42. Jo. ev. tr. 2.16 (BA 71:204–6); trans. Rettig, FOTC 78:73–74.
The Preacher 143 fear occupy your heart that it may lead in love. Let the scar follow upon the physician's scalpel. Such is this Physician that not even scars appear. Just submit yourself to His hand. . . . Fear is the medication, love is health.41
(vi) Christ the Eye Doctor and Pharmacist
Augustine often compared Christ to an eye doctor who cures the spiritual cataracts that block the human heart from seeing God. Here he speaks of Christ as an eye doctor who uses his own flesh to create the medicine to heal our spiritual blindness. From Tractates on the Gospel of John 2:
(16) Indeed, because "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:14), by the Nativity itself He made a salve by which the eyes of our heart may be wiped clean and we may be able to see His majesty through His lowliness. Thus "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." He healed our eyes. And what follows? "And we saw His glory" (Jn 1:14). His glory no one could see unless one were healed by the lowliness of His flesh. Why could we not see? Concentrate, my beloved people, and see what I am saying. Dust, so to speak, had forcibly entered humanity's eye; earth had entered it, had injured the eye, and it could not see the light. That injured eye is anointed; it was [once] injured by earth, and earth is put there that it may be healed. For all salves and medicines are nothing but [compounds] of earth. You have been blinded by dust, you are healed by dust; thus the flesh had blinded you, flesh heals you. For the soul had become carnal by assenting to carnal passions; from that, the eye of the heart had been blinded. "The Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14). That Physician made a salve for you. And because He came in such a way that by His flesh He might extinguish the faults of the flesh and by His death He might kill death, it was therefore effected in you that, because "the Word became flesh," you could say, "And we saw His glory."42
(vii) Doctor's Scars as Medicine
The image of Christ the Doctor appears especially in the Lenten and Easter sermons because Augustine sees Christ's Passion and Resurrection as the climax of our healing. In this Easter Week sermon, Augustine describes Christ as both the doctor and the medicine. From Sermon 237:
(1) Today the story of the Lord's Resurrection according to Luke's Gospel was brought to a close, and we heard of the Lord's appearance in the midst of
41. Ep. Jo. 9.4 (SC 75:386); trans. Rettig, FOTC 92:252. See also s. 278.4–5. 42. Jo. ev. tr. 2.16 (BA 71:204–6); trans. Rettig, FOTC 78:73–74.