Augustine in His Own Words
know. For Moses fasted for forty days (Ex 34:28); and Elijah, too, the same number (1 Kgs 19:8). And our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself brought this number to fulfillment in His fasting (Mt 4:2). Through Moses, the Law is symbolized; through Elijah, the Prophets are symbolized; through the Lord, the Gospel is symbolized. And so the three appeared on that mountain, there where He showed Himself to His disciples in the brightness of His face and garments (Mt 17:1–3). For He appeared between Moses and Elijah, in other words, so that the Gospel give witness to the Law and the Prophets. Therefore, whether in the Law or in the Prophets or in the Gospel, in terms of fasting, the number forty is recommended to us.
But there is a great and broader sort of fast: to abstain from iniquities and the illicit pleasures of the world. This is the perfect fast: "that denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we may live soberly and justly and godly in this world" (Ti 2:12). What reward, according to the Apostle, comes with this fast? He goes on to say: "looking for that blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of the blessed God and our Savior, Jesus Christ" (Ti 2:13). Therefore, in this world we celebrate, so to speak, a Lent of abstinence when we live well, when we abstain from iniquities and illicit pleasures. In order that this abstinence not come without reward, we look for "that blessed hope and revelation of the glory of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ" (Ti 2:13).45 In that hope, when hope shall pass over into reality, we shall receive a denarius as our pay, for this salary was paid to the workers laboring in the vineyard, according to the Gospel (Mt 20:2, 9–10), which I believe you remember (for not everything has to be rehashed as if for the unlearned and the inexperienced). A denarius, which gets its name from the number "ten," was paid. When joined to forty, it becomes fifty. We, therefore, celebrate with hard labor the fortyday period before Easter; we celebrate with joy, as if having received our pay, the fifty-day period after Easter.46 For, as it were, to this health-giving labor of good deeds, which belongs to the number forty, there is added a denarius of rest and happiness that it may become fifty.
(5) The Lord Jesus Himself also signified this much more clearly when He spent forty days after His resurrection on earth with His disciples. What's more, when He had ascended into heaven on the fortieth day and ten days had passed, He sent the Holy Spirit as pay (Acts 2:1–4). These things were sym-
45. Note that Augustine gives Ti 2:13 in two different wordings here: "that blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of the blessed God" (illam beatam spem, et manifestationem gloriae beati Dei) and "that blessed hope and revelation of the glory of the great God" (beatam illam spem, et revelationem gloriae magni Dei). The reason is not clear. It may be that he is paraphrasing; it may also be that he is drawing on two different versions of the Vetus Latina, simply setting them side-by-side.
46. We know that Jo. ev. tr. 11 and 12 on John were delivered during Lent, and Jo. ev. tr. 13 was given during the Easter season. This sermon too seems to have been delivered between Easter and Pentecost.
The Exegete 179 bolic, and by certain signs the realities themselves were anticipated. We are nourished by signs that we may be able to come to the enduring realities themselves. For we are workmen, and we still labor in the vineyard. When the day ends, when the work ends, wages will be paid. But what workman endures to get his wages if he isn't nourished while he works? For even you don't just give your workman wages, do you? Don't you also bring him something that he may restore his strength with during his hard labor? Of course, you feed those you'll give wages to later. So too the Lord feeds us, while we work hard with these signs of the Scriptures. For if this joy of understanding mysteries were taken away from us, we would faint from our hard labor, and there would be no one to come and get paid.
(6) How, therefore, is this deed brought to perfection in the number forty? Perhaps for this reason: Because the Law was given in the Ten Commandments, and the Law had to be preached through the whole world, and this whole world is known in its four parts—east and west, south and north. From this, a denarius multiplied by four gives forty. Or maybe: Because through the Gospel—which has four books—the Law is fulfilled, because it was said in the Gospel: "I have not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it" (Mt 5:17). Therefore, whether it's the first reason or the second, or some other more likely one (which escapes me but doesn't escape the more learned), still it is clear that a certain perfection in good works is symbolized by the number forty. And these good works are especially practiced in our abstaining from illicit desires for the world, that is, by this broader sort of fasting. Listen also to the Apostle speaking: "Love is the fulfillment of the Law" (Rom 13:10). Where does love come from? From the grace of God, from the Holy Spirit. For we would not come up with it ourselves as if it were of our own making. It is a gift of God—and a great gift. "Because the love of God," he says, "is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom 5:5). Love, therefore, fulfills the Law, and it was very truly said: "Love is the fulfillment of the Law." Let us seek out this love in the way the Lord made it known. Remember what I have proposed: I intend to explain the number of thirtyeight years in that sick man, why that number thirty-eight belongs to the sickness rather than the cure. Therefore, as I was saying, love fulfills the Law. The number forty refers to the fulfillment of the Law in all deeds. But in love two commandments are recommended to us. Look, I beg you, and fix what I am saying in your memory. Be not despisers of the word [of God] so that your soul not become the wayside where tossed grains cannot germinate: "And the birds of the sky," it says, "will come and gather it" (Mt 13:4). Collect it, and lay it up in your hearts. Two commandments of love were recommended by the Lord: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind," and "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets" (Mt 22:37–40). Rightly, too, did the widow place all her means, two mites, among the gifts of God (Mk 12:42–44). Rightly, too, did that innkeeper receive two pieces of money for that ailing man wounded by the robbers that he might be healed (Lk 10:30–35). Rightly did Jesus spend two days among the Samaritans that he might strengthen them in love (Jn 4:40).47 Therefore, in cases when the number two symbolizes something good, this twofold love is being especially recommended. If, therefore, the number forty holds the perfection of the Law, and if the Law is not fulfilled except in the double commandment of love, why should you wonder that he was sick who had two less than forty?
(7) Let us, for this reason, now see with what mystery the Lord cures this sick man. For the Lord came, the teacher of love, himself full of love, "making short," as it was predicted about him, "his word upon the earth" (Rom 9:28), and he showed that the Law and the Prophets depend upon the two commandments of love. Therefore, Moses depended on them in his forty; Elijah [depended] on them with his; and the Lord brought this number in his witness. This Lord, when He is present, cures the sick man, but what does He say to him first? "Do you want to be healed?" (Jn 5:6) The man answered that he had no one who might put him into the pool. Truly a human being was necessary for his healing, but that [necessary] human being was also God: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and humanity, the man Jesus Christ" (1 Tm 2:5). Therefore, the human being who was necessary came. Why should the healing be put off? "Arise," He says, "take up your bed and walk" (Jn 5:8). He said three things: "Arise," "Take up your bed," and "Walk." But "Arise" was not a command to work, but the working of a cure. But He commanded the cured man [to do] two things: "Take up your bed and walk." I ask you, why would not "Walk" have sufficed? Or at any rate, why would not "Arise" have sufficed? For when that man arose healed, he would not have stayed on in that place. Would he not have arisen and gone away? Therefore, it also strikes me that Christ, who found the man lying there, found him lacking two things and so ordered him to do two things so that, by doing the two, the cured man fulfilled what he was lacking.
(8) How, then, may we find signified in these two commands of the Lord those two commands of love? He said, "Take up your bed and walk." Remember along with me, my brothers and sisters, what those two commandments are. For they ought to be very well known, and they ought not to come into
47. "Two days . . . love": See Jo. ev. tr. 15.33, 16.3 (BA 71:810–12, 818).
The Exegete
your mind only when they are mentioned by me. Rather, they ought never to be erased from your hearts. Indeed, always consider that God and neighbor must be loved: "God with all one's heart, with all one's soul, with all one's mind," and "the neighbor as one's self" (Mt 22:37–39). These must always be reflected upon. These must be pondered. These must be adhered to. These must be acted upon. These must be fulfilled. The love of God is first in the order of commandments, but the love of neighbor is first in the order of action. For the One who would enjoin this love on you in two commandments would not recommend to you the neighbor first and God afterwards, but God first and the neighbor afterwards. But because you do not yet see God, by loving your neighbor you merit seeing Him. By loving your neighbor you cleanse your eye for seeing God, as John clearly says: "If you do not love your brother whom you see, how will you be able to love God whom you do not see?" (1 Jn 4:20) Look, it is said to you, "Love God." If you should say to me, "Show me the one whom I am to love," what shall I answer except what John himself says: "No one has seen God at any time" (Jn 1:18)? And that you may not suppose that you are altogether unworthy of seeing God, he says: "God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God" (1 Jn 4:16). Therefore, love your neighbor, and look upon the source within you from which you love your neighbor. There you will see, as far as you can, God. Therefore, begin to love your neighbor. "Break your bread with the hungry; bring the needy without shelter into your house; if you see a naked man, clothe him, and despise not the household of your seed" (Is 58:7). But doing this, what will you achieve? "Then your light shall break forth as the morning" (Is 58:8). Your light is your God; he is "the morning" to you because He will come to you after the night of this world, for He neither rises nor sets because He remains forever. The One who had set for you when you were lost will be "the morning" for you when you return. Therefore, it seems to me that "Take up your bed" was a way of saying "Love your neighbor."
(9) But it is still closed [to us] and requires explanation, I think, why the love of neighbor is represented through the taking up of the bed—it should not upset us that a neighbor is represented by a bed, an inert and insensate thing. Let the neighbor not get angry if he is represented to us by something that is without soul or sensation. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself was called a "cornerstone" in that he brought and held together two peoples in himself (Eph 2:19–22).48 He was also called a "rock" from which water flowed forth: "And the rock was Christ" (1 Cor 10:4). Why is it surprising, then, that, if Christ is a rock, a neighbor might be wood? Yet not just any kind
48. " 'Cornerstone' . . . two peoples": See Jo. ev. tr. 9.17, 15.26 (BA 71:542–44, 800).