Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–111

Tractate 96

193 TRACTATE 96 On John 16.12–13 n this section of the holy Gospel where the Lord says to his disciples, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” we first encounter the following question: how he said earlier, “All things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you,”1 and yet here he says, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” But how he said that, as though he did what he had not yet done, just as the Prophet attests that God had done those things that are going to be, saying, “Who did things that are going to be,”2 we have already explained, as far as we could, when we were interpreting in a discourse these very words.3 (2) Now then, perhaps you want to know what these things are that the Apostles could not bear at that time. But who of us would dare to say that he was now capable of apprehending the things that those men were not strong enough to apprehend? And for this reason it must not be expected that those things will be said by me, which perhaps I would not grasp if they were said to me by another. Nor would you be able to bear them even if I was so great that you would hear from me the things that are too profound for you. And indeed, it is possible that there are among you some [who are] already capable of apprehending those things that others are not yet strong enough to apprehend— and if not all the things about which that Teacher, God, was saying, “I have yet many things to say to you,” nevertheless, perhaps some of them. 1. Cf. Jn 15.15. 2. Is 45.11 (LXX). 3. See Tractate 86.1. ST. AUGUSTINE 194 (3) But what those things are that he did not say, it is rash to want to presume to say. For also at that time the Apostles, to whom he was saying, “You cannot follow me now,”4 were not yet capable of dying for Christ. As a result, the first of them, Peter, who had presumed that he already could do this, learned from experience something other than he supposed . And yet later on both men and women, boys and girls, young men and young women, older men together with younger men, innumerable persons, were crowned with martyrdom; and it was found that sheep could [bear] what then, when the Lord was saying these things, the shepherds could not yet bear. Ought it therefore have been said to those sheep in that critical time of their trial when it was necessary for them to contend even to death for the truth, and for the name or doctrine of Christ to pour forth their blood—ought it, I say, have been said to them: Who of you would dare to think himself capable of martyrdom, of which Peter had not yet been capable when the Lord himself was teaching him face to face? So therefore someone may say that to Christian peoples desiring to hear those things about which the Lord at that time was saying, “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” it ought not be said, “If the Apostles could not, much less can you,” since perhaps many can thus hear what Peter could not yet hear at that time, just as many can be crowned with martyrdom, which Peter could not yet do at that time, especially now since the Holy Spirit has been sent who had not yet been sent at that time and about whom he immediately added and said, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will teach you all truth,” so showing, of course, that those men could not bear what he had to say for the very reason that the Holy Spirit had not yet come to them. 2. Look, let us concede that it is so, that many now, since the Holy Spirit has now been sent, can bear those things which the disciples at that time, when he had not yet been sent, could not bear. Do we therefore know the things that 4. Jn 13.36. TRACTATE 96 195 he was unwilling to say...