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| No Man Hates His Own Flesh, Not Even Those Who Abuse It.
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Chapter 24.—No Man Hates His Own
Flesh, Not Even Those Who Abuse It.
24. No man, then, hates
himself. On this point, indeed, no question was ever raised by
any sect. But neither does any man hate his own body. For the
apostle says truly, “No man ever yet hated his own flesh.”1735
And when
some people say that they would rather be without a body
altogether, they entirely deceive themselves. For it is not their
body, but its corruptions and its heaviness, that they hate. And
so it is not no body, but an uncorrupted and very light body, that
they want. But they think a body of that kind would be no body at
all, because they think such a thing as that must be a spirit.
And as to the fact that they seem in some sort to scourge their
bodies by abstinence and toil, those who do this in the right
spirit do it not that they may get rid of their body, but that they
may have it in subjection and ready for every needful work. For
they strive by a kind of toilsome exercise of the body itself to
root out those lusts that are hurtful to the body, that is, those
habits and affections of the soul that lead to the enjoyment of
unworthy objects. They are not destroying themselves; they are
taking care of their health.
25. Those, on the other hand, who
do this in a perverse spirit, make war upon their own
body as if
it were a natural enemy. And in this matter they are led astray
by a mistaken interpretation of what they read: “The flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and
these are contrary the one to the other.”1736
For this is said of the carnal
habit yet unsubdued, against which the spirit lusteth, not to
destroy the body, but to eradicate the lust of the
body—i.e., its evil habit—and thus to make it subject to
the spirit, which is what the order of nature demands. For as,
after the resurrection, the body, having become wholly subject to
the spirit, will live in perfect peace to all eternity; even in
this life we must make it an object to have the carnal habit
changed for the better, so that its inordinate affections may not
war against the soul. And until this shall take place, “the
flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the
flesh;” the spirit struggling, not in hatred, but for the
mastery, because it desires that what it loves should be subject to
the higher principle; and the flesh struggling, not in hatred, but
because of the bondage of habit which it has derived from its
parent stock, and which has grown in upon it by a law of nature
till it has become inveterate. The spirit, then, in subduing the
flesh, is working as it were to destroy the ill-founded peace of an
evil habit, and to bring about the real peace which springs out of
a good habit. Nevertheless, not even those who, led astray by
false notions, hate their bodies would be prepared to sacrifice one
eye, even supposing they could do so without suffering any pain,
and that they had as much sight left in one as they formerly had in
two, unless some object was to be attained which would overbalance
the loss. This and other indications of the same kind are
sufficient to show those who candidly seek the truth how
well-founded is the statement of the apostle when he says, “No
man ever yet hated his own flesh.” He adds too, “but
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church.”1737
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