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1. We have heard, brethren, while the Gospel was read, the Lord
saying: "If ye love me, keep my commandments: and I will ask the
Father, and He shall give you another Comforter [Paraclete],
that He may abide with you for ever; [even] the Spirit of truth;
whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither
knoweth Him: but ye shall know Him; for He shall dwell with you,
and shall be in you." There are many points which might form the
subject of inquiry in these few words of the Lord; but it were too
much for us either to search into all that is here for the searching,
or to find out all that we here search for. Nevertheless, as far as
the Lord is pleased to grant us the power, and in proportion to our
capacity and yours, attend to what we ought to say and you to hear,
and receive, beloved, what we on our part are able to give, and apply
to Him for that wherein we fail. It is the Spirit, the Comforter,
that Christ has promised to His apostles; but let us notice the way
in which He gave the promise. "If ye love me," He says, "keep
my commandments: and I will ask the Father, and He shall give you
another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever: [even] the
Spirit of truth." We have here, at all events, the Holy Spirit
in the Trinity, whom the catholic faith acknowledges to be
consubstantial and co-eternal with Father and Son: He it is of whom
the apostle says, "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by
the Holy Spirit, who is given unto us." How, then, doth the
Lord say, "If ye love me, keep my commandments: and I will ask
the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter;" when He
saith so of the Holy Spirit, without [having] whom we can neither
love God nor keep His commandments? How can we love so as to receive
Him, without whom we cannot love at all? or how shall we keep the
commandments so as to receive Him, without whom we have no power to
keep them? Or can it be that the love wherewith we love Christ has a
prior place within us, so that, by thus loving Christ and keeping
His commandments, we become worthy of receiving the Holy Spirit, in
order that the love, not of Christ, which had already preceded, but
of God the Father, may be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit, who is given unto us? Such a thought is altogether wrong.
For he who believes that he loveth the Son, and loveth not the
Father, certainly loveth not the Son, but some figment of his own
imagination. And besides, this is the apostolic declaration, "No
one saith, Lord Jesus, but in the Holy Spirit: and who is it that
calleth Him Lord Jesus but he that loveth Him, if he so call Him
in the way the apostle intended to be understood? For many call Him
so with their lips, but deny Him in their hearts and works; just as
He saith of such, "For they profess that they know God, but m
works they deny Him." If it is by works He is denied, it is
doubtless also by works that His name is truly invoked. "No one,"
therefore, "saith, Lord Jesus," in mind, in word, in deed,
with the heart, the lips, the labor of the bands, no one saith,
Lord Jesus, but in the Holy Spirit; and no one calls Him so but
he that loveth, And accordingly the apostles were already calling Him
Lord Jesus: and if they called Him so, in no way that implied a
feigned utterance, with the mouth confessing, in heart and works
denying Him; if they called Him so in all. truthfulness of soul,
there can be no doubt they loved. And how, then, did they love, but
in the Holy Spirit? And yet they are i commanded to love Him and
keep His commandments, previous and in order to their receiving the
Holy Spirit: and yet, without having that Spirit, they certainly
could not love Him and keep His commandments.
2. We are therefore to understand that he who loves has already the
Holy Spirit, and by what he has becomes worthy of a fuller
possession, that by having the more he may love the more. Already,
therefore, had the disciples that Holy Spirit whom the Lord
promised, for without Him they could not call Him Lord; but they
had Him not as yet in the way promised by the Lord. Accordingly they
both had, and had Him not, inasmuch as they had Him not as yet to
the same extent as He was afterwards to be possessed. They had Him,
therefore, in a more limited sense: He was yet to be given them in an
ampler measure. They had Him in a hidden way, they were yet to
receive Him in a way that was manifest; for this present possession
had also a bearing on that fuller gift of the Holy Spirit, that they
might come to a conscious knowledge of what they had. It is in
speaking of this gift that the apostle says: "Now we have received,
not the spirit of this world, but the spirit which is of God, that we
may know the things that are freely given to us of God." For that
same manifest bestowal of the Holy Spirit the Lord made, not once,
but on two separate occasions. For close on the back of His
resurrection from the dead He breathed on them and said, "Receive ye
the Holy Spirit." And because He then gave [the Spirit], did
He on that account fail in afterwards sending Him according to His
promise? Or was it not the very same Spirit who was both then
breathed upon them by Himself, and afterwards sent by Him from
heaven? And so, why that same giving on His part which took place
publicly, also took place twice, is another question: for it may be
that this twofold bestowal of His in a public way took place because of
the two Commandments of love, that is, to our neighbor and to God,
in order that love might be impressively intimated as pertaining to the
Holy Spirit, And if any other reason is to be sought for, we cannot
at present allow our discourse to be improperly prolonged by such an
inquiry: provided, however, it be admitted that, without the Holy
Spirit, we can neither love Christ nor keep His commandments; while
the less experience we have of His presence, the less also can we do
so; and the fuller our experience, so much the greater our ability.
Accordingly, the promise is no vain one, either to him who has not
[the Holy Spirit], or to him who has. For it is made to him who
has not, in order that he may have; and to him who has, that he may
have more abundantly. For were it not that He was possessed by some
in smaller measure than by others, St. Elisha would not have said to
St. Elijah, "Let the spirit that is in thee be in a twofold
measure in me.
3. But when John the Baptist said, "For God giveth not the
Spirit by measure," he was speaking exclusively of the Son of God,
who received not the Spirit by measure; for in Him dwelleth all the
fullness of the Godhead. And no more is it independently of the grace
of the Holy Spirit that the Mediator between God and men is the man
Christ Jesus: for with His own lips He tells us that the
prophetical utterance had been fulfilled in Himself: "The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me; because He hath anointed me, and hath sent me
to preach the gospel to the poor." For His being the
Only-begotten, the equal of the Father, is not of grace, but of
nature; but the assumption of human nature into the personal unity of
the Only-begotten is not of nature, but of grace, as the Gospel
acknowledges itself when it says, "And the child grew, and waxed
strong, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was in
Him." But to others He is given by measure, a measure ever
enlarging until each has received his full complement up to the limits
of his own perfection. As we are also reminded by the apostle, "Not
to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think
soberly; according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of
faith." Nor is it the Spirit Himself that is divided, but the
gifts bestowed by the Spirit: for there are diversities of gifts, but
the same Spirit.
4. But when He says, "I will ask the Father, and He shall give
you another Paraclete," He intimates that He Himself is also a
paraclete. For paraclete is in Latin called advocatus (advocate);
and it is said of Christ, "We have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous." But He said that the world could not
receive the Holy Spirit, in much the same sense as it is also said,
"The minding of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not
subject to the law of God; neither indeed can be;" just as if we
were to say, Unrighteousness cannot be righteous. For in speaking in
this passage of the world, He refers to those who love the world; and
such a love is not of the Father. And thus the love of this world,
which gives us enough to do to weaken and destroy its power within us,
is in direct opposition to the love of God, which is shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us. "The world,"
therefore, "cannot receive Him, cause it seeth Him not, neither
knoweth Him." For worldly love possesseth not those invisible eyes,
whereby, save in an invisible way, the Holy Spirit cannot be seen.
5. But ye," He adds, "shall know Him; for He shall dwell with
you, and be in you." He will be in them, that He may dwell with
them; He will not dwell with them to the end that He may be in them:
for the being anywhere is prior to the dwelling there. But to prevent
us from imagining that His words, "He shall dwell with you," were
spoken in the same sense as that in which a guest usually dwells with a
man in a visible way, He explained what "He shall dwell with you"
meant, when He added the words, "He shall be in you." He is
seen, therefore, in an invisible way: nor can we have any knowledge
of Him unless He be in us. For it is in a similar way that we come
to see our conscience within us: for we see the face of another, but
we cannot see our own; but it is our own conscience we see, not
another's. And yet conscience is never anywhere but within us: but
the Holy Spirit can be also apart from us, since He is given that
He may also be in us. But we cannot see and know Him in the only way
in which He may be seen and known, unless He be in us.
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