CHAPTER V. ] COMMENTARY ON GALATIANS. 39 admonishes and chastens the former as his own children, and as capable of receiving correction, but their deceivers he cuts off, as aliens and in curably depraved. And this he does, partly, when he says, "he shall bear his judgment who soever he be ; " partly when he utters the impre cation against them, "I would that they which unsettle youwould even cut themselvesoff." And he says well "that unsettle you." For they had compelled them to abandon their own father land, their liberty, and their heavenly kindred, and to seek an alien and foreign one ; they had cast them out of Jerusalem which is above and free, and compelled them to wander forth as captives and emigrants. On this account he curses them ; and his meaning is as follows, For them I have no concern, " A man that is heretical after the first and second ad monition refuse." ( Tit. iii : 10 ) If they will, let them not only be circumcised, but muti lated. Where then are those who dare to mutilate themselves l ; seeing that they draw down the Apostolic curse, and accuse the workmanship of God, and take part with the Manichees? For the latter call the body a treacherous thing, and from the evil principle ; and the former by their acts give countenance to these wretched doctrines, cut ting off the member as being hostile and treach erous. Ought they not much rather to put out the eyes, for it is through the eyes that "desire enters the soul? But in truth neither the eye nor any other part of us is to blame, but the de praved will only. But ifyou will not allow this, why do you not rnutilate the tongue for blasphe my, the hands for rapine, the feet for their evil courses, in short, the whole body ? For the ear enchanted by the sound of a flute hath often en ervated the soul ; and the perception of a sweet perfume by the nostrils hath bewitched the mind, and made it frantic for pleasure. Yet this would be extreme wickedness and satanic madness. The evil spirit, ever delighting in slaughter, hath seduced them to crush the in strument, as if its Maker had erred, whereas it was only necessary to correct the unruly passion of the soul. How then does it happen, one may say, that when the body is pampered, lust is inflamed ? Observe here too that it is the sin of the soul, for to pamper the flesh is not an act of the flesh but of the soul, for if the soul choose to mortify it, it would possess absolute power over it. But what you do is just thesame as if one seeing a man lighting a fire, and heaping on fuel, and setting fire to a house, were to blame the fire, instead of him who kindled it, because it had caught this heap of fuel, and risen to a great height. Yet the blame would attach not to the fire but to the one who kindled it ; for it was given for the purpose of dressing food, affording light, and other like ministries, not for burning nouses. In like manner desire is implanted for the rearing of families and the ensuring of life, not for adul tery, or fornication, or lasciviousness ; that a man may become a father, not an adulterer ; a lawful husband, not a seducer; leaving heirs after him, not doing damage to another man s. For adultery arises not from nature, but from wantonness against nature, which prescribes the use not the misuse. These remarks I have not made at random, but as a prelude to a dispute, as skirmishing against those who assert that the workmanship of God is evil, andwho neglecting the sloth of the soul, madly inveigh against the body, and traduce our flesh, whereof Paul after wards discourses, accusing not the flesh, butdev ilish thoughts. Ver. 13. " For ye, brethren, were called for freedom ; only use not your freedom for an oc casion to the flesh." Henceforward he appears to digress2 into a moral discourse, but in a new manner, which does not occur in any other of his Epistles. For all of them are divided into two parts, and in the first he discusses doctrine, in the last the rule of life, but here, after having entered upon the moral discourse, he again unites with it the doctrinal part. For this passage has reference to doctrine in the controversy with the Mani chees.3 What is the meaning of, " Use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh?" Christ hath delivered us, he says, from the yoke of bondage, He hath left us free to act as we will, not that we may use our liberty for evil, but that we may have ground for receiving a higher reward, advancing to a higher philoso phy. Lest any one should suspect, from his calling the Law over and over again a yoke of bondage, and a bringing on of the curse, that his object in enjoining an abandonment of the Law, was that one might live lawlessly, he cor rects this notion, and states his object to be, not that our course of life might be lawless, but that our philosophy might surpass the Law. For the bonds of the Law are broken, and I say this not that our standard may be lowered, but that it may be exalted. For both he who com mits fornication, and he who leads a virgin life, pass the bounds of the Law, but not in the same direction ; theone is led away to the worse, the other is elevated to the better ; the one transgresses the Law, the other transcends it. 1 [ AiroKOirrfiv eavrovs. Chrysostom here, as often, "goes off at a word" into a digression on a subject which is only remotely sug gested by the passage in hand. G. A.] 2 [This is not a digression. It is in strict continuity with the proceeding context and gives a reason for the indignant expression of the foregoing sentence. "They are defeating the very purpose of your calling : ye were called for liberty and not for bondage." I.ightfooi. (>. A.] 3 [On the doctrine of the Manichees see Schaff Church History vol. ii. p. 408-508, where a full account of the literature is given also. G. A.]