Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| The Diverse Forms of Spiritual Sickness.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
24. The Diverse Forms of Spiritual Sickness.
And, if you wish to see of what nature are the
sicknesses of the soul, contemplate with me the lovers of money, and
the lovers of ambition, and the lovers of boys, and if any be fond of
women; for these also beholding among the crowds and taking compassion
upon them, He healed. For not every sin is to be considered a
sickness, but that which has settled down in the whole soul. For
so you may see the lovers of money wholly intent on money and upon
preserving and gathering it, the lovers of ambition wholly intent on a
little glory, for they gape for praise from the masses and the vulgar;
and analogously you will understand in the case of the rest which we
have named, and if there be any other like to them. Since, then,
when expounding the words, “He healed their sick,”5330
we said that not every sin is a sickness, it
is fitting to discuss from the Scripture the difference of these.
The Apostle indeed says, writing to the Corinthians who had diverse
sicknesses, “For this cause many among you are weak and sickly,
and not a few sleep.”5331
Hear Him in
these words, knitting a band and making it plaited of different sins,
according as some are weak, and others sickly more than weak, and
others, in comparison with both, are asleep. For some, because of
impotence of soul, having a tendency to slip into any sin whatever,
although they may not be wholly in the grasp of any form of sin, as the
sickly are, are only weak; but others who, instead of loving God
“with all their soul and all their heart and all their
mind,” love money, or a little glory, or wife, or children, are
suffering from something worse than weakness, and are sickly. And
those who sleep are those who, when they ought to be taking heed and
watching with the soul, are not doing this, but by reason of great want
of attention are nodding in resolution and are drowsy in their
reflections, such as “in their dreamings defile the flesh, and
set at naught that which is highest in authority, and rail at
dignities.”5332
And these,
because they are asleep, live in an atmosphere of vain and dream-like
fancies concerning realities, not admitting the things which are
actually true, but deceived by what appears in their vain imaginations,
in regard to whom it is said in Isaiah, “Like as when a thirsty
man dreams that he is drinking, but when he has risen up is still
thirsty, and his soul has cherished a vain hope, so shall be the wealth
of all the nations as many as have warred in Jerusalem.”5333
If, then, we have seemed to make a
digression in recounting the difference between the weak and the sickly
and those that sleep, because of that which the Apostle said in the
letter to the Corinthians which we have expounded, we have made the
digression in our desire to represent what is meant to be understood by
the saying, “And He healed their sick.”5334
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
