Chapter XLVI.—It is the Works of the Flesh, Not the Substance of the Flesh, Which St. Paul Always Condemns.

You may notice that the apostle everywhere condemns the works of the flesh in such a way as to appear to condemn the flesh; but no one can suppose him to have any such view as this, since he goes on to suggest another sense, even though somewhat resembling it. For when he actually declares that “they who are in the flesh cannot please God,” he immediately recalls the statement from an heretical sense to a sound one, by adding, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.”305    Rom. viii. 8, 9. Now, by denying them to be in the flesh who yet obviously were in the flesh, he showed that they were not living amidst the works of the flesh, and therefore that they who could not please God were not those who were in the flesh, but only those who were living after the flesh; whereas they pleased God, who, although existing in the flesh, were yet walking after the Spirit. And, again, he says that “the body is dead;” but it is “because of sin,” even as “the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”306    Ver. 10. When, however, he thus sets life in opposition to the death which is constituted in the flesh, he unquestionably promises the life of righteousness to the same state for which he determined the death of sin. But unmeaning is this opposition which he makes between the “life” and the “death,” if the life is not there where that very thing is to which he opposes it—even the death which is to be extirpated of course from the body.  Now, if life thus extirpates death from the body, it can accomplish this only by penetrating thither where that is which it is excluding. But why am I resorting to knotty arguments,307    Nodosius. when the apostle treats the subject with perfect plainness? “For if,” says he, “the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you;”308    Rom. viii. 11. so that even if a person were to assume that the soul is “the mortal body,” he would (since he cannot possibly deny that the flesh is this also) be constrained to acknowledge a restoration even of the flesh, in consequence of its participation in the selfsame state.  From the following words, moreover, you may learn that it is the works of the flesh which are condemned, and not the flesh itself: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: for if ye live after the flesh ye shall die; but if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”309    Vers. 12, 13. Now (that I may answer each point separately), since salvation is promised to those who are living in the flesh, but walking after the Spirit, it is no longer the flesh which is an adversary to salvation, but the working of the flesh.  When, however, this operativeness of the flesh is done away with, which is the cause of death, the flesh is shown to be safe, since it is freed from the cause of death. “For the law,” says he, “of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death,”310    Ver. 2.—that, surely, which he previously mentioned as dwelling in our members.311    Rom. vii. 17, 20, 23. Our members, therefore, will no longer be subject to the law of death, because they cease to serve that of sin, from both which they have been set free. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and through312    Per delinquentiam: see the De Carne Christi, xvi. sin condemned sin in the flesh,”313    Rom. viii. 3.—not the flesh in sin, for the house is not to be condemned with its inhabitant. He said, indeed, that “sin dwelleth in our body.”314    Rom. vii. 20. But the condemnation of sin is the acquittal of the flesh, just as its non-condemnation subjugates it to the law of sin and death. In like manner, he called “the carnal mind” first “death,”315    Rom. viii. 6. and afterwards “enmity against God;”316    Ver. 7. but he never predicated this of the flesh itself. But to what then, you will say, must the carnal mind be ascribed, if it be not to the carnal substance itself? I will allow your objection, if you will prove to me that the flesh has any discernment of its own. If, however, it has no conception of anything without the soul, you must understand that the carnal mind must be referred to the soul, although ascribed sometimes to the flesh, on the ground that it is ministered to for the flesh and through the flesh. And therefore (the apostle) says that “sin dwelleth in the flesh,” because the soul by which sin is provoked has its temporary lodging in the flesh, which is doomed indeed to death, not however on its own account, but on account of sin. For he says in another passage also: “How is it that you conduct yourselves as if you were even now living in the world?”317    Col. ii. 20. where he is not writing to dead persons, but to those who ought to have ceased to live after the ways of the world.

CAPUT XLVI.

Talem ubique Apostolum recognoscas, ita carnis opera damnantem, ut carnem damnare videatur; sed ne ita quis existimet, ex aliorum vel cohaerentium sensuum suggestu procurantem. Nam et dicens (Rom. VIII), eos qui in carne sunt , Deo placere non posse, statim de pravo intellectu ad integrum revocat, adjiciens: Vos autem non estis in carne, sed in spiritu. Eos enim quos in carne esse constabat, negando in carne esse, in operibus carnis non esse monstrabat; atque ita illos demum Deo placere 0859D non posse, non qui in carne essent, sed qui carnaliter 0860A viverent; placere autem Deo illos, qui in carne positi, secundum spiritum incederent. Et rursus: Corpus quidem, ait, mortuum, sed propter delinquentiam; sicut spiritum vitam propter justitiam. Vitam autem morti opponens in carne constitutae, sine dubio illic et vitam repromisit ex justitia, ubi mortem determinavit ex delinquentia. Caeterum frustra opposuit vitam morti, si non est illic ubi est et ipsa, cui eam opposuit, excludendae utique de corpore. Porro, si vita mortem de corpore excludit, non potest id perficere, nisi illuc penetret, ubi est quod excludit. Et quid ego nodosius, cum Apostolus absolutius? Si enim, inquit, spiritus ejus qui suscitavit Jesum, habitat in vobis; qui suscitavit Jesum a mortuis, suscitabitet mortalia corpora vestra, propter 0860Binhabitantem spiritum ejus in vobis; ut et si animam quis corpus mortale praesumpserit, cum hoc et carnem negare non possit, carnis quoque resuscitationem cogatur agnoscere, secundum ejusdem status communionem. Ex sequentibus adhuc discas, opera carnis damnari, non ipsam: Itaque, fratres, ait, debitores sumus, non carni, utsecundum carnem vivamus: si enim secundum carnem vixeritis, futurum est ut moriamini; si vero spiritu carnis actus mortificaveritis, vivetis. Porro, ut ad singula quaeque respondeamus, si in carne constitutis, secundum spiritum tamen degentibus, salus repromittitur; jam non caro adversatur saluti, sed operatio carnis. Operatione autem carnis exclusa, quae caussa est mortis, salva jam caro ostenditur, caussa carens mortis. Lex enim, 0860C inquit, spiritus vitaein Christo Jesu manumisit me a lege delinquentiae et mortis; certe quam praemisit habitare in membris nostris . Ergo jam membra nostra lege mortis non tenebuntur, quia nec delinquentiae, a quibus manumissa sunt. Quod enim invalidum erat legis, in quo infirmabatur per carnem, misso Deus Filio suo in simulacro carnis delinquentiae, et per delinquentiamdamnavit delinquentiam in carne, non carnem in delinquentia: neque enim domus cum habitatore damnabitur. Habitare enim peccatum dixit in corpore nostro. Damnata autem delinquentia, caro absoluta est: sicut, indemnata ea, legi mortis et delinquentiae obstricta est. Sic et sensum carnis, mortem appellavit; dehinc et inimicitiam ad Deum, sed non carnem ipsam. Cui ergo, dices, reputabitur sensus carnis, si non substantiae ipsi? Plane, si probaveris 0860D aliquid carnem de suo sapere. Si vero sine anima nullius est sensus, intellige sensum carnis ad 0861A animam esse referendum, carni interdum deputatum , quia per carnem administratur; et ideo habitare ait delinquentiam in carne, quia et anima, a qua delinquentia inducitur, inquilina est carnis, mortificatae quidem, sed non suo, verum delinquentiae nomine. Nam et alibi: Quomodo, inquit, etiam nunc, velut viventes in mundo, sententiam fertis? non ad mortuos scribens, sed ad eos qui desinere deberent mundialiter vivere.