John Cassian

In his own words on Galatians

• Galatians 2:2

  Who could be so presumptuous and blind as to dare to trust his own judgment and discretion, when the vessel of election bears witness that he needs the partnership of his coapostles?

  CONFERENCES 2.15

• Galatians 4:26

  One and the same Jerusalem can be understood in a fourfold way: historically as the city of the Jews, allegorically as the church of Christ, anagogically as the heavenly city of God, which is the mother of all, and tropologically as the human soul, which is often upbraided or praised under this name by the Lord.

  CONFERENCES 14.8.4

• Galatians 5:17

  An inward war is being waged every day within us. The desires of the flesh and of the spirit are within one and the same person. The lust of the flesh rushes headlong into vice, delights in the worldly enjoyments that seem to satisfy. By contrast the opposed desire of the spirit is so eager to cleave entirely to spiritual pursuits that it in an exaggerated way chooses even to exclude the necessary uses of the flesh. By wishing to be so inseparably attached to spiritual things it refuses to take care of its own bodily fragility.

  CONFERENCES 4.11.2