Tractates on the Gospel of John 97.1–98.8

The Holy Spirit, whom the Lord promised to send to his disciples to teach them all truth, which they could not bear when he was speaking with them; the Holy Spirit of whom, as the Apostle says, we have now received the pledge, a word by which we might understand that his fullness is reserved for us in another life: this same Holy Spirit, then, teaches the faithful spiritual things even now, as much as each can take in; and he kindles their hearts with greater desire, if each makes progress in that love by which he both loves what is known and desires what is to be known; so that even the things he now knows in any way he knows he does not yet know as they are to be known in that life which "eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man." If the inner master wished to say these things now in that manner of knowing, that is, to open and show them to our mind, human weakness could not bear it. Your Love remembers that I have already spoken of this when we were treating the words of the holy Gospel where the Lord says, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." Not that we should suspect in these words of the Lord some secrets too deeply hidden, which could be said by the teacher but could not be borne by the learner; but the very things of religious teaching which we read and write, hear and speak, within anyone's knowledge: if Christ wished to say these to us in the way he says them to the holy angels in himself, the only-begotten Word of the Father, coeternal with the Father, what men could bear them, even if they were already spiritual, as the apostles were not yet when the Lord spoke these words to them, and as they afterward became when the Holy Spirit came? For certainly whatever can be known about the creature is less than the Creator himself, who is the highest and true and unchangeable God. And who is silent about him? Where is he not named by those who read, dispute, seek, answer, praise, sing, or speak in any way, and finally even by those who blaspheme? And though no one is silent about him, who is there that grasps him as he is to be understood, though he never departs from the mouths and ears of men? Who is there whose mind's eye reaches him? Who would have known that he is a Trinity, unless he himself had wished to make himself known? And which of men now keeps silent about this Trinity? And yet which of men understands the Trinity as an angel does? So the very things that are said constantly, openly, and readily about God's eternity, truth, and holiness are understood by some well, by others badly; indeed, understood by some and not understood by others. For whoever understands badly does not understand. And by those by whom they are understood well, they are discerned by some less, by others more, with liveliness of mind; and by no human being are they grasped as by the angels. So in the mind itself, that is, in the inner man, there is a kind of growth, not only so that one passes from milk to solid food, but also so that one takes more and more of the food itself. But one does not grow in spatial bulk but in luminous understanding, because the food itself is intelligible light. So that you may grow, then, and take him in, and the more you grow, the more and more take him in, you ought to ask and hope, not from the teacher who sounds in your ears, that is, who plants and waters by working from outside, but from him who gives the increase.

So, as I warned in the previous sermon, beware, especially you who are little ones and still need the nourishment of milk, lest, because the Lord said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now," you lend a curious ear, on this pretext, to men deceived and deceiving, so as to learn things unknown, when your minds are too weak to judge between true and false. Beware especially because of the most obscene foulnesses which Satan has taught to unstable and carnal souls, God permitting it to this end: that his judgments may everywhere be feared, and that by comparison with impure wickedness the purest discipline may grow sweet; and that he may give honor to God, and fear or shame to himself, who either did not fall into those evils because God ruled him, or rose from them because God lifted him up. Beware, fearing and praying, lest you rush into that riddle of Solomon, where the foolish and bold woman, who has become destitute of bread, calls to those passing by, saying, "Gladly touch hidden bread, and the sweetness of stolen water." For this woman is the vanity of the ungodly who, though most foolish, think they know something, as it was said of this woman, "who has become destitute of bread." Though she is destitute of bread, she promises bread; that is, though she is ignorant of the truth, she promises knowledge of the truth. Yet she promises hidden bread, which she says is gladly touched, and the sweetness of stolen water; so that, namely, things which are forbidden to be said and believed openly in the church may be heard and done the more gladly and sweetly. For by the very concealment the wicked teachers in a way season their poisons for the curious, so that these think they are learning something great because it deserved to be kept secret, and drink in folly, which they take for knowledge, the more sweetly because they steal, as it were, a forbidden hearing of it.

Hence too the teaching of the magic arts commends its wicked rites to men deceived, or to be deceived, by sacrilegious curiosity. Hence those unlawful divinations, by inspecting the entrails of slaughtered beasts, or by the voices and flights of birds, or by the manifold signs of demons, are whispered into the ears of men who are to perish, through the talk of those already lost. Because of these unlawful and punishable secrets, that woman is called not only foolish but also bold. But these things are foreign not only to the substance but even to the name of our religion. What of the fact that this foolish and bold woman, under the Christian name, has founded so many wicked heresies and invented so many abominable fables? Would that they were only such fables as are sung, or danced, or laughed at with mimic buffoonery in the theaters, and not some of such a kind that we lament the folly that could invent them against God in such a way as to marvel at its boldness. But all the most foolish heretics who wish to be called Christians try to color the audacities of their inventions, which human sense most abhors, with the pretext of the Gospel saying where the Lord says, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now"; as if these were the very things the disciples could not bear then, and as if the Holy Spirit had taught things which even the unclean spirit, however great his boldness, blushes to teach and proclaim openly.

The Apostle, foreseeing these men in the Holy Spirit, says: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires they will heap up teachers for themselves, having itching ears; and they will turn away their hearing from the truth and turn aside to fables." For that mention of secrecy and theft, where it is said, "Gladly touch hidden bread, and the sweetness of stolen water," produces an itch in hearers whose ears commit spiritual fornication, just as in the flesh too the integrity of chastity is corrupted by a certain itch of lust. So hear the Apostle, foreseeing such things and wholesomely warning that they be avoided: "Avoid profane novelties of words; for they advance much toward ungodliness, and their talk spreads like a cancer." And he did not say only "novelties of words," but added "profane." For there are novelties of words suited to the teaching of religion, as it is written of when the very name of Christians began to be used. For it was in Antioch, after the Lord's ascension, that the disciples were first called Christians, as one reads in the Acts of the Apostles; and hospices for strangers and monasteries were afterward called by new names; yet the things themselves existed before their names, and they are confirmed by the truth of religion, by which they are also defended against the wicked. Against the ungodliness of the Arian heretics, too, they coined a new term, homoousion with the Father; but they did not mark a new thing by such a name; for what is called homoousion is this: "I and the Father are one," namely, of one and the same substance. For if every novelty were profane, the Lord would not have said, "A new commandment I give you," nor would the Testament be called New, nor would a new song be sung in all the earth. But those novelties of words are profane where the foolish and bold woman says, "Gladly touch hidden bread, and the sweetness of stolen water." From this promise of false knowledge the Apostle also forbids us in the place where he says: "O Timothy, guard the deposit, avoiding profane novelties of words and the contradictions of knowledge falsely so called, which some have professed and so have fallen away concerning the faith." For these people love nothing so much as to promise knowledge, and to deride as ignorance the faith in true things which little ones are commanded to believe.

Someone will say: Have spiritual men nothing in their teaching which they keep silent from the carnal and speak openly to the spiritual? If I answer, They have not, it will at once be said to me from the apostle Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians: "I could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal. As to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able; and even now you are not able, for you are still carnal"; and that saying, "We speak wisdom among the perfect"; and that, "Comparing spiritual things with spiritual; but the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are folly to him." What all this means must be discussed in another sermon, if the Lord grants, so that we may at last close this one; lest again, because of these words of the Apostle, secrets be sought in profane novelties of words, and it be said that the carnal cannot bear things which the spirit and body of the chaste ought to avoid.

I recall that I put off the difficult question arising from the words of our Lord where he says, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now," so that it might be treated more at leisure, because the proper limit compelled me to end that sermon. Now therefore, since it is time to pay what was promised, let it be treated as the Lord himself grants, who brought it into our heart to be set before you. And this is the question: whether spiritual men have anything in their teaching which they keep silent from the carnal and tell to the spiritual. For if we say, "They have not," we shall be answered: What then did the Apostle mean when he wrote to the Corinthians, "I could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal. As to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able; and even now you are not able, for you are still carnal"? But if we say, "They have," we must fear and beware lest under this pretext wicked things be taught in secret, and, under the name of spiritual things, as though they were things the carnal cannot take in, they seem not only to be whitewashed by excuse but even to deserve praise in preaching.

First, then, your Charity should know that Christ crucified himself, with whom the Apostle says he fed the little ones as with milk, his very flesh, in which his true death took place, and the true wounds of the one pierced, and the blood of the one struck, is not thought of in the same way by the carnal as by the spiritual; and to the former it is milk, to the latter food; for even if they do not hear more, they understand more. For what is received equally in faith by both is not equally grasped by the mind. So it comes about that Christ crucified, preached by the apostles, was "to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Gentiles folly, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of God"; but the carnal little ones held this only by believing, while the more capable spiritual ones also beheld it by understanding; to the former, then, it was like a drink of milk, to the latter like solid food: not because the former learned it one way among the congregations and the latter another way in private rooms, but because, while both heard it in the same way when it was spoken openly, each grasped it in his own measure. For since Christ was crucified precisely to shed his blood for the remission of sins, and by this passion of his Only-begotten the grace of God is commended, so that no one may glory in man, how did they understand Christ crucified who were still saying, "I am of Paul"? As Paul himself did, who said, "But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ"? So, concerning that same Christ crucified, he both took food himself according to his capacity and nourished them with milk according to their weakness. Finally, knowing that what he wrote to the Corinthians could be understood one way by the little ones themselves and another way by the more capable, he says: "If anyone among you is a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that what I write to you is the Lord's commandment; but if anyone does not know, he will not be known." He wanted the knowledge of the spiritual to be solid, where not faith alone would be given but sure knowledge would be held; and therefore the others believed those very things which the spiritual also recognized. "But he will not be known," he says, who does not know; because it has not yet been revealed to him so that he knows what he believes. When this happens in a person's mind, he himself is said to be known by God, because God makes him a knower, as he says elsewhere: "But now, knowing God, or rather being known by God." For it was not then that God came to know those whom he had foreknown and chosen before the foundation of the world; but then he made them know him.

This being first understood, that the very things which the spiritual and the carnal hear together each grasps according to his own measure, the former as little ones, the latter as grown men, the former as the nourishment of milk, the latter as the solidity of food, there seems to be no need for any secrets of doctrine to be kept silent and hidden from believing little ones, to be told separately to the grown, that is, the more intelligent; nor should this be thought necessary because the Apostle said, "I could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal." For the very thing he judged that he knew among them, nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified, he could not speak to them as to spiritual people but as to carnal, because they could not grasp it as spiritual people do. But whoever among them were spiritual grasped with spiritual understanding the same thing which the others heard as carnal; so that what he says, "I could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal," is to be understood as if he said, "You could not grasp what I was saying as spiritual people, but only as carnal." For "the natural man," that is, one who thinks in a human way, called natural (animalis) from the soul (anima), as carnal from the flesh, because the whole man consists of soul and flesh, "does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God," that is, what grace the cross of Christ confers on believers; and he thinks that the only thing done by that cross was that an example might be set before us to imitate as we contend for the truth even unto death. For if men of this kind, who wish to be nothing but men, knew how Christ crucified "became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, he who glories may glory in the Lord," beyond doubt they would not glory in man, nor say carnally, "I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas," but spiritually, "I am of Christ."

But what still raises a question is what is read in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need again to be taught what are the elements of the words of God; and you have become such as need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food belongs to the perfect, to those who by practice have their senses trained to distinguish good from evil." For here we see, as it were defined, what he calls the solid food of the perfect; and that this is what was written to the Corinthians, "We speak wisdom among the perfect." And whom he wished to be understood as the perfect in this place he added, saying, "those who by practice have their senses trained to distinguish good from evil." Those, then, who cannot do this, because their minds are weak and untrained, unless they are held by a kind of milk of faith, so as to believe both the invisible things which they do not see and the intelligible things which they do not yet understand, are easily led by the promise of knowledge to vain and sacrilegious fables: so that they think of both good and evil only in bodily images, and suppose God himself to be only some kind of body, and cannot think of evil except as a substance; whereas it is rather a kind of falling away from the immutable substance on the part of mutable substances, which that immutable and highest substance, which is God, made out of nothing. Whoever not only believes this but also understands, perceives, and knows it with the trained inward senses of the mind need no longer fear being seduced by those who, by thinking that evil is a substance which God did not make, make God himself a mutable substance, as the Manichees do, or whatever other plagues are so foolish.

But for minds still little, whom the Apostle calls carnal and says are to be nourished with milk, every discourse on this matter that aims at having what is said not only believed but also understood and known is burdensome to those unable to perceive such things, and more easily crushes them than feeds them. Hence it comes about that the spiritual do not keep these things entirely silent from the carnal, because of the catholic faith, which must be preached to all; and yet they do not discuss them in such a way that, wishing to bring them to an understanding not able to take them in, they make the discourse loathed in the truth more easily than they make the truth perceived in the discourse. That is why he says, writing to the Colossians: "For though I am absent in body, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order, and what is lacking to your faith in Christ." And to the Thessalonians: "Night and day," he says, "praying more abundantly that we may see your face and supply what is lacking to your faith." These are certainly to be understood as having been first catechized so as to be fed with milk, not solid food; and the abundance of this milk is recalled to the Hebrews, whom he now wished to feed with the solidity of food. Hence he says: "Therefore, leaving the word of the beginning of Christ, let us look to completion; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the teaching of washing, and of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection also of the dead, and of eternal judgment." This is the abundance of milk, without which those cannot live who already use reason so as to be able to believe, but cannot distinguish good from evil not only by believing but also by understanding (which belongs to solid food). And the "teaching" which he included among the things he named as milk is what is handed on through the Creed and the Lord's Prayer.

But far be it that the food of spiritual things, which is to be taken in by firm understanding, which was lacking to the Colossians and Thessalonians and had to be supplied, should be contrary to this milk. For when what was lacking is supplied, what was there is not rejected. For even in the food we take, solid food is so far from being contrary to milk that it itself turns into milk, so as to be suited to infants, reaching them through the flesh of mother or nurse; as Wisdom herself, our mother, has also done: though she is the solid food of angels on high, she deigned in a way to turn into milk for little ones, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. But the man Christ himself, who in true flesh, true cross, true death, and true resurrection is called the pure milk of little ones, when rightly grasped by the spiritual, is found to be the Lord of angels. So little ones are not to be suckled in such a way that they never understand Christ as God, nor weaned in such a way that they abandon Christ the man. The same thing can be put another way: they are not to be suckled in such a way that they never understand Christ as Creator, nor weaned in such a way that they ever abandon Christ as Mediator. In this respect the likeness of mother's milk and solid food does not fit the matter so well as that of a foundation: for when a child is weaned, so as to leave behind the nourishment of infancy, he does not go back, among his solid foods, to the breasts he used to suck; but Christ crucified is both milk to those who suck and food to those who advance. The likeness of a foundation is more apt for this reason, that to complete what is being built, the building is added to, the foundation is not taken away.

Since these things are so, O all of you who are little ones in Christ (and beyond doubt you are many), advance to the solid food of the mind, not of the belly. Advance to distinguishing good from evil, and cling more and more to the Mediator, through whom you are freed from evil, which is not to be separated from you by place but rather healed in you. But whoever says to you, "Do not believe that Christ was a true man, or that the body of any man or of any living creature was created by the true God, or that the Old Testament was given by the true God," or anything of the kind, adding, "These things were not told you before, when you were nourished with milk, because you did not yet have a heart fit to grasp the truth," is preparing not food for you but poison. Therefore the blessed Apostle, addressing those who already seemed to themselves to be perfect, after he had said that he himself was imperfect, says, "As many, then, as are perfect, let us think this; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this too to you." And lest perhaps they fall in with seducers who would want to turn them from the faith by promising knowledge of the truth, and think that this was what the Apostle meant by "God will reveal this too to you," he at once added, "Nevertheless, to what we have attained, in that let us walk." If then you have understood something that is not against the rule of the catholic faith, to which you have come as to the way that leads you to the homeland, and have understood it in such a way that you ought not to doubt it at all, add to the building, but do not abandon the foundation. The greater should teach the little ones in such a way as not to say that Christ, the Lord of all, or the prophets and apostles, far greater than themselves, lied in anything. And you must beware not only of vain talkers and seducers of minds, who chatter fabulous and false things and in these vanities promise a lofty knowledge against the rule of faith which you have received as catholic; but you must also flee as a more insidious plague than the rest those who reason truly about the immutability of the divine nature, or about incorporeal creation or the Creator, and prove what they say by most certain proofs and reasons, and yet try to turn people away from the one Mediator between God and men. For such are those of whom the Apostle says, "Because, knowing God, they did not glorify him as God." For what does it profit to have true understanding of the immutable good to one who does not hold fast to him through whom he is freed from evil? By all means let the admonition of the most blessed Apostle not depart from your hearts: "If anyone preaches to you a gospel besides what you have received, let him be anathema." He does not say, "more than you have received," but "besides what you have received." For if he said the former, he would prejudge himself, who wished to come to the Thessalonians to supply what was lacking to their faith. But he who supplies adds what was less, does not take away what was there; whereas he who goes beyond the rule of faith does not advance on the way but withdraws from the way.

So when the Lord says, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now," what was to be added for them was what they did not know, not the overturning of what they had learned. And he indeed, as I explained in the previous sermon, could say this, because if he had wished to open to them the very things he had taught in the way they are conceived in him by the angels, the human weakness in which they still were could not bear it. But any spiritual man can teach another what he knows, if the Holy Spirit makes him more capable by his advancing, in whom the teacher himself too could learn something more, so that both may be taught by God. Although even among spiritual men themselves some are certainly more capable and better than others, so that one of them came to things which it is not lawful for a man to speak. On this pretext certain vain people, with most foolish presumption, have forged an Apocalypse of Paul, full of who knows what fables, which the sound church does not receive, saying that this is what he meant when he said that he had been caught up to the third heaven and there heard ineffable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak. Their audacity might in some way be tolerable if he had said he heard things which it is not yet lawful for a man to speak; but since he said "which it is not lawful for a man to speak," who are these who dare to speak these things so impudently and so unhappily? But now I will close this sermon with this end, by which I wish you to be wise in what is good and innocent of evil.