Augustine of Hippo — Commentary on Scripture

Isaiah 46:8

“Go back, therefore, to the heart,” and if you are believers, you will find Christ there. He himself is speaking to you there. Yes, here am I, shouting my head off—but he, in silence, is doing more teaching. I am speaking by the sound of these words; he is speaking inwardly by the awe you feel in your thoughts.

SERMON 102:2

Isaiah 46:8

Behold, there he is, wherever truth is known. He is within the inmost heart, yet the heart has wandered from him. Return to your heart, O you sinners, and hold fast to him who made you. Stand with him, and you shall stand firmly. Rest in him, and you shall be at rest.

Confessions 4.12.18

Isaiah 48:16

Furthermore, he could not be sent by the Father without the Holy Spirit. On principle, when the Father sent him, that is made him of woman, he cannot be supposed to have done it without the Spirit.… There is even a prophecy of Isaiah in which Christ himself is understood as saying about his future coming, “And now the Lord and his Spirit has sent me.”

ON THE TRINITY 2:2.8

Isaiah 48:16

Now it is Jesus Christ who is speaking here as the “Lord God”; yet this would not have been obvious if he had not added the final words, “And now the Lord God has sent me and his Spirit.” These words were spoken by Christ in his “form” as a “servant.” He used a verb in the past tense to indicate a future event.

City of God 20.30

Isaiah 48:20

“Come forth out of Babylon.” If we take the command of the prophet in a spiritual sense, it means that we should fly from the city of this world, from the fellowship of wicked angels and wicked [people], with the feet of that faith that works through love, and we should press onward unceasingly toward the living God.

City of God 18.18

Isaiah 49:7

The Son of God assumed human nature, and in it he endured all that belongs to the human condition. This is a remedy for humanity of a power beyond our imagining. Could any pride be cured, if the humility of God’s Son does not cure it? Could any greed be cured, if the poverty of God’s Son does not cure it? Or any anger, if the patience of God’s Son does not cure it? Or any coldness, if the love of God’s Son does not cure it? Lastly, what fearfulness can be cured, if it is not cured by the resurrection of the body of Christ the Lord? Let humanity raise its hopes and recognize its own nature: let it observe how high a place it has in the works of God. Do not despise yourselves, you men: the Son of God assumed manhood. Do not despise yourselves, you women: God’s Son was born of a woman. But do not set your hearts on the satisfaction of the body, for in the Son of God we are “neither male nor female.” Do not set your heart on temporal rewards: if it were good to do so, that human nature which God’s Son assumed would have set its heart on this. Do not fear insults, crosses and death: for i…

The Son of God assumed human nature, and in it he endured all that belongs to the human condition. This is a remedy for humanity of a power beyond our imagining. Could any pride be cured, if the humility of God’s Son does not cure it? Could any greed be cured, if the poverty of God’s Son does not cure it? Or any anger, if the patience of God’s Son does not cure it? Or any coldness, if the love of God’s Son does not cure it? Lastly, what fearfulness can be cured, if it is not cured by the resurrection of the body of Christ the Lord? Let humanity raise its hopes and recognize its own nature: let it observe how high a place it has in the works of God. Do not despise yourselves, you men: the Son of God assumed manhood. Do not despise yourselves, you women: God’s Son was born of a woman. But do not set your hearts on the satisfaction of the body, for in the Son of God we are “neither male nor female.” Do not set your heart on temporal rewards: if it were good to do so, that human nature which God’s Son assumed would have set its heart on this. Do not fear insults, crosses and death: for if they did harm humanity, the humanity that God’s Son assumed would not have endured.

CHRISTIAN COMBAT 11:12

Isaiah 49:8

Those who have faith by which they win justification attain by the grace of God to the law of justice. For this reason the prophet says, “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”

LETTER 186

Isaiah 49:17

Since by the command of the apostle we are not allowed to understand this as about the Jewish people but about Christians, what are we to understand in that which Isaiah says here, “you will quickly be built up by those from whom you fled,” except the kings of the earth who formerly persecuted the church and later would help it as much as previously foretold.

LETTER TO THE CATHOLICS ON THE SECT OF THE DONATISTS 7:16

Isaiah 52:3

Let us all flee to Christ. Against sin let us appeal to God, the giver of freedom. Let us request to have ourselves put up for sale that we may be redeemed by his blood. For the Lord says, “You were sold for nothing, and without money you shall be redeemed.” That is, without payment, without your payment, because by mine. The Lord says this, for he gave the payment himself, not silver but his own blood. For we had remained both slaves and in need.

TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 41:4.3

Isaiah 52:7

But you, “O elect people,” set in the firmament of the world, who have forsaken everything that you may follow the Lord, follow him now and confound the mighty! Follow him, O beautiful feet, and shine in the firmament, that the heavens may declare his glory, dividing the light of the perfect ones—though not yet so perfect as the angels—from the darkness of the little ones, who are nevertheless not utterly despised.

Confessions 13.19

Isaiah 52:7

When they of whom it was foretold, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet,” … announce this gospel of peace, then each one begins to be a son of peace when he obeys and believes this gospel, and, justified by faith, begins to have peace with God. However, according to the predestination of God he already was a child of peace. For it is not said, “He on whom your peace shall have rested, he will become a child of peace.” “If a child of peace is there, your peace will rest on him.”

ADMONITION AND GRACE 15:46

Isaiah 52:11

What else does touching anything unclean mean, anyway, but consenting to sins? And what else does going out from there mean, but doing what is involved in rebuking the bad, to the extent that this can be done, taking account of each person’s status and position, without damage to peace? It has displeased you that someone sinned; you have taken care not to touch an unclean thing. You have challenged, rebuked, warned, even administered, if the matter called for it, a suitable penalty that does no violence to unity; you have gone out from there.…When Scripture thunders at us that we must withdraw from the wicked, we are only being required to understand that we must withdraw in our hearts. Otherwise we may commit a greater evil by separating too simply the good from the bad. This is what the Donatists have done.… To understand what he said, I pay attention to what he did.… What he said was “Depart.” … What I am asking is, did he depart physically from such people? I find that he did not. So he must have understood his own words differently. Because, of course, he himself would be the fi…

What else does touching anything unclean mean, anyway, but consenting to sins? And what else does going out from there mean, but doing what is involved in rebuking the bad, to the extent that this can be done, taking account of each person’s status and position, without damage to peace? It has displeased you that someone sinned; you have taken care not to touch an unclean thing. You have challenged, rebuked, warned, even administered, if the matter called for it, a suitable penalty that does no violence to unity; you have gone out from there.…When Scripture thunders at us that we must withdraw from the wicked, we are only being required to understand that we must withdraw in our hearts. Otherwise we may commit a greater evil by separating too simply the good from the bad. This is what the Donatists have done.…
To understand what he said, I pay attention to what he did.… What he said was “Depart.” … What I am asking is, did he depart physically from such people? I find that he did not. So he must have understood his own words differently. Because, of course, he himself would be the first to do what he commanded.… God, after all, could not blame him for his own sins, because he did not commit any; or for other people’s, because he did not approve of them; or for indifference or neglect, because he did not keep quiet; or for pride, because he remained steadily in the unity of God’s people.

SERMON 88:23, 25

Isaiah 52:15

The Word, joined to human flesh, came forth from the virgin womb and has now strode forth like a giant and has run his course, and his exit was from the highest heaven and his return to the height of heaven. Now he has been exalted and honored, and many nations now marvel at him, and the kings stop their mouths because they have passed the cruelest laws against Christians. For, indeed, they were not told about him. Now they see, and though they did not hear, now they understand.

AGAINST PHILOSOPHERS 3

Isaiah 53:1

Are we correct in understanding God’s right hand to be the one of whom Isaiah says, “And the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed”? That, you see, is the only Son, whom the Father did not spare “but handed him over for us all.” And thus he stretched out his right hand on the cross, and the earth devoured the godless, when they thought of themselves as victorious and of him as despicable in defeat.

SERMON 363:2

Isaiah 53:1

For just as it is your arm through which you work, so his Word was called the arm of God, because through the Word he constructed the world. For why does a person, in order to construct something, stretch out his arm except to directly execute his will?

TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 53:2

Isaiah 53:1

Look and see that he alone is Father and his arm is the Son, and there are not two but one, a person and his arm. Not understanding or noticing how the words of one thing are transferred to other things on account of some similarity in everyday speech concerning visible and well-known things, how much more when ineffable things are spoken in some way, which are said in such a way to be impossible [in another way]? For a person calls another person “his arm” through whom he does whatever he does. And if he is taken away, he mourns and says, “I have lost my arm.” And to the one who took him away, he says, “You have taken my arm away.” We can thus understand how it can be said that the Son is the arm of the Father through which the Father works all things. Failing to understand this, we remain in the shadows of error, just like those of whom it was said, “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 53:3

Isaiah 53:1

If we should understand “hand” as power, the power of the Father and the Son is one; but if we should understand “hand” as it was said through the prophet, “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” the hand of the Father is the Son himself.

TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 48:7

Isaiah 53:3

Christ’s deformity is what gives form to you. If he had been unwilling to be deformed, you would never have got back the form you lost. So he hung on the cross, deformed; but his deformity was our beauty.

SERMON 27:6

Isaiah 53:4

“But not what I will, but what you will, Father,” It is not as if the Father’s will was one thing and the Son’s another. [Christ is referring to] the utterance of our weaknesses, however faithful, which our Head transformed into himself, when also he bore our sins.

TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 111:4

Isaiah 53:7

Because he has come hidden, our God, that is, Christ, will come manifest. “And he will not keep silence.” What does it mean, “will not keep silence”? Because he had first kept silence. When did he keep silence? He was judged in order that there might be fulfilled that which the prophet had also predicted: “As a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before his shearer, without voice, so he opened not his mouth.” Therefore, if he were unwilling to suffer, he would not suffer. If he did not suffer, his blood would not be poured forth. If his blood would not be poured forth, the world would not be redeemed.

TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 37:10.1