Chapter VIII.—Virgins, by the Laying Aside of All Carnal Affection, are Imitators of God.
For, if a man be only in name called holy, he is not holy; but he must be holy in everything: in his body and in his spirit. And those who are virgins rejoice at all times in becoming like God and His Christ, and are imitators of them. For in those that are such there is not “the mind 352
of the flesh.” In those who are truly believers, and “in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells” 353
—in them “the mind of the flesh” cannot be: which is fornication, uncleanness, wantonness; idolatry, 354
sorcery; enmity, jealousy, rivalry, wrath, disputes, dissensions, ill-will; drunkenness, revelry; buffoonery, foolish talking, boisterous laughter; backbiting, insinuations; bitterness, rage; clamour, abuse, insolence of speech; malice, inventing of evil, falsehood; talkativeness, 355
babbling; 356
threatenings, gnashing of teeth, readiness to accuse, 357
jarring, 358
disdainings, blows; perversions of the right, 359
laxness in judgment; haughtiness, arrogance, ostentation, pompousness, boasting of family, of beauty, of position, of wealth, of an arm of flesh; 360
quarrelsomeness, injustice, 361
eagerness for victory; hatred, anger, envy, perfidy, retaliation; 362
debauchery, gluttony, “overreaching (which is idolatry),” 363
“the love of money (which is the root of all evils);” 364
love of display, vainglory, love of rule, assumption, pride (which is called death, and which “God fights against”). 365
Every man with whom are these and such like things—every such man is of the flesh. For, “he that is born of the flesh is flesh; and he that is of the earth speaketh of the earth,” 366
and his thoughts are of the earth. And “the mind of the flesh is enmity towards God. For it does not submit itself to the law of God; for it cannot do so,” 367
because it is in the flesh, “in which dwells no good,” 368
because the Spirit of God is
Rom. viii. 6 (φρόνημα).
57:353 57:354Lit. “the worship of idols.” The single word *** sometimes used to express “idolatry” (as in Eph. Syr., opp. tom. i. p. 116), is not found in these epistles.
57:355 57:356 57:357The word thus rendered is not in the lexicons, but is well illustrated by Isa. xxix. 21 (“that make a man an offender”), where the Hiphil of אטָחָ is used, corresponding to the Aphel of the same root, from which the present word is derived.
57:358The word is used in the Peschito of 1 Tim. vi. 5, to express διαπαρατριβαί (“incessant quarrellings,” Alf.); [R.V., “wranglings.”—R.].
57:359Ex. Conject. Beelen. The word is not in the lexicons.
57:360 57:361Lit. “folly;” but so used in 2 Cor. xii. 13.
57:362 57:363 57:364 57:365 57:366 57:367 57:368 58:369Gen. vi. 3. [This is an example of the vicious method of interpretation, not yet extirpated, which carries Paul’s distinctive use of the term “flesh” back to the Pentateuch, where no ethical sense is necessarily implied.—R.]
58:370Rom. vii. 9. [The Apostle speaks of “the Spirit of Christ.”—R.]
58:371