Беседа 1

In the general order of sermons, Blessed. Augustine's conversation is considered the 341st. * That Christ is portrayed differently in Scripture. Against Arians 1. Our Lord Jesus Christ, brethren, is designated differently in Scripture, since we could penetrate into the meaning of the sacred pages, whether He is spoken of in the law and the prophets, or in the epistles of the apostles, as well as in the events about which the Gospel narrates. Firstly, He is depicted as God, equal in divinity to the Father and co-eternal with Him before His incarnation. Secondly, with the assumption of flesh, He is portrayed as much by God as by man, and as much by man as by God, although, due to some property of superiority, He is not compared with other people, being the intercessor and head of the Church. Thirdly, sometimes Christ is depicted in the sense of the entire fullness of the Church, i.e. as head and body, in the image of a certain perfect man, of whom we are individual members. All this is undoubtedly quite understandable for believers and for rational people. Of course, due to lack of time, not all the numerous testimonies of Scripture can be cited and explained here: evidence that speaks of the three indicated ways of depicting Christ. However, we do not want to omit some, so that, knowing them, you yourself can notice and find the rest in Scripture. 2. The first way of depicting our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Only Begotten Son of God includes what is the most important and most outstanding in the Gospel of John, namely: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning with God. Everything came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that came into being. In Him was life, and life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it” (John 1:1-5). These words are wonderful and wondrous, and before you explain them, you need to think them through carefully. If, for example, food were offered to you, then one would take one part of it, the other would take another. Everyone would eat the same food, but not everyone would get all the food. So now, as it were, some verbal food and drink are offered to you. But it reaches everyone and everything. Is it possible that when I speak, one of you receives one syllable and the other another? Or does one perceive one word, another another? If so, then I would need to say as many words as there are people here, so that at least one word reaches everyone. In fact, I freely express many more words than how many people stand in front of me, and all this is made available to everyone. So, the word of man is not given to each syllable, but everyone hears it. Can the Word of God be divided into parts so that there is a little everywhere? And is it really possible, brethren, to equate our sounding and passing words with that unchangeably abiding Word? And did I really equate when I gave the above example of a word? But to the extent possible, I only wanted to convince you that God uses phenomena from the sensory world to assure you of what you do not see in the spiritual world. However, let's focus on something else, more important. After all, our words sound and pass away. Imagine among spiritual abstract objects, for example, justice. Here is one, thinking about justice, in the west, another in the east. Where does it come from that both he and this one represent all justice? And he contemplates all of it, and this one? Whoever thinks about justice, according to which he should act, acts justly. He contemplates it internally and manifests it externally. How does he contemplate internally when there is nothing in front of him? And is it really possible that if he is in one place, the thoughts of another will not reach that place? And so, when you, being here, mentally contemplate the same thing as another, who is in another distant place, and moreover, you imagine everything, everything and that one, since what is supersensible and incorporeal is everything everywhere, then believe that the Word (of God) is all in the Father, all in the mother (in utero). Believe this about the Word of God, which is God with God. 3. But listen further about another way of portraying Christ in Scripture. What I said above applies to Him before His incarnation. Now listen to what else Scripture says: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The one who said before: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being” (John 1:1-3), it would be in vain to portray to us the deity of the Word if he were silent about His humanity. In order to be able to see that Word, It dwells here with me. In order to make me capable of contemplating that (deity), God Himself descends to my unworthiness. Having accepted human nature from human nature, He became Man, coming with the burden of the flesh to those who lay wounded on the way (Luke 10:30-37), so that by the sacrament of His incarnation He might confirm our weak faith, enlighten our mind, make it capable of contemplating what He was never deprived of through what He accepted. He began to be a Man, but did not cease to be God. This is the image of Christ Jesus as our intercessor, and as the Head of the Church, namely, that God became man, who at the same time is God, according to the words of St. John: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). 4. Now learn about this and that other way of depicting Christ from the following words of the Apostle Paul: “He, being in the image of God,” says the apostle, “did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.” This is the same as “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). How would the apostle say: “I did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,” if He (the Son) were not equal with God? And if the Father is God, and He is not God, then how is He equal to Him? There the evangelist says: “The Word was God,” but here the apostle says: “he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.” And where he writes: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), there this one said: “But he made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6–7). Please note: precisely through the fact that he became a man, through the fact that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” through this the Son of God “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant.” What did you humiliate? Not by the fact that he lost his deity, but by the fact that he accepted humanity, appearing to people as he was before, until he became a man. Thus, by His appearance He humbled Himself, i.e. maintaining the dignity of greatness, he took on flesh - the garment of humanity. Precisely through the fact that He humbled Himself, taking on the image of a servant (he did not accept the image of God. When the apostle speaks of the image of God, he did not say: having accepted, but “being in the image of God, he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God”), through this it was He who appeared as a mediator and the Head of the Church. Through His mediation we are united with God through the mystery of the incarnation, through His suffering, resurrection, ascension into heaven and His future glorious coming, when we hear those two decisions that the Lord once pronounced 1 . When will these two decisions be heard? When He will reward “everyone according to his works” (Matthew 16:27). 5. So, remembering this, do not get carried away by the idle talk of people, which, “like cancer,” spreads, as the apostle said about it (2 Tim. 2:17), but guard your hearing and the integrity of your thoughts, as solemnly betrothed to one husband Christ. If only a few members of the Church have physical chastity, then spiritual chastity and purity of thought should be present among everyone; This purity is what the snake wants to deprive you of, about which the same apostle says: “I have betrothed you to one husband in order to present you to Christ as a pure virgin. But I am afraid, lest, just as the serpent deceived Eve with his cunning, so your minds too may be corrupted, straying from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2-3). The apostle is afraid that minds will not be damaged, i.e. our thoughts, and the purity of faith was not damaged. So, stay awake, soul, keep your purity, which will bear fruit later in the arms of your bridegroom. Protect your ears from thorns. Behold, the Arian heresy has confused the weak members of the Church. But, by the grace of God, the Catholic faith prevailed. He (the Lord) did not abandon His Church. If he sent her trials for a while, he sent her for this purpose so that she would pray to the One through Whom she is established on a solid foundation. And to this day the snake hisses and does not stop. He tries, with the promise of some knowledge, to lure away from the paradise of the Church someone whom he does not want to allow to return to that paradise from which the first man was expelled. 6. Notice, brethren: what was in that paradise is now in the Church. Let no one lure you away from this paradise by any deception. It is enough that we fell then. Having experienced this through experience, at least now we will correct ourselves. The evil one always tries to lead us into temptation and enticement. Sometimes he reassures with impunity, just as he reassured there, saying: “Are you really going to die?” (Gen.3:4) 2. All he wants is for Christians to lead a vicious life. Will God really destroy everyone, he says? Will he really judge everyone? Yes, says the Lord, I will condemn; I will forgive only those who change. Let them leave their wicked deeds - and I will change the threats. He (the evil one) deceives and inspires to call the Father greater than the Son. Behold, he says, it is written: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28), and you call Him equal to the Father. I agree with you. But it is necessary to recognize not only this, but also something else, because both have been written about. Why do you recognize one thing, but don’t want to accept the other? After all, you can read about both in Scripture. Here it is said in one place: “My Father is greater than I.” I accept this not from you, but from the Gospel. But you also admit with the apostle that the Son is equal to God the Father. Put both together and both can be reconciled; because Whoever speaks through the evangelist in the Gospel is the same who speaks through the apostle in the epistle. He cannot contradict Himself, and you do not want to allow agreement in Scripture, since you yourself love to disagree. But the Gospel says: “The Father... is greater than Me.” And I prove from the Gospel that the Son and the Father are equal (“I and the Father are one” - John 10:30). How can we reconcile both? Thus, as the apostle says: “He, being in the image of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God; but he humbled himself, taking on the form of a servant.” Here I prove why the Father is more. You must prove in what ways He is not equal? After all, we read about both in Scripture. He is less than the Father, since He is the Son of Man. Equal to the Father, because he is the Son of God, because the Word was God. He (the Son) is the mediator: God and Man. As God, He is equal to the Father; as Man, less than Him. Equal in the form of God, less in the form of a slave. Now you prove: why is He (the Son) not equal to the Father and less than Him? Or do you think that in one part it is equal, but in the other it is not equal? Show me how He, by taking on the flesh, is both equal to the Father and less than Him. I would like to know how you would prove this. 7. But pay attention to the madness of the carnal mind, about which it is said that it (the carnal mind) “is death” (Rom. 8:6). I will not talk for now about the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God. I dwell on the words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was with God in the beginning” (John 1:1-2). I dwell on the words of the apostle: “He, being in the image of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God” (Phil. 2:6). Show me more and less here. What do you say? Will you distinguish God by the physical or spiritual properties by which we define different objects? Exactly, I can say. But whether you think so, God knows. So, as I said, before taking flesh, before the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, show the lesser, show the equal. Is it possible that in both cases the Son would be God, even though in one respect he would be less than the Father, and in another equal, - as, for example, we say about some bodies: less than one another in terms of length, but equal in terms of strength? Are God and His Son to be represented to us by such bodies? Is this how we imagine Him who was all in Mary, all in the Father, all in the flesh and all above the angels? But may the Lord turn away such thoughts from the hearts of Christians. Or maybe you will think that they are equal in length and strength, but different in color? But where is color if not in bodies? And there is the radiance of wisdom. Show me what the color of truth is? If they (wisdom and truth) have no color, you cannot say the same about God, if only you have a conscience. 8. So, what do you say now? They are equal in power, but less than the Son in wisdom?! However, if They are equal in wisdom, but the Son is less powerful, then God comes out envious if He gives less power to an equal in wisdom. But in God, everything that is thought is equivalent (idipsum). In God there is not one power and another wisdom, one power and another truth or purity. Whatever of all this you name, it is not thought of separately and the being of God is not worthily defined by anything, because all these properties are properties of souls, which that light penetrates in some way and, according to their qualities, influences them, just as it happens when this visible light rises above bodies. If it disappears, all bodies receive one dark color, or, better said, are completely deprived of color. When, having risen, he again illuminates the bodies, although he himself is the same, he nevertheless illuminates the bodies according to their properties, with different brilliance. So are the states of those souls that are produced and formed by the original and underived light. 9. And all this, brothers, we say about God because we cannot speak better. I call God righteous because I don’t find anything better in human language: He is above righteousness. “For the Lord is righteous and loves righteousness,” says Scripture (Ps. 10:7). But it says that God repents (Gen.6:7), it says that God does not know (Gen.18:21). Who, however, will not be afraid of this? Doesn't God really know? Does God really repent? But therefore Scripture condescends to such expressions, so that you do not think that even by what you consider great, the properties of God are worthily designated. Thus, when you ask: “What is God worthily designated by?”, perhaps someone will answer you and say that God is righteous. Another, who understands more than him, will say that this word is far from the radiance of His glory, so that when he begins to prove from Scripture and says: so it is written there, he will be answered fairly that in the same Scripture it is written that God repents. And just as this latter is not used there in the sense that people usually understand, so when God is called righteous, it does not embrace His greatness. However, Scripture has well established that although through such words the spirit gradually ascends to that which cannot be expressed. You call God righteous, but imagine something that is greater than righteousness. Scripture called God righteous, but it called God repentant and ignorant, which, however, you do not want to say. So, just as what you do not want to attribute to God was said because of your weakness, so this was also said because of some, albeit lesser, weakness. Whoever transgresses this and thinks worthily about God, as far as is accessible to man, will find praiseworthy silence in the unspeakable voice of the heart. 10. So, brethren, since in God there is the same goodness as truth, it cannot therefore be said that the Son is equal to the Father in respect of truth and not equal in respect of goodness, or equal in respect of power (per virtutem) and not equal in respect of knowledge, and whatever you say about God, everything in Him is one and equal. Thus, it is enough that you cannot say how the Son can be unequal to the Father, unless you want to admit any differences in their very essence. When you recognize these differences, you sin against the truth and move away from that communication with God when His presence becomes most palpable. If it is impossible to say about God that He is equal in one respect and not equal in another, then it is impossible to say that He is such in one respect and less in another, because in God there are no differences. One cannot call God equal except in all respects, and if one can call Him lesser, then why not because He took the form of a slave? So, brethren, remember this constantly. If you are guided by the Scripture, it will explain everything to you. And when you begin to read there that the Son is equal to the Father, attribute this to the Divinity. According to the form of a servant He assumed upon Himself, consider Him less than the Father - in relation to the words: “I am who I am” (Ex. 3:14) and to others: “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” (ibid. Ex. 3:15) - the first refers to His essence, the second - to His mercy. Now, I think, enough has been said about why our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, the Head of the Church, having become the mediator through whom we are united with God, is called God and man in Scripture. 11. The third way, when Christ is designated in Scripture as Head and Body, indicates His relationship to the Church. Here the Head and body are one Christ, not because without the body He lacks integrity, but because He deigned to be one with us, Who, even without us, always remains unharmed, not only as regards His Divinity, but also as regards His humanity, when He became both God and man. However, brethren, how do we make up His body, and He is one with us? Where do we find that the One Christ is both Head and body, i.e. the body together with the Head? Listen to what Isaiah says: “As He put a crown on the groom, and adorned him with ornaments like a bride” (Isaiah 61:10). Here are the bride and groom. The prophet calls the same person both the groom in relation to the head, and the bride in relation to the body. Apparently two and one together. But how are we members of Christ? The Apostle says very clearly: “And you are the body of Christ, and individually members” (1 Cor. 12:27). The Body of Christ and His members - all of us, not only we who are here, but everyone in general, not only those now living, but all the righteous, beginning with the righteous Abel, who have lived, are living and are about to live until the end of the age, all are one body of Christ. If the whole body, then separately the members. But, of course, there must also be a head, of which we are the body. “And He (the Son of God) is the head of the body of the Church; He is the firstfruits, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence” (Col. 1:18). And since the apostle also further says about Him that He “is the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:10), then, consequently, the earthly Church, militant (peregrina), joins that heavenly Church, where we have as our fellow citizens angels, with whom we will shamelessly, as before, be united after the resurrection of the body, according to the promise that those who are deemed worthy to reach that age and the resurrection from the dead will be “equal Angels" (Luke 20:36), and there will be a single Church, the kingdom of the Great King. 12. So, Christ is portrayed in Scripture sometimes as the Word, equal with the Father, sometimes as a mediator, when it is said that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), or when it is said that the Only Begotten Son of God “counted it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant... He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil.2:6-8). Sometimes Jesus Christ is depicted in such a way that we see the head and body, when the apostle explains, for example, the words spoken about a husband and wife in the book of Genesis: “and they will... be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Listen to the apostle's explanation. “There will be,” he says, “two one flesh,” and then he adds: “This mystery is great.” And lest anyone here think about the carnal union of male and female, the apostle adds: “I speak in relation to Christ and to the Church” (Eph. 5:31-32). In accordance with this, we must understand the words of the Gospel: “And the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Matthew 19:5-6). And what the bride and groom are is the head and the body, because the husband is the head of the wife. So, whether I say: head and body, or: bride and groom, count them as one. And therefore the same apostle, when he was still Saul, heard the following words: “Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting Me? (Acts 9:4), since the body is one with the head. And when, already an apostle of Christ, he began to endure from others what he himself caused as a persecutor, he says: “Now... I am filling up what is lacking in my flesh of the tribulations of Christ” (Col. 1:24), thereby showing that the sufferings of Christ Himself include what he endured. This cannot be attributed to the head, which is in heaven and no longer tolerates anything like this, but to the body, i.e. to the Church, which, being united with its head, is one Christ. 13. So, try to present yourself as a worthy body for such a head, a worthy bride for such a groom. The head cannot have any other body than one worthy of himself, nor can such a great husband have anything other than a worthy wife, “that he may present her to himself as a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Eph. 5:27). The Church is the bride of Christ, without spot or wrinkle. Don't want to have stains? – Do what is written: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the filthiness from your hearts” (Is. 1:16) [“Wash, make yourselves clean; remove your evil deeds from before My eyes." Don't want to have a vice? – Crucify yourself; It is not only necessary that you wash yourself, but that you try to be without spot or blemish. Through the bath of ablution, sins are cleansed; through the crucifixion, the desire for future bliss (salvation), for the sake of which Christ suffered, appears. Listen to the apostle himself, whom, in his words, the Lord saved “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5). Listen to him, who was crucified with Christ: “I,” he says, “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13-14). The order of conversations is blessed. Augustine is the same here as in the original. this refers to the prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ about the judgment of the righteous and sinners (Matthew 25:34–45) “No, you won’t die” - author’s note. You might be interested in: