Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
TRACTATE 3
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E HAVE UNDERTAKEN in the Lord's name and we have promised you,^ beloved people, to discuss the grace and truth of God, filled with which the only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, appeared to his saints. [We shall also indicate that this subject] must be considered apart from the Old Testament since it is a matter proper to the New Testament. Pay attention, therefore, and concentrate, both that God may grant as much as I can grasp and that you may hear as much as you can grasp.
(2) For it will be left [to you] that, if the birds do not take away the seed which is scattered in your hearts,^ and the thorns do not choke it, and the heat does not scorch it, and if it is tended by the rain of daily exhortations and your good thoughts so that the same thing happens in your heart which happens in a field by the use of hoes, namely that the clod is broken and the seed is covered and enabled to sprout, you may bring forth the sort of fruit in which the farmer rejoices and delights.
(3) But, if in return for good seed and for good rain, we bring forth not fruit but thorns, neither will the seed stand accused nor will the rain be at fault; but for the thorns the fire that they deserve is being readied.
2. We are Christian men, and I do not think, beloved people, that I need to try for very long to persuade you of this. And if
1. At the end of Tractate 2 and in En in Ps 123. As Le Landais, 22-23, has dearly shown, En in Ps 122 and 123 intervened between Tractates 2 and 3; hence the interval between the two sermons makes this a more appropriate remark.