Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
188 ST. AUGUSTINE in accord with astrologers, then we have committed sacrilege by burning their books.'' But if we have acted rightly, as was done in the times of the apostles,'^ it was not in accord with them that the Lord said, "My hour has not yet come." For [these] prating seduced seducers say, "You see that Christ, who said, 'My hour has not yet come,' was subject to fate."
(3) Whom, then, must we answer first, the heretics or the astrologers? For both come from that serpent and wish to corrupt the Church's virginity of heart which it holds in pure faith. First, if you please, let us reply to those whom we had proposed, to whom we have already replied in large part. But that they not suppose that we do not have anything to say about these words with which the Lord replied to his mother, we give you more instruction against them; for I believe what has already been said is sufficient to refute them.
9. Why, then, did the Son say to his mother, "What is it to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come"? Our Lord, Jesus Christ, was both God and man. In regard to the fact that he was God, he had no mother; in regard to the fact that he was man, he did. Therefore she was the mother of [his] flesh, the mother of [his] humanity, the mother of the weakness which he took for our sake. But the miracle he was about to do, he was going to do according to [his] divinity, not [his] weakness, in regard to the fact he was a God, not in regard to the fact that he was born weak. But the weakness of God is stronger than men.'^ Therefore his mother demanded a miracle; but he does not, as it were, acknowledge the human womb, as he is about to perform divine deeds, as if saying, "That in me which does a miracle you did not give birth to, you did not give birth to my divinity; but because you bore my weakness, I shall recognize you then, when that weakness will hang on the cross." For this is what "My hour has not yet come" means. For he who had, in fact, always known her then recognized her.
(2) Even before he was born of her, he knew his mother in
17. C{. En in Ps 61.2^ and Berrouard, Homilies I -XVI, 489. 18. Cf. Acts 19.19. 19. Cf. 1 Cor 1.25.