Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
come to the sacred font; you will be washed in baptism; you will be renewed in the "bath of rebirth" (Ti 3:5); rising up from that washing, you will be without any sin. All the sins that, in the past, haunted you will be wiped out there. Your sins will be like the Egyptians following the Israelites, pursuing them, but only up to the Red Sea. What does "up to the Red Sea" mean? Up to the font consecrated by the cross and blood of Christ. Of course, what's red reddens [things?]. Don't you see how being part of Christ reddens [you?].55 Ask the eyes of faith. If you see the cross, then you should see the blood. If you see what hangs on the cross, then you should see what drips down from it. A lance pierced Christ's side, and our purchase price flowed forth. That's the reason baptism is signed with the sign of Christ, that is, the water where you are immersed and dyed and you pass through as though through the Red Sea. Your sins are your enemies. They follow you, but only up to the Red Sea. Once you plunge in, you will escape. But those sins will be obliterated, just as the waters engulfed the Egyptians while the Israelites escaped on dry land.56
The Lord's Prayer as Bilge-Pump
Eight days after receiving the Creed, competentes went through another rite, the "handing over the Prayer" (traditio orationis). Augustine explained the Lord's Prayer phrase-by-phrase much as he had done with the Creed. Early Christians believed that only the baptized were God's true sons and daughters, and so only they had the right to call God "Father" and, therefore, only they had rightful claim to pray the Lord's Prayer. Augustine plays on this and compares competentes to unborn children in the Church's womb who enjoy in advance the privileges and inheritance rights of sons and daughters. Below are two excerpts from a lengthy sermon. Note in speaking of "daily bread," he emphasizes the "bread of the Word" and alludes obliquely to the Eucharist, still secret to his as-yet-unbaptized audience. The Creed that competentes had memorized spoke of "one baptism for the forgiveness of sins." Augustine raises the question of sins on the far side of baptism: How are they forgiven if there is only one baptism? Augustine argues that the Lord's Prayer serves as a daily baptism and compares it to a pump that pumps bilgewater out of a ship. From Sermon 56:
55. "What's red reddens . . ." (Quod enim rubrum est, rubet. Non vides, quomodo rubeat pars Christi?): This phrase is terse and ambiguous. Augustine seems to play on the metaphor of dyeing clothes: the font is like a dyer's vat in which one is plunged and dyed red by Christ's blood; its indelible blood-red dye thus "tints" the baptized and "signifies" that one has become a member of Christ's body. Could the font in Hippo have been lined with red mosaic tiles, giving the water in the font something of a red tinge?
56. S. 213.1–9 (PL 38:1060–65); my trans. This is one of several sermons delivered on the Creed; see also s. 212, 214, 215, and De symbolo ad catechumenos. Augustine, as a presbyter, also published an address on the Creed that he delivered to a council of the North African bishops meeting in Hippo in 393: On Faith and the Creed (De fide et symbolo). For excerpts, see Chapter 8.
The Preacher 151
(4) First of all, our Lord chopped back on long-windedness so that you not pour out many, many words to God, as though you could teach God by many, many words. Piety, not wordiness, is what you need when you pray, "for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him" (Mt 6:8). Therefore, don't talk a lot, for He knows what you need. It might happen that someone will say: "If He knows what we need, why should we use even a few words, or why should we pray at all? He knows. Let Him give us what He knows we need." Even so, He wants you to pray so that His gift may be yearned for, lest it be unappreciated. After all, He Himself has implanted this very yearning. So the words that our Lord Jesus Christ taught in the Prayer are to shape our yearnings. You are not allowed to ask for anything other than what's written there.
(5) Our Lord says: "You are to say therefore: 'Our Father who art in heaven' " (Mt 6:9). You have begun, you see, to have God as your Father, but you'll really have Him so when you're born [in baptism]. But even now, before you're born, you have been conceived by His seed, and you are to come to birth from the font, as though from the Church's womb. "Our Father who art in heaven." Remember that from your father Adam you have been born for death, but from God the Father you will be born for life. Whatever you say [in prayer], say it in your hearts. Let there be feeling in the one praying so that there'll be results from the One hearing it.
"Hallowed be thy name." Why should you have to ask that the name of God be hallowed? It is holy. Why then are you to ask for the hallowing of what's already holy? What's more, when you ask that His name be hallowed, doesn't it sound as if you were asking Him for His sake and not for yours? Think about it, for you are to pray for your own sake. What you're asking for is this: that what's always holy in itself may be hallowed in you. . . .
(9) "Give us this day our daily bread" (Mt 6:11). It's very clear that in this petition we are praying for ourselves. When you said, "Hallowed be thy name," it had to be explained that you were praying for yourself, not for God. . . . But from this point on to the Prayer's end, it's clear that we are begging God for our own sake. When you say: "Give us this day our daily bread," you publicly profess that you come before God as a beggar. But don't be ashamed of that. No matter how rich someone may be here on earth, one comes before God as a beggar. A beggar stands in front of a rich person's house; the rich themselves stand before the house of the truly Rich and Powerful. . . .
(10) But, dearest ones, this bread by which the stomach is filled, by which the flesh is remade every day, this sort of bread you see God giving not only to His praisers but also to His blasphemers—a God who "makes his sun to rise on the good and the evil and sends rain on the just and the unjust" (Mt 5:45). You praise God; He feeds you. You blaspheme God; He feeds you. He waits for you to do penance, but if you don't change, He will condemn you. Now just because both the good and the evil receive bread of this sort from God, don't you think that there's bread of some kind which His children seek, bread about which the Lord said in the Gospel: "It is not fair to take the children's bread and to cast it to the dogs" (Mt 15:16)? Clearly, there is—but what sort of bread is it? And why is it called "daily bread"? It too is necessary. Without it we could not live; without this bread, we could not live. It's shameless to ask God for wealth; it's not shameless, however, to ask for daily bread. From wealth comes arrogance; from bread comes living. Still, since bread of that visible and tangible sort is given both to the good and to the evil, there is a daily bread which [God's] children ask for: the word of God. It's doled out to us every day. That's our daily bread. On it live not our stomachs, but our minds. It's necessary even now for us workers in the vineyard. It's food, not pay. The manager who hires a worker for the vineyard owes him two things: food (otherwise he'll drop); and pay (which he enjoys). Our everyday food on this earth is God's word, what's always being doled out in churches. Our pay after this work: that's called eternal life. Then again, in terms of that daily bread, if you understand what the faithful receive (and what you as baptized will receive), we do well when we ask for it and say, "Give us this day our daily bread," that we may live so as not to be excluded from this altar.
(11) "And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors" (Mt 6:12). This petition needs no explanation since we ask it for our own sake. We ask that our debts be remitted, for we are debtors not in money but in sins. Now perhaps you say: "You too?" I answer, Yes, me too. "What! Even you holy bishops are debtors?" Yes, we too are debtors. "Even you! Far be it from you, my lord. Do not wrong yourself." I do not wrong myself. I speak the truth. We [bishops] are debtors. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 Jn 1:8). We are baptized, and we are sinners. That's not because anything was left over after what was remitted us in baptism. It's because living means contracting [debts] that need daily remission. Those who are baptized and depart rise up without any debt, go forth without any debt. Those, however, who are baptized and hold on to this life contract things due to human frailty. Even if from these they're not shipwrecked, the bilge-pumps must be used, for if the pumps are not used, there's a gradual leaking that can sink the whole ship. By this prayer, the bilge gets pumped out. What's more, we should not only pray, but give alms as well. For when we use bilge-pumps to stop the ship from sinking, we work with both voices and hands.57 We work our voices when we say: "Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors."
57. "Voices and hands": Augustine saw the Lord's Prayer as something not just to be prayed, but also enacted, interpreting it in light of Luke 6:37–38: "Forgive, and it will be forgiven you; give, and it will be given