Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–111

Tractate 107

TRACTATE 107 On John 17.9–13 hen the Lord was speaking to the Father about those whom he already had as disciples, among other things he also said this: “I pray for them; I pray, not for the world, but for these whom you have given me.” He now wishes the world to be understood as those who live according to the lust of the world and who are not in that allotted portion of grace so that they may be chosen by him out of the world. And so, not for the world, but for these whom the Father has already given him he says that he prays; for by reason of the fact that the Father has already given them to him it has occurred that they do not belong to that world for which he does not pray. 2. Then he goes on, “because they are yours.” For, because the Father gave them to the Son, he did not himself lose those whom he gave, since the Son still continues and says, “And all my things are yours, and yours are mine.” And here it sufficiently appears how all things that are the Father ’s are the only-begotten Son’s; by this fact, of course, that he himself, too, is God and is born of the Father, equal to the Father, not as it was said to one of two sons, namely to the older, “You are with me always, and all my things are yours.”1 For that was said about all those creatures that are inferior to the holy rational creature and are undoubtedly subject to the Church; and in the universal Church also those two sons, older and younger, are understood to be, together with all the holy angels to whom we shall be equal in the kingdom of Christ and God.2 However, this, “And all my 273 1. Cf. Lk 15.31. 2. Cf. Lk 20.36, Mt 22.30, Mk 12.25. In Augustine, Quaestiones Evangelio- things are yours, and yours are mine,” was said in such a way that here is also the rational creature itself, which is subject only to God so that all things that are inferior to it are subject to him.3 (2) Therefore, since this is God the Father’s, it would not at the same time be the Son’s unless he were equal to the Father. For indeed, he was concerned with it when he said, “I pray, not for the world, but for these whom you have given me because they are yours. And all my things are yours, and yours are mine.” Nor is it morally right that the saints, about whom he spoke these things, be anyone’s except his by whom they have been created and sanctified; and for this reason it is necessary that also all the things that are theirs be his whose they themselves also are. Therefore, since they are both the Father’s and the Son’s, they show that these are equals, whose they equally are. (3) That, however, which he said when he was speaking about the Holy Spirit, “All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I have said that he will receive of mine and will announce it to you,”4 he said about those things that belong to the very divinity of the Father in which he [i.e., the Holy Spirit] is equal to him by having all the things that he has. For the Holy Spirit was not going to receive what he said, “He will receive of mine,” of the creature that is subject to the Father and the Son, but assuredly of the Father of whom the Spirit proceeds of whom also the Son is born. 3. “And I have been glorified,” he says, “in them.” Now he speaks of his glorification as though it already has occurred, although it was still to be; but earlier he asked of the Father that it come to be. But whether this is the same glorification about which he had said, “And now do you glorify me, Father , with yourself, with the glory that I had before the ST. AUGUSTINE 274 rum 2.33.7 (CCL 44B.82–83) the same interpretation of Lk 15.31, with the same reference to the angels is given at greater length, but without any comparison with Jn 17.9–10. See also Browne, LFC 29.969. 3. The Latin...