The City of God, Volume IIAugustine, of Hippo, Saint
ReligionChristian
The City of God, Volume II
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
Apologetics -- Early works to 1800; Kingdom of God -- Early works to 1800
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."[8] 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?
3. _That sin is caused not by the flesh, but by the soul, and
that the corruption contracted from sin is not sin, but sin's
punishment._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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