Sf. m. Leontie (sec. I).Ap Fap 21,26-32; Ev In 16,2-13.

21:27-36 PAUL BROUGHT BEFORE THE TRIBUNE
OVERVIEW: The tribulations prophesied now begin, significantly, at the temple. Modern commentators advert to the threefold accusation against Paul: he is teaching “against the people and the law and this place.” A similar charge is laid against Stephen (Acts 6:11-14) and Jesus (Lk 23:2). Paul is further accused of bringing non-Jews within the temple precincts, whereas, as inscriptions from the balustrade from the former temple indicate, any non-Jew is liable to the death penalty (something the Jews could administer) for profaning the temple. Luke is not exaggerating the violence of the mob, as passages from the Jewish historian Josephus indicate. Now Paul is alone; no one is mentioned with him. Perhaps Luke means to evoke Jesus’ passion. This is his last moment in the temple. The Fathers were spare in their comment. Bede argued that some Jews feared that the Romans would seize the temple and the land if they did not hold fast to their temple observance. Arator noted that the person can be bound, but the faith cannot be bound.
Gospel according to St. John 16,2-13
16:1-4 WARNING OF COMING PERSECUTION
OVERVIEW: Jesus prepares his disciples for tribulation through prophesying about what would happen (THEODORE). They are to endure the hatred they receive, understanding that it is misplaced zeal (BEDE). Christ’s warning foretells the disciples’ ultimate success (AUGUSTINE). Those who thought they were offering service to God in killing Jesus went up to Jerusalem to “purify themselves” for this supposed service (ORIGEN). Jesus as well as the disciples would be cast out of the synagogue by them, but if the Jews had instead acknowledged and received Christ, the churches of Christ would have been no different from the synagogue (AUGUSTINE). Those who partake in Christ’s suffering should realize these persecutions are to test us (CYPRIAN). But those who persecute the ones who are sent also persecute the sender (CYRIL). There is an ultimate reward for their endurance (CHRYSOSTOM). In the same way, we too should remember Jesus’ words when tested (CHRYSOSTOM). He gives these words of comfort to his disciples because he is about to leave them (AUGUSTINE). He had warned them earlier but now is more specific (CHRYSOSTOM).
16:12-15 GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
OVERVIEW: The Holy Spirit is able to overcome the inability of the apostles to bear Christ’s words (ORIGEN), which are divine mysteries still waiting to be revealed (GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS, HILARY). He has put these words off to a future time but has not cut them out altogether, preferring to have them revealed by the Spirit (AUGUSTINE), whose own divinity was to be more fully revealed (GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS). But there is to be no speculation on what remains hidden. The Spirit will instruct the heart through the spiritual light and Word that enlightens the inward eyesight and hearing. This does not mean that we will have full knowledge, since there are still things yet to be revealed in eternity (AUGUSTINE). Before the Spirit was given, the disciples were still slaves to the shadows of the Law, but afterward they were led by his teaching and discipline into all truth (DIDYMUS). Christ here speaks of the Spirit’s procession from both Father and Son, not of the Spirit being taught, since just because the Spirit hears and receives something does not imply additional knowledge is imparted to it (APOLLINARIS). The Spirit serves as the Lord’s vicar in his absence (TERTULLIAN) as the Spirit does not speak on its own but in the voice of the Trinity (DIDYMUS, AMBROSE). The fact that the Spirit speaks what he hears shows that he is not “of himself”; it is the Father only who is not of another (AUGUSTINE). The Spirit’s words are nonetheless the same as his (CHRYSOSTOM).

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The prophets, in turn, spoke what they heard from the Spirit (DIDYMUS), and the faithful now declare the joys of heaven and their relief from anxiety through the gift of the Spirit into their lives (BEDE, CHRYSOSTOM). The Spirit proclaims the glory of the Son by pouring love into believers’ hearts and making them spiritual, enabling them to see the Son whom they had formerly known only in the flesh as equal to the Father (AUGUSTINE). In Christ’s words here he demonstrates a close cohesion between the persons of the Trinity (TERTULLIAN). In that giving and receiving that occurs in the Trinity there is no diminution or inferiority in either the giver or the receiver (DIDYMUS, AUGUSTINE).
Although the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father, this does not mean that the Spirit is a thing or possession that the Father and Son have (DIDYMUS). There is a reciprocal sharing between the Father and the Son (GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS), since receiving from the Son is the same as receiving from the Father (HILARY).
16:12 Many Things You Cannot Yet Bear
THE HOLY SPIRIT OVERCOMES THEIR INABILITY. ORIGEN: The Gospel shows him [the Paraclete] to be of such power and majesty that the apostles could not yet receive those things that the Savior wished to teach them until the advent of the Holy Spirit, who, pouring himself into their souls, might enlighten them regarding the nature and faith of the Trinity. ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 2.7.3.1
DIVINE MYSTERIES. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: The Word himself intimated that there were things that could not now be borne but that should be borne and cleared up hereafter, and that John the forerunner of the Word and great voice of the truth declared even the whole world could not contain.2 ON THEOLOGY, THEOLOGICAL ORATION 2(28).20.3
THE MYSTERY OF THE SPIRIT. HILARY OF POITIERS: According to the apostle, Lord, your Holy Spirit fully understands and penetrates your inmost depths. He also intercedes on my behalf, saying to you things for which I cannot find the words. Nothing can penetrate your being but what is divine already. Nor can the depths of your immense majesty be measured by any power that itself is alien or extrinsic to you. So, whatever enters into you is yours already, nor can anything that has the power to search your very depths ever have been other than your own.…
Your Holy Spirit proceeds through your Son from you. Though I may fail to grasp the full meaning of that statement, I give it nonetheless the firm assent of my mind and heart.
I may indeed show dullness and stupidity in my understanding of these spiritual matters. It is as your only Son has said: “Do not be surprised if I have said to you: ‘You must be born again.’ Just as the wind blows where it pleases and you hear the sound of it without knowing where it is coming from or going to, so will it be with everyone who is born again of water and the Holy Spirit.”4 By my regeneration I have received the faith, but I am still ignorant. And yet I have a firm hold on something that I do not understand. I am born again, capable of rebirth but without conscious perception of it. The Spirit abides by no rules. He speaks when he pleases, what he pleases and where he pleases. We are conscious of his presence when he comes, but the reasons for his approach or his departure remain hidden from us.
John tells us that all things came into being through the Son who is God the Word abiding with you, Father, from the beginning. Paul in his turn enumerates the things created in the Son, both visible and invisible, in heaven and on earth. And while he is specific about all that was created in and through Christ, of the Holy Spirit he considers it enough simply to say that he is your Spirit.
Therefore I concur with those chosen men in thinking that just as it is not expedient for me to venture beyond my mental limitation and predicate anything of your only-begotten Son except that, as those witnesses have assured us, he was born of you, so it is not fitting for me to go beyond the power of human thought and the teaching of those same witnesses by declaring anything regarding the Holy Spirit other than that he is your Spirit. Rather than waste time in a fruitless war of words, I would prefer to spend it in the firm profession of an unhesitating faith.
I beg you therefore, Father, to preserve in me that pure and reverent faith and to grant that to my last breath I may testify to my conviction. May I always hold fast to what I publicly professed in the creed when I was baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. May I worship you, the Father of us all, and your Son together with you, and may I be counted worthy to receive your Holy Spirit who through your only Son proceeds from you. For me there is sufficient evidence for this faith in the words “Father, all that I have is yours, and all that is yours is mine,” spoken by Jesus Christ my Lord who remains, in and from and with you, the God who is blessed for endless ages. Amen. ON THE TRINITY 12.55-57.5
I STILL HAVE MUCH TO SAY TO YOU. AUGUSTINE: So that is how we must take what the Lord says to the disciples, when he says, “Everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”6 If this had already happened, why does he tell them somewhere else, “I have still many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now”? Certainly, everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. But when he says, “You cannot bear them now,” and says, “I still have to say to you,” he is putting things off, not cutting them off altogether. So because of the certainty of his hope, by which he knew without a doubt that he would do this, it was in his reckoning already as good as done. And that is why he could say, “I have made known to you.” SERMON 27.5.7
THE DEITY OF THE SPIRIT TO BE REVEALED. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: Our Savior had some things that, he said, could not be borne at that time by his disciples (though they were filled with many teachings) … and therefore they were hidden. And again he said that all things should be taught by the Spirit when he would come to dwell among us.8 Of these things, one, I take it, was the deity of the Spirit himself, made clear later on when such knowledge should be seasonable and capable of being received after our Savior’s restoration.… For what greater thing than this did either he promise, or the Spirit teach? ON THE HOLY SPIRIT, THEOLOGICAL ORATION 5(31).27.9
NO SPECULATION ON WHAT IS HIDDEN. AUGUSTINE: Now, however, you are perhaps wishing to know what those things were that the apostles were then unable to bear. But which of us would venture to assert his own present capacity for what they lacked in ability to receive? And this is why you are neither to expect me to tell you things that perhaps I could not comprehend myself were they told me by another; nor would you be able to bear them even if I were talented enough to let you hear of things that are above your comprehension. It may be, indeed, that some among you are fit enough already to comprehend things that are still beyond the grasp of others … But what they were that he himself thus omitted to tell, it would be rash to have even the wish to presume to say.… Therefore, one may say that Christian people, even when desiring to hear, ought not to be told what those things are of which the Lord said here.… If the apostles were still unable, much more so are you.… For surely if we had read any such thing in the books confirmed by canonical authority, which were written after our Lord’s ascension, it would not have been enough to have read such a statement, had we not also read in the same place that this was actually one of those things that the Lord was then unwilling to tell his disciples because they were unable to bear them. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 96.1-2.10

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16:13a The Spirit Will Guide You into All Truth
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 you11 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.”12 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,13 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 96.4.14
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,15 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,16 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.”17 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 96.4.18
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,”19 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 33.20
16:13b The Spirit Will Not Speak on His Own
THE LORD’S VICAR. TERTULLIAN: The Lord sent the Paraclete because, since human weakness could not receive everything at once, it might gradually be directed and regulated and brought to perfection of discipline by the Lord’s vicar, the Holy Spirit.… And so, he declared the work of the Spirit. This, then, is the Paraclete’s guiding office: the direction of discipline, the revelation of the Scriptures, the reforming of the intellect and the progress in us toward “better things.” ON THE VEILING OF VIRGINS 1.21
SPEAKING IN THE TRINITY. DIDYMUS THE BLIND: “He will not speak on his own,” that is, not without me or without the Father’s and my will. This is because he is not of himself but is from the Father and me. The fact that he exists and that he speaks he has from the Father and me. “I speak the truth,” that is, I inspire as well as speak by him, since he is the Spirit of truth. To say and to speak in the Trinity must not be understood according to our usage but according to the usage of incorporeal natures, and especially the Trinity, which implants its will in the hearts of all of those believers who are worthy to hear it.… For the Father then to speak and the Son to hear, or vice versa, is a mode of expressing the identity of their nature and their agreement. Again, the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of wisdom, cannot hear from the Son what he does not know, seeing he is the very thing that is produced from the Son, that is, truth proceeding from truth, Comforter from Comforter, God from God. And finally, in case anyone should separate him from the will and company of the Father and the Son, it is written, “Whatever he shall hear, that shall he speak.”ON THE HOLY SPIRIT 34, 36.22
THE SPIRIT DOES NOT SPEAK WITHOUT FATHER AND SON. AMBROSE: The Son of God says concerning the Holy Spirit that “he will not speak from himself,” that is, not without the participation of the Father and myself. For the Spirit is not divided and separated but speaks what he hears.… This means he shall not speak without me. For he speaks the truth, he breathes wisdom. He does not speak without the Father, for he is the Spirit of God. He does not hear from himself, for all things are of God.… Therefore what the Spirit says is the Son’s, what the Son has given is the Father’s. So neither the Son nor the Spirit speaks anything of himself. For the Trinity speaks nothing external to itself. ON THE HOLY SPIRIT 2.12.131, 133, 134.23

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16:13c The Spirit Speaks What He Hears
THE SPIRIT HEARS AND KNOWS FROM THE FATHER. AUGUSTINE: When it says that the Holy Spirit “shall not speak of himself; but whatever he hears, that shall he speak,” we should understand this as saying that he is not of himself. It is the Father only who is not of another. For the Son is born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. But the Father is neither born of, nor proceeds from, another. And yet this should not occasion in human thought any idea of disparity in the supreme Trinity. For the Son is equal to him of whom he is born just as the Holy Spirit is equal to him from whom he proceeds. But what difference there is in such a case between proceeding and being born would be too lengthy to make the subject of inquiry and dissertation. It would also make our definition liable to the charge of rashness, even after we had discussed it. For such a thing is of the utmost difficulty, both for the mind to comprehend in any adequate way-even if it had reached the level of such comprehension-and for the tongue to explain no matter how capable the one that presides as a teacher or he that is present as a hearer are.… Because, then, [the Spirit] is not of himself, but of him from whom he proceeds and of whom he has essence, it is of him [i.e. the Father] that he has knowledge. From the Father, therefore, the Spirit has hearing, which is nothing else than knowledge. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 99.4.24
THE WORDS ARE THE SAME. CHRYSOSTOM: Here most of all Christ shows his dignity, for to foretell things to come is especially the property of God. Now if he also learned this from others, he will have nothing more than the prophets. But here Christ declares a knowledge brought into exact agreement with God so that it is impossible that he should speak anything else. But “shall receive of mine” means “shall receive, either of the grace that came into my flesh or of the knowledge that I also have, not as needing it or as learning it from another, but because it is one and the same.” And why did he speak this way and not otherwise? Because they do not yet understand the word concerning the Spirit, which is why he provides for one thing only, that the Spirit should be believed and received by them and that they should not be offended. For since he had said, “One is your Teacher, even Christ”25-so that they might not think that they disobeyed him in obeying the Spirit-he says, “his teaching and mine are one. Whatever I would have taught is what he also will speak. Do not suppose his words are other than mine, for those words are mine and confirm my opinion. For the will of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one.” He also wants this for us, which is why he says, “that they may be one, as you and I are one.”26 HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 78.3.27
16:13d Declaring the Things to Come
PROPHETS FORESEE BY THE SPIRIT. DIDYMUS THE BLIND: By the Spirit of truth too the knowledge of future events has been granted to holy people. Prophets filled with this Spirit foretold and saw things to come, as if they were present: “And he will show you things to come.” ON THE HOLY SPIRIT 38.28
DECLARING THE JOYS OF HEAVEN. BEDE: It is true that a countless number of the faithful have foreknown and proclaimed coming events as a result of the gift of the Spirit. There are some who, filled with the grace of the Spirit, cure the sick raise, raise the dead, command demons and shine forth with many virtues. They lead an angelic life on earth. Nevertheless they do not know by a revelation of the Spirit the things that are to come about there. We can also take these words of the Lord to mean that when the Spirit comes, he may announce to us “the things that are to come” when he brings back to our memory the joys of the heavenly fatherland, when he makes known to us the feasts of the commonwealth on high through the gift of his breathing on [us]. He announces to us “the things that are to come” when he draws us away from the delights of present things and kindles within us the desire for the kingdom that has been promised us in heaven. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 2.11.29
RELIEF FROM ANXIETY. CHRYSOSTOM: In this way, then, he raised their spirits. For there is nothing for which people so long as the knowledge of the future.… He relieves them from all anxiety by showing them that dangers would not fall on them unawares. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 78.2.30