I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
All Commentaries on John 14:18 Go To John 14
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
Of necessity our Lord Jesus the Christ at this point finishes the discourse touching the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity. For He has already shown before, setting forth both words and facts for assurance unto them that love Him, both that He is in His nature God and is begotten of God the Father, and is of equal might and like mind with Him. For to this end He also at one time said: What I speak, I speak not from Myself; and at another time again: If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do them, though ye believe not Me, believe My works. But besides these things it was in no small measure needful also that men should receive the right and irreproachable doctrine with reference to the Holy Spirit Himself; for so might the minds of His hearers be directed wholly unto Tightness of faith. Therefore I will set forth in few words what Christ teaches us by the passage before us. By saying that "Another" shall be sent unto us from God the Father, He once more, in accordance with His careful and wise plan, renders the expression of the faith secure. For it was only likely that some, not rightly understanding what was said, would think that He meant that the Holy Spirit was not of the essence of God (as in fact some of the witless did suppose), but that He was in His nature something different; for to say "Another," among the more ignorant sort at least, might carry the appearance of some such ground for its use. So with intent to exhibit clearly that He does not wish the kind of distinctness which the Spirit possesses to be understood in any other way, save solely in virtue of His being in a peculiar and proper sense that which His Name implies, for the Spirit is a Spirit and not a Son, even as the Son is a Son and not a Father; after saying that the Paraclete shall be sent forth, He promises that He will come Himself; showing that the Spirit is not something other than what He is Himself, forasmuch as He is a proper Spirit proceeding from the Father, and is conceived of as the Son's, and for this cause is also called His Mind. For example, Paul says, signifying withal this very thing: But we have the Mind of Christ. So then, understanding the matter rightly and without all error, and rejecting as ungainly all perversion in any direction contrary to what is reasonable, and following the words of the inspired Scripture, we say that He is not something different from the Son so far as regards natural identity, but the same; yet with characteristics both distinct and personal. For, so understanding it, I imagine, the inspired Paul also oftentimes mingles Them and introduces Either as identical with the Other; the Paraclete, I mean, and the Son. For thou wilt find him saying: But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His, and again directly after: And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of the sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Hearest thou how he expressly confesses that they have Christ who have received His Spirit? And he says also in another place: For I think that I also have the Spirit of God. And he who spake this unto us, also says: If ye seek a proof of Christ That speaketh in Me; and oftentimes prays that in us also, who have believed, Christ may dwell by faith, howbeit himself receiving the Holy Spirit. And let no one suppose that we say that he annuls the fixity of name or person in respect of each, or that he says that the Son is not a Son but a Spirit, or at least that he does not know the Spirit as Spirit, but says He is a Son; this was not the aim in his mind, and indeed neither do we so believe. For he knows how to count the Persons of the Holy and Coessential Trinity, and teaches that each of the Persons signified subsists in His proper distinctness: notwithstanding he proclaims clearly that the Holy Trinity is fixed in absolute identity. Else how ean it be that the Spirit is and is called God? For do ye not know, he says, that ye are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if, forasmuch as the Spirit dwelleth in us, we are made temples of God, how can the Spirit not be of God, i.e. of His Essence, whereas He makes God to dwell in us through Himself? So then by way of showing that the Spirit is not alien from His own Nature, the Only-begotten, having said that the Paraclete is being sent forth from the Father for the Saints, promises that He will come Himself and fill the place of a father, to the end that they be not found like some orphans destitute of the assistance of one to stand forth for them, and for this cause be found henceforth easy to be taken in the snares of the devil, and exceedingly easily assailed by the offences in the world, for all they be many and come as of necessity, by reason of the ungovernable madness of them that bring them to pass. So then for a shield and an irrefragable security unto our souls, the Father has given the Spirit of Christ, to fulfil in us His grace and presence and power. For it were impossible for a man's soul to effect ought that is good, or to have power over its own passions, or to escape the great subtilty of the snare of the devil, if it were not fortified by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and had not Christ Himself by reason thereof within itself. And indeed the inspired Psalmist? composing for us through the wisdom that was in him his thanksgivings on this behalf, cried aloud unto God: Lord, Thou didst crown us as with a shield of favour----meaning by a shield of favour nothing else than the Holy Spirit Who shields us, and constrains us, by gifts of unexpected strength, to [the fulfilling of] the good pleasure of God. And so He promises that none the less He will be present and will help through the Spirit them that believe on Him, albeit He ascend into the very heavens, after His Revival from the dead, now to appear in the presence of God for us, according to the words of Paul.
