Against Jovinianus

^29. It is mere trifling to quote the passage: “Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Ghost,” for it is customary in Holy Scripture to speak of a single object as though it were many, and of many as though they were one. And Jovinianus himself should know that even in a temple there are many divisions— the outer and the inner courts, the vestibules, the holy place, and the Holy of Holies. There are also in a temple kitchens, pantries, oil-cellars, and cupboards for the vessels. And so in the temple of our body there are different degrees of merit. God does not dwell in all alike, nor does He impart Himself to all in the same degree. A portion of the spirit of Moses was taken and given to the seventy elders. I suppose there is a difference between the abundance of the river, and that of the rivulets. Elijah's spirit was given in double measure to Elisha, and thus double grace wrought greater miracles. Elijah while living restored a dead man to life; Elisha after death did the same. Elijah invoked famine on the people; Elisha in a single day put the enemy's forces in the power of the city which they besieged. No doubt the words, “Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Ghost,” refer to the whole assembly of the faithful, who, joined together, make up the one body of Christ. But the question now is, who in the body is worthy to be the feet of Christ, and who the head? Who is His eye, and who His hand?— a distinction indicated by the two women in the Gospel, the penitent and the holy woman, one of whom held His feet, the other His head. Some authorities, however, think there was only one woman, and that she who began at His feet gradually advanced to His head. Jovinianus further urges against us our Lord's words, “I pray not for these only, but also for those who shall believe in me through their word: that as I, Father, in you and thou in me are one, so they all may be one in us,” and reminds us that the whole Christian people is one in God, and, as His well-beloved sons, are “partakers of the divine nature.” We have already said, and the truth must now be inculcated more in detail, that we are not one in the Father and the Son according to nature, but according to grace. For the essence of the human soul and the essence of God are not the same, as the Manichæans constantly assert. But, says our Lord: “You have loved them as you have loved me.” You see, then, that we are privileged to partake of His essence, not in the realm of nature, but of grace, and the reason why we are beloved of the Father is that He has loved the Son; and the members are loved, those namely of the body. “For as many as received Christ, to them gave He power to become sons of God, even to them that believe in His name: which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The Word was made flesh that we might pass from the flesh into the Word. The Word did not cease to be what He had been; nor did the human nature lose that which it was by birth. The glory was increased, the nature was not changed. Do you ask how we are made one body with Christ? Your creator shall be your instructor: “He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he that eats me, he also shall live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven.” But the Evangelist John, who had drunk in wisdom from the breast of Christ, agrees herewith, and says: “Hereby know we that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” If you believe in Christ, as the apostles believed, you shall be made one body with them in Christ. But, if it is rash for you to claim for yourself a faith and works like theirs when you have not the same faith and works, you cannot have the same place.