Tractates on the Gospel of John — Source paragraphs and footnotes

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

1. It ought not to be a matter of wonder that a miracle was wrought by God; the wonder would be if man had wrought it. Rather ought we to rejoice than wonder that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was made man, than that He performed divine works among men. It is of greater importance to our salvation what He was made for men, than what He did among men: it is more important that He healed the faults of souls, than that He healed the weaknesses of mortal bodies. But as the soul knew not Him by whom it was to be healed, and had eyes in the flesh whereby to see corporeal deeds, but had not yet sound eyes in the heart with which to recognise Him as God concealed in the flesh, He wrought what the soul was able to see, in order to heal that by which it was not able to see.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 3 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

He entered a place where lay a great multitude of sick folk—of blind, lame, withered; and being the physician both of souls and bodies, and having come to heal all the souls of them that should believe, of those sick folk He chose one for healing, thereby to signify unity. If in doing this we regard Him with a commonplace mind, with the mere human understanding and wit, as regards power it was not a great matter that He performed; and also as regards goodness He performed too little. There lay so many there, and yet only one was healed, whilst He could by a word have raised them all up. What, then, must we understand but that the power and the goodness was doing what souls might, by His deeds, understand for their everlasting salvation, than what bodies might gain for temporal health? For that which is the real health of bodies, and which is looked for from the Lord, will be at the end, in the resurrection of the dead. What shall live then shall no more die; what shall be healed shall no more be sick; what shall be satisfied shall no more hunger and thirst; what shall be made new shall not grow old. But at this time, however, the eyes of the blind, that were opened by those acts of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, were again closed in death; and limbs of the paralytics that received strength were loosened again in death; and whatever was for a time made whole in mortal limbs came to nought in the end: but the soul that believed passed to eternal life. Accordingly, to the soul that should believe, whose sins He had come to forgive, to the healing of whose ailments He had humbled Himself, He gave a significant proof by the healing of this impotent man. Of the profound mystery of this thing and this proof, so far as the Lord deigns to grant us, while you are attentive and aiding our weakness by prayer, I will speak as I shall have ability. And whatever I am not able to do, that will be supplied to you by Him by whose help I do what I can.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 4 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

been by the law.” Why, then, did the porches contain those whom they did not heal? Because “the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 6 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

5. The Lord Jesus Himself showed this also far more openly, when He companied on earth with His disciples during forty days after His resurrection; and having on the fortieth day ascended into heaven, did at the end of ten days send the wages, the Holy Ghost. These were done in signs, and by a kind of signs were the very realities anticipated. By significant tokens are we fed, that we may be able to come to the enduring realities. We are workmen, and are still laboring in the vineyard: when the day is ended and the work finished, the wages will be paid. But what workman can hold out to the receiving of the wages, unless he be fed while he labors? Even thou thyself wilt not give thy workman only wages; wilt thou not also bestow on him that where with he may repair his strength in his labor? Surely thou feedest him to

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 9 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

whom thou art to give wages. In like manner also doth the Lord, in those significant tokens of the Scriptures, feed us while we labor. For if that joy in understanding holy mysteries be withdrawn from us, we faint in labor, and there will be none to come to the reward.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 10 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

6. How, then, is work perfected in the number forty? The reason, it may be, is, because the law was given in ten precepts, and was to be preached throughout the whole world: which whole world, we are to mark, is made up of four quarters, east and west, south and north, whence the number ten, multiplied by four, comes to forty. Or, it may be, because the law is fulfilled by the gospel, which has four books: for in the gospel it is said, “I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.” Whether, then, it be for this reason or for that, or for some other more probable, which is hid from us, but not from more learned men; certain it is, however, that in the number forty a certain perfection in good works is signified, which good works are most of all practised by a kind of abstinence from unlawful lusts of the world, that is, by fasting in the general sense.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 11 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

8. How, then, do we find the two precepts of love indicated in these two commands of the Lord? “Take up thy bed,” saith He, “and walk.” What the two precepts are, my

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 14 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

10. The man did this, and the Jews were offended. For they saw a man carrying his bed on the Sabbath-day, and they did not blame the Lord for healing him on the Sabbath, that He should be able to answer them, that if any of them had a beast fallen into a well, he would surely draw it out on the Sabbath-day, and save his beast; and so, now they did not object to Him that a man was made whole on the Sabbath-day, but that the man was carrying his bed. But if the healing was not to be deferred, should a work also have been commanded? “It is not lawful for thee,” say they, to do what thou art doing, “to take up thy bed.” And he, in defence, put the author of his healing before his censors, saying, “He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 17 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

walk.” Should I not take injunction from him from whom I received healing? And they said, “Who is the man that said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk?”

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 18 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

11. “But he that was made whole knew not who it was” that had said this to him. “For Jesus,” when He had done this, and given him this order, “turned away from him in the crowd.” See how this also is fulfilled. We bear our neighbor, and walk towards God; but Him, to whom we are walking, we do not yet see: for that reason also, that man did not yet know Jesus. The mystery herein intimated to us is, that we believe on Him whom we do not yet see; and that He may not be seen, He turns aside in the crowd. It is difficult in a crowd to see Christ: a certain solitude is necessary for our mind; it is by a certain solitude of contemplation that God is seen. A crowd has noise; this seeing requires secrecy. “Take up thy bed”—being thyself borne, bear thy neighbor; “and walk,” that thou mayest come to the goal. Do not seek Christ in a crowd: He is not as one of a crowd; He excels all crowd. That great fish first ascended from the sea, and He sits in heaven making intercession for us: as the great high priest He entered alone into that within the veil; the crowd stands without. Do thou walk, bearing thy neighbor: if thou hast learned to bear, thou, who wast wont to be borne. In a word, even now as yet thou knowest not Jesus, not yet seest Jesus: what follows thereafter? Since that man desisted not from taking up his bed and walking, “Jesus seeth him afterwards in the temple.” He did not see Jesus in the crowd, he saw Him in the temple. The Lord Jesus, indeed, saw him both in the crowd and in the temple; but the impotent man does not know Jesus in the crowd, but he knows Him in the temple. The man came then to the Lord: saw Him in the temple, saw Him in a consecrated, saw Him in a holy place. And what does the Lord say to him? “Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest some worse thing befall thee.”

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 19 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

12. The man, then, after he saw Jesus, and knew Him to be the author of his healing, was not slothful in preaching Him whom he had seen: “He departed, and told the Jews that it was Jesus that had made him whole.” He brought them word, and they were mad against him; he preached his own salvation, they sought not their own salvation.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 20 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

13. The Jews persecuted the Lord Jesus because He did these things on the Sabbath-day. Let us hear what answer the Lord now made to the Jews. I have told you how He is wont to answer concerning the healing of men on the Sabbath-day, that they used not on the Sabbath-day to slight their cattle, either in delivering or in feeding them. What does He answer concerning the carrying of the bed? A manifest corporal work was done before the eyes of the Jews; not a healing of the body, but a bodily work, which appeared not so necessary as the healing. Let the Lord, then, openly declare that the sacrament of the Sabbath, even the sign of keeping one day, was given to the Jews for a time, but that the fulfillment of the sacrament had come in Himself. “My Father,” saith He, “worketh hitherto, and I work.” He sent a great commotion among them: the water is troubled by the coming of the Lord, but yet He that troubles is not seen. Yet one great sick one is to be healed by the troubled water, the whole world by the death of the Lord.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 21 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

14. Let us see, then, the answer made by the Truth: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” Is it false, then, which the Scripture has said, that “God rested from all His works on the seventh day”? And does the Lord Jesus speak contrary to this Scripture ministered by Moses, whilst He Himself says to the Jews, “If ye believed Moses, ye would believe me; for He wrote of me”? See, then, whether Moses did not mean it to be significant of something that “God rested on the seventh day.” For God had not become wearied in doing the work of His own creation, and needed rest as a man. How can He have been wearied, who made by a word? Yet is both that true, that “God rested from His works on the seventh day;” and this also is true that Jesus saith, “My Father worketh hitherto.” But who can unfold it in words, man to men, weak to weak, unlearned to them that seek to learn; and if he chance to understand somewhat, unable to bring it forth and unfold it to men, who with difficulty, it may be, receive it, even if what is received can possibly be unfolded? Who, I say, my brethren, can unfold in words how God both works while at rest, and rests while working? I pray you to put this matter off while you are advancing on the way; for this seeing requires the temple of God, requires the holy place. Bear your neighbor, and walk. Ye shall see Him in that place where ye shall not require the words of men.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 22 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

15. Perhaps we can more appropriately say this, that in the saying, “God rested on the seventh day,” he signified by a great mystery the Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ Himself, who spoke and said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” For the Lord Jesus is, of course, God. For He is the Word of God, and you have heard that “in the begin

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 23 · Original source

Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo

ning was the Word;” and not any word whatsoever, but “the Word was God, and all things were made by Him.” He was perhaps signified as about to rest on the seventh day from all His works. For, read the Gospel, and see what great works Jesus wrought. He wrought our salvation on the cross, that all things foretold by the prophets might be fulfilled in Him. He was crowned with thorns; He hung on the tree; said, “I thirst,” received vinegar on a sponge, that it might be fulfilled which was said, “And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” And when all His works were completed, on the sixth day of the week, He bowed His head and gave up the ghost, and on the Sabbath-day He rested in the tomb from all His works. Therefore it is as if He said to the Jews, “Why do ye expect that I should not work on the Sabbath? The Sabbath-day was ordained for you for a sign of me. You observe the works of God: I was there when they were made, by me were they all made; I know them. ‘My Father worketh hitherto.’ The Father made the light, but He spoke that there should be light; if He spoke, it was by His Word He made it: His Word I was, I am; by me was the world made in those works, by me the world is ruled in these works. My Father worked when He made the world, and hitherto now worketh while He rules the world: therefore by me He made when He made, and by me He rules while He rules.” This He said, but to whom? To men deaf, blind, lame, impotent, not acknowledging the physician, and as if in a frenzy they had lost their wits, wishing to slay Him.

Complete source paragraph · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 17, source paragraph 24 · Original source