2 Corinthians 12:9

1. Long-suffering therefore was God, when man became a defaulter, as foreseeing that victory which should be granted to him through the Word. For, when strength was made perfect in weakness, it showed the kindness and transcendent power of God. For as He patiently suffered Jonah to be swallowed by the whale, not that he should be swallowed up and perish altogether, but that, having been cast out again, he might be the more subject to God, and might glorify Him the more who had conferred upon him such an unhoped-for deliverance, and might bring the Ninevites to a lasting repentance, so that they should be converted to the Lord, who would deliver them from death, having been struck with awe by that portent which had been wrought in Jonah’s case, as the Scripture says of them, “And they returned each from his evil way, and the unrighteousness which was in their hands, saying, Who knoweth if …

1. The Apostle Paul has, moreover, in the most lucid manner, pointed out that man has been delivered over to his own infirmity, lest, being uplifted, he might fall away from the truth. Thus he says in the second [Epistle] to the Corinthians: “And lest I should be lifted up by the sublimity of the revelations, there was given unto me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me. And upon this I besought the Lord three times, that it might depart from me. But he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for strength is made perfect in weakness. Gladly therefore shall I rather glory in infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” What, therefore? (as some may exclaim:) did the Lord wish, in that case, that His apostles should thus undergo buffeting, and that he should endure such infirmity? Even so it was; the word says it. …

The flesh is not, according to Marcion, immersed in the water of the sacrament, unless it be in virginity, widowhood, or celibacy, or has purchased by divorce a title to baptism, as if even generative impotents did not all receive their flesh from nuptial union. Now, such a scheme as this must no doubt involve the proscription of marriage. Let us see, then, whether it be a just one: not as if we aimed at destroying the happiness of sanctity, as do certain Nicolaitans in their maintenance of lust and luxury, but as those who have come to the knowledge of sanctity, and pursue it and prefer it, without detriment, however, to marriage; not as if we superseded a bad thing by a good, but only a good thing by a better. For we do not reject marriage, but simply refrain from it. …

As to the house of this our earthly dwelling-place, when he says that “we have an eternal home in heaven, not made with hands,” he by no means would imply that, because it was built by the Creator’s hand, it must perish in a perpetual dissolution after death. He treats of this subject in order to offer consolation against the fear of death and the dread of this very dissolution, as is even more manifest from what follows, when he adds, that “in this tabernacle of our earthly body we do groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with the vesture which is from heaven, if so be, that having been unclothed, we shall not be found naked;” in other words, shall regain that of which we have been divested, even our body. …

To recapitulate, then: Shall that very flesh, which the Divine Creator formed with His own hands in the image of God; which He animated with His own afflatus , after the likeness of His own vital vigour; which He set over all the works of His hand, to dwell amongst, to enjoy, and to rule them; which He clothed with His sacraments and His instructions; whose purity He loves, whose mor tifications He approves; whose sufferings for Himself He deems precious; (shall that flesh, I say), so often brought near to God, not rise again? God forbid, God forbid, (I repeat), that He should abandon to everlasting destruction the labour of His own hands, the care of His own thoughts, the receptacle of His own Spirit, the queen of His creation, the inheritor of His own liberality, the priestess of His religion, the champion of His testimony, the sister of His Christ! We know by experience the goodness o …

For that must be living after the world, which, as the old man, he declares to be “crucified with Christ,” not as a bodily structure, but as moral behaviour. Besides, if we do not understand it in this sense, it is not our bodily frame which has been transfixed (at all events), nor has our flesh endured the cross of Christ; but the sense is that which he has subjoined, “that the body of sin might be made void,” by an amendment of life, not by a destruction of the substance, as he goes on to say, “that henceforth we should not serve sin;” and that we should believe ourselves to be “dead with Christ,” in such a manner as that “we shall also live with Him.” On the same principle he says: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed.” To what? To the flesh? No, but “unto sin.” Accordingly as to the flesh they will be saved, “alive unto God in Christ Jesus,” through the flesh of cour …

We know plainly at this point, too, the suspicions which they raise. For, in fact, they suspect the Apostle Paul of having, in the second (Epistle) to the Corinthians, granted pardon to the self-same fornicator whom in the first he has publicly sentenced to be “surrendered to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh,”, impious heir as he was to his father’s wedlock; as if he subsequently erased his own words, writing: “But if any hath wholly saddened, he hath not wholly saddened me , but in part, lest I burden you all. Sufficient is such a chiding which is given by many; so that, on the contrary, ye should prefer to forgive and console, lest, perhaps, by more abundant sadness, such an one be devoured. For which reason, I pray you, confirm toward him affection. For to this end withal have I written, that I may learn a proof of you, that in all (things) ye are obedient to me. …

2. If, because injustice is not from God, but from the devil, and persecution consists of injustice (for what more unjust than that the bishops of the true God, that all the followers of the truth, should be dealt with after the manner of the vilest criminals?), persecution therefore seems to proceed from the devil, by whom the injustice which constitutes persecution is perpetrated, we ought to know, as you have neither persecution without the injustice of the devil, nor the trial of faith without persecution, that the injustice necessary for the trial of faith does not give a warrant for persecution, but supplies an agency; that in reality, in reference to the trial of faith, which is the reason of persecution, the will of God goes first, but that as the instrument of persecution, which is the way of trial, the injustice of the devil follows. …

13. Thus, moreover, the Apostle Paul, after shipwrecks, after scourgings, after many and grievous tortures of the flesh and body, says that he is not grieved, but benefited by his adversity, in order that while he is sorely afflicted he might more truly be proved. “There was given to me,” he says, “a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be lifted up: for which thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me; and He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for strength is made perfect in weakness.” When, therefore, weakness and inefficiency and any destruction seize us, then our strength is made perfect; then our faith, if when tried it shall stand fast, is crowned; as it is written, “The furnace trieth the vessels of the potter, and the trial of tribulation just men.” This, in short, is the difference between us and others who kn …

In Solomon: “The furnace proveth the vessels of the potter, and the trial of tribulation righteous men.” Also in the fiftieth Psalm: “The sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God will not despise.” Also in the thirty-third Psalm: “God is nearest to them that are contrite in heart, and He will save the lowly in spirit.” Also in the same place: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but out of them all the Lord will deliver them.” Of this same matter in Job: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, naked also shall I go under the earth: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord, so it is done; blessed be the name of the Lord. …

34. I think that you cannot fail to understand this too, that the word “father” is but a single term indeed, and yet one admitting of being understood in various ways. For one is called father, as being the parent of those children whom he has begotten in a natural way; another is called father, as being the guardian of children whom he has but brought up; and some, again, are called fathers in respect of the privileged standing accruing through time or age. Hence our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is said to have a variety of fathers: for David was called His father, and Joseph was reckoned to be His father, while neither of these two was His father in respect of the actuality of nature. …

6. This is the fruit of my confessions, not of what I was, but of what I am, that I may confess this not before Thee only, in a secret exultation with trembling, and a secret sorrow with hope, but in the ears also of the believing sons of men, partakers of my joy, and sharers of my mortality, my fellow-citizens and the companions of my pilgrimage, those who are gone before, and those that are to follow after, and the comrades of my way. These are Thy servants, my brethren, those whom Thou wishest to be Thy sons; my masters, whom Thou hast commanded me to serve, if I desire to live with and of Thee. But this Thy word were little to me did it command in speaking, without going before in acting. This then do I both in deed and word, this I do under Thy wings, in too great danger, were it not that my soul, under Thy wings, is subject unto Thee, and my weakness known unto Thee. …