Augustine of Hippo

"So after He had washed their feet, and had taken His garments, and was set down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?" The Lord is now beginning to explain what He did; and what He had promised to Peter, that he should know afterwards, is now to have its fulfillment. "Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am." In the Proverbs of Solomon it is said, "Let another man praise thee, and not thine own lips;" for it is a dangerous thing for a man to praise himself who has still to be on his guard against pride. But He who is exalted above all things, however He may extol Himself, does not raise Himself too high: for God cannot adequately proclaim Himself. But what wise man can brook it that one who is only a man should be called "Lord"? But what we cannot brook in man, we ought to brook in God. He is no arrogant man, but the faithful God: nor flatters He Himself as men do who know themselves, but speaks only in accordance with truth; and that we may know, He who knows, makes Himself known. Were He to hold His tongue when it was possible to be arrogant, it would be hiding from us what we need. And therefore: "Ye call me," He says, "Master and Lord: and ye say well, for so I am."

Accordingly, after uttering these words, the Lord added, "I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but, that the Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me, shall lift up his heel upon me." And what is this, but that he shall trample upon me? We know of whom He speaks: it is Judas, that betrayer of His, who is referred to. He had not therefore chosen the person whom, by these words, He setteth utterly apart from His chosen ones. When I say then, He continues "Blessed shall ye be if ye do them, I speak not of you all:" there is one among you who will not be blessed, and who will not do these things. "I know whom I have chosen." Whom, but those who shall be blessed in the doing of what has been commanded and shown as needful to be done, by Him who alone can make them blessed?

The traitor Judas, He says, is not one of those that have been chosen. What, then, is meant by what He says in another place, "Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" Was it that he also was chosen for some purpose, for which he was really necessary; although not for the blessedness of which He has just been saying, "Blessed shall ye be if ye do these things"? He speaketh not so of them all; for He knows whom He has chosen to be associated with Himself in blessedness. Of such he is not one, who ate His bread in order that he might lift up his heel upon Him. The bread they ate was the Lord Himself; he ate the Lord's bread in enmity to the Lord: they ate life, and he punishment. "For he that eateth unworthily," says the apostle, "eateth judgment unto himself."

He then proceeds to say: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me." Did He mean us to understand that there is as little distance between one sent by Him, and Himself, as there is between Himself and God the Father? If we take it in this way, I know not what measurements of distance we shall be adopting, in the Arian fashion. For they, when they hear or read these words of the Gospel, have immediate recourse to their dogmatic measurements, whereby they ascend not to life, but fall headlong into death. For they straightway say: The Son's messenger stands at the same relative distance from the Son, as expressed in the words, "He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me," as that in which the Son Himself stands from the Father, when He said, "He that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me." But if thou sayest so, thou forgettest, heretic, thy measurements. Restrain, therefore, your foolhardy presumption; and do not be seeking to find in these words the same distance between the Son and His messenger as between the Father and His Son. But listen rather to the Son Himself, when He says, "I and my Father are one." For there the Truth hath left you no shadow of distance between the Begetter and the Only-begotten; there Christ Himself hath erased your measurements, and the rock hath broken your staircase to pieces.

But now that the heretical slander has been disposed of, in what sense are we to understand these words of the Lord: "He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me"? For if we were inclined to understand the words, "He that receiveth me, receiveth Him that sent me," as expressing the oneness in nature of the Father and the Son; the sequence from the similar arrangement of words in the other clause, "He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me," would be the unity in nature of the Son and His messenger. But it is not this unity of nature which the Lord intended to commend in this sentence, but the authority of the Sender in Him who is sent. Let every one, therefore, so receive Him that is sent, that in His person he may give heed to Him who sent Him. If, then, thou lookest for Christ in Peter, thou wilt find the disciple's instructor; and if thou lookest for the Father in the Son, thou wilt find the Begetter of the Only-begotten: and so in Him who is sent, thou art not mistaken in receiving the Sender.

It is no light question, brethren, that meets us in the Gospel of the blessed John, when he says: "When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." Was it for this reason that Jesus was troubled, not in flesh, but in spirit, that He was now about to say, "One of you shall betray me"? Did this occur then for the first time to His mind, or was it at that moment suddenly revealed to Him for the first time, and so troubled Him by the startling novelty of so great a calamity? Was it not a little before that He was using these words, "He that eateth bread with me will lift up his heel against me"? And had He not also, previously to that, said, "And ye are clean, but not all"? where the evangelist added, "For He knew who should betray Him:" to whom also on a still earlier occasion He had pointed in the words, "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" Why is it, then, that He "was now troubled in spirit," when "He testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me"?

Was it because now He had so to mark him out, that he should no longer remain concealed among the rest, but be separated from the others, that therefore "He was troubled in spirit"? Or was it because now the traitor himself was on the eve of departing to bring those Jews to whom he was to betray the Lord, that He was troubled by the imminency of His passion, the closeness of the danger, and the swooping hand of the traitor, whose resolution was foreknown? For some such cause it certainly was that Jesus "was troubled in spirit," as when He said, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour." And accordingly, just as then His soul was troubled as the hour of His passion approached; so now also, as Judas was on the point of going and coming, and the atrocious villainy of the traitor neared its accomplishment, "He was troubled in spirit."

He was troubled, then, who had power to lay down His life, and had power to take it again. That mighty power is troubled, the firmness of the rock is disturbed: or is it rather our infirmity that is troubled in Him? Assuredly so: let servants believe nothing unworthy of their Lord, but recognize their own membership in their Head. He who died for us, was also Himself troubled in our place. He, therefore, who died in power, was troubled in the midst of His power: He who shall yet transform the body of our humility into similarity of form with the body of His glory, hath also transferred into Himself the feeling of our infirmity, and sympathizeth with us in the feelings of His own soul.

Away with the reasons of philosophers, who assert that a wise man is not affected by mental perturbations. God hath made foolish the wisdom of this world; and the Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, that they are vain. It is plain that the mind of the Christian may be troubled, not by misery, but by pity: he may fear lest men should be lost to Christ; he may sorrow when one is being lost; he may have ardent desire to gain men to Christ; he may be filled with joy when such is being done; he may have fear of falling away himself from Christ; he may sorrow over his own estrangement from Christ; he may be earnestly desirous of reigning with Christ, and he may be rejoicing in the hope that such fellowship with Christ will yet be his lot.

Strong-minded, indeed, are those Christians, if such there are, who experience no trouble at all in the prospect of death; but for all that, are they stronger-minded than Christ? Who would have the madness to say so? And what else, then, does His being troubled signify, but that, by voluntarily assuming the likeness of their weakness, He comforted the weak members in His own body, that is, in His Church; to the end that, if any of His own are still troubled at the approach of death, they may fix their gaze upon Him, and so be kept from thinking themselves castaways on this account, and being swallowed up in the more grievous death of despair?

Of that indeed which precedes, (namely), that Jesus, when about to point him out, was troubled in spirit, we have treated in our last discourse; but what I perhaps omitted to mention there, the Lord, by His own perturbation of spirit, thought proper to indicate this also, that it is necessary to bear with false brethren, and those tares that are among the wheat in the Lord's field until harvest-time, because that when we are compelled by urgent reasons to separate some of them even before the harvest, it cannot be done without disturbance to the Church. Such disturbance to His saints in the future, through schismatics and heretics, the Lord in a way foretold and prefigured in Himself, when, at the moment of that wicked man Judas' departure, and of his thereby bringing to an end, in a very open and decided way, his past intermingling with the wheat, in which he had long been tolerated, He was troubled, not in body, but in spirit. For it is not spitefulness, but charity, that troubles His spiritual members in scandals of this kind; lest perchance in separating some of the tares, any of the wheat should also be uprooted therewith.

"Jesus," therefore, "was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said: Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." "One of you," in number, not in merit; in appearance, not in reality; in bodily commingling, not by any spiritual tie; a companion by fleshly juxtaposition, not in any unity of the heart; and therefore not one who is of you, but one who is to go forth from you. For how else can this "one of you" be true, of which the Lord so testified, and said, if that is true which the writer of this very Gospel says in his Epistle, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us"? Judas, therefore was not of them; for, had he been of them, he would have continued with them. What, then, do the words "One of you shall betray me" mean, but that one is going out from you who shall betray me? Just as he also, who said, "If they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us," had said before, "They went out from us." And thus it is true in both senses, "of us," and "not of us;" in one respect "of us," and in another "not of us;" "of us" in respect to sacramental communion, but "not of us" in respect to the criminal conduct that belongs exclusively to themselves.

(Tr. lx. 1) This did not come into His mind then for the first time; but He was now about to make the traitor known, and single him out from the rest, and therefore was troubled in spirit. The traitor too was now just about to go forth to execute his purpose. He was troubled at the thought of His Passion being so near at hand, at the dangers to which His faithful followers would be brought at the hand of the traitor, which were even now impending over Him. Our Lord deigned to be troubled also, to shew that false brethren cannot be cut off, even in the most urgent necessity, without the troubling of the Church. (Tr. lxi. 1.). He was troubled not in flesh, but in spirit; for on occasion of scandals of this kind, the spirit is troubled, not perversely, but in love, lest in separating the tares, some of the wheat too be plucked up with them. (Tr. lx. 5.). But whether He was troubled by pity for perishing Judas, or, by the near approach of His own death, He was troubled not through weakness of mind, but power: He was not troubled because any thing compelled Him, but He troubled Himself, as was said above. And in that He was troubled, He consoles the weak members of His body, i. e. His Church, that they may not think themselves reprobate, should they be troubled at the approach of death.

(Tr. lx. 3) Away then with the reasonings of the Stoics, who deny that perturbation of mind can come upon a wise man; who, as they take vanity for truth, so make their healthy state of mind insensibility. It is good that the mind of the Christian may be perturbed, not by misery, but by pity. (lxi. 2). One of you,He saith, i. e. one in respect of number, not of merit, in appearance not in virtue.

"Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved." What he meant by saying "in His bosom," he tells us a little further on, where he says, "on the breast of Jesus." It was that very John whose Gospel is before us, as he afterwards expressly declares. For it was a custom with those who have supplied us with the sacred writings, that when any of them was relating the divine history, and came to something affecting himself, he spoke as if it were about another; and gave himself a place in the line of his narrative becoming one who was the recorder of public events, and not as one who made himself the subject of his preaching. Saint Matthew acted also in this way, when, in coming in the course of his narrative to himself, he says, "He saw a publican named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, and saith unto him, Follow me." He does not say, He saw me, and said to me. So also acted the blessed Moses, writing all the history about himself as if it concerned another, and saying, "The Lord said unto Moses." And so, when the blessed evangelist also says here, not, I was leaning on Jesus' bosom, but, "There was leaning one of the disciples," let us recognize a custom of our author's, rather than fall into any wonder on the subject.

But what mean the words, "whom Jesus loved"? As if He did not love the others, of whom this same John has said above, "He loved them to the end;" and as the Lord Himself, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." And who could enumerate all the testimonies of the sacred pages, in which the Lord Jesus is exhibited as the lover, not only of this one, or of those who were then around Him, but of such also as were to be His members in the distant future, and of His universal Church? But there is some truth, doubtless, underlying these words, and having reference to the bosom on which the narrator was leaning. For what else can be indicated by the bosom but some hidden truth?