Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings (continued)
PREFACE
realities to interior realities. He took the form of a slave and he deigned to show himself as lowly to those who were fallen low so that his sublimity could be known by those who are rising.''!7 Christ, the Mediator, is the way to the Fatherland: Listen to the Lord, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (Jn 14:6). If you seek the truth, follow the way, for the way is also the truth; it is where you are going; it is the means by which you go. It is through Christ that you come to Christ. How do we come to Christ by Christ? To Christ God by Christ man; by the Word made flesh to the Word which was in the beginning with God; by what men have eaten to what the angels eat each day. It is in fact what was written: "He gave them the bread of heaven; man ate the bread of angels" (Ps 77:24-25). '""What is the bread of angels?" "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1). How did man eat the bread of angels? 'And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us" (Jn 1:14).18
The humility of God makes up for the pride of man. The bread of angels has adapted itself to the present condition of humanity; it has become the milk of babes. It is like the mother who nourishes herself with bread and changes it into milk for her child.
In the Church, those who are united to the Truth speak the Truth by which all things were made (cf. Jn 1:2). The Truth is the Word made flesh and his dwelling among us. The Truth is Christ born of God, one from one, the only and coeternal Son. Truth is in the form of a slave; Truth is born of the Virgin Mary, Truth is in the passion, the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. It is alway the Truth that the little one can grasp and that the little one cannot grasp. Truth in the bread and the milk, in the bread of the mighty and the milk of little ones; for it is the same bread which passes through the flesh to become milk.19
17. Cf. Augustine, Contra epistolam Manichaet quam vocant fundamenti, 36, 41, cf. Introduction, below.
18. Augustine, Tractatus in Jobannis evangelium, XIII.4. 19. Augustine, Enarratio in psalmum, 33.s.1,6.