On “What I do not want, I do” (Rom 7:19) 672

… “nor do I practise what I wish.” These words befit a household slave. For just as someone does not do what he wishes, but what he is ordered, so man did not have the power to do what he wished, but what he was ordered by sin. For from then on sin reigned, and one could not contradict a king. So man was sold—not Paul, but the image of man, the creature of freedom. And to be brief: when he had said this, he added many proofs of the compelled slavery: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Do you see how he brought in man as one examined under bitter slavery and tyranny, longing to strip off the slavery, seeking freedom, and calling on the benefaction? “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me? Who comes? I thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” To show you that he speaks of the sale to sin of the one formerly under the law, but of the deliverance of those who were sold and were redeemed through the grace of the Gospel, he says: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me? I thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ”: he set me free from the law of sin. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free.” Do you see how he brought in the man who is set free and the one who is a slave? And he does not speak about himself alone, but about all … : “in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.” And how were you set free? “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh”—since the law commanded the good, but the flesh did not obey, being sold to sin—what the law could not accomplish because of the weakness of the flesh, he accomplished through the power of the flesh of Christ. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh” (for the law was not weak through itself, but through the flesh), “God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh …” … by the grace of God the solution of what was sought: that Paul does not say these things about himself, nor … his own freedom, nor does he put himself under sin, nor present himself as spiritual and fleshly; but in his discourse, as in an image, he set up man before the law, man under the law, man after grace; then he made us come to know who man was before the law, who under the law, who after freedom in Christ. “God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Here the other question too is solved. For not only the Apollinarians, but also the Arians and Eunomians say that the Savior took flesh only, and not a soul as well. Some were generous and said a soul without a mind; others, that the Savior took flesh alone. But it has been shown by us through what was said the day before yesterday that Scripture is accustomed, when it mentions man, to name the man from a part. Sometimes it names the whole man from the flesh—“to you all flesh shall come,” that is, every man—sometimes from the soul, as when it says, “With seventy-five souls Jacob went down into Egypt”; sometimes from the breath, as in “Let every breath praise the Lord.” Show, then, where Scripture speaks of soulless flesh. When one has wholly died, it is no longer called flesh but a dead body. No one ever called a corpse flesh, but a dead body. For as long as it has the vital power and lives, it is called flesh; but when it has died, it is not called flesh, but is named a body. For every soulless thing is a body: a stone is a body, wood is a body, and … , having no soul, is called a body. But tell me, why did he not take a soul? “For he came,” he says, “to save through himself, … but had need of our soul.” Why then did he take the flesh? “Since he could not appear as God, he took the flesh, so that through it he might live among us.” So the flesh had no soul? How then did he hunger? How did he thirst? How was he weary? For if you throw out the soul and bring in God, you also attribute the hunger and thirst to him. Besides, brothers, if there were not both God the Word and an ensouled man—the vessel of humanity united to him—but the Godhead alone were in flesh, about what soul did the Savior say, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”? If there was Godhead alone and no soul, who is the one who committed, and what was committed? “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” that is, the soul. If you introduce the Godhead alone in the flesh and throw out the soul, who is the one who committed, and what was committed? But the aim of the heretics is clear. For they say that the Lord did not take a soul in order to drag all the lowly sayings onto the Godhead, so that when they read, “I do not speak from myself, for my Father has given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak,” they may ascribe it no longer to the humanity but to the Godhead. Do you see into what a depth of ungodliness they … ? What the spirit is of which he says, “Into your hands I commit,” they cannot find, however they force it. For it is solved by other passages, which call the soul spirit. Hear Stephen saying in his martyrdom: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” That the spirit is the soul, Stephen bears witness. Who, then, is the one who commits the spirit, and to whom was the spirit committed? And about what substance does he speak? … the apostles apply the prophecy: “For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor give your holy one to see corruption.” “You will not abandon my soul to Hades.” Was the word about God? God is not left in Hades. Did Hades hold God? … the life-giving power, corruption … Have you not heard Paul saying, “because it was not possible for the life to be held by corruption”? By “the life” he means the body. But if the body is life, was the life held by death? “You will not abandon my soul to Hades.” The whole humanity that had fallen, the whole man that had fallen, he renewed whole. “But if you say,” he says, “that he renewed a complete man, what difference do you give him from the apostles? For God was in them too.” But to dwell in is one thing, and to take up and be united another. Of us it is said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them”: it speaks of the simplicity of the soul, it presupposes the virtue of the soul, and God rests and walks within. But in Christ the body itself, united from the womb, became a temple; it did not receive God dwelling in it by progress in way of life, but at once the temple was built and at once God dwelt in it. The body, then, was the temple of the united Christ. That is why he says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” O the absurdity of those who dare everything without fear! But this is against the heretics who speak of soul and body and spirit, and do violence to the apostolic saying that says, “God will keep your body and soul and spirit.” It is necessary to say this: they suppose that the spirit is the mind. If, then, the spirit is the mind, why does the Apostle say, “I will sing with my spirit, and I will sing with my mind also”? If spirit and mind are the same, why does Paul divide them, saying, “I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the mind also”? If the spirit is the mind, why does he speak of the mind as something other than the spirit? “But since,” he says, “you do not accept it so, explain it as you think. What is it that Paul says, God will keep your soul and spirit?” It is the custom of Scripture to call the … of the Holy Spirit “spirit.” I beg you, contend alongside me in my labor; for it is no small matter to cut out a heretical thorn. It is the custom of Scripture to call the gift of the Holy Spirit “spirit”: for example, if someone receives a spirit of wisdom or a spirit of knowledge, the very gift of the Spirit is called spirit. Paul says, “Since you are zealous for spirits,” that is, for spiritual gifts; for there are not many Spirits. “Since you are zealous for spirits, I show you a still more excellent way.” “I show you,” he says, “which of the gifts you ought to seek.” So the grace of the Spirit is called spirit—not the very substance of the Spirit, but the working of the Spirit. “All these the one and the same Spirit works.” The working of the Spirit is “the spirit,” that is, the gift, not the very substance of the Spirit. You are called spiritual, and the gift in you is called spirit. So the Apostle says: God will keep your body, and your soul, and the gift that you received from the Spirit. Again he calls the spirit a gift. And the gift grows through zeal and is lost through negligence. The Apostle says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” But it is not possible to quench the substance of the Spirit, nor the mind, which exists by nature; but since we make grace grow in zeal, and … in … So he calls the working of the Spirit spirit. May all of us obtain it in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.