Tractates on the Gospel of John
224 ST. AUGUSTINE forty-six. This, my brothers, was said also by our earlier predecessors" and this number forty-six was found in the letters. (3) And because our Lord, Jesus Christ, received his body from Adam, [but] did not take the sin of Adam — he took his bodily temple from him, not the iniquity which must be driven from the temple — but this flesh which he took from Adam (for Mary was from Adam and the Lord's flesh from Mary) the Jews crucified; and he was going to raise up this same flesh in three days which they were going to kill on the cross. They destroyed the temple built in forty-six years; and he raised it up again in three days.
13. We bless the Lord, our God, who has assembled us for spiritual joy. Let us always live with humble hearts, and let our joy be with him. Let us not be puffed up by any prosperity of this world, but let us know that our happiness is only when those things have passed away. Now, my brothers, let our joy be in hope; let no one rejoice as if in his present possessions, that he may not be held fast on the road. Let all our joy come from hope for the future, let all our desire be for eternal life.
Let every sigh be a panting after Christ. Let that most beautiful one, who loved even the ugly that he might make them beautiful, let him be longed for. Hurry to him alone, sigh for him. "And they who will the peace of his servant forever say, 'Let the Lord be magnified.'"
57. Cf., e.g., Pseudo-Cyprian, De Montibus Sina et Sinon. 4 (PL 4.992-993). 58. For a different interpretation of this number 46, see Augustine, DeDiversis Quaestionihus LXXXIII.^6 (CCL 44A. 95-96; and FOTC 70.98).