Homilies on Romans 13 part 2/3

He did not say, 'The nature of the flesh,' nor 'The substance of the body,' but 'The mind;'

which can be corrected and done away with.

And he says this, not by attributing to the flesh a reasoning of its own — far from it — but by pointing to the grosser impulse of the mind, and naming it from the worse element, just as he is also wont often to call the whole man, having soul and all, 'flesh.'

'But the mind of the Spirit.'

Here again he means the spiritual understanding, just as further on too he says, 'But he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit;'

and he shows the many good things that come from it, both in the present and in the world to come.

For than the evils which the carnal mind brings in, the spiritual mind furnishes far more good things;

which he showed by saying, 'Life and peace;'

the one in contrast with the former;

For the mind, he says, of the flesh is death;

and the other in contrast with what follows;

for having said 'Peace,' he added, 'Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God;'

which is worse than death.

Then, showing how it is both death and enmity:

'For it does not submit itself to the law of God,' he says;

But be not troubled at hearing, 'For neither indeed can it;'

for indeed this difficulty has an easy solution.

For by 'the mind of the flesh' he here means the earthly reasoning, the gross one, that which is fluttered after the things of this life and after wicked deeds;

this, he says, it is impossible should be subjected to God.

'And what hope of salvation is left, then, if it be impossible for one that is evil to become good?' He does not say this;

since how did Paul become such as he was? how the robber? how Manasseh? how the Ninevites? how did David, when fallen, recover himself? how did Peter, when he had denied, raise himself up again? how was he who had committed fornication numbered again in the flock of Christ? how did the Galatians, who had fallen from grace, return to their former nobility? So then he does not say this, that it is impossible for the wicked man to become good, but that it is impossible, while remaining wicked, to be subjected to God;

yet if he change, it is easy for him to become good and to be subjected.

For he did not say that man cannot be subjected to God, but that the wicked deed cannot be good;

Fornication cannot be chastity, nor can vice be virtue.

Which very thing he says also in the Gospel: 'A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit' — not forbidding the change from vice to virtue, but saying that continuance in vice cannot bear good fruit.

For he did not say, 'An evil tree cannot become good,' but that it cannot bear good fruit while remaining evil;

since that it is indeed possible for it to be changed, he showed both here and from another parable, when he introduces the tares becoming wheat.

For this reason He also forbids them to be rooted up;

'Lest,' He says, 'while you gather them up, you also pluck up the wheat with them';

that is, the wheat which is destined to spring forth from them.

By 'the mind of the flesh,' then, he means wickedness, and by 'the mind of the Spirit' he means the grace that has been given and the working that is judged by a good disposition of will; nowhere here discoursing about hypostasis or substance, but about virtue and vice.

'For what you were not able to accomplish under the Law,' he says, 'this you will now be able to do—to walk uprightly and without stumbling—if you lay hold of the Spirit's help.'

to walk according to the flesh, but one must also walk according to the Spirit;

since it is not sufficient for our salvation merely to turn away from evil, but we must also do good.

And this will come to pass if we surrender the soul to the Spirit and persuade the flesh to acknowledge its proper rank.

For thus we shall make the flesh itself spiritual;

just as, on the other hand, if we are slothful, we shall make even the soul carnal.

For since it was not by the necessity of nature that He implanted the gift, but committed it to the freedom of choice, it rests henceforth with you both to become this and to become that.

For all that comes from Him has been perfectly accomplished;

for sin no longer wars against the law of our mind, nor takes us captive as before, but all those things have ceased and are dissolved, and the passions crouch down, fearing and trembling before the grace of the Spirit.

But if you quench the light, cast out the charioteer, and drive away the pilot, then reckon the tempest henceforth to your own account.

That virtue has now become easier, and that for this reason there is a great heightening of the philosophic life, learn well by considering how the affairs of men stood when the Law held sway, and how they now stand, since grace has shone forth.

For the things which formerly seemed possible to none—virginity, the contempt of death, and mastery over the other manifold passions—these are now everywhere throughout the world successfully achieved.

And not only among us, but also among the Scythians and Thracians and Indians and Persians, and among many other barbarian peoples, there are choirs of virgins and hosts of martyrs and companies of monks; and these are now more numerous than the married, together with strict fasting and an excess of voluntary poverty;

things which, save for one or two, those who lived under the Law could not so much as dream of in their sleep.

Seeing, then, the truth of these facts proclaiming itself more clearly than a trumpet, do not grow soft, nor betray so great a grace.

For it is not possible, not even after faith, for one who is slothful to be saved.

For the contests are easy, that you may conquer by striving—not that you may sleep, nor that you may abuse the greatness of grace as an occasion for slothfulness, wallowing again in your former mire.

'And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.'

What then? 'Shall we cut in pieces the body,' he says, 'that we may please God, and shall we depart from the flesh, and do you command us to be self-murderers while leading us to virtue?' Do you see how many absurdities are begotten, if we take what is said in a merely literal way? Here too by 'flesh' he does not mean the body, nor the substance of the body, but the fleshly and worldly life, full of luxury and dissoluteness, the life that makes the whole man to be flesh.

For just as those who are winged by the Spirit make even the body spiritual,

so those who leap away from the Spirit and are enslaved to the belly and to pleasure make even the soul flesh—not by changing its substance, but by destroying its nobility.

And this manner of expression is found in many places in the Old Testament as well, 'flesh' signifying the gross and miry life, entangled in unseemly pleasures.

'My Spirit shall not abide in these men, because they are flesh.'

And yet Noah himself also was clothed with flesh;

but the charge was not this, that he was clothed with flesh;

rather, it was that the fleshly life had been done away with.

For this reason Paul too says:

'And those who are in the flesh cannot please God';

and he added, 'But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit'—again not meaning 'flesh' simply, but flesh of this sort, the flesh dragged along by the passions, the flesh held in tyranny.

'And why then,' one asks, 'did he not put it thus, and set down the distinction?' In order to lift up the hearer, and to show that he who lives rightly will be, as it were, not even in a body.

For since it was evident to everyone that the spiritual man is not in sin, he here sets down the greater thing: that the spiritual man is not only not in sin, but is henceforth not even in the flesh, having already become from this an angel and ascended to heaven, and merely carrying about the body.

But if on this account you slander the flesh, because he calls the fleshly life by its name,

then you will likewise slander the world, since

wickedness too is on this account often called by that name, just as Christ also said to the disciples:

'You are not of this world';

and to His own brethren He said again:

'The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me.'

The soul too will be said to be alien to God, since He called those who live in error 'soulish' (natural).

But these things are not so, they are not.

For it is necessary everywhere to attend not merely to the words, but to the mind of the one speaking, and to know the exact distinction of what is said.

For some things are good, some evil, and some intermediate; for instance, soul and flesh are among the intermediate things, being capable of becoming both this and that;

but the spirit belongs to the good things always, and never becomes anything else.

Again, the mind of the flesh—that is, the wicked deed—belongs to the things that are always evil;

for it is not subject to the law of God.

If, therefore, you give over your soul and body to the better, you become of that portion;

but if again to the worse, you make yourself a partaker of the destruction here—not because of the nature of the soul and the flesh, but because of the disposition, which has authority to choose either of these.

And that these things are so, and that what has been said is no slander of the flesh, let us again take up the expression itself and examine it more accurately.

'But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit,' he says.

What then? Were they not in the flesh, but went about bodiless? And how could this have any sense? Do you see that he was hinting at the fleshly life? And why did he not say, 'But you are not in sin'? That you may learn that Christ has not only quenched the tyranny of sin, but has also made the flesh lighter and more spiritual—not by changing its nature, but rather by giving it wings.

For just as when fire comes into contact with iron, the iron too becomes fire while remaining in its own nature,

so also, in the case of the faithful who possess the Spirit, the flesh is henceforth transferred to that working, becoming wholly spiritual, crucified on every side and taking wing together with the soul;

such as was also the body of him who spoke these words.

Therefore he laughed to scorn all luxury and pleasure, but reveled in hunger and scourgings and prisons, and felt no pain even while suffering these things.

'For our momentary light affliction';

so well had he trained even the flesh to run together with the spirit.

'If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.'

This word 'if indeed' he sets down in many places not as one doubting, but even as one firmly believing, and in the sense of 'seeing that' (since), as when he says:

'If indeed it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you';

and again, 'You suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it be even in vain.'

'But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ.'

He did not say, 'But if you do not have,' but he put forward the painful matter in the persons of others.

'This one is not His,' he says.

Again, [he sets] Christ before them.

And the painful part is brief and moderate;

but the desirable part comes from both sides and through many things, so as to cast the other into shadow.

And this he said, not calling the Spirit 'Christ'—God forbid!—but showing that he who has the Spirit not only is called Christ's, but also possesses Christ Himself.

For it is not possible, when the Spirit is present, that Christ should not also be present.

For wherever one Person of the Trinity is present, there the whole Trinity is present; for it is undivided within itself, and united with all exactness.

for it is inseparable within itself, and is united with all exactness.

And what shall come to pass, he says, if Christ be in you? 'The body indeed is dead because of sin;'

'but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.'

You have seen how many evils come from not having the Holy Spirit: death, enmity toward God, the inability to please His laws, the not being Christ's as one ought, the not having Him dwelling within.

Consider then also how many good things come from having the Spirit:

the being Christ's, the having Christ Himself, the vying with the angels.

For this is to mortify the flesh: to live an immortal life, to have even now the pledges of the resurrection, and to run the race of virtue with ease.

For he did not say merely that the body should henceforth be idle from sin, but that it should even be dead;

thereby heightening the ease of the race.

And without troubles and toils such a one is henceforth crowned.

For this reason too he added 'to sin,' that you might learn that he did away with the wickedness, and not the nature of the body once for all.

were this to happen, many of the things able to profit the soul would also be done away with.

This, then, is not what he means; rather, he wills that while living and abiding it should be dead.

For this is a sign of having the Son, of the Spirit's being in us: that our bodies differ in no way from the bodies lying in the tomb, as regards the working of the body.

But do not be afraid on hearing of mortification;

for you have the true life, which no death shall ever succeed in overtaking.

For such is the life of the Spirit;

it no longer yields to death, but consumes death and does away with it, and whatever it has received it keeps immortal.

Therefore, having said that the body is dead, he did not say that the Spirit is living, but that it is life, to show that it is able to bestow this even on others.

Then, again tightening his hold on the hearer, he states both the cause of the life and the proof of it;

and this is righteousness.

For where sin is not, neither does death appear;

and where death does not appear, life is indissoluble.

'But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He that raised up the Lord will also quicken your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwells in you.'

Again he sets in motion the discourse concerning the resurrection, since this hope especially anointed the hearer, and he confirms him from what happened in the case of Christ.

For do not be afraid, he says, that you are clothed about with a dead body;

have the Spirit, and it shall assuredly rise again.

What then? Do bodies that do not have the Spirit not rise again? And how must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ? And how shall the word concerning hell be trustworthy? For if those who do not have the Spirit do not rise, then neither will there be a hell.

What then is meant? All indeed shall rise, but not all unto life; rather, some unto punishment, and some unto life.

For this reason he did not say 'He shall raise up,' but 'He shall quicken;'

which was something more than the resurrection, and granted to the righteous alone.

And setting down the cause of so great an honor, he added, saying, 'Because of His Spirit that dwells in you.'

So that if, while you are here, you drive away the grace of the Spirit, and depart not having it intact, you shall assuredly perish, even though you rise again.

For just as He will not endure, when He sees His Spirit shining in you at that time, to deliver you over to punishment, so also He will not consent, when He sees it quenched, to lead you into the bridal chamber, even as neither did He those virgins.

Do not, therefore, permit the body to live now, that it may live then;

make it to die, that it may not die.

For if it remains living, it will not live;

but if it die, then it will live.

This also happens in the case of the resurrection at large;

for it must first die and be buried, and then become immortal.

This also took place in the laver of baptism;

for at all events the former self was crucified and buried, and then was raised up.

This also happened in the case of the Lord's body;

for that too was crucified and buried, and then rose again.

This then let us also do;

let us mortify it continually in the works themselves.

I do not mean the substance—God forbid!—but the impulses toward wicked deeds.

For this too is life; nay rather, this alone is life: to endure nothing merely human, nor to be enslaved to pleasures.

For he who has subjected himself to these can no longer even live, because of the despondencies that arise from them, and the fears, and the dangers, and the swarm of countless passions.

For if death is expected, he has died before death through fear;

and if he suspects sickness, or insult, or poverty, or any other of the unlooked-for things, he is undone and destroyed.

What then could be more wretched than such a life? But he who lives by the Spirit is not so; rather, he stands superior to fears and grief and dangers and all change—not by suffering nothing, but by that which is far greater, by despising these very things even as they assail him.

But how shall this be? If the Spirit dwells wholly within us;

for neither did he simply say that it dwells for a little while, but that it dwells within continually.

For this reason he did not say 'the Spirit that dwelt in,' but 'that dwells in,' indicating its perpetual abiding.

So then, he who has been mortified to the world is most of all alive.

'The Spirit is life because of righteousness.'

And that what is said may become clearer, let us bring forward two men: the one

given over to profligacies and pleasures and the deceit of this life;

and the other mortified to these things;

and let us see which is the more truly alive.

For let one of these two be exceedingly rich and distinguished, feeding parasites and flatterers, and let him spend the whole day upon this, reveling and carousing in drunkenness;

and let the other live with poverty and fasting and the rest of a hard and austere and philosophic discipline, partaking in the evening only of the food that is necessary, or, if you will, let him even remain without food for two or three days;

which then of these two shall be for us the one that is most truly alive? The many, I well know, will esteem that one—the man who leaps and squanders his own goods;

but we esteem the other, the one who enjoys due measure.

Since then there is for the time being a contest and rivalry, let us enter into the houses of each, and then, at the very moment when the rich man seems to you most of all to be living, in the very season of his luxury, let us also go in and observe in what state each of these two is;

for both the living man and the dead are made manifest by their deeds.

So then, the one we shall find to be occupied with books, or in prayer and fasting, or watchful over some other of the necessary things, and sober, and conversing with God;

But the man baptized under drunkenness we shall see disposed no better than a corpse;

and if we tarry until evening, we shall behold this death coming upon him yet more heavily, and then again sleep succeeding it in turn;

but the other man, sober and awake even in the night —

Which then shall we say is more truly alive: the man who lies senseless and is set forth as a laughing-stock to all,

or the man who is active and holds converse with God? For if you approach that first man and speak to him of some necessary matter, you will hear no utterance from him, just as you would hear none from a dead man;

but this other man, whether you desire to be with him by night or by day, you will see rather an angel than a man, and you will hear him philosophizing about the things that are in heaven.

Do you see that the one lives beyond the living, while the other lies in a state more pitiable even than the dead? Even if he seems to be active, he sees one thing for another, and resembles the mad — or rather he is more wretched than they.

For if someone should insult the mad, we all pity him who is insulted and rebuke him who insults;

but as for this man, even if we see someone trampling upon him, not only are we not moved to pity, but we even condemn him as he lies there.

Is this then, tell me, life? Is it not something more grievous than ten thousand deaths? Do you see that the man given to luxury is not only dead, but worse than a corpse, and more wretched than one possessed by a demon? For the latter is pitied, but the former is hated;

and the one enjoys forgiveness, but the other pays a penalty for the maladies from which he suffers.

But if outwardly he is thus ridiculous, having putrid spittle and breathing out the stench of wine, consider the wretched soul buried in such a body as in a tomb, in what condition it is likely to be.

For it is possible to behold something like this: as if one should contrive, with much licence, to set a barbarous, foul, and unclean serving-maid to trample upon and outrage a girl who is orderly, chaste, free-born, noble, and beautiful.

Who then among those who have sense would not choose to die ten thousand times rather than to live one such day? For even if, when day comes, having risen from that farce he seems to be sober, not even then does he enjoy pure sobriety, while that cloud from the tempest of drunkenness still stands before his eyes.

But even if one should grant that he becomes purely sober, what is the profit? For this sobriety is of no use to him, except to see his accusers.

For while he behaves shamefully, he gains at least this, that he does not perceive those who laugh at him;

but when day comes, he loses even this consolation, perceiving the servants murmuring, his wife ashamed, his friends reproaching, and his enemies laughing him to scorn.

What could be more pitiable than this life — to be laughed at by all in the daytime, and again at evening to behave shamefully in the same way? But what then? Do you wish us to bring the covetous into the midst? For this again is another drunkenness, and a more grievous one;

and if it is drunkenness, it is also altogether a death far worse than that other, since the drunkenness too is more grievous.

For it is not so terrible to be drunk with wine as with the desire of riches;

for there the harm halts at

the affliction, and ends in insensibility and in the ruin of the drunkard himself;

but here the injury passes over to ten thousand souls, kindling from every side wars of every kind.

Come then, let us compare this man too with that one, and let us see in what respects he shares with him, and in what respects again he surpasses him, and let us today make a comparison of the drunken.

For with that blessed man, who lives by the Spirit, let these henceforth not even be compared, but let them be examined against one another;

and let us again bring the table into the midst — the table laden with ten thousand murders.

In what respects then do they share and resemble one another? In the very nature of the disease;

for the form of the drunkenness is different, since the one comes from wine, the other from riches;

for in like manner both are held fast by a monstrous desire.

For the man drunk with wine, the more cups he drains, the more he craves;

and the man in love with riches, the more he heaps around himself, the more he kindles the flame of his desire, and prepares for himself a more grievous thirst.

And in yet another respect the lover of money surpasses him.

In what respect is this? That the one suffers a thing according to nature;

for wine, being hot and intensifying the innate dryness, thus makes the drunken thirsty;

but the other — whence does he ever crave more? Whence? When he has grown richer, then most of all is he in poverty;

for this affliction is baffling, and more nearly resembles a riddle.

But let us look at them, if you please, even after their drunkenness;

or rather, the lover of money can never be seen after his drunkenness;

so continually is he in his drunkenness.

Let us therefore look at both of them while they are in their very drunkenness, and let us consider which is the more ridiculous, and let us portray them, sketching them out again with exactness.

We shall behold, then, the man reeling from wine, when evening has come, seeing no one though his eyes are open, but carried about at random and heedlessly, colliding with those he meets, vomiting, convulsed, and shamefully stripped;

and if wife be present, if daughter, if serving-maid, if anyone whatever, they will laugh him abundantly to scorn.

Come then, let us bring the covetous man too into the midst.

For here the things that happen are matter not only for laughter, but also for cursing, and much wrath, and ten thousand thunderbolts;

yet for the present let us look at the laughter.

For this man too, like that other, knows none of them all, neither friends nor enemies, and likewise, though his eyes are open, he is blinded; and just as that man sees all things as wine, so this man sees all things as money.

And his vomiting too is far more grievous;

for he casts up not food, but words of reviling, of insult, of wars, of deaths, drawing down from above upon his own head ten thousand thunderbolts;

and such as is the body of the drunken man — livid and dissolving — such also is that man's soul;

or rather, not even his body itself is freed from this disease, but is rather the more seized by it, since care and wrath and sleeplessness devour it more grievously than wine, and little by little consume the whole of it.

And the man held fast by wine-bibbing can at least be sober during the night;

but the other is drunk continually, both by day and by night, both waking and sleeping, paying a greater penalty than any prisoner, than those who labour in the mines, and than any other punishment more grievous than these, if such there be.

Is this then, tell me, life, and not rather death — nay, more pitiable even than any death? For death gives the body rest, and delivers it from laughter and shame and sins;

but these drunkennesses cast a man into all these things, stopping up his ears, blinding his eyes, and holding his understanding in deep darkness.

For he can endure neither to hear nor to speak of anything else, but only of interest, and interest upon interest, and shameless gains, and hated peddling, and illiberal, slavish dealings, barking like a dog at all men, hating all, turning away from all, warring against all with no underlying cause, rising up against the poor, envying the rich, being kindly disposed toward no one.

And though he have wife, though he have children,

though he have friends, if it be not possible for him to gain from every quarter, these are to him more hostile than his natural enemies.

What then could be worse than this madness, what more wretched, when a man contrives for himself on every side reefs and sunken rocks and crags and ravines and ten thousand pits, though he has but one body and serves but one belly? And if someone lays public offices upon you, you flee, fearing the expense;

yet for yourself you contrive ten thousand tasks more grievous than all those, discharging for mammon services not only more costly but also more perilous, and offering to this wicked tyrant not money only, nor toil of body and torment of soul and pangs, but bringing in your very body itself — that what more may accrue to you, O wretched and miserable one, from this barbarous slavery?

Do you not see those who are carried each day to the graves, how they are led away naked and bereft of all things to those tombs, able to take nothing from their home, but carrying even the very garments they wear to the worm? Look upon these each day, and perhaps your affliction will abate — unless you are going to be driven still more madly even from that sight, by the costliness of the burial-clothes;

for grievous indeed is the affliction, and terrible the disease.

For this reason we too discourse to you concerning this in every assembly, and continually pour it upon your ears, that at least by custom something more may be effected.

For not only in the day to come, but even before that day, this manifold affliction brings on many punishments.

For though I should speak of those bound in perpetual chains, though of the man nailed down by long sickness, though of him who wrestles with famine, or of any other whatsoever, I shall be able to point to none suffering such things as those who are in love with money.

For what could be more grievous than to be hated by all, to hate all, to be kindly disposed toward no one, never to be satisfied, to thirst continually, to wrestle with a perpetual famine — one more grievous than that reckoned so by all men — to have daily griefs, never to be sober, to be always in tumults and disturbances? For all these things and more than these the covetous endure;

for in gaining, even if they compass all men's goods, they perceive no pleasure, because of craving for more;

but in suffering loss, even if they lose but an obol, they consider that they have suffered things more grievous than all, and have fallen out of life itself.

What discourse then could set forth these evils? And if the things here are such, consider the things that come after these: the falling away from the kingdom, the anguish that comes from Gehenna, the perpetual bonds, the outer darkness, the venomous worm, the gnashing of teeth, the tribulation, the anguish, the rivers of fire, the furnaces that are never quenched;