Augustine of Hippo

(de Con. Ev. l. iii. c. 25.) This manifestation of our Lord after His resurrection, John also relates. But when John says that the Apostle Thomas was not with the rest, while according to Luke, the two disciples on their return to Jerusalem found the eleven gathered together, we must understand undoubtedly that Thomas departed from them, before our Lord appeared to them as they spoke these things. For Luke gives occasion in his narrative, that it may be understood that Thomas first went out from them when the rest were saying these things, and that our Lord entered afterwards. Unless some one should say that the eleven were not those who were then called Apostles, but that these were eleven disciples out of the large number of disciples. But since Luke has added, And those that were with them, he has surely made it sufficiently evident that those called the eleven were the same as those who were called Apostles, with whom the rest were.
But let us see what mystery it was for the sake of which, according to Matthew and Mark, our Lord when He rose again gave the following command, I will go before you into Galilee, there shall ye see me. Which although it was accomplished, yet it was not till after many other things had happened, whereas it was so commanded, that it might be expected that it would have taken place alone, or at least before other things.

(ut sup.) But that which was said by the Angel, that is the Lord, must be taken prophetically, for by the word Galilee according to its meaning of transmigration, it is to be understood that they were about to pass over from the people of Israel to the Gentiles, to whom the Apostles preaching would not entrust the Gospel, unless the Lord Himself should prepare His way in the hearts of men. And this is what is meant by, He shall go before you into Galilee, there shall ye see him. But according to the interpretation of Galilee, by which it means "manifestation," we must understand that He will be revealed no more in the form of a servant, but in that form in which He is equal to the Father, which He has promised to His elect. That manifestation will be as it were the true Galilee, when we shall see Him as He is. This will also be that far more blessed transmigration from the world to eternity, from whence though coming to us He did not depart, and to which going before us He has not deserted us.

There is still more for you to hear. He ascends into heaven, accompanied by the eyes of the disciples gazing after him. He lets them observe it, and he makes them witnesses.… They certainly saw, touched and felt him. They confirmed their faith by looking at him and touching him. They accompanied him with their gaze as he ascended into heaven. With attentive ears, they heard the angel's voice assuring them and foretelling that Christ would come again.All these things were completed for them. Neither sight alone nor handling of the Lord's limbs was still enough to ensure that they would become witnesses of Christ and bravely endure everything for the preaching of the truth, fighting against falsehood even to the shedding of their blood. Who gave them such a capability? Listen to the Lord himself. "Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." "You have seen and touched, but you are still not able to preach and die for what you have seen and touched, until you are clothed with power from on high. Let human beings go now and attribute it to their own powers, if they can do anything. There was Peter, and he had not yet been confirmed in the rock. He had not yet been clothed with power from on high, because "nobody can receive anything, unless it has been given him from heaven."

You heard what came to our ears just now from the Gospel: "Lifting up his hands, he blessed them. And it happened, while he was blessing them he withdrew from them, and was carried up to heaven." Who was carried up to heaven? The Lord Christ was. Who is the Lord Christ? He is the Lord Jesus. What is this? Are you going to separate the human from the divine and make one person of God, another of the man, so that there is no longer a trinity of three but a quaternary of four? Just as you, a human being, are soul and body, so the Lord Christ is Word, soul and body. The Word did not depart from the Father. He both came to us and did not forsake the Father. He both took flesh in the womb and continued to govern the universe. What was lifted up into heaven, if not what had been taken from earth? That is to say, the very flesh, the very body, about which he was speaking when he said to the disciples, "Feel, and see that a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you can see that I have." Let us believe this, brothers and sisters, and if we have difficulty in meeting the arguments of the philosophers, let us hold on to what was demonstrated in the Lord's case without any difficulty of faith. Let them chatter, but let us believe.

Furthermore, who would be so impiously foolish as to say that God cannot turn the evil wills of people—as he wills, when he wills and where he wills—toward the good? But when he acts, he acts through mercy; when he does not act, it is through justice. For “he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills, he hardens.” Now when the apostle said this, he was commending grace, of which he had just spoken in connection with the twin children in Rebecca’s womb: “Before they had yet been born or had done anything good or bad, in order that the electing purpose of God might continue, it was said of them, ‘The elder shall serve the younger.’ ” Accordingly he refers to another prophetic witness, where it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I have hated.” Then, realizing how what he said could disturb those whose understanding could not penetrate to this depth of grace, he adds, “What therefore shall we say to this? Is there unrighteousness in God? God forbid!” Yet it does seem unfair that, without any merit derived from good works or bad, God should love the one and hate the other. Now if the apostle had wished us to understand that there were future good deeds of the other—which God, of course, foreknew—he never would have said “not of good works” but rather “of future works.” Thus he would have solved the difficulty; or rather he would have left no difficulty to be solved. As it is, however, when he went on to exclaim, “God forbid!” he proceeds immediately to add (to prove that no unfairness in God is involved here), “For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show pity to whom I will show pity.’ ” Now who but a fool would think God unfair either when he imposes penal judgment on the deserving or when he shows mercy to the undeserving? Finally, the apostle concludes and says, “Therefore it is not a question of him who wills nor of him who runs but of God’s showing mercy.”

We must consider what it is that we have been commanded to pray for—commanded by him from whom we learn to pray for and through whom we obtain what we pray for. He says, “In this manner shall you pray: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’?” In every kind of petition we ought first to try to gain the good will of the one we are petitioning. And the praise is usually placed at the beginning of the prayer, where in this instance our Lord has bidden us to say nothing else than “our Father who art in heaven.” Praise of God has been expressed in many manners of speech. Anyone can see this as he reads those forms of praise scattered widely here and there throughout the sacred Scriptures. But nowhere is there found any instruction for the people of Israel to say “our Father” or to pray to God as a Father. To them he has been proposed as a master, for they were servants; that is, they were as yet living according to the flesh. When I say this, I am referring to them when they received the commandments of the law which they were ordered to observe, for the prophets frequently point out that this same Lord of ours would have been their father as well, if they did not stray from his commandments. For instance, there are the following expressions: “I have begotten children and exalted them, but they have despised me,” and, “I have said, ‘You are gods and all of you the sons of the most high,’ ” and, “If I am a master, where is my fear? And if I am a father, where is my honor?” Even if we were to disregard those prophetic sayings that refer to the fact that there would be a Christian people who would have God as their Father—in accordance with that saying in the Gospel, “He gave them the power of becoming children of God”—there are still many other expressions whereby the Jews are reproved for the fact that by committing sins they refused to be children. The apostle Paul says, “As long as the heir is a little child, he differs in no way from a slave,” but he reminds us that we have received the spirit of adoption, by virtue of which we cry, “Abba, Father.”

Lastly, O Jews, if you try to distort these prophetic words into another meaning according to the dictates of your heart, you resist the Son of God against your own salvation.… The house of Jacob or Israel is the same people, both called and cast off—not called in respect to some and cast off in respect to others, but the entire house called to walk in the light of the Lord.… The reason why the house had been cast off was because its people were not walking in the light of the Lord, or some of the house certainly were called and others cast off in such a way that without any separation having been of the Lord’s table as regards the sacrifice of Christ. Both called and cast off were under the same old sacraments, to be sure; both those who walked in the light of the Lord and observed his precepts and those who rejected justice and deserved to be abandoned by it. If you choose to interpret these testimonies in this manner, what are you going to say and how will you interpret another prophet who cuts this reply away entirely, shouting with unmistakable manifestation: “ ‘I have no pleasure in you,’ says the Lord almighty, ‘and I will not receive a gift of your hand. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place sacrifice is offered in my name, a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles,’ says the Lord almighty.”

You have all just now been born again of water and the spirit, and can see that food and drink upon this table of the Lord in a new light, and receive it with a fresh love and piety. So I am obliged by the duty I have of giving you a sermon and by the anxious care by which I have given you birth, that Christ might be formed in you, to remind you infants of what the meaning is of such a great and divine sacrament, such a splendid and noble medicine, such a pure and simple sacrifice, which is not offered now just in the one earthly city of Jerusalem, nor into that tabernacle which was constructed by Moses, nor in the temple built by Solomon. These were just “shadows of things to come.” But “from the rising of the sun to its setting,” it is offered as the prophets foretold, and as a sacrifice of praise to God, according to the grace of the New Testament. No longer is a victim sought from the flocks for a blood sacrifice, nor is a sheep or a goat any more led to the divine altars, but now the sacrifice of our time is the body and blood of the priest himself. About him, indeed, it was foretold so long ago in the psalms, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” That Melchizedek, priest of God the most high, offered bread and wine when he blessed our father Abraham, we gather from reading about it in the book of Genesis.