{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/107/1070083.htm","path":"chr/ecf/107/1070083.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/107/1070083.htm","text":"1. This passage of the Gospel, brethren, where the Lord calls Himself the vine, and His disciples the branches, declares in so many words that the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 1378 is the head of the Church, and that we are His members. For as the vine and its branches are of one nature, therefore, His own nature as God being different from ours, He became man, that in Him human nature might be the vine, and we who also are men might become branches thereof. What mean, then, the words, \u201cI am the true vine\u201d? Was it to the literal vine, from which that metaphor was drawn, that p. 344 He intended to point them by the addition of \u201ctrue\u201d? For it is by similitude, and not by any personal propriety, that He is thus called a vine; just as He is also termed a sheep, a lamb, a lion, a rock, a corner-stone, and other names of a like kind, which are themselves rather the true ones, from which these are drawn as similitudes, not as realities. But when He says, \u201cI am the true vine,\u201d it is to distinguish Himself, doubtless, from that [vine] to which the words are addressed: \u201cHow art thou turned into sourness, 1379 as a strange vine?\u201d 1380 For how could that be a true vine which was expected to bring forth grapes and brought forth thorns? 1381\n2. \u201cI am,\u201d He says, \u201cthe true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, He taketh away; and every one that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.\u201d Are, then, the husbandman and the vine one? Christ is the vine in the same sense as when He said, \u201cThe Father is greater than I;\u201d 1382 but in that sense wherein He said, \u201cI and my Father are one,\u201d He is also the husbandman. And yet not such a one as those, whose whole service is confined to external labor; but such, that He also supplies the increase from within. \u201cFor neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.\u201d But Christ is certainly God, for the Word was God; and so He and the Father are one: and if the Word was made flesh,\u2014that which He was not before,\u2014He nevertheless still remains what He was. And still more, after saying of the Father, as of the husbandman, that He taketh away the fruitless branches, and pruneth the fruitful, that they may bring forth more fruit, He straightway points to Himself as also the purger of the branches, when He says, \u201cNow ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.\u201d Here, you see, He is also the pruner of the branches\u2014a work which belongs to the husbandman, and not to the vine; and more than that, He maketh the branches His workmen. For although they give not the increase, they afford some help; but not of themselves: \u201cFor without me,\u201d He says, \u201cye can do nothing.\u201d And listen, also, to their own confession: \u201cWhat, then, is Apollos, and what is Paul? but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man. I have planted, Apollos watered.\u201d And this, too, \u201cas the Lord gave to every man;\u201d and so not of themselves. In that, however, which follows, \u201cbut God gave the increase,\u201d 1383 He works not by them, but by Himself; for work like that exceeds the lowly capacity of man, transcends the lofty powers of angels, and rests solely and entirely in the hands of the Triune Husbandman. \u201cNow ye are clean,\u201d that is, clean, and yet still further to be cleansed. For, had they not been clean, they could not have borne fruit; and yet every one that beareth fruit is purged by the husbandman, that he may bring forth more fruit. He bears fruit because he is clean; and to bear more, he is cleansed still further. For who in this life is so clean as not to be in need of still further and further cleansing? seeing that, \u201cif we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness;\u201d to cleanse in very deed the clean, that is, the fruitful, that they may be so much the more fruitful, as they have been made the cleaner.\n3. \u201cNow ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Why does He not say, Ye are clean through the baptism wherewith ye have been washed, but \u201cthrough the word which I have spoken unto you,\u201d save only that in the water also it is the word that cleanseth? Take away the word, and the water is neither more nor less than water. The word is added to the element, and there results the Sacrament, as if itself also a kind of visible word. For He had said also to the same effect, when washing the disciples\u2019 feet, \u201cHe that is washed needeth not, save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.\u201d 1384 And whence has water so great an efficacy, as in touching the body to cleanse the soul, save by the operation of the word; and that not because it is uttered, but because it is believed? For even in the word itself the passing sound is one thing, the abiding efficacy another. \u201cThis is the word of faith which we preach,\u201d says the apostle, \u201cthat if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.\u201d 1385 Accordingly, we read in the Acts of the Apostles, \u201cPurifying their hearts by faith;\u201d 1386 and, says the blessed Peter in his epistle, \u201cEven as p. 345 baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer 1387 of a good conscience.\u201d \u201cThis is the word of faith which we preach,\u201d whereby baptism, doubtless, is also consecrated, in order to its possession of the power to cleanse. For Christ, who is the vine with us, and the husbandman with the Father, \u201cloved the Church, and gave Himself for it.\u201d And then read the apostle, and see what he adds: \u201cThat He might sanctify it, cleansing it with the washing of water by the word.\u201d 1388 The cleansing, therefore, would on no account be attributed to the fleeting and perishable element, were it not for that which is added, \u201cby the word.\u201d This word of faith possesses such virtue in the Church of God, that through the medium of him who in faith presents, and blesses, and sprinkles it, He cleanseth even the tiny infant, although itself unable as yet with the heart to believe unto righteousness, and to make confession with the mouth unto salvation. All this is done by means of the word, whereof the Lord saith, \u201cNow ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.\u201d\nHebrew \u05e1\u05d5\u05bc\u05e8\u05b5\u05d9, pass. part. of \u05e8\u05d5\u05bc\u05e1, to depart [from God], and so, perhaps, \u201cstragglers,\u201d i.e. \u201cstraggling branches of [a strange vine];\u201d or, as in English version, \u201cdegenerate branches,\u201d rather than as in text, where Augustin gives, in amaritudinem, vitis aliena, following the LXX., which reads, \u201c\u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f21 \u1f04\u03bc\u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f21 \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b1.\u201d The Vulgate is better: in pravum, vinea aliena.\u2014Tr.\n344:1380 344:1381 344:1382 344:1383 344:1384 344:1385 344:1386 345:1387\nLiterally, \u201cquestioning,\u201d interrogatio, 1 Pet. iii. 21.\n345:1388","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII: Lectures or Tra...","type":"page"}