Cf. Tractate 19.5. See also S. Poque, Le langage symbolique dans la predication
INTRODUCTION
OHN THE EVANGELIST was an eagle, soaring high in the sky into the sun;' Augustine was the Lord's trumpet,^ proclaiming the gospel and blaring forth its meaning. John's Gospel is a profound theological study of Christ's divinity; Augustine's In loannis Evangelium Tractatus CXXIV are a prolonged pastoral investigation of that profundity. In them, Augustine, the world-renowned bishop of Hippo Regius, the humble pastor of souls, seeks to peer into the depths of Johannine theology and rise to the heights of Johannine illumination, that the shepherd might reveal to his sheep, as far as God granted, the meaning of John's Gospel. For Augustine, however, preaching, and the scriptural exegesis that was a necessary part of preaching, were the truly important theological activities, more important, perhaps, than the more formal treatises.^ It is his congregation that receives the primary benefit of his constant and untiring exercise of his pastoral responsibilities.
(2) John the Evangelist was also a mountain,^ lofty, ascending to the source of all light, to God himself, bringing God's Word, peace, and justice, to human souls disordered by sin. To see an eagle or a mountain we must lift up our eyes; and lifting up our eyes from the earth to which we are bound, we see beyond the eagle and beyond the mountain to the un-
1. See Preface by an Unknown Author, Tractates 15.1, 36.1 and 5, 40.1, Cf. Tractate 19.5. See also S. Poque, Le langage symbolique dans la predication d'Augustin d'Hippone (Paris, 1984) 1-334— 3352. See Epistula 32.3 (PL 33.128; CSEL 34 (1). 10-1 1; and FOTC 12.1 19). 3. DDC 4.3.4. See also J. Pelikan, "Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount" in The Preaching of Augustine (Philadelphia, 1973), vii-xi; and F. Van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop, tr. B. Battershaw and G. Lamb (New York, 1961), 412-452. 4. See Tractates 1.2—6, 2.3. On the metaphor of the mountain in Augustine's sermons see Poque, Le langage, 1.308-311.