Tractates on the Gospel of John
70 ST. AUGUSTINE
Apostle says, "But our conversation is in heaven. "^^ Therefore, "the world was made through him, and the world knew him not."
12. "He came unto his own" — because all those things were made through him — "and his own^^ received him not." Who are they? Human beings whom he made. The Jews whom he esteemed at first to be above all nations; for the other nations adored idols and served demons, but that people had been born of the seed of Abraham and were themselves especially his own since they were related to him through the flesh which he deigned to assume. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Did they receive him not at all? Did no one receive him? Was no one therefore saved? For no one will be saved except him who shall have received Christ when he comes.
13. But the gospel added, "But as many as received him." What did he offer them? Great favor! Great mercy! He was born the only one and he did not want to remam the only one. Many men in advanced age, when they have not had sons, adopt them and by will they do what they could not by nature.
Men do this. But if someone should have an only son, he rejoices the more in him because he alone will possess everything and will have no one who would divide the inheritance with him, so that he may be left poorer. With God it is not so.
Into this world he sent the same only Son whom he had begotten and through whom he had created all things in order that he might not be the only one but might have adopted brothers.
(2) For we were not born from God as was that only begotten, but were adopted through his^° grace. For that only begotten came to loose our sins, sins with which we were en-
28. Cf. Phil 3.20. A. Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-frangais des auteurs chretiens (Turnhout, 1954), 219, suggests "our city" or "our life" for Douay's "our conversation."
29. "His own" is first sua propria, the neuter plural, and then sui, the masculine plural.
30. The Latin text reads per gratiam ipsius. Ipsius, "his," is rather ambiguous; it could refer to God or, in light of the next sentence, to the only begotten.