28 Luke xv. 22, stolam primam. S. Aug. de Gen. ad litt. vi. 38. "That `first robe0' is either the righteousness from which man fell, or, if it signify the clothing of bodily immortality, this also he lost, when by reason of sin he could not attain thereto:" and sec. 31. "Why is `the first robe0' brought forth to him, but as he receives again the immortality which Adam lost?" Tertullian: vestem prestinam, priorem: "the former robe, which he had of old...the clothing of the Holy Spirit." Theophylact. th\n stolh\n th\n a0rxai/an...to\ e@nduma th=j a0fqarsiaj, "the original robe, the clothing of incorruption."
45 1 John iv. 15. [Life; "the Life eternal."-The Epistle begins and ends with Life, announced and promised (the word occurs thirteen times in the one hundred and ten verses). The intermediate presentation of Love, as the grand efflux from the inner, Spiritual life, gives the main theme of St. John, and it is of this that Augustine delights to speak in these discourses.
The life of an intelligent being is in conscious dependence on God. In the fullest sense, "in Him we live."
Death and life are among the striking contrasts named in the epistle: "the death," "the life,"-"the death that is truly death, the life that is truly life."
This life is in Christ. He not only brings it and imparts it, but He is "our Life." The living and life-giving Christ is manifested in this epistle, and also the death that exists where there is no union, by love, to Him.
The Life, eternal (to distinguish it from the life that now is, the life bounded by sense and time), is not mere prolongation of existence. We must use sensuous images in order to apprehend the idea, but we are to remember that they are not realities in the spiritual order.
The life which Christ gives, enabling men to have life in Him, cannot exist apart from Himself; His seal remains in them, and He abides in them.
The "life eternal," while future as to its full realization, is present, is begun here and now. "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life," and its possession is matter of actual knowledge to those who have this life; "we know that we abide in Him and He in us" (1 John v. 13).
It is a life which unites heaven and earth, bringing into this stage of being "the powers of the world to come."
A life that satisfies, while it enkindles desire and aspiration: it gives strength to bear present ills in the joyous and assured hope of "a life beyond life."]-J. H. M.
3 1 Cor. xiii. 8. Lit. pi/ptei.
16 1 John iv. 18. Aemulatores.
18 Ps. xxx. 11, 12. Non compungar.
26 Agnosce tu, et ille ignoscit.
27 Exedra. In Eusebius, this term denotes certain outer buildings of the Church, such as the baptistery, &c. Hist. Ecc. x 4. Vales. ad Ens. de Vit. Const. iii. 50; Bingham, Antiq. viii. 3, sec. 1. But in St. Augustine it evidently means that part of the church in which the Bishop had his seat, the sanctuarium, or chancel; and with this agrees the use of the term in Vitruvius, v. Forcellini s. v. Comp. de Civ. Dei, xxii. 8, and Epist. (ad Alyp.) xxix. 8. Here the meaning is, Is such a soul present in this church? among the laity? among the clergy?