The life and work of St. Paul

620 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAtTL.
The true remedy, he proceeds to imply, is very different :
"If then ye were raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ
is sitting on the right hand of God. Think of the things above, not the things
on the earth. For ye died " (to sin in baptism), " and your life has been hidden
with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is manifested, then ye also with Him
shall be manifested in glory. Kill then at a blow "
not by regulated asceticisms,
but by this outburst of a new life, which is in Christ, which is Christ
"
your
members that are on the earth fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and,
above all, covetousnoss, for that is idolatry because of which things cometh the
wrath of God. 1 In which things ye also walked once, when ye were living in them ;
but now put ye away also all vices, anger, wrath, malice, railing, foul calumny,
out of your mouths. Lie not one to another, since ye utterly stripped off the old
man with his deeds, and put on the new man, which is being ever renewed to full
knowledge, according to the image of his Creator, in a region wherein there is no room
for Greek or Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, 2 slave, free,
but Christ is all things, and in all. Put on then, as elect of God, saints beloved,
hearts of compassion, kindness, humbleness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one
another, and forgiving one another, if any one have a complaint against any one.
Even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye. And over all these things put
on love, for love is the girdle of perfection ; and let the peace of Christ arbitrate in
your hearts, unto which peace ye were even called in one body, and show yourselves
thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching one
another and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, 3 spiritual songs in grace,
singing in your hearts to God. And everything whatever ye do, in word or in
deed, do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the Father by
Him." 4
Then follow various practical exhortations to wives to love their husbands,
as is eternally fit in the Lord 6
to husbands to love their ;
wives, and
not behave bitterly towards them ; to children to obey their parents ; to fathers
not to irritate their children, that they may not lose heart. 6 To slaves,
of whose duties and position he must often have thought recently, from
his interest in Onesimus, he gives the precept to obey earthly masters, working
as ever in their Great Taskmaster's eye, looking for the reward of faithfulness
to Him who would also send the retribution for wrong-doing. On masters
he enjoins justice and equity towards their slaves, remarking that they too
have a Lord in heaven. 7
argument against, not for, the worrying scrupulosities of exaggerated asceticism on the
ground that they are useless for the end in view. St. Paul might have gone even further ;
for the lives of hermits and monks show us that the virulence of temptation is intensified
into insupportable agony by the morbid introspection which results from mistaken means
of combating it.
1 Ver. G, our rl TOUS vlous T>J aTreifleios, introduced probably from Eph. v. 6.
* Ver. 11. The Scythians were the lowest type of barbarians (Gal. iii. 28).
3 Christian hymnology began very early, though the hymns were not necessarily me-
trical (Rev. xv. 3 ; Acts xvi. 25 ; Eph. v. 19, 20 ; Plin. Ep. 97 ; Mart. S. Ign. vli.
uSa! in-' ipx^js virb ITKTTUV ypaetocu, Euseb. H. E. v. 28. Rhythmic passages are Eph. v. 14 ;
1 Tim. iii. 16 ; vi. 15, 16 ; 2 Tim. ii. 1113 (Diet. Christ. Antt. s. v. Hymns).
4 iii. 117.
6 us anjxev, " as ever was, and ever is fitting" (cf. Acts xxii. 22). (See my Brief
Greek Syntax, 140.)
6 Notice the rare originality of the exhortation. Should we expect to find it In
a forger ?
7 iii. 1825. From ouch passages as these were drawn such noble warning rul^a of