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TRACTATE 52 OnJohn I2.27-36 FTER THE Lord Jesus Christ in the words of yesterday 's reading encouraged his servants to follow him when he had predicted his passion in these words, "Unless the grain of wheat, falling into the earth, dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much fruit,"· wherein he stirred up those who wished to follow him to the kingdom of heaven to hate their life2 in this world if they were thinking of keeping it to eternal life, he again tempered his feeling to our weakness and he said-the point where today's reading begins-"My soul is troubled now." Why is your soul troubled, Lord? Surely you said a little before, "He who hates his life in this world keeps it to life eternal."3 Is your soul then loved in this world and for that reason is it troubled by the corning hour in which it is to go out of this world? Who would dare to assert this about the Lord's soul? But he has carried us over into himself; he, our head, has taken us into himself. He has taken on the emotional disposition of his members; and therefore his troubled state did not arise from someone else but, as was said about him when he raised up Lazarus, "He troubled himself."4 For it was necessary that the one mediator of God and men, the man ChristJesus,5 as he stirred us to the highest things, so suffer with us also the lowest things.6 1. In 12.24-25. 2. Again the translation problem for the Latin word anima which means both soul and life, and vita which means only life: "hate their soul . . . to eternal life." See Tractate 47.10, note 32, and Innes, 287, note 1. 3· In 12.25· 4· In 11.33· 5. Cf. 1 Tm 2·5. 6. Most of the codices read here: suffer with us also weaknesses. But the text reading is probably preferable in view of Augustine's frequent emphasis 280 TRACTATE 52 281 2. I hear him saying earlier, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified; if the grain of wheat dies, it produces much fruit."7 I hear, "The man who hates his life in this world keeps it to life eternal."8 And not only I am allowed to wonder, but I am directed to imitate. Then in the following words, "If anyone serves me, let him follow me; and where I am, there also will my servant be."9 I am set afire to despise the world, and all the vain fervor of this life, however long it has lasted, is in my sight nothing. For me, all things temporal become worthless in comparison with the love of the eternal. And again I hear my Lord himself, who by those words has wrested me away from my weakness to his strength, saying, "My soul is troubled now." (2) What is the meaning of this? How do you order my soul to follow if I see your soul to be troubled? How am I to endure what such great strength feels to be heavy? What foundation am I to seek if the Rock gives way? But I seem to hear in my thought my Lord answering me and in a way saying: You will follow me even more because I set myself among you in this way so that you may endure; you heard the voice of my strength [speaking] to you. Hear the voice of your weakness in me. I supply strength for you to run and I do not restrain your speeding up, but I transfer to myself your alarm, and I lay down the roadbed whereby you may proceed. 0 Lord, mediator , God above us, man because of us, I acknowledge your mercy! For, because you, as great as you are, are troubled by the will of your love, you comfort many in your body who are troubled by the necessity of their weakness that they may not perish by despair. 3. Well then, let the person who wishes to follow hear how he should follow. Perhaps a terrible hour has come; a choice is put forward either of committing some wrong or of undergoon the God on high lowering himself to share our humanness, although the next sections do make a contrast between Christ's divine strength and human weakness. One might also suggest...

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