Augustine of Hippo

Then [the Evangelist] continues: "Afterwards Jesus, knowing that all things were accomplished, that Scripture might be accomplished, says, 'I thirst.' Now there was a vessel set here full of vinegar, and putting a sponge full of vinegar around [a stalk of] hyssop, they raised it to his lips. When therefore Jesus had taken the vinegar, he said, 'It is finished.' And, bowing his head, he delivered over his spirit." Who can so organize what he does as this man organized what he suffered? But the man, the Mediator of God and man, the man about whom one reads that it was foretold: "And he is a man and who can know him?" For the men through whom these things happened did know the man [to be] God. For he who was hidden as God was apparent as man; he who was apparent suffered these things and he who was hidden, the very same One, organized all these things. Therefore he saw that all the things were finished that were necessary to be done before he took the vinegar and delivered over his spirit; and that this too might be accomplished that Scripture had foretold, "And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink," he said, "I thirst," as though he were to say, "In doing this you have fallen short; give what you are." For indeed the Jews themselves were the vinegar, deteriorating from the wine of the patriarchs and prophets, and, as it were, filled from a full vessel, from the iniquity of this world, having their heart like a sponge, deceitful, so to speak, in its cavernous and tortuous hiding places. But the hyssop around which they put the sponge full of vinegar, because it is a lowly herb and cleanses the breast, we take appropriately as the lowliness of Christ that they surrounded and thought they had come round to thwarting. And in regard to this is also that [place] in the psalm, "You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed." For we are cleansed by the lowliness of Christ, because unless "he had humbled himself, made obedient even to the death of the cross," his blood assuredly would not have been poured out for the remission of sins, that is, for our cleansing.

For it was proclaimed beforehand by the very same prophets that they [Jews] would not understand, because it was necessary for other things to be fulfilled, and by a hidden and just decree of God, for due punishment to be paid in accordance with their merits. For, indeed, he whom they crucified, he to whom they gave gall and vinegar—although he was hanging on the cross—he said to the Father, for the sake of those whom he would have led from the darkness into the light, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." But, for the sake of the others whom he was to abandon for more hidden causes, he said long before through the prophet, "And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their table become as a snare before them, and a recompense and a stumbling block. Let their eyes be darkened that they see not; and their back you always bend down." Therefore, they roam about anywhere and everywhere, their darkened eyes a most remarkable proof for our cause, so that through them our arguments are upheld at the very time that this same people is rejected.

But the Jews who slew him, and would not believe in him, because it behoved him to die and rise again, were yet more miserably wasted by the Romans, and utterly rooted out from their kingdom, where aliens had already ruled over them, and were dispersed through the lands (so that indeed there is no place where they are not), and are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ. And very many of them, considering this, even before his passion, but chiefly after his resurrection, believed on him, of whom it was predicted, "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved." But the rest are blinded, of whom it was predicted, "Let their table be made before them a trap, and a retribution, and a stumbling-block. Let their eyes be darkened lest they see, and bow down their back alway." Therefore, when they do not believe our Scriptures, their own, which they blindly read, are fulfilled in them, lest perchance any one should say that the Christians have forged these prophecies about Christ which are quoted under the name of the sibyl, or of others, if such there be, who do not belong to the Jewish people.

"Many hear the word of truth, but some believe and others speak against it. Therefore the former will to believe, but the latter do not will." Who would not know this? Who would deny it? But since in some persons the will is prepared by God and in others it is not, we must indeed distinguish what comes from his mercy and what comes from his judgment. "That which Israel sought," says the apostle, "he has not obtained, but the elect have obtained it, and the rest have been blinded. As it is written, 'God has given them the spirit of insensibility: eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, until this present day.' And David says, 'Let their table be made a snare, and a recompense and a stumbling block to them. Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see; and bow down their back always.' " Behold mercy and judgment: mercy on the elect, who have obtained the justice of God, but judgment on the others who have been blinded. And yet the former have believed, because they have willed, while the latter have not believed, because they have not willed. Hence, mercy and judgment were brought about in their own wills. Clearly, this election is through grace, not at all through merits. As the apostle had earlier said, "Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace. And if by grace, it is not now by works; otherwise grace is no more grace." Therefore, it is by grace that the elect have obtained what they have obtained; there preceded nothing that they might first give so that it might be given to them in recompense. God saved them for nothing. As to those others who were blinded, as it clearly stated here, it was done in retribution. "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth." But "his ways" are "unsearchable." Hence, the mercy by which he freely liberates and the truth by which he justly judges are both unsearchable.

"And they gave for My food gall, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink" [Psalm 69:22]. This was done indeed to the letter. And the Gospel declares this to us. But we must understand, brethren, that the very fact that I found not comforters, that the very fact that I found not one that together should be made sorrowful, this was My gall, this to Me was bitter, this was vinegar: bitter because of grief, vinegar because of their old man. For we read, that to Him indeed gall was offered, as the Gospel speaks; but for drink, not for food. [Matthew 27:34] Nevertheless, we must so take and consider that when fulfilled, which here had been before predicted, "They gave for My food gall:" and in that very action, not only in this saying, we ought to seek for a mystery, at secret things to knock, to enter the rent veil of the Temple, to see there a Sacrament, both in what there has been said and in what there has been done. "They gave," He says, "for My food gall:" not the thing itself which they gave was food, for it was drink: but "for food they gave it." Because already the Lord had taken food, and into it there had been thrown gall. But He had taken Himself pleasant food, when He ate the Passover with His disciples: therein He showed the Sacrament of His Body. Unto this food so pleasant, so sweet, of the Unity of Christ, of which the Apostle makes mention, saying, "For one bread, One Body, being many we are;" [1 Corinthians 10:17] unto this pleasant food who is there that adds gall, except the gainsayers of the Gospel, like those persecutors of Christ? For less the Jews sinned in crucifying Him walking on earth, than they that despise Him sitting in Heaven. That which then the Jews did, in giving above the food which He had already taken that bitter draught to drink, the same they do that by evil living bring scandal upon the Church: the same do embittered heretics, "But let them not be exalted in their own selves." They give gall after so delectable meat. But what does the Lord? He admits them not to His Body. In this mystery, when they presented gall, the Lord Himself tasted, and would not drink. [Matthew 27:34] If we did not suffer them, neither at all should we taste: but because it is necessary to suffer them, we must needs taste. But because in the members of Christ such sort cannot be, they can be tasted, received into the Body they cannot be. "And they gave for My food gall, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink." I was thirsting, and vinegar I received: that is, for the faith of them I longed, and I found oldness.

They themselves have become full of gall and bitterness in serving food of gall and vinegar to the living Bread. How else do they look on these prophecies in the psalm: "Let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see," and how are they to be upright in order to lift up their heart, they about whom it has been foretold, "and they always bend down their back together"? These prophecies have not been made, however, about all the Jews; only about those to whom the predictions apply. These indictments do not concern those who believed in Christ at that time because of these very prophecies or those who have believed in Christ up to the present or who, henceforth, up to the end of the world, will believe in Christ, that is, the true Israel who will see the Lord face to face. "For they are not all Israelites who are sprung from Israel; nor because they are the descendants of Abraham, are they all his children; but through Isaac shall your posterity bear your name. This is to say, they are not the children of God who are the children of the flesh, but it is the children of promise who are reckoned as a posterity." They belong to the spiritual Zion and the cities of Judah, that is, to the churches about whom the apostle says, "And I was unknown by sight to the churches of Judah, which were in Christ," since a little later in the same psalm appears, "For God will save Zion, and the cities of Judah shall be built up. And they shall dwell there and acquire it by inheritance. And the seed of his servants shall possess it; and they that love his name shall dwell therein." When the Jews hear these words, they take them in their natural meaning and imagine an earthly Jerusalem that is in slavery with its children, not our eternal mother who is in heaven.

"Let the table of them be made in their own presence for a trap" [Psalm 69:23]. Like the trap which for Me they set, in giving Me such a draught, let such a trap be for them. Why then, "in their own presence"? "Let the table of them be made for a trap," would have been sufficient. They are such as know their iniquity, and in it most obstinately do persevere: in their own presence there is made a trap for them. These are they that, being too destructive, "go down into Hell alive." Lastly, of persecutors what has been said? Except that the Lord were in us, perchance alive they had swallowed us up. What is alive? Consenting to them, and knowing that we ought not to consent to them. Therefore in their own presence there is made a trap, and they are not amended. Even though in their own presence there is a trap, let them not fall into it. Behold they know the trap, and thrust out foot, and bow their necks to be caught. How much better were it to turn away from the trap, to acknowledge sin, to condemn error, to be rid of bitterness, to pass over into the Body of Christ, to seek the Lord's glory! But so much prevails presumption of mind, that even in their own presence the trap is, and they fall into it. "Let the eyes of them be darkened, that they see not," follows here: that whereas without benefit they have seen, it may chance to them even not to see. "Let the table of them," therefore, "be made in their own presence for a trap." It is not from one wishing, but from one prophesying: not in order that it may come to pass, but because it will come to pass. This we have often remarked, and you ought to remember it: lest that which the prescient mind says in the Spirit of God, it should seem with ill will to imprecate....Let it then be done to them, "both for a requital and for a stumbling-block." And is this by any means unjust? It is just. Why? For it is "for a requital." For not anything would happen to them, which was not owed. "For a requital" it is done, "and for a stumbling-block:" for they are themselves a stumbling-block to themselves.

"Let the habitation of them become forsaken" [Acts 1:20] [Psalm 69:26]. This is now evident. For in the same manner as He has mentioned not only a secret deliverance of His, saying, "Give heed to My soul, and redeem her;" but also one open after the body, adding, "because of mine enemies deliver me:" so also to these men He foretells how there are to be certain secret misfortunes, whereof a little before He was speaking....For the blindness of the Jews was secret vengeance: but the open was what? "Let their habitation become forsaken, and in their tabernacles let there not be any one to inhabit." There has come to pass this thing in the very city Jerusalem, wherein they thought themselves mighty in crying against the Son of God, "Crucify, Crucify;" [John 19:6] and in prevailing because they were able to kill Him that raised dead men. How mighty to themselves, how great, they seemed! There followed afterwards the vengeance of the Lord, stormed was the city, utterly conquered the Jews, slain were I know not how many thousands of men. No one of the Jews is permitted to come there now: where they were able to cry against the Lord, there by the Lord they are not permitted to dwell. They have lost the place of their fury: and O that even now they would know the place of their rest! What profit to them was Caiaphas in saying, "If we shall have let go this man thus, there will come the Romans, and take away from us both place and kingdom"? [John 11:48] Behold, both they did not let Him go alive, and He lives: and there have come the Romans, and have taken from them both place and kingdom. But now we heard, when the Gospel was being read, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered together your sons, as a hen her chickens under her wings, and you would not? Behold there is left to you your house forsaken." [Matthew 23:37-38] ...

Why so? "For Him whom You have smitten they have themselves persecuted, and upon the pain of my wounds they have added" [Psalm 69:27]. How then have they sinned if they have persecuted one by God smitten? What sin is ascribed to their mind? Malice. For the thing was done in Christ which was to be. To suffer indeed He had come, and He punished him through whom He suffered. For Judas the traitor was punished, and Christ was crucified: but us He redeemed by His blood, and He punished him in the matter of his price. For he threw down the price of silver, for which by him the Lord had been sold; [Matthew 27:5] and he knew not the price wherewith he had himself by the Lord been redeemed. This thing was done in the case of Judas. But when we see that there is a sort of measure of requital in all men, and that not any one can be suffered to rage more than he has received power to do: how have they "added," or what is that smiting of the Lord? Without doubt He is speaking in the person of him from whom He had received a body, from whom He had taken unto Him flesh, that is in the person of mankind, of Adam himself who was smitten with the first death because of his sin. [Genesis 3:6] Mortal therefore here are men born, as born with their punishment: to this punishment they add, whosoever do persecute men. For now here man would not have had to die, unless God had smitten him. Why then do you, O man, rage more than this? Is it little for a man that some time he is to die? Each one of us therefore bears his punishment: to this punishment they would add that persecute us. This punishment is the smiting of the Lord. For the Lord smote man with the sentence: "What day you shall have touched it," He says, "with death you shall die." [Genesis 2:17] Out of this death He had taken upon Him flesh, and our old man has been crucified together with Him. [Romans 6:6] By the voice of that man He has said these words, "Him whom You have smitten they have themselves persecuted, and upon the pain of My wounds they have added." Upon what pain of wounds? Upon the pain of sins they have themselves added. For sins He has called His wounds. But do not look to the Head, consider the Body; according to the voice whereof has been said by the Same in that Psalm, wherein He showed there was His voice, because in the first verse thereof He cried from the Cross, "God, My God, look upon Me, why have You forsaken Me?" There in continuation He says, "Afar from My safety are the words of Mine offenses."...

It is evident that those things do not happen in the church without causing great sadness to the saints and the faithful; may he console us who foretold all these things and who warned us not to grow cold because of the prevalence of iniquity but to persevere to the end that we may be saved. As far as I am concerned, if there is in me the smallest spark of the charity of Christ, "Who of you is weak, and I am not weak; who is scandalized and I am not on fire?" Do not increase my sufferings, therefore, by falling either into false suspicions or into the sins of others; do not, I beg of you, make me say of you, "And they have added to the grief of my wounds." For those who take pleasure in these sorrows of ours, of whom it was long ago foretold in the person of the body of Christ, "They that sat in the gate, spoke against me; and they that drank wine made me their song," are much more readily borne with; indeed, we have learned to pray for them and to wish them well. But, for what other purpose do they sit there, and what else do they aim at, except, when some bishop or cleric or monk or nun has fallen, that they may believe, assert and contend that all are like that—although it cannot be proved of all? Yet, when some married woman has been found to be an adulteress, they do not cast off their wives or accuse their mothers; but, when it is a case of those who profess a sacred calling, if some false charge has been rumored about or some true one has been published, they take it up, go to work on it, toss it about, so as to have it universally believed. Therefore, of those who take sweetness for their evil tongues from our sorrows, it is easy to compare them with those dogs, if, perchance, we are to take in an adverse sense, those who licked the sores of the beggar who lay before the rich man's gate and who bore hard and humiliating things until he came to rest in Abraham's bosom.

"Lay iniquity upon their iniquity" [Psalm 69:28]. What is this? Who would not be afraid? To God is said, "Lay iniquity upon their iniquity." Whence shall God lay iniquity? For has He iniquity to lay? For we know that to be true which has been spoken through Paul the Apostle, "What then shall we say? Is there anywise iniquity with God? Far be it." [Romans 9:14] Whence then, "Lay iniquity upon iniquity"? How must we understand this? May the Lord be with us, that we may speak, and because of your weariness may be able to speak briefly. Their iniquity was that they killed a just Man: there was added another, that they crucified the Son of God. Their raging was as though against a man: but "if they had known, the Lord of Glory they had never crucified." [1 Corinthians 2:8] They with their own iniquity willed to kill as it were a man: there was laid iniquity upon their own iniquity, so that the Son of God they should crucify. Who laid this iniquity upon them? He that said, "Perchance they will reverence My Son," [Matthew 21:37] Him I will send. For they were wont to kill servants sent to them, to demand rent and profit. He sent the Son Himself, in order that Him also they might kill. He laid iniquity upon their own iniquity. And these things did God do in wrath, or rather in just requital? For, "May it be done to them," He says, "for a requital and for a stumbling-block." They had deserved to be so blinded as not to know the Son of God. And this God did, laying iniquity upon their iniquity; not in wounding, but in not making whole. For in like manner as you increase a fever, increasest a disorder, not by adding disorder, but by not relieving: so because they were of such sort as that they merited not to be healed, in their very naughtiness in a manner they advanced; as it is said, "But evil men and wicked doers advance for the worse:" [2 Timothy 3:13] and iniquity is laid upon their own iniquity. "And let them not enter in Your righteousness." This is a plain thing.

"Let them be blotted out from the book of the living" [Psalm 69:29]. For had they been some time written therein? Brethren, we must not so take it, as that God writes any one in the book of life, and blots him out. If a man said, "What I have written I have written," [John 19:22] concerning the title where it had been written, "King of the Jews:" does God write any one, and blot him out? He foreknows, He has predestined all before the foundation of the world that are to reign with His Son in life everlasting. [Romans 8:29] These He has written down, these same the Book of Life does contain. Lastly, in the Apocalypse, what says the Spirit of God, when the same Scripture was speaking of the oppressions that should be from Antichrist? "There shall give consent to him all they that have not been written in the book of life." [Revelation 13:8] So then without doubt they will not consent that have been written. How then are these men blotted out from that book wherein they were never written? This has been said according to their own hope, because they thought of themselves that they were written. What is, "let them be blotted out from the book of life"? Even to themselves let it be evident, that they were not there. By this method of speaking has been said in another Psalm, "There shall fall from Your side a thousand, and tens of thousands from on Your right hand:" that is, many men shall be offended, even out of that number who thought that they would sit with You, even out of that number who thought that they would stand at Your right hand, being severed from the left-hand goats: [Matthew 25:33] not that when any one has there stood, he shall afterwards fall, or when any one with Him has sat, he shall be cast away; but that many men were to fall into scandal, who already thought themselves to be there, that is, many that thought that they would sit with You, many that hoped that they would stand at the right hand, will themselves fall. So then here also they that hoped as though by the merit of their own righteousness themselves to have been written in the book of God, they to whom is said, "Search the Scriptures, wherein ye think yourselves to have life eternal:" [John 5:39] when their condemnation shall have been brought even to their own knowledge, shall be effaced from the book of the living, they shall know themselves not to be there. For the verse which follows, explains what has been said: "And with just men let them not be written." I have said then "Let them be effaced," according to their hope: but according to Your justice I say what?

"Poor and sorrowful I am" [Psalm 69:30]. Why this? Is it that we may acknowledge that through bitterness of soul this poor One does speak evil? For He has spoken of many things to happen to them. And as if we were saying to Him, "Why such things?"— "Nay, not so much!" He answers, "poor and sorrowful I am." They have brought Me to want, unto this sorrow they have set Me down, therefore I say these words. It is not, however, the indignation of one cursing, but the prediction of one prophesying. For He was intending to recommend to us certain things which hereafter He says of His poverty and His sorrow, in order that we may learn to be poor and sorrowful. For, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." [Matthew 5:3] And, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." This therefore He does Himself before now show to us: and so, "poor and sorrowful I am." The whole Body of Him says this. The Body of Christ in this earth is poor and sorrowful. But let Christians be rich. Truly if Christians they are, they are poor; in comparison with the riches celestial for which they hope, all their gold they count for sand. "And the health of Your countenance, O God, has taken Me up." Is this poor One anywise forsaken? When do you deign to bring near to your table a poor man in rags? But again, this poor One the health of the countenance of God has taken up: in His countenance He has hidden His need. For of Him has been said, "You shall hide them in the hiding place of Your countenance." But in that countenance what riches there are would ye know? Riches here give you this advantage, that you may dine on what you will, whenever you will: but those riches, that you may never hunger.

For what is more fruitful or more filled with the truest confession than that passage in one of your letters in which you humbly bewail the fact that our nature did not remain as it was created but was debased by the father of the human race? In your letter you said, "But I am poor and sorrowful," I, that am still hardened in the filth of an earthly image, having in me more of the first Adam than of the second, still give my attention to the senses of the flesh and to earthly acts. How shall I dare to depict myself when earthly corruption proves that I deny my heavenly image? I blush to paint what I am, I do not dare to paint what I am not. But what good will it do me, wretched as I am, "to hate iniquity and to love virtue," when I do rather what I hate and am too sluggish to strive to do what I love? I am torn apart, fighting with myself in an interior warfare, while "the spirit lusts against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit," and "the law of my body under the law of sin fights against the law of my mind." Unhappy am I who have absorbed the poisonous taste of that hateful tree, not the wood of the cross! The ancestral poison hardens in me, from Adam the father, who by his fall has undone the whole race. These and many other things you said, groaning over your misery and expecting the redemption of your body, knowing yourself saved by hope, if not yet in fact.

"And it shall please God:" that I shall praise Him, shall please: "above a new calf, bearing horns and hoofs." More grateful to Him shall be the sacrifice of praise than the sacrifice of a calf. "The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me." "Immolate to God the sacrifice of praise." So then His praise going forth from my mouth shall please God more than a great victim led up to His altar....Therefore above this calf my praising shall please You, such as hereafter will be, after poverty and sorrow, in the eternal society of Angels, where neither adversary there shall be in battle to be tossed, nor sluggard from earth to be stirred up. "Let the needy see and rejoice" [Psalm 69:32]. Let them believe, and in hope be glad. Let them be more needy, in order that they may deserve to be filled: lest while they belch out pride's satiety, there be denied them the bread whereon they may healthily live. "Seek the Lord," ye needy, hunger ye and thirst; [Matthew 5:6] for He is Himself the living bread that came down from Heaven. [John 6:33, 51] "Seek the Lord, and your soul shall live." You seek bread, that your flesh may live: the Lord seek ye, that your soul may live. [Isaiah 55:3]