Agostino d'Ippona: Frasi in inglese (pagina 3)

Exposition 2 of Psalm 108. The unity and perpetuity of the Church against the Donatists.
Expositions of the Psalms 99-120 (The Works of Saint Augustine, Vol 19 Part 3), Boniface Ramsey, ed., Maria Boulding, O.S.B, tr., New City Press, , pp. 68-69 http://books.google.com/books?id=3iWSkxuvyQ4C&pg=PA68&dq=%22So+say+people+who+are+not+within+the+Church.+What+an+impudent+assertion%22&hl=en&ei=-MlfTI7XKIHGlQeZ0JCZCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22So%20say%20people%20who%20are%20not%20within%20the%20Church.%20What%20an%20impudent%20assertion%22&f=false
Expositions on the Psalms
Contesto: God is one, and the Church is a unity; only unity can respond to him who is one. But there are some people why say, “Yes, that certainly was the case. The Church spread among all nations did respond to him, bearing more children than did the wedded wife. It responded to him in the way of his strength, for it believed that Christ had risen. All nations believed in him. But that Church which was drawn from all nations no longer exists: it has perished.”
So say people who are not within the Church. What an impudent assertion! The Church does not exist because you are not in it? Be careful lest such an attitude result in your not existing yourself, for the Church will be here even if you are not. But the Spirit of God anticipated this abominable, detestable assertion, this claim full of presumption and falsehood, a claim with nothing to support it, illumined by no spark of wisdom, seasoned by no salt. God’s Spirit anticipated this empty, unfounded, foolhardy and pernicious proposition and seemingly refuted it in advance by proclaiming that the Church is united by the gathering of the people together into one, and kingdoms to serve the Lord.

XI, 26, Parts of this passage has been heavily compared with later statements of René Descartes; in Latin and with a variant translations:
The City of God (early 400s)
Contesto: We both are, and know that we are, and delight in our being, and our knowledge of it. Moreover, in these three things no true-seeming illusion disturbs us; for we do not come into contact with these by some bodily sense, as we perceive the things outside of us of all which sensible objects it is the images resembling them, but not themselves which we perceive in the mind and hold in the memory, and which excite us to desire the objects. But, without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. And, consequently, neither am I deceived in knowing that I know. For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And when I love these two things, I add to them a certain third thing, namely, my love, which is of equal moment. For neither am I deceived in this, that I love, since in those things which I love I am not deceived; though even if these were false, it would still be true that I loved false things. For how could I justly be blamed and prohibited from loving false things, if it were false that I loved them? But, since they are true and real, who doubts that when they are loved, the love of them is itself true and real? Further, as there is no one who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one who does not wish [themself] to be [into being]. For how can he be happy, if he is nothing?

On the Mystical Body of Christ
Contesto: What is the use of believing, if the dost blaspheme? Thou adorest Him as Head, and dost blaspheme Him in His body. He loves His body. Thou canst cut thyself off from the body, but the Head does not detach itself from its body. "Thou dost honor me in vain," He cries from heaven, "thou dost honor Me in vain!" If someone wished to kiss thy cheek, but insisted at the same time on trampling thy feet; if with his hailed boots he were to crush thy feet as he tries to hold thy head and kiss thee, wouldst thou not interrupt his expression of respect and cry out: "What are thou doing, man? Thou art trampling upon me!" …
It is for this reason that before He ascended into heaven our Lord Jesus Christ recommended to us His body, by which He was to remain upon earth. For He foresaw that many would pay Him homage because of His glory in heaven, but that their homage would be vain, so long as they despise His members on earth. (pp. 436-437) http://books.google.com/books?id=CIosAAAAIAAJ&q=%22their+homage+would+be+vain,+so+long+as+they+despise+His+members+on+earth%22&dq=%22their+homage+would+be+vain,+so+long+as+they+despise+His+members+on+earth%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3AIXUd70C4mi8QTi2IC4Cg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA

XI, 9
The City of God (early 400s)
Contesto: For when God said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light and be called “Day,” in participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by whom both themselves and all else were made. “The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” — this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, being deprived of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name “evil.”

Early Christian Latin Poets, 2000, Carolinne White, Routledge, London, p. 55. http://books.google.com/books?id=MoI963yzTisC&pg=PA55
Psalmus Contra Partem Donati - Psalm Against the Donatists (c. 393)
Contesto: All those of you who rejoice in peace, now it is time to judge the truth....
Undoubtedly in days gone by there were holy men as Scripture tells,
For God stated that he left behind seven thousand men in safety,
And there are many priests and kings who are righteous under the law,
There you find so many of the prophets, and many of the people too.
Tell me which of the righteous of that time claimed an altar for himself?
That wicked nation perpetrated a very large number of crimes,
They sacrificed to idols and may prophets were put to death,
Yet not a single one of the righteous withdrew from unity.
The righteous endured the unrighteous while waiting for the winnower:
They all mingled in one temple but were not mingled in their hearts;
They said such things against them yet they had a single altar.

Early Christian Latin Poets, 2000, Carolinne White, Routledge, London, p. 55. http://books.google.com/books?id=MoI963yzTisC&pg=PA55
Psalmus Contra Partem Donati - Psalm Against the Donatists (c. 393)
Contesto: All those of you who rejoice in peace, now it is time to judge the truth....
Undoubtedly in days gone by there were holy men as Scripture tells,
For God stated that he left behind seven thousand men in safety,
And there are many priests and kings who are righteous under the law,
There you find so many of the prophets, and many of the people too.
Tell me which of the righteous of that time claimed an altar for himself?
That wicked nation perpetrated a very large number of crimes,
They sacrificed to idols and may prophets were put to death,
Yet not a single one of the righteous withdrew from unity.
The righteous endured the unrighteous while waiting for the winnower:
They all mingled in one temple but were not mingled in their hearts;
They said such things against them yet they had a single altar.

273:9; translation from: The works of Saint Augustine, John E. Rotelle, New City Press, ISBN 1565480600 ISBN 9781565480605p. 21. http://books.google.com/books?id=13HYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22venerate+the+martyrs,+praise,+love,+proclaim,+honor+them%22&dq=%22venerate+the+martyrs,+praise,+love,+proclaim,+honor+them%22&hl=en&ei=8MJkTejQMISdlgeq0aGrBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ
Sermons

XI, 9
The City of God (early 400s)
Contesto: For when God said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light and be called “Day,” in participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by whom both themselves and all else were made. “The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” — this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, being deprived of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name “evil.”

Origine: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p. 414
Contesto: What is the Church? She is the body of Christ. Join to it the Head, and you have one man: The Head and the body make up one man. Who is the head? He who was born of the Virgin Mary. … And what is His body? It is His Spouse, that is, the Church.... The Father willed that these two, the God Christ and the Church, should be one man. All men are one man in Christ, and the unity of the Christians constitutes but one man. And this man is all men, all men are this man; for all are one, since Christ is one.

Origine: On the Mystical Body of Christ, pp. 424-425
Contesto: What does the Scripture mean when it tells us of the body of one man so extended in space that all can kill him? We must understand these words of ourselves, of our Church, or the body of Christ. For Jesus Christ is one man, having a Head and a body. The Saviour of the body and the members of the body are two in one flesh, and in one voice, and in one passion, and, when iniquity shall have passed away, in one repose.
And so the passion of Christ is not in Christ alone; and yet the passion of Christ is in Christ alone. For if in Christ you consider both the Head and the body, the Christ’s passion is in Christ alone; but if by Christ you mean only the Head, then Christ’s passion is not in Christ alone. Hence if you are in the members of Christ, all you who hear me, and even you who hear me not (though you do hear, if you are united with the members of Christ), whatever you suffer at the hands of those who are no among the members of Christ, was lacking to the sufferings of Christ. It is added precisely because it was lacking. You fill up the measure; you do not cause it to overflow. You will suffer just so much as must be added of your sufferings to the complete passion of Christ, who suffered as our Head and who continues to suffer in His members, that is, in us. Into this common treasury each pays what he owes, and according to each one’s ability we all contribute our share of suffering. The full measure of the Passion will not be attained until the end of the world.

Origine: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.423
Contesto: No greater gift could God bestow on men than to give them as their Head His Word, by whom He made all things, and to unite them as members to that Head. Thus the Word became both Son of God and Son of man: one God with the Father, one Man with men. Hence, when we offer our petitions to God, let it not detach itself from its Head. Let it be He, the sole Saviour of His body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us, who prays in us, and who is prayed to by us. He prays for us as our Priest; He prays in us as our Head; He is prayed to by us as our God. Let us therefore hear both our words in Him and His words in us.... We pray to Him in the form of God; He prays in the form of the slave. There He is the Creator; here He is in the creature. He changes not, but takes the creature and transforms it into Himself, making us one man, head and body, with Himself.
We pray therefore to Him, and through Him, and in Him. We pray with Him, and He with us; we recite this prayer of the Psalm in Him, and He recites it in us.

III, 1
Confessions (c. 397)

18
Sermons

Early Christian Latin Poets, 2000, Carolinne White, Routledge, London, p. 55. http://books.google.com/books?id=MoI963yzTisC&pg=PA55
Psalmus Contra Partem Donati - Psalm Against the Donatists (c. 393)
Contesto: All those of you who rejoice in peace, now it is time to judge the truth....
Undoubtedly in days gone by there were holy men as Scripture tells,
For God stated that he left behind seven thousand men in safety,
And there are many priests and kings who are righteous under the law,
There you find so many of the prophets, and many of the people too.
Tell me which of the righteous of that time claimed an altar for himself?
That wicked nation perpetrated a very large number of crimes,
They sacrificed to idols and may prophets were put to death,
Yet not a single one of the righteous withdrew from unity.
The righteous endured the unrighteous while waiting for the winnower:
They all mingled in one temple but were not mingled in their hearts;
They said such things against them yet they had a single altar.

Sermon 19:2 on the New Testament http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160319.htm
Sermons
Contesto: You wish to be great, begin from the least. You are thinking to construct some mighty fabric in height; first think of the foundation of humility. And how great soever a mass of building one may wish and design to place above it, the greater the building is to be, the deeper does he dig his foundation.

Origine: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.421
Contesto: Certainly He says this for me, for thee, for this other man, since He bears His body, the Church. Unless you imagine, brethren, that when He said: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me” (Matt. 26:39), it was the Lord that feared to die.... But Paul longed to die, that he might be with Christ. What? The Apostle desires to die, and Christ Himself should fear death? What can this mean, except that He bore our infirmity in Himself, and uttered these words for those who are in His body and still fear death? It is from these that the voice came; it was the voice of His members, not of the Head. When He said, “My soul is sorrowful unto death” (Matt. 26:38), He manifested Himself in thee, and thee in Himself. And when He said, “My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46), the words He uttered on the cross were not His own, but ours.

Sermon 361 On the Resurrection of the Dead; 15 How to answer their exaggerated praise of Christ and their disparaging of Christians.
English translation from: Works of Saint Augustine, A Translation for the 21st Century, III/10, Sermons 341-400 (on liturgical seasons), Edmund Hill, tr., John E. Rotelle, ed., New City Press, 1995, , pp. 234-235. https://books.google.ca/books?id=iE30Zob4v98C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=exaggerated&f=false
Sermons
Contesto: So they [the pagans] are going to say, “You tell me that Christ has risen again, and from that you hope for the resurrection of the dead; but Christ was in a position to rise from the dead.” And now he begins to praise Christ, not in order to do him honor, but to make you despair. It is the deadly cunning of the serpent, to turn you away from Christ by praising Christ, to extol deceitfully the one he doesn’t dare to disparage.
He exaggerates the sovereign majesty of Christ in order to make him out quite unique, to stop you hoping for anything like what was demonstrated in his rising again. And he seems, apparently, to be all the more religiously respectful of Christ, when he says, “Look at the person who dares compare himself to Christ, so that just because Christ rose again, he can imagine that he's going to rise again too!” Don't let this perverse praise of your emperor disturb you. The insidious tricks of the enemy may disturb you, but the humility and humanity of Christ should console you. This man emphasizes how high above you Christ has been lifted up; Christ, though, says how low he came down to you.

Sermon 87:2 ( Sermon 37:2 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160337.htm) on Matthew 20. Preached in the autumn after 424. Latin http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/augustine/serm87.shtml
The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Sermons 51-94), John E. Rotelle, Edmund Hill, eds. & trans., New City Press, 1990 pp. 407- 408. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=bks:1&source=og&q=%22So%20there%20you%20are%3B%20listen%3B%20as%20I%20said%2C%20God%20worships%20us%20in%20the%20sense%20of%20tending%20our%20worth%22&sa=N&tab=wp
Sermons
Contesto: So there you are; listen; as I said, God "worships" us in the sense of tending our worth. That we worship God, of course, doesn't need proving to you. It's on everybody's lips, after all, that human beings worship God. That God, though, worships human beings, it's enough to frighten hearers out of their wits, because people are not in the habit of saying that God worships human beings — in that special sense —but that human beings worship God.
So I've got to prove to you that God too does "worship" human beings, or you will consider, perhaps, that I have used the word very carelessly, and begin arguing against me in your thoughts, and finding fault with me because you don't in fact grasp what I have been saying. So it's agreed that this is what has to be demonstrated to you: that God also "worships" us; but in the sense I have already mentioned, that he tends our worth as his field, to make improvements in us. The Lord says in the gospel: I am the vine, you are the branches; my Father is the farm worker (Jn 15:5,1). What does a farm worker do? I'm asking you, those of you who are farm workers and farmers. What does a farm worker do? I presume he works his farm, that is, tends its worth, that is, "worships" it, in a sense. So if God the Father is a farmer or farm worker, it means he has a farm, and he works or "worships" his farm, and expects a crop from it.

Origine: On the Mystical Body of Christ, pp. 424-425
Contesto: What does the Scripture mean when it tells us of the body of one man so extended in space that all can kill him? We must understand these words of ourselves, of our Church, or the body of Christ. For Jesus Christ is one man, having a Head and a body. The Saviour of the body and the members of the body are two in one flesh, and in one voice, and in one passion, and, when iniquity shall have passed away, in one repose.
And so the passion of Christ is not in Christ alone; and yet the passion of Christ is in Christ alone. For if in Christ you consider both the Head and the body, the Christ’s passion is in Christ alone; but if by Christ you mean only the Head, then Christ’s passion is not in Christ alone. Hence if you are in the members of Christ, all you who hear me, and even you who hear me not (though you do hear, if you are united with the members of Christ), whatever you suffer at the hands of those who are no among the members of Christ, was lacking to the sufferings of Christ. It is added precisely because it was lacking. You fill up the measure; you do not cause it to overflow. You will suffer just so much as must be added of your sufferings to the complete passion of Christ, who suffered as our Head and who continues to suffer in His members, that is, in us. Into this common treasury each pays what he owes, and according to each one’s ability we all contribute our share of suffering. The full measure of the Passion will not be attained until the end of the world.