Augustine of Hippo — Commentary on Scripture

2 Corinthians 3:6 · 3 passages

Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

Let the Spirit be joined to the law, because, if you have received the law and if you lack the help of the Spirit, you do not fulfill what is of the law. You do not carry out what is commanded you.… Let the Spirit be added, let him help: that which is commanded is accomplished. If the Spirit is absent, the letter kills you.… You cannot excuse yourself on the plea of ignorance since you have received the law. Now, because you have learned what you should do, ignorance does not excuse you.… But why does the apostle say: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”? How does the Spirit give life? Because he causes the letter to be fulfilled so that it may not kill. The sanctified are those who fulfill the law of God according to the gift of God. The law can command; it cannot help. The Spirit is added as a helper, and the commandment of God is fulfilled with joy and delight. Certainly many observe the law from fear, but those who keep the law from fear of punishment would prefer that what they fear did not exist. On the contrary, those who observe the law through love of justice rejoic…

Let the Spirit be joined to the law, because, if you have received the law and if you lack the help of the Spirit, you do not fulfill what is of the law. You do not carry out what is commanded you.… Let the Spirit be added, let him help: that which is commanded is accomplished. If the Spirit is absent, the letter kills you.… You cannot excuse yourself on the plea of ignorance since you have received the law. Now, because you have learned what you should do, ignorance does not excuse you.… But why does the apostle say: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”? How does the Spirit give life? Because he causes the letter to be fulfilled so that it may not kill. The sanctified are those who fulfill the law of God according to the gift of God. The law can command; it cannot help. The Spirit is added as a helper, and the commandment of God is fulfilled with joy and delight. Certainly many observe the law from fear, but those who keep the law from fear of punishment would prefer that what they fear did not exist. On the contrary, those who observe the law through love of justice rejoice even in that respect because they do not consider it hostile to them.

Therefore, God commands continence, and he gives continence; he commands by the law, he gives by the Spirit; for the law without grace makes sin abound, and the letter without the spirit kills. He commands so as to make us learn how to ask the help of grace when we try to obey his commandments and in our weakness fall wearied under the law, and also to make us grateful to him who helps us if we have been able to perform any good work.

How does the Spirit give life? By causing the letter to be fulfilled, so that it may not kill.

2 Corinthians 3:13 · 3 passages

And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:

Doubtless, there is a veil in the Old Testament, which will be removed as soon as one comes to Christ. At his crucifixion, “the veil of the temple was torn,” to signify what the apostle said about the veil of the Old Testament, “Because in Christ it is made void.”10.

The truth is that the Old Testament of Mount Sinai, “producing children of slavery,” now serves no purpose but to bear witness to the New. Otherwise, the words of St. Paul would not be true: “Yes, down to this very day when Moses is read, the veil covers their hearts”; but when any of them turn from the Old Testament to Christ, “the veil shall be taken away.” What happens is that the deepest aspirations of those who make the change are shifted from the Old Testament to the New, whereupon they begin to look for spiritual—rather than earthly—happiness.

It is not the Old Testament that is done away with in Christ but the concealing veil, so that it may be understood through Christ. That is, as it were, laid bare, which without Christ is hidden and obscure. The same apostle adds immediately: “When you shall turn to Christ, the veil shall be taken away.” He does not say: “The law or the Old Testament will be taken away.” It is not the case, therefore, that by the grace of the Lord that which was covered has been abolished as useless; rather the covering has been removed which concealed useful truth. This is what happens to those who earnestly and piously, not proudly and wickedly, seek the sense of the Scriptures. To them is carefully demonstrated the order of events, the reasons for words and deeds and the agreement of the Old Testament with the New, so that not a point remains where there is not complete harmony; and such secret truths are conveyed in figures. When they are brought to light by interpretation, they compel those who wished to condemn rather than to learn.

2 Corinthians 4:13 · 2 passages

We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;

Those just men also were saved by their salutary faith in him as man and God. They, before he came in the flesh, believed that he was to come in the flesh. Our faith is the same as theirs, since they believed that this would be, while we believe that it has come to pass. Hence, the apostle Paul says: “But having the same spirit of faith, as it is written: I believed for which reason I have spoken: we also believe for which reason we also speak.” If, then, those who foretold that Christ would come in the flesh had the same faith as those who have recorded his coming, these religious mysteries could vary according to the diversity of times yet all refer most harmoniously to the unity of the same faith.

Moreover, our Mediator, when revealed to us, wished the sacrament of our regeneration to be manifest. But for the just men of old it was something hidden, although they also were to be saved by the same faith which was to be revealed in its own time. For we do not dare to prefer the faithful of our own time to the friends of God by whom those prophecies were to be made, since God so announced himself as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, as to give himself that name forever. If the belief is correct that circumcision served instead of baptism in the saints of old, what shall be said of those who pleased God before this was commanded, except that they pleased him by faith, because, as it is written in Hebrews: “Without faith it is impossible to please God”? “But having the same spirit of faith,” says the apostle, “as it is written: I believed, for which cause I have spoken, we also believe, for which reason we also speak.” He would not have said “the same” unless this very spirit of faith was also theirs. For, just as they, when this same mystery was hidden, belie…

Moreover, our Mediator, when revealed to us, wished the sacrament of our regeneration to be manifest. But for the just men of old it was something hidden, although they also were to be saved by the same faith which was to be revealed in its own time. For we do not dare to prefer the faithful of our own time to the friends of God by whom those prophecies were to be made, since God so announced himself as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, as to give himself that name forever. If the belief is correct that circumcision served instead of baptism in the saints of old, what shall be said of those who pleased God before this was commanded, except that they pleased him by faith, because, as it is written in Hebrews: “Without faith it is impossible to please God”? “But having the same spirit of faith,” says the apostle, “as it is written: I believed, for which cause I have spoken, we also believe, for which reason we also speak.” He would not have said “the same” unless this very spirit of faith was also theirs. For, just as they, when this same mystery was hidden, believed in the incarnation of Christ which was to come, so we also believe that it has come.

2 Corinthians 4:16

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

The renewal of humankind, begun in the sacred bath of baptism, proceeds gradually and is accomplished more quickly in some individuals and more slowly in others. But many are in progress toward the new life if we consider the matter carefully and without prejudice. As the apostle says: “Even though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” He says that the inner man is renewed day by day in order that he may become perfect, but you would have him begin with perfection. Would that you really did desire this! But you seek to lead the unwary astray rather than to uplift the weak.

2 Corinthians 4:17

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

The human patience which is good, praiseworthy and deserving the name of virtue is said to be that by which we endure evils with equanimity so as not to abandon, through a lack of equanimity, the good through which we arrive at the better. By their unwillingness to suffer evil, the impatient do not effect their deliverance from it; instead, they bring upon themselves the suffering of more grievous ills. But the patient, who prefer to bear wrongs without committing them rather than to commit them by not enduring them, both lessen what they suffer in patience and escape worse things by which, through impatience, they would be submerged. In yielding to evils that are brief and passing, they do not destroy the good which is great and eternal, for “the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared,” the apostle says, “with the glory to come that will be revealed in us.” And he also says: “Our present light affliction, which is for the moment, prepares for us an eternal weight of glory that is beyond all measure.”

2 Corinthians 5:1

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

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.

2 Corinthians 5:5 · 2 passages

Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.

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.”

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.

2 Corinthians 5:6

Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

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.

2 Corinthians 5:7

(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

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.

2 Corinthians 5:10

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Christ judges all things because when he is with God he is above all.

2 Corinthians 5:14 · 2 passages

For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

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.

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.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

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.”.

2 Corinthians 5:20

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.

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.