Tractates on the Gospel of John — Source paragraphs and footnotes

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

1. The Lord had said above to His disciples, “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not Him that sent me.” And if we inquire of whom He so spake, we find that He was led on to these words from what He had said before, “If the world hate you, know ye that it hated me before [it hated] you;” and now in adding, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin,” He more expressly pointed to the Jews. Of them, therefore, He also uttered the words that precede, for so does the context itself imply. For it is of the same parties that He said, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin;” of whom He also said, “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also; but all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not Him that sent me;” for it is to these words that He also subjoins the following: “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin.” The Jews, therefore, persecuted Christ, as the Gospel very clearly indicates, and Christ spake to the Jews, not to other nations; and it is they, therefore, that He meant to be understood by the world, that hateth Christ and His disciples; and, indeed, not those alone, but even these latter were shown by Him to belong to the same world. What, then, does He mean by the words, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin”? Was it that the Jews were without sin before Christ came to them in the flesh? Who, though he were the greatest fool, would say so? But it is

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 89, source paragraph 3 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

ments are unsearchable, or whether it would, and that, if not for their entire deliverance from damnation, at least for its partial alleviation.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 89, source paragraph 8 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

5. “He that hateth me,” He says, “hateth my Father also.” Here it may be said to us, Who can hate one whom he knows not? And certainly before saying, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin,” He had said to His disciples, “These things will they do unto you, because they know not Him that sent me.” How, then, do they both know not, and hate? For if the notion they have formed of Him is not that which He is in Himself, but some unknown conjecture of their own, then certainly it is not Himself they are found to hate, but that figment which they devise or rather suspect in their error. And yet, were it not that men could hate that which they know not, the Truth would not have asserted both, namely, that they both know not, and hate His Father. But such a possibility, if by the Lord’s help we are able to show it, cannot be demonstrated at present, as this discourse must now be brought to a close.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 89, source paragraph 9 · Original source