And so the Apostle knew that this outer tabernacle could be corrected and directed to good, so that sins would be put to death in it. Otherwise, how can a person in our situation be enslaved to righteousness, if he does not first subdue the members of his body, so that they no longer obey sin, but righteousness, and does not lead a life worthy of Christ? Sin and non-sin occur through the body, since the soul uses it as an instrument in virtue or vice. And if neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:10), and these works are done and intensified by the medium of the body, — and no one can be justified unless he first abstains from them, but he who is directed to chastity and faith abstains from them,  — it follows from this that the body can submit to the law of God; for the law of God is chastity. For this reason the Apostle said that it is not the flesh that submits to good, but the wisdom of the flesh, as if destroying its very striving for incontinence, as well as the inflamement of the soul to unrighteousness. Arming himself against the intemperance of gluttony, he said that it was necessary to purify oneself, teaching to destroy such desires and passionate desires, and ashaming those who think to spend their lives in such pleasures, which recognize the belly as God (Phil. 3:10), saying: Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we will die (1 Cor. 15:32), like insatiable animals, caring only for the food and meals of the past. Having said, "Food is for the belly, and the belly for food," he added, "But God will destroy both; but the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. God has resurrected the Lord, and He will raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? And so shall I take away the members of Christ, that I may make them the members of the harlot? Let it not be! Or do you not know that he who copulates with a harlot becomes one body with her, for it is said, "The two shall be one flesh" (Gen. 2:24). And he who unites with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord. Flee fornication: every sin that a man commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against his own body. Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God both in your bodies and in your souls, which are God's (1 Cor. 6:13-20).

Chapter 42.

Note that the Apostle said these words because this body can receive the law of God and immortality, if it is cleansed from impure kindlings, without being defiled by lawless incitements of the passions. For what else can cling to the filthy person, draw near to her, and be one flesh with her through the union and mutual communion of the members, if not this external body, by which all these sins are committed, which pertains to copulation and incitement? Flee fornication: every sin that a man commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against his own body (1 Cor. 6:18). For pride, unbelief, rage, hypocrisy are sins of the soul; but fornication, lust, and debauchery are sins of the body; with them neither the soul can soar to the truth, nor the body can submit to the rules of chastity, but both must lose the kingdom of God. And so, if our bodies, kept in holiness, are the temple of the Spirit who dwells in us (1 Cor. 6:19), if both the Lord dwells in the body, and the members of the body are members of Christ, then the body can submit to the law of God and can inherit the kingdom of God. He who raised Christ from the dead, says the Apostle, will also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit which dwelleth in you (Romans 8:11), so that this perishable may put on incorruption, and this mortal may put on immortality, and death may be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54). It is not about another body, as you think, that the Apostle was talking here, but about this dying and mortified one, by means of which one can both commit fornication and debauchery.

Chapter 43.

But if they suppose that there is a difference between the body and the flesh, and wish that we also should consent to their reasoning, whereby they consider the body to be something else, as if it were proper to the soul itself, invisible, and the flesh to be the external, the visible, then against this it must be said that not only Paul and the Prophets commonly call this flesh the body, but even the philosophers, in particular, the accuracy of the names is observed. If they want to investigate this scientifically, then in general the flesh is not actually called the whole mass of our bodily temple, but a certain part of the whole, such as bones, nerves, sinews, and the body, the whole. Therefore, physicians who have carefully examined the nature of the body call this visible body the body. And Plato himself recognizes this very thing with the body. Thus, in the Phaedo, Socrates says: "Do we consider death anything other than the detachment of the soul from the body? Does not to die mean that the body, detached from the soul, exists by itself, and the soul, detached from the body, exists by itself?" [16] And does not the blessed Moses (we again turn to the Lord's Scriptures) mean this body, which we also call when he says: "And he that toucheth unclean things shall wash his garments in the time of purification, and shall wash his body with water, and shall be unclean until evening"? (Lev. 14:11:25) What about Job? Is it not this dead body that he also designates with the words: "My body is clothed with worms"? (Job 7:5) And Solomon says: "Wisdom shall not enter into an evil soul, nor shall it dwell in a body enslaved to sin" (Wis. 1:4). And Daniel speaks of the martyrs: "The fire had no power (over their bodies), and the hair of their heads was not singed" (Dan. 3:94). Likewise is the Lord in the Gospel: Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your soul what ye shall eat or drink, nor for your body what ye shall wear. Is not the soul more than food, and the body more than clothing? (Matt. 6:25) And the Apostle, with the words: "And so let not sin reign in your mortal body" (Romans 6:12), points to this body in which we are clothed: and again: "But if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies" (Romans 8:11); And again, if the foot says, I do not belong to the body, because I am not the hand; then does it not belong to the body? (1 Cor. 12:15) And again: and not fainting in faith, he did not think that his body, almost a hundred years old, was already dead (Rom. 4:19); also: for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive according to what he did while living in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10); also: in the Epistles he is strict and strong, but in his personal (bodily) presence he is weak, and his speech is insignificant (2 Cor. 10:10); again: I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I do not know, whether out of the body, I do not know) (2 Cor. 12:2); and again: so ought husbands to love their wives as their own bodies (Eph. 5:28); and again: May the God of peace Himself sanctify you in all its fullness, and may your spirit, soul, and body be preserved without blemish at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23). But they, not understanding any of this correctly, thought that the Apostle was in agitation and confusion, as if his thoughts did not have firmness and solidity in words, but turned to and fro and contradicted themselves: as if he were saying that the flesh would be resurrected and would not be resurrected.

Chapter 44.

Therefore, in order not to omit anything from what has been proposed, I will return to the subject again in order to completely defeat the hydra. Having presented in order, as I promised, the other reasons for their perplexity, and having proved what must be said against them, I will then show what the adversary has said in accord with and identical with us concerning the belief in the resurrection of the flesh. And so let us consider what we have previously decided to say about the words of the Apostle. His words, "I once lived without the law," as we have shown at first, signify our former life in the person of our forefathers, in paradise, before the commandment, not without a body, but together with the body; for before the commandment was given, God created man from the dust of the earth (Gen. 2:7); and then we lived without lust, completely unaware of the admixtures of irrational lust, which by the fascinating seductions of pleasure induces us to incontinence. For he who has no definite law according to which he must live, nor an independent power of reason, which way of life to choose in order to deserve just praise or blame, is, it must be said, free from all accusation; for such a man cannot desire that which is not forbidden; and if he wishes, he will not be guilty. For desire does not incline to things that are inherent and in our power, but to those which, although inherent in us, are not in our power. How can anyone desire and love that which is not forbidden to him and of which he has no need? Therefore I would not understand the desire, if the law did not say, "Thou shalt not covet" (Romans 7:7). And after the first parents heard: "And of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will die of death (Gen. 2:17) — then they have passion and lust. For he who lusts does not desire what he has, over which he rules, and what he uses, but what is forbidden to him and taken away from him, and which he does not have; Wherefore it is beautifully said, I should not understand the desire, if the law had not said, Thou shalt not covet, that is, if it had not been said, Thou shalt not eat of it. Hence the place and reason for the origin of sin, which deceives and carries me away.

Chapter 45.

As soon as the commandment was given, the devil began to have a pretext by means of the commandment to produce lust in me, arousing and persuading me by cunning to fall into the desire for the forbidden. For without the law sin is dead (Romans 7:8), that is, as long as the commandment was not given and did not yet exist, sin was not effective, and before the commandment I lived blamelessly, since I did not have a definite law and commandment according to which I had to live, and which, if I had broken, I would have sinned. But when the commandment came, sin came to life, and I died: and thus the commandment given for life served me unto death (Romans 7:9-10); for after God had laid down the law and determined what should be done and what should not be done, the devil produced lust in me. Thus this will of God and the command given to me for life and immortality, so that, in obedience to it and living in accordance with it, I may have joy and a life without sorrow and eternally blessed, and always blossoming with immortality, after my violation of it, it may turn into death and condemnation; for the devil, whom the Apostle now called sin, because he is the author and inventor of sin, through the commandment, having received an opportunity, deceived me to disobey and, having deceived me, put me to death, as one who was to be sentenced: for in the day that you eat of him you will die (Gen. 2:17). "Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous, and good" (Romans 7:12); for it is not given for harm, but for salvation: for we should not think that God does anything useless or harmful. And so did the good become death for me, that is, the law given in order to be for me the guilt of the greatest good? Let it not be! For the commandment of God was given not in order to enslave me to corruption and to put upon me the seal of death, the author of perdition, but in order that the devil might be revealed, who had done evil to me by means of good, so that he might be found and exposed, as a sinner par excellence, the inventor and organizer of sin, and so that he might be excommunicated from all good, as having arranged contrary to the commandment of God. For we know that the law is spiritual, therefore it cannot be the cause of harm to anyone and in anything; for spiritual things dwell far from foolish lust and sin; but I am carnal, sold to sin (Rom. 7:14), i.e., I, being carnal, and placed in the midst of evil and good, as autocratic, that I might choose what I will, (for God says, I have set before thee life and good, death and evil, Deuteronomy 30:15), when I have deviated to disobey the spiritual law, that is, the commandment, and have obeyed the carnal counsel, that is, the counsel of the serpent: then, because of this choice, I have fallen into sin, I was sold to the devil. Hence evil, having besieged me, sits upon me, and dwells in my flesh, like a drone in a honeycomb, often flying and buzzing around it. Since the punishment for breaking the commandment is imposed on me – to be sold to evil, I do not understand what I am doing, thinking about what I do not want. For the words, "Because I do not what I will, but what I hate, I do" (Romans 7:15), should not be taken in relation to doing and doing evil, but only in relation to thought, since extraneous thoughts often come to us and incline us to what we do not want, and the soul is carried away by thoughts to many things.

Chapter 46.

For it is not at all in our will to have or not to have a thought about something unsuitable, but to follow or not to follow thoughts depends on us. We cannot forbid that the thoughts brought for our temptation from the outside should not enter us; but we can disobey or not follow them. Otherwise, how could the Apostle have done so much more evil, and less good, which he did not like, if he had not spoken here of extraneous thoughts, which sometimes come to us against our will, and for no unknown reason? However, these thoughts must be destroyed and restrained, so that, expanding beyond the limits, they do not take possession of the neck, and when they are engaged, good cannot arise in us. For this reason the Apostle rightly said: for I do not understand what I do: for I do not what I will, but what I hate, I do. We want not to think about what is unseemly and lawless, because the perfect good consists in refraining not only from doing evil, but even from thinking about it: but the good that we want is not done, but the evil that we do not desire is done. For often, against our will, innumerable thoughts come into our hearts about innumerable things, filling us with care and irrational care. Therefore, it is in our will not to wish not to think about such things, but to do so that these thoughts do not come to our minds again, so that they do not come to our minds again; Because, as I said, it is not in our power, but in our power only to follow them or not to follow them. Therefore, the meaning of this saying, "What I want good, I do not do," is as follows: I want not even to think about what harms me, for that good is irreproachable, which, as they say, "is made irreproachably and perfectly, both hand and mind"[17]: "but I do not what I want, but what I hate, I do; I don't want to think, and I think what I don't want to think. And see if it is not for this reason that David himself, being grieved over the fact that he thinks about what he himself would not like to do, asked God: "Cleanse me from my secrets, and keep Thy servant from those who are deliberate, so that they may not prevail over me; then I will be blameless and pure from great corruption (Psalm 18:13,14); and the Apostle himself says in another place: "We overthrow schemes and every arrogance that rises up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).

Chapter 47.

But if anyone, daring to go contrary to these words, objects that the Apostle teaches that it is not only in thought that we do evil, which we hate and which we do not desire, but in the very act and doing it, because the Apostle said: "The good which I will I do not do, and the evil which I do not desire, I do" (Romans 7:19), then if he who speaks this speaks the truth, we will ask him to explain: what is this evil that the Apostle hated and did not want to do, but did, and what is this good that he wanted to do, and yet did not do; but on the contrary, how many times did he want to do good, how many times did he not do the good that he wanted, but the evil that he did not want? Is it that he, not wishing to serve idols, but to serve God, could not serve God as he wanted; but could he serve idols, what did he not want? Or is it that, wishing to be chaste, he did not do so, but on the contrary gave himself up to intemperance, which he abhorred? To put it briefly: drunkenness, debauchery, anger, unrighteousness, and other evil deeds, which he did not want to do; but did he not do the righteousness and holiness which he desired? However, he himself, strongly urging all in the Church to shun iniquity, and trying to develop in us righteousness without the admixture of sin, inspires that not only those who do unseemly deeds and engage in them, but also those who deign to do them in this (Romans 1:32), are kept for destruction and wrath. Since every sin and intention is fulfilled through the flesh, then, clearly teaching us to abhor and hate all these things, he often says in his epistles: "Do not be deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9-10). And, most importantly, urging us in every way to completely shun and abhor sin, He says: "Be ye imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1). Thus he said the above words, not in the sense that he was doing what he did not want to do, but in that he was only thinking; otherwise, how would he be a strict imitator of Christ? And now, when animal thoughts often attack us, filling us with these and other desires and irrational lusts, "like thick swarms of innumerable flies" [18]; therefore he said, "I do not what I will" (Romans 7:15). "We must boldly banish these thoughts from our souls, in no way agreeing to do what they inspire. For this is why our mind is subjected to confusion from many thoughts, so that we, having experienced all pleasures and sorrows, may inherit the kingdom of heaven, if we do not change for the worse, but on the contrary, tempted in every way, like pure gold by fire, we do not depart from our virtue. Therefore we must bravely resist thoughts, like brave soldiers, who, when they learn that they are besieged by the enemy, pay no attention to the arrows and their various spears, but cheerfully rush at them to save the city, and do not weaken in their zeal in the least, until, having put their horde to flight, they drive them out of their borders. You see how thoughts, because of the sin that dwells in us, rise up against us from without, like mad dogs, or fierce and insolent robbers, who are always directed against us by the cruel ruler and prince of iniquity, and who test us whether we have the strength to resist and resist them.

Chapter 48.