The life and work of St. Paul

334 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAT7I*
These converts had but recently been called out of a heathenism which looked
very lightly on the sins of the flesh. The mastery over lifelong habits of
corruption was not to be won in a day. They were still in danger of relapsing
into sensual crime. It was necessary to remind them that, however small
might be the censure which Gentiles attached to fornication, 1 and even to
yet darker and deadlier sins,2 they were in direct opposition to the command,
and would immediately deserve the retribution of that God whose will was
their sanctification, and who laid on them the duty, however difficult, of ac-
quiring a secure and tranquil mastery over their body and its lusts. 3
If then
any one among them professed to despise these precepts as though they were
merely those of the Apostle, he must now be reminded that he was thereby
despising, not any human teacher, but God, who called them, not for un-
cleanliness, but in sanctification, 4 and by giving them His Holy Spirit, not
only deepened the duty, but also inspired them with the power to sanctify His
Temple in their hearts.6
The next Christian virtue of which he speaks is brotherly love. He feels
it unnecessary to do so, 9 for God Himself had taught them both to recognise
that duty and to put it in practice, not only towards the members of their
own church, but towards all Macedonian Christians (vs. 9, 10).
Further, they should make it their ambition to be quiet/ working with
1 Cic. pro Caelio, 48 ; Hor. Sal. I. ii. 32 ; Ter. Adelpk. I. ii. 21 ; Jer. Ep. 77 ; Aug.
De Civ. Dei. xiv. 18.
s Ver. 7, ou . . . ciri Ko0apm'f oAA' iv ayia