{"author":"Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)","date_end":1887,"date_label":"1887 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain)","date_start":1887,"edition_year":1887,"edition_year_basis":"Original NPNF Series I Volume III title, contents and copyright, 1887; physical transcription printing unknown; literal conflicting credits retained","id":"ws-library-full-note:acada3a5fde7fc74545a:cite_note-14","is_genuine_commentary_verified":false,"license_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Reusing_Wikisource_content","public_import_allowed":true,"publication_location":"source-library","record_type":"editorial-footnote","references":[],"rights_approved":true,"section":"Chapter 17.—How the Back Parts of God Were Seen. The Faith of the Resurrection of Christ. The Catholic Church Only is the Place from Whence the Back Parts of God are Seen. The Back Parts of God Were Seen by the Israelites. It is a Rash Opinion to Think that God the Father Only Was Never Seen by the Fathers.; original source section: Chapter 18, editorial note cite_note-14","semantic_kind_reviewed":false,"source_context":["Not unfitly is it commonly understood to be prefigured from the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, that His “back parts” are to be taken to be His flesh, in which He was born of the Virgin, and died, and rose again; whether they are called back parts on account of the posteriority of mortality, or because it was almost in the end of the world, that is, at a late period, that He deigned to take it: but that His “face” was that form of God, in which He “thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” which no one certainly can see and live; whether because after this life, in which we are absent from the Lord, and where the corruptible body presseth down the soul, we shall see “face to face,” as the apostle says—(for it is said in the Psalms, of this life, “Verily every man living is altogether vanity;” and again, “For in Thy sight shall no man living be justified;” and in this life also, according to John, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know,” he says, “that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is,” which he certainly intended to be understood as after this life, when we shall have paid the debt of death, and shall have received the promise of the resurrection);—or whether that even now, in whatever degree we spiritually understand the wisdom of God, by which all things were made, in that same degree we die to carnal affections, so that, considering this world dead to us, we also ourselves die to this world, and say what the apostle says, “The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” For it was of this death that he also says, “Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ, why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances?” Not therefore without cause will no one be able to see the “face,” that is, the manifestation itself of the wisdom of God, and live. For it is this very appearance, for the contemplation of which every one sighs who strives to love God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind; to the contemplation of which, he who loves his neighbor, too, as himself builds up his neighbor also as far as he may; on which two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. And this is signified also in Moses himself. For when he had said, on account of the love of God with which he was specially inflamed, “If I have found grace in thy sight, show me now Thyself plainly, that I may find grace in Thy sight;” he immediately subjoined, on account of the love also of his neighbor, “And that I may know that this nation is Thy people.” It is therefore that “appearance” which hurries away every rational soul with the desire of it, and the more ardently the more pure that soul is; and it is the more pure the more it rises to spiritual things; and it rises the more to spiritual things the more it dies to carnal things. But whilst we are absent from the Lord, and walk by faith, not by sight, we ought to see the “back parts” of Christ, that is His flesh, by that very faith, that is, standing on the solid foundation of faith, which the rock signifies, and beholding it from such a safe watch-tower, namely in the Catholic Church, of which it is said, “And upon this rock I will build my Church.” For so much the more certainly we love that face of Christ, which we earnestly desire to see, as we recognize in His back parts how much first Christ loved us."],"source_library_url":"/library/acada3a5fde7fc74545a/#ws-library-full-note:acada3a5fde7fc74545a:cite_note-14","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_III/Doctrinal_Treatises_of_St._Augustin/On_the_Holy_Trinity/Book_II/Chapter_18#cite_note-14","translator":"Arthur West Haddan (revision), William G. T. Shedd (revision and notes), Unnamed translator (Haddan's friend)","verification":{"proof_file":"raw/review/source-library-note-batch-0056/proof-records.jsonl","proof_file_sha256":"e0df170d421dcd73bd0a76f61768b09f25dd2e36668f01c873ba3f2300ffa8a2","proof_record_id":"ws-library-full-note:acada3a5fde7fc74545a:cite_note-14"},"verified":true,"work":"On the Holy Trinity","work_id":"ws-npnf1-3-augustine-doctrinal-9937e562a62706a6e8ad"}