Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and brings forth fruit, as it does also in you, since the day you heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
Honor, love and praise the holy church, your mother, the heavenly Jerusalem, the holy City of God. It is she who, in this faith which you have received, bears fruit and spreads throughout the world. She is the “church of the living God, the pillar and mainstay of truth,” who, in dispensing the sacraments, tolerates the wicked who are eventually to be separated and whom, meanwhile, disparity of customs keeps at a distance. For the sake of the grain now growing amid the chaff, at the final sifting of which the harvest destined for the granary will be revealed, the church has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
There are both good and bad in the Catholic church, which has spread not in Africa alone, as the Donatist sect has done, but through all nations, as it was promised, and which extends throughout the whole world, as the apostle says, bringing forth fruit and increasing.
“The gospel has come to you, as it is in all the world, and brings forth fruit.” The Son of God said with his own mouth, “You shall be witnesses to me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.” Caecilianus, the bishop of the church of Carthage, is accused with human contentiousness; the church of Christ, established among all nations, is recommended by the voice of God.
It is much less surprising that he [Paul] used his verbs in the present tense in that passage which, as you remarked, he repeated again and again: “For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, which you have heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which is come to you as also it is in the whole world, and brings forth fruit and grows.” Although the gospel did not yet embrace the whole world, he said that it brings forth fruit and grows in the whole world, in order to show how far it would extend in bearing fruit and growing. If, then, it is hidden from us when the whole world will be filled by the church bringing forth fruit and growing, undoubtedly it is hidden from us when the end will be, but it certainly will not be before that.
“Bearing fruit.” In works. “Increasing.” By the coming to faith of many, by becoming firmer; for plants then begin to thicken when they have become firm.
Paul speaks metaphorically when he writes, “is come.” He means, it did not come and go away, but that it remained and was there. Many doctrines are most strongly confirmed if they are held in common with many. Therefore Paul added, “As also it is in all the world.” The gospel is present everywhere, everywhere victorious, everywhere established.
Which has come unto you, even as it is also in all the world.
He now gives them credit. Is come, he said metaphorically. He means, it did not come and go away, but that it remained, and was there. Then because to the many the strongest confirmation of doctrines is that they hold them in common with many, he therefore added, As also it is in all the world.
It is present everywhere, everywhere victorious, everywhere established.
And is bearing fruit, and increasing, as it does in you also.
Bearing fruit. In works. Increasing. By the accession of many, by becoming firmer; for plants then begin to thicken when they have become firm.
As also among you, says he.
He first gains the hearer by his praises, so that even though disinclined, he may not refuse to hear him.
Since the day ye heard it.
Marvelous! That you quickly came unto it and believed; and straightway, from the very first, showed forth its fruits.
Since the day ye heard, and knew the grace of God in truth.
Not in...
I am accustomed in my prescription against all heresies to fix my concise and comprehensive criterion [of truth] in the testimony of time, claiming priority therein as our rule and alleging lateness to be the characteristic of every heresy. This shall be proved even by the apostle, when he says: “For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, which you have heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; which has come to you, as it has to the whole world.” For if, even at that time, the tradition of the gospel had spread everywhere, how much more now! Now, if it is our gospel which has spread everywhere, rather than any heretical gospel, much less Marcion’s, which only dates from the reign of Antoninus, then ours will be the gospel of the apostles.
