Notes 112
Contents
Introduction v
1. The Incarnation 1
2. Walk in the Light 4
3. The Commandment of Love 10
4. ID Am Writing to You 14
5. Two Loves T
6. Christ and the Antichrists 24
7. 'The Spiritual Anointing 32
8. Living as Children of God 38 9. Avoiding Sin 43
10. The Law of Love 48
11. True Love 54
12. Unanswered Prayer 58
13. Faith and Love 62
14. God Is Love 68
15. God Has Loved Us First 72 16. Caring for Love 77,
17. Love of Our Enemies 80 18. Abiding in God 84 19. Confidence for the Day of Judgment 87
20. Love Casts Out Fear 91
21. God First Loved Us 96 22. One Christ, Loving Himself 100
23. Fulfillment of the Law 103
24. Fragments 106
Notes 112
Introduction
Homilies is the word I have chosen to translate the Latin name of this work of Augustine's, Tractatus, in order to suggest the simplicity of his approach to the first letter of Saint John. Augustine was a bishop, and his friend and earliest biographer, Possidius, tells us that "up to his very last illness he preached the word of God in church incessantly, vigorously, and forcefully, with clear mind and sound judgment." The spiritual welfare of the flock entrusted to him in the out-of-the-way African city of Hippo was his concern. He seldom displays his learning, though neither does he talk down to his listeners. He considers that he is preaching to himself as well as to them.
Unlike modern scholars, who are interested in questions of authorship and the details of when and where a biblical book was written, and who endeavor to discern the development of an author's thought in the work being studied, Augustine just takes the letter line by line, expressing the ideas suggested to him. Some lines pass by with hardly a comment, others are developed at some length, as the Lord moves him to speak. A constant thought with him is that he is not teaching his own doctrine, but passing on to others what the Spirit has given him to say.
In such a case a reader will want to know the character of the preacher, in order to judge how well the message is coming through. Augustine is doubtless the best known and best loved of the Latin Fathers of the Church, owing to his book Confessions. He is also one of the most distrusted and hated, owing to some of his opinions, especially those on human sexuality. Barón von Hügel called *lumpers" the people who allow what they do not like to prevent them from seeing the good in a work. No one should feel obliged to agree with Augustine all vi / INTRODUCTION down the line. He was dealing with the problems of his time, the period of the decline of the Roman Empire, of barbarian invasions, of a divided Church, of the rise of the Pelagian heresy. Some of his solutions—forced baptisms, for instance—are rejected today. But those who have read his Confessions will remember his discussions of human and divine love, the spiritual and the material worlds, the nature of evil, sin, memory, and time, and think that however much Augustine's opinions may be conditioned by the period in which he wrote, they are worth reading.
The historical part of his Confessions carries us little further than Augustine's baptism, which took place on Easter 387, in Milan. The next year he returned home to Africa and entered into a period of contemplative retirement. In 391 he was ordained a priest—reluctantly, it seems—in Hippo Regius, on the Mediterranean coast, and in 395 he was chosen bishop of that city. He considered himself ill-prepared for the priesthood, especially because of his ignorance of Scripture. As he studied Scripture he issued a stream of biblical commentaries, the most celebrated of which are two series of sermons, on the psalms and on the gospel according to John, which he delivered during the years 414-417.
Augustine seems to have delivered the first twelve of his one hundred and twenty-four homilies on the gospel, in alternation with sermons on the psalms, between December 414 and Easter 415. At Easter, as he tells us in a prologue to the present work (not included in this volume), during the "solemnity of the holy days" it was customary to read certain particular lessons from the gospels every year, and because these could not be changed he interrupted his commentary on John. Searching for another subject on which to speak during Easter week, he decided on the first letter of John: he believed that it was by the same author as the gospel of John; it was a dear and much-honored book; and, most of all, it would speak to his flock of love. "John has said many things, and almost all of them concern love." The first six of the ten homilies were delivered on the
INTRODUCTION / vii
days of the Easter octave. But this time proved too short for Augustine to cover the whole of the letter, so he preached four additional homilies later in the spring. Even then he had not completed his discussion, and he seems never to have done so.
I have broken up the ten homilies into shorter chapters, and given them titles that express the central ideas of the chapters; for example, The Commandment of Love, Two Loves (of God and of the world), Christ and the Antichrists, Unanswered Prayer, Love of Our Enemies, God First Loved Us, and so on. This short list will suggest some of the themes that Augustine deals with: the world (so important in John's writings), prayer, our enemies, fear of God, the Church. His is in large part moral teaching: What does one actually do to love God and to love one's sister and brother? What are the pitfalls of loving? How does one learn to love more? Everywhere evident as well is his great desire for eternal life with God. The homiletic form does not allow Augustine to create a synthetic work, yet many of his richest and most rewarding ideas pass by during the course of these homilies.
The passages in John's first letter on which Augustine is commenting have been italicized in the text. Other quotations are distinguished by quotation marks when they are fairly exact (note that he does not always quote a passage in precisely the same words), and these and other allusions are identified in notes at the end of this volume. Quotations and allusions in their English form are based on the Revised Standard and Rheims-Douai versions of the Bible.
Three Latin words are used throughout the homilies: amor, caritas, and dilectio, all of which mean "love." One might lament the poverty of the English language, except that Augustine seems to have used the three synonymously. In this he relies on the example of Scripture (his Latin version), which, vii / INTRODUCTION he says, does not intend any distinction among the three (see City of God, XIV, 7).
I have used the Latin text published, with a French translation, by Paul Agaésse, S. J., in the series "'Sources chrétiennes" (no. 75), Commentaire de la Premiere Epitre de S. Jean (Paris, 1984). Agaésse says that this reproduces the text published in the Latin patrology of Migne (vol. 35, 1977-2062), which, with the exception of two variants, is that of the Benedictines of Saint-Maur.
I know of two earlier translations of these homilies on 1 John, a complete one in the "Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers" (first series, volume VII, 1888; reprint, Grand Rapids, 1956), and an abridged one by John Burnaby (author of a celebrated study of Augustine, Amor Dei), which is included in Volume VIII of the Library of Christian Classics" (London, 1955) entitled Augustine: Later Works. The seventh homily is included in Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings in the Paulist Press **Classics of Western Spirituality" series (New York, Paulist, 1984).
I want to thank John Watkins for reading this version of the homilies and for suggesting revisions and corrections; and Bruce Allison, Deborah and David Douglas, Barbara Faris, Benedict Neenan, and Aelred Seton Shanley for their help and encouragement. Most of the work on this book was done at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, Abiquiu, New Mexico. Thanks are also due to Florence Aebersold, who was kind enough to type the final version.
At the end of his introduction to the homilies, John Burnaby remarks that Augustine's exegesis is often unsatisfactory, and his arguments on the text of Scripture are often forced. . . . But if he is an indifferent exegete, he is an incomparable preacher. These homilies show him at the summit of his extraordinary power to move the soul.
INTRODUCTION / ix
These sentences may serve as a warning to a modern reader not to compare Augustine to the biblical scholars of our own time. Gerald Bonner, in the essay on Augustine in The Cambridge History of the Bible, says that "for Augustine, it is not so much the words of the Bible themselves as the doctrine underlying the word which is important." In this connection he quotes Augustine's own words: It is the duty of the interpreter and teacher of holy scripture, the defender of the true faith and the opponent of error, both to teach what is right and to refute what is wrong, and in the performance of this task to conciliate the hostile, to rouse the careless, and to tell the ignorant both what is occurring at present and what is probable in the future.
The reader of these homilies will find Augustine teaching what he takes to be Christian doctrine, as the words of Saint John's letter inspire him, and as God gives him strength and understanding.