BOOK V, CHAP. VIII,2 & 4, CHAP. IX,2-3 - Spiritual and carnal men
THOSE persons, then, who possess the earnest of
the Spirit, and who are not enslaved by the lusts of the flesh, but are
subject to the Spirit, and who in all things walk according to the light
of reason, does the apostle properly term "spiritual," because the Spirit
of God dwells in them. Now, spiritual men shall not be incorporeal spirits;
but our substance, that is, the union of flesh and spirit, receiving the
Spirit of God, makes up the spiritual man. But those who do indeed reject
the Spirit's counsel, and are the slaves of fleshly lusts, and lead lives
contrary to reason, and who, without restraint, plunge headlong into their
own desires, having no longing after the Divine Spirit, do live after the
manner of swine and of dogs; these men, [I say], does the apostle very
properly term "carnal," because they have no thought of anything else except
carnal things.
4. Now the law has figuratively predicted all these, delineating man
by the [various] animals: whatsoever of these, says [the Scripture],
have a double hoof and ruminate, it proclaims as clean; but whatsoever
of them do not possess one or other of these [properties], it sets aside
b themselves as unclean. Who then are the clean? Those who make their way
by faith steadily towards the Father and the Son; for this is denoted by
the steadiness of those which divide the hoof; and they meditate day and
night upon the words of God, that they may be adorned with good works:
for this is the meaning of the ruminants. The unclean, however, are those
which do neither divide the hoof nor ruminate; that is, those persons who
have neither faith in God, nor do meditate on His words: and such is the
abomination of the Gentiles.
