{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-1906","native_reference":{"book_number":540,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"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>Ambrosiaster</b>: In times of persecution the soul advances. Every day it adds something more to its experience of faith. Even the damage done to the body becomes conducive to immortality through the merit of the soul.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: The renewal of humankind, begun in the sacred bath of baptism, proceeds gradually and is accomplished more quickly in some individuals and more slowly in others. But many are in progress toward the new life if we consider the matter carefully and without prejudice. As the apostle says: \"Even though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.\" He says that the inner man is renewed day by day in order that he may become perfect, but you would have him begin with perfection. Would that you really did desire this! But you seek to lead the unwary astray rather than to uplift the weak.<br/><i>— THE WAY OF LIFE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 1.35.80</i></p><p><b>Basil of Caesarea</b>: A man who has his own best interest at heart will therefore be especially concerned for his soul and will spare no pains to keep it stainless and true to itself. If his body is wasted by hunger or by its struggles with heat and cold, if it is afflicted by illness or suffers violence from anyone, he will pay little attention to it, and, echoing the words of Paul, he will say in each of his adversities: \"but though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.\" … But, if a man would also have mercy upon his body as being a possession necessary to the soul and its cooperator in carrying on the life on earth, he will occupy himself with its needs only so far as is required to preserve it and keep it vigorous by moderate care in the service of the soul.<br/><i>— HOMILY 21 ON DETACHMENT</i></p><p><b>Desert Fathers</b>: Syncletica also said, 'If you are troubled by illness, do not be miserable, even if you are so ill that you cannot stand to pray or use your voice to say psalms. We need these tribulations to destroy the desires of our body; they serve the same purpose as fasting and austerity. If your senses are dulled by illness, you do not need to fast. In the same way that a powerful medicine cures an illness, so illness itself is a medicine to cure passion. A great deal is gained spiritually by bearing illness quietly and giving thanks to God. If we go blind, let us not be upset. We have lost one means to excellence, yet we can contemplate the glory of God with the inward eyes of the soul. If we go deaf let us remember that we shall no longer hear a lot of silly talk. If suffering has weakened the strength of your hands, you still have inner strength against the enemy's attacks. If the whole body is afflicted by disease, your spiritual health is still increasing.'<br/><i>— The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"Wherefore we faint not; but though our outward man is decaying, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.\"</p><p>How does it decay? Being scourged, being persecuted, suffering ten thousand extremities. \"Yet the inward man is renewed day by day.\" How is it renewed? By faith, by hope, by a forward will, finally, by braving those extremities. For in proportion as the body suffers ten thousand things, in the like proportion hath the soul goodlier hopes and becometh brighter, like gold refined in the fire more and more. And see how he brings to nothing the sorrows of this present life.<br/><i>— Homily 9 on 2 Corinthians</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: Scripture says that in man there are two: \"For though our outer man is being destroyed, yet our inner man is renewed day by day\"; and also: \"I delight in the law of God according to the inner man.\" The Apostle everywhere presents these two men as distinct. It seems to me that he does not presume to invent this teaching for himself, but rather, releasing what is expressed obscurely in the Scriptures, he sets it forth openly.<br/><i>— DIALOGUE WITH HERACLIDES</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Now of what life of Christ does he here speak? Of that which we are now living? Then how is it, that in the words which follow he exhorts us not to the things which are seen and are temporal, but to those which are not seen and are eternal -in other words, not to the present, but to the future? But if it be of the future life of Christ that he speaks, intimating that it is to be made manifest in our body, then he has clearly predicted the resurrection of the flesh.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: He says, too, that \"our outward man perishes,\" not meaning by an eternal perdition after death, but by labours and sufferings, in reference to which he previously said, \"For which cause we will not faint.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: He says, too, that \"our outward man perishes,\" not meaning by an eternal perdition after death, but by labours and sufferings, in reference to which he previously said, \"For which cause we will not faint.\" Now, when he adds of \"the inward man\" also, that it \"is renewed day by day,\" he demonstrates both issues here-the wasting away of the body by the wear and tear of its trials, and the renewal of the soul by its contemplation of the promises.<br/><i>— Against Marcion Book V</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: For although it is called \"a vessel\" by the apostle, such as he enjoins to be treated \"with honour,\" it is yet designated by the same apostle as \"the outward man,\" -that clay, of course, which at the first was inscribed with the title of a man, not of a cup or a sword, or any paltry vessel.<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: Well, then, heresies finding that the apostle had mentioned two \"men\"-\"the inner man,\" that is, the soul, and \"the outward man,\" that is, the flesh-awarded salvation to the soul or inward man, and destruction to the flesh or outward man, because it is written (in the Epistle) to the Corinthians: \"Though our outward man decayeth, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.\" Now, neither the soul by itself alone is \"man\" (it was subsequently implanted in the clayey mould to which the name man had been already given), nor is the flesh without the soul \"man \": for after the exile of the soul from it, it has the title of corpse.<br/><i>— On the Resurrection of the Flesh</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"66891211bf19a9904c72d2fcb2907f1c63cf1fe5346edc13cf813853846afe86","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":1906,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"87081615e4046f4b8446da6e5c479405e3caf70cad256a65ca392d2cf3aab466","translator":null,"work":null}