Essential Exposition of the Psalms by Saint Augustine

Author:Saint Augustine [Saint Augustine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New City Press
Published: 2018-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

Insertion of a Gentile graft into patriarchal stock

2. How are we to prove that the patriarchs constituted the root? Let us put our question to Paul. He rebuked the gentiles who had come to believe in Christ, and imagined that their faith gave them the right to despise the Jews who had crucified him. They were forgetting that from the Jewish people proceeded one wall, and from the uncircumcised gentiles the other wall, and that these two were destined to meet at the corner, that is, in Christ.346 When these gentiles behaved arrogantly, then, Paul took them to task: If you were cut out of the wild olive and engrafted into the Jewish stock, he says, do not boast at the expense of the branches. If you are tempted to boast, remember that it is not you who support the root, but the root you (Rom 11:24.18). He reminds them that some branches were broken from the patriarchal root on account of their unbelief, and that the shoot of wild olive, which is the Church called from the gentiles, was grafted in to draw on the olive’s richness. But who would ever graft a wild olive into the cultivated variety? We usually do it the other way round—the olive into the stock of a wild plant. We never see a wild olive grafted into a cultivated one. Anybody who does that will find no fruit except the wild berries. It is the graft that grows, and the fruit of the graft that we pick; we gather no fruit from the root, only from the scion.

Yet the apostle demonstrates that this was exactly what God had by his almighty power caused to happen: that a wild olive should be inserted into the stock of the true olive, and the graft bear not wild fruit but real olives. The apostle reminds us of God’s omnipotence, saying, If you were cut out of the wild olive and unnaturally grafted into the true olive, do not boast at the expense of the branches. But you maintain, “Those branches have been broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Yes, but they were broken off because of their unbelief. You, for your part, stand in faith; be not high-minded, but stand in awe (Rom 11:24.18–20). What does he mean by Be not high-minded? Do not be proud because you were grafted in; rather beware lest you be broken off for unbelief, as they were broken off. They were broken off because of their unbelief. You, for your part, stand in faith; be not high-minded, but stand in awe, Paul warns them. If God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you either (Rom 11:21). Then follows a fine text, one eminently necessary and worthy of our attention: Look at the kindness and the severity of God: severity indeed toward those who were broken off, but goodness toward you, who were grafted in. Be sure to abide in that goodness; for if

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