Tractates on the Gospel of John (continued)
204 ST. AUGUSTINE lo. In the very beginning Adam and Eve were the parents of all the nations, not solely of the Jews; and whatever was represented in Adam about Christ pertained, of course, to all the nations, for whom salvation lies in Christ. What, then, shall I particularly say about the water of the first water-jar except what the Apostle said about Adam and Eve? For no one will say that I have understood wrongly when I set forth, not my understanding, but the Apostle's.
(2) How great a mystery, then, does that one statement contain about Christ, which the Apostle recalls when he says, "And they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great mystery." And that no one might understand this greatness of mystery to lie in the individual men who have wives, he says, "But I mean in reference to Christ and to the Church." What is this great mystery, "they shall be two in one flesh"? When the Scripture of Genesis was telling about Adam and Eve, in that section one came to these words: "For this reason a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh." Therefore, if Christ clove to the Church so that they were two in one flesh, how did he leave the Father? How, the mother? He left the Father because, although he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.^^ That is, he left the Father, not because he abandoned and withdrew from the Father, but because he appeared to men not in that form in which he was equal with the Father. How did he leave the mother? By leaving the synagogue of the Jews, from which he was born according to the flesh, and by cleaving to the Church which he gathered from all the nations.
(3) Therefore the first water-jar, too, held a prophecy about Christ; but since those things which I am saying were not being preached among the peoples, it was still water; it had not yet been changed into wine. And because the Lord has enlightened us through the Apostle, in order to show us what we
32. Cf. Eph 5.31-32. 34. Cf. Phil 2.6-7. 33. Cf. On 2.24.