Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
4 ST. AUGUSTINE bounded heavens and to the sun, the source of light, and peace, and justice for us. "I have hfted up my eyes to the mountains from where help will come to me. My help is from the Lord who made heaven and earth."^ The mountain is an intermediary between us, the depths of the earth, and God, the height of heaven. A mountain is impressive; we admire it, we feel lowly before it. But the mountain is only a means, it is only a way, it is not the goal. It is God who is our goal and the source of all help to reach that goal. Our eyes must ever be fixed on that goal. This is a theme that Augustine never ceases to repeat, again and again, in the Tractates.
(3) John the Evangelist was also a lamp,*^ giving forth his light that others might see. But a lamp is not the source of its own light; it must be lighted by another. The Word, Christ, is the source of its light and is the light which lights. The lamp receives light that it may enlighten; it is an intermediary. The Word is our true light and he is an inner light, ^ an interior master,^ who is the ultimate giver of illumination. To receive this inner light we must open ourselves to God and this we do through love. But our fallen, disordered nature loves the wrong things — ourselves and external objects. Grace is ever present, but we are closed to it. It is the intermediaries that help us to direct our love to its right object, to God. The first
5. Ps 120.1 — 2. 6. See, e.g., Tractates 2.3, 23.3, and 54.4. For an excellent analysis of this metaphor of the lamp, see R. Hardy, Actualite de la revelation divine, Theologie Historique 28 (Paris, 1974) 168-175; and Poque, Le langage, 1.362-364. The whole image of light, especially as it refers to God and Christ, occurs frequently in these Tractates. A lengthy discussion of this imagery is found in Poque, Le langage, 1.344-375-
7. On Augustine's theory of illumination see E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine, tr. E. Lynch (New York, i960), 77-96; and E. Portalie, A Guide to the Thought of Saint Augustine, tr. R. Bastian (Chicago, i960), 213-223. For a different approach and a different analysis, see, B. Bubacz, St. Augustine's Theory of Knowledge: A Contemporary Analysis (New York, 1981), 8-38, 133-61; and R. Nash, The Light of the Mind: St. Augustine's Theory of Knowledge (Lexington, 1969). A good brief account is found in E. TeSelle, Augustine the Theologian (New York, 1970), 103-7.
8. The concept of the interior master is frequently alluded to in the Tractates; see, e.g.. Tractates 1.7, 3.15, 16.3, 18.10, 20.3, 22.1, 26.7, 54.8, 57.3, and 96.4. On the interior master in Augustine's thought see Gilson, 66-76; on the concept in the Tractates see Hardy, 138-144.