{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-5519","native_reference":{"book_number":550,"chapter_from":5,"chapter_to":5,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":16,"verse_to":16},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: He also said, 'Fasting is the monk's control over sin. The man who stops fasting is like a stallion who lusts the moment he sees a mare.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: Abraham, who was a disciple of Agatho, once asked Poemen, 'Why do the demons attack me?' Poemen said to him, 'Is it the demons who attack you? It is not the demons who attack me. When we follow our self-will then our wills seem like demons and it is they who urge us to obey them. If you want to know the kind of people with whom the demons fight, it is Moses and those like him.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: A brother asked a hermit, 'What shall I do, for I am troubled by many temptations, and I do not know how to resist them?' He said, 'Do not fight against them all at once, but against one of them. All the temptations of monks have a single source. You must consider what kind of root of temptation you have, and fight against that and in this way all the other temptations will also be defeated.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>Gaius Marius Victorinus</b>: The whole essence of the gospel is to think according to the Spirit, to live according to the Spirit, to believe according to the Spirit, to have nothing of the flesh in one's mind and acts and life. That means also having no hope in the flesh. \"Walk, then,\" he says, \"in the Spirit\"—that is, \"Be alive. If you do so you will not consummate the desire of the flesh. You will admit into consciousness no sin, which is born of the flesh.\"<br/><i>— EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 2.5.16</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: (Verse 16) But I say: Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. And this is to be understood in two ways according to what was said before: first, that those who have mortified the works of the flesh by the spirit, have sown in the spirit, so that they may reap eternal life from the spirit, whenever they feel the pleasures of the flesh tempting them, not to fulfill their desires (which, if fulfilled, seems pleasing for a time), but to restrain them by the spirit; and second, according to the opinion of the Historian (Sallust): to live more by the control of the mind and the service of the body. And moreover, the reason is that the Law is spiritual (Rom. VII), not for those who are Jews in a visible sense, but for those who are Jews in a hidden sense, and circumcision of the heart is in the spirit, not in the letter, and we say that they walk in the spirit and do not fulfill the desire of the flesh, those who spiritually leave Egypt and drink the spiritual food and drink from the spiritual rock, who are not judged in eating or drinking or in a part of a festive day, or of a new moon, or of the Sabbath, but walk in all things spiritually, not fulfilling the desires of the carnal law, or the desires of the letter, but reaping the fruits of spiritual intelligence. A third interpretation has also been given in this place by some, but it does not differ much from the second interpretation. They assert that the desire of the flesh is present in those who are young in Christ, while the journey of the spirit is for mature men, and it signifies the seriousness of the spirit, that is, walking on the way as perfect men, and not fulfilling the desires of the young.<br/><i>— Commentary on Galatians</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Here he points out another 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 spiritual, 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 confers health. 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.\"<br/><i>— Homily on Galatians 5</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: \"walk by the Spirit.\" Live and conduct yourselves according to the Spirit, he says, and do what seems to belong to it, and you will not fulfill the desire of the flesh.<br/><i>— Commentary on Galatians</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame. Now although the flesh is sinful, and we are forbidden to walk in accordance with it, and its works are condemned as lusting against the spirit, and men on its account are censured as carnal, yet the flesh has not such ignominy on its own account.<br/><i>— A Treatise on the Soul</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"18214d433271d1465f0584a7b4543de347b4e584a597c6cd60014797b6050406","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":5519,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"2693e321e754c51290367c3ddb82c42925949db59e21357da5f09cc055ca1f23","translator":null,"work":null}