Galatians 5

Therefore let us say with the apostle Paul: We are not sons of the bondwoman, but of the free woman (2 Tim. 2); and, renewed in Christ, let us hear the words of the Lord speaking to the Jews: "If you abide in my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31, 32). Made free by this freedom, the Apostle too said: For though I am free from all. "He who commits sin is the slave of sin" (1 Cor. 9:19). He, because he knew himself free from all vices and a stranger to all concupiscence and error, rightly rejoiced in the freedom of Christ, saying: We are not sons of the bondwoman, but of the free woman: with which freedom Christ has made us free (John 8:34).

Stand, and do not be held again by the yoke of slavery.

From this too it is shown that he who clings to the yoke of slavery does not stand; and also that he who has been granted freedom by Christ was under the yoke for as long as he had the spirit of slavery in fear and followed the beginnings of the Law. When he says, stand, he urges a firm and stable faith in Christ, so that the churches of Galatia may remain with foot fixed upon the Savior. Of this the righteous man also speaks in another place: "He set my feet upon the rock" (Ps. 39:3), in place of what is, "upon Christ": namely, that they may not be carried about by every wind of doctrine and swept off in different directions (Eph. 4). Hence it is also said to those who stand: "And he who stands, let him see that he does not fall" (1 Cor. 10:12). And in another place: "Stand, act manfully, be strengthened" (ibid. 16:13), so that they may stand with him whom Stephen, persevering in martyrdom, saw standing at the right hand of the Father (Acts 7), and who spoke to Moses: "But you, stand with me" (Exod. 34:2). Now by the yoke of slavery he means the Law, hard, difficult, laborious, which day and night wears out its worshippers with heavy toil. As Peter too says in the Acts of the Apostles: "Why do you try", he says, "to put a heavy yoke upon the neck of the brothers, which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear" (Acts 15:10)? And when he added, not again, it is not that the Galatians had kept the Law before; but that the yoke of idolatry too is heavy, the yoke by which the people of the Egyptians was oppressed and sank like lead in the Red Sea (Exod. 15). In this sense he had also said above: "How are you turning again to the weak and needy elements, which you wish to serve once more, observing days, and months, and times, and years?" For the Galatians, who at the preaching of the apostle Paul had abandoned idols and at once risen to the grace of the Gospel, were not returning to the slavery of the Jewish Law, which they had never known before; but in wishing to observe times, to be circumcised in the flesh and to offer bodily sacrifices, they were in a manner returning to the same rites which they had served before in idolatry. For they say that the priests of Egypt, and the Ishmaelites, and the Midianites have no foreskin. And that the nations observe days, months and years, would that we did not know, so that there might never be a festivity shared by us with them.

Civilisation in the best sense merely means the full authority of the human spirit over all externals. Barbarism means the worship of those externals in their crude and unconquered state. ... The true savage is a slave, and is always talking about what he must do; the true civilised man is a free man and is always talking about what he may do. Hence all the Zola heredity and Ibsen heredity that has been written in our time affects me as not merely evil, but as essentially ignorant and retrogressive. This sort of science is almost the only thing that can with strict propriety be called reactionary. Scientific determinism is simply the primal twilight of all mankind; and some men seem to be returning to it.

They all wore tall shiny hats as if they could not lose an instant even to hang them on a peg, and they all had one eye a little off, hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In short, they were the slaves of the modern bondage, you could hear their fetters clanking. Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest chain ever tied to a man—it is called a watch-chain.

He obviously means that freedom by which our mother [the church] is free, and she obviously is free by faith. For this is true freedom, to keep faith in God and to believe all God's promises. Therefore by faith Christ has brought us back to freedom and made us free by the freedom of faith.

He had to add an exhortation that they should persevere in the same way that they had first begun to receive from him the gospel and not return to the slavery under the law. He says "stand" which is not possible for one who is under a heavy yoke. For he bows his neck submissively and therefore cannot stand.

Have ye wrought your own deliverance, that ye run back again to the dominion ye were under before? It is Another who hath redeemed you, it is Another who hath paid the ransom for you. Observe in how many ways he leads them away from the error of Judaism; by showing, first, that it was the extreme of folly for those, who had become free instead of slaves, to desire to become slaves instead of free; secondly, that they would be convicted of neglect and ingratitude to their Benefactor, in despising Him who had delivered, and loving him who had enslaved them; thirdly, that it was impossible. For Another having once for all redeemed all of us from it, the Law ceases to have any sway. By the word, "stand fast," he indicates their vacillation.

By the word "yoke" he signifies to them the burdensomeness of such a course, and by the word "again" he points out their utter senselessness. Had ye never experienced this burden, ye would not have deserved so severe a censure, but for you who by trial have learnt how irksome this yoke is, again to subject yourself to it, is justly unpardonable.

"in the freedom by which Christ has made us free." The law enslaved; Christ has freed us from the curse of the law. Therefore, he says, one must stand in the freedom given by Christ. But the "Stand firm" [Στήκετε] indicates being unshaken.

"do not again submit yourselves to a yoke of slavery." The word again indicates their insensitivity. And by saying yoke, it shows the heavy burden of the law's slavery.

For the Jews say, that from the beginning God sanctified the seventh day, by resting on it from all His works which He made; and that thence it was, likewise, that Moses said to the People: "Remember the day of the sabbaths, to sanctify it: every servile work ye shall not do therein, except what pertaineth unto life." Whence we (Christians) understand that we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all "servile work" always, and not only every seventh day, but through all time.

Both dispensations, therefore, emanate from that same God by whom, as we have found, they were both sketched out beforehand. When he speaks of "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," does not the very phrase indicate that He is the Liberator who was once the Master? For Galba himself never liberated slaves which were not his own, even when about to restore free men to their liberty.

It was not meet that those who had received liberty should be "entangled again with the yoke of bondage" -that is, of the law; now that the Psalm had its prophecy accomplished: "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us, since the rulers have gathered themselves together against the Lord and against His Christ.

"Liberty in Christ" has done no injury to innocence.

Xerophagies, however, (they consider) the novel name of a studied duty, and very much akin to heathenish superstition, like the abstemious rigours which purify an Apis, an Isis, and a Magna Mater, by a restriction laid upon certain kinds of food; whereas faith, free in Christ, owes no abstinence from particular meats to the Jewish Law even, admitted as it has been by the apostle once for all to the whole range of the meat-market -(the apostle, I say), that detester of such as, in like manner as they prohibit marrying, so bid us abstain from meats created by God.

You are not the ones, he says, who freed yourselves, but the One Who gave a ransom for you. How then after this do you subject yourselves to the lordship of the law against the intention of Christ Who freed you? By saying "stand firm," he made it known that they were wavering.

By the word 'yoke' he points to the heaviness of slavery under the law. And by the expression 'again' he exposes their insensibility, since they, despite knowing the heaviness of slavery from experience, again voluntarily pass into it.

Above, the Apostle showed that justice is not through the Law; here he leads them back from error to a state of rectitude. First, with respect to divine matters. Secondly, with respect to human affairs (6:1). As to the first, he does two things: First, he admonishes them; Secondly, he gives the reason underlying his admonition (v. 2). In the admonition itself he includes two things: one is an inducement to good: the other is a caution against evil. He induces to good when he says, Stand fast. As if to say: Since you have been set free from the bondage of the Law through Christ, stand fast and, with your faith firm and feet planted, persevere in freedom. And so when he says, "Stand fast," he exhorts them to rectitude. For he that stands is erect: "He that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed, lest he fall" (1 Cor 10:12). Likewise he exhorts them to be firm: "Therefore, be ye steadfast and unmoveable" (1 Cor 15:58); "Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth" (Eph 6:14).

But he cautions and draws them from evil, when he adds: "and be not held again under the yoke of bondage", i.e., do not subject yourself to the Law which engenders unto bondage. Of this yoke, it is written in Acts (15:10): "This is a yoke which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear," a yoke from which we have been loosed by Christ alone: "For the yoke of their burden, and the rod of their shoulder, and the sceptre of their oppressor, thou hast overcome" (Is 9:4). The reason for adding, again, is not that they had been under the Law before, but that, as Jerome says, to observe the legal ceremonies after the Gospel is so great a sin as to border on idolatry. Hence, because they had been idolaters, if they were to submit themselves to the yoke of circumcision and the other legal observances, they would be, as it were, returning to the very things wherein they had formerly practiced idolatry.

However, according to Augustine in Epistle 19, three periods of time are distinguished with respect to the observance of the legal ceremonies: namely, the time before the passion, the time before the spreading of grace and the time after the spreading of grace. To observe the legal ceremonies after grace had been preached is a mortal sin for the Jews. But during the interim, i.e., before the preaching of grace, they could be observed without sin even by those who had been converted from Judaism, provided they set no hope on them. However, those converted from paganism could not observe them without sin. Therefore, because the Galatians had not come from Judaism but wanted, nevertheless, to observe the legal ceremonies and put their hope in them, they were in effect returning to the yoke of bondage. For in their case, observances of this sort were akin to idolatry, inasmuch as they entertained a false notion touching Christ, believing that salvation cannot be obtained by Him without the observances of the Law.

Now Paul says that Christ will profit them nothing if they are circumcised, that is, in the physical way that his opponents wanted, namely, to put their hope of salvation in circumcising their flesh. For Paul himself circumcised Timothy as a young man when he was already a Christian. This he did [to avoid] scandalizing his own people, not at all in dissimulation but from that indifference which made him say "circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing." For circumcision is no impediment to the one who does not believe that his salvation lies in it.

It should be noted that the Church was placed in paradise, like the first man, "to till it," in such a way that no one would say "that anything he possessed" was "his own." For it began in a state of great perfection that is observed today in the religious life, for the love of Christ was still recent, and in those days "a large number also of the priests accepted the faith." This Church, meaning the one that began with the Jews, because they were converted at one time by the three thousand, and at another, by the five thousand, possessed the "tree of life," that is, faith, because "My just one lives by faith." It also had the "tree of knowledge," that is, the Law, which remained with them for seeing and reading, and not for eating. Much more: for "the day you eat of it, you must die." And so you may see the tree of knowledge, but not eat of it, or else you would destroy what Christ had done; and death would necessarily come in, for "the letter kills." Hence Paul says: "I, Paul, tell you that if you be circumcised, Christ will be of no advantage to you."

Behold, I Paul say to you that if you be circumcised, Christ profits you nothing.

In the Gospel the Savior speaks to the disciples: "He who hears you hears me; he who receives you receives me" (Luke 10:16). And the Apostle testifies, saying: "And I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me" (above, 2:20); and elsewhere: "Or do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ" (2 Cor. 13:3)? From this it is clearly proved that what he now says, Behold, I Paul say to you, is to be received not as the words of Paul only, but of the Lord. For when in the first Epistle to the Corinthians he had first set down: "But to those who are married I give charge, not I, but the Lord" (1 Cor. 7:10); and had at once added: "but to the rest I command" (ibid., 12), then, lest his authority be thought cheap, "I think," he says, "that I too have the spirit of God": so that, with the spirit and Christ speaking in him, he who, imitating the prophets, might say, "Thus says the Lord almighty", would not be held in contempt. But what has been said, Behold, I Paul say to you that if you be circumcised, Christ profits you nothing, will become greater if it is joined with the beginning, where he says: "Paul an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ", and the rest: so that the hearers may be moved not so much by the authority of the one sent as by that of the one sending. Someone may say: Contrary to this passage is what is written to the Romans: "Circumcision indeed profits, if you keep the Law" (Rom. 2:25); and below: "What then has the Jew more, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way. First indeed, because the oracles of God were entrusted to them" (Rom. 3:1-2). For if Christ profits nothing to those who have been circumcised, how does circumcision profit those who keep the Law? This indeed will be resolved by this answer, that we say that the Epistle written to the Romans was dictated to those who had believed from among the Jews and the Gentiles, and that Paul acted so that neither people would be offended: namely, so that each people might possess its own privilege, so that neither would the Gentiles be circumcised, nor would the circumcised draw forward a foreskin. But writing to the Galatians he used another argument. For they were not of the circumcision, but of the Gentiles who had believed. Nor could circumcision profit those who, after the grace of the Gospel, were turning back again to the elements of the Law. And in the Acts of the Apostles the history relates (Acts 15) that, when certain men of the circumcision had risen up and asserted that those who had believed from among the Gentiles ought to be circumcised and to keep the law of Moses, the elders who were at Jerusalem, and the apostles gathered together with them, decreed by letter that the yoke of the Law should not be laid upon them, and that they should observe nothing further, except only to keep themselves from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from fornication, or, as is written in some copies, "and from things strangled". And lest any doubt remain that circumcision profits nothing, but that it was on account of those who had believed from among the Jews that he tempered his judgment on circumcision to the Romans, coming down little by little to the later parts of the same Epistle he showed that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, saying: "Circumcision therefore is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God" (1 Cor. 7:19). For circumcision is nothing to such a degree that it profited nothing even the house of Israel, which boasted of circumcision, as the prophet records: "All the nations are uncircumcised in flesh, but the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart" (Ezek. 44:9); and the uncircumcised Melchizedek blessed the circumcised Abraham. For what he says, If you be circumcised (Gen. 14), is as if he had meant to say: if you be circumcised in the flesh. This in another place he calls not circumcision but mutilation, saying: "See the mutilation. For we are the circumcision, who serve by the spirit of God, and glory in Christ, and do not trust in the flesh" (Phil. 3:2-3). He does not trust in the flesh who expects every benefit from Christ, and does not sow in the flesh, so as to reap corruption from the flesh, but in the spirit, from which eternal life is brought forth. The sentence must be examined more closely: If you be circumcised, Christ profits you nothing. That is, not only that, if they are circumcised, circumcision itself does not profit them; but that, even if they seem to have the other virtues in Christ apart from circumcision, all of them perish once they have been circumcised after faith in Christ. What then? Did circumcision profit Timothy nothing? Much in every way. For he was circumcised not so much in order that he might think he could gain some advantage from circumcision itself, as that he might win the rest (1 Cor. 9). He became a Jew to the Jews, so that by his circumcision he might bring the Jews over to the faith of Christ. For circumcision does not profit precisely when it is thought to bring some benefit of itself.

Lo, what a threat! reasonably then did he anathematize even angels. How then shall Christ profit them nothing? for he has not supported this by argument, but only declared it, the credence due to his authority, compensating, as it were, for all subsequent proof. Wherefore he sets out by saying, "Behold, I Paul say unto you," which is the expression of one who has confidence in what he asserts. We will subjoin what we can ourselves as to how Christ shall profit nothing them who are circumcised.

He that is circumcised is circumcised for fear of the Law, and he who fears the Law, distrusts the power of grace, and he who distrusts can receive no benefit from that which is distrusted. Or again thus, he that is circumcised makes the Law of force; but thus considering it to be of force and yet transgressing it in the greater part while keeping it in the lesser, he puts himself again under the curse. But how can he be saved who submits himself to the curse, and repels the liberty which is of Faith? If one may say what seems a paradox, such an one believes neither Christ nor the Law, but stands between them, desiring to benefit both by one and the other, whereas he will reap fruit from neither. Having said that Christ shall profit them nothing, he lays down the proof of it shortly and sententiously.

"Behold, I Paul." He used the authority of the name instead of any proof.

"Christ will profit you nothing." Why? Because the one who is circumcised, as is clear, despises the grace of Christ and believes that he will be justified by the law. Therefore he who does not trust in Christ would not even take advantage himself.

Writing also to the Galatians, he inveighs against such men as observed and defend circumcision and the (Mosaic) law. Thus runs Hebion's heresy.

Even if, for certain, the apostle had granted pardon of fornication to that Corinthian, it would be another instance of his once for all contravening his own practice to meet the requirement of the time. He circumcised Timotheus alone, and yet did away with circumcision.

Instead of any proof, the apostle appeals to his own authority. Christ no longer benefits the one who is circumcised, because such a person rejects His grace and turns to the law as a benefactor, and does not believe in Christ at all, as if He had not bestowed any benefit upon him. And not believing, he cannot receive benefit from the One in Whom he does not believe.

Then when he says, "Behold, I Paul tell you", he explains these two parts of his admonition: First, the second part; Secondly, the first part (v. 5). As to the first, he does two things: First, he shows what the yoke of bondage is that they ought not submit to; Secondly, he proves it (v. 4). Regarding the first, he does two things: First, he shows that this yoke is a source of great harm; Secondly, that it is terribly burdensome (v. 3).

The yoke of the Law is harmful because it nullifies the effect of the Lord's passion. Hence he says, "be not held again under the yoke of bondage," because "behold, I Paul", who am speaking with the voice of authority, "tell you", and well, "that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing", i.e., faith in Christ.

But against this is something recorded in Acts (16:3), namely, that Paul circumcised Timothy. Hence in effect he brought it about that Christ profited him nothing; furthermore, he was deceiving him. I answer that, according to Jerome, Paul did not circumcise Timothy as though intending to observe the Law, but he feigned circumcision in working circumcision on him. For, according to him, the apostles feigned observing the works of the Law to avoid scandalizing the believers from Judaism. In other words, they performed the actions of the Law without the intention of observing them, and so they departed not from the faith. Hence he did not deceive Timothy.

However, according to Augustine, the answer is that the apostles did in very truth observe the works of the Law and had the intention of observing them; because, according to the teaching of the apostles, it was lawful at that time, i.e., before grace had become widespread, for converts from Judaism to observe them. Therefore, because Timothy was born of a Jewish mother, the Apostle circumcised him with the intention of observing the Law. But because the Galatians were putting their hope in the legal observances after the spreading of grace, as though without them grace was not sufficient to save them, and they observed them in that frame of mind, for that reason the Apostle declared to them that "if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing". For it followed from this that they did not correctly estimate Christ, to signify Whom circumcision was given: "That it may be a sign of the covenant between me and you" (Gen 17:11). Therefore, those who submitted to circumcision believed that the sign was still in vogue and that the one signified had not yet come. Thus they were fallen away from Christ. In this way, then, it is plain that the yoke of the Law is harmful.

There are some who serve the law to a certain extent without being circumcised; for many Romans in Judea served the law without circumcision.… Yet there is no one who is circumcised without being required to serve the whole law. He is a debtor, since the law was given to the circumcised. His meaning here was that they had become so negligent as to deserve to bear all the burdens of the law.

When he says "bound," he is no longer speaking of the law as something unworthy but of a heavy burden which can be made lighter. There is one Lord, who is able to make it either heavy or light according to the choice of those who have not refused to accept salvation through his grace through his appearance in the flesh.

And certain other (heretics), contentious by nature, (and) wholly uniformed as regards knowledge, as well as in their manner more (than usually) quarrelsome, combine (in maintaining) that Easter should be kept on the fourteenth day of the first month, according to the commandment of the law, on whatever day (of the week) it should occur. (But in this) they only regard what has been written in the law, that he will be accursed who does not so keep (the commandment) as it is enjoined. They do not, however, attend to this (fact), that the legal enactment was made for Jews, who in times to come should kill the real Passover. And this (paschal sacrifice, in its efficacy,) has spread unto the Gentiles, and is discerned by faith, and not now observed in letter (merely). They attend to this one commandment, and do not look unto what has been spoken by the apostle: "For I testify to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to keep the whole law." In other respects, however, these consent to all the traditions delivered to the Church by the Apostles.

And I solemnly testify to every man who circumcises himself, that he is a debtor to do the whole Law.

God, who commanded circumcision first to Abraham and then through Moses in the Law, appointed not circumcision alone but many other things as well to be observed: feast days to be attended at Jerusalem; whole burnt offerings of victims, always morning and evening; the sacrifice of the lamb in one place only; rest for the land in its seventh season; the fiftieth year of release; and the rest, which it is easy for every reader to gather for himself from the Scriptures. We shall therefore hem in Ebion and his followers, who think that those who believe in Christ after the Gospel must be circumcised, so that either they practice circumcision together with the other things that are commanded in the Law, or else, if it is impossible for all of them to be done, circumcision too should cease, since it has been passed over along with the rest as useless. But if they answer that they are bound to do only what is possible (for God, they say, does not demand of us the things we cannot fulfill, but those we can), we shall tell them that it does not belong to the same God both to wish the Law to be kept and to abandon those who keep the Law. Or how could he make them guilty for leaving the Law undone, when, even if they wish it, they cannot fulfill it all? We, for our part, follow the spiritual law, which says: "You shall not bridle the mouth of the ox that treads out the grain" (Deut. 25:4), and with the Apostle we understand: "Does God care about oxen" (1 Tim. 5:18; 1 Cor. 9:9)? Surely he says it for our sake; and we keep delightful sabbaths (Isa. 58:13), not so that our ox and ass and our worthless cattle may rejoice on the sabbath, but those men and beasts of whom it is written: "Men and beasts you will save, O Lord" (Ps. 35:7). By men we mean all who are rational and spiritual; by beasts, those who are of slower wit and are taught by the spiritual to keep the sabbaths of the Lord. Nor is what was said above, "If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing", and what follows, "I testify to every man who circumcises himself, that he is a debtor to do the whole Law", contrary to what we are now bringing forward. For it is not the hearers of the Law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. For the doer of the Law is the one who can say: "We are not the circumcision"; and, "A Jew in secret"; and, "We know that the Law is spiritual". But whoever follows the mutilation and the letter that kills is not a doer of the Law, but truly an enemy of the law, above all after the coming of the Savior, who takes away the veil from the heart of those who turn to him, so that all of us, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, may be transfigured from the oldness of the letter into the newness of the spirit.

That you may not suppose that this is spoken from ill-will, I say not to you alone, he says, but to every one who receiveth circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole Law. The parts of the Law are linked one to the other. As he who from being free has enrolled himself as a slave, no longer does what he pleases, but is bound by all the laws of slavery, so in the case of the Law, if you take upon you a small portion of it, and submit to the yoke, you draw down upon yourself its whole domination. And so it is in a worldly inheritance: he who touches no part of it, is free from all matters which are consequent on the heirship to the deceased, but if he takes a small portion, though not the whole, yet by that part he has rendered himself liable for every thing. And this occurs in the Law, not only in the way I have mentioned, but in another also, for Legal observances are linked together. For example; Circumcision has sacrifice connected with it, and the observance of days; sacrifice again has the observance both of day and of place; place has the details of endless purifications; purifications involve a perfect swarm of manifold observances. For it is unlawful for the unclean to sacrifice, to enter the holy shrines, to do any other such act. Thus the Law introduces many things even by the one commandment. If then thou art circumcised, but not on the eighth day, or on the eighth day, but no sacrifice is offered, or a sacrifice is offered, but not in the prescribed place, or in the prescribed place, but not the accustomed objects, or if the accustomed objects, but thou be unclean, or if clean yet not purified by proper rules, every thing is frustrated. Wherefore he says, "that he is a debtor to the whole Law." Fulfil not a part, but the whole, if the Law is of force; but if it be not of force, not even a part.

"that he is a debtor to do the whole law." Against the statement, he says, that no longer does one receive anything from Christ, which is more grievous than ten thousand Gehennas. And such persons lay upon themselves a useless burden. For he who keeps the law in one point will be compelled to keep it in all things, since all will fail. What, then, is weightier than the observances of the law?

Lest anyone think that this is said out of enmity, he adds: I am declaring this not only to you, but to everyone who is circumcised, that you are laying a great burden upon yourselves. The ordinances of the law are closely connected with one another, and if you acknowledge even a small portion of the law and subject yourself to this yoke, then you subject yourself to the dominion of the entire law. For circumcision requires a sacrifice and is appointed to a certain day, and the sacrifice requires a place, a manner of offering, and purifications. For an unclean person cannot offer sacrifices. Purifications in turn require the fulfillment of other legal prescriptions. Do you see how the one who has rejected Christ not only receives no benefit from Him, but also subjects himself to countless burdens? If the law is master, then fulfill everything, but if not, then do not accept even a portion of it.

Furthermore, it is a heavy burden, because it obliges to the impossible. And this is what he states: "I testify again to every man circumcising himself, that he is a debtor to do the whole law". As if to say: I say that "if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing". But in addition to this, "I testify to every man", both Jew and Gentile, circumcising himself, "that he is a debtor to do the whole law". For one who professes a religion makes himself a debtor to all that pertains to the observances of that religion. And, as Augustine says: "There has never been a religion without some visible sign to which those who live in that religion are obligated; as in the Christian religion the visible sign is Baptism, which all Christians are held to undergo. Furthermore, they are obligated to everything that pertains to the Christian religion." Now the sign of the Mosaic Law was circumcision. Therefore, whoever circumcised himself was put under obligation to observe and fulfill all the matters of the Law. And that is what he says: "he is a debtor to do the whole law": "Whosoever offends in one point, is become guilty of all" (Jam 2:10). No one, however, was able to keep the Law, according to Acts (15:10): "This is a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear."

But suppose someone is circumcised; then according to the aforesaid he is obligated to observe all the matters of the Law. But this is to sin mortally. Therefore, he is obligated to sin mortally and thus he sins in either case.

I answer that on the assumption that the same conviction prevails, he is obliged to observe the matters of the Law: for example, if one is convinced that he would sin mortally unless he were circumcised, then, having become circumcised, if the same conviction remains, he would sin mortally were he not to observe the matters of the Law. The reason for this is that the conviction that something must be done is nothing else but a judgment that it would be against God's will not to do it. If this is the case, I say that unless he did what his convictions dictate, he would sin mortally, not by reason of the work done but by reason of his conscience. Likewise, if he does it, he sins, because ignorance of this kind does not excuse him, since he is ignorant of a precept. Nevertheless, he is not absolutely perplexed, but only in a qualified sense, because it is within his power to correct his erroneous conscience. And this is the way the Apostle is here testifying to everyone who circumcises himself that he is obliged to observe the ceremonies of the Law.

Because it is they, not Christ, who are injured, he adds: "you have fallen from grace." For when the effect of Christ's grace is that those who were debtors to the works of the law were freed from this debt, these people, ungrateful to such great grace, prefer to be debtors to the whole law. Now this had not yet happened, but, because the will had begun to be moved, he therefore speaks frequently as though it had already happened.

He is refuting those who believed that they were justified in the law, not those who observed its legitimate provisions in honor of him by whom they were commanded, understanding both that they were commanded as a foreshadowing of the truth and that they belonged to a particular time.

All the virtue of the one who believes in Christ is by the grace of God. Grace is not from merits but from readiness to believe God. Therefore [Paul writes] "You have already fallen from grace if you place your justification in the law, because (for example) you serve works, because you observe the sabbath or on account of your circumcision. If you believe that you are justified by this, "you have fallen from grace and been made void of Christ." You no longer have your faith from Christ nor hope for grace for yourselves from his passion and resurrection, if you believe that justification comes from the law."

You have been made void from Christ: you who are justified in the Law have fallen away from grace.

Just as no one can serve two masters (Matt. 6), so it is difficult to fulfil at one and the same time both the shadow and the truth of the Law. The shadow is in the old Law, until the day breathes and the shadows are removed; the truth is in the Gospel of Christ: "For grace and truth were made through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17). Therefore he who thinks that he is justified in some observance of the Law loses the grace of Christ, and lets go the Gospel which he had held; and when he has lost grace, he is deprived of faith in Christ, and ceases in His work. For κατηργήθητε ἀπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ is rather to be understood, not as it has been badly translated in the Latin, You have been made void from Christ (Evacuati estis a Christo), but as "you have ceased in the work of Christ" (in Christi opere cessastis), so that what he had commanded above specifically about circumcision, saying, "if you are circumcised, Christ profits you nothing", he now applies generally to the whole Law: that those make no progress in the work of Christ who have believed that they are to be justified in any observance whatever of the Law.

Having established his point, he at length declares their danger of the severest punishment. When a man recurs to the Law, which cannot save him, and falls from grace, what remains but an inexorable retribution, the Law being powerless, and grace rejecting him?

Thus having aggravated their alarm, and disquieted their mind, and shown them all the shipwreck they were about to suffer, he opens to them the haven of grace which was near at hand. This is ever his wont, and he shows that in this quarter salvation is easy and secure.

"You are cut off from Christ." You have been severed, you have fallen away from him; all things pertaining to Christ and his grace are now useless to you.

"you who would be justified by the law." Instead of saying, "you are eager to be justified," he said something like this. You who are zealous to be justified by the law have fallen away from grace, and from the law you will not be justified.

That is, you have no communion with Christ: you who think to obtain justification in the law have fallen from grace, which truly justifies. It is a great misfortune when you will not receive what the law promises, and you lose what grace gives.

Then when he says, "You are made void of Christ," he proves what he said, namely, that they must not embrace the observances of the Law, because it involves a double injury: first, the loss of Christ; secondly, the loss of grace. Moreover, the first is the cause of the second, because "you who are justified in the law are fallen from grace."

He says therefore, "You are made void of Christ." As if to say: Verily Christ will profit you nothing, because you are made void of Christ, i.e., of living in Christ. The second injury is the loss of grace. Hence he says: "you are fallen from grace," i.e., you who were full of the grace of Christ, "because of his fulness we have all received" (Jn 1:16); "The heart of a fool is like a broken vessel and no wisdom at all shall it hold" (Sir 22:17). "You", I say, "who are justified in the law," i.e., who believe that you are justified, are fallen—"Be mindful, therefore, from whence thou art fallen and do penance" (Rev 2:5)—"from grace", namely, from possessing future happiness or even from the grace you once had.

For we through the spirit, by faith, wait for the hope of righteousness.

He put "spirit" to distinguish it from the letter. But by the hope of righteousness Christ is to be understood, because He Himself is truth, patience, hope, righteousness and all the virtues; whose second coming we await, since He is to judge all things, and will then be present no longer in patience but in righteousness, to render to each one according to his works. Awaiting the presence of this God, the apostle, and those who are like him, say: "Thy kingdom come" (Matt. 6:10), so that when the Son has delivered the kingdom to God and the Father, and He Himself also has been subjected in all who are subjected, then the head may be subjected in the body, and God may be all in all (1 Cor. 15). For He who now is in part, through individuals, will then begin to be wholly through all.

We need none of those legal observances, he says; faith suffices to obtain for us the Spirit, and by Him righteousness, and many and great benefits.

"we through the Spirit." For we the faithful, he says, do not expect to be saved by the law, but through the visitation of the Holy Spirit.

"by faith wait for the hope of righteousness," expecting to be saved by a share of grace. Well placed is the phrase "by faith." For our faith must be considered, and therefore one receives justification through the Spirit by faith.

Concerning this expectation and hope Paul writes to the Galatians: "For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." He says "we wait for it," not we are in possession of it.

We, he says, believers, hope to receive justification not in the law, but in the Holy Spirit. In what way? By faith. Therefore, one must submit to the guidance of faith, then by the descent of the Holy Spirit receive the forgiveness of sins and be deemed worthy of justification in baptism.

Having explained the second point, namely, that they must not submit to the yoke of serving the Law, the Apostle here returns to the first and shows that they must stand fast. First, he gives an example of standing; Secondly, he removes an obstacle to standing (v. 7); Thirdly, he tells them its mode (v. 13). As to the first, he does two things: First, he proposes an example of standing; Secondly, he assigns its cause (v. 6).

He says therefore: Those who want to be justified in the Law, Christ profits them nothing, because they are fallen from grace. But we, namely, the apostles, stand through hope, because "we wait for the hope of justice", i.e., for justice and hope, namely, eternal happiness: "He hath regenerated us unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Pet. 1:3). Or, "the hope of justice," i.e., Christ, by Whom we have a hope for justice, because we are justified by Him: "We look for the savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ" (Phil 3:20); "Who of God is made unto us wisdom and justice and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor 1:30). Or, "the hope of justice", i.e., the hope which is concerned with justice; that we be justified not by the Law but by faith: "We account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the law" (Rom 3:28). Or, "the hope of justice," i.e., the things we hope for, and unto which justice tends, namely, eternal life: "As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me in that day" (2 Tim 4:8).

And this "by faith," "because the justice of God is by faith of Jesus Christ," as is said in Romans (3:22). Which faith is not of man but of the Holy Spirit Who inspires it. "You have received the spirit of adoption of Sons, whereby we cry: Abba, (Father)" (Rom 8:15). Therefore, as faith is from the Spirit, so from faith is hope, and from hope the justice through which we reach eternal life.

This is the faith that separates the righteous from the unclean demons, for they too, as the apostle James says, "believe and tremble," but their actions are not good. Therefore they do not have that faith by which "the righteous live."

If anyone, holding the faith that works through love, repents of his former sin in such as a way that he from then on turns his back on it, he will be guiltless of the blasphemy that is spoken against the Holy Spirit [namely, impenitence], which is not forgiven to the speaker either in this age or in the one to come.

Everywhere he says that faith in the gospel of Christ accords no value to rank or sex or works done with regard to the body or from the body or for the sake of the body, such as circumcision, works and other things of this kind. None of these, he says, has saving value in Christ. Circumcision is therefore vain, nor by uncircumcision do we gain value in Christ. Because we have conceived faith in him and because we have believed his promises and because through his resurrection we too rise and have suffered all things with him and rise to life with him but also through him, our faith is sure. Through this faith comes works fitting to salvation. This comes about through the love that we have for Christ and God and thus toward every human being. For it is these two relationships above all that set life straight and fulfill the whole sense of the law. They contain all the commands in the Decalogue—if it follows necessarily that he who keeps faith will also keep love, since these two fulfill all the precepts of the law of Christ.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which works through love.

For those who wish to live in Christ Jesus, virtues are to be sought, vices to be shunned; but the intermediate things, which lie between virtues and vices, are neither to be shunned nor to be sought, such as circumcision and uncircumcision and other things like them. Circumcision indeed profits, if you keep the Law. It was useful for this reason to those who lived under the Law: not because they were circumcised, but because the oracles of God were entrusted to them, and turning these into works they were not strangers to salvation. Nor should it trouble us that it was Zipporah who, taking a stone, circumcised her son and kept the strangling angel away from her husband (Exod. 4), or however else it is reported to be written in the Hebrew; for he has now testified not so much that circumcision profits nothing at all, as that it does not avail in Christ Jesus, since indeed from the time when the Gospel shone out over the whole world, the injury of circumcision is superfluous. It availed then, as did the other things of the Law as well, when carnal blessings too were promised to those who kept the Law: namely, that if they fulfilled it, they would be blessed in the city, blessed in the field, would have full barns, and many other things that are contained in the promises (Deut. 28). We, however, wish to avail and be strengthened in Christ Jesus, that is, in the true circumcision, and not in the Jewish mutilation. "For he is not a Jew who is one openly, nor is circumcision that which is manifest in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one in secret, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter" (Rom. 2:28, 29). Circumcision of the flesh, therefore, profits nothing in Christ, but circumcision of the heart and of the ears does, which takes away that reproach of the Jews: "Behold, your ears are uncircumcised, and you cannot hear" (Exod. 6:12). Circumcision of the lips profits, which Moses, in his humility, pleaded that he did not yet have, as is written in the Hebrew: "But I am one having uncircumcision in my lips". Circumcision also affords much benefit in matters of sex, when unchastity is cut away through chastity. Therefore in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails nor bodily uncircumcision, because they are placed in the middle, that is, between vices and virtues; but faith, which works through love, so that both the faith which was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness may be approved, and every work of faith may be set in love, since the whole Law and the Prophets hang on love. For in these two commandments, "You shall love your God, and you shall love your neighbor", the Savior declared that the Law and the Prophets consist. And Paul in another place: "For you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Rom. 13:9). If, then, every commandment is summed up in what was said, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself", and faith working through love avails very much, it is manifest that the working of faith through love contains the fullness of all the commandments. But just as, according to the apostle James, faith without works is dead (Jas. 2:17, 20), so without faith, even though works be good, they are reckoned dead. Those, therefore, who do not believe in Christ and are of upright morals, what more do they have than works of virtue? Let that harlot from the Gospel supply an example of the faith which works through love: when, in the house of the Pharisee, she had washed with her tears the feet of the Lord as he reclined at table, wiped them with her hair, and anointed them with ointment, and the Lord had put to the murmuring Pharisee the parable of the debtors of fifty and five hundred denarii, he added: "Wherefore I say to you: Her many sins are forgiven her, because she loved much" (Luke 7:47 and 50). And turning to the woman herself, he said: "Your faith has made you safe: go in peace". For in this place it is openly shown that this woman had faith working through love, which availed much in Christ. Suppose someone should say: He rightly showed that circumcision avails nothing in Christ, since he knew that it had once availed; but was anyone in doubt about uncircumcision too, that he should say, nor uncircumcision? But if we consider that very many Christians, that is, of our own number, who from the wild olive have been grafted into the root of the good olive (Rom. 11), exult against the broken branches of the Jewish people and say that uncircumcision, in which Abraham pleased God and faith was reckoned to him for righteousness, avails more than circumcision, which was given as a sign of faith and did not profit Israel who had it: we shall see that this presumption of certain people too is now most carefully excluded.

Observe the great boldness with which he now encounters them; Let him that hath put on Christ, he says, no longer be careful about such matters. Having before said that Circumcision was hurtful, how is it that he now considers it indifferent? It is indifferent as to those who had it previously to the Faith, but not as to those who are circumcised after the Faith was given. Observe too the view in which he places it, by setting it by the side of Uncircumcision; it is Faith that makes the difference. As in the selection of wrestlers, whether they be hook-nosed or flat-nosed, black or white, is of no importance in their trial, it is only necessary to seek that they be strong and skilful; so all these bodily accidents do not injure one who is to be enrolled under the New Covenant, nor does their presence assist him.

What is the meaning of "working through love?" Here he gives them a hard blow, by showing that this error had crept in because the love of Christ had not been rooted within them. For to believe is not all that is required, but also to abide in love. It is as if he had said, Had ye loved Christ as ye ought, ye would not have deserted to bondage, nor abandoned Him who redeemed you, nor treated with contumely Him who gave you freedom. Here he also hints at those who have plotted against them, implying that they would not have dared to do so, had they felt affection towards them. He wishes too by these words to correct their course of life.

"neither circumcision benefits anything." Paul says circumcision, not that which is from faith, as if he were saying: Those who are enrolled in the new covenant will not gain anything from foreskin, just as they will not benefit from circumcision.

"but faith working by love." For it is not enough merely to believe in Christ; rather this faith must be active and preserved and in a sense rekindled by love toward Christ. It is implied that those who believed but did not love Christ have defected to the law.

Since circumcision and uncircumcision belonged to the one God, both therefore were annulled in Christ because of the priority given to faith, this being the faith of which it was written "the Gentiles shall believe in his name."

If, now, he were for excluding circumcision, as the messenger of a new god, why does he say that "in Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision? For it was his duty to prefer the rival principle of that which he was abolishing, if he had a mission from the god who was the enemy of circumcision.

Furthermore, since both circumcision and uncircumcision were attributed to the same Deity, both lost their power in Christ, by reason of the excellency of faith-of that faith concerning which it had been written, "And in His name shall the Gentiles trust? " -of that faith "which," he says "worketh by love." By this saying he also shows that the Creator is the source of that grace.

Previously he said that circumcision is ruinous, so how does he now consider it indifferent? In our opinion, he is speaking here about circumcision that preceded faith; he is saying, as it were: for those who have entered the New Covenant, there is no benefit if they are circumcised, and no harm if they are not circumcised. For everything consists in faith working through love, that is, in faith which must always be active and alive in love for Christ. By this he also indicates that although they had believed, they had not grown strong in love for Christ and as a result turned back again to the law, or else he is instructing them in love for their neighbor. And at the same time he shows that their deceivers too, if they had love for them, would not have dared to do this. So learn that faith becomes active through love, that is, it is alive, while faith that does not have love is inactive — similar to what is said: "faith without works is dead" (James 2:20).

However, this hope does not come from circumcision or from paganism, because these contribute nothing to it. Hence he says, "For in Christ Jesus", i.e., in those who live in the faith of Christ, "neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything", i.e., they make no difference; "but faith," not unformed, but the kind "that worketh by charity": "Faith without works is dead" (Jam 2:26). For faith is a knowledge of the word of God—"That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts" (Eph 3:17)—which word is not perfectly possessed or perfectly known unless the love which it hopes for is possessed.

Here a Gloss raises two problems. The first is that he says circumcision and uncircumcision to be indifferent, whereas above he had said, "If you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing." I answer that it is from the general nature of the work that they are indifferent, namely, to those who do not put any trust in them; however, they are not indifferent, if you consider the intention of the one acting. For they are deadly to those who put their trust in them.

The second problem concerns his saying that those who do not believe are worse than demons, for the demons believe and tremble. I answer that if you consider the nature of the work, they are worse; but not if you consider the will. For the demons are displeased by the fact of their believing; furthermore, there is not as much malice in the will of a man who does not believe as there is in the demon who hates what he believes.

You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?

What the Latin translator has now set down, not to obey the truth (veritati non obedire), which in the Greek is written τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι, he rendered in an earlier passage thus: "not to believe the truth" (non credere veritati). This, indeed, we noted in its proper place is not found in the old manuscripts, although the Greek copies too have been confused by this error. But the sense is this: You were worshiping the Father in spirit and truth, and, receiving of the fullness of Christ, you knew that the Law was only given to the people through Moses, and not also made; but grace and truth were not only given but also made through Jesus Christ. Since, therefore, you were running so well, serving the truth rather than images, by what perverse teacher have you been hindered, that you follow the shadow of the Law and abandon the truth of the Gospel? There follows:

Consent to no one. But since we have found this written neither in the Greek books nor in those who have commented on the Apostle, it seems it should be passed over.

This is not an interrogation, but an expression of doubt and sorrow. How hath such a course been cut short? who hath been able to do this? ye who were superior to all and in the rank of teachers, have not even continued in the position of disciples. What has happened? who could do this? these are rather the words of one who is exclaiming and lamenting, as he said before, "Who did bewitch you?" (Gal. iii: 1.)

"who hindered you?" The "who" is not of one asking, but of one sorrowful, as if he had said: You were reaching perfection, what has happened? Who has had such power as to prevent you from obeying the truth of the Gospel?

They bear in mind how the churches were rebuked by the apostle: "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? " and, "Ye did run so well; who hath hindered you? " and how the epistle actually begins: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him, who hath called you as His own in grace, to another gospel.

This is not a question, but a lament. He says: you had attained perfection, but what happened? Who gained such power as to hinder you from obeying not the evangelical truth, but the abolished law?

Then when he says, "You did run well. Who hath hindered you that you should not obey the truth?" he deals with the obstacle to standing. First, he mentions the obstacle; Secondly, he teaches its removal (v. 8).

The obstacle to their standing fast was great and harmful, for the harmfulness of anything is reckoned according to the greater good it hinders. Therefore, when someone is kept from many spiritual goods, it is an indication that he is faced with a great obstacle. Accordingly, in order to show them that they have a great obstacle, he reminds them of the spiritual goods they have lost, when he says: "You did run well," namely, by means of the works of faith formed by charity, which incites one to run: "I have run the way of thy commandments, when thou didst enlarge my heart" (Ps 118:32). And this did indeed apply to you formerly; but while you were thus running, you came upon an obstacle. Therefore he says: "Who hath bewitched you?" (This has been discussed already in Chapter 3, hence we pass over it now).

Therefore, who has bewitched you, i.e., "hindered the truth," namely, of the Gospel, "that you should not obey it?" This is appropriately said: for obedience is the application of the will to the edict of the one who commands. That is why faith is a science of the will and of the understanding. It is suitable, therefore, for the will to obey the faith. But this is done by willing to believe that the grace of Christ is sufficient for salvation without the legal observances.

The truth is that the Jews imposed the yoke of the law on them by a human decision, not by the judgment of God, who was calling them to grace through his apostle.

Your persuasion is not from him who called you.

In the Latin manuscripts I have found it written thus: "Your persuasion is from God, who called you." I think, indeed, that this was originally from him (ex eo), and that, not being understood, "from God" (ex Deo) gradually became common because of the similarity, in place of what is from him (ex eo). But not even so can the sense stand, namely that he should now, on the contrary, assert that the persuasion and obedience of those whom he had just accused of not obeying the truth, showing that it lay in their own choice either to obey or not to obey, is not so much from those who are called as from him who calls. It is therefore better and more truly read thus: Your persuasion is not from him who called you. For the work of God is one thing, the work of men another. It is the work of God to call; it is the work of men either to believe or not to believe. And if anywhere in the Scriptures the free will of man is affirmed, as there: "If you will be willing and will hear me" (Exod. 19:5); and again: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you?" (Deut. 10:12), it is also proved most of all from this passage. But certain of the simpler sort, thinking that they were deferring to God by making our persuasion also lie in his power, have taken away the part of speech not and rendered a sense contrary to the Apostle. Whether, therefore, in the good sense or in the bad, neither God nor the devil is the cause, because our persuasion is not from him who called us, but from ourselves, who either consent or do not consent to the one who calls. Otherwise: This persuasion which you now follow is not from God, who called you in the beginning, but from those who afterwards troubled you.

He who called you, called you not to such fluctuations, he did not lay down a Law, that you should judaize. Then, that no one might object, "Why do you thus magnify and aggravate the matter by your words; one commandment only of the Law have we kept, and yet you make this great outcry?" hear how he terrifies them, not by things present but future.

"This persuasion," that is, being persuaded to be circumcised by those who tell you.

"This does not come from Christ, who calls you to His faith." So he said. You are not called by Christ for that reason, so as to be persuaded by those who give such counsel. For calling belongs to God alone, but the being persuaded belongs to those who hear.

It is for God to call and hearers to obey.

That is, this attention to deceivers is not from Christ; for He did not call you to that end, that you should give heed to those who incline toward Judaism.

Then when he says, "Consent to no one," he removes the obstacle. First, on their part; Secondly, on God's part (v. 10); Thirdly, on the Apostle's part (v. 11).

On their part when he says, "Consent to no one." Herein he shows what is required on their part to overcome this obstacle, namely, that henceforth they not give their consent to any deceiver: "We are not of the night nor of the darkness; therefore, let us not sleep" (1 Thes 5:5); "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them" (Eph 5:11); "And their speech spreadeth like a canker" (2 Tim 2:17). From this it can be gathered that they were not yet corrupted, but he was concerned.

Secondly, he gives an explanation of this, when he says, "This persuasion is not from him that calleth you," and it is twofold. First, because a man, when he gives himself to someone, ought to do nothing save what is of advantage to the latter. But you have been given to Christ. Therefore, you should not heed or consent to anyone but those who come from Him. Hence because "this persuasion," by which they wish to set you under the yoke of the Law, "is not from him," i.e., from God "who calleth you" to life, but from the devil, for it is degrading, you should not consent to them. Or, "not from him," i.e., against Him.

For an offender, when he sees any other doing as bad as himself, will be encouraged to do the very same things; and then the wicked one, taking occasion from a single instance, works in others, which God forbid: and by that means the flock will be destroyed. For the greater number of offenders there are, the greater is the mischief that is done by them: for sin which passes without correction grows worse and worse, and spreads to others; since "a little leaven infects the whole lump," and one thief spreads the abomination over a whole nation and "dead flies spoil the whole pot of sweet ointment;" and "when a king hearkens to unrighteous counsel, all the servants under him are wicked." So one scabbed sheep, if not separated from those that are whole, infects the rest with the same distemper; and a man infected with the plague is to be avoided by all men; and a mad dog is dangerous to every one that he touches. If, therefore, we neglect to separate the transgressor from the Church of God, we shall make the "Lord's house a den of thieves."

All leaven corrupts the bread, and the corrupted bread is flour. When the mass of flour is left, it sours, and then comes the leavening. Now when a small amount of the leaven is put into the mass, the mass is corrupted. "You," he says, "must be unleavened bread. Therefore that little addition of yours, which you thought a small amount, namely, your observing of circumcision and the rest, because it is corrupt, corrupts the mass of o ur gospel. If so, you do not have full hope in Christ, and neither does Christ regard you as his own or people whose hope depends on him. For it is faith that sets free, and, as I have said, he has no faith who hopes for any sort of help apart from Christ, even along with Christ."

A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

It is badly rendered in our codices: "A little leaven corrupts the whole mass", and the translator has rendered his own sense rather than the words of the Apostle. Now Paul uses this very same saying to the Corinthians as well, where he commanded that the man who had his father's wife should be taken away from their midst and handed over to penance, for the destruction and affliction of the flesh through fasts and sicknesses, so that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. For he says: "Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven corrupts the whole mass" (1 Cor. 5:5, 6 ff.)? or (as we have already corrected it) leavens the whole lump? And at once he added: "Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened; for Christ our pasch has been sacrificed. Therefore let us feast, not in the old leaven, nor in the leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." But now, by this same saying, he teaches that the spiritual bread of the Church, which came down from heaven, ought not to be violated by a Jewish interpretation; and the Lord commanded the very same thing to the disciples, that they should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees (John 6). The evangelist, making this plainer, added: "Now he had spoken to them of the doctrine of the Pharisees" (Matt. 16:12). And what is this other doctrine of the Pharisees, if not the observance of the Law according to the flesh? So this is the sense: Do not think that the snares of a few men, who come from Judea and teach something different, are to be despised. A spark is a small thing, and while it is being looked at it is almost not seen; but if it catches hold of tinder, and the fire, however small, finds what feeds it, it consumes walls, cities, the widest forests and whole regions. Leaven too, whose parable in the Gospel is turned to the other side (Luke 13), seems a small thing and of no account; but when it has been mixed into flour and has corrupted the whole mass by its strength, everything that has been mixed with it passes over into its power. So too a perverse doctrine, beginning from one man, at first, in its beginning, scarcely finds two or three hearers; but little by little it creeps through the body like a cancer, and, as the common proverb has it, the scab of one beast befouls the whole flock. Therefore the spark must be put out as soon as it appears, and the leaven removed from the neighborhood of the mass, the rotting flesh cut away, and the scabby animal driven from the sheepfolds, lest the whole house, mass, body and flock burn, be corrupted, rot and perish. Arius in Alexandria was a single spark; but because it was not put out at once, its flame laid waste the whole world.

This is the leaven of which the Apostle too speaks: A little leaven corrupts the whole lump. Leaven of this kind, which must be shunned by every means, Marcion had, and Valentinus, and all the heretics. Leaven has this power: if it is mixed with flour, what seemed small grows into something greater and draws the whole mass of dough to its own taste. So too heretical doctrine: if it has cast even a tiny spark into your breast, in a short time it grows up into a huge flame and draws the whole of a man's possession to itself.

And thus this slight error, he says, if not corrected, will have power (as the leaven has with the lump) to lead you into complete Judaism.

So that they might not say, "What great thing have we done by keeping only one commandment of the law?" he says, "One?" and what is that?

"A little yeast infuses the whole batch of dough." For just as that infuses the whole batch, he says, so your circumcision will certainly bring in Judaism to perfection, unless you are corrected.

Lest they say: "why do you rebuke us so strongly (for we have violated only one commandment) and exaggerate our guilt?" – he says that this seemingly insignificant circumstance causes substantial harm. For, just as leaven, even a small amount, by itself leavens and transforms the entire lump of dough, so too circumcision, although it constitutes only one commandment, draws you into Judaism in all its fullness.

The second explanation is that they might suppose that consenting to a few is not a great matter, since it constitutes no danger. But he says that they must not consent to them at all, nor underestimate their artifices; rather they must oppose them at the start, because "a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump," i.e., those few who are persuading you. Or, "This persuasion" small in the beginning "corrupts the whole lump," i.e., the congregation of the faithful: "Neither shall any leaven or honey be burnt in the sacrifice to the Lord" (Lev. 2:11).

He says he trusts in this hope concerning them, because they had entered the path of error not willingly, but being deceived. Therefore, having shown them the true way, he believes that they can easily return. But whoever troubles you will bear judgment, whoever he may be. Just as the one who turns a wandering person back is to be rewarded, as James the Apostle says in his letter: Whoever turns a sinner back will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins (James 5:20); so too the one who forces the one walking in the right path to turn aside onto a way of error will obtain condemnation, whoever he may be. For this reason, he subjects these; so that they would not defend themselves based on their merit, because they were descendants of Abraham according to the flesh. Finally, exalting themselves, they say to Jesus: We are children of Abraham (John 8:33).

I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will think nothing else.

Not by conjecture, as some would have it, but by the prophetic spirit Paul declares that the Galatians will return to the way of truth which they had lost (1 Cor. 12). For he who exhorted others to be zealous for spiritual gifts, but rather that they might prophesy, himself also, full of the same grace, said: "We know in part, and we prophesy in part" (ibid., 13:9). Foreseeing therefore in the spirit that they would believe nothing else than what they were being taught through the Epistle, he says: I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will think nothing else. For the addition of the Lord's name too signifies this very thing. For if he had been reckoning this by conjecture, he could have said: I have confidence in you. But now, by adding in the Lord, trusting in a certain divine spirit, he prophesied what he had known would come to pass.

But he who troubles you shall bear judgment, whoever he is.

He is covertly tearing at Peter, they say, whom he writes above that he withstood to his face because he did not walk with a straight foot toward the truth of the Gospel. But neither would Paul speak with so insolent a curse about the prince of the Church (Gal. 2), nor did Peter deserve to be made guilty of troubling the Church. From this it must be judged that it is said of some other person, who either had been with the apostles, or had come from Judea, or had believed from among the Pharisees, or at any rate was esteemed great among the Galatians, so that he bears the judgment for the troubled Church, whoever he is. Now "to bear judgment" is what he said in other words in what follows: "Each one shall bear his own burden." And I think that in the Scriptures "burden" can be taken both in a good and in a bad sense, that is, both of those who are weighed down by grave sins, and of those who sustain the light burdens of the virtues. Of sins the penitent speaks in the psalm: "My iniquities are lifted up over my head; like a heavy burden they have weighed heavily upon me" (Ps. 37:5). Of the virtues, and of the teaching of the virtues, the Savior says: "For my yoke is sweet, and my burden is light" (Matt. 11:30). And that teaching too is taken for a burden is made plain in the Gospel. For the Pharisees bind heavy burdens, and such as cannot be borne, and lay them upon the shoulders of men, but they themselves are unwilling to touch them with one finger (ibid. 23). How grave a thing it is to disturb someone out of tranquility, and to stir up the calm hearts of men as if with waves, the words of the Savior to the apostles testify, when he says: "Let not your heart be troubled, nor be afraid" (John 14). For it is better for him who troubles anyone in the Church and causes him to stumble that a millstone be put around his neck and he be cast with it into the sea, than that he cause to stumble one of these least ones who are pointed out by the Savior (Luke 17). The Galatians, then, had been troubled between spirit and letter, circumcision and mutilation, hidden and manifest Judaism, not knowing what to do. It can also be taken more briefly in this way: Whoever he is who draws you back to the teaching of the Pharisees and desires to be circumcised in the flesh; though he be eloquent and boast of his learning in the Law, I say nothing more except this (which even you cannot deny): that he shall bear judgment for this work, and shall receive the reward for his labor.

He does not say, "ye are not minded," but, "ye will not be minded;" that is, you will be set right. And how does he know this? he says not "I know," but "I trust in God, and invoking His aid in order to your correction, I am in hopes;" and he says, not merely, "I have confidence in the Lord," but, "I have confidence towards you in the Lord." Every where he connects complaint with his praises; here it is as if he had said, I know my disciples, I know your readiness to be set right. I have good hopes, partly because of the Lord who suffers nothing, however trivial, to perish, partly because of you who are quickly to recover yourselves. At the same time he exhorts them to use diligence on their own parts, it not being possible to obtain aid from God, if our own efforts are not contributed.

Not only by words of encouragement, but by uttering a curse or a prophecy against their teachers, he applies to them an incentive. And observe that he never mentions the name of these plotters, that they might not become more shameless. His meaning is as follows. Not because "ye will be none otherwise minded," are the authors of your seduction relieved from punishment. They shall be punished; for it is not proper that the good conduct of the one should become an encouragement to the evil disposition of the other. This is said that they might not make a second attempt upon others. And he says not merely, "he that troubleth," but, "whosoever he be," in the way of aggravation.

"I have confidence in you in the Lord." "Be of good courage," he says, "be of good courage in the Lord, for you will be corrected, and you will take no thought contrary to my teaching." This is by way of encouragement.

"But the one who is troubling you." You may be disturbed, yet nevertheless those who brought you into this will not thereby be freed from punishment, but will bear and undergo this condemnation.

"But he that troubleth you shall have to bear judgment." From what God? From (Marcion's) most excellent god? But he does not execute judgment.

I am confident in you, he says, because I know my disciples, I know your capacity for correction. So then, I hope that you can be corrected. I also hope in the Lord, Who does not desire the destruction of any person whatsoever. Thus, he urges them both to apply their own efforts and to hope in the Lord. For it is otherwise impossible to receive anything from God — if you do not apply, he says, your own diligence.

Though you, he says, will be corrected, those who deceived you will not on account of this be freed from punishment, but will be subjected to judgment, no matter how great and worthy of trust they may seem. For this is what the words mean: whoever he may be. And he says this so that others too would not believe them.

Then when he says, "I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will not be of another mind," he removes the obstacle on the part of God Who offers His help to this end. And he mentions a twofold help: one as to the deceivers; the other as to the trouble makers. He says therefore, "I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will not be of another mind." As if to say: I have told you not to obey the deceivers and "I have confidence in you:" "I rejoice that in all things I have confidence in you" (2 Cor 7:16); "But, dearly beloved, we trust better things of you and nearer to salvation" (Heb 6:9). I have confidence, I say, in this, namely, "that you will not be of another mind" than what I have taught you—"but though we or an angel from heaven preach a Gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema" (1:8); "Fulfill ye my joy, that you be of one mind" (Phil 2:2)—and this with God's help. Hence he says, "in the Lord" God working: "And such confidence we have through Christ towards God" (2 Cor 3:4), because the Lord will give you a mind according with the standard of the Catholic Faith: "It is good to have confidence in the Lord rather than to have confidence in a man" (Ps 117:8).

As to the trouble makers, he says, "he that troubleth you shall bear the judgment, whosoever he be," i.e., he that perverts you from right order so as to be turned from spiritual to corporeal things, whereas it should be the contrary: "Yet that was not first which was spiritual, but that which is natural; afterwards that which is spiritual" (1 Cor 15:46).

Therefore, "he shall bear the judgment", i.e., he will undergo damnation. For as one who urges another to good is rewarded—"They that instruct many to justice shall shine as stars for all eternity" (Dan. 12:3)—so one who urges another to evil is condemned: "Because thou hast troubled us, the Lord trouble thee this day" (Jos. 7:25); "Curst be he that maketh the blind to wander out of his way" (Deut 27:18). And this, "whosoever he be", i.e., whatever his dignity, he will not be spared.

But Porphyry and Julian censure Paul for presumption, and assert that in saying this he defames Peter (since he wrote above that he withstood him to his face) so that the meaning would be: "whosoever he be", i.e., even if it be Peter, he would be punished. But as Augustine says, one should not believe that Paul was calling down a curse on the Prince of the Church—for it is written in Exodus (22:28): "Thou shalt not curse the prince of thy people"—or that Peter committed an offence worthy of damnation. Therefore the Apostle is speaking of someone else who, coming from Judea, claimed to be a disciple of the important apostles and with that authority he and other false teachers were subverting the Galatians, "because of false brethren unawares brought in" (2:4).

Since he speaks of a stumbling block here, he is reminding them that the principal reason for the Jews' taking offense at Christ was that they often saw him ignoring and disdaining those ceremonial observances which they believed themselves to have for their very salvation. What he says here, then, is as much as to say: "It was therefore in vain that the Jews in their indignation crucified Christ when he disdained these commandments. Now they still try to enjoin such things on those for whom he was crucified."

But I, brothers, if I preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then has been made void (or, as the Greek has it better, has ceased) the stumbling block of the cross.

We read in the Acts of the Apostles, and the apostle Paul himself also often mentions in his Epistles, that he endured very frequent persecutions from the Jews, because he taught that those from among the Gentiles who had believed in Christ ought not to be circumcised. These, then, of whom he said above: "But he who troubles you shall bear judgment, whoever he is", in order to deceive the Galatians, added this too: Not only do Peter and James and John and the other apostles in Judea observe circumcision and the other precepts of the Law, but Paul himself as well, who taught you otherwise than the truth of the matter stands, circumcised Timothy, and frequently became a Jew to the Jews, the truth compelling him. Wishing now to remove this opinion from the minds of the Galatians, Paul says: But I, brothers, if I preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? All the hatred of the Jews against me, he says, and the madness with which they rage against me, is on account of nothing else than that I teach the Gentiles that they ought not to be circumcised and to keep the burdens of the Law, which are superfluous and already abolished. But since I suffer persecution, it is manifest that I do not preach circumcision, which I destroy. For I do not suffer persecution from the Jews so much because I preach the Crucified, and say that Jesus is the Christ whom the Law and the prophets foretold, as because I teach that the Law has been fulfilled. And that the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, our Lord himself shows, who is called a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling (Matt. 21; Luke 20): for no other reason, I think, than that preaching, when it has advanced toward its hearers under full sail, strikes against the cross as soon as it comes to it, and can by no means proceed further on a free course. But this cross, which among the Jews is a stumbling block and among the Gentiles foolishness, is to us who believe power and wisdom. "For Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24), so that, because of that which was called foolishness, the foolishness of God might become wiser than men; and because of that which was called weakness and a stumbling block, the weakness of God might become stronger than men. But since, he says, the stumbling block of the cross of Christ remains, and I suffer persecution, which I would not suffer if the stumbling block did not remain, in vain do certain people keep boasting that I preach circumcision, by attacking which I endure persecution.

Observe how clearly he exonerates himself from the charge, that in every place he judaized and played the hypocrite in his preaching. Of this he calls them as witnesses; for ye know, he says, that my command to abandon the Law was made the pretext for persecuting me. "If I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? for this is the only charge which they of the Jewish descent have to bring against me. Had I permitted them to receive the Faith, still retaining the customs of their fathers, neither believers nor unbelievers would have laid snares for me, seeing that none of their own usages were disturbed. What then! did he not preach circumcision? did he not circumcise Timothy? Truly he did. How then can he say, "I preach it not?" Here observe his accuracy; he says not, "I do not perform circumcision," but, "I preach it not," that is, I do not bid men so to believe. Do not therefore consider it any confirmation of your doctrine, for though I circumcised, I did not preach circumcision.

That is, if this which ye assert be true, the obstacle, the hindrance, is removed; for not even the Cross was so great an offence to the Jews, as the doctrine that their father's customs ought not to be obeyed. When they brought Stephen before the council, they said not that this man adores the Crucified, but that he speaks "against this holy place and the Law." (Acts vi: 13.) And it was of this they accused Jesus, that He broke the Law. Wherefore Paul says, If Circumcision be conceded, the strife you are involved in is appeased; hereafter no enmity to the Cross and our preaching remains. But why do they bring this charge against us, while waiting day after day to murder us? it is because I brought an uncircumcised man into the Temple (Acts xxi: 29.) that they fell upon me. Am I then, he says, so senseless, after giving up the point of Circumcision, vainly and idly to expose myself to such injuries, and to place such a stumbling-block before the Cross? For ye observe, that they attack us for nothing with such vehemence as about Circumcision. Am I then so senseless as to suffer affliction for nothing at all, and to give offence to others? He calls it the offence of the Cross, because it was enjoined by the doctrine of the Cross; and it was this which principally offended the Jews, and hindered their reception of the Cross, namely, the command to abandon the usages of their fathers.

"Now, brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision." Since they were insulting him they said, "He is a hypocrite," but elsewhere he does not say that he is persecuted by the Jews, and you yourselves know it. Therefore if I preach circumcision, it is unnecessary for me to be persecuted. What then? Did he not circumcise Timothy? But this we say was done according to a practical convenience, in order that he might be well received by the Jews. See, however, he did not say, If I wrought circumcision, but, if I am still preaching. For do not, Paul says, treat what was done for practical convenience as a doctrinal rule.

"Then the offense of the cross has been abolished." Indeed, he says, if one must be circumcised, and I proclaim this as well, the Jews' combative opposition to the cross and their fight against it is ended, and they no longer struggle with it. For now they detest the cross because circumcision and the law are being undone by it.

And, of course, it had been meet that the mystery of the passion itself should be figuratively set forth in predictions; and the more incredible (that mystery), the more likely to be "a stumbling-stone," if it had been nakedly predicted; and the more magnificent, the more to be adumbrated, that the difficulty of its intelligence might seek (help from) the grace of God.

Since the slanderers were saying that he is a hypocrite and preaches circumcision in one place but not in another, he says: you are witnesses that the Jews persecute me. If I preach circumcision, then why do others persecute me? Clearly, they persecute me for violating their ancestral ordinances. But if I preach circumcision and uphold the ancestral ordinances, why then do they persecute me? But what of it, they say? Did you not circumcise Timothy? Yes, but that was with a special purpose. And besides, it is one thing to circumcise, and another to preach circumcision. For he who preaches teaches that this must always be done, as something unconditionally good, whereas he who does something for special purposes does it not because it is unconditionally good, but because it is useful in the given case.

If I were preaching circumcision, there would be no scandal which the cross produces in the Jews. And they are scandalized by the preaching of the cross and do not accept it for no other reason than because it abolishes circumcision and the law. Likewise, if I were preaching circumcision, the enmity of the Jews toward the cross and the scandal which it arouses in them would cease and disappear.

Then when he says, "And I brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution?", he removes the obstacle on his part. First, he presents his defense; Secondly, he rebukes his slanderers (v. 12). He refutes the false charge against him. First, a charge that pertains to himself alone; Secondly, one that pertains to all (v. 11).

With respect to the first, it should be noted that the false brethren, when the Galatians excused themselves from observing the legal ceremonies because they had been so taught by the Apostle, declared that the Apostle misled them and that he persuaded them to this in order to lord it over them. As confirmation of this they alleged that when he preached in Judea, Paul taught that the legal ceremonies should be observed. But the Apostle clears himself of this, when he says, "And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution" from the Jews? "We are persecuted and we suffer it" (1 Cor 4:12). For the Jews persecuted Paul precisely because he taught that the legal ceremonies should not be observed. Indeed in Acts (21:21) James says to Paul: "They have heard of thee that thou teachest those Jews who are among the Gentiles to depart from Moses; saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor walk according to custom." It is plain, therefore, that their charge is not true; otherwise, he would not have suffered their persecutions.

False, too, is that which they impute to me because of something generally held by others; because if I preach circumcision, "Then is the scandal of the cross made void." For not only I but all the apostles "Preach Christ crucified, to the Jews indeed a stumbling-block and unto the Gentiles, foolishness," as is said in 1 Corinthians (1:23). And the main reason why they are scandalized is because we preach that through the Cross of Christ the legal ceremonies are made void. Therefore, if I preach circumcision, the stumbling-block is removed, i.e., there will no longer be a stumbling-block for the Jews from the Cross. For they would endure it patiently; indeed, they would welcome it, if along with the Cross we preached the obligation to observe the legal ceremonies. Or, according to Augustine (on this passage) "the scandal of the cross is made void," i.e., the Cross is made void; which is a scandal. As if to say: The Cross has lost its effect and its power: "If justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain" (2:21). Now the Apostle specifically says, the scandal of the cross is made void, to denote that the reason the Jews killed Christ was because He did not observe the legal ceremonies and taught that they were not to be observed: "This man is not of God who keepeth not the sabbath" (Jn 9:16).

[The point is] that those who had deprived the Galatians of the grace of God should themselves be cut off from the grace of God.

Would that they were even cut off who trouble you.

It is asked how Paul, the disciple of him who says: "Bless those who curse you," and who himself says: "Bless, and do not curse" (Rom. 12:14), and in another place: "Nor shall cursers possess the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:10), has now both cursed those who trouble the churches of Galatia, and cursed them with the prayer of one who wishes it: Would that they were even cut off who trouble you. For the suffering of castration is so detestable that both he who has inflicted it on the unwilling is punished by the public laws, and he who has castrated himself is held infamous. For granted, they say, that this is true: "Christ lives in me"; and this: "Or do you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me?" (2 Cor. 13:3), certainly a word of cursing cannot be understood as coming from him who says: "Learn from me, because I am humble, and meek, and gentle of heart" (Matt. 11:29). And it is thought rather that he was unable to restrain himself out of Jewish fury and a kind of unbridled madness than that he imitated him who, like a lamb before its shearer, did not open his mouth, and did not curse in return those who cursed him (Isa. 53). But, condemned, he handed himself over to death. To this, whoever answers on Paul's behalf will say the following: that the words he spoke were not so much of fury against his adversaries as of love for the churches of God. For he saw that the whole province, which he himself, with his own blood and his perils, had brought over from idolatry to the faith of Christ, was thrown into confusion by a sudden persuasion, and with an apostle's grief, a father's grief, he could not contain himself: he changed his voice, and was angry with those whom he had coaxed, so that those whom he had been unable to hold by gentleness he might at least hold by rebuke. Nor is it to be wondered at if the Apostle, as a man, and one still shut up in a weak little vessel, and seeing another law in his body taking him captive and leading him in the law of sin, said this once, a thing into which we see that holy men frequently fall. But this too can be said (although to some it may seem superfluous): that Paul did not so much curse them as pray for them, that they might lose those parts of the body through which they were driven to sin. And just as it was said in the Gospel that it is better for someone to enter the kingdom of heaven without an eye, and without a hand, and without a foot, and without any other part of the members, than to go whole into Gehenna (Matt. 18), so now too he wishes them rather to lose one part of the body than, by occasion of the whole body, to be condemned to everlasting fire. If ever this passage is censured by the heathen, we have shown how they can be answered. Now let it be brought forward by us against the heretics, namely Marcion and Valentinus and all who bark against the Old Testament: by what reasoning can those who accuse the Creator of being bloodthirsty, a stern warrior and only a judge, excuse this in the Apostle of the good God? And certainly I think there is no sentence anywhere in the old Law so savage, so bloody, as would that they were cut off who trouble you. Nor can they say that the Apostle prayed for the enemies of Christ, who were troubling his churches. Nor that it was uttered out of love, since the very weight of the words shows it to be full of swelling anger and indignation. Whatever excuse, therefore, they bring forward for the Apostle, this we shall not plead in defense of the old Law.

Observe how bitterly he speaks here against their deceivers. At the outset he directed his charge against those who were deceived, and called them foolish, once and again. Now, having sufficiently corrected and instructed them, he turns to their deceivers. And you should remark his wisdom in the manner in which he admonishes and chastens the former as his own children, and as capable of receiving correction, but their deceivers he cuts off, as aliens and incurably depraved. And this he does, partly, when he says, "he shall bear his judgment whosoever he be;" partly when he utters the imprecation against them, "I would that they which unsettle you would even cut themselves off." And he says well "that unsettle you." For they had compelled them to abandon their own fatherland, their liberty, and their heavenly kindred, and to seek an alien and foreign one; they had cast them out of Jerusalem which is above and free, and compelled them to wander forth as captives and emigrants. On this account he curses them; and his meaning is as follows, For them I have no concern, "A man that is heretical after the first and second admonition refuse." (Tit. iii: 10) If they will, let them not only be circumcised, but mutilated. Where then are those who dare to mutilate themselves; seeing that they draw down the Apostolic curse, and accuse the workmanship of God, and take part with the Manichees? For the latter call the body a treacherous thing, and from the evil principle; and the former by their acts give countenance to these wretched doctrines, cutting off the member as being hostile and treacherous. Ought they not much rather to put out the eyes, for it is through the eyes that desire enters the soul? But in truth neither the eye nor any other part of us is to blame, but the depraved will only. But if you will not allow this, why do you not mutilate the tongue for blasphemy, the hands for rapine, the feet for their evil courses, in short, the whole body? For the ear enchanted by the sound of a flute hath often enervated the soul; and the perception of a sweet perfume by the nostrils hath bewitched the mind, and made it frantic for pleasure. Yet this would be extreme wickedness and satanic madness. The evil spirit, ever delighting in slaughter, hath seduced them to crush the instrument, as if its Maker had erred, whereas it was only necessary to correct the unruly passion of the soul. How then does it happen, one may say, that when the body is pampered, lust is inflamed? Observe here too that it is the sin of the soul, for to pamper the flesh is not an act of the flesh but of the soul, for if the soul choose to mortify it, it would possess absolute power over it. But what you do is just the same as if one seeing a man lighting a fire, and heaping on fuel, and setting fire to a house, were to blame the fire, instead of him who kindled it, because it had caught this heap of fuel, and risen to a great height. Yet the blame would attach not to the fire but to the one who kindled it; for it was given for the purpose of dressing food, affording light, and other like ministries, not for burning houses. In like manner desire is implanted for the rearing of families and the ensuring of life, not for adultery, or fornication, or lasciviousness; that a man may become a father, not an adulterer; a lawful husband, not a seducer; leaving heirs after him, not doing damage to another man's. For adultery arises not from nature, but from wantonness against nature, which prescribes the use not the misuse. These remarks I have not made at random, but as a prelude to a dispute, as skirmishing against those who assert that the workmanship of God is evil, and who neglecting the sloth of the soul, madly inveigh against the body, and traduce our flesh, whereof Paul afterwards discourses, accusing not the flesh, but devilish thoughts.

"I wish those who are unsettling you." Concerning you I care; but concerning those who have raised themselves against you, as though suffering from incurable diseases, no longer. Therefore let them not only be circumcised, but would that they had also cut themselves off.

"would even." Would that they had also utterly cut themselves off, those who offer you the deceit of circumcision.

How should he not, when he himself experiences the same? "I would," says he, "that they were even cut off which trouble you." In perfect agreement with reason was that indignation which resulted from his desire to maintain discipline and order.

"When I was a child," he says, "as a child I spake, as a child I understood; but when I became a man, those (things) which had been the child's I abandoned: " so truly did he turn away from his early opinions: nor did he sin by becoming an emulator not of ancestral but of Christian traditions, wishing even the precision of them who advised the retention of circumcision. And would that the same fate might befall those, too, who obtruncate the pure and true integrity of the flesh; amputating not the extremest superficies, but the inmost image of modesty itself, while they promise pardon to adulterers and fornicators, in the teeth of the primary discipline of the Christian Name; a discipline to which heathendom itself bears such emphatic witness, that it strives to punish that discipline in the persons of our females rather by defilements of the flesh than tortures; wishing to wrest from them that which they hold dearer than life! But now this glory is being extinguished, and that by means of those who ought with all the more constancy to refuse concession of any pardon to defilements of this kind, that they make the fear of succumbing to adultery and fornication their reason for marrying as often as they please-since "better it is to marry than to burn.

Those who had been led astray he called at first foolish and rebuked them no more than children, but the deceivers themselves, as incurably sick, he curses and says: oh, if only they would not merely circumcise themselves, but cut up their whole body entirely! And notice, he called them "those who unsettle you" (in Slavonic "those who pervert," in Greek "those who compel you to leave your homeland and freedom"), leading them into captivity. Because they truly were depriving them of freedom and, leading them away from the heavenly Jerusalem, were settling them like exiles under the law and the pettiness of Judaism. Note also concerning those who castrate themselves, that they bring upon themselves the curse of the apostle.

Then he rebukes the false brethren who had slandered him, saying, "I would they were even cut off who trouble you". As if to say: They trouble you on one matter, namely, they want you to be circumcised; but I would that they be not only circumcised but wholly emasculated.

But this is contrary to Romans (12:14): "Bless, and curse not." To this there are two responses: first, that the Apostle was not calling down an evil on them but rather a blessing; because he was wishing them to be emasculated spiritually, i.e., abolish the legal ceremonies, that they might preserve spiritual chastity: "There are eunuchs who have made themselves such for the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 19:12). The second is that he is wishing them the impotence that eunuchs have, so that they might not procreate. Hence he says: "I would they were even cut off who trouble you", i.e., that they lose the power of engendering among you and others. And this deservedly, because they engender sons unto error and subject them to the bondage of the Law: "Give them a womb without children, and dry breasts" (Hos. 9:14).

From this point Paul begins to discuss those works of the law which … no one denies also pertain to the new covenant, but with another aim, appropriate to those who perform good works "in freedom." These acts aim for the rewards of a love that hopes for eternal things and looks forward in faith. This is quite unlike the Jews, who were forced to fulfill these commandments from fear, and not that righteous fear which endures to eternity but one that made them fear for the present life. The result: they fulfill certain works of the law which consist in ceremonies but are completely unable to fulfill those that consist in good conduct. For nothing fulfills these except love.… And so the apostle now says, "You are called into freedom, brethren, but on condition that you do not let your freedom be an opportunity for the sin nature. Do not suppose, upon hearing the word freedom, that you can sin with impunity."

He who indulges his pleasures gratifies his body; but he who is controlled liberates from its passions his soul which is master of the body. And if they tell us that we are called to freedom, only let us not use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, as the apostle says.

To which we can add, saying that those called from the slavery of the Law to the freedom of the Gospel (to whom it was said above: "Stand, and do not cling again to the yoke of slavery") are even now admonished that, following the light yoke of Christ and the delightful precepts of the Gospel, they should by no means think it permitted to them to use this very freedom of living as an occasion of the flesh: that is, to live according to the flesh, to be circumcised according to the flesh; but rather to stand in the spirit, to cut off the foreskin of the flesh in the spirit, and, stretching toward the higher things of the spirit, to leave behind the lowliness of the letter. It can also be understood otherwise. Let someone learn: If I have ceased, O Paul, to be under the Law, and I have been called from slavery to freedom, then I ought to live as befits freedom, and not be bound by any precepts, but whatever has pleased me and my will has suggested, this I should do, fulfill, pursue. To this the Apostle replied: that we have indeed been called into the freedom of the spirit, but in such a way that freedom itself does not serve the flesh. Nor let us think that, because all things are lawful for us, all things are expedient: rather, because we have ceased to be slaves of the Law, having been made free, let us all the more serve one another through love, so that the precepts of the sprawling Law may be summed up in the single heading of love.

But through love serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

He who, though he was free from all, made himself the slave of all for love's sake, that he might win the more (1 Cor. 9:19), rightly exhorts the others too to serve one another through love, which seeks not what is its own but what is its neighbor's. For he who wishes to become first shall be the slave of all (Mark 10:44); so that, just as the Savior, being in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and the death of the cross (Phil. 2), so we too should now know that whatever things we formerly seemed to do under the compulsion of the Law, we, being free, must do rather through love.

This passage can be better explained thus, and become as it were one sequence and one body, linking itself together and not disagreeing with itself. Brothers, you have been called from the slavery of the Law into the freedom of the Gospel. But I beseech you not to abuse freedom as license, and think that all things which are lawful are expedient for you, and give occasion to the flesh and to licentiousness. Rather, learn that this freedom is a greater slavery, so that the obedience which formerly the Law extorted from the unwilling, you now render by serving one another through love. For indeed all that burden of the Law, and its manifold precepts, have not so much been shut out by the grace of the Gospel as abridged in the one word of love, that we love our neighbor as ourselves. For he who loves his neighbor fulfills the whole law (Matt. 22), bestowing good things on him and not inflicting evils. But if affection ceases, and there is no love, through which the whole law is fulfilled, there will be a kind of public brigandage among men, so that, raging against one another and biting one another, they are consumed by one another. But you, brothers, ought for this reason to live according to the spiritual law, so that you do not accomplish the desires that belong to the flesh. For the flesh fears cold, spurns hunger, is wasted by vigils, burns with lusts, desires whatever is soft and pleasant. The spirit, on the contrary, seeks the things that are contrary to the flesh and that can weaken it. And so it comes about that you should not think yourselves free just because you have ceased to be under the slavery of the Law, but should rather know that you are held fast by the law of nature; because it does not follow at once that, if the law does not command, nature too has ceased, so that, namely, works should not follow your will; but you are often compelled, the flesh fighting against the spirit, to do the things you do not will to do. Therefore, brothers, I beseech you not to give your freedom as an occasion for the flesh, but rather to serve the spirit, so that you may begin to do the things you will, and to owe nothing to the law, that is, not to be under the flesh. For you will truly be able to have in the Gospel the freedom of the abolished law when the flesh in no way compels you to do what you do not will, but, serving the spirit, you have shown that you are not under the Law.

For you have been called to freedom, brothers: only do not (it is understood) give freedom as an occasion to the flesh:

because this is not found in the Greek, the Latin translator put it in. Since this passage is very obscure, I have decided to translate it word for word from the tenth book of the Stromata. Not that the individual parts cannot be explained in their own places and senses; but because, separated from the preceding subject matter, they form a single difficult body: and if they are understood just as they sound, they seem to clash with one another inconsequently and abruptly, and to be all in a ferment. These, then, are Origen's words: "The passage is difficult, and it seems to us that it should be discussed thus. He who is free, and in a higher sense follows the spirit and the truth, despises both the preceding types and the letter: he ought not on that account to look down on the lesser, and give those who cannot perceive more sublimely an occasion to despair of themselves utterly. For although they are weak and are called flesh in comparison with the spirit, yet they are the flesh of Christ. For if he understands the mystery of love that serves the weaker, let him do something for the sake of the weak, lest in his knowledge a brother perish, for whom Christ died. Pay careful attention, therefore, whether this sense is woven together from what follows. You, he says, brothers, have been called to freedom: perhaps for this reason, that not all were able to grasp the calling of freedom. That is why you now hear: Only do not give freedom as an occasion to the flesh. For through love the greater ought to serve the lesser: because he who wishes to be greater will be the slave of all (Matt. 20; Mark 10). So let the spiritual man neither tear the flesh of Christ, nor give them an occasion to bite back at him when he provokes them, lest they be consumed by one another. He, then, who walks by the spirit, and pursues the words of the Scriptures by the spirit, must not fulfill the desire of their flesh. But if we understand what is said, 'Walk by the spirit, and you will not fulfill the desire of the flesh', in the simple way (as most people think), Paul will suddenly break out into these things against the argument and the hypothesis of the whole Epistle; for immediately there follows: 'But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the Law.' And although up to this point the discourse holds together in some measure, again, if we follow the simple understanding, it suddenly carries us over to disordered precepts, discussing flesh and spirit, that is: 'Now the works of the flesh are manifest, this one and that one.' And on the other hand: 'But the fruit of the spirit is love', and the rest. But neither in these should we despair of the sequence; for the history of the divine volumes contains the works of the flesh, and it does not greatly help those who understand it just as it is written. For who will not be taught to serve licentiousness and to count fornication as nothing, when he has read of Judah going in to a harlot (Gen. 38), and that the patriarchs had many wives at the same time? How will he not be provoked to idolatry who supposes that the blood of bulls and the other victims of Leviticus signify nothing more than what sounds in the letter? And that the word of Scripture, set out in the open, teaches enmities is proved also from this passage: 'O wretched daughter of Babylon, blessed is he who will repay you your repayment with which you repaid us. Blessed is he who will seize and dash your little ones against the rock' (Ps. 136:8, 9). And from that one: 'In the morning I killed all the sinners of the land' (Ps. 100:8), and other things like these: namely, concerning strifes, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions. To these things (unless we perceive something higher) the examples of the history provoke us more than they forbid them. Heresies too have arisen more from the carnal understanding of Scripture than from the work of our flesh, as very many suppose. Envy and drunkenness, moreover, we learn through the letter of the Law. Noah gets drunk after the flood, and the patriarchs with their brother Joseph in Egypt (Gen. 9 and 43). And carousings too are written in the book of Kingdoms, with David dancing and beating the timbrels before the Ark of the covenant of God (1 Sam. 6), and things like these. It is asked how the simple word of divine Scripture, which is called flesh, provokes us to sorceries and to evil arts, unless we cross over to the spirit of that same Scripture. I think this is what is signified by Daniel and the three youths being found ten times wiser than the magi, the enchanters, the Gazarenes and the Chaldeans, and by Moses being learned in all the wisdom and teaching of the Egyptians. It is therefore the occasion of many evils if anyone remains in the flesh of Scripture. Those who do such things will not obtain the kingdom of God. Wherefore let us seek the spirit of Scripture and its fruits, which are not said to be manifest. For it is with much labor and sweat, and with fitting cultivation, that the fruit of the spirit is found in the Scriptures. Hence I judge that Paul spoke carefully and cautiously when he said of the carnal senses of Scripture: 'Now the works of the flesh are manifest' (Gal. 5:19). But of the spiritual he did not set down, as there, 'the fruit of the spirit is manifest'; but thus: 'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace', and the rest (ibid., 22). But if, leaving the types behind, we pass over to the truth and the spirit of Scripture, at once love is first opened to us, and stepping on from there to joy, we arrive at peace, through which we attain patience. And who would not be instructed in mercy and goodness, when he has understood that even those things in the Law which some think grim (I mean punishments and battles, and the overthrow of nations, and the threats against peoples through the prophets) are remedies rather than penalties? For the Lord will not be angry forever (Isa. 57). When these things, then, have been opened to us, we shall have a more reasonable faith, and temperance will accompany our corrected morals, and self-control and chastity will follow it: and after all these things the Law will begin to be for us." Thus far Origen.

Henceforward he appears to digress into a moral discourse, but in a new manner, which does not occur in any other of his Epistles. For all of them are divided into two parts, and in the first he discusses doctrine, in the last the rule of life, but here, after having entered upon the moral discourse, he again unites with it the doctrinal part. For this passage has reference to doctrine in the controversy with the Manichees. What is the meaning of, "Use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh?" Christ hath delivered us, he says, from the yoke of bondage, He hath left us free to act as we will, not that we may use our liberty for evil, but that we may have ground for receiving a higher reward, advancing to a higher philosophy. Lest any one should suspect, from his calling the Law over and over again a yoke of bondage, and a bringing on of the curse, that his object in enjoining an abandonment of the Law, was that one might live lawlessly, he corrects this notion, and states his object to be, not that our course of life might be lawless, but that our philosophy might surpass the Law. For the bonds of the Law are broken, and I say this not that our standard may be lowered, but that it may be exalted. For both he who commits fornication, and he who leads a virgin life, pass the bounds of the Law, but not in the same direction; the one is led away to the worse, the other is elevated to the better; the one transgresses the Law, the other transcends it. Thus Paul says that Christ hath removed the yoke from you, not that ye may prance and kick, but that though without the yoke ye may proceed at a well-measured pace. And next he shows the mode whereby this may be readily effected; and what is this mode? ...

Here again he hints that strife and party-spirit, love of rule and presumptousness, had been the causes of their error, for the desire of rule is the mother of heresies. By saying, "Be servants one to another," he shows that the evil had arisen from this presumptuous and arrogant spirit, and therefore he applies a corresponding remedy. As your divisions arose from your desire to domineer over each other, "serve one another;" thus will ye be reconciled again. However, he does not openly express their fault, but he openly tells them its corrective, that through this they may become aware of that; as if one were not to tell an immodest person of his immodesty, but were continually to exhort him to chastity. He that loves his neighbor as he ought, declines not to be servant to him more humbly than any servant. As fire, brought into contact with wax, easily softens it, so does the warmth of love dissolve all arrogance and presumption more powerfully than fire. Wherefore he says not, "love one another," merely, but, "be servants one to another," thus signifying the intensity of the affection. When the yoke of the Law was taken off them that they might not caper off and away another was laid on, that of love, stronger than the former, yet far lighter and pleasanter; and, to point out the way to obey it, ...

"For you were called to freedom." For we are no longer under the law but serve in freedom.

"as an opportunity for the flesh." Since he calls freedom both upward and downward, and that we have been freed through Christ from the law, he feared they might assume that the yoke of the law had been loosened and that from this time it is permissible to do whatever we wish. This is therefore corrected and he says: Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, to serve its desires and passions.

"but through love." Since he removed the yoke of the law, he imposes another, that of love, both lighter and stronger than that. And the phrase, "serve," indicates the command essential in love. And rightly so the "one another." For they had been infected with love of glory, those who stirred up opposition to circumcision.

One who is free and follows the spirit and the truth in the higher sense may look beyond the mere letter of Scripture with its types and precursors. But he should not therefore despise the less mature nor give some cause to lose hope to those who cannot grasp the deeper sense. For even if they are weak and fleshly in comparison with those who are spiritual, they remain the body of Christ.

For the blessed Apostle also warns thee against lusting with thoughts of freedom, whilst thou art still a slave, saying, "Ye have been called unto freedom, my brethren;" but let not your freedom be for the eating of flesh, and if thou art still a slave, let not only the laws which are external direct thee, but also the laws of thy discretion. For the external laws are kept for many reasons, for appearance, for fear, for praise, for the love of honour, for imagination, for the growth of other passions, that a man may humble his enemies, and that he may shew unto others who are slack the comparison of his wickedness, and similarly there are many other reasons for the keeping of the external law; but let the law of thy discretion be unto thee, so that if thou lustest after anything thou must restrain thyself from making use thereof.

Nay, rather banish quite away from your "free" head all this slavery of ornamentation.

He now shifts to ethical exhortation and commends the practice of virtue. "For it was not in order to sin without fear," he says, "that we have been freed from the law." From this it is clear that in rejecting the superfluous parts of the ceremonial law he is commending the observance of the moral law and, above all, love.

We were not called by Christ, he says, in order to become slaves of the law, but to be freed from the yoke of servitude under the law. Then, lest anyone think that since we are free, we may do whatever we wish, he corrects this and says: let not our freedom be an occasion for indulging the flesh, that is, fleshly desires. For we were not freed from the yoke of the law in order to commit transgressions, but so that even without the yoke we might walk in good order, as is fitting for those who have received a good upbringing. And we did not receive freedom in order to break the law, but to surpass even the law.

Having removed the yoke of the law, he imposes another yoke, the yoke of love, both lighter and at the same time stronger than the former. He also hints that these deceivers appeared among them out of a desire for power, for love of power is the mother of heresies. Therefore, since love of authority produced division among you, "through love serve one another," and by the word "serve" he denotes love that is intense and strong. Then turning to moral instructions, he shows the way by which one can eliminate enslavement to fleshly desires.

Having proposed an example of standing, and eliminated an obstacle thereto, he now establishes its mode. First, he establishes the mode of standing; Secondly, he gives an explanation (v. 14). As to the first he does three things: First, he sets down the condition of a state; Secondly, he describes its abuse; Thirdly, he asserts its mode (v. 13).

The condition of standing is liberty. For the condition of any given state pertains either to liberty or to bondage; but the state of faith in Christ, to which the Apostle urges them, pertains to liberty and is liberty itself. Hence he says: "For you, brethren, have been called unto liberty". As if to say: They are indeed troubling you; for they are drawing you from what is better to what is worse, because you have been called by God unto the liberty of grace: "You have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons" (Rom 8:15); "We are not the children of the bondwoman but of the free" (4:31). You, I say, who are free in Christ, they want to lead into bondage. But a state is being misused if it declines and if liberty of the spirit is perverted into slavery of the flesh. Now the Galatians were free of the Law; but lest they suppose this to be a license to commit sins forbidden by the Law, the Apostle touches on abuse of liberty, saying, "Only make not liberty an occasion to the flesh." As if to say: You are free, but not so as to misuse your liberty by supposing that you may sin with impunity: "But take heed, lest perhaps this your liberty become a stumbling-block to the weak" (1 Cor 8:9).

Now the mode of standing is through charity; hence he says: "but by charity of the spirit serve one another." In fact the whole state consists in charity, without which a man is nothing (1 Cor 13:1 ff.). Moreover, it is according to the various degrees of charity that various states are distinguished. Consequently, the state of grace does not exist in virtue of a desire of the flesh but "by charity of the spirit," i.e., a charity which proceeds from the Holy Spirit, through Whom we should be subject to and serve one another: "Bear ye one another's burdens" (6:2); "With honor preventing one another" (Rom 12:10).

But since he said earlier that they have been called unto liberty, why does he now say, "serve one another"? I answer that charity requires that we serve one another; nevertheless, it is free. Here one might interject that, as the Philosopher says, he is free who is for his own sake; whereas he is a slave who is for the sake of another as of a mover or an end. For a slave is moved to his work not by himself but by a master and for the benefit of his master. Charity, therefore, has liberty as to its movent cause, because it works of itself: "The charity of Christ presseth us" spontaneously, to work (2 Cor 5:14). But it is a servant when, putting one's own interests aside, it devotes itself to things beneficial to the neighbor.

That charity and brotherly affection are to be religiously and stedfastly practised. In Malachi: "Hath not one God created us? Is there not one Father of us all? Why have ye certainly deserted every one his brother? " Of this same thing according to John: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." Also in the same place: "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love than this has no man, than that one should lay down his life for his friends." Also in the same place: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." Also in the same place: "Verily I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth concerning everything, whatever you shall ask it shall be given you from my Father which is in heaven. For wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I am with them." Of this same thing in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: "And I indeed, brethren, could not speak unto you as to spiritual, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I have given you milk for drink, not meat: for while ye were yet little ye were not able to bear it, neither now are ye able. For ye are still carnal: for where there are in you emulation, and strife, and dissensions, are ye not carnal, and walk after man? " Likewise in the same place: "And if I should have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods for food, and if I should deliver up my body to be burned, but have not charity, I avail nothing. Charity is great-souled; charity is kind; charity envieth not; charity dealeth not falsely; is not puffed up; is not irritated; thinketh not evil; rejoiceth not in injustice, but rejoiceth in the truth. It loveth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, beareth all things. Charity shall never fail." Of this same thing to the Galatians: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and accuse one another, see that ye be not consumed one of another." Of this same thing in the Epistle of John: "In this appear the children of God and the children of the devil. Whosoever is not righteous is not of God, and he who loveth not his brother. For he who hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." Also in the same place: "If any one shall say that he loves God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he who loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not? " Of this same thing in the Acts of the Apostles: "But the multitude of them that had believed acted with one soul and mind: nor was there among them any distinction, neither did they esteem as their own anything of the possessions that they had; but all things were common to them." Of this same thing in the Gospel according to Matthew: If thou wouldest offer thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave thou thy gift before the altar, and go; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift at the altar." Also in the Epistle of John: "God is love l and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." Also in the same place: "He who saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is a liar, and walketh in darkness even until now."

What need is there for the holy apostle to make use of the law, if the new covenant is foreign to the old legislation? He wants to show both covenants are from the one Lord. They are best perceived as sharing the same intent. The fulfillment of the law is through the love of one's neighbor, because love is that which effects the perfect good. He therefore says that love is the fulfilling of the law.

The whole work of the law is fulfilled by this one command: love. For one who loves another neither murders nor commits adultery nor steals.… Now Paul himself adds a text: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But we ought to understand by "neighbor" every human being and then constantly view Christ as our neighbor. "And you too must love one another but in the spirit." Here he now seems, as if neglecting the previous question and discussion, to urge them to avoid discord. And this can happen if you love one another in the Spirit, not in the flesh nor for the works of the flesh nor in natural observances. For he who loves another feels no envy, nor steals from another, nor despises or abuses him.

And love is so great a good that the whole law is summed up in it. In another place also the Apostle enumerates the good things of love, saying: "It is not jealous, it does not act wrongly" (1 Cor. 13:4). And having unfolded many things in between, at the end he concludes: "It hopes all things, it endures all things, love never fails." And the Savior in the Gospel says that this is the sign of his disciple: if he loves his neighbor (Matt. 22). This indeed, I think, applies not only to men but also to angels. The same thing is said in other words: "What you do not wish to be done to you, do not do to others; and whatever you wish that men should do to you, do you also likewise the same to them" (ibid. 7:12). I do not wish my wife to be defiled by adultery, I do not wish my property to be plundered, I do not wish to be crushed by false testimony, and, to comprise everything in a brief word, I take it ill that anything unjust should be done to me. If, through love working in me, I either do or wish these same things for another, the whole law is fulfilled. Nor is it difficult to show how all the precepts, you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, and the rest like these, are held together by the single observance of love. What is hard to show is how the sacrifices too that are prescribed in Leviticus, and the abstinence from foods or the permission of them, since some are called clean and others unclean, and also the continual recurrence of the solemn feasts through the years, are summed up in the one precept of love. Unless perhaps one should go over to this position, so as to affirm that the Law is spiritual, and that we served the images and patterns of heavenly things before the true High Priest came; and that after he, offering himself once as a victim, redeemed us by his own blood, all that variety and difficulty of the ancient Law was fulfilled in his love toward men. For the Father so loved the world that he gave his most dear and only-begotten Son for us. But for him who, once living by the spirit, has put to death the works of the flesh, and, being loved by the Savior, is called no longer a slave but a friend, the Law is no longer laid down, which was established for the ungodly and sinners, and for the insubordinate and the wicked. But now, while we do all the things that are more difficult, if only in small part, this one thing alone we do not do, which is both easier to do and without which all that we do is void. The body feels the injury of fasting; vigils waste the flesh; alms are sought by labor; blood in martyrdom, however much faith burns, is still not shed without pain and fear. There are those who do all these things: love alone is without labor. And because it alone makes the heart clean, it is assailed in us by the devil, so that we may not see God with a pure mind. For when I sit and speak against my brother, and lay a stumbling block against my mother's son (Ps. 49:20), when I am tormented by another's happiness and make another's good my evil, is not what follows fulfilled in me: "If you bite and devour one another, see that you are not consumed by one another"? The possession of love is rare. Who, following the Apostle, is willing himself to be anathema from Christ for his brothers? Who, mourning with those who mourn and rejoicing with those who rejoice, is wounded by another's wound? Who is slain by a brother's death? We are all lovers of ourselves rather than lovers of God. See how great is the good of love. If we undergo martyrdom in such a way that we wish our relics to be honored by men; if, pursuing the good opinion of the crowd, we fearlessly shed our blood and give away our substance even to the point of our own beggary, to this work is owed not so much a reward as a penalty, and these are the torments of faithlessness rather than a crown of victory.

Seeing that they made so much of the Law, he says, "If you wish to fulfill it, do not be circumcised, for it is fulfilled not in circumcision but in love." Observe how he cannot forget his grief, but constantly touches upon what troubled him, even when launched into his moral discourse.

"For the whole law." If you really, he says, wish to fulfill the law, do not do so by circumcising, but by loving one another; in this way you fulfill it.

Now, if none other but the Creator shall be found to execute judgment, it follows that only He, who has determined on the cessation of the law, shall be able to condemn the defenders of the law; and what, if he also affirms the law in that portion of it where it ought (to be permanent)? "For," says he, "all the law is fulfilled in you by this: `Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' " If, indeed, he will have it that by the words "it is fulfilled" it is implied that the law no longer has to be fulfilled, then of course he does not mean that I should any more love my neighbour as myself, since this precept must have ceased together with the law.

Are we to paint ourselves out that our neighbours may perish? Where, then, is (the command), "Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself? " "Care not merely about your own (things), but (about your) neighbour's? " No enunciation of the Holy Spirit ought to be (confined) to the subject immediately in hand merely, and not applied and carried out with a view to every occasion to which its application is useful.

If fully, he says, you desire to fulfill the law, then fulfill it not by circumcision, but by love, because in this consists the fullness of the law. See, while setting forth moral instructions, he does not forget dogmatic teaching either. So greatly did he grieve over their error.

Then when he says, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word," he explains what he says: First, about charity; Secondly, about not making liberty an occasion to the flesh (v. 16). As to the first he admonishes them to follow charity: First, because of the benefit we obtain in fulfilling charity; Secondly, because of the injury incurred by neglecting charity (v. 15).

Now the benefit we obtain in fulfilling charity is of the highest order, because in it we fulfill the whole law; hence he says, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word." As if to say: Charity must be maintained, because the whole law is fulfilled in one word, namely, in the one precept of charity: "He that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law" (Rom 13:8) and "Love is the fulfillment of the law" (13:10). Wherefore he says in 1 Timothy (1:5): "The end of the commandment is charity."

However, it is said in Matthew (22:40): "On these two commandments," namely, of the love of God and of neighbor, "dependeth the whole law and the prophets." Therefore, it is not fulfilled in the one precept alone. I answer that in the love of God is included love of neighbor: "This commandment we have from God, that he, who loveth God, love also his brother" (1 Jn 4:21). Conversely, we love our neighbor for the love of God. Consequently, the whole law is fulfilled in the one precept of charity. For the precepts of the law are reduced to that one precept. Indeed, precepts are either moral or ceremonial or judicial. The moral are the precepts of the decalogue: three concern the love of God, and the other seven the love of neighbor. The judicial are, for example, that whosoever steals anything shall restore fourfold, and others like this; and they pertain absolutely to the love of neighbor. The ceremonial concern sacrifices and related matters which are reduced to love of God. And so it is plain that all are fulfilled in the one precept of charity, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," which is also written in Leviticus (19:18).

He says, "as thyself", not "as much as thyself," because according to the order of charity a man should love himself more than his neighbor. Now this is explained in three ways: First, as referring to the genuineness of the love. For to love is to will good to someone: hence we are said to love both the one to whom we will a good and the very good which we will to someone; but not in the same way. For when I will a good to myself, I love myself absolutely for myself, but the good which I will to myself, I do not love for itself but for myself. Accordingly, I love my neighbor as myself in the same way that I love myself, when I will him a good for his sake, and not because it is useful or pleasant for me.

In a second way, as referring to the justice of love. For each thing is inclined to want for itself that which is most eminent in it; but in man, understanding and reason are the most eminent. He, therefore, loves himself who wants for himself the good of understanding and reason. Accordingly, you then love your neighbor as yourself, when you will him the good of understanding and reason.

In a third way, as referring to order, i.e., that just as you love yourself for the sake of God, so you love your neighbor for the sake of God, namely, that he may attain to God.

What, then, is that-how execrable should it appear to you-which I have learnt with extreme anguish and grief of mind, to wit, that there are not wanting those who defile the temples of God, and the members sanctified after confession and made glorious, with a disgraceful and infamous concubinage, associating their beds promiscuously with women's! In which, even if there be no pollution of their conscience, there is a great guilt in this very thing, that by their offence originate examples for the ruin of Others. There ought also to be no contentions and emulations among you, since the Lord left to us His peace, and it is written, "Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself." "But if ye bite and find fault with one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." From abuse and revilings also I entreat you to abstain, for "revilers do not attain the kingdom of God; " and the tongue which has confessed Christ should be preserved sound and pure with its honour. For he who, according to Christ's precept, speaks things peaceable and good and just, daily confesses Christ. We had renounced the world when we were baptized; but we have now indeed renounced the world when tried and approved by God, we leave all that we have, and have followed the Lord, and stand and live in His faith and fear.

But if you bite and devour one another, see that you are not consumed by one another.

This can also be taken simply: that we should not disparage one another, nor think to avenge ourselves with a curse, nor, when grieved, desire to grieve in return, and, like beasts, bite and likewise be bitten back, so that after the bites there follow destruction and consumption. But it is better, lest Paul, against reason and the sequence of the whole Epistle, should suddenly break out into extraneous precepts, to understand it in such a way that we refer everything to circumcision and the observance of the Law. If others, he says, trouble you, you for your part are thrown into turmoil. If, reading the whole old Scripture, you understand it just as it is written: "An eye for an eye: a tooth for a tooth" (Deut. 19:21), and anger desires vengeance, while vengeance inflicts pain (which the Law not only does not forbid but even commands, restoring righteousness through retaliation), it follows that the one stripped strips in turn, the one wounded wounds in turn, the one devoured bites back, and what seems to be righteousness is consumption, avenging not one but consuming both.

That he may not distress them, he does not assert this, though he knew it was the case, but mentions it ambiguously. For he does not say, "Inasmuch as ye bite one another," nor again does he assert, in the clause following, that they shall be consumed by each other; but "take heed that ye be not consumed one of another," and this is the language of apprehension and warning, not of condemnation. And the words which he uses are expressly significant; he says not merely, "ye bite," which one might do in a passion, but also "ye devour," which implies a bearing of malice. To bite is to satisfy the feeling of anger, but to devour is a proof of the most savage ferocity. The biting and devouring he speaks of are not bodily, but of a much more cruel kind; for it is not such an injury to taste the flesh of man, as to fix one's fangs in his soul. In proportion as the soul is more precious than the body, is damage to it more serious. "Take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." For those who commit injury and lay plots, do so in order to destroy others; therefore he says, Take heed that this evil fall not on your own heads. For strife and dissensions are the ruin and destruction as well of those who admit as of those who introduce them, and eats out every thing worse than a moth does.

"But if you bite and devour one another." And by "to bite" he says even more emphatically "to devour," inserting doctrines of this sort. For not so much body is expended by being devoured as the soul is corrupted by such doctrines.

"be careful for fear that." But he was terrified by this.

"that you be consumed by one another." For this faction, he says, also has it in its power to harm you who are causing the disturbance. It is reasonable that he indicates this not only concerning doctrines, but also regarding clashes, and greed, and other injustices.

Here Paul hints that, while some had been circumcised under duress, others had relied on their faith and stood firm. Nevertheless, they were at odds, some praising the legalistic way of life, others showing due admiration for the gifts of grace. For this reason Paul focuses his attention on the exhortation to love.

That which he knows for certain, he expresses with doubt, and the following expression: "take heed that ye be not consumed one of another" – is a warning and caution, not a condemnation. He did not simply say "ye bite" (which is characteristic of anger), but added "devour," which serves as a manifestation of extreme savagery. By this he also points to corrupted teaching, and implies also the plotting against one another, plundering and covetousness. And since they, in doing evil and plotting, thought only of harming others, he says: take heed lest this matter turn against you yourselves.

Then when he says, "But if you bite and devour one another, take heed you be not consumed one of another", he urges them to follow charity, because of the harm we incur if we neglect it. Here he continues to speak to the Galatians as to spiritual men, not bringing up their greater vices but mentioning ones that seem to be minor, such as sins of the tongue. Hence he says: "If you bite and devour one another, take heed you be not consumed one of another". As if to say: All the law is fulfilled in love; "but if you bite one another", i.e., partially destroy the good name of your neighbor by slander (for one who bites takes not the whole but a part) "and devour", i.e., destroy his good name entirely, and completely shame him by slander (for he that devours, consumes all): "Detract not one another, my brethren; he that detracteth his brother detracteth the law" (Jam 4:11). If you neglect charity in that way, I say, "take heed" for the calamity that threatens you, namely, "you might be devoured one of another:" "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision" (Phil 3:2); "I have spent my strength without cause and in vain" (Is 49:4). For as Augustine says, by the vice of contention and envy pernicious rivalries are bred among men, and both life and society are thereby brought to ruin.

He also said, 'Fasting is the monk's control over sin. The man who stops fasting is like a stallion who lusts the moment he sees a mare.'

Abraham, who was a disciple of Agatho, once asked Poemen, 'Why do the demons attack me?' Poemen said to him, 'Is it the demons who attack you? It is not the demons who attack me. When we follow our self-will then our wills seem like demons and it is they who urge us to obey them. If you want to know the kind of people with whom the demons fight, it is Moses and those like him.'

A brother asked a hermit, 'What shall I do, for I am troubled by many temptations, and I do not know how to resist them?' He said, 'Do not fight against them all at once, but against one of them. All the temptations of monks have a single source. You must consider what kind of root of temptation you have, and fight against that and in this way all the other temptations will also be defeated.'

The whole essence of the gospel is to think according to the Spirit, to live according to the Spirit, to believe according to the Spirit, to have nothing of the flesh in one's mind and acts and life. That means also having no hope in the flesh. "Walk, then," he says, "in the Spirit"—that is, "Be alive. If you do so you will not consummate the desire of the flesh. You will admit into consciousness no sin, which is born of the flesh."

But I say: Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfil the desire of the flesh.

This too, in keeping with what precedes, is to be taken in two ways, so that we say that those who by the spirit have put to death the works of the flesh and have sown in the spirit, so as to reap eternal life from the spirit, whenever they feel the pleasure of the flesh tickling them, do not fulfil its desire (which indeed, if it has been satisfied, seems to flatter for a time), but rein it in by the spirit, and, according to the maxim of the Historian (Sallust), live rather by the command of the mind and the service of the body. And this as well: since the Law is spiritual (Rom. 7), and he is not a Jew who is one openly, but he who is one in secret, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, we say that those walk in the spirit and do not fulfil the desire of the flesh who go out of Egypt spiritually, and draw spiritual food and drink from the spiritual rock, who are not judged in food, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day, or of the new moon and the sabbath, but walk spiritually in all things, not fulfilling the desire of the carnal law or of the letter, but reaping the fruits of spiritual understanding. A third interpretation too has been put forward by some on this passage, though one that does not differ much from the second: they assert that the desire of the flesh is in those who are little ones in Christ, but the way of the spirit in perfect men, and that the sense is: Walk in the gravity of the spirit, that is, in the way of the perfect man, and you will not do the desires of little ones.

Here he points out another path which makes duty easy, and secures what had been said, a path whereby love is generated, and which is fenced in by love. For nothing, nothing I say, renders us so susceptible of love, as to be spiritual, and nothing is such an inducement to the Spirit to abide in us, as the strength of love. Therefore he says, "Walk by the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh:" having spoken of the cause of the disease, he likewise mentions the remedy which confers health. And what is this, what is the destruction of the evils we have spoken of, but the life in the Spirit? hence he says, "Walk by the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh."

"walk by the Spirit." Live and conduct yourselves according to the Spirit, he says, and do what seems to belong to it, and you will not fulfill the desire of the flesh.

Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame. Now although the flesh is sinful, and we are forbidden to walk in accordance with it, and its works are condemned as lusting against the spirit, and men on its account are censured as carnal, yet the flesh has not such ignominy on its own account.

Having said that biting and devouring is destructive, he points out the remedy against this as well, which both preserves love and is itself preserved by it, namely, that they should be spiritual. For if we are spiritual, we will love more strongly, and if we love, we will be spiritual and then will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

After indicating what the spiritual state consists in, namely, in charity, the Apostle then deals with the cause of the state, namely, of the Holy Spirit Whom he says they must follow. And he mentions three benefits obtained from the Holy Spirit. First, freedom from the bondage of the flesh; Secondly, freedom from the bondage of the Law (v. 18); Thirdly, the conferring of life, or security from the damnation of death (v. 25). As to the first, he does two things: First, he sets down the first benefit of the spirit; Secondly, he shows the need for this benefit (v. 17).

He says therefore: I say that you are obliged by charity of spirit to serve one another, because nothing profits without charity. But this "I say in Christ," i.e., by the faith of Christ, "walk in the spirit", i.e., in the mind and reason. For sometimes our mind is called a spirit, according to Ephesians (4:23): "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind," and "I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the understanding" (1 Cor 14:15). Or, "walk in the spirit," i.e., make progress in the Holy Spirit, by acting well. For the Holy Spirit moves and incites hearts to do well: "Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Rom 8:14). One should walk, therefore, by the spirit, i.e., the mind, so that one's reason or mind is in accord with the Law of God, as it is said in Romans (7:16). For the human spirit is fickle, and unless it is governed from elsewhere, it turns now in one direction and now in another, as is said in Sirach (34:6): "The heart fancieth as that of a woman in travail. Except it be a vision sent forth from the most High, set not thy heart upon them." Hence Ephesians (4:17) says of certain ones: "They walk in the vanity of their mind." Therefore the human reason cannot stand perfectly except to the extent that it is governed by a divine spirit.

Accordingly the Apostle says, "walk in the spirit," i.e., under the rule and guidance of the Holy Spirit, Whom we should follow as one pointing out the way. For knowledge of the supernatural end is in us only from the Holy Spirit: "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what things God hath prepared for them that love Him," and immediately is added, "But to us God hath revealed them by his Spirit" (1 Cor 2:9). Also as one who inclines us. For the Holy Spirit stirs up and turns the affections to right willing: "Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Rom 8:14); "Thy good spirit shall lead me into the right land" (Ps 142:10).

Now one ought to walk in the spirit, because it frees him from the defilement of the flesh. Hence he follows with: "and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh," i.e., the pleasures which the flesh suggests. This the Apostle yearned for, saying: "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom 7:24). Later he concludes: "There is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh" (Rom 8:1). And at once he gives the reason for this: "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death" (Rom 8:2). And this is the special desire of the saints, that they not fulfill the desires to which the flesh stirs them, but always understanding that in this are not included desires which pertain to the necessities of the flesh, but those that pertain to superfluities.

HOW ARE WE FREE IN CHOICE AND WILL, WHEN THE APOSTLE SAYS, “THE FLESH DESIRES AGAINST THE SPIRIT, AND THE SPIRIT AGAINST THE FLESH, SO THAT YOU DO NOT DO THE THINGS THAT YOU WOULD” (Gal. 5:17)? AND IF THE FLESH DESIRES AGAINST THE SPIRIT, IT IS EVIL. FOR THE SPIRIT SUGGESTS WHAT IS GOOD. — Do not understand “flesh” here as the substance of flesh, but as evil deeds and unbelief signified under the name of flesh. For since all error comes from visible and worldly things, and the flesh is akin to them, because it is composed of elements, he calls every error “flesh.” He calls not only adulteries, fornications, and lusts the works of the flesh, but also idolatry, sorcery, blasphemies, and such things. Does the flesh compel to blasphemy or to idolatry? Are not these vices of the soul, when it consents to error? Yet he rightly says to those who act correctly that they are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. And yet they are in the body for this very purpose. Therefore, whoever walks well and does not despair of the hope of the faithful, though placed in the flesh, is said not to be in the flesh; but one who lives badly and is blasphemous is said to be in the flesh and to be flesh. For just as those who act well are spiritual even with the flesh, so those who live badly are carnal even with the soul itself. This is what he calls it. This error, then, which he calls flesh, desires against the spirit, that is, it suggests evil things against that same spirit, which is the law of God. For he introduces two laws, that of God and that of the Devil. Therefore he says “spirit” because the law of God is spiritual, to resist the flesh, that is, to resist the vices, so as to preserve a person for God; but the law of the Devil, which is error, opposes through the allurements of lust and the sweetness of worldly things. With these in conflict, the human being is in the middle: when he consents to the spirit, the flesh does not want it; but when he gives his hand to the flesh, he spurns the spirit, that is, he despises the law of God. Therefore, when he consents to the flesh, the spirit calls him back so that he does not do what he wishes; but when he agrees to the spirit, the flesh urges him not to do what he thinks beneficial. Yet the spirit rightly and sensibly resists and calls him back, so that it may snatch the person away from the counsels of Satan. But the flesh, which is the opposing law, therefore urges and resists the spirit of the law in order to deceive through trickery. The Apostle therefore proclaims this so as to show to human choice to which side it should commit its will, not to empty the freedom of choice, but to teach the will to which it should join itself. If, however, there were no freedom of will, neither the law of the Devil, which is the flesh, nor the law of God, which is the spirit, by opposing one another, would press a person with their counsels. For whoever entices, persuades; and whoever persuades does not use force, but ensnares; and the one who is ensnared has his will changed by certain deceits. But if there were no free will, a person would, against his will, be dragged to those things which he does not want.

The fact is that both are good: the spirit is good and the flesh too is good. And the whole person who consists of both, one ruling and one obeying, is indeed good but a changeable good. Yet these changing goods could not arise were it not for the immutable good, which is the source of every created good, whether small or great. But however small might be one particular good, it is nonetheless made by the one incomparably good. Yet however great, it is in no way comparable to the greatness of its Maker. But in this human nature, good as it is in origin and constitution, there is now war, because there is not yet salvation.

To the body of this death then is understood to be owing the circumstance that there is in our members another law which wars against the law of the mind, so long as the flesh lusts against the spirit—without, however, subjugating the mind, inasmuch as on its side, too, the spirit has a concupiscence contrary to the flesh. Thus, although the actual law of sin partly holds the flesh in captivity (whence comes its resistance to the law of the mind), still it has not an absolute empire in our body, notwithstanding its mortal state, since it refuses obedience to its desires. For in the case of hostile armies between whom there is an earnest conflict, even the side which is inferior in the fight usually holds a something which it has captured; and although in some such way there is somewhat in our flesh which is kept under the law of sin, yet it has before it the hope of redemption: and then there will remain not a particle of this corrupt concupiscence; but our flesh, healed of that diseased plague, and wholly clad in immortality, shall live for evermore in eternal blessedness.

Now let us see whether we anywhere read about the flesh being contrary in the baptized also. And here, I ask, to whom did the apostle say, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye do not the things that ye would?" He wrote this, I apprehend, to the Galatians, to whom he also says, "He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?" It appears, therefore, that it is to Christians that he speaks, to whom, too, God had given His Spirit: therefore, too, to the baptized. Observe, therefore, that even in baptized persons the flesh is found to be contrary; so that they have not that capacity which, our author says, is inseparably implanted in nature.

People think that the apostle here denies that we possess free will. They do not perceive what he is saying to them: If they refuse to hold fast to the grace they have received, through which alone they are able to walk in the Spirit and avoid fulfilling the desires of the flesh, they will not be able to do as they wish.… It is love that "fulfills the law." But "the wisdom of the flesh" by following temporal goods opposes spiritual love. How can it be made subject to the law of God (that is, freely and obediently fulfill righteousness and not be opposed to it) when even as it tries it must be vanquished? The flesh imagines that it can procure a greater temporal good by iniquity than by maintaining righteousness. The first stage, the natural life of a human being, precedes the law, when no wrongdoing or malice is prohibited. The natural being makes no resistance at all to base desires, since there is no one to prohibit them. The second stage is under law before grace, when he is indeed prohibited and tries to abstain from sin but is overcome because he does not yet love righteousness for God's sake and its own but wishes to observe it in the hope of earthly acquisitions. And therefore, when he sees righteousness on one side and temporal good on another, he is dragged by the weight of his temporal desire and thus forsakes righteousness, which he was trying to maintain only in order to have that which he now sees that he is going to lose by maintaining it. The third stage of life is the one under grace, when no temporal good is preferred to righteousness. This cannot happen except by spiritual love, which the Lord has taught by his example and bestowed by grace. For in this life, even if there remain desires of the flesh from the mortality of the body, yet they do not subdue the mind to consent to sin.

There can be a desire (like mine) with no carnal element in it at all which is nevertheless, in St. Paul's sense, "flesh" and not "spirit". That is, there can be a merely impulsive, headstrong, greedy desire even for spiritual things. It is, like our other appetites, "cross-fodder". Yet, being crucified, it can be raised from the dead, and made part of our bliss.

Thus the organs, no longer governed by man's will, fell under the control of ordinary biochemical laws... And desires began to come up into the mind of man, not as his reason chose, but just as the biochemical and environmental facts happened to cause them... And the will, caught in the tidal wave of mere nature, had no resource but to force back some of the new thoughts and desires by main strength, and these uneasy rebels became the subconscious as we now know it.

There are two ways in which the human machine goes wrong. One is when human individuals drift apart from one another, or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by cheating or bullying. The other is when things go wrong inside the individual—when the different parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another. You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another's way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. As a matter of fact, you cannot have either of these two things without the other. If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order they will not be able to avoid collisions.

Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness. For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing. Every sane and civilised man must have some set of principles by which he chooses to reject some of his desires and to permit others. One man does this on Christian principles, another on hygienic principles, another on sociological principles. The real conflict is not between Christianity and "nature", but between Christian principles and other principles in the control of "nature". For "nature" (in the sense of natural desire) will have to be controlled anyway, unless you are going to ruin your whole life. The Christian principles are, admittedly, stricter than the others; but then we think you will get help towards obeying them which you will not get towards obeying the others.

The two kinds of life are now not only different (they would always have been that) but actually opposed. The natural life in each of us is something self-centred, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe. And especially it wants to be left to itself: to keep well away from anything better or stronger or higher than it, anything that might make it feel small. It is afraid of the light and air of the spiritual world, just as people who have been brought up to be dirty are afraid of a bath. And in a sense it is quite right. It knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that.

And perhaps the two tables themselves may be the prophecy of the two covenants. They were accordingly mystically renewed, as ignorance along with sin abounded. The commandments are written, then, doubly, as appears, for twofold spirits, the ruling and the subject. "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh."

Through the corporeal spirit, then, man perceives, desires, rejoices, is angry, is nourished, grows. It is by it, too, that thoughts and conceptions advance to actions. And when it masters the desires, the ruling faculty reigns. The commandment, then, "Thou shalt not lust," says, thou shalt not serve the carnal spirit, but shall rule over it; "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit," and excites to disorderly conduct against nature; "and the Spirit against the flesh" exercises sway, in order that the conduct of the man may be according to nature.

For he hates the inordinate affection of the flesh, which possess the powerful spell of pleasure; and entertains a noble contempt for all that belongs to the creation and nutriment of the flesh. He also withstands the corporeal soul, putting a bridle-bit on the restive irrational spirit: "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit."

Moreover, we ask that the will of God may be done both in heaven and in earth, each of which things pertains to the fulfilment of our safety and salvation. For since we possess the body from the earth and the spirit from heaven, we ourselves are earth and heaven; and in both-that is, both in body and spirit-we pray that God's will may be done. For between the flesh and spirit there is a struggle; and there is a daily strife as they disagree one with the other, so that we cannot do those very things that we would, in that the spirit seeks heavenly and divine things, while the flesh lusts after earthly and temporal things; and therefore we ask that, by the help and assistance of God, agreement may be made between these two natures, so that while the will of God is done both in the spirit and in the flesh, the soul which is new-born by Him may be preserved. This is what the Apostle Paul openly and manifestly declares by his words: "The flesh," says he, "lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: for these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adulteries, fornications, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, murders, hatred, variance, emulations, wraths, strife, seditions, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, magnanimity, goodness, faith, gentleness, continence, chastity." And therefore we make it our prayer in daily, yea, in continual supplications, that the will of God concerning us should be done both in heaven and in earth; because this is the will of God, that earthly things should give place to heavenly, and that spiritual and divine things should prevail.

What are those carnal things which beget death, and what are the spiritual things which lead to life. Paul to the Galatians: "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: for these are contrary the one to the other, that ye cannot do even those things which ye wish. But the deeds of the flesh are manifest, which are: adulteries, fornications, impurities, filthiness, idolatries, sorceries, murders, hatreds, strifes, emulations, animosities, provocations, hatreds, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: with respect to which I declare, that they who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, magnanimity, goodness, faith, gentleness, continency, chastity. For they who are Christ's have crucified their flesh, with its vices and lusts."

But the third angel (Naas), by the soul which came from Edem upon Moses, as also upon all men, obscured the precepts of Baruch, and caused his own peculiar injunctions to be hearkened unto. For this reason the soul is arrayed against the spirit, and the spirit against the soul.

For the flesh lusts against the spirit, but the spirit against the flesh. For these are opposed to one another, so that you do not do whatever things you will.

The flesh delights in things present and brief; the spirit in things perpetual and future. In the midst of this quarrel the soul stands in the middle, having indeed in its own power good and evil, to will and not to will, but not having this very willing and not willing as something perpetual: because it can happen that, when it has consented to the flesh and done its works, it again stings itself through repentance, is joined to the spirit and accomplishes its works. This, then, is what he says: For these are opposed to one another, that is, the flesh and the spirit; so that you do not do whatever things you will. Not that he has taken away from us our own free choice, by which we assent either to the flesh or to the spirit; but because what we do is not properly ours, but the work itself is reckoned either to the flesh or to the spirit. It is a matter of great labor and of excessive disputation, once the works of the flesh and of the spirit have been set out, to find some middle things which seem to belong neither to the flesh nor to the spirit. We are called carnal when we give ourselves wholly to pleasures; spiritual, when we follow the Holy Spirit going before us, that is, when we are wise with Him instructing us, and are taught with Him as our authority. The animal men (animales), I think, are the philosophers, who suppose their own thoughts to be wisdom, of whom it is rightly said: "But the animal man does not receive the things that are of the spirit. For it is foolishness to him". To make this clearer, let us take an example: let the flesh be called earth, the soul gold, the spirit fire. As long as the gold is in the earth, it loses its own name, and is called after the earth with which it is mixed. But when, separated from the soil, it has received both the appearance and the name of gold, it is indeed called gold, but not yet tested. If, however, it has been smelted and purged through fire, then it receives the splendor of gold and the dignity of its own adornment. So too the soul, standing between soil and fire, that is, between flesh and spirit, when it has handed itself over to the flesh, is called flesh; when to the spirit, it is called spirit. But if it has trusted its own thought, and has supposed that it finds the truth without the grace of the Holy Spirit, it is marked, like impure gold, with the name of the animal man.

And since above we had begun to expound this passage according to a twofold understanding, we must render what we omitted. The flesh lusts against the spirit, that is, the history and the fleshly understanding of Scripture fight against allegory and spiritual teaching. But the spirit against the flesh, that is, the more sublime things resist the lowly, the eternal the brief, the truth the shadow. And the fleshly sense of Scripture, which cannot be fulfilled (for we are not able to do all the things that are written), shows that we are not placed in our own power to fulfill the Law, since, even if we wish to follow the letter, impossibility does not allow it.

An inward war is being waged every day within us. The desires of the flesh and of the spirit are within one and the same person. The lust of the flesh rushes headlong into vice, delights in the worldly enjoyments that seem to satisfy. By contrast the opposed desire of the spirit is so eager to cleave entirely to spiritual pursuits that it in an exaggerated way chooses even to exclude the necessary uses of the flesh. By wishing to be so inseparably attached to spiritual things it refuses to take care of its own bodily fragility.

Here some make the charge that the Apostle has divided man into two parts, and that he states the essence of which he is compounded to be conflicting with itself, and that the body has a contest with the soul. But this is not so, most certainly; for by "the flesh," he does not mean the body; if he did, what would be the sense of the clause immediately following, "for it lusteth," he says, "against the Spirit?" yet the body moves not, but is moved, is not an agent, but is acted upon. How then does it lust, for lust belongs to the soul not to the body, for in another place it is said, "My soul longeth," (Ps. lxxxiv: 2.) and, "Whatsoever thy soul desireth, I will even do it for thee," (1 Sam. xx: 4.) and, "Walk not according to the desires of thy heart," and, "So panteth my soul." (Ps. xlii: 1.) Wherefore then does Paul say, "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit?" he is wont to call the flesh, not the natural body but the depraved will, as where he says, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit," (Rom. viii: 8, 9.) and again, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." What then? Is the flesh to be destroyed? was not he who thus spoke clothed with flesh? such doctrines are not of the flesh, but from the Devil, for "he was a murderer from the beginning." (John viii: 44.) What then is his meaning? it is the earthly mind, slothful and careless, that he here calls the flesh, and this is not an accusation of the body, but a charge against the slothful soul. The flesh is an instrument, and no one feels aversion and hatred to an instrument, but to him who abuses it. For it is not the iron instrument but the murderer, whom we hate and punish. But it may be said that the very calling of the faults of the soul by the name of the flesh is in itself an accusation of the body. And I admit that the flesh is inferior to the soul, yet it too is good, for that which is inferior to what is good may itself be good, but evil is not inferior to good, but opposed to it. Now if you are able to prove to me that evil originates from the body, you are at liberty to accuse it; but if your endeavor is to turn its name into a charge against it, you ought to accuse the soul likewise. For he that is deprived of the truth is called "the natural man." (1 Cor. ii: 14.) and the race of demons "the spirits of wickedness." (Eph. vi: 12.)

Again, the Scripture is wont to give the name of the Flesh to the Mysteries of the Eucharist, and to the whole Church, calling them the Body of Christ. (Col. i: 24.) Nay, to induce you to give the name of blessings to the things of which the flesh is the medium, you have only to imagine the extinction of the senses, and you will find the soul deprived of all discernment, and ignorant of what it before knew. For if the power of God is since "the creation of the world clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made," (Rom. i: 20.) how could we see them without eyes? and if "faith cometh of hearing," (Rom. x: 17.) how shall we hear without ears? and preaching depends on making circuits wherein the tongue and feet are employed. "For how shall they preach, except they be sent?" (Rom. x: 15.) In the same way writing is performed by means of the hands. Do you not see that the ministry of the flesh produces for us a thousand benefits? In his expression, "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit," he means two mental states. For these are opposed to each other, namely virtue and vice, not the soul and the body. Were the two latter so opposed they would be destructive of one another, as fire of water, and darkness of light. But if the soul cares for the body, and takes great forethought on its account, and suffers a thousand things in order not to leave it, and resists being separated from it, and if the body too ministers to the soul, and conveys to it much knowledge, and is adapted to its operations, how can they be contrary, and conflicting with each other? For my part, I perceive by their acts that they are not only not contrary but closely accordant and attached one to another. It is not therefore of these that he speaks as opposed to each other, but he refers to the contest of bad and good principles. (Compare Rom. vii: 23.) To will and not to will belongs to the soul; wherefore he says, "these are contrary the one to the other," that you may not suffer the soul to proceed in its evil desires. For he speaks this like a Master and Teacher in a threatening way.

For there are two motions in us, the lust of the flesh and that of the soul, differing from each other,

"For the flesh desires against the Spirit." By flesh here he means the fleshly and evil desires. And by spirit, the grace of the Holy Spirit toward virtue. And he says: Evil opposes virtue, and virtue in turn opposes evil, fulfilling the role of a certain guardian, and not allowing us to follow the wicked desires.

— [PHOTIUS] Virtue opposes vice, so that the fleshly will, stirred by vice, may not immediately, as if unrestrained and uncontrolled, be carried headlong toward sin. Again, vice opposes virtue, so that the practice of virtue may not be entirely effortless and unmerited, and as if joined to us by nature and necessity, and accomplished merely by thinking, without any earnestness or struggle.

He himself briefly says this: "so that you may not do what you wish," neither the bad, he says, easily at all and without hindrance, nor indeed the good readily altogether and carelessly. Things therefore done would not even be good. [end of the excerpt by Photius] —

For each of these, whether it be the body, or the soul, draweth the other unto its own will, because they are contrary to each other in their natures, and also in their wills, according to the word of the Apostle, who said, "The body lusteth for that which injureth the spirit, and the spirit lusteth for that which injureth the body; and the two are contrary each to each." Now if, according to the word of the wise Apostle, all the lusts of the body are contrary to the soul, the lust of the belly must be more contrary than they all, because it is the door of all lusts, and among them all there is none so heavy as it is. For as a weight which is light and volatile by nature, if suspended, inclineth downwards, even so is this lust of the belly, for it is composed of moisture and weight, and although the body naturally possesseth weight—for its nature is so to do—yet by a superabundance of food, other weight is added thereunto, and when weight is added unto weight, and body is doubled upon body, that is to say, the body of food upon the body of nature, the weight upon the soul increaseth, and the mistress becometh a handmaid in subjection; for the soul cannot henceforth rule over the body like a free thing, but it beareth the weight thereof like a slave.

In this manner then are also the soul and body towards each other, and as their natures are contrary to each other, even so also are their wills, and concerning this hath Paul also said, "The body lusteth after that which will harm the spirit, and the spirit lusteth after that which will harm the body, and both are contrary, each to each." And so long as they stand in this measure of equality, they will be at constant and unceasing war, and at one time the body will conquer the soul, and at another the soul will overcome the body; and whosoever fighteth thus must stand in his place, for although he step forward even so little towards that which belongeth to the soul, the body hangeth on to him and turneth him back, and, moreover, it will even thrust him from his position, and drag him down into the abyss of sin.

For although he says that "in his flesh dwelleth no good thing; " although he affirms that "they who are in the flesh cannot please God," because "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit; " yet in these and similar assertions which he makes, it is not the substance of the flesh, but its actions, which are censured.

Thus, so long as the things which are the Spirit's please them not, the things which are of the flesh will please, as being the contraries of the Spirit. "The flesh," saith (the apostle), "lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." But what will the flesh "lust" after, except what is more of the flesh? For which reason withal, in.

On the basis of these words, the Manichaeans and all heretics of this sort say that man consists of two opposing natures and that the apostle confirms this with the present words. But no: he is reasoning not about nature, but by "flesh" he means earthly thoughts, careless and heedless, and not the body, and by "spirit" he means spiritual thoughts, and not the soul. Earthly thoughts, he says, oppose spiritual ones, and spiritual ones oppose earthly ones. Thus, he acknowledges the struggle of evil and good thoughts, but not of body and soul. For to desire and not to desire is a matter of the reasoning soul. He adds, "you do not do the things you would wish," because the body also cooperates with the soul and does not oppose it, and the soul clings to the body and endures everything so as not to leave it, and when torn from it, grieves. How then can they be opponents when they have such a bond with one another?

Then when he says, "For the flesh lusteth against the spirit," he tells why this benefit is needed, namely, because of the struggle between flesh and spirit. First, he asserts that there is a struggle; Secondly, he elucidates this by an obvious sign (v. 17).

He says therefore: It is necessary that by the spirit you overcome the desires of the flesh, "for the flesh lusteth against the spirit." But one might have a doubt here, because, since lusting is an act of the soul alone, it does not seem to come from the flesh. I answer that, according to Augustine, the flesh is said to lust inasmuch as the soul lusts by means of the flesh, just as the eye is said to see, when as a matter of fact, it is the soul that sees by means of the eye. Consequently, the soul lusts by means of the flesh, when it seeks, according to the flesh, things which are pleasurable. But the soul lusts by means of itself, when it takes pleasure in things that are according to the spirit, as virtuous works, contemplation of divine things, and mediation of wisdom: "The desire of wisdom bringeth to the everlasting kingdom" (Wis 6:21).

But if the flesh lusts by means of the spirit, how does it lust against it? It does so in the sense that the lusting of the flesh hinders the desires of the spirit. For since the pleasures of the flesh concern goods which are beneath us, whereas the pleasures of the spirit concern goods which are above us, it comes to pass that when the soul is occupied with the lower things of the flesh, it is withdrawn from the higher things of the spirit.

But his further statement that "the spirit lusts against the flesh" may cause a problem. For if we take "spirit" for the Holy Spirit, and the desire of the Holy Spirit is against evil things, it seems to follow that the flesh against which the spirit lusts is evil—which is the Manichean error. I answer that the spirit does not lust against the nature of the flesh, but against its desires, namely, those that concern superfluities; hence he said above, "you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh" (v. 16), i.e., superfluous things. For in things necessary the spirit does not contradict the flesh, as we are told in Ephesians (5:29): "No man hateth his own flesh."

Then when he says, "For these are contrary one to another," he gives evidence of the struggle. As if to say: It is obvious from experience that they fight and struggle against one another, so far forth "that you do not," i.e., are not suffered to do, "the things", good or evil, "that you would:" "The good which I will I do not: but the evil which I will not, that I do" (Rom 7:19). However, free will is not taken away. For since free will consists in having choice, there is freedom of the will with respect to things subject to choice. But not all that lies in us is fully subject to our choice, but only in a qualified sense. In specific cases we are able to avoid this or that movement of lust or anger, but we cannot avoid all movements of anger or lust in general—and this by reason of the "fomes" introduced by the first sin.

Here it should be noted that with respect to lusts there are four categories of men who do not that which they would. For intemperate men, who of set intention follow the passions of the flesh—according to Proverbs (2:14): "They are glad when they have done evil"—do, indeed, what they will, inasmuch as they follow their passions; but inasmuch as their reason complains and is displeased, they are doing what they would not. But incontinent persons, who resolve to abstain but are, nevertheless, conquered by their passions, do what they would not, inasmuch as they follow such passions contrary to what they resolved. As between these two types the intemperate do more of the things that they would. Those, however, who are continent, i.e., who would prefer not to lust at all, do what they intend, as long as they are not subject to lust; but because they cannot completely repress lust, they do what they would not. Finally, those who are temperate do what they would, inasmuch as there is no lust in the tamed flesh; but because it cannot be totally tamed so as never to rise up against the spirit—just as neither can malice so abound that reason would never complain—therefore, in those instances in which they do lust, they are doing what they would not; but for the most part they do what they would.

A person is "under the law" when he is conscious of abstaining from works of sin through fear of the torments threatened by the law rather than by love of righteousness. He is not yet free, not yet a stranger to the will to sin. For he does wrong by his very willing, since he would prefer if it were possible that there should be nothing for the will to fear, so that he might do freely what he secretly desires.… By the law which he has used to instill fear [God] has not imparted love. Godly love is suffused in our hearts not through the letter of the law but through the Holy Spirit, which is given to us.

He did not say "Walk in the Spirit so that you will not have desires of the flesh" but "so that you will not gratify them." Not to have them at all, indeed, is not the struggle but the prize of struggle, if we shall have obtained the victory by perseverance under grace. For it is only the transformation of the body into an immortal state that will no longer have desires of the flesh.

But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the Law.

By spirit he means not that one of which the Apostle speaks in another place: "The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are sons of God" (Rom. 8:16), that is, not the spirit of the man which is in him, but the Holy Spirit: following him, we are made spiritual and cease to be under the Law. It must be noted, therefore, that here spirit is not named with the ἄρθρῳ (article) and with some addition, as we read in other places, the spirit of gentleness and the spirit of faith, but is called simply Spirit: and these minutiae, observed more in Greek than in our own language (for we have no ἄρθρα at all), seem to carry some weight. The question is raised in this place, if whoever is led by the spirit is not under the Law, whether Moses and the prophets were both driven by the spirit and lived under the Law, which the Apostle denies; or, having the spirit, were not under the Law, which the Apostle here affirms; or, which is the third possibility, living under the Law, did not have the spirit, which it is impious to believe of such great men. To this we shall answer briefly: it is not the same thing to be under the Law and to be as if under the Law, just as it is not the very same thing to be in the likeness of the flesh of sin and to be in the flesh of sin. Nor does a true serpent mean the same as the likeness of a bronze serpent, which Moses hung up in the desert (Num. 21). So, therefore, the holy prophets too, and Moses, walking by the spirit and living by the spirit, lived not under the Law but as if under the Law, so that they themselves seemed indeed to be under the Law, but might gain those who were under the Law and call them forth from the lowliness of the letter to the height of the spirit. For Paul too, who became a Jew to the Jews, and all things to all, that he might gain all (1 Cor. 9), did not say "made under the Law", but "made as if under the Law", to show that he had kept not the truth of the Law but its likeness. We seem to ourselves to have solved the question proposed. But what shall we do about that passage of Paul, where he says: "But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that he might redeem those who were under the Law" (above)? For if Christ was under the Law, and not as if under the Law, that whole preceding discussion will become empty. But this objection too will be resolved from its own passage. For he who was made under the Law for this reason, that he might redeem those who were under the Law, surely, since he was free from the Law, subjected himself to the Law of his own will; and he was far freer than Paul, who testified that he had been not under the Law but as if under the Law. And just as he went down into the mire and abyss of death for our sake, who were praying and saying: "Who will deliver me from the body of this death" (Rom. 7:24)? so too he willed to be born of a woman and to be under the Law, that he might save those who had been born of a woman and under the Law. And certainly he was not born of a woman, that is, of a married woman, but of a virgin. But the virgin was called a woman by a loose use of the word, on account of those who did not know that she had been a virgin. So, then, just as "woman" was put for "virgin" on account of those who thought that holy Mary had a husband, so, on account of those who supposed that Christ was under the Law, not knowing that to those who were under the Law he had become as if under the Law, he too is said to have been made under the Law.

If it be asked in what way are these two connected, I answer, closely and plainly; for he that hath the Spirit as he ought, quenches thereby every evil desire, and he that is released from these needs no help from the Law, but is exalted far above its precepts. He who is never angry, what need has he to hear the command, Thou shalt not kill? He who never casts unchaste looks, what need hath he of the admonition, Thou shalt not commit adultery? Who would discourse about the fruits of wickedness with him who had plucked up the root itself? for anger is the root of murder, and of adultery the inquisitive gazing into faces. Hence he says, "If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the Law;" wherein he appears to me to have pronounced a high and striking eulogy of the Law, if, at least, the Law stood, according to its power, in the place of the Spirit before the Spirit's coming upon us. But we are not on that account obliged to continue apart with our schoolmaster. Then we were justly subject to the Law, that by fear we might chasten our lusts, the Spirit not being manifested; but now that grace is given, which not only commands us to abstain from them, but both quenches them, and leads us to a higher rule of life, what more need is there of the Law? He who has attained an exalted excellence from an inner impulse, has no occasion for a schoolmaster, nor does any one, if he is a philosopher, require a grammarian. Why then do ye so degrade yourselves, as now to listen to the Law, having previously given yourselves to the Spirit?

"But if you are led by the Spirit." If, he says, you walk according to the will of the Holy Spirit, you will not go astray. But the one who does not stumble in anything does not need the law and its guidance that follows from it. And the one who does not need it is not under it, as he says elsewhere, the law does not apply to the righteous.

He who has the Spirit extinguishes evil desires, and he who is free from them has no need of the counsel of the law and is not subject to it. For he who does not grow angry, what need has he of the commandment not to kill? And he who has no lustful desires, what need has he of the counsel not to commit adultery? This is the same as what he said elsewhere: "the law is not made for a righteous man" (1 Tim. 1:9). He also seems to speak in praise of the law, since it served in place of the Spirit, fulfilling to the extent of its power the duty of a guide until an appointed time. How then do you again submit yourselves to a tutor, having abandoned the Spirit who makes you perfect — as if someone who is already a philosopher were to need a tutor?

After showing that through the spirit we are freed from the desires of the flesh, the Apostle here shows that through it we are released from the bondage of the Law. First, he mentions a benefit of the spirit; Secondly, he manifests it by certain effects (v. 19).

He says therefore: I say that if you walk in the spirit, not only will you not carry out the desires of the flesh, but, what is more, "if you are led by the spirit" (which happens when you do what the spirit suggests, as director and guide, and not what your sense desires urge), you are not "under the law": "Thy good spirit shall lead me into the right land," not by compelling, but by guiding (Ps 142:10).

Jerome infers from these words that after the coming of Christ no one having the Holy Spirit is obliged to observe the Law. But it should be recognized that the saying, "if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law," can be referred either to the ceremonial or to the moral precepts of the Law. If it is referred to the ceremonial precepts, then it is one thing to observe the Law and another to be under the Law. For to observe the Law is to carry out the works of the Law without putting any hope in them; but to be under the Law is to put one's hope in the works of the Law. Now in the early Church there were some just men who observed the Law without being under the Law, inasmuch as they observed the works of the Law; but they were not under the Law in the sense of putting their hope in them. In this way even Christ was under the Law: "Made under the law" (4:4). Thus Jerome's opinion is excluded.

But if it is referred to the moral precepts, then to be under the Law can be taken in two ways: either as to its obliging force, and then all the faithful are under the Law, because it was given to all—hence it is said: "I have not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it" (Mt 5:17)—or as to its compelling force, and then the just are not under the Law, because the movements and breathings of the Holy Spirit in them are their inspiration; for charity inclines to the very things that the Law prescribes. Therefore, because the just have an inward law, they willingly do what the Law commands and are not constrained by it. But those who would do evil but are held back by a sense of shame or by fear of the Law are compelled. Accordingly, the just are under the Law as obliging but not as compelling, in which sense the unjust alone are under it: "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor 3:17); "The law," as compelling, "is not made for the just man" (1 Tim 1:9).

These and others like them are the members of sin, which the apostle calls "the works of the flesh" because these errors come from the world, from which also the flesh comes. For all these sins arise from the side of the flesh, not from that of the Spirit.

Nemesianus of Thubunae said: That the baptism which heretics and schismatics bestow is not the true one, is everywhere declared in the Holy Scriptures, since their very leading men are false Christs and false prophets, as the Lord says by Solomon: "He who trusteth in that which is false, he feedeth the winds; and the very same, moreover, followeth the flight of birds. For he forsaketh the ways of his own vineyard, he has wandered from the paths of his own little field. But he walketh through pathless places, and dry, and a land destined for thirst; moreover, he gathereth together fruitless things in his hands." And again: "Abstain from strange water, and from the fountain of another do not drink, that you may live a long time; also that the years of life may be added to thee." And in the Gospel our Lord Jesus Christ spoke with His divine voice, saying, "Except a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." This is the Spirit which from the beginning was borne over the waters; for neither can the Spirit operate without the water, nor the water without the Spirit. Certain people therefore interpret for themselves ill, when they say that by imposition of the hand they receive the Holy Ghost, and are thus received, when it is manifest that they ought to be born again in the Catholic Church by both sacraments. Then indeed they will be able to be sons of God, as says the apostle: "Taking care to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, as ye have been called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God." All these things speaks the Catholic Church. And again, in the Gospel the Lord says: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit; because God is a Spirit, and he is born of God." Therefore, whatsoever things all heretics and schismatics do are carnal, as the apostle says: "For the works of the flesh are manifest, which are, fornications, uncleannesses, incest, idolatries, witchcrafts, hatreds, contentions, jealousy, anger, divisions, heresies, and the like to these; concerning which have told you before, as I also foretell you now, that whoever do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." And thus the apostle condemns, with all the wicked, those also who cause division, that is, schismatics and heretics. Unless therefore they receive saving baptism in the Catholic Church, which is one, they cannot be saved, but will be condemned with the carnal in the judgment of the Lord Christ.

[The apostle], foreseeing the wicked speeches of unbelievers, has particularized the works which he terms carnal; and he explains himself, lest any room for doubt be left to those who do dishonestly pervert his meaning, thus saying in the Epistle to the Galatians: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are adulteries, fornications, uncleanness, luxuriousness, idolatries, witchcrafts, hatreds, contentions jealousies, wraths, emulations, animosities, irritable speeches, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and such like; of which I warn you, as also I have warned you, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Thus does he point out to his hearers in a more explicit manner what it is [he means when he declares], "Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God." For they who do these things, since they do indeed walk after the flesh, have not the power of living unto God. And then, again, he proceeds to tell us the spiritual actions which vivify a man, that is, the engrafting of the Spirit; thus saying, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, benignity, faith, meekness, continence, chastity: against these there is no law." As, therefore, he who has gone forward to the better things, and has brought forth the fruit of the Spirit, is saved altogether because of the communion of the Spirit; so also he who has continued in the aforesaid works of the flesh, being truly reckoned as carnal, because he did not receive the Spirit of God, shall not have power to inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, strifes, jealousies, angers, quarrels, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and things like these, which I foretell to you, as I have also foretold: that those who do these things shall not possess the kingdom of God.

Above, when we were expounding about the flesh and the spirit, we had spoken of a threefold understanding: either that those are fleshly who, being little ones and bodily, could not take solid food in Christ and the nourishment of full age; or that those are carnal who, in the Jewish manner, follow only the history and the letter; or certainly, according to the simple sense, that flesh and spirit subsist in the fashioning of man, and that according to the difference of substance there are works either of the flesh or of the spirit. Now therefore the works of the flesh which are named here, namely fornication, impurity, licentiousness and the rest that follow, seem to me to refer rather to the simple understanding of flesh and spirit than to the flesh of the Law and to the little ones in Christ, although in that place above, where we translated word for word from the tenth book of Origen's Stromata, what may also be thought about these things has been set out. And when he says: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, he shows either that they are known to all, because they are plainly evil of themselves and to be shunned, so much so that even those who do them wish to hide what they do; or certainly that they are manifest only to those who have believed in Christ. For very many of the Gentiles glory in their shames, and think that if they have satisfied their pleasure, they have won a kind of victory of disgraceful deeds. But this too is elegantly done, that he placed works in the flesh and fruits in the spirit: because vices come to an end in themselves and perish, while virtues sprout with fruits and overflow. Nor let us think that the soul has no work, if vices are assigned to the flesh and virtues to the spirit. For the soul (as we said above), placed in a kind of middle ground, is either joined to the flesh, and it is said of it: "My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh" (Gen. 6:3); or it is united to the spirit and passes into the name of spirit. "For he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17). So the first work of the flesh is fornication. He put the manifest ones at the beginning, so that we should not be in doubt about those in the middle. For whatever a man does is outside the body, but he who commits fornication sins against his own body. And we are not our own: for we have been bought with a price; let us glorify and carry God in our body. In this the fornicator is of greater guilt: because he takes the members of Christ and makes them the members of a harlot. For the two shall be in one flesh. He who is not a believer and does not believe in Christ makes his own members the members of a harlot; he who believes and commits fornication makes the members of Christ the members of a harlot. On the other hand, whether the unbeliever in his fornication violates a temple or builds a temple to an idol, I do not know. For demons are worshiped above all through vices. This one thing I know: that he who commits fornication after faith in Christ violates the temple of God. The second work of the flesh is called impurity, and licentiousness follows it as its companion. For just as in the old Law Scripture embraced in general terms the abominable crimes which are done in secret, and which it is most shameful even to name (lest both the mouth of the speaker and the ears of the hearers be defiled), saying: "Modest", or "reverent, make the sons of Israel, away from all impurity" (Lev. 15:31): so in this place he has named as impurity and licentiousness the other extraordinary pleasures, and even the works of marriage itself, if they are not done modestly and with decency, as under the eyes of God, so that only the begetting of children is served.

And to the Galatians it is numbered among the works of the flesh: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, contentions, rivalries, angers, quarrels, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkennesses, revellings, and other things like these, which I foretell to you as I have foretold: that those who do such things will not possess the kingdom of God" (Gal. 5:19 ff.). In these it must be carefully observed that, just as the other vices which are numbered among the works of the flesh exclude us from the kingdom of God, so heresies too take the kingdom of God away from us; and it makes no difference in what way anyone is excluded from the kingdom, so long as he is excluded.

Answer me now, thou that accusest thine own flesh, and supposest that this is said of it as of an enemy and adversary. Let it be allowed that adultery and fornication proceed, as you assert, from the flesh; yet hatred, variance, emulations, strife, heresies, and witchcraft, these arise merely from a depraved moral choice. And so it is with the others also, for how can they belong to the flesh? you observe that he is not here speaking of the flesh, but of earthly thoughts, which trail upon the ground. Wherefore also he alarms them by saying, that "they which practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." If these things belonged to nature and not to a bad moral choice, his expression, "they practice," is inappropriate, it should be, "they suffer." And why should they be cast out of the kingdom, for rewards and punishments relate not to what proceeds from nature but from choice?

"are evident." Therefore he seemed to say: From their own fruits you will recognize the wicked and base society.

But "flesh" he speaks of again, of the corrupting imagination and of the earthy and fleshly life.

"the works of the flesh." It is therefore clear that by "flesh" he calls the fleshly mindset, that is, the soul's tendency toward worse things; and by "spirit" the given grace.

"uncleanness, filthiness." He says unclean and shamelessness, shameful practices of prostitution.

He means the works of the flesh and blood, which, in his Epistle to the Galatians, deprive men of the kingdom of God. In other passages also he is accustomed to put the natural condition instead of the works that are done therein, as when he says, that "they who are in the flesh cannot please God.

It is not indeed the flesh which he bids us to put off, but the works which he in another passage shows to be "works of the flesh." He brings no accusation against men's bodies, of which he even writes as follows: "Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.

What are these? Among the first he has set "fornication, impurity, lasciviousness: "" (concerning) which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that whoever do such acts are not to attain by inheritance the kingdom of God." The Romans, moreover,-what learning is more impressed upon them than that there must be no dereliction of the Lord after believing? "What, then, say we? Do we persevere in sin, in order that grace may superabound? Far be it.

But what do we understand "the sense of the flesh" and "the life of the flesh" (to mean), except whatever "it shames (one) to pronounce? " for the other (works) of the flesh even an apostle would have named. Similarly, too, (when writing) to the Ephesians, while recalling past (deeds), he warns (them) concerning the future: "In which we too had our conversation, doing the concupiscences and pleasures of the flesh.

These, he says, are the works of the corrupt carnal will, among which are recognized adultery and fornication. And it is clear how much adultery differs from fornication.

He hints at shameless customs which he did not even dare to name.

Then when he says, "the works of the flesh are manifest," he proves what he has said through certain effects. First, he mentions the works of the flesh which are opposed to the Holy Spirit; Secondly, he shows how the works of the Spirit are not forbidden by the Law (23b). As to the first, he does two things: First, he mentions the works of the flesh that are forbidden by the Law; Secondly, the works of the Spirit which are not forbidden by it (v. 22). As to the first, he does two things: First, he enumerates the works of the flesh; Secondly, he mentions the harm that follows from them (v. 21).

With respect to the first, two doubts arise. First, as to the Apostle's mentioning things that do not pertain to the flesh, but which he says are works of the flesh, such as idolatry, sects, emulations, and the like. I answer that, according to Augustine in The City of God (Bk. 14), he lives according to the flesh who lives according to himself. Hence flesh is taken here as referring to the whole man. Accordingly, whatever springs from disordered self-love is called a work of the flesh. Or, one should say that a sin can be called "of the flesh" in two ways: namely, with respect to fulfillment, and in this sense only those are sins of the flesh that are fulfilled in the pleasure of the flesh, namely, lust and gluttony; or with respect to their root, and in this sense all sins are called sins of the flesh, inasmuch as the soul is so weighed down by the weakness of the flesh (as is written in Wisdom 9:15) that the enfeebled intellect can be easily misled and hindered from operating perfectly. As a consequence, certain vices follow therefrom, namely, heresies, sects and the like. In this way it is said that the "fomes" is the source of all sins.

The second doubt is that, since the Apostle says that "they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God," whereas no one is excluded from the kingdom of God except for mortal sin, it follows that all the sins enumerated are mortal sins. But the contrary seems to be the case, because in this list he enumerates many that are not mortal sins, such as contention, emulation, and the like. I answer that all the sins listed here are mortal one way or another: some are so according to their genus, as murder, fornication, idolatry, and the like; but others are mortal with respect to fulfillment, as anger, whose fulfillment consists in harm to neighbor. Hence if one consents to that harm, there is mortal sin. In like manner, eating is directed to the pleasure of food, but if one places his end in such pleasures, he sins mortally; accordingly, he does not say "eating" but revellings. And the same must be said of the others that are like this.

Thirdly, there is a doubt about the order followed in this list. However, it should be recognized that when the Apostle varies his enumeration of various vices in various texts, it is not his intention to enumerate all the vices in perfect order and according to the rules of the art, but only those in which the persons to whom he is writing abound and in which they are excessive. Therefore in these lists one should look not for completeness but for the cause of the variation.

Having settled these doubts, we should next observe that the Apostle lists certain vices of the flesh that concern things not necessary to life and others that concern things necessary to life. As to the first, he mentions certain vices that a man commits against himself; then those that are against God; finally, those that are against the neighbor. Against the self are four. These he mentions first, because they obviously spring from the flesh. Two of these pertain to the carnal act of lust, namely, "fornication," when an unmarried man becomes one with an unmarried woman with respect to the natural use of lust. The other is "uncleanness" as to a use which is contrary to nature—"No fornicator or unclean... hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God" (Eph 5:5); "They have not done penance for the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness that they have committed" (2 Cor 12:21). The other two are ordained to the aforesaid acts: one is performed outwardly, as touches, looks, kisses and the like; as to these he says, "immodesty": "Who despairing, have given themselves up to immodesty unto the working of all uncleanness" (Eph 4:19). The other inwardly, namely, unclean thoughts; as to this he says, "luxury": "When they have grown wanton in Christ, they will marry" (1 Tim 5:11).

Now it is adultery, if one, abandoning the ecclesiastical and true knowledge, and the persuasion respecting God, accedes to false and incongruous opinion, either by deifying any created object, or by making an idol of anything that exists not, so as to overstep, or rather step from, knowledge. And to the Gnostic false opinion is foreign, as the true belongs to him, and is allied with him. Wherefore the noble apostle calls one of the kinds of fornication, idolatry, in following the prophet, who says: "[My people] hath committed fornication with stock and stone. They have said to the stock, Thou art my father; and to the stone, Thou hast begotten me."

Fourth in the catalogue of the works of the flesh, idolatry holds its place. For he who has once given himself over to licentiousness and pleasure does not look back to the Creator. Besides, all idolatry delights in festivity, gluttony, the belly, and the things that are below the belly. And lest sorceries and the arts of witchcraft should perhaps seem not to be forbidden in the New Testament, they too are named among the works of the flesh. For it often happens to the wretched through magic arts both to love and to be loved. Enmity too, which is placed after sorceries: what guilt it carries is declared by its being placed right after a manifest crime. For as far as lies in us, we ought to be no one's enemy, but to have peace with all. But if, by speaking the truth, we earn some enemies, it is not so much we who are their enemies as they who are enemies of the truth. For what is also said to Abraham in Genesis: "I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppose those who oppose you", is to be understood as above: not so much that Abraham was an enemy to them, as that they were enemies to the virtues and religion of Abraham, by which, having trampled on idols, he worshiped the God he had come to know. That too which is commanded to the people of Israel, that with everlasting hatred and a discord handed down to their descendants they should be enemies to the Midianites (Num. 31), is said as to those who were under the pedagogue, and who in another place deserved to hear: "You shall hate your enemy" (Matt. 5:43). Or certainly the dissension was made not so much between persons as between ways of life: so that, just as God usefully put enmities between the serpent and the woman, lest their friendship, through which man was cast out of paradise, should be harmful to man, so also in the Israelites and the Midianites it was rather a dissimilar way of life than one nation that was condemned. The seventh place among the works of the flesh is held by strife, set as it were in a sacred and eminent number among the vices. "But the slave of the Lord ought not to quarrel, but to be gentle toward all, a teacher, long-suffering, instructing with gentleness even those who argue against him" (2 Tim. 2:24, 25). After strife there follows, eighth, jealousy, which in the Greek language is called more expressively and more familiarly ζῆλος. From this evil, indeed, I do not know which of us is free. For both the patriarchs were jealous of their brother Joseph, and Miriam and Aaron, the prophetess of God and the priest, were deceived by such a passion against Moses (Gen. 37; Num. 12): so much so that she of whom Scripture had told, saying: "And Miriam the prophetess, taking a timbrel" (Exod. 15:20), and the rest, was afterwards cast out of the camp, defiled with the disease of leprosy, and marked a longer penance by a separation of seven days (Num. 12). Then anger follows, which does not work the righteousness of God (Jas. 1), and is a species of fury. Between irascibility and anger, however, there is this difference: that the irascible man is always angry, while the angry man is roused for a time. And I do not know who could possess the kingdom of God, when he who is angry is separated from the kingdom (Matt. 5). Quarrels too, which the Greeks, signifying something else, call ἐριθείας (since a quarrel is called μάχη), keep men from the kingdom of God. Now ἐριθεία is when someone, always ready to contradict, delights in another's vexation, and contends with womanish wrangling, and provokes the one who contends with him. Among the Greeks this is called by another name, φιλονεικία (love of contention). Dissensions too are works of the flesh: when someone, being by no means perfect in the same mind and the same judgment, says: "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ" (1 Cor. 1:12). But this same dissension is also found within households among themselves: namely of husband against wife, father against son, brother against brother, fellow slave against fellow slave, soldier against tent-mate, craftsman against craftsman of the same trade. Sometimes it happens that dissension arises even in the expositions of the Scriptures: from which the heresies too, which are now placed among the works of the flesh, bubble up. For if the wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God (Rom. 8) (and all doctrines of falsehood that fight against God are hostile to him), consequently heresies also, being hostile to God, are referred to the works of the flesh. Now Αἵρεσις in Greek is named from choice: because, namely, each one chooses for himself that discipline which he thinks is better. Whoever, therefore, understands Scripture otherwise than the sense of the Holy Spirit, by which it was written, demands, although he has not withdrawn from the Church, can nevertheless be called a heretic, and is of the works of the flesh, choosing the things that are worse.

"enmities." The unjust. For there are also just enmities, those arising from faithfulness. For he says that if it were possible for you to be at peace with all people, it is clear that there are times when this is not possible.

"jealousy." For one must not be jealous, but rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.

"rivalries." As in quarrels arising from conflict.

On this point, however, we dwell no longer, since it is the same Paul who, in his Epistle to the Galatians, counts "heresies" among "the sins of the flesh," who also intimates to Titus, that "a man who is a heretic" must be "rejected after the first admonition," on the ground that "he that is such is perverted, and committeth sin, as a self-condemned man.

Now it is clear that idolatry and sorcery and things of that kind belong not to the flesh but to the soul. In fact it is not the flesh that he is condemning but the wayward mind.

Let those who slander the flesh tell us. Granted that shamelessness and adultery are sins of the body, but how do enmity, heresies, and the like depend on the flesh? Therefore it is clear that all these are the work of a corrupted will. If they were works of the flesh, like our natural properties, how would they deprive us of the Kingdom of God? For punishments and rewards belong not to nature, but to the will. Moreover, if the passions were properties of nature, he would not have said "those who do such things," but "those who suffer them," because action presupposes will. By "enmity" he means unjust enmity. For there is also a righteous hostility, which arises in the name of faith and is directed against all who deviate from the straight path. By jealousy he means another manifestation of it (zelotypia). Because jealousy can also be good, when someone imitates one who does good (is zealous for good). But he excellently placed heresies alongside strife and dissensions, because every heresy arises from envy, and revelries from drunkenness. For revelries are the insolent songs of drunkards. Therefore he first pointed out the causes that produce these things, then what results from them.

Against God he lists two: one of these is that whereby divine worship is hindered by the enemies of God; as to this he says, "idolatry": "Neither become ye idolaters as some of them" (1 Cor 10:7); "For the worship of abominable idols is the cause and beginning and end of all evil" (Wis 14:27). The other is that in which a pact is struck with demons; as to this he says, "witchcrafts", which are performed through magical arts, and are called in Latin veneficia, from venom, because they result in great harm to man: "I would not that you should be made partakers with devils" (1 Cor 10:20); "Without are dogs and sorcerers" (Rev 22:15).

Against one's neighbor he enumerates nine, the first of which is "enmity" and the last "murder", because from the former, one comes to the latter. The first, therefore, is animosity in the heart, which is hatred toward one's neighbor: "And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household" (Mt 10:36); hence he says "enmities": from which arise verbal disputes. And so he says, "contentions," which are attacks on the truth with the confidence of shouting: "It is an honor for a man to separate himself from quarrels" (Prov 20:3).

The second is "emulation," which consists in contending with another to obtain a same thing; hence he says, "emulations", which arise from contention. The third arises when one is hindered by someone else who is tending to a same thing, so that on this account anger arises against him. Hence he says, "wraths": "The anger of men worketh not the justice of God" (Jam 1:20); "Let not the sun go down on your anger" (Eph 4:26).

The fourth is when anger of spirit leads to blows; and with respect to this he says, "quarrels": "Hatred stirs up strifes" (Prov 10:12). The fifth, namely, "dissensions", arise from quarrels: if they concern human matters they are called dissensions: for example, when factions arise in the Church—"Mark them who make dissensions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them" (Rom 16:17)—if they concern divine matters, they are called "sects", i.e., heresies: "They shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them," and "They fear not to bring in sects, blaspheming" (2 Pet. 2:1, 10). From these "envy" follows, when those they vie with prosper: "Envy slayeth the little one" (Job 5:2). And from these follow "murders" in heart and deed: "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer" (1 Jn 3:15).

Let no one suppose that envy is the same thing as jealousy. For they are indeed neighbors and because of that very neighborhood either of them is often freely substituted for the other.… But because each is distinguished here they require us to make a distinction. Jealousy is the mind's anguish when someone achieves something that two or more were seeking but which can be had only by one. Jealousy is cured by peace, in which all may obtain that which is sought and thus become one. Envy on the other hand is the grief one feels in one's mind when an unworthy person appears to have obtained something, even if it is not being sought by others. Envy is overcome by meekness, when all who yearn appeal to the judgment of God and do not resist his will, trusting rather in the justice of what he does than in one's own estimate of what people deserve.

Those, furthermore, who commit those sins whereof the apostle says, "They who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God," are by all means to be guarded against, and are to be compelled to seek amendment if they do not choose it voluntarily, because they are marked with the stains of infamy, and go down into the pit, unless assistance is brought them by sacerdotal authority.

Since God is righteous, such people do not obtain the kingdom of heaven so long as they do such things. But since God is merciful, the wicked, if they cease doing revolting things by which they try God's patience and turn to God in humble amendment, they do without doubt obtain the kingdom of God.

But as to themselves, they hold that they shall be entirely and undoubtedly saved, not by means of conduct, but because they are spiritual by nature. For, just as it is impossible that material substance should partake of salvation (since, indeed, they maintain that it is incapable of receiving it), so again it is impossible that spiritual substance (by which they mean themselves) should ever come under the power of corruption, whatever the sort of actions in which they indulged. For even as gold, when submersed in filth, loses not on that account its beauty, but retains its own native qualities, the filth having no power to injure the gold, so they affirm that they cannot in any measure suffer hurt, or lose their spiritual substance, whatever the material actions in which they may be involved. Wherefore also it comes to pass, that the "most perfect" among them addict themselves without fear to all those kinds of forbidden deeds of which the Scriptures assure us that "they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." For instance, they make no scruple about eating meats offered in sacrifice to idols, imagining that they can in this way contract no defilement. Then, again, at every heathen festival celebrated in honour of the idols, these men are the first to assemble; and to such a pitch do they go, that some of them do not even keep away from that bloody spectacle hateful both to God and men, in which gladiators either fight with wild beasts, or singly encounter one another. Others of them yield themselves up to the lusts of the flesh with the utmost greediness, maintaining that carnal things should be allowed to the carnal nature, while spiritual things are provided for the spiritual.

Envy follows heresies, which let us not think to be the same as zeal. For zeal can also be taken in a good sense, when someone strives to emulate the things that are better. But envy is tormented by another's happiness, and is split into a twofold passion: when either one is something oneself in that in which one does not wish another to be, or, seeing another to be better, one grieves that one is not like him. One of the moderns, translating a Greek verse, played finely in elegiac meter on envy, saying: Nothing is more just than envy, which straightway gnaws its own author and tortures his mind. The blessed Cyprian also wrote a very excellent book On Zeal and Envy, and whoever reads it will not hesitate to number envy among the works of the flesh. Between the envious man and the envied man there is this difference: that the envious man envies one more fortunate, while the envied man is he who suffers envy from another. The fourteenth place among the works of the flesh is held by drunkenness. For drunkards shall not possess the kingdom of God. And the Lord to the disciples: "Take heed", he says, "lest perhaps your hearts be weighed down with wine and debauchery" (Luke 21:34). By wine a man's senses are overturned, his feet stumble, his mind wavers, lust is kindled. Hence the Apostle cries out: "And wine, in which is licentiousness" (Eph. 5:18). Each one has the power of his own opinion. I follow the Apostle: that in wine there is licentiousness, in wine drunkenness. And that drunkenness and licentiousness are numbered among the works of the flesh, not even he who is overcome by these same passions can deny. And although some think I deserve blame in that book which I wrote on preserving virginity, because I said that young girls ought to flee wine like poison, I shall not repent of the opinion. For there it was rather the work of wine than a creature of God that was condemned by us; and we took away license from a virgin glowing with the natural heat of her age, lest under the pretext of drinking a little she should drink more and perish. Otherwise, we knew both that wine is consecrated into the blood of Christ and that Timothy was commanded to drink wine. Drunkenness, moreover, can come about as much from wine as from the other kinds of drink that are prepared in various ways; whence it is also said of the saint: "He shall not drink wine and strong drink (siceram)" (Luke 1:15). Sicera means "drunkenness". And lest anyone who does not drink wine should think that something else might be drunk by him, the pretext is excluded, since everything that can make drunk is taken away together with wine. The fifteenth, which is also the last among the works of the flesh, is carousing. "For the people ate and drank, and rose up to play" (Exod. 32:6). Licentiousness is always joined to drunkenness. A certain not undistinguished orator, describing a drunken man roused from sleep, said finely: "Once roused, he could not sleep, and being drunk, he could not stay awake." By this saying he expressed that in a certain way he was neither dead nor alive. It would be long to unfold all the works of the flesh and make a catalogue of the vices. So he included them all in one word, saying: and things like these. Would that we could avoid them as easily as we understand them! "I foretell", he says, "to you, as I foretold: that those who do such things shall not attain the kingdom of God". Where he had foretold it before: "Let not sin reign", he says, "in your mortal body, so as to obey its desires" (Rom. 6:12). Sin has all these species, on distinguishing which we have perhaps lingered now longer than was fitting. Therefore in a soul in which sin has reigned, the kingdom of God cannot reign. "For what partnership has righteousness with iniquity? What communion has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial?" (2 Cor. 6:14, 15). And we think that we attain the kingdom of God if we are free from fornication, idolatry and sorceries. Behold, enmities, strife, anger, quarrel, dissension, drunkenness too, and the rest which we consider small, exclude us from the kingdom of God. Nor does it matter whether one is excluded from blessedness by one or by several, since all alike exclude. In the Latin codices adultery also, and unchastity, and murders are reported as written in this catalogue of vices. But it must be known that no more than fifteen works of the flesh are named, and these we have also discussed.

"revelries." To hurl hecklings and to taunt the convictions of others in a state of drunkenness.

"will not inherit the kingdom of God." Meanwhile all will fall from power, yet there will be diversity in their punishments.

It is after displaying to the Galatians these pernicious works that he professes to warn them beforehand, even as he had "told them in time past, that they which do such things should not inherit the kingdom of God," even because they bore not the image of the heavenly, as they had borne the image of the earthy; and so, in consequence of their old conversation, they were to be regarded as nothing else than flesh and blood.

Finally, of vices that pertain to the ordering of the necessaries of life he mentions two: one concerns drink; hence he says, "drunkenness," i.e., continual: "Take heed lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life" (Lk 21:34). The other concerns food, touching which he says, "revellings": "Not in rioting and drunkenness" (Rom 13:13).

He put fornication at the head of carnal vices and love at the head of spiritual virtues. Anyone who takes pains in the study of divine Scripture will be prompted to inquire attentively into the rest. Fornication is love divorced from legitimate wedlock. It roves everywhere in search of an opportunity to fulfill its lust. Yet nothing is so rightly suited for spiritual procreation as the union of the soul with God. The more firmly it adheres, the more blameless it is. Love is what enables it to cleave. Rightly then the opposite of fornication is love. It is the sole means by which chastity is preserved. Now impure acts come from all those disturbances produced from the lust to fornicate, to which the joy of tranquillity is opposed. And bondage to idolatry is the ultimate fornication of the soul. A most furious war is waged against the gospel and against those who have been reconciled to God. The remnants of fornication, though long lukewarm, can nonetheless still be rekindled. The contrary of this war is the peace by which we are reconciled to God. When the same peace of God is maintained toward humans, the vices of poisonings, enmity, strife, deceit, animosity and dissension are healed among us, so others among us may be treated with due moderation. Forbearance fights to endure these vices, kindness to assuage them and goodness to forgive them. Furthermore, faith struggles against heresy, meekness against envy, continence against drunkenness and gluttony.

From what has been said, therefore, it is clearly gathered that the habits of the virtues principally dispose one to the exercise of the active life; the habits, however, of the gifts to the repose of the contemplative life: while the habits of the beatitudes dispose to the perfection of both. The fruits of the Spirit, however, which are charity, joy, peace, patience, longanimity, goodness, benignity, mildness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity, denote the delights consequent upon perfect works.

Now, flowing down from charity, there are the twelve charismatic gifts, the fruits which the Apostle enumerates in his Epistle to the Galatians: "But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity." For grace and righteousness and wisdom cannot exist without charity. Indeed, fruit comes from the Latin frui which means "to cleave to something because of its intrinsic value." Wherefore neither acts of justice nor miracles nor the understanding of mysteries are of any use without charity. And this is the opinion of all the doctors and saints. And so for instance, a little old woman who owns a small garden, if she has nothing but charity, will bring forth a better fruit than a great master who owns an enormous garden and knows the mysteries and natures of things.

Clare, in fact, is doing what the whole western world seems to me to have been doing for the last 40-odd years. When I was a youngster, all the progressive people were saying, "Why all this prudery? Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses." I was simple-minded enough to believe they meant what they said. I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite. They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people. All the others, we admit, have to be bridled. Absolute obedience to your instinct for self-preservation is what we call cowardice; to your acquisitive impulse, avarice. Even sleep must be resisted if you're a sentry. But every unkindness and breach of faith seems to be condoned provided that the object aimed at is "four bare legs in a bed".

It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong — unless you steal nectarines.

I've been reading Alexander Whyte. Morris lent him to me. He was a Presbyterian divine of the last century, whom I'd never heard of. Very well worth reading, and strangely broad-minded—Dante, Pascal, and even Newman, are among his heroes. But I mention him at the moment for a different reason. He brought me violently face to face with a characteristic of Puritanism which I had almost forgotten. For him, one essential symptom of the regenerate life is a permanent, and permanently horrified, perception of one's natural and (it seems) unalterable corruption. The true Christian's nostril is to be continually attentive to the inner cess-pool.

I won't listen to those who describe that vision as merely pathological. I have seen the "slimy things that crawled with legs" in my own dungeon. I thought the glimpse taught me sense. But Whyte seems to think it should be not a glimpse but a daily, lifelong scrutiny. Can he be right? It sounds so very unlike the New Testament fruits of the spirit—love, joy, peace. And very unlike the Pauline programme; "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things that are before." And very unlike St. François de Sales' green, dewy chapter on la douceur towards one's self. Anyway, what's the use of laying down a programme of permanent emotions? They can be permanent only by being factitious.

"But I say, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh," counsels the apostolic command; "for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These, then, are contrary" (not as good to evil, but as fighting advantageously), he adds therefore, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are, fornication uncleanness, profligacy, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, strifes, jealousies, wrath, contentions, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I tell you before, as I have also said before, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, temperance, goodness, faith, meekness." He calls sinners, as I think, "flesh," and the righteous "spirit."

And the fruits of Egypt are wasted, that is, the works of the flesh, but not the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, and peace.

And then, again, he proceeds to tell us the spiritual actions which vivify a man, that is, the engrafting of the Spirit; thus saying, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, benignity, faith, meekness, continence, chastity: against these there is no law." As, therefore, he who has gone forward to the better things, and has brought forth the fruit of the Spirit, is saved altogether because of the communion of the Spirit; so also he who has continued in the aforesaid works of the flesh, being truly reckoned as carnal, because he did not receive the Spirit of God, shall not have power to inherit the kingdom of heaven.

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no Law.

And what other among the fruits of the spirit ought to hold the first place, if not love, without which the other virtues are not reckoned to be virtues, and from which are born all things that are good? Indeed, both in the Law and in the Gospel it holds the chief place: "You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart, and from your whole soul, and from your whole strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37). With how many good things love is filled we have both touched on briefly above, and now let it suffice to have said even a little: that love does not seek the things that are its own, but those of another (1 Cor. 13). And although someone, by his own fault, is an enemy to the one who loves, and strives to stir up his tranquillity into the waves of hatred, yet he is never disturbed; never does he judge a creature of God worthy of hatred. For love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8). That saying too which is spoken by the Savior, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits, nor an evil tree bring forth good fruits" (Matt. 7:18), I think was pronounced not so much about men as about the fruits of the flesh and of the spirit: because neither can the spirit ever commit those vices which have been enumerated among the works of the flesh, nor can the flesh abound in these fruits which arise from the spirit. It can happen, however, through the negligence of the one who possesses it, that the spirit which dwells in a man does not have its fruits; and, on the contrary, that the flesh, its works having been put to death, ceases to sin. Yet they do not go so far that the tree of the spirit, when neglected, bears the works of the flesh, and the tree of the flesh, when cultivated, puts forth spiritual fruits. In the second place among the spiritual fruits joy has been set, which the Stoics too, who distinguish between words rather subtly, judge to be something other than gladness. For joy, they say, is the elation of a mind exulting over things that are worthy; but gladness is an unbridled elation of the mind, which knows no measure, and rejoices even in things that are mixed with vice. Others set pleasure over against joy: not that pleasure which stirs the body to lust, tickles the senses, and flatters with a sweet feeling, but another bearing the same name as this (ὁμώνυμον), which without moderation and without any seemliness of gladness lifts up its voice in laughter. But if this is true, and their distinction between words neither deceives nor is deceived, let us consider whether perhaps it was for this reason that it was said: "There is no rejoicing for the ungodly, says the Lord" (Isa. 57:21). At the same time this too must be noted, that joy follows after love. For he who loves anyone always rejoices in his happiness. And if he sees him deceived by some error and fallen on the slippery ground of sins, he will grieve indeed, and will hasten to rescue him; but sadness will not be able to change his joy, since he knows that none of the rational creatures perishes forever before God. The third fruit of the spirit is peace, from which Solomon too, who went before as a type of Christ, received his name. And concerning the Church the Psalmist sings: "His place has been made in peace" (Ps. 75:2). And among the eight blessings of the Gospel it is written: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God" (Matt. 5:9). In the first psalm of the steps, too, it is sung: "With those who hated peace I was peaceable" (Ps. 119:6). And let us not think that peace is to be sought only in this, that we do not quarrel with another; rather, the peace of Christ, that is, our inheritance, is with us then, if a tranquil mind is disturbed by no passions. After peace follows long-suffering (longanimitas), or patience (patientia), because we can render μακροθυμίαν in either way. Contrary to this is faint-heartedness, of which it is written: "The faint-hearted man is exceedingly foolish; but he who is patient and bears all things is a wise man" (Sir. 7). And with intensification (ἐπιτάσει) he is called "very wise", as is also written in Proverbs: "A long-suffering man is great in prudence" (Prov. 14:29). Kindness (benignitas) also, or sweetness (suavitas) (since among the Greeks χρηστότης sounds as both), is a mild virtue, winning, tranquil, and fitted for the fellowship of all good men, inviting to familiarity with itself, sweet in speech, temperate in manners. Finally the Stoics too define it thus: Kindness is a virtue disposed of its own accord to doing good. Goodness is not much different from kindness, because it too seems disposed to doing good. But it differs in this, that goodness can be rather sombre, and with a brow furrowed by severe manners it can indeed do good and grant what is asked, yet not be sweet in fellowship and invite all by its own sweetness. This too the followers of Zeno define thus: Goodness is a virtue that profits; or, a virtue from which usefulness arises; or, a virtue for its own sake; or, a disposition which is the fountain of usefulnesses.

Among the fruits of the spirit, faith possesses the seventh and more sacred place, which elsewhere too is set among three: hope, faith, love. Nor is it any wonder if hope is not mentioned in this catalogue, since what is hoped for is in faith, and the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, defines it thus: "Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the proof of things not yet appearing" (Heb. 11:1). For that which we hope will come, and which is not yet in the present, we possess by faith, hoping that we hold what we believe. It is asked also how faith has been set in love. He who loves never judges himself to be wronged; he never suspects anything except that he loves and is loved. But when love has gone far away, faith departs along with it.

He says not, "the work of the Spirit," but, "the fruit of the Spirit." Is the soul, however, superfluous? the flesh and the Spirit are mentioned, but where is the soul? is he discoursing of beings without a soul? for if the things of the flesh be evil, and those of the Spirit good, the soul must be superfluous. By no means, for the mastery of the passions belongs to her, and concerns her; and being placed amid vice and virtue, if she has used the body fitly, she has wrought it to be spiritual, but if she separate from the Spirit and give herself up to evil desires, she makes herself more earthly. You observe throughout that his discourse does not relate to the substance of the flesh, but to the moral choice, which is or is not vicious. And why does he say, "the fruit of the Spirit?" it is because evil works originate in ourselves alone, and therefore he calls them "works," but good works require not only our diligence but God's loving kindness. He places first the root of these good things, and then proceeds to recount them, in these words, "Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law." For who would lay any command on him who hath all things within himself, and who hath love for the finished mistress of philosophy? As horses, who are docile and do every thing of their own accord, need not the lash, so neither does the soul, which by the Spirit hath attained to excellence, need the admonitions of the Law. Here too he completely and strikingly casts out the Law, not as bad, but as inferior to the philosophy given by the Spirit.

The vine, and that not in a few places, refers to the Lord Himself, and the fig-tree to the Holy Spirit, as the Lord "maketh glad the hearts of men," and the Spirit healeth them. And therefore Hezekiah is commanded first to make a plaster with a lump of figs—that is, the fruit of the Spirit—that he may be healed—that is, according to the apostle—by love; for he says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;" which, on account of their great pleasantness, the prophet calls figs.

He said "fruit" and not "work," in order to show that it needs the help of God in order to bear fruit.

"of the Spirit." Concerning the same one of the Paraclete, or of the spiritual and virtuous life.

"joy." To rejoice in God, to have a conscience. For such people rejoice.

He in whomsoever the Spirit of God is, is in accord with the will of the Spirit of God; and, because he is in accord with the Spirit of God, therefore does he mortify the deeds of the body and live unto God, "treading down and subjugating the body and keeping it under; so that, while preaching to others," he may be a beautiful example and pattern to believers, and may spend his life in works which are worthy of the Holy Spirit, so that he may "not be cast away," [1 Corinthians 9:27] but may be approved before God and before men. For in "the man who is of God," [1 Timothy 6:11] with him I say there is nothing of the mind of the flesh; and especially in virgins of either sex; but the fruits of all of them are "the fruits of the Spirit" [Galatians 5:22] and of life, and they are truly the city of God, and the houses and temples in which God abides and dwells, and among which He walks, as in the holy city of heaven.

Evil deeds come only from us. That is why he called them works of the flesh, which are at the same time performed with effort and strain. But good deeds require not only our diligence, but also assistance from above. That is why he called them the fruit of the Spirit, since from us is given the seed, that is, the will, but for it to become fruit — this depends on God. The root of all good things he places, first, in love, and then in joy. For the one who loves always rejoices, even when enduring evil, because he regards the one causing evil as a benefactor. But he rejoices in God, since he does and endures all things for Him, and as a result is gladdened with a good conscience. And from love and joy he also enjoys peace of soul, because he is not disturbed by thoughts and is at peace with all those around him. And if he would seem to show enmity toward someone, he is hostile not against the people themselves, but against their vices; he loves them as brothers, and this enmity he shows for their benefit, so that they might be corrected.

Having listed the works of the flesh, the Apostle then manifests the works of the spirit. First, he manifests them; Secondly, he shows how the Law is related to the works of the spirit and to the works of the flesh (v. 23b).

As to the first, he enumerates the spiritual goods which he calls "fruits." But here a question arises, because fruit is something we enjoy; but we should enjoy not our acts, but God alone. Therefore, acts of this kind, which the Apostle lists here, ought not be called "fruits." Furthermore, a Gloss says that these works of the spirit are to be sought for themselves; but that which is sought for itself is not referred to something else. Therefore virtues and their works are not to be referred to happiness.

I answer that "fruit" is said in two ways: namely, as something acquired, for example, from labor or study—"The fruit of good labors is glorious" (Wis 3:15)—and as something produced, as fruit is produced from a tree: "A good tree cannot bear evil fruit" (Mt 7:18). Now the works of the spirit are called fruits, not as something earned or acquired, but as produced. Furthermore, fruit which is acquired has the character of an ultimate end; not, however, fruit which is produced. Nevertheless, fruit so understood implies two things: namely, that it is the last thing of the producer, as the last thing produced by a tree is its fruit, and that it is sweet or delightful: "His fruit was sweet to my palate" (Cant 2:3). So, then, the works of the virtues and of the spirit are something last in us. For the Holy Spirit is in us through grace, through which we acquire the habit of the virtues; these in turn make us capable of working according to virtue. Furthermore, they are delightful and even fruitful: "You have your fruit unto sanctification," i.e., in holy works (Rom 6:22). And that is why they are called fruits. But they are also called "flowers," namely, in relation to future happiness; because just as from flowers hope of fruit is taken, so from works of the virtues is obtained hope of eternal life and happiness. And as in the flower there is a beginning of the fruit, so in the works of the virtues is a beginning of happiness, which will exist when knowledge and charity are made perfect.

From this the answer to the second objection is plain. For something can be said to be worthy of being sought for itself in two ways, according as "for" (propter) designates formal cause or final cause. Works of the virtues are to be sought for themselves formally but not finally, because they are a delight in themselves. For a sweet medicine is formally sought for itself, because it has something within itself that makes it pleasant, namely, sweetness, which however is sought for an end, namely, for the sake of health. But a bitter medicine is not sought formally for itself, because it does not please by reason of its form; yet it is sought for something else finally, namely, for health, which is its end.

This explains why the Apostle calls the effects of the flesh "works," but the fruits of the spirit he calls "fruits." For it has been pointed out that a fruit is something last and sweet, produced from a thing. On the other hand, that which is produced from something but not according to nature, does not have the character of fruit but is, as it were, an alien growth. Now the works of the flesh and sins are alien to the nature of those things which God has planted in our nature. For God planted in human nature certain seeds, namely, a natural desire of good and knowledge, and He added gifts of grace: And therefore, because the works of the virtues are produced naturally from these, they are called "fruits," but the works of the flesh are not. And for this reason, the Apostle says: "What fruit, therefore, had you then in those things of which you are now ashamed?" (Rom 6:21). It is plain, therefore, from what has been said, that the works of the virtues are called fruits of the spirit, both because they have a sweetness and delight in themselves and because they are the last and congruous products of the gifts.

The difference from one another of the gifts, beatitudes, virtues and fruits is taken in the following way. In a virtue can be considered the habit and the act. Now the habit of a virtue qualifies a person to act well. If it enables him to act well in a human mode, it is called a virtue. But if it qualifies one for acting well, above the human mode, it is called a gift. Hence the Philosopher, above the common virtues, puts certain heroic virtues: thus, to know the invisible things of God darkly is in keeping with the human mode, and such knowledge pertains to the virtue of faith; but to know the same things more penetratingly and above the human mode pertains to the gift of understanding. But as to the act of a virtue, it is either perfective, and in this way is a beatitude; or it is a source of delight, and in this way it is a fruit. Of these fruits it is said in the Apocalypse (22:2): "On both sides of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits."

He says, therefore, "the fruit of the Spirit", which arises in the soul from the sowing of spiritual grace, is "charity, joy, peace, patience, longanimity"... which indeed are thus distinguished because fruits perfect one either inwardly or outwardly.

Now a man is perfected and directed inwardly both as to good things and as to evil: "By the armor of justice on the right hand and on the left" (2 Cor 6:7). With respect to good things a person is perfected, first of all, in his heart through love. For just as in natural movements there is first an inclination of a nature's appetite to its end, so the first of the inward movements is the inclination to good, i.e., love; accordingly, the first fruit is "charity:" "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Who is given to us" (Rom 5:5). And through charity the others are perfected; wherefore, the Apostle says in Colossians (3:14): "But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection." But the ultimate end that perfects man inwardly is joy, which proceeds from the presence of the thing loved. And he that has charity already has what he loves: "He that abideth in charity abideth in God and God in him" (1 Jn 4:16). And from this springs joy: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice" (Phil 4:4).

But this joy should be perfect, and for this two things are required: first, that the object loved be enough to perfect the lover. And as to this he says, "peace". For it is then that the lover has peace, when he adequately possesses the object loved: "I am become in his presence as one finding peace" (Cant 8:10). Secondly, that there be perfect enjoyment of the thing loved, which is likewise obtained by peace, because whatever else happens, if someone perfectly enjoys the object loved, say God, he cannot be hindered from enjoying it: "Much peace have they that love thy law and to them there is no stumbling-block" (Ps 118:165). In this way, therefore, joy connotes the fruition of charity, but peace the perfection of charity. And by these is man inwardly made perfect as to good things.

Also with respect to evils, the Holy Spirit perfects and adjusts a person: first, against the evil that disturbs peace, which is disturbed by adverse objects. Touching this the Holy Spirit perfects one by patience, which makes for patient endurance of adversities; hence he says, "patience": "In your patience you shall possess your souls" (Lk 21:19). Secondly, against the evil which hinders joy, namely, the deferment of the object loved, the Spirit opposes long-suffering, which is not broken by delay. As to this he says, "longanimity": "If it make any delay, wait for it; for it shall surely come, and it shall not be slack" (Hab. 2:3): "In long-suffering" (2 Cor 6:6). Hence the Lord says in Matthew (10:22): "He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved."

Then when he says, "goodness, benignity," he mentions the fruits of the spirit that perfect a man with respect to external things. Now external to man are things next to him, above him and beneath him. Next to him is the neighbor; above him is God; beneath him is his sensitive nature and body.

In regard to his neighbor He perfects men, first of all, from the heart with a right and good will. Concerning this he says, "goodness", i.e., rectitude and gentleness of spirit. For if a man has all his other powers good, he cannot be said to be good unless he has a good will, according to which he uses all the others well. The reason for this is that the good denotes something perfect. But perfection is twofold: the first concerns the being of a thing; the second, its operation—and the latter is greater than the former. For that is called perfect in the absolute sense which has attained its perfect operation, which is its second perfection. Therefore, since it is by his will that man exercises the act of any power, right will makes for the good use of all the powers, and, consequently, makes the man himself good. Of this fruit it is said in Ephesians (5:9): "The fruit of the light is in all goodness and justice and truth."

Secondly, He perfects a man in his deeds, so that he will share with his neighbor. Concerning this he says, "benignity", i.e., giving: "The Lord loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Cor 9:7). For benignity is said to be, as it were, a good fire, which makes a man melt to relieve the needs of others: "For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent" (Wis 1:6); "Put ye on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity..." (Col 3:12).

Again, they perfect one with respect to evils inflicted by others, so that one meekly bears and endures harassment from another. Touching this he says, "mildness": "Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart" (Mt 11:29); "To the meek he will give grace" (Prov 3:34).

With respect to what is above us, namely, God, the Spirit establishes right order through faith; hence he says, "faith," which is a knowledge of invisible things with certainty: "Abraham believed God and it was reputed to him unto justice" (Gen 15:6); "He that cometh to God must believe that he is" (Heb 11:6). On this account it is said in Sirach (1:34): "That which is agreeable to the Lord is faith and meekness."

Touching what is beneath us, namely, the body, the Spirit directs us first as to the outward acts of the body by "modesty", which moderates its deeds or utterances—concerning this he says, modesty: "Let your modesty be known to all men" (Phil 4:5). Secondly, as to the interior appetite, and concerning this he says "continency", which abstains even from things that are lawful; and "chastity", which correctly uses what is lawful, as a Gloss says. Or, another way: continence refers to the fact that although a man be assailed by base desires, yet by the vigor of his reason he holds fast lest he be carried away. According to this the word "continence" is taken from a person's holding fast under attack. But "chastity" is taken from the fact that one is neither attacked nor carried away, and is derived from "chastening." For we call him well-chastened who is rightly tempered in all things.

Paul did not mention more than ten excellent behaviors because he is referring to the fruits of the Spirit. These fruits embrace everything in the tablets of God's covenant, in which no more than ten words of command are succinctly handed down.

He did not say "against these," so that they would not be thought the only ones—though in fact even if he had said this we ought to understand all the goods of this kind that can be imagined. No, he says "against such things," namely, both these and whatever is like them.

He has added "against such there is no law" so that we understand that those on whom the law must be imposed are those in whom these excellent behaviors do not already reign. For those in whom they reign are the ones who apply the law legitimately, since the law is not imposed on them with coercive intent, seeing that righteousness is already their overwhelming preference.… These spiritual fruits reign in one in whom sins do not reign. These good things reign if they are so delightful that they themselves uphold the mind in its trials from falling into consent to sin. For whatever gives us more delight, this we necessarily perform.

After faith gentleness is counted, which is opposed to anger, quarrels and dissensions, and is never provoked to its contraries, truly sprouting forth good fruits from the good tree of the spirit. Through this Moses, the servant of God, deserved to receive the testimony of Scripture, which says: "Moses was gentle, beyond all men upon the earth" (Num. 12:3). Upon the earth, he says. For he could not be beyond those who saw God face to face, because we are often compelled to do many things through the weakness of the flesh. Concerning David too (although many judge that it was prophesied of our Lord, which we also do not deny), the Holy Spirit sings, as a type of the one to come: "Remember, O Lord, David, and all his gentleness" (Ps. 131:1). Whose gentleness shone forth more than all toward Saul, Absalom and Shimei (1 Sam. 24; 2 Sam. 15)? When the one wished to kill him; the other, plotting a revolution, strove to cheat him of his rule; the other, throwing stones at him and tossing up dust, shouted and said: "Go out, go out, you wicked man" (ibid., 16:7). Self-control is placed last among the fruits of the spirit. This we ought to understand not only of chastity, but also of food and drink, of anger too and agitation of mind, and of the lust for disparaging others. Between modesty and self-control, however, there is this difference: that modesty is found in perfect men and those of consummate virtue, of whom the Savior says: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth" (Matt. 5:4); and of himself: "Learn from me, for I am meek, and humble, and gentle of heart" (Matt. 11:29). Self-control, on the other hand, is indeed on the road of virtue, but has not yet reached the goal, because desires still arise in the thought of the one who controls himself and pollute the ruling part of the mind, although they do not overcome him nor drag the one who thinks them into the deed. And self-control is necessary not only in desires and cupidity, but also in the three remaining passions, namely grief, gladness and fear. Against such fruits of the spirit there is no Law. "For the Law is not laid down for the righteous man, but for the wicked and the insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners" (1 Tim. 1:9). The Law says to me: "You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not speak false testimony; you shall not defraud; you shall not desire what belongs to others; you shall not swear falsely; you shall not steal" (Exod. 20:12 ff.). If I do none of these things, because love, the fruit of the spirit, reigns in me, the precepts of the Law are superfluous to me. Finally, the wise men of the world too held this opinion about philosophy: that what the public laws compel men to do by necessity, philosophy persuades them to do by will.

"Against such things there is no law." For he who has achieved these things does not need the law that instructs. For it is higher than that law.

Long-suffering, according to Scripture, apparently differs from meekness in that the long-suffering man, after lengthy deliberation, not hastily but slowly, imposes a fitting punishment upon the sinner; whereas the meek man forgives entirely. For example, Moses, who forgave Miriam and Aaron, was called meek above all men who were upon the face of the earth (Num. 12). Goodness is something more general compared to mercy (ἀγαθοδύνη). The Lord is good to all in general, but mercy benefits only the worthy, according to the expression: "Do good, O Lord, unto those that be good" (Ps. 125:4). And he speaks not of simple faith, but of that which moves mountains, which believes without doubt that what is impossible with men is possible for God. But above all is self-control — not from foods only, but from everything evil.

For the soul that performs such deeds by the Spirit has no need of the instruction of the law, being itself above it, just as naturally swift horses have no need of the whip. And in this case he sets aside the law not because it is bad, but because it is inferior to the wisdom bestowed by the Spirit.

Touching what is beneath us, namely, the body, the Spirit directs us first as to the outward acts of the body by "modesty", which moderates its deeds or utterances—concerning this he says, modesty: "Let your modesty be known to all men" (Phil 4:5). Secondly, as to the interior appetite, and concerning this he says "continency", which abstains even from things that are lawful; and "chastity", which correctly uses what is lawful, as a Gloss says. Or, another way: continence refers to the fact that although a man be assailed by base desires, yet by the vigor of his reason he holds fast lest he be carried away. According to this the word "continence" is taken from a person's holding fast under attack. But "chastity" is taken from the fact that one is neither attacked nor carried away, and is derived from "chastening." For we call him well-chastened who is rightly tempered in all things.

Concerning the aforesaid, two problems arise. The first is that since the fruits of the spirit are opposed to the works of the flesh, it seems that the Apostle should have mentioned as many fruits of the spirit as he mentioned works of the flesh—which he did not do. I answer that he did not do so, because there are more vices than virtues.

The second problem is that the fruits of the spirit mentioned do not correspond to the works of the flesh. I answer that since it is not the Apostle's intention here to teach the art of the virtues and vices, he does not set one against the other; but he mentions as many of the one and as many of the other as are suited to his present objective.

Yet a more diligent consideration discloses that they are in some fashion set in opposition. For in opposition to "fornication", which is illicit love, is set "charity"; in opposition to "uncleanness, immodesty", and "luxury", which are allurements of the flesh that arise from fornication, is set "joy", which is the spiritual delight produced by charity, as has been said. In opposition to what are called "witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, dissensions", are set "patience, longanimity", and "goodness". To what are called "sects", "faith" is set in opposition. To what is called murder, benignity. To what are called "drunkenness, revellings", and the like, are opposed "modesty, continency" and "chastity".

Having enumerated the works of the flesh and of the spirit, the Apostle then concludes from both, that those who follow the spirit are not under the Law. The proof he uses is this: he is under the Law who is liable to the Law, i.e., who does things contrary to the Law. But those who are led by the spirit do not the works contrary to the Law. Therefore, they are not under the Law. First, therefore, he proves the proposition on the part of the works of the spirit; Secondly, on the part of the works of the flesh (v. 24).

He says, therefore: I say that those who are led by the Spirit do not the works that are contrary to the Law, because they either do the works of the spirit, and "Against such there is no law," i.e., against the works of the spirit, but the Spirit teaches such works. For as the Law outwardly teaches works of virtue, so the Spirit inwardly moves one to them: "For I am delighted with the law of God according to the inward man" (Rom 7:22).

We "crucify" the flesh, of course, by being baptized in the water of baptism, which is a likeness of the cross and his death, his entombment and his resurrection, as it is written.

"Why call ye me Lord, Lord," He says, "and do not the things which I say?" For "the people that loveth with their lips, but have their heart far away from the Lord," is another people, and trust in another, and have willingly sold themselves to another; but those who perform the commandments of the Lord, in every action "testify," by doing what He wishes, and consistently naming the Lord's name; and "testifying" by deed to Him in whom they trust, that they are those "who have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." "He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

Paul proclaims in a loud and lofty voice, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." And yet a virgin in the Church glories concerning her fleshly appearance and the beauty of her body! Paul adds, and says, "For they that are Christ's have crucified their flesh, with its faults and lusts." And she who professes to have renounced the lusts and vices of the flesh, is found in the midst of those very things which she has renounced! Virgin, thou art taken, thou art exposed, thou boastest one thing and affectest another. You sprinkle yourself with the stains of carnal concupiscence, although you are a candidate of purity and modesty. "Cry," says the Lord to Isaiah, "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of the grass: the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever." It is becoming for no Christian, and especially it is not becoming for a virgin, to regard any glory and honour of the flesh, but only to desire the word of God, to embrace benefits which shall endure for ever. Or, if she must glory in the flesh, then assuredly let her glory when she is tortured in confession of the name; when a woman is found to be stronger than the tortures; when she suffers fire, or the cross, or the sword, or the wild beasts, that she may be crowned. These are the precious jewels of the flesh, these are the better ornaments of the body.

If those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh, it is therefore clear that the slaves of Christ have presented their flesh in purity along with its desires and passions. They are participating in Christ, thus acknowledging that he crucified the flesh. That is why the faithful, thinking the same thoughts as their Lord, have crucified the flesh. And if believers have crucified the flesh it is unthinkable that those who suffered on Christ's behalf should not be reigning with him.

But those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with vices and lusts.

Origen, linking this passage with the preceding ones, reads it thus: "Against such there is no Law, who have crucified the flesh of Christ with vices and lusts": so that he is not saying, as it sounds in the Latin, that those who are Christ's have crucified their own flesh with vices and lusts, but that the flesh of Christ has been crucified by them with vices and lusts. And he asks how, in the case of those who have the fruits of the spirit, and against whom the Law has ceased to be, the crucifixion of the Lord's flesh is set down as praise, when in Hebrews it is set down as reproach: "Crucifying again in themselves the Son of God, and holding him up to display" (Heb. 6:6). For "crucifying again" there is in the Greek, better, a single compound word, ἀνασταυροῦντες, which we can render "re-crucifying" (recrucifigentes). First, then, it must be noted that to crucify is one thing, to re-crucify another. Next, that to re-crucify the Son of God is not the same thing as to crucify the flesh of Christ with vices and lusts. For the flesh of Christ is not principally and properly the Son of God, but Jesus Christ, who, though he was in the beginning with the Father, God the Word, was made flesh and emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, so that he might crucify the flesh and despoil the principalities and powers, triumphing over them on the tree (Phil. 2), so that that saying of the Apostle might be fulfilled: "For in that he died, he died to sin once" (Rom. 6:10). Therefore, if our bodies are members of Christ, it follows that our flesh too is the flesh of Christ, which we crucify, mortifying through it, upon the earth, fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire and avarice; and it is now set down in praise of us, who have crucified the flesh of Christ Jesus with vices and lusts, and always carry about the mortification of Jesus in our body, so that his life also may be made manifest in our flesh. Yet it is no small labor so to live in the present age that even now the life of Jesus is made manifest in our flesh. For thus will our mortal bodies also be quickened through the spirit dwelling in us. Where the Latin translator put "vices", in the Greek παθήματα, that is, "passions", is read. And since passion can signify both pain and the other necessities of the poor body, the Apostle cautiously added "desires", so that he might not seem to deny the nature of the body in spiritual men, but the vices. And let this warning be given thus if we follow the common edition (Vulgatam editionem), reading: But those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with vices and lusts: so that we say they have crucified not the flesh of Christ but their own. I had almost forgotten the second interpretation. For I had said beforehand that all that follows is to be referred to the Law and to circumcision. The sense, therefore, is this: those in whom is the fruit of the spirit, love, joy and the rest, have crucified the bodily understanding of Scripture, which is now called the flesh of Christ, with its passions and desires, which breed fuel for vices in little ones and sucklings. He has crucified the flesh of Christ who does not wage war according to the flesh of history, but follows the spirit of allegory going before him.

That they might not object, "And who is such a man as this?" he points out by their works those who have attained to this perfection, here again giving the name of the "flesh" to evil actions. He does not mean that they had destroyed their flesh, otherwise how were they going to live? for that which is crucified is dead and inoperative, but he indicates the perfect rule of life. For the desires, although they are troublesome, rage in vain. Since then such is the power of the Spirit, let us live therein and be content therewith.

"Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh." Then, for fear that they say, "And who does these things?" he says: These are they who do these things, who have crucified the flesh of Christ, that is, their own body (for the flesh of Christ is our body), and as it were have mortified it from fleshly affections. And not only the body, insofar as it was subject to passions they crucified, but also the passions themselves, insofar as they tended to be completed by them they were crucified, according to this interpretation; the rest is passing over.

Or in another way. And what do I say, he says, one by one a form of virtue? For there are some who have also crucified themselves, as regards their passions, and the passions, as regards themselves. According to this interpretation, the word does not apply to the δε. But those of Christ, that is, those who, stretching out their flesh, have crucified it. Therefore Clement in the fifth book of the Hypotyposes.

— [PHOTIUS] And there is the phrase, οἱ δὲ (But they), and instead of the phrase, "οὗτοι δὲ (But these)," to have heard. These are the ones I spoke of, those who crucified the flesh of Christ, and so on. [end of the excerpt by Photius] —

Those, therefore, who imitate Christ, imitate Him earnestly. For those who have "put on Christ" [Romans 13:14] in truth, express His likeness in their thoughts, and in their whole life, and in all their behaviour: in word, and in deeds, and in patience, and in fortitude, and in knowledge, and in chastity, and in long-suffering, and in a pure heart, and in faith, and in hope, and in full and perfect love towards God.

As if in answer to the secret question: who is so virtuous as you say? — he replies: "those who are Christ's," that is, those who constitute the lot of Christ, "have crucified the flesh," that is, have put to death the carnal thoughts. For they did not kill themselves: by flesh you should understand not the substance of the flesh, but earthly thoughts, so that neither the passions of anger nor desires live in them, but both the one and the other have been crucified and put to death. Or by passions he means passionate actions in general, whether they proceed from anger or from desire. Thus, he speaks not only of the putting to death of such actions, but also of their very causes, that is, the desires.

Or they do the works of the flesh; and in those who are led by the spirit, such works are not contrary to the Law. Hence he says, "they that are Christ's", i.e., who have the spirit of God; for "if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom 8:9). Accordingly, those are led by the spirit of God who are Christ's.

"They", I say, "have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences". He does not say that they shun vices and concupiscences, because a good physician cures well, when he applies remedies against the cause of the disease. But the flesh is the root of vices. Therefore, if we would shun vices, the flesh must be tamed: "I chastise my body and bring it under subjection" (1 Cor 9:27). But because the flesh is tamed by vigils, fasts and labors—"Torture and fetters are for a malicious slave; send him to work that he be not idle" (Sir 33:28)—and one is led to such works out of devotion to Christ crucified. Therefore he specifically says, "they have crucified", i.e., conformed themselves to Christ crucified by afflicting their flesh: "Our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin may be destroyed" (Rom 6:6); "that I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross" (2:19).

But because they do not crucify the flesh by destroying nature, for "No one hates his own flesh" (Eph 5:29), but with respect to matters that are contrary to the Law, for that reason he says, "with the vices", i.e., with the sins, "and concupiscences", i.e., passions, whereby the soul is inclined to sin. For he does not crucify his flesh well who leaves room for passions; otherwise, since reason is not always alert to avoid sin, as it ought, he might fall at some time: "Go not after thy lusts, but turn away from thy own will" (Sir 18:30); "Make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscence" (Rom 13:14).

If we live by the spirit, let us also walk by the spirit.

Let us use this testimony against those who refuse to understand the Scriptures spiritually. But who is it that lives by the spirit, if not our hidden man, who is also at times accustomed to live according to the flesh? But when he has lived by the spirit, he walks by the spirit. When he has chosen to walk in the flesh, though living he is dead. The man perfect in Christ always lives in the spirit: he obeys the spirit, he never lives in the flesh. And on the contrary: whoever has given himself wholly to the flesh and has consigned himself to the passions never lives in the spirit. Between these are those in the middle, whom we can call neither spiritual nor fleshly; rather, those who, wavering between virtues and vices, are now drawn back to better things, and are spirit; now are tripped up by the slipperiness of the flesh, and are flesh.

Since then such is the power of the Spirit, let us live therein and be content therewith... being governed by His laws. For this is the force of the words "let us walk," that is, let us be content with the power of the Spirit, and seek no help from the Law. ...

"let us also walk by the Spirit." Therefore we too ought to live according to the will of the Spirit. Since we are going to crucify the flesh of ours once for all, "let us also walk by the Spirit," he says, that is, let us be satisfied with the grace given by the Holy Spirit, and not seek to be saved by the law.

"We live by the Spirit, and by the Spirit let us come to an end. Let us not be vainglorious, provoking one another, and envying one another." And that a man should live by the Spirit and come to an end by the Spirit cometh to a man by simplicity and innocency of mind.

Now besides this there accompanieth the soul the grace of the spirit which giveth it help and power, if it be that it fulfilleth its good desire, for as when a strong man taketh hold of the hand of a child he carrieth off his weakness by the association of his own strength, even so also doth the Holy Spirit take hold of the thoughts of the soul, which is suspended like the hand of the child, that it may be exalted unto spiritual things, and that by its union with the Spirit it may acquire lightness beyond its nature. Whosoever delivereth his soul to the spirit to be nursed thereby, the whole action of his life becometh superior to harm, and for this reason Paul teacheth us to live in the spirit, and to perfect the spirit; for whosoever liveth in the spirit and perfecteth it, his whole life becometh spiritual, and he is led by the motions of the spirit, and his thoughts and deeds take place according to the will of the spirit. It is not because we lack a helper that we are overcome by lust, but because we do not seek help from the Helper, for as lust itself when it wisheth to overcome us invoketh other things to its aid, and then fighteth and conquereth us, even so must we also, if we determine to fight and to overcome it, invoke the aid of Divine power, and the support of the grace which is in us, and we shall easily overcome the lust which fighteth against us. For so long as our soul is purified from the thoughts of lust it standeth in the might of its nature, and so long as it is exalted to stand in the power of its nature, it is worthy to receive Divine power to be its support, and when it hath such company as this, it cannot be easily overcome by the lusts which fight with it.

If, he says, such is the power of the Spirit, then by it let us also live, and by it let us be content. For the expression: "let us also walk in the Spirit" is used instead of: let us be content with the power of the Spirit and not seek the help of the law.

Then when he says, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit," he mentions the third benefit of the Holy Spirit, namely, the conferring of life. First, he mentions this benefit of the Spirit of God; Secondly, he rejects the vices of the spirit of the world (v. 26).

Therefore, including himself with those to whom he writes, he says: I say that we ought to walk by the Spirit, because we live by Him and not by the flesh: "We are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh" (Rom 8:12). Therefore, "If we live in the Spirit," we ought in all things to be led by Him. For as in bodily life the body is not moved save by the soul, by which it has life, so in the spiritual life, all of our movements should be through the Holy Spirit: "It is the spirit that giveth life" (Jn 6:64); "In him we live and move and are" (Acts 17:28).

What he is saying is that if we live well and honestly we should also express this in good conduct. This is what it is to live in the Spirit: to have an unblemished life. We walk in the Spirit if we study peace. For this is what engenders love. It is, on the other hand, empty glory to seek a victory where there is no prize, so that someone would end up having only a zeal for strife and spiritual competition. These things tend toward discord and wrangling.

Each person's pride is in competition with every one else's pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive—is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man... If I am a proud man, then, as long as there is one man in the whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he is my rival and my enemy.

Both the laws served the Word for the instruction of humanity, both that given by Moses and that by the apostles. What, therefore, is the nature of the training by the apostles, appears to me to require to be treated of. Under this head, I, or rather the Instructor by me, will recount; and I shall again set before you the precepts themselves, as it were in the germ... "If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Be not deceived; God is not mocked. Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due time we shall reap, if we faint not."

Let us not become desirous of empty glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

The single word κενόδοξοι (vainglorious) among the Greeks the Latin translator has expressed by a circumlocution of three words. How many definitions and meanings glory has, both the innumerable books of the philosophers and the two volumes that Cicero wrote on glory give evidence. But since we are attempting to discuss not the etymologies of words but the sense of Scripture, we will connect this passage with what precedes in this way: If we live by the spirit, let us obey the spirit, serving one another not at all through the Law but through love. We ought not to contend about the interpretation of the Scriptures and say: "Circumcision is better"; "No, rather uncircumcision"; "History is to be despised and allegory followed"; "Nay, allegory is empty and shadowy, and fixed by no roots of truth." From this it comes about that envyings arise against one another. "For they wish", he says, "to shut you out, that you may emulate them": wishing not so much to teach the truth of the Law as to win. But so that we may not pass over the word glory entirely untouched, leaving the philosophers their trifles, let us go over some points from the Scriptures. The name of glory denotes the opinion of the crowd and praise sought through the favor of men, where it is said: "But they do all things that they may be glorified by men" (Matt. 23:5). And elsewhere: "How can you believe, seeking glory from one another" (John 5:44)? Further, in a good sense, in the same place: "And not seeking the glory that is from him who alone is". From this we understand that the same word signifies now a virtue, now a vice. If I seek glory from men, it is a vice; if from God, it is a virtue, for he also exhorts us to true glory, saying: "But those who glorify me I will glorify". Glory also signifies something else in the divine Scriptures, when something more august and more divine presents itself to the gaze of men. The glory of the Lord was seen in the tabernacle (Exod. 40), and in the temple that was built by Solomon there was glory (1 Kings 8:10-11), and in the face of Moses, when he did not know that his countenance had been glorified; and of this glory of the countenance I think the Apostle too speaks: "But we all, contemplating the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the spirit of God" (2 Cor. 3:18). And the Savior himself has been called the splendor of glory and the figure of the substance of God (Heb. 1). Stephen too saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at his right hand (Acts 7). Now, that we too may take upon ourselves the license of coining names (for new things, as someone says, new names must be coined): since here it is said, Let us not become desirous of empty, or of vacant glory, let us assert that those are desirous of full glory who desire the glory of God, and the praise worthy of virtue, and a sight showing forth something more divine. Hence too in very many places our translators have rendered "majesty" in place of glory. For a long time now I have been longing to burst out into words, but I am held back by fear of speaking. Yet I will speak, and I will not keep silent about my own passion, a passion almost common to all: not about riches, not about power, not about beauty and comeliness of body, for these are plainly named among the works of the flesh. Almsgiving, if it is done for the sake of praise, is empty glory; so is long prayer, and the pallor that follows from fasting. These are not my words, but those of the Savior thundering in the Gospel (Matt. 6). Chastity itself too, in marriage, in widowhood, in virgins, often seeks human applause; and, what I have long been afraid to say, yet it must be said, martyrdom itself, if it is undergone so that we may be held in admiration and praise by the brothers: the blood has been shed in vain. Let the Apostle speak, let the vessel of election speak: "If I hand over my body that I may glory, but have not love, it profits me nothing" (1 Cor. 13:3). To him who had said: "I know a man in Christ fourteen years ago, whether in the body, I do not know, or out of the body, I do not know, God knows, caught up as far as the third heaven" (2 Cor. 12:2); and a little after: "Caught up into paradise, he heard secret words which it is not lawful for a man to speak": to him, I say, who labored more than all, lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt him, there was given a goad of his flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet him, so that he might not be lifted up. And indeed three times he asked the Lord that it might depart from him; but it was said to him: "My grace is sufficient for you: for power is perfected in weakness". What is so much the work of God as to read the Scriptures, to preach in the Church, to desire the priesthood, to minister before the altar of the Lord? Yet even these, unless one guards his heart with all diligence, spring from the desire for praise. You may see very many (as Tully too says) inscribing their books "On despising glory", and, for the sake of glory, setting the titles of their own name at the head. We interpret the Scriptures; we often turn the stylus; we write things worthy to be read; and unless these are done for the sake of Christ, but for remembrance among posterity and fame among the peoples, the whole labor will be made void, and we shall be like a sounding drum and a clanging cymbal (1 Cor. 13). You may see very many contending among themselves about the Scriptures and making the word of God an athletic arena: they provoke one another, and if they are beaten, they envy; for they are desirous of empty glory. I know that in the Latin codices, in the testimony we set down above, "If I hand over my body that I may glory", they have "that I may burn" (ardeam) in place of "that I may glory" (glorier); but because of the similarity of the word, by which among the Greeks "I may burn" and "I may glory", that is, καυθήσομαι and καυχήσομαι, are distinguished by part of a single letter, the error has grown up among our people. But among the Greeks themselves, too, the copies differ.

Which is the cause of all evils, "provoking one another" to contentions and strife, "envying one another," for from vainglory comes envy and from envy all these countless evils.

"Let us not become conceited." For this is the source of all evils.

"provoking one another." Clearly into quarrels.

"envying one another." For envy comes from conceit, and from envy, countless evils.

"We live by the Spirit, and by the Spirit let us come to an end. Let us not be vainglorious, provoking one another, and envying one another." And that a man should live by the Spirit and come to an end by the Spirit cometh to a man by simplicity and innocency of mind.

There is, too, another chief spur of impatience, the lust of revenge, dealing with the business either of glory or else of malice. But "glory," on the one hand, is everywhere "vain; " and malice, on the other, is always odious to the Lord; in this case indeed most of all, when, being provoked by a neighbour's malice, it constitutes itself superior in following out revenge, and by paying wickedness doubles that which has once been done.

Some who were grounded in faith were showing a constant disdain of their oppressors. They were thereby provoking them to strife. Paul exhorts them to offer their hands to those who have inclined toward the law.

He shows by this that the deceivers took up this matter out of vainglory (for this is the cause of all evils), provoking one another to argument and strife; just as if someone were to say to his opponent: if you are strong, let us measure our strength against each other. And since envy arises from vainglory, he forbids it as well.

But lest the things said of the spirit be understood of the spirit of the world—concerning which it is said in 1 Corinthians (2:12): "We have received not the spirit of this world"—the Apostle forestalls this when he says, "Let us not be made desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another". Here he excludes things proper to the spirit of the world, namely, vainglory, anger and envy, all three of which are aptly described by the word "spirit."

For "spirit" denotes a swelling. According to this, then, those are called vain spirits who are swollen with vainglory: "The blast of the mighty is like a whirlwind beating against a wall" (Is 25:4). Concerning this he says, "Let us not be made desirous of vainglory," i.e., of worldly glory. For since that is vain which is not solidly established nor supported by truth nor loved for any usefulness, then the glory of this world is vain, because it is frail and not solid: "All flesh is grass" (Is 40:6). Furthermore, it is false—"The glory of a sinful man is dung and worms" (1 Mac 2:62)—whereas true glory concerns goods appropriate to man, i.e., the goods of the spirit, such as holy men have: "Our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience" (2 Cor 1:12). Furthermore, this glory is useless and fruitless: for how great soever the glory one acquires from the testimony of men, he cannot on that account achieve his end, which is achieved by the testimony of God: "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Cor 1:31).

He does not say, "Do not have vainglory," but "be not made desirous of vainglory", because glory sometimes follows those who seek to avoid it, and if they are obliged to receive it, they should not love it. Furthermore, spirit connotes vehemence: "Who can bear the violence of one provoked?" (Prov 27:4). It also connotes wrath. And as to this he says, "provoking one another", namely, to quarrels and fights or other unlawful things: "Not in contention and envy" (Rom 13:13). Furthermore, it is a spirit of sadness, of which it is said in Proverbs (17:22): "A sorrowful spirit drieth up the bones." And concerning this he says, "envying one another": "Envy is the rottenness of the bones," because it alone feeds on the good (Prov 14:30).