9. Our Lord Jesus Christ, then, ascending into heaven on the fortieth day, did for this reason commend to us His Body where it would continue to lie, because He saw that many would honor Him for that He is ascended into heaven: and saw that their honoring Him is useless if they trample upon His members here on earth. And lest any one should err, and, while he adored the Head in heaven should trample upon the feet on earth, He told us where would be His members. For being about to ascend, He spake His last words on earth: after those same words He spake no more on earth. The Head about to ascend into heaven commended to us His members on earth and departed. Thenceforth thou findest not Christ speaking on earth; thou findest Him speaking, but from heaven. And even from heaven, why? Because His members on earth were trodden upon. For to the persecutor Saul He said from on high, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" [2532] I am ascended into heaven, but still I lie on earth: here I sit at the right hand of the Father, but there I yet hunger, thirst, and am a stranger. In what manner then did He commend to us His Body, when about to ascend into heaven? When the disciples asked Him, saying, "Lord, wilt thou at this time present [2533] thyself, and when shall be the kingdom of Israel?" [2534] He made answer, now at the point to depart, "It is not for you to know the time which the Father hath put in His own power: but ye shall receive strength of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and ye shall be witnesses to me." See where His Body is spread abroad, see where He will not be trodden upon: "Ye shall be witnesses to me, unto Jerusalem, and unto Judea, and even unto all the earth." Lo, where I lie that am ascending! For I ascend, because I am the Head: my Body lies yet beneath. Where lies? Throughout the whole earth. Beware thou strike not, beware thou hurt not, beware thou trample not: these be the last words of Christ about to go into heaven. Look at a sick man languishing on his bed, lying in his house, and worn out with sickness, at death's door, his soul as it were even now between his teeth: who, anxious, it may be, about something that is dear to him, which he greatly loves, and it comes into his mind, calls his heirs, and says to them, I pray you, do this. He, as it were, detains his soul by a violent effort, that it may not depart ere those words be made sure. When he has dictated those last words, he breathes out his soul, he is borne a corpse to the sepulchre. His heirs, how do they remember the last words of the dying man? How, if one should stand up and say to them, Do it not: what would they say? "What? shall I not do that which my father, in the act of breathing out his soul, commanded me with his last breath, the last word of his that sounded in my ears when my father was departing this life? Whatever other words of his I may not regard, his last have a stronger hold upon me: since which I never saw him more, never more heard speech of his." Brethren, think with Christian hearts; if to the heirs of a man, his words spoken when about to go to the tomb are so sweet, so grateful, so weighty, what must we account of the last words of Christ, spoken not when about to go back to the tomb, but to ascend into heaven! As for the man who lived and is dead, his soul is hurried off to other places, his body is laid in the earth, and whether these words of his be done or not, makes no difference to him: he has now something else to do, or something else to suffer: either in Abraham's bosom he rejoices, or in eternal fire he longs for a drop of water, while his corpse lies there senseless in the sepulchre; and yet the last words of the dying man are kept. What have those to look for, who keep not the last words of Him that sitteth in heaven, who seeth from on high whether they be despised or not despised? The words of Him, who said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" who keeps account, unto the judgment, of all that He seeth His members suffer?
10. And what have we done, say they? We are the persecuted, not the persecutors. Ye are the persecutors, O wretched men. In the first place, in that ye have divided the Church. Mightier the sword of the tongue than the sword of steel. Agar, Sarah's maid, was proud, and she was afflicted by her mistress for her pride. That was discipline, not punishment. [2535] Accordingly, when she had gone away from her mistress, what said the angel to her? "Return to thy mistress." [2536] Then, O carnal soul, like a proud bond-woman, suppose thou have suffered any trouble for discipline' sake, why ravest thou? "Return to thy mistress," hold fast the peace of the Church. [2537] Lo, the gospels are pro duced, we read where the Church is spread abroad: men dispute against us, and say to us, "Betrayers!" [2538] Betrayers of what? Christ commendeth to us His Church, and thou believest not: shall I believe thee, when thou revilest my parents? Wouldest thou that I should believe thee about the "betrayers"? Do thou first believe Christ. What is worth believing? Christ is God, thou art man: which ought to be believed first? Christ has spread His Church abroad over all the earth: I say it--despise me: the gospel speaks--beware. What saith the gospel? "It behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name." [2539] Where remission of sins, there the Church is. How the Church? Why, to her it was said, "To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." [2540] Where is this remission of sins spread abroad? "Through all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." Lo, believe Christ! But, because thou art well aware that if thou shalt believe Christ, thou wilt not have anything to say about "betrayers," thou wilt needs have me to believe thee when thou speakest evil against my parents, rather than thyself believe what Christ foretold!
* * * * * * * *
[The remainder of the Homily is wanting in all the manuscripts. It seems also that St. Augustin was hindered from completing the exposition of the entire epistle, as he had undertaken to do: at least Possidius specifies this work under the title, "In Epist. Joannis ad Parthos Tractatus decem," and it is scarcely likely that the whole of the fifth chapter was expounded in this tenth Homily.--Of the "Sermons," there are none upon the remaining part of this epistle: the following extracts from other works of St. Augustin will supply what will be most desiderated: namely, his exposition of the text on "the Three Witnesses," of "the sin unto death," and of the twentieth verse].
[2486] 1 John iv. 20, 21.
[2487] 1 John v. i.
[2488] Gal. v. 6.
[2489] John xiv. 6.
[2490] James ii. 19.
[2491] Matt. viii. 29; Mark i. 24.
[2492] Matt. xvi. 13-18.
[2493] Gal. v. 6.
[2494] 1 John iv. 2.
[2495] 1 Cor. xii. 26, 27.
[2496] 1 John iv. 20.
[2497] Acts ix. 4.
[2498] John xiii. 34.
[2499] Delectationes, LXX. adoleschias. Vulg. fabulationes.
[2500] Ps. cxix. 85.
[2501] John xiii. 34.
[2502] Gal. vi. 2.
[2503] Consummationis. Ps. cxix. 96.
[2504] 1 Tim. i. 5.
[2505] Enarr. in Ps. iv. 1, etc.
[2506] Rom. xiii. 10.
[2507] Ps. lxxiii. 28.
[2508] Ps. xxxiv. 2.
[2509] Ps. lvi. 10. (Enarr. in v. 4, sec. 7.)
[2510] Ps. lvi. 11.
[2511] Supra.
[2512] 1 John iii. 2.
[2513] Supra.
[2514] Ps. cxix. 96.
[2515] 2 Cor. vi. 11, 12.
[2516] Ps. xiii. 3.
[2517] Ps. cxix. 85.
[2518] 1 John iv. 3.
[2519] Matt. xxii. 37-40.
[2520] Dilige.
[2521] Amor.
[2522] Amor ipsius dilectionis.
[2523] Ps. x. 3.
[2524] Litigat.
[2525] Venam, supra.
[2526] John i. 14.
[2527] Luke xxiv. 46.
[2528] Luke xxiv. 47.
[2529] Credis in Bened.
[2530] Susum.
[2531] Jusum.
[2532] Acts ix. 4.
[2533] Præsentaberis, Supra.
[2534] Acts i. 6-8.
[2535] Supra.
[2536] Gen. xvi. 4-9.
[2537] Dominicam pacem.
[2538] Traditores.
[2539] Luke xxiv. 47.
[2540] Matt. xvi. 19.
Contra Maximinum, lib. ii. c. 22 §. 3.
1 Joann. v. 7, 8. Tres sunt testes; spiritus, et aqua, et sanguis; et tres unum sunt. [2541]
I would not have thee mistake that place in the epistle of John the apostle where he saith, "There are three witnesses: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and the three are one." Lest haply thou say that the Spirit and the water and the blood are diverse substances, and yet it is said, "the three are one:" for this cause I have admonished thee, that thou mistake not the matter. For these are mystical expressions, [2542] in which the point always to be considered is, not what the actual things are, but what they denote as signs: since they are signs of things, and what they are in their essence is one thing, what they are in their signification another. If then we understand the things signified, we do find these things to be of one substance. Thus, if we should say, the rock and the water are one, meaning by the Rock, Christ; by the water, the Holy Ghost: who doubts that rock and water are two different substances? yet because Christ and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same nature, therefore when one says, the rock and the water are one, this can be rightly taken in this behalf, that these two things of which the nature is diverse, are signs of other things of which the nature is one. Three things then we know to have issued from the Body of the Lord when He hung upon the tree: first, the spirit: of which it is written, "And He bowed the head and gave up the spirit:" [2543] then, as His side was pierced by the spear, "blood and water." Which three things if we look at as they are in themselves, they are in substance several and distinct, and therefore they are not one. But if we will inquire into the things signified by these, there not unreasonably comes into our thoughts the Trinity itself, which is the One, Only, True, Supreme God, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, of whom it could most truly be said, "There are Three Witnesses, and the Three are One:" so that by the term Spirit we should understand God the Father to be signified; as indeed it was concerning the worshipping of Him that the Lord was speaking, when He said, "God is a Spirit:" [2544] by the term, blood, the Son; because "the Word was made flesh:" [2545] and by the term water, the Holy Ghost; as, when Jesus spake of the water which He would give to them that thirst, the evangelist saith, "But this said He of the Spirit which they that believed on Him were to receive." [2546] Moreover, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are "Witnesses," who that believes the Gospel can doubt, when the Son saith, "I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me, He beareth witness of me." [2547] Where, though the Holy Ghost is not men tioned, yet He is not to be thought separated from them. Howbeit neither concerning the Spirit hath He kept silence elsewhere, and that He too is a witness hath been sufficiently and openly shown. For in promising Him He said, "He shall bear witness of me." [2548] These are the "Three Witnesses," and the Three are One, because of one substance. But whereas, the signs by which they were signified came forth from the Body of the Lord, herein they figured the Church preaching the Trinity, that it hath one and the same nature: since these Three in threefold manner signified are One, and the Church that preacheth them is the Body of Christ. In this manner then the three things by which they are signified came out from the Body of the Lord: like as from the Body of the Lord sounded forth the command to "baptize the nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." [2549] "In the name:" not, In the names: for "these Three are One," and One God is these Three. And if in any other way this depth of mystery which we read in John's epistle can be expounded and understood agreeably with the Catholic faith, which neither confounds nor divides the Trinity, neither believes the substances diverse nor denies that the persons are three, it is on no account to be rejected. For whenever in Holy Scriptures in order to exercise the minds of the faithful any thing is put darkly, it is to be joyfully welcomed if it can be in many ways but not unwisely expounded.