ACC ~ Galatians 5 v17a

NOT A CONDEMNATION OF THE BODY. CHRYSOSTOM: The body as such does not cause motion but is moved. It is not an agent but is acted upon. For desire is not of the body but of the soul. … How then does Paul say “the flesh struggles against the spirit?” By “flesh” he means not the physical body but the evil choice. … What then? Ought one to suppress the flesh? Was not the one who said this himself clothed with flesh? … By “flesh” here he means earthly thoughts that are apathetic and heedless. This is not a condemnation of the body but a reproach of the apathetic soul. For the flesh is an instrument, and no one repudiates and hates the instrument as such, but only the one who handles the instrument badly. … Yet, one may argue, even this is a condemnation of the body, to call the faults of the soul by the name of the flesh. Now I agree that the body is less precious than the soul, yet it is itself good as created. For what is less than truly good may remain proximately good. Evil is not less than the good but opposed to it. … The eucharistic mysteries too, and the whole church, are customarily called by the name of “flesh” in Scripture, which is called “the body of Christ” … But if he says “the flesh struggles against the Spirit,” he is speaking of two opposing ways of thinking. The things that oppose each other are virtue and wickedness, not the soul and the body. For if the latter are opposed, each is the destruction of the other … but if the soul cares for the body … and the body serves the soul … how can they be contraries and at war with one another? HOMILY ON GALATIANS 5.17.

THE SPIRITUAL SENSE OF SCRIPTURE STRUGGLES AGAINST BEING REDUCED TO ITS HISTORICAL SENSE. JEROME: The “flesh struggles against the Spirit:” that is, the literal and flat understanding of Scripture fights against allegory and spiritual doctrine. … And the carnal sense of Scripture, which cannot be fulfilled (since we cannot do all that is written), shows that we do not have it in our power to fulfill the law when even if we wish to follow the letter we are prevented by its impossibility. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3.5.17.

BOTH FLESH AND SPIRIT ARE GOOD AS CREATED. AUGUSTINE: The fact is that both are good: the spirit is good and the flesh too is good. And the whole person who consists of both, one ruling and one obeying, is indeed good but a changeable good. Yet these changing goods could not arise were it not for the immutable good, which is the source of every created good, whether small or great. But however small might be one particular good, it is nonetheless made by the one incomparably good. Yet however great, it is in no way comparable to the greatness of its Maker. But in this human nature, good as it is in origin and constitution, there is now war, because there is not yet salvation. ON CONTINENCE 18.

Gal