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First, we must see what it is to live after the flesh, and what to
live after the spirit. For any one who either does not recollect, or
does not sufficiently weigh, the language of sacred Scripture, may,
on first hearing what we have said, suppose that the Epicurean
philosophers live after the flesh, because they place man's highest
good in bodily pleasure; and that those others do so who have been of
opinion that in some form or other bodily good is man's supreme good;
and that the mass of men do so who, without dogmatizing or
philosophizing on the subject, are so prone to lust that they cannot
delight in any pleasure save such as they receive from bodily
sensations: and he may suppose that the Stoics, who place the supreme
good of men in the soul, live after the spirit; for what is man's
soul, if not spirit?
But in the sense of the divine Scripture both are proved to live after
the flesh. For by flesh it means not only the body of a terrestrial
and mortal animal, as when it says, "All flesh is not the same
flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of
beasts, another of fishes, another of birds," but it uses this word
in many other significations; and among these various usages, a
frequent one is to use flesh for man himself, the nature of man taking
the part for the whole, as in the words, "By the deeds of the law
there shall no flesh be justified;" for what does he mean here by "no
flesh" but "no man?" And this, indeed, he shortly after says more
plainly: "No man shall be justified by the law;" and in the
Epistle to the Galatians, "Knowing that man is not justified by the
works of the law." And so we understand the words, "And the Word
was made flesh,", that is, man, which some not accepting in its
right sense, have supposed that Christ had not a human soul. For as
the whole is used for the part in the words of Mary Magdalene in the
Gospel, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they
have laid Him," by which she meant only the flesh of Christ, which
she supposed had been taken from the tomb where it had been buried, so
the part is used for the whole, flesh being named, while man is
referred to, as in the quotations above cited.
Since, then, Scripture uses the word flesh in many ways, which
there is not time to collect and investigate, if we are to ascertain
what it is to live after the flesh (which is certainly evil, though
the nature of flesh is not itself evil), we must carefully examine
that passage of the epistle which the Apostle Paul wrote to the
Galatians, in which he says," Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance,
emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings,
murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I
tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they
which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." This
whole passage of the apostolic epistle being considered, so far as it
bears on the matter in hand, will be sufficient to answer the
question, what it is to live after the flesh. For among the works of
the flesh which he said were manifest, and which he cited for
condemnation, we find not only those which concern the pleasure of the
flesh, as fornications, uncleanness, lasciviousness, drunkenness,
revellings, but also those which, though they be remote from fleshly
pleasure, reveal the vices of the soul. For who does not see that
idolatries, witchcrafts, hatreds, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, heresies, envyings, are vices rather of the soul than of the
flesh? For it is quite possible for a man to abstain from fleshly
pleasures for the sake of idolatry or some heretical error; and yet,
even when he does so, he is proved by this apostolic authority to be
living after the flesh; and in abstaining from fleshly pleasure, he is
proved to be practising damnable works of the flesh. Who that has
enmity has it not in his soul? or who would say to his enemy, or to
the man he thinks his enemy, You have a bad flesh towards me, and not
rather, You have a bad spirit towards me? In fine, if any one heard
of what I may call "carnalities," he would not fail to attribute
them to the carnal part of man; so no one doubts that "animosities"
belong to the soul of man. Why then does the doctor of the Gentiles
in faith and verity call all these and similar things works of the
flesh, unless because, by that mode of speech whereby the part is used
for the whole, he means us to understand by the word flesh the man
himself?
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