suggest these things as matter of advice, and so enter into discourses with them concerning the faith, “being nourished up,” he says, meaning to imply constancy in application to these things. For as we set before us day by day this bodily nourishment, so he means, let us be con- tinually receiving discourses concerning the faith, and ever be nourished with them. What is this, “being nourished up”? Ruminating upon them; attending ever to the same things, and practicing ever the same, for it is no common nourishment that they supply. “But refuse profane and old wives’ fables.” By these are meant Jewish traditions, and he calls them “fables,” either because of their falsehood or their unseasonableness. For what is seasonable is useful, but what is unseasonable is not only useless but injurious. Suppose a man of adult age to be suckled by a nurse, would he not be ridiculous, because it is unseason- able? “Profane and old wives’ fables,” he calls them, partly because of their obsoleteness, and partly because they are impediments to faith. For to bring souls under fear, that are raised above these things, is an impious commandment. “Exercise thyself unto godliness.” That is, unto a pure faith and a moral life; for this is godliness. So then we need “exercise.” Ver. 8. “For bodily exercise1219 profiteth little.” This has by some been referred to fasting; but away with such a notion! for that is not a bodily but a spiritual exercise. If it were bodily it would nourish the body, whereas it wastes and makes it lean, so that it is not bodily. Hence he is not speaking of the discipline1220 of the body. What we need, therefore, is the exer- cise1221 of the soul. For the exercise of the body hath no profit, but may benefit the body a little, but the exercise1222 of godliness yields fruit and advantage both here and hereafter. 446 “This is a faithful saying,” that is, it is true that godliness is profitable both here and hereafter. Observe how everywhere he brings in this, he needs no demonstration, but simply declares it, for he was addressing Timothy. So then even here, we have good hopes? For he who is conscious to himself of no evil, and who has been fruitful in good, rejoices even here: as the wicked man on the other hand is punished here as well as hereafter. He lives in perpetual fear, he can look no one in the face with confidence, he is pale, trembling, and full of anxiety. Is it not so with the fraudulent, and with thieves, who have no satisfaction even in what they possess? Is not the life of murderers and adulterers most wretched, who look upon the sun itself with suspicion? Is this to be called life? No; rather a horrid death! 1219 γυμνασία. 1220 ἀσκήσεως. 1221 γυμνασία. 1222 ἄσκησις, the proper word for spiritual exercise. St. Paul uses the other, because bodily exercise for bodily purposes was familiar to all Greeks. 771 1 Timothy 4:1-3