In Epistolas Sancti Pauli

For he subjected all things under his feet: that is, so that he may even destroy death. But when he said that all things are subjected, the prophet certainly said this in the Psalms: it is manifest that, apart from him who subjected all things to him, he wishes the Father to be understood as having subjected all things to the Son: just as in many places the same Lord in the Gospel commends and proclaims, not only on account of the form of a servant, but also on account of the principle from which he is, and concerning which he is equal, and from which he is. For he loves to refer all things to one principle, as his image: but in him dwells all the fullness of divinity. But when all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who subjected all things to him: not as though it were not so now, but then it will be manifest, according to the manner of speaking discussed above. So that God may be all in all. He himself is the end which he mentioned above, when he first wished to conclude the whole briefly, and then, as it were, to explain and set forth member by member. For he was speaking of the resurrection, where he said: Christ the beginning, then those who are Christ's at his presence, then the end. He himself, namely, is the end, so that God may be all in all. For the end is spoken of in one way when it pertains to consummation, and in another way when it pertains to consumption. For a tunic is ended by weaving, and food is ended by eating.

But God is said to be all things in all, so that none of those who cleave to him should love his own will in opposition to him; and it may be manifest to all what the same Apostle says elsewhere: What do you have that you did not receive? There are also some who understand this passage thus: He must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet; so that they say "reign" is placed here in a different sense from that in which "kingdom" is placed, of which he says: When he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father; so that he called that "kingdom" by which God rules the whole creation, but called "to reign" in such a sense that it is understood as leading an army against an enemy, or defending a city; and that he therefore said: He must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet, because of such a kingdom as the leaders of armed men have there will be no cause, once the enemy has been so subjected that he cannot wage war. For indeed it was said in the Gospel: And of his kingdom there shall be no end, according to which he reigns forever; but according to which warfare is waged under him against the devil, that warfare will surely last until he puts all his enemies under his feet; but afterward it will not be, when we enjoy perpetual peace. But these things have been said so that we may know that this also ought to be considered more carefully: in what respect the Lord now reigns, that is, in respect of the dispensation of his sacrament through incarnation and passion.

For according to that which he is the Word of God, his kingdom is both without end and without beginning and without interruption. But according to that which the Word was made flesh, he began to reign in believers through faith in his incarnation. Hence also that saying, The Lord has reigned from the tree. From this he also emptied every principality and every power and virtue, in that believers in him are made so not through his brightness but through the humility of a servant. This is what is hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed to little ones, because it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe; and the Apostle says he knows nothing among the little ones except Christ Jesus, and him crucified. This preaching is needed for as long as it takes until all his enemies are placed under his feet—that is, until all secular pride yields and is subjected to his humility itself, which I judge to be signified by the name of feet, as we see has already happened for the most part and happens daily. But to what end are these things done? That the kingdom may be delivered to God and the Father—that is, that those nourished by faith in his incarnation he may lead on to the sight in which he is equal to the Father. He was already speaking to those who had believed when he said: If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. For he delivers the kingdom to the Father when through it he will reign in those who contemplate the truth by which he is equal to the Father; and through himself, the only-begotten, he will cause the Father to be seen in his visible form.

For now he reigns in believers through this, that he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. Then he will hand over the kingdom to God and the Father, when he has emptied every principality and power and virtue. From what will he empty them, if not by humility, patience, and weakness? For what principality is not emptied, when the Son of God reigns in believers for this reason, that the princes of the world judged him? What power is not emptied, when he himself, through whom all things were made, reigns in believers for this reason, that he was so subject to the powers that he said to man: You would have no power over me, unless it had been given to you from above? What virtue is not emptied, when he himself, through whom the heavens were made firm, reigns in believers for this reason, that he was weakened even to the cross and death? But in this way the Son reigns properly in the faith of believers. For the Father cannot be said or believed to be incarnate, or judged, or crucified; but in the form in which he is equal to the Father, he reigns with the Father in those who contemplate the truth. But that he will hand over the kingdom to God and the Father, leading those who now believe in him from the faith of his incarnation to the sight of his divinity, he will not himself lose it, but each will present himself as one to those who contemplate him for their enjoyment.

For as long as there is need, then, that Christ reign among men who are not yet able to behold with the clear light of the mind the equality of the Father and the Son, he reigns through that which such men can grasp, and which he himself properly assumed, that is, the humility of the incarnation, until he puts all enemies under his feet, that is, until all worldly pride is subjected to the humility of his incarnation. Indeed, as for what was said, "Then even the Son himself will be subject to him who subjected all things to him," although it is spoken according to the assumption of a man—because the question arose from that, when he was speaking about the resurrection of the dead—nevertheless it is rightly asked whether this was said according to him alone who is the head of the Church, or according to the whole Christ, with his body and members counted in. For when he says to the Galatians, "He does not say, 'and to seeds,' as of many, but as of one, 'and to your seed,' which is Christ," lest we understand in this place that Christ alone who was born of the Virgin Mary, he afterwards says, "For you are all one in Christ Jesus. But if you are Christ's, then you are the seed of Abraham." To the Corinthians, when speaking of love and drawing a comparison from the members of the body, he says: "For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ." He did not say, "so also are the members of Christ," but "so also is Christ," showing that Christ is rightly called even the whole, that is, the head together with his body, which is the Church.

And in many places of the Scriptures we find that Christ is called even in this way, so that he is understood together with all his members, to whom it was said: You are the body of Christ and his members. Not unreasonably, then, do we understand it thus: Then the Son himself also will be subject to him who subjected all things to him; so that we understand the Son not only as the head of the Church, but all the saints together with him, who are one in Christ, one seed of Abraham. But subject according to the contemplation of eternal truth, for obtaining blessedness, with no movement of the soul, no part of the body resisting, since in that life no one loves his own power, but God is all in all.

Otherwise. But further. What shall they do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead do not rise at all, why are they also baptized for them? As many of us as were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized in his death. For all of us who are baptized are baptized in such a way that we are already as dead. What good is it, then, that we die to this world, if eternal life does not follow this labor? Why are we also in danger every hour? Daily I die for your glory, brothers. If there were nothing in the future, we would not be so foolish as to suffer such things for others. Which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I have the reward of my labor, even if you are unwilling to cast it away. If after the manner of men I fought with beasts at Ephesus, what does it profit me if the dead do not rise?

If you hope for nothing, you expect to receive no reward from God; therefore I fought for nothing, perhaps only to please men. And otherwise, by allegory, beasts are understood as the opposing powers. As in the Psalm: Do not hand over to the beasts the one who confesses to you. And many things are said in the Epistles that are not contained in the Acts, and many things in the Acts that are not said in the Epistles. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. The prophet Isaiah rebukes those given over to gluttony through despair of the things to come, and he says that the guilt of their blasphemy is not forgiven them until they die. Do not be deceived. By those who do such things. Bad conversations corrupt good morals. Lest they say: Do you think, then, that we can be deceived? Meeting their thought, he says: I do not fear for you, but I dread their evasion. Conversely, good conversations restore bad morals. Awake. Be sober. You who are just. He proves that those who have given themselves over to gluttony and pleasures do not believe in the resurrection. And do not sin. For some have ignorance of God. That man is just who does not sin, that is, does not commit a capital sin, or if he is suddenly overtaken, he wipes it out by doing penance, because he knows that he will give an account in judgment. For whoever does not believe in the resurrection, despairing, commits all unspeakable things. Many are accustomed to ask whether weak bodies will rise again just as they died. To them it must be answered that in the resurrection it is not the vileness of weakness that is restored, but nature.

For never is the body so weak as when it lies hidden in the dust. Therefore, why should it be doubted that he who is believed to restore the whole should repair it in part? Why should he not restore the eyes, who will restore the whole body? I speak to you out of reverence. But someone will say: How do the dead rise again? And with what kind of body will they come? They are ignorant of the power of God, who think that he cannot raise the dead, measuring divinity by their own weakness—so that you should blush to be instructed as little children by such reasonings. Fool, what you sow is not made alive unless it first dies. Fool, who ought to have been taught even by natural things not to doubt concerning the resurrection. Are you still unbelieving toward the divine promises? From the custom of your own work you ought to have considered what we say. And what you sow, you do not sow the body that will be, but a bare grain: for instance, of wheat, or of some other kind. But God gives it a body as he wills. Just as from the grain a more fruitful ear rises with grains, and the corruptible body will rise into an increase of glory. And to each of the seeds its own body. Whence the blessed Job: And in my flesh I shall see God. Not all flesh is the same flesh. Attend, because he said “its own” body, not another’s. But one is the flesh of men, another of beasts, another the flesh of birds, and another of fish. Understand similarly also concerning the waters, which produced such great diversity of birds and fish. And there are heavenly bodies, and earthly bodies.

Since he made such bodies of the elements, why would he not restore the tiny human body? But the glory of heavenly things is one thing, and of earthly things another. The brightness of the moon is one thing, the brightness of the stars another. Every diversity of comparison serves this end, that you may believe that he who made such great things out of nothing can easily restore one thing. For one star differs from another in brightness: so also is the resurrection of the dead. He compares the diversity of the stars to the difference of the righteous, whom virtues, not sins, will make different. For the diversity of sinners will not be in heaven, but in punishment. It is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption. So that it may no longer suffer fevers or other ills. It is sown in ignobility. What is so ignoble as a dead body? It will rise in glory. It will rise into the glory of splendor, like the sun. It is sown in weakness. Of human frailty. It will rise in power. In the power of angelic eternity. It is sown a natural body, it will rise a spiritual body. Here indeed it is a natural body, because we do not always have the Holy Spirit; but then he will always be in us. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one. That it may be able to go to meet Christ. As it is written: The first man Adam was made into a living soul. This testimony is from the law. The last Adam into a life-giving Spirit. Why is the second man, or the last Adam, spoken of after so many men? Whoever imitates his footsteps is reckoned the first Adam: the last one is he who follows the footsteps of the Lord.

He is called the last from the first, from the Lord, because death, invented by the first man himself, descended even to him, because the first man's fall had power even to the cross, and therefore the first was for death, the last for salvation: the former living, the latter giving life. But it is not the spiritual that comes first, but the carnal, and then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthly. It is to be noted that when he names two Adams, he shows both to be of the same nature, because just as the former was without ancestry, so the latter was without seed. The second man is from heaven, heavenly. For this reason Christ is a man from heaven, because in John's baptism not water but grace descended from heaven. And because he took on flesh without sin, and God deigned to be born of a Virgin. As is the earthly man, so also are the earthly, and as is the heavenly man, so also are the heavenly. Understand Christ as heavenly in this way, because he is entirely without sin, not because he brought flesh down from heaven. Therefore, just as we have borne the image of the earthly man. The sinner bears the image of Adam, the righteous truly the image of Christ. Let us bear also the image of the heavenly man, the old man before baptism, the new after baptism. But this I say, brothers, because flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God; neither will corruption possess incorruption. Scripture frequently names the works of the flesh instead of its substance, as there: But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Otherwise: The flesh, as it now is, will not possess the kingdom of God unless clothed in immortality. Behold, I tell you a mystery.

By naming it, he signifies a hidden mystery. We shall all indeed rise again. All we who shall be found dead when Christ comes shall rise again. But we shall not all be changed. Those who shall be found in the body, because the saints shall be taken up, but sinners shall be left to eternal fire. For the sinners who shall be found alive, having first been burned with fires, then those sinners who shall be found alive at the Lord's coming shall rise again. But we shall not all be changed. Because the just shall rise to glory, sinners to punishment. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. He wishes to signify the brevity of the moment. At the last trumpet. Some understand two trumpets, the two comings of Christ. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise. First the dead shall rise, and then the saints shall be changed, so that this is called the last trumpet. Incorruptible. That they may endure forever in punishment. And we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality. There is that which puts on and that which is put on. Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. The causes of death being emptied out. Where is thy victory, O death? where is thy sting, O death? Where is thy strife, O death? What strife, except that now the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh? This is the battle, this is the strife: but he speaks in the person of the just who taunt death. Now the sting of death is sin.

The sting of death is sin, by which souls are slain. But the power of sin is the law. Sin becomes stronger through knowledge. Why is the law the power of sin, if the law is good? Because sin, working death through what is good, so that it might become exceedingly sinful—that is, it receives greater strength from transgression. But thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The victory over that sin in which the law was weak, through our carnal desire, which Christ destroyed by his cross. Therefore, my beloved brothers. Having given an account of the resurrection, about which they were doubting, he exhorts them to remain in the work of God, now certain of the future recompense. Be steadfast and immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord always. Let no one move you from this degree of hope any further. Knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. That is, you do not labor without cause.

CHAPTER XVI. — Concerning the collection that is made for the saints, as I have ordered the churches of Galatia, so also do you. He speaks of the contributions which were collected through individual churches and sent to Jerusalem for the holy poor. On one of the sabbaths, let each of you. The one of the sabbath is the Lord's day, as it is written in the Gospel that the Lord rose on the one of the sabbath. Let him set it aside with himself, storing up whatever has pleased him: so that collections are not made when I come. But when I am present, those whom you have approved by letters, these I will send to carry your grace to Jerusalem.

So that, laying aside their burdens little by little, they may not think themselves weighed down at a single hour, so that those who are loved by God may be cheerful givers. But if it is fitting that I too go, they will go with me. If your offering is such that it can worthily be offered through me. But I will come to you when I have passed through Macedonia. For I will pass through Macedonia. But perhaps I will stay with you, or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way wherever I go. But I do not wish to see you now in passing. For the Macedonians are so situated that there is no need to linger among them longer. But among you it is necessary that I stay or spend the winter: for there are many things among you that need correcting; for the physician also makes his stay where more are sick. For I hope to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permits. But I will remain at Ephesus until Pentecost. For a great and evident door has been opened to me, and many adversaries. But if Timothy comes, see that he is among you without fear; for he works the work of the Lord as I also do. Let no one therefore despise him. But send him on his way in peace, so that he may come to me: for I expect him with the brothers. But concerning Apollos the brother, I urged him much to come to you with the brothers: and indeed it was not his will to come now. But he will come when he has opportunity. Watch, stand firm in the faith, act manfully, and be strengthened. Let all your affairs be done in charity.

Therefore I will remain there, because an evident opportunity for preaching has arisen for me, and there are very many who resist, but God has opened the door of the heart to very many, and many who did not believe have resisted. But I beseech you, brothers: you know the household of Stephanas and Fortunatus, that they are the firstfruits of Achaia. Either firstfruits in faith, or in honor. And they have appointed themselves to the ministry of the saints. To teach the saints, or to minister necessities to them. That you also may be subject to such men, and to everyone who cooperates and labors. Who cooperate with us or with them in the Gospel of Christ. But I will rejoice in the presence of Stephanas, and Fortunatus, and Achaicus. Who are present with you. Because what was lacking on your part. In knowledge. They have supplied. Through teaching, or by example. For they have refreshed both my spirit and yours. Mine by joy over your progress, and yours by the instruction of doctrine. Therefore acknowledge those who are of this sort. The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Prisca salute you much in the Lord always. As elsewhere: Acknowledge those who walk in this way, as you have our form. Here acknowledge them for the sake of honor, recognizing their labor. With their household church. The household congregation of the brotherhood is called a church. All the brothers salute you, among whom also the host. Greet one another in a holy kiss. Not a feigned one, like Judas. The salutation is by my hand, Paul. If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha.

As Christ is going to come as redemption for those who love him, so for those who do not love him, anathema comes to them: that is, so that he may abominate and destroy them. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. The subscription is: that is, may grace be with you always, without whose aid you cannot subsist, nor do anything good. My love be with all of you in Christ Jesus. Not with worldly love, so that just as I love you, you may love one another in Christ, who said: By this it will be known that you are my disciples, if you love one another. Amen. Amen is the confirmation of the blessing. As he himself says above: How does he say amen over your blessing?

THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

ARGUMENT.

After repentance has been performed, he writes to them consolatory words from Troas, and praising them, he urges them to better things.

CHAPTER ONE. Paul, Apostle of Jesus Christ. It is asked why in all his Epistles, contrary to the custom of writing, he places his own name first, and then that of those to whom he writes; but this is a mark of apostolic authority and order, because he writes to lesser men, just as judges are accustomed to direct their precepts to those whom they rule. Through the will of God. As he says to the Galatians: Not from men, nor through man; at the same time to show that he was sent not without the will of the Father: but no one is ignorant that the will of God is just and reasonable. And Timothy, brother. He did not say Paul and Timothy, because both were not apostles.

But to the Philippians, where authority was not so necessary, he begins thus: Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, because both are servants. To the churches of God which is at Corinth. For there was a church there, and not of God. With all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia. Here the saints can be understood not only as the baptized but also as the priests of God, as in the first letter: With all who call upon the name of the Lord. And to the Philippians: With the bishops and deacons; therefore he afterward placed the priests, lest to those of little understanding he might seem not to have included them in the church. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as we are accustomed at the beginning of letters to pray for health, in place of this the Apostle always sets grace. Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He gives thanks to God that they receive consolation so that they themselves may console others. Father of mercies. Because from him is all mercy. And God of all consolation. Of all consolation, because it is given perfectly, and the consolation is not less than the tribulation. Because he consoles us in all our tribulation. Not in some. So that we too may be able to console those who are in every distress. For this reason he delivers us, so that we ourselves may be able to console others, and thus he gives us a pattern of consoling others. Through the exhortation by which we ourselves are exhorted by God.

And through the exhortation by which we ourselves are consoled by God, we recognize that God forsakes no one, and much more will he reward in the future even those whom he does not desert in the present. Since just as the sufferings of Christ abound in us. Sufferings for the name of Christ. So also through Christ our consolation abounds. Just as Peter was freed from prison, and Paul was strengthened in the temple by a vision and a voice of the Lord. But whether we are afflicted for your exhortation and salvation, or whether we are consoled for your consolation. Because we exhort you to salvation, or so that we may provide you an example of endurance. Or we exhort for your exhortation, which works endurance of the same sufferings that we also suffer. Therefore we are delivered, so that you yourselves may be strengthened, that you ought not to fear sufferings: or so that we may exhort you to bear patiently these things, which have present and future consolation. So that our hope may be firm for you, knowing that just as you are sharers of the sufferings, so you will also be of the consolation. Because we are certain. For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning our tribulation, which happened in Asia. He recounts his own sufferings, so that they may recognize that they suffer little, especially since such things were endured by him who had been appointed in place of Christ: by comparison with the master, let the disciples be ashamed to grieve over their own injury, when they have learned that the master bore greater things. Because we were burdened beyond measure, beyond our strength. The pressure of tribulations.

So that we even grew weary of living. So that we desired to die. But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves. Death itself taught us that every human aid had failed, and that remedy was to be hoped for from him alone to whom it is possible even to raise the dead. So that we should not be confident in ourselves. Or even should despair of life. This passage acts against those who are catholic and presume to attribute something to their own merits. But in God, who raises the dead, who from such great dangers rescued us and delivered us. Not in our own prudence or caution, nor in our virtues, because cursed is he who places the confidence of his flesh in his own arm. In whom we hope, since he will yet deliver us. He knows beforehand that he will yet suffer, who hopes that he will be freed. With you also helping. Just as Peter also was freed from prison by the prayers of the Church: at the same time it is to be noted that one who does not labor is not said to be helped. In prayer for us. The prayer of the whole Church is of great value. That, from the persons of many, of the gift that is in us, thanks may be given by many for us. That from the gathering of many persons, namely of infants, youths, and old men, for the reason that we were given to you, thanks may be rendered to the Lord. For our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and sincerity of God. Therefore I glory in tribulations, because my conscience does not reproach me that I preach for the sake of gain or glory, but in simplicity to seek your salvation.

And we conducted ourselves in the world not in carnal wisdom, but in the grace of God. Not teaching deceitfully, as is carnal wisdom, which is peddled for a fee, but freely, as we received from God, or we preached for God's sake. But more abundantly to you. From whom we did not even accept the sustenance that was owed to us by right. For we write nothing else to you. I am not ashamed, because even you know that what I say is certain. Which things you have read and know. Reading these things in the letter, which you may know in your conscience. But I hope that you will know even to the end. I will not change my purpose. As you also have known us in part. Because the end is not yet; but when the end has come, then you will know fully. Because we are your glory, just as you also are ours. So it is glory for disciples from a good teacher, just as the teacher also glories in good disciples. On the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Where both true teachers and good disciples will be proved. And with this confidence I wished first to come to you. With this conscience, because we sought nothing else of you than your salvation. That you might have a second grace, and pass through you into Macedonia. And again from Macedonia come to you, and be escorted by you into Judea. Because in the first coming you had the first; or certainly he wished repentance to be understood as the second grace, because the first is of baptism. When therefore I had wished this, did I use levity?

Because he had not fulfilled his promise, lest they think this was fickleness, he excuses himself truthfully and wisely. Or the things I think, I think according to the flesh. According to carnal will. It is carnal, when no cause exists, not to do what you promised, as many carnal men are accustomed to do. So that with me there is Yes and No? Therefore I do not think according to the flesh, so that I may not lie. But God is faithful: because our word which was with you was not in it Yes and No, but in it is Yes. There is no doubt in it, nor did we ever lie to you. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you through us, through me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not in him Yes and No. Against the Manichaeans, who affirm that Christ had false flesh: and against the Arians, who deny that the Son always existed: since he himself spoke to Moses: I am who I am; and: He who is, sent me to you; because he both was, and is, and always is; because he never is not. But Yes, was in him. That is, truth and immutability; as Moses says: He who is, sent me. For he truly is, who is always the same. For as many promises of God as there are, in him is Yes. Therefore also through him we say Amen to God. The fulfillment of truth. To our glory. Every truth of the promises is in Christ, which through us is completed to the glory of God. But he who confirms us.

Because he had said, "Through us," he now shows that it is God who does all this, who has worked all these things in them, lest human weakness claim anything for itself. With you in Christ. In virtues. And he who anointed us is God. With the Holy Spirit, or with chrism. And he who has sealed us. Whatever is precious within is sealed. And he gave the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts. Every pledge is given in proportion to the greatness of the price; how great, then, is the reward, whose pledge is so great? That is, the grace of the Spirit. But I. He gives the reasons why he did not come, to be attributed not to his own fickleness but to their weakness. I call God as witness upon my soul. He whom alone the secrets of the soul do not deceive. That sparing you, I did not come again to Corinth. Lest I punish you more harshly. Not that we lord it over your faith. Not that you believed for this reason, that we might lord it over you, as priests do under the law, and therefore we terrify you, but we do all things for your correction, so that both here in conscience and forever you may rejoice. Not that you are compelled again as slaves by fear, but we ourselves give aid to your liberty, lest while you do not know how to keep its measure, you fall into worse. But we are helpers. Co-workers. Of your joy. For you have stood firm in faith. You are free, if you do not sin. The conscience rejoices when it remembers good works. The teacher's joy is the progress of his disciples.

CHAPTER II. But I resolved this in myself. I thought, or I determined. Lest I should come to you again in sorrow. I who had first come in joy, when you believed. For if I cause you sorrow, who is there who makes me glad? I cause you sorrow for this purpose, that I may rejoice over you. Unless it is the one who is made sorrowful by me? For he who is made sorrowful understands that he has sinned; like a sick man, who, while he still feels pain, can receive healing. And this very thing I wrote to you. I wrote it for this reason, that you, corrected by my letter, might make me rejoice when I am present. So that when I come, I may not have sorrow upon sorrow. For I have sorrow because of sins; sorrow is increased, then, if you do not correct yourselves to perfection. Concerning those things over which I ought to have rejoiced. Concerning those things over which I ought never to have been made sorrowful, or to have rejoiced over their correction. Confident in all of you, that my joy is the joy of all of you. Confident that you all understand that you then have true joy, if I rejoice. For out of much tribulation and anguish of heart. And here it must be understood how anxious the apostles were for the salvation of all. I wrote to you with many tears. The former letter. Not that you might be made sorrowful, but that you might know what love. Not that your sorrow delights me, but because it cannot be healed otherwise. I may have more abundantly in you. Lest they should say: We alone have not sinned. From more abundant solicitude you can prove greater love. But if anyone has caused sorrow, he has not caused sorrow to me.

Because through his sin you too, having been corrected, profit all the more, or because he has amended, he has not grieved you in all things. But in part. As a friend he did harm. So that I may not burden you all. Therefore I write that he be received, so that he may not weigh upon you, if through your hardness he has fallen into despair. Sufficient for him who is of this kind is this rebuke, which is administered by many. He speaks not only of him who defiled his father's bed, but of every sinner, because many have sinned, as the first Epistle teaches. So that on the contrary you should rather forgive and console him, lest one who is of this kind be swallowed up by excessive sorrow. You should grant pardon, and be consoled by the words of the Prophet: I do not will the death of the sinner, only that he be converted. And: On whatever day the wicked man turns. Lest through despair of indulgence he be swallowed up, in the depth of vices or swallowed up by the devil, and be led to the precipices of unbelief and blasphemy. For this reason I beseech you, that you confirm your love toward him. That through the prophecy he may recognize that he has obtained pardon, which God spoke: I do not will the death of the dying one. For this reason I wrote, that I might know your proof, whether in all things you are obedient. For this reason I write this second letter, that I may see whether, just as you obeyed in excommunicating, so you may obey in receiving. For that obedience is perfect and true which despises nothing. But to whom you have forgiven anything. For you have forgiven. And I also. Just as I have avenged with you, so also I forgive with you. For even I, what I have forgiven.

And what I forgave, I forgave not in my own person, but in Christ's, who said: Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven. If I forgave anything, it was for your sake, so that you not be burdened. In the person of Christ, because we bear the person of Christ. So that we not be outwitted by Satan. For in like manner he outwits us through our excessive severity, so that souls perish through despair, just as also through our excessive leniency by not correcting them; whence Solomon says: Do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Although the whole epistle is directed against the Novatians, here nonetheless it is most evidently shown that those deceived by the devil refuse repentance. For we are not ignorant of his designs. These are his cunning tricks, that through immoderate goods he may deceive the unwary. But when I had come to Troas for the gospel of Christ. Now he wishes to prove to them how much more he loves them, and how anxious he is on their account, since although all things were prospering for him, he nonetheless had no rest because he did not find Titus, whom he had sent to them, to report to him whether they had corrected themselves, so that they may understand that he did everything for the sake of love. And a door was opened to me in the Lord: I had no rest for my spirit. A door: an entrance, or an opportunity for the preacher, or because God opened the hearts of those to whom he was preaching. Because I did not find Titus my brother. Because he had not returned to me to make me certain concerning you. But taking leave of them, I set out quickly.

From there, from them, although I had an opportunity to preach, I bade farewell to those who had believed, whose heart's door God opened. To Macedonia. Whence I might also hear of you more quickly. Macedonia is nearer to Achaia. But thanks be to God, who always triumphs us in Christ Jesus. He makes us triumph, or rather he himself triumphs in us. And he manifests the odor of his knowledge through us in every place. And because those who first believed could know only a little, as it were, of the odor of faith. Because we are the good odor of Christ to God. The odor of the knowledge of God is manifested through teaching and signs. It is called an odor for this reason, that it is sensed rather than seen. The good odor is holy preaching and a good life: those who love such a one live by the good odor; those who envy die by the good odor. In those who are saved. By his grace. And in those who perish. By his most just judgment. In those who are saved, like Tabitha; and in those who perish, like Hymenaeus and Alexander. To some indeed an odor of death unto death, but to others an odor of life unto life. How does one odor bring both life and death? For just as the sight of the sun brings brightness to healthy eyes and blindness to inflamed ones, so the teaching of Christ is life to the obedient and death to those who contradict it. Likewise in another sense: the good odor is the baptism of Christ: whoever receives it in the catholic Church lives by the good odor; whoever receives it in heresy dies by the good odor. Likewise in another sense: you have loved one who does good, and you have lived by the good odor; you envy and disparage one who does good, and you have died by the good odor.

And to these things, who is so fit? Who is sufficient by himself or by his own powers, unless he inspires and grants it, without whom we can do nothing? For who can comprehend this, how the grace of God saves some and abandons others? For we are not, like many, adulterating the word of God, but out of sincerity. He indulges the false apostles, who mix human understanding with divine preaching, as it is said in Isaiah: Your innkeepers mix water with wine, that is, the words of flattery with pure doctrine, by which men are not so much set aflame with drunkenness as they grow lukewarm with delight. As from God, before God. He has gone before, and knowing that we speak from him before him. In Christ we speak. In the person of Christ, as he himself taught.

CHAPTER III. Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as certain ones do? Not that we may be commended to you do we praise you, but lest you be led astray by others, we are compelled to recall these things. Letters of commendation to you, or from you? Those whom the grace of virtues does not commend, the letters of friends commend worthily. Our letter you are. As he says in the first: You are the seal of my apostleship: a letter of commendation. Written in our hearts. It is in our consciences that you believed when we preached to you. Which is known and read by all men, being made manifest. It is manifest to all that you believed in Christ through us, the Holy Spirit confirming our teaching through miracles: whether by this you are truly recognized as belonging to Christ, because you have received his Spirit.

Because you are a letter of Christ, ministered by us, and written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. Invisible. Not on tablets of stone. The Jews received the law on hard material, signifying their hardness: just as the veil of Moses showed the veil of their heart. Although we too have the law of Christ written, yet at first not as it were absent, but present, we received the words of the Lord on the tablets of our heart written: but the Gospels afterwards were written for the memory of posterity. Hence now he introduces the difference between law and grace. But on tablets of the heart, fleshly. Where there is faith and the grace of the Spirit. He wants to show us that more has been conferred on us, who have received the law in the heart. If therefore they were without excuse who had the law outwardly, how much more we who have received the words from the mouth of Christ in the heart! But we have such confidence. Which we know, that you have believed in Christ through us, or that we are commended not by a human letter, but by the grace of God. Through Christ to God. Not through ourselves, who are nothing without him. Not that we are sufficient to think anything. If not even to think, how much more to do! as the Lord also says in the Gospel: Without me you can do nothing. Hence let us recognize that we are nothing through ourselves, unless we are governed by the Lord's mercy and grace. He wants therefore to show that he does nothing by his own power or prudence, since certainly a few, if not by the grace of God, could never have saved the whole world.

Therefore he prefaced this, because he was about to say that he had received a ministry as much greater than Moses' as the New Testament is greater than the law, lest he seem to claim anything for himself; which he said for this reason, both to recall them from false apostles and lest they ascribe anything to their own merits. From us, as if from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God. As if our wisdom or virtue, so that human frailty may reckon nothing to its own strength. Who also made us fit ministers of the New Testament. He made us fit to fulfill this. Not of the letter, but of the spirit. Not of the letter of the law, but of spiritual precepts. Nor is the letter evil because it kills; but evil are those whom it convicts by transgression: for the sting of death is sin; but the power of sin is the law: it increases the desires of sin, and from there it kills; for the law is only a letter to those who have known how to read it and cannot fulfill it: which is not a helper of those who read, but a witness against those who sin, which puts sinners to death. Otherwise he himself said: The law is holy, and the commandment holy. Why then is it called the ministry of death, if the law is good? Nor be amazed, since even of the preaching of the Gospel it was said: We are a good odor of Christ to God, in those who are saved, and in those who perish, and the rest. For to the Jews the law was called the ministry of death, to whom it was also written on stones, to figure their hardness: not to those who fulfill the law through love.

For the law itself, which is figured in letters of stone, says: You shall not commit adultery; you shall not fornicate, and the rest. But it kills sinners when they transgress. How then is the law spiritual? Some think that the understanding of the letter kills, not understanding that neither can history be kept everywhere, nor can allegory be kept everywhere. For there are certain things said in figure. If we wish to turn the commandment into allegory, we drain all its power and the door of sinning is opened. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life—while it makes believers and pours in spiritual understanding, so that each thing may be understood in its proper place. But if the ministry of death, formed in letters on stones, was in glory—for insensible people, as the hard hearts of the Jews deserved—so that the children of Israel could not look intently on the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance. Against the Manichaeans: the Apostle could never compare contrary things, nor proclaim his own glory as less than Moses', unless it were because the same God is the founder of both Testaments. Which is being annulled.

Because the visible glory is emptied out through the glory of the Gospel—but it is emptied out in such a way that it makes progress, just as infancy is emptied out in youth, and the seed in the fruit. The fruit is indeed better than the seed, but the fruit is never without the seed; and the seed does not perish but is multiplied in the fruit. So it is emptied out, just as he himself says in the first [letter], speaking of prophecy and knowledge as to be destroyed, saying: When that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be emptied out. How much more [is this true of] the ministry of the Spirit. For just as injury is done to the Old Testament if it is said not to have been established by the same God who established the New, so injury is done to the New if it is compared with the Old. Will it be in glory? Ours, which is not emptied out, because it is perfect. For if from the ministry of condemnation there is glory—he has set forth the ministry of death—much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. By which righteousness he justifies freely, or awaits unto repentance. In eternal glory. For neither has that which shone been glorified in this respect, on account of the surpassing glory. In comparison with the glory of the Gospel, the glory of the letter is overshadowed: just as when the sun has risen the light of a lamp is blinded, although in its own time it seems to have great brightness. The Lord showed this when, ascending the mountain alone, he is said to have shone with the brightness of the sun; yet Moses and Elijah are reported to have been seen in glory, and therefore the voice of the Father has commanded us now to hear him alone. For if that which is being emptied out is through glory, much more does that which remains [abide] in glory.

If the Testament was given to be emptied out through glory, how is it not that which remains in glory? Therefore, having such hope of glory, we walk by faith. We use much confidence, in that God has made us fit. And not as Moses put a veil over his face—we no longer do so, because here all Christians see the glory—so that the children of Israel might not look intently on his face. Until its revelation: so too the law is not understood until at the end Christ is believed in, because he himself is the end of the law, to which we must attain. That which is emptied out. The veil at the end, and now in Christ. But their senses were dulled until this present day. For unless you believe, you will not understand. That same veil remains in the reading of the Old Testament, of which he bore the figure on his face. Not revealed, as long as Christ is not believed. That which is emptied out in Christ, who is the end of the law. But until this present day, when Moses is read, a veil is placed over their heart—a veil of ignorance in the hearts of the Jews. But when he has turned to God, the veil will be taken away—as one of them, in what manner Moses was turned. Now the Lord is the Spirit. Nothing in him is obscure or composite; the Spirit is a book, and therefore he cannot receive a veil, but rather he himself reveals. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. For he who has the Spirit of the Lord beholds all things freely; for we search all things by the Spirit—we, that is, the faithful.

All with unveiled face. Not a few, like Moses. Beholding the glory of the Lord. We understand the glory of the Lord evidently and clearly, or we discern it by faith. Into the same image. Which Christ showed on the mountain, as elsewhere, Who will transform the body of our lowliness. We are transformed. Daily we strive for this. From clarity. From present glory, which does not flow away, but advances toward the future. Into clarity, as from the Spirit of the Lord. Glory into glory.

CHAPTER IV. Therefore having this ministry. The apostleship. According as we have obtained mercy. Because through ourselves we were not fit for so great a ministry, we continually implore His mercy, which has gone before us. We do not fail. We do not fail in all tribulations. But we renounce the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness. By the grace of God we cast away from men the hidden things of vices. For it is a shame for a Christian to live shamefully. Nor adulterating the word of God. Like those who delight men with the word of God, mix in base speech, and crawl upon the earth, excusing sins through flattery. But in the manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every conscience of men. But it is so manifest to all that what we say is true, that even the conscience of those who resist bears testimony to us. Before God. We do this before God, not for the sake of men: although from this very thing we also please men.

But if our gospel is also veiled, it is veiled in those who are perishing. As if someone had said to him: But not all understand your preaching. But the unbelievers, he says, or the false apostles do not understand. For believers understand, with God revealing. In whom God. In the false apostles. The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. The god of this world can be taken in the same way as the prince of the world: because he claims the principality for himself in the unbelievers; but on account of those who slander, it must be pronounced thus, that we say that God has blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world by the merit of their unbelief, just as the Savior himself says: I have come into the world for judgment, that those who see may become blind. And the Apostle himself said elsewhere: Because they did not believe the truth, God will send them a spirit of error: because he permits it to those who do not believe him; just as if a physician were to abandon a disobedient sick person, he is said to have prolonged his illness, when the whole matter is his who despised hearing him. If, however, he obeys again, he will come to salvation. That the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ may not shine. Because they are blind, they cannot see the clearly shining sun. Who is the image of God. Either the express image of his substance, or because he is without sin. For we do not preach ourselves: but the Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever seeks his own advantages does not preach Christ, but himself: like those who serve their own belly. But we, your servants through Jesus.

Because we serve your advantages through the example of him who took the form of a servant: not for the sake of greed, nor for glory. Since God, who said that light should shine out of darkness. Against all the enemies of the Old Testament. Who has shone in our hearts. First through Christ, so that through us he might enlighten others. For the illumination of the knowledge of the brightness of God. The manifestation. In the face of Christ Jesus. In the person of Christ. But also notice this, that here he indicated the Trinity. God, who said that light should shine out of darkness—the Holy Spirit is understood—and for the illumination of the knowledge of the brightness of God, recognize the Father. In the face of Jesus Christ, he designated the Son. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the sublimity may be of the power of God, and not from us. The treasure of spiritual grace, by which we perform signs, we carry about in a fragile body, in which even frequently, when we heal others, we ourselves are weakened, so that what we do may be understood to be of the sublimity of God, not of our own power or our own merits. In all things we suffer tribulation. Tribulation of persecutions or labors. But we are not straitened. By slaughters or reproaches. We are at a loss, but not destitute: we suffer persecution, but we are not forsaken. By the consolation of hope we are not destitute. We are cast down, but we do not perish. We come even to despair of life, but we do not die: and even if we die, we do not perish.

Always carrying about the mortification of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be made manifest in our bodies. The mortification of tribulations, as elsewhere: I die daily by your glory; for if we die together, we shall also live together. But those who do not die together will not live together either. For we who live are always handed over to death. We who are in the body. For Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be. If we suffer for his body, which he suffered for us, then our mortal flesh will also receive the life of Jesus, that is, incorruptibility, so that it may become immortal. May it be made manifest in our mortal flesh. Because it has not yet appeared what we shall be, or that the power of that one may become known through us. Therefore. What then? Is death at work in us, but life in you? He rebukes them because they believed the false apostles, who said that Paul was subjecting himself to persecutions for this reason, that he was of lesser faith, while they themselves could not be troubled through faith. He shows, then, on the contrary, that he suffers these things not because of unbelief but because of faith; but that they have no cause for hatred, through flattery and sloth, as he says to the Galatians: So that they may not suffer the persecution of the cross of Christ, therefore they compel you to be circumcised. But having the same spirit of faith, as it is written.

Whom David and the other patriarchs or prophets [believed]: because by the faith by which we live, they lived one and the same faith, believing that the incarnation, passion, and resurrection of Christ would come to pass, which we believe has come to pass, down to John the Baptist himself. I believed, therefore I spoke: and we believe, therefore we also speak. By this testimony he proves that he believes. For if he spoke for this reason, because he believed (for no one of sound mind affirms to others what he himself does not believe), therefore we also who speak, he says, believe, who are even for this reason afflicted, because they believed it would come to pass, [and] we believe it has come to pass. Knowing that he who raised Jesus. Holding most firmly: this is the perfect faith, from which we are not torn away even by death. And he will raise us up with Jesus and establish us with himself. He will raise us up in like manner, if we die for him. For all things are for your sake. We suffer all things for this reason, because we perfectly care for your salvation. But they, on account of their negligence, suffer nothing of the kind. So that grace, abounding through many, may abound in thanksgiving to the glory of God. So that through the multitude of believers, on account of abounding grace, thanksgiving may also abound to the glory of God. For this reason. Therefore we do not cease. We do not fail. In tribulations and reproaches. They did not fail in tribulations. But we, if we are not praised, fail. But although this one who is outside, our outer man, is being corrupted: nevertheless the one who is within is renewed from day to day.

Although the body is corrupted by tribulations and sufferings, yet the soul is daily strengthened by the hope of future things to endure all things. For that which is present is the momentary and light [affliction] of our tribulation. However great the present punishment, and however long it persists, in comparison with the immense and eternal glory, it is both easy and brief, as he says elsewhere: For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that shall be revealed in us. Beyond measure in sublimity. Because there can be no comparison. The eternal weight of glory works in us. Because he had called it light, therefore here he set down weight, preserving the metaphor of the balance. While we do not look at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal. Not considering either the good things that are seen, nor the evil things: because neither of them is eternal.

CHAPTER 5. For we know that. As if someone were to say: If I suffer these things in this life, when will I receive them, I who die? Therefore he begins to show the glory of the resurrection. If our earthly house. That is, the body, which was made from earth, and in which we dwell in this world. Of this habitation be dissolved. If it be dissolved before the coming of the Lord, either by sufferings or by the condition of nature. That building. That is, incorruption itself. And we may have with God. Because immortal. A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Because this bodily [house] is said to be made, as it were, by a bodily hand: therefore this same [house] shall be made spiritual through the Spirit. For indeed in this we groan, our habitation which is from heaven. We groan, for that which we labor for, because no one labors without groaning: just as childbirth is put for pain. Desiring to be clothed upon. We are therefore clothed with something, so that we may be clothed upon. If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. If so be that, stripped of the body, we be not found naked from work. For indeed we who are in this tabernacle groan, being burdened, in that we do not wish to be stripped, but to be clothed over. For even those who shall have been found alive at the coming of the Lord groan and labor for this, that they may not be stripped by fire with sinners, but may deserve to be clothed over with immortality with the righteous. That it may be swallowed up. What is swallowed up does not appear, although it exists: just as iron, if it be cast into fire, and the substance remaining, the whole becomes fire: because the iron itself has taken on the splendor and heat of the fire.

What is mortal. As if touching the body. From life. Eternal. But he who effects this very thing in us is God. He says that God does this, lest it seem incredible to anyone. He who gave us the pledge of the Spirit. He who has already given us the Spirit as a pledge, so that we may know that he does not allow the temple of his Spirit to perish, and so that you may believe that what we speak is his. It follows: Therefore, always being confident, and knowing that while we are in the body. Therefore we dare to hope. We are absent from the Lord. We are absent, because we are not yet in the paternal inheritance; therefore, as strangers, we ought not to be greatly concerned about the things of this world, but, content with necessities, let us have every desire and zeal for how we may reach our homeland. For we walk by faith, and not by sight. By faith we still hope, we do not yet possess by sight. But we are confident, and we have good will. Indeed we confidently choose this, as elsewhere: Having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, much more better. Rather to be absent from the body. Rightly absent: because we are going to return to him again. And to be present with God. He is present everywhere; but then we are in a certain way more present to him, when we have been separated from the frailty of the flesh. And therefore we strive, whether absent or present, to please him. We now strive by action to be such as we shall be in the kingdom, incorruptible in substance, and without doubt also upright. For we must all be made manifest before the tribunal of Christ.

By the greatness of the power and of the judge, the greatness of the tribunal and of the judgment must be reckoned; for the greater the power of the judge, the greater the terror of the judgment must necessarily be. That each one may receive. Let him receive. His own things of the body, according as he did. What is "according to the things which he did through the body," except according to the things which he did at the time when he was in the body? Because he is treating of the resurrection, he wishes to show that in all things the soul worked through the body, as long as it lived in the body. For the soul sins without the body; the body without the soul cannot. Whether evil, or good. Depart from me, you cursed; come, you blessed of my Father. It must be noted that the punishment of the evil one is called evil. Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are manifest to God. Knowing how great is the fear of the judgment of God, we persuade men, that they take care not to fall into it. But we are manifest to God. If we teach anything, we act otherwise. But I hope that we are also manifest in your consciences. Although evil has been suggested to you concerning us, yet I think that your conscience does not receive it, to suspect otherwise of us than it knows, nor can it more accommodate faith to others than to itself. We do not again commend ourselves to you. Because he had said above that he did not need commendatory letters. But we give you occasion of glorying on our behalf. Against the false apostles, who wished first to insert hatred of him into them by detraction, so that faith might more easily be had in them. That you may have it toward them. What you should answer.

Who glory in appearance, and not in heart. Those who, when they glory in appearance concerning their own righteousness and our weakness, are refuted by the testimony of their own heart, whether in the carnal works of the law. For whether we are beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we are sober, it is for you. Some say: whether we are wise beyond man, that is, we are in ecstasy, to God; because what we speak is more than human; or whether we speak according to our own sense, for you. A teacher is said to be beside himself in mind when he speaks other and spiritual things, as the blessed John: In the beginning was the Word, and the rest. He spoke soberly when he humbled himself, saying: The Word was made flesh; which the angels also signified on the ladder that Jacob saw, ascending and descending, that is, the teachers, as the blessed Paul himself ascended when he said: We speak wisdom among the perfect, and: I could not speak to you as to spiritual men. He descended when he said: For I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified. For the love of Christ urgeth us. It is necessary for us to repay some part of his love, that we may suffer for his body, who deigned to die for our death. Judging this. Reckoning, or esteeming. For if one died for all, therefore all are dead. And for all Christ died. He alone was found, who as an immaculate victim might die for all, for those who were dead in sins. That they also who live.

To him we owe our life, who restored it in us by his death. Let them no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them. If anyone does his own will and not God's, he lives for himself; whence the Lord says: If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and the rest. And he rose again. He always joins resurrection to death, on account of the false accusation. Therefore from now on we know no one according to the flesh. Because they were setting before the Corinthians the examples of the ancients, we know no one circumcised in the flesh, and observing a carnal sabbath, we follow the example of no ancient. And if we have known Christ according to the flesh. Even if Christ himself was circumcised in the flesh, and celebrated all things with the Jews. But after his resurrection there is a New Testament. But now we no longer know him so. Now we no longer know that Christ is going to suffer further, we who spiritually understand him after the resurrection to be wholly God. If therefore anyone is a new creature in Christ, the old things have passed away. If anyone is new, a new creature in Christ, let him understand that all old things have been set aside in their own time, and that now one must live in a new manner. Behold, they have been made. According to Isaiah. All things new. Because the precepts too have been renewed, while they are fulfilled through the grace of Christ. But all things are from God. Both new and old things have been brought about by the one God according to the diversity of times. Who reconciled us. Because through sins we had been turned away from him. To himself through Christ. Through the blood and the example of Christ: because he both redeemed and taught.

And he gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that we too may reconcile others. Since indeed God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Christ was not only man, but also God—that is, God-man; according to his presence he is everywhere, not according to effect; but in Christ all the fullness of the Godhead dwells. Not reckoning to them their trespasses. That is, pardoning through faith alone, which is freely given. And he placed in us the word of reconciliation. The preaching, that for Christ's sake we may reconcile men to God. For Christ, therefore, we act as ambassadors. In his stead we are God's envoys. As though God were exhorting through us. We do not speak from ourselves, but God speaks through us. We beseech. That is, as though Christ were beseeching you. What does "be reconciled to God" mean? That we were enemies; for no one is reconciled except from enmity. But it was not nature but sins that made us enemies; hence, being his enemies, we are servants of sin. But how are we reconciled, unless what stands between and separates us is dissolved—that is, sin? And therefore the mediator, the Lord Christ, who became a sacrifice, offering himself for sin. Be reconciled to God for Christ's sake. That is, in Christ's stead we ask that you be converted and believe. Him who knew no sin. God the Father, namely, made his Son. He made him sin for us. That is, a sacrifice for sin; he made him sin for us.

The victim offered for sin was called "sin" in the law, though it committed no sin, as it is written: And he shall lay his hands upon the head of his sin. By the blood of these victims that blood which was poured out for us was prefigured. So too Christ, offered for our sins, received the name of "sin," that we might be made the righteousness of God—not our own, but in him; not in ourselves.

CHAPTER VI. But helping you, we exhort you—by the word of God—that you receive not the grace of God in vain. He receives the grace of God in vain who does not labor with the grace of God, nor adds his own effort, so that he may be able to fulfill God's commandments with God himself as helper; who is not new in the New Testament and does not follow a new life, for whom the grace of God profits nothing. For to the Galatians the same apostle says: I do not reject the grace of God. For he says, God through the prophet Isaiah: In an acceptable time I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. For me, the acceptable time for being heard and the day of salvation is in this life, as the Savior says: Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you. Behold, now is the acceptable time. As elsewhere: Therefore, while we have time, let us do good. But this life is called a day, because it is suited to working, and it is closed by the night of judgment, in which no one will be able to work. This life is also called summer, in comparison with which the ants are said to hope for the coming winter. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Here alone, with God giving it, can we find salvation.

Giving no offense to anyone, that our ministry not be blamed. Let no one be offended by our example, lest it be thought to be not so much our own fault as the ministry's. But in all things. Not in some things. Let us exhibit ourselves. Here it is shown that, once we have been restored by the grace of God, we can with God's help exhibit ourselves as ministers of God in the virtues described. As ministers of God. Ministers of God ought to imitate God in all things, and to be known as true worshippers of God from their life and conduct, just as he allows himself to be blasphemed by all, and even in the present life does not deny his benefits even to the ungrateful. In much patience. Not little. Here he describes the members of patience. In tribulations. Every injury is a tribulation. In necessities. Let us bear everything that is necessary in such a way as it is necessary. In distresses. Every want is a distress. In stripes, in prisons, in seditions. By the rulers of places. In labors, in watchings. In labors of running about, or of works, which ought to be more of the mind than of the body. For watchings, being of honorable conduct, wear down the flesh. In fastings. It is to be noted that fastings are numbered among the virtues. In chastity. That is true chastity which is preserved both in heart and in body. In knowledge. Knowledge is a kind of virtue, if one is instructed by it, not puffed up. In long-suffering. True long-suffering is enduring endurance. In kindness.

But it is a sweetness if we generate bitterness for no one by our words, and fulfill that saying of the same Apostle: Let all bitterness, and clamor, and blasphemy be taken away from you with all malice; and let it be said by you, His throat is sweetness, and he is wholly desire. In the Holy Spirit. That is, we can present ourselves as a gift of him in this way, if we prepare ourselves as worthy of his home, and do not violate his temple, which he commanded in baptism. In charity not feigned. Charity is truly not feigned if we do to others all that we wish to be done to us, as Saint John says: Let us not love in word and tongue, but in deed and truth. In this also charity is not feigned, if we chastise the offenses and faults of brothers with a kindly affection. In the word of truth. The word of truth is the word of Christ, which is brought forth from the Scriptures, provided that it is brought forth fittingly: and it is to be feared lest perhaps we make a lie out of the truth, or that saying: Do not lie to one another. In the power of God through the arms of justice. In the power of Christ through the arms of justice we fight against the devil: or in the power of God, who through the arms of the law overcame the devil. On the right and on the left. Let us be neither lifted up by prosperity nor broken by adversity. Through glory and ignobility. Glory of virtues, ignobility of prisons. Through infamy and good report. Let us bear all these things equally through patience, and let neither those who praise exalt us nor those who disparage cast us down: because it is necessary that sometimes both speak falsely.

But we, looking to our conscience, ought not to give others more credence about us than to ourselves. As deceivers, and yet true. He set forth both ill repute and good repute, because by some they were called deceivers, by others not only true, but even gods. It is no wonder, then, if the apostles were called deceivers, since the Jews spoke thus even of the Lord himself. As unknown. By unbelievers. And well known. By believers. As dying, and behold we live. That is, coming even to despair of life: as when, having been stoned, he was thought dead, but he rose and taught in Lystra. And at the same time it is to be noted that adversities and temporal things are regarded as it were someone recounting a dream: I seemed to myself to be there; for eternal rewards are not "as it were." As chastened, and not killed. Chastening, God chastened me, but he did not deliver me to death. As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Sorrowful in countenance, but in heart even in tribulation rejoicing in hope. As poor, yet making many rich. In this very thing in which we are poor for ourselves, we abound for others, while alms are given through us: or, poor in earthly things, we make others rich, as it were in repayment of an eternal reward. As having nothing, and possessing all things. As Solomon says: To the faithful man the whole world of riches belongs, except that all things are the Lord's; no one has more than he who needs nothing. He needs nothing who requires nothing beyond necessities.

Our mouth is open to you. We have been so stirred by your progress that we cannot be silent; for a disciple's progress opens the mouth and enlarges the heart and magnifies it—Corinthians, our heart. As it is written: Because God gave Solomon breadth of heart, may he grant it to you also. It has been enlarged. In senses and teachings. Do not be constrained in us. It is not in us that there is any constraint of speech. But you are constrained in your inner affections. The cause of the constraint proceeds from you. Having the same recompense. Having the same recompense, if you have the same helper, God, and the same course; or certainly, if you receive as much as we teach, by God's inspiration. I speak as to children, be enlarged also you. As children, by my example, by imploring the grace of God, be enlarged in understanding, so that by his gift you may grasp greater things. He teaches by example that priests should be enlarged, or advance in the breadth of charity. Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers. Do not be joined to them, or yoked together; for those who bear the yoke together pull as equals. For what participation has righteousness with iniquity? He shows that no one can be righteous and unrighteous at the same time, setting forth contrary examples. Or what fellowship has light with darkness? None: just as neither has light with darkness. But what agreement has Christ with Belial? or what share has the faithful with the unfaithful? They cannot agree with them. He calls the devil or Antichrist Belial. But what consent has the temple of God with idols? He calls those very men who worship idols an idol.

For you are the temple of the living God, as God says. But they are the temple of dead idols, whom demons possess. Although God is everywhere, nevertheless he dwells in those who perceive his benefit and believe that whatever they are is his gift. For I will dwell in them. He proves this very thing by the testimony, that we are the temple of God, teaching that we ought to offer him the world as a lodging in our heart, with him as our helper. And I will walk among them. I will occupy all their senses, or run through them. And I will be their God. God is God of all by nature, of few by will: for he is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And they shall be my people. Those who are servants willingly, not unwillingly: that is, by faith and obedience, not only by nature. Therefore go out from among them, and be separated, says the Lord. In act and conduct, or in familiarity, not in place. And the unclean. Everyone who sins is unclean: for every wicked person is unclean before God. Do not touch. Do not touch by association, or fellowship, or consent, or imitation of wicked deeds. And I will receive you. If you cast out. And I will be to you a father, and you shall be to me sons and daughters. By saying: If unbelieving parents have disowned you, you will have me as an everlasting father. Says the Lord almighty. He added almighty, lest you say, how can men become sons of God?

CHAPTER VII. Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves. For those who have such and so great promises, with what zeal must the house be cleansed that is to receive such a guest! And how ought the children of God to imitate their Father in all things? From every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting sanctification. The defilement of the flesh is what is committed through the flesh; that of the spirit, however, is what is sinned by thought alone. Then, therefore, do we perfect sanctification, if we keep both clean. In the fear of God. Not in the praise of men or in fear. Receive us: we have injured no one. Accept what we say, or accept our example in these things to be imitated: or consider us. We have corrupted no one: we have deceived no one. By evil doctrine. I do not say this to your condemnation: for we have foretold that you are in our hearts to die together and to live together. Not excusing myself, nor condemning you, as if you were such: for I cannot so think of you, whom I love so much, as I said above: or your love makes me have such great confidence. I have much confidence toward you. You have given me much confidence in speaking, because you have obeyed in all things: or because I do not fail to know that I am greatly loved by you. I have much glorying on your behalf. Among all the Churches I glory in your amendment. I am filled with consolation. After the sorrow which I had on your behalf: or the word of consolation abounds to me, your progress provoking it.

I abound with joy in all our tribulation: for even when we had come to Macedonia, our flesh had no rest. So great is my joy that I forget all my pressures. He shows how great a pressure the greatness of his joy overcame. But we have suffered every tribulation. There is no kind of tribulation that we have not experienced. Without are fightings. Fightings against unbelievers: and fear from false brethren: whether lest believers should suffer scandal, we feared altogether. Within are fears. Lest you should have been provoked. But God, who comforts the humble, has comforted us. The afflicted. In the coming of Titus. Not only in his coming, but also in the consolation. Not only because the one desired has come, but also because he announced those things for which I was awaiting his coming. By which he was comforted in you, reporting to us your desire. He was comforted after the mourning which he had with you on your behalf. Your weeping, your zeal for me. For our sorrow and for the sins of certain ones. So that I rejoiced the more. Because you not only corrected yourselves, but also advanced further. For even if I grieved you in the epistle, I do not repent: and even if I had repented, seeing that that epistle, though it grieved you for an hour, now I rejoice! not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved unto repentance. Even if I had repented, because I had rebuked you too much, yet your progress makes me not to repent. For you were grieved according to God.

Not according to the world, nor the devil. That you suffer no loss from us in anything. For the sorrow that is according to God. Either our negligence, or lest by coming we condemn someone. Repentance unto salvation. For there is a repentance against salvation. Stable. Unrepentable. Works. Persevering repentance: for concerning the forgiveness of sins we ought not to be without fear, and when God does not remember, we ought to remember by repenting. But the sorrow of the world works death. The sorrow of the world is to be tormented over present things lost, or over things not seized that belong to others, or over another's happiness. But sorrow according to God is to mourn one's own or another's sins. For behold this very thing, that you were made sorrowful according to God, how much it works in you. This very thing that has just been done can teach you what the difference is between the sorrow of the world and the sorrow of God. Solicitude. Because our solicitude is his inspiration: and where there is solicitude, there is no idleness, or drowsiness, or security. But defense. Defense either of discipline, or of faith. But indignation. Either we are indignant against those who sin, or we endure the indignations of the nations. But fear. Not security against those who sin. But if anyone is scandalized, I burn. But desire, but zeal. Our desire, disgust. But. Some say that in this place the preposition but is superfluous in Latin: but among the Greeks it has the structure of speech. Vengeance.

Not a bad pardon: it is better to avenge justly than to indulge wickedly; for whoever spares the wicked wishes to destroy the good. In all things you have shown yourselves to be uncontaminated. You prove yourselves free from blame. For one who is contaminated has no authority to take vengeance on another. In the matter. Concerning which it is treated. Therefore even if I wrote to you, it was not because of the one who did it. Whether not because of the one who did injury to the father, and was excommunicated, nor because of the one who suffered, as though these alone had delighted me. The injury. To the father. Nor because of the one who suffered. It is understood, only. But to make manifest our solicitude, which we have for you before God. Lest you think that anything can be hidden from us through our solicitude. Therefore we are consoled. In that you have proved yourselves to be chaste in the matter. In our consolation, however. Because we receive consolation concerning you. We rejoiced more abundantly beyond the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by all of you. We rejoiced still more greatly in this, that the spirit of Titus was so refreshed by you that you never depart from his mind: for the progress of disciples is the refreshment of the spirit of the teacher. And if I gloried somewhat before him concerning you, I was not put to shame. Glorying in progress has no shame, like worldly glorying. But just as we spoke all things to you in truth, so also our glorying, which was toward Titus, has become truth.

Whoever glories in just things glories in the truth, and in God, whose gift it is. And his tender affection is more abundantly in you, as he remembers the obedience of you all. All his members long for you, as eyes for your presence, ears for your speech, mouth for your conversation, and the rest. How you received him with fear and trembling. Obedience does not know how to be without fear; for one who obeys out of love fears to offend the one he loves. I rejoice that I trust in you in all things. As a skilled chief physician uses the gentlest medicines for a wound already nearly healed, so that it may be cured by cauteries and burnings. You have made me rejoice, because I never doubt your obedience.

CAP. VIII. But we make known to you, brothers, the grace of God, which has been given in the churches of Macedonia. By the example of the churches of Macedonia he stirs them to mercy: so that they may not think it a burden, which they have seen the Philippians or others already do. And that in the much testing of tribulation their abundance of joy was. Then they rejoice most, when they have been greatly afflicted, just as the apostles went rejoicing, because they were counted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus Christ. And their very deep poverty abounded in the riches of their simplicity.

I know your poverty and your tribulation, but you are rich: many are indeed poor in wealth, but more are rich in simplicity, and they desire to give more than they have; and therefore God tests the heart more than what the right hand was extending: for whoever does as much as he can, does all: the rich and the poor are equally so, although the rich may seem to give more. Because I bear them witness according to their ability: and beyond their ability they were willing. He has reversed the words: for the sense here is: I bear them witness that they acted according to their ability, and beyond their ability they were willing. Beseeching us with much exhortation for the grace and fellowship of the ministry which is performed for the saints. They earnestly entreated us with much persuasion that we would gladly accept their fellowship in the ministry to the saints. And not as we hoped. But more than we hoped. But they first gave themselves to the Lord, then to us. They handed over not only all their possessions, but first themselves to the Lord in this work, then to us; that is, God saw their will, we saw the effect. Through the will of God. Not that they should please us against the Lord's will; but that they should do this was the will of God, who inspired them to do it. So that we should ask Titus, that just as he began, so he may also complete in you this grace as well.

We are stirred by their example to send Titus to you, so that by his teaching or arrangement, with God's help, he may also complete this work in you, lest you have anything less than the others. But just as you abound in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all solicitude, and in your love for us—he does not join speech and knowledge to faith alone. That you may abound also in this grace. Lest, while you surpass others in other things, you be found inferior in this. I do not say this as one commanding; but through the solicitude of others I also approve the good disposition of your love. I do not command, nor do I demand, but I give counsel: that just as in all things, so also here you may set an example for others: since we also know that you have such great obedience and mercy that you seem not to have learned it, but to possess it by nature. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. For you are not ignorant that he became poor for your sake, who was the maker and Lord of all things: that by his grace you might be enriched with heavenly goods. If therefore he despised all his own things for your sake, how much more ought you to give small things for your own sake—not your own, but rather to restore to him what is his! For whatever is extended for his sake is given to him. Since for your sake he became needy. God became man. Though he was rich: that by his poverty you might be rich. And I give counsel in this matter. For this is useful for you. This also works against Photinus, because he was rich before he became poor.

You began not only to do but also to will, from the previous year. He shows that some are able to do it not by will, when either the importunity of one asking or the authority of one commanding has required it. But now also complete it in deed, so that just as the mind of the will is ready. What you began to do by will, fulfill in effect. Every matter also—who is to be sought after? For just as a deed done unwillingly is not acceptable, so also a will resisting is without fruit. So let it be also for completing it from what you have. Even to the end. For if the will is ready according to what one has, it is accepted. Do not think that I demand anything beyond your strength, or expect as much from the poor man as from the rich; for all give equally, if each one gives from as much as he has. Not according to what he does not have. As you have, son, so give alms. For it is not that there should be relief for others. What kind of people were they, that this needed to be said to them: Not that you should keep nothing for yourselves, but that it might suffice both for them and for you! But for you, tribulation. Of poverty. But by equality; in the present time. The saints and servants of God are pilgrims and poor in this world, but in eternal life they have a homeland and riches; the laity, however, or those who abound in resources, seem here to have, as it were, a homeland, if they share with the saints: here they restore to them, so that in their homeland, where they are proven to be rich. Let your abundance supply their want, so that their abundance also.

Give them carnal things, so that they too, being free for God, may be able to render spiritual things to you; for these two ranks cannot stand without one another. The perfect man will not be perfect if he is thinking about carnal things, nor will the merciful man be merciful when he has no one to whom to give or from whom to be taught to give. Let your want be supplied, so that equality may be made. The rich in this world are like the elm supporting the vine: by its support the vine gives abundant fruit, and through the fruitfulness of the vine the elm is seen to be fruitful. So the servants of God, and the poor in spirit, are like the vine: they are sustained by the resources of the rich, they share with one another what they abound in, and both, being full, arrive at eternal life. As it is written. This was said of the manna, by whose example we are taught that all abundance breeds worms; at the same time it is also shown that the things God gives ought to be common to all in the present. He who had much did not abound. By this testimony he wants us to possess all things in common, so that the perfect may not hide doctrine, and those who have means may not deny food to them. For the worker is worthy of his food. And he who had little did not lessen it. But I give thanks to God, who gave the same solicitude for you in the heart of Titus. As with the manna, if God gives zeal or solicitude, so that each one has it for others, who else will give it for himself?

Since these things are so, nothing is commanded to man by the Lord in the Holy Scriptures for the purpose of proving free will that is not found to be given by His goodness; nor does a man begin at all to be changed from evil to good through the beginning of faith, unless the unowed and gratuitous mercy of God works this in him, because the change is not ours but of the right hand of the Most High. For he received the exhortation, but when he was more anxious, he went to you by his own will. He received indeed the grace of exhortation, but he also hastened by his own will, so that he might have a reward not unwillingly, as if the stewardship had been entrusted to him. We also sent with him our brother, whose praise is in the Gospel throughout all the Churches. This is understood of Luke, who has praise in the Gospel before the others, because he wrote both the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. Not only that, but he was also appointed by the Churches as a companion of our pilgrimage, to show that he is fit. For this grace, which is ministered by us to the glory of the Lord. Whether as a minister of the saints or of doctrine, because all things are done to the glory of the Lord. And our will, appointed. Proposed or prepared. Avoiding this, lest anyone should reproach us in this abundance which is ministered by us. Lest anyone should say, how did Christ fulfill the law, when we see Christians not giving as much alms as was commanded to be given in the law? To the glory of the Lord. To the glory of the Lord every pious man glorifies God. For we provide good things.

We do nothing, indeed, for human glory; but nevertheless we do not wish that anyone be scandalized through us and perish, but that seeing our good works he may glorify our Father who is in heaven. Not only before God, but also before men. Our conscience suffices for us on our own account; but our reputation, on account of our neighbors, which ought not to be polluted but to prevail. There are two things: conscience and reputation. Conscience is for yourself, reputation for others. He who, trusting in his own conscience, neglects his reputation, is cruel. But we have sent with them our brother also. Some say this was said of Apollos; but it is uncertain. Him we have proved in many things to have often been solicitous. He bears testimony to them, so that he may be heard the more. But now much more solicitous. Him we approve, trusting that your obedience may be stirred up. Much confidence in you. He already knows it thus, so as to have confidence in you. Whether for Titus, who is my companion and fellow-worker toward you; or our brethren, the apostles of the churches, the glory of Christ. The sense is this: either because Titus has told him of you, who has your obedience proved, or because the apostles of the individual churches have also announced it to him for the glory of Christ. Therefore show the proof of your love, and of our glory on your behalf, toward them in the face of the churches of God. So that when they have seen that what is said is true, they may report this to all the churches for them to examine.

Or show the love that you have, of which we glory on your behalf, as an example to all the churches.

CHAPTER IX. For concerning the ministry that is done for the saints. He seems to change his meaning. Some say that above he spoke of the holy laity, but here of the priests. Others say that he treated of almsgiving before, but now reminds them of the ministry of the word, which is shown to those sanctified through baptism. These two senses must be carefully observed even to the end of the matter. It is out of abundance that I write to you. I admonish out of what is superfluous, because you both teach of your own accord and minister to the priests, who also do not deny mercy to others. For I know your ready mind. In this work. On whose behalf I glory about you among the Macedonians. In mind. Since also Achaia has been ready since last year. All Achaia through you, who are its head, has been provoked to this ministry. And your emulation has provoked very many. Here emulation stands for imitation. But we have sent the brothers. Whom he named above. So that what we glory about you may not be made void. Who may either prepare or admonish you. In this part, so that, as I said, you may be ready: lest, when the Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared. Lest I find you otherwise than I supposed. In part, whether of ministry or of teaching. Let us be ashamed. If we are ashamed, as though glorying falsely on your behalf, how much more should you be, both for your negligence and for our shame!

There is great confusion if one who loves you blushes for your sake. So that we may not say you are in this substance. Therefore I considered it necessary to ask the brothers to go ahead to you. What he had said above, in this part. And to prepare the promised blessing. Which we promised them concerning you. A blessing. Either from blessing, or because through almsgiving the blessing of God is born from men. That this was prepared. A sufficient blessing. Thus as a blessing, not as greed. It will be a blessing if it is given with a grateful heart: for God loves a cheerful giver, but a greedy man cannot abound. In knowledge, however, he is greedy who defers to fulfill or carry out the understanding he has begun, whence also the Lord says, You shall greet no one on the way, that is, you shall preach the word of salvation to no one in passing. But this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. It should be noted that even here a gradation is shown. And he who sows in blessings will also reap from blessings. Conversely, he who sows in cursing can also reap the same. Each one as he has purposed in his heart. Not as if compelled, but willingly. Not from sadness, or from necessity. If I do this willingly, I have a reward: but if unwillingly, a dispensation has been entrusted to me, and what I have learned without pretense, I share without envy. All this pertains to the ministry of the word. For if it concerns alms, each one as he has. For God loves a cheerful giver. Conversely, without doubt he hates the sad one.

But God is able. Do not fear want. Every grace. The gift of grace, that is, an abundance of fruits: because from these thanks are rendered for your works: or the grace of knowledge. But grace is well understood as a gift, because it is given freely, because this too is a gift of God, that we should be generous. To make abound in you. From the fruit of their grain, wine, and oil they are multiplied. That in all things always. Whether in kinds, or in graces, or in teachings. Having all sufficiency, abound in every good work. All sufficiency both of spiritual and also of carnal things, so that you may be able to fulfill every good work. As it is written: He dispersed, he gave to the poor, his righteousness remains forever. From temporal things eternal righteousness is obtained: he who distributes present things will receive eternal things. But he who administers seed to the sower will also provide bread to eat. This pertains more to the seed of the word: he who gave the office of teaching will also provide food: if only you have leisure for teaching: or he who gave you what you might distribute will suffer hunger not at all. And he will multiply your seed. Whether of speech, or of righteousness. And he will increase the growth of the fruits of your righteousness, so that in all things being enriched. The fruits of righteousness, the word of God. The fruits of righteousness are also resources, when righteousness is made from them: but when they are either gathered unjustly, or unjustly abused for pride or for avarice, they are fruits of iniquity. For he who weighs down grain at a price is cursed among the people.

Or those who swell with ambition for money. Abound in all simplicity: so that you may give simply to all without distinction, not seeking to whom you give, but for what purpose you give. Which works through us thanksgiving to God. Which simplicity of giving is. Since the ministry of this office. Of administration. Not only. Not only does it stain the saints, but thanks are also rendered to the Lord, who has enriched you with such wisdom. It supplies what is lacking to the saints. You give so much that it not only supplies the need of the saints, but there also remains something to be distributed to others. But it also abounds through many thanksgivings in the Lord. You can have a double reward: both the refreshment of the saints and thanksgiving from the Lord. Through the proof of this ministry. By this ministry you are proved to be Christians. Because you teach perfectly and show that it is divine, in which through obedience you magnify God. Glorifying God in the obedience of your confession in the Gospel of Christ. They glorify God, who through obedience confess God, just as certain people deny him by their deeds. And in the simplicity of your communication. Whether teaching simply or giving simply. In them and in all. Because you communicate to both them and all rather than give, since you are certain that you will receive it back with manifold interest. And in their entreaty for you. Even in this the administration of this office abounds, working all these things. Of those longing for you.

For who would not desire to see such a one? Because of the surpassing grace of God in you. Whether of knowledge or of mercy. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift. It is to be understood, as we give thanks: he who by his inspiration gave you so great a grace. It is to be noted that whatever good we either do or possess is proved to be his gift.

CHAPTER 10. But I myself, Paul, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I ask you with that meekness with which Christ, when he could have avenged himself, bore with those who wronged him, in order to correct them. Who in person indeed am humble among you, but absent I am confident toward you. As though I had no virtues at all: as elsewhere, As a nurse always. The presence of holy men, through excessive humility, can become an object of contempt; but when absent, if need be, they confidently judge their own power. But I beseech you, that when present I may not dare, by that confidence. Act in such a way that when present I may not begin to manifest my power by avenging. Which I am thought to dare, against certain ones. Not every estimate is false, as: I think that I also have the Spirit of God. Who think that we walk as according to the flesh. Who think that we have no power beyond human nature. For walking in the flesh. As men. We do not wage war according to the flesh.

As ministers of Christ—and it can be understood thus, that those are said to serve in the flesh who expound the Old Testament in a lowly manner; but those who follow the spiritual understanding are indeed in the flesh, because they have the same letter as the Jews, yet they do not serve according to the flesh, passing over from the flesh to the spirit. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God. Our weapons are not a shield or a sword, but the power of God, by which we accomplish more by the word than others do with carnal weapons. And because our struggle is not against flesh and blood. For the destruction of strongholds, destroying their counsels. For the false apostles also fortify and surround their doctrine with cunning counsels and crafty arguments, which the apostolic battering ram destroys by the power of spiritual grace, just as that great Magus, whom, as he subverted the ways of God with disputations, he blinded by the word. And every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. For what is more proud than to oppose divine teachings? And bringing every intellect into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We destroy the false apostles, who under the name of Christ desire to take captive every intellect for themselves and subject it to their own doctrine, which the heretics attempt to do. And having in readiness to avenge all disobedience, when your obedience has been fulfilled. But when obedience has already been fulfilled through us, if they are not heard, they falsely claim to have received from the Lord the power of avenging themselves.

Look at what is according to the face. The proof of the matter is manifest, and the understanding easy. If anyone trusts that he is Christ's, let him think this again within himself, that just as he is Christ's, so also are we. No one is so foolish as the one who boasts that he alone is Christ's. For even if I should boast somewhat more about our authority, which the Lord gave for building up and not for destroying you, I shall not be ashamed. For even if I say that I have received power from Christ more, as a true apostle, to vindicate, I shall not be ashamed: because I shall both speak the truth, and I shall do this not puffed up by glory, but compelled for the sake of your building up. They therefore wish to exercise power both usurped and for your destruction. But so that I may not be thought to be terrifying you by letters: since indeed the letters, they say, are weighty and strong; but the presence of the body is weak, and the speech contemptible. I say this so that no one may think that I am threatening that which I cannot fulfill, as your deceivers boast about me. Let him who is of this sort think this, that such as we are in word through letters when absent, such also are we in deed when present. Let him who thinks this know that I can do all things, through him who remains in me, if it should be necessary, which I promise. For both to those who obey through humility I am found weak, and to those who sin through severity I am found strong. For we do not dare to insert or compare ourselves with certain ones who commend themselves.

For we cannot boast of ourselves more than we are; we do not dare so to despise God as to be like certain men who prefer to be commended by their own praises rather than by the grace of God. But measuring ourselves by ourselves in ourselves, we do not exceed the limits of our own measure. And comparing ourselves with ourselves, not with greater men—unlike those who, when they are nothing, not only make themselves equal to them but even place themselves before them. We, however, will not glory beyond measure, but according to the measure of the rule by which God measured for us, the measure of reaching even to you; for we do not stretch ourselves out beyond measure as though we did not reach to you. Nothing beyond men, but insofar as God deigned to grant to us, that is, the grace of apostleship, through which we also preach to you Corinthians. For we do this not by usurpation, but by command. For we have reached even to you in the Gospel of Christ—not in our own. We do not glory beyond measure in the labors of others. It is beyond measure to glory in the labors of others, because those men always went to the faithful who required no signs at all. But having hope that, as the faith of you grows, we may be magnified in you—those whom we teach—according to our rule, not another's. In abundance, even in those places which are beyond you, to evangelize; for it is not enough to have reached even to you, but when your faith has grown, we will pass over to another place, to preach the Gospel even to those nations which are beyond you. Not in another's rule—that is, places—to glory in those things which have been prepared.

Whether they enter into a glory already prepared, or we proceed to the glory of the Lord among those who are already prepared—but whoever boasts, let him boast in the Lord. Even he who boasts, let him boast in the Lord, whose gift is what we are, and whose powers have been worked in us. This is against the Pelagians. For it is not he who commends himself. For our preaching, unless it is confirmed by the Lord's powers, is not received by unbelievers, so that we may know that faith also is from God, who gives powers so that signs may be done, through which unbelievers may believe. He is approved. By praising. But he whom God commends. By showing signs.

CAr. xi. Would that you could bear with me. Bear with me a little, because you bear with others much. A little of my foolishness—but do bear with me. He calls himself foolish because it was necessary for him to say some true things about himself, to show that those who praise themselves falsely and with no necessity compelling them are much more foolish. For I am jealous for you with a divine jealousy. For I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. I am not inflamed by the goad of human envy, but I guard you like a father with divine jealousy, so that we may be able to join you immaculate to Christ, kept with zeal so much the greater as the bridegroom to whom you are to be joined is better. But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be corrupted.

The serpent seduced Eve by lying about God, saying that God had only threatened with terror and would not bring death, if they sinned. So too now the false apostles were saying that the precepts of the Gospel were added to the Law for this reason, or so that it might thus be kept, and that it alone would suffice if kept. But even now the serpent seduces in like manner, asserting that Gehenna is named only for the sake of terror, and confirming that it either does not exist at all, or is not eternal. And let them be cut off. From true chastity. From simplicity. The chaste mind is the one that desires to please one man, and to which the promises made once to him alone are sufficient. Which is in Christ. That the words of God belong to the believer. For if the one who comes preaches another Christ, whom we did not preach, or you receive another spirit, whom you did not receive, or another Gospel, which you did not receive, you would rightly endure it. If they were to offer you something more than you received through us, you would rightly admit them coming against us and disparaging us. For I think that I have done nothing less. In you. Than the great apostles. If than the great, how much more than these who are nothing! Or, lest you think that you received anything less than the other churches, to which Peter and the others preached. For even if I am unskilled in speech, yet not in knowledge. He shows that those men are unskilled in knowledge, glorying in swollen speech. But in all things I have been made manifest to you.

He shows his own integrity, because he did everything according to God, since he never sought from them avarice, nor gluttony, nor glory. Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself so that you might be exalted? If perhaps in this alone I sinned, it was because for your benefit I even gave up things that were permitted. For I preached the Gospel of God to you free of charge, and I despoiled other churches, receiving support. For I did not even receive daily bread from you, which the Lord ordained for your service, when I was ministering the Gospel to you. And when I was with you, when I was with you and did not receive from you, I received from the Macedonians who were far away, lest you should believe that I preached the Gospel for the sake of earthly gain. And when I was in need, I was burdensome to no one. This is more, that when I was in need, I was unwilling to receive. For what was lacking to me, the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied. For I did not fall short in what my hands could provide. And in all things I kept myself without burden to you. Those who did not have false apostles were not weak. And I will keep it so. Because you still have such men, lest they find an occasion through us. The truth of Christ is in me. Just as Christ did not change what he once established, nor did he ever lie. For this boasting will not be broken. It is glory to despise even things granted for God's sake, especially if they suffer want. In me in the regions of Achaia. Where those are: therefore he received elsewhere. Why? Because I do not love you? God knows.

God knows whether I love you or not; indeed, this is why I do not accept, because I love. But what I do and will continue to do, so that I may cut off the occasion of those who want an occasion. Here he gives the reason why he himself does not accept. The false apostles, of course, were teaching, pursuing gluttony or avarice, and seeking an occasion for glory, so that if he had accepted bread, they might demand gold; so that if they preach for God's sake, as they say, it might immediately appear—certainly if they do not receive, they will not teach. So that in what they glory, they may be found just as we are. Such... are false apostles of this kind. Saying, "Thus says the Lord," when the Lord did not send them, and speaking visions from their own heart. They are deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ, and no wonder. A deceitful worker flees one thing and does another, and under the simple garb of preaching Christ, a beastly rapacity is concealed; such men, in order to please and by pleasing to receive, must flatter, and by flattering deceive, saying those things which please, not those which profit the hearer. For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. It is not so easy to give credence to dreams and certain visions as though they were angelic, lest perhaps Satan transform himself into an angel of light and deceive and trick the unwary. It is therefore no great thing if his ministers are transformed as ministers of righteousness. No wonder if ministers of avarice pretend to preach righteousness. Their end will be according to their works.

Those are evil works whose end is bad. I say again, let no one think me foolish. For he had already said above, "Bear with me a little in my folly," and had given the reason: because he was zealous for them with the zeal of God, not from a desire for glory, as though he were about to relate some things about himself—namely, lest, turned to hatred of him, they follow false apostles. Otherwise, "receive me as a fool, that I too may glory a little." Receive me as you wish. What I speak, I do not speak according to God, but as it were in folly. If the Apostle, compelled by necessity, denies that one should glory according to God among the people of God, but says it is from folly, what must be said of those others is manifest. In this substance of glory. For there is another substance of true glory. Since many glory according to the flesh, I too will glory. For to glory in the nobility of one's lineage is carnal. For you gladly bear with fools, since you yourselves are wise. For I see that you, though you have been taught that these things are of no importance, have so easily agreed with fools. For you bear it if anyone brings you into servitude. Into the servitude of the law, and of the priests, who exercised dominion over the people. If anyone devours, if anyone takes. If anyone devours, that is, consumes your substance by taking or seizing it. If anyone exalts himself. By money, by Jewish pride, whether of lineage or of knowledge. If anyone strikes you in the face. If anyone even rebukes you in your presence, or harasses you with insults. I speak according to ignobility.

It is the greatest ignobility if the sons of God boast in earthly nobility. As if we had been weak in this respect. As if in this respect we have less of anything than they, and do not rather preach to you things true and strong. In whatever anyone dares—I speak in foolishness—I also dare. I can dare if I wish. They are Hebrews, and I am. They are Israelites, and I am. They are the seed of Abraham, and I am. If they glory in this, that they are Hebrews, I also am of this race. They are ministers of Christ, and I am. I speak as less wise. It must be noted that if anyone even glories in the ministry of Christ, he glories carnally. I more. Than they. In many labors: in prisons more abundantly: in stripes beyond measure. He did not say, I preached so many things, but dismissing all his illustrious deeds, he enumerates those things which he endured. In deaths frequently. From the Jews five times I received forty lashes less one. In the Acts of the Apostles it has it once; five times he received thirty-nine, as a transgressor of the law. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned. These things are not all found in the Acts of the Apostles, because neither are all the things which are there contained in the Epistles. Three times I suffered shipwreck. There it has it once. Night and day I was in the deep sea—in the last peril, when we thought the ship was being overwhelmed in the deep by the mass of waves. In journeys—that is: in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own kindred, in perils from the Gentiles. He speaks of the kindred and people of the Jews.

In perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea. When those sailing were in peril, and they drove the ship onto the shore, because the prow remained fixed and immovable, but the stern was being loosened by the force of the sea. In perils from false brethren. Who crept in to spy out our liberty. In labor. Of hands. And in hardship. Misery. In many watchings, in hunger and thirst, in many fastings, in cold and nakedness. Hunger is of necessity, fasting of the will. Besides those things which are without, my daily pressing concern. As if he were saying, besides those things which are already customary and are thought lighter by that very habit. The care of all the churches. He shows what that care is. Who is weak. With the weak I am weak, with those perishing I believe myself to perish. And am I not weak? In faith. Who is scandalized, and I do not burn? With sorrow. If it is necessary to boast. If they wish to boast in these things, let them boast in those things in which I boast, though compelled; but because they do not have these, therefore they boast of carnal things. The things that are of my weakness, I will boast. All the foregoing sufferings he has designated by the name of weakness, because these things prevail against human weakness. God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows, who is blessed forever, that I do not lie.

...as if he were about to call it difficult, because the Jews, together with the leaders of the Gentiles, had conspired against him, he appeals to God's testimony beforehand, lest this be thought to be the boasting of one making a true claim—that kingdoms too had risen against him and could prevail in nothing. He enumerates these things, then, to show what the difference is between true and false apostles. The governor of the people of King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus. To seize me, and I was let down through a window in a basket through the wall, and so I escaped his hands. He was the governor of that people, over whom Aretas reigned.

CHAPTER XII. If it is necessary to boast, it is not indeed expedient. Nor is it expedient for me, because I am compelled by necessity. But I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. As if he were saying, my weaknesses are mine, but the visions are not mine, but the Lord's. I know a man in Christ. Whether he speaks of himself, and for the sake of humility speaks as if of another, or truly of another, either can stand. Fourteen years ago—whether in the body, I do not know, or outside the body, I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. Consider how great a necessity presses upon him, that what he had concealed for fourteen years he should afterward be compelled to disclose. And I know such a man—whether in the body or outside the body, I do not know, God knows—that he was caught up into paradise. Repeating this again—whether in the body or outside the body, I do not know—he shows that there was another vision. And he heard secret words. Hidden things.

Things that it is not lawful for a man to speak. Either things that it is not permitted for any man to speak, or things that it is impossible for human nature to narrate. For such a one I will glory, but for myself I will glory in nothing, except in my weaknesses. Either for such a vision, or for such a man. But for myself nothing, or for my own power, because it is not mine, but the Lord's revelation. For even if I should wish to glory, I shall not be foolish, for I shall speak the truth. Here he seems to show that, as though he were speaking of another, when he says that even he has that of which he might glory, but is unwilling. But I spare, lest anyone should think of me. There are also hidden things which I could bring forth in truth, but I spare, that is, I do not do it. Beyond what he sees in me. Manifest things suffice, even if hidden things are concealed. Or hears something from me. Let each one estimate me only by these things which he sees in me, or hears from me. And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, a thorn in my flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan. How many are the things I conceal! so that a thorn was rightly necessary for me, to remind me that I am a man. That it might buffet me. Satan was buffeting him, either by stirring up tribulations or by inflicting pains; for some say that he suffered from frequent headache. Others say he was goaded by the titillation of the flesh; but it is more to be believed that it was continual tribulations. For this reason I besought the Lord three times, that it might depart from me.

We understand also that the saints have asked for certain things contrary to their good; and at the same time we learn that an importunate request either deserves an answer, or, if it does not obtain its effect, [God] grants it all the more. For when God does not give what is not expedient, then he hears the more. And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you: for power is made perfect in weakness. Which you have, or which frees you—what power is it but that to which it belongs not to puff up? And who doubts that this belongs to righteousness? This perfection of power the Apostle did not yet have, he was not yet equal to the angels of God: but there was in him a weakness of exalting himself, which had also to be repressed through an angel of Satan, lest he be exalted by the greatness of revelations. Why through an angel of Satan? Because frequently even a remedy is made from serpents against the poisons of serpents. What then is: My grace is sufficient for you, except: lest by failing you succumb under the blow of the angel of Satan? And what is: Power is made perfect in weakness, except that in this place of weakness perfection of power can exist up to this point, so that with weakness itself present, elation may be restrained, so that it belongs to its perfection even to have both the knowledge of that very imperfection in truth and the confession of it in humility? Gladly therefore I will glory in my weaknesses. After I have come to know that what I thought harmed me was of benefit. That the power of Christ may dwell in me. Not in power. For this reason I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults. Not in honors. In necessities. Not in leisure.

In persecutions, not in greetings. In hardships, not in riches. For Christ, not for greed or for any crime, as the Savior also says, so that we suffer for the cause of justice alone. For when I am weak, then I am powerful. The greatest power is to be weak for Christ. I have become foolish; you compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you. It is the part of a fool to recount his own labors and to boast of his own virtues. But you compelled this, who, when you ought to have given satisfaction to others about me, since I was in no way inferior to the great apostles, now again have need that we commend ourselves to you. For I have done nothing less than those who are apostles beyond measure. How much more than these! Although I am nothing, nevertheless the signs of my apostleship were wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. I indeed am nothing, because I am a man, but his apostleship showed its signs in you, that is, the power of virtue and wonders. For what is it that you lacked compared with the other Churches, to which other apostles preached, except that I myself did not burden you? Because I received nothing from you. Grant me this injury. If you think this is an injury, forgive it. Behold, this third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you; for I do not seek what is yours, but you. For children ought not to lay up treasure for their parents. I seek your salvation, not gifts. But parents for their children. I ought rather to give you what I have.

But I will most gladly spend. If I have anything. And I myself will be spent over and above for your souls. Though loving you more, I am loved less. What I have I spend by labor, and I myself will be spent over and above for your souls: for perfect love not only spends freely all that it has, but is itself also freely spent. Where it is necessary. But be it so, I did not burden you. Through all things he clears himself, always questioning their conscience, and at the same time showing them how they should beware of him. But being crafty, I caught you by guile. Did I circumvent you through any of those whom I sent to you? I asked Titus, and I sent the brother with him. Perhaps. Did Titus circumvent you? By no means, no. Did we not walk in the same spirit? Did he take anything from you to bring to me, or teach otherwise than you see me teach? Did we not in the same footsteps? You think that we excuse ourselves to you. No, as I said above, we say these things not that we may please you: but lest, when we come, it be necessary for us to vindicate more sharply. We speak before God in Christ, but all things, dearest ones, for your edification. Which it is impossible to deceive. For I fear lest perhaps, when I come, I find you not such as I wish, and I be found by you such as you do not wish. If I do not find you just, I too will be found by you severe. He makes use of flatteries least of all. Lest perhaps there be contentions, rivalries, animosities, dissensions, detractions, whisperings, puffing up, seditions among you.

If he said that he punished these things most severely, what would he do if he found them in our times, in which, in comparison with greater crimes, these are not even considered sins? There is strife, where something is defended not by reason but by stubbornness of mind. There is a whisperer, because he murmurs, and speaks evil not to someone's face but about him to others. And again, when I come, God will humble me among you. And this I fear. And I will mourn for many of those who sinned before and did not repent of their uncleanness and fornication. Against the Novatians, who deny repentance. If he mourns those who do not repent, then surely he rejoices over those who do. And the shamelessness which they practiced. Shamelessness is more serious, as it were a monstrous fornication, just as he did who took his father's wife.

CHAPTER XIII. Behold, this third time I am coming to you. For already twice he had been. Every word shall stand on the mouth of two or three witnesses. According to the law. For I have foretold and I foretell, as present, and now absent, to those who sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again, I will not spare. Those who sinned afterward I will not spare either, because the ruin of the former ought to have made these more cautious. Or do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? Or do you tempt Christ in me, whether he is able to punish for you? And it must be noted that his doctrine is proved to be not human but Christ's; and whoever criticizes it is found without doubt to be rebellious against God. Who is not weak in you.

It can be said that he is not weak but powerful, and you are not ignorant of this. But he is powerful in us. If he is also powerful in you, how much more in us, who are more capable of him! For even if he was crucified. That he was crucified is our part; that he lives is his. He was crucified from weakness. Of human nature. But he lives by the power of God: for we also are weak in him. But we also are indeed weak in the present, but in the future we will live with him, not in our own power but in God's. But we will live with him, by the power of God in us. If you provoke us who are weak, you will find that we live with Christ in the power of God, when we begin to take vengeance on you. Test yourselves, whether you are in the faith: prove yourselves. If you are in the faith, recognize us from yourselves, give sentence against the one who sins, and see whether the word of vengeance does not proceed at once. Do you not recognize yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless perhaps you are reprobate? Do you not know that Christ, the power of God, is in you? if indeed you are not reprobate, that is, if he has not abandoned you through your negligence. But I hope that you will recognize that we are not reprobate. I hope that we will perceive how I see you conducting yourselves. But we pray to God that you do nothing evil. For if you have done something, by our taking vengeance we will appear approved; but we prefer to seem reprobate, so long as you do what is good. Not that we may appear approved, but that you may do what is good. Understood is, I pray. But that we may be reprobate.

For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. For our judgment does not prevail against the innocent, but only against him who has sinned. For we rejoice when we are weak, but you are powerful. We rejoice if it is not necessary that our power appear—as Peter's power appeared in Ananias and Sapphira, and ours in Simon Magus. This also we pray: your perfection, that you may be perfect and powerful. Therefore I write these things while absent, so that when present I may not act more harshly according to the authority which the Lord gave me. For if you do not correct yourselves, I will still act more harshly than I say—for building up, so that both you may be amended and others may fear to sin—and not for destruction. Your perfection: as those men claim it for themselves. For the rest, brothers, rejoice, be perfect. It must be noted that, writing to every Church, he says they ought to be perfect, and that he commands laypeople to exhort one another, as he says elsewhere: I would that all men were as I myself am. But because there follows: Each one has his own gift from God—perfection lies in the givers, not in the power of the receivers. Exhort one another, be of the same mind, have peace. This is one thing. And the God of peace and love will be with you. But if the author of dissension and hatred is with you, you will also be with him forever. Greet one another with a holy kiss—not a feigned one. All the saints greet you—not the rich. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Against the Arians, who slanderously claim that the Father is greater because he is always named first. Be with you all. Amen. As it is with some of you who are more righteous, so may it be with all of you.

THE EPISTLE OF THE BLESSED PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

ARGUMENT.

The Galatians are Greeks: these first received the word of truth from the Apostle, but after his departure they were tempted by false apostles, so as to be turned aside into the law and circumcision: the Apostle recalls them to the faith of the truth, writing to them from Ephesus. As is apparent from the argument, the Galatians had been persuaded and seduced by false apostles, because they heard that Paul, through whom they had believed the true Gospel, was not an apostle—evidently because he was neither one of the twelve chosen, nor had he at any time followed Christ as Peter and the others had. This disparagement he must needs refute with true arguments from the authority of the Holy Spirit, proving in order that he was sent neither by men nor through man, but through him who chose both him and the others into the order of apostleship.

CHAPTER ONE. Paul an apostle. As has often been said, "little one," from humility. Not from men, nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ. Not from human presumption, nor through the apostles, as Aaron through Moses; but through God himself and the Lord, as Moses and the apostles and the prophets. Many are ordained by men, when by the favor of the people, not worthy, despising the patience of the Lord; and to show his authority to be greater, he added: Through Jesus Christ; and God the Father, who raised him. Because the operation of both the Son and the Father is one; and so that you may know that Christ is God, by whom he was made an apostle, carefully note that he named the Son before the Father, against the calumnies of the Arians. From the dead According to that in which he could die, namely in the flesh. And all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia. Lest, if he were alone, he might be thought to bear indignantly that his teaching was trampled underfoot. Grace to you. Because you have been saved by faith alone through the grace of God. And peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Because, with all sins forgiven, they had been reconciled to God. Who gave himself for our sins, to deliver us. He shows the benefits of Christ, toward which they are ungrateful, wishing to live in the law, which was given to sinners, to whom all sins have been forgiven. From the present evil age. From the evil works of the age, which are done in it. According to the will of our God and Father, to whom is glory. Not according to our merits. Forever and ever.

To infinite benefits, infinite glory is owed. Amen. He concludes the prologue with its own Amen, in the Hebrew tongue. The Seventy translated Amen as "so be it"; Aquila as "truly" or "faithfully"; and it is also always taken up in the Gospel by the Savior, confirming His words with His Amen. I marvel that you are so quickly transferred from Him who called you. Having enumerated the benefits, he says he marvels that they could be drawn away by mere words from Him from whom they ought not to have been separated by any torments. Ungrateful to Christ, to another gospel. Not to the law. Which is not another, except that there are some who trouble you. There cannot be another gospel. And they wish to turn around the gospel of Christ. In a perverse order, while the law was advancing toward the gospel, they strive to recall the gospel back to the law. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel other than what we preached to you. Briefly he has prejudged every person, since he permitted neither the apostles, contrary to what he had once preached, nor the voice of an angel speaking from heaven to be heard. He does this, moreover, against all heretics who attempt to change the apostolic traditions. Let him be anathema. Let him be abominable to you. As we have said before, so now I say again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than what you have received, let him be anathema. He repeats it, to commend it more strongly. For now. He wishes to show that he must freely preach the truth, not fearing the hatred of men. Am I now persuading men.

as I formerly did because of the traditions of the Jews? Do I persuade men? I give satisfaction. Or do I seek to please men? Wherever "men" is named without some qualification, it is generally taken in a bad sense, as in that passage, "Every man is a liar," and, "Whom do men say that I am?" and, "Are you not men?" Therefore whoever wishes to please such men must necessarily do their will; but the saints please God alone and those who love God, who are now said to be more than men. If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ. For they hate me because I am a servant of Christ. For I make known to you, brothers, the Gospel which was preached by me, that it is not according to man. He wishes to clear away the usurpations and infamy of human tradition. For neither did I receive it from man, nor did I fashion it from myself, nor did I receive from another that the Gentiles are saved by faith alone. At the same time it should be noted that here he calls Christ God, from whom he received the Gospel. I received it, not learned it, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Between receiving and learning there is this difference: one receives the Gospel when it is first instilled into him and he is brought to faith in it, so that he believes the things that are written are true; one learns it when the things that are figured in it through enigmas and parables he comes to know explained and set forth. For you have heard. Nor does what I say escape you. My manner of life at one time in Judaism. Here he enumerates how firmly he held to Judaism, and how for the sake of tradition.

he stormed the Church by the ancestral traditions, so as to show that he could not have been separated from it by human counsel, but only by divine revelation and mercy. Because beyond measure I was persecuting the Church of God and storming it. He sets forth his own example: that if I, who was born a Jew and educated there, do not follow the ceremonies of the law, what ought you to do? And I was advancing in Judaism. Not in the law of God, but in the tradition of the fathers. Above many of my contemporaries in my own nation. He did not say above all, lest an occasion for boasting should seem to arise. Existing more abundantly as a zealot for my paternal traditions. He recalls the paternal traditions, not the commandments of the Lord. But when it pleased him who separated me from my mother's womb. He who had already separated me from the womb in the present time, when he willed it, did what he knew would be. His mother's womb can also be understood as the Synagogue. And he called me through your grace. Not by my merits. To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles. Through me, or in me. But he revealed him not only on the way, but also in other places. Immediately I did not acquiesce. Immediately I was not unbelieving toward the heavenly vision, because I did not hear the voice of flesh and blood, but of the Lord, nor did I confer with flesh and blood. With flesh and blood, that is, with my own kindred. Nor did I come to Jerusalem to the apostles who preceded me, but I went away into Arabia, and again I returned to Damascus.

so that I might learn something from them; but I departed from Damascus into Arabia, to teach what had been revealed to me. Then after three years I came to Jerusalem. Therefore after three years, so that we understand that he had not been unworthy of the teaching, because he had already taught for three years. He goes, then, to see Peter, when it is reported that he tried to join himself to the disciples. To see Peter: for the sake of seeing, not of learning. And I remained with him fifteen days. Let him show that he was received by him in charity, and that in a short time he could learn nothing. But I saw none other of the apostles. Lest, if not from Peter, he might seem to have learned from others. Except James the brother of the Lord. By kinship with Mary. But what I write to you, behold, before God, that I do not lie. Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. But I was unknown. It is to be noted that after three years he saw those who were unknown. By face to the churches of Judaea, which were in Christ. But they had only heard, that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once attacked. For those who at that time had believed from the Jews had their own churches separately, nor were they mingled with those who were from the Gentiles. And they glorified in me. In a difficult matter there is a great miracle. God. Who alone can make an apostle out of a persecutor, and a good man out of a bad one.

CHAPTER 1. Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. When the question about the burdens of the law was raised. But I went up according to revelation. Not according to my own will. And I conferred with them the Gospel. I did not learn from them, but I conferred it with them. It is one thing to confer, another to learn: in conferring there is equality; between the one teaching and the one learning, the one who learns is lesser. What I preach among the Gentiles. That they are saved by grace alone and by faith. But separately. Lest they should think the disciples doubted. To those who seemed to be something. The more eminent. Lest perhaps I should run in vain, or had run. This is not the language of one who doubts, but of one who confirms. But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Gentile, was compelled to be circumcised. Nor does it always carry the negation with it. But because of false brothers secretly brought in, who slipped in, He gives the reasons why, according to the Latin copies, he circumcised Titus: not that circumcision would profit him, but that scandal might be avoided. to spy out our freedom, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into servitude. By which we are free from the yoke of the law. To whom we did not yield in subjection even for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might remain with you. The Latin has: To whom we yielded for an hour, that we might avoid danger, and that there might be those among you who would confirm the truth of the Gospel: not having completed the sense he had begun, he introduced another; when that is completed, he returns to what he had begun.

But from those who seemed to be something, I received nothing. If therefore we, among so many Jews, with brethren pressing in from this side and that, partly conniving, could be compelled by no force or reasoning to observe circumcision, which we knew to have been ended—do you, from the Gentiles, you in Galatia, you upon whom no force can be brought, of your own accord withdrawing from grace, pass over to the antiquity of a law now abolished, and observe ceremonies now no longer necessary? What sort they once were is no concern of mine. It is no care of mine that they conversed with the Lord. For God does not accept the person of a man; but to me those who seemed to be something contributed nothing. Indeed, time does not prejudice faith. But on the contrary, when they had seen that the Gospel of the uncircumcision was entrusted to me, as to Peter that of the circumcision—that I should preach to the Gentiles, as Peter to the Jews. For he who worked in the apostleship of Peter for the circumcision worked also in me among the Gentiles. I am not inferior to them, because we are both from one, ordained into one ministry. And when they had known the grace that was given to me: James, and Cephas, and John. Here he gives the reason, and the names, and who those were whom he had mentioned above. Who seemed to be pillars. The firmament of the Church, and those on whom it leaned. They gave me the right hands. They consented that we ought so to teach. And to Barnabas of fellowship. For we were both sent together by the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles.

So that we might go to the Gentiles, but they themselves to the circumcision. They were, it is implied. Only that we should be mindful of the poor. Those who had sold their possessions and laid them at the apostles' feet, or whose goods had been seized by the Jews, as it is said to the Hebrews: And you joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods. I was also careful to do this very thing. In every epistle he presses this point. But when Cephas had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face. The weakness of the Galatians compelled him to relate that he had not spared even Peter himself, who was not freely defending the truth of the Gospel, just as for the profit of the Corinthians he made manifest the vision which he had kept hidden for fourteen years. But he does all this to show that he had never been a supporter of circumcision, as the false apostles boasted concerning him. Because he was deserving of blame. By the Gentiles: because he was forcing them to judaize. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles. He was eating with those who were from the Gentiles, knowing that it had been said to him by the Lord that he should call no man unclean. But when they had come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision, and the rest of the Jews consented to his pretense. He is not blamed for this reason, that he was eating with them, but because he afterwards withdrew himself. So that Barnabas was led by them into that same pretense. He who was sent with me to the Gentiles had proclaimed that there was no difference between Jew and Gentile.

But when I saw that they were not walking rightly toward the truth of the Gospel. Although he did this on account of the scandal of the Jews, nevertheless I confronted him publicly, so that both the pride of the Jews might be removed and the despair of the Gentiles. I said to Cephas before all. A public scandal could not be healed privately. If you, being a Jew. He gave a reason, he did not do an injury: if you do not hold to what you were born into, how do you make them hold to what they were not born into? You live as a Gentile and not as a Jew. Not from works, but by faith alone through grace you know that you have life. How do you compel the Gentiles to judaize? We are Jews by nature, and not from the Gentiles. By withdrawing yourself as if from those who have something (that is, evil). Sinners. Nevertheless sinners, because Scripture has concluded all things under sin. But knowing that a man is not justified from the works of the law. Of the law, not of the works of righteousness. But the works of the law are circumcision, the sabbath, the days of rest, washings and the rest, which were commanded not for the sake of righteousness, but for the sake of occupying the people. Unless through faith in Jesus Christ: and we believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not from the works of the law, that is, the faith given by Christ. For which reason no flesh will be justified from the works of the law. At this time. According to the simple understanding, formerly not all flesh was justified from the law, but only those men who were in Palestine.

But now also all flesh is justified by faith in Jesus Christ, while his Church is established throughout the whole world. But if, seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also have been found to be sinners. For if faith alone did not save the Gentiles, neither did it save us, because no one will be justified by works. Therefore we are still sinners, and Christ is a minister of sinners, as though he were unable to forgive sins. Is Christ then a minister of sin? By no means. He ministers to sinners, as Moses did, because through Moses, that is, through the law, sins were increased, not taken away. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. I destroyed the Jew's having nothing more, if I rebuild this again, as they say, I am found to be a contradictor of my own sentence. For I through the law died to the law. Through the law of Christ I died to the old law, or through that old law itself I died to it, because it foretold that it would cease. That I might live to God. Not to the world. I have been crucified with Christ. I died to all sins, on account of which the law was given. Therefore the law is in no way necessary for me. But I no longer live. The old man does not live, he who once lived in the law, who persecuted the Church; but Christ lives in him, wisdom, strength, word, peace, joy, and the other virtues, which he who does not have cannot say: But Christ lives in me. But he disputes all this in his own person against Peter, concerning Peter. But Christ lives in me.

In that man Christ lives, in whom his virtues live. But that I now live in the flesh: it is one thing to be in the flesh, another to live in the flesh; for those who are in the flesh cannot please God; whence it is said to those who live well: But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. I live in faith in the Son of God. In faith alone: because I owe nothing to the law. Who loved me, and gave himself for me. That he might do his Father's will and his own. He gave himself for me, not something else. I do not reject the grace of God. I ought not to be ungrateful to him who loved me so much that he did not refuse to die for me. For I reject grace, if this alone is not enough for me. For if righteousness is through the law. If the law could justify, Christ died in vain. Let those be ashamed who say that the law brought men into the kingdom. Therefore Christ died for nothing. Up to this point he speaks against Peter, or against the Jews: now he returns to the Galatians.

CHAPTER 3. O foolish Galatians. This is not contrary to the Savior, who forbids calling a brother a fool, for it is not said without cause. He calls them foolish because they could not distinguish the spirit of the law from the letter. Who has. Who has envied you, as Solomon says: The eye that sees the house torments it. Has he bewitched you so that you do not believe the truth? What among us is called the envious one is rendered more significantly in Greek as ( ) the bewitcher. A fascination is said properly to harm those of ill repute, and the child that is brought, and those who do not yet plant their step with firm footing. Whence is that saying: Who bewitches my tender lambs with his eye? Therefore, just as tender age is said to be harmed by fascination, so too the Galatians, recently born and nourished in the faith of Christ, were harmed by some bewitcher and, nauseated by the stomach of faith, vomited up the food of the Holy Spirit. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was set forth as condemned. To whom his passion was made so manifest by my preaching that you thought him to hang before your eyes. And in you crucified. He has received the sentence; or, whom you even now hold as vile, as one condemned. This one thing only I wish to learn from you. This one thing I ask you: did the Holy Spirit give you the works of the law, or the hearing of faith? Did you receive the Holy Spirit from the works of the law, or from the hearing of faith? If you received the Spirit from faith, what more will the law confer on you? So foolish are you that, when you had begun with the spirit.

Since the Jews receive the Spirit in no other way than through faith, you on the contrary think that the Spirit is not sufficient for you unless you also subject yourselves to the law. Now you are being perfected in the flesh. You have suffered so many things without cause. Notice that whoever follows Scripture according to the letter is said to be perfected in the flesh. If indeed without cause. If you have suffered for Christ, yet not in vain. Here, "if indeed," is not the word of one who doubts, but of one who confirms: as is that passage: If indeed it is just before the Lord to repay those who afflict you with affliction, and to you who are afflicted, rest with us. He therefore who supplies you with the Spirit and works mighty deeds in you. You received the Holy Spirit by power alone, which is received only by the righteous. It is therefore evident that you were righteous without the works of the law. From the works of the law, or from the hearing of faith? The works of the law are the leisure of the sabbath, the observance of circumcision, and the superstition of ceremonies. As it is written: Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. So also for you faith alone is sufficient for righteousness. Know therefore that those who are of faith. Whether Jews or Greeks. These are the sons of Abraham. Not those who are circumcised in the flesh. But Scripture, foreseeing. Seeing beforehand. Because God justifies the Gentiles by faith, he announced beforehand to Abraham. Not from works, but from faith, which he inspires in him by his grace. Because in you all the nations will be blessed. Not the Israelites alone. Therefore those who are of faith will be blessed with the faithful Abraham.

For not all the nations are circumcised, so that they could be blessed from works. For whoever are of the works of the law are under a curse. Because the habit of sinning has so prevailed that no one keeps the law, and therefore not undeservedly they are subject to the curse. For it is written, Cursed is everyone. It is asked whether faith alone suffices for a Christian, and whether he who does not keep the precepts of the gospel is not cursed. Faith suffices to make the one who first believes righteous, if thereafter he remains in justification; otherwise it is dead without works, but works of faith, not of the law. He who does not believe God attends to the commandments, and the Savior taught that those who despise the precepts of the Gospel are cursed, saying: Depart from me, you cursed, into eternal fire. And the apostle James: Whoever is a transgressor of one commandment has shown himself guilty of all. But the learned understand that one transgression to be against charity, on which the whole law and the prophets depend. For some say that faith without works is profitable, because even if a baptized person passes from his state, or certainly lacks the means by which to work, faith without works suffices, for works without faith are nothing. He who has not remained in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them. That is, he who has not kept all the commandments of the law to the end. But that no one is justified before God in the law is manifest. At this time the law justifies no one, just as neither before did it profit without faith.

Because the just man lives by faith. Faith is perfect when one believes not only Christ but also in Christ. He lives: he has life. But the law is not of faith, because it does not justify. The just man, therefore, lives by faith, and he is not added among these or among those. But he who lives in the law, if he has done them, lives in them, that is, in the things he has done, which he thought good, having the reward of his labor, only those works which he did in the present life, whether length of life, as the Jews think, or the turning aside of present punishment, by which the transgressor of the law is put to death. But he who has done them will live in them. He lives by his own labor; he was living under fear in that law as long as Christ was not yet come. He who was not under the curse, because he alone fulfilled the law in all things, and therefore by his undebted curse our curse was compensated, so that we, passing freely to faith, might not care for the works of the law. For he redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us. He who buys buys another's property; but he who redeems buys properly what was his own and has ceased to be his own. Christ therefore redeemed us from the curse of the law, which was established for sinners, as he says: Behold, you were sold for your sins, and the rest. Because it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. It must be considered that not whoever has hung on a tree is cursed before God, but he who has sinned and for his crime has been sentenced to death.

He is not therefore accursed because he was crucified, whoever is evil, but because he deserved to be crucified for his guilt, since it is not the punishment that makes a man guilty, but the cause. For thus it is written: If anyone has a judgment of death against him, you shall hang him on a tree, and his body shall not remain on the wood, because every one who hangs on a tree is accursed. He is not accursed because he hung there, but he hung there because he was accursed. Christ therefore, against whom there was no judgment of death, nor any cause for the cross and for being accursed, underwent the curse for us, because we were all guilty of death and debtors to the tree, since we were accursed—we who did not remain in all things that were written in the book of the law; for the same law had decreed both curses. That in the Gentiles the blessing of Abraham might be made in Christ Jesus. That by faith alone the Gentiles might be blessed in Christ, as had been promised to Abraham. That we might receive the promise of the Spirit. Which was promised through Joel to all flesh, that is, to every kind of human being: in part for the whole, according to synecdoche. Through faith. Alone. Brothers, I speak according to man. I speak by a human comparison: for human things can be compared to divine things for the sake of clearer understanding, but they cannot be equated. Nevertheless, no one despises or sets aside a man's confirmed testament. That is, a testament duly written is not said to be without a clause. To Abraham the promises were spoken. He calls the promises to Abraham the New Testament. And I remembered him. By God.