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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books
Chapter XVIII.--Jesus Christ, the Mediator, is the Only Way of Safety.
24. And I sought a way of acquiring strength sufficient to enjoy Thee; but I found it not until I embraced that "Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," 1 "who is over all, God blessed for ever," 2 calling unto me, and saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," 3 and mingling that food which I was unable to receive with our flesh. For "the Word was made flesh," 4 that Thy wisdom, by which Thou createdst all things, might provide milk for our infancy. For I did not grasp my Lord Jesus,--I, though humbled, grasped not the humble One; 5 nor did I know what lesson that infirmity of His would teach us. For Thy Word, the Eternal Truth, pre-eminent above the higher parts of Thy creation, raises up those that are subject unto Itself; but in this lower world built for Itself a humble habitation of our clay, whereby He intended to abase from themselves such as would be subjected and bring them over unto Himself, allaying their swelling, and fostering their love; to the end that they might go on no further in self-confidence, but rather should become weak, seeing before their feet the Divinity weak by taking our "coats of skins;" 6 and wearied, might cast themselves down upon It, and It rising, might lift them up.
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1 Tim. ii. 5. ↩
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Rom. ix. 5. ↩
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John xiv. 6. ↩
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John i. 14. ↩
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Christ descended that we may ascend. See iv. sec. 19, notes 1 and 3, above. ↩
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Gen. iii. 21. Augustin frequently makes these "coats of skin" symbolize the mortality to which our first parents became subject by being deprived of the tree of life (see iv. sec. 15, note 3, above); and in his Enarr. in Ps. (ciii. 1, 8), he says they are thus symbolical inasmuch as the skin is only taken from animals when dead. ↩
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Confessiones (PL)
CAPUT XVIII. Solus Christus via ad salutem.
24. Et quaerebam viam comparandi roboris quod esset idoneum ad fruendum te; nec inveniebam, donec amplecterer mediatorem Dei et hominum, hominem Christum Jesum 1, qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula 2, vocantem et dicentem: Ego sum via, veritas, et vita 3; et cibum, cui capiendo invalidus eram, miscentem carni; quoniam Verbum caro factum est, ut infantiae nostrae lactesceret sapientia tua, per quam creasti omnia. Non enim tenebam Dominum meum Jesum, humilis humilem; nec cujus rei magistra esset ejus infirmitas noveram. Verbum enim tuum aeterna veritas, superioribus creaturae tuae partibus supereminens, subditos erigit ad seipsam: in inferioribus autem aedificavit sibi humilem domum de limo nostro, per quam subdendos deprimeret a seipsis, et ad se trajiceret, sanans tumorem, et nutriens amorem; ne fiducia sui progrederentur longius, sed potius infirmarentur videntes ante pedes suos infirmam divinitatem ex participatione tunicae pelliceae nostrae, et [Col. 0746] lassi prosternerentur in eam, illa autem surgens levaret eos.