Augustine of Hippo

(Tr. cvii. 4) At the time at which He was speaking, both were still in the world. Yet we must not understand, I am no more in the world, metaphorically of the heart and life; for could there ever have been a time when He loved the things of the world? It remains then that He means that He was not in the world, as He had been before; i. e. that He was soon going away. Do we not say every day, when any one is going to leave us, or going to die, such an one is gone? This is shown to be the sense by what follows; for He adds, And now I come to Thee. And then He commends to His Father those whom He was about to leave: Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me. As man He prays God for His disciples, whom He received from God. But mark what follows: That they may be one, as We are: He does not say, That they may be one with Us, as We are one; but, that they may be one: that they may be one in their nature, as We are one in Ours. For, in that He was God and man in one person, as man He prayed, as God He was one with Him to Whom He prayed.

(iv. de Trin. c. ix) He does not say, That I and they maybe one, though He might have said so in the sense, that He was the head of the Church, and the Church His body; not one thing, but one person: the head and the body being one Christ. But showing something else, viz. that His divinity is consubstantial with the Father, He prays that His people may in like manner be one; but one in Christ, not only by the same nature, in which mortal man is made equal to the Angels, but also by the same will, agreeing most entirely in the same mind, and melted into one Spirit by the fire of love. This is the meaning of, That they may be one as We are: viz. that as the Father and the Son are one not only by equality of substance, but also in will, so they, between whom and God the Son is Mediator, may be one not only by the union of nature, but by the union of love.

"And now," He adds, "I am no more in the world, and these are in the world." If your thoughts turn to the very hour in which He was speaking, both were still in the world; to wit, He Himself, and those of whom He was so speaking: for it is not in respect of the tendency of heart and life that we can or ought to understand it, so that they should be described as still in the world, on the ground that they still savored of the earthly; and that He was no longer in the world, because divine in the disposition of His mind. For there is one word used here, which makes any such understanding altogether inadmissible; because He does not say, And I am not in the world; but, "I am no more in the world:" thereby showing that He Himself had been in the world, but was no more so. And are we then at liberty to believe that He at one time savored of the worldly, and, delivered at length from such a mistake, no longer retained the old disposition? Who would venture to shut himself up in so profane a meaning. It remains, therefore, that in the same sense in which He Himself also was previously in the world, He declared that He was no longer in the world, that is to say, in His bodily presence; in other words, showing thereby that His own absence from the world was now in the immediate future, and theirs later, when He said that He was no longer here, and that they were so, although both He and they were still present. For He thus spake, as a man in harmony with men, in accordance with the prevailing custom of human speech. Do we not say every day, he is no longer here, of one who is on the very point of departure? And such in particular is the way we are wont to speak of those who are at the point of death. And besides all else, the Lord Himself, as if foreseeing the thoughts that might possibly be excited in those who were afterwards to read these words, added, "And I come to Thee:" explaining thereby in some measure why He said, "I am no more in the world."

But here He proceeds: "While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name." Since I am coming, He says, to Thee, keep them in Thy name, in which I myself have kept them while I was with them. In the Father's name, the Son as man kept His disciples, when placed side by side with them in human presence; but the Father also, in the name of the Son, kept those whom He heard and answered when praying in the name of the Son. For to them had it also been said by the Son Himself: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you." But we are not to take this in any such carnal way, as that the Father and Son keep us in turn, with an alternation in the guardianship of both in guarding us, as if one succeeded when the other departed; for we are guarded all at once by the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, who is the one true and blessed God. But Scripture does not exalt us save by descending to us: as the Word, by becoming flesh, came down to lift us up, and fell not so as to remain Himself in the depths. If we have known Him who thus descendeth, let us rise with Him who lifteth us up; and let us understand, when He speaks thus, that He is marking a distinction in the persons, without making any separation of the natures. While, therefore, the Son in bodily presence was keeping His disciples, the Father was not waiting the Son's departure in order to succeed to the guardianship, but both were keeping them by Their spiritual power; and when the Son withdrew from them His bodily presence, He retained along with the Father the spiritual guardianship. For when the Son also as man assumed the office of their guardian, He did not withdraw them from the Father's guardianship; and when the Father gave them to the guardianship of the Son, in the very giving He acted not apart from Him to whom He gave them, but gave them to the Son as man, yet not apart from that same Son Himself as God.

When, therefore, God's children say of those who did not have perseverance, "They went out from us, but they were not of us," and add, "Because if they had been of us, they would assuredly have continued with us," what else are they saying than that they were not children, even when they were called and professed to be children? It is not because they simulated righteousness but because they did not continue in it. For he does not say, "If they had been of us, they would assuredly have maintained a real and not a feigned righteousness with us." Rather, he says, "If they had been of us, they would assuredly have continued with us." Beyond a doubt, he wanted them to continue in goodness. Therefore they were in goodness. However, because they did not remain in it—that is, they did not persevere to the end—he says, "They were not of us, even when they were with us." In other words, they were not of the number of children even when they were in the faith as children because those who are truly children are foreknown and predestined as conformed to the image of his Son. They are called according to his purpose so as to be elected, as is evident in the fact that the son of promise does not perish, but the son of perdition does.

(Tr. cvii. 6) The Son as man kept His disciples in the Father's name, being placed among them in human form: the Father again kept them in the Son's name, in that He heard those who asked in the Son's name. But we must not take this carnally, as if the Father and Son kept us in turns, for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost guard us at the same time: but Scripture does not raise us, except it stoop to us. Let us understand then that when our Lord says this, He is distinguishing the persons, not dividing the nature, so that when the Son was keeping His disciples by His bodily presence, the Father was waiting to succeed Him on His departure; but both kept them by spiritual power, and when the Son withdrew His bodily presence, He still held with the Father the spiritual keeping. For when the Son as man received them into His keeping, He did not take them from the Father's keeping, and when the Father gave them into the Son's keeping, it was to the Son as man, who at the same time was God. Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition; i. e. the betrayer of Christ, predestined to perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, especially the prophecy in Psalm 108.

While the Lord is still speaking to the Father, and praying for His disciples, He says: "I have given them Thy saying; and the world hath hated them." That hatred they had not yet experienced in those sufferings of their own, which afterwards overtook them; but He speaks thus in His usual way, foretelling the future in words of the past tense. And then, subjoining the reason of their being hated by the world, He says, "Because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." This was conferred on them by regeneration; for by generation they were of the world, as He had already said to them, "I have chosen you out of the world." It was therefore a gracious privilege bestowed upon them, that they, like Himself, should not be of the world, through the deliverance which He was giving them from the world. He, however, was never of the world; for even in respect of His servant-form He was born of that Holy Spirit of whom they were born again. For if on that account they were no more of the world, because born again of the Holy Spirit; on the same account He was never of the world, because born of the Holy Spirit.

The heirs therefore of the New Testament are sanctified in that truth which was adumbrated in the purifications of the Old Testament; and when they are sanctified in the truth, they are in other words sanctified in Christ, who said in truth "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." As also when He said, "The truth shall make you free," in explanation of His words, He added soon after, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed;" in order to show that what He had previously called the truth, He a minute afterwards denominates the Son. And what else did He mean by the words before us, "Sanctify them in the truth," but, Sanctify them in me?

Finally, He proceeds, and doing so fails not to suggest the same with increasing clearness: "Thy speech is truth." What else did He mean than "I am the truth"? For the Greek Gospel has logos, which is also the word that is found in the passage where it is said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And that Word at least we know to be the only begotten Son of God, which "was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Hence also there might have been put here as it actually has been put in certain copies "Thy Word is truth;" just as in some copies that other passage is written, "In the beginning was the speech." But in the Greek without any variation it is logos in both cases. The Father therefore sanctifies in the truth, that is, in His own Word, in His Only begotten, His own heirs and His (the Son's) co-heirs.