The Bible by John Riches

Author:John Riches [Riches, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780192608390
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2021-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

New life in the Spirit: new forms of spirituality

As we have seen, in the last section of the letter, Paul turns to the role of the Spirit in the lives of Christian believers. These two chapters are full of powerful and memorable phrases and have spawned many forms of spirituality. For some they have been an inspiration for cosmological speculation; for others they have fostered forms of inwardness which have left a deep mark on Western culture. They have been drawn on by those who practised various forms of asceticism and monasticism. Equally they have provided encouragement for those who sought to put their faith into practice in everyday life.

5:16‒18 reads:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.

Part of the difficulty in interpreting this passage lies partly in the many meanings attaching to the terms flesh and Spirit, partly in what Paul says about them. In what sense are they ‘opposed to each other’? And what is the outcome of this opposition? To prevent people doing the good they want? Or the bad? Or, indeed, anything at all?

Dualists, like the Gnostics and Manichaeans who flourished in the early centuries, took flesh and Spirit to refer to two opposed principles in the world which struggled for the control of men and women. The flesh was the manifestation of the principle of evil, contrasted with and wholly distinct from the good God. Buried deep in the heart of men and women, the flesh needs to be rooted out, exposed, and allowed to perish. A 3rd-century Gnostic text, The Gospel of Philip enjoins people to ‘burrow for the root of evil’. It will be rooted out when it is recognized. Lack of knowledge of evil in non-believers allows it to grow powerful, and is the ‘mother of all evils . . . Lack of acquaintance is a slave; acquaintance is freedom’ (Gosp. Phil. 104). Believers who have knowledge, gnosis, enjoy freedom from the evil principle.

For Manichaeans, however, the battle between flesh and Spirit only came to light in the life of the believer. Before then, as most mainstream Christians held, it might appear that the soul is the one who sins, whereas it is the alien principle deep in human beings which forces them to sin. Only when this is understood can the battle begin against the evil principle, through repentance and ascetic practice: abstaining from meat, from procreation, from marriage. Such a pessimistic view of the human predicament casts a long shadow over the life of faith.

John Chrysostom, however, firmly resisted such forms of dualistic speculation: there was only one God and evil was the result of human disobedience. When Paul spoke about the opposition

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