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Augustine of Hippo

Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500

7,530 passages across 62 books of the Bible · Who was this?

On 2 Corinthians

20 of 55
  1. 2 Corinthians 5:1
    Should anyone say that the cause of vices and evil habits lies in the flesh because when the soul is influenced by the flesh it lives in such a manner, he cannot have sufficiently considered human nature as a whole.… But notice that the apostle who, in discussing the corruptible body, had used the words “even though our outer man is decaying,” goes on, a little further, to declare: “For we know that if the earthly house in which we dwell be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made by human hands, eternal in the heavens.” … On the one hand, our corruptible body may be a burden on our soul; on the other hand, the cause of this encumbrance is not in the nature and substance of the body. Therefore, aware as we are of its corruption, we do not desire to be divested of the body but rather to be clothed with its immortality. In immortal life we shall have a body, but it will no longer be a burden since it will no longer be corruptible.

    City of God 14.3

  2. 2 Corinthians 5:5
    For this period in God’s plan, in which the Lord has deigned to appear in time and visibly as a man and has given to us as a pledge the Holy Spirit, by whose sevenfold working we are given life (apostolic authority having been added like the seasoning of a few fish), what else therefore does this period in God’s plan effect but the possibility of attaining the prize of the heavenly calling without [our] powers failing us? “For we walk by faith and not by sight.”

    QUESTIONS 61.7

  3. 2 Corinthians 5:5
    However, now we see obscurely but then face to face; now we see partially but then completely. But the present ability to see in the Scriptures obscurely and partially something which, nonetheless, is in accord with Catholic faith is the work of the pledge which was received by the virgin church at her bridegroom’s lowly coming. She will be wed at his final coming when he will come in glory and when she will then behold face to face, for he has given to us a pledge which is the Holy Spirit, as the apostle says.

    QUESTIONS 59.4

  4. 2 Corinthians 5:6
    Man indeed brought death to himself and to the Son of Man, but the Son of Man, by dying and rising again, brought life to man.… He wished to suffer this in the sight of his enemies, that they might think him, as it were, forsaken, and that the grace of the New Testament might be entrusted to us, to make us learn to seek another happiness, which we now possess by faith, but then we shall behold it. “For while we are in the body,” says the apostle, “we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight.” Therefore, we now live in hope, but then we shall enjoy reality.

    LETTER 140, TO HONORATUS 9

  5. 2 Corinthians 5:7
    Therefore, amid the shadows of this life in which “we are absent from the Lord” as long as “we walk by faith and not by sight,” the Christian soul should consider itself desolate and should not cease from praying and from attending with the eye of faith to the word of the divine and sacred Scriptures.

    TO PROBA 130

  6. 2 Corinthians 5:10
    Christ judges all things because when he is with God he is above all.

    ON TRUE RELIGION 58

  7. 2 Corinthians 5:14
    As the apostle says, and as we have often repeated: “Since one died for all, therefore all died, and he died for all in order that they who are alive may live no longer for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again.” The living are those for whom he who was living died in order that they might live; more plainly, they are freed from the chains of death, they for whom the one free among the dead died. Or, still more plainly: they have been freed from sin, for whom he who was never in sin died. Although he died once, he dies for each at that time when each, whatever his age, is baptized in his death; that is, the death of him who was without sin benefits each man at the time when, having been baptized in his death, he who was dead in sin shall also die to sin.

    AGAINST JULIAN 6.15.48

  8. 2 Corinthians 5:14
    Paul said: “Therefore all died; and Christ died for all, in order that they who are alive may live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.” All people, consequently, without a single exception, were dead through sin, original sin or original with personal sin superadded, either by ignorance of or conscious refusal to do what is right. And for all these dead souls one living man died—a man utterly free from sin—with the intention that those who come alive by forgiveness of their sins live no longer for themselves but for him who died for all on account of our sins and rose again for our justification.

    City of God 20.6

  9. 2 Corinthians 5:17
    We are then truly free when God orders our lives, that is, forms and creates us not as human beings—this he has already done—but as good people, which he is now doing by his grace, that we may indeed be new creatures in Christ Jesus. Accordingly the prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”.

    Enchiridion 9.31

  10. 2 Corinthians 5:20
    He says, “He [Christ] who knew no sin, he [God] made to be sin for us.” The God to whom we are to be reconciled has thus made him the sacrifice for sin by which we may be reconciled. He himself is therefore sin as we ourselves are righteousness—not our own but God’s, not in ourselves but in him. Just as he was sin—not his own but ours, rooted not in himself but in us—so he showed forth through the likeness of sinful flesh, in which he was crucified, that since sin was not in him he could then, so to say, die to sin by dying in the flesh, which was “the likeness of sin.” And since he had never lived in the old manner of sinning, he might, in his resurrection, signify the new life which is ours, which is springing to life anew from the old death in which we had been dead to sin.

    Enchiridion 13.41

  11. 2 Corinthians 6:10
    It could happen that some public official would say to a Christian: “Either you will stop being a Christian, or, if you persist in being one, you shall have no house or property.” That will be the time when those rich men, who had decided to keep their riches in order to win merit with God by using them for good works, will choose to give them up for Christ’s sake rather than Christ for their sake.… Thus they become as men “having nothing, yet possessing all things”— and everlasting life in the world to come, lest by giving up Christ for the sake of riches they be cast into everlasting death.

    LETTER 157, TO HILARIUS

  12. 2 Corinthians 6:14
    Now, I speak to the true Christians. If you believe, hope and love otherwise [than the pagans do], then live otherwise and gain approval for your distinctive faith, hope and charity by distinctive actions. Pay attention to the apostle when, in earnest admonition, he says: “Do not bear the yoke with unbelievers. For what has justice in common with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?… Or what part has the believer with the unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?”

    NEW YEAR’S DAY 198.3

  13. 2 Corinthians 7:8
    Moreover, even sorrow, the emotion for which, the Stoics claim, there can be found in the soul of a wise man no corresponding “attitude,” is a word used in a good sense, especially in Christian writings. The apostle, for example, praises the Corinthians because they were sorrowful according to God. Of course, someone may object that the apostle congratulated the Corinthians because their sorrow led them to repentance and that such sorrow can be experienced only by those who have sinned. What he says is this: “Seeing that the same letter did for a while make you sorry, now I am glad; not because you were made sorry but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you were made sorry according to God, that you might suffer no loss at our hands. For the sorrow that is according to God produces repentance that surely tends to salvation, whereas the sorrow that is according to the world produces death. For behold this very fact that you were made sorry according to God, what earnestness it has wrought in you.”

    City of God 14.8

  14. 2 Corinthians 7:10
    And, in another passage, he says: “The sorrow that is according to God produces repentance that tends to salvation of which one does not repent.” He who is sad according to God is sad in repentance for his sins; sorrow because of one’s own iniquity produces justice. First, let what you are displease you so that you may be able to be what you are not. “The sadness that is according to God produces repentance that tends to salvation of which one does not repent.” He says: “repentance that tends to salvation.” What sort of salvation? That of which one does not repent. What does that mean? One of which you do not repent at any time. For we have had a life of which we ought to have repented; we have had a life calculated to inspire repentance. But we cannot come to that life of which one does not repent except through repentance for an evil life. Will you, my brothers, as I had begun to say, ever find dung in a sifted mass of wheat? Nevertheless, the wheat arrives at that luster, at that fine and beautiful appearance, by means of dung; the foulness was the path to a beautiful result.

    EASTER SERMON 254.2

  15. 2 Corinthians 7:10
    Therefore, my brothers, as I have said before, a suitable place for dung helps to produce fruit, but an unsuitable place leads to uncleanness. Someone or other has said, I have come upon this sad person; I see the dung; I examine the place. Tell me, my friend, why are you sad? He says: I have lost my money. The place is unclean; there is no fruit. Let him hear the apostle: “The sorrow that is according to the world produces death.” I have looked at still another person groaning, weeping and praying; I recognize the dung and I examine the place. Moreover, I have directed my ear to this man’s prayer, and I have heard him say: “O Lord, be thou merciful to me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” He laments his sin; I recognize the field; I look for fruit. Thanks be to God! The dung is in a good place; it is not useless there; it produces fruit. This is truly the time of fruitful sorrow, so that we may lament the state of our mortality, the abundance of temptations, the stealthy attacks of sinners, the clash of desires, the conflicts of passions ever rebelling against good thoug…
    Therefore, my brothers, as I have said before, a suitable place for dung helps to produce fruit, but an unsuitable place leads to uncleanness. Someone or other has said, I have come upon this sad person; I see the dung; I examine the place. Tell me, my friend, why are you sad? He says: I have lost my money. The place is unclean; there is no fruit. Let him hear the apostle: “The sorrow that is according to the world produces death.” I have looked at still another person groaning, weeping and praying; I recognize the dung and I examine the place. Moreover, I have directed my ear to this man’s prayer, and I have heard him say: “O Lord, be thou merciful to me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” He laments his sin; I recognize the field; I look for fruit. Thanks be to God! The dung is in a good place; it is not useless there; it produces fruit. This is truly the time of fruitful sorrow, so that we may lament the state of our mortality, the abundance of temptations, the stealthy attacks of sinners, the clash of desires, the conflicts of passions ever rebelling against good thoughts. On this account let us grieve; let us be sad because of this state of affairs.

    EASTER SERMON 254.4

  16. 2 Corinthians 8:9
    What human being could know all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ and concealed under the poverty of his humanity? For, “being rich, he became poor for our sake that by his poverty we might become rich.” When he assumed our mortality and overcame death, he manifested himself in poverty, but he promised riches though they might be deferred; he did not lose them as if they were taken from him. How great is the multitude of his sweetness which he hides from those who fear him but which he reveals to those that hope in him! For we understand only in part until that which is perfect comes to us. To make us worthy of this perfect gift, he, equal to the Father in the form of God, became like to us in the form of a servant and refashions us into the likeness of God.

    FEAST OF THE NATIVITY 194.3

  17. 2 Corinthians 8:9
    Listen, now, to something about riches in answer to the next inquiry in your letter. In it you wrote that some are saying a rich man who continues to live rich cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless he sells all he has and that it cannot do him any good to keep the commandments while he keeps his riches. Their arguments have overlooked our fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who departed long ago from this life. It is a fact that all these had extensive riches, as the Scripture faithfully bears witness, yet he who became poor for our sakes, although he was truly rich, foretold in a truthful promise that many would come from the east and the west and would sit down not above them nor without them but with them in the kingdom of heaven. Yes, the haughty rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day, died and was tormented in hell. Nevertheless, if he had shown mercy to the poor man covered with sores who lay at his door and was treated with scorn, he himself would have deserved mercy. And if the poor man’s merit had been his poverty, not his goo…
    Listen, now, to something about riches in answer to the next inquiry in your letter. In it you wrote that some are saying a rich man who continues to live rich cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless he sells all he has and that it cannot do him any good to keep the commandments while he keeps his riches. Their arguments have overlooked our fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who departed long ago from this life. It is a fact that all these had extensive riches, as the Scripture faithfully bears witness, yet he who became poor for our sakes, although he was truly rich, foretold in a truthful promise that many would come from the east and the west and would sit down not above them nor without them but with them in the kingdom of heaven. Yes, the haughty rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day, died and was tormented in hell. Nevertheless, if he had shown mercy to the poor man covered with sores who lay at his door and was treated with scorn, he himself would have deserved mercy. And if the poor man’s merit had been his poverty, not his goodness, he surely would not have been carried by angels into the bosom of Abraham who had been rich in this life. This is intended to show us that on the one hand it was not poverty in itself that was divinely honored nor that riches were condemned but that the godliness of the one and the ungodliness of the other had their own consequences.

    LETTER 157, TO HILARIUS

  18. 2 Corinthians 9:6
    And since the apostle himself says: “Now this I say: he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly,” you should understand that now is the time, while we are still in this life, to be swift and eager to purchase the gift of eternal life, for when the end of the world comes it will be given only to those who have bought it for themselves by faith before they were able to see it.

    LETTER 268

  19. 2 Corinthians 10:12
    The fundamental fallacy of these men, who prefer to walk in roundabout error than keep to the straight path of truth, is that they have nothing but their own tiny, changing, human minds to measure the divine mind, infinitely capacious and utterly immutable, a mind that can count uncountable things without passing from one to the next. Such men, to use the words of the apostle, “comparing themselves with themselves,” end by understanding nothing. Of course, every time such philosophers decide to do something, they have to form a new mental resolution because their minds are mutable, and they imagine it is the same with God. Without having a notion of God, they mistake themselves for him, and instead of measuring God by God, they compare themselves to themselves.

    City of God 12.17

  20. 2 Corinthians 11:2
    Do you wish to know how the church is a virgin? Hear the apostle Paul; hear the friend of the Bridegroom who is zealous not for himself but for the Bridegroom: “I betrothed you to one spouse.” He spoke to the church. To which church? To all that his letter could reach. “I betrothed you to one spouse, that I might present you a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest,” he said, “as the serpent seduced Eve by his guile …” That serpent never physically defiled Eve, did he? Yet he did destroy her virginity of heart. On that account Paul said: “I fear lest … your minds may be corrupted from that chastity which is in Christ.” Therefore, the church is a virgin; she is a virgin, may she be a virgin. Let her beware of the deceiver, lest he turn out to be a corrupter. The church is a virgin. Are you, perhaps, going to say to me: “If the church is a virgin, how does she bring forth children? Or, if she does not bring forth children, how did we give our names so that we might be born of her?” I answer: “She is a virgin and she also brings forth children.” She imitates Mary, who gave birth to th…
    Do you wish to know how the church is a virgin? Hear the apostle Paul; hear the friend of the Bridegroom who is zealous not for himself but for the Bridegroom: “I betrothed you to one spouse.” He spoke to the church. To which church? To all that his letter could reach. “I betrothed you to one spouse, that I might present you a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest,” he said, “as the serpent seduced Eve by his guile …” That serpent never physically defiled Eve, did he? Yet he did destroy her virginity of heart. On that account Paul said: “I fear lest … your minds may be corrupted from that chastity which is in Christ.” Therefore, the church is a virgin; she is a virgin, may she be a virgin. Let her beware of the deceiver, lest he turn out to be a corrupter. The church is a virgin. Are you, perhaps, going to say to me: “If the church is a virgin, how does she bring forth children? Or, if she does not bring forth children, how did we give our names so that we might be born of her?” I answer: “She is a virgin and she also brings forth children.” She imitates Mary, who gave birth to the Lord. Did not the holy Mary bring forth her Child and remain a virgin? So, too, the church both brings forth children and is a virgin. And if you would give some consideration to the matter, she brings forth Christ, because they who are baptized are his members.

    CONVERTS AND THE CREED 213.7

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