Tractates on the Gospel of John 99.1–100.4

What is it that the Lord says of the Holy Spirit, when he promised that he would come and teach his disciples all truth, or lead them into all truth: "For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak"? For this is like what he said of himself: "I cannot do anything of myself; as I hear, I judge." But when we were expounding that, we said it could be taken according to the man, so that the Son might be seen to have foretold that his obedience, by which he became obedient unto the death of the cross, would continue in the future judgment, in which he will judge the living and the dead; because he will do this through what he is as Son of Man. That is why he said, "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son": because in the judgment it is not the form of God, in which he is equal to the Father and cannot be seen by the ungodly, that will appear, but the form of man, in which he was made even a little lower than the angels; although he will come now in glory, not in his former lowliness, yet he will be visible to good and bad alike. Hence he also says: "And he has given him power to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man." In these words of his it is made plain that the form to be presented at the judgment is not that in which, "being in it, he did not think it robbery to be equal to God," but the one he took when he emptied himself. "For he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant"; in which he seems to have commended his obedience even in executing judgment, when he said, "I cannot do anything of myself; as I hear, I judge." For Adam, through whose disobedience, the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners, did not judge as he heard; because he transgressed what he heard, and he did of himself the evil he did, since he did not do God's will but his own. But this one, through whose obedience, the obedience of one man, many are made righteous, was not only obedient unto the death of the cross, in which he, the living one, was judged by the dead, but also, promising that he would be obedient in that judgment too in which he will judge the living and the dead, says, "I cannot do anything of myself; as I hear, I judge." But what is said of the Holy Spirit, "For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak": shall we dare to think that it was said according to the man, or according to the taking up of any creature? For in the Trinity the Son alone took the form of a servant, a form fitted to him for unity of person, that is, so that the Son of God and the son of man are one Jesus Christ; lest not a Trinity but a quaternity be preached by us, which be far from us. Because of this one person consisting of two substances, divine and human, he sometimes speaks according to what he is as God, as when he says, "I and the Father are one"; sometimes according to what he is as man, as when he says, "For the Father is greater than I"; and according to this we have taken it that he also said what I am now discussing: "I cannot do anything of myself; as I hear, I judge." But how we are to take what is said in the person of the Holy Spirit, "For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak," since in that person there is not one substance of divinity and another of humanity or of any other creature: here a great difficulty arises.

For when the Holy Spirit appeared in bodily form like a dove, it was a vision made for the hour and then passed; as also when he came upon the disciples, there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, which sat upon each of them. Whoever, then, says that the dove was joined to the Holy Spirit in unity of person, so that from it and God (for the Holy Spirit is God) one person of the Holy Spirit was constituted, is compelled to say this of that fire too; and so he may understand that he ought to say none of these things. For these things, which presented themselves to men's bodily senses and passed away, in whatever way was needed for signifying the substance of God, were made by divine power for the hour out of serving creation, not out of the ruling nature itself, which, remaining in itself, moves what it wills, and, unchangeable, changes what it wills. So also that voice from the cloud certainly reached bodily ears and the sense of the body called hearing; yet in no way is it to be believed that the Word of God, who is the only-begotten Son, is made up of syllables and sounds because he is called the Word: for these cannot all sound at once when speech is made, but whatever sounds there are succeed one another in their order, as if the newborn followed the dying, so that the whole of what we say is completed only with the last syllable. Far be it that the Father should speak to the Son in this way, that is, God to his Word, who is God! But to grasp this, as far as man can grasp it, belongs to those for whom not milk but solid food is fitting. Since, then, the Holy Spirit did not become man by any taking up of a man, nor become an angel by any taking up of an angel, nor become a creature by any taking up of any creature, how are we to understand what the Lord says of him, "For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak"? A hard question, too hard. May the Spirit himself be present, so that we may at least speak of it as we can think it, and so that it may reach your understanding according to the capacity of my small measure.

First, then, you ought to know (understanding it, you who can, and believing it, you who cannot yet understand) that in that substance which is God there are no senses distributed in their proper places as through the mass of a body, as in the mortal flesh of any animal sight is in one place, hearing in another, taste in another, smell in another, and touch throughout. Far be it to believe this of that incorporeal and unchangeable nature. There, to hear and to see are the same thing. Smell too is spoken of in God; whence the Apostle says, "As Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness." And taste can be understood, according to which God both hates those who embitter him and spews out of his mouth those who are neither cold nor hot but lukewarm; and Christ, who is God, says, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me." There is also that divine touch, of which the bride says of the bridegroom: "His left hand is under my head, and his right hand will embrace me." These are not in God through different parts of a body. For when he is said to know, all are there: to see, to hear, to smell, to taste, and to touch, without any change of his substance, without any mass that is greater in one part and less in another. Even in old men, God is thought of with a childish heart when he is thought of in that way.

Nor should you wonder that the ineffable knowledge of God, by which he knows all things, is called, through the various modes of human speech, by the names of all these bodily senses; since even our mind itself, that is, the inner man, which knows in a uniform way the diverse things reported to it through these five messengers, as it were, of the body, when it understands, chooses, and loves the unchangeable truth, both sees the light of which it is said, "He was the true light," and hears the Word of which it is said, "In the beginning was the Word," and catches the odor of which it is said, "We will run after the odor of your ointments," and drinks from the fountain of which it is said, "With you is the fountain of life," and enjoys the touch of which it is said, "But for me it is good to cling to God"; and these are not one thing and another, but one understanding is called by the names of so many senses. When, then, it is said of the Holy Spirit, "For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak," all the more must a simple nature be understood or believed there, where it is most truly simple, a nature which far and deeply surpasses the nature of our mind. For our mind is changeable: it perceives by learning what it did not know, and loses by unlearning what it knew; it is deceived by what resembles truth, so as to approve the false for the true; and it is hindered by its own obscurity, as by a kind of darkness, from reaching the truth. And therefore that substance is not most truly simple for which to be is not the same as to know: for it can be and not know. But that divine substance cannot, because it is what it has. And therefore it does not have knowledge in such a way that the knowledge by which it knows is one thing and the essence by which it is another; but both are one. Nor should one even say "both" of what is simply one. So the Father has life in himself, and he himself is nothing other than the life that is in him; and he has given the Son to have life in himself, that is, he has begotten the Son, who himself also is life. In this way, then, we ought to take what was said of the Holy Spirit, "For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak," so that we understand that he is not from himself. For the Father alone is not from another. For the Son is born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father; but the Father is neither born of another nor proceeds. Yet let no inequality in that supreme Trinity occur to human thought on this account: for both the Son is equal to him of whom he is born, and the Holy Spirit to him from whom he proceeds. But what the difference is there between proceeding and being born would take long to discuss by inquiry, and it would be rash to define it once discussed; for this is very difficult for the mind to comprehend in any way, and, if the mind has perhaps comprehended something of it, very difficult for the tongue to explain, however eminent the teacher, however attentive the hearer. So "he will not speak from himself," because he is not from himself. "But whatever he hears he will speak": he will hear from him from whom he proceeds. For him to hear is to know; and to know is to be, as was discussed above. Because he is not from himself, then, but from him from whom he proceeds, from him from whom he has his essence he has his knowledge; from him, then, he has his hearing, which is nothing other than knowledge.

Nor should it trouble anyone that a verb of the future tense is used. For it is not said, "whatever he has heard," or "whatever he hears," but "whatever he will hear, he will speak." For that hearing is everlasting, because the knowledge is everlasting. And in what is everlasting, without beginning and without end, a verb of any tense may be used, past, present, or future, and it is not used falsely. For although that unchangeable and ineffable nature does not admit "was" and "will be," but only "is" (for it truly is, because it cannot be changed; and so it alone could fittingly say, "I am who am," and "You shall say to the sons of Israel, He who is has sent me to you"), yet because of the changeableness of the times in which our mortality and our changeableness are involved, we say, not falsely, "was," "will be," and "is": "was" in past ages, "is" in the present, "will be" in the future. "Was," because he was never lacking; "will be," because he will never be lacking; "is," because he always is. For he does not set with things past, as one who no longer is; nor glide away with things present, as one who does not remain; nor will he rise with things future, as one who had not been. So, since human speech varies according to the rolling of the times, verbs of any tense are truly said of him who could not, cannot, and will not be lacking at any time. The Holy Spirit, then, always hears, because he always knows: so he both knew, and knows, and will know; and therefore he both heard, and hears, and will hear; because, as we have already said, for him to hear is the same as to know, and to know is for him the same as to be. From him, then, he heard, hears, and will hear, from whom he is; and he is from him from whom he proceeds.

Here someone may perhaps ask whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son too. For the Son is the Son of the Father alone, and the Father is the 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 you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you"; you have the Apostle too: "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts." Are there two Spirits, one of the Father and another of the Son? Far from it. "There is one body," he says, meaning the church; and at once he added, "and one Spirit." And see how he completes the Trinity there. "As you were called," he says, "in the one hope of your calling. One Lord": here certainly he wished Christ to be understood; it remains for him to name the Father too; so there follows, "one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all." Since, then, as there is one Father and one Lord, that is, the Son, so there is also one Spirit, he is surely the Spirit of both; for Christ Jesus himself says, "the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you," and the Apostle says, "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts." You have the same apostle saying in another place, "But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you"; here certainly he wished the Spirit of the Father to be understood; yet of him he says in another place, "But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." And there are many other testimonies by which it is plainly shown that the Spirit who in the Trinity is called the Holy Spirit is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son.

Nor do I think that he is properly called Spirit for any other reason than this: that even if we are asked about each one singly, we cannot but call both the Father and the Son spirit, since "God is spirit," that is, God is not a body but spirit. What each is also called in common, then, it was fitting that he should be called properly who is not one of them, but in whom the communion of both appears. Why then should we not believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son too, since he is also the Spirit of the Son? For if he did not proceed from him, he would not, when he showed himself to his disciples after the resurrection, have breathed on them, saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit." For what else did that breathing signify, but that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him too? To this also belongs what he said of the woman who suffered from a flow of blood: "Someone touched me; for I felt power go out from me." For that the Holy Spirit too is called by the name of power is clear also from the place where the angel answered Mary when she said, "How will this be, since I do not know a man?": "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you"; and the Lord himself, promising him to the disciples, says, "But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high"; and again, "You will receive," he says, "the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you will be my witnesses." It is of this power that the evangelist is to be believed to speak when he says, "Power went out from him and healed them all."

If, then, the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, why did the Son say, "He proceeds from the Father"? Why, do you think, except in the way he is accustomed to refer to the Father even what is his own, to him from whom he himself is? Hence is that saying of his, "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me." If, then, it is understood here to be his teaching, which he nevertheless said was not his but the Father's, how much more is it to be understood there that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him, where he says, "He proceeds from the Father," without saying, "He does not proceed from me"? And from whom the Son has it that he is God (for he is God from God), from him he certainly has it that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him too; and therefore the Holy Spirit has it from the Father himself that he proceeds also from the Son, as he proceeds from the Father.

Here too it is understood in some way, as far as it can be understood by such as we are, why the Holy Spirit is not said to be born but rather to proceed. For if he too were called Son, he would certainly be called the Son of both, which is most absurd. For no one is the son of two except of a father and a mother. But far be it that we should suspect anything of the kind between God the Father and God the Son. For not even a son of men proceeds from father and mother at the same time: but when he proceeds from the father into the mother, he does not then proceed from the mother; and when he proceeds from the mother into this light, he does not then proceed from the father. But the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father into the Son, and from the Son proceed to sanctify the creature; he proceeds from both at once, although the Father has given this to the Son, that as he proceeds from the Father, so he proceeds from the Son too. For we cannot say that the Holy Spirit is not life, since the Father is life and the Son is life. And therefore, as the Father, having life in himself, has given the Son also to have life in himself, so he has given him that life should proceed from him, as it also proceeds from the Father himself. Then follow the words of the Lord: "And he will announce to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will receive of what is mine and announce it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will receive of what is mine and announce it to you." But because this sermon has already been long, these words must be put off to another.

When the Lord promised that the Holy Spirit would come, he said, "He will teach you all truth," or, as is read in some manuscripts, "He will lead you into all truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak." On these words of the Gospel we have already discussed what the Lord granted; now attend to what follows. "And he will announce to you the things that are to come," he says. We need not linger here, since it is plain; for it contains no question requiring explanation from us. But what he adds, "He will glorify me, for he will receive of what is mine and announce it to you," must not be passed over carelessly. For his saying, "He will glorify me," can be understood thus: that by pouring out love in the hearts of believers and making them spiritual, the Spirit showed them how the Son was equal to the Father, whom before they had known only according to the flesh and had thought of as a man, as men do. Or certainly: that, filled through that love with confidence and with fear driven out, they proclaimed Christ to men, and so his fame was spread through the whole world. So he said, "He will glorify me," as if he said: He will take away fear from you and give you love, by which, preaching me more ardently, you will spread the fragrance of my glory through the whole world and commend my honor. For what they were going to do in the Holy Spirit, he said the Spirit himself would do; as that saying also is: "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." For the Greek word doxasei the Latin translators rendered, each in his own translation, one by clarificabit, another by glorificabit; since the very thing that is called doxa in Greek, from which the verb doxasei comes, is translated both "brightness" and "glory." For by glory each one becomes bright, and by brightness glorious; and so what is signified by either word is the same. And as the most illustrious ancient authors of the Latin language defined it, glory is frequent fame about someone with praise. When this has come about in this world concerning Christ, it is not to be believed that it conferred something great on Christ, but on the world. For praising the good benefits not the one praised but those who praise.

But there is also false glory, when those who praise are deceived by error, either about things, or about persons, or about both. They are deceived about things when they think that good which is evil; about persons, when they think a man good who is evil; about both, when what is a vice is thought a virtue, and the one who is praised for it does not have what is thought, whether he is good or evil. For to give away one's goods to actors is a monstrous vice, not a virtue; and you know how frequent the fame with praise about such people is; for, as it is written, "The sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and he who does wicked things is blessed." Here the praisers are not deceived about the persons but about the thing; for what they believe to be good is evil. Those who are vicious with this evil of lavishness are just such as their praisers, not merely suspect, but see them to be. Again, if someone pretends to be righteous and is not, but whatever he seems to do praiseworthily before men he does not do for God's sake, that is, for true righteousness, but seeks and loves only glory from men; while those among whom his fame with praise is frequent think he lives praiseworthily only for God's sake: these are not deceived about the thing, but they are deceived about the person. For what they believe to be good is good; but the one they believe to be good is not good. But if, for example, skill in the magic arts is thought good, and someone is believed to have freed his country by those arts, of which he knows nothing at all, and he obtains among ungodly men frequent fame with praise, which was defined as glory, then those who praise him err in both respects: about the thing, because they think good what is evil; and about the person, because he is not what they think. In these three kinds, then, glory is false. But when there is frequent fame with praise about someone who is righteous through God and for God's sake, that is, truly righteous, because of that very righteousness, it is indeed true glory; yet it is not to be believed that the righteous man is made blessed by it, but those who praise him are to be congratulated, because they judge rightly and love the righteous. How much more, then, did the Lord Christ's glory benefit not himself but those whom his death benefited?

But his glory is not true among heretics, though among them he seems to have frequent fame with praise. This is not true glory, because they are deceived in both respects: for they both think that good which is not good, and think Christ to be what Christ is not. For that the only-begotten Son is not equal to the one who begot him is not good; that the only-begotten Son of God is only a man, not God, is not good; that the flesh of the Truth is not true flesh is not good. Of these three things I have mentioned, the Arians hold the first, the Photinians the second, the Manichees the third. But since none of these is good, and Christ is none of these, they are deceived in both respects; nor do they give true glory to Christ, though among them there seems to be frequent fame with praise about Christ. And absolutely all heretics, whom it would take too long to list, who do not think rightly about Christ, err because they do not think truly about good and evil things either. The pagans too, very many of whom praise Christ, are themselves deceived in both respects, saying, not according to God's truth but rather according to their own suspicion, that he was a magician. For they blame Christians as ignorant but praise Christ as a magician, and so betray what they love: but they do not love Christ, since what they love is what Christ was not. So they are deceived in both respects, because to be a magician is evil, and Christ was not a magician, because he is good. Therefore, since nothing is to be said here of those who blame and blaspheme Christ, because we are speaking of his glory by which he was glorified in the world, the Holy Spirit has glorified him with true glory only in the holy catholic church. For elsewhere, that is, among the heretics or among certain pagans, his true glory on earth cannot exist, even where there seems to be frequent fame with praise about him. So his true glory in the catholic church is sung by the prophet thus: "Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth." Since, then, the Holy Spirit was to come after his exaltation and glorify him, the holy Psalm and the Only-begotten himself promised that this would happen, and we see it fulfilled.

But as for what he says, "He will receive of what is mine and announce it to you," hear it with catholic ears, take it in with catholic minds. For it is not on this account, as certain heretics have thought, that the Holy Spirit is less than the Son, as though the Son received from the Father and the Holy Spirit from the Son by certain grades of natures. Far be it to believe this, far be it to say it, far be it from Christian hearts to think it. Finally he himself at once solved the question and explained why he said this: "All that the Father has," he says, "is mine; therefore I said that he will receive of what is mine and announce it to you." What more do you want? The Holy Spirit, then, receives from the Father, from whom the Son receives; because in this Trinity the Son is born of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. But he who is born of no one and proceeds from no one is the Father alone. But how the only-begotten Son said, "All that the Father has is mine" (for certainly not in the way it was said to that son who was not only-begotten but the elder of two, "You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours"), will be treated with careful consideration, if the Lord wills, at the place where the Only-begotten says to the Father, "And all mine are yours, and yours are mine"; so that this sermon may be closed here, since what follows calls for a new beginning in which to be discussed.