Ephesians 4:23

The more, then, a man hastes to the end, the more truly venerable is he, having God alone as his senior, since He is the eternal aged One, He who is older than all things. Prophecy has called him the “Ancient of days; and the hair of His head was as pure wool,” says the prophet. “And none other,” says the Lord, “can make the hair white or black.” How, then, do these godless ones work in rivalry with God, or rather violently oppose Him, when they transmute the hair made white by Him? “The crown of old men is great experience,” says Scripture; and the hoary hair of their countenance is the blossom of large experience. But these dishonour the reverence of age, the head covered with grey hairs. It is not, it is not possible for him to show the head true who has a fraudulent head. …

Ex iis autem, qui ab hæresi ducuntur, Marciohis quidem Pontici fecimus mentionem, qui propter certamen, quod adversus Creatorem suscepit, mundanarum rerum usum recusat. Ei autem continentiæ causa est, si modo est ea dicenda continentia, ipse Creator, cui se adversari existimans gigas iste cum Deo pugnans, est invitus continens, dum in creationem et Dei opus invehitur. Quod si usurpent vocem Domini, qui dicit Philippo: “Sine mortuos sepelire mortuos suos, tu autem sequere me:” at illud considerent, quod similem cam is formationem fert quoque Philippus, non habens cadaver pollutum. Quomodo ergo cum carhem haberet, non habuit cadaver? Quoniam surrexit ex monumento, Domino ejus vitia morte afficiente, vixit autem Christo. Meminimus autem nefariæ quoque ex Carpocratis sententia mulierum communionis. …

But in their blindness they again impale themselves on the point of the old and the new man. When the apostle enjoins us “to put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and to be renewed in the spirit of our mind; and to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,” (they maintain) that by here also making a distinction between the two substances, and applying the old one to the flesh and the new one to the spirit, he ascribes to the old man, that is to say, the flesh, a permanent corruption. Now, if you follow the order of the substances, the soul cannot be the new man because it comes the later of the two; nor can the flesh be the old man because it is the former. …

In Isaiah: “Seek ye the Lord; and when ye have found Him, call upon Him. But when He hath come near unto you, let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him be turned unto the Lord, and he shall obtain mercy, because He will plentifully pardon your sins.” Of this same thing in Solomon: “I have seen all the works which are done under the sun; and, lo, all are vanity.” Of this same thing in Exodus: “But thus shall ye eat it; your loins girt, and your shoes on your feet, and your staves in your hands: and ye shall eat it in haste, for it is the Lord’s passover.” Of this same thing in the Gospel according to Matthew: “Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewith shall we be clothed? for these things the nations seek after. But your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. …

6. Therefore on this double death of ours our Saviour bestowed His own single death; and to cause both our resurrections, He appointed beforehand and set forth in mystery and type His own one resurrection. For He was not a sinner or ungodly, that, as though dead in spirit, He should need to be renewed in the inner man, and to be recalled as it were to the life of righteousness by repentance; but being clothed in mortal flesh, and in that alone dying, in that alone rising again, in that alone did He answer to both for us; since in it was wrought a mystery as regards the inner man, and a type as regards the outer. …

12. For, as not only most true reason but also the authority of the apostle himself declares, man was not made in the image of God according to the shape of his body, but according to his rational mind. For the thought is a debased and empty one, which holds God to be circumscribed and limited by the lineaments of bodily members. But further, does not the same blessed apostle say, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which is created after God;” and in another place more clearly, “Putting off the old man,” he says, “with his deeds; put on the new man, which is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him that created him?” If, then, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and he is the new man who is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him that created him; no one can doubt, that man was made after the image of Him that created him, n …

22. But those who, by being reminded, are turned to the Lord from that deformity whereby they were through worldly lusts conformed to this world, are formed anew from the world, when they hearken to the apostle, saying, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye formed again in the renewing of your mind;” that that image may begin to be formed again by Him by whom it had been formed at first. For that image cannot form itself again, as it could deform itself. He says again elsewhere: “Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind; and put ye on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” That which is meant by “created after God,” is expressed in another place by “after the image of God.” But it lost righteousness and true holiness by sinning, through which that image became defaced and tarnished; and this it recovers when it is formed again and renewed. …

1. Faustus said: We are asked the reason for our denial that man is made by God. But we do not assert that man is in no sense made by God; we only ask in what sense, and when, and how. For, according to the apostle, there are two men, one of whom he calls sometimes the outer man, generally the earthy, sometimes, too, the old man: the other he calls the inner or heavenly or new man. The question is, Which of these is made by God? For there are likewise two times of our nativity; one when nature brought us forth into this light, binding us in the bonds of flesh; and the other, when the truth regenerated us on our conversion from error and our entrance into the faith. …

To the Ephesians he addresses words of the same import: “And you when ye were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit of him that now worketh in the children of disobedience; among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; by whose grace ye are saved.” Again, a little afterwards, he says: “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. …

It now remains for me to show how it is that while the designation spirit is rightly predicated of a part of the soul, not the whole of it, even as the apostle says, “Your whole spirit, and soul, and body;” or, according to the much more expressive statement in the Book of Job, “Thou wilt separate my soul from my spirit,”, yet the whole soul is also called by this name; although this question seems to be much more a question of names than of things. …

3. Wherefore, Beloved, I must explain to you, though I have often spoken already on this subject, what it is to be “simple as doves, and wise as serpents.” Now if the simplicity of doves be enjoined us, what hath the wisdom of the serpent to do in the simplicity of the dove? This in the dove I love, that she has no gall; this I fear in the serpent, that he has poison. But now do not fear the serpent altogether; something he has for thee to hate, and something for thee to imitate. For when the serpent is weighed down with age, and he feels the burden of his many years, he contracts and forces himself into a hole, and lays aside his old coat of skin, that he may spring forth into new life. …

5. As these things are so, beloved, I warn you in the love of Christ to beware of impure seducers and sects of obscene filthiness, whereof the apostle says, “But it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret:” lest, when they begin to teach their horrible impurities, which no human ear whatever can bear, they declare them to be the very things whereof the Lord said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now;” and assert that it is the Holy Spirit’s agency that makes such impure and detestable things possible to be borne. …