Gálatas 2

Gálatas 2:20

I judge that because Paul already at that time walked in the spirit, and in his mind consented to the law of God because it is good (Rom 7:16); for this reason he deemed this very mind of his, as a certain principal and supreme part of himself, worthy to be designated rather by the name of himself than of any possession of his; but the remainder, which is established to be of an inferior nature and therefore to cling to the inferior and cheaper essence, which is the body; not only by the office of vivifying and giving sensation, but also by the desire of nourishing and cherishing: this, I say, being sensual and carnal, the spiritual man, judging it unworthy of the appellation of himself, reckoned it should rather be counted among his possessions than that he should be personally expressed through it. "When I say 'me,'" he says, "understand that which is more excellent in me, in which I also stand by the grace of God, that is, the mind and reason. When I speak of 'my soul,' take it in the lower sense, that which you see accommodated to animating the flesh, and even joined to it in concupiscence. That I was this, but now am no longer, I acknowledge, because I no longer walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit" (Rom 8:4). "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20). According to the mind, I; according to the flesh, not I. For what if the soul even now desires carnally? "It is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me" (Rom 7:17). And therefore I would call what in me savors carnally not indeed myself, but nevertheless mine, and that nothing other than the soul itself. For truly the carnal affection of the soul is a portion of it, and the life which it administers to the body. This soul, therefore, Paul despised in comparison with himself, prepared for the Lord's sake not only to be bound but also to die in Jerusalem, and so to lose his soul according to the Lord's counsel. — Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 30