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. 8-1 1); 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.
' Chap. i. 32.
2 2 Cor. V. 16.
3 Matt, xxviii. 20.
4 Chap. xiv. 23.
TRACTATE XCV.
Chapter XVI. S-ii.
I. The Lord, when promising that He would send the Holy Spirit, said, " When He is come. He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." What does it mean? Is it that the Lord Christ did not reprove the world of sin, when He said, " If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin "? And that no one may take it into his head to say that this applied Tractate XCV.]
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 '"? - 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 "?- 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." ■* 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 ^ which casteth out the fear,'' 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 insejiarable; ''■ but the Persons needed to be set forth one by one, that not only without sej)arating Them, but also without confounding 'I'hem together, we may have a right understanding both of Their Unity and Trinity.
2. He next explains what He has said "of 2 Chap. xvii. 25. 5 2 Cor. xiii. 3. 8 Tract. XX.
3 Matt. XXV. 41.
'' koin. V. 5.
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," ^ 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 selfinflated 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 sufificiently indicates. P'or 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 [)elieved 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, wiiereof the world is convicted, He turnetl to those to whom He was speaking, and said, "because I go to the Father, and ye shall see me no more." Wherefore it o/ o [Tractate XCV.
is of its own sins, but of others' rigliteousness, that the world is convicted, just as darkness is reproved by the light: " For all things," says the apostle, " that are reproved, are made manifest by the light."' 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.- 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,* 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, ^ 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 "? ^ 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 3 Rom. i. 17; Hab. ii. 4; and Heb. xi. i.
4 Sperantium substantia. 5 i Cor, xv. 8. 6 Acts vii. ^6.
of sinful flesh. ^ 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 world to the Father; and such, also, is the righteousness of faith, whereof the apostle says, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." ^ 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, ye 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; " ' 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; "" 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."" 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 workd, 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: "'^ the prince of this world, of whom He elsewhere saith, "Now is the prince of this world cast out,"'^ is assuredly judged, inas- Tractate XCVI.]
37^ much as he is irrevocably destined to the iudgment 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 ii 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," ' how is the world otherwise than reproved of this judgment by the Holy Spirit, when it is in the I 2 Pet. ii. 4.
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 XVL 12, 13.
I. Ix this portion of tlie 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 l)ear 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, "^ 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 wliich 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 ALaster said, " I have yet many things to say unto you," 3'et 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 y$t 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 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, j ought not to be told what those things are of ' which the Lord then said, " I have yet many things to sny unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." If the ajjostles were still unal)le, much more so are ye: although it may be I that many now can bear what Peter then ' Chap. XV. 15.
- Isa. xlv. II, SeptuaginC.
3 Chap. xiii. 36-3S.
[Tractate XCVI.
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, and 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 ncn; 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 Tractate XCVI.]
0/0 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," wishmg to si)eak 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, 5 we should still be unable to bear them. Accordingly, when He says, " He will teach you all truth,'' or " will guide you into all truth," I do not think the fulfillment is possible in any one's mind in this present life ' Rom. V. 5.
3 Ps. Ixxxvi. II. 4 Chap. vi. 45. 5 Matt, xviii. 10.
(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 it is 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:" 5 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 liodies; 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 tlie 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 heiglit, 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.
•- Eph. iii. 17-19.
[Tractate XCVII.
TRACTATE XCVII.
1. The Holy Spirit, whom the Lord promsed 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,"' 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.^ 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 spake 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?
' 2 Cor, i. 22.
- I Cor. ii. 9.