Augustine of Hippo

In his own words on Galatians

• Galatians 1:1

  The one sent "from men" is a liar; the one sent "through man" tells the truth, as God too, who is truthful, may send truth through men. The one, therefore, who is sent not from men or through man but "through God" derives his truthfulness from the One who makes truthful even those sent through men.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 2

• Galatians 1:3

  The grace of God, by which our sins are forgiven, is the condition of our being reconciled to him, whereas peace is that wherein we are reconciled.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3 [1B.1.3-5]

• Galatians 1:5

  How much more, therefore, ought men not to claim the credit for themselves if they perform any good work, when the very Son of God in the Gospel said that he sought not his own glory. Nor had he come to do his own will but the will of him who sent him! This will and glory of the Father the apostle now commemorates, that he also, by the example of the Lord who sent him, may indicate that he seeks not his own glory or the performance of his own will in the preaching of the gospel, just as he says a little later, "if I were to please men, I should not be a servant of Christ."

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3 [1B.1.3-5]

• Galatians 1:6

  If it were another gospel other than the one that the Lord has given through himself or through some other, it would not be a gospel.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 4 [1B.1.6-9]

• Galatians 1:10

  No one persuades God, for all things are manifest to him. But a person does well in wishing to persuade others when it is not himself that he wishes them to like but the truth that he persuades them of.… When one pleases others on account of truth, it is not the proclaimer himself but the truth that pleases.… Thus the sense is, "Do I then persuade men or God? And since it is men that I persuade, do I seek to please them? If I still sought to please men, I should not be Christ's servant. For he bids his servants to learn from him to be meek and lowly of heart, which is utterly impossible for one who seeks to please men on his own account, for his own private and special glory." … Both then can be rightly said: "I please" and "I do not please."

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 5 [1B.1.10]

• Galatians 1:11

  The gospel that is "according to men" is a lie, for every person is a liar, seeing that whatever truth is found in a man is not from the man but through the man from God.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 6 [1B.1.11-12]7

• Galatians 1:13

  If therefore he showed prowess in Judaism by persecuting and wasting God's church, it is obvious that Judaism is contrary to the church of God, not through that spiritual law which the Jews had received but through their carnal habit of servitude. And if Paul as a zealot—that is, an imitator of late Judaic traditions—persecuted the church of God, his paternal traditions are contrary to God's church, but the blame does not belong to the law itself. For the law is spiritual and does not allow itself to be interpreted carnally. That is the fault of those who understand carnally the things that they have received and who also have handed down many things of their own, undermining, as the Lord said, the command of God through their traditions.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 7 [1B.1.13-14]

• Galatians 1:18

  If, when Paul had evangelized Arabia, he subsequently saw Peter, it was not so that he might learn the gospel from Peter himself (for then he would have seen him before) but so that he might enhance familial love by being with the apostles.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 8 [1B.1.15-19]

• Galatians 1:20

  He certainly swears, and what oath could be more sacred? But an oath is not against the commandment when the "evil cause" is not in the swearer but in the incredulity of him to whom he is forced to swear. For we understand from this that what the Lord meant in prohibiting oaths was that everyone, so far as in him it lies, should not swear the oaths that many do, having the oath on their lips as though it were something lofty and elegant.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 9 [1B.1.20-24]

• Galatians 1:22

  It should be observed that Jews had believed in Christ not only in Jerusalem, nor were they so few that they had been absorbed into the Gentile churches, but they were so numerous that churches came into being from them.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 9 [1B.1.20-24]

• Galatians 2:2

  "So that I should not run or have run in vain" we should understand to be addressed as if in a question, not to those with whom he compared his gospel in private but to those to whom he was writing, so that it might appear that he was not running and had not run in vain from the fact that by the testimony of the others he was certified not to dissent from the truth of the gospel.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 10 [1B.2.1-2]

• Galatians 2:3

  It was because of the intrigues of false brethren that Titus was not compelled to be circumcised. It was not possible to require circumcision of him. Those who had crept in to spy on their liberty had a vehement expectation and desire for the circumcision of Titus. They wanted, with Paul's testimony and consent, to preach circumcision as necessary to salvation.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 11 [1B.2.3-5]

• Galatians 2:6

  If people were reputed to be anything, that was a human reputation, for they themselves are not anything to boast of. For even if they are good ministers of God, it is Christ in them, not they through themselves, who are something. For if they were something through themselves they would always be something. "What they were" at one time means that it is nothing to him that they themselves were sinners. God accepts no one because of the office one holds. He calls all to salvation, not imputing their transgressions to them.… No one should suppose that Paul said [this] to disparage his predecessors, for they too, as spiritual people, wished to stand against the carnal people who thought themselves to "be something" on their own rather than out of Christ in them. They were extremely glad when persuaded that they themselves, Paul's predecessors, like Paul had been justified by the Lord from a state of sin. But carnal people, if anything is said about their previous life, grow angry and take it as disparagement. So they assume that the apostles are of their own mind. Now Peter, James and John were more honored among the apostles because the Lord showed himself on the Mount to these same three as a sign of his kingdom.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 12-13 [1B.2.6-9]

• Galatians 2:7

  The apostles were not therefore found to disagree in anything. Otherwise, when Paul claimed to have received the gospel perfectly, they might have denied this and wished to add to his teaching, as though he were incomplete. On the contrary, instead of reproving Paul's imperfection, they approved his perfection.… His saying "on the contrary" might also be understood in such a way as to yield the following meaning: "Upon me those who had a reputation imposed nothing further. On the contrary, they consented with me and Barnabas, joining the right hand of fellowship, that we, for our part, should go among the Gentiles, who are contrary to the circumcision, while they for their part should go to those of the circumcision."

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 12 [1B.2.6-9]

• Galatians 2:13

  Paul never fell into any pretense, for he everywhere observed a principle which seemed fitting both to Gentile and to Jewish churches, that he should nowhere take away a custom whose observation did not prevent the receiving of God's kingdom.… Peter, however, when he came to Antioch, was rebuked by Paul not because he observed the Jewish custom in which he was born and reared, although he did not observe it among the Gentiles, but because he wanted to impose it on the Gentiles. This happened after seeing certain persons come from James—that is, from Judea, since James was the head of the church in Jerusalem. It was therefore in fear of those who still thought that salvation resided in these observances that Peter separated himself from the Gentiles and pretended to consent in imposing those burdens of servitude on the Gentiles.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 15 [1B.2.11-16]

• Galatians 2:14

  That he rebuked him "before all" was necessary, in order that everyone might be bettered by his rebuke. For it was not expedient to correct in secret an error that was doing public harm. It should be added that in his steadfastness and charity Peter, to whom the Lord had said three times, "Do you love me? Feed my sheep," was very ready to bear this rebuke from a junior shepherd for the salvation of the flock. For the one who was being rebuked was himself more remarkable and more difficult to imitate than the one rebuking. For it is easier to see what one should correct in others than to see what ought to be corrected in oneself. It is easier to correct others by admonishing and rebuking than to be corrected readily even by yourself, let alone by another, still less if you add another and "before all."

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 15 [1B.2.11-16]

• Galatians 2:14

  So that one might fulfill the works of the law, his infirmity being assisted not by his own merit but by the grace of God, they were not to demand from the Gentiles a fleshly observation of the law but were to understand that through the same grace of God they were able to fulfill the spiritual works of the law.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 15 [1B.2.11-16]

• Galatians 2:14

  Those who wish to defend Peter from error and from the depravity of life into which he had fallen overturn the very way of religion in which lies the salvation of all. This shatters and diminishes the authority of the Scriptures. They do not see that in this defense they are implicitly charging the apostle Paul not only with the crime of lying but even with perjury in the very teaching of piety, that is, in the letter in which Paul proclaims the gospel. It is for this reason he says, before narrating these things [in 1:20], "What I write to you, understand before God that I do not lie.

  On Lying 43

• Galatians 2:15

  The Jews had given the name of sinners to the Gentiles through a certain pride, already inveterate. It is as though they themselves were just, seeing the mote in another's eye and not the beam in their own.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 16 [1B.2.15-18]

• Galatians 2:20

  The human spirit, cleaving to the Spirit of God, struggles against the flesh that is, against itself and on its own behalf. Those impulses natural to humanity, whether in the flesh or in the soul, which remain because of our acquired debility, are restrained by discipline for the sake of obtaining salvation. So the human being who does not live according to human nature can already say, "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." For where I am not I, I am more happily I. Thus when any reprobate impulse arises according to my old human nature, to which I who serve the law of God with my mind do not consent, I may now say this: "now I am not the one doing that."

  On Continence 29

• Galatians 3:2

  Here he begins to demonstrate in what sense the grace of faith is sufficient for justification without the works of the law.… But so that this question may be carefully treated and no one may be deceived by ambiguities, we must first understand that the works of the law are twofold; for they reside partly in ceremonial ordinances and partly in morals. To the ordinances belong the circumcision of the flesh, the weekly sabbath, new moons, sacrifices and all the innumerable observances of this kind. But to morality belong "You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not bear false witness" and so on. Could the apostle possibly not care whether a Christian were a murderer and adulterer or chaste and innocent, in the way that he does not care whether he is circumcised or uncircumcised in the flesh? He therefore is specially concerned with the works that consist in ceremonial ordinances, although he indicates that the others are sometimes bound up with them. But near the end of the letter he deals separately with those works that consist in morals, and he does this briefly, but he speaks at greater length regarding the [ceremonial] works.… For nothing so terrifies the mind as a ceremonial ordinance that is not understood. But when it is understood it produces spiritual joy and is celebrated gladly and in due season. It is read and treated only with a spiritual sweetness. Now every sacrament, once understood in this way, is applied either to the contemplation of truth or to good morals. The contemplation of truth is founded in the love of God alone, good morals in the love of God and the neighbor, and on these two precepts depend the whole Law and the Prophets.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 19 [1B.3.1]

• Galatians 3:8

  The greatest cause for triumph in Abraham was that, before his circumcision, faith was reckoned to him for righteousness. This is most correctly referred to the promise that "All nations shall be blessed in you," meaning of course by the following of his faith, by which he was justified even before the ordinance of circumcision, which he received as a token of faith, and long before the servitude of the law, which was given much later.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 20 [1B.3.2-9]

• Galatians 3:11

  Here, indeed, they ought at least to concede that "in the law no one is justified," as the same apostle says elsewhere; but that the law avails for the knowledge of sin, and for the transgression of the law itself, so that sin, being known and increased, grace may be sought for through faith.

  AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF PELAGIUS 1.14

• Galatians 3:15

  The value that a testator's death has for confirming his testament is final, since he cannot then change his mind. This is the value that the immutability of God's promise has in confirming the inheritance of Abraham, whose faith was reckoned for righteousness.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 23 [1B.3.15-18]

• Galatians 3:17

  If the law justifies, Abraham was not justified, since he lived long before the law. Since they cannot say this, they are forced to admit that a man is justified not by works of the law but by faith. And he compels us to understand that all the ancients who were justified were justified from the same faith. For as we are saved by believing partly in a past event, that is, the first coming of the Lord, and partly in a future one, that is, his second coming, they believed the whole of it, that is, both comings as events. The Holy Spirit reveals this for their salvation.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 23 [1B.3.15-18]

• Galatians 3:19

  Here arises a rather pertinent question: if faith justifies and even the former saints, who were justified before God, were justified through it, what need was there for the law to be given?… The law was given to a proud people, but the grace of love cannot be received by any but the humble. Without this grace the precepts of the law cannot possibly be fulfilled. Israel was rendered humble by transgression, so that it might seek grace and might not arrogantly suppose itself to be saved by its own merits; and so it would be righteous, not in its own power and might but by the hand of the Mediator who justifies the ungodly.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 24 [1B.3.19-20]

• Galatians 3:19

  Now every dispensation of the Old Testament was given through angels, the Holy Spirit working in them and in the very Word of truth, though not yet incarnate, yet never departing from some true ordering of providence. This law was given through angels, sometimes acting in their own person, sometimes in that of God, as was also the way of the prophets.… The children [of Abraham] were put in the hand of [Christ] the Mediator so that he himself might liberate them from sin when they were forced by their transgression of the law to admit that they needed grace and mercy from the Lord.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 24 [1B.3.19-20]

• Galatians 3:22

  For those who are proud it is useful to be more closely bound under sin, so that they would not presume on free will for the performance of righteousness, as though upon their own strength.

  ON THE GRACE OF CHRIST 9

• Galatians 3:22

  Transgression of the law was needed to break the pride of those who, glorying in their father Abraham, boasted of having a sort of natural righteousness. They caused more harm to the Gentiles the more arrogantly they flaunted the merits of their circumcision. But the Gentiles could be humiliated very easily even without transgression of this sort of law, for the grace of the gospel found that these men, who knew that they had received no root of wisdom from their parents, were actually slaves to idols.… The law was therefore given not to take away sin but to include all under sin. For the law showed that to be sin which the Jews in their blindness deemed to be righteousness, so that by this humiliation they might know that their salvation was not in their own hands but in the hand of a mediator.… This very humility was fitted to the recognition of Christ, who is the paradigm of humility.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 25 [1B.3.21-22]

• Galatians 3:23

  No person should be unwise enough to say here, "Why then was it no profit to the Jews that they were put in the hand of a Mediator through angels dispensing the law?" It was profitable to them beyond what can be expressed. For what churches of the Gentiles sold their possessions and put the price of them at the apostles' feet, which so many thousands of people so quickly did? … And when he praises the church of the Thessalonians before all other churches, he says that they have become like the churches of the Jews, because they had suffered many things from their people on account of their faith, as the others had from the Jews. … And the consciousness of a greater sickness, that they were found to be transgressors of the law itself, worked not to the ruin but to the good of those who believed, causing them to desire more fervently a doctor and to love him with more ardor.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 26 [1B.3.23]

• Galatians 3:28

  Difference of race or condition or sex is indeed taken away by the unity of faith, but it remains embedded in our mortal interactions, and in the journey of this life the apostles themselves teach that it is to be respected.… For we observe in the unity of faith that there are no such distinctions. Yet within the orders of this life they persist. So we walk this path in a way that the name and doctrine of God will not be blasphemed. It is not out of fear or anger that we wish to avoid offense to others but also on account of conscience, so that we may do these things not in mere profession, as if for the eyes of men, but with a pure love toward God.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 28 [1B.3.28-29]

• Galatians 4:3

  Why does Paul include his own character in this description? He says not "When you were small, you were subject to the elements of this world" but "When we were small we were in servitude under the elements of this world." This does not have any reference to the Jews, from whom Paul derived his origin. Rather it refers to his identification with the Gentiles in this place at least, since he can properly join himself with the character of those whom he was sent to evangelize.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 29 [1B.4.1-3]

• Galatians 4:5

  He says "adoption" so that we may clearly understand that the Son of God is unique. For we are sons of God through his generosity and the condescension of his mercy, whereas he is Son by nature, sharing the same divinity with the Father.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 30 [1B.4.4-5]

• Galatians 4:6

  There are two words that he has set down so that the former may be interpreted by the latter, "for Abba" means the same as "Father." Now we see that he has elegantly, and not without reason, put together words from two languages signifying the same thing because of the whole people, which has been called from Jews and Gentiles into the unity of faith.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 31 [1B.4.6]

• Galatians 4:8

  When, however, he says, "you were in servitude to those who are by nature no gods," he sufficiently proves that one true God is God by nature, by whose name the triune God is received in the most faithful and catholic bosom of the heart. "Those who are by nature no gods" are described by him as governors and overseers. There is no creature, whether it abides in truth by giving glory to God or fails to abide in truth by seeking its own glory—there is, I say, no creature that does not willy-nilly serve divine providence.… But, just as the magistrate under the imperial law does nothing but what is permitted to him, so the governors and overseers of this world do nothing but whatever God allows.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 32 [1B.4.7-8]

• Galatians 4:9

  What follows, as it were, reintroduces a question that has already been explored. Through the whole letter he has shown that no one has disturbed the faith of the Galatians except those who were of the circumcision, who wished to lead them into carnal observations of the law as though salvation were in them. In this place alone he seems to speak to those who were attempting to return to Gentile superstitions.… For in saying "you have reverted," since he is speaking not to the circumcised but to Gentiles, as appears in the whole letter, he does not say at all that they have reverted to circumcision, in which they had never been, but he says "to the weak and beggarly elements," which you wish to serve again as before.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 33 [1B.4.9]

• Galatians 4:11

  So, let the reader choose whichever interpretation he wishes, so long as he understands that such superstitious observances of times bring great peril to the soul, so much so that the apostle adds, "I am afraid, lest perhaps I should have labored in you in vain." … And yet if someone, even a catechumen, is caught observing the sabbath by the Jewish rite, the church is confused. As it is, innumerable members of the church say with great complacency in open view of us, "I do not travel on the day after the first." … Alas for human sinfulness, that we only denounce what is unfamiliar, but with familiar things we tolerate them, although they may be great and cause the kingdom of heaven to be shut against them absolutely. It is for them that the Son of God shed his blood. We come to tolerate them through frequent acquaintance with them, and through increased toleration we share in them.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 35 [1B.4.10-11]

• Galatians 4:19

  Humans are conceived in their mother's womb in order to be formed, yet only when fully formed do they go into labor. One might be surprised by his statement: "You with whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you." We are to understand this travail to stand for the agonies of concern that they might be born in Christ. Then he labors for them once again because of the dangers of their seduction, by which he sees them being disturbed.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 38 [1B.4.19]

• Galatians 4:21

  People might suppose that in the case of Hagar Abraham acted [merely from human desire for procreation]. But the apostle makes the reverse clear, viewing this in relation to prophecy.

  QUESTIONS ON GENESIS 1.70

• Galatians 4:21

  But because in it was prefigured the new testament, the men of God who at that time understood this according to the ordering of the times, were indeed the stewards and bearers of the old testament, but are shown to be the heirs of the new. Shall we deny that he belongs to the new testament who says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me"?

  AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF PELAGIUS 3.6

• Galatians 4:23

  Now the fact that Isaac was born of a free wife is not enough to make him signify the people who inherit the New Covenant. What is more important is that he was born according to the promise. For he could have been born according to nature's norms from a slave and in the same way from a free woman, just as Abraham received from Katurah, whom he subsequently married, sons not according to a promise but according to nature.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 40 [1B.4.21-31]

• Galatians 4:24

  Under the sure guidance of the apostle we see how clearly he shows that these two are to be taken allegorically. One may also consider the sons of Keturah under some figure of things to come. The fact that such people did these things is recorded not without purpose but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We will perhaps find that heresies and schisms are signified in this allegory. For these are sons of the free woman, that is, of the church, and yet they again revert to life according to the flesh, not spiritually according to a promise.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 40 [1B.4.21-31]

• Galatians 4:27

  Sarah signifies the heavenly Jerusalem, having been deserted for a long time by her husband's embraces because of her perceived sterility. For men such as Abraham did not use women to satisfy lust but for the procreation of offspring. Now to her sterility age had also been added.… The age of Isaac's parents serves to signify that, new though the people of the New Covenant are, their predestination lies nonetheless with God and is that heavenly Jerusalem of old.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 40 [1B.4.21-31]

• Galatians 4:31

  Let us, therefore, choose whether to call the righteous men of old the children of the bondwoman or of the free. Be it far from us to say, of the bondwoman; therefore if of the free, they pertain to the new testament in the Holy Spirit, whom, as making alive, the apostle opposes to the killing letter. For on what ground do they not belong to the grace of the new testament, from whose words and looks we convict and rebut such most frantic and ungrateful enemies of the same grace as these?

  AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF PELAGIUS 3.12

• Galatians 5:2

  Now Paul says that Christ will profit them nothing if they are circumcised, that is, in the physical way that his opponents wanted, namely, to put their hope of salvation in circumcising their flesh. For Paul himself circumcised Timothy as a young man when he was already a Christian. This he did [to avoid] scandalizing his own people, not at all in dissimulation but from that indifference which made him say "circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing." For circumcision is no impediment to the one who does not believe that his salvation lies in it.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 41 [1B.5.1-3]

• Galatians 5:4

  Because it is they, not Christ, who are injured, he adds: "you have fallen from grace." For when the effect of Christ's grace is that those who were debtors to the works of the law were freed from this debt, these people, ungrateful to such great grace, prefer to be debtors to the whole law. Now this had not yet happened, but, because the will had begun to be moved, he therefore speaks frequently as though it had already happened.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 42 [1B.5.4-12]

• Galatians 5:4

  He is refuting those who believed that they were justified in the law, not those who observed its legitimate provisions in honor of him by whom they were commanded, understanding both that they were commanded as a foreshadowing of the truth and that they belonged to a particular time.

  LETTERS 82.19.3

• Galatians 5:6

  This is the faith that separates the righteous from the unclean demons, for they too, as the apostle James says, "believe and tremble," but their actions are not good. Therefore they do not have that faith by which "the righteous live."

  ON GRACE AND FREE WILL 18

• Galatians 5:11

  Since he speaks of a stumbling block here, he is reminding them that the principal reason for the Jews' taking offense at Christ was that they often saw him ignoring and disdaining those ceremonial observances which they believed themselves to have for their very salvation. What he says here, then, is as much as to say: "It was therefore in vain that the Jews in their indignation crucified Christ when he disdained these commandments. Now they still try to enjoin such things on those for whom he was crucified."

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 42 [1B.5.4-12]

• Galatians 5:13

  From this point Paul begins to discuss those works of the law which … no one denies also pertain to the new covenant, but with another aim, appropriate to those who perform good works "in freedom." These acts aim for the rewards of a love that hopes for eternal things and looks forward in faith. This is quite unlike the Jews, who were forced to fulfill these commandments from fear, and not that righteous fear which endures to eternity but one that made them fear for the present life. The result: they fulfill certain works of the law which consist in ceremonies but are completely unable to fulfill those that consist in good conduct. For nothing fulfills these except love.… And so the apostle now says, "You are called into freedom, brethren, but on condition that you do not let your freedom be an opportunity for the sin nature. Do not suppose, upon hearing the word freedom, that you can sin with impunity."

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 43 [1B.5.13]

• Galatians 5:17

  The fact is that both are good: the spirit is good and the flesh too is good. And the whole person who consists of both, one ruling and one obeying, is indeed good but a changeable good. Yet these changing goods could not arise were it not for the immutable good, which is the source of every created good, whether small or great. But however small might be one particular good, it is nonetheless made by the one incomparably good. Yet however great, it is in no way comparable to the greatness of its Maker. But in this human nature, good as it is in origin and constitution, there is now war, because there is not yet salvation.

  On Continence 18

• Galatians 5:17

  To the body of this death then is understood to be owing the circumstance that there is in our members another law which wars against the law of the mind, so long as the flesh lusts against the spirit—without, however, subjugating the mind, inasmuch as on its side, too, the spirit has a concupiscence contrary to the flesh. Thus, although the actual law of sin partly holds the flesh in captivity (whence comes its resistance to the law of the mind), still it has not an absolute empire in our body, notwithstanding its mortal state, since it refuses obedience to its desires. For in the case of hostile armies between whom there is an earnest conflict, even the side which is inferior in the fight usually holds a something which it has captured; and although in some such way there is somewhat in our flesh which is kept under the law of sin, yet it has before it the hope of redemption: and then there will remain not a particle of this corrupt concupiscence; but our flesh, healed of that diseased plague, and wholly clad in immortality, shall live for evermore in eternal blessedness.

  On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.35

• Galatians 5:17

  Now let us see whether we anywhere read about the flesh being contrary in the baptized also. And here, I ask, to whom did the apostle say, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye do not the things that ye would?" He wrote this, I apprehend, to the Galatians, to whom he also says, "He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?" It appears, therefore, that it is to Christians that he speaks, to whom, too, God had given His Spirit: therefore, too, to the baptized. Observe, therefore, that even in baptized persons the flesh is found to be contrary; so that they have not that capacity which, our author says, is inseparably implanted in nature.

  On Nature and Grace 61

• Galatians 5:17

  People think that the apostle here denies that we possess free will. They do not perceive what he is saying to them: If they refuse to hold fast to the grace they have received, through which alone they are able to walk in the Spirit and avoid fulfilling the desires of the flesh, they will not be able to do as they wish.… It is love that "fulfills the law." But "the wisdom of the flesh" by following temporal goods opposes spiritual love. How can it be made subject to the law of God (that is, freely and obediently fulfill righteousness and not be opposed to it) when even as it tries it must be vanquished? The flesh imagines that it can procure a greater temporal good by iniquity than by maintaining righteousness. The first stage, the natural life of a human being, precedes the law, when no wrongdoing or malice is prohibited. The natural being makes no resistance at all to base desires, since there is no one to prohibit them. The second stage is under law before grace, when he is indeed prohibited and tries to abstain from sin but is overcome because he does not yet love righteousness for God's sake and its own but wishes to observe it in the hope of earthly acquisitions. And therefore, when he sees righteousness on one side and temporal good on another, he is dragged by the weight of his temporal desire and thus forsakes righteousness, which he was trying to maintain only in order to have that which he now sees that he is going to lose by maintaining it. The third stage of life is the one under grace, when no temporal good is preferred to righteousness. This cannot happen except by spiritual love, which the Lord has taught by his example and bestowed by grace. For in this life, even if there remain desires of the flesh from the mortality of the body, yet they do not subdue the mind to consent to sin.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 46 [1B.5.17]

• Galatians 5:18

  He did not say "Walk in the Spirit so that you will not have desires of the flesh" but "so that you will not gratify them." Not to have them at all, indeed, is not the struggle but the prize of struggle, if we shall have obtained the victory by perseverance under grace. For it is only the transformation of the body into an immortal state that will no longer have desires of the flesh.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 47 [1B.5.18]

• Galatians 5:18

  A person is "under the law" when he is conscious of abstaining from works of sin through fear of the torments threatened by the law rather than by love of righteousness. He is not yet free, not yet a stranger to the will to sin. For he does wrong by his very willing, since he would prefer if it were possible that there should be nothing for the will to fear, so that he might do freely what he secretly desires.… By the law which he has used to instill fear [God] has not imparted love. Godly love is suffused in our hearts not through the letter of the law but through the Holy Spirit, which is given to us.

  ON NATURE AND GRACE 67

• Galatians 5:21

  Let no one suppose that envy is the same thing as jealousy. For they are indeed neighbors and because of that very neighborhood either of them is often freely substituted for the other.… But because each is distinguished here they require us to make a distinction. Jealousy is the mind's anguish when someone achieves something that two or more were seeking but which can be had only by one. Jealousy is cured by peace, in which all may obtain that which is sought and thus become one. Envy on the other hand is the grief one feels in one's mind when an unworthy person appears to have obtained something, even if it is not being sought by others. Envy is overcome by meekness, when all who yearn appeal to the judgment of God and do not resist his will, trusting rather in the justice of what he does than in one's own estimate of what people deserve.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 52

• Galatians 5:22

  He put fornication at the head of carnal vices and love at the head of spiritual virtues. Anyone who takes pains in the study of divine Scripture will be prompted to inquire attentively into the rest. Fornication is love divorced from legitimate wedlock. It roves everywhere in search of an opportunity to fulfill its lust. Yet nothing is so rightly suited for spiritual procreation as the union of the soul with God. The more firmly it adheres, the more blameless it is. Love is what enables it to cleave. Rightly then the opposite of fornication is love. It is the sole means by which chastity is preserved. Now impure acts come from all those disturbances produced from the lust to fornicate, to which the joy of tranquillity is opposed. And bondage to idolatry is the ultimate fornication of the soul. A most furious war is waged against the gospel and against those who have been reconciled to God. The remnants of fornication, though long lukewarm, can nonetheless still be rekindled. The contrary of this war is the peace by which we are reconciled to God. When the same peace of God is maintained toward humans, the vices of poisonings, enmity, strife, deceit, animosity and dissension are healed among us, so others among us may be treated with due moderation. Forbearance fights to endure these vices, kindness to assuage them and goodness to forgive them. Furthermore, faith struggles against heresy, meekness against envy, continence against drunkenness and gluttony.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 51 [1B.5.22-23]

• Galatians 5:23

  He has added "against such there is no law" so that we understand that those on whom the law must be imposed are those in whom these excellent behaviors do not already reign. For those in whom they reign are the ones who apply the law legitimately, since the law is not imposed on them with coercive intent, seeing that righteousness is already their overwhelming preference.… These spiritual fruits reign in one in whom sins do not reign. These good things reign if they are so delightful that they themselves uphold the mind in its trials from falling into consent to sin. For whatever gives us more delight, this we necessarily perform.

  EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 49 [1B.5.22-23]

• Galatians 5:23

  He did not say "against these," so that they would not be thought the only ones—though in fact even if he had said this we ought to understand all the goods of this kind that can be imagined. No, he says "against such things," namely, both these and whatever is like them.

  On Continence 9