12. If, then, the flesh laid down its life, how did Christ lay down His life? For the flesh is not Christ. Certainly in this way, that Christ is both flesh, and soul, and the Word; and yet these three things are not three Christs, but one. Ask thine own human nature, and from thyself ascend to what is above thee, and which, if not yet able to be understood, can at least be believed. For in the same way that one man is soul and body, is one Christ both the Word and man. Consider what I have said, and understand. The soul and body are two things, but one man: the Word and man are two things, but one Christ. Apply, then, the subject to any man. Where is now the Apostle Paul? If one answer, At rest with Christ, he speaks truly. And likewise, should one reply, In the sepulchre at Rome, he is equally right. The one answer I get refers to his soul, the other to his flesh. And yet we do not say that there are two Apostle Pauls, one who rests in Christ, another who was laid in the sepulchre; although we may say that the Apostle Paul liveth in Christ, and that the same apostle lieth dead in the tomb. Some one dieth, and we say, He was a good man, and faithful; he is in peace with the Lord: and then immediately, Let us attend his obsequies, and lay him in the sepulchre. Thou art about to bury one whom thou hadst just declared to be in peace with God; for the latter regards the soul which blooms eternally, and the other the body, which is laid down in corruption. But while the partnership of the flesh and soul has received the name of man, the same name is now applied to either of them, singly and by itself.
13. Let no one, then, be perplexed, when he hears that the Lord has said, "I lay down my life, and I take it again." The flesh layeth it down, but by the power of the Word: the flesh taketh it again, but by the same power. Even His own name, the Lord Christ, was applied to His flesh alone. How can you prove it? says some one. We believe of a certainty not only in God the Father, but also in Jesus Christ His Son, our only Lord: and this that I have just said contains the whole, in Jesus Christ His Son, our only Lord. Understand that the whole is here: the Word, and soul, and flesh. At all events thou confessest what is also held by the same faith, that thou believest in that Christ who was crucified and buried. Ergo, thou deniest not that Christ was buried; and yet it was the burial only of His flesh. For had the soul been there, He would not have been dead: but if it was a true death, and its resurrection real, it was previously without life in the tomb; and yet it was Christ that was buried. And so the flesh apart from the soul was also Christ, for it was only the flesh that was buried. Learn the same likewise in the words of an apostle. "Let this mind," he says, "be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." Who, save Christ Jesus, as respects His nature as the Word, is God with God? But look at what follows: "But emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant; being made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man." And who is this, but the same Christ Jesus Himself? But here we have now all the parts, both the Word in that form of God which assumed the form of a servant, and the soul and the flesh in that form of a servant which was assumed by the form of God. "He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death." [934] Now in His death, it was His flesh only that was slain by the Jews. For if He said to His disciples, "Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul," [935] how could they do more in His own case than kill the body? And yet in the slaying of His flesh, it was Christ that was slain. Accordingly, when the flesh laid down its life, Christ laid it down; and when the flesh, in order to its resurrection, assumed its life, Christ assumed it. Nevertheless this was done, not by the power of the flesh, but of Him who assumed both soul and flesh, that in them these very things might receive fulfillment.
14. "This commandment," He says, "have I received of my Father." The Word received not the commandment in word, but in the only begotten Word of the Father every commandment resides. But when the Son is said to receive of the Father what He possesses essentially in Himself, as it is said, "As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself," [936] while the Son is Himself the life, there is no lessening of His authority, but the setting forth of His generation. For the Father added not after-gifts as to a son whose state was imperfect at birth, but on Him whom He begat in absolute perfection He bestowed all gifts in begetting. In this manner He gave Him equality with Himself, and yet begat Him not in a state of inequality. But while the Lord thus spake, for the light was shining in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not, [937] "there was a dissension again created among the Jews for these sayings, and many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad: why hear ye him?" This was the thickest darkness. Others said, "These are not the words of him that hath a devil; can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" The eyes of such were now begun to be opened.
[903] Ps. cxvi. 15.
[904] Chap. xv. 5.
[905] 1 John iii. 16.
[906] Prov. xxiii. 1, 2, according to the Septuagint, whose reading of verse 2 must have been somewhat different from that of the present Hebrew text, with which our English version pretty closely agrees: "And thou shalt put a knife to thy throat, if thou art a man of appetite" (or perhaps, "if thou hast control over thy appetite," 'mbl nphs 'th). So somewhat similarly the Vulgate, which makes the last clause, "if thou hast power over thy life."--Tr.
[907] This clause, "for the edification," etc., is wanting in many of the mss.
[908] Chap. xxi. 15-19.
[909] Chap. i. 18.
[910] Matt. xi. 27.
[911] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[912] 1 Cor. i. 12, 13.
[913] Matt. xv. 24.
[914] Of Christ's footprints on Mount Olivet, impressed on the ground, there is mention made in the works of Jerome, in the book on "Hebrew places," and in Bede, in the names of places in the Acts of the Apostles; as likewise in the sacred history of Sulpitius Severus, Book ii.--Migne. The text is somewhat uncertain, but indicates the existence of "holy places" in Augustin's day, and certain acts of worship performed in their honor.--Tr.
[915] 2 Cor. xiii. 3.
[916] Eph. ii. 11-22.
[917] Per proprietatum.
[918] Chap. i. 1, 14.
[919] Migne says that "there is, perhaps, in this passage something either superfluous or lacking." But there does not seem any real cause for such a supposition.--Tr.
[920] Chap. xviii. 4-6.
[921] Ps. iii. 5. It need scarcely be said that this psalm cannot bear the Messianic interpretation attached to it by Augustin, any more than Prov. xxiii. 1, 2, similarly applied in Sec. 2 of this lecture; and frequently elsewhere. But the accommodation at the will of the writer of all Old Testament Scripture equally to such a purpose was characteristic of the age.--Tr.
[922] Chap. ii. 19, 21.
[923] Wisd. i. 11.
[924] Matt. x. 28, and Luke xii. 4, 5.
[925] 1 Tim. v. 6.
[926] The word anima, according to Augustin's explanation of it above, may be rendered in these sections either "soul" or "life." The original also is psuche.--Tr.
[927] From Apollinaris, bishop of Alexandria, who held that the body which Christ assumed had only a sensitive, and not a rational soul, and that His divine nature supplied the place of the latter. His doctrines were condemned by the Council of Alexandria, A.D. 362, and he himself was deposed by the Council of Rome, A.D. 378.--Tr.
[928] Sine deo: which, however, is wanting in all the mss.
[929] Chap. i. 1, 14.
[930] Luke xxiii. 43.
[931] 1 John iii. 16.
[932] Chap. xiii. 37.
[933] Chap. xix. 28-30.
[934] Phil. ii. 6-8.
[935] Matt. x. 28.
[936] John v. 26.
[937] Chap. i. 5.
Tractate XLVIII.