Behold, beloved, you should not expect from us an answer as to why the Lord did not wish to say this to His disciples, for they were not yet able to bear it. Rather, strive to grow in the love poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit given to you, so that, burning in spirit and loving spiritual things, you may become able to receive that spiritual light and that spiritual word which carnal men cannot bear. This does not come through any sign visible to your bodily sight, nor through any sound reaching your bodily hearing, but through inward vision and inward hearing.
For one cannot love what is unknown. But if something known, even in small measure, is also loved, then through love itself it is known more and better. If you grow in that love which the Holy Spirit pours into your hearts, He will teach you all truth. Or, as it says in other copies, He will guide you into all truth, for it is written, "Guide me, O Lord, in Thy way, and I will walk in Thy truth" (Ps 85:11).
Then you will not learn from external teachers what the Lord did not wish to say. You will be taught by God, so that you may be able to contain in your mind all that you learned from instruction and preaching from without, and all that you believed.
Accordingly, when He says, "He will guide you into all truth," or, "He will bring you to the truth," I think this can in no way be fulfilled in this life. For who, living in this corruptible body which weighs down the soul, can know all truth, when even the Apostle says, "Now I know in part" (1 Cor 13:12)?
Yet through the work of the Holy Spirit, whose pledge has been given in our hearts, we shall come to the fullness of knowledge of which the same Apostle says, "Then face to face," and, "Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known" (1 Cor 13:12). He is not speaking of something he knows fully in this life, but of what is yet to be, when he reaches such perfection. This is what the Lord promises us through the love of the Spirit when He says, "He will guide you into all truth," or, "He will bring you to the truth."
When it is said of the Holy Spirit that He will not speak from Himself, but will speak what He hears, we must understand this to mean that He is not from Himself. The Father alone is from no one. The Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. But the Father is neither begotten of anyone nor proceeds from anyone.
Yet none of this should lead a man to think that there is any inequality within the Most High Trinity. The Son is equal to Him from whom He is begotten, and the Holy Spirit is equal to Him from whom He proceeds. But the difference between proceeding and being begotten is too lengthy to investigate and too difficult to define. Such a definition would be false because of haste, even after discussion. It is also too difficult for the mind to grasp properly.
Since, therefore, the Spirit is not from Himself, but from Him from whom He proceeds and from whom He has His essence, it is from Him, that is, from the Father, that He has knowledge. Therefore the Spirit hears from the Father, and this hearing is nothing other than knowledge.
Let us therefore acknowledge that it is so. Now that the Holy Spirit has already been sent, many can bear what the disciples could not bear then, when He had not yet been sent. But do we therefore know what it was that He did not wish to speak about? We would know it if we had read or heard it as spoken by Him. For it is one thing to know whether we or you can bear it, and another thing to know what it is, whether it can be borne or not.
But when He Himself was silent about it, which of us will say, "It is this or that"? Or if someone dares to say it, how will he prove it? Who is so vain and rash that, even if he speaks truly to anyone about anything, he will not support by some divine testimony that this is exactly what the Lord then did not wish to say? Which of us would do such a thing and not be accused of dreadful rashness, with which neither prophetic nor apostolic judgment has any connection?
If we read something about this in books of canonical authority written after the Lord's Ascension, it would still not be enough simply to read it. We would also have to read there that this belongs to what the Lord then did not wish to tell the disciples, because they could not bear it.
For example, suppose I said that what we read in this Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1), and the rest that follows, belongs to what the Lord then did not wish to say because the disciples could not bear it. Suppose I said this was written later and does not report what the Lord Jesus said when He was here in the flesh, but that one of His apostles wrote it when the Spirit revealed it to him. Who would listen to me speaking so rashly? But if we read this there, where we read the Lord's saying also, who would not believe such an apostle?
Yet it also seems absurd to me to say that the disciples then could not bear what is said about invisible and most exalted things in the apostolic Epistles, which were written afterward, while those Epistles do not tell us that the Lord said this when He was visibly present with them. For why could they not then bear what everyone now reads in their Epistles, and what everyone bears even if he does not understand?
There are indeed some things in the Holy Scriptures which unbelieving people do not understand when they read or hear them, and cannot bear what they read or hear. Thus the Gentiles cannot bear that the world was created by Him who was crucified. The Jews cannot bear that He who abolished the Sabbath as they observe it was the Son of God. The Sabellians cannot bear that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are Trinity. The Arians cannot bear that the Son is equal to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. The Photinians cannot bear that Christ is not only a man like us, but also God equal to God the Father. The Manichees cannot bear that Jesus Christ, by whom we must be saved, deigned to be born in the flesh and from the flesh of the most holy Theotokos.
All other people from various perverse sects, in whatever way, cannot bear everything found in the Holy Scriptures and in the catholic faith that opposes their errors. So also we cannot endure their sacrilegious emptiness and mad lies. For what does "not being able to bear" mean, if not "to lose peace of soul"?
Yet whatever was written after the Lord's Ascension according to canonical truth and authority, what believer or even catechumen, before receiving the Holy Spirit in Baptism, does not read and hear it with peace of soul, even if he does not yet understand it as he should? How then could the disciples, when the Holy Spirit had not yet been sent to them, be unable to bear something from what was written after the Lord's Ascension, when catechumens now bear it before receiving the Holy Spirit?
Although things hidden from believers are not disclosed to catechumens, this is not because they cannot bear them, but so that they may desire them with greater ardor, the more reverence is inspired by what is hidden in them.
Therefore, beloved, do not hope to hear from us what the Lord then did not wish to say to His disciples because they could not yet bear it. Rather, be zealous in the love poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to you (cf. Rom 5:5). Then, burning in spirit and preferring spiritual things, you will be able to grasp by inward sight and inward hearing that spiritual light and spiritual voice which carnal men cannot bear. They cannot see any sign with bodily eyes or hear any sound with bodily ears.
For one cannot love what is entirely unknown. But when what is known in some measure is loved, love itself brings it about that it is revealed better and more fully. Therefore, if you make progress in the love which the Holy Spirit pours into hearts, He will guide you into all truth. Or, as it is found in other codices, "He will bring you to all truth." Thus it is written, "Lead me, O Lord, in Thy way, and I will walk in Thy truth" (cf. Ps 85:11).
The result will be that you will not learn from teachers outside what the Lord then did not wish to say. Rather, you will all be taught by God (cf. Jn 6:45). What you learned and believed through readings and sermons from without concerning the nature of God, you will be able to behold by the mind itself. This nature is not bodily, not confined to any place, and not diffused through infinite space like a boundless mass. It is everywhere whole, perfect, infinite, without range of color, without linear outlines, and not expressible by the shape of letters or the sequence of syllables.
See, I have said something that perhaps belongs to this, and nevertheless you have received it. You were not only able to bear it, but also listened to it with pleasure. Yet if that inner Teacher, who still spoke to the disciples outwardly when He said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. " willed to say inwardly to us what I have said about the incorporeal nature of God, in the way He speaks to the Angels who always behold the face of the Father (cf. Mt 18:10), we still could not bear it.
Therefore I do not think that what He said, "He will guide you into all truth," or, "He will bring you to all truth," can be fulfilled in anyone's mind in this life. For who, while living in this corruptible body which weighs down the soul (cf. Wis 9:15), can grasp all truth, if the Apostle said that we know in part (1 Cor 13:9)?
But this will happen through the Holy Spirit, from whom we have now received the pledge (cf. 2 Cor 1:22), that we shall reach that very fullness of which the same Apostle said, "Then we shall see face to face," and, "Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known" (1 Cor 13:12). Therefore he does not know in this life all that the Lord promised us for the future, unto perfection, through the love of the Spirit, saying, "He will guide you into all truth," or, "He will bring you to all truth."
Since this is so, beloved, I exhort you in the love of Christ to beware of impious seducers and of sects of shameful indecency. Of them the Apostle said, "It is shameful even to speak of what they do in secret" (Eph 5:12). When they begin to teach dreadful abominations, accounts of which no human ears can bear, they claim that this is the very thing of which the Lord said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now" (cf. Jn 16:12). They assert that through the Holy Spirit it has come about that such abominations and indecencies can now be borne.
One thing is wicked deeds which human conscience cannot bear, and another is good things which weak human feeling cannot bear. The former arise in unclean bodies, while the latter are far from every body. One is done in the impurity of the flesh, while the other is barely known by a pure mind.
Therefore "be renewed in the spirit of your mind" (Eph 4:23), and understand "what is the will of God, good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom 12:2). Then, being rooted in love, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, the depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:18-19). In this way the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth, pouring love more and more into your hearts.
Thus for Him hearing and seeing are one and the same. One may also speak of smelling in God, as the Apostle says, "Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savor" (Eph 5:2). One may also understand taste as belonging to God, according to which God hates those who cause bitterness and spews out of His mouth those who are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm (cf. Rev 3:16). Christ God also says, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me" (Jn 4:34).
THEOSIS