Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–111

Tractate 74

TRACTATE 74 On John 14.15–17 hen the Gospel was read, brothers, we heard the Lord saying: “If you love me, keep my commandments . And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him, nor does it know him. But you shall know him because he will abide with you and will be in you.” There are many things in these few words of the Lord about which to ask; but it is too much for us to seek out all the things that should be sought after here, or to find all the things that we seek. And yet, as far as the Lord deigns to grant to us, in keeping with our capability and yours, to what we ought to say and what you ought to hear, be attentive and, dearest people, take through us what we can do, and demand from him what we cannot. (2) Christ promised the Apostles the Spirit, the Paraclete; but let us notice in what way he promised: “If you love me,” he said, “keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you always, the Spirit of truth.” This is surely the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, whom the Catholic faith professes to be consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father and the Son. He it is about whom the Apostle says, “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”1 Therefore, how does the Lord say, “If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Paraclete,” since he says 1. Rom 5.5. 88 TRACTATE 74 89 this about the Holy Spirit, and yet unless we should have him, we can neither love God nor keep his commandments? How is it that we love in order to receive him, and yet unless we should have him, we cannot love? Or how is it that we shall keep the commandments in order to receive him, and yet unless we should have him, we cannot keep the commandments ? (3) Can it be perhaps that there comes first in us the love by which we love Christ so that, by loving Christ and by doing his commandments, we may deserve to receive the Holy Spirit, in order that the love, not of Christ, which had already preceded, but of God the Father may be spread in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us? This view is perverse. For he who believes that he loves the Son and does not love the Father, actually does not even love the Son, but a thing that he has fabricated for himself. (4) Then, too, there is the Apostle’s statement: “No one says, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit.”2 And who says that Jesus is Lord except he who loves him, if he says it in the way in which the Apostle intended it to be understood ? For many say it with their voice but deny it in their heart and deeds, as he says about such as these, “For they profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny him.”3 If he is denied by deeds, without doubt he is also affirmed by deeds. And so “no one says, ‘Jesus is Lord,’” with mind, word, deed, heart, mouth, work; “no one says, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit,” and no one so says it except one who loves. (5) And so the Apostles were already saying, “Jesus is Lord.” And if they were saying it in such a way that they did not say it falsely, professing with the mouth, but denying in heart and deeds, certainly if they were saying this truly, without a doubt they were loving. How, therefore, were they loving except in the Holy Spirit? And yet they are previously enjoined to love him and keep his commandments in order that they may receive the Holy Spirit; and yet if they did not 2. 1 Cor 12.3. 3. Ti 1.16. 90 have him, surely they could not love him and keep the commandments . 2...