assembly of the reprobate. It is by a sheer error that men living on the earth speak in this way of the true holy mother church, and so many according to common fame are called heads or members of the church, although according to God's foreknowledge they are members of the devil, who for a time believe and afterwards fall away or are now and always were unbelievers, and of this sort, as already said above and to follow Augustine, were those disciples of Christ who went back and no longer walked with him. Similarly, it was with Iscariot who was falsely reputed to be a disciple of Christ, about whom Augustine, in his Commentary on John [Nic. Fathers, 7: 253], speaks when he shows how the sheep heard Christ's voice. "But what," he says, "are we to think? Those who heard—were they the sheep? Did not Judas hear and he was a wolf? He followed but was clothed in sheep's clothing and plotted against the Shepherd." In this way, therefore, many are reputed according to present righteousness to be of the church, but they are not really so by virtue of predestination unto glory. And who these are Augustine teaches in his Commentary on John, when he says: "The Lord knows who are his. He knows who will hold out till the conferring of the crown, who will hold out unto the flames. He knows in his threshing-floor the wheat, he knows the chaff, he knows the good seed, he knows the tares. But to the rest it is unknown who are doves and who are ravens."
