ACC ~ John 16 v13a

TAUGHT BY GOD THE SPIRIT

AUGUSTINE: Beloved, you should not expect to hear from us what the Lord refrained from telling his disciples because they were still unable to bear them. Rather, seek to grow in the love that is shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to you [1] so 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 that carnal people are unable to bear. For that cannot be loved that is altogether unknown. But when what is known, in however small a measure, is also loved, by the same love, one is led on to a better and fuller knowledge. If, then, you grow in the love that 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 your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth.” [2] So shall the result be, that not from outward teachers will you learn those things that the Lord at that time declined to utter, but you will all be taught by God, [3] so that the very things that you have learned and believed by means of lessons and sermons supplied from without … your minds themselves may have the power to perceive. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 96.4. [4]

[1] Rom 5:5.

[2] Ps 86:11 (85:11 LXX, Vg).

[3] Jn 6:45.

[4] NPNF 1 7:372-73**.

KNOWLEDGE YET TO COME IN ETERNITY

AUGUSTINE: 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 anyone’s mind in this present life. For who is there, while living in this corruptible and soul-oppressing body, [1] that can know all truth when even the apostle says, “We know in part”? But it is effected by the Holy Spirit, of whom we have now received the promise, [2] that we shall attain also to the actual fullness of knowledge that the same apostle references when he says, “But then face to face” and “Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.” [3] He is not talking about something he knows fully in this life but about something that would still be in the future when he would attain that perfection. This is what 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.” TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 96.4. [4]

[1] See Wis 9:15.

[2] See 2 Cor 1:21.

[3] 1 Cor 13:12.

[4] NPNF 1 7:373**.

STILL SLAVES TO THE SHADOWS OF THE LAW

DIDYMUS THE BLIND: He means that his hearers had not yet attained to all those things that for his name’s sake they were able to bear. And so, revealing more minor things, he puts off the greater for a future time. These were things they could not understand because the Spirit had not yet been given, as the Evangelist says, “For the Spirit had not been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified,” [1] intimating the glory of Jesus was in his tasting death for all. And after the resurrection, when he appeared to his disciples, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” and again “You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit when he comes on you.” Where the Spirit entered into their believing hearts, they were filled with wisdom and knowledge and other effects of the Spirit that would lead them into all truth. But, as yet, they were slaves to the types, and shadows and images of the Law, and they could not bear the truth of which the Law was the shadow. But when the Holy Spirit came, he would lead them by his teaching and discipline into all truth, transferring them from the dead letter to the quickening Spirit in whom alone all scriptural truth resides. ON THE HOLY SPIRIT 33. [2]

[1] Jn 7:39.

[2] PL 23:132-33.