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Tractate 28
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TRACTATE 28* OnJohn 7.I-I3 N THIS section ofthe Gospel, brothers, our LordJesus Christ has very much commended himself to our faith according to his humanness. For he always in his words and works effects this, that he be believed as God and man, God who made us, man who sought after us, God with the Father forever, man with us in time. For he would not seek after that which he had made unless he himself became what he had made. But remember this and do not dismiss it from your hearts: that Christ was made man in such a way that he did not cease to be God. Remaining God, he who made man received the man. (2) Therefore, when he hid as a man, he must not be thought to have lost his power, but to have offered an example to weakness.l For when he wished it, he was arrested; when he wished it, he was put to death. But since there would be his members, that is, his faithful, who would not have that power which our God himself had, by hiding, by concealing himself as if [he were doing this] that he might not be killed, he indicated that his members, among whom, of course, he himself was, would do this. For Christ is not in the head or in the body, but Christ is wholly in the head and in the body. Therefore, what his members are, he is; but what he is, his members are not necessarily. For ifhe were not his members, he would not have said, "Saul, why do you persecute me?"2 For Saul was not persecuting him, but his members, that is, his *[Ed. note: The translation has been checked against the text in BA 72, 73A, 73B, and the paragraphing has been adopted throughout.] 1. Cf. Tractate 15.2. 2. Acts 9.4; cf. Tractate 21.7. 3 4 ST. AUGUSTINE faithful on earth. Yet he did not want to say, my saints, my servants, or the more honorable, my brothers, but "me", that is, my members for whom 1 am the head. 2. With these preliminary remarks, 1 think we shall not labor over the section that has just been read; for often what was to be in the body has been signified in the head. [The Gospel] says, "After these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for he did not wish to walk in Judaea because the Jews were seeking to kill him." This is what 1 meant: he offered an example for our weakness. For he had not himself lost his power, but was comforting our frailness. For it was to be, as 1 have said, that some believer of his would hide himself that he might not be found by persecutors; and that his hiding place might not be thrown in his face as a crime, that which would be confirmed in the member preceded in the head. For so it was said, "He did not wish to walk in Judaea because the Jews were seeking to kill him," as if Christ could not walk among the Jews and not be killed by the Jews. For when he wanted, he showed this power. When they wanted to arrest him, then, when he was going to suffer, "He said to them, 'Whom do you seek?' They answered, 'Jesus.' And he said, '1 am he,"'3 not hiding, but manifesting himself. Yet they did not stand firm at this manifestation, but "they drew back and fell."4 And yet because he had come to suffer, they got up, arrested him, took him before the judge, and slew him. But what did they do? What a certain Scripture says: "The earth has been given into the hands of the wicked."5 His flesh was given to the Jews, into their power. And this was done for the reason that, like a money sack, he might be torn that the price for us might pour out of there. 3. "Now on the next day was theJews' feast of Scenopegia." They who have read the Scriptures know what Scenopegia is. On this feast day they make tents,6 in the likeness of the tents 3· In 18·4-5' 4· In 18.6. 5· Cf. Jb 9.24. 6. The Latin word is tabernaculum which is richer in meaning than the English word tent since it could include huts and booths as well as simple tents, and since...