maternal milk and solid food scarcely harmonizes with the reality as thus stated, but rather that of a foundation: for when tlie child is weaned, so as to be withdrawn from the nourishment of infancy, he never looks again amongst solid food for the breasts which he sucked; but Christ crucified is both milk to sucklings and meat to the more advanced. And the similitude of a foundation is on this account the more suitable, because, for the completion of the structure, the building is added without the foundation being withdrawn.
7. And since this is the case, do you, whoever you be, who are doubtless many of you still babes in Christ, be making advances towards the solid food of the mind, not of the belly. Grow in the ability to distinguish good from evil, and cleave more and more to the Mediator, who delivers you from evil; which does not admit of a local separation from you, but rather of being healed within you. But whoever shall say to you, Believe not Christ to be truly man, or that the body of any man or animal whatever was created by the true God, or that the Old Testament was given by | the true God, and anything else of the same * Chap. i. I, 14.
sort, for such things as these were not told you previously, when your nourishment was milk, because your heart was still unfit for the apprehension of the truth: such an one provides you not with meat, but with poison. For therefore it was that the blessed apostle, in addressing those who appeared to him already perfect, even after calling himself imperfect, said, " Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you." And that they might not rush into the hands of seducers, whose desire would be to turn them away from the faith by promising them the knowledge of the truth, and suppose such to be the meaning of the apostle's words, "God shall reveal even this unto you," he forthwith added, " Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule."= If, then, thou hast come to some understanding of what is not at variance with the rule of the Catholic faith, whereto thou hast attained as the way that is guiding thee to thy fatherland; and hast so understood it as to feel it a duty to dismiss all doubts whatever on the subject: add to the building, but do not abandon the foundation. And surely of such a character ought to be any teaching given by elders to those who are babes, as not to involve the assertion that Christ the Lord of all, and the prophets and apostles, who are much farther advanced in age than themselves, had in any respect spoken falsely. And not only ought you to avoid the babbling seducers of the mind, who prate away at their fables and falsehoods, and in such vanities make the promise, forsooth, of profound science contrary to the rule of faith, which we have accepted as Catholic; but avoid those also as a still more insidious pest than the others, who discuss truthfully enough the immutability of the divine nature, or the incorporeal creature, or the Creator, and fully prove w'lat they affirm by the most conclusive documents and reasonings, and yet attempt to turn you away from the one Mediator between Gotl and men. For such are those of whom the apostle says, " Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God."^ For wliat advantage is it to have a true understanding of the immutable Good to one who has no hold of liini by whom there is deliverance from evil? And let not the admonition of tlie most blessed apostle by any means lose its place in your hearts: " If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have re-He does not ceived, let him be accursed. "■• "I'liii.
ii. iSi i*^.
^ Kiim. i. ■.>i.
4 Cal. i. 9.
38o [Tractate XCIX.
say, More than ye have received; but, 'Other than ye have received." For had he said the former, he would be prejudging himself, inasmuch as he desired to come to the Thessalonians to supply what was lacking in their faith. But one who supplies, adds to what was deficient, without taking away what existed: while he that transgresses the rule of faith, is not progressing in the way, but turning aside from it.
8. Accordingly, when the Lord says, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," He means tiiat what they were still ignorant of had afterwards to be supplied to them, and not that what they had already learned was to be subverted. And He^ indeed, as I have already shown in a former discourse, could so speak, because the very things which He had taught them, had He wished to unfold them to them in the same way as they are conceived in regard to Him by the angels, their still remaining human weakness would be unable to bear. But any spiritual man may teach another man what he knows, provided the Holy Spirit _grant him an enlarged capacity for profiting, wherein also the teacher himself may get some further increase, in order that both may be taught of God. ' Although even among the spiritual themselves there are some, doubtless, who are of greater capacity and in a better condition than others; so that one of them attained even to things of which it is not lawful for a man to speak. Taking advantage of which, there have been some vain individuals, who, with a presumption that betrays the grossest folly, have forged a Revelation of Paul, crammed with all manner of fables, which has been rejected by the orthodox Church; affirming it to be that whereof he had said that he was caught up into the third heavens, and there heard unspeakable words " which it is not lawful for a man to utter." ^ Nevertheless, the audacity of such might be tolerable, had he said that he heard words which it is not as yet lawful for a man to utter; but when he said, " which it is not lawful for a man to utter," who are they that dare to utter them with such impudence and nonsuccess? But with these words I shall now bring this discourse to a close; whereby I would have you to be wise indeed in that which is good, but untainted by that which is evil.
' Chap. vi. 45.
2 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4.
^TRACTATE XCIX.
Chapter XVI. 13.
I. What is this that the Lord said of the Holy Spirit, when promising that He would come and teach His disciples all truth, or guide them into all truth: " For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak"? For this is similar to what He said of Himself, " I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge."' But when expounding that, we said that it might be taken as referring to His human nature; "^ so that He seemed as the Son to announce beforehand that His own obedience, whereby He became obedient even unto the death of the cross, ^ would have its place also in the judgment, when He shall judge the quick and the dead; for He shall do so for the very reason that He is the Son of man. Wherefore He said, " The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son;" for in the judgment He will appear, not in the form of God, Chap. V. 30.
3 Phil. ii. 8.
wherein He is equal to the Father, and cannot be seen by the wicked, but in the form of man, in which He was made even a little lower than the angels; although then He will come in glory, and not in His originaLhumility, yet in a way that will be conspicuous both to the good and to the bad. Hence He says further: "And He hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man."'* In these words of His own it is made clear that it is not that form that will be presented in the judgment, wherein He was when He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but that which He assumed when He made Himself of no reputation. = For He emptied Himself in assuming the form of a servant;* in which, also, for the purpose of executing judgment. He seems to have commended His obedience, when He said, '*I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I 4 Chap. V. 22, 27.
5 Literally, "when He emptied Himself.'
6 Phil. ii. 6, 7.
Tractate XCIX.]
ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. lOHN.
■;8i judge." For Adam, by whose disobedience, as that of one man, many were made sinners, did not judge as he heard; for he prevaricated what he heard, and of his own self did the evil that he did; for he did not the will of God, but his own: while this latter, by whose obedience, as that also of one man, many are made righteous,' was not only obedient even unto the death of the cross, in respect of which He was judged as alive from the dead; but promised also that He would be showing obedience in the very judgment itself, wherein He is yet to act as judge of the quick and the dead, when He said, " I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge. '^ But when it is said of the Holy Spirit, " For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak," shall we dare to harbor the notion that it was so said in reference to any human nature of His, or the assum.ption of any creature-form? For it was the Son alone in the Trinity who assumed the form of a ser\'-ant, a form which in His case was fitted into the unity of His person, or, in other words, that the one person, Jesus Christ, should be the Son of God and the Son of man; and so that we should be kept from preaching a quaternity instead of the Trinity, which God forbid that we should do. And it is on account of this one personality as consisting of two substances, the divine and the human, that He sometimes speaks in accordance with that wherein He is God, as when He says, " I and my Father are one; "- and sometimes in accordance with His manhood, as in the w^ords, " For the Father is greater than I;'^^ in accordance with which also we have understood those words of His that are at present under discussion, " I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge."
But in reference to the person of the Holy Spirit, a considerable difficulty arises how we are to understand the words, " For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He siiall hear, that shall He speak;" since in it there exists not one substance of Godhead and another of humanity, or of any other creature whatsoever.
2, For the fact that the Holy Spirit appeared in bodily form, as a dove, ■• was a sight begun and ended at the time: just as also, when He descended upon the disciples, there were seen upon them cloven tongues as of fire, which also snt upon every one of them. ^ Any one, therefore, who says that the dove was connected with the Holy Spirit in the unity of His person, as that it and Godheatl (for the Holy Spirit is God) should go to consti- 3 Chap. xiv. 28.
tute the one person of the Holy Spirit, is compelled also to affirm the same thing of that fire; and so may understand that he ought to assert neither. For those things in reQ:ard to the substance of God, which needed at any time to be represented in some outward way, and so exhibited themselves to men's bodily senses, and then passed away, were formed for the moment by divine power from the subservient creation, and not from the dominant nature itself; which, ever abiding the same, excites into action whatever it pleases; and, itself unchangeable, changes all things else at its pleasure. In the same way also did that voice from the cloud actually strike upon the bodily ears, and on that bodily sense which is called the hearing;^ and yet in no way are we to believe that the Word of God, which is the only-begotten Son, is defined, because He is called the Word, by syllables and sounds: for when a sermon is in course of delivery, all the sounds cannot be pronounced simultaneously; but the various individual sounds come, as it were, in their own order to the birth, and succeed those which are dying away, so that all that we have to say is completed, only by the last syllable. Very different from this, surely, is the way^i which the Father speaketh to the Son, that is to say, God to God, His Word. But this, so far as it can be understood by man, is a matter for the understanding of those who are fitted for the reception of solid food, and not of milk. Since, therefore, the Holy Spirit became not man by any assumption of humanity, and became not an angel by any assumption of angelic nature, and as little entered into the creature-state by the assumption of any creature-form whatever, how, in regard to Him, are we to understand those words of our Lord, " For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak"? A difficult question; yea, too difficult. May the Spirit Himself be present, that, at least up to the measure of our power of thinking on such a subject, we may be able to express our thoughts, and that these, according to the little measure of my ability, may find entrance into your untlerstanding.
3. You ought, then, to be informed in the first place, and, those of you who can, to understand, and tiie others, who cannot as yet understand, to believe, that in that substantial essence, which is God, the senses are not, as if through some material structure of a body, distributed in their ai)propriate places; as, in the mortal flesh of all animals there is in one place sight, in another hearing, in another * Luke ix. 35, ;82 [Tractate XCIX.
taste, in another smelling, and over the whole the sense of touch. Far be it from us to believe so in the case of that incorporeal and immutable nature. In it, therefore, hearing and seeing are one and the same thing. In this way smelling also is said to exist in God; as the apostle says, "As Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." ' And taste may be included, in accordance with which God hateth the bitter in temper, and spueth out of His mouth those who are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot: ^ and Christ our God^ saith, " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me."'* There is also that divine sense of touch, in accordance with which the spouse saith of the bridegroom: " His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me."^ But these are not in God's case in different parts of the body. For when He is said to know, all are included: both seeing, and hearing, and smelling, and tasting, and touching; without any alteration of His substance, and without the existence of any material element which is greater in one place and smaller in another: and when there are any such ti|oughts of God in those even who are old in years, they are the thoughts only of a childish mind.
4. Nor need you wonder that the ineffable knowledge of God, whereby He is cognizant of all things, is, because of the various modes of human speech designated by the names of all those bodily senses; since even our own mind, in other words, the inner man, — to which, while itself exercising its knowing faculty in one uniform way, the different subjects of its knowledge are communicated by those five messengers, as it were, of the body, when it understands, chooses, and loves the unchangeable truth, — is said both to see the light, whereof it is said, "That was the true light; " and to hear the word, whereof it is said, " In the beginning was the Word; "^ and to be susceptible of smell, of which it is said, " We will run after the smell of thy ointments; '' ' and to drink of the fountain, whereof it \z said, "With Thee is the fountain of life; " ^ and to enjoy the sense of touch, when it is said, "But it is good for me to cleave unto God; ''9 in all of which it is not different things, but the one intelligence, that is expressed by the names of so many senses. When, therefore, it is said of the Holy Spirit. " For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He 4 Chap. iv. 34. 5 Song of Sol. ii. 6. 7 Song of Sol. i. 4, Septuagint. 9 Ps. l.wiii. 28.
speak," so much the more is a simple nature, which is simple [uncompounded] in the truest sense, to be either understood or believed, which in its extent and sublimity far surpasses the nature of our minds. For there is mutability in our mind, which comes by learning to the perception of what it was previously ignorant of, and loses by unlearning what it formerly knew; and is deceived by what has a similarity to truth, so as to approve of the false in place of the true, and is hindered by its own obscurity as by a kind of darkness from arriving at the truth. And so that substance is not in the truest sense simple, to which being is not identical with knowing; for it can exist without the possession of knowledge. But it cannot be so with that divine substance, for it is what it has. And on this account it has not knowledge in any such way as that the knowledge whereby it knows should be to it one thing, and the essence whereby it exists another; but both are one. Nor ought that to be called both, which is simply one. "As the Father hath life in Himself," and He Himself is not something different from the life that is in Him; " so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself," " that is, hath begotten the Son, that He also should Himself be the life. Accordingly we ought to accept what is said of the Holy Spirit, " For he shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak," in such a way as to understand thereby that He is not of Himself.
Because it is the Father only who is not of another. For the Son is born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceedeth from, the Father; but the Father is neither born of, nor proceedeth from, another. And yet surely there should not on that account occur to human thought any idea of disparity in the supreme Trinity; for bot>i the Son is equal to Him of whom He is born, and the Holy Spirit to Him from whom He proceedeth. But what difference there is in such a case between proceeding and being born, would be too lengthy to make the subject of inquiry and dissertation, and would make our definition liable to the charge of rashness, even after we had discussed it; for such a thing is of the utmost difficulty, both for the mind to comprehend in any adequate way, and even were it so that the mind has attained to any such comprehension, for the tongue to explain, however able the one that presides as a teacher, or he that is present as a hearer. Accordingly, " He shall not speak of Himself;" because He is not of Himself, 10 Chap. V. 26.
Tractate XCIX.]
3^3 "But whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: " He shall hear of Him from whom He proceedeth. To Him hearing is knowing; but knowing is being, as has been discussed above. Because, then, He is not of Himself, but of Him from whom He proceedeth, and of whom He has essence, of Him He has knowledge; from Him, therefore, He has hearing, which is nothing else than knowledge.
5. And be not disturbed by the fact that the verb is put in the future tense. For it is not said, whatsoever He hath heard, or, whatsoever He heareth; but, "whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak." For such hearing is everlasting, because the knowing is everlasting. But in the case of what is eternal, without beginning and without end, in whatever tense the verb is put, whether in the past, or present, or future, there is no falsehood thereby implied. For although to that immutable and ineffable nature, there is no proper application of Was and Will be, but only Is: for that nature alone is in truth, because incapable of change; and to it therefore was it exclusively suited to say, " I Am That I Am," and " Thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, He Who Is hath sent me unto you:"' yet on account of the changeableness of the times amid which our mortal and changeable life is spent, there is nothing false in our saying, both it was, and will be, and is. It was in past, it is in present, it will be in future ages. It was, because it never was wanting; it will be, because it will never be wanting; it is, because it always is. For it has not, like one who no longer survives, died with the past; nor, like one who abideth not, is it gliding away with the present; nor, as one who had no previous existence, will it rise up with the future. Accordingly, as our human manner of speaking varies with the revolutions of time. He, who through all times was not, is not, and will not by any possibility be found wanting, may correctly be spoken of in any tense whatever of a verb.
The Holy Spirit, therefore, is always hearing, because He always knows: ergo, He lioth knew, and knows, and will know; and in the same way He both heard, and hears, and will hear; for, as we have already said, to Him hearing is one with knowing, and knowing with Him is one with being. From Him, therefore. He heard, and iiears, and will hear, of whom He is; and of Him He is, from wliom He proceeds.
6. Some one may here inquire whether the Holy Spirit proceedeth also from the Son.
' Ex. 111. 14, For the Son is Son of the Father alone, and the Father is Father of the Son alone; but the Holy Spirit is not the Spirit of one of them, but of both. You have the Lord Himself saying, " For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you; " - and you have the apostle, " God hath sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts.'' ^ Are there, then, two, the one of the Father, the other of the Son? Certainly not. For there is "one body," he said, when referring to the Church; and presently added, "and one Spirit." And mark how he there makes up the Trinity. "As ye are called," he says, " in one hope of your calling." "One Lord," where he certainly meant Christ to be understood; but it remained that he should also name the Father: and accordingly there follows, "One faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'' ■• And since, then, just as there is one Father, and one Lord, namely, the Son, so also there is one Spirit; He is doubtless of both: especially as Christ Jesus Himself saith, " The Spirit of your Father that dwelleth in you; " and the apostle declares, " God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts." You have the same apostle saying in another place, "But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you," where he certainly intended the Spirit of the Father to be understood; of whom, however, he says in another place, " But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."5 And many other testimonies there are, which plainly show that He, who in tlie Trinity is styled the Holy Spirit, re the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son.
7. And for no other reason, I suppose, is He called in a jieculiar way the Spirit; since though asked concerning each person in His turn, we cannot but admit that the Father and the Son are each of tliem a Spirit; for God is a Spirit,'^ that is, God is not carnal, but spiritual. By the name, therefore, which they each also hold in common, it was requisite that He should be distinctly called, who is not the one nor the other of them, but in whom what is common to both becomes apparent. Why, then, should we not believe that the Holy Spirit proceedeth also from tlie Son, seeing that He is likewise the Spirit of the Son? For did He not so proceed. He coultl not, when showing Himself to His disci])les after the resurrection, have breatiied upon them, and saitl, " Receive ye tiie Holy Spirit."' For what else was signified by ■J Matt..'(. 20.
3 (lal. iv. 6. * Chap. iv. 24.
M [Tractatk XCIX, such a breathing upon them, but that from Him also the Holy Spirit proceedeth? And of the same character also are His words regarding the \voman that suffered from the bloody flux; "Some one liath touched me; for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me." ' For that the Holy Spirit is also designated by the name of virtue, is both clear from the passage where the angel, in reply to Mary's question, " How shall this be, seeing I know not a man i* " said, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power [virtue] of the highest shall overshadow thee; "^ and our Lord Himself wlien giving His disciples the promise of the Spirit, said, " But tarry ye in the city, until ye be endued with power [virtue] from on high;"^ and on another occasion, " Ye shall receive the power [virtue] of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me."'' It is of this virtue that we are to believe, that the evangelist says, " Virtue went out of Him, and healed them all."s 8. If, then, the Holy Spirit proceedeth both from the Father and from the Son, why said the Son, " He proceedeth from the Father"?* Why, do you think, but just because it is to Him' He is wont to attribute even that which is His own, of whom He Himself also is? Hence we have Him saying, " My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me." ' If, therefore, in such a passage we are to understand that as His doctrine, which nevertheless He declared not to be His own, but the Father's, how much more in that other passage are we to understand the Holy Spirit as proceeding from Himself, where His words, " He proceedeth from the Father," were uttered so as not to imply. He proceedeth not from me? But from Him, of whom the Son has it that He is God (for He is God of God), He certainly has it that from Him also the Holy Spirit proceedeth: and in this way the Holy Spirit has it of the Father Himself, that He should also proceed from the 3 Luke xxiv. 49. 6 Chap. XV, 26 Son, even as He proceedeth from the Father.