LECTURES OR TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. TRACTATES XC TO C.
TRACTATE XC.
CHAPTER XV. 23.
1. THE Lord says, as you have just been hearing, "He that hateth me,
hateth my Father also:" and yet He had said a little before, "These things will they
do unto you, because they know not Him that sent me." A question therefore
arises that cannot be overlooked, how they can hate one whom they know not? For if
it is not God as He really is, but something else, I know not what, that they
suspect or believe Him to be, and hate this; then assuredly it is not God
Himself that they hate, but the thing they conceive in their own erroneous suspicion
or baseless credulity; and if they think of Him as He really is, how can they
be said to know Him not? It may be the case, indeed, with regard to men, that
we frequently love those whom we have never seen; and in this way it can, on the
other hand, be none the less impossible that we should hate those whom we have
never seen. The report, for instance, whether good or bad, about some
preacher, leads us not improperly to love or to hate the unknown. But if the report is
truthful, how can one, of whom we have got such true accounts, be spoken of as
unknown? Is it because we have not seen his face? And yet, though he himself
does not see it, he can be known to no one better than to himself. The knowledge
of any one, therefore, is not conveyed to us in his bodily countenance, but
only lies open to our apprehension when his life and character are revealed.
Otherwise no one would be able to know himself, because unable to see his own face.
But surely he knows himself more certainly than he is known to others, inasmuch
as by inward inspection he can the more certainly see what he is conscious of,
what he desires, what he is living for; and it is when these are likewise laid
open to us, that he becomes truly known to ourselves. And as these,
accordingly, are commonly brought to us regarding the absent, or even the dead, either by
hearsay or correspondence, it thus comes about that people whom we have never
seen by face (and yet of whom we are not entirely ignorant), we frequently
either hate or love.
2. But in such cases our credulity is frequently at fault; for sometimes
even history, and still more ordinary report, turns out to be false. Yet, it
ought to be our concern, in order not to be misled by an injurious opinion, seeing
we cannot search into the consciences of men, to have a true and certain
sentiment about things themselves. I mean, that in regard to this or that man, if we
know not whether he is immodest or modest, we should at all events hate
immodesty and love modesty: and if in regard to some one or other we know not whether
he is unjust or just, we should at any rate love justice and abhor injustice;
not such things as we erroneously fancy to ourselves, but such as we
believingly perceive according to God's truth, the one to be desired, the other to be
shunned; so that, when in regard to things themselves we do desire what ought to
be desired, and utterly avoid what ought to be avoided, we may find pardon for
the mistaken feelings which we at times, yea, at all times, entertain regarding
the actual state of others which is hidden from our eyes. For this, I think,
has to do with human temptation, without which we cannot pass through this life,
so that the apostle said, "No temptation should befall you but such as is
common to man."(1) For what is so common to man as inability to inspect the heart of
man; and therefore, instead of scrutinizing its inmost recesses, to suspect
for the most, part something very different from what is going on therein? And
although in these dark regions of human realities, that is, of other people's
inward thoughts, we cannot clear up our suspicions, because we are only men, yet
we ought to restrain our judgments, that is, all definite and fixed opinions,
and not judge anything before the time, until the Lord come, and bring to light
the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and
then shall every man have praise of God.(2) When, therefore, we are falling
into no error in regard to the thing itself, so that there is an accordance with
right in our reprobation of vice and approbation of virtue; surely, if a
mistake is committed in connection with individuals, a temptation so characteristic
of man is within the scope of forgiveness.
3. But amid all these darknesses of human hearts, it happens as a thing
much to be wondered at and mourned over, that one, whom we account unjust, and
who nevertheless is just, and in whom, without knowing it, we love justice, we
sometimes avoid, and turn away from, and hinder from approaching us, and refuse
to have life and living in common with him; and, if necessity compel the
infliction of discipline, whether to save others from harm or bring the person himself
back to rectitude, we even pursue him with a salutary harshness; and so
afflict a good man as if he were wicked, and one whom unknowingly we love. This takes
place if one, for example's sake, who is modest is believed by us to be the
opposite. For, beyond doubt, if I love a modest person, he is himself the very
object that I love; and therefore I love the man himself, and know it not. And if
I hate an immodest person, it is on that account, not him that I hate: for he
is not the thing that I hate; and yet to that object of my love, with whom my
heart makes continual abode in the love of modesty, I am ignorantly doing an
injury, erring as I do, not in the distinction I make between virtue and vice, but
in the thick darkness of the human heart. Accordingly, as it may so happen
that a good man may unknowingly hate a good man, or rather loves him without
knowing it (for the man himself he loves in loving that which is good; for what the
other is, is the very thing that he loves); and without knowing it, hates not
the man himself, but that which he supposes him to be: so may it also be the
case that an unjust man hates a just man, and, while he opines that he loves one
who is unjust like himself, unknowingly loves the just man; and yet so long as
he believes him to be unjust, he loves not the man himself, but that which he
imagines him to be. And as it is with another man, so is it also with God. For,
to conclude, had the Jews been asked if they loved God, what other answer would
they have given but that they did love Him, and that not with any intentional
falsehood, but because erroneously fancying that they did so? For how could they
love the Father of the truth, who were filled with hatred to the truth itself?
For they do not wish their own conduct to be condemned, and it is the truth's
task to condemn such conduct; and thus they hated the truth as much as they
hated their own punishment, which the truth awards to such. But they know not that
to be the truth which lays its condemnation on such as they: therefore they
hate that which they know not; and hating it, they certainly cannot but also hate
Him of whom it is born. And in this way, because they know not the truth, by
whose judgment they are condemned, as that which is born of God the Father; of a
surety also they both know not, and hate [the Father] Himself. Miserable men!
who, because wishing to be wicked, deny that to be the truth whereby the wicked
are condemned. For they refuse to own that to be what it is, when they ought
themselves to refuse to be what they are; in order that, while it remains the
same, they may be changed, lest by its judgment they fall into condemnation.
TRACTATE XCI.
CHAPTER XV. 24, 25.
1. The Lord had said, "He that hateth me, hateth my Father also." For of a
certainty he that hateth the truth must also hate Him of whom the truth is
born; on which subject we have already spoken, as we were granted ability. And
then He added the words on which we have now to discourse: "If I had not done
among [in] them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin." To wit,
that great sin whereof He also says before, "If I had not come and spoken unto
them, they had not had sin." Their sin was that of not believing on Him who
thus spake and wrought. For they were not without sin before He so spake to them
and did such works among them; but this sin of theirs, in not believing on Him,
is thus specially mentioned because really inclusive in itself of all sins
besides. For had they been clear of this one, and believed on Him, all else would
also have been forgiven.
2. But what is meant when, after saying, "If I had not done among them
works," He immediately added, "which none other man did"? Of a certainty, among
all the works of Christ, none seem to be greater than the raising of the dead;
and yet we know that the same was done by the prophets of olden time. For Elias
did so;(1) and Elisha also, both when alive in the flesh,(2) and when he lay
buried in his sepulchre. For when certain men, who were carrying a dead person,
had fled thither for refuge from an onset of their enemies, and had laid him down
therein, he instantly came again. to life.(3) And yet there were some works
that Christ did which none other man did: as, when He fed the five thousand men
with five loaves, and the four thousand with seven;(4) when He walked on the
waters, and gave Peter power to do the same;(5) when He changed the water into
wine;(6) when He opened the eyes of a man that was born blind,(7) and many
besides, which it would take long to mention. But we are answered, that others also
have done works which even He did not, and which no other man has done. For who
else save Moses smote the Egyptians with so many and mighty plagues,(8) as when
He led the people through the parted waters of the sea,(9) when he obtained
manna for them from heaven in their hunger,(10) and water from the rock in their
thirst?(11) Who else save Joshua the son of Nun(12) divided the stream of the
Jordan for the people to pass over,(13) and by the utterance of a prayer to God
bridled and stopped the revolving sun?(14) Who save Samson ever quenched his
thirst with water flowing forth from the jawbone of a dead ass?(15) Who save Elias
was carried aloft in a chariot of fire?(16) Who save Elisha, as I have just
mentioned, after his own body was buried, restored the dead body of another to
life? Who else besides Daniel lived unhurt amid the jaws of famishing lions, that
were shut up with him?(17) And who else save the three men Ananias, Azariah,
and Mishael, ever walked about unharmed in flames that blazed and did not
burn?(18)
3. I pass by other examples, as these I consider to be sufficient to show
that some of the saints have done wonderful works, which none other man did.
But we read of no one whatever of the ancients who cured with such power so many
bodily defects, and bad states of the health, and troubles of mortals. For, to
say nothing of those individual cases which He healed, as they occurred, by the
word of command, the Evangelist Mark says in a certain place: "And at even,
when the sun had set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased, and them that
were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered together at the
door. And He healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many
devils."(10) And Matthew, in giving us the same account, has also added the
prophetic testimony, when he says: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our
sickness."(10) In another passage also it is said by Mark: "And whithersoever He entered,
into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and
besought Him that they might touch if it were but the border of His garment: and
as many as touched Him were made whole."(21) None other man did such things in
them. For so are we to understand the words in them, not among them, or in their
presence; but directly in them, because He healed them. For He wished them to
understand the works as those which not only occasioned admiration, but
conferred also manifest healing, and were benefits which they ought surely to have
requited with love, and not with hatred. He transcends, indeed, the miracles of
all besides, in being born of a virgin, and in possessing alone the power, both
in His conception and birth, to preserve inviolate the integrity of His mother:
but that was done neither before their eyes nor in them. For the knowledge of
the truth of such a miracle was reached by the apostles, not through any
onlooking that they had in common with others, but in the course of their separate
discipleship. Moreover, the fact that on the third day He restored Himself to life
from the very tomb, in the flesh wherein He had been slain, and, never
thereafter to die, with it ascended into heaven, even surpasses all else that He did:
but just as little was this done either in the Jews or before their eyes; nor
had it yet been done, when He said, "If I had not done among them the works
which none other man did."
4. The works, then, are doubtless those miracles of healing in connection
with their bodily complaints which He exhibited to such an extent as no one
before had furnished amongst them: for these they saw, and it is in reproaching
them therewith that He proceeds to say, "But now have they both seen and hated
both me and my Father: but [this cometh to pass] that the word might be fulfilled
that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause [gratuitously]."
He calls it, their law, not as invented by them, but given to them: just as we
say, "Our daily bread;" which, nevertheless, we ask of God in conjoining the
words "Give us."(1) But one hates gratuitously who neither seeks advantage from
the hatred nor avoids inconvenience: so do the wicked hate the Lord; and so also
is He loved by the righteous, that is to say, gratuitously [gratis, freely,]
inasmuch as they expect no other gifts beyond Himself, for He Himself will be all
in all. But whoever would be disposed to look for something more profound in
the words of Christ, "If I had not done among them the works which none other
man did" (for although such were done by the Father, or the Holy Spirit, yet no
one else did them, for the whole Trinity is one and the same in substance), he
will find that it was He who did it even when some man of God did something
similar. For in Himself He can do everything by Himself; but without Him no one can
do anything. For Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit are not three
Gods, but one God, of whom it is written, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who
only doeth wondrous things."(2) No one else, therefore, really himself did the
works which He did amongst them; for any one else who did any such works, did
them only through His doing. But He Himself did them without any doing on their
part.
TRACTATE XCII.
CHAPTER XV. 26, 27.
1. The Lord Jesus, in the discourse which He addressed to His disciples
after the supper, when Himself in immediate proximity to His passion, and, as it
were, on the eve of departure, and of depriving them of His bodily presence
while continuing His spiritual presence to all His disciples till the very end of
the world, exhorted them to endure the persecutions of the wicked, whom He
distinguished by the name of the world: and from which He also told them that He
had chosen, the disciples themselves, that they might know it was by the grace
of God they were what they were, and by their own vices they had been what they
had been. And then His own persecutors and theirs He clearly signified to be
the Jews, that it might be perfectly apparent that they also were included in the
appellation of that damnable world that persecuteth the saints. And when He
had said of them that they knew not Him that sent Him, and yet hated both the Son
and the Father, that is, both Him who was sent and Him who sent Him,--of all
which we have already treated in previous discourses,--He reached the place
where it is said, "This cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is
written in their law, They hated me without a cause." And then He added, as if by
way of consequence, the words whereon we have undertaken at present to
discourse: "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear
witness of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the
beginning." But what connection has this with what He had just said, "But now
have they both seen and hated both me and my Father: but that the word might be
fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause"? Was it
that the Comforter, when He came, even the Spirit of truth, convicted those,
who thus saw and hated, by a still clearer testimony? Yea, verily, some even of
those who saw, and still hated, He did convert, by this manifestation of
Himself, to the faith that worketh by love.(1) To make this view of the passage
intelligible, we recall to your mind that so it actually befell. For when on the day
of Pentecost the Holy Spirit fell upon an assembly of one hundred and twenty
men, among whom were all the apostles; and when they, filled therewith were
speaking in the language of every nation; a goodly number of those who had hated,
amazed at the magnitude of the miracle (especially when they perceived in Peter's
address so great and divine a testimony borne in behalf of Christ, as that He,
who was slain by them and accounted amongst the dead, was proved to have risen
again, and to be now alive), were pricked in their hearts and converted; and
so became aware of the beneficent character of that precious blood which had
been so impiously and cruelly shed, because themselves redeemed by the very blood
which they had shed.(2) For the blood of Christ was shed so efficaciously for
the remission of all sins, that it could wipe out even the very sin of shedding
it. With this therefore in His eye, the Lord said, "They hated me without a
cause: but when the Comforter is come, He shall bear witness of me;" saying, as it
were, They hated me, and slew me when I stood visibly before their eyes; but
such shall be the testimony borne in my behalf by the Comforter, that He will
bring them to believe in me when I am no longer visible to their sight.
2. "And ye also," He says," shall bear witness, because ye have been with
me from the beginning." The Holy Spirit shall bear witness, and so also shall
ye. For, just because ye have been with me from the beginning, they can preach
what ye know; which ye cannot do at present, because the fullness of that Spirit
is not yet present within you. "He therefore shall testify of me, and ye also
shall bear witness:" for the love of God shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy
Spirit, who shall be given unto you,(3) will give you the confidence needful
for such witness-bearing. And that certainly was still wanting to Peter, when,
terrified by the question of a lady's maid, he could give no true testimony;
but, contrary to his own promise, was driven by the greatness of his fear thrice
to deny Him.(4) But there is no such fear in love, for perfect love casteth out
fear.(5) In fine, before the Lord's passion, his slavish fear was questioned by
a bond-woman; but after the Lord's resurrection, his free love by the very
Lord of freedom:(6) and so on the one occasion he was troubled, on the other
tranquillized; there he denied the One he had loved, here he loved the One he had
denied. But still even then that very love was weak and straitened, till
strengthened and expanded by the Holy Spirit. And then that Spirit, pervading him thus
with the fullness of richer grace, kindled his hitherto frigid heart to such a
witness-bearing for Christ, and unlocked those lips that in their previous
tremor had suppressed the truth, that, when all on whom the Holy Spirit had
descended were speaking in the tongues of all nations to the crowds of Jews collected
around, he alone broke forth before the others in the promptitude of his
testimony in behalf of the Christ, and con-rounded His murderers with the account of
His resurrection. And if any one would enjoy the pleasure of gazing on a sight
so charming in its holiness, let him read the Acts of the Apostles:(7) and
there let him be filled with amazement at the preaching of the blessed Peter, over
whose denial of his Master he had just been mourning; there let him behold that
tongue, itself translated from diffidence to confidence, from bondage to
liberty, converting to the confession of Christ the tongues of so many of His
enemies, riot one of which he could bear when lapsing himself into denial. And what
shall I say more? In him there shone forth such an effulgence of grace, and such
a fullness of the Holy Spirit, and such a weight of most precious truth poured
from the lips of the preacher, that he transformed that vast multitude of Jews
who were the adversaries and murderers of Christ into men that were ready to
die for His name, at whose hands he himself was formerly afraid to die with his
Master. All this did that Holy Spirit when sent, who had previously only been
promised. And it was these great and marvellous gifts of His own that the Lord
foresaw, when He said, "They have both seen and hated both me and my Father:
that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me
without a cause. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the
Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, He shall
testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness." For He, in bearing witness Himself,
and inspiring such witnesses with invincible courage, divested Christ's
friends of their fear, and transformed into love the hatred of His enemies.
TRACTATE XCIII.
CHAPTER XVI. 1-4.
1. IN the words preceding this chapter of the Gospel, the Lord
strengthened His disciples to endure the hatred of their enemies, and prepared them also
by His own example to become the more courageous in imitating Him: adding the
promise, that the Holy Spirit should. come to bear witness of Him, and also that
they themselves could become His witnesses, through the effectual working of
His Spirit in their hearts. For such is His meaning when He saith, "He shall bear
witness of me, and ye also shall bear witness." That is to say, because He
shall bear witness, ye also shall bear witness: He in your hearts, you in your
voices; He by inspiration, you by utterance: that the words might be fulfilled,
"Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth."(1) For it would have been to
little purpose to have exhorted them by His example, had He not also filled them
with His Spirit. Just as we see that the Apostle Peter, after having heard His
words, when He said, "The servant is not greater than his lord: if they have
persecuted me, they will also persecute you;"(2) and seen that already fulfilled
in Him, wherein, had example been sufficient, he ought to have imitated the
patient endurance of his Lord, yet succumbed and fell into denial, as utterly
unable to bear what He saw his Master enduring. But when he really received the
gift of the Holy Spirit, he preached Him whom he had denied; and whom he had been
afraid to confess, he had no fear now in openly proclaiming. Already, indeed,
had he been sufficiently taught by example to know what was proper to be done;
but not yet was he inspired with the power to do what he knew: he had got
instruction to stand, but not the strength to keep him from falling. But after this
was supplied by the Holy Spirit, he preached Christ even to the death, whom, in
his fear of death, he had previously denied. And so the Lord in this succeeding
chapter, on which we have now to address you, saith, "These things have I
spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended." As it is sung in the psalm,
"Great peace have they who love Thy law, and nothing shall offend them."(3) Properly
enough, therefore, with the promise of the Holy Spirit, by whose operation in
their hearts they should be made His witnesses, He added, "These things have I
spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended." For when the love of God is
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given unto us,(4) they have great
peace who love God's law, so that nothing may offend them.
2. And then He expressly declares what they were to suffer: "They shall
put you out of the synagogues." But what harm was it for the apostles to be
expelled from the Jewish synagogues, as if they were not to separate themselves
therefrom, although no one expelled them? Doubtless He meant to announce with
reprobation, that the Jews would refuse to receive Christ, from whom they as
certainly would refuse to withdraw; and so it would come to pass that the latter, who
could not exist without Him, would also be cast out along with Him by those who
would not have Him as their place of abode. For certainly, as there was no
other people of God than that seed of Abraham, they would, had they only
acknowledged and received Christ, have remained as the natural branches in the olive
tree;(5) nor would the churches of Christ have been different from the synagogues
of the Jews, for they would have been one and the same, had they also desired
to abide in Him. But having refused, what remained but that, continuing
themselves out of Christ, they put out of the synagogues those who would not abandon
Christ? For having received the Holy Spirit, and so become His witnesses, they
would certainly not belong to the class of whom it is said: "Many of the chief
rulers of the Jews believed on Him; but for fear of the Jews they dared not
confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the
praise of men more than the praise of God."(1) And so they believed on Him, but not
in the way He wished them to believe when He said: "How can ye believe, who
expect honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God
only?"(2) It is, therefore, with those disciples who so believe in Him, that, filled
with the Holy Spirit, or, in other words, with the gift of divine grace, they no
longer belong to those who, "ignorant of the righteousness of God, and going
about to establish their own, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness
of God;"(3) nor to those of whom it is said, "They loved the praise of men
more than the praise of God:" that the prophecy harmonizes, which finds its
fulfillment in their own case: "They shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy
countenance: and in Thy name shall they rejoice all the day; and in Thy righteousness
shall they be exalted: for Thou art the glory of their strength."(4) Rightly
enough is it said to such, "They shall cast you out of the synagogues;" that is,
they who "have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge;" because,
"ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own,"(5) they
expel those who are exalted, not in their own righteousness, but in God's, and
have no cause to be ashamed at being expelled by men, since He is the glory of
their strength.
3. Finally, to what He had thus told them, He added the words: "But the
hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service: and
these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father,
nor me." That is to say, they have not known the Father, nor His Son, to whom
they think they will be doing service in slaying you. Words which the Lord added
in the way of consolation to His own, who should be driven out of the Jewish
synagogues. For it is in thus announcing beforehand what evils they would have to
endure for their testimony in His behalf, that He said, "They will put you out
of the synagogues." Nor does He say, And the hour cometh, that whosoever
killeth you will think that he doeth God service. What then? "But the hour cometh:"
just in the way He would have spoken, were He foretelling them of something good
that would follow such evils. What, then, does He mean by the words, "They
will put you out of the synagogues: but the hour cometh"? As if He would have gone
on to say this: They, indeed, will scatter you, but I will gather you; or,
They shall, indeed, scatter you, but the hour of your joy cometh. What, then, has
the word which He uses, "but the hour cometh," to do here, as if He were going
on to promise them comfort after their tribulation, when apparently He ought
rather to have said, in the form of continuous narration,(5) And the hour cometh?
But He said not, And it cometh, although predicting the approach of one
tribulation after another, instead of comfort after tribulation. Could it have been
that such a separation from the synagogues would so discompose them, that they
would prefer to die, rather than remain in this life apart from the Jewish
assemblies? Far surely would those be from such discomposure, who were seeking, not
the praise of men, but of God. What, then, of the words, "They will put you out
of the synagogues: but the hour cometh;" when apparently He ought rather to
have said, And the hour cometh, "that whosoever killeth you will think that he
doeth God service"? For it is not even said, But the hour cometh that they shall
kill you, as if implying that their comfort for such a separation would be
found in the death that would befall them; but "The hour cometh," He says, "that
whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." On the whole, I do
not think He wished to convey any further meaning than that they might
understand and rejoice that they themselves would gain so many to Christ, by being
driven out of the Jewish congregations, that it would be found insufficient to expel
them, and they would not suffer them to live for fear of all being converted
by their preaching to the name of Christ, and so turned away from the observance
of Judaism, as if it were the very truth of God. For so ought we to understand
the reference of His words to the Jews, when He said of them, "They will put
you out of the synagogues." For the witnesses, in other words, the martyrs of
Christ, were likewise slain by the Gentiles: they, however, thought not that it
was to the true God, but to their own false deities, that they were doing
service when they so acted. But every Jew that slew the preachers of Christ reckoned
that he was doing God service; believing as he did that all who were converted
to Christ were deserting the God of Israel. For it was also by the same
reasoning that they were incited to the murder of Christ Himself: because their own
words on this subject have also been put on record. "Ye perceive that the whole
world is gone after him:(1) "If we let him live, the Romans will come, and take
away both our place and nation." And those of Caiaphas: "It is expedient for us
that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should
perish."(2) And accordingly in this address He sought by His own example to
stimulate His disciples, to whom He had just been saying, "If they have persecuted
me, they will also persecute you;"(3) that as in slaying Him they thought they
had done God a service, so also would it be in reference to them.
4. Such, then, is the meaning of these words: "They will put you out of
the synagogues;" but have no fear of solitude: inasmuch as, when separated from
their assembly, you will assemble so many in my name, that they, in very fear
lest the temple, that was with them, and all the sacraments of the old law,
should be deserted, will slay you: actually, in thus shedding your blood, full of
the notion that they are doing God service. An illustration surely of the
apostle's words, "They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge;"(4) when
they imagine that they are doing God service in slaying His servants. Appalling
mistake! Is it thus thou wouldst please God by striking down the God-pleaser;
and is the living temple of God by thy blows laid level with the ground, that
God's temple of stone may not be deserted? Accursed blindness! But it is in part
that it has happened to Israel, that the fullness of the Gentiles might come
in: in part, I say, and not totally, has it happened. For not all, but only some
of the branches have been broken off, that the wild olive might be
ingrafted.(5) For just at the time when the disciples of Christ, filled with the Holy
Spirit, were speaking in the tongues of all nations, and performing many divine
miracles, and scattering divine utterances on every side, Christ, even though
slain, was so beloved, that His disciples, when expelled from the congregations of
the Jews, gathered into a congregation of their own a vast multitude of those
very Jews, and had no fear of being left to solitude.(6) hereupon, accordingly,
the others, reprobate and blind, being inflamed with wrath, and having a zeal of
God, but not according to knowledge, and believing that they were doing God
service, put them to death. But He, who was slain for them, gathered those
together; just as He had also, before He was slain, instructed them in what was to
happen, lest their minds, left ignorant and unprepared, should be cast into
trouble by evils, however transient, that were unexpected and unprovided for; but
rather by knowing of them beforehand, and sustaining them with patience, might be
led onward to everlasting blessing. For that such was the cause of His making
these announcements to them beforehand, is shown also by His words that
followed: "But these things have I told you, that, when their time shall come, ye may
remember that I told you of them." Their hour was an hour of darkness, a
midnight hour. But the Lord commanded His loving-kindness in the daytime, and made
them sing of it in the night:(7) when the Jewish night threw no confusion of
darkness into the day of the Christians, separated as it was from themselves; and
when that which could slay the flesh had no power to darken their faith.
TRACTATE XCIV.
CHAPTER XVI 44-7
1. When the Lord Jesus had foretold His disciples the persecutions they
would have to suffer after His departure, He went on to say: "And these things I
said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you; but now I go my way
to Him that sent me." And here the first thing we have to look at is, whether
He had not previously foretold them of the sufferings that were to come. And
the three other evangelists make it sufficiently clear that He had uttered such
predictions prior to the approach of the supper:(1) which was over, according to
John, when He spake, and added, "And these things I said not unto you at the
beginning, because I was with you." Are we, then, to settle such a question in
this way, that they, too, tell us that He was near His passion when He said
these things? Then it was not when He was with them at the beginning that He so
spake, for He was on the very eve of departing, and proceeding to the Father: and
so also, even according to these evangelists, it is strictly true what is here
said, "And these things I said not unto you at the beginning." But what are we
to do with the credibility of the Gospel according to Matthew, who relates that
such announcements were made to them by the Lord, not only when He was on the
eve of sitting down with His disciples to the passover supper, but also at the
beginning, when the twelve apostles are for the first time expressed by name,
and sent forth on the work of God?(1) What, then, is the meaning of what He says
here, "And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was
with you;" but that what He says here of the Holy Spirit who was to come to them,
and to bear witness, when they should have such ills to endure, this He said
not unto them at the beginning, because He was with themselves?
2. The Comforter then, or Advocate (for both form the interpretation of
the Greek word, paraclète), had become necessary on Christ's departure: and
therefore He had not spoken of Him at the beginning, when He was with them, because
His own presence was their comfort; but on the eve of His own departure it
behoved Him to speak of His coming, by whom it would be brought about that with
love shed abroad in their hearts they would preach the word of God with all
boldness; and with Him inwardly bearing witness with them of Christ, they also should
bear witness, and feel it to be no cause of stumbling when their Jewish
enemies put them out of the synagogues, and slew them, with the thought that they
were doing God service; because the charity beareth all things,(2) which was to be
shed abroad in their hearts by the gift of the Holy Spirit.(3) In this,
therefore, is the whole meaning to be found, that He was to make them His martyrs,
that is, His witnesses through the Holy Spirit; so that by His effectual working
within them, they would endure the hardships of all kinds of persecution, and,
set aglow at that divine fire, lose none of their warmth in the love of
preaching. "These things," therefore, He says, i "have I told you, that, when their
time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them" (ver. 4). These things,
I say, I have told you, not merely because ye shall have to endure such
things, but because, when the Comforter is come, He shall bear witness of me, that ye
may not keep them back through fear, and by whom ye yourselves shall also be
enabled to bear witness. "And these things I said not unto you at the beginning,
because I was with you," and I myself was your comfort through my bodily
presence exhibited to your human senses, and which, as infants, ye were able to
comprehend.
3. "But now I go my way to Him that sent me; and none of you," He says,
"asketh me, Whither goest Thou?" He means that His departure would be such that
none would ask Him of that which they should see taking place in broad daylight
before their eyes: for previously to this they had asked Him whither He was
going, and had been answered that He was going whither they themselves could not
then come.(4) Now, however, He promises that He will go away in such a manner
that none of them shall ask Him whither He goes. For a cloud received Him when He
ascended up from their side; and of His going into heaven they made no verbal
inquiry, but had ocular evidence.(5)
4. "But because I have said these things unto you," He adds, "sorrow hath
filled 'your heart." He saw, indeed, what effect these words of His were
producing in their hearts; for having not yet within them the spiritual consolation,
which they were afterwards to have by the Holy Spirit, what they still saw
objectively in Christ they were afraid of losing; and because they could have no
doubt they were about to lose Him whose announcements were always true, their
human feelings were saddened, because their carnal view of Him was to be left a
blank. But He knew what was most expedient for them, because that inward sight,
wherewith the Holy Spirit was yet to comfort them, was undoubtedly superior; not
by bringing a human body into the bodies of those who saw, but by infusing
Himself into the hearts of those who believed. And then He adds, "Nevertheless I
tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not
away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto
you:" as if He had said, It is expedient for you that this form of a servant be
taken away from you; as the Word made indeed flesh I dwell among you; but I
would not that ye should continue to love me carnally, and, content with such
milk, desire to remain infants always. "It is expedient for you that I go away: for
if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." If I withdraw not the
tender nutriment wherewith I have nourished you, ye will acquire no keen
relish of solid food; if ye adhere in a carnal way to the flesh, ye will not have
room for the Spirit. For what is this, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not
come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you"? Was it that He could
not send Him while located here Himself? Who would venture to say so? Neither
was it, that where He was, thence the Other had withdrawn, or that He had so
come from the Father as that He did not still abide with the Father. And still
further, how could He, even when having His own abode on earth, be unable to send
Him, who we know came and remained upon Him at His baptism;(1) yea, more, from
whom we know that He was never separable? What does it mean, then, "If I go
not away, the Comforter will not come unto you;" but that ye cannot receive the
Spirit so long as ye continue to know Christ after the flesh? Hence one who had
already been made a partaker of the Spirit says, "Though we have known Christ
after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we [Him] no more."(2) For now even the
very flesh of Christ he did not know in a carnal way, when brought to a
spiritual knowledge of the Word that had been made flesh. And such, doubtless, did the
good Master wish to intimate, when He said, "If I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you."
5. But with Christ's bodily departure, both the Father and the Son, as
well as the Holy Spirit, were spiritually present with them. For had Christ
departed from them in such a sense that it would be in His place, and not along with
Him, that the Holy Spirit would be present in them, what becomes of His promise
when He said, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world;"(3)
and, I and the Father "will come unto him, and will make Our abode with him;"(4)
seeing that He also promised that He would send the Holy Spirit in such a way
that He would be with them for ever? In this way it was, on the other hand, that
seeing they were yet out of their present carnal or animal condition to become
spiritual, with undoubted certainty also were they yet to have in a more
comprehensive way both the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But in no one
are we to believe that the Father is present without the Son and the Holy Spirit,
or the Father and the Son without the Holy Spirit, or the Son without the
Father and the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit without the Father and the Son, or
the Father and the Holy Spirit without the Son; but wherever any one of Them is,
there also is the Trinity, one God. But here the Trinity had to be suggested
in such a way that, although there was no diversity of essence, yet the personal
distinction of each one separately should be presented to notice; where those
who have a right understanding can never imagine a separation of natures.
6. But that which follows, "And when He is come, He will convince the
world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, indeed, because they
believe not on me; but of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye
shall see me no more; and of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged"
(vers. 8-11); as if it were sin simply not to believe on Christ; and as if it
were very righteousness not to see Christ; and as if that were the very
judgment, that the prince of this world, that is, the devil, is judged: all this is
very obscure, and cannot be included in the present discourse, lest; brevity only
increase the obscurity; but must rather be deferred till another occasion for
such explanation as the Lord may enable us to give properly to the Jews, and not
to the world, did He not say in another place, "If ye were of the world, the
world would love his own"? Did He not reprove it of righteousness, when He said,
"O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee"?(2) And did He not reprove
it of judgment when He declared that He would say to those on the left hand,
"Depart ye into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"?(3) And
many other passages are to be found in the holy evangel, where Christ
reproveth the world of these things. Why is it, then, He attributeth this to the Holy
Spirit, as if it were His proper prerogative? Is it that, because Christ spake
only among the nation of the Jews, He does not appear to have reproved the
world, inasmuch as one may be understood to be reproved who actually hears the
reprover; while the Holy Spirit, who was in His disciples when scattered throughout
the whole world, is to be understood as having reproved not one nation, but the
world? For mark what He said to them when about to ascend into heaven: "It is
not for you to know the times or the moments, which the Father hath put in His
own power. But ye shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit, that cometh upon
you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."(4) Surely this is to reprove
the world. But would any one venture to say that the Holy Spirit reproveth the
world through the disciples of Christ, and that Christ Himself doth not, when
the apostle exclaims, "Would ye receive a proof of Him that speaketh in me,
namely Christ?"(5) And so those, surely, whom the Holy Spirit reproveth, Christ.
reproveth likewise. But in my opinion, because there was to be shed abroad in
their hearts by the Holy Spirit that love(6) which casteth out the fear,(7) that
might have hindered them from venturing to reprove the world which bristled
with persecutions, therefore it was that He said, "He shall reprove the world:" as
if He would have said, He shall shed abroad love in your hearts, and, having
your fear thereby expelled, ye shall have freedom to reprove. We have frequently
said, however, that the operations of the Trinity are inseparable;(8) but the
Persons needed to be set forth one by one, that not only without separating
Them, but also without confounding Them together, we may have a right
understanding both of Their Unity and Trinity.
2. He next explains what He has said" of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment." "Of sin indeed," He says, "because they have believed not on me."
For this sin, as if it were the only one, He has put before the others; because
with the continuance of this one, all others are retained, and in the removal
of this, the others are remitted. "But of righteousness," He adds, "because I go
to the Father, and ye shall see me no more." And here we have to consider in
the first place, if any one is rightly reproved of sin, how he may also be
rightly reproved of righteousness. For if a sinner ought to be reproved just because
he is a sinner, will any one imagine that a righteous man is also to be
reproved because he is righteous? Surely not. For if at any time a righteous man also
is reproved, he is rightly reproved on this account, that, according to
Scripture, "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not."
And accordingly, when a righteous man is reproved, he is reproved of sin, and not
of righteousness. Since in that divine utterance also, where we read, "Be not
made righteous over-much,"(9) there is notice taken, not of the righteousness
of the wise man, but of the pride of the presumptuous. The man, therefore, that
becomes "righteous over-much," by that very excess becomes unrighteous. For he
makes himself righteous over-much who says that he has no sin, or who imagines
that he is made righteous, not by the grace of God, but by the sufficiency of
his own will: nor is he righteous through living righteously, but is rather
self-inflated with the imagination of being what he is not. By what means, then, is
the world to be reproved of righteousness, if not by the righteousness of
believers? Accordingly, it is convinced of sin, because it believeth not on Christ;
and it is convinced of the righteousness of those who do believe. For the very
comparison with believers is itself a reproving of unbelievers. And this the
exposition itself sufficiently indicates. For in wishing to open up what He has
said, He adds, "Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye shall see
me no more." He does not say, And they shall see me no more; that is, those of
whom He had said, "because they have believed not on me." Of them He spake,
when expounding what He denominated sin, in the words, "because they have believed
not on me;" but when expounding what He called righteousness, whereof the
world is convicted, He turned to those to whom He was speaking, and said, "because
I go to the Father, and ye shall see me no more." Wherefore it is of its own
sins, but of others' righteousness, that the world is convicted, just as darkness
is reproved by the light: "For al things," says the apostle, "that are
reproved, are made manifest by the light."(1) For the magnitude of the evil chargeable
on those who do not believe, may be made apparent not only by itself, but also
by the goodness of those who do believe. And since the cry of unbelievers
usually is, How can we believe what we do not see? so the righteousness of
unbelievers just required this very definition, "Because I go to the Father, and ye
shall see me no more." For blessed are they who see not, and yet do believe.(2)
For of those also who saw Christ, the faith in Him that met with commendation was
not that they believed what they saw, namely, the Son of man; but that they
believed what they did not see, namely, the Son of God. But after His
servant-form was itself also withdrawn from their view, then in every respect was the word
truly fulfilled, "The just liveth by faith."(3) For "faith," according to the
definition in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "is the confidence of those that
hope,(4) the conviction of things that are not seen."
3. But how are we to understand, "Ye shall see me no more"? For He saith
not, I go to the Father, and ye shall not see me, so as to be understood as
referring to the interval of time when He would not be seen, whether short or long,
but at all events terminable; but in saying, "Ye shall see me no more," as if
a truth announced beforehand that they would never see Christ in all time
coming. Is this the righteousness we speak of, never to see Christ, and yet to
believe on Him; seeing that the faith whereby the just liveth is commended on the
very ground of believing that the Christ whom it seeth not meanwhile, it shall
see some day? Once more, in reference to this righteousness, are we to say that
the Apostle Paul was not righteous when confessing that He had seen Christ after
His ascension into heaven,(5) which was undoubtedly the time of which He had
already said, "Ye shall see me no more"? Was Stephen, that hero of surpassing
renown, not righteous in the spirit of this righteousness, who, when they were
stoning him, exclaimed, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man
standing on the right hand of God"?(6) What, then, is meant by "I go to the
Father, and ye shall see me no more," but just this, As I am while with you now? For
at that time He was still mortal in the likeness of sinful flesh.(7) He could
suffer hunger and thirst, be wearied, and sleep; and this Christ, that is,
Christ in such a condition, they were , no more to see after He had passed from
this e world to the Father; and such, also, is the righteousness of faith,
whereof the apostle t says, "Though we have known Christ after f the flesh, yet now
henceforth know we Him f no more."(8) This, then, He says, will be your .
righteousness whereof the world shall be reproved, "because I go to the Father, and
ye shall see me no more:" seeing that ye shall believe in me as in one whom ye
shall not see; and when ye shall see me as I shall be then, we shall not see me
as I am while with you meanwhile; ye shall not see me in my humility, but in my
exaltation; nor in my mortality, but in my eternity; nor at the bar, but on
the throne of judgment: and by this faith of yours, in other words, your
righteousness, the Holy Spirit will reprove an unbelieving world.
4. He will also reprove it "of judgment, because the prince of this world
is judged." Who is this, save he of whom He saith in another place, "Behold,
the prince of the world cometh, and shall find nothing in me;"(9) that is,
nothing within his jurisdiction, nothing belonging to him; in fact, no sin at all?
For thereby is the devil the prince of the world. For it is not of the heavens
and of the earth, and of all that is in them, that the devil is prince, in the
sense in which the world is to be understood, when it is said, "And the world was
made by Him;" but the devil is prince of that world, whereof in the same
passage He immediately afterwards subjoins the words, "And the world knew Him
not;"(10) that is, unbelieving men, wherewith the world through its utmost extent is
filled: among whom the believing world groaneth, which He, who made the world,
chose out of the world; and of whom He saith Himself, "The Son of man came not
to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."(11) He is
the judge by whom the world is condemned, the helper whereby the world is saved:
for just as a tree is full of foliage and fruit, or a field of chaff and
wheat, so is the world full of believers and unbelievers. Therefore the prince of
this world, that is, the prince of the darkness thereof, or of unbelievers, out
of whose hands that world is rescued, to which it is said, "Ye were at one time
darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord:"(12) the prince of this world, of
whom He elsewhere saith, "Now is the prince of this world cast out,"(13) is
assuredly judged, inasmuch as he is irrevocably destined to the judgment of
everlasting fire. And so of this judgment, by which the prince of the world is judged,
is the world reproved by the Holy Spirit; for it is judged along with its
prince, whom it imitates in its own pride and impiety. "For if God," in the words
of the Apostle Peter, "spared not the angels that sinned, but thrust them into
prisons of infernal darkness, and gave them up to be reserved for punishment in
the judgment,"(1) how is the world otherwise than reproved of this judgment by
the Holy Spirit, when it is in the Holy Spirit that the apostle so speaketh?
Let men, therefore, believe in Christ, that they be not convicted of the sin of
their own unbelief, whereby all sins are retained: let them make their way into
the number of believers, that they be not convicted of the righteousness of
those, whom, as justified, they fail to imitate: let them beware of that future
judgment, that they be not judged with the prince of the world, whom, judged as
he is, they continue to imitate. For the unbending pride of mortals can have no
thought of being spared itself, as it is thus called to think with terror of
the punishment that overtook the pride of angels.
TRACTATE XCVI.
CHAPTER XVI. 12, 13.
1. In this portion of the holy Gospel, where the Lord says to His
disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," there
meets us first this subject of needful inquiry, how it was that He said a
little before, "All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto
you,"(1) and yet says here, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye
cannot bear them now." But how it was that He spake of what He had not yet done as
if it were done, just as the prophet testifies that God has made those things
which are still to come, when He says, "Who hath made those things which are
still to come,"(2) we have already explained as well as we could when dealing with
those words themselves. Now, however, you are perhaps wishing to know what
those things were which the apostles were then unable to bear. But which of us
would venture to assert his own present capacity for what they wanted the ability
to receive? And on this account you are neither to expect me to tell you things
which perhaps I could not comprehend myself were they told me by another; nor
would you be able to bear them, even were I talented enough to let you hear of
things that are above your comprehension. It may be, indeed, that some among you
are fit enough already to comprehend things which are still beyond the grasp
of others; and if not all about which the divine Master said, "I have yet many
things to say unto you," yet perhaps some of them: but what they were which He
Himself thus omitted to tell them, it would be rash to have even the wish to
presume to say. For at that time the apostles were not yet fitted even to die for
Christ, when He said to them, "Ye cannot follow me now," and when the very
foremost of them, Peter, who had presumptuously declared that he was already able,
met with a different experience from what he anticipated:(3) and yet afterwards
a countless number both of men and women, boys and girls, youths and maidens,
old and young, were crowned with martyrdom; and the sheep were found able for
that which, when the Lord spake these words, the shepherds were still unable to
bear. Ought, then, those sheep to have been asked, in that extremity of trial,
when required to contend for the truth even unto death, and to shed their blood
for the name or doctrine of Christ;--ought they, I say, to have been asked,
Which of you would venture to account himself ready for martyrdom, for which
Peter was still unfitted, even when taught face to face by the Lord Himself? In the
same way, therefore, one may say that Christian people, even when desiring to
hear, ought not to be told what those things are of which the Lord then said,
"I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." If the
apostles were still unable, much more so are ye: although it may be that many now
can bear what Peter then could not, in the same way as many are able to be
crowned with martyrdom which at that time was still beyond the power of Peter,
more especially that now the Holy Spirit has been sent, as He was not then, of
whom He went on immediately to add the words "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of
truth, is come, He will teach you all truth," thereby showing of a certainty that
they could not bear what He had still to say, because the Holy Spirit had not yet
come upon them.
2. Well, then, let us grant that it is so, that many can now bear those
things when the Holy Spirit has been sent, which could not then, prior to His
coming, be borne by the disciples: do we on that account know what it is that He
would not say, as we should know it were we reading or hearing it as uttered by
Himself? For it is one thing to know whether we or you could bear it; but quite
another to know what it is, whether able to be borne or not. But when He
Himself was silent about such things, which of us could say, It is this or that? Or
if he venture to say it, how will he prove it? For who could manifest such
vanity or recklessness as when saying what he pleased to whom he pleased, even
though true, to affirm without any divine authority that it was the very thing
which the Lord on that occasion refused to utter? Which of us could do such a thing
without incurring the severest charge of rashness,--a thing which gets no
countenance from prophetic or apostolic authority? For surely if we had read any
such thing in the books confirmed by canonical authority, which were written
after our Lord's ascension, it would not have been enough to have read such a
statement, had we not also read in the same place that this was actually one of
those things which the Lord was then unwilling to tell His disciples, because they
were unable to bear them. As if, for example, I were to say that the words
which we read at the opening of this Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with
God:" and those which follow, because they were written afterwards, and yet
without any mention of their being uttered by the Lord Jesus when He was here in
the flesh, but were written by one of His apostles, to whom they were revealed by
His Spirit, were some of those which the Lord would not then utter, because
the disciples were unable to bear them; who would listen to me in making so rash
a statement? But if in the same passage where we read the one we were also to
read the other, who would not give due credence to such an apostle?
3. But it seems to me also very absurd to say that the disciples could not
then have borne what we find recorded, about things invisible and of
profoundest import, in the apostolic epistles, which were written in after days, and of
which there is no mention that the Lord uttered them when His visible presence
was with them. For why could they not bear then what is now read in their
books, land borne by every one, even though not understood? Some things there are,
indeed, in the Holy Scriptures which unbelieving men both have no understanding
of when they read or hear them, and cannot bear when they are read or heard: as
the pagans, that the world was made by Him who was crucified; as the Jews,
that He could be the Son of God, who broke up their mode of observing the Sabbath;
as the Sabellians, that the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit are a Trinity; as
the Arians, that the Son is equal to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to the
Father and Son; as the Photinians, that Christ is not only man like ourselves,
but God also, equal to God the Father; as the Manicheans, that Christ Jesus, by
whom we must be saved, condescended to be born in the flesh and of the flesh of
man: and all others of divers perverse sects, who can by no means bear whatever
is found in the Holy Scriptures and in the Catholic faith that stands out in
opposition to their errors, just as we cannot bear their sacrilegious vaporings
and mendacious insanities. For what else is it not to be able to bear, but not
to retain in our minds with calmness and composure? But what of all that has
been written since our Lord's ascension with canonical truth and authority, is it
not read and heard with equanimity by every believer, and catechumen also,
before in his baptism he receive the Holy Spirit, even although it is not yet
understood as it ought to be? How then, could not the disciples bear any of those
things which were written after the Lord's ascension, even though the Holy
Spirit was not yet sent to them, when now they are all borne by catechumens prior to
their reception of the Holy Spirit? For although the sacramental privileges of
believers are not exhibited to them, it does not therefore happen that they
cannot bear them; but in order that they may be all the more ardently desired by
them, they are honorably concealed from their view.
4. Wherefore, beloved, you need not expect to hear from us what the Lord
then refrained from telling His disciples, because they were still unable to
bear them: but rather seek to grow in the love that is shed abroad in your hearts
by the Holy Spirit who is given unto you;(1) that, fervent in spirit, and
loving spiritual things, you may be able, not by any sign apparent to your bodily
eyes, or any sound striking on your bodily ears, but by the inward eyesight and
hearing, to become acquainted with that spiritual light and that spiritual word
which carnal men are unable to bear. For that cannot be loved which is
altogether unknown. But when what is known, in however small a measure, is also loved,
by the self-same love one is led on to a better and fuller knowledge. If, then,
you grow in the love which the Holy Spirit spreads abroad in your hearts, "He
will teach you all truth;" or, as other codices have it, "He will guide you in
all truth:"(2) as it is said, "Lead me in Thy way, O Lord, and I will walk in
Thy truth."(3) So shall the result be, that not from outward teachers will you
learn those things which the Lord at that time declined to utter, but be all
taught of God;(4) so that the very things which you have learned and believed by
means of lessons and sermons supplied from without regarding the nature of God,
as incorporeal, and unconfined by limits, and yet not rolled out as a mass of
matter through infinite space, but everywhere whole and perfect and infinite,
without the gleaming of colors, without the tracing of bodily outlines, without
any markings of letters or succession of syllables,--your minds themselves may
have the power to perceive. Well, now, I have just said something which is
perhaps of that same character, and yet you have received it; and you have not only
been able to bear it, but have also listened to it with pleasure. But were that
inward Teacher, who, while still speaking in an external way to the disciples,
said, "I have still many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,"
wishing to speak inwardly to us of what I have said of the incorporeal nature
of God in the same way as He speaks to the angels, who always behold the face
of the Father,s we should still be unable to bear them. Accordingly, when He
says, "He will teach you all truth," or "will guide yon into all truth," I do not
think the fulfillment is possible in any one's mind in this present life (for
who is there, while living in this corruptible and soul-oppressing body,(6)
that can know all truth, when even the apostle says, "We know in part "?), but
because it is effected by the Holy Spirit, of whom we have now received the
earnest,(7) that we shall attain also to the actual fullness of knowledge: whereof
iris said by the same apostle, "But then face to face;" and, "Now I know in part,
but then shall I know even as also I am known;"(8) not as a thing which he
knows fully in this life, but which, as a thing that would still be future on to
the attainment of that perfection, the Lord promised us through the love of the
Spirit, when He said, "He will teach you all truth,"' or "will guide you unto
all truth."
5. As these things are so, beloved, I warn you in the love of Christ to
beware of impure seducers and sects of obscene filthiness, whereof the apostle
says, "But it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in
secret:(9) lest, when they begin to teach their horrible impurities, which no
human ear whatever can bear, they declare them to be the very things whereof the
Lord said, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them
now;" and assert that it is the Holy Spirit's agency that makes such impure and
detestable things possible to be borne. The evil things which no human modesty
whatever can endure are of one kind, and of quite another are the good things
which man's little understanding is unable to bear: the former are wrought in
unchaste bodies, the latter are beyond the reach of all bodies; the one is
perpetrated in the filthiness of the flesh, the other is scarcely perceivable by the
pure mind. "Be ye therefore renewed in the spirit of your mind,"(10) and
"understand what is the will of God, which is good, and acceptable, and perfect;"(11)
that, "rooted and grounded in love, ye may be able to comprehend, with all
saints, what is the length, and breadth, and height, and depth, even to know the
love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the
fullness of God."(12) For in such a way will the Holy Spirit teach you all truth,
when He shall shed abroad that love ever more and more largely in your hearts.
TRACTATE XCVII.
CHAPTER XVI. 12, 13 (continued).
1. The Holy Spirit, whom the Lord promised to send to His disciples, to
teach them all the truth which, at the time He was speaking to them, they were
unable to bear: of the which Holy Spirit, as the apostle says, we have now
received "the earnest,"(1) an expression whereby we are to understand that His
fullness is reserved for us till another life: that Holy Spirit, therefore, teacheth
believers also in the present life, as far as they can severally apprehend what
is spiritual; and enkindles a growing desire in their breasts, according as
each one makes progress in that love, which will lead him both to love what he
knows already, and to long after what still remains to be known: so that those
very things which he has some notion of at present, he may know that he is still
ignorant of, as they are yet to be known in that life which eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, nor the heart of man hath perceived.(2) But were the inner
Master wishing at present to say those things in such a way of knowing, that is, to
unfold and make them patent to our mind, our human weakness would be unable to
bear them. Whereof you remember, beloved, that I have already spoken, when we
were occupied with the words of the holy Gospel, where the Lord says, "I have
yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." Not that in these
words of the Lord we should be suspecting an over-fastidious concealment of no
one knows what secrets, which might be uttered by the Teacher, but could not be
borne by the learner, but those very things which in connection with religious
doctrine we read and write, hear and speak of, as within the knowledge of such
and such persons, were Christ willing to utter to us in the self-same way as
He speaks of them to the holy angels, in His own Person as the only-begotten
Word of the Father, and co-eternal with Him, where are the human beings that could
bear them, even were they already spiritual, as the apostles still were not
when the Lord so spoke to them, and as they afterwards became when the Holy
Spirit descended? For, of course, whatever may be known of the creature, is less
than the Creator Himself, who is the supreme and true and unchangeable God. And
yet who keeps silence about Him? Where is His name not found in the mouths of
readers, disputants, inquirers, respondents, adorers, singers, all sorts of
haranguers, and lastly even of blasphemers themselves? And although no one keeps
silence about Him, who is there that apprehends Him as He is to be understood,
although He is never out of the mouths and the hearing of men? Who is there, whose
keenness of mind can even get near Him? Who is there that would have known Him
as the Trinity, had not He Himself desired so to become known? And what man is
there that now holds his tongue about that Trinity; and yet what man is there
that has any such idea of it as the angels? The very things, therefore, that are
incessantly being uttered off-hand and openly about the eternity, the truth,
the holiness of God, are understood well by some, and badly by others: nay
rather, are understood by some, and not understood at all by others. For he that
understands in a bad way, does not understand at all. And in the case even of
those by whom they are understood in a right sense, by some they are perceived with
less, by others with greater mental vividness, and by none on earth are
apprehended as they are by the angels. In the very mind, therefore, that is to say,
in the inner man, there is a kind of growth, not only in order to the transition
from milk to solid food, but also to the taking of food itself in still larger
and larger measure. But such growth is not in the way of a space-covering mass
of matter, but in that of an illuminated understanding; because that food is
itself the light of the understanding. In order, then, to your growth and
apprehension of God, and in order that your apprehension may keep full pace with your
ever-advancing growth, you ought to be addressing your prayer, and turning
your hope, not to the teacher whose voice only reaches your ears, that is, who
plants and waters only by outside labor, but to Him who giveth the increase.(3)
2. Accordingly, as I have admonished you in my last sermon, take heed,
those of you specially who are still children and have need of a milk diet, of
turning a curious ear to men, who have found occasion for self-deception and the
deceiving of others in the words of the Lord, "I have yet many things to say
unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," in order to the discovery of that which is
unknown, while you still have minds that are incompetent to discriminate
between the true and the false; and most especially on account of the obscene
lewdnesses which Satan has instilled, by God's permission, into unstable and carnal
souls, for this end, that His judgments may everywhere be objects of terror, and
that pure discipline may best manifest its sweetness in contrast with the
impurities of wickedness; and that honor may be given to Him, and fear and modesty
of demeanor assumed by every one, who has either been kept from falling into
such evils by His kingly power, or been raised out of them by His uplifting hand.
Beware, with fear and prayer, of rushing into that mystery of Solomon's, where
"the woman that is foolish and brazen-faced, and become destitute of bread,"
invites the passers-by with the words, "Come and make a pleasant feast on hidden
bread, and the sweetness of stolen waters."(1) For the woman thus spoken of is
the vanity of the impious, who, utterly senseless as they are, fancy that they
know something, just as was said of that woman, that she had "become destitute
of bread;" who, though destitute of a single loaf, promises loaves; in other
words, though ignorant of the truth, she promises the knowledge of the truth.
But it is bread of a hidden character she promises, and which she declares is
partaken of with pleasure, as well as the sweetness of stolen waters; in order
that what is publicly forbidden to be uttered or believed in the Church, may be
listened to and acted upon with willingness and relish. For by such secrecy
profane teachers give a kind of seasoning to their poisons for the curious, that
thereby they may imagine that they learn something great, because counted worthy
of holding a secret, and may imbibe the more sweetly the folly which they regard
as wisdom, the hearing of which, as a thing prohibited, they are represented
as stealing.
3. Hence the system of magical arts commends its nefarious rites to those
who are deceived, or ready to be so, by a sacrilegious curiosity. Hence, also,
those unlawful divinations by the inspection of the entrails of slain animals,
or of the cries and flights of birds, or of multiform demoniacal signs, are
distilled by converse with abandoned wretches into the ears of persons who are on
the brink of destruction. And it is because of these unlawful and punishable
secrets that the woman mentioned above is styled not merely "foolish," but also
"audacious." But such things are alien not only to the reality, but to the very
name of our religion. And what shall we say of this foolish and brazen-faced
woman seasoning, as she does, so many wicked heresies, and serving up so many
detestable fables with Christian forms of expression? Would that they were only
such as are found in theatres, whether as the subjects of song or dancing, or
turned into ridicule by a mimicking buffoonery; and not, some of them, such as
makes us grieve at the foolishness, while wondering at the audacity that could
have contrived them, against God! And yet all these utterly senseless heretics,
who wish to be styled Christians, attempt to color the audacities of their
devices, which are perfectly ahorrent to every human feeling, with the chance
presented to them of that gospel sentence uttered by the Lord, "I have yet many things
to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now:" as if these were the very
things which the apostles could not then bear, and as if the Holy Spirit had taught
them what the unclean spirit, with all the length he can carry his audacity,
blushes to teach and to preach in broad daylight.
4. It is such whom the apostle foresaw through the Holy Spirit, when he
said: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after
their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto
fables."(2) For that mentioning of secrecy and theft, whereof it is said, "Partake
with pleasure of hidden bread and the sweetness of stolen waters," creates an
itching in those who listen with ears that are lusting after spiritual
fornication, just as by a kind of itching also of desire in the flesh the soundness of
chastity is corrupted. Hear, therefore, how the apostle foresaw such things,
and gave salutary admonition about avoiding them, when be said, "Shun profane
novelties of words; for they increase unto much ungodliness, and their speech
insinuates itself as cloth a cancer."(3) He did not say novelties of words merely;
but added, "profane." For there are also novelties of words in perfect harmony
with religious doctrine, as is told us in Scripture of the very name of
Christians, when it began to be used. For it was in Antioch that the disciples were
first called Christians after the Lord's ascension, as we read in the Acts of
the Apostles:(1) and certain houses were afterwards called by the new names of
hospices(2) and monasteries; but the things themselves existed prior to their
names, and are confirmed by religious truth, which also forms their defense
against the wicked. In opposition also to the impiety of Arian heretics, they coined
the new term, Patris Homousios;(3) but there was nothing new signified by such
a name; for what is called Homousios is just this: "I and my Father are
one,"(4) to wit, of one and the same substance. For if every novelty were profane, as
little should we have it said by the Lord, "A new commandment I give unto.
you;"(5) nor would the Testament be called New, nor the new song be sung throughout
the whole earth. But there is profanity in the novelties of words, when it is
said by "the foolish and audacious woman, Come and enjoy the tasting of hidden
bread, and the sweetness of stolen waters." From such enticing words of false
science the apostle also gives his prohibitory warning, in the passage where he
says, "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane
novelties of expression, and oppositions of science falsely so called; which
some professing, have erred concerning the faith."(6) For there is nothing that
these men so love as to profess science, and to deride as utter silliness faith
in those verities which the young are enjoined to believe.
5. But some one will say, Have spiritual men nothing in the matter of
doctrine, which they are to say nothing about to the carnal, but to speak out upon
to the spiritual ? If I shall answer, They have not, I shall be immediately met
with the words of the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians: "I could
not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. As unto babes in
Christ I have given you milk to drink, and not meat to eat: for hitherto ye were
not able; neither yet now are ye able; for ye are yet carnal;"(7) and with
these, "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect;" and with these also,
"Comparing spiritual things with spiritual: but the natural man perceiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him."(8) The meaning of
all this, in order that these words of the apostle may no longer lead to the
hankering after secrets through the profane novelties of verbiage, and that what
ought always to be shunned by the spirit and body of the chaste may not be
asserted as only unable to be borne by the carnal, we shall, with the Lord's
permission, make the subject of dissertation in another discourse, so that for the
time we may bring the present to a close.
TRACTATE XCVIII
CHAPTER XVI. 12, 33 (continuea).
1. From the words of our Lord, where He says, "I have yet many things to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," there arose a difficult question,
which I recollect to have put off, that it might be handled afterwards at greater
leisure, because my last discourse had reached its proper limits, and required
to be brought to a close. And now, accordingly, as we have time to redeem our
promise, let us take up its discussion as the Lord Himself shall grant us
ability, who put it into our heart to make the proposal. And the question is this:
Whether spiritual men have aught in doctrine which they should withhold from the
carnal, but declare to the spiritual. For if we shall say, They have not, we
shall meet with the reply, What, then, is to be made of the words of the apostle
in writing to the Corinthians: "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual,
but as unto carnal. As unto babes in Christ, I have given you milk to drink,
and not meat to eat: for hitherto ye were not able; neither yet now are ye able;
for ye are yet carnal?"(1) But if we say, They have, we have cause to fear and
take heed, lest under such a pretext detestable doctrines be taught in secret,
and under the name of spiritual, as things which cannot be understood by the
carnal, may seem not only capable of being whitewashed by plausible excuses, but
deserving also to be lauded in preaching.
2. In the first place, then, your Charity ought to know that it is Christ
Himself as crucified, wherewith the apostle says that he has fed those who are
babes as with milk; but His flesh itself, in which was witnessed His real
death, that is, both His real wounds when transfixed and His blood when pierced,
does not present itself to the minds of the carnal in the same manner as to that
of the spiritual, and so to the former it is milk, and to the latter it is meat;
for if they do not hear more than others, they understand better. For the mind
has not equal powers of perception even for that which is equally received by
both in faith. And so it happens that the preaching of Christ crucified, by the
apostle, was at once to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Gentiles
foolishness; and to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God, and
the wisdom of God;"(1) but to the carnal, as babes who held it only as a
matter of faith, and to the spiritual, as those of greater capacity, who perceived
it as a matter of understanding; to the former, therefore, as a milk-draught, to
the latter as solid food: not that the former knew it in one way out in the
world at large, and the latter in another way in their secret chambers; but that
what both heard in the same measure when it was publicly spoken, each
apprehended in his own measure. For inasmuch as Christ was crucified for the very
purpose of shedding His blood for the remission of sins, and of divine grace being
thereby commended in the passion of His Only-begotten, that no one should glory
in man, what understanding had they of Christ crucified who were still saying,
"I am of Paul"?(2) Was it such as Paul himself had, who could say, "But God
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ"?(3) In
regard, therefore, even to Christ crucified, he himself found food in proportion to
his own capacity, and nourished them with milk in accordance with their
infirmity. And still further, knowing that what he wrote to the Corinthians might
doubtless be understood in one way by those who were still babes, and differently
by those of greater capacity, he said, "If any one among you is a prophet, or
spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the
commandment of the Lord; but if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant."(4)
Assuredly he would have the knowledge of the spiritual to be substantial, wherever
not only faith had found a suitable abode, but a certain power of understanding
was possessed; and whereby such believed those very things which as spiritual
they likewise acknowledged. But "let him be ignorant," he says, who "is
ignorant;" because it was not yet revealed to him to know that which he believes. When
this takes place in a man's mind, he is said to be known of God; for it is God
who endows him with this power of understanding, as it is elsewhere said, "But
now, knowing God, or rather, being known of God."(5) For it was not then that
God first knew those who were foreknown and chosen before the foundation of the
world;(6) but then it was that He made them to know Himself.
3. Having ascertained this, therefore, at the outset, that the very
things, which are equally heard by the spiritual and the carnal, are received by each
according to the slender measure of his own capacity,--by some as babes, by
others as those of riper years,--by one as milk nourishment, by another as solid
food,--there seems no necessity for any matters of doctrine being retained in
silence as secrets, and concealed from infant believers, as things to be spoken
of apart to those who are older, or possessed of a riper understanding; and let
us regard it as needful to act thus, just because of the words of the apostle,
"I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal." For even
this very statement of his, that he knew nothing among them but Jesus Christ and
Him crucified,(7) he could not speak unto them as unto spiritual, but as unto
carnal; because even that they were not able to receive as spiritual. But all
who were spiritual among them received with spiritual understanding the very
same truths which the others only heard as carnal; and in this way may we
understand the words, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto
carnal," as if he said, What I did speak, ye could not receive as spiritual, but as
carnal. For "the natural man"--that is, the man whose wisdom is of a mere human
kind, and is called natural [literally, soulish] from the soul, and carnal from
the flesh, because the complete man consists of soul and flesh--"perceiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God;"(8) that is, the measure of grace bestowed
on believers by the cross of Christ, and thinks that all that is effected by
that cross is to provide us with an example for our imitation in contending even
to death for the truth. For if men of this type, who have no desire to be aught
else than men, knew how it is that Christ crucified is "made of God unto us
wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that, according as
it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."(1) they would
doubtless no longer glory in man, nor say in a carnal spirit, "I am of Paul, and I
of Apollos, and I of Cephas;" but in a spiritual way, "I am of Christ."(2)
4. But the question is still further raised by what we read in the Epistle
to the Hebrews: "When now for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need
again to be taught which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are
become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that
useth milk hath no experience in the word of righteousness; for he is a babe. But
strong meat belongeth to them that are perfect, even those who by habit have
their senses exercised to distinguish good from evil."(3) For here we see, as if
clearly defined, what he calIs the strong meat of the perfect; and which is
the same as that which he writes to the Corinthans, "We speak wisdom among them
that are perfect." (4) But who it was that he wished in this passage to be
understood as perfect, he proceeded to indicate in the words, "Even those who by
habit have their senses exercised to distinguish good from evil." Those,
therefore, who, through a weak and undisciplined mind, are destitute of this power, wi11
certainly, unless enabled by what may be called the milk of faith to believe
both the invisible things which they see not, and the comprehensible things
which they do not yet comprehend, be easily seduced by the promise of science to
vain and sacrilegious fables: so as to think both of good and evil only under
corporeal forms, and to have no idea of God Himself save as some sort of body, and
be able only to view evil as a substance; while there is rather a kind of
falling away from the immutable Substance in the case of all mutable substances,
which were made out of nothing by the immutable and supreme substance itself,
which is God. And assuredly whoever not only believes, but also through the
exercised inner senses of his mind understands, and perceives, and knows this, there
is no longer cause for fear that he will be seduced by those who, while
accounting evil to be a substance uncreated by God, make God Himself a mutable
substance, as is done by the Manicheans, or any other pests, if such there be, that
fall into similar foily.
5. But to those who are still babes in mind, and who as carnal, the
apostle says, require to be nourished with milk, all discoursing on such a subject,
wherein we deal not only with the believing, but also with the understanding and
the knowing of what is spoken, must be burdensome, as being still unable to
perceive such things, and be more fitted to oppress than to feed them. Whence it
comes to pass that the spiritual, while not altogether silent on such subjects
to the carnal, because of the Catholic faith which is to be preached to all,
yet do not so handle them as, in their wish to simplify them to understandings
that are still deficient in capacity, to bring their discourse on the truth into
disrepute, rather than the truth that is in their discourse within the
perceptions of their hearers. Accordingly in his Epistle to the Colossians he says:
"And though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and
beholding your order, and that which is lacking(5) in your faith in Christ."(6)
And in that to the Thessalonians: "Night and day," he says, "praying more
abundantly, that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in
your faith."(7) Here we are, of course, to understand those who were under
such primary catechetical instruction, as implied their nourishment with milk and
not with strong meat; of the former of which there is mention made in the
Epistle to the Hebrews of an abundant supply for such as nevertheless he would now
have had to be feeding on solid food. Accordingly he says: "Therefore leaving
the word of the beginning of Christ, let us have regard to the completion; not
laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward
God, of the doctrine of the baptismal font, and of the laying on of hands, and of
resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." (8) This is the copious
supply of milk, without which even they cannot live, who have already indeed
their reason sufficiently in use to enable them to believe, but who cannot
distinguish good from evil, so as to be not only a matter of faith, but also of
understanding (which belongs to the department of solid food). But when he includes
doctrine also in his description of the milk, it is that which has been delivered
to us in the Creed and the Lord's Prayer.
6. But let us be far from supposing that there is any contrariety between
this milk and the food of spiritual things that has to be received by the sound
understanding, and which was wanting to the Colossians and Thessalonians, and
had still to be supplied. For the supply of the deficiency implies no
disapproval of that which existed. For even in the very food that we take, so far is
there from being any contrariety between milk and solid food, that the latter
itself becomes milk, in order to make it suitable to babes, whom it reaches through
the medium of the mother's or the nurse's body; so did also mother Wisdom
herself, who is solid food in the lofty sphere of angels, condescend in a manner to
become milk for babes, when the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.(1) But
the man Christ Himself, who in His true flesh, true cross, true death, and true
resurrection is called the pure milk of babes, is, when rightly understood by
the spiritual. found to be the Lord of angels. Accordingly, babes are not to be
so fed with milk as always to remain without understanding the Godhead of
Christ; nor are they to be so withdrawn from milk as to turn their backs on His
manhood. And the same thing may also be stated in another way in this manner: they
are neither so to be fed with milk as never to understand Christ as Creator,
nor so to be withdrawn from milk as ever to turn their backs on Christ as
Mediator In this respect, indeed, the similitude of maternal milk and solid food
scarcely harmonizes with the reality as thus stated, but rather that of a
foundation: for when the child is weaned, so as to be withdrawn from the nourishment of
infancy, he never looks again amongst solid food for the breasts which he
sucked; but Christ crucified is both milk to sucklings and meat to the more
advanced. And the similitude of a foundation is on this account the more suitable,
because, for the Completion of the structure, the building is added without the
foundation being withdrawn.
7. And since this is the case, do you, whoever you be, who are doubtless
many of you still babes in Christ, be making advances towards the solid food of
the mind, not of the belly. Grow in the ability to distinguish good from evil,
and cleave more and more to the Mediator, who delivers you from evil; which
does not admit of a local separation from you, but rather of being healed within
you. But whoever shall say to you, Believe not Christ to be truly man, or that
the body of any man or animal whatever was created by the true God, or that the
Old Testament was given by the true God, and anything else of the same sort,
for such things as these were not told you previously, when your nourishment was
milk, because your heart was still unfit for the apprehension of the truth:
such an one provides you not with meat, but with poison. For therefore it was that
the blessed apostle, in addressing those who appeared to him already perfect,
even after calling himself imperfect, said, "Let us, therefore, as many as be
perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall
reveal even this unto you." And that they might not rush into the hands of
seducers, whose desire would be to turn them away from the faith by promising them
the knowledge of the truth, and suppose such to be the meaning of the apostle's
words, "God shall reveal even this unto you," he forthwith added, "Nevertheless,
whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule."(2) If, then,
thou hast come to some understanding of what is not at variance with the rule
of the Catholic faith, whereto thou hast attained as the way that is guiding
thee to thy fatherland; and hast so understood it as to feel it a duty to dismiss
all doubts whatever on the subject: add to the building, but do not abandon the
foundation. And surely of such a character ought to be any teaching given by
eiders to those who are babes, as not to involve the assertion that Christ the
Lord of all, and the prophets and apostles, who are much farther advanced in age
than themselves, had in any respect spoken falsely. And not only ought you to
avoid the babbling seducers of the mind, who prate away at their fables and
falsehoods, and in such vanities make the promise, forsooth, of profound science
contrary to the rule of faith, which we have accepted as Catholic; but avoid
those also as a still more insidious pest than the others, who discuss truthfully
enough the immutability of the divine nature, or the incorporeal creature, or
the Creator, and fully prove what they affirm by the most conclusive documents
and reasonings, and yet attempt to turn you away from the one Mediator between
God and men. For such are those of whom the apostle says, "Because that, when
they knew God, they glorified Him not as God."(3) For what advantage is it to
have a true understanding of the immutable Good to one who has no hold of Him by
whom there is deliverance from evil? And let not the admonition of the most
blessed apostle by any means lose its place in your hearts: "If any man preach any
other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed."(4) He
does not say, More than ye have received; but, 'Other than ye have received."
For had he said the former, he would be prejudging himself, inasmuch as he
desired to come to the Thessalonians to supply what was lacking in their faith. But
one who supplies, adds to what was deficient, without taking away what existed:
while he that transgresses the rule of faith, is not progressing in the way,
but turning aside from it.
8. Accordingly, when the Lord says, "I have yet many things to say unto
you, but ye cannot bear them now," He means that what they were still ignorant of
had afterwards to be supplied to them, and not that what they had already
learned was to be subverted. And He, indeed, as I have already shown in a former
discourse, could so speak, because the very things which He had taught them, had
He wished to unfold them to them in the same way as they are conceived in
regard to Him by the angels, their still remaining human weakness would be unable to
bear. But any spiritual man may teach another man what he knows, provided the
Holy Spirit grant him an enlarged capacity for profiling, wherein also the
teacher himself may get some further increase, in order that both may be taught of
God.(1) Although even among the spiritual themselves there are some, doubtless,
who are of greater capacity and in a better condition than others; so that one
of them attained even to things of which it is not lawful for a man to speak.
Taking advantage of which, there have been some vain individuals, who, with a
presumption that betrays the grossest folly, have forged a Revelation of Paul,
crammed with all manner of fables, which has been rejected by the orthodox
Church; affirming it to be that whereof he had said that he was caught up into the
third heavens, and there heard unspeakable words "which it is not lawful for a
man to utter."(2) Nevertheless, the audacity of such might be tolerable, had he
said that he heard words which it is not as yet lawful for a man to utter; but
when he said, "which it is not lawful for a man to utter," who are they that
dare to utter them with such impudence and non-success? But with these words I
shall now bring this discourse to a close; whereby I would have you to be wise
indeed in that which is good, but untainted by that which is evil.
TRACTATE XCIX.
CHAPTER XVI. 13.
1. What IS this that the Lord said of the Holy Spirit, when promising that
He would come and teach His disciples all truth, or, guide them into all
truth: "For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall
He speak"? For this is similar to what He said of Himself, "I can of mine own
self do nothing: as I hear, I judge."(1) But when expounding that, we said that
it might be taken as referring to His human nature;(2) so that He seemed as the
Son to announce beforehand that His own obedience, whereby He became obedient
even unto the death of the cross,(3) would have its place also in the judgment,
when He shall judge the quick and the dead; for He shall do so for the very
reason that He is the Son of man. Wherefore He said, "The Father judgeth no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son;" for in the judgment He will
appear, not in the form of God, wherein He is equal to the Father, and cannot be
seen by the wicked, but in the form of man, in which He was made even a little
lower than the angels; although then He will come in glory, and not in His
original humility, yet in a way that will be conspicuous both to the good and to the
bad. Hence He says further: "And He hath given Him authority to execute
judgment also, because He is the Son of man."(4) In these words of His own it is made
clear that it is not that form that will be presented in the judgment, wherein
He was when He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but that which He
assumed when He made Himself of no reputation.(5) For He emptied Himself in
assuming the form of a servant;(6) in which, also, for the purpose of executing
judgment, He seems to have commended His obedience, when He said, "I can of mine
own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge." For Adam, by whose disobedience, as
that of one man, many were made sinners, did not judge as he heard; for he
prevaricated what he heard, and of his own self did the evil that he did; for he did
not the will of God, but his own: while this latter, by whose obedience, as
that also of one man, many are made righteous,(1) was not only obedient even unto
the death of the cross, in respect of which He was judged as alive from the
dead; but promised also that He would be showing obedience in the very judgment
itself, wherein He is yet to act as judge of the quick and the dead, when He
said, "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge." But when it is said
of the Holy Spirit, "For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall
hear, that shall He speak," shall we dare to harbor the notion that it was so
said in reference to any human nature of His, or the assumption of any
creature-form? For it was the Son alone in the Trinity who assumed the form of a
servant, a form which in His case was fitted into the unity of His person, or, in
other words, that the one person, Jesus Christ, should be the Son of God and the
Son of man; and so that we should be kept from preaching a quaternity instead of
the Trinity, which God forbid that we should do. And it is on account of this
one personality as consisting of two substances, the divine and the human, that
He sometimes speaks in accordance with that wherein He is God, as when He
says, "I and my Father are one;"(2) and sometimes in accordance with His manhood,
as in the words, "For the Father is greater than I;"(3) in accordance with which
also we have understood those words of His that are at present under
discussion, "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge." But in reference to
the person of the Holy Spirit, a considerable difficulty arises how we are to
understand the words, "For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He
shall hear, that shall He speak;" since in it there exists not one substance of
Godhead and another of humanity, or of any other creature whatsoever.
2. For the fact that the Holy Spirit appeared in bodily form, as a
dove,(4) was a sight begun and ended at the time: just as also, when He descended upon
the disciples, there were seen upon them cloven tongues as of fire, which also
sat upon every one of them.(5) Any one, therefore, who says that the dove was
connected with the Holy Spirit in the unity of His person, as that it and
Godhead (for the Holy Spirit is God) should go to constitute the one person of the
Holy Spirit, is compelled also to affirm the same thing of that fire; and so may
understand that he ought to assert neither. For those things in regard to the
substance of God, which needed at any time to be represented in some outward
way, and so exhibited themselves to men's bodily senses, and then passed away,
were formed for the moment by divine power from the subservient creation, and not
from the dominant nature itself; which, ever abiding the same, excites into
action whatever it pleases; and, itself unchangeable, changes all things else at
its pleasure. In the same way also did that voice from the cloud actually
strike upon the bodily ears, and on that bodily sense which is called the
hearing;(6) and yet in no way are we to believe that the Word of God, which is the
only-begotten Son, is defined, because He is called the Word, by syllables and
sounds: for when a sermon is in course of delivery, all the sounds cannot be
pronounced simultaneously; but the various individual sounds come, as it were, in their
own order to the birth, and succeed those which are dying away, so that all
that we have to say is completed only by the last syllable. Very different from
this, surely, is the way in which the Father speaketh to the Son, that is to
say, God to God, His Word. But this, so far as it can be understood by man, is a
matter for the understanding of those who are fitted for the reception of solid
food, and not of milk. Since, therefore, the Holy Spirit became not man by any
assumption of humanity, and became not an angel by any assumption of angelic
nature, and as little entered into the creature-state by the assumption of any
creature-form whatever, how, in regard to Him, are we to understand those words
of our Lord, "For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear,
that shall He speak"? A difficult question; yea, too difficult. May the Spirit
Himself be present, that, at least up to the measure of our power of thinking on
such a subject, we may be able to express our thoughts, and that these,
according to the little measure of my ability, may find entrance into your
understanding.
3. You ought, then, to be informed in the first place, and, those of you
who can, to understand, and the others, who cannot as yet understand, to
believe, that in that substantial essence, which is God, the senses are not, as if
through some material structure of a body, distributed in their appropriate
places; as, in the mortal flesh of all animals there is in one place sight, in
another hearing, in another taste, in another smelling, and over the whole the sense
of touch. Far be it from us to believe so in the case of that incorporeal and
immutable nature. In it, therefore, hearing and seeing are one and the same
thing. In this way smelling also is said to exist in God; as the apostle says, "As
Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a
sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor."(1) And taste may be included, in
accordance with which God hateth the bitter in temper, and spueth out of His mouth
those who are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot:(2) and Christ our God(3)
saith, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me.."(4) There is also that
divine sense of touch, in accordance with Which the spouse saith of the bridegroom:
"His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me."(5) But
these are not in God's case in different parts of the body. For when He is said
to know, all are included: both seeing, and hearing, and smelling, and
tasting, and touching; without any alteration of His substance, and without the
existence of any material element which is greater in one place and smaller in
another: and when there are any such thoughts of God in those even who are old in
years, they are the thoughts only of a childish mind.
4. Nor need you wonder that the ineffable knowledge of God, whereby He is
cognizant of all things, is, because of the various modes of human speech
designated by the names of all those bodily senses; since even our own mind, in
other words, the inner man,--to which, while itself exercising its knowing faculty
in one uniform way, the different subjects of its knowledge are communicated by
those five messengers, as it were, of the body, when it understands, chooses,
and loves the unchangeable truth,--is said both to see the light, whereof it is
said, "That was the true light;" and to hear the word, whereof it is said, "In
the beginning was the Word;"(6) and to be susceptible of smell, of which it is
said, "We will run after the smell of thy ointments;"(7) and to drink of the
fountain, whereof it is said, "With Thee is the fountain of life;"(8) and to
enjoy the sense of touch, when it is said, "But it is good for me to cleave unto
God;"(9) in all of which it is not different things, but the one intelligence,
that is expressed by the names of so many senses. When, therefore, it is said of
the Holy Spirit, "For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall
hear, that shall He speak," so much the more is a simple nature, which is simple
[uncompounded] in the truest sense, to be either understood or believed, which
in its extent and sublimity far surpasses the nature of our minds. For there
is mutability in our mind, which comes by learning to the perception of what it
was previously ignorant of, and loses by unlearning what it formerly knew; and
is deceived by what has a similarity to truth, so as to approve of the false in
place of the true, and is hindered by its own obscurity as by a kind of
darkness from arriving at the truth. And so that substance is not in the truest sense
simple, to which being is not identical with knowing; for it can exist without
the possession of knowledge. But it cannot be so with that divine substance,
for it is what it has. And on this account it has not knowledge in any such way
as that the knowledge whereby it knows should be to it one thing, and the
essence whereby it exists another; but both are one. Nor ought that to be called
both, which is simply one. "As the Father hath life in Himself," and He Himself is
not something different from the life that is in Him; "so hath He given to the
Son to have life in Himself,"(10) that is, hath begotten the Son, that He also
should Himself be the life. Accordingly we ought to accept what is said of the
Holy Spirit, "For he shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear,
that shall He speak," in such a way as to understand thereby that He is not of
Himself. Because it is the Father only who is not of another. For the Son is
born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father; but the
Father is neither born of, nor proceedeth from, another. And yet surely there
should not on that account occur to human thought any idea of disparity in the
supreme Trinity; for both the Son is equal to Him of whom He is born, and the Holy
Spirit to Him from whom He proceedeth. But what difference there is in such a
case between proceeding and being born, would be too lengthy to make the subject
of inquiry and dissertation, and would make our definition liable to the charge
of rashness, even after we had discussed it; for such a thing is of the utmost
difficulty, both for the mind to comprehend in any adequate way, and even were
it so that the mind has attained to any such comprehension, for the tongue to
explain, however able the one that presides as a teacher, or he that is present
as a hearer. Accordingly, "He shall not speak of Himself;" because He is not
of Himself. "But whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak:" He shall hear
of Him from whom He proceedeth. To Him hearing is knowing; but knowing is being,
as has been discussed above. Because, then, He is not of Himself, but of Him
from whom He proceedeth, and of whom He has essence, of Him He has knowledge;
from Him, therefore, He has hearing, which is nothing else than knowledge.
5. And be not disturbed by the fact that the verb is put in the future
tense. For it is not said, whatsoever He hath heard, or, whatsoever He heareth;
but, "whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak." For such hearing is
everlasting, because the knowing is everlasting. But in the case of what is eternal,
without beginning and without end, in whatever tense the verb is put, whether in
the past, or present, or future, there is no falsehood thereby implied. For
although to that immutable and ineffable nature, there is no proper application
of Was and Will be, but only Is: for that nature alone is in truth, because
incapable of change; and to it therefore was it exclusively suited to say, "I Am
That I Am," and "Thou shall say unto the children of Israel, He Who Is hath sent
me unto you:"(1) yet on account of the changeableness of the times amid which
our mortal and changeable life is spent, there is nothing false in our saying,
both it was, and will be, and is. It was in past, it is in present, it will be
in future ages. It was, because it never was wanting; it will be, because it
will never be wanting; it is, because it always is. For it has not, like one who
no longer survives, died with the past; nor, like one who abideth not, is it
gliding away with the present; nor, as one who had no previous existence, will it
rise up with the future. Accordingly, as our human manner of speaking varies
with the revolutions of time, He, who through all times was not, is not, and will
not by any possibility be found wanting, may correctly be spoken of in any
tense whatever of a verb.t The Holy Spirit, therefore, is always hearing, t
because He always knows: ergo, He both knew, and knows, and will know; and in the
same way He both heard, and hears, and will hear; for, as we have already said,
to Him hearing is one with knowing, and knowing with Him is one with being.
From Him, therefore, He heard, and hears, and will hear, of whom He is; and of Him
He is, from whom He proceeds.
6. Some one may here inquire whether the Holy Spirit proceedeth also from
the Son. For the Son is Son of the Father alone, and the Father is Father of
the Son alone; but the Holy Spirit is not the Spirit of one of them, but of both.
You have the Lord Himself saying, "For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit
of your Father that speaketh in you;"(2) and you have the apostle, "God hath
sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts."(3) Are there, then, two, the
one of the Father, the other of the Son? Certainly not. For there is "one
body," he said, when referring to the Church; and presently added, "and one
Spirit." And mark how he there makes up the Trinity. "As ye are called," he says, "in
one hope of your calling.'' "One Lord," where he certainly meant Christ to be
understood; but it remained that he should also name the Father: and accordingly
there follows, "One faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is
above all, and through all, and in you all."(4) And since, then, just as there is
one Father, and one Lord, namely, the Son, so also there is one Spirit; He is
doubtless of both: especially as Christ Jesus Himself saith, "The Spirit of your
Father that dwelleth in you;" and the apostle declares, "God hath sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into your hearts." You have the same apostle saying in
another place, "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell
in you," where he certainly intended the Spirit of the Father to be understood;
of whom, however, he says in another place, "But if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of His."(5) And many other testimonies there are, which
plainly show that He, who in the Trinity is styled the Holy Spirit, is the
Spirit both of the Father and of the Son.
7. And for no other reason, I suppose, is He called in a peculiar way the
Spirit; since though asked concerning each person in His turn, we cannot but
admit that the Father and the Son are each of them a Spirit; for God is a
Spirit,(6) that is, God is not carnal, but spiritual. By the name, therefore, which
they each also hold in common, it was requisite that He should be distinctly
called, who is not the one nor the other of them, but in whom what is common to
both becomes apparent. Why, then, should we not believe that the Holy Spirit
proceedeth also from the Son, seeing that He is likewise the Spirit of the Son? For
did He not so proceed, He could not, when showing Himself to His disciples
after the resurrection, have breathed sport them, and said, "Receive ye the Holy
Spirit."(7) For what else was signified by such a breathing upon them, but that
from Him also the Holy Spirit proceedeth? And of the same character also are His
words regarding the woman that suffered from the bloody flux: "Some one hath
touched me; for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me."(1) For that the Holy
Spirit is also designated by the name of virtue, is both clear from the passage
where the angel, in reply to Mary's question, "How shall this be, seeing I
know not a man?" said, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power
[virtue] of the highest shall overshadow thee;"(2) and our Lord Himself when giving
His disciples the promise of the Spirit, said, "But tarry ye in the city, until
ye be endued with power [virtue] from on high;"(3) and on another occasion, "Ye
shall receive the power [virtue] of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and ye
shall be witnesses unto me."(4) It is of this virtue that we are to believe, that
the evangelist says, "Virtue went out of Him, and healed them all."(5)
8. If, then, the Holy Spirit proceedeth both from the Father and from the
Son, why said the Son, "He proceedeth from the Father"?(6) Why, do you think,
but just because it is to Him He is wont to attribute even that which is His
own, of whom He Himself also is? Hence we have Him saying, "My doctrine is not
mine, but His that sent me."(7) If, therefore, in such a passage we are to
understand that as His doctrine, which nevertheless He declared not to be His own, but
the Father's, how much more in that other passage are we to understand the
Holy Spirit as proceeding from Himself, where His words, "He proceedeth from the
Father," were uttered so as not to imply, He proceedeth not from me? But from
Him, of whom the Son has it that He is God (for He is God of God), He certainly
has it that from Him also the Holy Spirit proceedeth: and in this way the Holy
Spirit has it of the Father Himself, that He should also proceed from the Son,
even as He proceedeth from the Father.
9. In connection with this, we come also to some understanding of the
further point, that is, so far as it can be understood by such beings as ourselves,
why the Holy Spirit is not said to be born, but to proceed: since, if He also
were called by the name of Son, He could not avoid being called the Son of
both, which is utterly absurd. For no one is a son of two, unless of a father and
mother. But it would be utterly abhorrent to entertain the suspicion of any such
intervention between God the Father and God the Son. For not even a son of
human parents proceedeth at the same time from father and from mother: but at the
time that he proceedeth from the father into the mother, it is not then that he
proceedeth from the mother; and when he cometh forth from the mother into the
light of day, it is not then that he proceedeth from the father. But the Holy
Spirit proceedeth not from the Father into the Son, and then proceedeth from the
Son to the work of the creature's sanctification; but He proceedeth at the
same time from both: although this the Father hath given unto the Son, that He
should proceed from Him also, even as He proceedeth from Himself. And as little
can we say that the Holy Spirit is not the life, seeing that the Father is the
life, and the Son is the life. And in the same way as the Father, who hath life
in Himself, hath given to the Son also to have life in Himself; so hath He also
given that life should proceed from Him, even as it also proceedeth from
Himself.(8) But we come now to the words of our Lord that follow, when He saith: "And
He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for He shall receive of
mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine:
therefore, said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." But as
the present discourse has already been protracted to some length, they must be
left over for another.
TRACTATE C.
CHAPTER XVI. 13-15 (continued).
1. WHEN our Lord gave the promise of the coming of His Holy Spirit, He
said, "He shall teach you all truth," or, as we read in some copies, "He shall
guide you into all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He
shall hear, that shall He speak." On these Gospel words we have already discoursed
as the Lord enabled us; and now give your attention to those that follow. "And
He will show you," He said, "things to come." Over this, which is perfectly
plain, there is no need to linger; for it contains no question that demands from
us any regular exposition. But the words that He proceeds to add, "He shall
make me clearly known;(1) for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto
you," are not to be carelessly passed over. For by the words, "He shall make me
clearly known," we may understand, that by shedding abroad [God's] love in the
hearts of believers, and making them spiritual, He showed them how it was that
the Son was equal to the Father, whom previously they had only known according to
the flesh, and as men themselves had thought of Him only as man. Or at least
that, filled themselves through that very love with boldness, and divested of
all fear, they might proclaim Christ unto men; and so His fame be spread abroad
through the whole world. So that He said, "He shall make me clearly known," as
if meaning, He shall free you from fear, and endow you with a love that will so
inflame your zeal in preaching me, that you will send forth the odor, and
commend the honor of, my glory throughout the world. For what they were to do in the
Holy Spirit, He said that the Spirit Himself would also do, as is implied in
the words, "For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that
speaketh in you."(2) The Greek word, indeed, which is <greek>doxaQei</greek>, has
been rendered by the Latin interpreters in their respective translations,
clarificabit ("shall make clearly known") by one, and glorificabit ("shall glorify")
by another: for the idea expressed in Greek by the one term
<greek>doxa</greek>, from which is derived the verb <greek>doxaQei</greek>, may be interpreted
both by claritas (brightness) and gloria (glory). For by glory every one becomes
bright, and glorious by brightness; and hence what is signified by both words,
is one and the same thing. And, as the most famous writers of the Latin tongue
in olden time have defined it, glory is the generally diffused and accepted fame
of any one accompanied with praise. But when this happened in the world in
regard to Christ, we are not to suppose that it was the bestowing of any great
thing on Christ, but on the world. For to praise what is good is not of benefit to
that which receives, but to those who give the commendation.
2. But there is also a false glory, when the praise given is the result of
a mistake, whether in regard to things or to persons, or to both. For men are
mistaken in regard to things, when they think that to be good which is evil;
and in regard to persons, when they think one to be good who is evil; and in
regard to both, when what is actually a vice is esteemed a virtue; and when he who
is praised for something is destitute of what he is supposed to have, whether
he be good or evil. To credit vain-glorious persons(3) with the things they
profess, is surely a huge vice, and not a virtue; and yet you know how common is
the laudatory fame of such; for, as Scripture says, "The sinner is praised in the
desires of his soul, and he who practises iniquity is blessed."(4) Here those
who praise are not mistaken in the persons, but in the things; for that is evil
which they believe to be good. But those who are morally corrupted with the
evil of prodigality are undoubtedly such as those who praise them do not simply
suspect, but perceive them to be. But further, if one feign himself a just man,
and be not so, but, as regards all that he seems to do in a praiseworthy way in
the sight of men, does it not for God's sake, that is, for the sake of true
righteousness, but makes glory from men the only glory he seeks and hankers
after; while those with whom his extolled fame is generally accepted think of him
only as living in a praiseworthy way for God's sake,--they are not mistaken in
the thing, but are deceived in the person. For that which they believe to be
good, is good; but the person whom they believe to be good, is the reverse. But if,
for example, skill in magical arts be esteemed good, and any one, so long as
he is believed to have delivered his country by those same arts whereof all the
while he is utterly ignorant, attain amongst the irreligious to that generally
accepted renown which is defined as glory, those who so praise err in both
respects; to wit, both in the thing, for they esteem that good which is evil; and
in the person, for he is not at all what they suppose him. But when, in regard
to any one who is righteous by God's grace and for God's sake, in other words,
truly righteous, there is on account of that very righteousness a generally
accepted fame of a laudatory kind, then the glory is indeed a true one; and yet we
are not to suppose that thereby the righteous man is made blessed, but rather
those who praise him are to be congratulated, because they judge rightly, and
love the righteous. And how much more, then, did Christ the Lord, by His own
glory, benefit, not Himself, but those whom He also benefited by His death?
3. But that is not a true glory which He has among heretics, with whom,
nevertheless, He appears to have a generally accepted fame accompanied with
praise. Such is no true glory, because in both respects they are mistaken, for they
both think that to be good which is not good, and they suppose Christ to be
what Christ is not. For to say that the only-begotten Son is not equal to Him that
begat, is not good: to say that the only-begotten Son of God is man only, and
not God, is not good: to say that the flesh of the Truth is not true flesh, is
not good. Of the three doctrines which I have stated, the first is held by the
Arians, the second by the Photinians, and the third by the Manicheans. But
inasmuch as there is nothing in any of them that is good, and Christ has nothing to
do with them, in both respects they are in the wrong; and they attach no true
glory to Christ, although there may appear to be amongst them a generally
accepted fame regarding Christ of a laudatory character. And accordingly all
heretics together, whom it would be too tedious to enumerate, who have not right views
regarding Christ, err on this account, that their views are untrue regarding
both good things and evil. The pagans, also, of whom great numbers are lauders
of Christ, are themselves also mistaken in both respects, saying, as they do,
not in accordance with the truth of God, but rather with their own conjectures,
that He was a magician. For they reproach Christians as being destitute of
skill; but Christ they laud as a magician, and so betray what it is that they love:
Christ indeed they do not love, since what they love is that which Christ never
was. And thus, then, in both respects they are in error, for it is wicked to
be a magician; and as Christ was good, He was not a magician. Wherefore, as we
have nothing to say in this place of those who malign and blaspheme Christ,--for
it is of His glory we speak, wherewith He was glorified in the world,--it was
only in the holy Catholic Church that the Holy Spirit glorified Him with His
true glory. For elsewhere, that is, either among heretics or certain pagans, the
glory He has in the world cannot be a true one, even where there is a generally
accepted fame of Him accompanied with praise. His true glory, therefore, in
the Catholic Church is celebrated in these words by the prophet: "Be thou
exalted, O God, above the heavens; and Thy glory above all the earth."(1) Accordingly,
that after His exaltation the Holy Spirit was to come, and to glorify Him, the
sacred psalm, and the Only-begotten Himself, promised as an event of the
future, which we see accomplished.
4. But when He says, "He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto
you," listen thereto with Catholic ears, and receive it with Catholic minds. For
not surely on that account, as certain heretics have imagined, is the Holy
Spirit inferior to the Son; as if the Son received from the Father, and the Holy
Spirit from the Son, in reference to certain gradations of natures. Far be it from
us to believe this, or to say it, and from Christian hearts to think it. In
fine, He Himself straightway solved the question, and explained why He said so.
"All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore, said I, that He shall take
of mine, and shall show it unto you." What would you more? The Holy Spirit
thus receives of the Father, of whom the Son receives; for in this Trinity the Son
is born of the Father, and from the Father the Holy Spirit proceedeth. He,
however, who is born of none, and proceedeth from none, is the Father alone. But
in what sense it is that the only-begotten Son said, "All things that the Father
hath are mine" (for it certainly was not in the same sense as when it was said
to that son, who was not only begotten, but the eider of two, "Thou art ever
with me; and all that I have is thine),"(2) will have our careful consideration,
if the Lord so will, in connection with the passage where the Only-begotten
saith to the Father, "And all mine are Thine, and Thine are mine;"(1) so that our
present discourse may be here brought to a close, as the words that follow
require a different opening for their discussion.