyful and sad; we joy over the reformed, are sad over the corrupted; and therefore the Lord doth not say that he who beginneth, shall be saved, "But he that endureth unto the end shall be saved." [1687]
2. Now what more marvellous, what more magnificent thing could our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and also the Son of man (for this also He vouchsafed to be), grant to us, than the gathering into His fold not only of the spectators of these foolish shows, but even some of the actors in them; for He hath combated [1688] unto salvation not only the lovers of the combats of men with beasts, but even the combatants themselves, for He also was made a spectacle Himself. Hear how. He hath told us Himself, and foretold it before He was made a spectacle, and in the words of prophecy announced beforehand what was to come to pass, as if it were already done, saying in the Psalms, "They pierced My hands and My feet, they told all My bones." [1689] Lo! how He was made a spectacle, for His bones to be told! and this spectacle He expresseth more plainly, "they observed and looked upon Me." He was made a spectacle and an object of derision, made a spectacle by them who were to show Him no favour indeed in that spectacle, but who were to be furious against Him, just as at first He made His martyrs spectacles; as saith the Apostle, "We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men." [1690] Now two sorts of men are spectators of such spectacles; the one, carnal, the other, spiritual men. The carnal look on, as thinking those martyrs who are thrown to the beasts, or beheaded, or burnt in the flames, to be wretched men, and they detest and abhor them; but others look on, like the holy Angels, not regarding the laceration of their bodies, but admiring the unimpaired purity of their faith. A grand spectacle to the eyes of the heart doth a whole mind in a mangled body exhibit! When these things are read of in the church, you behold them with pleasure with these eyes of the heart, for if you were to behold nothing, you would hear nothing; so you see you have not neglected the spectacles to-day, but have made a choice of spectacles. May God then be with you, and give you grace with gentle persuasiveness to report your spectacles to your friends, whom you have been pained to see this day running to the amphitheatre, and unwilling to come to the church; that so they too may begin to contemn those things, by the love of which themselves have become contemptible, and may, with you, love God, of whom none who love Him can ever be ashamed, for that they love Him who cannot be overcome: let them, as you do, love Christ, who by that very thing wherein He seemed to be overcome, overcame the whole world. For He hath overcome the whole world as we see, my brethren; He hath subjected all powers, He hath subjugated kings, not with the pride of soldiery, but by the ignominy of the Cross: not by the fury of the sword, but by hanging on the Wood, by suffering in the body, by working in the Spirit. [1691] His body was lifted up on the Cross, and so He subdued souls to the Cross; and now what jewel in their diadem is more precious than the Cross of Christ on the foreheads of kings? In loving Him you will never be ashamed. Whereas from the amphitheatre how many return conquered, because those are conquered, for whom they are so madly interested! still more would they be conquered were they to conquer. For so would they be enslaved to the vain joy, to the exultation of a depraved desire, who are conquered by the very circumstance of running to these shows. For how many, my brethren, do you think have this day been in hesitation whether they would go here or there? And they who in this hesitation, turning their thoughts to Christ, have run to the church, have overcome, not any man, but the devil himself, him that hunteth [1692] after the souls of the whole world. But they who in that hesitation have chosen rather to run to the amphitheatre, have assuredly been overcome by him whom the others overcame--overcame in Him who saith, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." [1693] For the Captain suffered Himself to be tried, only that He might teach His soldiers to fight.