Tractates on the Gospel of John 28–54

Tractate 33

TRACTATE 33 OnJohn 7.40-53-" 8 .I-Il OU REMEMBER, my beloved people, that in the previous sermon, as a result of the circumstances presented in the reading of the Gospel, we spoke to you about the Holy Spirit. When the Lord had invited those who believed in him to this drinking, speaking among those who were thinking about laying hold of him, and who desired to kill him but were unable because he did not will it, when, therefore, he had said these things, a disagreement about him sprang up in the crowd, since some thought that he was the very Christ and others said that the Christ will not arise from Galilee. (2) Those who had been sent to lay hold on him returned, free of crime and filled with admiration. For they also bore witness of his divine teaching, when they by whom they had been sent asked, "Why have you not brought him?" They answered that they had never heard a man speaking in such a way: "For not any man speaks in such a way." Now, he spoke thus because he was God and man. (3) Yet the Pharisees, rejecting their witness, said to them, "Have you also been seduced?" For we see that you have been delighted with his discourses. "Has anyone of the rulers believed in him, or of the Pharisees? But this crowd, who know not the Law, are accursed." They who did not know the Law, these believed in him who had sent the Law; and they who were teaching the Law despised him who had sent the Law so that what the Lord himself had said might be fulfilled, "I have come that they who do not see may see and they who see may become blind."! For the Pharisees, the teachers, became blind; 1. ]n 9.39. 51 52 ST. AUGUSTINE and the people, now knowing the Law, and yet believing in the Author of the Law, were enlightened. 2. Nevertheless, "Nicodemus, the one of the Pharisees who had come to him at night,"2 was also himself, indeed, not unbelieving, but timid. For he had come to the Light at night precisely because he wanted to be enlightened but was afraid to be known. He replied to the Jews, "Does our Law judge a man unless it first listen to him and know what he does?" For, perversely, they wanted to be condemners before they were judges. Nicodemus knew, or rather believed, that if only they were willing to listen patiently to him, perhaps they would be like those who were sent to lay hold on him but chose rather to believe. "They answered," from the prejudice of their heart, as they also had to those men,3 "Are you also a Galilean?" That is, as if seduced by the Galilean. For the Lord was called a Galilean because his parents were from the town of Nazareth. I said parents according to Mary, not according to the male seed; for he, who already had a Father above, sought nought but a mother on earth. For both births of his were miraculous, the divine without a mother, the human without a father.4 What then did they, the so-called teachers of the Law, say to Nicodemus? "Search the Scriptures and see that out of Galilee a prophet arises not." But the Lord of prophets arose from there. "They returned, each one to his own house."5 3. "From there Jesus went up to the mountain," but to the mountain "of Olives," to the fruitful mountain, to the mountain of ointment, to the mountain of chrism.6 For where was it 2. The entire account of Nicodemus inJn 3.1-21 is discussed in Tractate 11.3-15 and Tractate 12. 3· That is, those who had been sent to arrest Jesus; seeJn 7.44-47. 4. Augustine repeats this teaching frequently; cf. Tractates 8.8,12.8, 14.2, 26.10. 5. There is no mention of the textual problem concerning In 7,53 and 8.1-11; this story of the adulteress is not found in the early Greek manuscripts but was widely preserved in the West. Augustine, in the De Adulterinis Coniugiis 2.7.6. (CSEL 41.387-88), does note that its genuineness is questioned . Cf. B. Vawter, JBC, 2.441; R. E. Brown, The Anchor Bible 29'335-36; Berrouard 72.857-60. 6. Located east ofJerusalem, this mountain was of great importance...