CHAPTER 16: 12, 13.
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.
