CHAPTER I.] COMMENTARY ON GALATIANS. 5 by thecommand , but accord!ng to the will , " for inasmuch as there is an unity of will in the Father and the Son, that which the Son wills, the Father wills also. "For our sins," 1 says the Apostle ; we had pierced ourselves with ten thousand evils, and had deserved the gravest punishment ; and the Law not only did not deliver us, but it even condemned us, making sin more manifest, with out the power to release us from it, or to stay the anger of God. But the Son of God made this impossibility possible for he remitted our sins, He restored us from enmity to the condi tion of friends, He freely bestowed on us num berless other blessings. Ver. 4. "That He might deliver us out of this present evil world." Another class of heretics2 seize upon these words of Paul, and pervert his testimony to an accusation of the present life. Lo, say they, he has called this present world evil, and pray tell me what does "world" [age] alwv mean but time measured by days and seasons ? Is then the distinction of days and the course of the sun evil ? no one would assert this even if he be car ried away to the extreme of unreasonableness. "But" they say, "it is not the time, but the present life, which he hath called evil. Now the words themselves do not in fact say this ; but the heretics do not rest in the words, and frame their charge from them, but propose to themselves a new mode of interpretation. At least therefore they must allow us to produce our interpretation, and the rather in that it is both pious and rational. We assert then that evil cannot be the cause of good, yet that the pres ent life is productive of a thousand prizes and rewards. And so the blessed Paul himself extols it abundantly in the words, " But if to live in the flesh, if this is the fruit of my work, then what I shall choose I wot not ; (Phil, i : 22.) and then placing before himself the alternative of living upon earth, and de parting and being with Christ, he decides for the former. But were this life evil, he would not have thus spoken of it, nor could any one, however strenuous his endeavor, draw it aside into the service of virtue. For no one would ever use evil for good, fornication for chastity, envy for benevolence. And so, when he says, that the mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be, (Rom. viii: 7.) he means that vice, as such, cannot become virtue; and the expression, " evil world," must be understood to mean evil actions, and a 1 ["The idea of satisfaction is implied not in the preposition iiirep, but the whole nature of the case." Meyer. G.A.] 2 That is, the Manichees, who considered matter intrinsically evil, and paid divine honors to the sun, moon, and stars. Via. Epiph. Hcer. Ixvi. [On Mani and the Manichean heresy see Schaff, Church History, Vol. II. pp. 498-508 where a full account of the literature is given also. G. A.] depraved moral principle. Again, Christ came not to put us to death and deliver us from the present life in that sense, but to leave us in the world, and prepare us for a worthy participation of our heavenly abode. Wherefore He saith to the Father, "And these are in the world, and I come to Thee ; I pray not that Thou shouldest take them from the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil," (Jo. xvii: ii, 15.) i. e., from sin. Further, those who will not allow this, but insist that the present life is evil, should not blame those who destroy themselves; for as he who withdraws himself from evil is not blamed, but deemed worthy of a crown, so he who by a violent death, by hanging or otherwise, puts an end to his life, ought not to be condemned. Whereas God punishes such men more than murderers, and we all regard them with horror, and justly ; for if it is base to destroy others, much more is it to destroy one s self. Moreover, if this life be evil, murderers would deserve a crown, as res cuing us from evil. Besides this, they are caught by their own words, for in that they place the sun in the first, and the moon in the second rank of their deities, and worship them as the givers of many goods, their statements are contradictory. For the use of these and the other heavenly bodies, is none other than to contribute to our present life, which they say is evil, by nourishing and giving light to the bodies of men and animals and bringing plants to maturity. How is it then that the con stitution of this " evil life is so ministered toby those, who according to you are gods ? Gods indeed they are not, far from it, but works of God created for our use ; nor is this world evil. And if you tell me of murderers, of adulterers, of tomb-robbers, these things have nothing to do with the present life, for these offences pro ceed not from that life which we live in the flesh, but from a depraved will. For, if they were necessarily connected with this life, as embraced in one lot with it. no man would be free or pure from them, for no man can escape the characteristic accidents of humanity, such as, to eat and drink, to sleep and grow, to hun ger and thirst, to be born and die, and the like ; no man can ever become superior to these, neither sinner nor just man, king nor peasant, We all are subject to the necessity of nature. And so if vice were an essential element of this life, no one could avoid it, any more than the things just mentioned. And let me not be told that good men are rare, for natural necessity is insuperable by all, so that as long as one virtu ous man shall be found, my argument will in no wise be invalidated. Miserable, wretchedman ! what is it thou sayest ? Is this life evil, wherein we have learnt to know God, and meditate on