Romans 13:14

May I have joy of you in the Lord! Be ye sober. Lay aside, every one of you, all malice and beast-like fury, evil-speaking, calumny, filthy speaking, ribaldry, whispering, arrogance, drunkenness, lust, avarice, vainglory, envy, and everything akin to these. “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” Ye presbyters, be subject to the bishop; ye deacons, to the presbyters; and ye, the people, to the presbyters and the deacons. Let my soul be for theirs who preserve this good order; and may the Lord be with them continually!

Let the women wear a plain and becoming dress, but softer than what is suitable for a man, yet not quite immodest or entirely gone in luxury. And let the garments be suited to age, person, figure, nature, pursuits. For the divine apostle most beautifully counsels us “to put on Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the lusts of the flesh.”

Humana ergo continentia, ea, inquam, quæ est ex sententia philosophorum Græcorum, profitetur pugnare cum cupiditate, et in factis ei non inservire; quæ est autem ex nostra sententia continentia, non concupiscere; non ut quis concupiscens se fortiter gerat, sed ut etiam a concupiscendo se contineat. Non potest autem ea aliter comparari continentia, nisi gratia Dei. Et ideo dixit: “Petite, et dabitur vobis.” Hanc gratiam Moyses quoque accepit, qui indigo corpore erat indutus, ut quadraginta diebus neque esuriret, neque sitiret. Quemadmodum autem melius est sanum esse, quam ægrotantem disserere de sanitate: ita lucem esse, quam loqui de luce; et quæ est ex veritate continentia, ea quæ docetur a philosophis. Non enim ubi est lux, illic tenebræ: ubi autem sola insidet cupiditas, etiamsi quiescat a corporea operatione, at memoria cure eo, quod non est præsens, congreditur. …

They will have plainly a specious privilege to plead before Christ, the everlasting “infirmity of the flesh!” But upon this (infirmity) will sit in judgment no longer an Isaac, our monogamist father; or a John, a noted voluntary celibate of Christ’s; or a Judith, daughter of Merari; or so many other examples of saints. Heathens are wont to be destined our judges. There will arise a queen of Carthage, and give sentence upon the Christians, who, refugee as she was, living on alien soil, and at that very time the originator of so mighty a state, whereas she ought unasked to have craved royal nuptials, yet, for fear she should experience a second marriage, preferred on the contrary rather to “burn” than to “marry.” Her assessor will be the Roman matron who, having, albeit it was through noctural violence, nevertheless, known another man, washed away with blood the stain of her flesh, that sh …

2. That it may appear more clearly, then, whether bodily matter can exist during intervals of time, and whether, as it did not exist before it was made, so it may again be resolved into non-existence, let us see, first of all, whether it is possible for any one to live without a body. For if one person can live without a body, all things also may dispense with them; seeing our former treatise has shown that all things tend towards one end. Now, if all things may exist without bodies, there will undoubtedly be no bodily substance, seeing there will be no use for it. But how shall we understand the words of the apostle in those passages, in which, discussing the resurrection of the dead, he says, “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. …

If ever there was a thorough and fruitful conversion, next to that of Paul on the way to Damascus, it was that of Augustin, when, in a garden of the Villa Cassiciacum, not far from Milan, in September of the year 386, amidst the most violent struggles of mind and heart, the birth-throes of the new life, he heard that divine voice of a child: “Take, read!” and he “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” ( Rom. xiii. 14 ). It is a touching lamentation of his: “I have loved Thee late, Thou Beauty, so old and so new; I have loved Thee late! And lo! Thou wast within, but I was without, and was seeking Thee there. And into Thy fair creation I plunged myself in my ugliness; for Thou was with me, and I was not with Thee! Those things kept me away from Thee, which had not been, except they had been in Thee! Thou didst call, and didst cry aloud, and break through my deafness. …

Chapter I should light upon. For I had heard of Antony, that, accidentally coming in whilst the gospel was being read, he received the admonition as if what was read were addressed to him, “Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.” And by such oracle was he forthwith converted unto Thee. So quickly I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the apostles, when I rose thence. …

2. Know, therefore, most blessed lord, venerable for the superlative fulness of your charity, that I do not despair, but rather cherish lively hope that, by means of that authority which you wield, and which, as we trust, has been committed to your spirit, not to your flesh alone, our Lord and God may be able, through the respect due to councils and to yourself, to bring healing to the many carnal blemishes and disorders which the African Church is suffering in the conduct of many, and is bewailing in the sorrow of a few of her members. For whereas the apostle had in one passage briefly set forth as fit to be hated and avoided three classes of vices, from which there springs an innumerable crop of vicious courses, only one of these, that, namely, which he has placed second, is very strictly punished by the Church; but the other two, viz. …

7. Wherefore, until that consolation come, remember, in order to your “continuing in prayers and supplications night and day,” that, however great the temporal prosperity may be which flows around you, you are desolate. For the apostle does not ascribe this gift to every widow, but to her who, being a widow indeed, and desolate, “trusteth in God, and continueth in supplication night and day.” Observe, however, most vigilantly the warning which follows: “But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth;” for a person lives in those things which he loves, which he greatly desires, and in which he believes himself to be blessed. …

40. In the following words of the apostle we have the temperate style: “Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters.” And also in these: “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is you reasonable service.” And almost the whole of this hortatory passage is in the temperate style of eloquence; and those parts of it are the most beautiful in which, as if paying what was due, things that belong to each other are gracefully brought together. …

31. But, you reply, the apostle says, "It is good, brethren, neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine." No one denies that this is good, provided that it is for the end already mentioned, of which it is said, "Make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof;" or for the ends pointed out by the apostle, namely, either to check the appetite, which is apt to go to a more wild and uncontrollable excess in these things than in others, or lest a brother should be offended, or lest the weak should hold fellowship with an idol. For at the time when the apostle wrote, the flesh of sacrifices was often sold in the market. …

83. But when spiritual desires burn, carnal desires without doubt cool: on this account followeth, “Since I am become like a bottle in the frost, I do not forget Thy righteousnesses” ( ver. 83 ). Truly he desireth this mortal flesh to be understood by the bottle, the heavenly blessing by the frost, whereby the lusts of the flesh as it were by the binding of the frost become sluggish; and hence it ariseth that the righteousnesses of God do not slip from the memory, as long as we do not meditate apart from them; since what the Apostle saith is brought to pass: “Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” “And I do not forget Thy righteousness:” that is, I forget them not, because I have become such. For the fervour of lust hath cooled, that the memory of love might glow.