WORKS OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM. [CHAPTER V. Thus Paul says that Christ hath removed the yoke from you, not that ye may prance and kick, but that though without the yoke ye may proceed at a well-measured pace. And next he shows the mode whereby this may be readily ef- tected ; and what is this mode ? he says, Ver. 13. "But through love be servants one to another." l Here again he hints that strife and party- spirit, love of rule and presumptousness, had been the causes of their error, for the desire of rule is the mother of heresies. By saying, " Be servants one to another," he shows that the evil had arisen from this presumptuousand arrogant spirit, and therefore he applies a corresponding remedy. As your divisions arose from your de sire to domineer over each other, "serve one another;" thus will ye be reconciled again. However, he does not openly express their fault, but he openly tells them its corrective, that through this they may become aware of that ; as if one were not to tell an immodest person of his immodesty, but were continually to exhort him to chastity. He that loves his neighbor as he ought, declines not to be servant to him more humbly than any servant. As fire, brought into contact with wax, easily softens it, so does the warmth of love dissolve all arrogance and presumption more powerfully than fire. Where fore he says not, " love one another," merely, but, " be servants one to another," thus signi fying the intensity of the affection. When the yoke of the Law was taken off them that they might not caper off and away another was laid on, that of love, stronger than the former, yet far lighter and pleasanter; and, to point out the way to obey it, he adds ; Ver. 14. " For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this ; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Seeing that they made so much of the Law, he says, " If you you wish to fulfill it, do not be circumcised, for it is fulfilled not in circum cision but in love. Observe how he cannotfor get his grief, but constantly touches upon what troubled him, even when launched into his moral discourse. Ver. 15. " But if ye bite and devour one an other, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." That he may not distress them, he does not assert this, though he knew it was the case,2 but mentions it ambiguously. For he does not say, " Inasmuch as ye bite one another," nor again does he assert, in the clause following, that they shall be consumed by each other; but "take 1 [" An ingenious juxtaposition of freedom and brotherly ser vice in that freedom." Meyer. Ye were called for freedom, but through love make yourselves willing bond-servants to each other." .G A.]3 [See Lightfoot, Introduction, p. 39. Note 3. G. A.] heed that ye be not consumed one of another," and this is the language of apprehension and warning, not of condemnation. And the words which he uses are expressly significant; he says not merely, " ye bite," which one might do in a passion, but also " ye devour," which implies a bearing of malice. To bite is to satisfy the feel ing of anger, but to devour is a proof of the most savage ferocity. The biting and devouring he speaks of are not bodily, but of a much more cruel kind ; for it is not such an injury to taste the flesh of man, as to fix one s fangs in his soul. In proportion as the soul ismore precious than the body, is damage to it more serious. Take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." For those who commit injury and lay plots, do so in order to destroy others; therefore he says, Take heed that this evil fall not on your own heads. For strife and dissen sions are the ruin and destruction as well of those who admit as of those who introduce them, and eats out every thing worse than a moth does. Ver. 16. " But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." Here he points out another3 path which makes duty easy, and secures what had been said, a path whereby love is generated, and which is fenced in by love. For nothing, nothing I say, renders us so susceptible of love, as to be spirit ual, and nothing is such an inducement to the Spirit to abide in us, as the strength of love. Therefore he says, - Walk by the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh : " having spoken of the cause of the disease, he likewise mentions the remedy which confershealth. And what is this, what is the destruction of the evils we have spoken of, but the life in the Spirit ? hence he says, " Walk by the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." Ver. 17. " For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are contrary the one to the other : that ye may not do the things that ye would." Here some make the charge that the Apostle has divided man into two parts, and that he states the essence of which he is compounded to be conflicting with itself, and that the body has a contest with the soul. But this is not so, most certainly; for by "the flesh," he does not mean the body ; if he did, what would be the sense of the clause immediately following, " for it lusteth," he says, " against the Spirit ?" yet the body moves not, but is moved, is not an agent, but is acted upon. How then does it 3 [" Paul returns to the warning in ver. 13, not to abuse their freedom for an occasion to the flesh " Schaff. " In verse 13 he had warned them against using liberty for an occasion to the flesh ; now, ver. 16, he shows them how they areto accomplish that end and this introduces the deadly and intermi nable antagonism between the spirit and the flesh." Lightfoot. G. A.]