J{&V OF PRI/VC£^ :^tO(iir:i sEW^ BS2418.4 .T79 1886 Trench, Richard Chenevix, 1807-1886. Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, c firom the writings of Si. Aiiiiasline. with aj EXPOSITION OF THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT rni.VTED BY SrOTTI5^00nE AXD CO., NEW^TRKET SQUARE LONDON- EXPOSITION OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT DRAWN FROM THE ^^rifings of §{. Jlitgusfiuc WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON AUGUSTINE AS AN INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE BY EICHAEI) CHENEVIX TEENCH, D.D. ARCHBISHOP FOURTH EDITION, EE VISED LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1886 {The rights of translation and of reproductioyi are rcscrved'j PEEFACE THE FIRST EDITIOX. This volume is not, as a glance at any page will show, a translation of St. Augustine's Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, but an attempt to draw from the whole circle of liis writings (that one of course included), what of most valuable he has contributed for the elucidation, or for the turning to practical uses, of this portion of Holy Scripture. Yet I am conscious, from the very plan upon which the book is written, that it may be open to a charge, at least from an unfriendly critic, of something like presumption. It may be urged that there is in it a continual passing of judgment, — an allowing and a disallowing, — a selecting and a putting aside, — an approving and a condemning ; and this in regard of one whom the Church has ever and justly recognized among the very foremost and greatest of her teachers. A friend, to whom the manuscript, when nearly prepared for press, was shown, — and whose counsel and judgment that I am able so freely to profit by, is one of the chief happinesses of my life, — has warned me that it will hardly escape a charge of the kind. Yet I have not Vi PREFACE TO therefore been persuaded to alter my scheme, as indeed an attempt so to do could only have issued in a renouncing of the work altogether. For the plan which is now finding so much favour among us, of presenting in the mass, un- sifted and untried, the old expositions of Scripture, often placing side by side explanations which, in their minor details at least, exclude one another, and this with no at- tempt to judge or discriminate between them, — with no endeavour to separate the accident of one age, the super- fluous, it may be the injurious, excrescence from the eternal truth, which is of all and for all ages,— seems to me profitable for little, and not likely to lead us into any deeper or clearer and more intelligent knowledge of Scrip- ture. Moreover, when we confine ourselves merely to giving back the old, and this with well-nigh a suspension of all judgment about it, what is this but saying, that the productive powers of the Church have ceased ; that her power of educing from God's Word, by that Spirit which is ever with her, the truth in those forms wherein it will best meet our present needs, exists no longer; that henceforth the Scripture shall be for us a cistern, clear it may be, and full, but not any more a spring of water springing up as freshly and newly for our lips, as for the lips of any generation which has gone before ; and that as her productive, so also that her discriminative power is gone ; she may no longer discern that which is akin to, and will assimilate with, her true life, and claim that and that only for her own ? Neither seems there any genuine humility in foregoing or denying our advantages — they may be slight ones com- pared with those which other ages enjoyed— for entering into the meaning of God's Word ; but, if slight, therefore THE FIRST EDITION. Vll to be husbanded the more. And, not to speak of the accumulation of merely critical and external helps, some such advantages we plainly have. To deny this were to deny to the Church, — to her who, according to her truest idea, is ever teacher and ever taught, — that she has been learning anything in the eighteen hundred years of her troubled warfare with the evil within her and the evil without. Yet some things surely she has found out: some practices which promised well, which she anticipated would further piety, her own life and history have taught her do inevitably sooner or later run to seed, and hinder that holiness which they were meant to set forward ; that, tolerably safe in the hands of the earnest few, they are most unsafe when they descend, as by inevitable progress they must descend, to the more careless many. Some language which for a while she held, or did not at least absolutely exclude, she has now discovered not to be the most adequate expression of the doctrines which she has always held, and therefore she will use no longer ; and will disclaim, though she find it used by the most honoured of her teachers, even as she is sure that they would them- selves disclaim it now. Before the false teaching of Eutyches had compelled her clearly to represent to herself the relation of the two natures in Christ, it impeached no man's orthodoxy, though he spoke of our blessed Lord as God mingled with man ; but who that meant right would have used this language after ? Before the order of our justification had been brought out with that distinctness, wherewith a truth can be brought out only through an earnest contending for it against some that would obscure or deny it, men might put the first last, and speak of sins * expiated with alms,' or ' washed out with tears.' In such via PREFACE TO language we recognize a loss, as in all lack of distinctness there is such, but not a denial upon their parts who used this language then, that ' we are justified by faith only.' It would be quite another thing to seek to revive and re- turn to that language now. The consciousness, moreover, that we too, in our age, have our errors, — most of them, like some inner vest, worn so close, as to be invisible even, to ourselves, — that we, too, have our mistaken tendencies, our superstitions, our faulty statements of the truth, which we are handing down to the Church of a later age, for her slowly to discern, pain- fully to get rid of, — this, while it may well hinder that boastful self-exalting spirit, which is more fatal than any thing beside to a profiting by the past, yet must not hinder from a respectful using, even as regards our great forefathers in the faith themselves, whatsoever since their time the Church has won. Such a freedom they used to- ward one another, such they demanded should be used toward themselves ; and such we must use toward them, if we would obtain from their writings the large blessing which they are capable of yielding ; if these are to help to lead us into liberty, and not into bondage ; if they are to be indeed our riches, and not, under that name, in reality our poverty. For myself, who would not willingly for this little volume's sake be exposed to this charge of presumption, I can only say that it was begun in a thankful admiration, which has gone on ever increasing and deepening, for the infinite spiritual and intellectual riches which are contained in the writings of St. Augustine. All added acquaintance with these has more and more explained to me the mighty influence, the wondrous spell which he has exerted over THE FIRST EDITION. IX SO many among the strongest spirits of all ages, — the great purposes which God in his providence has made him to fulfil for his Church. For first, if one accurately regards the earlier theology of the Christian East, one is struck with this, that it was in the main a metaphysic of the Divine Being, a contem- plation of the Divine attributes and perfections. It was with these, most needful indeed to be fixed and to be first fixed, that the Church was mainly occupied for more than the three earlier centuries of her existence. But in Augustine the theology of the West, and of the modern world, — the theology which relates not merely to God, but to the God of men, — first came out into its full im- portance. St. Paul had now his rights no less than St. John. Theology was no longer the science of God merely or mainly as He is in Himself, but in his relation to us. It is not any more the objective knowledge of God which is all, but with this the subjective knowledge of God's image in man, that image defaced, and that image re- stored ; it is no longer predominantly a God revealing, but also a God communicating. Himself; — not Christ the God-man only, but Christ the Redeemer as well. And now, too, man first appears in his true worth and dignity. That which shows him to be nothing, shows him also to be much ; for in him all these counsels of grace centre ; round him these purposes of eternity revolve ; he appears as the meeting-place of two worlds ; the personal signifi- cance of every man comes out, and the free modern western world begins, — the germs of it at least are securely laid. And believing this, one cannot sufficiently admire the manner in which Augustine's appearance was timed ; for it was the last moment, at which living he could have X PREFACE TO shared the fulness of the culture of the ancient world ; for thenceforward that whole world was daily becoming more incoherent, and ever falling more rapidly into ruins. He in fact himself survived it in Italy : it hardly survived him a few months in Africa. At the same time he thus lived the nearest to, and in the most favourable position for influencing, that new world, in the forming and mould- ing of which he was so mightily to aid. How much he did form it, how far he ruled the Middle Ages, either in his own name, or by fashioning the men who in their turn ruled their generation, is known to every student of Church History. Nor is it hard to understand how this should have been : for the two great tendencies of those ages, the mystic and scholastic, are both lying, in much more than their first elements, side by side in his writings. There is in them, on the one hand, a rare dialectic skill, with the keenest delight in its exercise, and in all speculative inquiry ; a desire ever, where it is pos- sible, to justify to the reason what has first been received by faith, with a confidence that what was humbly received by the one would in due time commend itself to the other. Yet with all this there is borne by him a continual witness against the excesses of the dialectic and specula- tive tendencies : he evermore summons to a more excellent way of knowing, one not mediate, but intuitive and im- mediate, a knowing which is first a loving ; he evermore would have us remember that we shall sooner enter into the deepest mysteries of the faith by praying than dis- puting. Nor did his dominion end with the Middle Ages. On the contrary, that work for which we owe him the greatest thanks was yet to be accomplished. The Reformers felt THE FIRST EDITION. xi and found that he more than any other was their Doctor. The issue of their later controversy in the matter of justi- fication lay in fact wrapped up in the issue of his controversy with the Pelagians. This last being won, that was impli- citly won also, for it was only the same question at a later stage of development, the necessary carrying out of the truths which he then asserted. The contest concerning the extent of the corruption of human nature did most truly involve the question concerning the nature of the remedies which would be equal to meet that corruption, the conditions under which it was possible that the sick man could recover his health ; whether aught, in short, could be the remedy, except that faith which should place him in immediate relation with Christ, and thus be the channel whereby the uninterrupted streams of a healing life should flow into his soul. And in the Eoman Catholic Church itself, whensoever any of her children, a Baius or Jansenius, without being prepared absolutely to break with her, and to forsake her communion, have yet longed to adopt these doctrines of grace in all or nearly all their fulness, they have ever sheltered themselves under the authority of Augustine ; they have ever pleaded that they were only holding and teaching what he had held and taught long before. When we feel thus concerning him, — when we have this thankful recognition of the greatness of his work, which has extended through so many ages, which has in- delibly stamped itself on the very form of our Catechism and our Articles, — there can be little reason why we should shrink from expressing, with exactly the confidence we feel in the matter, any occasional dissent from the details of his Scriptural interpretation : above all when in this XU PREFACE TO matter also we know that after every drawback which the truth may require is made, our obligations to him, whether we regard scientific or popular exposition, the laws of in- terpretation, or the practical application of those laws, are probably larger than to any other single interpreter of God's Word. But because we owe to Augustine a debt of gratitude so large, shall we therefore count ourselves bound to aflSrm that, in his practical application of his principles, he is always true to his own laws ? or that he had himself the same external helps at command as an Origen or a Jerome ? or that his Latin Version or his Septuagint has not sometimes led him astray ? or that his exposition is not occasionally warped by, and submitted to the influence of, his dogmatic system ? or that his allegories and mys- tical numbers are worthy in every case to stand unques- tioned, and may now be profitably reproduced to edify all that come after him ? To demand this were to demand for him what he would not have demanded for himself ; what can be withheld without abating one jot of genuine reverence and honour, the more valuable because ren- dered not blindly, but with discrimination and with know- ledge. I will add a few words more upon the plan on which this book has been composed. It resembles, to compare a very small matter with a great, that of the Augustinus of Jansenius, a book familiar to many. His purpose, as is well known, in his celebrated work, was to bring all which Augustine had written on one great matter, under review at once, to set it in order, and to present it thus ordered and arranged, with a quotation of the most material passages, before the eyes of his readers. He implied not, in so doing, that Augustine's own works wanted the highest THE FIRST EDITION, xiii order and method ; that they were only as a rough quarry, from which others should dig and build. But the very circumstances of their production necessarily caused that what bears on any single subject should be scattered up and down in divers treatises, and that subject only to be fully discussed when these separated portions are united and brought together. For a large number of his polemical works will not be contemplated from a right point of view, till we see them as occasional tracts, drawn from him by the urgent necessities of the Church at the moment, in answer to the solicitation of friends, or the provocation of enemies ; and this, while the controversy was ever shifting its aspect, and each party was more and more feeling its ground, completing and harmonizing its system, discern- ing little by little the ultimate results to which that would lead. This is the especial value of his writings in more than one conflict wherein he is the standard-bearer of the Chm-ch, that they are not one great carefully digested work, reviewing calmly, and in part with a literary interest, a finished controversy ; not the history of a battle which the Church has fought and won, but themselves, so to speak, acts and exploits, often the decisive ones, in that battle. Yet while this is their value, it also leaves room for such a work as that with which the Bishop of Ypres so disturbed from his grave the Vatican, and all who wished to reconcile a professed veneration for the great Doctor of the West, with a real departure from the truths which he lived to maintain. This reconciliation, as I need hardly remind those acquainted with the subject, is one of the hardest tasks which the Church of Eome has found im- posed upon her; one which signally perplexed her at Trent ; which put her to her shiftiest world-wisdom then Xiv PREFACE TO as since, and one by the Augustlnus of Jansenius rendered far more difficult than ever. Now there is room for a conspectus of the same kind, in which should be marshalled and arranged all of most important which Augustine has contributed to the illus- tration of various portions of Scripture. It is seldom we find in one place all that he has written upon one subject ; and even though he should seem, when he returns to it, to be only repeating himself, his intellectual and spiritual resources are such that it rarely happens but that some further touch is added. Then too his convictions on some very important questions gradually underwent a change ; thus Kom. vii. 7-25 he explained differently in his earlier and in his later years. These changes can only be pro- fitably studied, when the passages which most distinctly mark them, are set side by side with one another. Take for example that portion of Scripture with which this volume has chiefly to do. His Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, written while he was still a presbyter, con- tains comparatively little of what he has contributed for the elucidation of this, the longest connected discourse of our Lord. Thus he dismisses the promise, ' For they shall see God ' (Matt. v. 8), in two or three lines, while yet this vision of Grod in other places occupied him greatly : he has dedicated a letter, so long, and in its kind so thorough, that it is often numbered among his treatises, to this single theme. The relation, again, of the new legisla- tion of Christ to the law of Moses, the right apprehension of which can alone give us a key to this Discourse, is very slightly touched on there, as compared with the full and masterly handling which it finds in his writings directed against the Manichaeans. Many other examples of the THE FIRST EDITION. ' XV kind might easily be adduced. It is in his SermonSy in his Letters, in his Exposition of the Psalms, in his con- troversial Tracts, that what he has most precious as bear- ing on the Sermon on the Mount is to be found ; from these it must be gathered together. It has been my en- deavour to concentrate these scattered rays. I cannot indeed hope that I have brought to bear all or nearly all in his writings which helps to the interpreta- tion of these Chapters, or is characteristic of him as their interpreter ; nor that I have made the happiest use of the materials which I had at command. Yet I can truly say that I have been continually embarrassed, not by the scantness, but by the abundance of my materials ; per- plexed how to work them up,— how, without exceeding the limits which I had set myself, not to leave out much of a deep interest. Often I have given only a single sentence, sometimes only a reference, when I would wilKngly have given a page : so that although the book is constructed throughout on the assumption that the reader will not have an Augustine at hand, or will not care to afford time for the following up the references, yet it also is arranged to yield much more to one who should be willing to under- take this labour. Here too another observation may be necessary. It is well known that the Benedictine editors of Augustine, on very slight evidence, often on no evidence at all save their own inward conviction, have dismissed numerous sermons much too hastily, as since has been generally admitted, from the body of his accepted writings. Now there should be something to justify this dismissal, more than a general observation, with which they are often satisfied, that such XVI PREFACE TO or such a sermon is quite in the manner of Caesarius,* or of some other. There should be phrases of a later Latin, allusion to Church rites and customs which had not in his time grown into use, inaccuracies in dogmatic statement, thoughts altogether unworthy of a great teacher. Such in many of these discarded sermons there are, entirely jus- tifying what they have done ; but in others these marks are altogether wanting, and without the presence of any such the Editors relegate, apparently at their caprice, a sermon to the Appendix. I have a few times quoted from these sermons, yet always giving notice of the quarter from whence the quotations are drawn, that the reader may know they are from writings which the Benedictine editors have adjudged not to be his. Of course those I have quoted I have believed to be genuine. On the other hand, I have refrained from making any use of the volume of sermons lately published as Augustine's at Paris,2 and this, because in it there is a running into the opposite extreme. Doubtless several genuine discourses of his, valuable additions to those which we already pos- sessed, are here published for the first time ; but very much also, altogether unworthy of him, is boldly put forth under his name. There is not apparently much in these dis- courses which would directly bear upon the subject which I have in hand, and till a decision is arrived at about them, carrying with it more weight than any which this very uncritical edition can lend, I have thought it better to leave them altogether untouched. Perhaps a still more difficult task than to know where * Csesarii stylum et mentein refert. ^ Srmcti Aurelii Augustini Sermones inedif.i, curd et studio D. A. B. Caillatj. Parisiis, 1842. THE FIRST EDITION. • XVll to stay one's hand in actual quotation, was to leave un- noticed the innumerable interesting subjects which the Sermon on the Mount of itself suggests, to refuse to follow down the avenues, which, as one advances, present them- selves ever to the right hand and to the left. Yet this self-denial I have used, wherever a subject was not fairly in one way or another suggested by something which Augustine has said. There is indeed a disadvantage in this, a loss like his who undertakes to paint a picture with a single colour, and whose work is in danger of lacking liveliness and variety, yet a loss amply counterbalanced by the advantage of continuing true to the scheme of one's book ; and this scheme in the present instance was not to bring together from all quarters all that I could for the elucidation of this all-important Discom'se, but only what of best one great writer had contributed thereto, and thus to give the reader such an idea of him as a practical inter- preter of Scripture, as would only have been disturbed and obscured by the introduction of alien matter. Alverstoze: May, 1844. AUGUSTINE AS AN INTEEPEETEE OF SCEIPTUEE. CHAPTER I. Augustine's g eneral views o f scripture and its interpretation. It is not my intention to offer in the pages which follow any estimate of the worth and significance of St. Augus- tine's theology, regarded as a whole ; but so far as possible to restrict myself to the subject indicated by the title of this Essay, and to consider him in a single light, that is, /as an interpreter of Scripture. An essay undertaking this, unless closely watched in its growth, might easily, and almost unawares, pass into that, and thus diffusing and losing itself in an almost illimitable field, become quite another thing from that which it was originally intended to be. At the same time, an attempt to trace his leading characteristics as an expositor, to estimate his accomplishments, spiritual, moral and mental, for being a successful one, to set forth the rules and principles of exposition which he either expressly laid down or habitually acted on, and to give a few specimens of his actual manner of interpretation (which is all I propose to myself here). / 2 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. I. need not logically involve the necessity of going on to consider his whole scheme of theology. Between so vast and arduous an undertaking as that, and the comparatively humbler, and certainly more limited task which I am attempting here, a line of demarcation may very clearly be drawn, and, if due watchfulness is exercised, may with- out any serious difficulty be maintained. In considering the merits of a theologian and interpre- ter of God's Holy Word, we naturally inquire first, what were his moral qualifications for the work which he un- dertook ; for if goodness be so essential even to the orator, that one of old defined him as ' Vii' bonus, dicendi peritus,' how much more necessary will it be, and in its highest form of love towards God and towards all which is of God, to the true theologian. That old maxim, ' Pectus facit theologum,'' will always continue true, and, other things being equal or nearly equal, he will best explain Scripture, who most loves Scripture, and Avho has most lived Scripture : as was said long since concerning the interpretation of the Psalms, 'Davidica intelligit, qui Davidica patitur.' "SVe may therefore very fairly com- mence our task by gathering from Augustine's own lips a few testimonies of the love with which he regarded Scrip- ture, and the labour which he counted well bestowed upon its study: for herein lay the pledge and promise that it should yield up to him the hid treasures which it contained. And certainly no one came to the study of Scripture with a more entire confidence that in it were laid up all treasures of wisdom and knowledge, that in the investigation of it truer joys were to be found than anywhere besides.' Perhaps in no Christian writer of any ' Enarr. t7i Ps. xxxviii. i. Chap. I.J INTEEPKETEE OF SCEIPTUEE. 3 age do we meet more, or more varied, expressions of a rapturous delight in the Word of Grod ; none ever laid himself down in its green pastures with a deeper and a fuller joy ; none more confidently felt that he might evermore draw water from these ' wells of salvation ' with- out fear of drawing them dry ; ' that in these wells, to use his own image, there were first draughts, and second draughts, and third draughts, for those who would return to them again and again.^ Falling back on his own experience, he loved to con- trast the Scriptures of truth not merely with the Mani- chaean falsehoods and figments, the ' husks,' with which he had once sought to fill himself, but even with the noblest and loftiest productions of the uninspired in- tellect of man. Thus in many places, and especially in an eloquent and affecting passage in his Confessions, he contrasts Scripture with the books which he had studied in the time of his addiction to the philosophy of Plato, and tells us what he found in it, which he did not find in them.' And as he had proved in his own case that love, ' Ep. cxxxvii. I : Tanta est enim Christianarum profunditas litte- ranim, iit in eis qiiotidie proficerem, si eas solas ab ineunte pueritia usque ad decrepitam senectutem maximo otio, sum mo studio, meliore ingenio conarer addiscere : non quod ad ea quae necessaria sunt saluti, tanta in eis perveuiatur difEcultate : sed cum quisque ibi lidem tenuerit, sine qua pie recteque non \i\-itur, tarn multa, tamque mul- tiplicibus mysteriorum umbraculis opacata, intelligenda proficientibua restant, tantaque non solimi in verbis quibus ista dicta sunt, yerum etiam in rebus quae intelligendse sunt, latet altitudo sapientise, ut annosissimis, acutissimis, flagrantissimis cupiditate discendi hoc con- tingat, quod eadem Scriptura quodam loco habet, Cum consummaverit homo, tunc incipit. ^ Habet Scriptura Sacra haustus primes, habet secundos, habet tertios, ^ Conf. vii. 20, 2 I : He concludes : Hoc illae litterae non habent. Non habent illaj paginse vultum pietatis hujus, lacrymas confessionis, 4 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. I. and love only, had ' the key of knowledge,' so he con- tinually presses this same truth upon all others. For indeed this was a fundamental principle with him, that Scripture, to be rightly understood, must be contemplated from within and not from without ; so that in more than one place he has excellent remarks, of which the applica- tion has not now passed away, on the absurdity of taking the account of it — and not of it only, but of any book which had won a place in the world — not from its friends and admirers, but from its professed foes, from them who start with declaring their hostility to it, or their indif- ference about it.' An especial glory which Holy Scripture had in his eyes was this, that it was not a book for the few learned, but quite as much for the many simple. He delighted to trace in its construction all which marked it out as such ; sacrificium tuum, spiritum contribulatum, cor contritum et hiimilia- tum, populi salutem, sponsam, civitatem, arrbam Spiritua Sancti, poculum pretii nostri : nemo ibi cantat : Nonne Deo subdita erit anima mea ? nemo ibi audit vocantem : Yenite ad me, qui laboratis. 1 De Util. Cred. 6 : Nihil est profecto temeritatis plenius, quam quommque librorum expositores deserere, qui eos se tenere ac discipulis tradere posse profitentur, et eorum sententiam requirere ab his qui conditoribus illorum atque auctoribus acerbissimum, nescio qua coprente caussa, bellum indixerunt. Quis enim sibi unquam libros Aristotelis reconditos et obscuros ab ejus iuimico exponendos putavit? ut de his loquar disciplinis, iu quibus lector fortasse sine eacrilegio labi potest. Quis denique geometricas litteras Archimedia legere, magistro Epicure, aut discere voluit ? contra quas ille multum pertinaciter, nihil earum, quantum arbitror, intelligens, disserebat. And again, De Mor. Eccles. i : Quis enim mediocriter sanus non facile intelligat, Scripturariim expositionem ab lis petendam esse, qui earum doctores se esse profitentur ; fierique posse, immo id semper accidere, ut multa indoctis videantur absurda, qu£e cum a doctioribus exponuntur, eo laudanda videantur, et eo accipiantui- apcrta dulcius, quo clausa difficilius aperiebantur ? Chap. I.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. S which here as in so many other arrangements of God's providence and grace, set a seal to that word of the Psalmist : ' Thou, God, hast of thy goodness prepared for the poor ' (Ps. Ixviii. lo) ; and in this respect to trace the glorious prerogative which at once differenced this Book from, and exalted it above, all other books, even the greatest to which man's wisdom had given birth. These last were often so constructed as to repel all but a few ; while this Book, of a wisdom far exceeding theirs, invited, welcomed, spread a table for all.' Small to the small, and large to the large, its words have been so tempered that they adapt themselves to the humblest capacities, while at the same time they enlarge themselves to the largest demands which the human intellect can make upon them.^ * Thus making spiritual application of the words, ' All teasts of the field drink thereof (Ps. civ. ii), to the streams of Holy Scrip- ture, as those from which all may thus quench their thirst, he exclaims {Enarr. in Ps. ciii.) : Non dicit aqua, Lepori sufficio et repellit onagrum ; neque hoc dicit, Onager accedat, lepus si acces- serit, rapietur. Tam fideliter et temperate fluit, ut sic onagrum saiiet ne leporem terreat. Sonat strepitus vocis TuUianss, Cicero legitur, aliquis liber est, dialogus ejus est, sive ipsius, sive Platonis, seu cujuscumque talium ; audiunt imperiti, infirmi minoris cordis, quis audet illuc aspirare ? Strepitus aquse, et forte turbatse, certe tamen tam rapaciter fluentis, ut animal timidum non audeat accedere et bibere. Oui sonuit, In principio fecit Deus caelum et terram, et non ausus est bibere ? Cui sonat Psalmus, et dicat, Multum est ad me ? Augustine's comparison here may remind us of the beautiful, but now somewhat overworn comparison of Scripture to a river with depths where the elephant may swim, and shallows which the lamb may ford ; an image belonging, I beheve, originally to Gregory the Great. At least I have never met with it earlier than in the prefatory Epistle to his Commentary on Job, where he certainly seems to use it as his own: Divinus etenim sermo sicut mysteriis prudentes exercet, sic plerumque superficie simplices refovet. . . . Quasi quidam quippe est fluvius, ut ita dixerim, planus et altus, in quo et agnus ambulet, et elephas natet. - In Ev. Joh, Tract, cvii. 6; Scriptura nos non levat nisi descendat 6 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. I. Nor did the manifold difficulties and obscurities in the Bible in the least deprive it in his sight of this its distinctive glory and character.' P'or in the first place, as he is strong to urge, there was nothing hard in one passage of Scripture, but, if it nearly concerned the sal- vation of men, the same was set do\vn more plainly in another ; '^ or if not so, then it was assuredly something of which simple men, those to whom the gift of an especial insight into mysteries was not granted, miglit safely re- main ignorant ; while these obscurer and harder passages, which only after frequent knocking yielded up their meaning, or, it might be, would not yield it up at all, served many important moral purposes, and could not ad nos ; sicut Verbum caro factum descendit ut levaret, non cecidit at jaceret. Cf. Confess, xii. 26-28. ^ J5^. cxxxvii. 5 {ad Volus.): Modus autemipse dicendi quo sancta Scriptura contexitur, quam omnibus accessibilis, quamvis paucissimis penetrabilis. Ea quae aperta continet, quasi amicus familiaris, sine fuco ad cor loqiutur indoctoium atque doctonun. Ea vero quae in mysteriis occultat, nee ipsa eloquio superbo erigit, quo non audeat accedere mens tardiuscula et inerudita, quasi pauper ad divitem ; sed invitat omnes bumili eermone, quos non solum manifesta pascat, sed etiam secretii exerceat veritate, hoc in promtis quod in reconditia babens. Sed ue aperta fastidirentur, eadem nirsus operta deside- rantur, desiderata quodam modo renovantur, renovata suaviter inti- mantur. His salubriter et prava corrigimtur, et parva nutriuntur, et magna oblectantur ingenia. De Doctr. Christ. 29 : Non enim, qiua neque incedit ornata, neque armata, sed tanquam nuda congreditiu*, ideo, non adversarium nervis lacertisque collidit, et obsistentem Bubruit ac destruit membris fortissirais falsitatem, 2 De Doctr. Christ, ii. 14: In iis quae aperte in Scripturis posita sunt, inveniuntur omnia quae continent fidem, moresque vivendi, spem scilicet atque caritatem. Co7if. vi. 5 : Excipiens omnes populari sinu. The Keformers, who affirmed the perspicuitas Scripturte against the Romish exaggerations of its extreme obscurity, had, and were forward to urge that they had, Augustine on their side (see Reiser, Auffustinus Veritatis Evangelico-Catholicoi Testis et Cojifessor, Frank- fort, 1678, pp. 37-41). Chap. I.] INTERPEETER OF SCRIPTURE. 7 have been absent from a Book intended to serve such ends as those for which this Book was intended. By them it was proved and seen who were worthy to have mysteries revealed to them, and who not ; who were con- tent patiently and humbly to wait at the doors of the Eternal Wisdom, and even when these were not opened to them at their first knocking, to tarry there ; to believe that all was well said, was best said, when to their limited n// faculties it might seem contradictory and confused.' It was seen, on the other hand, who were ready to go away in a rage; who, having come to Scripture with no due moral preparations for understanding it, were prepared to jump to the conclusion that that was without meaning, of which they could not grasp the meaning at the first ^ — no 1 As in one place he says : Latere te requitas potest ; esse ibi iniquitas non potest. Ser7n. li. 4: In illo &iint omnes thesauri sapientise et scientise absconditi. Quos non propterea ahscondit, ut neget ; sed ut absconditis excitet desideriuni. PIsec est utilitas secreti. Honora in eo quod nondum intelligis, et tanto magis honora, quantp phira vela cemis. Quanto enim qvusque honoratior est, tanto plura vela pendent in domo ejus. Vela faciunt honorem secreti ; sed hono- rantibus levantur vela. Irridentes autem vela, et a velorum vicinitate pelluntur. Quia ergo transimus ad Christum, aufertur velamen. 2 For himself, there are not a few passages concerning which he is content to avow his own continued ignorance, or at least that he has nothing certain to propose for their interpretation. Nay, in respect of Scripture in general he exclaims, certainly with no mock modesty, but in entire sincerity {Ep. xcv.) : Quid ipsa divina eloquia, nonne palpantur potius quam tractantur a nobis, dum in multis pluribus quserimus potius quid sentiendum sit, quam definitum aliquid fixumque sentimus? In respect of all these he lays down that golden rule (De Gen. ad Litt. viii. 5) : Melius est dubitare de rebus occultis, quam litigare de incertis. Among the passages of which he thus confesses his ignorance is 2 Thess. ii. 7, being unable to say %cho is meant by 6 narix'^v there, Ego prorsus quid dixerit me fateor ignorare (JDe Civ. Dei, xx. 19. 2); see too upon i Pet. iii. 18, his interesting letter on this hard question of the preaching to the spii-its in prison {Ep. clxiv. ad Euod.). He does not fear to acknowledge at the close 8 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. I. righteousness in those dealings, whose righteousness thej could not at once comprehend ; forward to accuse Scrip- ture of absurdity or immorality, rather than themselves of a dulness of mental, or, which was more probably the case, of spiritual vision.' No one, indeed, oftener or more earnestly urges humility as the one condition of so knock- of his life that lie has never "been able to reconcile to his ovm perfect satisfaction the various statements of Christ and his Apostles, which hear on divorce and remarriage {Retract, ii. 57). Thus too on the question of the origin of souls, and whether they he ex traduce, or each one a new creation, though he must greatly have inclined to the former opinion as a strong confirmation of his dogmatic system, still, weighing the difficulty of the question, and acknowledging the silence in which Scripture has left it, he declares that he has come to no certain determination, observing {Ep. cxc. 5) : Ubi res naturaliter obscura nostrum modulum vincit, et aperta Divina Scriptura non subvenit, temere hinc aliquid definire humana conjectura prsesumit. He satisfies himself with the consideration that after all it is not the birth, but the neio birth, of the soul, which mainly concerns the Christian, making these beautiful remarks {Ep. cxc. 3, ad Optat.) : Unde si origo animse lateat, dum tamen redemptio clareat, periculum non est. Neque enim in Christum credimus, ut nascamur, sed ut renascamur. See his Letter to Jerome {Ep. clxvi.) on the same sub- ject ; and another in which he replies to a correspondent who had put various hard passages of Scripture before him, for him to explain them {Ep. cxcvii.) : Mallem qiddem eorum quae a me quaesivisti habere scientiam quam ignorantiam ; sed quia id nondum potui, magis eligo cautam ignorantiam confiteri, quam falsam scientiam profiteri. * De Util. Cred. 7 : Nulla imbutus disciplina Terentianum Maurum sine magistro attingere non auderes; Asper, Cornutus, Donatus et alii innumerabiles requiruntur, ut quilibet poeta possit intelligi, cujus carmina et theatri plausus videntur captare: tu in eos libros, qui, quoquo modo se habeant, sancti tamen divinarumque rerum pleni, prope totius generis humani confessione diffamantur, sine duce irruis, et de his sine prseceptore audes ferre sententiam ; nee si tibi aliqua occurrunt quae videantur absurda, tarditatem tuam et putrefactum tabe hujus mundi animum, qualis omnium stultorum est accusas potius, quam eos qui fortasse a talibus intelligi nequeunt. Cf. In Joh. Tract. XX. : Perversa corda perturbat, sicut pia corda exercet Verbura Dei. Chap. I.] INTERPKETER OP SCRIPTURE. 9 ing at the door of divine mysteries, that it may be opened to us. He had himself known, as he is forward to confess, what it was to knock in quite another spirit, in a temper which inevitably entailed that he should knock in vain.' But beside oflfering such exercises of humility, or sup- plying a touchstone of the absence of humility, these difficulties and obscurities are further profitab le, i n _that they hinder men from growing weary of Scripture,_as though it were a book which they had entirely mastered, of which they had so taken the length and breadth and height and depth, that it had now no further secrets_to reveal to them, no new pastures into which to lead th em.^ Then, too, there is the delight of finding, which is so much the livelier after the labour of seeking.^ And in ^ Thus Conf. iii. 5 : Institui animum intendere in Scripturas sanctas, ut viderem quales essent. Et ecce video rem non comper- tam superbis, neque nudatam pueris; sed incessu humilem, successu excelsam et velatam mysteriis ; et non eram ego talis, ut intrare in earn possem, aut inclinare cervicem ad ejus gressus. Visa est mibi indigna quam Tullianse dignitati compararem. And Serin, li. 5 : Loquor vobis aliquando deceptus, cum primo puer ad divinas Scripturas ante vellem afferre acumen discutiendi quam pietatem quserendi ; ego ipse perversis moribus claudebam januam Domini mei ; quum pulsare deberem, ut aperiretur, addebam ut clauderetur. Superbus enim audebara quterere, quod uisi humilis non potest invenire. Ego miser, cum me ad volandum idoneum putarem reli- qui nidum, et prius cecidi quam volarem. Sed Dominus misericors me, a transeuntibus ne conculcarer et morerer, levavit et in nido reposuit. - De Doctr. Christ, ii. 6: Magnifice igitur et salubriter Spiritua S. ita Scripturas Sacras modiflcavit, ut locis apertioribus fami occur- reret, obscurioribus autem fastidia detergeret. Of. De Di'v. Qucest. qu. 53 : Deus enim noster sic ad salutem animarum divinos libros Spiritu Sancto moderatus est, ut non solum manifestis pascere sed etiam obscuris exercere nos vellet. ^ Enarr. in Ps. xxxviii. I : Dulcedo inventionis, quam prsecessit labor inquisitionis ; and again (Con. Mendac. 10) : Quae propterea flguratis velut amictibus obteguntur, ut sensum pie quperentis exer- 10 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. I. the very claims which these harder portions of God's Word made on the powers and faculties of the mind, there was profit ; since there is nothing that so dwarfs the powers % and stunts the growth of the mind as the having always to do with that which is perfectly easy and at once com- prehended ; while, on the contrary, the mind gradually dilates and grows to the dimensions of that which it has to take in.' All this Auofustine does not cease to uro^e. ceant, et ne nuda ac prompta \Tlescant. Quamvis qupe aliis locis aperte ac manifeste dicta didicimus, cum ea ipsa de abditis eruuntur, in nostra quodam modo cognitione renovantiir, et renovata dulcescunt. Nee invidentur discentibus, quod his modis obscurantur ; sed com- mendantur magis, ut quasi subtracta desiderentur ardentius, et inveniantiir desiderata jocundius. ^ Thus on the words of the Psalmist, ' His eyelids try the children of men' (Ps. xi. 4), he says {Enarr. in Ps. x. 5) : Quippe quibusdam Scripturarum locis obscuris tauquam clausis oculis Dei exercentur [filii hominum], ut quaerant: et rursus quibusdam locis manifestis, tanquam apertis oculis Dei, illuminantur, ut gaudeant. Et ista in Sanctis libris crebra opertio atque adapertio tanquam palpebrte sunt Dei quae interrogant, id est, quae probant filios hominum, qui neque fatigantur reruin obscuritate, sed exercentur ; neque inflantur cogni- tione, sed confirm antur. Cf. Se7-m. li. 4; and again, Enun: in Ps. cxl\-i. 6: Non intelligis, parum intelligis, non consequeris: honora Scripturam Dei, honora verbum Dei, etiam non apertum, differ pietate intelligentiam. Noli protervus esse accusare aut obscuritatem, aut quasi perversitatem Scripturae. Perversum hie nihil est, obscurum autem aliquid est 5 non ut tibi negetur, sed ut exerceat accepturum. Ergo quando obscurum est, medicus illud fecit ut pulses. Voluit ut exercereris in pidsando ; voluit, ut pulsanti aperiret. Pulsando exerceberis; exercitatus, latior efficieris; latior factus, capies quod donatur. Ergo noli indignari quod clausum est : mitis esto, mansuetus esto. Noli recalcitrare adversus obscura et dicere, Melius diceretur si sic diceretur. Quando ei.im potes tu s-ic dicere aut judicare, quomodo dici expediat ? Sic dictum est, quomodo dici debuit. Non corrigat aeger medicamenta sua, novit ea medicus modificare ; ei crede, qui te curat. And again : Si nusquam aperta esset Scriptura, non te pasceret ; si nusquam occulta, non te exerceret. Serrn. Ixxi. 7 : In omni quippe copia Scripturarum sanctarum pascimur apertis; exercemur obscuris. Illic fames pellitur, hie fastidium. Chap. I.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 11 , l^j^ *,«,i<5X4^ An element, or rather a result, of this humility, will be a right understanding of the rel ations in which reason and faith stand to one pother ; and the light in which Augustine regards the submission in the Christian man of the former to the latter, is peculiarly interesting. We see here how it came to pass that he was the Doctor to whom Schoolman and Mystic alike appealed. He does demand this submission; he does evermore affirm that the true order is not, as proud man would have it, Know and <^t believe, but rather. Believe and know.^ Yet at the same time reason, in the very submission which it makes, does homage to its own dignity ; since it is by an act of its own that it recognizes the reasonableness of putting itself into a higher school, of postponing its own exercise. For this he very much dwells on, t hat it is on t he part of reason a postponing, not a re nouncing, of its own exercise. Reason is subjected indeed, but ' subjected in hope,' in the hope that, partly in this world, and altogether in the world to come, any seeming oppositions between its own conclu- sions and faith's mandates shall be removed, and these two for ever reconciled with one another. This shall be the r eward of faith, that what the faithful man now believes , h e shall by and by_entirely understand. He knows that the intellectual eye of his soul is now, not indeed ex- tinguished, but diseased, and is therefore liable to see things distorted, not because they are so, but because it has lost in part its healthy capacity of vision. Under the treatment of the Great Physician it hopes to recover ^ Serrn. xliii. 3: Dicet milii homo, Intelligam ut credam. Ego ei reapondeam, Immo crede ut intelligas. Intellectus enim merces est fidei. And again : Credat in Christum, ut possit intelligere Christum. And in this sense he expounds the words of our Lord, John vii. 17. {In Ev. Joh. Tract, xxix. 6.) 12 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. I. perfect healthiness of vision ; which recovered, it does not doubt that there will be an entire identity between what it then shall see and what faith now receives and beUeves.^ Understanding, while it is not the way to faith, shall yet be the reward of faith. It is only what he somewhere calls the immaturus amor rationis, which he condemns. The sick man's wisdom, so long as he is sick, is to take his medicines, not to modify or change them. As was to be expected from one who perceived so clearly that God was not to be found out by searching, but was known to them, and to them only, unto whom He was pleased to reveal Himself, Augustine speaks often of prayer as that to which alone the shut doors of Scripture mysteries would open; and in his writings are many devoutest prayers of his own, in which he turns to God as to the one fountain of light and understanding, as to the One who alone can show him the hidden things which are contained in his law ; seeking insight and illumination from Him, and desiring above all that he may neither be himself deceived therein, nor deceive others therefrom.^ ' Ep. cxx. I : Ut ergo in quibiisdam rebus ad doctrinam salutarem pertinentibus quas ratione noudurn percipere valeamus, sed aliquando valebimus, fides praecedat rationem, qua cor mundetur, ut magnse rationis capiat et perferat lucem, hoc utique rationis est. Et ideo rationabiliter dictum est per prophetaiu, Nisi credideritis, non intel- ligetis (Isai. vii. 9). Ubi procul dubio discrevit btec duo, deditque consilium quo prius credamus, ut id quod credimus, intelligere vale- amus. ... Si igitur rationabile est, ut ad magna quredam quae capi nondum possimt, fides praecedat rationem, procul dubio quantulacunque ratio quae boc persuadet, etiam ipsa antecedit fidem. - This is only a fragment of one of them {Conf. xi. 2) : Domine Deus mens, circumcide ab omni temeritate oranique mendacio interiora et exteriora labia mea. Sint castae deliciae meae Scripturae tuae ; nee fallar in eis, nee fall am ex eis. Domine attende, et miserere, Domine Deus mens, Uix caecorum et virtus iufirmorum, statimque lux videntium Chap. I.] INTEEPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 13 et virtus fortium, attende animam meam, et audi clamantem de pro- fundo. Largire spatium meditationibus nostris in abdita Legis tuse, neque adversus pulsantes claudas eas. Neque enim frustra scribi voluiati tot paginarum opaca secreta. — It would, I think, help us a little to appreciate the extent to which Augustine modified and moulded the thoughts and feelings, and even the very expressions, of the most eminent Church writers who came after him, if we were to compare, on subjects of moral and theological interest, some of their chiefest utterances with his ; as, for example, with some of these his sayings in regard of Scripture, a very beautiful passage on the same subject in Gregory the Great, which in every line shows the influence of his great teacher {JMoral. xx. i) : Quamvis omnem scientiam atque doctrinam Scriptura sacra sine aliqua comparatione transcendat ; ut taceam quod vera prsedicat, quod ad cselestem patriam vocat, quod a terrenis desideriis ad superna amplectenda cor legentis immutat, quod dictis obscurioribus exercet fortes, et parvulis humili sermone blanditur ; quod nee sic clausa est, ut pavesci debeat ; nee sie patet ut vilescat ; quod usu fasfidium tollit, et tanto amplius diligitur quanto amplius meditatur ; quod legentis animum humilibus verbis adjuvat, sublimibus eensibus levat: quod aliquo modo cum legentibus crescit: quod a rudibus leetonbus quasi recognoscitur, et tamen doctis semper nova reperitur ; ut ergo de rerum pondere taceam, scientias tamen omnea atque doctrinas ipso etiam locutionis suae more transcendit, quia uno eodemque sermone dum narrat textum prodit mysterium, et sic scit prseterita dicere, ut eo ipso noverit futura prsedicare, et non immutato dicendi ordine, eisdem ipsis sermonibus novit et anteacta describere, et agenda nuntiare ; sicut hiBC eadem beati Jobi verba sunt, qui dum sua dicit, nostra prgedicit, dumque lamenta propria per sermonem indicate sanctse Ecclesise causam per rntellectum sonat. 14 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. II. CHAPTEK II. THE EXTERNAL HELPS FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE POSSESSED BY AUGUSTINE. While Augustine does not set too high a value on external helps, on the outward furniture and accomplishment of the interpreter, but recognizes to the full that spiritual things can only be spiritually discerned, that only the Spirit can interpret what was given by the Spirit ; he is as far removed as can be from that conceited enthusiasm which would despise these helps, as though they were not also gifts of God, capable in their place of doing excellent service to the cause of His truth. Nor did he sparingly or reluctantly acknowledge the value of those subsidiary aids, which he did not himself possess, or which he only imperfectly possessed ; but attached to them their full honour and importance. In his valuable treatise, De Doctrind Christiana, he images forth the perfect in- terpreter, such as he ought to be ; and gives suggestions which may help to form him, even while he confesses how far off he knows himself from fulfilling his own ideal. Thus he urges the great advantage which he may derive from recurring to the Hebrew and Greek originals," and where this is not possible, from the use of many translations, as checking, throwing light on, and com- ^ ii. II. 1 6. Chap. II.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 15 pleting, one another.' He will have his ideal and perfect interpreter well acquainted with natural history,^ with music,^ with history,'* with chronology,^ with logic,^ and with philosophy ; ' for not one of these but will come into play ; some of them will be most important for the great work which he has undertaken.^ If he has been in the spiritual Egypt, let him come forth from it as richly furnished with its stuffs as he may, with its silver and its gold, which may afterwards be worked up for the very service of the tabernacle itself (Exod. xii. 35 ; xxxv. 22).^ Here then may very fitly be considered what was the ^ ii. 12. 17. ^ ii. 16. 24; cf. Enarr. in Ps. Iviii. Senn. i. 10. 3 ii. 16. 26. ^ ii. 28. 43. ^ ii. 28, 42. ^ ii. 31. 48. ^ ii. 40. 60, ^ For the sake of others who may not possess this whole circle of knowledge, he proposes (ii. 39. 59) that some one who does, should undertake a Dictionary of the Bible, such as since has often been done : Ut noQ sit necesse Christiano in multis propter pauca laborare, sic video posse fieri, si quem eorum qui possunt, benignam sane operam frateruEe utilitati delectet impendere, ut quoscumque terrarum locos qufeve animalia vel herbas atque arbores, sive lapides vel metalla in- cognita, speciesque quaslibet Scriptura commemorat, ea generatim digerens, sola exposita litteris mandet. ^ ii. 40. 60 : Philosophi autem qui vocantur, si qua forte vera et fidei nostrse accommodata dixerunt, maxime Platonici, non solum formidanda non sunt, sed ab eis etiam tauquam injustis possess- oribus in usum nostrum vindicanda. Sicut enim ^gyptii non solum idola habebant et onera gravia, quae populus Israel detesta- retur et fugeret, sed etiam vasa atque ornamenta de auro et argento, et vestem, quae ille populus exiens de .^gypto sibi potius tanquam ad usum meliorem clanculo vindicavit, non auctoritate propria, sed prsecepto Dei, ipsis .zEgyptiis nescienter commodantibus ea, quibus non bene utebantur, sic doctrinae omnes Gentilium non solum simulata et superstitiosa figmenta gravesque sarcinas supervacui laboris habent, sed etiam liberales disciplinas usui veritatis aptiores ; quod eorum tanquam aurum et argentum, quod non ipsi iustituerunt, sed de qui- busdam quasi metallis divinae providentise, qure ubique infusa sunt, eruerunt, debet ab eis auferre Christianus ad usum justum prsedicandi Evangelii. 16 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. II. actual extent of Augustine's own outward equipment for the work of an interpreter. It is superfluous to observe that he possessed no knowledge whatever of Hebrew. Indeed there were but two of the early Fathers, Origen in the Greek Church, and he but slightly,' and Jerome in the Latin, who did so. It is, as Augustine declares, a lingua incognita to him, he everywhere proclaiming his entire unacquaintance with it.'^ His knowledge of Punic, (for that he knew it we may certainly conclude) ^ would no doubt materially have helped him, had he been inclined seriously to grapple with the difficulties of the Hebrew tongue. Bochart, Gesenius, and others who have studied the few fragments of this tongue which remain, so express their regret at the almost entire perishing of all its monuments, and at our deprivation thus of all the helps that might have been derived from it, as to show that the resemblance between the languages could not have been slight ; even as we might conclude, a jpriori, that the Punic, brought from Phoenicia to the northern coasts of Africa, must have retained a considerable re- semblance to its mother, or, rather, its sister dialect. The ' See Huet's Origeniana, ii. 2, for proofs how slight and in- accurate his acquaintance with Hehrew was (Judaicis litteris leviter tinctus). "^ De Doctr. Christ, ii. 23 ; Conf. xi. 3 ; Enarr. in Ps. cxxxvi. 7 ; et passim. 3 It seems implied in such language as this {Senn. clxvii. 3): Pro- verbium notum est Punicum, quod quidem Latine vobis dicam, quia Punice non omnes nostis; cf. Exp. Inchoat. in Itoin. § 13; De MagistrOy 44; Ep. xvii. 2 (ad Max. Madaur.); and see Conf. i. 14. Yet it would not seem a very common knowledge among the provincials, for he complains more than once (thus Enarr. in Ps. cxxiii. 8) of the difficulty of obtaining presbyters who were acquainted with the lan- guage for some churches in country districts, where no other tongue was understood by the population. CuAP. II.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 17 fact of this connexion between the languages Augustine several times notes, and not unfrequently adduces words which the two had in common.' Yet with the exception of such slight assistances to his exposition as those indicated below, it did not afford him any effectual service in his work. Being thus ignorant of Hebrew, Augustine's nearest approach to the original text of the Old Testament was through the Septuagint Version. There was a serious misfortune here. This Version, as all would now admit, with a multitude of isolated felicities of translation, and resting evidently on a true tradition in regard of many difficult words and passages, having, too, had signal honour put upon it in the use which the Apostles made of it, our Lord Himself setting his seal on one memorable occasion to its development of the original text (cf. Matt. xix. 5 with Gen. ii. 24), is still infinitely faulty, full of in- tentional and unintentional departures from the original. But of this Augustine was nearly or quite unaware, sharing as he did with well-nigh the whole early Church in an extravagant estimate of its merits, and yielding himself to this untrustworthy guide with the most unquestioning confidence.^ He was not disinclined ^ to gi\e credit to ^ Serm. cxiii. 2 : Istae eniin linguae sibi significationia quadam viciuitate sociantur : cf. In Joh. Tract, xv. 27. Thus lie notices that Baal, which appears in so many of the Carthaginian names, HanniJo/, Asdruftfi/, meant ' lord ' in Punic no less than in Hebrew (Qucssi. m Jud. qu. 16) ; that Edom was Punic for blood, as in Hebrew it is ap- plied to aught that is blood-;-t'fZ (Eiia>r. in T's. cxxxvi. 7); he mentions Messiah and Mammon as being Punic as well as Hebrew words: and notes {Loc. in Gen. i. 24) the similarity between the lano-uao-es as not merely one of word but of idiom. ^ On the whole question of Augustine's relation to the two Latin Versions, and on the several merits of these, see Kaulen's Ge-sc/t. d. Vulgata, Mainz, 1868. ^ De Docfr. Christ, ii. 15 ; Fp. xxviii. 2 (ad Hieron.); Qit.in Gen. qu. 169; De Ciu. Dei, xviii. 42, 43. C 18 AUGUSTINE AS AN - [Chap. II. the legend told by Aristeas, and repeated with various modifications by Philo, Josephus, Justin Martyr,' and others, of the miraculous consent of its seventy-two interpreters shut up in their seventy-two separate cells, a fiction which St. Jerome characterized in the language which it deserved.^ Nay further, he appears to have recognized a prophetic spirit in them ; and not to have doubted that the same Spirit which dictated the original, did also guide them and preserve them from all error : so that he will not allow any such in their Version, and is in nothing offended by some plain deviations of theirs from the original text. Thus when they make Jonah to proclaim, ' Yet three days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,' he persuades himself that they did not this without authority, and that there is a meaning in their three, as well as in the forty of the Hebrew text.^ It was this belief in the faultlessness of the Septuagint, this confident persuasion that there was nothing in the Hebrew Scriptures which was not contained in it, and through it in the version (or versions) already in use, which caused him at first altogether to disapprove of, and for a long time to look coldly on, Jerome's correction and revision of this earlier Version, or rather on what was to a great extent a new translation from the Hebrew.'* He seems to have counted * Coh. ad Grcec. 13. ^ Pj-cb/. in Pent.', Nescio qui? primus auctor cellulas Alexandrite mendacio suo extnixerit. ^ De Cons. Evang. ii. 66 ; De Doctr. Chrid. iv. 1 5 ; Qu. in Gen. qu. 169; De Civ. Dei, xv. 14. 2 ; and 23. 3. ■* Ep. xxviii. 2 ; Ixxxii. 5 ; Ixxi. 2, 3 (ad Jfieron.) : in which last Epistle he gives a curious account of the uproar which followed in some African church, when a bishop attempted to introduce Jerome's translation directly from the Hebrew instead of that from the Septuagint, to which the people had hitherto beeu accustomed. Chap. II.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 19 the Septuagint too sacred to be touched, or at any rate that the danger of unsettling men's minds through altering anything in so time-honoured a version exceeded the advantages which might be derived from the removal of any incorrectnesses in it, if such were indeed there. Besides the Septuagint he has the Versions of Symmachus, of Theodotion, and of Aquila within reach, and from time to time makes use of them.' Augustine's own knowledge of Greek did not go very far, nor yet, so far as it went, was it very accurate. Still there has been a fashion among those who in later times have estimated his merits, or demerits rather (for many have had no eye except for these), as an expositor of Scripture, to exaggerate his deficiencies herein. It is quite true that his Greek was irregularly gotten ; that he did not in his earlier years lay strong and sure foundations on which to build later acquisitions ; that he speaks of an early distaste which he had for the language ; though from his own account this seems to have been no more than a boy's distaste for the labour needful to overcome the first difficulties in a foreign tongue.^ It is true too that he himself often speaks slightingly of his own ac- quaintance with the original language of the New Testa- ment, and confesses that, where he had to do with abstruse and recondite matters in theology or philosophy, a Plato or a Plotinus, he preferred to read a Latin translation to a Greek original ; ^ yet when one and another speak of him as ' unacquainted alike with the Greek and Hebrew 1 QwBSt. in Kum. qu. 52. ' Conf. i. 13, 14. ^ De Tiin. iii. I ; cf. Cmf. \ii. 9 ; Ccm. Lit. Tetil. ii. 38 : Et ego quidem Grsecae linguae perparum assecutus sum, et prope niUl. c 3 20 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. II. tongues,'' and a third of his 'everywhere betraying a shameful ignorance of Greek,' 2 or again when Gibbon declares ' the superficial learning of Augustine was confined f to the Latin language,' in this there is undoubted ex- ^ aggeration and injustice. We have so many examples of a tact and skill very far from contemptible with which he draws the distinction between words that in their meaning border on one another, and of other acquaintance with the language, as would quite justify and indeed require a serious modification of any such judgments as these.* ' Walch {Bib. Tntrist. p. 352): Augustinus extitit,ut alii, Ebrrefe et Grfecae lingufe ignarus ; Rosenmuller, Hist,. Intt. S. Ss. vol. iii. 404 : Imperitus iiou tantum Ilebrreae, sed etiam Grsecse linguse. Compare Rich. Simon, Hist. Crit. du V. T. vol. iii. 9. ^ Turpem litteranim Groecaruni inscitiani passim prodidit ("VViner, Annott. in Ep. ad Gal. p. 22). But single mistakes ought not to go for much : "Winer himself not many pages from the place where he expresses this judgment, writes inurerit for inusserit ! yet is he in the main not merely a correct hut an elegant writer of Latin ; and Reiche, the author of a commentary far from unlearned on the Romans, deliberately derives ano6u>ixe6a (Rom. xiii. 12) from ana>- 6eiv (p. 458). For a juster, and not too favourable, estimate of Auo-ustine's attainments in Greek, see his Life, in the last volume of the Benedictine edition of his works, p. 5. ^ A few examples in proof. Thus he draws aa important dis- tinction between irvevtxa and irvor], with reference to John xx. 22 and Gen. ii. 7, and the attempt of some to make the first act of insufflation, ' He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,' equivalent to the second, ' He breathed on them and saith, Receive ye the Holy Ghost' (Z>e Civ. iJei, xiii. 24). The distinction drawn by Doderlein (Si/no7i. v. 95), between spirare and flare, spiritus and flatus, supplies an interesting parallel and confirmation. He has a fine discussion on the relations between Xarpda, 0fjr](TKfLa, fV(Tt3eia, Benai^fui, and their Latin equivalents {De Civ. Dei, X. i). He handles certainly not ill the difficult s\-nonym3 at I Tim. ii. I ; Trpoo-ei'^"', Sf^aftr, f'vTfv^fis, evxapia-Tiai {Ep. cxlix. 2). He distinguishes between ■Kpfcrl^vrr]^ and yipwv, the elder and the old man {Enarr. in Ps. Ixx. l8; cf. Qucest. sup. Gen. i. qu. 70); between n\(ovf ^la and (/)iXapyvpta, showin how much larger the former is in it3 Chap. II.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 21 Thus Augustine used his Latin text with frequent, if not continual, reference to the original, oftentimes rectify- significance than the latter (Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 36) ; again, betweeti aficoiios and naniKos (Qu. in Lev. iii. qu. 40) ; between e-rvivhvyLa, superindumentum, and encofiLi, superb iimerale (Qn. in Jud. vii. qn. 41); between irpcoroTOKos, npaToyfutjs, and p-ovoyevrji {Qu. tn Deut. V. qu. 23) ; between dWoyevrj^ and oAXdc^uXos (Qu. iri Num. qu. 3) ; between dvriXoyia and XotSopia {Qu. in Num. qu. 39), clyav and (T(}i6dpa (Euan: in Psalm, cxviii. Ser'm. iv.) ; between aTrapxal and rrpcoToytvvTJpaTa (Qu. in Nutn. iv. qu. 32) ; between avrov and eavrov [Qucest. in Gen. i. 62); between (rx'o-/ifi and alpeais (Con. Crescen. Don. ii. 7) ; between Soopov and Sojia (Loc. de Num. iv.) ; fvTa(f)id(€iv and ddnrfiv (Loc. de Gen. i.) ; aXoyos and dp-aOrfs (Loc. de Gen. ii.) ; Kuipos and xpofos (Ep. cxcvii. 2, 3) ; /3i'of and fcor; (De Trin. xii. 11) ; f^tf and a-x^ipa (De Div. Qucest. Ixxiii.) ; dpaprla and dpdprrjpa (Con. Jul. Pel. vi. 2) ; poixfUi and iropviia (Qu. in Exod. qu. 71) ; ox)^o^, S^/io? and Xaoj (Zoc. de Gen. i. 198) ; ^k/xo? and opyq (Enarr. in Ps. Lxxxvii. 8); aKevoi and dyyuov (Quctst. in Lev. iii. qu. 51) ; \aTpevfiv and bovkevav (Qu. in Lev. iii. qu. 66) ; hiKaioa-vvrj and biKalcopa (Enarr. in I's. cxviii. 56) ; e'XTri'y and ttlo-tis (Enchirid. viii.). Not a few of these points are excellently handled by him. So, too, he notes that eKaraais may mean more than fear or gi-eat astonish- ment ; it may be as much as mentis alienatio (e^la-TTjpi), and is therefore a word eminently fit for expressing that condition of mind in wliich men receive communications from a higher world (Qu. in Gen. i. qu. 80; Enarr. in Ps. ciii. 11); that aSoXfcrxfTi', though used in the Septuagiut in a good, is oftener used in classic Greek in a bad, sense. He gives (Qu. in E.vod. ii. qu. 177) the right explanation of likdyia, that it means the flanks, and cannot mean the front and rear, and so too of kKItt} (Qu. in E.vod. ii. qu. 131). He notices the usage of TratSeia in the Greek Scriptures as different from the classical, that it is not instruction generally, as in other Greek, but always /jer tnolestias eruditio (Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 66). He takes note of a difficulty in the use of 6p6pl.(a at Judg. ix. :^2): L^^X., opBpos being the morning before sunrise, and not, as it seems to be used there, after (Qu. in Jud. qu. 46) ; of a double use of irapdKkrja-is, and the verb from which it is derived, that it is both exhortation and consolation (Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 52), His Greek etymologies are in general correct: thus of rpaye'Kacpos (Annot. in Job. 39); of drop-os (Serin, ccclxii. 17); of napdnraipa (Qu. in Lev. iii. qu. 20) ; he shows the popular derivation of Tidcrx Ep. Ixx-xviii. 6 ; Con. Cresc. iii. 48. ^ Ep. clxxxv. 4. 3 I71 Evang. Joh. Tract, xi. 17; Con. Gaudent. 30 ; HcBret. 69. * Ep. clxxxv. 4 ; for other outrag-es see E}>. cxxxiii. and cxxxiv. ; and WiTSlus, Miscell. Sacra, vol. i. 762. 5 Ep. xxxiv. 6. Chap. III.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 39 logical fence, and wielding the weapons of a destructive criticism with a skill which it is impossible not sometimes to admire. And in other ways, also, the contest was a more serious one. He had not against them to vindicate a few passages of Scripture from perverse and partial interpretation, but to defend and to secure the very foun- dations of the faith ; which they assailed, and which their triumph would have utterly overthrown. The question at issue was not here one of doctrine ; and as little how this or that Scripture should be understood, and whether it could only be rightly understood, when controlled and tem- pered by other passages. It was a question far more serious ; namely, whether there was a Scripture at all, such a Scripture, that is, as men might securely commit themselves to, the very Word of God, containing all truth in it, and nothing but the truth; and if so, whether those writings which were in the keeping of the Catholic Church, and which she could show to have been in her keeping in an unbroken succession from the times of the Apostles indeed constituted this Book. This when the Manichasans denied on evidence which professed to be drawn from the writings themselves, it became his task to trace the perfect harmony existing between the dif- ferent portions of this Book ; to show that one part, the New Testament, did not, as those affirmed, go counter to and thus condemn another, that is, the Old ; that the several portions of the New were not repugnant to one another, and did not thus (since in that case it could only be partially true) leave each man at liberty to select for himself such sections of it as he was willing to receive and believe. The Manichseans could not but feel that if the con- 40 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. III. troversy between them and the Church Catholic, as to what was the genuine doctrine which Christ had delivered, should be decided by an appeal to the canonical Scriptures, the decision must inevitably be given against them, and in favour of the Church. There remained therefore no- thing for them but either entirely to refuse to accept this appeal, as they did in the matter of the Old Testament, or, where such absolute refusal would have at once put them out of court, and left them without even a nominal profession of the Christian faith, to seek to weaken as far as they might the authority of this judge, and so to take away from the force of his decisions. They began, as is ever the course with those who would be quit of the Bible, with an assault upon the Old Testament ; and from the authority of this they sought to release themselves altogether. It was from the vantage-ground of the New that they made their assault upon the Old, maintaining that it was full of statements irreconcileable with the doctrines delivered there. Adimantus, an immediate scholar of Mani, wrote a book full of these so-called ' con- tradictions,' of which it may be instructive to adduce a few. Thus the very first verse of Genesis, that ' God created the heaven and the earth,' is contrary to the opening of St. John, where it is declared that the world was made by Christ.' The words of Genesis, ' God rested on the seventh day,' do not agree with those of the Lord, ' My Father worketh hitherto ' (John v. lyy The decla- ration, ' It is not good that the man should be alone ; I will make him' an help meet for him ' (Gen. ii. i8), contra- dicts the blessing which the Lord pronounced on every one who should leave (among other things; wife for his ' Can. Adiniant. Man. i. " JH^ 2. Chap. III.] INTERPEETER OF SCRIPTURE. 41 sake (Matt. xix. 29).' That God made man in his own image (Gen. i. 26) is against that word of Christ to the Pharisees, ' Ye are of jour father the devil ' (John viii. 44).^ God's declaration in the Old Testament that He is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, is in contradiction to the word of Christ, ' He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good ' (Matt. V. 45).^ All passages in the Old Testament in which God is set forth as speaking or appearing to man are convinced of falsehood by that one word of Christ's Apostle : ' No man hath seen God at any time ' (John i. 18); as indeed by the Lord Himself (John v. 37).* In the Old Testament certain meats are declared to be un- clean ; but Christ declared that there is nothing that entering into a man can defile him (Mark vii. 18).' It will be observed of the larger number of these very characteristic ' antitheses ' that they are merely ridiculous, although some of them not too ridiculous to have done duty anew in later times. Others rest on an ignoring of the jprogressive character of Eevelation, of the fact that it has been a gradual education of men into the knowledge of God, they moving up from the more elementary and imperfect into the higher and more perfect, as they were able to bear it ; this consideration is indeed one which will have to be recognized by theologians much more freely than has hitherto been the case, if they would not find themselves sometimes, when engaged with the adver- saries of revealed truth, in all the grievous embarrassments which a false position will inevitably entail. This fact of the progressive education of men, of their gradual training ^ Con. Aditnant. Man. 3. * Ibid. 5. ^ Ibid. 7. * Ibid. 9. » Ibid. 15. 42 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. III. into the knowledge of the truth, and of the consequent use and fitness, at one stage of the teaching, of helps which were laid aside and would have been inapplicable, where not injurious, at a later,' is one of which Augustine had a very firm grasp, and on which he often expresses himself with remarkable clearness and force ; ^ for this probably he was in part indebted to these very gainsayers them- selves.' With the setting forth of this law of progress in ^ He has many illustrations drawn from our daily life. Thus Enarr. in Ps. Ixxiii. i : Tu ipse dedisti filio tuo, et nuces parvido, et codicem grand i. De Vera Rel. 17: Quis perturbatur si unus medicus alia per ministros suos imbecillioribus, alia per se ipsum valentioribus praecipiat ad reparacdam vel obtinendam salutem? We have here an eminent illustration of what St. Paul calls the iroKviroLKikos (TO(f>ia of God (Ephes. iii. 10), varying its treatment according to the varying needs of different men in different ages. ^ Conf. iii. 7 : Tanquam si in uno die indicto a pomeridianis horis justitio, quisquam stomachetur non sibi concedi quid venale pro ponere, quia mane concessum est : aut in una domo videat aliquid tractari manibus a quoquam servo, quod facere non sinatur qui pocula mini- strat : aut aliquid post prsesepia fieri, quod ante mensam prohibeatur ; et indignetur, cum sit imum habitaculum et una familia, non ubique atque omnibus idem tribui. Sic sunt isti qui indignantur, cum audi- erint illo sseculo licuisse justis aliquid, quod isto non licet justis ; et quia illis aliud prsecepit Deus, istis aliud pro temporalibus causis, cum eidem justitiae utrique servierint: cum in uno homine et in unn die et in unis aedibus videant aliud alii membro congruere, et aliud jamdudimi licuisse, post horam non licere : quiddam in illo angulo permitti aut juberi quod in isto juste vetetur et vindicetur. Num- quid justitia varia est et mutabilis? Sed tempora quibus praosidet, non pariter eunt ; tempora euim aunt. Of. Con. Fausf. xxii. 47 ; De Doctr. Christ, iii. 10. ^ For, as he himself says in an interesting passage on the profit ■which comes to the Church from such gainsayings (Serm. li. 7) : Negligentius Veritas quaereretur, si mendaces adversaries non haberet. And again, Enarr. in Ps. liv. 22 : Numquid enim perfecte de Trini- tate tractatum est antequam oblatrarent Ariani ? numquid perfecte de poenitentibus tractatum est antequam obsisterent Novatiani ? Sic non perfecte de baptismate tractatum est antequam contradicerent fori.s positi rebaptizatores. In reference lo this fact, which all Church Chap. III.] INTERPEETER OP SCRIPTURE. 43 the divine economy, he at once disposes of a multitude of the so-called contradictions which they had found between the earlier revelation of God and the later, as the distinc- tion of meats, ordained in the Old Dispensation, abolished in the New, — the retaliation of injuries allowed in the Old, their forgiveness enjoined in the New, — circumcision appointed in the one, forbidden in the other. But the Manichseans did not and could not stop here. The experience of all past controversies, and a very little X consideration of the actual relations in which the Old and. 'New Testament stand to one another, attest the certainty of the fact that they will stand or fall together. None can give up the authority of the Old, and hope to retain that of the New. None who attack the Old will ever pause there ; they will find themselves irresistibly and necessa- rily carried on to assail the New. Whatever victories they may seem to themselves to have won over that, they will themselves feel to be nothing worth, unless they can over- throw the authority of this also ; for the Old may all be established again by the aid and authority of the New, which everywhere presupposes and sets the seal of a divine character upon it ; in the same way as the Old prophesies of and contains the New enfolded up in itself,' — that being, according to Augustine's own image, the closed hand, and this the open, but one and the other the same hand still. They were conscious, therefore, that nothing was really won, unless they could thus overthrow the absolute autho- rity of the New Testament no less than that of the Old,^ history confirms, he quotes often i Cor. xi. 19; cf. Conf. vii. 19; Enarr. in Ps. Ixvii. 31 ; J>e Gen. con. Man. i. I. 1 As in one place he says : Vetus Testamentum est occultatio Novi, et Novum manifestatio Veteris. » The process of first setting the New Testament against the Old, 44 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. III. and this in various ways they set themselves to effect. They aflBrmed in the first place, that the books of Canoni- cal Scripture which the Catholic Church received, were in whole or in part the composition of others than those whose names they bore ; having been either interpolated by some who would fain mingle Jewish error with Christian truth ' (and that there should be such corruption they de- clared foreannounced in the parable of the tares ^), or else, as was the case with the Acts of the Apostles, being alto- gether supposititious.^ Even where they were driven from this position, they had another to which they retired. Granting that the ascription of authorship was correct, that St. Matthew, St. Paul, and the others did write the books that went by their names, still at the time when they wrote them, they were themselves only partially dis- engaged from the Jewish superstitions and errors among which they had been reared. From all this, as they urged, it followed that in every case a test was needed, whereby it should be judged whether this portion of Scripture or that should be received as authoritative or and when this antagonism has done its work, then the several parts of the New against one another, was exactly that which the German assailants of Holy Scripture in the last century pursued, who did not venture to lay profane hands on the New Testament for long after they had renounced their faith in the Old. We have seen exactly the same process repeat itself in England. ^ C*mf. v. II; Ep. Ixxxii. 2. 6. How poor this escape of theirs, Augustine tells us that he felt even while he was still entangled in their snares (Z)e Util. Creel. 3). His acquaintance with classical literature must have taught him how worthless objections to the genuineness of a passage are, drawn merely from the subjective sense of the reader, and with no wavering and uncertainty in the external evidence to back them. ^ Can. Faust, xviii. 3, 7. ' De Util. Cred. 3 ; Ep. ccxxxvii. 2. Chap. III.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 45 not.' This test was of course, practically, whether they could turn it into a plausible support of their dogmas, in which case it was allowed ; or whether it went plainly contrary to them, when it was rejected. They agreed with the modern rationalists, in trying Holy Scripture by the subjective standard of their own likings and dislikings, accepting that which fell in with their own preconceived opinions, disallowing that which did not.2 Like them, too, they proceeded to find motives for this disallowance in some contradiction or discrepancy which they professed to detect in the Scripture they dis- missed, making difficulties where there were none, exag- gerating them where such there really were ; and under cover of differences which they had discovered between one Scripture and another, or on some similar plea, ex- cusing themselves from yielding credit to either. Thus they left no choice to the defenders of the truth but ^ Thiis Faustu? {Con. Fmist. xxxii. i) : Ego de Testamento Novo purissima quseque legens et meae saluti convenientia, praetermitto quae a vestris majoribus iuducta fallaciter, et majestatem illius et gratiam decolorant. Cf. xxxiii. 3 : Nee immerito nos ad hujuscemodi Scripturas tarn inconsonantes et varias, nunquam sane sine judicio ac ratione aures afferiruus ; sed contemplantes omnia, et cum aliis alia conferentes, pei'pendimus utrum eorum qiiidque a Christo dici potuerit, necne. "^ Con. Faust, xi. 2 ; cf. xxii. 1 5 : Inde probas hoc illius esse, illud noQ esse, quia hoc pro te sonat, illud contra te. Tu es ergo regula veritatis ? quidquid contra te fuerit, non est verum ? And when they in their turn adduced such portions of Scripture as they did profess to receive in proof of doctrines of their own, he admirably brings out the absurdity of this (Ibid, xxxii. 16) : Ex Evangelio probatis. Ex quo Evangelio ? Quod non totum accipitis, quod falsatum esse vos dicitis. Quis ergo testem suum prius ipse dicat falsitate esse cor- ruptum, et tunc producat ad testimonium ? Si enim quod vultis ei credimus, et quod non vultis ei non credimus, jam non illi sed vobis credimus. 46 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. III. to enter on discussions, not a few of which have an in- terest which can never grow old ; for studying the cavils and objections of Faustus the Manichaean, one seems transported into the present age, so marvellously have he and others, in almost all essential matters, and curiously often in minutest details,^ anticipated the destructive cri- ticism which has been brought to bear against Scripture in the last seventy or eighty years. And certainly it is encouraging to observe that this whole battery of assault has been once already directed against the Word of God with at least the same confidence of success as now, with exactly the same boastful announcements that all truth and reason were with the assailants,^ and that the Church was hopelessly clinging to the antiquated or the exploded; and this by men of as keen dialectic skill, of as subtle in- tellectual power as any who have inherited their mantle;' * Thus Faustus has anticipated the trivial objection drawn from the titles of the several Gospels, Acara Mardahv, koto. MdpKov, namely, that on their fronts these Gospels do not profess to be what the Church affirms them — namely, the writiug of these Apostles or apostolic men, but only of some who claimed to write according to accounts received severally from these four. Thus, as he describes them, in words quoted Can. Faust, xxxii. 2, the Evangelists were — incerti nominis viri, qui ne sibi non haberetur fides, scribentibus quae uescirent, partim Apostolorum nomina, partim eorum qui Apostoloa secutividerentur, scriptorum suorum frontibus indiderunt, asseverantes secundum eos se scripsisse quce scripserint. * De Mon. Manich. 17: Magni poUicitatores rationis atque veri- tatis. Conf. iii. 6 : Dicebant Veritas et Veritas ; et multum eam dice- bant mihi, et nusquam erat in eis. ^ For the chief characteristics of Faustus the Manichaean, that * great snare of the devil ' (magnus laqueus diaboli), as Augustine calls him, a man who hardly finds his peer among the modern assailants of Scripture, see Conf. v. 3, 6, 7, 8 ; and at 13, a compa- rison between his eloquence and that of St. Ambrose. Cf. Con. Faust, i. I. CuAP. III.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 47 and yet that all has been brought against it in vain. The whole fiiry of the assault passed away like a noise, like a flood that foams and frets for a brief season round some everlasting foundations, but which presently subsides, and shows that it has been unable to displace one stone fx'om its position. Compelled by these assaults of theirs, Augustine has many most instructive discussions on matters, which but for them he might have only slightly and superficially handled, if indeed he had handled at all. Thus, one of the subjects on which these gainsayers forced him to express himself often and distinctly, was the authority and evidence with which the canonical books come down to later generations in the Church, as indeed the works of those whose names they bear ; and he not less excel- lently shows how impossible it is to designate or even to imagine any moment in the Church's history when the interpolation or serious corruption of them could have been accomplished.' So, too, he treats often on the relation between various records of the same event, and the differences, which yet are not contradictions, that sometimes exist between them.'^ Thus, the miracle of the healing of the centurion's servant (Matt. viii. 5-13 ; Luke vii. i-io) was peculiarly unwel- come to the Manichseans, and they greatly desired to get rid of it on account of those concluding words, in which the Lord gives such signal honour to Jewish patriarchs, ascribing to them foremost places in the future kingdom ' The following are among the most important passages, De Mor. Eccles. 29; Ccn. Faust, xi. 2; xxviii. 2; xxxii. 16. * Diversa multa, adversa nulla esse possunt ; and De Cons. Evang. ii. 66 : Ubi utrumque factum potest intelligi, nulla repugnantia est, si alius aliud, et aliud alius commemorat. 48 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. III. of heaven. The adversaries sought to undermine the authority of the whole narrative, by urging the well-known difference between the two Evangelists, that in the first the centurion comes himself, in the second sends others to be the bearers of his petition. To such unworthy ob- jections he replies with a just indignation, and in words which abundantly deserve to be quoted.' Kefusing as he does to be embarrassed by these slight variations, he is free from the temptation to adopt un- natural, or at best improbable, devices and combinations in order to get rid of these. The fact that, according to St. Matthew, the disciples wakened their Lord in the storm with the words, ' Lord, save us ; we perish ' (viii. 25); according to St. Mark, exclaiming, ' Master, carest Thou not that we perish ? ' (iv. 38); while in St. Luke their cry is, ' Master, master, we perish ' (viii. 24) ; does not trouble him at all. He readily admits that all these words may have been uttered, some by one, and some by another, disciple; but he does not require this of necessity. If the inspired narratives have truly expressed the exact ' Having shown how futile their objections in this particular instance, he more generally adds {Con. Faust, xxxiii. 8) : Vellem sane ut aliquis istcrum vanorum, qui hujusmodi qusestiunculas quasi magnas calumniose objiciunt Evangelio, narraret aliquid idem ipse bis numero, non falsum nee fallaciter, sed omnino id volens intimare et exponere, et stilo exciperentur verba ejus eique recitarentur : utrum non aliquid plus minusve diceret, aut praepostero ordine, non ver- borum tantum, sed etiam rerum ; aut utrum non aliquid ex sua seutentia diceret, tamquam alius dixerit, quod eum dixisse non audierit, sed voluisse atque sensisse plane cognoverit ; aut utrum non alicujus breviter complecteretur sententiae veritatem, cujus rei antea quasi expressius articulos explicaaset : et si quid est aliud quod for- taase possit certis regulis comprehendi, quomodo fiat ut vel in duorum singulis ejusdem rei narrationibus, vel in duabus unius ex una eademque re, multa diversa inveuiantur, nulla tamen adversa ; et multa vavia, nulla contraria. Chap. III.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 49 intention of the words uttered by the disciples at that moment, this is enough for him, and all that he demands from them.^ In other statements to the same effect, and in statements yet stronger than these, there is on Augus- tine's part a freedom and boldness in recognizing the human element in Scripture, which has perplexed some.^ But that he himself did not in the least believe that he was thus trenching on the divine inspiration of Scrip- ture, is manifest from innumerable passages that might be quoted, in which he claims for it immunity from all error, styles its authors ' the pen of the Holy Ghost,' and the like.' ^ De Cons. Evang. ii. 24: Nee opus est quserere quid horum potius Christo dictum sit. Sive euim aliquid horum trium dixerint, sive alia verba quae nullus Evangelistarum commemoravit, tantum- dem tamen valentia ad eandem sententiee veritatera, quid ad rem interest ? Quanquam et hoc fieri potuit, at pluribus eum simul ex- citantibus, omnia hsec, aliud ab alio, dicerentur. (Cf. Qu. in Gen. X. qu. 64.) Thus again on the concordant diversity of the four Evangelists (66) : Qua nobis ostenditur non esse mendacium, si quisquam ita diverso modo aliquid narret, ut ab ejus voluntate cui consonandum et cousentiendum est, non recedat. Quod nosse et moribus utile est, propter cavenda et judicanda mendacia; et ipsi fidei, ne putemus, quasi consecratis sonis, ita muniri veritatem, tan- quam Deus nobis quemadmodum ipsam rem, sic verba quae propter illam sunt dicenda, commendet ; cum potius ita res quae dicenda est, sermonibus per quos dicenda est, preeferatur, ut istos omnino qujerere non deberemus, si eam sine his nosse possemus, sicut illam novit Deus, et in ipso angel i ejus. * As when, accounting for the different order in which the Evan- gelists narrate events, and the greater fulness of one than another, he says {De Cons. Evang. ii. 12) : Ut enim quisque meminerat, et ut cuique cordi erat vel brevius vel prolixius eandem tamen explicare sententiam, ita eos explicasse manifestum est. See Rich. Simon Hist. Crit. du N. T. xviii. 262. ^ De Cons. Evang. ii. 12 : Oranem falsitatem abesse ab Evano-elistis decet, non solum earn, quse mentiendo promitur, sed etiam eam qute obliviscendo. Cf. Ejj. xix. {ad Hier.) : Si aliquid in eis offender© litteris quod videatur contrarium veritati : nihil aliud quam men- E 60 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. III. dosum esse codicem, vel interpretem non assecutum esse quod dictum est, Tel me minime intellexisse non ambigam. So too Conf. vii. 21 : Arripui venerabilem sfilum Spiritus S. tiii, et prte cseteris apostolum Paulum, et perierunt illre qusestiones, in quibus mihi aliquando tIsus est adversari sibi, et non congruere testimoniis legis et pro- pbetarum, et apparuit mihi una facies eloquiorum castorum. Of. De Gen. ad Lift. v. 8, Chap. IV,] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 51 CHAPTER IV. AUGUSTINE'S ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. In a faithful portrait the lights and shadows ought both to find their place.' Such a faithful portrait it is my desire here to present ; the excesses therefore of Augus- tine's allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament cannot be passed over altogether. Keeping these out of sight, one might present him in an aspect more exclu- sively favourable as an expositor, but certainly not in an aspect at all so true. He never indeed pushes this scheme of interpretation so far as to cast a slight, as Origen did, on the historic letter of the earlier Instrument. He may believe and_teach_of jome portions of this that they borrow all, or nearly all, their value from the higher spiritual truth of which they are the vehicle ; but he never teaches or implies that anything which is there told as history, was indeed not history at all, had no objective reality, being only the clothing of some moral or spiritual truth. On the contrary, he witnesses often and earnestly against all extenuations of the historic letter of Scripture ; which letter must needs stand firm, whatever super- structure may afterwards be built thereon. This later ^ On some shadows in the portrait which I am tracing here see DiESTEL, Gesch. d. Alien Testamentes, 1869, p. 86 sqq. E 2 52 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. IV. superstructure is ever to be reared on the establishment of the literal sense, not upon its ruins. • The allegory which Augustine urges must always be taken with a salva rerum gestarum fide, — often expressed, always under- stood.^ Of course it can be only with this scheme of interpre- tation driven into excess, and further than the hints which Scripture itself supplies for its due limitation will warrant, that any fault can be found. There is in all Scripture, and naturally most of all in the Old Testament Scripture, an allegorical element which has a right to claim recog- ^ nition from the Christian interpreter. Few, if any, would deny this. Indeed there are large portions of Grod's Word, as the delineation of Ezekiel's temple (chap. 40-48), as the Song of Songs, which only come to their full rights ' Sei'm. ii. 6 : Ante omnia, fratres, hoc in nomine Domini et admonemus quantum possum us et prsecipimus, ut quando auditis exponi sacramentum Scripturae narrantis quae gesta sunt, prius illud quod lectum est credatiir sic gestum quomodo lectum est ; ne, sub- tracto fundamento rei gestae, quasi in aere quaeratis aedificare. ^ On this matter he has an important chapter in the De Civ. Dei, xiii. 21 : he is speaking of the paradise of Gen. i-iii., to which the allegorists denied any historic reality, and probably has Origen {De Princip. iv. 16) especially in his eye: NonnuUi totum ilium Paradisum ubi primi homines S. Scripturae veritate fuisse narrantur, ad intelligibilia referunt, arboresque illas et ligna fructifera in virtutes vitse moresque convertunt : tanquam visibilia et corporalia ilia non fuerint, sed intelligibilium significandorum caussa eo modo dicta vel ecripta sint. Quasi propterea non potuerit esse Paradisus corporalis, quia potest etiam spiritalis intelligi: tanquam ideo non fuerint duae mulieres, Agar et Sara, et ex illis duo fiUi Abrahse, unus de ancilla, unus de libera, quia duo Testamenta in eis figurata dicit apostolus ; aut ideo de nulla petra, Moyse .percutiente, aqua defluxerit, quia potest illic figurata significatione etiam Christus intelligi, eodem apostolo dicente, Petra autem erat Christus. Cf. xvii. 3 : Audeant sensum intelligentiae spiritalis exsculpere, servata primitus duntaxat historiae veritate. De Gen. ad Litt. viii. 4. 7. Chap. IV.] INTEBPEETER OF SCRIPTURE. 53 when regarded from this point of view, and which, regarded from any other, must inevitably receive an unworthy explanation. And as the thing is recognized in Scripture, so also the word by which it is usually desig- nated (Gral. iv. 24). The allegory is that whic h dX\o ayopsvst: in it the words signify something more, in g eneral something deeper and highi^iv <^ban that which they offer upon the surface ; ' they invite the reader to look beyond themselves into altogether another sphere of thought and feeling, and need to be translated into that, before they attain to their full rights, and fulfil the Intention with which they were uttered. The extent, indeed, to which the Old Testament is in this sense prefigurative of the New, and exactly how far its personages are prophetic, its institutions typical, and its actions allegorical, is a matter very hard satisfactorily to determine. 2 I believe it can only be approximately determined, that, after all rules have been laid down, much must still be left to the tact and religious instinct of the interpreter. We indeed feel entirely confident that the comparatively few types and prophecies which are di- rectly claimed in the New Testament, the brazen serpent 1 In the allegory, as he himself explains it {Be Doctr. Christ, iii. 37), Aliud dicitur, ut aliud intelligatur. ^ On the extent of this the real, as distinguished from the verbal, prophecy of the Old Testament, Augustine expresses himself often. Thus Se7-m. ii. 6 : Tales ergo illos viros habehat Deus, et illo tempore tales fecerat prsecones Filio venture, ut non solum in his quae dicebant, sed etiam in his qu» faciebant, vel in his quae illis accidebant, Christua quEeratur, Ohristus inveniatur. Con. Faust, xxii. 24: Hoc primum dico, illorum hominum non tantum linguam, verum etiam vitam fuisse propheticam, totumque illud regnum gentis Hebrseorum, mag- num quendam, quia et Magni cujusdam, fuisse prophetam. Of. De Div. Qucest. qu. Iviii. 2 ; Be Civ. Bei, vii. 32. 54 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. IV. (John iii. 14), the manna (John vi. 48-51), the Paschal lamb (John xix. 36), Jacob's ladder (John i. 51), Agar and Sarah (Gal. iv. 22-31), Melchisedek (Heb. vii.), the High Priest entering into the hoKest (Heb. ix. 11-28) and such other as the Lord and his Apostles and Evan- gelists may expressly declare to be such, do not at all exhaust the typical element therein, but should rather serve as examples of something which is true to a much larger extent ; the earlier history being everywhere full of stirrings of that divine life which ultimately took form and bodily shape in Christ, of outline sketches only to be filled up by Him,' of attestations of all kinds, embedded deep in that earlier economy, that one and the same Grod was the author of it and of the later. It is only when we come to consider how far we may proceed in this direction, and where we should pause, that our perplexities begin. Better indeed, far better to find Christ everywhere in the Old Testament than to find Him nowhere: and to address ourselves to the prophetic books in any other expectation than that of everywhere finding Him, or to expect that under any other conditions they will render up to us their secret, is wilfully to cast away ' the key of knowledge,' and yet to expect that the door will be opened to us notwithstanding.'^ But with the historic ' On the partial fulfilment of prophecies in personages of the Old Testament, with the exhaustive fulfilment which was yet reserved for Christ, Augustine has excellent observations, speaking of Solomon and the prophecies that went before of him, De Civ. Dei, xvii. 8. "^ With a beautiful application of the miracle of the turning of the water into wine, Augustine exclaims {In Ev. Joh. Tract. 9) : Tollitur insipientia cum transieris ad Dominum ; et quod aqua erat, vinum tibi fit. Lege libros omnes propheticos ; non intellecto Christo, quid tam insipidum et fatuum invenies ? Intellige ibi Christum, non solum sapit quod legis, sed etiam inebriat. Chap. IV.] INTERPRETEK OF SCRIPTURE. 55 books it is otherwise. Even granting that the events recorded in them only found place for the sake of those higher ulterior meanings, of which the lower and actual were an allegory ; granting that they were all as a great acted parable and nothing more ; yet to insist on making every portion of this parable significant is to forget a primary canon of parabolic interpretation, — that parts in the parable exist merely for the holding other and more important parts of it together ; as there must be passages in the most splendid and best arranged house, as there is in the knife a handle which is not for cutting, and portions not a few of the lyre which yield no sound. Augustine admits all this ; he very often himself places this limit on the seeking for a secondary and, as he would count it, a higher meaning in all parts of the Old Testament: he allows that such connecting parts must be looked for there, and that it would be idle to demand of these an ulterior and higher meaning.' And sometimes he makes a stand in a still more advanced position against the allegorists, altogether refusing to go along with them * Con. Faust, xxii. 94; Christum igitur sonaut hsec omnia; nee esse quidquam credendum est librorum propheticoriim contextione narratum, quod non significet aliquid futurorum ; nisi quae ideo posita sunt ut ex eis quodam modo religentur ea, quoe ilium Regem popu- lumque ejus, sive propriis sive figuratis locutionibus rebus ve prsenun- tient. Sicut enim in citharia et hujuscemodi organis musicis, non quidem omnia quae tanguntur canorum aliquid resonant, sed tantum chordae ; caetera tamen in toto citharse corpore ideo fabricata sunt, ut esset ubi vincirentur, unde et quo tenderentur illae, quae ad cantilenas suavitatem modulaturus et purcussurus est artifex ; ita in his pro- pheticis narrationibus quae de rebus gestis hominum prophetico spiritu deliguntur, aut aliquid jam sonant significatione futurorum ; aut si nihil tale significant, ad hoc interponuntur, ut sit unde ilia sig- nificantia tanquam sonantia connectantur. Cf. De Civ. Dei, xvi. 2. 56 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. IV. in their extremes,' and recognizing the literal interpreter as worthy by comparison of superior honom*.'^ But at other times he expresses himself with a certain wavering and uncertainty ; nay, seems himself prepared to go all lengths with them, to make the entire Old Testament history, and this not in its grand outline and plan, but in all its details, prophetic,^ to allow nothing to have been there set down simply for its own sake, to account as though it had been unworthy of the Holy Ghost to occupy Himself in the record of such matters as fill up very many pages of the Book, unless this second and New Testament meaning could be shown everywhere to underlie the plainer and the earlier/ ^ De Civ. Dei, xvii. 3 : Quibusdam visum est, nihil esse in eisdein libria vel prsenuntiatum et affectum, vel affectum quamvis nou praenuntiatum, quod non insinuat aliquid ad supernam Civitatem Dei ej usque filios in hac vita peregrinos figurata significatione referendum. Mihi autem sicut multum videntur errare qui nuUas res gestas in eo genere littei-arum aliquid aliud praeter id quod eo mode gestae sunt significare arbitvantur ; ita multum audere qui prorsus ibi omnia significationibus allegoricis involuta esse contendunt. Hoc enim existimo, non tamen culpans eos, qui potuerint illic de qua- cunque re gesta sensum spiritalis intelligentiae exsculpere, servata primitus duntaxat historise veritate. ^ De Gen. con. Manich. ii. 2 : Sane qmsquis voluerit omnia quae dicta sunt, secundum litteram accipere, id est non aliter intelligere, quam littera sonat, et potuerit evitare blasphemias, et omnia con- griientia fidei catbolicae prsedicare, non solum ei non est invidendum, sed praecipuus multiunque laudabilis inteUector babendus est. Si autem nullus exitus datur ut pie et digne Deo quae scripta sunt intelligantur, nisi figurate atque in senigmatis proposita ista credamus, habentes auctoritatem apostolicam, a quibus tam multa de libris Veteris Testamenti solvuntur senigmata, modum quern intendimus teneamus, adjuvante Illo qid nos petere quaerere pulsare adbortatur. ^ I^iutrr. in Ps. cxxxvi. 3 : Diximus omnia quae secundum lit- teram in ilia Civitate contingebant figuras nostras fuisse, Cf. De Catech. Hud. 6. ■* This seems to nie to speak out in such words as the following Chap. IV.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 67 The result is oftentimes that in the endeavour to wring from Scripture more than it was intended to yield, less is indeed obtained. A shadow is snatched at, which is not grasped ; but in the snatching at it a substance has been let go and lost. We may illustrate this from Augustine's own exposition of the 103rd Psalm (according to our reckoning the 104th). Instead of that fresh healthy feeling which would read in this Psalm a setting forth of the glories of Grod in creation, with a drawing of ."trength and encouragement for the faithful from a con- templation of these, he will not be content, unless he has allegorized it throughout. The sun that ' knoweth his going down ' (ver. 19) is the ' Sun of righteousness ' who kneiu of his own death, and (with an urging of the agnovit of the Latin) was well pleased to lay down his life. The beasts that ' get them away together ' and hide in their (De Civ. Dei, xvii. i) : Ipsa Scriptura, qute per ordinem reges eorumque facta et eventa digerens, videtur tanquam historica dili- gentia rebus gestis occupata esse narrandis, si adjuvante Dei Spiritu considerata tractetur, vel magis vel certe non minus prsemmtiandis futuris, quam prjeteritis enuntiandis invenietur intenta. Of. Enarr. in Ps. cxiii. I. Thus too after a rapid and masterly oversight of the whole Jewish history, with a tracing of the Christian element which he everywhere found therein, a sketch occupying a great part of his twelfth book against Faustus, he sums up all in such language as this (37): Hsec omnia figurse nostras fuerunt [i Cor. x. 11]. Nam si Ismael et Isaac homines nati, duo Testamenta significant, quid credendum est de tot factis, quae nullo naturali usu, nulla negotii necessitate facta sunt? nihilne significant? Si quis nostrum qui Hebraeas litteras ignoramus, videret eas in pariete conscriptas, honorato aliquo loco, quis esset tam excors, ut eo modo pictum parietem putaret ? an non potius intelligeret scriptum, ut si legere non valeret, non tamen illos apices aliquid significare dubitaret ? At the same time he is obliged to acknowledge that in the Jewish history, so far at least as relates to the history of the kings, the typical cha- racter after Solomon's time almost altogether disappears {De Civ. Dei, xvii. 21). 58 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. IV. dens at the rising of this sun, are the persecutors in heart, who yet do not dare to show themselves openly as such in the bright day of the Church's prosperity; with much more in the same fashion.^ It may be said that here is no slight on the historic facts of the Old Testament ; and this is perfectly true ; but there is a slight on God's revelation of Himself in nature, as though that had no glory of its own, which a sweet and inspired singer in his Church might fitly occupy himself in proclaiming.^ Scripture, it is true, is not mainly idyllic, but epic ; its primary theme and argument is not nature but man ; yet as all worthy forms of human composition find their pro- totypes or their consummation therein, so even the idyl will not be wholly wanting there. And the historic element in the Old Testament often- times does not fare better. It is never, as has been already observed, in the least denied ; but something else is everywhere superinduced upon it, as though without this addition the facts of the history would not have worth and significance enough to justify the place which they ^ Enarr. in Ps. ciii. Thus too on the words of the Psalmist, * I laid me down and slept ; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me ' (Ps. iii. 5), he asks (Z>e Civ. Dei, xvii. i8): An forte quisquam ita desipit, ut credat velut aliquid magnum nobis indicare voluisse prophetam, quod dormierit et exsurrexerit, nisi somnus iste mors esset, et evigilatio resurrectio, quam de Ohristo sic oportuit pro- phetari ? But why not ? for entirely granting that these words look on to our Lord's resurrection, yet is not the wondrous mystery of our sleeping and waking, and the mercies which evermore attend it, one well worihy of being ascribed to God ? might it not, even without that higher meaning, have found its place in a Psalm ? * How deficient an eye for this is indicated in such interpretations as Hilary's, when he makes ' the lilies of the field,' which we are bidden to * consider ' (Matt. vi. 28), not to be lilies, but angels ( Comm. in Matt, in loc). Augustine protests against this. Chap. IV.] INTERPEETER OF SCRIPTURE. 59 occupy in the Scriptures of God. Thus the Ark is pitched within and without (Gen. vi. 14) in sign that the Church shall be so joined and knit together, that neither heresies nor scandals from within, nor open assaults from without, shall dissolve its framework, or make it pervious to the waters of the world.' Jacob's deception of his father, with all the profound lessons to be drawn from the conduct and after fortunes of the four principal actors in that trans- action, none of them without fault, and none without punishment, is passed slightly over, while Augustine hunts after a higher mystical meaning in the transaction, to which he unsuccessfully adjusts it.^ Assuredly there was meaning enough in it already ; and the divine character of the family and of the nation, and of all those hmnan relationships which spring from them, abundantly justify a teaching, which in minutest detail and in a thousand forms should show us what is the blessing of maintaining God's order in the family and the State, what the penalties which attend the violation of this order. A Holy Scripture does not demean itself, nor exhaust itself on matters alien to its very highest purpose, when it largely occupies itself with these. And in other ways no less he betrays the want of an historic sense. How inconceivable a lack of such, for in- stance, is shown in his assumption that all the Psalms were composed by David ; ^ that so, when in one Psalm we ^ Con. Faust, xii. 14. * Serm. iv. 11-33. ^ De Civ. Dei, x\i\. 14: Mihi autem credibilius videntur existi- mare, qui omnes illos centum et quinquaginta Psalmos ejus operi tribuunt, eumque aliquos praenotasse etiam nominibus aliorum, ali- quid quod ad rem pertineat figurantibus ; ceteros autem nulliua hominis nomen in titulis habere voluisse ; sicut ei varietatia hujus dis- positionem, quamvis latebrosam, non tamen inanem, Dorainus inspi ravit. 60 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. IV. read, ' By the waters of Babylon there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion ' (exxxvii. i), and in another, ' When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream ' (cxxvi. i ), we are to hear not some inspired singer from the children of the Captivity mourning over a present woe, or rejoicing in a present redemption, but David and still David, artificially adapting spiritual songs which he had composed to condi- tions altogether remote and different from his own. I will not leave this subject without a few general ob- servations in conclusion. The whole scheme of allegorical and mystical interpretations is one manifesting itself in too many quarters, and finding far too much favour with hearers and readers, to be referred to the caprice or idio- syncrasies of particular teachers in the Church ; even as it is absurd to trace it up to Philo or to any foreign source, and to suppose that we have in this way accounted for it. We do it, its authors and favourers, most right, not when we seek to defend it throughout, because we find it al- lowed or zealously furthered by men to whom the Church owes so immense a debt ; — but rather when we seek to explain it, and how it should have cast its roots so widely, and grown up to so extraordinary a height. It was then, as I believe, not merely the excusable, but the inevitable, consequence of that great wrench and shock whereby the Church forcibly detached itself from Judaism (the writings of Justin Martyr mark the moment), and by God's grace was for ever delivered from the danger of merely knowing a Christ, the Son of Abraham, the Son of David, the King of Israel. This shock was one with results that were felt for centuries ; during all which the controversies which most Chap. IV.J INTEKPEETER OF SCRIPTURE. 61 occupied the minds and hearts of men led the Church to an almost exclusive contemplation of the divine nature and person of her Lord. But it belongs to the limitation of human faculties and powers, that when mighty truths are mightily felt and witnessed for by men, there will go along with this a partial throwing into the background, and thus a present obscuration, of other truths, especially of such as are the balancing counterweight to these. In this way it came to pass that when the Church passed over to, and rooted itself in a Gentile soil, and became virtually a Church of the Gentiles, having just fulfilled its protest against Ebionite and all other forms of Judaizing error, the protestors found it hard to recognize at its full worth this preparatory history of the kingdom of God ; to see in Jewish story and Levitical institutions the periphery of a circle whereof Christ was the centre, the womb in which the Christ after the flesh had been gradually forming and taking shape,^ and coming to the birth. This inability to recognize the worth of the preparatory history shows itself in its worst excess and caricature in the various forms of Gnostic heresy ; all of these having this in common, that they brought down their Christ direct from heaven, and would know of no human preparation for his appear- ing, no earthly root and stalk out of which He, as the perfect flower, was unfolded at the last : they all as a con- sequence of this taking up a position of more or less fanatical hostility to the Old Testament. Nor were there wanting even among them who were within the Church, and who would have been shocked at 1 Augustine himself expresses tbis truth, though in -words some- what obscure {De Civ. Dei, svii. 1 1 ) : Ipse Jesus intelligitur, sub- stantia populi ejus, ex quo natura est carnis ejus. 62 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. IV. such blasphemous exaggerations as those of the Gnostics, some who drove this tendency into positive error. Origen at once presents himself as the most notable example of this. It is plain, however, that in those endeavours of his to take the veil from off Moses' face, for so he calls it, he found opposition even in his own day ; ^ for he com- plains that when he, like Isaac, has opened the wells of spiritual understanding, others come like the Philistines, and stop them again (G-en. xxvi. 14, 15).^ In this resist- ance which he everywhere encountered, we have a remark- able evidence of the divine leading of the Church. Those very teachers who resisted Origen were themselves, as I can- not doubt, giving too large an allowance to this same sys- tem of allegorical interpretation ; yet so soon as he or any other put in actual peril the truth of God, and threatened seriously to impugn the historic basis on which the truth rested, and on which alone it could rest,' so soon as ever he overpassed the bounds within which this tendency was safe — the comparatively harmless, if not always the edify- ing, play of the fancy — they at once and earnestly pro- tested against it, affirmed with all clearness the importance of setting determinate limits to it, such as it should on no account be permitted to overpass. With all this, it was only the excesses and perilous extravagances of this school of interpretation which for the most part they resisted. So long as these were avoided, ^ See HiTET, Oriffeniana, ii. 13 ; De la Rtje, Preface to the second volume of his works. ^ In Gen. Horn. xiii. 3. The position of these ' friends of the letter ' is plain from his own account of them. They resisted him on the right ground, vevitatera negantes stare posse nisi super terram. * In proof that Origen does so see the remarkable passage, De Princip. iv. 1 5 ; one of many that might be referred to. Chap. IV.] INTERPEETER OF SCRIPTURE. 63 they felt do misgiving about it ; and this scheme of capricious allegorical interpretation continued in full force, and abode in highest honour during all the Middle Ages, with indeed the same protests on the part of the great teachers of those ages, when it seemed to threaten vital truth, as we meet in the earlier Church.^ It was not till the Eeformation, asserting as this did the dignity of the family and the nation against the Papacy which made war upon them both, that the letter of the Old Testament, with its record of an elect family and a chosen nation, came to its full rights and honour, or that men understood all which was contained for them therein. Doubtless it was in Luther his reverence for the fundamental institutes of family and national life, for the relations of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, kings and subjects, which moved him to such exceeding and oftentimes extravagantly expressed indignation against ' Thus the great medieval scholar of Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, alter Augustinus, lingua Augustini, as in his own time he was called, treading in his master's f )otsteps {Erud. Didasc. vi. 3) : Sicut vides, quod omnis sedificatio fundamento carens, stahilis esse non potest, sic est etiam in doctrina. Fundamentum autem et prin- cipium doctrinjB sacrse historia est, de qua, quasi mel de favo, Veritas allegorise exprimitur. ^dificaturus ergo primum fundamentum historiae pone ; deinde per significationem typicam in arcem fidei fabricam mentis erige ; ad extremum ergo per moralitatis gratiam quasi pulcherrimo superducto colore gedificium pinge. Yet the same illustrious writer gives curious evidence of the upper hand which the allegorical interpretation had acquired, even in their minds who felt most boimd to vindicate the worth also of the historic letter, when even in the very act of protesting against the excesses of the aUe- gorists he counts it necessaiy to use such humble apologies for the letter of Scripture as the following {Prcenott. Elucid. 5) : Quasi lutum tibi videtur totum hoc quod verbum Dei foris habet, et ideo forte pedibus conculcas quia lutum est, et contemnis quod coi-poraliter et visibiliter gestum littera narrat. Sed audi : luto isto quod pedibus tuis concalcatur, cseci oculus ad videndum illuminatur. 64 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. IV. the allegorizers of the early Church. He felt that a record which was concerned with these relations as seen in the light of God, must possess the very highest worth, and be full of the most important instruction ; but that all this was called in question and virtually denied by those who were so eager to find another, and as they vaunted it, a higher and deeper meaning in those portions of Scripture which were mainly occupied with the setting forth of these relations. Certainly his own great work on Genesis, upon which he laboured with a peculiar care and love, and which employed him during eight years of his life, is a glorious monument of the simpler historic interpretation. In this his dislike to the allegorizers often finds the most passionate utterance.' Augustine indeed had too many other titles to the respect and reverence of Luther to allow him ever to speak slightingly of him ; though, in this matter, if others are counted faulty, he cannot be altogether acquitted of all share in the fault. ^ In the following: passage he expresses himself with more than usual moderation : Htec est historia et simplex sententia hujus loci, qufe utcunque a nobis tractata est, et aliis etiam spero satis planani fore. Tam et allegoria attingenda erat. Sed ssepe dixi, allegorias esse periculosas in explicanda Scriptura sancta, quia alius aliud sequitur, alii aliud fundamentum ponunt, et alius aurum, alius stipulas Eedificant. Ac pulchre dixit Augustinus, Figura nihil probat. Ideo in asserendis et confirmandis dogmatibus fidei nostrse non valent allegorise aut alife figurte, sed probationibus et testimoniis opus est, qu£e ex ipsis foiitibus Scriptur?e sanctse sumuntur. Figuras enim et alleo-orias quilibet suo arbitrio aut interpretari, aut fingere ipse potest. Ideo nihil firmi et certi habent. Possunt taraen adhiberi tanquana lumina et ornamenta ad omandam et illustrandam doctrinam, vel sensum literalem. Sicut Paulus, Gal. iv. (22), adducit exempliim Abrahfe, Hagar et Saire, ut ornet et illustret doctrinam de justitia fidei et de duobus Testamentis. Et quando allegoria congruit cum doctrina et ejus assertione, est pulcherrimum ornamentum et quasi condimentum doctrinse. CiiAP. v.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 65 CHAPTER V. ILLUSTRATIONS OF AUGUSTINE'S SKILL AS AN INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. What has been thus far said of Augustine's fitnesses for being an able expositor of the Word of God, and also of the spirit in which he approached so serious and solemn a work, I shall now endeavour to illustrate by examples selected from his writings. Here indeed we are solicited and drawn different ways by an abundance, which, if it does not make poor, yet continually perplexes as to what we shall choose ; for certainly there was never charge more unfounded than that which P^re Simon brings against the exegetical writings of Augustine — namely, that one must read a vast deal in them to light on anything which is good. This charge, were it true, would involve almost every other in itself ; but is so far from truth, that it is impossible not to say that he who made it did therein pronounce sentence against himself, and declare his own incapacity to recognize the highest gifts of the Spirit brought to bear on the deepest truths of revelation, even when these gifts in their actual exercise were presented to him.' > Rosenmiiller's judgment is harsher and unjuster still {Hist. Interp. Lib. Sac. vol. iii. p. 502) : Nobis quidem sine omni mo merito consecutus esse videtur earn uominis celebritatem et auctoritatem qua per omnia deinceps secula floruit. F Q6 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chaf, V. In seeking to make good what I have just affirmed, I shall draw my materials not merely from those writings avowedly dedicated to the exposition of Scripture, but indifferently from the whole circle of Augustine's writings. For it is a consequence of the immense digressions in which he so freely allows himself, that oftentimes the secondary gains from his exposition are larger than the primary. Thus he is expounding a Psalm, and we sud- denly find him explaining a parable- or unfolding at large a miracle of our Lord's — eagerly following the game which starts up before him on his path. These digres- sions, sometimes untimely, as keeping too long out of sight the subject which he professes to be handling, affecting too, and not favourably, the form of his exposi- tion, must be regarded as in some sort a blemish, and do in their degree detract from its merits; while yet on another side they may be contemplated as a portion of his wealth, of that inexhaustible fulness which on all occasions is seeking to pour itself forth, — so that we should be very much poorer if these were withdrawn. And first, we may consider his skill in the reconciliation of Scripture ; I do not mean merely in the removal of apparent discrepancies, lying on the surface of the several narratives, between one and another record of the same fact ; but in the removal of those seeming oppositions, ethical or doctrinal, which lie much deeper, and can only be reconciled in some higher unity, wherein the differences are atoned. Let serve as an example of his skill herein the way in which he justifies, as not contradicting one another, the very different manners in which at different times St. Paul bore himself toward the Jewish ceremonial law ; which law he appears sometimes himself to observe Chap, v.] interpreter OF SCRIPTURE. 67 (Acts xxi. 23-26) ; while at other times he forbids, under peril of their salvation, his converts to do the like (Gal. V. 3, 4). There are some very interesting letters between him and St. Jerome, in which these and some like passages, with all the difficulties that beset them, are fully and most profitably discussed.' The discussion has its rise in an oflfence which Augustine had not unreason- ably taken at a passage in Jerome's Commentary on the Galatians. In this, out of a mistaken zeal to clear the character of a saint and Apostle from every speck and blemish, he implies that the scene referred to at Gal. ii. 14 was, so to say, got up between the two great Apostles, St. Paul and St. Peter, for the better maintaining of peace in the Church at Antioch ; that the Apostle of the Gentiles did not really blame the Apostle of the Circum- cision, but that each sustained a part in a transaction arranged beforehand — St. Peter, who had indeed done well in preserving the peace of the Church, having by his withdrawal satisfied the Jewish converts, and St. Paul by his blame of him having vindicated the liberty in Christ, which else that withdrawal might have perilled.^ Augus- tine, too straightforward a lover of the truth to tolerate economies of this kind, protests with a righteous earnest- ness against this explanation, which he invites Jerome to ' Augustine's are the 28th, 40th, and 82nd; Jerome's, the 68th, 72nd, and 75th in the Benedictine edition of Augustine's works. Bishop Lightfoot in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians deals very thoroughly with the contention between the two great fathers of the Church. "^ In the same way he speaks {Ad Vhilem. 7) of the contention between Paul and Barnabas (Acts xv. 39) as cedijicatorium Ecclesife jurgium — which in a sense is most true ; but the contention was not a make-believe, but truly meant all that it said. F 2 68 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. defend or to withdraw.' The latter defends it, and mainly on the following grounds — However the one Apostle may have seemed to find fault with the other for conforming to the prejudices of the Jewish converts, yet he could not really have blamed him; since, if such conformity was sinful, he too was in the same condemnation ; for he also made the Jews, or rather the judaizing Christians, to believe that he kept the law; and, in proof of this, Jerome urges his circumcising of Timothy (Acts xvi. 3), his shaving of his head at Cenchrea (Acts xviii. 18), his purifying of himself in the temple (Acts xxi. 26), and his general admission that to the Jews he became a Jew.'^ But Augustine will not allow this defence, and planting himself in the true position from which to judge the conduct * Ep. xxviii. 3, he communicates his grief ; and again Ep. xl. 3, 4. In this last epistle he unfortunately bids St, Jerome to sing his recantation {TraXivahiav cane). The phrase was not a happy one, comino' from the younger to the older man ; and Jerome, whom none can deny, with the amplest recognition of the Church's immense oblio-ations to him, to have been somewhat tetchy and prompt to take offence was exceedingly hurt at this exhortation ; and his part of the correspondence is fnU of characteristic touches, as indeed the noble character of Augustine appears very clearly in his. There is an in- terestino- analysis of this correspondence, bringing out the personal in it which I have not thought it needfid to touch on, by Mohler (Venn. Schrift. vol. i. p. 1-18) ; in which, very noticeably for one of the Roman communion, he gives the entire right to Paul as against Peter to Auo-ustiae as against Jerome. Indeed Jerome himself must be considered ultimately to have done the same ; seeing that in his Dialogue against the Pelagians (i. 8), written very shortly after, he adduces this which Peter here did in proof that not merely ordinary Christians, but Apostles themselves, were not free from sin. Augustine {Ep. clx. 5, ad Oceanum) at a later day notes that they are now both of one mind on this matter. '^ Jerome {Ep. Ixxv. 3) : Qua igitur fronte, quii audacia Paul us in altero reprehendat, quod ipse commisit ? Chap. V.] INTERPEETER OF SCRIPTURE. 69 of St. Paul, he shows what the rule of that conduct was — not, that is, to make the faithful who still clung to the law to believe that he also kept it throughout ; a pretence of this kind would have made his whole life a lie ; but to prove to them that he did not, as some charged him, account those Jewish customs abominable, and for a Christian man sinful and sacrilegious ; that he had none of that enthusiasm against the Law, which afterwards declared itself in what we may call the ultra-Pauline sects, in Gnostics and Manichgeans : but, on the contrary, saw in it shadows and prophetic outlines of good things which had their body and substance in Christ. Those who had grown up in the law, those to whom it had be- come a second nature, were perfectly at liberty to retain it,' provided only they did not impose it as a necessity on others, or suppose that their own salvation in any way depended on it. He did not blame Peter for observing, nor for countenancing Jewish Christians in observing, those customs ; but for compelling Gentiles to judaize, and so implicitly saying that these observances were necessary for salvation.^ So far from abhorring the ceremonial law, he would himself willingly come under it from time to time, in this way stopping their mouths who affirmed that he set the rites and customs of Judaism on a level with heathen superstitions and idolatries, and taught that they were to be renounced in the same spirit * Con. Faust, xix. 17. ^ JEp. ix. 4: Non ideo Petrum emendavit, quod paternas tradi- tiones observaret : quod si facere vellet, nee mendaciter nee incongrue faceret : quamvis enim jam superflua, tamen solita non nocerent ; sed quoniam gentes cogebat judaizare : quod nullo modo posset, nisi ea sie ageret, tanquam adhuc etiam post Domini adventum necessaria saluti forent: quod vehementer per apostolatum Pauli Veritas dissuasit. 70 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. as were those. But this doing, he never acted a false- hood, nor sought to persuade any that he was a constant observer of that law. Only by occasional compliance with its enactments he paid it the honour due to that which had been, though for a temporary purpose, framed by Grod Himself, and honoured of Him as a preparatory discipline of men, until the coming in of that which was perfect. St. Paul had no desire that the Christian Church, least of all where it was formed out of Jewish elements, should with violence and revolutionary haste rend itself away from that economy, in which and out of which it had grown. His wish was rather that it should gently detach itself therefrom, as does the ripe fruit from the husk which protected it once, but whose protection it now needs no more, nay rather finds an encumbrance.' Such a process he would not have sought to hasten, being perfectly content to let time accomplish what it would inevitably bring about at last. But it was alto- gether another thing when some thought to submit to these practices, legal and ceremonial, the converts from the heathen world, who had never known them before. This he resisted to the uttermost; as he would have resisted the reintroduction of these customs, and their reimposition, under any pretext whatever, even upon converts of a Jewish stock, after they had once fallen into desuetude. That which Paul countenanced and allowed might be regarded as a burying of the body of the syna- gogue leisurely and with due honours ; this would have been the disinterring of its corpse, after it had lain long in the grave. ^ ' Con. Faust, xxxii. 13. ^ Ep. Ixxxii. 2: Sicut defuncta corpora, neceasariorum officiis de- Cha-p. v.] interpreter OF SCRIPTURE. 71 Augustine gives here the true reconciliation of all the apparent contradictions in St. Paul's conduct, as his circumcising of Timothy, and at the same time saying, ' If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing ' (Gal. V. 2) ; the explanation, too, of still weightier moral perplexities ; as of that most difficult case of all, namely, his undertaking at his last visit to Jerusalem of a Nazarite vow in the temple (Acts xxi.). Was this with the hypo- critical intention of leading Jews or Jewish Christians to believe that he was a constant observer of the whole ceremonial law, nay more, one who went beyond the letter of its requirements, and took freewill vows upon himself ? Nothing of the kind ; ^ but only in the more emphatical way to disprove that which the Judaizers as- serted about him, with the view of making him hateful at Jerusalem, and of marring his work everywhere — namely, that he obliged his converts from among the Jews of the dispersion to forsake Moses, that he absolutely forbade any longer adherence on their parts to legal ordinances ducenda erant quodammodo ad sepulturam [vetera sacramenta] ; nee simulate, sed religiose ; non autem deserenda coatinuo, vel inimicorum obtrectationibus tanquam canura morsibus projicienda. Proinde nunc quisquis Christianonim, quamvis sit ex Judajis, similiter ea celebrare voluerit, tanquam sopitos cineres eruens, non erit plus deductor vel bajulus corporis, sed impius sepulturse violator. ^ Ep, Ixxxii. 2 : Tanquam inimicum legis, raandatorumque divi- norum criminabantur ; cujus falsse criminationis invidiam congru- entius devitare non posset, quam ut ea ipse celebraret, quse damnare tanquam sacrilega putabatur : atque ita ostenderet, nee Judseos tunc ab eis tanquam a nefariis prohibendos, nee Gentiles ad ea tanquam ad necessaria compellendos. This too, he goes on to say, was the prin- ciple of St. Paul's dealing in the cases of Timothy and Titus ; he cir- cumcised tbe first, that none might say he esteemed circumcision an execrable thing ; he would not circumcise Titus, that the liberty of the Gospel might stand fast. 72 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. (Acts xxi. 2i); while all, in fact, that he did forbid, was their supposing that a man was justified by these ; or their laying of the yoke of these on heathen converts (Acts XV. i): which could only have been done on an implicit assumption that such was the case. Here indeed he did speak out, and proclaim that, if they so preached circumcision or practised it, Christ would profit them nothing (Gal. v. 4) ; they were fallen from grace. Otherwise it was for him a thing indifferent, which neither helped nor hindered. No doubt he desired to see even this outward mark of separation between the different members of the new family in Christ Jesus disappear ; but he was willing to wait till it should fall away of itself, as he knew that in the second or third generation of Jewish converts it inevitably must.* Another slighter example of Augustine's skill in setting Scriptures at one may follow. He takes the words of St. Paul, ' Bear ye one another's burdens ' (Gal. vi. 2), and then, with an interval only of two verses, ' Every man shall bear his own biu-den ' (ver. 5), statements at first sight seeming to contradict one another, and this while they stand in closest neighbourhood the one to the other ; ^ Con. Mendac. 12 : Id autem quod Paulus fecit, ut quasdam ob- servationes legitimas Judaica consuetudine retineudo et agendo nou se inimicum Legi Prophetisque moustraret, absit ut mendaciter eum fecisse credamus. De hac quippe re satis est ejus nota sententia, qua fuerat constitutum, nee Judaeos qui tunc in Chiistum credebant pro- hibendos esse a paternis traditionibus, nee ad eas Gentiles, cum Christiani fierent, esse cogendos ; ut ilia sacramenta quae di'tinitus prsecepta esse constaret, non tanquam sacrilegia fugereutur; nee tamen putarentur sic necessaria jam Novo Testamento revelato, tanquam sine illis quicunque converterentur ad Deum salvi esse non possent. Hoc error quorundam putabat, hoc timor Petri simulabat, hoc libertas Pauli redarguebat ; cf. De Mendacio, 8. Chap. V.] INTEKPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 73 and he shows their reconciliation to lie in a recognition of the twofold use of the word ' burden.' The ' burden ' of one another's infirmities, the ' burden ' even of one another's sins, in so far as they are the occasion to our- selves of annoyance, of pain, of labour, of loss, we can and we ought to bear ; even while there is another ' burden,' the solemn answer of each man for his own life to God, which every one must bear for himself, and which none can bear for a brother.* Once more : on the words of St. Paul, ' We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ ' (2 Cor. v. 10); What is this ? he exclaims ; what does St. Paul say here ? Has not the Lord Himself promised, that he who heareth his word and believeth on Him that sent Him, shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life ? (John V. 24) ; and now the servant appears to unsay the Master's word, and to bring us all before the judgment- seat anew. The reconciliation of the several statements lies in a right seizing of the different uses ,of the word 'judgment ' (/cpto-ts), which signifies sometimes condem- nation, and sometimes discrimination. Only in the second sense is it true that we must all appear before the judgment- seat — namely, that to each may be severally ^ De Cons. Evang. ii. 30 : Alia sunt onera portandae infirmitatis, alia reddendse rationis Deo de actibu3 nostris ; ilia cum fratribus sus- tentanda commuDicantur, hsec propria ab unoquoque portantur. See an admirable sermon {Serm. clxiv.) on tliese two texts, in their relation to one another ; and on the first of them some beautiful observations, Div- QucBst. 71. The seeming contradiction between the two de- clarations comes out more strongly in the Latin, which has onus in both places, as the English has ' burden,' than in the Greek, which in the first has ^ap-q, in the second (f>opriov, a variation which Augustine has not used as a help to his explanation, but whereby it is abundantly justified. 74 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. distributed things suitable to his condition, good to the good, evil to the evil.* Augustine's interpretation of this passage goes altogether counter to their doctrine who teach that for the faithful man also there vrill be a judgment according to works. His faith has saved him ; however afterwards, according to the measure of his holiness, of Christ formed in him, will be the measure of his capacity for receiving the divine reward, and his place, higher or lower, in the future kingdom. So far as the relation of St. Paul to the law is con- cerned, Augustine had but to set right the error of a friend : but at other times his task is to deal with the cavils of a foe. It may be well to show by two or three examples how he disposes of the objections of the Manichaeans and other adversaries, who, rejecting the whole Old Testament, yet naturally made some which seemed to them the more exposed and indefensible positions there, the chief points of their attack. One of these was with them, as it notoriously was with the English Deists of the last century, the destruction of the Canaanites root and branch, and at the exj:)ress command of God : another, such an enveloping of the (comparatively) innocent in a common doom with the guilty, and making of the innocent to suffer for the sin of the guilty, as found place when for Achan's as yet undiscovered sin not a few of the children of Israel perished in battle with their enemies (Josh. vii. 5). In the matter of the destruction of the Canaanites Augustine betakes himself to none of those poor evasions, which some in conflict with modern Deism have sought out, — as, for instance, that the land of Canaan had * In Ev. Joh. Tract, xxii. : Ut bonis bona, malis mala distribuantur. Chap. V.] INTERPEETER OF SCRIPTURE. 75 originally belonged to the children of Israel through the occupation of it by the patriarchs, who therefore, under Joshua, did but reclaim and recover their own ; » but Augustine sees in the excision of those wicked nations an act of the divine righteousness, which those only will misunderstand, but which they will certainly misunder- stand, who are ignorant of what sin is, and what sin deserves.' The Canaanites were the ' carcase ; ' and it is the everlasting law of God's moral government, that ' where the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together ; ' a law indeed as loving as it is righteous, that this carcase shall not for ever be permitted to pollute the moral atmosphere of his world. The 'eagles' that on this occasion were gathered together for its removal out of the way, were the children of Israel. If any among them did his appointed work in the bitterness of his spirit, out of a mere lust after the possessions of those whom he destroyed, having pleasure in the sufferings which he inflicted, and leaving out of sight that he was a minister and executor of the righteousness of God, this was his sin ; he was indeed a robber and a murderer ; but nothing of > Mcliaelis, Mos. Becht. (vol. i.'p. 125-203), is very earnest in seeking to prove this, and to justify on these grounds the forcible occuprtion of the land by the children of Israel ; but the facts of the case do not bear out this claim. Moreover, nothing would be gained, if it could be made out. God gave this land to the Oanaanites, and when their iniquitv was full, He took it away from them and gave it to the children of Israel ; and in this gift, and not in anything else, was the title-deed of their possession ; see this matter handled ex- cellently well by Hengstenberg, Authen. d. Pent. vol. ii. p. 17 1-99- 2 Qucest. in Jos. 16: Qui propter hoc Veteris Testamenti varum Deum fuisse nolunt credere, tam perverse de operibus Dei quam de peccatis hominum judicant, nescientes quid quisque pati dignus sit, et magnum putantes malum cum casura dejiciuntur, mortalesque moriuntur. 76 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. this lay in his commission ; nay, he contradicted his mission, so far as in the fulfilling of it he gave room to any such evil passions as these.* In what manner Augustine disposed of the other objection, his %yords quoted below will sufficiently declare.'^ The blots and blemishes in the lives of the faithful were a frequent and favourite subject of malignant com- ment on the part of some, Manichseans especially, with whom Augustine had to contend. He does not, of course, deny the existence of such blots, some of them very dark ones, in their lives ; which being there, the Scripture is too faithful a mirror not to give them back.^ At the ' Con. Adimant. Man. 17 : Displicet istis miseris quod Deus populo suo interficiendos tradidit inimicos. Intelligant sine odio esse posse \-indictam, quam pauci iutelligunt; et tamen quamdiu non intelli- gitur, tamdiu necesse est ut lector in libris utriusque Testamenti magno labore aut eiTore jactetur, et putet contrarias sibi esse Scrip- turas. ^ Qucest. in Jos. 8 : Non enim aliquid dirum, quantum attiuet ad universi mundi administrationem, contingit mortalibus, cum mori- untur quandoque morituri : et tamen apud eos qui talia metuunt, dis- cipliua sancitur, ut non se solum quisque curet in populo, sed invicem sibi adhibeant diligentiam, et tanquam unius corporis et imius bom- inis alia pro aliis sint membra solicita. Nee tamen credendum est, etiam pcenis quse post mortem irrogantur, alium pro alio posse dam- nari ; sed in his tantum pcenia banc irrogari poenam, quae finem fuerant babiturse, etiamsi non eo modo finirentur. Simul etiam ostenditur, quantam connexa sit in populi societate ipsa universitas, ut non in se ipsis singuli, sed et tanquam partes in toto existimentur. He carries so far his view of the merely corrective character which temporal death may often have, as to assume that Ananias and Sapphira were thus judged temporally, that they might not be con- demned eternally {Serm. cxlviii.). Much very noteworthy he has {De Serm. Dom. in Monte, I § 64) on the deaths of men, so often intended to be disciplinary and corrective for other men, and thus not thrown away. ^ Con. Faust, xxii. 60 : [Scriptura] tanquam speculi fidelis nitor, admotarum sibi personarum non solum qute pulcra atque integra. Chap. V.J INTERPRETER OF 8CRIPTURE. 77 same time he shows how a malignant misinterpretation oftentimes made sins out of actions of theirs, which indeed were innocent or laudable ; while other works of theirs, confessedly sinful, were yet hatefully exaggerated by these adversaries ; to whom Noah was a drunkard, Moses, for the killing of the Egyptian, a murderer,' and the unhappy daughters of Lot, who, it is plain, believed themselves and their father the sole sm'viyors in the world of the catastrophe of Sodom (Gen. xix. 31), monsters of lust and impurity.^ But let the sin have been what it might, Holy Scriptm'e was in no wise committed or compro- mised by it; and as little the righteousness of Grod, whose voice and utterance that Scripture is. It re- corded these sinful actions of theirs, but did not praise them ; very often expressed the strongest moral disappro- verum etiam quae deformia vitiosaque sint, indicat ; and 65 : Nulliua accipit adulandam personam, sed et laudanda et vituperanda hominuiu facta vel ipsa judicat, vel legentibus judicanda proponit ; nee solum homines ipsos vel vituperabiles vel laudabiles intimans, verum etiam qusedam in vituperabilibus laudanda et in laudabilibus \-ituperanda non tacens. ^ He sees in this energetic act of Moses on behalf of a suflfering brother, carnal and unlawful as it was, the promise and prophecy of the man that should afterwards redeem Israel, and has a strLkincr comparison on the subject {Con. Faust, xxii. 70): Verumtamen animae virtutis capaces ac fertiles, preemittunt saepe vitia, quibus hoc ipsum indicant, cui virtuti sint potissimum accommodatse, si fuerint praeceptis excultae. Sicut enim et agi-icolaB quam terram viderint, quamvis in- utiles, tamen ingentes herbas progignere, frumentis aptam esse pro- nuntiant ; et ubi tilicem aspeseriut, licet eradicandam sciant, validis vitibus habilem intelligunt, et quern moutem oleastris silvescere as- pexerint, oleis esse utilem eultura accedente non dubitant, sic ille animi motus, quo Moyses, peregrinum fratrem a cive improbo injuriam perpetientem, non observato ordine potestatis, inultum esse non per- tulit, non virtutum fructibus inutilis erat, sed adhuc incultus vitiosa quidem sed magnae fertilitatis signa fundebat. ^ Con. Faust, xxii. 43. 78 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V, bation of them (2 Sam. xiii. 27) ; or where it kept silence, this silence was itself for the better exercise of the moral sense of the faithful; that, applying the rules drawn from other parts of the Word of God, and from the immutable principles of morality graven in all hearts, they might pass their own judgment on the deed, excusing or accusing ; which that they should sometimes be thus invited to do was far more profitable, and involved far more of instruc- tion, than that they should always find judgments of praise or blame ready made to their hand, and, so to speak, cut and dried in the Scriptures themselves.^ Nor yet, he adds, was the existence of these faults and failings, yea of these great and grievous sins on the part of good men, inconsistent with their position as the bearers in their time of the promises of God, the witnesses for his truth. Such bearers of his word, such witnesses for his truth they were ; as such, having a treasure ; yet having it in earthen vessels, so that it was nothing strange if the earthen vessel should sometimes appear. There was only ONE whose sin, if such the Scriptm-e had been obliged to record, would have set that Scriptm-e at contra- diction with itself, and shaken the everlasting foundations upon which the faith of the Church reposes.*^ * Con. Faust, xxii. 45 : Narrata ista sunt, non laudata. Qu£edam vero enunciato judicio Dei, qusedam tacito narrari oportuit ; utquando promitur quid inde judicaverit Deus, instruatur nostra imperitia ; quando autem tacetur, vel exerceatur peritia ut quod alibi didicimua recolamus, vel excutiatur pigritia ut quod nondum novimus, inquira- mu3. Of. Con. Mendac. 14. 2 On the different ways in which we may contemplate the sins of God's saints, how we may get from them all harm, but how they were recorded for our good, he has many most useful observations, commenting on the 50th (51st, A. V.) Psalm {Enarr. in Pa. 1. i, 2): Multi cadere volunt cum David, et uolunt surgere cum David. Non Chap. V.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 79 Very excellent, again, is his reply to some of these same cavillers, whose nice ears were offended at the oc- casional plainness of speech which Scriptm*e claims for itself in speaking of certain sins and their consequences, such plainness of speech as Moses has sometimes used ; as St. Paul, and eminently on one occasion (Eom. i. 26, 27), does not shrink from employing. How well he defends this needful outspokenness of Scripture against the aflfected, or where not affected, untimely, delicacy of men who could bear that such things should be done, but not that they should be spoken about ; nay, who fain would have silence kept about them, when by the speaking the doing might perhaps be prevented.^ ergo cadendi exemplum proposituru est, sed si cecideris, resurgendi. Non sit delectatio minorum, lapsus majorum; sed sit casus majorum, tremor minorum. Ad hoc propositum est, ad hoc scriptum est, ad hoc in Ecclesia SiBpe lectum et cantatum ; audiant qui non ceci- derunt ne cadant ; audiant qui ceciderunt ut surgant. Tanti viri peccatum non tacetur, prsedicatur in Ecclesia. Audiunt male audientes, et quaerunt sibi patrocinia peccandi; attendunt unde defendant quod committere paraverunt, non unde caveant quod non commiserunt, et dicunt sibi. Si David, cur non et ego. Alii vero audientes salubriter, in casu fortis metiuntur infirmitatem suam, ab adspectu securo abstinent oculos, non eos defigunt in pulcritudine carnis alienee. Proponunt enim sibi casum Da-vid, et ad hoc ilium magnum \-ident cecidisse ut parvi nolint videre unde cadere possint. And for an interesting estimate of Da-v-id's character with its one shadow, a dark and deep one indeed, but also its many bricj-htest lights, see Con. Faust, xxii. 66. ^ Con. adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 24 : [Cicero] cum doceret, in transla- tione verborum obsccenitatem esse vitandam, Nolo, inquit, dici, morte Africani castratam esse republicam. Sed si hoc verbum ipse quod vitari volebat, ut vitandum ostenderet, non vitavit, et quod dici noluit coactiLS est dicere, quanto magis res quae verbo eodem recte sio-nifica- tur, ut ab audiente possit intelligi, suo verbo enuntiatur ? Atque ut ad illud redeamus, quod iste reprehendit : si Cicero vir eloquentissi- mus et verborum vigilantissimus appensor et mensor, quod dici noluit, dixit, ne diceretur: quanto melius Deus magis morum quam 80 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. There are passages, and those of high importance, the interpretation of which Augustine was the first to set upon its right basis. Such a passage is John v. 25-29 ; for the true explanation of which a large debt of gratitude is owing to him. The earlier expositors were driven, appa- rently by their antagonism to the Gnostics, who denied a resurrection of the body, and consequently spiritualized the whole passage, into an opposite extreme, understanding it throughout as having reference, and that exclusively, to the bodily resurrection at the end of the world.' They get over the difficulty of the words, ' The hour is coming and now isy by referring this ' now is ' to such foretastes of the resurrection as found place in the raising of Lazarus, of the daughter of Jairus, and of the widow's son. Nor did the succeeding expositors either of the Greek or Latin Church, Chrysostom, or Jerome, or Ambrose, extricate themselves from this erroneous track. Augustine was the first to show plainly that a literal construction of the whole passage is as much an error, though the error is more venial, as one which spiritualises it wholly ; that the Lord in fact is here speaking ofhuo resurrections ; in ver. 25, 26, of a spiritual resurrection already present, the quickening of the spirits of as many as hear and obey his voice ; and then in ver. 28, 29, of that universal bodily resurrection which shall be at the end of the world. Nilus, a scholar of Chrysostom, had just indicated this right exposition,'^ but verborum pulcritudinem quaerens atque munditiaiu, turpe aliquid non turpiter sed minaciter dixit, ut hoc liorreretur, ne illud commit- teretur. Compare Enarr. in Ps. 1. i : Cum doloie qiudem dicimus et tremore ; sed tamen Deus noluit taceri quod voluit scribi. ' So Tertulliau-, De Bes. Car. 37. ' Up. iii. 135. Chap. V.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 81 it was Augustine who first set it upon secure foundations ; * nor would it be easy anywhere to find a more admirable specimen of Biblical interpretation, at once popular and profound, than his vindication in more places than one, of this explanation of these words. Dealing first with ver. 25, 26, he clears his way by showing that it is in perfect consistency with the general lano^uage of Scripture to set forth the state of sin as one of death, and the quickening of the spirits of men through Ckrist's life-giving word as a resurrection. He quotes in proof such obvious tests as these, Ephes. v. 14 ; Isai. ix. 2 ; Col. iii. I ; Kom. viii. 10, 11. He then proceeds to justify an exposition in this sense of the passage before him, tracing the admirable fitness, even to the minutest details, of every part when this key is applied ; while very much does not fit at all, or only fits badly and with much forcing, when these two verses are explained of the final resurrec- tion, or, again, when ver. 28, 29, of the present spu-itual quickening of souls. Christ begins, ' The horn' is coming,' and then, lest his hearers should understand Him to speak of an absolute future and of the end of the world, He adds ' and now is ' — marking in this way a grace at once already present, and in part also future ; even as He could say to his disciples during the days of his flesh and before his as- cension, ' Now ye are clean ' (John xv. 3 ), although the fulness of sanctifying grace did not descend till after Pentecost. He proceeds, ' when the dead,' 'that is, the spiritually dead, — He does not say ' all,' as when speaking of the final resurrection, — ' shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.' The words ' they * Yet not so secure but that Heugstenberg has sought again to shake them ; though in my judgment he has utterly failed in so doing. G 82 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. that hear,' imply that some will hear and some will not, even as it lies in every man's will to open or to close his ear to this voice of the Son of Grod ; but the words would be altogether inappropriate to that other ' voice of his, which, sounding through all the chambers of death, all must hear, whether they will or no. Nor yet would He have said, ' all that hear shall live,^ had He been looking on to the rising at the last day of good and bad alike ; for only the good ' live ; ' and ' life ' in Scripture is evermore synonymous with blessedness.' When the Lord would ex- press the fact of the rising again of the wicked. He uses quite another language ; that is not life, but a second death. And indeed the change of language is most marked throughout, when He begins to speak, as at ver. 28, 29 He does, of the bodily resurrection of all at the end of the world. Then the hour ' is coming,' but no longer ' now is,' for He is treating of an event altogether in the future, — ' in the which all that are in the graves ' — there was no mention before of all, nor yet of gi*aves — ' shall hear his voice ' (' the voice of the Archangel and the trump of Grod,' I Thess. iv. 16), ' and shall come forth,' the word implying a bodily action ; with not now any single word expressing what the portion shall be of those whom this voice calls forth ; but, as this is a resm'rection which embraces all men, the Lord assigning severally to these, according as they have done good or evil, a ' resurrection of life ' or a- ' resurrection of damnation ' (cf. Matt. xxv. 31-46V ' Serm. cccvi. 6 : Sola intelligitur vita, quae beata ; quae autem non beata, nee vita. - Having reached ver. 28, 29, and starting from them, he thus sums up the whole of his argument {Serm. ccclxii. 23, 24) : Superius cum dixisset, Venit hora, adjecit, et nunc est : ne ilia hora praenuntiata Chap. V.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 83 Thus far I am persuaded that Augustine has right; though not when he co-ordinates, or indentifies rather, these two resurrections of John v. 25-29, the spiritual and the bodily, severally with the first and second resurrection of the Apocalypse (Kev. xx. 4-6). ^ This is part and parcel of an interpretation almost everywhere beside the mark, as 1 must needs esteem it, of this book ; upon the exposition of which in the after Church for many hundred years Augustine's influence was very far from favourable.'^ Yet putaretur, qua in fine sseculi futura est corporum resurrectio. Ilic ergo quia ipsara volebat intelligi, cum dixisset, Venit hora, non ad- jecit, et nunc est. Item superius mortuos dixit audire vocem Filii Dei, monumentorum autem nullam commemorationem fecit, ut dis- tingueremus mortuos per mentis errorem qui resurgunt modo per fidem, ab eis mortuis quorum cadavera in monumentis sunt resurrec- tura in ultimo Sfeculi. Hie ergo, ut ilia in fine speraretur corporum resurrectio, Omnes, ait, qui in monumentis sunt, audient vocem ejus et precedent. Item superius, Audient, inquit, vocem Filii Dei, et qui audierint, vivent. Quid opus erat addere. Qui audierint, nisi quia de his dicebat qui secundum mentis errorem mortui sunt, quorum multi audiunt et non audiunt, id est, non obtemperant, non credunt. Hie autem ubi secundum corpora resurrecturos pronuntiat, non ait, Audient vocem ejus, et qui audierint, precedent. Omnes enim novissimam tubam audient, et precedent, quia omnes resurgemus. Superius, ubi per fidem secundum Spiritum renviscitur, ad eandem sortem omnes reviviscunt ; ut vita eorum non distribuatur in beatitudinem et mise^ riam, sed ad bonam partem omnes pertineant. Et ideo cum dixisset. Qui audierint, \ivent ; non adjecit, Qui bona egerunt, in vitam seter^ nam, qui vero mala egerunt, in pcenam seternam. Hoc enim ipsum quod dictum est, vivent, in bono tantummodo accipi voluit. Hie autem dixit, Audient et precedent, quo verbo significavit corporalem motum corporum de locis sepulturarum suarum. Sed quia procedere de monumentis non omnibus ad bonum erit : Qui bona, inquit, fece^ runt, in resurrectionem vitae ; etiam hie vitam in bono tantum intellioi voluit : qui vero mala egerunt in resurrectionem judieii, judicium scUicet pro poena posuit. Cf. In Ev. Joh. Tract, ig; De Civ. Dei, XX. 6. * De Civ. Dei, xx. 6, 7. ^ The great passage in which he unfolds his view of the Apoca- lypse is De Civ. Dei, xx. 7-17. Q 2 84 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. one important principle bearing on its interpretation he afl&rms, and one which, overlooked or denied, breeds infinite confusion, namely, that we are not to read it as one con- tinuous series of events, stretching onward in unbroken succession to the consummation of all things ; but rather that there are in it many new beginnings, — thus chapter xii. is such, — and often when it seems at first sight to be narrating different events, it is indeed only narrating the same in different ways and from different points of view.* Augustine was not always so successful an innovator. I shall here profit by that liberty which he, using in respect of the writings of those who went before him, desired also should be used in respect of his own,^ to adduce two or three examples of what seem to me errors more or less serious, which he committed in the interpretation of Scripture. Thus he did serious wrong to the Christology of the Old Testament, through his lowering to the rank of created angels, of the Angel of Jehovah ; who appears, and ever in his own name, and not in that of any other, at so many grand crises of the theocracy, and to whom divine ^ De Civ. Dei, xx. 17: In hoc quideiu libro obscure multa dicuutur, .... maxime quia sic eadem multis modis repetit, ut alia atque alia dicere videatur ; cum aliter atque aliter hsec ipsa dicere vestigetur. * Ep. cxlviii. 4 : Neque enim quorumlibet disputationes, quam^is Catliolicoi'um et laudatorum hominum, velut Scripturas canonieas habere deliemus, ut nobis non liceat salva honovificentia qu;e illis debetur hominibus, aliquid in eorum scriptis improbare atque lespuere, si forte invenerimus quod aliter senserint quam Veritas habet, divino adjutorio vel ab aliis iutellecta, vel a nobis. Talis ego sum in scriptis aliorum, tales volo esse intellectores meorum. De Trin. i. 3 : Quis- quis hsec legit, ubi pariter certus est, pergat mecum ; ubi pariter haesitat, qucerat mecum ; ubi errorem suum cognoscit, redeat ad me ; ubi meum, revocet me. Ita ingrediamur simul caritatis viam, ten- dentes ad eum, de quo dictum est, Quaerite faciem ejus semper. Chap. V.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 85 titles, honour, and attributes, are constantly ascribed (Gen. xxxii. 28, 30; xlviii. 16; Esod. iii. 5 ; Josh. v. 14, 15 ; Judg. xiii. 18).^ Not seeing in this angel the Son of God, the Word as yet unincarnate, Augustine deprived these his epiphanies of the most of their significance, manifestly of all which they possessed as preludes and figures of the coming incarnation.^ Jansenius, and as many as seek to glorify Augustine at the expense of all the other illustrious doctors of the early Church, even of an Athanasius himself (indeed one might suppose from Jansenius that he first had discovered in Scripture the doctrines of grace), these all very highly extol his departure here from the unanimous exegetical tradition of as many as had gone before him. They do not scruple to attribute to him the honour of having hereby given the finishing stroke and death-blow to Arianism ; which, as they affirm, foimd one of its main supports — and when in the course of the controversy all other had been removed from it, its only support — in the admission which the Church had incautiously and errone- ously made, that this intermediate angel was the Word of God.^ The steps of the Arian argument, put in its barest 1 The chief passage on this subject is De Trin. iii. 11. Later fa- vourers of this interpretation have added nothing to the arguments which he there adduces. Cf. De Civ. Dei, xvi. 29 ; Con. Maxim. Arian. ii. 26. * Praeludia et figurse incarnationis, as Bull {Def. Fid.Nic. iv. 3. 14) calls them, who quotes the remarkable passages from Hilary, De Trin. iv. 23, 42, in which the elder faith of the Church on this subject is maintained. For a full collection of testimonies from the early Fa- thers, see Bidl, i. 1 . 2-8 ; and Petavius, De Trin. viii. 2. ^ Thus in his Augustinus JAifSENiiis : Augustinus adversus con- stantem prpecedentium sententiam magno ausu, majore conscientia subnixus scripturarum pondere, et rationum gravisajmarum acumine ac textura prunus pansis velis in libris de Trinitate demonstravit omnes apparitiones illas Veteris Testamenti, non Deo sed angelo 86 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. form, were these: God is invisible (i Tim. i. 17); but this angel, whom the whole Chm^ch has ever recognized as the Word not as yet incarnate, was visible : therefore this angel, that is, the Word, is not God. Many have shown. Bishop Bull perhaps best of all, that there was no need of going back from the Church's original faith in this matter, for the purpose of avoiding such a conclusion ; and the eagerness of all modern Arians to maintain Augus- tine's position is evidence sufficient that they anticipate more gain than loss from such an interpretation of the passages in which the Angel of the Lord appears. Nor in- deed is it with them alone that it has found favour ; but with others also, from a very dififerent, though not a worthier, theological interest ; for, not to speak of the Socinians, who indeed are but the Arians at a little later stage of their development, to whom it was welcome as depriving the doctrine of the Trinity of an important sup- port, it has been favourably received by Eoman Catholics as well, promising to supply them with a scriptural autho- rity for their worship of angels. The Epistle to the Romans, the interpretation of which owes so much to Augustine (some part of its gains from him I shall desire presently to recount), yet is not every- where a gainer by him. Here and there he has gone astray ; and as it was not given to so great a man to go astray alone, has drawn many after him, and this during long ages, to be sharers of his error. Thus I take his exposition of the latter clause of the fifth verse of the fifth tribueadas esse. So too Rivius {Vita Auyustini, Autverp, 1646, p. 587): Non dubitavit ire contra totam Patrum vetustorum scholam, melioribusque auspiciis fontem hsereseos [Arianae] occludere. Com pare Rich. Simon, Hist. Crit. du K. T. 19. Chap. V.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 87 chapter to be altogether en'oneous. The history of the exposition of the verse is curious. To Augustine's influ- ence we mainly owe the almost entire loss for many centuries of its true interjoretation. This interpretation Origen, Chrysostom, and Ambrose, men every one of them less penetrated with the spirit of St. Paul than Augustine was, had yet rightly seized ; while for all this, by his influence and frequent use of this passage in another sense, its proper meaning was so far put out of sight, as not to be recovered till the time of the Reformation. He read in his Latin, Caritas Dei diffusa est incordibusnostrisper Spiritum Sanctum, qui datus est nobis. Had he read, as Ambrose reads it,' and as it should be, effiisa^ he might have been saved from his mistake : for the comparison thus suggested with such passages as Acts ii. 17 ; Isai. xxxii. 15 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 25 ; Joel ii. 28, in all of which God's large and free communication of Himself to men is set forth under the image of a stream from heaven to earth, would have led him to see that this 'loveofGrod ' which is poured out in our hearts, and is here declared to be our ground of confidence in Him, is Kis love to us, and not, as Augustine will have it, our love to Him ; ^ as from a comparison with ver. 8, is plain. The passage is of con- siderable dogmatic importance. The perverse interpreta- ^ De Spir. Sand. i. 8. 88. - 'EKKex^'f^'- in the original. ' The caritas Dei diligentis, not the caritas Dei dUectt. In several other passages where dyarr^ eeoC occurs, eeov is the genitive of the subject, not of the object (Rom. viii. 39; 2 Cor. v. 14, and else- where). — It is by no oversight that Augustine so interprets the pas- sage. On the contrary, he distinctly rejects the correcter explanation (De Spir. et Litt. 32) : Caritas Dei dicta est diffundiin cordibus nostris, non qua nos ipse diligit, sed qua nos facit dilectores suos : sicut justi- tia Dei, qua nos justi ejus munere efficimur ; et Domini salus, qua nos salvos facit ; et fides Jesu Christi, qua nos fideles facit. 88 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. tion became in after times one of the main stays, indeed by far the chiefest one, of the Roman theory of an infused righteousness constituting the ground of our confidence to- ward God. This the true explanation excludes, yet at the same time affirms this great truth, that God's justification of the sinner is not, as Roman controversialists affirm we hold it, an act merely declaratory, leaving the sinner as to his real state where it found him, hut a transitive act, being not merely negatively a forgiveness of sin, but positively an imparting of the spirit of adoption, with the sense of reconciliation, and of all else into which God's love received and believed in the heart will unfold itself. Of far slighter importance is his departm-e from the hitherto received interpretation of Gen. vi. 2 ; although here, too, I must needs believe that he forsook, and caused others to forsake, the true explanation of the words. Most, if not all, of the Fathers who had gone before him, certainly Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cy- prian, and Ambrose, had understood ' the sons of God,' of whom Moses speaks, as angels ; for ' sons of God ' is a standing title of the angels in the Old Testament (Job i.6; ii. I ; xxxviii. 7; Ps. xxix. i ; Ixxxix. 7; Dan. iii. 25); and never, till under the New Testament there had come forth a Son of God, is it given to mortal men (John i. 12). He, however, saw in them, and was among the first who so did, the descendants of Seth,> and understood the inspired historian by this notice to indicate a breaking down of the distinction which up to this time had been maintained between the two lines, running hitherto parallel but apart, 1 De Civ. Dei, xv. 22 : in the following chapter he seeks to refute at length the contrary explanati on ; but see what may be said, convin- cingly as it seems to mo, on the o ther side by Delitzsch, Genesix,in loco. Chap. V.J INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 89 of Cain and of Seth. The question is full of difficulty ; yet there is much to lead us to the conclusion that the earlier expositors were in the right, who beheld in these unions, which were the crowning wickedness of the old world, and from whence the giants sprung, something more mysterious than marriages contracted between the Cainites and the Sethites — some ' spiritual wickednesses,' which rendered the flood an inevitable moral necessity. In his fear of giving so much room to the human side of the Saviour's work as should imperil the divine, Augus- tine occasionally brings a certain unreality into words of his which were indeed the deepest and truest utterance of his soul. It is impossible to free him from such a charge as this, when dealing with our Lord's words, ' Let this cup pass from Me ' (Matt. xxvi. 39). He does not scruple to affirm that Christ only spake them as the representative of our infirmity, of our fear of death ; that they are no proper voice of his own, but only the voice of his body, of the Church ; which assuredly cannot for an instant be admitted.^ He sometimes lays upon a Scriptiu-e a greater weight than it can bear. He does so, certainly, on Rom. xiv. 23, ' Whatever is not of faith is sin.' Without calling in ques- tion the great truth that only the good tree, or the tree made good, can bring forth good fruit (Matt. vii. 16-20), one cannot doubt that Augustine gives a larger meaning to St. Paul's words than the Apostle intended, when he makes them as large as those other words in the Epistle to the ' Enarr. 2* in Ps. xxi. : Dixit utique de me,(ie te, de illo. Corpus enim suum gerebat, id est Ecclesiam. Paulas optat mortem ut sit cum Christo [Phil. i. 25], et Christus timet mortem? Sed quid nisi infirmitatem nostram portabat, et pro his qui adhuc timent mortem in corpore suo constitutis, ista dicebat ? lude erat ilia vox ; membrorum ipsius vox erat, uou capitis. 90 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. V. Hebrews which declare that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. xi. 6).' No one accurately weighing the context can doubt that ' faith ' is here a man's moral conviction of the rightfulness of that which he is doing ; and all which St. Paul asserts (itself indeed a most impor- tant assertion), is that whosoever willingly does any act contrary to his own moral conviction, sins. The thing which he does may be intrinsically indifferent, or even intrinsically right ; but for him, doing it against his con- science, it is sin. While -we are thus noting spots upon the sun, it may be well to indicate one or two more passages, where Augus- tine's usual skill seems to have failed him. Thus, quoting the words of St. John, ' His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow ' (Eev. i. 14), he singularly enough sees in this whiteness of Christ's hair, the hoary head of old age ; an outward expression of the inward fact, that He whom the seer beheld was ' the Ancient of Days.' "^ A little reflection justifies the instinctive dissent from such an explanation, which all I think must feel; for the blanching of the hair being one of the signs and conse- quences of life receding before death, of commencing weakness and decay, it is impossible that the hair ' white as snow ' could ever in this sense be attributed to the ever- living, to Him whose days are from everlasting to ever- lasting. Eather the ' white ' here is to be explained, as in all the divine apparitions in which it is mentioned,^ by the 1 De Gest. Pelag. 14 : Quantumlibet autem opera infidelium prae- dicentur, Apostoli sententiara veram novimus et invictam, Omne quod non est ex fide, peccatum est. Cf. Con. Jul. Pelaij. iv. 3. ^ Evp, in Gal. iv. 2 1 : Dominiis non nisi ob antiquitatem Veritatis in Apocalypsi albo capite apparuit. ' Matt. xvii. 2 ; xxviii. 3 ; Mark ix. 3 ; xvi. 5 ; Luke ix. rg ; cf. Chap. V.] INTEEPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 91 fact that brightness in its utmost excess attains to be absolutely white : iron reaches at last a wicite heat. The hair 'white like wool, as white as snow,' is here only another manifestation of the unutterable brightness, with which from head to foot the Lord was invested. • Even in little details in which one might suppose his exegetical tact would certainly have shown him the right way, he sometimes misses his point. Thus, in one place, he suggests a reason why the Lord promised a reward to one who should give even a cup of cold water to a disciple of his (Matt. x. 42), namely, that thus not even the poorest, not one so poor as to be unable to heat it, should be excluded from the power of showing this mercy, and so of inheriting this reward.^ Writing imder an African sky, he should have better interpreted these words ; the ' cold^ is added to imply a certain zeal on the part of the offerer of this cup, which makes him careful to offer one of real refreshment; and this only the cold water, that which therefore had been freshly drawn, would be to the weary traveller (Prov. xxv. 25 ; Jer. xviii. 14). But why further enumerate the little spots upon the sun ? Luke xxiv. 4 with John xx. 12. The 6p6vos XevKor, Rev. xx. 1 1, is = Spovos 86^r]i, Matt. xxv. 31 ; the ve(f)eXT] XfVKTJ, Rev. xiv. 14 = I't^A?; (payTeivfj, Matt. xvii. 5- ^ See on this passage my Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches, 4th edit. p. 34. "^ Enarr. in Ps. cxxv. 5 : Calicem aquae friyidce addidit, ne quia vel inde caussaretur, quod lignum non habuerit unde calefaceret aquam. 92 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. CHAPTER VI. AUGUSTINE ON JOHN THE BAPTIST, AND ON ST. STEPHEN. It would not be difficult to compose a commentary, at once interesting and instructive, on the whole life of John the Baptist as recorded in Scripture, drawing the mate- rials exclusively from the writings of Augustine, so abun- dant and so excellent would those materials be found. Such I cannot attempt, but must satisfy myself with rapidly touching on a few points in his life which Augus- tine has dwelt on with a peculiar care, or expounded with more than ordinary success ; not forbearing, at the same time, to express my sense of one or two faidty explanations into which he has fallen. What indeed I must first note is an inaccuracy. Of this he is not the author, for we find it already in St. Ambrose, even as it maintained its ground during all the Middle Ages — I mean the making of Zacharias, the father of the Baptist, to have been High Priest, when indeed he exercised no other functions than those of an ordinary priest. This error sprung from a misapprehension of Luke i. 9, where Zacharias is described as going in to burn incense in the temple of the Lord.' This was understood as the entrance on one day in the ' In Ev. Joh. Trad. xlix. 27 : Nam incensura non licebat poneve nisi summo sacerdoti. Cf. De Perfect. Just. 17 ; Serm. ccxci. 3. For an ample refutation of an error so patent as not to need one, see WiTSJUS, Vita Joh. Bapt. p. 475. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 93 year into the Holy of Holies, which was permitted to the High Priest alone. It is needless to observe that the Evangelist refers not to this, but to the daily burning of incense, morning and evening, which was not the High Priest's exclusive prerogative, but devolved on other priests as well (Exod. xxx. 7, 8), who in the order of their course executed the priest's office before God. Augustine, having in view such births as the Baptist's, where the parents have remained childless long, and now, it may be, are stricken in years, and have overlived the hope and expectation of children, notes well that, however remotely, they are yet approximations to the one Virgin birth. The relation is not merely that those as well as this are out of the usual order ; it does not lie only in the wonder that belongs, though in very different measures, to both; but also in the fact that- in those also who are born as the Baptist was, there is, we may venture to say, less of the will of the flesh, and more of the will of God, than in more ordinary births (John i. 13). In those births according to promise and by the special grace of God, that disturbing element which mingles with the very foundations of our natural life even at the very moment when they are first laid, is not indeed altogether wanting, as in his birth who was virgin-born ; yet it has fallen into the background. It was therefore most meet that He who was born of a pure Virgin should have as his herald one born by virtue of a promise, born too of those that, like Abraham and Sarah, had overlived their youth, and re- nounced the expectation of children.' In this aspect it * Serm. ccxc, i : Ambo mirabiliter nati, prjeco et Judex, lucerua et Dies, vox et Verbum, servus et Dominus. De sterili servus, de Virgine Dominus. &ir>n. ccxci. i : Quia enim venturus erat per 94 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. is not without its significance that, among all the saints of God, John is the only one the day of whose Nativity is celebrated by the Church.' The distinction between John's baptism and Christ's, and the immeasurable superiority of the latter over the former, Augustine everywhere asserts or assumes.'^ I have no passage at hand in which he draws out ivhat the essential prerogatives of the baptism of the Master, as compared with that of the servant, were.' He probably considered, though in this he was mistaken, that no one could confound that preparatory washing with the Christian sacrament of baptism, and that the difference was expressed with sufficient clearness in the words of the Baptist himself: ' I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance ; but He that cometh after me shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire ' (Matt. iii. 1 1 ) ; John's the bap- tismus Jluminis, the Lord's not Jiuminis alone, but Virginem Deua homo, pr?ecessit earn de sterili mirabilis homo. Senn. ccxciii. i : Johannem parit sterilitas, Christum integritas. * Serm. ccxc. 2 : Denique quia in magno sacramento natus est Johannes, ipsius solius justi natalem diem celehrat Ecclesia. Et natalis Domini celebratur, sed tanquam Domini. Date mihi alium servum praeter Johannem inter patriarchas, inter prophetas, inter Apostolos, cujus natalem diem celebret Ecclesia Christi. Pas- sionuin diem servis plurimis celebramus, nativitatis diem nemini nisi Johanni. * Senn. cox. 2 : Baptismus Johannis a baptismo Christi discernendua est. In Ev. Joh. Tract, v. 5 : Qui baptizati sunt a Johanna non eis sufFecit ; baptizati sunt enira baptismo Christi : Augustine has pro- bably especially in his thought the disciples of John baptized by Paul at Ephesus (Acts xix. 1-5) ; of. Con. Litt. Petil. ii. 37. For the humiliating evasions by which the maintainers of the identity of the two baptisms seek to get rid of this decisive statement, see Ger- hard, Loc. Theull. loc. xxi. 4. 63. ' They are best stated by Tertullian in a remarkable passage, De Baptismo, lo. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETElt OP SCRIPTURE. 95 flaminis as well. The attempt to identify the two is found for the most part in connexion with a poor and un- worthy apprehension of the benefits of Christian baptism. John's baptism is not raised to a level with it, but it is reduced to a level with John's. One who, like Augustine, held that it was of the essence of a New Testament sacra- ment, not merely to promise, but actually to impart, ^race,' was not likely to confound them ; for this none would affirm of the baptism of John. Augustine has altogether a right insight into the words of the Baptist, John i. 1 5 ; the exact meaning of which not all or nearly all interpreters have seized. It would be long to follow them in their several deviations from the right way. This right way is, to take the words as declaring first a fact, ' He that cometh after me is pre- ferred before me; ' and then the gi-ound on which this fact reposes, ' for He was before me ; ' and they only escape the appearance of a tautology, when we seize rightly, as Augustine has done, the distinction between the verb of time and of becoming (ysjovs) in the first clause of the sentence, and that of eternity and of being {rjv) in the second. John is here declaring, first, that Christ, although coming into the world later than himself, had yet, as one might say, overtaken and passed him by, had got beyond him ; so that the glory and fame of John, however it had an earlier beginning, was yet fading and waning now before the greater glory of his Lord : and then, in the second clause of the verse, he announces that this was only fitting, since He who thus came into the world after him, yet ivas before him, being even from eternity. It was ^ Enan: in Ps. Lxxiii. i : Sacrameuta Novi Testauienti dant salutem, sacramenta Veteris Testamenti promiserunt Salvatorein. 96 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. only just, then, that the Sun should extinguish the lamp, the King cause the herald to be forgotten, He whose goings forth had been from everlasting should surpass in glory and honour him who belonged only to time.' These relations between John and his Lord Augustine loved to find expressed in the titles, severally, of the voice {(fxovi]), which is all John claimed for himself (John i. 23) ; and of the Word {Aoyos), which is claimed for his Lord (John i. I ) ; and not less in that of the lamp, burning and shining indeed (John v. 35), but with a derived light, and one quenched after a season, which was John, as compared with the Light, ' the true light which lighteth every man that Cometh into the world,' which was Christ (John i. 9 ; viii. 1 2).^ This last antithesis has taken strong hold upon ^ Serm. ccclxxx. 5 : Quomodo si duo ambulant in itinere, et unus sit tardior, alter velocior, et proecedat tardier aliquantum, post pau- lulum autem sequatur velocior; respicit tardior prsecedens velociorem, sequentem, et dicit, Post me venit. Et ecce accelerante illo, et propinquante, et adhserente, et transeunte, videt ille anteriorem quem respiciebat posteriorem ; certe si celeritatem ejas expavescat quodam modo et admiretur, nonue poteruut esse ista verba ejus, Ecce homo post me erat, et ante me factus est ? And again : Praecessit honore Joliannem. Sed vide utrum merito. luteiToga ipsum Johannem. Qui te sequebatur, quare tibi praelatus est? Sequitur, Quia prior me eiat. Prior Jobanue, prior Abraham, prior quam Adam, prior quam cselum et terra, prior quam Angeli, Sedes, Dominationes, Prin- cipatus, et Potestates. ^ This antithesis between John the lamp, and Christ the Light, we have obscui'ed in our Version : where tKelvoi ^v 6 \C)(i'os 6 Kaionevos Kui (fxuvcoi', is rendered, ' he was a burning and a shining li(/ht ; ' which would have been better rendered, ' He was the Lamp that burueth and shineth ; ' and so Augustine : Ille erat lucerna ardens et lucens. Lucerna threw him back, as it had done TertuUiau before him, on the words of the Psalmist, Paravi luceruam Christo meo (Ps. cxxxi. 17), where they both saw a third distinct prophecy of John, besides the two which the Old Testament undoubtedly contains. Thus Serin, ccxciii. 4 : Deus Pater in prophetia loquens, Paravi lucernam Christo meo, Johannem Salvatori prseconem, Judici prsecursorem venturo, futuro amicum Sponso. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 97 him, and he recurs to it again and again. Nor is it only as a play in which his fancy has found pleasure ; for under what might seem at first no better than this, there was expressed a truth, than which none was dearer to his heart, a truth which Pelagian gainsayings had more and more made him to feel was central in all theology — this, namely, that God is the one fountain-source of all wisdom, light, and knowledge, * the Father of lights ; ' while all that man has is derived. He receives light, he transmits light, he never originates it. If he is light, he is ' light in the Lord : ' even as the eyes at their healthiest and best have but the capacity of vision ; another light than their own can alone enable them actually to see. Thus Christ was the Light, the true light that lighteth every man ; the chiefest, highest, holiest beside Him, a John himself, was but a lamp kindled from his beams,' but which, as it was kindled, might also be quenched in darkness again.' He remarks too, by the way, although this is a very subordinate thought with him, that it was part of ^ On the noble humility of John, and the freedom with which he abases himself, that he may give all glory to his Lord, Augustine exclaims {Serm. cclxxxvii. 2) : Lucerna enim erat, et vento superbiae timebat exstingui. * Serm. Ixvii. 5 : Tu tibi lumen non es. Ut multum, oculus es ; lumen non es. Quid prodest patens et sanus oculus, si liunen desit ? Sic et Johannes lumen putabatur. And then with reference to John V. 23 '• m^ lucerna, hoc est, res illuminata, accensa ut luceret. Quae accendi potest, potest et exstingui. Cf. Se7-7n. cccxli. 2 : In Ev. Joh. Tract, xiv. I : Potest quidem dici lumen Johannes, et bene dicitur et ipse lumen ; sed illuminatum, non illuminans. Aliud est enim lumen quod illuminat, et aliud lumen quod illuminatur. Nam et oculi nostri lumina dicuntur, et tamen in tenebris patent et non vident. Lumen autem illuminans a seipso lumen est, et sibi lumen est, et non indiget alio lumine ut lucere possit, sed ipso indigent coetera ut luceant. Of. Ibid, xxiii. 3, 4. 98 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. God's gracious discipline and training of men that the lamp should precede the Light. The weak and diseased eyes that could not at once have endiu-ed the brightness of this were thus trained to bear it by the feebler splendour of the other.' But, as Christ was the Light and John only the lamp, in the same way Christ was the Word and John only the voice. In drawing out the relations of the two as expressed by these titles, Augustine traces with a singular subtlety the manifold and profound fitnesses which lie in them for the setting forth of those relations. A word, he observes, is something even without a voice, for a word in the heart is as truly such before it is outspoken as after ; while a voice is nothing, a mere unmeaning sound, an empty cry, unless it be also the vehicle of a word. But when they are thus united, the voice in a manner goes before the word, for the sound strikes the ear before the sense is con- veyed to the mind : yet while it thus goes before it in this act of communication, it is not really before it, but the contrary. Thus, when we speak, the word in our hearts must precede the voice on our lips, which yet is the vehicle by whose aid the word in us is transferred to and becomes ^ Serm. Ixvii. 5 : Propter csecos lucerna die! testimonium perhi- ■bebat which thought he expresses in another image elsewhere {In Ev. Joh. Tract, ii. 7) : Quomodo pleriunque fit ut in aliquo corpore radiato coo-noscatur ortus esse sol, quern oculis videre nou possumus. Quia et qui saucios habent oculos, idonei sunt \idere parietem illumi- natum et illustratum a sole, vel montem, vel arborem, aut aliquid hujuscemodi idonei sunt videre : et in alio illustrato demonstratur ortus ille, cui videndo adhuc minus idoneam aciem gerunt. Sic ergo illi omnes, ad quos Ohristus venerat minus idonei erant eum videre : radiavit Johannem, et per ilium confitentem se radiatimi ac se illumi- natum esse, non qui radiaret et illuminaret, coguitus est ille qui illumiuat, cognitus est ille qui illustrat. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 99 also a word in another ; but this being accomplished, or rather in the very accomplishing of this, the voice has passed away, exists no more ; but the word which is planted now in another's heart, as well as in ours, remains. All this Augustine transfers to the Lord and to his fore- runner. John is nothing without Jesus : Jesus just what He was before without John, however to men the knowledgre of Him may have come through John. John the first in time, and yet He who came after him most truly having been before him. John, so soon as he had fulfilled his mission, passing away, ceasing, having no continuous sig- nificance for the Church of God ; but Jesus, of Avhom he had told, and to whom he witnessed, abiding for ever.' To many no doubt it must have appeared strange, that even after the Lord had commenced his ministry, John still went forward with his ; that John's baptism did not cease when Christ's had begun (John iii. 22, 23); that John, so far from dissolving the company of his disciples, or hand- ing them all over to the more perfect Teacher who now was ^ Serm. ccxciii. 3 : Joharmes Vox ad tempus, Christus Verbum ia principio seternum, ToUe verbum, quid est vox ? Ubi nullus est in- tellectus, inanis est strepitus. Vox sine verbo aurem pulsat, cor non aedificat. Verumtamen in ipso corde nostro sedificando advertamus ordinem rerum. Si cogito quid dicam, jam verbum est in corde meo : sed loqui ad te volens, quaere quemadmodum sit etiam in corde tuo, quod jam est in meo. Hoc quserens quomodo ad te perveniat, et in corde tuo insideat verbum quod jam est in corde meo, assumo vocem, et assumta voce loquor tibi : sonus vocis ducit ad te intellectum verbi, et cum ad te duxit sonus vocis intellectum verbi, sonus quidem ipse pertransit, verbum autem quod ad te sonus perduxit, jam est in corde tuo, nee recessit a meo. Cf. Serm. cclxxxviii. 3 : an admirable specimen of Augustine's skill in making tbe hard comparatively easy, and uniting at once the deep and the popular ; and Serm. cclxxxix. 3. It may be well to mention that this distinction between the voice and the word, and the application of the distinction to John and the Lord, is anticipated by Origen, In Joan. ii. 26. H 2 100 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. come, not only retained those whom he had made already (Matt. ix. 14), but also gathered round him others beside (John iv. i).' Augustine gives the true explanation of the fact; namely, that a certain independence and aloofness on his part was necessary to his function as a witness to the Lord. If his witness was to go far with his countrymen, it needed to be that, not of a mere disciple of Jesus, who could do no more than reproduce the impres- sions received from Him, and whose witness consequently would only be a poorer repetition of the Lord's witness to Himself.^ As it was, the testimony of John came with quite another force, being that of one who, while he did fullest and freest homage to the superior greatness of the Lord, yet retained, for so God had willed it, a position, in a certain degree an independent position, of his own. The fact that this position was one exactly the best fitted to rouse feelings of jealousy in his mind at the glory which was fast eclipsing his own, feelings which there wanted not those who attempted to stir up (John iii. 26), must have caused his testimony to the character and mission of the Son of God to come with a weight and conviction which under no other circumstances it could have pos- sessed.' At the same time John's aloofness from Jesus reaches deeper than this, grounds itself on a fact which Augustine * Serm. ccxcii. 2: Hie ergo Johannes non invenitiir inter discipulos Domini, sed potius invenitur discipulos habuisse cum Domino ; . . . . alisit ut dicam, contra Dominum, sed tamen quasi extra Dominum. Discipulos babebat Christus, discipulos habebat Johannes; docebat Christus, docebat Johannes. ' Serm. ccxciii. 6: Laudatis quem sequimini, praedicatis cui adhseretis. •'' Serm. ccxciii. 6 : Hoc erat procul dubio necessariuni prtecursori fideli, ab eo Christum prsedicari qui posset femulus credi. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 101 often urges — namely, that the Baptist was, so to speak, the impersonation of the whole preparatory discipline for men's reception of a Saviour : * that whole preparation culminat- ing in him ; ' the law and the prophets were until John.' Yet though standing thus at the threshold, he did not himself move in the sphere, of New-Testament and Evan- gelical life, but in that of the Old ; and thus it would have been a confounding of things which it was the intention of God should be kept distinct, the law and the gospel, pro- phecy and its fulfilment, it would have troubled and marred the representative character of John, personifying, as in a manner he did. Law and Prophecy, had he entered into closer personal relation with Him who was the end of the law and the fulfilment of prophecy. The somewhat startling character of John's message to Jesus, ' Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another ' (Matt. xi. 3) ? of such a message from such a man, the strange surprise which it has for us that he who had borne the first and most authentic witness to Jesus as the Christ, should now himself seem to doubt whether He were the promised One or not, Augustine well brings out ; * while at the same time he keeps clear of, indeed he seems expressly to contradict, Tertullian's error,' who will have ^ Be Div. QucBst. 58: Johannes Baptista multis probabilibus documentis non absurde creditur prophetise gestare personam Totiiis prophetise, qufe ab exordio generis humani usque ad adventum Domini de Domino facta est, imaginem gestat. 2 Serm. Ixvi. 3 : Ilia laudatio facta est dubitatio ? Tu digitum intendisti, tu euna ostendisti ; tu dixisti, Ecce agnus Dei, Ecce qui tollit peccata mundi. Tu dixisti, Nos omnes de plenitudine ejus accepimus. Tu dixisti, Non sum dignus corrigiam calceamenti ejus solvere. Et modo tu dicis, Tu es qui venis, an alium expectamus ? ^ Tertuxlian, De Jiapt. 10; Adv. Marcion. iv. 18: Ipso jam Domino operant! in terram necesse erat portionem Spiritus S. quae 102 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. the Baptist to have sent not for his disciples' satisfaction and establishment in the faith, or certainly not merely for theirs, but also for his own ; as though in that dungeon of Machasrus, he too had been assailed with doubts by the Tempter, and now needed for himself a word of re-assurance. This explanation of the message attracts at first sight, and Olshausen has done for it all which is possible to commend it to the Christian sense of the reader, and to remove from it what it has of strange and perplexing : yet I cannot believe with him that there was any such shaking in the Baptist's faith. Eather in sending his disciples with this question to the Lord, he did but continue to do what he had done from the first, namely, turn all eyes so far as might be fromn himself, the waning lamp, to Jesus, the risen Sun. His disciples had heard his testimony that Jesus was the Christ, and they might have been tempted to believe this, mainly because their master said it, instead of because the Lord Himself declared it, to make even their very affiance on the Lord itself an act of homage done to their own master, and not to Him. How few would have resisted, nay, how few would have detected, the flattery offered to them in a shape so subtle as this. But John did resist it. Their faith in Christ shall rest not on their faith in him, that is, on man's word, as its ultimate ground, but rather on the word of God, on the Lord's own testimony that He is the Christ. John desired, as Augus- ex forma propbetici moduli in Johamie egerat prseparaturam viarum Dominicarum abscedere jam ab Jobanne, redactam scilicet in Domi- num, ut in massalem suam summam. This statement Augustine, I tbink, meant pointedly to contradict, when be explains the reason of the Lord's testimony to John (ver. 7-15), as being, Ne fortis aliquis dicat ; Bonus erat primo Johannes, et Spiritus Dei deseruit ilium. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 103 tine well expresses it, that his disciples should dig down to the rock, and set their foundations there, and would not be satisfied until they had so done ; and this was the meaning of his sending them with that question to the Lord.' He further adds that the Lord's honourable testimony to John, which directly follows (ver. 7-1 1), was in all likelihood especially timed to hinder on the part of those present, or of others to whom the notice of this message should come, any such misinterpretation of it, or misap- plication of his own warning words, ' Blessed is he whoso- ever shall not be offended in Me,' ^ as should derogate in the least from the just esteem and honour in which the Baptist deserved ever to be holden. The Lord reminds those present of what the Baptist was, of what they them- selves in times past had seen and found him — no reed shaken by every wind, but a cedar-tree braving the shock of storms — no server of the time, ready to say soft things to kings, that he might wear the soft clothing of those that are in kings' palaces, — no such shaper therefore of his doctrines to the shifting moods of the times as would now seek for fear or for favour to go back from his former testimony to Christ. But what had they found him ? a lineal successor in outward manner of life, and in inner spirit, of the old prophets — himself a prophet — ' yea,' the Lord adds out of his own deeper insight into the signifi- * Se7'm. Ixvi. 4 : Ite dicite illi ; non quia ego dubito, sed ut tos instniamini. Ite, dicite illi : quod ego soleo dicere, ab illo audite : audistis praeconem, con6rmamini a judice. ^ Se7-7n. Ixvi. 4 : Nam ut sciremus quia non de Johanne dixit : Illis abeuntibus coepit dicere ad turbas de Johanna : dixit laudes ejus veras verax, Veritas. 104 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI^ cance of John's appearance; for this the multitude had not apprehended — ' and more than a prophet.' But in what way ' more than a prophet ' ? To this Augustine replies that he was more, and had higher honour, than any other prophet, first, in that he was the only prophet who was himself prophesied of and announced by others ; his coming having indeed a double announce- ment (Isai. xl. 3 ; Mai. iv. 5, 6) ; ' and secondly, as the connecting link between the Old Dispensation and the New (Luke xvi. 16); and himself, though not perfectly belonging to, yet partaking of the prerogatives of, the New ; ^ and thirdly, which was indeed but another aspect of this second, he was more than any other prophet, in that he bore testimony, not as all others had done, to a Saviour yet future, but to one already present ; and that^ not in dark figures, but in plainest words, seeing with his eyes what many prophets and kings of the elder Covenant had desired to see and had not seen — they telling at most of a Sun which should one day rise up above the horizon, he actually gilded by the brightness of his risen beams.^ But the further words, 'For this is he, whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face ' ' Thus Serm. cclsixxviii. 2 : Hie proplieta, immo amplius quam proplieta, prtenuntiari meruit per propbetam. ' Sei-m. ccxciii. 2 : Videtur Johannes interjectus quidam limes Testamentorum duorum, Veteris et Novi Sustinet ergo per- sonam vetustatis, et prseconium novitatis. And in a sermon which the Benedictine editors reject, he is called legis et gratise fibula. ' Con. duas Epp. Pelag. iii. 4: Quasi prreteritse dispensationis limes quidam, qui mediatorem ipsum non aliqua umbra futuri, vel allegorica significatione, vel ulla prophetica prtenuntiatione venturum esse significans, sed digito demonstrans ait, Ecce agnus Dei, Ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi. Con. Litt. Petil. ii. 37 : Prioribus justis prsenuntiare tantum Christum concessum est, liuic autem et prae- nuntiare absentem, et videre prsesentem. Cf. Serm. cclxxxviii. 2. Chap. VI.] INTERPEETER OF SCRIPTURE. 105 (Matt. xi. lo), with the explanation, 'This is Elias, which was for to come' (ver. 14), added to that later declaration which all admit to have reference to John, ' Elias is come already' (Matt. xvii. 11, 13), how, it may be asked, shall these be reconciled with John's own distinct denial of his being Elias (John i. 21)? The solution of the apparent contradiction is of course not difficult, the key to it lying, as Augustine rightly remarks, in the words of Gabriel that John should go before the Lord ' in the spirit and power of Elias' (Luke i. 17): so that in one sense, that is literally, John the Baptist was not Elias ; in another, that is, in a figure, he was.^ But at the same time Augustine does not believe that this coming of John the Baptist was the exhaustive fulfilment of the prophecy of Malachi, or more than a partial and initial one. There is yet in reserve an actual and personal coming of the great Reformer of the Old Testament, who, in contempla- tion of this, was withdrawn from the earth without having tasted death.2 In this I must believe he was right, and it is hard to perceive how the Lord could have been at more pains to declare to his disciples that so it should be, or to prevent their confounding these two cognate 1 In Ev.Joh. Tract, 4: Sifiguram prsecursionis advertas, Johannes ipse est Elias, quod enim ille ad primum adventum, hoc ille ad secundum. Si proprietatem personse interroges, Johannes Johannes, Elias Elias. ^ In Ev. Joh. Tract. 4 : Quod erat Johannes ad primum adventum, hoc erit Elias ad secundum adventum. Quomodo duo adventus Judicis, sic duo proecones. De Civ. Dei, xx. 29 : Ipse quippe ante adventum Salvatoris judicis non immerito speratur esse venturus ; quia etiam nunc vivere non immerito creditur. Curru namque igneo raptus est de rehus humanis. With this connects itself his faith {Serm. ccxcix. li), as that of so many in the early Church, that Elijah and Enoch are the two witnesses of Rev. xi. 7, so that of him it should be true, mortem distulit, non evasit. 106 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. but distinct events, than at Matt. xvii. 1 1, He is ; not to say that the same is more lightly indicated in his, 'If ye will receive it,' here (ver. 14). The words that follow are more difficult : ' Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of woman there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist ; notwith- standing he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he' (Matt. xi. 11); nor has Augustine planted himself at the true point of view from which to explain them. Indeed he himself wavers between two expositions ; sometimes he makes ' the kingdom of heaven ' to signify the future heavenly world, and thus the Lord to affirm that the lowest angel is greater than the greatest that is still compassed with infirmities here ; but he does not lay much stress on this exposition, and only once or twice has suggested it.^ He prefers to make the point of the declaration to lie in that ' born of woman,' finding a tacit antithesis between this and ' born of a Virgin,' as was only He who uttered these words, who will then Himself be that ' least,' or rather, lesser, ' in the kingdom of heaven,' who is greater than John.^ But this interpretation is in every way unsatisfying. How ^ Con. Adv. Leg. et Proph. il. 5 : Aut enim regnum Cfeloruin appellavit eo loco Dominus, quod nondiim accepimus et in quo nondum sumus ; et quia ibi sunt sancti angeli, quilibet in eis minor major est utique quolibet sancto et justo, portante corpus quod cor- rumpitur et aggravat animam. Aut si regnum cjelorum in ea sen- tent ia illic intelligi voluit, qua et in hoc tempore significatur Ecclesia, profecto se ipsum Dominus significavit, quia nascendi tempore minor erat Johanne, major autem divinitatis seternitate, et Dominica potestate. In like manner he suggests the two explanations, Serm. Ixvi. 2. ^ In Ev. Joh. Tract. 14 : Minor nativitate, major potestate, major divinitate, majestate, claritate. Chap. VI.] INTERPKETER OF SCRIPTURE. 107 can we imagine the Lord counting it needful to say with such emphasis that He was greater than John? More- over He too is expressly declared to have been ' made of a luoman' (Gal. iv. 4), which language therefore fails to express that antithesis to Virgin bom (cf. also John ii. 4 ; xix. 26), necessary for this explanation. Then further, and the most decisive objection of all to making the Lord to mean Himself by this ' least in the kingdom of heaven,' He was not in the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of heaven being rather in Him, and unfolding itself from Him. But assuredly the opposition here is not between 'born of woman' and 'born of a Virgin; ' but between ' born of woman ' and ' born of the Spirit ; ' which last they all are that are in the new ' kingdom of heaven,' in that kingdom of the Spirit which dates from Pentecost, when the Holy Grhost was given as He never had been given before (John vii. 39) ; our Lord declaring here that the mystery of regeneration, whereof all the faithful down to the very least in the New Covenant are partakers, is a higher gift than any whereof the chiefest saints and servants of God, even a John himself, were partakers in the Old. The words say nothing as to the place which shall be vouchsafed to this saint or that, to him of the Old Covenant or to him of the New, in that kingdom of glory which shall be revealed. There is a certain fitness, Augustine observes, such as we may trace running though the whole of the Baptist's history, in the fact, that the immediate occasion of his martyrdom was not his witness for Jesus as the Christ, or aught in immediate connexion with his Lord ; but rather his assertion of the holiness of the Law : ' It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife' (Mark vi. 18). He 108 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. who was the last and noblest personification of the Law fitly sealed with his own blood his zeal for its holiness.' At the same time he, and others who like him resisted unto blood, inasmuch as they died for the truth, did in fact die for Christ, who is the Truth ; they were his martyrs as really as those who were called by his name, and shed their blood more immediately for his testimony. This is a point which Augustine oftentimes presses ; thus a sermon on the Maccabaean martyrs ^ is dedicated entirely to an assertion of the identity of the people of God before and after Christ, out of which identity and oneness of the two, it was only fitting that the Christian Church should cele- brate those martyrs who died before their King had died, no less than those who died after. And on deaths like this of the Baptist, when the servants of God seem given into the hands of the wicked, who do unto them whatsoever they list (Matt. xvii. 12), he often takes occasion to remark how different to the eye of sense the dealings of God with some of his servants, from his dealings with others. Those He gloriously delivers ; these He appears to abandon to their foes ; the Three Children are brought forth altogether unscathed from the fiery fm-nace (Dan. iii. 27) ; the Maccaba3an martyrs perish in the flames (2 Mace. vi. 11 ; vii. 5); Peter is delivered from the sword of Herod, from that sword which had just been stained with James's blood (Acts xii. 2, 11); one John the malice of an emperor fails to hurt, and he is plunged unharmed into the burning oil ; another falls a victim to a wicked woman's spite, and his life is given away at a wanton dancing-girl's request. But shall we therefore conclude that those God delivered, 1 Enarr. in Ps. cxl. 10. ' Se7'm. ccc. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 109 and these He did not deliver ? Would such language rightly express the facts of the case ? Should we not rather say, those were delivered openly, and in the face of the world — these as reaUy delivered ; however their deli- verance did not as manifestly appear, but like so much besides, is at present seen and apprehended only by the eye of faith.' Augustine's very conceits and fancies are oftentimes in- structive. They at any rate are never puerile, or in other ways unworthy plays with things sacred. He allows himself in more than one of these conceits while he is commenting on the life and death of the Baptist. Thus he claims for the Chm-ch that it has embodied in a concrete form, in a visible symbol, those memorable words of the Baptist re- ferred to already, 'He must increase, but 1 decrease,' selecting as it has done for the day of the servant's nativity Jime 24, being the turning-point in our Church- Year, from which the decrease in our days begins, but Dec. 25 for the day of the Nativity of the Lord, being the day when the increase of the year commences. Nor does he fail to call attention to the significance of the several manners of deaths of servant and Lord, one a cutting short, the other an exalting.^ Let us consider next Augustine's handling of the life of ^ Serin, ccci. 3 : Ergo illis Deus aderat, bos deseruerat ? Absit. Immo utrisque adfuit, illis in aperto, istis in occulto. Illos visibiliter liberabat: istos invisibiliter coronabat. JEnarr. 2°- in Ps. xxxiii. 18: Ille qui tulit de flamma tres pueros, numquid tulit de flamma Macha- bseos ? Nonne illi in ignibus bymnizabant, illi in ignibus exspii-abant ? Deus trium puerorum, nonne ipse est et Machabaeorum ? Illos emit et illos non emit ? Immo utrosque eruit, sed tres pueros sic emit, ut et cai'nales confimderentur. ' Serm. cclxxxvii. 3 : Johaunes in passione capite est deminutus, Cbristus in ligno est exaltatus. 110 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. another. The life, it is true, or say rather the death, of Stephen naturally does not yield such varied and abundant matter for comment as that of the Baptist : for the whole of the protomartyr's history, profoundly suggestive as in manifold ways it is, is yet shut up within the limits of two chapters. All that we certainly know of him is contained in these. He starts suddenly as from the ranks into the very foremost place of peril and of honour, a standard- bearer of the truth, and there nobly does and dies ; ^ he rises above the horizon, a bright luminary of the Chm'ch, but sets for us almost as soon as risen ; leaving to us one great discourse, one mighty deed. On this, however, Augustine has much. In the African Church the memory of the martyrs was especially dear. Some of the noblest of that noble army were children of her own ; hers was Cyprian, and hers too Felicitas and Vivia Perpetua, women who out of weakness were made strong ; with many more ; and though now the days of the martyrs were over, the spirit that inspired them, and that pervades, though not without the admixture of some turbid elements, the writ- ings of Tertullian, had not passed away. And thus some of Augustine's noblest discourses were delivered on the days dedicated to the memory of one or other of these. On St. Stephen he has several, and from these and other sources in his writings I select a few notices of one who in so many aspects was the forerunner of St. Paul. Augustine does not enter with any fulness into the scheme of Stephen's discourse, which is certainly difficult to understand — why, namely, it should have so long an * Augustine himself observes, with reference to this fact, that it ■was the deacons and not the Apostles who furnished the first martyr (Serm. cccxv. 19) : Prior victima de agnis quam arietibus. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. HI exordium, why he should dwell in such detail on the patriarchal history, which was as familiarly known to his hearers as to himself, and bore only remotely on the matters of which he was accused ; — but without professing to explain all this,' he yet makes an important suggestion, namely, that this long introduction was, in the nobler sense of the term, a captat'io benevolentice. Having much to say, before he concluded, that must be most distasteful to his hearers, he would fain conciliate them so far as he might, and especially would impress on them, by dwelling so fully on the early privileges and election of the Abra- hamic family, that these privileges were most precious to himself, even while he was asserting that in Christ Jesus they had now become the common property of all the families of the earth.^ The sharp severity of speech and tone which appears in some parts of Stephen's address to his fellow-countrymen Auo^ustine is fond of contrasting with the truest love to them which broke forth in his dying prayer. And he bids us note how much of tenderest love will often lie hid under ^ He has however a brief but valuable analysis of the earlier parts of the discourse, though one would fain have had the connexion traced also between these and the latter (Serm. cccxv. 2) : Hie prius exposuit illis ab initio legem Dei, ab Abraham usque ad Moysem, usfiue ad datam legem, usque ad introitum in terram promissionis ; ut commendaret quia non erat verum testimonium unde illi calumniam commovebant [Acts vi. 13]. Deinde de Moyse dedit eis magnam similitudinem ad Christiun. Reprobatus ab eis Moyses, et ipse eos liberavit ; reprobatus liberavit. Sic et Dominus Christus reprobatus a Judseis, ipse illos est postea liberaturus. 2 Ser7n. cccxix. i : Conciliabat auditorem, ut commendaret Salva- torem. Blande ccepit, ut diu audiretur. Et quia hinc fuerat accu- satus quod verba dixerat contra Deum et Legem, ipsam Legem iis exposuit ; ut ejus Legis esset prsedicator, cujus accusabatur esse vas- tator. 112 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. words that almost sound like words of bitterness and hate. "Where could Stephen have found keener words than these — * Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost ' (Acts vii. 51-53)? One who knew not the mysteries of love might suppose that he hated them whom he addressed in language like this ; while yet presently, when they added to all their former resistance to the truth those further utterances of their enmity, gnashing upon him with their teeth, yea, even under the shower of their cruel stones, he could pray for these same, and did pray for them, even in the agonies of a painful death.' And this example of Stephen's dying love Augustine, in his homiletic instruction, urges often on his hearers from another point of view. Many, when exhorted by the example of Christ their Lord to bless them that curse them, and to pray for them that despitefuUy use them, might perhaps make answer, ' He could do this. He could say, even as they nailed Him to the cross, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This was not difficult for Him, for He was God ; but it is impossible for us.' Augustine in reply bids them look not at their Master only, but also at their fellow-servant, one of like passions with themselves, by nature a sinful man — to look ' Serm. cccxvii. 4: Lingua clamat, cor amat; and in a beautiful passage, In Ev. Joh. Tract, vi. 3 : Magnus impetus, sed columba sine felle ssevit. Serin, cccxv. 2 : Ssevire -videtur : lingua ferox, cor lene. Clamabat et amabat. Soeviebat, et salvos fieri volebat. Quis non crederet iratum, quis non crederet odiorum facibus inflammatum ? Hoc dicat, qui cor non videt. Latebat cor ejus; sed audita sunt novissima verba ejus, et patuerunt occulta ejus cum lapidaretur: Domine, ne statuas illis hoc peccatum. TJbi est, Dura cervice? Hoc est totum quod clamabas ? hoc est totum quod saeviebas ? foris clamabas, et intus orabas. Cf. Enarr. in Ps. cxxxii. 2. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 1 1'j at Stephen, who in that hour of agony prayed for his mur- derers ; and with his example before them Augustine bids them to acknowledge that this same was possible for them, who had the same fountain of grace to draw from, the same Saviour to turn to as he had, — a Saviour in whose strenoth they too might overcome hate and revenge, and all sinful passions of the mind.' It is singular that Augustine has not indicated with more clearness the meaning of St. Stephen's beholding in that hour of agony his Lord standing at the right hand of God, for it is exactly such a point as he seldom suffers to escape him. He often indeed notes that this is the only instance in which Christ is described as standing, that on every other occasion He is sitting, at the right hand of the Majesty on high ; but he does not proceed to explain or to account for this exceptional case.^ The right explanation we owe, as I believe, to Gregory the Great ^ — namely, that it ' Serm. cccxv. 6; cccxvii. 2: Quando audiunt: Pater, ionosce illis, quia nesciunt quid faciunt ; dicunt sibi, Ip.5e lioc potuit tam- quam Filius Dei, tamquam unicus Patris. Caro enim pendebat, sed Deu3 intus latebat. No3 autem quid sumus, qui i.sta faciamus ? Fefellit qui jussit ? Absit : non fefellit. Si multum ad te putas imitari Dominum tuum ; adtende Stephanum conservum tuum. Dominus Christus, unicus Dei tilius : numquid hoc Stephanus P Dominus Christus, de incorrupta virgine natus : numquid hoc Ste- phanus ? Dominus Christus venit, non in carne peccati, sed in simili- tudine camis peccati : numquid hoc Stephanus? Sic natus est ut tu • inde natus est, unde et tu ; ab eo renatus est, a quo et tu. ^ He connects, indeed, Stephen's own standing or steadfastness in that hour with his Lord's {Serm. cccxiv. i) : Jesum stantem vi- debat ; ideo stabat et non cadebat, quia stans siu-sum et deorsum certantem desuper spectans invictas militi suo vires, ne caderet suggerebat. ■' Horn. xxix. in Evang. : Sedere judicantis [adde, imperantis] est, stare vero pugnantis vel adjuvantis. Stephanus in labore certaminis positus stantem vidit, quem adjutorem habuit, I 114 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. belongs to the passion of the moment that the dying martjr, filled with confidence in his Saviour's present help, should behold Him not sitting in majestic calmness, but uprisen from his throne, and thus standing at the right hand of the Father, as in act to come forth to the help of his suffering servant, — all which we have embodied in the opening of our Collect on St. Stephen's day : ' blessed Jesus, who standest at the right hand of God to succour all those that suffer for Thee.' It is at least a pardonable play upon words, even if it be no more, in which Augustine indulges when he urges the nomen et omen of Stephen's name. He who first, being steadfast unto death, received the crown of life, had borne long since the prophecy of this his martyr's crown in the name of Stephen (ars(f)avos) which he bore.* The connexion between a prayer and the answer to that prayer is not always distinctly traced in Scripture. Like so much else in Scripture, this is left for us to trace for ourselves from slight and scattered hints, rather than forcibly obtruded on our notice. Thus we are not told that there was any connexion between Peter's deliverance from the dungeon of Herod, and the prayer that ' was made without ceasing of the Church unto God for him ' (Acts xii. 5) ; yet who can doubt that such connexion ' Ser7n. cccxiv. 2 ; Enm-r. in Ps. Iviii. 3 : Stephaniis lapidatus est, et quod Tocabatiir accepit ; Stephanas enim corona dicitur. So Adam of St. Victor : — Nomen liabes Coronati, Te tormenta decet pati Pro corona glorise. Less tolerable is another play upon words in which he allows himself on this same occasion (Senn. cccxvii. 4) : Petris lapidabatur qui pro Pet)-d moriebatur, dicente apostolo, Petra autem erat Christus. Chap. VI.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 115 there was ; and, his attention once called to it, that it was the intention of the sacred historian to intimate as much ? As little can we hesitate to recognize a deep inner con- nexion between St. Stephen's prayer and St. Paul's conver- sion. The great Apostle of the Gentiles, he whom John of Damascus has so grandly called vu/icfiajco'yoy ttjs OLKOvfisvrjs, was probably the dii'ect fruit of the prayer which the dying martyr uttered for his enemies ; of which enemies the ' young man whose name was Saul ' was so far the bitterest, that he was not content with having a single hand in the protomartyr's death, but by keeping the clothes of the witnesses, of those therefore who flung the first stones, and by disencumbering them for their work, had as it were many hands in the slaughter.^ At the same time it is very noticeable that Augustine, who, as we have just seen, has so much to say about Stephen, yet never even suggests the probable influence which he must have had, first by the character of his teaching, and then by the martyrdom with which he set his seal to that teaching, on St. Paul ; the extent to which Stephen must have been the irpohpoixos of Paul. And yet, so far as Paul was taught of men and not directly of God, every thing points to Stephen as having been his teacher, as having opened to him those larger aspects of the object and purpose of the death of Christ ; which the other chief disciples, though they had been in Christ before ^ Serm. ccc.xvi. 7 : Quantum speviebat in ilia ceede, vultis audire ? Vestimenta lapidantium servabat, ut omnium manibus lapidaret. Serm. cclxxix. I : Sic aderat lapidantibus ut non ei sufficeret si tantum suis manibus lapidaret. Ut enim esset in omnium lapidantium mani- bus, ipse omnium vestimenta servabat, magis sseviens omnes adju- vando quam suis manibus lapidando. Cf. Ad Horn, Expos, in- choata, 15. I 2 116 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VI. Stephen or Paul was, had not as yet made their own. And yet there is much in Scripture to indicate how closely Paul trod here in the footsteps of Stephen. Thus it is very noteworthy that the accusations brought against Paul, at a later day, namely that he would not tie the Christian religion to the Jewish temple (Acts xxi. 28 ; xxv. 8), are exactly those which had been already brought against Stephen (Acts vi. 14), while such we nowhere find brought against any other of the Apostles. While St. James is held in highest honoiu: among the Jews, the mere presence of St. Paul is sufficient to rouse the Jews to displays of the wildest hate. The scattering abroad of thp disciples in the persecu- tion that followed, which disciples yet ' went everywhere, preaching the word ' (Acts viii. 4), Augustine trium- phantly compares to the scattering of sparks of fire, which before were heaped upon a single hearth, but are now flung far and wide, to kindle wheresoever they alight. The Jews, shortsighted in their hate, had thought to quench those live coals ; but indeed only succeeded in so spreading them everywhere that presently they set the world in a blaze.' ' Sej-ni. cccxvi. 4 : Fugati sunt fratres, sed tanquaiu ardentes faces, quocunque veniebant, accendebant. Stulti Judtei, quando illos de Hierosolymis fugabant, carbones ignis in silvam mittebant. And elsewhere (Senn. cxvi. 6) he compares the Church of Jerusalem to a heap of burning brands : Lapidate Stephano passa est ilia congeries persecutionem ; sparsa sunt ligna, et accensus est mundus. Chap. VII.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 117 CHAPTER VII. AUGUSTINE ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. It is a matter of regret that Augustine did not, among his other exegetieal works, give to the Church a commentary on the Epistle to the Eomans, seeing that for such a work the character of his mind, and the whole training of his life, eminently fitted him. He was of a spirit more akin to the great Apostle of the Gentiles than any other Father of the early Church. Not until Luther did there rise another capable of grasping its truths as he had grasped them. He, too, like St. Paul, had been brought by wonderful ways, and after many fearful struggles, there where he had found rest for his soul ; his story a living commentary on the words, ' Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.' It was a word from this Epistle which gave the last decisive impulse to his conversion.' Out of the long and terrible struggle which preceded this, he did not bring merely his wounds and his scars, but also a deep acquaintance with the devices of the enemy, with the weaknesses and treacheries of the human heart, with the mighty power of Him that had stood beside him to help and to save. But Augustine has not bequeathed to the Church any such work. The existence of brief Scholia on this Epistle, and of an Inchoata Expositio, which, though it occupies sixteen columns, only handles 1 Conf. viii. 12. 118 . AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VII. the first five verses of the first chapter, and in ■which he did not proceed further, justly fearing the enormous size to which a commentary on that scale vrould grow, only slightly qualiiies this statement. His work on the Epistle to the Galatians, which might be accepted as in part a substitute, belongs to an earlier period of his life, and, with very much of valuable, does not possess all the depth and fulness of his later exposition. For though there is, no doubt, a certain exaggeration in what Luther says of him, namely, that ' he was first roused up and made a man by the Pelagians when he strove against them,' • yet to his controversy with them he did certainly owe much. In conflict with these gainsayers he learned to possess his truth as he had never possessed it before, as but for this perhaps he never would have possessed it at all, and not to possess only, but to enlarge and to deepen it. But although we have not such a work from his pen, there is largest material for the exposition of this Epistle to be drawn, if one would bring it together, from almost all parts of his writings, and more especially from his treatises having reference to that Pelagian controversy, and from his Letters. Modern interpreters of this scripture have too often left these rich and abundant mines well-nigh ^ Table Talk, 29. Augustine himself often, with reference to I Cor. ii. 19, recognizes the service of which heresies may prove to the Church in stirring up the faithful to a deeper investigation of Scripture, and in causing them to attain to a firmer grasp of the truth. St. Paul he believes, in that passage, to have affirmed the same ; though it may very well be doubted whether this was his inten- tion there. Thus De Gm. con. Manich. i. i : Ideo divina provideutia multos diversi erroris haereticos esse permittit, ut cum insultant nobis, et interrogant nos ea quje nescimus, vel sic excutiamus pigritiam, et di- vinas scripturas nosse cupiamus. Cf. Enarr. in Fs. Ixvii. 31 ; Conf. vii. 19; in Jnh. Evang. Tract. 51, § 2. Chap. VII.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. HQ imwrought. What they would yield, I should like by one or two specimens to show ; and this, although it would be impossible in the compass of this present essay to do more than from two or three prominent passages to illustrate the manner in which he has addressed himself to the exposition of this theologically central portion of God's word.' And, first, in regard of Eom. v. 12-21. This is Augustine's stronghold and citadel in all his long contro- versy with the Pelagians.2 Of these it needs hardly to observe that they occupied the extreme opposite pole of error to the Manichreans. As the Manichseans implicitly denied the possibility, so the Pelagians the necessity, of a redemption. Augustine felt, and rightly, that in the relations in this chapter set out, of Adam and Christ to one another, and of the progeny of one to its natural Head, and of the other to its spiritual, the whole dispute between the Church and these deniers of her truth lay implicitly wrapped up. Indeed this chapter is the rock upon which all Pelagian schemes of theology, which rest on an extenuation of the Fall, on a denial of the significancy of Adam's sin (save in the way of evil example), to any but himself, — which break up the race of mankind into a multitude of isolated atoms, touching, but not really connected with, one another, instead of contem- plating it as one great organic whole, — must for ever shiver and come to nothing. In the light of this chapter 1 See an interesting passage in his book De Spir. et Litt. 7, in which he expresses himself on the subject-matter of this Epistle, and generally on the fitness of St. Paul to be eminently the preacher of the grace of God. It is a passage, ubi vel ma.xime fides Christiana consistit {Ep. exc. 3). 120 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VII. such schemes appear as contrary to the revealed Word of God, as indeed they are to all deeper apprehensions which have been attained quite apart from Scripture, of the awful bands, physical, psychical and spiritual, which knit the members of the human family to one another. And to Augustine it was given, if not to feel this more strongly than any had done before, yet certainly to bring it out to the consciousness of the Church as no other hitherto had done. The meaning of the latter part of this chapter, as he loves to draw it out, is as follows : — In what went before the Apostle had spoken of Christ's death, and the fruits of that death ; but the question might well present itself: Hoiv should the death of one have such significance for all ? Saint Paul answers the question. This One is not merely one ; He stands in a relation to all men, which can only find its analogy in the relation wherein Adam stood to all. He may be rightly called a ' second Adam.' In Adam the whole natiu-al development of man was included ; the entire human race is but the unfolding of that first, that one man.' Exactly so Christ is a spiritual Head. The whole race of regenerate men was shut up in Him, is imfolded from Him. They are but the one grain of gold beaten out, and extended into an infinite breadth. As the huge oak with its trunk and all its spreading branches is rudimentally wrapped up in the single acorn ; so the world, or mankind natural, in Adam, and the Church, or mankind spiritual, in Christ.' What Adam and Christ were hi ' Op. Imp. ron Jul. ii. 163: Unde fit ut totiim genus humanum quodam modo sint homines duo, primus et secundus. Cf. ii. 69 ; and again, Senn. xc. : Venit unus contra unum : contra unum qui sparsit unus qui collegit. In Ev. Joh. Tract, iii. 1 2 : Homo, et liomo : homo ad mortem, et homo ad vitam. Chap. VII.] INTERPRETEK OF SCRIPTURE. 121 intense, they are in extenso. He often adduces, as a scriptural confirmation of this aspect of the matter, the language and argument of the Apostle to the Hebrews (vii. 5), who concludes that it was not Abraham alone who paid tithes to Melchisedek, but that in Abraham all the future Levites paid tithes as well.' The whole moral and spiritual history of the world oscillates between two persons. They are the centres round which everything revolves — the two poles of humanity — the two successive champions and representatives of the race. One is defeated, and the lot of the whole race for thousands of years is servitude and shame ; one is victorious, and vast and enduring as were the issues of the other's defeat, those of his victory are vaster and more enduring still. Only from this point of view, of the race, namely, as included in Adam, do we attain any right apprehension of the significance of Adam's sin. It was not so much a sin, differing from all other sins only in that it was the first, and when compared with many that followed perhaps a slight sin, — which is the Pelagian position; — it was not this so much as the sin, the head and front of the world's offending, not the first only, but the greatest, the mother sin in which every after sin was enfolded.^ The injury which by that sin Adam inflicted on himself, he did not inflict on himself alone. It was, so to speak, a bruising and injuring of the seed, and thus more or less a marring and distorting of every single branch and fibre and leaf which should evolve itself therefrom. It was a casting of poison into the fountain head, and thus an infecting lower down of every drop of the stream.^ And only so do we ' O]). Imperf. con. Jul. vi. 22. ^ Ibid. vi. 21, 27. ^ In a minor detail of his interpretation of this passage, but one 122 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VII. attain any right apprehension of the significance of Christ's rio-hteousness : for that other is but one side, the sadder and the darker side, of the same truth. That which held good for death, held good also for life. The same law of intimate union between the members of the race and their head, which made one man's sin so diflfusive of death, has on which he lays considerable stress, it is now acknowledged by all that he was at fault. He found at Rom. v. 12, in his Italic Version, as it is now in the Vulgate, In quo omnes peccaverunt ; which in quo he referred to Adam, as though St. Paul would say, ' In whom all sinned.' The words of the original are f<^' w navres TJnaprov, and are rightly rendered in our Version 'for that all have sinned ' {i(p u) = oti, as 2 Cor. V. 4 = quatenus), the Apostle in those words affirming that no following man was capable of arresting the tide of evil, and so proving a new head of life, an apx^jyos C<^rjs for the race, inasmuch as each in his turn and by his own act, not merely by succession from Adam, came under the law of sin, and thus under the law of death. So far as these words went Julian the Pelagian had entire right on his side, e.xplaining them thus (0/j. Imperf. con. Jul. ii. 174): In quo omnes peccaverunt, nihil aliud indicat quam, quia omnes peccaverunt. Considering how much turned on the words, and how often they came into debate between them (see again vi. 23), it is strange that Augustine should not have turned to the original. The error does not seriously, or indeed at all, affect his position. That Adam's sin was the fontal sin of all other which followed, that also it reacted on the moral, and through that on the physical, condition not of one man, but of all who in that one were wrapped up, this is quite strongly enough stated in the passage, to bear the subtraction of the further proof of it which Augustine drew from a mistaken interpreta- tion of these words. Such assertions as the following still remain true, though they may not be found in these words {Con. duas Ep. Pel. iv. 4) : In illo primo homine peccasse omnes intelligantur, quia in illo fuerunt omnes, quando ille peccavit : cf. De Pecc. Mer. et Pern. iii. 7 : In Adam omnes tunc peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura, ilia insita vi, qu;\ eos gignere poterat, adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt ; De Civ. I)ei,x\\\. 14: Omnes fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus : nondum erat nobis sigillatim creata et distiibuta forma, in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis, ex qua propagaremur. Chap. VII.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 123 made one man's obedience or righteousness so diffusive of life. Christ shall diflFuse Himself no less effectually than Adam, as the one by generation, so the other by regenera- tion. Nay there shall be, as there ever must be, a mightier power in the good than in the evil ; for while the one sin was sufficient to ruin the world, the righteous- ness of one did not merely do away with that one sin, but with all the innumerable others which had unfolded themselves from it.^ But the Epistle to the Komans, before it describes the bringing in of Him, the restorer of all which Adam had forfeited and lost, sets forth the preparatory discipline of the law under which man was being trained for welcoming that Saviour, when at length in the fulness of time He should be revealed ; and among the ends to which the law thus given should serve, the Apostle declares that it ' entered that the offence might abound ' (Kom. v. 20). Two questions present themselves here, and, as carrying us into the heart of Augustine's exposition of this Epistle, and with it of his whole theology, we may consider severally his answer to each. And first, In what way did the entrance of the law cause the offence or sin to abound ? ' Thus in his important letter, Ad Hilariu^n {Up. civil. 12): In hac caussa, quo constituuntur homines, Adaiu, ex quo consistit gene- ratio carnalis, et Christus, ex quo regeneiatio spiritalis. Sed quia tantuoi ills homo, iste autem et Deus et homo, non quomodo ilia generatio iino delicto obligat, quod est ex Adam, ita ista regeneratio unum delictum solum sohdt, quod est ex Adam. Sed illi quidem generationi sufficit ad condemnationem uniiis delicti connexio, quid- quid enim postea homines ex malis suis operibus adduut, non pertinet ad illam generationem, sed ad humanam conversatiorem : huic autem regeneration! non sufficit illud delictum tantummodo solvere, quod ex Adam trahitur, sed quidquidetiam postea ex iniquis opeiibus humanaj conversationis accedit. Ideo judicium ex uno in condemnationem, gratia autem ex multis delictis in justificationem. 124 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VII. To this he has a double answer. The law caused sin to abound, in that sin was more sinful now, being committed against the express commandment of God, the lex Tnani- festa,^ than when done only against the lex occulta, that commandment written at the beginning on the hearts of men, but which now through long neglect had become more or less illegible and obliterated there. Where there is no law, there indeed is sin, but not transgres- sion.^ But this was not all ; not in this way only did the entrance of the law cause the offence to abound. The law had also in a deeper sense, and one which fearfully revealed the evil of man's heart, an irritating power. Man craves to be avrovofios, to be a law to himself, and the very fact of a law imposed by another and from without, does of itself suggest resistance to and defiance of that law. The prohibited comes by the mere fact of the prohibition to be also the desired. The stream of man's corruptions fretted and raged more fm-iously for the I Sei-m. clxx. 2. ^ Enarr. in Ps. cii. : Quare lege subintrante abundavit peccatura ? Quia Dolebant se confiteri homines peccatores, addita lege facti sunt et pravaricatores. Praevaricator enim non est quisque, nisi cum legem transgressus fuerit. Cf. Con. Faust, xix. 7 ; Serm. clxx. 2 ; and my Synrniyms of the Neiv Testament, § 66. Yet Augustiue at the same time is very earnest in not allowing the giving of a written law to call into question that there went another eternal law before that, however man may have refused, and through refusing become unable distinctly, to read it. Thus Enarr. in Ps. Ivii. i : Hoc et antequam Lex daretur, nemo ignorare permissus est, ut esset unde judicarentur et qiiibus Lex non esset data. Sed ne sibi homines aliquid defuisse quererentur, scriptum est et in tabulis, quod in cordi- bus non legebant ; non enim scriptum non habebant, sed legere nole- bant. Oppositura est oculis eorum quod in conscientia videre coge- rentur, et quasi forinsecus admota voce Dei, ad interiora sua homo compulsus est. Chap. VII.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 125 obstacles placed in its way; as some mountain torrent foams round a rock that has fallen in its bed ; which, not sufficing to dam it up, only rouses it k» a fiercer tumult than before.' Confessions on the part of the heathen to the same truth are too familiar to need citation. But the yet deeper question still remained. How was this giving of a law which made the guilty guiltier, and at the same time thus stirred up and roused the evil that might else have remained dormant in man's heart, reconcilable with the love and righteousness of God ? Augustine answers, The physician does nothing contrary to or unworthy of his art, whereof the end is the healino- of men, when he causes the floating sickness which per- vaded the whole frame to concentrate itself into some fixed shape of disease, which then and only then he can encounter and overcome.^ The sick man would not perhaps have acknowledged himself as sick before, and therefore might have refused to submit himself to the te- dious and painful processes of cure.^ It was so dealt with ' De Spir. et Litt. 4 : Lex quamvis bona, aiiget prohibendo desi- derium malum: sicut aquae impetus si in earn partem non cesset influere, vebementior fit obice opposite, cujus molem cum evicerit majore cumulo praecipitatu3 violeutius per prona devolvitur; nescio quo enim modo hoc ipsum quod concupiscitur, fit juoundius, dum vetatur. And again Serm. cliii. 5 : Minor erat concupiscentia, quando ante Legem securus peccabas; nunc autem oppositis tibi obicibus Legis, fluvius concupiscentise quasi frenatus est paululura, non siccatus : sed increscente impetu qui te ducebat obicibus nullis, obruit te obicibus ruptis. Cf. De I>iv. Qucest. 66; De Civ. Dei xiii. 5. '^ A heathen moralist, Seneca, has confessed as much {Ep. 56) : Omnia enitn vitia in aperto leviora sunt : morbi quoque tunc ad sanitatem inclinant, cum ex abdito erumpunt, ac vim suam proferunt. ' The following quotations will enable us to understand the 126 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VII. mankind by the great Physician of souls. The law, demanding and threatening, revealed man to himself, who was hitherto in good part hidden from himself. It made him see his hurt, and thus sent him to his Healer,' to Him too who should enable him by assisting grace to do those things which the law indeed had required of him, but had never been able to bring about in him ; ^ so that the wondrous circle ends in the establishing of that law which seemed at first about to be utterly overthrown position which Augustine took, justifying the righteousness of God {Enarr. in Ps. cii. 7) : Non crudeliter hoc fecit Deus, sed consilio medicinae ; aliquando enim videtur sibi homo sanus et aegrotat, et in eo quod segrotat et non sentit, medicum non qugerit ; augetur morbus, crescit molestia, quaeritur medicus, et totum sanatur. And again {In Ev. Joh. Tract, in. 11, 14): Lex minabatur, non opitulabatur ; jubebat, non sanabat; languorem ostendebat, non auferebat : sed illi praeparabat medico venturo cum gratia et veritate : tanquam ad aliquem quern curare vult medicus, mittat primo servum suum, ut ligatum ilium inveniat, Cf. Ep. cxlv. 3 : Lex itaque docendo et jubendo quod sine gratia impleri non potest, homini demonstrat suam infirmitatem, ut quaerat demonstrata infirmitas Salvatorem, a quo sancta voluntas possit, quod iuBrma non posset. Lex igitur addu- cit ad fidem, fides impetrat Spiritum largiorem, diftundit Spiritus caritatem, implet caritas legem. . . . Ita bona est lex illi, qui ea legitime utitur ; utitur autem legitime, qui intelligens quare sit data, per ejus comminationem confugit ad gratiam liberantem. Cf. Senn. clv". 4 ; clxx. 2 ; Ad Simplic. i. i ; Ep. cxcvi. 2. ^ Auo-ustine brings often out the force of a-vveKXeKre, Rom. xi. 32 ; thus Ser7n. clxiii. 1 1 : Oonclusit Scriptura omnia sub peccato. Quomodo conclusit ? Ne vagareris, ne praecipitareris, ne mergereris. Oancellos tibi fecit lex, ut non inveniendo qua exires, ad gratiam convolares. "^ De Fide et Oper. 14: Sequuntur enim bona opera justificatum, non praecedunt justificandum — 'a golden sentence,' as one of the greatest of our old English divines has termed it. Enarr. in Ps. ex. 3 : Justitiam enim homo non operatur, nisi justificatus. Credens autem in eum qui justificat impium, a fide incipit ; ut bona opera non praecedentia quod meruit, sed consequentia quod accepit, osten- dant. Chap. VII.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 127 (Rom. iii. 31). Augustine loves to liken the five porches (John V. 2, 3), to which the sick were brought from their unseen chambers of suffering, and wherein they lay exposed to the sight of all men, without being for all this a whit nearer to a recovery of their health hereby, to liken, I say, these, and the operation of these, to the operation of the law : for that in a manner not dissimilar drew sin and sinners from their hiding places, but all the while accomplished nothing for the effectual healing of the hurts and diseases of men's souls.' On one more passage in this Epistle, and one that eminently brings out what is characteristic in Augustine's exposition, some further words may be added. It is well known that there have been in the Church two different expositions of Rom. vii. 7-25. Is the Apostle there de- scribing the conflicts and struggles of the regenerate man inter renovandum ? or is he describing those of the man as yet not partaker of Christ, but only brought by the law under strong convictions of sin and of the demands which that holy law makes on his obedience ? Augustine, in the early part of his Christian life, and in conformity with the interpretation of the passage which had been prevalent in all the times before him, understood St. Paul to be here setting forth the struggles of the man not actually partaker as yet of the redemption which is by Christ Jesus. Thus in such writings of his as were com- posed and published at this period, we have an exposition of the passage according to this earlier scheme ; ^ while at the close of his life he states, what indeed his treatment ' Ser7n. cxx. 3. These porches he describes as portantes teoTOtos, nou sanantes ; prodentes, non curantes. ' As De Div. Qiicest. 66; Ad SimpUcianuin, i. i. 128 AUGUSTINE AS AN fCHAP. VII. of this passage in many of his later writings would with- out this statement make sufficiently manifest, namely, that he had seen cause to change his view, giving at the same time the reasons which had moved him to this.' In this matter also we may doubtless trace the influence which that same contest with the Pelagians exercised upon his •whole habit of thought, and on the form of his theology. These, as is well known, magnified the natural powers of man, gave all to nature, which they did not consider now to be otherwise than in its original integrity and as it came from Grod ; and however in tuord they might attribute something to grace, yet in fact that grace, when more closely inspected, was but nature in disguise. And it seemed to him that the passage, understood as he had once understood it, putting as it did language like the following into the mouth of the man not as yet under grace, ' I delight in the law of God after the inward man ' (ver. 22), favoured too much that erroneous estimate of the powers of our unrenewed nature, which was by those heretics entertained, cast a certain slight on that sanctifying and renewing grace of the Spirit whereby alone we either will or do that which is well pleasing to God.2 I may be allowed without presumption here to observe that I do not believe Augustine to have been right in ^ Retract, i. 23 : Propter banc itaque conciipiscentiam motiisque ipaos quibu3 ita resistitur, ut tamen sint in nobis, potest quisque sanctus, jam sub gratia positus, dicere ista omnia. Of. Con. duas Ep. Pel. i. 10. 22. '^ Non video, quomodo diceret homo sub lege : Condelector legi secundum interiorem hominem, cum ipsa delectatio boni qua etiam non consentit ad malum non timore pcense sed amore justitise (hoc est enim condelectari), non nisi gratiae deputanda sit. Chap. VII.] INTERPKETER OP SCRIPTURE. 129 thus going back from the Church's and from his own earlier exposition of this chapter. There would be much more in his objection, if there were only the alternatives of accepting these words as the voice of the natural man, or else of the man renewed in the spirit of his mind. But a third course is possible, namely, to contemplate them as the utterance of the man convinced, and that by the" Spirit of God, of sin and of righteousness, on the way to, but not having yet arrived at, the blessed freedom of the spirit in Christ Jesus, seeing it afar off, and struggling toward, though not grasping it as yet. To Augustine himself it was abundantly clear that while he was escaping from one danger, he was, by the new interpretation which he favoured, running into another. If that which he abandoned might seem to play into the hands of the Pelagians, ascribing too much to the natural powers of man, did not that which he now sup- ported, and which his influence caused to be received without a question in the Western Church for more than a thousand years, ascribe too little to the regenerate man? did it not set the standard of his obedience too low ? He is quite aware that this charge might be brought against it, and is very earnest in vindicating his exi^osition of this ' difficult and perilous passage,' for so he calls it himself,' from all Antinomian abuse ; in giving all care lest the evil of men should turn that which in itself was wholesome food into poison. ^ It is plain that to such abuse it would be much more exposed according to his later exposition than according to that of the earlier Church, ^ Difficilis et pericuTosiis locus {Serm. cYix. i). ' Serm. cli. I : Ne homines male simientes .«alu'brem cibum, Tertant in venenimi. 130 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VII. thoucrh of course this in itself was not sufficient reason to reject it. The -words which yield themselves the most readily to such an abuse, which might be and have been the most eagerly seized by the false-hearted, by all who are seeking in Christ's Gospel not strength to deliver them from sin, but excuses for remaining in sin, are the concluding ones of the chapter, 'So then with the mind I myself serve the law of Grod, but with the flesh the law of sin' (vii. 25). Auo-ustine does not fail to urge that all this impotence for good whereof the regenerate man here or elsewhere com- plains has solely to do with the interior region of his heart, does but express his inability to bring the thoughts and desires of his heart into a perfect conformity to the will of God, and has nothing at all to do with the exterior sphere of his acts.^ So long as we bear about this body of sin, we shall not altogether be delivered from the first ; for the promise is not, even to those who walk in the Spirit, ' Ye shall not have the lust of the flesh ; ' but it is most truly, ' Ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh ' (Gal. v. 16).^ And he distinguishes between the inhabitatio ' It is one thing, as he ohsei'ves, concupiscere ; another, post con- cupLscentias ire. De Nupt. et Concup. ii. 31 : Quod sic intelligendum est, mente servio legi Dei, non consentiendo legi peccati, carne autem servio legi peccati, habendo desideria peccati, quibus etsi non consentio, nonduni tamen penitus careo. See the four preceding chapters, which have all an important hearing on this subject. Cf. Enarr. in Ps. 1.XXV. 3. Thus too on the confession of the Apostle (for he naturally rejects altogether the unworthy evasion that St. Paul is speaking of another, not of himself), 'The good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not that I do ' (ver. 19), he asks (Serin, cliv.) : Itane Apostolus Paulus nolebat facere adulterium, et faciebat adulterium ? nolebat esse avarus, et erat avarus? Cf. Con. duas Ep. Pel. i. 10. 18. * Ep. cxcvi. 2. Chap. VII.] INTERPRETEE OF SCRIPTURE. 131 peccati, over which the faithful man still mourns, and the regnum peccati, which in him has been destroyed (Rom. vi. 12). The Canaanite luill dwell in the land, but he is under tribute.' The soldier of Christ is not in these words complaining of defeat, but grudges to be always at war, never to be able to lay aside his weapons, even while he thankfully owns that in Christ Jesus he is evermore a conqueror.^ Augustine brings into closest connexion with this pas- sage in the Romans, and gives a right interpretation of, those other words of the same Apostle, so often misapplied in his own time, and so often misapplied still, < The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life ' (2 Cor. iii. 6). They are frequently taken as though ' the letter ' meant the letter of Scripture, which profited nothing, which might often even be so misused as to ' kill,' at any rate would not make alive, unless the inner spiritual meaning, or ' the spirit,' were discovered and drawn out. This assertion, which of course has its truth, — indeed Augustine tells us that, used in this sense, the passage was one of his great teacher St. Ambrose's favourite sayings,^ — has yet nothing to do with what the Apostle is stating here ; and the fact of this ex- planation having both in old times and new acquired so ' See an important passage for his teaching on all this subject, E.tp. Ep. ad Gal. v. 17, 18. He draws a distinction perhaps verbally hardly to be justified, but of which the attention is plain: Aliud est peccare, aliud habere peccatum. - Thus in affecting words (Se7-m. cli. 8) : Nolo semper vincere ; sed volo aliquando ad pacem venire. And again, on the present conflict with indwelling sin : Quamdiu vitiis repugnatur, plena pax non est, quia et ilia quae resistant periculoso debellantur prjelio, et ilia quse victa sunt nondum securo triumphantur otio, sed adhuc solicito premuntur impeiio. 3 Conf. vi. 4. k2 132 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VII. wide a currency is a notable example of the tendency to isolate statements of Scripture, and to interpret them in- dependently of the context which can alone rightly ex- plain them. ' The letter ' here, according to all the necessities of the context, is the law, called ' the letter ' because written on tables of stone ; the whole dispensa- tion, commanding and threatening, yet not quickening, of the Old Testament. This, as the Apostle, in harmony with all his other teaching, declares, ' killeth,' not merely negatively, in that it does not make alive, but positively ; for, as Augustine admirably brings out, the true parallel and interpretation of the words is to be found in those other words of St. Paul, ' I was alive without the law once, &c. ; ' while ' the Spirit ' here is that dispensation of the Spirit of which he speaks Kom. viii. i-ri, as that in which, and in which only, resides the power of making men alive unto God.' ' De Sj)ir. et Litt. 4 : Doctrina quippe ilia, qua mandatuin acci- pimus continenter recteqiie vivendi, littera est occidens, nisi adsit vivificans Spiritus. Neque enim solo illo mode intelligenduru est quod legimus, Littera occidit, Spiritus autem vivificat; ut aliquid figurate scriptum, cujus est absurda proprietas, non accipiamus sicut littera sonat, sed aliud quod significat intuentes interiorem hominem spiritali intelligentia nutriaiuus ; . . . . sed etiam illo, eoque vel naaxime, quo apertissirae alio loco dicit, Concupiscentiaoi nesciebam, nisi lex diceret : Non coucupisces. And 5 : Volo demonstrare illud quod ait Apostolus : Littera occidit, Spiritus autera vivificat, non de figuratis locutionibus dictum, quamvis et illinc congruenter accipiatur, sed potius de lege aperte quod est malum prohibente ; and 19 : Lex enim sine adjuvante Spiritu procul dubio est littera occidens; cum vero adest vivificans Spiritus, hoc ipsum intus conscriptum facit diligi, quod foris scriptum lex laciebat timeri. Yet Augustine is not himself uniformly true to the right explanation, clearly as he has stated it here, for see De Doctr. Christ, iii. 5. Chap. VIII.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 133 CHAPTER VIII. MISCELLANEOUS EXAMPLES OF AUGUSTINE's INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. I ADD one chapter more, that so I may produce a few miscellaneous specimens of Augustine's insight into the Word of God, and of the tact and skill with which he unfolded to others the riches which that Word contained. Matt. ii. I, 2. While angels announce Christ to the shepherds, a star announces Him to the Magi. There was a special fitness, as Augustine loves to bring out, in each of these announcements ; in each case the channel by which the announcement is made has its own and its special fitness. He is full of what we may call the poetry of the Nativity, and returns to it again and again.' Matt. xix. 23-26. His explanation of this passage furnishes an excellent example of the manner in which he 1 Thus Serm. cxcix. : Pastoribus angeli, Magis Stella Christum demonstrat ; utrisque loquitur liugua cselorum, quia lingua cessaverat prophetarum. And again on the Magi in particular : lUi Magi primi ex gentibus Christum Domiuum cognoverunt, et nondum ejus sermone commoti stellam sibi apparentem, et pro infante Verbo visibiliter loquentem velut linguam ca;li secuti sunt. And again, Serm. cci. : Quid erat ilia stella qute nee unquam antea inter sidera apparuit, nee postea demonstranda permansit? Quid erat nisi maguifica lingua caeli, qu8e narraret gloriam caeli, quae inusitatum Yirginis partum inusitato splendore clamaret ; cui postea non apparenti Evaugeiium toto orbe succederet. 134 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VIII. sometimes clears away a diflBcultj by penetrating further into the meaning of the words which present it, so setting himself at their moral centre, and from that centre un- folding them. The disciples had seen the rich young man go sorrowing away, and heard the Lord's comment on his withdrawal, ' How hai'dly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God ; ' whereupon they exclaim, ' Who then can be saved ? ' This question of theirs, Augustine observes, showed how deeply they had entered into the meaning of their Lord's words. To those who had not so done, the difficulty of a rich man^s enter- ing into the kingdom would not have appeared to involve a difficulty for all ; nay, from the very exceptional charac- ter of the assertion, many might have drawn an assurance that for the poor it was not difficult, but easy. Whence then this question, implying a misgiving, and one gener- ated by that very saying of their Lord, whether any man could be saved ? It arose from this, as he admirably brings out, namely, that the disciples saw into the deeper significance of what their Lord had just uttered; they understood that the ' rich ' ' of whom He spake were not merely the rich in possessions, but the rich in desires, the lovers of riches, whether they had them, or had them not. And thus out of a profoundly painful sense of the difficulty ' After much that is admirable, he goes on to say {Enarr. in Ps. li. 9) : Illi apud se dicentes, Quinam poterit salvari, quid attenderunt ? Non facultates, sed cupiditates. Viderunt enim etiam ipsos pauperes, etsi non habentes pecuniam tameu habere avaritiam. And again (Qm^s^. Eoang. ii. 47): Eo manifestatur omnes cupidos, etiam si facultatibus hujus mundi careant, ad hoc genus divitum quod est reprehensum pertiuere ; quia postea dixerunt qui audiebant : Et quis potent salvus lieii ? cum incomparabiJiter major turba sit pauperum : videlicet intelligentes in eo numero deputari etiam illos, qui quanquam talia non habeant, tamen habendi cupiditate rapiuntur. Chap. VIII.] INTEEPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 136 of being really poor, that is, poor in spirit, of detaching the soul from the love of the creature, and from trusting in the world, ' they were exceedingly amazed, saying. Who then can be saved ? ' And how well he unfolds the Lord's further declaration, ' With men this is impossible, but with G-od all things are possible ; ' showing that these words do not mean that God will dispense with this law of his kingdom, since otherwise so many would be ex- cluded from it, that He will widen the eye of the needle till it is large enough for the man of worldly lusts (actually rich or not makes no difference), to pass through it with all his baggage; but rather, 'With God all things are possible,' is the same as saying, ' All things are possible to him that believeth.' This, which it is impossible for man to accomplish in his own strength, namely, such a making of himself poor in spirit, such a loosening of himself from the bands which bind him so fast to the world and to the creature, shall yet be possible for him in the strength of God. The impossible thing, which yet is possible with G-od, is not the saving of the rich man in and with his riches, but the making of the rich man poor, one of God's poor, and so an inheritor of his kingdom.' Matt. xxvi. 60. The question has been often asked, and not always sufficiently answered, wherein were the witnesses that witnessed against the Lord false witnesses, 1 Qucest. Ev. ii. 47 : Quod autem ait, Quae impossibilia sunt apud homines, possibilia sunt apud Deum, non ita accipiendum est, quod cupidi et superbi, qui nomine illius divitis significati sunt, in regnum CEelorum sint intratuii cum suis cupiditatibus et superbia, sed possibile est Deo ut per verbum ejus .... a cupiditate temporalium ad caritatem seteinorum, et a pei-niciosa superbia ad humilitatem salu- berrimam convertantur. He has discussed all the questions -which grow out of the Lord's interview with this rich young man most fully, Ep. clvii. 23-39. 136 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. Vllf. as by St. :Matthew, and by St. Mark as well (xiv. 57), they are styled ? The Lord had said, ' Destroy this temple, and in three days 1 will raise it up ' (John ii. 19). Wherein then did they witness untruly ? Not, certainly, as some will have it, in taking literally what He had spoken figuratively. This might have been dulness of apprehension ; it would not have constituted falsehood. But, as Augustine rightly urges, a very small turn which they gave to his words in reporting them, entirely altered their character. He had said, ' If you destroy, I will re- build ; ' He had never proposed, nor even seemed to pro- pose, as in the wantonness of power. Himself to destroy and throw down the holy temple of God, that so He might have the opportunity of displaying his might in the building up of it anew ; He had but presented Him- self as the repairer of the ruin x^-hich they might effect ; and the slight alteration of his Solvite into the Solvam which they, whether intentionally or otherwise, put into his mouth, quite altered the character of the saying ; while at the same time the falsehood, to secure a readier acceptance, preserved certain features of the truth. ^ Luke iv. 13. How much of practical and edifying Augustine often draws from single words in the Scripture. Thus, on the hint which the third Evangelist furnishes in his record of the Temptation, that when the devil de- parted from our Lord, it was only ' for a season,' he takes occasion to bring this first Temptation, which signalized the opening of Christ's ministry, into relation with the second, which signalized its close, compares and contrasts the Temptation of the wilderness and that of the garden (Matt. xxvi. 36-42). The enemy in the first tries to ^ Serm. cccxv. i : Yicina voluit esse falsitas veritati. Chap. VIII.] INTEEPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 137 overcome his constancy by bringing to bear against it all pleasurable things, in the last all painful things. He knocked first at the door of desire, and, when that proved shut against him, at the door of fear. And as it fared with the jMaster, so shall it fare with each one of the servants ; they, too, shall have to tread both on the lion and the adder, to resist now a threatening, now a flattering, world.' Luke xxiii. 39-43. Augustine magnifies often the heroic character of the faith of the penitent malefactor, how far it exceeded all ordinary faith, how far it exceeded in some respects even the faith of Apostles themselves.^ * Enarr. 3" in Ps. xxx. 5 : Hujusniodi pugnoe exemplum ipse tibi Imperator tuus, qui propter te etiam tentavi dignatus est, in se demonstravit. Et primo tentatus est illecebris ; quia tentata est in illo janua cupiditati.^, quando eum tentavit diabolus, dicens, Die lapidibus istis ut panes fiant ; Adora me, et dabo tibi regna ista ; Mitte te deovsum quia scriptum est. Quia Angelis suis niandavit de te, et in mauibus toUeut te. Omnis bsec illecebra cupiditatem tentat. At ubi clausam januam in%'enit cnpiditatis in eo qui tentabatur pro nobis, convertit se ad tentandam januam timoris, et prseparavit illi passionem. Denique hoc dicit Evangelista, Et consummata tenta- tione diabolus recessit ab eo ad tempus. Quid est, ad tempus ? Tau- quam rediturus, et tentaturus januam timoris, quia clausum inveuit januam cupiditatis. Of. Serin, cclxxxiv. : Quid ait Evaugelista? Postquam perfecit diabolus omnem tentationem ; omnem, sed ad ille- cebras pertinentem. Restabat alia tentatio in a.'peris et duris, in saevis, in atrocibus atque immitibus restabat alia tentatio. Hoc sciens Evangelista, quid peractum esset, quid restaret, ait, Postquam complevit diabolus omnem tentationem, recessit ab eo ad tempus. Discessit ab eo, id est, insidians serpens, venturus est rugiens leo, sed vincet eum qui conculcabit leonem et draconem. ^ Servx. ccxxxii. 6 : Magna fides : huic fidei quid addi possit, ignoro. Titubaverunt ipsi qui viderunt Christum mortuos suscitantem ; cre- didit ille qui videbat secum in ligno pendeutem. Quando illi tituba- verunt, tunc ille credidit. Qualem fructum Cbristus de arido ligno percepit ? . . . . Non solum ciedebat resurrecturum, sed etiam regna- turum. Pendenti, crucifixo, cruento, hferenti, Cum veneris, inquit, 138 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VIII. Nor does he fail to take note of the symbolic character of the whole wondrous transaction, and the prophecy that was embodied in the penitent and obdurate malefactor, and in the bearing severally of the one and the other to Christ, of all the after relations of men to the crucified Lord; one portion of the sinful race turning to Him, looking and living ; the other turning away, and abiding in death.' John xviii. I. St. John alone mentions that it was in a ' garden ' that the Lord's last and decisive conflict with all the powers of darkness found place. Augustine brings beautifully together, and notes as one of the minor har- monies of Scripture, that as it was in a garden that all was lost, so it was only meet that in a garden all should be won back again. ^ John xix. 34. Augustine's commentary on this verse is a happy illustration of the rich typical allusiveness which he traces in Scripture, of the way in which he links the far and the near, and brings many passages, apparently the most remote from one another, to bear upon some one, and to light it up. At the same time what he here has written does not less notably illustrate what we sometimes have to complain of in him, namely, the in regnum tuum : Et illi, Nos sperabamus. Ubi spem latro invenit, discipulu3 perdidit. Of. Serm. xxxii. 2 ; and nay Studies in the New Testament, 4th edit. p. 312. ' Serm. cclxxxv. 2 : Itafactse sunt tres cruces, tres caussse. Unus latronum Christo iusultabat, alter sua mala confessus Christi se misericordite commendabat. Crux Christ! in medio non fuit sup- plicium, sed tribunal : de cruce quippe insult&ntem damnavit, cre- dentem liberavit. Timete, insultantes; gaudete, credentes: hoc faciet in claritate, quod fecit in humilitate. * Conveniens erat ut ibi funderetur sanguis medici, ubi pvimum cceperat morbus segroti. Chap. VIII.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 139 pressing of an emphasis which belongs only to his Latin translation, and which disappears so soon as ever reference is made to the original. Such an emphasis he here finds in the ' aperuit ' of his Latin Version ; marking, as he says the word does, that a door was opened in the sacred side, by which streams of life flowed freely forth ; while ' percussit,' which he observes that the Evangelist of a purpose did not use, would be the exact equivalent, which ' aperuit ' is very far from being, of the svu^sv of the original.^ Acts ii. 1-4. The giving of the law from Mount Sinai has been often compared, especially in modern times, with the giving of the new law, or rather of the Gospel, from that other Mount, where the Lord sat down with his disciples (Matt. v. i) ; and the circumstances which attended the speaking of that word of God and this, were severally very characteristic of the dispensa- tions which they severally ushered in. But of old the parallel and the contrast were rather drawn between Sinai and that upper chamber where the disciples were assem- ^ In Joh. xix. 34, Tract, cxx. : Vigilant! verbo Evangelista usus eat, ut uou diceret, latus ejiis percussit aiit vulneravit aut quid aliud, sed aperuit : ut illuc quodammodo vitse ostium panderetui", unde sacramenta Ecclesise manaverunt sine quibus ad vitam qu£e vera vita est, non intratur. lUe sanguis in remissionem fusiis est pecca- toruin : aqua ilia salutare temperat poculum : baic et lavacrum prajstat et potum. Hoc praenuntiabat quod Noe in latere arose ostium facere jussus est qua intrarent animalia, quae non erant diluvio peritura, quibus prse figurabatur Ecclesia. Propter hoc prima mulier facta est de latere viri dormientis, et appellata est vita materque vivorum. And .S'er?«. cccxi. 3, he brings this passage very beautifully into connexion with John x. 7 : Christus est janua. Et tibi est ostium apertum quando est latus ejuslancea perforatum. Quid inde manavit recole, et elige qua possis intrare. De latere Domini aqua sanguisque protluxit. In uno est mundatio tua, in altero redemtio tua. 140 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VIII. bled, waiting the promise of the Father ; and how strik- ingly Augustine draws out the parallel of likeness and opposition between the two, may be seen in the passage given below ; one out of many similar passages that might be quoted.' Nor does he miss the relation which this day (wherein, for one prophetic moment at least, the distinction of languages disappeared) bore to that earlier day in which the tongues of mankind were divided ; this outward division being, of course, but the sign and conse- quence of an inward division of spirits (Gen. xi. 1-9). Here was a pledge and a promise, that the one language and one speech which had then been lost, should yet through the Church be given back, that a day should arrive when all should be again of ' one lip ' as at the first.2 . ' Se7-m. civ. 6 : Sed videte ibi quomodo, et hie quomodo. Ibi plebs longe stabat, timor erat, amor non erat ; Dam usque adeo timu- erunt, ut dicerent ad Moysem, Loquere tu ad hop, et non nobis loquatur Dominus, ne moriamur. Descendit ergo, sicut scriptum est, Deus in Sina in igne, sed plebem longe stantem territaus, et digito suo scribens in lapide, non in corde. Hue autem quando venit Spiritus Sanctus, congregati erant fideles in unum ; nee in monte terruit, sed intravit in domum. De cselo qiudem factus est subito sonus, quasi ferretur flatus vehemens: sonuit, sed nullus expavit. Audisti sonum, vide et ignem, quia et in monte utrumque erat, et ignis et sonitus ; sed illic etiam fumu?, hie vero ignis serenus. Visae sunt enim illis lirgu?e divisse, velut ignis. Numquid de longinquo ter- ritaus ? ALsit, nam iusedit super unumquemque eorum, et cceperunt liuguis loqui, sicut Spiritus dabat eis pronuntiare. A student who wished to realize to himself the infinite productiveness of Augustine during the Middle Ages, and the extent to which those ages lived on him, could do no better than compare this passage, or other similar ones which it would be easy to adduce, with some of Adam of St. Victor's hymns, as for instance with his sublime hymn on the giving of the Holy Ghost, quoted in my Sacred Latin Poetry, 3rd edit. p. 179, or again, on the same subject, p. 192. * Serm. cclxxi. : Sicut euim post diluvium superba impietas homi- Chap. VIII.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 141 Acts ix. 4. ' Why persecutesfc thou Me ? ' Many have noted before and since the common cause which the Lord in his heavenly glory makes with his suffering members upon earth, so that the wrong done to them He feels and resents as a wrong done to Himself ; but few, if any, with such emphasis, with such frequent recurrence to it, with illustrations so happily drawn from the common speech of men ; for they in like manner exclaim that they are hurt, when indeed it is foot or hand or some other mem- ber that is injured, the head, alike in things natural and things spiritual, suffering with the body; and refusing, alike in word and in act, to be separated from it.' num turrim contra Domiiium sedificavit excelsam, quando per lino-uas diversas dividi meruit geuus humanum, ut unaquteque gens lingua propria loqueretur, ne ab aliis intelligeretur ; sic butnilis fidelium pietas earum linguarura diversitatem Ecclesiae contulit unitati, ut quod dis- cordia dissipaverat, colligeret caritas, at humani generis tanquam unius corporis membra dispersa ad unum caput Christum corapaginata redi- gerentur, et in sancti corporis unitatem dilectionis igne conBarentur. Of. Enarr. in Ps. liv. 10: Spiritus superbiae dispersit linguas, Spiritus Sanctus congregavit linguas ; He Civ. Dei, xviii. 49 ; Enarr. 2' in Ps. xviu. 10. ' Enarr. 2' in Ps. xxx. i : Hoc autem corpus [Ecclesife] nisi con- nexione caritatis adhsereret capiti suo, ut unus fieret ex capita at corpore, non de cfelo quendam persecutorem corripiens diceret, Saule, Saule, quid me pevsequeris ? Quando eum jam in c£elo sedentem nuUus homo tangebat, quomodo eum Saulus in ten-a s^viens adversus Chrisiianos aliquo modo injuria percellebat ? Non ait, Quid sanctos meos, quid servos meos; sad, Quid me persequeris, hoc est, quid membra mea ? Caput pro membris clamabat, et membra in se caput transfigurabat. Vocem namque pedis suscipit lingua. Quando forte in turba contritus pas dolet, clamat lingua, Calcas°me, non anim ait, Calcas pedem maum ; sad se dixit calcari, quam nemo tatigit. Sed pes qui calcatus est, a lingua non separatus est. Ha lovas°to quote Ephes. v. 31, ' And they two shall be one flash,' in illustration ; cf. Enarr. in Ps. Ixxxvi. 2 ; cxl. i. And so too with reference to i Cor. xii. 26 and the mutual care which the members of Christ's mystical body should have one of another, the very highest being prouipt 142 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VIII. Acts X. 9-16. There are two ways in which the vision of the sheet, full of ' all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air,' and the command addressed to Peter, * Kill and eat,' may be understood. Either Peter was thus taught that the Levitical distinction between clean and unclean meats had ceased, that this fixed line of practical demarcation between Jew and Gentile was taken away, and left to draw his own conclusion that the separation itself, which this distinction so much helped to maintain, was not intended to subsist any longer ; or else, which seems to me the better, though the rarer interpretation of the vision, to say with Augustine, that all these unclean things in the vessel represented the heathen. This is more agreeable to ver. 16: 'What God has cleansed, that call not thou common ; ' for assuredly it was not the hitherto forbidden meats, but the heathen, and more particularly Cornelius, whom God had cleansed, and whom Peter declares (ver. 28) that he, through this vision, had learned not to call common or unclean. The only difl&- culty here is what the commandment, ' Kill and eat,' will then mean; but this, seeming at first sight the weak point of this interpretation, is in reality very far from so being. It only needs that we keep in mind the higher sacra- mental uses which eating has in almost all rehgions, emi- to serve the lowest, he has another lively comparison, Enan: in Ps. cxxx. I : Numquid quia in corpore pes quasi longe videtur ab oculis (illi enim sunt locati in sublimitate, illi autem infra positi), quando forte pes spinara calcaverit, deserunt oculi; et non, sicut videmus, totum corpus contrahitur, et sedet homo, curvatur spina dorsi, ut quferatur spina quae hresit in planta ? Omnia membra quidquid possunt faciunt, ut de iniimo et exiguo loco spina, qu£e inhoeserat, educatur. Chap. VIII. J INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 143 nently in the Christian, to discover the key to the mean- ing of these words. That which is eaten is entirely incorporated into and assimilated with the eater : there is thus the innermost identification of the one and the other. The command then to Peter is, in fact, that he should boldly incorporate the heathen into that body of which he is here, and for the moment, contemplated as the organ and the mouth. > Augustine explains further, and no doubt rightly, the exceptional case of the baptism of Cornelius, who, with those that belonged to him, received the Holy Spirit, not as others, in baptism or after, but before ; of which, he observes, there is no other example in all Scripture 2— namelj', that it was for the entire removinc^ of Peter's doubts whether the Gentile converts should be admitted into the fellowship of the Church at once, and without the intermediate step of first becoming Jews. It was the Lord Himself deciding the question, and saying to his Apostle, ' Why doubtest thou about water ? Be- hold, / already am here.' ^ ' Serm. cxxv. 9: Petro dictum est, Macta et manduca, ut osten- derentur gentes crediturae et intraturaj in corpus Ecclesi«, sicut quod manducanius in corpus nostrum ititrat. Of. Senn. cxiix. 5-7 : Occi- dendi ergo erant et manducandi, id est ut interficeretur in eis vita prseterita, qua non noverant Christum, et transierent in corpus ejus, tanquam in novam vitam .... societatis Ecclesite. Cf. Serm cclxvi. 6 ; and Ennrr. in Ps. ciii. 1 1. Grotiiis, who is much readier to accept Scripture mysteries than he is commonly esteemed, follows hun here, though without allusion to his predecessor: Linteum de cselo delapsum intellexit esse Ecclesiam c^elitus collectam (Apoc. xxi. 2). Nee in Ecclesiam involvuntur, nisi jam mundati. Occidere est tollere in eis quod restat de veteri homine ; manducare, sihi adunare. ^ Serm. cclxix. 2 : Singulare occurrit exemplum. 3 Serm. xcix. 12 : Quid de aqua dubitas ? jam Ego hie sum. Of. Serm. cclxvi. 7. 144 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VIII. Rom. xi. 2-4. On that ' I only am left,' of Elijah (i Kin. xix. 10, 14), quoted here, with the rebuke of God which follows, ' I have reserved to Myself not thee only, as thou supposest, but ' seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal,' Augustine makes many profitable remarks ; likening the present aspect of the Church to a barn floor, where there shows to the eye at first sight little else but a heap of chaff. Yet if one look more narrowly, if, stretching out his hand, he grasp a portion of what is there, and then make a separa- tion with the breath of his mouth as with a purging blast, there will be revealed to him precious grains which were concealed from him before. And as with that handful on which he has made this experiment, so will it be through the whole mass. The chafi" indeed first meets the eye, yet among it and beneath it many golden grains lie hidden ; separated, it may be, by intervening chaff, and not touching one another ; and each one hardly knowing of more than itself; yet not therefore to give way to the temptation of exclaiming with the impatient prophet of old, ' I only am left.' ' I Cor. XV. 22. Much, as is well known, has been ' Thus Enarr. in Ps. xxv. : Grana cum cceperint triturari, inter paleas jam se non tangunt ; ita quasi se non noverunt, quia intercedit palea. Et quicunque longius attendit aream, paleam solam putat ; nisi diligentius intueatur, nisi manum porrigat, nisi spiritu oris, id est, flatu purgante discernat, difficile pervenit ad discretionem gra- norum. Ergo aliquando et ipsa grana ita sunt quasi sejuncta ab invicem, et non se targentia, ut putet unusquisque cum profecerit, quod solus sit. Hsec cogitatio, fratres, Eliam tentavit, tantum virum. Cf. in Ps. xlvii. § 10; Serm. cccxi. 10: Absit ut de area tanti Patris- familias desperem. Qui longe aream videt, solam paleam putat : invenit grana, qui novit inspicere. Ubi te ofl'endit palea, ibi latet granorum massa. Ckap. VIII, J INTEEPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 145 made of the ' all ' and ' all ' in the words of St. Paul : ' For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,' as though the second ' all ' must needs extend as far as the first ; and since the first ' all ' embraces the whole race of men, for there is no one who has not through Adam's sin come under sentence of natural death, so some have concluded that the second ' all ' must have as wide a reach ; and that a co-extensive ' all ' will through Christ's righteousness be partakers of life eternal. But Augustine shows what is the true antithesis between these ' alls ; ' that Paul does but say, ' All who die, die in Adam ; all who live, live through Christ.' In this respect indeed they are co-extensive, that none die, except as involved in A(iam's sin; none live, except as justified through Christ's righteousness — in this sense, but no other.' I Cor. XV. 56. ' The sting of death is sin.' St. Paul is often understood to say that what gives to death its bitterness, and so imparts to it a ' sting,' is sin and the sense of sin. The words, however, as Augustine urges, cohere much more intimately with all which the Apostle teaches of death as the fruit and consequence of sin ; and their true parallel and explanation is to be found in Rom. V. 12, 'Sin entered into the world, and death by sin' Sin is that weapon of mortal temper which kills those that otherwise would have lived for ever. ' The sting of death' {KsvTpov Oavdrov) in fact is equivalent to 'the deadly sting ' (Ksvrpoi/ 6avdai/xou), though the personifi- ^ De Civ. Dei, xiii. 23 : Non quia omnea qui in Adam raoriuntur, membra erunt Christi : sed ideo dictum est, omnes atque omnes, quia sicut nemo corpore animali nisi in Adam moritur, ita nemo coi-pore spiritali nisi in Ohristo vivificatur. Of. Ser7n. ccxciii. 9; and on Rom. V, 18, exposed to like abuse, his words, Up. clvii. 13 ; Op. Imp. con. Jul. i. 135. 146 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VIII. cation of death which goes immsdiately before causes a little difficulty in precisely seizing the force of the words. And exactly in the same way, when the Apostle presently before demands, ' death, where is thy sting ? ' he does not mean, 'Where is thy bitterness for him that believes? ' He might very fitly have asked this, but he does not so here; and the precise meaning of this triumphant question is rather. Where is that sin, by which as by a deadly weapon thou didst once make such havoc and extend such ravages among the children of men ? It is abolished by the free justification of the sinner, and therefore thou, who art nothing without it, and wouldest not have been at all except for it, shalt, in the kingdom of the Son of Grod, and for the children of the resurrection, be also abolished.^ 2 Cor. xii. 2. There are certain passages in Scripture to which Augustine returns again and again ; from which he seems never weary of drawing out the lessons where- with they are fraught for him. This is one of them ; so wonderfully instructive does it seem to him that a Paul, after all his experience, should need an antidote to pride ; that this should have been vouchsafed to him in the shape of ' a messenger from Satan ' (what exactly this was he does not attempt to define, but suggests that it may have been some sharp pain or sickness of body) ; that he, ask- ^ Pecc. Mer. et Rem. iii. 1 1 : Aculeus mortis peccatum ; aculeus ailtem qua mors facta est, non quern mors fecit ; peccato enim mori- mur, non morte peccamus. Sic itaque dictum est, aculeus mortis, quomodo li^jriuim vitte, non quod hominis vita faceret, sed quo vita hominis fieret. Sic enim dicimus et poculum mortis, quo aliquis mortuus sit vel mori possit, non quod moriens mortuusve confecerit. Aculeus itaque mortis peccatum est, peccati punctu mortificatum est genus humanum. Cf. Con. duas Epp. Pel. iv. 4 ; Serm. ccxcix. 10. Chap. VIII.] INTEEPEETER OF SCEIPTURE. 147 ing to have this thorn in the flesh removed, should have had his prayer at once refused and granted ; the actual boon he asked, which would have profited him nothing, but rather the contrary, withheld from him, while at the same time a better boon, one which should effectually promote his highest spiritual life, was through this very denial imparted to him. None that I know have dwelt with such peculiar affection on the teaching of this Scrip- ture, or drawn from it lessons, so profound as he has con- tinually done.' Gal. v. 19. In proof that charity is the first and the chief of all graces, Augustine does not fail to urge that in this catalogue of ' the fruit of the Spirit,' which St. Paul sets over against ' the works of the flesh,' it is with this charity he commences, that on this, so to speak, the whole beautiful cluster depends.^ Phil. ii. 12, 13. Augustine's explanation of this passage is directly opposed to that of the modern Roman ' EnatT. in Fs. xcviii. 13 : Tam perfectus erat, ut tameu timendum esset ne extolleretur ; nam non poneret Deus medicamentum, ubi vulnus non esset. Et roga\-it ut tolleretur jeger ille rogavit ut auferretur medicamentum : Propter quod ter Dominum rogavi, in- quit, ut auferret eura a me, et dixit mihi, Sufficit tibi gi-atia mea, nam virtus in intirmitate perficitur. Ego novi quern euro ; non mihi det qui aegrotat consilium. Tanquam emplastrum mordax urit te, sed sanat te. liogat medicum ut tollat emplastnun, et non tollit,' nisi cum fuerit sanatura quo posuerat. Serm. clxiii. 8: venenum'quod non curatur nisi veneno— a mngniticent passage, but too loug to quote ; cf. Enarr. in Fs. cxxx. 7 ; and in Fs. xc. Senn. ii. 6, 2 Senn. xxxvii. 28 : Vide ipsum botrum, unde incipiat. Enume- ratis omnibus spinis in ignem mittendis, fructus autem Spiritus est, inquit, caritas. Et ab hoc capite, ab hac tanquam radice cetera contexuntur: gaudium, pax, longanimitas, benignitas, bonitas, fides, mansuetudo, continentia. Unde iste botrus pulcber ? Quia pendet a caritate. I. 2 148 AUGUSTINE AS AN [CaAP, VIII. Catholic Church. This, as a necessary consequence of its doctrine that the measure of a man's holiness is the measure of his justification, teaches a constant insecurity on the part of every man concerning his state of grace ; and, since in no man that holiness can be perfect, it could not teach otherwise ; and this passage, with another from' the Old Testament,^ is mainly relied on in proof.^ It would be out of place to show here that the other has nothino" to do with this matter; but the present is as little in point. What 'fear' is here urged Augustine tells us — not the fear, or rather doubt, whether ours is a state of grace, but the fear of falling from that state, the ' metus vigilantise,' not the ' timor diffidentiae ; ' ^ or, as sometimes with reference to the verse following he brings out, the fear of humility. You are to ' work out your own salvation ; ' but at the same time with an awful sense that it is not your work, but God's work in you and through you, ' with fear and trembUng,' being mindful how solemn a thing it is to be brought into immediate contact with ' the powers of the world to come,' to have God working in you; who may cease working, if you hinder his godly motions, attributing in your pride any part of the work to yourselves ; and then, when He ceases, all will be at a stand.'' It may well be supposed that ' Eccles. ix. I, which appears in the Vulgate : Nescit homo, utrum amore an odio dignus sit. ' See EsTlus, in loc, or any other Roman Catholic expositor. ' Enmr. in Ps. li. : Quare cum timore ? Quapropter qui se putat stare, videat ne cadat. Quare cum tremore ? Intendens te ipsum, ne et tu tenteris. '' Serm. cxxxi. 3 : Depressa implentur, alta siccantur. Gratia pluvia est. Ideo cum timore et tremore, id est, cum humilitate. Noli altum sapere, sed time. Time, ut implearis : noli altura sapere, ne sicceria. Enai-r. in Ps. ciii. 32 : Ideo ergo cum timore, quia Deus Chap. VIII.] INTERPEETEE OP SCEIPTUEE. 149 he, engaged in a struggle with the Pelagians, cites often, and often draws out the force of this verse. I quote a single passage.' Phil. ii. 15. ' Among whom ye shine as lights in the world.' These ' lights' {(pcoa-rijpss) to which the faithful are compared, Augustine explains rightly as the heavenly luminaries, and mainly the sun and moon.^ They have been variously interpreted. Some have understood them as torches, and the faithful to be exhorted to shine like these in the midst of a dark world; for others, the 'lights' are lighthouses, and the faithful bidden to a like office to theirs, namely, to the guiding of wanderers over the world's sea ; while others find a reference to the golden candlestick in the sanctuary : but all erroneously ; the word which stands here for ' lights ' is never used in the Septuagint or New Testament to signify aught but the heavenly luminaries.' operatur. Quia ipse dedit, non ox te est quod hates, cum timore et tremore operaberia ; nam si non tremueris eum, auferet quod dedit. Cf. De Grat. et Lib. Arbit. c. 9. * De Don. Persev. 33 : Nos ergo volumus, eed Deus in nobis operatur et velle ; nos ergo operamur, sed Deus in nobis operatur et operari. ^ Thus he brings this passage into connexion with the creation of the fourth day {Enarr. in Fs. xciii. i) : Quomodo luminaria in cselo per diem et per noctem procedunt, peragunt itinera sua, cursus suos certos habent ; ... sic debent sancti, »S:c. ; cf. ver. 23 ; Sind JEnaiT. in Ps. cxlvii. 4. ' Thus Gen. i. 14, 16; Ecclus. xliii. 7; Wisd. xiii. 2 ; and com- pare Dan. xii. 3, where the redeemed are likened to (fxccTrpa tov ovpavov, and in the only other passage in the New Testament where the word occurs (Rev. xxi. 1 1), 6 (puKTrf^p aiTrjs is that which to the heavenly City is in place of sun and moon (see ver. 23). It is worth noting, though this is not his merit, but that of the early Latin Version which he used, that he has the right translation of (paivea-Ot : apparetis, and not lucetis as the Vulgate. To justify lucdis, or our 150 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VUI. Col. i. 13. It is plain that Augustine would not have been content with resolving ' Son of his love ' here, as our Version has done, into ' dear Son.' ' It is this, but it is also much more than this. In his great work, De Trinitate, which contains his profoundest speculations on the being and nature of God, and which, though appeal- ing to a more limited circle of readers than most of his writings, may perhaps be considered the loftiest work of his genius, a work which he began a young man and ended an old,^ he urges that love being no mere attribute of God, but his essence and substance, ' Son of his love ' is in fact equivalent with ' only begotten.' The oneness in the substance of the Father and the Son is involved, not it may be for the conviction of the Arian, but yet most really, in the words ; for the ' Son of God's love ' must in fact share, is in that very phrase declared to share, with Him in his own essential beiug.^ Heb. xii. 3-1 1. This too is a passage which Augus- tine delights to recur to again and again ; drawing out the disciplinary and fatherly character of the afflictions which come upon the faithful,* the divine intention of own ' Ye shine/ an error which reappears Matt. xxiv. 27 ; Rev. xviii. 23, it should have been (fjalvm : (paiveiv is to shine (Gen. i. 17 ; E.xod. xiii. 22 ; John v. 35 ; Rev. i. 16 ; 2 Pet. i. 19); ^aiVeo-^at, to appear or to be seen (Prov. xxi. 2 ; Matt. ii. 7 ; Jam. iv. 14 ; I Pet. iv. iS). ' Yios T^s dyaTTT]!, as though it were no more than vlos dyanrjTos. It is a fault in the Authorized Version of frequent recurrence. * £p. clxxiv. ' De Trin. xv. 19: Caritas quippe Patris quae in natura ejus est ineffabiliter simplici nihil est aliud quam ejus ipsa natura atque substantia. Ac per hoc Filius caritatis ejus nuUus est alius, quam qui de substantia ejus est genitus. And presently before, Filius caritatis sua; Filius substantice suce. * Enarr. in Fs. cii. 20 : Jam sieviat quantum vult, pater est. Sed Chap. VIII.] INTEEPRETEE OF SCEIPTURE. 151 making by aid of these as many as are holy to be holier still. On this matter he has more comparisons than one of very singular beauty. Thus, what, he asks, shall we say that God is doing when He takes the earthly joy out of men's lives, and instead of this mingles with those lives some utterly distasteful thing ? What indeed, he replies, but even the same which nurses or mothers do, who willing to wean an infant that clings overlong to the breast, anoint this with bitter aloes or some other bitter thing, that so it may repel rather than invite. In ways not different God weans us from the world and the things of the world, to which He saw us addicting ourselves overmuch. With the same intent, as Augustine reminds his hearers, it is the grape after it is crushed in the wine-press, which yields the sweetness that except for this pressure would have there been looked for in vain.' So, too, he meets the wonder which we so often feel, when one or another, who seemed to us thoroughly purged of his dross, is yet left in his furnace of trial ; or who having been withdrawn from this for a little is flung back into it again and again. What is this, he demands, but the carrying out of the word of the promise of the heavenly Husband- flagellavlt nos et afflixit nos, et contrivit nos : pater est. Fili, si ploras, sul) patre plora. Quod pateris, imde plangis, medicina est, non poena ; castigatio est, non damnatio. Noli repellere flagellum, si non via repelli ab bsereditate. Noli attendere quampoenam habeas in flagello, sed quern locum in testamento. And again, Serm. xlvi. : Flagellat, inquit, omnem filium quern recipit. Et tu forte exceptua eria ? Si exceptus a passione flagellorum exceptus a numero filiorum. Other beautiful passages to the same effect maybe found Ennrr. inFs. xxxi. II ; xl. 6; xciii. 14; cxiv. 5. 1 Enarr. in Fs. xxx. ; Sejm. iii. 14 : Faciunt enim hoc nutrices mammothreptis, ut aliqua ponant in papillis sui?, quibus offensi parvuli ab utere resUiant. 162 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VIII. man that He will prune the firuit-bearing branches, to the end that they may bring forth more fruit (John xv. 2). Elsewhere he uses another image ; but it is the same truth which he is urging still. We stand, he says, before some exquisite work of painter's or sculptor's hand ; and it seems to us so perfect that it is almost a wrong to touch it further. But the artist is not of this mind ; he will not withdraw his hand. Again and again he returns to his work. There is still something to add or something to take away. And why, but because there floats before him an ideal perfection which only he can perceive.' So, too, on the other hand, as he urges often, there is nothing so miserable as prosperous wickedness ; there can be no surer sign of ultimate reprobation than when sinful men are let alone ; when it seems to have been said to them in the counsels of God, ' Why should ye be smitten any more ? ' Eev. XX. 12. Such language as the giving of the white stone (Eev. ii. 17), the standing on the sea of glass (Rev. XV. 2), the opening of the books and the judging of men out of these (Rev. xx. 12), and all other iu which the things of heaven, not otherwise intelligible to us, are ' JEnan-. in Ps. xcviii. 12 : Pleraque faciunt artifices, et ostendunt imperitia; et cum jam judicaverunt imperiti esse perfecta, expoliunt ilia artifices, qui noverunt adhuc quod illis desit, ut mirentur homines tantam expolitionem rebus accidisse, quas jam perfectas pronuncia- verant. Fit hoc et in sedificiis et in picturis et in vestibus et prope in omni genere artium, Primo judicant illud jam quasi perfectum esse, ut oculi eorura amplius nihil desiderent ; sed aliud judicat oculus imperitus, aliud judicat artis regula. Sic et Uli sancti ver- eabantur ante oculos Dei, tanquam sine culpa, tanquam perfecti, tanquam angeli. Noverat autem quid illis deesset, qui vindicabat in ' omnes afiectiones eorum. Vindicabat autem non irascens, sed pro- pitius ; ad hoc vindicabat, ut perficeret cceptum, non ut damnaret ejectura. Chap. VUI.] INTERPBETEE OP 8CEIPTUEE. 153 translated into the dialect of earth, is of course accommoda- tion and condescension, but still with most real truth for its groundwork, and for a justification of the uses to which it is turned ; and it is the task of the skilful inter- preter to bring out the essential truth of which each of these images is the vehicle. This Augustine does very happily, as for instance in his very solemn explanation, quoted below, of what this ' opening of the books ' at the last day may mean.' With one or two concluding observations, I will draw these specimens of Augustine's exegetical skill to an end. With all his dialectic dexterity, and all his delight in subtlest speculations, which indeed he snuffs afar off, with something of the same exultation as the war-horse in Job * the thunder of the captains and the shouting,' plunging into the thickest of them with an eager joy, with all his fondness for tracing up everything to its ultimate ground,'^ he abides still the man of the people, uniting in a re- markable degree with his metaphysical subtlety a broad practical common sense. Indeed without such a union he never could have exercised a dominion wide as that which he owns. So much will be allowed even by those who possess no larger acquaintance with his writings than these pages have already afforded. The inexhaustible ^ De Civ. Dei, xx. 14 : Qusedam vis eat intelligenda divina, qua fiet ut cuique opera sua, vel bona vel mala, cuncta in memoriam revocentur, et mentis intuitu mira celeritate ceraantur ; ut accuset ■vel excuset scientia conscientiam, atque ita simul et omnes et singuli judicentur. Quae nimirum vis divina, libri nomen accepit. In ea quippe quodam modo legitur quidquid ea faciente recolitur. ^ See, for instance, his interesting discussion on the origin of slavery, X>e Civ. Dei, xLx. 15 ; and again, on the relation of thought to speech, his essay De Magistro. 154 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VIII. treasure-house of our common life was open to him. Familiarity and use had not worn out its significance, nor robbed it of its mystery for him. He abounds in happiest illustration, the homeliest as the highest, appeals in his popular exegesis to proverbs in every day use, to familiar turns of language,' draws out from these the lesson which they contain, tracks those vestiges or foot-prints of the truth which are everywhere dispersed,^ and compels men's most ordinary words and ways to throw light on Scrip- ture, to receive light from Scripture, and oftentimes unconsciously to witness for truths the very highest of all. It must be acknowledged too that in brief and felici- tous antithesis Augustine is without a peer. More than any other of the great teachers of the Church he abounds in short and memorable, and, if I might so call them, epi- grammatic sayings, concentrating with a forceful brevity the whole truth which he desires to impart into some single phrase, forging it into a polished shaft, at once pointed to pierce, and barbed that it shall not lightly drop from, the mind and memory. And thus it has come to pass that as no theological writer lends himself so happily to quotation, none assuredly has been so often quoted.' And then with what a genial tact does he know how to plant himself at the central point of the truth which he desires to explain, and from thence securely to unfold it. How often does he in a single phrase gather up the whole significance of some Scripture history, * As in one place he saya biqjself : Ipsa lingua popularia plerumque est doctrina salutaris. * JEnatr. in Ps. cxviii. 36 : Vestigia veritatis, quae ubique dispersa est. ' The Spaniards have a proverb: No hay sermon sin Agostino ; or better, Sermon sin Agostino olla sin tocino. Chap. VIII.] INTERPRETER OP SCRIPTURE. 155 summon up before our eyes some Scripture scene, draw out and make application of it to the hearts and con- sciences of men in short and never-to-be-forgotten words ; how often does he illuminate as with a flash of lightning some dark passage, or trace with a single word some delicate yet important distinction, which, once traced, can never be confounded again.' I know not how better ^ I will instance a few examples of the fulness which is to be often found in his single sentences and phrases. Thus he gathers up in a single phrase the sin of Simon Magus (Acts viii. i6), who would have bought with money a share in the spiritual powers exercised by the Apostles : Voluit talia facere, non talis esse. Coming on those words, which describe how the whole crowd of the Lord's captors 'went backward and fell to the ground/ at that word of his, ' I am He' (John xviii. 6), he exclaims: Quid faciet judicaturus, qui judi- candus hoc fecit ? Quid regnaturus poterit, qui moriturus hoc potuit ? even as on that earlier trouble of Herod (Matt. ii. 3) : Quid erit tribunal judicantis, cum superbos reges cunse terrebant infantis ? He gives the purpose of the Lord in suffering Himself to be tempted : Ad hoc pugnat imperator, ut milites discant {Sei-tn. cxxiii. 2). On the indignation of the ruler of the synagogue at the healing of the woman who had been bowed together (Luke xiii. 14), he exclaims: Bene scandalizati sunt deiUa erecta ipsi curvi {Enarr. 2" in Ps. Ixviii. 24). On Christ left alone with the woman taken in adultery (John viii. 9) : Remansit adultera et Dominus, remansit viilnerata et medicus, remansit magna miseria et magna misericordia {Enarr. in Ps. 1. 8). On the doubt of Thomas, doubtful of his Lord's resurrection : Uubitatio Thomae, confirmatio Ecclesise ; with which we may compare the Church collect for St. Thomas's day. On the three days' blindness of Paul which followed his meeting of his Lord on the way to Damascus, he exclaims, Excsecatio Pauli, illuminatio mundi. He explains why the Lord, after the resurrection, should have three time over repeated his question to Peter, 'Lovest thou Me ? ' (John xxi, 15-17): Donee trina voce amoris solveret trinam vocem negationis {EnaiT. in Ps. xxxvii. 1 3). The whole question at issue between the Chiu-ch and the Donatists in respect of the true and the false separa- tion from sinners, he expresses in these words : Fugio paleam ne hoc sim, non aream ne nihil sim. He sets forth the manifold relations of Christ to his Church in the matter of prayer {Enarr. in Ps. Ixxxv. i) Orat pro nobis, orat in nobis, et oratur a nobis : He prays for us, as 156 AUGUSTINE AS AN [Chap. VIII. I can record my own sense of his excellences as an inter- preter of Scripture, than in the words of one whose work as a whole has yielded me, as I am obhged to say, singu- larly little, but who on this matter has expressed himself excellently well : • Mira Augustini erat ingenii profun- ditas, ardens et cordata pietas ; ut animum ad ea, quae our High Priest ; He prays in us, as our Head ; He is prayed to by us, as our God. We may set beside this his exposition of the words, * I am the way, the truth, and the life ' (John xiv. 6) : Hoc est, per me venitur ; ad me pervenitur ; in me permanetur (Z>e Doct. Christ, i). On the words of our Lord, misunderstood and misapplied so often, * My kingdom is not of this world ' (John xviii. 36), he comments rightly : Non negat hie esse, sed hinc. Again, how profound is his commentary on the words of St. Paul (Rom. xii. 2), 'Be ye trans- formed by the renewing of your minds, that ye may p-ove what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God : ' Tantum videmus, quantum morimur huic seculo ; quantum autem huic vivimus, non videmus. How conscience-searching his remark on the unprofitable servant, who is cast into outer darkness, not because he has tvasted, but only because he has not multiplied, his Lord's money : Intelligitur poena inteiTersoris ex poena pigi'i. Not less conscience-searching some other words, Enarr. in Ps. cxlvii. 1 2 : Ees alienae possidentur cum superflua possidentur. Thus too on Peter's presumptuous word (Matt. xxvi. 33), Quid festinas, Petre ? Nondum te suo spiritu solidavit Petra. With what a felicitous analogy he illustrates the fact that regenerate men do not beget regenerate, but natural and needing regeneration (De Pec. Met: et Rem. iii. 8) : Palea, quae Opere humano tanta diligentia separatur, manet in fructu qui de purgato tritico nascitur. The profound spiritual truth of Matt. x. 39 is shown to have truest analogies in the world of nature {Serm. cccxxxi. l): Agricola triticum si non perdit in semine, non amat in messe. How happily he has seized the central point of the type of the brazen serpent, which they who take it to represent the Lord, and not the death of the Lord, in part miss {In Ev. Joh. Tract, xiii.) : Quid est Serpens exaltatus ? Mors Domini in cruce. Adtenditur serpens, ut nihil valeat serpens ; adtenditur mors, ut nihil valeat mors ; and again {Enarr. in Is. Ixxiii. 2) : Sarari a serpente, magnum tacia- mentum. Quid est, intuendo serpentem sanaii a serpente ? Credendo in Mortuum salvari a morte. * GLAVsmf, Av(/iisiinus Sacite Saijitu) ce Inierpies, -p. 26"/. Berol. 1828. Chap. VIII.] INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 157 intus quaeque in sublimi sunt, totum conversum haberet : satis egisse se non prius arbitratus quam sibi usibusque suis religiosis satisfactum esset ; veritates ex sacro idea- rum fonte elicere, ad interna conscientiae oracula revocare studio generoso annisus est. Hinc egregise multae in- terpretationis virtutes ortse sunt: soUicitudo religiosa, gravitas verecunda, pia sinceritas : quum litteras sacras fidei regulam, lucem pietatis, vitge magistram positas esse sciret, neque igitur, nisi ad doctrinam et vitam usus redundaret, docto labori laudem pretiumque constare. Et quanta Nostri in vestigiis ad metam hancce dirigendis constantia erat ! quanta in sententiis multis dogmaticis vel ethicis efferendis construendisque diligentia, sagacitas, sapientia vere Christiana ! ut non tarn argutando dixeris eum intellexisse, quid scripserint auctores sacri, quam, impetu interno ductum, quid senserint, ipsum sensisse; ita in expositionibus nihil deest, nihil superest, nihil claudicat; cardinem rei acu quasi tetigit feriitque, ut veritate tibi persuasum, pietate te commotum, simplici- tate delectatum sentias. AUGUSTINE'S EXPOSITION OF THE SEEJION ON THE MOUNT. EXPOSITION, ETC, ST. MATTHEW, CHAP. V. Ver. I . ' And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain; and when He was set, his disciples came unto Him.' — Augustine expresses himself with no great decision on a question which has always occupied and divided harmonists — namely, whether the Sermon on the Mount, as reported by St, Matthew, is the same discourse as that which St. Luke records (vi. 20-49). Against their identity, he finds this to have been spoken on a mountain (ver. i), that in the plain (Luke vi. 17) ; while yet, on the other hand, the strong internal resemblance, with the fact that the same miracle, the healing of the centurion's servant, follows upon both, speaks for the identity of the two. He suggests, as a reconcihation of all difficulties, that the Lord may perhaps, first, on some higher eminence of the mountain have spoken the dis- course to his disciples which St. Matthew records ; and then, coming down to the foot of the mountain, have repeated the same to the multitude, in a briefer form, and one more suitable to them: and that of this repetition we have the record in St. Luke. Yet, before leaving the question, he allows that this difference, of one discourse M 162 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. having been spoken on a mountain, the other in the plain, does not imperatively demand such a scheme ; which, as it must be owned, has something forced and unlikely about it. The two statements are capable of reconciliation : our Lord may have ' stood ' (Luke vi. 17) on some more level space upon the slope of the mountain, capable of conveniently receiving the multitude, and then, when they were assembled, have sat down (Matt. v. i), and spoken once for all that one discourse which both Evange- lists relate.' And this is, no doubt, the truer and more natural explanation ; from which the inner differences, as Augustine himself affirms, need move us as little as the outer. One Evangelist does not contradict another, when, as St. Luke here, he relates more succinctly what the other had related more at length ; or again, when he finds place in his narrative for some portions of a discourse, which the other, though reporting parts of it more fully, has omitted. Ver. 2, 3. ' And He opened his mouth, and taught them, saying. Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'* — There is an emphasis, ac- knowledged by all later interpreters, in the words, ' He opened his mouth,'' which are not merely another way of ^ De Com. Evang. ii. 19: Quanquam etiam illud possit occurrere, in aliqua excelsiore parte montis primo cum solis discipulis Dominum fuisse, quando ex eis illos duodecim elegit ; deinde cum eis descen- disse, non de monte, sed de ipsa montis celsitudine in campestrem locum, id est, in aliquam aequalitatem quae in latere montis erat, et multas turbaa capere poterat : atque ibi stetisse, donee ad eum turbje conoregarentur ; ac postea cum sedisset, accepisse propinquius discipulos ejus, atque ita illis cseterisque turbis praesentibus unum habuisse sermonem, quem Matthaeus Lucasque narrarunt, diverse narrandi modo, sed eadem veritate rerum et sententiarum, quos ambo dixerunt. Vkb. 2,3.] SEBMON ON THE MOUNT. 163 saying, He began to teach, but signify that He was now beginning a discourse more than commonly weighty and full (of. Job iii. I ; xxii. 20; Acts viii. 35 ; x. 34). Augus- tine has not let this go unobserved, although he finds exclusively an indication of the length of the discourse introduced with this preface, and not also of its weight and solemnity.' It is not, indeed, that he does not rate at its proper height the significance of this discourse. He claims for it, on the contrary, to be a complete body of Christian divinity ; which he who has mastered and taken in will be furnished with all things necessary for the perfect life. He urges its closing words in proof that nothing less than this was the divine speaker's inten- tion. In this first beatitude much, indeed everything, turns on the interpretation which the words ' in spirit ' obtain. * Poor in spirit ' Augustine explains as poor in their own spirits, and so rich in the Spirit of God; being thus as the valleys, filled with the waters which roll off from the high and barren hills.^ Yet while this is, no doubt, in the main the true meaning, he lays on the words ' in spirit ' not exactly their right stress. He would have it, Blessed are they that have not an elated spirit ; taking * spirit ' altogether in an evil sense,' as that in man which lifts 1 Be Serm. Bom. in Mon. i. i : Tsta circumlocutio qua scribitur Et aperiens os suum, fortassis ipsa mora commendat aliquanto longiorem futurum esse sermonem. ' Enarr. in Ps. cxli. 4 : Beati pauperea spiritu suo, divites Spiritu Dei. Omnis enim homo qui spiritum suum sequitur, superbus est. Subdat spiritum suum, ut capiat Spiritum Dei. Ibat in culmen residat in valle. Si ierit in culmen, denatat ab illo aqua, si in valle resederit, implebitur ex ea. ' Thus Be Serm. Bom. in Mon. i. i : Non habentea inflantem spiritum, and Enarr. in Ps. cxliii. 7 ; and in Ps. ciii. 30 : Noluerunt M 2 164 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V, itself up against Grod, and so hinders the reception of any of his gifts or blessings. But what our Lord would say is this, Blessed are they that are poor in the spirit of their minds; the term ^poor^ excluding the false riches of pride and self-sufficiency, while ' in spirit ' marks the region in which this poverty should find place ; that He is not now speaking of worldly riches or worldly poverty, not of the thmgs outside of a man, but of those which are within. It is as much as to say. Blessed are they that are inwardly poor, who in their hearts and spirits have a sense of need, of emptiness, and poverty. His explanation, it will be seen, though capable of gaining slightly in accuracy, yet effectually excludes the Roman Catholic interpretation, that it is any outward poverty or riches of which Christ is speaking, that, for example, He is foreannouncing here any Mendicant Orders, with some singular beatitude which should be theirs.' Au- gustine had far too deep an insight into Christian truth to limit and explain Christ's saying here by the other form in which St. Luke records it, namely, ' Blessed be ye poor.' So far from this. He evermore interprets that by this, completing the briefer by the fuller, not cutting down (which were absurd) the fuller to suit with the briefer. For he that was so faithful a monitor to the rich of this world, warning them of the dangers especially theirs, hardness of heart, self-indulgence, pride, and notably the last — for as every fruit has its worm, so wealth has this '^ — was no less faithful to the poor; did not fall habere spiritum suuin ; habebunt Spiritum Dei ; see alao the preced- ing note. ^ Many Roman Catholic interpreters make nraxol rw nvfifiari, the voluntarily poor. ^ Set-m. Ixi. 9 : Omne pomum, omne granum, omne frumentum, omne lignum, habet vermem suum. Vermis divitiarum, superbia. Veh. 2, 3.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 165 into the other extreme, which is equally a temptation (Lev. xix. 15), of flattering or favouring them; would not let them believe that their outward poverty did itself constitute humility, however it might be a help to it, or that they were necessarily ^ jpoor in spirit,* because poor in worldly goods. He often tells them they were not to take for granted that every beggar was a Lazarus ; ^ while oir the other side there were Abrahams and Jobs, who were adorned with this true poverty, even in the midst of their worldly abundance.'* This poverty of spirit being the condition of every blessing, therefore to it is attached the promise of ' the kingdom of heaven,* which is inclusive of all blessings; for all the beatitudes which follow are but, as he observes, the unfolding of this first one. The phrase itself, ' kingdom of heaven,* so often recurring in St. Matthew (in the other New Testament Scriptures it is * kingdom of God,* as sometimes with him), he claims * Enarr. in Ps. cxxxi. 1 5 : Pauper Dei in animo est, non in sacculo. Procedit aliquando homo habens plenam domum, uberes terras ; . . . . novit quia in ipsis non est presumendum ; humiliat se Deo, facit inde bene ; ita cor ipsius erigitur ad Deum, ut noverit quia non solum nihil illi prosunt divitise ipsse, sed et impediunt pedes ipsius, nisi Ille regat et Ille subveniat : et numeratur inter pauperes, qui saturantur panibus. Invenis alium mendicum inflatum, aut ideo non inflatum, quia nihil habet, quserentem tamen unde infletur. Non attendit Deus facultatem, sed eupiditatem ; et judicat eum secimdum cupiditatem, quia inhiat rebus temporalibus, non secundum facultatem, quam non ei contigit adipisci. And Ena7-r. in Ps. Ixxxv. i : Resistit Deus superbis, et holosericatis et pannosis : humilibus autem dat gratiam, et habentibus aliquam substantiam hujus seculi et non habentibus. Cf. Enarr. in Ps. xciii. i ; and Serm. clxxvii., where he seeks especially to bring out the force of St. Paul's words : Qui volunt divites fieri (i Tim. vi. 5). ^ Enarr. in Ps. Ixxi. 2 : Qua paupertate etiam beatus Job pauper fuit, et antequam magnas illas terrenas divitias amisisset. Quod ideo commemorandum putavi, quoniam sunt quidam qui facilius omnia sua pauperibus distribuunt, quam ipsi pauperes Dei fiant. 166 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt, V. as belonging exclusively to the New Covenant ; so that while all else was in the Old, even life eternal and the resurrection of the dead, yet this name is never found there, being reserved for his lips who should be at once a King to rule, and a Priest to sanctify, his people.* This is not perfectly correct ; * kingdom of God,'' occurs once in a remarkable passage in the Apocrypha (Wisd. x. lo). When Jacob saw the ladder reaching to heaven, and angels ascending and descending on it (Gen. xxviii. 12), he saw, we are there told, ' the kingdom of God.' Ver. 4. * Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth.' — Augustine shares with the Vulgate the better arrangement of the beatitudes which places this imme- diately after the first, reversing the position of this and of that which in our Bibles has precedence of it, but which, for the truer logical coherence, should follow ; and which in the best modern critical editions, as in Lach- mann's and Tischendorf's, does follow. He rightly ex- plains this meekness as having immediate reference to our bearing, not toward God, but toward our fellow-men.'* And then comes out the appropriateness of the blessing : men count that in a world of violence and wrong, the meek will inevitably make themselves a prey ; that an Isaac, who gives up the well again and again rather than contend for it, will at length have nothing left him which 1 Con. Faust, xix. 31 : Regnum caelorum . . . . ori ejus nomi- nandum servabatur, quern Regem ad regendos et Sacerdotem ad sanctificandos fideles suos universus ille apparatus veteris Instrumenti in generationibus, factis, dictis, sacrificiis, obsen-ationibus, festivita- tibus, omnibusque eloquiorum prseconiis, et rebus gestis et rerum figuris parturiebat esse venturum. ' De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 2 : Mites sunt qui cedunt improbitati- bus et non resistunt malo, sed vincunt in bono malum. Vkb. 4. 5] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 167 he may call his own (Gen. xxvi. 20). But it is not so. Wonderful under God is tl^e strength and power of meekness ; with it is ever the victory at the last : in the words of the eastern proverb, 'The one staflF of Moses breaks in shivers the ten thousand spears of Pharaoh.' These * ineek ' shall in the end inherit all things, even this ' earth,'' from which it seemed at the outset as if they would be thrust out altogether.' Here, too, we have one of Augustine's striking antithetic sayings : ' Dost thou wish to possess the earth ? beware then lest thou be possessed by it.' ^ — There is a designed emphasis in the ehape which the promise assumes, ^for they shall inherit the earth,* — and that in more ways than one, — ^the earth,* possession in land always remaining the surest of earthly possessions, — and ' inherit,' possession by inheritance in the orderly succession of father and son being ever counted to have the strongest promise and pledge of con- tinuance.^ Ver. 5. ' Blessed are they that mourn ; for they shall he comforted.* — There is, Augustine often takes occasion ^ Serm. liii. 8 : He observes how in each case congrua congruentibus apposita sint; and on this: Quia mites homines facile excluduntur de terra sua, Beati, inquit, mites, quoniam ipsi hsereditate possidebunt terram. It shall be theirs, not merely as a future benefit, but a present, according to those profound words of his (JSp. cliii, 6) : Omne quod male possidetur, alienum est : male autem possidet, qui male utitur ; and again (ibid.) : Fidelis hominis totus mundus divitiarum est : infidelis autem nee obolus. So that he does not in fact contradict that meaning which looks at it as a future inheritance, when {Ep. cxlix.) he explains * the earth^ spoken of here as, Eccle- siam haereditatemque fidelium atque sanctorum, quae dicitur terra viventium. * Serm. liii. 2 : Vis possidere terram ? vide ne possidearis a terra. ' De Serm, Dom. in Mon. i. 2 : Significat quandam soliditatem et stabilitatem hsereditatis perpetuse. 168 EXPOSITION OP THE fSr. Matt. V. to remark, a mourning which has no compensating blessing attached to it; there is misery enough among men, which yet has no blessing, for it leads to no repentance, or at best is only a ' sorrow of this world.' One is groaning for one thing, one for another — for this temporal loss, for that worldly tribulation ; for the hail that has laid waste his vineyard, for the death that has entered into his dwell- ing, for the powerful foes that are seeking his harm : and if perchance the groaning of the faithful man reaches to the ears of the world, the world lays his sorrowing to the same account* Men say he has suSered this loss or that ; for they know not of a mourning which springs from a higher source, a mourning for our own sins, for the sins of others, out of a sense of our exile here, of our separation from the true home of our spirits, out of a longing for the eternal Sabbath.' And yet it is only this nobler grief that has the promise linked to it, that shall be followed by any true consolation. To be thus miserable is indeed to be happy ; while, on the contrary, he that is altogether without this mourning gives too sure an augury that there is reserved for him a mourning of another kind, and which ^ On the words of the Psalmist, Rugiebam a gemitu cordis mei {JEna?-r. in Ps. xxxvii. 6), he has these beautiful remarks : Propterea rugiebam, inquit, a gemitu cordis mei, quia homines si quando audiunt gemitum hominis, plerumque gemitum camis audiunt, gementem a gemitu cordis non audiunt. Abstulit nescio quis res hujus, rugiebat, Bed non a gemitu cordis : alius, quia extulit filium ; alius quia uxorem ; alius quia grandinata est viuea, quia cuppa acuit, quia diripuit jumentum ipsius nescio quis, alius quia damnum aliquod passus est, alius quia timet hominem inimicum ; omnes isti a gemitu carnis rugiunt et vero servus Dei, quia ex recordatione, sabbati rugit, ubi est regnum Dei, quod caro et sanguis non possidebunt : Rugiebam, inquit, a gemitu cordis mei. Vbb. 6.J 8EEM0N ON THE MOUNT. 169 shall not be exchanged, as shall this, for the consolations of the kingdom of heaven.* Ver. 6. ' Blessed are they ivhich do hunger and thirst after righteousness ; for they shall he filled.'' — It is not ' that the hunger and thirst are in themselves the blessing, ' but only as they create a longing for the heavenly aliment, '• which except for this hunger would be slighted or loathed.^ Very beautifully Augustine draws from John vi. 26-65 ^ commentary on this text, making ' righteousness ' here equivalent with ' bread from heaven ' there, and urging that in both passages we should understand nothing short of Christ Himselfi This is at once evident of the 'bread from heaven,' and Augustine cites the words of St. Paul (i Cor. i. 30), 'Christ Jesus . . . made unto us righteous- ness,' in proof that ' righteousness ' here is equally ex- changeable for Him in whom the righteousness is contained ; the himgering and thirsting after which is no desiring merely a moral amelioration, but a longing after Christ, and the being clothed with his righteousness, and satisfied out of his fulness.^ The Jews, he says, were in the con- ^ Enarr. in Ps. xxxvii. 1 1 Felix est qui sic miser est; . . . irnmo miser esset si lugens non esset : and again {Enarr. in Ps. cxlviii. i): Qui non gemit peregrinus, non gaudebit civis. Ep. ccxlviii. : Pia est ista tristitia, et, si dici potest, beata miseria, vitiis alienis tribulari, non implicari ; moerere, non haerere ; dolore contrahi, non amore attrahi. Haec est persequutio quam patiuntur omnes qui volunt in Ohristo pie vivere, secundum apostolicam mordacem veracemque sen- tentiam (2 Tim. iii. 12). Quid enim hie sic persequitiu- vitam bonorum, quam vita iniquorum? And again, De Serm. Dom. in Mon. V. 5 : Non parvus est ad beatitudinem accessus, cognitio infelicita- tis suae. * Serm. Ixi. 6: Praecedat saturitatem fames, ne fastidium non perveniat ad panes. ^ Thus, too, he exchanges with a true feeling of the sense. 170 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. dition of mind directly opposed to that ■whicli here has the blessing attached to it, when, going about to establish their own righteousness, they would not submit themselves to the righteousness of God (Rom. x. 3) ; as no less were those who disputed with the Lord concerning the bread of God that came down from heaven (John vi.), which He would have given them, but which they scornfully put back : for they had not the spiritual hunger, the sense of emptiness, which alone would have interpreted his words, or imparted a value to his offer.' Augustine cannot find the entire fulfilment of the appended promise, ^for they shall he filled,^ in the present life ; for now our lips are but sprinkled, as it were, with a few drops from that river of joy, whereof then we shall drink to the full: yet the longing now is needful, if there is to be a satisfying of the longing hereafter ; and the more longing, the ampler satisfaction, for this longing is itself the dilating of the vessel that it may contain the more.^ ' righteousness ' for ' God/ in some allusions to this passage : Enarr. in Fs. cxlv. 18. ^ In Ev. Jok. Tract, xxvi. : Isti a pane de caelo longe erant, nee eum esurire noverant. Fauces cordis languidaa habebant .... Panis quippe iste interioris hominis quaerit esuriem : unde alio loco dicit, Beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt justitiam, quoniam ipsi saturabuntur. Justitiam vero nobis esse Ohristum, Paulus Apostolus dicit. Ac per hoc qui esurit hunc panem, esuriat justitiam ; sed justitiam quae de caelo descendit, justitiam quam dat Deus, non quam sibi facit homo. And then he justly explains the * righteousness of God ' (Rom. i. 17), not as the righteousness with which God is righteous in Himself, but the righteousness which He gives to his people. ^ De Util. Jejun. I : Pertinet ergo ad homines banc vitam mortalem gerentes, esurire ac sitire justitiam: impleri autem j ustitia, ad aliam vitam pertinet. Hoc pane, hoc cibo pleni sunt Angeli : homines autem dum esuriunt, extendunt se ; dum se extendunt, dilitantur ; dum dilatantur, capaces fiunt : capaces facti, suo tempore reple- buntur. Quid ergo, hie nihil inde capiunt qui esuriunt et sitiunt Vrb. 7, 8.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 171 Ver. 7. 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain TTiercy: — This mercifulness Augustine is sometimes dis- posed to restrict to the relief of the temporal needs of our brethren ; yet is it a pitifulness which is evidently of a wider reach, embracing the whole outcomings of a Chris- tian's heart, whether in inward sympathies or outward acts in relation to the sorrows and sufferings of his brethren. And here the blessed retaliations of the kingdom of God shall find place ; upon which he expresses himself thus : * Do, and it shall be done. Do with another, that it may be done with thee : for thou aboundest, and thou lackest. Thou aboundest in things temporal, thou lackest things eternal. A beggar is at thy gate, thou art thyself a beggar at God's gate. Thou art sought, and thou seekest. As thou dealest with thy seeker, even so God will deal with his. Thou art both empty and full. Fill thou the empty out of thy fulness, that out of the fulness of God thine emptiness may be filled.' * Ver. 8. ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' — The 'pure heart' Augustine explains rightly as the single heart, the heart without folds; and this, with the promise of seeing God which is annexed, causes him to connect this passage with others wherein our Lord speaks of the single eye, that eye of the soul (Matt. vi. 22, justitiam ? Capiunt plane, sed aliud est cum quaerimus de refectione iter agentium, et aliud cum quaerimus de perfectione beatorum. And Enarr. in Ps. cxxii. 4 : Quantacumque justitia in nobis fuerit, ros est nescio quis ad ilium fontem, ad saginam illam tantam stillicidia quaedam sunt, quae vitam nostram molliant, et duram iniquitatem solvant. Enarr. in Ps. xxxv. 10: Quis est fons vitae nisi Ohristus? Venit ad te in came, ut irroraret fauces tuas sitientes: satiabit sperantem, qui irroravit sitientem. ' Sei'm. liii 5. 172 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. 23 ; Luke xi. 34), which, only when healthy, is receptive of divine light, and the channel of light to the whole Interior man ; that declaration being identical with this, that only the pure in heart shall see God.' But hoiv this seeing of God should be — for he will not explain away the words into a mere figure of a general felicity — is a ques- tion which occupied him greatly; yet one, as he truly said at the beginning of a long Epistle on the subject, in which holy living will help infinitely more than subtle speculation.^ And as this question occupied him, so did another which grew out of it, namely, when this should be ? a question which must mainly depend for the answer it receives on the answer given to the first. What the seeing of God is must decide when this seeing shall be, whether in this life or in the life to come ? or whether, like so many other promises, it shall have a partial and inchoate fulfilment now, a complete fulfilment hereafter ? To arrive at a satisfactory answer it will be needful to put together, from his different writings, the results at which upon these points he arrives. He most truly takes his first stand upon this ; that the seeing of God at all in- volves, and itself rests upon, the divine constitution of man, his original ci'eation in the divine image ; and hence, to use an image of the later Platonists, as, because the eye is soliform {rj\LO£tZris\ it therefore can see the sun, so * Beati mundicordes, as he commonly expresses it with a word of his own ; but the Vulgate, Beati mundo corde ; — mundum cor = simplex (i.e. sine plica) cor = o<^^aX/i6r dTrXovj (Luke xi. 34). Per- haps sincerus ( = infucatus) would be nearer to the Greek Kodapos, since they both rest on the image of immunity from foreign admixtures — this of colours, that (according at least to one etymology), of honey from the wax that would impair its perfect purity. ^ Ep. cxlvii. : Primum mihi videtur plus valere in hac inquisitione vivendi quam loquendi modum. Vkb. 8.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 173 man, because made in a divine image, is therefore capable of knowing and seeing God.' But this image of God in which man was first created is not outward but inward — ' created after God in righteousness and true holiness ' (Ephes. iv. 24). The seeing then which rests upon this must be an inward seeing ; not, as some said, whom Augustine earnestly rebukes, with these eyes of flesh, but it" must be through the restoration of the- effaced likeness of God in the soul that the forfeited capability of seeing Him must be restored. The enlightened eyes of the understanding, the heart purified by faith — these, and no bodily eyes, are the organs by which God is seen. In proportion as we are unlike to Him, we are incapable of seeing Him ; in proportion as we grow in likeness to Him, as we are * renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created ' us, we grow in the power of this vision.^ . Here, then, is the answer to the other question : Whera shall it be, in this life, or in the coming? Plainly in both. For, since this renewal is begun here, the vision must begin here also ; though it be now but a seeing ' through a glass darkly ; ' while its consummation will be there, ^ Serm. Ixxxviii. 6 : Fecit autem te Deus, o homo, ad imaginem suam. Daretne tibi unde videres solem quern fecit, et non tibi daret unde videres eum qui te fecit, cum te ad imaginem suam fecerit ? ^ Thus Ep. xcii. 3 (with allusion to i John v. 2) : In tantum ergo videbimus, in quantum similes ei erimus, quia nunc in tantum non videmus, in quantum dissimiles sumus. Inde igitur videbimus, unde similes erimus. Quis autem dementi^simus dixerit, corpore nos vel esse vel futuros esse similes Deo? The whole Epistle is directed against those who thought the corporeal eje would be the organ with which God would be seen ; yet elsewhere {Ep. cxi. ; and De Civ. Dei, xxii. 29) he expresses himself more doubtfully, as being unable to say what accessions of power the spiritual body may receive. 174 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. where it will be ' face to face.' For this most earnestly he affirms, that it will be a seeing which shall be intuitive and immediate, a seeing * Him as He is ; ' no mere theo- phany, such as were the apparitions of God to the saints in the Old Testament ; no taking, upon his part, of a form in which to make Himself apparent to men; but a revela- tion of God in his own most proper essence, from which will follow a seeing Him as He is. This was denied to Moses once ; no man, while yet flesh and blood, could so see God and live (Exod. xxxiii. 20), but it shall be granted to all the faithful in the world to come. And here, Augustine observes, is the reconciliation of those passages, some of which say, that * no man hath seen God at any time' (John i. 18), that no man hath seen Him, nor can see (i Tim. vi. 16); while others speak of men being introduced into his presence, beholding Him, and speaking with Him (Gen. xviii. i ; Isai. vi. i).' It is to the attaining of this pure heart, this purged eye of the soul, that all helps and appliances of grace are tending.^ This is the great meaning and purpose of them all — of sacraments, of preaching, of Scripture — to prepare and fit us for this, for a time when we shall be enabled to see the ^ See his beautiful letter to Paulina, Ep. cxlvii. 6-8 : Ipse ergo erat in ea specie qua apparere voluerat, non autem ipse appar^at in natura propria, quam Moses videre cupiebat. Ea quippe promittitur Sanctis in alia vita .... Multi viderunt, sed quod voluntas elegit non quod natura formavit. ^ Serm. Ixxxviii. 5 : Tota igitur opera nostra, fratres, in hac vita est, sanare oculum cordis unde videtur Deus. Ad hoc sacrosancta mysteria celebrantur, ad hoc sermo Dei prsedicatur, ad hoc agunt quidquid agunt divinae sanctaeque literae, ut purgetur illud interius ab ea re quae nos impedit ab aapectu Dei. In this and the following chapters is much more that is admirable on the purging the inward eye. Veb. 9.] SEEM ON ON THE MOUNT. 175 Seer: ' for in that seeing all blessedness is included ; without it there were no heaven, with it there could be no hell.2 Ver. 9. ' Blessed are the jpeacemakers^for they shall be called the children of God.' — Augustine sometimes under- stands by ' peacemakers ' those that have made peace in the little world of their own hearts, in whom the spirit is ruling and the flesh serving ; who, submitting themselves to God, are able to submit their own lower nature to their higher; who thus being content to be ruled, are able in their turn to rule : ^ but generally he takes a wider range, for this is evidently too narrow. It is true that the Latin pacifici,* which he has in common with the Vulgate, and which is rather ' the peaceable ' than ' the peacemakers,'' encourages a narrower view ; as indeed it confounds in a great measure this beatitude with the second, for the ' meek ' and the 'peaceable ' will be nearly the same. But the naming of ' peaceTnakers ' introduces a new thought. The Christian is not merely himself quiet in the land, quiet in his own heart, but he is a diffuser of peace around him — the peace of this world, but more than this, the peace also of God ; knowing the blessedness of that peace himself, he says also by word and deed to his brethren, ' Be ye reconciled with God.' ^ ^ Videre Videntem, as in one place he calls it. ^ Visio Dei est tota vita seterna. Si mail Dei faciem viderent, pcenis caderent. ' So De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 2. * Pacifici = ftpr]viKoi (^ovKofxeuoi flprjyrjv, Prov. xii. 2o), as opposed to those who are f| ipiBelas (Rom. ii. 8) ; but the word here is tlpr^voTTOiot. * Thus Augustine, with allusion to Luke x. 5 : Quo pleni sunt, fundunt. 176 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matf. V. Too many expositors look exclusively to that other and lower peace, those especially who prize Christianity rather as a healer of the outward sores of the world, than as that which alone stanches the deep inner hurts of men's souls. Not that the peace of this world is excluded : • the Gospel does bring this peace, but only by the way : it is aiming at a higher peace, and one for the sake of which, as being the only true ppace, the Christian is willing for a season to forego and sacrifice the other, to be called a troubler, and one who turns the world upside down, a bringer in of the sword of division, rather than one knitting anew the bands of a broken love. Thus it is, he observes, with the truth of Christ even in the individual man ; for in one sense there is in the redeemed man not peace but war — a war which this very redemption has brought about : in him the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; yet thus is he on the way to that peace which alone deserves the name. And so also must it be in a sinful world (2 Tim. iv. 2).^ Ver. 10-12. ^Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness^ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad : for great is your reward in heaven : for so perse- cuted they the prophets which were before you.' — Augus- tine oftentimes very graphically describes the new forms ^ Thus Augustine himself, writing to a soldier, says (^Ep. clxxxix., ad Bonifac.): Esto ergo etiam bellando pacificus, ut eos quos ex- pugnas ad pacis utilitatem vincendo perducas. Beati enim pacifici, ait Dominus. 2 Con. Lit. PetU. ii. 69. Veb. IO-I2.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. l77 which persecution assumes, though remaining in its es- sence still the same, when now it is no longer the perse- cution which heathens direct against Christians, but that which bad Christians direct against good ; and we learn from him by the way some of the shapes which in his time the scoffings of the ungodly against the true servants of Grod assumed.' But further, he has need frequently to urge that it is, according to the Lord's own express limitation, a suffering ^ for righteousness' sake,'' and that alone, which has the promise ; in other words, that it is the cause which makes the martyr. This he had need to afi&rm against the Donatists, who, because they were suffering, on account of their schism, many things at the hands of the civil power, claimed on the score of their suffering, and without further question this blessing as their own ; appealing to these sufferings of theirs as a satisfying evidence of the righteousness of their cause. Now, not to say that many of their sufferings were self-inflicted,^ many the just punishment of civil crimes, even those which they bore for their faith's sake gave them no right to assume this, till another question had been settled in their favour. For, without in the least seeking to justify all the means which the temporal power used, and Augustine, with the rest of the Church in Africa, in part though not wholly approved, for the ^ Enarr. in Pa. xc. 3 : Dicunt, Magnus tu, Justus, tu es Elias, tu es Petrus, de caelo venisti. ^ Con. Gaudent. i. 28 : Genus hominum .... crudelissimum in mortibus alienis, vilissimum in suis. See the almost incredible details of this fury of self-destruction which possessed them, in his letter to Count Boniface (Ep. clxxxv. 3). Yet the actual facts do not altogether bear him out, when of one of them he asks (^Con. Gaudent. i. 21), Quana persecutionem patimini, nisi a vobis? N 178 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. forcible reducing of them to unity, in this he plainly had right, when he entirely denied their claim, merely on the strength of these sufferings, to be the rightful inheritors of this blessing.' Another point had first to be proved, namely that it was for Christ's sake, as witnesses for Christ's truth, and as the true representatives of Christ's body, that they suffered what they did. They could not, in arguing with the Catholics, who entirely denied this, bring these sufferings in proof that they, because they suffered these things, were the true Church of Christ. Else by the same proofs, as he keenly retorts, the priests of Baal were martyrs, when Elijah slew them ; and so far as a cross went, the malefactors had that in common with the Lord.^ If the Donatists found in these persecutions the evidence that they were Christ's Church, by the same right the pagans who still survived in the Eoman Empire might appeal to the forbidding of their worship, the closing of their temples, the pains and penalties which attended an adherence to their superstitions, as so many evidences of their truth. Once grant that suffer- * Thus Gaudentius, a Donatjst, writes ; Nostram caussaai solas nobis istae persecutiones gravissimam reddunt, and proceeds to quote these verses; Augustine replies {Con, Gaudent. i. 20): Recte ista dicerentur a vobis quaerentibus martyrum gloriam, si haberetis mar- tyrum caussam, Non enim felices ait Dominus, qui mala ista patiuntur, sed qui propter filium bominis patiuntur, qui est Ohristus Jesus. Vos autem non propter ipsum patimini, sed conti-a ipsum. And again : Non ex passione certa justitia, sed ex justitia passio gloriosa est. Ideoque Dominus . . . , non generaliter ait, Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur, sed addit magnam differentiam qua vera a sacrilegio pietas secernatur. Ait enim, Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam. Cf. Con. Lit. Petil. ii. 71 ; Con. Crescon. iv. 46 ; Up. xliv. 2, 4. ^ Ep. clxxxv. 2 : Et ipse Dominus cum latronibus crucifixus est, Bed quoa passio jungebat, caussa separabat. Cf. Sei-m. cccxxxi. 3. Veb. IO-I2.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 179 ings of themselves constituted martyrs, and every mine would be full of them ; no criminal who perished by the sword of justice but would be the rightful claimant of a crown.' Augustine, with reference to the promise here, enlarges often on the sustaining power of Christian hope, and of an eye directed to this ' great reward,'' ^ At the same time on this word ' reward ' he is very distinct, and carefully guards against all claims which, on the strength of it, the proud heart of man might make. The ' reward in heaven^ does, indeed, bear a relation to that which is done or suffered for Christ's sake on earth, yet is it a relation of grace, and not of debt. God has chosen, and of his own free will and unmerited bounty appointed, that there should be such a relation, and now ' He is faithful that promised.' The doctrine of preventing grace, legitimately carried out, must for ever exclude the notion of any claim, as of merit properly so called ; not that there are not merits, or rather graces, which will hereafter be recognized, but that these merits are them-- ^ Enarr. in Fs. xxxiv. 23 : Martyres non facit poena, sed cavissa. Nam si poena martyres faceret, omnia nietalla martyribus plena essent, omnes catenae martyres traherent ; omnes qui gladio feriimtur, coronarentur. Nemo ergo dicat, Quia patior Justus suna. Quia ipse qui primo passus est, pro justitia pa^^sus est, ideo magnam excep- tionem addidit, Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur p'opter jmtitiam .... Nemo ergo dicat, Persecutionem patior ; non ventilet poenam, sedprobet caussam. Enarr. in Ps. cxlv. 7: Quidquid jure pateris, non est injuria. Latrones multa patiuntur, sed non injuriam. Scelerati, malefici, efiractores, adulter!, corruptores, omnes patiuntur multa mala, sed nulla est injuria. Cf. Con. Lit. Petil. ii. 19; Sertn. cccxxvii. 1,2; cccxxviii. 4. ^ Enai-r. in Ps. xxxvi. '23 : Attends mercedem, si vis sustinere laborem. K 2 180 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt V. selves gifts of God,' so that eternal life will be but the adding of one more, one crowning gift, to all that preceded.^ It will be but ' grace for grace.' ^ Augustine contemplating this heptad of beatitudes no longer singly, but as a whole, suggests more than once, that perhaps they may stand in some relation to the sevenfold operations of the Holy Spirit whereof Isaiah (eh. xi.) speaks ; though it can hardly be said that he very successfully traces the correspondencies of each to each. He notes how the eighth beatitude returns upon the first, having the same promise, * the kingdom of heaven,^ * which, in the intermediate ones, has not been forsaken, for that one comprehends all the others, but has ^ JEp. cxciv. : Ipsa vita aeterna gratia nuiioupatur, nee ideo quia non mentis datur, sed quia data sunt et ipsa merita quibus datur. And again (Be Grat. et Lib. Arb. 8) : Si vita bona nostra nihil aliud est quam Dei gratia, sine dubio et vita aeterna, quae bon» vitse redditur, Dei gratia est ; et ipsa enim gratis datur, quia gratis data est ilia, cui datur, 2 Ep. cxciv. : Cum Deus coronat merita nostra, nihil aliud coronat, quam munera sua. Enatr. in Ps. Ixx. : Tua peccata sunt, merita Dei sunt, Supplicium tibi debetur, et cum prsemium venerit sua dona coronabit, non merita tua. And see his anti-Pelagian treatises passim, ' Ep. cxciv. : Nunc vero de plenitudine ejus accepimus non solum gratiam qua nimc juste in laboribus usque ad finem vivimus sed etiam gratiam pro hac gi-atia, ut in requie postea sine fine vivamus. Augustine has here given the hint, at least, of the right explanation which so many even now miss, of that difficult ^apti/ dial ydpt-os (John i. 1 6), that it means one grace heaped upon, and as a better grace coming in some sort in the room of {avrl), a preceding (so Theognis, di/r' avi.wv avias, troubles upon troubles). It is scarcely however, probable that St. John meant, as he implies, by the first X«ptr, the grace of this life, and by the second, the grace of eternal life, but, rather by the two together, the iminterrupted stream of God's gifts in Christ, which are ever succeeding, and, so to speak replacing one another. * De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 4 ; and Serm. cccxlviii. Veb. IO-I2.J SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 181 been broken up, or rather contemplated successively in its various aspects ; and how this return indicates that now the perfect and complete man has on all his sides been declared.' For these, as he says most truly, are not dif- ferent persons that will be differently blest; it is not that one, being pure in heart, will see God ; another, being merciful, will obtain mercy ; and a third who, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, will be filled. But these are different sides of the same Christian character, with the capacities of blessedness which are linked to each; so that, while it is true that, because the man is ^ pure in hearty and not because he is ' merciful,^ or ' meek^ or a ' 'peacemaker^ he will * see God ; ' and again, because he is ' merciful^ and not because he is ^pure in hearty that he will ' obtain mercy, ^ and so with the rest, yet it is the same person throughout to whom all the promises belong. Just as, were it said, ' Happy are they that have feet, for they can walk; happy are they that have tongues, for they can speak ; ' we should not think of one man having a tongue, another feet, but only to each limb attribute its appropriate function.^ -It is true, indeed, that these graces, like grapes of the same cluster, may ripen some earlier than others, may be some of them finer and fuller than others, yet do they not the less all hang upon the same stalk ; and the same process of ^ De Serin. Dom. in Mon. i. 3 : Octava tanquam ad caput redit : quia consummatum perfectumque ostendit et probat. ^ Serm. liii. 9 : Sic tanquam spiritalia memtra componens, docuit quid ad quid pertineat. Apta est humilitaa ad habendum regnum cselorum, apta mansuetudo ad possidenduiu terram, aptus luctus ad consolationem, apta fames et sitis justitiae ad saturitatem, apta misericordia ad impetrandam misericordiam, aptum mundum cor ad videndum Doum. 182 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. ripening is going forward in them all. He might have added, perhaps, that in these beatitudes thus distinguished from one another, there is an implicit summons to seek to complete the Christian character in all its aspects ; to polish the diamond on all its sides, that so on every side it may be capable of reflecting that light of heaven which on that side also will fall upon it. Ver. 13. ' Fe are the salt of the earth : hut if the salt have lost his savour, ivherewith shall it be salted ? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot 0/ men.'— The transition from that which went before is easy : ' Ye are the salt ; ' as such intended to communicate a savour of life unto others ; to hinder the world from becoming a putrefying mass of corruption. Beware then lest you yourselves, through fear of worldly incomraodities and persecutions, lose this your seasoning power, for there are none other to impart grace to you, since it is you that are appointed to impart this to the rest of the world. ^ And the salt which has thus * lost his savour,^ ^ what will it be good for, ' but to be cast out and to be trodden underfoot of men ' ? Augustine ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 6 : Si vos per quos condiendi sxint quodammodo populi, metu persecutionum temporalium amise- ritis regna cselorum, qui erunt homines per quos a vobis error auferatur, cum vos elegerit Deus, per quos errorem auferat csete- rorum? 2 Here, as there is occasion not unfrequenfly to notice, the earlier Latin translation which Augustine uses has a better word than that substituted in the Vulgate. In the latter, fiapavdj} is rendered evanuerit, which is not indeed incorrect, as Tholuck {Ausleg. d. Bergp'edigt, p. 121) asserts, for we have in Cicero, Salsamenta vetus- tate evanescunt : but the old infatuerit was singularly happy ; fatuus = fxupos, the man saltless, insipid. We have no such happy word for it as the French fade. Veb. 13, 14.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 183 makes here the beautiful observation, that they are not truly thus ' trodden under footy who sufifer persecution without shrinking, but they who through fear of persecu- tion become vile, abandoning their faith ; for undermost although he may seem, yet he is not truly so, who, what- ever he may be suffering below on earth, has his heart fixed above in heaven.' Ver. 14. ' Fe are the light of tht world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.^ — They, the Apostles, are ' light,'' yet not in themselves, but ' light in the Lord ; ' rays darted forth from the sun, but not the sun itself. In themselves, even as all others, they were ' sometimes darkness ' (Ephes. v. 8), and, receding from the true light, would become darkness again. For no man is a true light, having light in himself, but is as a candle or a lamp, which has been kindled and may be quenched again ; having ever need to exclaim with the Psalmist, ' The Lord is my light.' ^ By this ' hill ' on which the city is set, Augustine understands Christ Himself, the foundation upon which the Church is built, the stone cut out without hands, which growing into a mountain fills the world.^ Yet the Lord may perhaps mean no more than that the ^ De Serm, Dom. in Mon. i. 6 : Non itaque calcatur ab hominibiiSf qui patitur persecutionem, sed qui persecutionem timendo infatuatur. Calcari enim non potest nisi inferior, sed inferior non est qui quamvis corpora multa in terra sustineat, corde tamen fixus in caelo est. ^ Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 105 : Nulla quippe creatura, quamvis rationalis et intellectualis, a seipsa illuminatur, sed participatione sempiternse veritatis accenditur. ^ Serm. cccxxxviii. i : Ipse est mons, qui ex parvo lapide crevit, et to tuna orbem crescendo implevit. And Con. Faiist. x\i. 17: Se scilicet montem, fideles autem suos in sui nominis glorii fundatos asserens civitatem. 184 IIXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. Church can no more escape the notice of the world, than a city set on an eminence the eyes of men. Ver. 15. ^Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick ; and it giveth light to all that are in the house.'' — To find, as Augustine does, in this ' bushel ' a particular allusion to worldly cares, or worldly lusts, which we may not suffer to darken the light of the spirit, putting that uppermost which ought to be undermost, and vice versa, certainly seems far-fetched.' What the Lord would say is this : You were not given such rare gifts, to let them rust in idleness. It is a state- ment at once of G-od's intention concerning them, and a warning that they do not defeat that intention. That salt which is yours was intended to season, see then that it grow not savourless ; this city was meant to be visible, beware lest it lose the power of drawing men's eyes to it; this light which is kindled in you was meant to shine and to give light to all that are in the house, that is, in the Church, or, as he rather inclines to interpret it, in the world ; see then that you suffer not this light to be obscured in you ; it was imparted for a very dif- ferent end. Ver. 16. ^ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which ^ De Serw. Dom. in Mov. i. 6. And yet it is impossible to deny the beauty of his further explanation of this passage, where con- cerning the candlestick on which the candle is to be set he says (Serm. ccxcvi. 6) : Crux Christi est magnum candelabrum. Qui vult lucere, non evubescat de ligneo candelabro. . . . Audi ergo Paulum Apostolum, audi lucemam in candelabro exsultantem, Mihi autem absit gloriari, nisi in cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi (Gal, vi. 14). Vbb. 16-18.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. ]85 is in heaven.' — There will be an opportunity of entering into Augustine's explanation of this passage, when we come to his reconciliation of the command here given, * Let your light shine before men,' with the warning given in this same discourse agaiast doing any of our righteous- ness ' before men, to be seen of them ' (vi. 1-18). For the present it will suffice to observe, that he suggests the difficulty, and in this way solves it: the Lord says not here, ' Let your light so shine before men, that they may glorify you ; ' but, ' that they may glorify your Father which is in heaven,' — this his glory, and not your own, is to be the end and aim of your etforts ; ' and the later pro- hibition will not be found to be a prohibition of the doing of good deeds before others, but of the doing them with the purpose that those others may exalt and glorify us. Ver. 17, 18. ^ Think not that I am come to destroy the laiv, or the jprojphets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.' —To the question, all important for the right understanding of this discourse, and indeed for any true apprehension of the relation in which the newer legislation of Christ stood to the older of Moses, namely, in what way Christ was come, 'not to destroy the laiu, but to fulfil,' Augustine gives apparently many answers ; yet not in fact many, being all at the root ' Serm. cccxxxviii. 3: Non autem Dominus jussit bona opera abscondi, sed in bonis operibus laudem humanam non cogitate. Of. Serm. cxlix. 13: Hoc si quaeris, ut glorificetur Deus, noli timere ne videaris ab hominibus. Etiam sic intus est eleemosyna tua in abscondito : ubi solus ille, cujus gloriam qugeris, te videt boo quaerere. 186 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. but one. First, he says, Christ fulfilled the law by Him- self perfectly keeping it. Secondly, He fulfilled it, by shedding abroad that love in the hearts of his people, out of which and out of which alone, it is truly fulfilled' (Rom. xiii. 9, lo); and where, through the weakness of the flesh, and the remains of old corruptions, men yet came short, Himself fulfilling it in their room, and so having a right to appear as an Advocate in their behalf.^ Thirdly, He fulfilled it, when in Him whatsoever was shadowed out in the types of the old law found a completion ; whatsoever was prophesied and promised, became in Him Yea and Amen^ (2 Cor. i. 20). And lastly, He fulfilled it, by unfolding how much it contained, showing how, beside the letter which they deebied so easy to satisfy, it had also an inner spirit : that it had a kernel as well as an outer husk ; and he oftentimes quotes as a true parallel to this saying, the words of the Baptist : ' The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ '^ (John i. 17) ; this * grace ' that was given by Christ being the power of fulfilling that law, which was before only a threatening and killing letter ; ^ this ' truth ' being not opposed to ^ Serm. cxxv. : Quia venitdare caritatem, etcaritasperficit legem ; merito dixit, Non veni legem solvere, sed implere. Up. clxvii. 6: Lex libertatis, lex caritatis est. 2 Con. Faust, xix. 1 7 : Deinde quia, etiam sub gratia positis, in hac mortali vita difficile est omni modo implere quod in lege scriptum est, Non concupisces : ille per carnis suae sacrificium Sacer- dos effectus, impetrat nobis indulgentiam, etiam hinc adimplens legem ; ut quod per nostram infirmitatem minus possumus, per illius perfectionem recuperetur, cujus capitis membra effect! sximus (i Job. ii. I). ^ Con. Faust, xix. 8. * Ibid. xvii. 16. * Se7Tn. cliv. I : Concupiscentiam terruit, non exstinxit; terruit, non oppressit ; fecit timorem pcense, non amorem justitiae. Vkb. 17, 18.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 187 untruth,' but truth in the sense of reality or body, opposed to shadow or outline ; so that those words of St. John's, and these of our Lord's, he would make exactly to answer to that declaration of St. Paul, where, speaking of the dis- tinction between clean and unclean meats, and of holidays, new moons, and sabbaths, he says ; ' which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ ' (Col. ii. 17 ; cf. Heb. X. I ). All these explanations run into one ; since in Christ's law-fulfilling walk in the flesh, as the promised Man, and in the consequences of that life of perfect holi- ness, in his resurrection and ascension, power was first given to humanity to keep the law ; even as by that was first revealed to meti all which the law of love was, and all the blessed demands which it made upon them ; and no less the quarter in which they were to find help for all their shortcomings therein > of which shortcomings they had now become conscious as they had never been before. By these answers it will at once be seen how little Au- gustine consents with them, Manichseans of old, Quakers in modern times, who affirm that in the neW legislation of Christ there is any abrogation of, or withdrawing of, or casting a slight upon, any part of the old.^ He had on this matter the same conflict to maintain with the Mani- chseans, which Irenseus, Tertullian, and others in earlier times, had maintained with the Gnostics. These, as those, eagerly snatched at such passages as Matt. v. 31, 32, 43, 44 ; they urged them as plain proofs that Christ had come, • Not aKr)6fi.a, opposed to -^evbos, but oKi^deia ( = eiKotv, Heb. X. I = crS)iJLa, Col. ii. 17) to (TKid, or vnodeiyixa, Heb. Lx. 23. Cf. Enarr. in Ps. Ixxiii. I. "^ As he well says: Qui addit quod minus habet, non utique solvit quod invenit, sed magis perficiendo confirmat. 188 - EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. according to his own avowal, to repeal the Mosaic code ; they affirmed that whatever of that code He sanctioned and allowed to stand fast, was not peculiar to Moses, but belonged to the universal morality, while everything dis- tinctive of Moses was by Him disallowed and cast aside. Now Augustine, in reply to these enemies of the Old Testament, does not avail himself of the timid gloss of some modem commentators, and admit that there is such a repealing ; but then plead that it is only the Pharisaical additions to the law, or perversions of it, which thus are repealed. Rather he denies the repealing altogether ; and this verse, he affirms, gives us the key-note of the Sermon on the Mount, at least to the end of its first chapter.' He declares that in each case the old stands fast, however there may be a new unfolded from it. This verse, as may well be supposed, was a hard saying to the adversaries. They had many ways of escape from it, having no good one. Sometimes they denied that the words were Christ's at all, urging that they are only recorded by St. Matthew, who was not called till a later period of our Lord's ministry than that at which he reports them to have been spoken, and whose witness they claimed therefore the liberty of ^ Con. Faust, xix. 26: Si OLristus ubi quibusdam antiquis sententiis propositis adjunxit, Ego autem dico vobis, neque primorum hominum legem boc verborum additamento adimplevit, neque illam quae per Mosem data est quasi contrariorum oppositione destruxit ; sed potius omnia ex Hebrseorum lege commemorata ita commendavit, ut quidquid ex persona sua insuper loqueretur, vel ad expositionem requirendam valeret, si quid ilia obscure posuis?et, vel ad tutius conservandum quod ilia voluisset. Vides quam sit aliter intelligen- dum, quod ait. Non se venisse legem solvere, sed adimplere ; scilicet, ut non quasi semiplena istis verbis integraretur, sed ut quod litera jubente propter superborum praesumtionem non poterat, suadente gratia propter humilium confessionem impleretur, opera factorum, non adjectione verborum. Vkk, 17, 18.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 189 putting by.' Or allowing these words to be the Lord's, they replied, that He did not mean the Jewish law (however He might be willing that the Jews should understand Him so to speak, and thus lay aside a part of their bitter enmity against Him), but quite a different thing ; that the law which He came to fulfil was the natiu-al law written on men's hearts.''' And then, with an attempt to shift the ground of controversy, they would retort on the Catholics, that as little could they understand Him as here speaking of that law which was given by Moses ; for neither did they themselves act as though Christ had come to fulfil and confirm that, but, on the contrary, had suffered a great part of its enactments, its feasts and its sacrifices, its circumcision and its sabbaths, its differences of meats, and a thousand other legal observances, to fall out of use ; and would now earnestly oppose their revival. The Catholics, they said, not less than themselves, did by their practice plainly imply that Christ had dissolved and abrogated the law which He found in force at his coming.^ This charge against the Chiu*ch, that it too was a dis- solver of the law, and could not therefore hold to these words in any sense which would give it a right to accuse others for utterly rejecting them, was, of course, one well worthy of an answer, and Augustine girds himself to the answering it fully. He replies that, in the Church, nothing which there was in the synagogue is abrogated, but rather everything confirmed, — inasmuch as in Christ the type has passed into the reality, the flower into the ^ Con. Faust, xvii. 3. ^ Ibid. xix. i. ^ Con. Faust, xviii. I, 2. Faustus, the Manichaean, says, Nee tuid credis, de quo me solum incusas. 190 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. frait, the prophecy into the fulfilment, and in that is to stand fast for ever. Had those that were Christ's con- tinued after his coming to cling to the type and the prophecy, had they abode among the outlines and the shadows, refusing the substantial realities which now in Him and in his Incarnation were made theirs, then, indeed, there would have been, on their part, a dissolving of the law and the prophets, inasmuch as it would have seemed that nothing of all which these had foretold or prefigured had come to pass ; that all was promise, and nothing ful- filment. But now, whatever they let go in the letter, they did, in the very letting go, declare to be for them spiritually fulfilled.' They did not practise now the cir- cumcision of the flesh, but only because Christ had given them the true circumcision of the Spirit, and so caused the shadow to give place to the substance. They kept not the feast of unleavened bread, for in Christ whatever that feast had foreshadowed was accomplished; He had purged out the old leaven from men's life, causing them to be unleavened in Him ; ^ nor kill the passOver, now that the true Lamb of God, indeed without blemish, was slain. They observed not the sabbath, which, indeed, was only such in a figure; for now the true sabbaths, those to which the others pointed, were come; seeing that He was come, in whom is the true rest and sabbath- keeping for men's spirits. He who could say, ' Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will ^ Con. Faust, xviii. 4. And again: Ideo ablata quia impleta. '^ Con. Faust, xix. 10 : Cum quseris, Cur azyma sicut Judaei non observet Christianus, si Christos non venit legem solvere sed implere ? liespondeo, immo propterea magis hoc non observat Christianus, quia quod ilia figura prophetabatur, expurgate veteris vitae fermento, novaui vitam demonstrans, Christus implevit. Veb. 19. 20.] SEBMON ON THE MOUNT. 191 give you rest.' ' In this way Christ fulfilled, and did not dissolve, the ceremonial part of Moses' law, — even as the moral precepts, by the new light which He cast upon them, by the added grace that He gave, enabling men to observe them.2 gjjt, ^^Q i\^[q subject there will be frequent necessity of returning. Ver. 19, 20. ' Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven : but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you. That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.^ — What is this being * least i/n the kingdom of heaven,'* which is here threatened? Augustine starts with taking certainly for granted that the doer and teacher of transgression,^ whom Christ is speaking of here, even though it be only the transgression of ^ one of these least commandments,' cannot be one who will ultimately have any part with Con. Faust, xix. 19. Cf. Con. Adimant. 16. * Con. Faust, xix. 18: Hsec praecepta sunt morum; ilia sacra- menta sunt promissorum : haec implentur per adjuvantem gratiam, ilia per redditam veritatem ; utraque per Christum, et illam semper gratiam donantem, nunc etiam revelantem, et banc veritatem tunc promittentem, nunc exhibentem. ^ He, however, does not understand the words exactly thus — but of one who does ill, while he teaches well, making this a parallel phrase to Matt, xxiii. 3, ' they say and do not.' (Beza, in modern times, has the same construction, making koi biM^jf = kclv bibd^ij, and referring ovrw to the iroieiv, and not to the Xveti/.) Thus, In Ev. Joh. Tract. ; cxxii. 9 : Denique ut ostenderet istos minimos reprobos esse, qui decent bona loquendo, quae solvunt male vivendo, nee quasi minimoa in vita seterna futures, sed omnino ibi non futuros . . . continuo subjecit, Dico enim vobis, nisi, &c. Cf. Sei-m. cclii. 3. 192 ' EXPOSITION OP THE [St, JIatt. V. Him. There are two explanations, then, of the finding a place at all assigned to him in Christ's kingdom : for on the face of the words, he that is ' least in the kingdom'- has a place in that kingdom, albeit that place is the lowest. The one is to understand ^the kingdom of heaven' as the Church militant, the kingdom in the present earlier state of its development, in which false teachers and evil workers are mingled with the doers and teachers of the truth, and to say, that in this he shall have a place, though, in Grod's estimate, the lowest place, and one from which, as an unworthy occupant, he shall hereafter be thrust out altogether. In this way Augustine oftentimes explains the passage, referring in proof of such use of the term, * kingdom of heaven^ to such passages as Matt. xiii. 47. • Sometimes, however, he has another solution; he takes ' the kingdom of heaven ' as the perfected kingdom of glory, that into which nothing unholy shall enter; and then he understands the announcement that he shall be * least ' there, as one of those mitigated forms of ex- pression, in which oftentimes threatening is more awfully concentrated than in many a loudest menace ; to say that he ' shall be least ' there, being but another way of saying that he shall not be found there at all.^ The net now has fish of all kinds and all sizes, but then it shall only contain 'great fishes'^ (John xxi. il) in it, and such as * Thus Serm. cclii. 3 : Minimus vocabitur in regno cselorum. Sed in quo regno cselorum ? In eccleaia quae modo est. . . . Ibi erit, sed minimus. Of. De Civ. Dei, xx. 9. ^ ^E\dxi(rTos = noyissimus et nulltcs. ^ In Ev. Joh. Tract, cxxii. For tbe full understanding his allu- sion here, it would be needful to enter into the allegorical signifi- cation which he finds in the miraculous draught of fishes after the Resurrection ; see my Notes on the Miracles, i ith edit. pp. 497, sqq. Vbr. 19, 20.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 193 are * least ' shall not be found in it at all. It will at once be seen that these two explanations do not contradict one another; he shall be least in the kingdom now, and ex- cluded from it altogether hereafter. It seems, I confess, improbable to me that the ' least in the kingdom of heaven ' can mean one excluded from it altogether, especially as our Lord has used elsewhere the selfsame phrase in so very different a sense (Matt. xi. 1 1 ). We may more naturally understand Him to be speaking here of some, who out of a false freedom taught, and themselves practised, an exemption from certain special Christian precepts, dealing with them as though they were annulled and abrogated ; and who yet, despite of this, did in the inmost centre of their life belong to Christ. Such should be ' least in the kingdom of God ' — in it, being saved by their faith ; but ' least ' in it, as having taken so false and one-sided a view of its enact- ments — ' least ' now in the judgment of God, and in- the work which from that false standing point they should be able to accomplish — ' least ' hereafter in the place that should be assigned them. And Augustine's argument, drawn from ver. 20, — which he makes only to be the stronger and yet more emphatic repetition of ver. 19, — and so ' least in the kingdom,^ in the former verse, to be identical with the having no entrance into that kingdom in the latter, — appears to me an erroneous one, drawn from a wrong view of the relation in which the verses stand to one another. The second does not say over again what the first had said, but rather there is progress and a climax in the verses. Such a relaxing for your- selves and for others of the commandments will set you low in the true kingdom of obedience and holiness (ver, o 194 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. 19); but this of having a righteousness so utterly false and hollow as that of the Scribes and Pharisees, will not merely set you low, but will exclude you from that king- dom altogether (ver. 20) ; for while that marks an im- paired spiritual vision, this marks a vision utterly darkened and destroyed. Ver. 21, 22. ' Ye Tmve heard that it was said by them of old time,^ Thou shall not hill ; and whosoever shall kill shall he in danger of the judgment : But I say unto you J That whosoever is angry with his brother ivithout a cause shall he in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council : but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall he in danger of hell-fireJ — On the words, ' Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause,^ Augustine observes, that in the Greek MSS. the last words find no place, and it is simply and with no qualification, ' Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment.^ This, however, is not the fact with the larger number of existing MSS., in which, as in Fathers of the second century, and also in most of the early Versions, eUrj is to be found. He must himself naturally have desired it there ; for he sides in this matter, and rightly, with the Peripatetic rather than the Stoic, everywhere recognizing the possibility of a holy anger ; and he ingeniously shows, that even should it be right to omit ' without a cause,' the prohibition of anger will still not be absolute, nor without its qualifications ; since it is with thy brother, not ^ Grammatically, it would be quite possible to render toIs d/jxat'ow, as the Authorized Version has done, 'by them of old time ' (v. 27 ; v. 33) ; but * to them of old time ' is better, and is preferred by Augustine. Vbb. 21, 22.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 195 with thj brother's sin, that thou art forbidden to be angry.' Anger itself may be a holy passion ; it is attri- buted to Christ (Mark iii. 5), and to God; the possibility of its being sinless in man is expressly recognized in those words of the Apostle, ' Be ye angry, and sin not ' (Ephes. iv. 26). For it is not, he says, itself hatred, though when it is cherished long it is evermore in danger of degenerating into hatred ; as wine too long kept, of turning into vine- gar : and therefore is it to be gotten rid of, to be emptied out from the vessel of the heart, without delay: 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.' ^ Augustine tells us, that he learned from a Jew whom he had questioned about the word ' Racha,'' that it is one with no distinct significance, being rather an interjection, the vague exclamation of an indignant mind.^ And accepting this account of the word, he finds a natural and ^ Retract, i. 19: Non fratri irascitur, qui peccato fratris irascitur. It is here that he notes eiKri to he wanting in the Greek MSS. ; in his Exposition of the discourse itself he reads it. Among the leading MSS. the Codex Vaticanus is the only one that now has it not. A and C have unfortunately lacunce exactly here. '^ Ep. xxxviii. : Nulli irascenti ira sua videtur injusta [flurf]. Ita enim inveterascens ira fit odium, dum quasi justi doloris admixta dulcedo, diutius eam in vase detinet, donee totum acescat, vasque corrumpat. Quapropter multo melius nee juste cuiquam irascimur, quam velut juste irascendo in alicujus odium irae occulta facilitate delabimur. In recipiendis enim hospitibus ignotis, solemus dicere, multo esse melius malum hominem pei-peti, quam forsitan per igno- rantiam excludi bonum, dum cavemus ne recipiatur malus. Sed in afFectibus animi contra est. Nam iucomparabihter salubrius est etiam irse juste pulsanti non aperire penetrale cordis, quam admittere non facile recessuram, et perventuram de sui-culo ad trabem. ^ De Scrm. Dom. in Mon. i. 9 : Dixit enim esse vocem non significantem aliquid, sed indignantis animi motum exprimentem ; in Joh. Tract, li. 2. Meyer {in loco) is in error when he ascribes to Augustine a derivation of 'Racha' from the Greek paKOi, a rag. Augustine names this, but only to reject it as inadmissible. o 2 196 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. easy climax here. The first grade of the sin is, when a man feels the emotion of a causeless anger in his heart, which yet he so represses, that it does not find any utter- ance without. In the second it breaks forth into utter- ances of passion, such as this ' Racha,'' which, however, having no fixed meaning attached to them, are not words of settled scorn and contempt. That is the third degree of-the sin, wh~en it is indeed no longer merely anger, for it has ripened into hate. He is no doubt perfectly right in afl&rming that degrees of guilt are intended to be signi- fied here ; although it is impossible to acquiesce in the interpretation of his Jew. ' Racha ' is no such mere ex- clamation, but a. term of reproach, not indeed very severe, but having a fixed meaning, and that very nearly equiva- lent to our English, Oh vain man ! ' And as ascending degrees of guilt are involved in those different outcomings of anger, so . also degrees of penalty are expressed by the ^judgraent,^ the ' council^'' and the ' hell-fire ' or Gehenna ; but all of them penalties divine, not human : with the deeper guilt there goes along the deeper damnation. For it is a strange mar- ^ Racha = 2i avdpcone Ktve, Jam. ii. 20. The use by St. James of this very term, and our Lord's own use of that very ficopo!, which He here forbids (Matt, xxiii. 17), are proofs, if any were needed, that these terms are instanced but as signs of inward states of enmity and scorn : else might a new Pharisaism develop itself out of this very teaching of Christ's ; which, as avoiding certain expressly forbidden utterances of outrage and ill will, should count itself free to use any other. But, even as these, where love is, may be righteously and holily used, and Christ and his servants spake the keenest things in love {De Civ. Dei, xxi. 2/ : Non dicit fratri suo, Fatue, qui, cum hoc dicit, non ipsi fratemitati, sed peccato ejus infensus est), so where love is not, the gmlt ot ' Hac ha,' and ' TAou fool,' will be incurred not merely where other words are substituted for these, but where no word at aU escapes from the lips. Veh. 21, 22] SEBMON ON THE MOUNT. 197 ring and misunderstanding of our Lord's words on the part of some, — one from which Augustine, as will be seen by the next quotation, is altogether free, — to make the two earlier, the ^judgment' a.nd the * councily' expressions of penalties inflicted by earthly tribunals; and only the third, or * Gehenna,'' that which comes directly from the sentence of God. On the contrary, they are~all earthly forms under which the different degrees of loss and injury for the spirit of man, reaching at last to its total loss and perdition, — set forth by the casting out into the place appointed for the burning of the offal of Jerusalem, — are described. It is scarcely possible to imagine a more entire missing of the meaning, a more complete perplexing of the whole passage, than is theirs, who find here any allusion to earthly judgment-seats or human councils, save as the shadows under which the things heavenly, in themselves unutterable, are portrayed.^ Therefore our translation ' hell-fire ' is not happy, as somewhat countenancing the confusion ; not that the eternal loss is not indicated here, but since that has twice before been mentioned under forms of things earthly, so should it still have been here. The valley of Hinnom, profaned by the idolatrous worship of Moloch (2 Kin. xxiii. 10; Jer. vii. 31), and thereafter the place where every abomination was flung forth, the offal and the carcases, to be gnawed by the worm, and irom time to time consumed by the fire, is the ' Gehenna^ here. And our Lord is saying exactly the contrary to that which they who so interpret will then be making Him to say. He is ^ De Se7-7n. Dom. in Mon. i. 9 : Videntur ergo aliqui gradus in peccatis et in realu, sed quibus modis invisibiliter exhibeantur meritis animarum, quis potest dicere ? 198 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. saying, Moses gave you a law for the outer man ; he told you that if you killed, you should die. That is well ; but there is another region which that precept could not reach, which nothing that Moses had to impart could reach, a region with which earthly tribunals do not meddle, but over which I am liOrd ; and I tell you that you must learn to look at the least germs of evil will to your brother, the faintest rudi9]ents of hate, as having in them the nature of deadliest sin, as implicit murder,^ to be checked in the very outset ; since each successive growth of this indulged evil will bring you under greater and greater condemnation, till at last it will bring on a total and final separation of your souls from the one fountain of grace and love : so that, being entirely reprobate, ye shall be cast out to that fearful place, of which the valley of Hinnom, with its worm and its fire, is the nearest, though indeed only the faint, earthly representation. Ver. 23, 24. ' Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee ; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy luay ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.'' — In this way Augustine traces the connexion with what precedes : If thou mayest not be angry with thy brother, much less mayest thou retain in thine heart a deep-seated and lasting alienation ^ Augustine quotes, exactly to the point, i John iii. 15. And Serm. Iviii. 7 : Gladium non eduxiati, non vulnus in came fecisti, non corpus plaga aliqua trucidasti, Cogitatio sola odii in c.orde tuo est, et teneris homicida. . . . Quantum ad te pertinet, occidisti quern odisti. Emenda te, corrige te. Si in domibus vestris scorpionea essent aut aspides, quantum laboraretis, ut domus vestras purgaretis, et securi habitare possetis? Irascimini, et inveterantur irre in cor- dibus vestris, fiunt tot odia, tot trabes, tot scorpii, tot serpentes ; et domum Dei, cor vestrum, purgare non vultis ? Veh. 23, 24.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 199 from him : or elsewhere, with a slight difference : Thou hast heard the awful consequences of a sin against thy brother, how it separates thee not merely from him, but from God : hear now also the remedy,' how thou may- est restore thy disturbed relations with thy God; for thy present condition unfits thee for communion with Him, deprives thee of the privilege of offering to Him any gift, seeing that thou must thyself be an offering, before any meaner thing which thou bringest can be welcome as such.^ But how obey the command to ' ^0,' to our brother ? The half-completed sacrifice will hardly endure so long a delay. It may be that we are ignorant where now to seek him ; or, if we know, that lands and seas lie between him and us. This going then must be most often a going in heart, a hastening with the swift affections of love, not with the tardy motion of the feet.' And the ' altar ' and the ' offering ' must in like manner be spiritually under- stood. We offer our gift, when we bring any sacrifice of praise or prayer ; we offer it on God's altar when we bring it aright : heretics, as Augustine observes, offer not on the altar, they rather cast their unaccepted gifts on the ground. From all this it is plain that he does not see * Serm. Ixxxii. 3 : Ecce ille reatus gehennse quam cito solutua est. Nondum reconciliatus, eras gehennse reus: reconciliatus, secu- rus offers munus tuum ad altare. * Serm. Ixxxii. 3 : Offers munus tuum, et tu non es munus Dei. ' De Serm. Bom. in Mon. i. 10 : Pergendiun est ergo . . . non pedibus corporis, sed motibus animi, ut te humili affectu prosternaa fratri ad quem cara cogitatione cucurreris, in conspectu ejus, cui munus oblaturus es. Ita enim etiam?i praesens sit, poteris eum non fimulato nimo lenire, atque in gratiam revocare, veniam postulando ; si hoc prius coram Deo feceris, pergens ad eum non pigro motu cor- poris, sed celerrimo dilectionis affectu. 200 EXPOSITIOH" OP THE [St. Matt. V, any immediate nor any direct reference here to the Holy Eucharist ; though, indeed, in that, as being the culminat- ing act of self-oblation unto God, there must be on the part of the offerer a perfect charity, if his highest gift, to wit, that of himself, is to be graciously received. Speaking at a time when the Jewish temple- worship was not yet overthrown, nor its service abolished, our Lord clothes an eternal truth in language borrowed from that ' worldly sanctuary ; ' and to find direct allusion to any thing but this in these terms * altar ' and ' gift ' ' is highly un- natural ; and certainly, as far as I know, is not counte- nanced by Augustine.'^ But there still remains to consider what these words, * have ought against thee,^ may mean. Is the offerer of the gift to be regarded as the injured person or the injurious ? Is he to hasten and bestow forgiveness for a wrong that has been done him ? or to sue forgiveness for a wrong that he has done ? The words, as Augustine rightly observes,^ * The most important passage in Augustine on the spiritual sacrifices which the faithful are evermore to offer imto God, and the relation in which they stand to the abrogated sacrifices of the law, is to be found De Civ. Dei, x. 3-6. Thus, c. 3 : Cum ad ilium sursum est, ejus est alt are cor nostrum : ejus Unigenito eum sacerdote placamus : ei cruentas victimas caedimus, quando usque ad sanguinem pro ejus veritate certamus : ei suavissimum adolemus incensum, cum in ejus conspectu pio sanctoque amore flagramus: ei dona ejus in nobis, nosque ipsos vovemus, et reddimus ; ei beneficiorum ejus solemnitatibus fastis et diebus statutis dicamus sacramusque memo- riam, ne volumine temporum ingrata subrepat oblivio : ei sacrificamiis hostiam humilitatis et laudis in ara cordis igne fervidae caritatis. ^ Yet there must be some passage of the kind, as Johnson, in his Unbloody Sacrifice, numbers him among those who have so inter- preted the * altar'' here, but he does not give any especial reference. ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 10 : Si in mentem venerit quod aliquid habeat adversum nos frater : id est, si uos eum in aliquo laesimus, "tunc enim ipse habet adversum nos : nam nos adversus Veu. 25, 26.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 201 clearly point out the latter to be the meaning. If our brother had wronged us, we should have something against hira, not he against us. It would be no duty then to seek him, or to ask his pardon ; but only to be willing to be sought by him, and to bestow pardon on him ; only where we have been the wronger, can we seek it. This done, ' then come and offer thy gift^ that is, this being accomplished in spirit, go forward in the sacrifice of worship, or praise, or supplication, or whatsoever else it was, whereof thou hadst commenced the offering to thy God.' Ver. 25, 26. ^ Agree ivith thine adversary guickly, whiles thou art in the way with him ; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou he cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no mean^ come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.^ — Augustine's interpretation of the precept, ^ Agree with thine adversary quicJdy,* is remarkable, though it requires some modification before it can claim entire assent. That other explanation seems weak and trivial, though sup- ported by considerable authorities, which finds nothing here but a counsel of worldly prudence, amounting to this. Seeing that the issue of every pleading before a judge is uncertain, be not stiif and stern in refusing terms of peace and reconciliation, lest unexpectedly judgment be given against thee, and afterwards thou rue bitterly thine ilium habemus, si ille nos Isesit : ubi non opus est pergere ad recon- ciliationem : non enim veniam postulabis ab eo qui tibi fecit injuriam, sed tantum dimittes. A comparison with Mark xi. 25 ; Rev. ii. 4, 14, 20, confirms this as the true meaning of ex^tv ti Kara rivos. 1 JDe Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 10: Atque inde veniens, id est, intentionem revocans ad id quod agere cceperas, offers munus tuum. 202 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt, V. obstinacy and thine implacable mind. But since counsels of a merely worldly prudence do not and cannot find place in our Lord's teaching, it is nothing strange that Augus- tine, not so much as noticing this literal explanation, at once looks for a spiritual, and inquires, who is this * adversai'y ' with whom we are bidden to ' agree.^ It cannot, he observes, be the devil, for however the term * adversary ' (6 avrtSiKos, cf. i Pet. v. 8) would suit him, yet our part is not to consent, but to proclaim and main- tain never ceasing warfare, with him.* Nor can it be the flesh, though that too is an adversary warring against the soul ; for men are only too willing to consent with it, and the true course is not so to do, but rather to make it consent with us.'^ Nor can it, he affirms, be any fellow- man whatever ; for what power would such a one have to deliver us over to an eternal doom ? ^ As little can the < adversary ' be exactly God, though He too might well be termed an adversary of the sinner, since then the image would be disturbed, and God would be at once the accusing party, and the judge before whom the two parties are going. Therefore, Augustine concludes, though that last explanation was not far from the truth, it will be better to see in this adversary the Law — an adversary indeed, so long as for the past it condemns us, and for the present commands us one thing while we do and love > De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. ii:Neque concordare cum illo expedit, cui semel renunciando, bellum indiximus, et quo victo coronabimur : neque consentire illi jam oportet, cui si nimquam consensissemus, nunquam in istaa incidissemus miserias. "^ Be Serm. Bom. in Mon. i. ll : Qui earn servituti subjiciunt, non ipsi ei consentiuut, sed earn sibi consentire cogaint. ' Ibid. i. 1 1 : Quomodo judici traditurus est, qui ante judieem pariter exhibebitur ? Veb. 25, 26.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 203 another : and every step of our lives which we take with this adversary unreconciled, is a drawing nearer to the judgment-seat, and to a certain condemnation there.* But when we love the thing which the law commands, as in Christ we are enabled to do, and the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, then we are reconciled with it. It is a law, indeed, still, but a law of liberty .^ For the past also we are reconciled with it, inasmuch as through Christ Jesus and faith in his blood it has lost its accusincr power ; we have learned to accuse ourselves, and have thus taken from the law its desire of accusing us anymore. And this is to be done ' quickly ^^ because we know not how soon for us ' the way ' may be ended, and we may find ourselves suddenly in the presence of the Judge.^ Such is the explanation of the passage offered by Augustine. It can hardly be accepted without certain ^ Serin, ccli. 8 : Quis est adversarius tuus ? Sermo legis. Quae est via ? vita ista. Quomodo est ille adversarius ? Dicit, Non mcechaberis, et tu vis moechari. Dicit, Non concupiscas rem proximi tui ; et tu vis rapere res alienas. . . . Quando vides quia ille sermo aliud jubet, et tu aliud facis, est adversarius tuus. . . . Compone, dum es cum illo in via. Adest Deus qui vos concordet. Quomodo vos concordat Deus ? Donando peccata et inspirando justitiam ut fiant opera bona. Cf. Serm. cix. 3, 4 : Adversarius est voluntatis tuse, donee fiat auctor salutis tuse. . . . Adversarius est nobis, quamdiu sumus et ipsi nobis. ... Si cum eo consenseris, pro judice invenies patrem, pro ministro ssevo angelum toUentem in sinum Abrabse, pro carcere paradisum. Cf. Serin. \x. 3, and Serm. ccclxxxvii. "^ The redeemed man is not any more, according to Augustine's profound distinction (Jn Ev. Joh. Tract, iii.), sub lege, but cum lege and in lege — not under the law (qui enim sub lege est, non implet legem, sed premitur a lege : Enarr. in Fs. cxliii. i), but yet neither avo^jLos, because twofios Xpiara (i Cor. ix. 21), because every loosing from the old is in its very nature an attaching to tte new (Rom. vii. 1-4). ' De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 11. 204 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V modifications. It is most true, as he affirms, that the outraged law of Grod is the real * adversary ^^ but yet that law is here contemplated, according to the whole con- nexion of the passage, as embodied and finding its mouth- piece in the brother who has something against us. And his objection to understanding by the adversary a fellow- man at all — for how, he asks, could such have power to deliver us to the heavenly judgment ? — is capable of an easy dilution. An injured brother's appeals to the All- seeing and All-searching against our continued enmity, our determined refusals to walk in love, will be, whether he desire it or not, a delivering of us to the judge ; as further he will deliver us, compelled as he will be to appear against us and to be our accuser at the last day.^ Dealing with the minor details of this parabolic saying, and the distribution of its several parts, by ' the judge,^ Augustine understands not the Father, but Christ, since *the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son ; ' — by ' the officer,' an angel, since He will come with all his holy angels to judge both the quick and the dead; — by the ^prison,'' the outer darkness, the place of lost spirits ; not purgatory, as some in modern times, who see in the words, Hill thou hast paid the uttermost farthing,' a limit defined, after which there would be deliverance from this prison. That such an interpretation was stirring in Augustine's time we learn from his own words. It was one, as he owns, to which he would most gladly have himself consented, but that he found the Scriptures on the other side too clear and too ' It is remarkable that Hilary had already anticipated this objec- tion and difBculty, and answered it : Adversario tradente nos judici, quia manens in eum simultatis nostrse ira nos arguit. Vkb. 27, 28.J SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 205 strong. He asks with truth, How can any paying of this debt come to pass in that world where there is no place for amendment or repentance ? • and is compelled to find here the expression of an everlasting doom.^ Ver. 27, 28. ' Ye have heard that it ivas said by them of old time^ Thou shalt not commit adultery : But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.'' — Here Augustine makes an accurate and important distinction ; that it is not, namely, the looking at a woman, out of which, unawares to the beholder, there rises up in his heart the suggestion of an unholy desire, which constitutes a man guilty of adultery ; but the looking with the intention and purpose of thereby feeding desire ; ^ though, indeed, it is only a practical ^ De Se7-m. Dovi. in Man. i. 1 1 : Unde enim solvitur illud debitum, ubi jam non datur poenitendi et correctius vivendi locus ? And agaiu : Semper solvit novissiraum quadrantem, dum sempiternas pcenas terre- norum peccatorum luit. At the same time in this very passage he adds some words of caution, which show that the mystery of the doom of impenitent sinners was one not fully thought out by him : Neque ita hoc dixerim ut tractationem diligentiorem videar ademisse de pcenis peccatoriun quomodo in Scripturis dieantur seternse, quanquam quo- libet modo vitandse sunt potius quam sciendse. '^ De Octo Dulc. Queest. qu. i : Illud enim quod dicitur, quan- doque, etsi post plurimum temporis, eos qui in catholica communione TOoriuntur, quamvis usque in finem vitse hujus flagitiosissime et seelera- tissime vixerint, de pcenis ultricibus exituros familiarius meum tangit affectum. But he goes on to say, such passages as i Cor. vi. 9, 10; Ephes. V. 5, 6, are too strong on the other side. ^ De Senn. Dom, in Mon. i. 12 : Non dixit, Omnis qui con- cupiverit mulierem, sed qui viderit mulierem ad concupiscendum earn : id est, hoc fine et hoc animo attenderit, ut earn concupiscat. And again, Con. Julian, iv. 14 : Illud [videre] Deus condidit, instruendo corpus humanum ; illud [videre ad concupiscendum] diabolua semi- navit, persuadendo peccatum. This distinction has been often 206 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. Pelagianism, which would deny the concupiscence itself, whether stirred by a distinct act of the will or not, to be of the nature of sin. Still it is not this which Christ is here denouncing, but rather the deliberate fomenting and feeding of lust through the fuel of impure looks. He that so doth, ' hath co7)imiUed adultery already in his heart,^ and this, even though from one cause or another sin be net ' finished ' in act, as well as in desire. Ver. 29, 30. ' And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it outy and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy meTnbers should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.' — He questions whether this ' right eye ' which must be plucked out, and this ' right hand ' which must be cut oflf, shall be understood generally of anything that is eminently dear to us,^ or whether we shall attach to them a more special signification. He determines for the latter, and will have the ' right eye ' to mean some beloved friend, our counsellor and guide in divine things, whom yet we must cast ofif if he would lead us into heresies and errors,^ even .as by the ' right hand ' is meant our active overlooked ; yet lies in the words themselves. Up6s to (eo ut) is not = f«y TO (ita ut). In the first, which stands here, is involved not merely the event, but also the intention. * De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 13: Quidquid namque est quod significat oculus, sine dubio tale est quod vehementer diligitur. Solet enim et ab iis qui vehementer volunt exprimei-e dilectionem suam, ita dici, Diligo eum ut oculos meos, aut etiam plus quam oculos meos. ^ Serm. l.xxxi. He instances, as an example of what he means, our Lord's conduct with Peter, and his words to him, ' Get thee Veb. 29, 30.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 207 helper and minister in the same, whom in like manner, under the Hke circumstances, at whatever cost and pain to ourselves, we must reject and cut off. They are therefore called the ' right eye ' and the ' right hand,' that is, those of most price and esteem, because they are guides and helpers in things of greatest moment, to wit, in things spiritual. And in this he notes that another consequence is included : for if even such must be cast off, how much more the left eye and the left hand, the helpers not in spiritual but in worldly things, if they would put a stumbling block in our way. The only objection to this interpretation is its narrow- ness ; that it does not and cannot exhaust the meaning of the words : though it is important to hold fast what in it is involved, namely, that these are not sins, but occasions of sin, which are to be cut off without pity. Christ is not here telling us that our sinful lusts are to be renounced, for that is of coiuse ; but that what is harmless in itself, yea, in its subordinate position useful and comely, and thus likened to the hand and the eye, even this, if through any peculiarity of our temperament or condition, through any temptation in which it entangles us, it hinders the main work of our salvation, is to be offered up to that, as the less to the greater, as a part to the whole. Thus suppose one felt that the love of art threatened to kill in him the love of God, he woidd have no choice but to count as an enemy that which in itself might be well worthy of honour, and to deal with it as such. behind Me, Satan ' (.Matt. xvi. 23), when he would have placed a stumbling block in his way ; though in that case it did not come to the actual casting olF, the rebuke being efiectual to bring back Peter to his true position. 208 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. Ver. 31, 32. ^ It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a ivriting of divorcement : But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put aivay his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to coTnmit adultery : and vjhosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.^ — Here, too, the Mani- chgeans found a contradiction between the teaching of Moses and of Christ ; Moses giving facilities for divorce ; * Whosoever will put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement ; ' but Christ throwing every hin- drance in the way of it, declaring that marriage, ' saving for the cause of fornication,' was indissoluble. It is true that in this they involved themselves in a contradiction which did not escape the keenness of the adversary with whom they had to do ; since Moses, whom they spake against, was yet here, according to their own principles, worthiest of praise, in helping to dissolve the bands of an institution, which they traced up to the devil,* and which, as they affirmed, contributed to the detaining of the divine principle in a material prison. But presently leaving this, which was only by the way, Augustine answered triumphantly, that the legislation of Moses and of Christ, so far from being opposed to one another, were in fact both in the same line. When Moses said, ' Whosoever shall put aiuay his luife, let him give her a luriting of divorcement,'' ^ this was not spoken to ' Con. Faust, xix. 26 : Verumtamen quaero cur displiceat dimittere uxorem, quam non ad matrimouii fidem, sed ad concupisceutije crimen, habendum esse censetis ? Eo modo enim putatis partem Dei vestri etiam carnis compedibus colligari. ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon.i. 14: Qui dimiserit, det illi libellum repudii : ut iracundiam temerariam projicientis uxorem libelli cogitatio temperaret. Qui ergo dimittendi moram qusesivit, significavit quan- tum potuit duris hominibus se nolle disscidium. Vbe. 31, 32.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 209 encouracre divorces, bat, on the contrary, to throw im- pediments in their way. A man could not at every light motion of caprice or anger dismiss his wife, but was thus compelled to have resort to a legal process, and to the Scribe, who alone could draw out the necessary instru- ment, and who might be assumed, from his position and education, to be a wise and a prudent man ; able, there- fore, and willing, if that were possible, to remove misun- derstandings and offences, to knit again the bands of a broken love between the two parties; and who, only when every such attempt had failed, would give the bill of divorce which the husband required.* This much the law did ; why it did not more the Lord Himself tells us else- where ; ' Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives (Mat. xix. 8) ; ' ^ but the legislation of Moses is in the same direction with that of Christ, the one a lower, the other a higher, witness for the sanctity of marriage ; in each there was alike a de-- claration that the Lord ' hateth putting away,' though Moses did not impose upon them who were yet living in the oldness of the letter, the higher precept, or introduce them into the fuller blessings which they only were capable of receiving who were walking in the newness of the Spirit. 1 Con. Faust, xix. 26 : Prsesertim quia, ut perhibent apud Hebrseos scribere literas Hebraeas nulli fas erat nisi scribis solis. ... Ad hos io-itur quos oporteret esse prudentes legis interpretes et justos disscidii dissuasoies, lex mittere voluit eum, quern jussit libellum repudii dare, si dimisisset uxorem. Non enim ei poterat scribi libellus nisi ab ipsis qui per banc occasionem ex necessitate venien- tem quodammodo in man us suas bono consilio regerent, atque inter ipsum et uxorem pacifice agendo dilectionem concordiamque suade- rent. 2 Con. Faust, xix. 29. P 210 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. Is the sin, Augustine stops here to inquire, which the Lord recognizes as a justifying cause of divorce, to be taken in its literal sense, and to be limited to that ? or shall we rather receive it according to its wider spiritual significance, and by this ^ foi'nication ' understand every graver sin which corrupts and defiles the soul, according to that profound symbolism of Scripture, which evermore speaks of all grievous departures of all kinds from God under this image of the breaking faith by a wife with her husband ? His determination, in which however he disagrees with most of the Fathers of the Church, is in favour of the latter interpretation.' Yet one cannot doubt that the literal is the true sense of the passage. There is no cogency in his argument, that there are other sins of a deeper dye even than this ; and, therefore, if this justifies a separation, by so much the more will those others. It is enough to reply that those other sins, if indeed they be gi-aver, yet do not contradict the very idea of marriage, do not assail it at its very heart and centre ; so little do they do so, that if only this faith be kept, marriage may exist as truly between the unregenerate as the faithful, the wicked as the godly, though of course it will not be to them the type and figure of so great a mystery. Nor is it to be supposed that our Lord, uttering here, as He knew He was uttering, a word which should be in all ages as a sharp sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of relations the closest, would yet have * De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. i6 : Ex quo intelHgitur quod proptei' illicitas concupiscentias, non tantum quae in stupris . . . comoiit- tantur, sed omnino quaslibet, quae animam corpore male utentem a lege Dei aberrare faciunt, et pemiciose turpiterque corrumpi, possit sine crimiae et vir uxorem dimittere et uxor virum. Cf. c. 12, and Qucest. iTYTyiii. qu. 83. Vkr. 31, 32] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 211 left it in such vagueness and uncertainty, exposed to such cruel abuses, as it must needs be, if the literal meaning of the words be once abandoned, and that which is thus proposed accepted in its stead. • But there is another question, in the matter of which the judgment of Augustine has certainly had a most powerful influence, first, on the interpretation of the words of Scripture, and through this on the determinations of the Church; — I mean the lawfulness of the marriage of the innocent and injured party, after separation on ac- count of a breach of the marriage vow on the other side. It is well known that while the Greek Church allows adultery as a sufficient ground for the dissolution of marriage, the Western Church, and ourselves as a branch of it, pronounces the marriage bond indissoluble, except by the death of one or other of the contracting parties, and forbids the innocent party no less than the guilty to enter into another union. And this remains the law of the Church, however by recent legislation the civil law has been put in antagonism with it. As often as the matter has been brought into debate, Augustine's authority has been appealed to in support of the decision at which the Western Church has arrived ; and his weight is no doubt thrown very decidedly into this scale.^ He does not, ' Augustine himself, in his Retractations, i. 19, acknowledges that the whole matter — latebrosissima quaestio, as he terms it — deserves to be considered anew, and though he does not -withdraw, yet speaks with no confidence of, the decision to which he has arrived. Sed quaui velit Dominus iutelligi fornicationem, propter quam liceat dimittere uxorem, utrum earn quae damuatur in stupris, an illara de qua dicitur, Perdidisti omnem qui fornicatur abs te (Ps. Ixxii, 27), in qua utique et ista est, , . . etiam atque etiam cogitandum est atque requu-endiun. ^ Thus Serin, cccxcii. 2 : Solius fornicationis causa licet uxorem p 2 212 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. however, profess to see his way in the matter with perfect clearness, and acknowledges at the last ' how little satisfied he is with his own endeavours to bring the Scriptures bearing on the matter into manifest harmony with one another ; so great indeed for him is the obscurity which hangs over the whole question, that in a work written late in life he does not shrink from affirming that, whichever interpretation be the right one, he who shall adopt the other cannot be said more than venially to err.^ His arguments in proof that there can be no permission here of marriage in any case after divorce (the divorced party still living), are chiefly these. Such an interpre- tation of this passage cannot be the right one, for so this Scripture will be brought into contradiction with i Cor. vii. TO, II, 'Let not the wife depart from her husband. But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband.' The steps of his argument are these : Our Lord declares one only ground which will justify a wife departing from her husband, that is, his adultery. St. Paul therefore here could not have con- templated any other. Contemplating, then, as he must have done, this, he did yet enjoin, ' Let her remain un- married,' unless she be reconciled to him.^ To this it has been replied that St. Paul did cou- adiilteram diniittere, sed ilia vivente nou licet alteram ducere. . . . Adulteria sunt, uon conjugia. ' Retract, u. 57: Scripsi diio3 libros . . . cupiens solvere difficilli- mam qiisestioneiu. Quod utrura enodatissime feceriin, nescio : imrao vero non me perveaisse ad hujus rei perfectionem seutio. - De Fide et Ope): 19: In ipsis divinis seutentiis ita obscurum est utrum et iste, cui qiiidem sine dubio adulteram licet dimittere, adulter taraen habeatur si alteram duxerit, ut quantum existimo venialiter ibi quisque fallatur. ^ Ue Conjug, Adidter. i. 1-7. Veh. 31, 32.J SEBMON ON THE MOUNT. 213 template other grounds of separation, not indeed as finding place in the highest Christian state, where clearly there would be no room for them, but yet as not entirely in- consistent with a true Chrintian profession; and this provisional bearing with a more imperfect state of things, and this moderation in dealing with the perplexities which sprang from the first growing up of a Christian Church oiit of a heathen world, is part, they say, of the wonderful wisdom of the great Gentile Apostle. But while he bears with such things, he yet declares at th6 same time the higher law ; and with this toleration of separations^ will yet in no case allow an infringement of the Lord's precept, which forbids divorces on all lower grounds, and so forbids a new marriage upon either side, saving where the adul- tery of the other party has, de facto, dissolved the union, having annulled its essential condition ; ' They two shall be one flesh.' But this view is altogether strange to Augustine. When he is pressed, as he is by Pollentius, whom he answers at length, with the Lord's own words here, and at Matt. xix. 9, he forsakes the canon ^ which he has himself elsewhere laid down, namely, that the shorter and more incomplete passage is to receive the law of its interpretation from the longer and fuller ; and reversing this rule he finds the limitation of these passages of St. Matthew in the parallel ones of St. Mark (x. 1 1 ), and St. Luke (xvi. 1 8).^ And then, to bring these sayings into agreement with those, he affirms, that by the ex- ^ Pauciora exponi debeiit secundum plum, et regula generalis per exceptionem alibi traditam est limitanda. ^ De Conjug. Adult, i. 1 1, 22 : Quod subobscure apud Matthseum positum est, quoniam totum a parte significatum est, expositum est apud alioe, qui totum generaliter expresserunt, sicut legitur apud Marcum (x. 11) ; et apud Lucam (xvi. 18). 214 EXPOSITION OP THE [St, Matt. V. ception, ^saving for the cause of fornication^* the Lord intended, that it would be a greater sin to dismiss her without this provocation, not that it would be no sin with this provocation to do it, and to marry another ; for, he says, the Lord pronounced it adultery in either case, although in one of a worse kind than in the other.' Another argument which Augustine finds against under- standing the words as involving such a permission, is that so a reconciliation with the guilty party becomes impos- sible ; while yet he believes that under the new covenant of grace such, where there is repentance, ought to find place ; for he argues that as God receives back the souls that have departed from Him, and defiled themselves, into his favoiir and grace, if only penitent and believing, reunites them to Himself, this should be the pattern and example for his people ; there should not be a sterner severity and remembrance of sin on man's part ; there should not be in any case a casting off for ever.'^ But the analogy does not hold good ; he should have taken the sins not merely which are inconsistent with, but that which directly con- tradicts, the idea of the relations between God and man, and shown that there is forgiveness for that. Now there * De Conjug. Adult, i. 9 : Cur ergo, inquis, interposuit Dominus causam fornicationis, etnon potius generaliter ait, Quicunque dimiserit uxorem suam et aliam duxerit, moechatur ? .... Credo, quia illud quod majus est, hoc Dominus commemorare voluit. Majus enim adulterium esse quisnegat, uxore non fornicante dimissa alteram ducere, quara si foriiicantem quisque dimiserit, et tunc alteram duxerit ? Non quia et hoc adulterium non est, sed quia minus est. "^ Ibid. ii. 6 : Hsec crimina in Vetere Dei Lege nuUis sacrificiis mundabantur, quae Novi Testament! sanguine sine dubitatione mundantur; et ideo tunc omnimodo prohibitum est ab alio conta- niinatam viro recipere uxorem. . . . Nunc autera postea quam Christus ait adulterse. Nee ego te damnabo, vade, deinceps noli peccare ; quis non intelligat debere ignoscere maritum, quod videt ignovisse Dominum amborum. Vbb. 33-370 SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 215 is only one such sin, and that we know is irremissible, the sin against the Holy Grhost. If there is to be an argument from this analogy, here and here only would it be fairly drawn. Other blemishes in the conduct of the married one to another, as harshness or unkindness, dis- turb the relation, but do not, as does this sin, contradict and deny its fundamental idea. Moreover, one cannot help feeling, that while this recommendation, that the innocent party should receive back the guilty, may spring from a deep sense of the forgiveness which sinners, who have themselves been forgiven, should extend one to another, yet often it does spring from an unworthy appre- hension of marriage, from a slight sense of the reality of the wrong that has been inflicted, of the sanctity that has been violated. While I thus venture to criticize the arguments by which Augustine justifies the conclusions at which he has arrived, I do not dispute his conclusions themselves ; but the much which can be urged backward and forward on the Scriptures by which one determination of this question is supported and the other, makes it, I think, plain that it is not by appeal to this text or that, that the Church must justify the position which in this matter she has taken. The real justification of her position is, that it is most in harmony with that idea of marriage which Christ has brought into the world, and which He has set his Church to maintain and uphold against all those influences which are ever at work in a sinful world to lower and debase it. Ver. 33-37. 'Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time. Thou shalt not forswear thy- 216 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. 8elf^ but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths : but 1 say unto youy Swear not at all ; neither by heaven ; for it is God's throne : nor by the earth ; for it is his foot- stool : neither by Jerusalem ; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou sivear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea ; Nay, nay : for what- soever is more than these cometh of evil.' — This prohibi- tion, apparently absolute, of all swearing perplexed Au- gustine not a little, and this he takes occasion more than once to confess.' He feels that it cannot be as absolute as it seems ; that the oath, or calling upon God to be a witness of the truth, or an avenger of the falsehood spoken, cannot in itself be sinful, since rather it is a religious act, the testimony of faith in a righteous and living God. Moreover he finds that God Himself swears ; ^ as at Ps. cix. 4; Gen. xxii. 16; Num. xiv. 28;' many, too, of his servants, and in some of the holiest moments of their lives (thus St. Paul, Pom. i. 9 ; i Cor. xv. 31; 2 Cor. i. 23; Gal. i. 20); and these oaths cannot be transgressions on their parts.'* He himself, when he ^ So'vi. clxxx. 4 : Scio difEcilem questionem, et caritati vestrae fateor, semper illam vitavi. ^ Sometimes however, as Enarr. in Ps. Ixxxviii. 4, he denies that this is in point, saying: Deus solus securus jurat, quia falli nun potest. But since the perjury is in the intention, not in the mere sounds that proceed from the lips, the man who does not wish to deceive might in this respect just as securely swear as God, who is not able to be deceived. ^ He might have added the av dnas of our Lord (Matt. xxvi. 64), •which is in the strictest sense an oath : since according to the Hebrew manner, it was the proposer, and not the taker of the oath, who repeated its words. ■* De Mendac. 1 5 : Prsecepti violati reum Paulum, prsesertim in Vbh. 33-37] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 217 found that an oath would give strength to the words which he spoke, and charity made him earnestly to desire that they should be implicitly believed, was in the habit of confirming them by an appeal to the present and all- seeing God ; ' and though, as he says, he did this ever with a solemn awe, yet his moral sense told him he was not sinning herein. But what then does 'our Lord mean by this ' Swear not at all ' ? He is often content to answer, that it is a counsel of prudence. He who swears often may escape falling into perjury, but he who swears never cannot fall into it ; as you Tnay he delivered from falling over a precipice, even though you walk on its very edge ; but you come into no possible danger of this fall, if you put an ample space between yourself and it.^ It is not wonderful that Augustine should feel little content with a reply such as this, which indeed could satisfy nobody. But surely this would be a truer point of view from which to contemplate the words, — a view, as will be seen by the two or three next quotations, not altogether strange to Augustine, though he has not wrought it consistently out. There were, we know, whole worlds of mischief at work among our Lord's hearers and Epistolis conscriptis atque editis ad spiritalem vitam salutemque populorum, nefas est dicere. ^ Sei-m. clxxx. 9. "^ Sertn. clxxx.; Ep. clvii. 5; De Serm. Bom. in Mon. i. 17: Sicut enim falsum loqui nou potest, qui non loquitur ; sic pejerare non potest, qui non jurat. Serm. cccvii. 3 : Non est peccatum, verum jurare, sed quia grande peccatum est, falsum jurare, longe est a peccato falsum jurandi, qui omnino non jurat: propinquat falsse jurationi, qui vel verum jurat. Dominus ergo, qui prohibuit jurare, supra ripam te noluit ambulare, ne pes tuus in angusto labatur, et cadas. Compare De Mendac. 28. 218 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. contemporaries in the matter of oaths : as first, that some were regarded as more binding than others; that those made in the name of God must indeed be performed, while of those by the altar and the gift on the altar, by the temple and the gold in the temple, some obliged, while others were of no force at all ; and the spiritual rulers of the people, blind leaders of the blind, had made a scale of the obligation of these several oaths on the consciences of men (Matt, xxiii. 16-22). Then, too, men had learnt to think that if only G-od's Name were avoided, there was no irreverence in the frequent oaths, ' hy heaven,^ ' hy the earth,' ' hy Jerusalem,' by their own heads — and in these introduced on the slightest need, or on no need whatso- ever ; just as now-a-days men who would not be wholly profane will substitute for the Name of God sounds that nearly resemble, but are not exactly it, or the name, it may be, of some heathen deity ; and this out of a lingering respect for that Holy Name. Our Lord then, with all this before his eyes, addresses that listening crowd, not abolishing, but here too filling out and completing, the commandment given by Moses. You have heard. He would say, long ago the sanctity of the judicial oath, and of that taken upon solemn occasions, and in the express Name of God. Moses forbade all rash and all false swearing by that awfid Name. But I forbid light irreverent adjurations of every kind, and at every time — adjurations so lightly spoken and so lightly broken. I banish them altogether, and from every region of your life.' The ' at all ' which perplexes Augustine so much, ^ Serm. clxxx. 10 : Istam ergo consuetudinem quotidianam, cre- bram, sine causa, nullo extorquente, nuUo de tuis verbis dubitante, jurandi, avertite a vobis, amputate a linguis vestris, circumcidite ab ore vestro. Ybb- 33-37] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 219 and has perplexed so many, is doubtless to be interpreted and limited by what immediately follows. All these kinds of oathsy which I specify, are forbidden you. You do not, by using them, really avoid taking God's name in vain. For why have these oaths anything binding ? It is God's presence in these created things which gives them any hold over your consciences. If you swear by heaven, you have not escaped the swearing by his Name, for heaven is his throne — if by the earth, it is his footstool — by Jerusalem, it is the city of the great King — if by your head, as supposing that there at least you are swearing by something which is your own, yet it is not so ; that is God's workmanship, you could not of your own power make one hair of it black or white.^ So that every oath is an awful thing, and in its ultimate ground rests upon God, though the lightness and frivolity of men cause them willingly to conceal this fact from themselves. And then He opens to them the deep mystery of the oath, that it is a consequence of sin ; not itself evil, but ' of evil ; ' ^ so that in the highest idea of intercourse, as between unfallen beings, angels with angels, it could find no place : it would be utterly inconceivable. Only where the tree of life has been forsaken for the mournful yet wondrous teaching of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, only where the lie has come forth, could there be any ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 17 : Quid enimpoterat quisquemagis an se pertinere arbitrari quam caput suum ? Sed quomodo nostrum est, uM potestatem faciendi unius capilli albi aut nigri non habemus ? ^ De Mendacio, 18: A malo alterius, cui non aliter Tidelur persuader! posse quod dicitur, nisi jurando fides fiat, aut ab illo malo nostro, quod hujus mortalitatis adbuc pellibus involuti cor nostrum non valemus ostendea'e : quod utique si valeremus, juratione opus non asset. 220 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. word to designate the truth. Were all speech the exact outcoming of the inner life, were there never any gulf between that and this, there could be no form of speech which would carry fuller assurance than another. He that demands an oath recognizes the untruthfulness of man ; he does not indeed affirm that the other of whom he demands it would now speak falsehood without it ; but only that in him, and in himself, and in every man, is that which, except for the ever newly-awakened sense of a standing in the presence of God, the all-seeing and the all-avenging, would lead to untruth ; that only God, and the awful sense of God's presence among them, can keep men true ; so that in this respect the oath is a deeply religious act, a confession that God is true, and only in God can any man be other than a liar. Yet not the less it * Cometh of evil,^ since men ought not to need, and but for their first great departure from God would not need, thus continually to be brought back into his presence in whose presence they ought continually to abide. And the oath disappears wherever there is any near approxi- mation to this dwelling in the Divine presence. The true ideal of Christian conversation, that toward which the Church is continually striving, that to which multi- tudes of God's saints have already arrived in all their intercourse one with another, is one in which the oath has become superfluous, in which the simplest Yea and Nay are all that are ever offered or asked, each having entire confidence that the other is always speaking as though God heard him. After this sincerity, this entire truthfulness of conversation one with another, the Lord would have his disciples strive, and to this attain. Let guile and deceit cease from among you, and the oath will cease also j for Vbb. 38, 39-] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 221 it is ' of evil^ of your evil ; and it is only that evil which renders it so frequently offered, and so frequently re- quired. Ver. 38, 39. ' Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth : hut I say unto you, that ye resist not evil : hut whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other alsoJ* — Here is again the apparent difficulty of harmonizing the new and old ; the appearance as though Christ did not intend to harmonize them, did not mean to put his legislation in connexion with, but rather in opposition to, the legislation of Moses ; and with this difficulty, the temptation to for- sake the true explanation for the easy one — for that, I mean, which seems easy at first, but which yet will pre- sently involve him that snatches at it in infinite per- plexities and contradictions. Augustine's dispute with the Manichaeans must have brought him early to a consciousness of this. They, of course, gladly seized on this passage,' as another proof of the manner in which Christ sought to disconnect and dissociate his teaching from the teaching of the Old Testament ; as if He were here saying. They of old time taught one thing, but I teach another : they en- couraged retaliation ; but I denounce it, and in its place require the extreme forgiveness of injuries. The true ex- planation however is, that the diflferent precepts belong to different domains of man's life ; and Christ is bringing the inner domain of man's life under his law, while Moses had been satisfied with bringing the outward under the do- minion of his. But that outward is not abolished in one jot or tittle of it by the new law of love. It is still ' an * See Con. Adim. 8. 222 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. eye for an eye, a tooth for a toothy not indeed always in this form exactly, but the spirit of all law which is exercised in a Christian State is retributive and avenging, and approximating more or less to this. Neither does it herein sink or obscure its character as a Christian State, but rather asserts it the more. The civil magistrate is ' a revenger to execute justice.' God has appointed him to be such ; and without such a witness, all sense of right- eousness and of judgment would quickly perish from the world. Moreover, as Augustine observes,^ it is monstrous to adduce this precept, ' an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,* as fostering revenge, that is, private animosity and hate. For, he asks, is the natural man, is the enraged savage, satisfied with inflicting on his foe as much as he has suffered ? No ; his desire is ever to inflict mo7'e ; to return two, twenty, a hundredfold it may be, for the one which he has received ; thus a second time disturbing the balance of equity, though in the other scale, — and so 1 Con. Faust, xix. 25 : Quandoquidem et illud antiquum ad reprimendas flammas odiorum, ssevientiumque immoderatos animos refrenandos, ita praeceptuiu est. Quia enim tantundem facile con- teutu3 est reponere vindicta;, quantum accepit injuriae? Nonne videmus homines leviter Isesos moliri csedem, sitire sanguinem, vixque invenire in malis inimici unde satientur? Quis pugno percussus non aut judicia concitat in damnationem ejus qui percusserit, aut si ipse repercutere velit, totum horainem, si non etiam telo aliquo arrepto, pugnis calcibusque contundit ? Huic igitur immoderatae ac per hoc injustse ultioni, lex juatum modum tigens, poenam talionia instituit ; hoc est, ut qualem quisque intulit injuriam, tale supplicium pendant. Proinde, Oculuin pro oculo, dentem pro dente, non fomes sed limes furoris est ; non ut id quod sopitum erat, inde accenderetur, sed ne id quod ardebat, ultra extenderetur, impositus. Est enim qusedam justa vindicta, justeque debetur ei qui fuerit passus injuriam : unde utique cum ignoscimus, de nostro quodammodo jure largimur. Cf. De Serin. Dom. in Mon. i .19. Vbb. 38, 3p.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 223 himself losing, and causing his adversary, under the sense of an unmerited amount of injury, to lose, the sense of a righteous government in the world, according to which every transgression of law will recoil on the transgressor, and receive a just recompense of reward. This law then of Moses, which took the execution of the vengeance out of his hands who might so easily be tempted to mar it,- by overdoing it, or by doing it in hatred and personal enmity, was not a fostering, but a checking, and in its measure a subduing, of the evil of man's heart. It did not indeed implant there a principle of love, nor yet certainly secure that they who availed themselves of it should be pure from all motives of private hate, and inspired only by a zeal for Grod's outraged justice, and a desire to make an offending brother recognize the law against which he had been sinning. It might be only, as in one place he terms it, a righteousness of the un- righteous.^ But still (as a preparation at least), it was working in this line, until a higher Lawgiver should come, and teach that besides this law of righteousness, there was a law of love which He would write in the hearts of his people, and which would teach them that, where only selfish interests were perilled, every thing was to be forgiven, every thing to be foregone — a law of love not unknown to saints of the elder covenant ( i Sam. xxiv. 4 ; Ps. vii. 4) — even as this same law would teach them the harder lesson yet of carrying out, where need was, the justice, at once retributive and corrective, of God,'^ — and ^ Enarr. in Ps. cviii. 4 : Quae, si dici potest, injustorum justitia est. * De Serm. Dom. in Man. i. 20 : Neque hie ea vindicta prohibetur, quae ad correctionem valet : etiam ipsa enim pertinet ad misericordiam .... Sed huic vindictae referendae non est idoneus, nisi qui odium quo Solent flagrare qui se vindicare desiderant, dilectionis magnitudine 224 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. this, apart from the slightest feeling that herein they were suspending the law of love, or rendering to the man evil for his evil ; on the contrary it would be stiU good for his evil, inasmuch as it would be justice for his injustice, right for his wrong. Truly a hard thing, yet not an im- possible, rightly to carry out. The command which Christ has here given to ' resist not evilj' and the others of like import which are scattered through the Gospels, but which lie the closest in this dis- course, are open to abuse upon two sides. There is, first, the abuse of the Quaker, who demands that there should be throuo-hout a cleaving to the letter, and who affirms that it is nothing but cowardice and a shrinking from the strict- ness of Christ's law, and from the painfulness of the demands which it makes upon us, which prevents these precepts of his from being literally interpreted and obeyed. Augus- tine meets this assertion, first historically, showing that neither did the Lord Himself, nor yet his Apostles, who must be held as authoritative interpreters of his word, hold themselves bound in every case to the letter of these commandments. For instance, when the servant of the High Priest struck our blessed Lord with the palm of his hand. He did not offer Himself to be stricken again, but firmly, though mildly, rebuked the smiter (John xviii. 22, 23). And St. Paul spake a yet sterner word to that judge who unrighteously bade him to be stricken ; ' God shall smite thee, thou whited wall' (Acts xxiii. 3).* Then, superaverit. Enarr. in Ps. cviii. 5 : [Deus] autem etiara cum vin- dicat, non reddit malum pro malo, quoniam justum reddit injusto. Quod autem justum est, utique bonum est. Punit ergo non delecta- tione alienee miserise, quod est, malum pro malo ; sed dilectione jus- titiae, quod est, bonum pro malo. 1 De Mendac. 15 ; -De Senn. Dom. in Mon. i. 19. Veb. 38, 39.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 225 further, he refutes this interpretation by showing how such a cleaving to the letter of this and similar precepts, will continually issue in a violation of the spirit of Christ's commandments. Thus, in his case who dared to lift up his hand against the Lord, to have offered him the other cheek would have been no love, for it would have been a tempting of him to repeat his fearful offence.' Again, because it is said, ' Give to every man that asketh of thee ' (Luke vi. 30), am I therefore to give an open knife to an infant, — a drawn sword to a madman or a murderer, — - money to him who, as I well know, will surely spend it to his own hurt in riot and excess? Because it is said, ^Resist not evil,'' are therefore the merciless and the destroyers to be allowed to tread the world under their feet, and the righteous, though they may possess the power, to do nothing to restrain them ? No ; it is clear this cannot be the meaning. Our Lor^ can be legislating here only for the inward spirit of man.^ ^ In JEv. Joh. Tract, cxiii. 4: Hicdicet aliquis, Cur non fecit quod ipse prtecepit? Percutienti enim non sic respondere, sed maxillam debuit alteram prsebere. Quid quod et veraciter mansuete iusteque respondit, et non solum alteram maxillam iterum percussuro, sed totum corpus figendum pneparavit in liguo? Et hinc potius demonstravit, quod demonstrandum fuit, sua scilicet magna ilia prse- cepta patientise, non ostentatione corporis, sed cordis prseparatione facienda. Fieri enim potest ut alteram maxillam visibiliter prsebeat homo, et iratus. Quanto ergo melius et respondet vere placatus, et ad perferenda graviora tranquillo animo fit paratus ? 2 Ep. cxxxviii. 2 : Denique ista prsecepta magis ad praeparationem cordis, qu£e intus est, pertinere, quam ad opus quod in aperto fit ; ut teneatur in secret© animi patientia cum benevolentia in manifesto autem id fiat quod eis videtur prodesse posse, quibus bene velle debemus, bine liquido ostenditur, quod ipse Dominus Jesus, exemplum sin^ulare patientise, cum percuteretur in faciem, respondit. Si male dixi, exprobra de malo : &\ autem bene, quid me csedis ? Nequaquam igitur prseceptum suum, si verba intueamur, implevit . . . et tamea Q 226 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. This offering of the other cheek may he done outwardly ; but only inwardly can it be a rule of action, ahuays right ; being as it is the meekness of the spirit under wrong, the preparedness of heart to bear as much as has been already inflicted or more, if so any good may come to the injurious person. But Christian love and prudence are in each case to decide whether it is also a precept for the outward con- duct. It may be so ; it will be so often ; for instance, if thou thinkest that thy offending brother will be won by thy Christian patience, and his evil overcome by this exhibition of thy good, then it will be thy duty, if he has done thee one wrong, to lay thyself open to a second : if thou hopest thus to teach him the worthlessness of the things after which he is striving, to let him spoil thee again.' Deal with him as a prudent keeper will some- times deal with a madman in his charge, giving way to and humouring him in part ; or as a compassionate phy- sician, that contradicts not his patient in the delirium of his fever.^ But if thou countest that his evil will grow with impunity, that he will strengthen himself in his sin, and therefore in his misery, through thy forbearance, then it is thy duty to turn to him thy love on its severer side, to repress the outcomings of his evil,^ though it will be paratus venerat, non solum in faciem percuti, verum etiam pro his quoque a quibu3 haec patiebatur crucifixus occidi, pro quibus ait ia cruce pendens, Pater, ignosce illis, quia nesciunt quid faciant. ' IJp. cxxxviii. 2 : Qui ergo vincit bono malum, patienter amittit temporalia commoda, ut doceat quam pro fide atque justitia contem- nenda sint, quae ille nimis amando fit malus. ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 19. 3 Ep. cxxxviii. 2 : Cui licentia iniquitatis eripitur, utiliter vincitiir : quoniam nihil est infelicius felicitate peccantium, qu:i pcenalis nutritur impunitas, et mala voluntas velut hostis interior roboratur. De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 20 : Posse peccatum amore potius vindicari, quam impunitum relinqui. Vbh. 38, 39.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 227 the same love that dictates this line of conduct or the other.' Thus in a State which is really Christian, war itself will be no violation of charity, but will be carried on in the spirit of love, that those against whom it is waged may not be allowed to make miserable themselves and others, that henceforth it may be more happily consulted for them, than they would else have consented to consult for themselves.* Nor indeed are God's sharpest punish- ments of men, so long at least as their state of trial lasts, other than such outcomings of his infinite pity, which would fain chasten now and for a little, that it may not be obliged to condemn hereafter and for ever.' From all this it will appear, that while Augustine denies that the literal, or what calls itself the literal, scheme of interpretation, is to be painfully cleaved to, yet it is not because this is too high, too loving, and too large, but because it oftentimes would not be high, or large, or loving enough. Thus, for instance, a sparing might oftentimes be no true mercy, nor grow out of any root of love, but might only be an indulgence of our own indolence, or sloth, or cowardice.'' So that in thus interpreting he in no way ^ Enchir, de Fide, Spe, et Car. : Qui emendat verbere in quern po- testas datur, vel coercet aliqua disciplina; et tamen peccatum ejus, quo ab illo Isesus aut oflfensus est, dimittit ex corde, vel orat ut ei dimittatur, non solum in eo quod dimittit atque oral, verum etiam in eo quod corripit, et aliqua emendatoria poena plectit, eleemosynam dat, quia misericordiam dat. Multa enim bona prsestantur invitis, quando eorum consulitur utilitati, non voluntati. ^ Ep. cxxxviii. 2: Si terrena ista respublica prgecepta Christiana custodiat, et ipsa bella sine benevolentia non gerentur, ut ad pietatis justitiseque pacatam societatem victis facUius consulatur. ^ Serm. clxxi. 4. * Ep. cliii. : Plurimum interest quo animo quisque parcat. Sicut enim est aliquando misericordia puniens, ita et crudelitas parcens. And he proceeds to give examples of this. Cf. Con. Petil. ii. 67 : o 2 228 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. favours, but goes directly against, the glosses which the world makes on these sayings of our Saviour, and which it willingly believes to be the only alternatives, if the literal interpretation be forsaken. What the world says, or, when it dares not say, what it thinks in its heart, is very nearly as follows : — This all is very fine morality, only it is un- happily superfine, and quite unfit for every-day work and wear; — these precepts are evidently pitched at too high a key for practical use ; and must be a good deal taken down before they will actually serve the needs of men. It could never be meant that we are to be so meek, so for- giving, 80 ready to impart as this ; that were only to make ourselves a prey. These are extreme sayings ; and it will be enough, if we make some approximation, nearer or more remote, to the behaviour here enjoined. — But no : it is not thus : the commands are to stand fast ever- more in all their breadth and fulness : their only limitation is this, that love and the Spirit of God are in each case to be their interpreters, to apply them to the emergent necessity. Where this love and this Spirit are wanting, the precept must be interpreted wrongly : if in the letter, it will be in a loveless form ; or, if that be forsaken, then there will be a sinning against the letter and the spirit alike. Ver. 40, 41 . ^And if any man will sue thee at the laiu, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a Ttiile, go with him, tivainJ* — These verses Augustine brings into comparison with the precept of St. Paul, ' redeeming the time, because Sicut est plenunque crudelis fallax adulatio, sic semper misericors juflta correptio. Cf. In i JEp. Joh. Tract, yii. Vrb. 40) 41 •] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 229 the days are evil' (Ephes. v. 1 6), that is, as he understands it, 'purchasing time, with all its precious advantages, at the cost of meaner things. Give up those meaner things, even though they be thine by right ; give thy coat, and thy cloak too, rather than lose thy time, time lent thee for working out thy salvation, in too eagerly seeking to regain them.^ To enter into the meaning of that difficult passage would be alien to the present purpose ; yet, as few or none would now affirm that this is exactly its meaning, there is no true parallel here. That may be, and indeed certainly is, a counsel of Christian 'prudence, but this is not so. Eather we have here, in the form of an outward precept, a law for the inward spirit of a Christian man ; and one, as Augustine has himself so often and so distinctly declared, to be, or not to be, embodied by him in act, according to the varying moral and spiritual necessities of the brother that may sin against him. It may be thou canst teach him the higher lesson by letting him have the thing he is unduly snatching at : let him have it then : count his soul more precious than thy worldly goods. But the precept does not necessarily exclude the other dealing of love. It may be that what now he most needs to learn is, that unrighteousness is not to carry the day unchecked, that even in this present evil time ' the way of the transgessors is hard.' Then thou art bound by the same law of love to resist him, and to make him feel that there is a divine order even in the midst of this disordered world ; an order which he cannot violate at will ; which, though it appear so weak, is indeed mighty ; which if he infringe, it will surely ^ Serm. clxvii. 4 : Judicio viilt tecum contendere, .... vult avocare te litibus a Deo tuo. . . . Quantum ergo melius est ut nummum amittas, et tempus redimas. 230 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. assert and avenge itself. For as God dealt with men by Law and by Gospel, and the same love was in each, as the Law punished and the Gospel forgave, each for the bringing about an end beyond itself, and the same end, even the righteousness and thus the salvation of the sinner, though they sought it by ways so dififerent, so will there be counterparts to both in the wise and loving conduct of a Christian man toward his ofifending brother.^ The ever- lasting rule is, that thou render good for thy brother's evil : the shape in which thou shalt render it, love — which means something higher than a mere unwillingness to inflict present pain — shall prescribe. Exactly so, too, will it be in a Christian State. The judge, indeed, being the representative but of one side of the Divine character, of the Divine justice, does not pardon, but only acquits or condemns. The king, how- ever, is a larger mirror of the Divine perfections, of grace no less than of justice : he, therefore, after the condem- nation, is free to pardon. It was this, the kingly func- tion, which oiu" Lord exercised when He bade the woman taken in adultery to go free (John viii. ii). He did not thereby act against his own law, given by Moses, which had said that such should be stoned: He only com- pleted it.'^ The idea upon which her pardon, upon which every pardon pronounced by the monarch as the fountain ^ In this matter it is not possible beforehand to give any other mle than that which Augustine himself gives, when he sayp, Dilige, et fac quod voles. ^ Enarr. in Ps. v. : Numquid Christus fecit contra legem suam ? .... Non ergo Deus contra legem suam, quia nee imperator contra leges suas facit, quando confessis dat indulgentiam. Moyses minister legis, Christus promulgator legis ; Moyses lapidat ut judex, Christus indulget ut rex. Vbb. 42.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 231 of grace in the land, properly rests, is that this will bring about in him who is its object a truer righteousness than the payment of the extreme penalty would have done, that there is something in him which promises that the end which punishment should reach will more surely be attained by the method of grace. Were it otherwise, the true love would be to suffer the punishment to take its course. So that here, too, justice and grace appear as identical — as love, manifesting itself now at its one pole, now at the other. It is true, indeed, that the grace comes out less frequently in the Christian State than in the Christian Church, that in the former it is ever the exception. For the State stands in many respects in relation to the Church, as the legal economy to the evangelical, an outer court of the same temple ; and as in that earlier economy the side of grace came out less prominently than that of severe justice, so fares it in the State also, which yet knows, as that knew, of the one no less than of the other.* Ver. 42. ' Give to' him thatasketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou aivay.' — Hitherto, Augustine observes, it has been the more negative virtues of not injuring, and being patient under the injuries of others, which the Lord has urged on his disciples. But this were little, unless the more active and communicative graces were added also ; and so follows the precept, ' Give to him that asketh thee.' But can this, he inquires, mean, 1 A long letter of Augustine's to a civil ruler {Ej). cliii. ad Macedon.), justifying the Church in its frequent pleadings for the pardon of criminals, is full of matter of the deepest interest on these relations of the Church and State, and of the love whereof punishment no less than pardon is, according to its true idea, the utterance. 232 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. that no request is ever to be denied ? Was Joseph, then, to give to the wife of Potiphar what she asked ? or Susannah to the Jewish elders ? Shall I give money to a man to help him in oppressing the innocent ? or which I know that he will spend upon his fleshly lusts ? * It is plain that a thousand other monstrous cases of the kind might be cited, down to that of the Carpocratians, who justified indulgence in all carnal appetites by these words, saying, Whatever the flesh asked, they were bound to give it. Clearly, then, the cormnand must have its limitation somewhere. Augustine finds the limitation in the words themselves: — Give to every man; yes, but not every thing.^ If you send a lazy loitering mendicant away with a lecture upon idleness, you have sent him ' not empty away.' You have given to him, although not the exact thing which he sought. Here, too, he observes, we have the Lord's own interpretation of his words. When that suitor cried to Him from the crowd, ' Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me ' (Luke xii. 14), and the Lord made answer, ' Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you?' — might it not appear that He forgot his own precept, refusing even this easily granted request which was made to Him ? But it was not so ; He gave the man, not indeed what he asked, but something far better, a medicine for the hurt of his soul, in that warning word : ' Take heed and beware of covetous- ness' 3 (Luke xii. 13,15). So, too, Joseph gave, but it was ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 20. 2 Serm. ccclix. : Omni petenti te da, Non est dictum, Omnia petenti te da : Prorsua da ; et si non quod petit, tu tamen aliquid da : malum petit, tu bona da. ' Ser7n. ccclix. : Non dedit Dominus hoc, nee tamen nihil dedit. Minus negavit, sed quod plus est donavit . . . Ergo banc regulam Veb. 42-] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 233 a counsel of chastity ; for when he made answer, How shall I, a servant, betray the confidence of my lord (Gen. xxxiz. 8, 9) ? in that was implicitly involved an exhortation to her. How then wilt thou, a wife, betray the yet higher confidence of thine husband ? The command then, 'Give,'' as inter- preted by the life of Him who uttered it, is ever to stand fastj but it is, Give that which will make the receiver truly richer ; and often in this sense a seeming denial will be the most real giving,' as on the other side there are gifts which are no gifts, which as it was wrong to ask, so would it be far better never to have received. He who gives these does not really give; and while he seems to be keeping the letter of this, is indeed violating the spirit of all Christ's commandments. So much on the general interpretation which this pre- cept should receive. On its details Augustine does not yield us much ; yet he notes how the Lord has instanced, as examples of the things whereof a disciple of his shall patiently, where need is, endure the loss, some that are most necessary, the cloak and the coat, that so He may implicitly involve all others ; for if these, how much more readily the superfluous, shall be forgone.^ tenete. Date quando petimini, etsi non hoc quod petimini. Hoc fecit Dominus. Petebat ille. Quid ? Divisionem liaereditatis. Dedit Dominus. Quid? Peremptionem cupiditatis . . . Numquid peti- torem inanem dimisit, et non potius veritate implevit ? 1 mchir. de Fide, Spe, et Car. 72: Non solum ergo qui dat esm-ienti cibum, sitienti potum, nudo vestimentum, et quod cuique necessarium est indigenti, verum etiam qui emendat verbere in quern potestas datur, vel coercet aliqua disciplina, et tamen peccatum ejus, quo ab illo Isesus et oflfensus est, dimittit ex corde, vel orat ut ei dimittatur, non solum in eo quod dimittit atque orat, verum etiam in eo quod corripit, et aliqua emendatoria poena plectit, eleemosynam dat, quia misericordiam prsestat. 2 De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 19 : Si enim de necessariis hoc impe- ratum est, quanto magis superflua contemnere convenit ? 234 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt, V. Ver. 43-45. *Fe have heard that it hath been said. Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy : But 1 say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which desjpitefully use you, and persecute you ; That ye may be the children of your Father ivhich is in heaven : for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the un- just.' — Here also Augustine has seized with a firm grasp that which can alone be the right interpretation of these words. Having to do with the saying, ' Thou shalt hate thine enenny,' he does not, to withdraw it from Manichsean calumnies, betake himself to the poor evasion, that because the exact words are nowhere found in the Old Testament, therefore the Lord has here in his mind not an Old Testa- ment precept, but a Pharisaical abuse of such, denouncing some addition to it which the Scribes had falsely made. Be the words in the Old Testament or no, they express the spirit of it ; and no one need shrink from allowing this, if only he will keep in mind that they were addressed to Israel solely as the theocratic people, as having therefore no enemies but those who also were God's enemies,' — whom ' Con. Faust, xix. 24: Unusquisque iniquus homo, in quantum iniquus est, odio habendus est ; in quantum autem homo est, dili- gendus est; ut illud quod in eo recte odimus arguamus, id est, vitium, quo possit illud quod in eo recte diligimus, id est, humana natura ipsa, emendato vitio, liberari . . . Audito igitur et non intel- lecto quod antiquis dictum erat, Oderis inimicum tuum, ferebantur homines in hominis odium, cum deberent non odisse nisi vitium. Hos corrigit Dominus, dicendo, DUigite uiimicos vestros, ut, qui jam dixerat, Non veni legem solvere, sed adimplere, ideoque de odio inimici quod scriptum est in lege, non solveret, prsecipiendo utique ut diligamus inimicos, cogeret nos intelligere quonam modo possemus unum eumdemque hominem et odisse propter culpam, et diligere propter naturam. Veb. 43-45] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 235 therefore they should hate, but only as God hated, — hating, that is, the evil in them, and not any thing besides. The precept was no concession to man's weakness,' but a sum- mons to holiness, to a keeping themselves unspotted from the world that surrounded them. Let us understand this, and then we shall see that the Divine legislator of the New Covenant does not intend to repeal this any more than the preceding commandments of Moses. ' Thou shall hate thine enemy^ still stands fast, — ' thine enemy^^ because Grod's enemy ; there shall be in thee the abhorrence of evil, the holy hatred of sin ; though now He adds out of the rich treasure-house of his grace another power, that of loving the man, even while we hate the evil that is in him ; — all which Augustine illustrates by the example of the physician, who of the very good will that he bears to the sick man the more hates and makes the more earnest war against the sickness by which he is holden.^ He often takes occasion to remark how side by side with these passages, which they who misinterpreted, wil- fully or otherwise, denounced as encouraging hatred, and countenancing revenge, there were innumerable others, even in the Old Testament (dawn-streaks of the coming day), which breathed the very spirit of these new precepts of Christ ; however the strength to fulfil them may have been for the most wanting, till He came to give it.^ Thus ^ Even Augustine himself does not always hold fast to this the one right exposition ; as, for instance, when, De Serin. Dom. in Mon. i. 21, he says : Nee quod in lege dictum est, Oderis inimicum tuum, vox juhentis justo accipienda est, sed permittentis infirmo, ^ Serm. cclxxii. {Appendix) : Quod cum sancto et pio animo feceris, vices caelestis Medici agis, odio habens morbum, et diligens segrotum. Enarr.in Ps. xxxvii. 10: Non ergo hoc orent [homines] ut mori- antur inimici ; sed hoc orent, ut corrigantur, et mortui erunt inimici. ' Con. Faust. xLx. 28-30 : Omnia vel paene omnia, quae monuit seu praecepit ubi adjungebat, Ego autem dice vobis, inveniuntur 236 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. he compares with the restraint upon anger (Matt. v. 22), the words at Prov. xvi. 34. The adultery of the heart which the T^rd denounces (Matt. v. 28) is equally met and forbidden in the Old Testament, which has not merely its seventh, but its tenth commandment : ' Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife.' The love of enemies is enjoined, Prov. xxv. 21 ; and in the law itself, where it is written : ' If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again' (Exod. xxiii. 4, 5) ; while some of God's chosen saints, a Joseph and a David (i Sam. xxiv. 5 ; Ps. vii. 4), give noble examples of it in their lives. The ground and motive of this love being the goodness of God to all, has its parallel, Wisd. xii. i. The indissolubility of marriage is declared. Gen. ii. 24, of which words we know the use made by the Lord Himself (Matt. xix. 4). When the Manichaeans fastened upon sayings like this, ' He maJceth his sun to rise on the evil and on the good,'' and argued that He who said this, or of whom this might be said, could never be the same God whose severity in word and act comes so fearfully out in the Old Testament, Augustine answers, that neither is the Old Testament without its frequent declarations of God's inexhaustible mercy, his patience, his love, nor yet the New without abundant announcements and instances of his severity and anger ; he quotes in proof Matt. x. 28 ; xxii. 13 ; xxv. 41 ; Eom.i. 24; ii. 5 ; Heb. xii. 29 ; Luke xix. 27 ; 2 Cor. v. 3 ; Acts v. 5.^ et in illis veteribus libris. It is worth while to compare Tertullian {Adv. Marc. iv. 14-17), who is dealing with the same great question, and asserting against the Gnostics, as Augustine against the Mani- chaeans, the one spirit which pervades the Old Testament and the New. 1 Con. Adim. 7 : Ex quo facile apparet et in ea patientia quae invitat ad pcenitentiam } et in ea indulgentia, quae ign oscit pceiiiten- Vbb. 43-45-] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 237 It was true that there was more of fear in the Old Testament, and more of love in the New,' yet was there 'each in each ; and it was only by a directing of the atten- tion of the simple exclusively to the one side or the other, that they could be set in contrary lights, and thus played oflf against each other.^ Then too, whatever difficulty may spring from passages in which the saints and servants of God appear to be seek- ing and longing after vengeance upon their enemies, such difficulty belongs quite as much to the New Testament as to the Old. How, for instance, shall we understand Kev. vi. 9, where the souls under the altar exclaim, ' How long, Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ? ' Augustine is perplexed by this and similar utterances. But who, he concludes, shall presume to say that this is not a prayer against the kingdom of sin, under which they suffered such things ; which kingdom the very charity that now is theirs, makes them so to desire and pray that it may be tibus ; et in ea justitia quae punit eo3 qui corrigi nolunt, utrumque Testamentum convenire atque congruere, tanquam ab uno Deo utrum- que conscriptum. Cf. Con. Adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 16-18. ^ Con. Adim. 22 : Sicut enim tempore caritatis bonitas, sic tempore timoris severitas Dei maxime commendatur. De Mor. Eccles. 28: Quanquam enim utrumque in utroque sit, prse valet tamen in Vetere timor, amor in Novo. 2 Con. Adv. Leg. et Proph. i. 17 : Vaniloqui et mentis seductores adversantes litteris sacris, quas intelligere nolunt, eligunt ex eis aspera quae ibi leguntur ad commendandam severitatem Dei, et de litteris Evangelieis atque Apostolicis lenia quae ibi leguntur ad com- mendandam bonitatem Dei ; et apud bomines imperitos bine ingerunt borrorem, inde quaerunt favorera ; quasi difficile sit, ut quisquam similiter blaspbemus atque impius, eo modo adversetur Novo Testa^ mento, quo isti Veteri, carpens de Vetere quibus ibi commendatur Dei bonitas, et e contrario de Novo quibus ibi commendatur Dei severitas. 238 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. V. overthrown.^ Again, there is St. Paul's motive for doing good to an enemy, ' For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head ' (Rom. xii. 20) ; which at first sight, * and as some have understood it,'^ seems to contain the precept not so much of love as rather of a subtler hatred. The image has been explained thus : Do thine enemy good, for thus thou wilt draw down on him, supposing him to continue in his enmity, a more signal vengeance from heaven. But this would not be, as South well and wittily remarks, loving our enemy, but only hating him more artificially. Or else thus : Do thine enemy good, for so thou wilt bring upon him the smart of a liveHer pain, of a stronger self-rebuke, of a deeper self-scorn. This last ex- planation is on the way to the right one, but, stopping here, is equally with the other opposed as much to the universal spirit, as to the present argument, of St. Paul ; and Augustine, vindicating with a righteous earnestness the passage from any such covert malice, shows that the benefits are to be imparted, not with the purpose of aggra- vating an enemy's punishment, but for the bringing about in him of that true repentance, which shall, if it may be, avert the punishment altogether ; that the ' coals of fire ' heaped upon the head are the image of a pain inflicted indeed, but yet inflicted in love, and for the burning out ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon. i. 22 : Nam ipsa est sincera et plena justitise et misericordise vindicta martyrum, ut evertatm- regnum pec- cati, quo regnante tanta perpessi sunt. ' Some in his time did so abuse the passage : thus Enarr. in Ps. Iviii. 10, he observes : [Malevolus] malitiose sapit quod scriptum est, Hoc enim faciens, carbones ignis congeres super caput ejus. Agit enim ut amplius'aggravet et ei excitet indignationem Dei, quam car- bonibus ignis significare putat, non intelligens ilium igaem esse poeni- tentise urentem dolorem, quousque caput erectum superbia beneficiis inimici ad huuiilitatem salubrem deponitur. Vbb. 43-45] SEEMON" ON THE MOUNT. 239 of the malice in the man,' a present smart which is to issue in a lasting cure. For fear of a mistake, and intend- ing for ever to exclude one, the Apostle, he observes, was careful to add, himself interpreting what he just had spoken, ' Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.' ^ Augustine pauses to inquire whether this ' sun ' which God makes to rise on the evil as on the good, this ' rain ' which He sends on the unjust no less than the just, are to be taken literally,— a declaration of the natural bounties and blessings whereof all are partakers ; or not rather the * rain ' of his grace, the ' sun ' of his righteousness (Mai. iv. 2), wherewith he visits the hearts of all, though some are as soil which refuses to be softened by the one (Heb. vi. 7, 8), or warmed by the other. But he decides, and doubtless rightly, in favour of the former explanation ; ^ for they are not ' evil ' upon whom the spiritual Sun has risen, but through his rising upon them have passed into the number of the ' good ; ' nor they * unjust ' upon whom this rain comes down, but are now the ^just ' through its fer- tilizing and refreshing powers. Bather this ' sun ' and ' SerJH. cxlix. 1 8 : Ipsa vero ustio, poenitentia est, quae tanquam carbones ignis, inimicitias ejus malitiasque consumit. tFmbreit in a valuable note on Prov. xxv. 22, takes quite the same ethical view of the command, but explains the image a little differently : Thou shalt make him to gloio with shame ; and Augustine, too, in one place, says that the enemy under this treatment blushes (erubescit). ^ Enarr. in Ps. Ixxviii. 10 : Quomodo autem potest vincere in bono malum, in superficie bonus, et in alto malus, qui opere parcit, et corde ssevit, manu niiiis, voluntate crudelis ? Cf. De JDoct. Christ. iii. 16. ^ Serm. Iviii. 6 ; De Serm. Dom. in Mon. ii. 23. In this view he brings out rightly the meaning of ' his sun ' : Addidit mum, id est, quern ipse fecit atque constituit, et a nullo aliquid sumsit ut faceret. 240 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. * rain ' are the common mercies of which all are partakers,* even those that ' walk in their own ways,' from whom He does not withhold 'rain from heaven, and fruitful, seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness ' (Acts xiv. i6, 17). And this same unstinted bounty of God, this love which comprehends all, according to the measure in which they are capable of being comprehended by it, supplies the measure in which those who would indeed show them- selves ' the children of their Father which is in heaven,' are to exercise love, the pattern they are to set before themselves for imitation. ■ Ver. 46, 47. ' For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye'? do not even the 'publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, ivhat do ye more than others ? do not even the publicans so ? ' — There are three manners of returns, as Augustine some- times observes, which men may make one to another. There is, first, the returning of good for good, and evil for evil, being the principle which the world recognizes, and on which it acts : ' Do not even the publicans the same ? ' ^ This is the rule of the natural man. But beneath this there is the returning of evil for good, which is devilish ; while above it there is the returning of good for evil, which is divine, which is God's principle of action ; and to this the children of God are summoned here.^ ^ Enarr. in Ps. xx.tv. 6. ^ In I Ep. Joh. Tract, viii. : Extende dilectionem in proximos, nee voces illam extensionem. Prope enim te diligis, qui eos diligis, qui tibi adhaerent. Extende ad ignotos, qui tibi nihil mali fecerunt. Transcende et ipsos, perveni ut diligas inimicos. Serin, cclxxiii. {^Appendix) : Amas amantes te, filioa et parentes. Amat et latro, amat et draco, amant et lupi, amant et ursi. ^ This is drawn out somewhat differently, Enarr. in Ps. cviii. 2. Veb. 48.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 241 Ver. 48. — ' Be ye therefore 'perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' — This was a favourite text of the Pelagians, adduced bj them in proof that men might live here altogether without sin. God, they said, would not have commanded what was impossible ; if perfection had been unattainable, Christ would not have required it. But Augustine' answers that we must know what this ' perfect ' means.' It is not necessarily, complete and having attained its ultimate end in everything ; but that may be ' perfect ' in one respect which is not perfect in another : or again, a man may be ^perfect,' as having every grace and lacking none, and yet imperfect, in that he has them not in that intensity which the immutable law of truth requires. And here both these limitations find place. It is on an especial point the Lord is speaking : * Be ye perfect : ' Love, He says, not merely your friends, but your enemies ; stop not short at that easier love, but go on to the haider, fulfilling the course set before you ; and do this because God does it. But he who asserts this to mean. Do all this in the measure in which God does it, — and who believes this possible, declares, not that he has a high apprehension of what man's love ought to be, but that he has most poor and unworthy apprehensions of what God's love is. It was not that Augustine desired to cast a slight on any true strivings after added measures of Christian grace ; ^ but only on those theories of a sinless ' De Pecc. Mer. et Rem. ii. 15. It may be seen, also, how he dealt with this and passages of the like kind such as Deut. xviii. 13 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 11 ; Col. i. 28; Phil. ii. 14, in his treatise De Perfect. Justit. 8, 9 ; he says of most of them : Ipsura finem commemorant, quo currendo pertendant. - Rather his language is such as this (Serm. clxix. 15): Semper tibi displiceat quod es, si vis perveuire ad id quod nondiun es. Nam ■ 242 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. V. perfection, as detecting plainly the false root out of which they grew, that the Pelagian spoke of this perfection as within man's reach, not out of his stronger faith iu the power of the grace which would bring it about, but out of his weaker sense of the extent and malignity of the evil which was opposed to its attainment. His talk about this state of a perfect health was not an extolling of the medicine, but an extenuating, and more or less a denying, of the malignity of the disease — an all-important dis- tinction ! In the life to come, undoubtedly, this command would be literally and in all its extent fulfilled. God's people will be perfect, even as He is perfect : and yet not so, that the distinction between the nature of God and the nature of man will be abolished, as some appeared to Augustine to affirm, but man will reach the perfection of his nature, as God has ever subsisted in the perfection of his.' ubi tibi placuisti, ibi remansisti. Si autem dixeris, Sufficit ; et peristi. Semper adde, semper ambula, semper profice. ' Con. Maxim, i. 12 : Ipse secundum naturam suam, nos secundum nostram. Qucest. in Deut. v. qu. 9 : Neque enim quia dictum est Estote perfecti, sicut Pater vester caelestis perfectus est, ideo aequali- tatem Patris sperare debemus : quamvis non defuenmt qui et hoc futurum putaverunt ; nisi forte quid dicant parum intelligimus. Cf. Enarr. in Ps. xciv. i. Feeling strongly, he often expresses himself strongly on the mischief which these perfectionists did, first to them- selves and then to others. Thus, De Civ. Dei, xiv. 9 : Nunc satis bene vivitur si sine crimine. Sine peccato autem qiu se vivere existi- mat, non id agit ut peccatum non habeat, sed ut veniam non accipiat. SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 243 ST. MATTHEW, CHAP. VI. Ver. 1-4. ' Take heed that ye do not your alms be- fore meuy to be seen of them : otherwise ye have no lee- ward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms^ do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you. They have their reward. But tvhen thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know ivhat thy right hand doeth : that thine alms may be in secret : and thy Father, which seeth in secret, Himself shall retuard thee openly.'' — The connexion of that portion of the Sermon on which we now are entering, with the preceding, Augustine traces thus. Hitherto the Lord has taught his disciples what they were to do ; He now proceeds to teach them hoiv they shall do it, with what simplicity and singleness of eye.' And this teaching, he observes, is never super- ^ In I Ep. Joh. Tract, viii. : Videte quanta opera faciat superbia. Ponite in corde, quam sitnilia faciat et quasi paria caritati, Pascit esurientem caritas, pascit et superbia ; caritas ut Deus laudetur, superbia ut ipsa laudetur. Vestit nudum caritas, vestit et superbia. Jejunat caritas, jejunat et superbia. Ergo Scriptura divina intro nos revocat, a jactatione hujus faciei forinsecus. Eedi ad con- scientiam tuam, ipsam interroga. Noli attendere quod floret foris, sed qusD radix est interna. Radicata est cupiditas ? species potest esse bonorum factorum : vere opera bona esse non possunt. Eadicata est caritas? securus esto, nihil mali procedere potest. Blandilur R 2 2i4 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. VI. fluous ; for even after the eye is in the main purged to see God, yet it is ever hard to prevent the creeping in of harm- ful influences, even where least suspected, and this from the very accompaniments of our good actions ; ' as, for instance, from the praises of men, which these will draw after them. And very usefully he brings out how, quite apart from the mere and utter hypocrite, who has no motive in any thing which he does but his own glory, there are many in whom there is a large admixture of motives, whose good deeds have two sources, one pure and one sullied ; for whom, indeed, Grod and the pleasing of God is first ; yet the intention does not remain altogether in its sim- j)licity ; there is also an eye turned askant to some meaner reward.^ At the same time it is important to observe, and he often observes, that the warning is throughout not against having the praise of men, but against the doing of any- thing that ive may have their praise, instead of doing it with a single eye to God's glory. It is not. Take heed that ye be not seen in your alms ; but, ' Take heed that you do not your alms before Tnen, to be seen of them,'' that is, with this object and aim. For in some sort we are bound in charity to desire men's praises ; that is, if there be good wrought by us, we are bound in love to desire there may be a recognition of that good on their part : since their failing to recognize it would mark a wrong condition in them. We are bound to desire that our conversation may superbia ; saevit amor : accipitur magis plaga caritatis, quam elee- mosyna superbiae. ^ De Sern^. Dom. in Mon. ii. I : Ociilo magna ex parte mundato difficile est non subrepere sordes aliquas de his rebus, quae ipsas bonas nostras actiones comitari solent, veluti est laus bumana. 2 Ihid. ii. 2. Vkr. 1-4.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 245 be attractive, for we may thus sometimes at the same moment do a double alms, ministering to the rich man the example, to the poor the help, that he needs.* If our conscience tells us that God's glory, and not pride or ostentation, is the mainspring of our actions, let us be fearless in this matter, and not dread or even shun to be seen, only taking care that this shall not be the final scope of our deeds.'^ And here, he says, lies the reconciliation of such declarations as that of St. Paul, ' I please all men in all things ' (i Cor. x. 33), and that other in which he says, ' If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ ' (Gal, i. 10). ' I please men as a mean to an end, for the winning of them to the truth : I do not make the pleasing of them itself my end ; on the contrary, this is something which I utterly forego, whenever higher in- terests of God's truth are at stake.' Yet his own affecting words in his ^Confessions,''^ concerning the difficulty which he found when praised, in distinguishing whether the pleasure he felt was a pleasure that others should be glorifying God for the good which they saw in him, or a pleasure in being thus himself extolled and glorified, and the deep heart-searchings into which this doubt brought him, will not easily be forgotten by those who once have ^ In I Up. Joh. Tract, viii. : Si enim abscondis ab oculis hominis, abscondis ab imitatione hominis. Duo sunt quibus eleemosynam facis : duo esuriunt, unus panem, alter justitiam. . . . Ille enim quaerit quod manducet, ille quaerit quod imitetur. Pascis istum, prsebes te isti: ambobus dedisti eleemosynam. Of. De Civ. Dei, V. 14; and Serm. clix. 10-13. ^ Enarr. in Ps. Ixv. 2 ; in Ps. cxviii. : Admonuit ne aliquid propter gloriam hominum fiat, non quia ipsa lau3 humana culpanda est, nam quid tarn optandum est hominibus, quam ut eis placeant quae debent imitari ? sed propter ipsam laudem bene operari, hoc est vanitatem in suis operibus intueri. ^ Conf. X. 37. 246 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. VI. read them. He notes the peculiar difficulty which besets the faithful man here. In other matters he may avoid that which would prove the occasion of sin in him ; he may put the temptation far from him ; but he cannot here ; for we must not get away from goodness, so to get away from the praises which follow it, and the temptations which follow those praises. He continually finds an illustration of the warning here conveyed, lest snatching at an earthly we forfeit a heavenly reward, in the doom of the foolish virgins of the parable (Matt. xxv. 11-13). In them he beholds the image of persons, who like thos& noted here, are working for, and living on, the praises of men. These praises were as the oil actually present in the virgins' lamps ; and so long as the supply of this oil lasted, they were adorned with apparent good works. But when these praises fail, as at the last day they must fail, then for them everything will have failed ; all wherein they found their impulses to good will have ceased ; and the good itself, such as it was, will cease likewise. Meanwhile for the past they will have already received and already exhausted their re- ward ; ' what they laboured for they got ; and now there will remain for them nothing but that sentence, ' I know you not,' uttered from his lips with whom no work avails which is not wrought out of love to Him.'^ He very wittily likens these boasters of their good deeds, who are * Enarr. in Fs, cxviii. : Perceperunt mercedem suam, vani vanam. ^ Serm, xciii. 9 : Non sunt fraudati laudibus humanis : qusesierunt laudes humanas, habuerunt. Istse laudes hiunanse in die judicii non eoa adjuvant. Enarr. in Ps. cxlvii. 13: Non inveniunt tunc faventes, non inveniunt tunc laudantes, a quibua solebant laudari et quasi sxcitari ad bona opera, non robore bonae conscientise, sed incitamento linguae alienaR, Veb. I-4-] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 247 thus losers of all true reward, to the hen, which has no sooner laid its egg, than by its cackling it calls some one to take it away. Augustine has a laborious, and, as I cannot but think, an unnecessary discussion concerning what the ' left hand ' may mean, which is not to be permitted to know what the ' right hand ' does. It were better to recognize this as one of those vigorous popular sayings, which are not to be required to give an account of themselves in detail. They cannot do this, and it is in the very contradictions which would arise if they were pressed to attempt it, that their strength lies. Thus it is true that, so far as know- ledge can be attributed to the hands at all, it is impossi- ble that the left hand should not know what the right hand gave, since both are organs of one and the same will ; but this impossibility must not make us quit the meaning which the words at first obviously suggest. Rather we are to see in this very impossibility which lies on the surface of the precept, an exhortation involved to the utmost possible secrecy, or I should rather say, sim- plicity, in almsgiving ;— for the secrecy is an accident, such as in the nature of things must often be wanting ; but the simplicity, the suppression as far as possible of all reflex consciousness of the work and dwelling on it, ought always to be there. After rejecting many explanations as untenable, he ends by explaining the ' left hand ' as the carnal desire, manifesting itself in the look turned askant to the human praise and reward, whereas by the ' right hand ' is meant the single purpose of fulfilling the divine commands ; ' and he makes the entire precept to amount » Serm. cxlix. 14: Sinistra est animi cupiditas carnalis, dextera est animi caritas spiritalis. [Elsewhere, the left, the ipsa delectatio 248 . EXPOSITION OP THE - [St. Matt. VI. to this, Let not meaner motives mingle with and defile your higher. That such a lesson underlies the whole teaching of Christ with which we now have to do, is plain ; but assuredly He is giving here to his disciples rather an example of what He would have them do, than the prin- ciple on which they are to do it : Since you are looking for a higher reward than the praises of men, let your alms be given in secret, — and this He then clothes in a strong gnomic saying, — so secretly that, if that were possible, no part of yourselves save that actually engaged in the giving should know of the gift — no, not even the brother-hand. Ver. 5, 6. ' And luken thou prayesf, thou shalt not he as the hypocrites are : for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reiuard. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.'' — To these words, * Enter into thy closet, and shut thy door,^ Augustine, without excluding the literal sense, and the warning against prayers made to be seen,* gives also a mystical meaning. This ' closet,^ or chamber, is the heart of man ; ' the door ' the avenues of sense by which disturbing and defiling thoughts of this world would fain enter in ; a * door ' at which the Tempter is ever knocking ; who yet laudis — the riglit, the intentio implendi divina prsecepta.] Si ergo cum quisque facit eleemosynam, miscet cupiditatem temporaliiim commodorum, ut in opere illo aliquid tale conquirat, miscet sinistraa conscientiam operibus dextrse. Cf, Enarr. in Ps. cxxxvi. 5. ' Enaif, in Ps. cxli. 3 : Si homines leddituri sunt, effunde ante homines precem tuam: si Deus redditurus est, effunde ante eum precem tuam. Vkr. 5, 6.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 249 passes on and leaves us, if he finds it resolutely closed against him.' Then, he says, we fulfil the apostolic commandment, ' Give no place to the devil,' when we diligently close the heart's door against him, and against the crowd of distracting thoughts with which he is ever seeking to mar and spoil our prayers. On the shutting of the door in this sense he is often urgent, yet not more urgent than the immense importance of the subject would warrant. Thus in one place he says, Wert thou speaking with me, and that, not as one asking a favour, but as with thine equal, and shouldst thou suddenly break off and give a message to thy servant, could I esteem it otherwise than an affront ? Yet this is what thou doest daily with thy God.^ And in another popular exposition ^ he inquires ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon. ii. 3 : Parum est intrare in cubicula, si ostium pateat importunis, per quod ostium ea quae foris sunt improbe se immergunt, et interiora nostra appetunt. Foris autem diximus esse omnia temporalia et Tisibilia, qu8e per ostium, id est, per carnalem sensum in cogitationes nostras penetrant, et turba vanorum phantasmatum orantibus obstrepunt. And elsewhere : Clauso ostio, id est, exclusa phantasmatum turba. Cf. Enarr. in Ps. cxli. 3, 4 : Tentator non cessat pulsare ut irrumpat ; si clausum invenerit, transit. Quid est autem claudere ostium ? Hoc ostium tanquam duas habet • valvas, cupiditatis et timoris ; aut cupis aliquid terrenum, et hoc intrat ; aut times aliquid terrenum, et hoc intrat. Timoris ergo et cupiditatis januam claude contra diabolum, aperi ad Christum. ^ Enarr. in Ps. cxl. 5 : Quid facis de cogitationibus tuis ? quid facis de tumultu et caterva rebellantium desideriorum . . . Confiteris peccata, Deum adoras : video corpus ubi jaceat, qusero ubi volitet animus. Modo si mecum loquereris, et subito averteres te ad servum tuum, et dimitteres me, non dico a quo aliquid petebas, sed cum quo ex aequo loquebaris, non mihi injuriam factam deputarem.P Ecce quid facis quotidie Deo. Enarr. in Ps. Ixxxv. 4 : Et tolerat Deus tot corda precantium, et diversas res cogitantium ; omitto dicere et noxias, omitto dicere aliquando perversas et inimicaa Deo ; ipsas superfluas cogitare, injuria est ejus, cum quo loqui cceperas. ^ Euan: in Ps, xxxiii. 5 : Attendat sanctitas vestra : Quomodo 250 EXPOSITION OP THE [St. Matt. VI. why men are so reluctant to obey this command, — why they so seldom turn in upon the solitude of their own hearts, — why they so much prefer to be abroad than at home. And then he likens them to such as have discomfortable households, and so are unwilling to return to their homes, knowing full well that only wretchedness and strife await them there. It would be otherwise if their hearts were pure, if their consciences were at peace ; they would not then find every thing driving them abroad, but rather every thing attracting them home. Ver. 7, 8. ' But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do : for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them : for your Father knoiveth ivhat things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.^ — In his exquisitely beautiful letter upon prayer, addressed to the noble widow Proba, Augus- tine distinguishes between the * much speaking,' which is here rebuked, and the much praying, which elsewhere the Lord has so earnestly commanded. He who said, ' Seek, nolunt intrare domos suas qui habent malas uxores: quomodo exeunt ad forum et gaudent. Ccepit hora esse, qua intrent in domum suam ; contristantur. Intraturi sunt enim ad tsedia, ad murmura, ad amari- tudines, ad eversiones. Si ergo miseri sunt qui cum redeunt ad parietes suos, timent ne aliquibus suorum perturbationibus evertantur, quanto sunt miseriores, qui ad conscientiam suam redire nolunt, ne ibi litibus peccatorum evertantur ? Ergo ut possis libens redire ad cor tuum, munda illud. Aufer inde cupiditatum sordes, aufer labem avaritiae, aufer tabem superstitionum, aufer ista omnia ; intra in cor tuum, et gaudebis ibi. Cum ibi cceperls gaudere, ipsa munditia cordis tui delectabit te, et faciet orare : quomodo si venias ad aliquem locum, silentium est ibi, forte quies est ibi, mundus est locus. Oremus hie, dicis, et delectat te compositio loci, et credis quod ibi te exaudiat Deus. Si ergo loci visibilis te delectat munditia, quare te non offendit immunditia cordis tui ? Vbh. 7, 8.] SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 251 and ye sJiallfindy and spake a parable ' that men ought always to pray and not to faint,' who Himself passed whole nights in prayer, must be as far as possible from finding fault with prayer which is long drawn out, if only it he prayer indeed. He can only condemn that, in which, while it retains the name of prayer, an endless tumult and hub- bub of words is substituted for all deeper, and oftentimes in words unspeakable, utterances of the spirit ; or which, having begun aright, has yet degenerated so far, that the words have now survived the feeling with which the prayer was commenced.' And why not this ' much speaking ? ' Because that which we need is known already to Him from whom we ask it. But might it not seem that this rebuke reached much further than to the condemnation of wordy un- meaning prayers ? For if it be thus, argued some, if He thus knows before we ask, what necessity to ask at all ? And, first, what need to express any petition in words, to tell Him aught, who knows every thing already? But these words, Augustine replies, are only the accidental clothing of our prayers, in which we array theni for our own sakes, and not for his ; — so entirely accidental, that very often our prayer exists without them. They were ^ Up. cxxx. lo : Neque enim, ut nonnuUi putant, hoc est orare in multiloquio, si diutius oretur. Aliud est sermo multus, aliud diuturnus affectus ; nam de ipso Domino scrip turn est quod pernoc- taverit in orando, et quod prolixius oraverit : ubi quid aliud quam nobis praebebat exemplum, in tempore precator opportunus, cum Patre exauditor seternus ? Absit ab oratione multa locutio ; sed non desit multa precatio, si fervens perseverat intentio. Nam multum loqui est in orando rem necessariam superfluis agere verbis ; multum autem precari est ad eum quem precamur diuturna et pia cordis excitatione pulsare. Nam plerumque hoc negotium plus gemitibus quam sermonibus agitur, plus fletu quam affatu. 252 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. VI. given us at first as helps to memory, instructing us in the things which we ought to desire or deprecate either with words or without them.' But then the more real question remains : What need to pray at all, either in words or in unuttered desires ? Will not He who is altogether good, give unasked what his earthly children need ? But the prayer, Augustine makes answer, is the preparation and the enlargement of the heart for the receiving of the divine gift ; which indeed God is always prepared to give, but we are not always prepared to receive.^ In the act of prayer there is a purging of the spiritual eye, which thus is averted from the things earthly that darken it, and becomes receptive of the divine light,— able not to endure only the brightness of that light, but to rejoice in it with * De Serm. Dom. in Mon. ii. 3 ; De Trin, xv. 13. ^ De Serm. Do7n. in Mon. ii. 3 : Ipsa orationis intentio cor nostrum serenat et purgat, capaciusque efBcit ad accipienda dinna munera, quae spiritaliter nobia infundantur. Non enim ambitione precum nos exaudit Deus, qui semper paratua est dare suam lucem nobis ; non visibilem, sed intelligibilem et spiritalem ; sed noa non semper parati sumus accipere, cum inclinamur in alia, et reram temporalium cupi- ditate tenebramur. Fit ergo in oratione conversio cordis ad eum qui semper dare paratus est, si nos capiamus quod dederit ; et in ipsa conversione purgatio interioris ocidi, cum excluduntur ea, quse tem- poraliter cupiebantur, ut acies cordis simplicis ferre possit simplicem lucem, divinitus sine uUo occasu aut immutatione fulgentem ; nee solum ferre, sed etiam manere in ilia ; non tantum sine molestia, sed etiam cum ineffabili gaudio, quo vere ac sinceriter beata vita perficitur. And on this that God should command men to pray, he says else- where {Ep. cxxx. 8) : Quod quare faciat qui novit quid nobis neces- sarium sit, prius quam petamus ab eo, movere animum potest, nisi intelligamus quod Dominus et Deus noster non voluntatem nostram sibi velit innotescere, quam non potest ignorare, sed exerceri in orationibus desiderium nostrum, quo possimus capere, quod praeparat dare. lUud enim valde magnum est, sed nos ad capiendum parvi et angusti sumus. And elsewhere : Tam largo fonti vas inane admoven- dum est. Vee. g.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 25b an inefifable joy. In the earnest asking is the enlarge- ment of the heart for the abundant receiving ; even as in it is also the needful preparation for the receiving with a due thankfulness ; while, on the contrary, the good which came unsought would too often remain the unacknowledged also.' Ver. 9. ' After this manner therefore pray ye : Our Father which art in heaven^ Hallowed he thy name.'' — On the Prayer itself Augustine first notes how we nowhere read of them of the Old Covenant as instructed to say ' Our Father: Their word was rather. Master,' as their relation was a servile one. Not, indeed, that they were altogether without hints that the filial relation was the true one, and that into which God designed to bring his people. There were glimpses of this in the Old Testa- ment (Deut. xxxii. 6 ; Exod. iv. 22 ; Ps. Ixxxii. 6 ; Isai. i. 2 ; Ixiii. 16; Ixiv. 8 ; Mai. i. 6); yet Israel at best was but as the heir, who, ' as long as he is a child, difFereth nothing from a servant.' The spirit of adoption, ' whereby we cry Abba Father,' was not theirs : for this is the ex- clusive prerogative of the New Covenant, the gift of the ' Son, and the fruit of the Incarnation ; ' to as many as believe on Him He gives power to become the sons of God (John i. 12). Most fitting, he remarks, is this address with which to begin our supplication, for by words like ' ' Senn. Ivi. 3 : Ideo voluit ut ores, iit desideranti det, ne vilescat quod dederit : quia et ipsumdesiderium ipse insinuavit. ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon. ii. 4 : Multa enim dicta sunt in laudem Dei quae per omnes sanctas scripturas varie lateque diffusa poterit quisque considerare, cum legit : nusquam tamen invenitur praeceptum populo Israel ut diceret, Pater noster, aut ut oraret Patrem Deum : sed Dominus eis insinuatus est, tanquam servientibus, id est, secundum carnem adhuc viventibus. ^ Ut homines nascerentur ex Deo, primo ex ipsis natus est Deus. ^64 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. VI. these our love is kindled ; since what should be dearer to children than a Father?— and no less our devout aflfection, that such as we should be permitted thus, and on these relations, to hold converse with God. Nor less is herein involved and expressed our confidence that we shall not ask in vain, when, before asking, we have already received this greatest gift of all, the adoption of sons.* Hereby too are we prompted to the study of sanctity, that we prove not altogether unworthy of so high a descent. Moreover, he observes, it is not ' My Father,' but ' Our Father,' for this is the prayer of brethren that in Christ are knit together into one mystical body, adopted in Him into one and the same spiritual family upon earth. ^ ' Which art in heaven,' — not, he observes, as though God were locally in the higher regions ofthe world, having by comparison forsaken the other ; for, if it were thus, they would be nearer Him who dwell on the mountains than those in the plains, and the birds of the air, as nearer yet, ' would be more fortunate and happier than either.^ But he understands by * heaven ' the hearts of the faithful, and the words to mean. Who dwellest in them as in a temple, as in thy chosen habitation ; — and, of course, when the language here used is once transferred from * De Serm. Dom. in Man. ii. 4 : Quo nomine et caritas excitatur, . . . . et qusedam impetrandi prsesumtio, quae petituri sumus ; cum prius quam aliquid peteremus tam magnum donum accepimus, ut einamur dicere, Pater noster, Deo. Quid enim jam non det filiis petentibus, cum hoc ipsum ante dederit, ut filii essent ? 2 Ibid., and Serm. Ixiv. (Appendix) : Oratio fraterna est ; non dicit, Pater meus, tanquara pro se tantum orans, sed, Pater noster, omnes videlicet una oratione complectens, qui se in Christo fratres esse cognoscunt. ? I)e Serm. Dom. in Man. ii. 5. Vek. 9] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 255 the material to the moral world, there is no difficulty in speaking of God as dwelling, and delighting to dwell, rather in one place than another.' But the words ' which art in heaven ' are capable of a simpler explanation, and do not require that we betake ourselves to an allegory to justify their use. For while it is quite true that the local heavens are no more the habitation of God than any other place (i Kin. viii. 27), — that, since God is a Spirit, all place is out of place when we are thinking of Him, — yet this attribution of the pure immeasurable spaces of the ether above us — the regions lifted high ' above the smoke and stir of this dim spot ' — to God for his habitation, is part of the unconscious symbolism which is common to all ages and all people, and in no respect a denial of his declaration, ' I fill heaven and earth.'' The introduction of these words into the beginning of this prayer rests on this universal symbolism ; they are, as it were, a Sursum corda^ they remind us that now we have lifted up our hearts from earth and things earthly to another and a higher world. But this is not their only value ; we have in them a protest against all pantheistic notions about prayer, all such as rest on an assumption of the identity of our spirit and the Spirit of God. We are thus bidden to look for God, not in, but out of and above, ourselves. Prayer is not to be an act of introversion, the sinking in of the spirit upon itself, but the struggling up of our spirit toward another Spirit, higher and holier than our own, one with which our spirit ^ JEp. clxxxvii. : Fatendum est ubique esse Deum per divinitatis prsesentiam, sed non ubique per habitationis gratiani. This whole letter is on the presence of God, and how far it may be attributed to one place more than another. 256 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. VI. is indeed allied, but yet with which it is not one and the same ; * the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit.' The Mohammedan Sufies, and other pantheistic devotees of the East, in the deepest abstraction of their devotions, are indeed worshippers of no other God but self, inasmuch as they have lost or denied this distinction ; for which the words here, no less than the recognition of a relation implying difference and distinction in the address, ' Our Father^ are a standing witness. ^Hallowed he thy Name.'' What is this? Augustine asks ; can God be holier than He is already ? Not in Him- self; that Name in itself remains always the same, ' hallowed ' for evermore ; but in us its sanctification is capable of increase, and in this petition we are asking for this increase of its sanctity in ourselves and in others, that God, in fact, may be more known and honoured and feared among men as the Holy One.' While then there must not be such an emptying of the phrase * Name of God,' as would leave it nothing more than the awful title by which we designate Him, for then in this petition there would be little more than a desire that blasphemous speeches might cease out of the world ; so, on the other hand, we must not take the * Name of God ' as identical with God Himself, as ^ Sertn. Ivii. 4: Pro nobis rogamiis, non pro Deo. . . . Quod semper sanctum est, sanctificetur in nobis. Serm. Ivi. 4 : Quid est sanctiBcetur ? sanctum habeatur, non contemnatur. Ena7-r. in Ps. ciii. I : Quid ergo rogamus? Ut illis hominibus, qui per infidelitatem nondum habent, nomen Dei sanctum sit, quibus nondum est ille sanctus, qui per se et in se et in Sanctis suis sanctus est. Rogamus pro genei'e humano, rogamus pro orbe terrarum, pro omnibus gentibus, quotidie sedentibus et disputantibus, quia non est rectus Dpus, et non recte judicat Deus ; ut aliquando ipsi se corrigant, et rectum cor ad illius rectitudinem ducant ; et adbserentes ei, directi ad rectum, non jam vituperent, sed placeat rectis rectus. Vee. lo.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 257 is evident from the fact that we could not desire that God might be ' halloiued,^ or holier than He already is. But his Name we can ; for it is that whereby He has revealed Himself to men ; it is all of Himself, which, not being ineffable, He has uttered and declared ; — the coming out of all which may be known of Him from the unfathomable abyss of being (Exod. iii. 13, 14).' As long as there is room either for ourselves or for others to love this Name, this revelation of his perfections, more, so long this prayer must find utterance from our lips, and so long cannot altogether give place to the ' Holy, Holy, Holy,' which is not prayer and petition, but purely and solely adoration and praise. Ver. 10. ' Thy hingdoim come. Thy ivill be done in earth, as it is in heaven.^ — This is not as though his king- dom were not already among us ; but even as the present light is absent to the blind and to them who wilfully close their eyes, so that kingdom, though it be ever with us, is yet now absent from them who refuse to know of it.^ But all must know it then, when it shall not merely be spiritually but visibly set up ; and it is this we ask, that the kingdom may so come to us now, that we may be found in it then.^ ' Thy luill he done^ — that is, Let it be ^ Enarr. in Ps. ci. 25. ^ De Serm. Dom. in Mon. ii. 6 : Quemadmodum enim etiam praesens lux absens est csecis et eis qui oculos claudunt,ita Dei regnum quamvis numquam discedat de terris, tamen absens est ignorantibus. And In Ev. Joh. Tract, Ixviii. (on the words, Tunc justi fulgebunt sicut sol in regno Patris sui : Matt. xiii. 43) : Regnum fulgebit in regno, cum regno Tenerit regnum, quod nunc oramus et dicimus, Veniat regnum tuum. Sed nondum regnat hoc regnum. ' Serm. Ivi. 4 : Ut in nobis veniat, optamus ; ut in illo inveniamur, optamus. S 258 EXPOSITION OF THE [St. Matt. VI. done here according to thy -will ; for Augustine denies, what at first sight might seem to lie in the words, that the end and consummation here prayed for is the absorp- tion of all other wills in the will of Grod, so that in this sense his will shall be everywhere the only one done. Eather is it the bringing all the lesser circles of the wills of God's creatures to have the same centre as the great circle of God's all-embracing will. God's will is not that his creatures should not will, but that they should will only what is good and true : it is not that their wills should be annihilated, but brought back into harmony with his will, the will of perfect goodness. This niay-seem at first a distinction hardly worth making, yet the whole Monothelite controversy was a witness to the deep im- portance which the Church attached to the maintaining of the reality of a human will in Christ, and thus in them who are Christ's, which should be subordinated indeed to the divine will, yet not abolished by it.^ And this is his practical exposition of the words : Grant that we may never seek to warp the straight to the crooked, thy will to ours, but always to correct the crooked by the straight, our will by thine.'^ And this 'm earth as it is in ^ De /Sei'm. Dom. in Mon. ii. 6 : Qui ergo faciunt Toluntatem Dei, in illis utique fit voluntas Dei ; non quia ipsi faciunt ut yelit Deus, sed quia faciunt quod ille vult ; id est, faciunt secundum voluntatem ejus. ^ Enarr. in Ps. xxxi. 1 1 : Duae voluntates sunt, sed volimtas tua corrigatur ad voluntatem Dei, non voluntas Dei detorqueatur ad tuam. Prava eat enim tua, legula est ilia, regula, ut quod pravum est, ad regulam corrigatur. And presently before : Quomodo distortum lignum etsi ponas in pavimento sequali, non collocatur, non compagi- natur, nee adjungitiir, semper agitatur et nutat, non quia intequale est ubi posuisti, sed quia distortum est quod posuisti: ita et cor tuum, qiiamdiu pravum est et distortum, non potest coUiniarirectiludini Dei, et non potest in illo collocaii, ut haereat illi. Enarr, in Fs. cxlvi. § 7 • Vkr. II.] SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 259 heaven-/ as by the angels there, by us also here.* This is the simple explanation, not, as he sometimes throws out, that ' heaven ' may be the Church, and ' earth ' the world. For this is a prayer for perfection and completion ; and since that will is only imperfectly done even in the Church, such could not be the ultimate longing of the souls of the faithful, nor that in which they would find their final rest. And this same objection is fatal to all other explanations of the like kind.'^ Ver. II.' Give us this day our daily bread.' — The things eternal having been thus asked for, the petitions which remain have to do with this life of our pilgrimage.^ Augustine objects to the narrowing of this petition to any one thing ; either, as some did, to the Holy Eucharist, or as others, who gave it somewhat a wider meaning, to all spiritual refection ; or, again, as others, going into quite the other extreme, to the nourishment of the body exclu- sively.* This ' bread ' is rather the whole aliment of body and of spirit ; of the body, as food, with whatever else is necessary for our earthly life ; and of the spirit no less ; so that the frequent communions, the daily worship, the study of the Scriptures, the hymns we hear and sing, these all will appertain to, and be included in, the ' daily bread ' Distortum cor, parum est quod non se corrigit ad Deum : et Deum Tiilt distorquere ad se. ^ Se7-m. Ivii. 6 : Quomodo te non offendunt Angeli tui, sic te non offeudamus et nos. 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