Gregory Cruess: Augustine’s Biblical Christology: Re-reading the In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus

This paper seeks to articulate the irreducibly biblical nature of Augustine’s mature Christology as presented in his Homilies on the Gospel of John. Although relatively neglected as a source for studying Augustine’s Christology, his sermon series on the Fourth Gospel presents a sophisticated episodic meditation upon the framework of the Johannine prologue and its proclamation that the co-eternal Word and Son has “become flesh” (Jn 1:14) in time and taken on the full reality of human life. Augustine articulates this hermeneutic explicitly in his own explanation of the three ways in which Christ can be named: first as God co-equal with the Father, second as the Word Incarnate who remains God but is at the same time a true human being, and lastly as the whole Christ, united to all humanity through his body the Church (s. 341). I suggest that this schema helps adequately address the incarnational scope and structure of Augustine’s exegesis, while at the same time providing an important manner of integrating the great diversity of his language concerning Christ. When applied to the Homilies on John, this hermeneutic serves as a framework for respecting the scope of Augustine’s Christology and integrating his particular exegesis of the episodes of the Gospel narrative itself. It preserves an approach to the sermons which resists an overly narrow focus upon their immediate context and audience and instead illuminates the depth of Augustine’s scriptural exegesis as an exposition of Christ proclaimed in his threefold unity.