Tractates on the Gospel of John
96 ST. AUGUSTINE to powder, he has first smashed them in his lowliness. They stumbled against him and they were smashed, not ground up, but smashed; he will come in exaltation and will grind them. But the Jews must be forgiven because they stumbled against a stone which had not yet increased.
(4) What sort of men are they who stumbled against the mountain itself? You already know about whom I am talking." They who deny the Church spread through the whole world stumble, not against a low stone, but against the mountain itself; for that stone became [the mountain] when it increased. In their blindness the Jews did not see the low stone. How great a blindness it is not to see the mountain!
5. And so they saw him in lowliness and did not recognize him. He was shown to them by the lamp. For first that man, than whom no greater one had arisen among those born of women, said, 'T am not the Christ." And when it was said to him, "Are you Elias?" he answered, "I am not." For Christ sends Elias before him; and he said, "I am not and created a difficulty for us. For it is to be feared that they who understand less may think that John had said the opposite of what Christ said. For in a certain passage when the Lord Jesus Christ said certain things about himself in the gospel, those disciples answered him, "Why then do the scribes," i.e., the experts on the Law, "say that Elias must come first?" And the Lord said, "Elias has come already, and they have done to him what they wanted.'^ And if you are willing to know it, he is John the Baptist." The Lord Jesus Christ said, "Elias has come already, and he is John the Baptist." John, however, when asked, proclaimed that he was not Elias, just as [he proclaimed] that neither was he the Christ. And, indeed, just as he truly proclaimed that he was not the Christ, so he truly proclaimed that neither was he Elias.
(2) How then shall we compare the words of the herald with the words of the judge? Far be it from the herald to lie; for he
1 1 . The Donatists, who were strictly a North African sect. 12. Cf. Mt 11.11. 13. Cf. Mt 17.10. 14. Cf. Mt 17.12. 15. Cf. Mt 11.14.