Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
76 ST. AUGUSTINE
Christians, then necessarily, by the very name, men belonging to Christ. We should carry his sign upon our foreheads; and we do not blush about this if we also carry it in our hearts. His sign is his lowliness. It was through a star that the Magi knew him,^ and this sign was given from the Lord, a heavenly and bright sign; but he did not wish the star to be his sign on the foreheads of the faithful, rather his cross.^ He was glorified by that by which he was made low; he raised up the lowly by that to which, when he was made low, he descended. We belong therefore to the gospel, we belong to the New Testament.
(2) "The Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." We question the Apostle and he says to us that we are not under the Law, but under grace. ^ Therefore "He sent his son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that he might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."^ See, this is why Christ came: that he might redeem those who were under the Law, and that we may no longer be under the Law, but under grace.
(3) Who then gave the Law? He gave the Law who also gave grace. ^ But he sent the Law through a servant; he himself descended with grace. (4) And how had men been made under the Law? By not fulfilling the Law. For he who fulfills the Law is not under the Law but with the Law. He who is under the Law, however, is not lifted up, but pressed down by the Law. And thus the Law makes all men who have been placed under the Law guilty.
4. H. Rondet, "La croix sur le front," RSR 42 (1954) 388-394, makes a strong case that among the North African Christians, if not elsewhere, at least some persons wore a visible cross, perhaps painted or tatooed, on their foreheads as a sign of their Christianity. There are several other places in these Tractates where "the sign of the cross" seems to have this meaning: Tractates
11.3 and 4, 36.4, 43.9, 50.2, 5313, 551. and 117 3. See also Berrouard, Homelies I— XVI, 210-211.
5. Cf. Rom 6.14. 6. Cf. Gal 4 4-5. 7. This is likely directed at the Manichaeans who held that the Old Testament was the revelation not of the true God but of Satan. See Decret, 123-124.