Commentary on Galatians 5.2–5.6

Having thus increased their fear, shaken their minds and shown them the shipwreck they were about to suffer, he opens to them the harbor of grace close at hand; which he does everywhere, showing that salvation from that quarter is most easy and most secure. That is why he goes on to say: "For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness." "We need none of those ordinances," he says; "faith suffices to supply us with the Spirit, and through him with righteousness and the many great good things." "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision … working …" Do you see how he now strips for the contest with greater boldness? "Let the one who has put on Christ busy himself no longer with these things," he says. Yet he said that circumcision is harmful; how, then, does he speak of it so? It is indifferent in the case of those who already had it before faith, not in the case of those circumcised after faith. And see where he has cast it out to, setting it beside uncircumcision. For what makes the difference is faith. Just as, if someone is enrolling athletes, whether they are hook-nosed or snub-nosed, black or white, makes no difference to the trial, but one must seek only that they be strong and skilled, so too, for the one who is to be enrolled in the New Covenant, all these bodily things do no harm, just as they do no good if present. What is "working through love"? Here he struck them a great blow, revealing that this intrusion came about because their love for Christ had not taken root; for what is sought is not only to believe, but also to remain in love. As if he said: "If you loved Christ as you should, you would not have deserted to slavery, nor … the one who set you free." He also hints here at those who were plotting against them, showing that they too, if they had love for them, would not have dared to do these things. And he wishes to correct their life too by this phrase. "You were running well; who hindered you?" This is not the language of one asking, but of one perplexed and lamenting. "How was so great a race cut short? Who had such strength? You who were above all and in the rank of teachers have not even remained in the rank of disciples. What has happened? Who had such strength?" These are the words of one who is calling them back and mourning, rather, as he said before too, "Who has bewitched you?" "This persuasion is not from him who calls you." "The one who calls you did not call you for this, to be so shaken; he did not lay this down, that you should Judaize." Then, so that no one might say, "Why do you magnify the matter and make it terrible with your words? We have kept only one commandment of the law, and you make such a commotion?", hear how he frightens them not from the present but from the future, saying: "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." "So this small error too, if it is not corrected, can bring you to complete Judaism, as leaven leavens the lump." "I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will take no other view." He did not say, "that you do not think otherwise," but "that you will not think otherwise," that is, "you will be set right." How do you know this? He did not say, "I know," but "I am confident": "I trust God," he says, "and I call on his alliance for your correction, and take courage." And he did not simply say, "I have confidence in you," but "in the Lord." For everywhere he weaves his accusations together with praises; as if he said: "I know my disciples, I know how easily you are set right; I am confident, partly because of the Lord, who does not let even the least thing perish, partly because of you, who are able quickly to recover yourselves." At the same time he urges them to contribute their own zeal too, since it is not possible to obtain what comes from God unless what is ours is contributed as well. "But the one who is troubling you will bear his judgment, whoever he is." He anoints them for the contest from both sides: from his encouragement, and from what he invoked against those men, or rather foretold. But see how he nowhere gives the name of those who were plotting against them, so that they might not become more shameless. What he means is this: "It is not because you will think nothing different that those responsible for the deceit are free from punishment; they will pay the penalty. For it is not fitting that the zeal of some should become a consolation for the wickedness of others." This is done so that they may not attack others again. And he did not simply say, "those who trouble you," but heightened the expression, saying, "whoever he is." "But I, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted?" For since they slandered him as Judaizing in many places and playing a part in his preaching, see how plainly he has stripped for the contest, calling them as witnesses. "For you yourselves know," he says, "that the pretext for my persecutions is this, that I command men to keep away from the law; but if I preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? For those from the Jews have nothing else to accuse me of but this alone. For if I had allowed them to believe along with their ancestral customs, neither those who believed nor those who did not believe would have plotted against me, since I would have overturned nothing of their own." [3] What then? Did he not preach circumcision? Did he not circumcise Timothy? He did circumcise him. How, then, does he say, "I do not preach it"? Here too learn his exactness. He did not say, "I do not perform circumcision," but "I do not preach it," that is, I do not command men to believe in this way. "I circumcised, but I did not preach circumcision." "In that case the stumbling block of the cross has been removed." That is, the obstacle, the hindrance, has been taken away, if what you say is true. For the cross was not so much a stumbling block to the Jews as not having to obey their ancestral laws. For when they brought Stephen forward, they did not say, "This man worships the crucified one," but "He speaks against this holy place and the law." And they accused Jesus too of this, that he was loosening the law. That is why Paul says: "If circumcision has been permitted, your quarrel with us is at an end; no stronghold remains against the cross and the preaching. But if every day they thirst for our blood, how can they accuse us of this? Me, at any rate, they attacked for this, that I had brought an uncircumcised man into the temple. Am I, then, so foolish," he says, "that, if circumcision has been permitted, I should take on such harm idly and in vain, and put such a stumbling block in the way of the cross? For you see that they war against us for nothing so much as for circumcision. Was I so foolish as to be afflicted for nothing, and to make others stumble?" He called it the stumbling block of the cross because the word of the cross enjoined this; and this above all was what scandalized the Jews and kept them from accepting the cross, that they were commanded to depart from their ancestral customs. "I wish those who unsettle you would even cut themselves off!" See how bitter he is here against the deceivers. At the beginning he turned the accusation against the deceived, calling them foolish once and again; but since he has trained and corrected them well, he now turns to the deceivers. We must observe his wisdom here too: how he admonishes and chastens the one group as his own children, able to receive correction, but cuts off the deceivers as strangers and incurably sick, saying on the one hand, "He will bear his judgment, whoever he is," and on the other cursing them and saying, "I wish those who unsettle you would even cut themselves off." And he did well to say "unsettle." For they forced them to leave their own homeland, freedom and kinship above and to pursue a foreign and alien one, casting them out of the Jerusalem above, the free one, and compelling them to wander like captives and exiles. That is why he curses them. What he means is this: "I care nothing about them. 'As for a heretical man, after a first and second admonition, have nothing more to do with him.' If they wish, let them not only be circumcised, but mutilated as well." Where, then, are those who dare to mutilate themselves, drawing the curse upon themselves, slandering God's handiwork and siding with the Manichaeans? For these say that the body is a traitor and comes from evil matter; and those men by their deeds give a handle to these harsh doctrines, for they cut off the member as an enemy and a traitor. In that case they ought much rather to blind their eyes, for it is through the eyes that desire comes down into the soul. But neither the eye nor any other member is the cause, but only the evil will. If you will not accept this, why do you not cut off the tongue too because of blasphemy, and the hands because of robbery, and the feet because of their running to wickedness, and, so to speak, the whole body? For the hearing too, charmed by the flute, has often softened the soul, and nostrils that have received a sweet smell have bewitched the mind and driven it into a frenzy of pleasure. Shall we, then, cut everything off, ears and hands and noses? But this belongs to the utmost lawlessness and to a satanic madness. For one ought only to correct the disorderly impulse of the soul … which the evil demon has persuaded, who rejoices continually in slaughter. "How, then," someone says, "is desire kindled when the body is fattened?" See again the fault of the soul; for to fatten the flesh is the doing not of the flesh but of the soul. If the soul wished to waste the body away, it has all the power to do so. But you do something like this: as if someone, seeing a man kindling a fire, putting wood on it and setting a house ablaze, were to let go the one who lit the pyre and accuse the pyre, because it caught hold of much wood and rose to a height. But the fault is not the fire's but the one's who lit it. For fire was given for cooking food, for light, and for other such services, not to burn houses; and so too desire was given for the begetting of children and the maintenance of life, not for adultery and sexual immorality and licentiousness: that you may become a father, not an adulterer; that you may have lawful intercourse with a wife, not corrupt another unlawfully; that you may leave offspring, not ruin another's. For adultery belongs not to natural desire but to an outrage against nature; for desire seeks only union, not union of this kind.

I have not said this now idly, but against those who say that God's handiwork is evil, who leave the soul's slackness alone but rage against the body and slander our flesh; of whom the apostle Paul too speaks later on, accusing not the flesh but devilish thoughts. "For you, brothers, were called to freedom; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh." Here at last he seems to enter on moral discourse; but something new happens to him, which happened to him in none of his other letters. For he divides all of them into two parts, discussing doctrines in the first part and life in the last; but here … into moral discourse; for this too again clings to that in the battle against the Manichaeans. What is "only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh"? "Christ has freed us from the yoke of slavery," he says, "and left us masters of doing what we wish, not so that we might use our power for wickedness, but so that we might have occasion for a greater reward, rising to a higher philosophy." For since he calls the law again and again a yoke of slavery, and grace a release from the curse, so that no one might suspect that he bids them leave the law so that they may live lawlessly, he corrects the suspicion, saying: "Not that our way of life may become lawless, but that our philosophy may rise above the law. For the bonds of the law have been loosed. And I say this not so that we may become lower, but so that we may become higher." For the fornicator and the virgin have both gone beyond the measures of the law, but not in the same direction: the one was carried down to what is worse, the other raised up to what is better; the one transgressed the law, the other surpassed it. This, then, is what Paul says: "He has loosed the yoke from you, not so that you may leap about and kick, but so that you may walk in good order without a yoke." Then he shows also the way by which this may easily be achieved. What, then, is the way? "Through love be servants of one another," he says. Here again he hints that contentiousness, faction, love of power and arrogance were the causes of this error for them; for the mother of heresies is the desire for power. For by saying, "Be servants of one another," he showed that the evil took its beginning from arrogance and pride; therefore he brings in a fitting remedy. For since they wished to rule over one another … for so you will be brought together again. He does not state the sin openly, but he sets out the correction openly, so that through it they may learn the other too; as if someone, without telling a licentious man that he is licentious, were to exhort him continually to be chaste. For one who loves his neighbor as he should does not refuse to serve him more humbly than any slave. Just as fire, meeting wax, easily softens it, so the warmth of love dissolves all pride and arrogance more powerfully than fire. That is why he did not simply say, "Love one another," but "Be servants," showing an intense friendship. For since he had taken away the yoke of the law, so that they might not kick it off, he puts another yoke on them, that of love, stronger than the other but much lighter and sweeter. Then, showing what it achieves, he says: "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." For since they kept turning the law over and over, he says: "If you wish to fulfill it, do not be circumcised; for it is fulfilled not in circumcision but in love." See how he does not forget his own pain, but continually stirs the sore place, and though he has gone out to moral discourse … "watch out that you are not consumed by one another." He does not declare it, so as not to weigh on them; he knows it is happening, but says it with a doubt. For he did not say, "Since you bite one another," and likewise with what follows; nor did he there declare, as one condemning them, that they had been consumed by one another. And he used his words with emphasis. He did not say only "bite," which is the mark of one who is angry, but "and devour," which is the mark of one who persists in wickedness. For one who bites has satisfied the passion of anger, but one who devours has given proof of the utmost savagery. He means bites and eatings not of the body, but much more grievous ones. For one who has tasted human flesh has not done so much harm as one who fixes his bites in the soul; for as much as the soul is more precious than the body, so much more grievous is the harm done to it. "Watch out that you are not consumed by one another." For since, in their contentiousness and plotting, they come to this, as if consuming others, he therefore says: "Watch out lest the thing turn round upon you." For division and strife are destructive and consuming both of those who receive them and of those who bring them in, and eat through everything more than a moth. "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desire of the flesh." [5] See, he shows another way too that makes virtue easy and achieves what has been said, a way that bears love and is bound fast by love. For nothing, nothing so makes people loving as being spiritual, and nothing so persuades the Spirit to remain with us as the strength of love. That is why he says, "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desire of the flesh." For since he had named what causes the disease, he names also the remedy that gives health. What is this, and what is the power behind the good things he has named, but living by the Spirit? That is why he says: "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do the things you wish." Here some attack, saying that the apostle has divided man in two, presenting him as composed of opposite substances and showing that the body is at war with the soul. But it is not so, it is not so; for here he does not call the body flesh. If he meant this, how would what follows make sense? "For it desires," he says, "against the Spirit." Yet desiring belongs not to the things that are moved but to the movers, not to what is acted upon but to what acts; how, then, does the flesh desire? Desire belongs not to the flesh but to the soul. For elsewhere it says, "My soul is full of desire"; and, "Whatever your soul desires, I will do for you"; and, "Do not go after the desire of your soul"; and again, "So my soul longs." How, then, does Paul say, "The flesh desires against the Spirit"? He is accustomed to call flesh not the nature of the body but the evil will, as when he says, "You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit," and again, "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." What then? Must we do away with the flesh? Did not the very man who said this carry flesh about? These are not the teachings of the flesh but of the devil; "for he was a murderer from the beginning." What, then, does he mean? Here he calls flesh the earthly mind, slack and careless. This is not an accusation against the body but a charge against a slack soul. For the flesh is an instrument, and no one turns away from or hates an instrument, but the one who handles the instrument badly. We hate and punish not the iron but the murderer. "But this very thing," someone says, "is an accusation against the body, that the sins of the soul are called by the name of the flesh." I for my part admit that the flesh is lesser than the soul, but it too is good. For what is lesser than the good is itself good; but evil is not lesser than the good but contrary to it. If you can show that wickedness is produced by the body, accuse the flesh; but if you try to slander it on the ground of a name, it is time for you to accuse the soul too. For one who is deprived of the truth is called a "psychic" man, a man of the soul, and the hordes of demons are called "spirits of wickedness." Again, Scripture is accustomed to call both the mysteries and the whole church by the name of flesh, saying that it is the body of Christ. And if you wish to call the things done through it achievements, put out the senses in thought, and you will see the soul bereft of all knowledge and knowing nothing of what it knows. For if the power of God has been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through the things he has made, how could we see without eyes? And if faith comes from hearing, how shall we hear without ears? Preaching and going about are done through the tongue and the feet ("For how will they preach unless they are sent?"), and writing through the hands. Do you see that the service of the flesh is the cause of countless good things for us? When he says, "The flesh desires against the Spirit," he is speaking of two kinds of thoughts; for it is these that are opposed to each other, virtue and vice, not the soul and the body. For if these were opposed, they would destroy each other, as fire destroys water and darkness light. But if the soul cares for the body and makes great provision for it, and suffers countless things so as not to leave it, and resists being torn away from it, while the body serves the soul and brings much knowledge into it and has been made for its activity, how could these be contrary and at war with each other? For I see by their works that they are not only not contrary but in great harmony, clinging to each other. So he does not say of these that they are opposed to each other; he brings in a war of evil thoughts and good ones. For willing and not willing belong to the soul. That is why he says: "These are opposed, so that you may not let the soul go after its evil desires." He uttered this like a tutor and teacher putting them in fear. "But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law."

What sort of sequence is this? A very great and clear one. For one who has the Spirit as he ought quenches every evil desire by it; and one who has been freed from these has no need of the help of the law, having risen far above its command. For how does one who is not angry need to hear, "You shall not murder"? How does one who does not look with licentious eyes need someone to teach him not to commit adultery? Who discusses the fruit of wickedness with one who has torn up its very root? For anger is the root of murder, and curious gazing the root of adultery. That is why he says, "If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." Here he seems to me to have spoken great and wonderful praise of the law as well: if the law stood in the place of the Spirit, as far as its power went, before the coming of the Spirit, we ought not on that account to stay with the tutor. Then we were rightly under the law, so that by fear we might chastise our desires, since the Spirit had not yet appeared; but now that grace has been given, which not only commands us to abstain from them but also withers them and leads us up to a higher way of life, what need is there of the law? What need of a tutor has one who by himself achieves greater things? A philosopher does not need a schoolmaster. … and now sit by the law? "Now the works of the flesh are evident: … sorcery, idolatry, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, factions, envy, murders, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Now then, you who accuse your flesh and think these things are said of an enemy and foe, tell me (grant, on your view, that adultery and sexual immorality belong to the flesh): enmities, strife, jealousies, rivalries, factions, sorceries (for these belong only to a corrupt will, as do the others too), how could they belong to the flesh? Do you see that here he means not the flesh but the earthly mind that drags along the ground? That is why he puts them in fear, saying, "Those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." If these things came from an evil nature and not from a wicked will, he would have said not "do" but "suffer." And why do they fall from the kingdom? For crowns and punishments concern not what belongs to nature but what belongs to choice. That is why Paul threatened them with these things. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace." He did not say "the work of the Spirit," but "the fruit." "Then the soul is superfluous," someone says. "For if the discussion is about flesh and Spirit, where is the soul? Is he speaking about soulless beings? When the evil things belong to the flesh and the useful ones to the Spirit, the soul is superfluous." Not at all. For self-control over the passions is the soul's work and concerns it; and since the soul stands in the middle between vice and virtue, if it uses the body as it should, it has made it spiritual; but if it departs from the Spirit and gives itself up to evil desires, it has made itself more earthly. Do you see from every side that his discussion now is not about the substance of the flesh, but about a wicked will, and one that is not so by nature? Why does he call it the fruit of the Spirit? Because evil works come from us alone, which is why he calls them works; but good ones need not only our diligence but also the love of God for mankind. Then, as he is about to enumerate them, he first sets down the root of the good things, saying: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." For what command could one give to one who has everything within himself, and love as a perfect teacher of philosophy? Just as horses that are obedient to the rein and do everything of themselves would not need the whip, so a soul that achieves virtue from the Spirit does not need the law to admonish it. Here too he has cast out the law in a very wonderful way, not as bad, but as lesser than the philosophy given by the Spirit. "And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." So that they might not say, "And who is such a person?", he points to those who achieve such things by their works, again calling the evil deeds flesh. For they did not do away with the flesh; otherwise how were they to live? For what has been crucified is dead and inactive; but he is showing an exact philosophy. For desires, even if they trouble us, rage in vain. Since, then, the power of the Spirit is so great, let us live by it, let us be content with it; which he himself adds, saying: "If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit," living according to its laws. For this is the meaning of "let us keep in step," that is, let us be content with the power of the Spirit and not look for any addition from the law. Then, showing that those who were bringing in circumcision did so out of ambition, he says: "Let us not become conceited" (which is the cause of all evils), "provoking one another, envying one another." For envy comes from vainglory, and from envy these countless evils.