|
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," 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 spoke 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," 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: 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 spoke 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;
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:" as it is said, "Lead me in Thy way, O Lord, and I
will walk in Thy truth." 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; 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, 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, 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;" 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: 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," and "understand
what is the will of God, which is good, and acceptable, and
perfect;" 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." 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.
|
|