# “No one can cross the sea of this world unless carried over it on the cross of Christ” by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2024/05/03/no-one-can-cross-the-sea-of-this-world-unless-carried-over-it-on-the-cross-of-christ-by-augustine-of-hippo-a-d-354-430/
- Published: 2024-05-03T11:00:00-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“It is as if someone could see his home country from a long way away, but is cut
off from it by the sea; he sees where to go, but does not have the means to get 
there.

In the same way all of us long to reach that secure place of ours where that which
is _is_, because it alone always _is_ as it is. But in between lies the sea of this
world through which we are going, even though we already see where we are going (
many, however, do not see where they are going).

Thus, so that we might also have the means to go, the One we were longing to go 
came here from there. And what did He make? A wooden raft for us to cross the sea
on.

For no one can cross the sea of this world unless carried over it on the cross of
Christ.

Sometimes even someone of ailing eyes embraces this cross: may the one who does 
not see from afar where he is going not let go of the cross, and it will take him
to that destination.”

—[Saint Augustine, _Homilies on the Gospel of John 1–40_](https://amzn.to/4bmQOO6),
ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald and Boniface Ramsey, trans. Edmund Hill, vol. 12, The Works
of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City 
Press, 2009), 56–57. ([2.2](https://amzn.to/4bmQOO6))

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