up his soldier.479 What then is the meaning of this? The man that is loose in his life, and is
dissolved in his lusts, and that has his thoughts trailing on the ground, him he braces up by
means of this girdle, not suffering him to be impeded by the garments entangling his legs,
but leaving him to run with his feet well at liberty. “Stand therefore, having girded your
loins,” saith he. By the “loins” here he means this; just what the keel is in ships, the same
are the loins with us, the basis or groundwork of the whole body: for they are, as it were, a
foundation, and upon them as the schools of the physicians tell you, the whole frame is
built. So then in “girding up the loins” he compacts the foundation of our soul; for he is not
of course speaking of these loins of our body, but is discoursing spiritually: and as the loins
are the foundation alike of the parts both above and below, so is it also in the case of these
spiritual loins. Oftentimes, we know, when persons are fatigued, they put their hands there
as if upon a sort of foundation, and in that manner support themselves; and for this reason
it is that the girdle is used in war, that it may bind and hold together this foundation, as it
were, in our frame; for this reason too it is that when we run we gird ourselves. It is this
which guards our strength. Let this then, saith he, be done also with respect to the soul, and
then in doing anything whatsoever we shall be strong; and it is a thing most especially be-
coming to soldiers.
True, you may say, but these our natural loins we gird with a leathern band; but we,
spiritual soldiers, with what? I answer, with that which is the head and crown of all our
thoughts, I mean, “with truth.” “Having girded your loins,” saith he, “with truth.”480 What
then is the meaning of “with truth”? Let us love nothing like falsehood, all our duties let us
pursue “with truth,” let us not lie one to another. Whether it be an opinion, let us seek the
truth, or whether it be a line of life, let us seek the true one. If we fortify ourselves with this,
if we “gird ourselves with truth,” then shall no one overcome us. He who seeks the doctrine
of truth, shall never fall down to the earth; for that the things which are not true are of the
earth, is evident from this, that all they that are without are enslaved to the passions, following
their own reasonings; and therefore if we are sober, we shall need no instruction in the tales
of the Greeks. Seest thou how weak and frivolous they are? incapable of entertaining about
God one severe thought or anything above human reasoning? Why? Because they are not
“girded about with truth”; because their loins, the receptacle of the seed of life, and the main
strength of their reasonings, are ungirt; nothing then can be weaker than these. And the
479 [“As for the actual warrior, the whole aptus habitus (prepared state) for the combat would be wanting in
the absence of the girdle; so also for the spiritual warrior, if he is not furnished with truth.”—Meyer.—G.A.]
480 [“It is clear that truth does not mean ‘objectively the gospel,’ for that is designated later, ver. 17, by ῥῆμα
θεοῦ (‘the word of God’), but ‘subjectively,’ truth as an inward property, i.e. the ‘harmony of knowledge with
the objective truth given in the gospel.’”—Meyer.—G.A.]
303
Ephesians 6:14