CHAPTER 16: 12, 13 (continued).
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)
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 abhorrent 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.
