14. John xiii. 2.
196 ST. AUGUSTINE
Greeks beat Sosthenes, a Jew, on account of the Apostle Paul.^^ Does not the similarity of the events apparently join both; and, at the same time, does not the dissimilarity of the causes make a real difference? Again, God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.^^ of the Son also it is said, "who loved me, and gave Himself for me;" ^^ and it is also said of Judas that Satan entered into him that he might betray Christ.^*
Seeing, therefore, that the Father dehvered up His Son, and Christ dehvered up His own body, and Judas dehvered up his Master, wherefore is God holy and man guilty in this deUvering up of Christ, unless that in the one action which both did, the reason for which they did it was not the same? Three crosses stood in one place: on one was the thief who was to be saved; on the second, the thief who was to be condemned; on the third, between them, was Christ, who was about to save the one thief and condemn the other. What could be more similar than these crosses? what more unlike than the persons who were suspended on them? Paul was given up to be imprisoned and bound, ^^ but Satan is unquestionably worse than any gaoler: yet to him Paul himself gave up one man for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.^* And what say we to this? Behold, both deUver a man to bondage; but he that is cruel consigns his prisoner to one less severe, while he that is compassionate consigns his to one who is more cruel.
11. Acts xvi. 22, 23, and xviii. 17. 12. Rom. viii. 32. 13. Gal. ii. 20. 14. John xiii. 2. 15. Acts xxi. 23, 24. 16. I Cor. V. 5.