The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the Epistle to the Galatians
“ Since you have been torn asunder, while you were trying to get the mastery one over the other, now serve one another and return to unity . As fire melts wax, so does love more readily disperse all pride and arrogance ” (Chrysostom in loco).
2. Chrysostom does not here say love one another, but serve one another, because charity makes men servants, not by compulsion, but choice, even to the extent of performing the meanest services for the poor and the afflicted. This holy and free service is not bondage, but a noble freedom, to be sought for by all Christians.
3. From the liberty of the law and the liberty of the flesh the Apostle now passes, by an easy transition, to the second part of the Epistle. From doctrine he proceeds to morals, with the view of improving the conduct of the Galatians.
Ver. 14. — For all the law is fulfilled in one word. That is, the whole law so far as it concerns our neighbour, or according to what was said in the preceding verse, as we serve one another. Cf. Rom. xiii. 8. S. Augustine (de Trin . lib. viii.), S. Thomas, Anselm, however, say that the whole law rests on the love of God or of our neighbour, but that the latter presupposes the former, inasmuch as our neighbour is to be loved for the sake of God. Therefore he who loves his neighbour both fulfils the law, which says, Thou shalt love thy neighbour , and also loves God and fulfils the law, which says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.
Ver. 15. — But if ye bite and devour one another. Beware, if you attack one another with calumnies, lest you be mutually consumed. Two men calumniating and enviously pursuing each other are like two dogs fighting, and biting each other. They consume each other, nay, they devour themselves. Well said the poet : “ Than envy nothing is more just; for it forthwith bites and tortures its author .” And therefore : “ Than envy not even Sicilian tyrants have found a greater torment.” See my notes on Phil. i. 18, where I enumerate the properties of envy. Wisely and piously said S. Augustine (Sent. 179) : “ To a religious man it ought to be little not to excite enmities , or to excite them only by awkward speech ; he ought to strive to extinguish them by seasonable discourse.”
Ver. 16. — I say then, Walk in the Spirit. The summary, the one aim of the whole of this Epistle, is this : Walk not in the law, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. The root of all your trouble is want of the Spirit: if you had Him, you would shut out as well the legal as the carnal life.
To walk in the Spirit is to order our whole life after the impulse of the Spirit, who inspires us to works of piety, to prayer, faith, charity, and works of mercy. This Spirit the Apostles received abundantly at Pentecost, as did the first Christians, and they added to the gift they then received by loyally following His workings, and suffering everything, if only they might bring others to Christ, by fiery charity and burning zeal. Whither has fled that Spirit now? Lord Jesus, kindle in us that fire which Thou camest to send on earth, and which Thou didst will to burn vehemently.
Ver. 17 . — The flesh lusteth against the Spirit. From this the Manichaeans inferred that man has two souls— one spiritual, which is good and the gift of a good god, and another carnal, which is evil and the gift of an evil god. Some philosophers, too, hold that man has two souls — one sensational, by which he feels, eats, and generates as do the beasts; and another rational, by which he reasons and understands as do the angels ; and they depend for this conclusion on the contrary appetites and mental operations found in the same individual.
1. But it is certain that in man there is but one soul, and that a rational one, but which also in a special degree embraces vegetative and sensational powers. Hence, as man has in him both sets of powers, it is no wonder if he experiences contrary appetites, carrying him to diverse objects, and exciting him to action when they are present. In its powers the soul of man is twofold or rather threefold.
2. The word flesh stands by metonymy for that concupiscence which is in the flesh, impressing on it its own ideas and desires.
3. This concupiscence resides not only in the sensitive appetite, but also in the rational, as S. Augustine points out (Conf., viii. 5) ; for as in the domain of desire it excites the appetites of hunger and procreation, in the domain of self-protective instinct the passions of envy and hatred, so in the domain of reason it arouses the desire to excel and the spirit of curiosity. All our mental powers are infected by the leaven of original sin, but they are described as the flesh, because the desires of the flesh are those that are most frequently and most violently aroused, and so are the principal part of our desires, and give their name to the whole. Hence the Apostle uses the phrase “ works of the flesh,” i.e., of concupiscence , not only for fornication, drunkenness, and revellings, which are strictly fleshly sins, but also for such things as the service of idols and envy, which are strictly sins of the rational part of our nature.
4. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit , because it lusteth for carnal things, and the Spirit against the flesh , because it desires spiritual goods. This warfare is carried on within between the flesh and the Spirit; their forces are marshalled by the Apostle when he says, on the one side, The works of the flesh are manifest , which are these, &c., and on the other, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, &c. Prudentius gives a vivid description of this warfare in his Psychomachia , and S. Augustine in his “ Confessions ” (viii. 11). Cassian ( Collat., iv. 11) describes it as follows: “ The flesh delights in lust and lasciviousness ; the spirit can hardly be brought to acknowledge the existence of these natural desires. The flesh seeks for sleep and food ; the spirit is so engaged in fasting and watching that with difficulty it brings itself to consent to the necessities of nature. The flesh would abound in this world’s goods; the spirit is content with the slenderest provision of daily bread. The flesh loves the baths , and troops of flatterers ; the spirit rejoices in squalor, and in the silence of the desert. The flesh is fed on honours and praises ; the spirit joys in the persecutions and injuries inflicted on it.” See to the motives of grace and of nature depicted by Thomas à Kempis in his “Imitation of Christ” (lib. iii. c. 59), in his own simple but vigorous style.
The Abbot Pamenius, in his “Lives of the Fathers” (vii. 27), rightly describes concupiscence as an evil will, a devil attacking us; or, as Abbot Achilles in the same passage puts it, as a handle of the devil,
Augustine at one time thought that this warfare was waged in a sinner under the law, not in one living under grace ; but he afterwards modified this opinion ( Retract . i. 24). It is beyond question that it is found in the Saints, nay, is the more fierce in proportion as they strive to live more spiritually. Accordingly, S. Augustine says (Serm. 43 de Verbis Domini) : “ The Spirit lusteth against the flesh in good men, not in evil men , who have not the Spirit of God for the flesh to lust against.”
Again, commenting on Ps. lxxvi. 2. (A.V.), S. Augustine says :