Chapter XVII.—Conclusion.

“Old” you are, if we will say the truth, you who are so indulgent to appetite, and justly do you vaunt your “priority:”  always do I recognise the savour of Esau, the hunter of wild beasts:  so unlimitedly studious are you of catching fieldfares, so do you come from “the field” of your most lax discipline, so faint are you in spirit.116    Comp. Gen. xxiii. 2, 3, 4, 31, and xxv. 27–34.  If I offer you a paltry lentile dyed red with must well boiled down, forthwith you will sell all your “primacies:”  with you “love” shows its fervour in sauce-pans, “faith” its warmth in kitchens, “hope” its anchorage in waiters; but of greater account is “love,” because that is the means whereby your young men sleep with their sisters!  Appendages, as we all know, of appetite are lasciviousness and voluptuousness.  Which alliance the apostle withal was aware of; and hence, after premising, “Not in drunkenness and revels,” he adjoined, “nor in couches and lusts.”117    Rom. xiii. 13.

To the indictment of your appetite pertains (the charge) that “double honour” is with you assigned to your presiding (elders) by double shares (of meat and drink); whereas the apostle has given them “double honour” as being both brethren and officers.118    1 Tim. v. 17.  Who, among you, is superior in holiness, except him who is more frequent in banqueting, more sumptuous in catering, more learned in cups?  Men of soul and flesh alone as you are, justly do you reject things spiritual.  If the prophets were pleasing to such, my (prophets) they were not.  Why, then, do not you constantly preach, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die?”119    Isa. xxii. 13; 1 Cor. xv. 32. just as we do not hesitate manfully to command, “Let us fast, brethren and sisters, lest to-morrow perchance we die.”  Openly let us vindicate our disciplines.  Sure we are that “they who are in the flesh cannot please God;”120    Rom. viii. 8. not, of course, those who are in the substance of the flesh, but in the care, the affection, the work, the will, of it.  Emaciation displeases not us; for it is not by weight that God bestows flesh, any more than He does “the Spirit by measure.”121    John iii. 34.  More easily, it may be, through the “strait gate”122    Matt. vii. 13, 14; Luke xiii. 24. of salvation will slenderer flesh enter; more speedily will lighter flesh rise; longer in the sepulchre will drier flesh retain its firmness.  Let Olympic cestus-players and boxers cram themselves to satiety.  To them bodily ambition is suitable to whom bodily strength is necessary; and yet they also strengthen themselves by xerophagies.  But ours are other thews and other sinews, just as our contests withal are other; we whose “wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the world’s123    Mundi:  cf. κοσμοκράτορας, Eph. vi. 12. power, against the spiritualities of malice.”  Against these it is not by robustness of flesh and blood, but of faith and spirit, that it behoves us to make our antagonistic stand.  On the other hand, an over-fed Christian will be more necessary to bears and lions, perchance, than to God; only that, even to encounter beasts, it will be his duty to practise emaciation.

CAPUT XVII.

Vetus es, vera si velimus dicere, tu 0977B qui tantum gulae indulges, et merito te priorem jactitas; semper agnosco sapere Esau venatorem ferarum, ita passim indagandis turdis studes, ita de campo laxissimae disciplinae tuae venis, ita spiritu deficis, si tibi lenticulam defruto inrufatam obtulero, statim totos primatus tuos vendes; apud te agape in cacabis fervet, fides in culinis calet, spes in ferculis jacet. Sed major his est agape (I Cor. XIII, 13), qui per hanc adolescentes tui cum sororibus dormiunt. Appendices scilicet gulae, lascivia atque luxuria , quam societatem et Apostolus sciens, cum praemisisset: Non in ebrietatibus, nec in comessationibus; adjunxit: nec in cubilibus et libidinibus. (Rom. XIII, 14.) Ad elogium gulae tuae pertinet, quod duplex apud te praesidentibus honor binis 0978A partibus deputatur; cum Apostolus duplicem honorem dederit, ut et fratribus et praepositis. Quis sanctior inter vos, nisi convivandi frequentior, nisi obsonandi pollucibilior, nisi calicibus instructior? Merito homines solius animae et carnis spiritalia recusatis. Talibus si placerent prophetae, mei non erant. Cur ergo non constanter praedicatis: Manducemus et bibamus, cras enim moriemur (I Cor. XV, 32)? Sicut nos non dubitamus exerte mandare: jejunemus, fratres et sorores, ne forte cras moriamur. Palam disciplinas nostras vindicemus. Nos certi sumus, eos qui in carne sunt, Deo placere non posse; non utique in substantia carnis, sed in cura, sed in affectione, sed in operatione, sed in voluntate. Macies non displicet nobis; neque enim ad pondus Deus carnem tribuit, sicut nec spiritum ad mensuram, facilius si forte per 0978B angustam salutis januam introibit caro exilior, citius resuscitabitur caro levior, diutius in sepultura durabit caro aridior. Saginentur pugiles et pyctae olympici: illis ambitio corporis competit, quibus et vires necessariae. Et tamen illi quoque xerophagiis invalescunt; sed nostra alia robora, aliaeque vires, sicut et alia certamina; quibus non est luctatio adversus carnem et sanguinem, sed adversus mundi potestates, adversus spiritalia malitiae, adversus haec, non carne et sanguine, sed fide et spiritu robusto oportet adsistere. Caeterum, saginatior christianus ursis et leonibus forte, quam Deo, erit necessarius, nisi quod et adverus bestias maciem exercere debebit.