ACC ~ 2 Timothy 3 v5

VIRGINITY KNOWN BY ITS BEHAVIOR. PSEUDO-CLEMENT: Virgins are a beautiful pattern to believers and to those who shall believe. But the name alone, indeed, without works, does not introduce one into the kingdom of heaven. Only if one is truly a believer can one be saved. But if one is called a believer yet does not evidence his belief through works, he cannot possibly be a believer. … Similarly, merely because a person is called a virgin, if he remains destitute of the excellent and comely behavior suitable to virginity, he is no virgin and cannot possibly be saved. ON VIRGINITY 1.3.

LIKE A PAINTED FIGURE. CHRYSOSTOM: Faith without works is fitly called a mere form without power. For as a fair and ruddy body, when it has no strength, is like a painted figure, so is a right faith apart from works. For let us suppose anyone to be “covetous, a traitor, heady” and yet believes correctly. Of what advantage is it, if he lacks all the qualities fitting to a Christian, if he does not the works that characterize godliness but outdoes the Greeks in impiety? What good when he becomes a mischief to those with whom he associates or when he causes God to be blasphemed and the doctrine to be slandered by his evil deeds? HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 8.

THE POWER OF GODLINESS. AUGUSTINE: You heard just now, when that reading was read, that Simon Magus was baptized and yet did not lay aside his evil mind. He had the form of the sacrament, but the power of the sacrament he did not have. Listen to what the apostle says about the godless, “having,” he says, “the form of godliness, while refusing its power.” What is the form of godliness? The visible sacrament. What is the power of godliness? Invisible charity. SERMONS 229U.

THE MAINSTAY OF SALVATION. AUGUSTINE: Shut out the evil love of the world so that you may be filled with the love of God. You are a vessel, but you are still full. Pour out what you have that you may receive what you have not. … It is good for us not to love the world in order that the sacraments may not remain in us for our damnation rather than as the mainstays of our salvation. The mainstay of salvation is to have the root of love, to have the power of godliness, not the external form alone. TRACTATES ON THE EPISTLE OF JOHN 2.2.9.

2 Tim