Peter, by primacy of Apostleship, represents the Church: 1085

XXI.

12.

alms-deeds for salutary remedies, by which their prayer JOHN should be aided, wherein He hath taught them to say, Forgive 19-25. us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Thus fares the Matt. 6, Church by blessed hope in this troublesome life of which Church the Apostle Peter, by reason of the primacy of his Apostleship, is by figurative generality the representative. For, as it regards himself in his proper person, by nature he was one man, by grace one Christian, by more abundant grace one and withal the chief Apostle: but when it was said to him, To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven: Mat. 16, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, he denoted the universal Church, which in this world by divers temptations, like as by rains, floods, tempests, is shaken, and falleth not, because it is founded Matt. 7, upon the rock, "super petram," from which Peter had his

name.

16-19.

25.

For it is not "a Petro petra," but " Petrus a petra," not from Peter hath the Rock its name, but Peter his from the Rock, just as "Christ" is not so called from "Christian," but "Christian" from "Christ." Since, that the Lord said, "Super hanc petram ædificabo Ecclesiam meam," Upon this Rock will I build My Church, was because Peter had said, Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God. Upon this, then, saith He, upon this Rock, Which thou hast confessed, will I build My Church. For the Rock was Christ: upon which 1 Cor. 10, 4. foundation Peter himself also was built. For other foundation id. 3, 11. can no man lay save that which is laid, which is, Christ Jesus. The Church therefore, which is founded in Christ, did

a S. Aug. Retract. i. 21." In a certain place of the book which I wrote while a presbyter Contra Epistolam Donati, I said concerning the Apostle Peter, that on him as the rock the Church is founded; which sense is also sung by the mouth of many in the verses of the most blessed Ambrose, where speaking of the cock, he saith, Hoc, ipsa petra ecclesiæ Canente, culpam diluit. But I know that I have since very often expounded that saying of the Lord, Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram ædi ficabo Ecclesiam meam, to mean, Upon Him Whom Peter confessed, saying, Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God: and so that Peter, named from this Rock, should figuratively repre

sent the Church which is built upon
this rock, and which hath received the
keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. For
it is not said to him, Tu es petra, but,
Tu es Petrus. Now Petra erat Christus,
The Rock was Christ; Whom having
confessed, as the whole Church confess-
eth Him, he was called Peter. Which
of these two senses is the more probable,
let the reader choose." In his extant
works, St. Augustine is constant to the
latter interpretation. Comp. supra Hom.
118,4. Serm. 270, 2. Non supra Petrum
quod tu es, sed supra petram quam con-
fessus es. Edificabo autem Ecclesiam
meam: ædificabo te, qui in hac respon-
sione figuram gessisti Ecclesiæ. Serm.
149, 7: 295, 1. 2. Lib. de Agone

1086 i. e. the Church militant, following Christ through suffering.

HOMIL. in Peter receive from Him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: CXXIV. that is, the power of binding and loosing sins. For that

21.

1 Cor. 13, 12.

which in strictness of speech the Church is in Christ, the same, by significance, is Peter in the Rock: in which significance the Rock means Christ, Peter the Church. This Church then, which Peter represented, so long as it exists in the midst of evils, by loving and following Christ is delivered from evils. Now it doth more follow Him in them who strive for the Truth even unto death. Howbeit, it is said to the whole universally, Follow Me: to that whole, for which universally Christ suffered: of Whom the same Peter saith, 1 Pet.2, Christ suffered for us, leaving us an ensample, that we should follow His steps. Behold here in what regard it is said, Follow Me. But there is another life, immortal, which is not amid evils: there we shall see face to face, that which here, by much proficiency in attaining unto the sight of the truth, is seen through a glass, darkly. Two lives, therefore, preached and commended unto her of God, the Church knoweth: of which, one is in faith, the other in sight; one in time of sojourning, the other in eternity of abiding; one in labour, the other in rest; one in the way, the other in its home; one in the work of action, the other in the wages of contemplation; one declines from evil and does good, the other hath no evil to decline from, and hath great good to enjoy; one fights with the enemy, the other reigns without an enemy; one is courageous in things adverse, the other hath no sense of ought adverse; one curbs carnal lusts, the other is wholly given up to spiritual delights; one is anxious with care of getting the victory, the other in the peace of victory is without a care; one in temptations is helped, the other without any temptation rejoices in the Helper Himself; one succours the needy, the other is there where it finds none needy; one forgives others' sins that its own may be forgiven, the other neither hath ought done to it that it need forgive, nor does ought that it need ask to be forgiven; one is scourged by evils that it be not lifted up in its good things, the other with such fulness of grace is free from all evil, that

Christiano §. 32. Enarr. in Psa. 108,
1. Quædam dicuntur quæ ad apostolum
Petrum proprie pertinere videantur, nec
tamen habent illustrem intellectum, nisi
um referuntur ad Ecclesiam cujus ille

agnoscitur in figura gestasse personam, propter primatum quem in discipulis habuit; sicuti est, Tibi dabo claves regni cœlorum: &c.

Peter and John: the Life of faith and the Life of sight. 1087

XXI.

without any temptation to pride it cleaves to the Supreme JoHN
Good; one discerns between good and evil, the other beholds. 20-23.
the things that alone are good therefore, the one is good
but as yet wretched; the other better, and blessed. The
first is signified by the Apostle Peter; the last by John. The
first is wholly spent here even unto the end of this world,
and there finds an end; the last is deferred, to be completed
after the end of this world, but in the world to come hath no
end. Therefore to this it is said, Follow Me; but of that other,
Thus will I that he tarry till I come; what is that to thee?
Follow thou Me. For what is this? So far as I understand,
so far as I take it in, what is this but, Follow thou Me, by
copying the pattern of enduring temporal evils; let the other
tarry until I come to render the good things that are for ever
and ever? Which may be more openly expressed in this wise:
Let perfected Action follow Me, informed by the ensample of
My Passion: but let begun Contemplation tarry until I come,
to be perfected when I am come. For that which follows Christ
is the pious fulness of patience reaching even unto death:
but that which tarries until Christ come, the fulness of
knowledge to be then made manifest. Here, truly, we are
enduring the evils of this world in the land of the dying,
there we shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of
the living. For this that He saith, "volo eum manere,” I
will that he tarry till I come, is not to be understood as if it
had been said, remanere or permanere, to remain or continue;
but in the sense, "to wait:" since the thing signified by his
person is not now, but when Christ comes, to be fulfilled.
But the thing signified in his person to whom it is said,
Follow Me, must be done now, else shall there be no coming
unto that which is looked for. Now in this active life, the
more we love Christ, the more easily we are delivered from
evil. But then He loves us less, such as we now are; and
may not be always such.

indeed delivers us hence, that we
There, however, He loves us more: because there will be in us
nothing to displease Him, or that He should take away from
us: nor doth He love us here for any other purpose but to
heal us and translate us from the things He loveth not. Here
then less, where it is not His will that we remain: there more,
whither it is His will that we pass, and whence He willeth not

1088

The love of Christ seen waits until He come.

HOMIL. that we pass away and perish. Then let Peter love Him, CXXIV. that from this mortality we may be delivered: let John be loved of Him, that in that immortality we may be preserved.

3, 2.

6. But in this way it is shewn why Christ loved John more than Peter, not why Peter more than John loved Christ. For it cannot be that if Christ love us more in the world to come, where we shall live with Him without end, than in this from which He is rescuing us, that we may be in that for ever, therefore we shall love Him less when we shall be better: since better we can in no wise be, except by more loving Him. Why then did John love Him less than Peter did, if John denoted that life in which the Lord shall be loved much more, except as this saying, I will that he tarry, i. e. wait, till I come, hath this meaning, that this same love which shall then be greater, we have not yet, but wait for it as future, that when He shall come we may have it? For, 1 John as the same Apostle saith in his Epistle, It hath not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Then, consequently, what we shall see, we shall love more. But the Lord Himself, in the foresight of that life of ours which is to be, knowing what manner of life it shall be in us, doth by predestination love more, so by loving to bring us Ps. 25, safe thereunto. Wherefore, since all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth, our present misery we know, because we feel; and therefore the mercy of the Lord which we wish to be exhibited to us in delivering us from our misery, we love more, and every day, especially for remission of sins, crave and have the same: this was signified by Peter, loving more and less beloved; because Christ loves us less being wretched than being blessed. But the contemplation of the Truth, such as it shall then be, we love less, because we do not yet know nor have it: this is signified by John, loving less and therefore waiting until the Lord come, both for the fulfilling of the contemplation itself, and of the love thereof in us, such as is due to it; but more beloved, because the thing which in him is figured is that which makes us blessed.

10.

7. Let no man part these marked Apostles. Both in that which Peter served to mark, they both were; and in that which John served to mark, they both were to

The whole Church, as St. Peter, follows Christ,

1089

XXI.

be. In regard of the sign, the one followed, the other JOHN tarried: but in believing, they both endured the present 20-23. evil things of this life's wretchedness, both looked for the future good things of that life's blessedness. And not they alone, but the whole holy Church doeth this, the spouse of Christ, to be from these temptations delivered, in that felicity preserved. Of which two lives Peter and John were figures, each severally: but yet both in this, temporally, they both walked by faith, and that, to eternity, they both will enjoy by sight. For all saints, therefore, inseparably pertaining to the body of Christ, in regard to their pilotage through this most stormy life, the chief of the Apostles, Peter, received the keys of the kingdom of Heaven for the binding and loosing of sins: and for all saints too, in regard to their most quiet harbourage in that life of perfect shelter, John the Evangelist lay in the bosom of the Lord. Since both as touching the binding and loosing sins, not Peter alone, but the whole Church doth this: and as touching those sublime verities, the Word in the beginning, God with God, and the rest concerning Christ's Godhead and the Trinity and Unity of the Godhead Itself, which in that kingdom are to be contemplated face to face, but now, until the Lord come, to be looked at through a glass darkly, not John alone, by preaching to 'indite thereof, drank from the fountain of'ructathe Lord's bosom: but the Lord Himself hath shed abroad over the whole earth the Gospel itself, that all His, each according to his capacity, may drink thereof. There are who have thought, and those no mean expositors of the S. Hiesacred Word, that the reason why John the Apostle was viloved more than others by Christ, was, that he never married, nian. and from his earliest childhood lived in perfect chastity. This indeed doth not evidently appear in the canonical Scriptures: but yet it does also much help the agreeableness of this opinion, that by him is signified that life in which there shall be no marriages. This is that disciple which v.24.25. testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. It is not to be believed that

ret

ronym.

c. Jovi.

i.