Are you so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?
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Clement Of Alexandria
AD 215
Peccatun enim, cure sit "corruptio "non potest babere societatem cure incorrupt one "quae est justitia. "Adeo stulti "inquit, "estis? cure spiritu coeperitis, nunc came consummamini."
Having begun in the Spirit. With the spiritual doctrine of Christ, and the spiritual gifts received from Him, enabling you to live the spiritual life.
Are ye now made perfect by the flesh? The flesh is put for circumcision and other carnal ceremonies of the law. The interpretation which sees here a reference to the carnal lusts of the flesh is disproved by the context. Made perfect is in the Vulgate consumemini.
S. Bernard (Serm33in Cant.) applies this text to those who exhaust their strength by unrestrained devotion, through excessive prayers and penances. Afterwards, he says, they become lazy, and are consumed by the flesh, while seeking for health, and so become sensual and carnal. Cf. notes to 1 Corinthians 3:2.
Theophylact observes that S. Paul uses the passive, not the active—"Are you made perfect?" not, "Do you make perfect?" i.e, he hints that they were like brute beasts, in suffering themselves to be circumcised by others. He also notes that he does not say merely πεγε...
What he means is, “Whereas the advance of time should bring increase, you not only have not improved but have actually been pushed backward. For those who have begun from small things gradually proceed to greater ones. But you, on the contrary, beginning from great things, have been carried back to less … from performing spiritual signs back to practicing fleshly circumcision.”
Here again he seasonably interposes a rebuke; time, he says, should have brought improvement; but, so far from advancing, you have even retrograded. Those who start from small beginnings make progress to higher things; you, who began with the high, have relapsed to the low. Even had your outset been carnal, your advance should have been spiritual, but now, after starting from things spiritual, you have ended your journey in that which is carnal; for to work miracles is spiritual, but to be circumcised is carnal. And after miracles you have passed to circumcision, after having apprehended the truth you have fallen back to types, after gazing on the sun you seek a candle, after having strong meat you run for milk. He says, made perfect, which means not initiated merely, but sacrificed, signifying that their teachers took and slew them like animals, while they resigned themselves to suffer what those teachers pleased. As if some captain, or distinguished man, after a thousand victories an...
