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| Chapter XVIII. Of the number of different conflicts and victories through which the blessed Apostle ascended to the crown of the highest combat.
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Chapter XVIII.
Of the number of different conflicts and victories
through which the blessed Apostle ascended to the crown of the highest
combat.
But he does not mean that
he has only finished the contest of a race when he says “I so
run, not as uncertainly” (a phrase which has more particularly to
do with the intention of the mind and fervour of his spirit, in which
he followed Christ with all zeal, crying out with the Bride, “We
will run after thee for the odour of thine ointments;”853
and again, “My soul cleaveth unto
thee:”854
but he also
testifies that he has conquered in another kind of contest, saying,
“So fight I, not as one that beateth the air, but I chastise my
body and bring it into subjection.” And this properly has to do
with the pains of abstinence, and bodily fasting and affliction of the
flesh: as he means by this that he is a vigorous bruiser of his own
flesh, and points out that not in vain has he planted his blows of
continence against it; but that he has gained a battle triumph by
mortifying his own body; for when it is chastised with the blows of
continence and struck down with the boxing-gloves of fasting, he has
secured for his victorious spirit the crown of immortality and the
prize of incorruption. You see the orthodox method of the contest, and
consider the issue of spiritual combats: how the athlete of Christ
having gained a victory over the rebellious flesh, having cast it as it
were under his feet, is carried forward as triumphing on high. And
therefore “he does not run uncertainly,” because he trusts
that he will forthwith enter the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem. He
“so fights,” that is with fasts and humiliation of the
flesh, “not as one that beateth the air,” that is, striking
into space with blows of continence, through which he struck not the
empty air, but those spirits who inhabit it, by the chastisement of his
body. For one who says “not as one that beateth the air,”
shows that he strikes—not empty and void air, but certain beings
in the air. And because he had overcome in this kind of contest, and
marched on enriched with the rewards of many crowns, not undeservedly
does he begin to enter the lists against still more powerful foes, and
having triumphed over his former rivals, he boldly makes proclamation
and says, “Now our striving is not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against world-rulers of this
darkness, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly
places.”855
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