But she that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.
Read Chapter 5
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
But there is a kind of death that the apostle detests when he says of the widow, “But she that lives in pleasures is dead while she is living.” Hence, the soul which was impious but has now become pious is said to have come back to life from the dead and to live on account of justification by faith. The body, on the contrary, is not only said to be about to die on account of the departure of the soul, which will come to pass, but, in a certain number of passages, it is even spoken of as already dead on account of the great weakness of flesh and blood, as where the apostle says, “The body, it is true, is dead on account of sin, the spirit is life on account of justice.” .
May God avert from us the sentence which will be in hard pursuit of those who indulge in any kind of wickedness, who are adorned with the most precious ornaments for the sake of vanity and worldly pomp. Such persons seize the property of another, are filled even to the point of vomiting with many delicacies, bury themselves in excessive drinking and store up by almsgiving little or nothing for heaven. It is of these persons that the apostle says, “The soul which gives herself up to pleasures is dead while she is still alive.”
For she that liveth in pleasure, (i.e. that seeks to live in ease and plenty) is dead while she is living, by the spiritual death of her soul in sin. See St. Chrysostom with no less eloquence than piety, expounding this riddle, as he terms it, to wit, what it is to be at the same time alive and dead. (Witham)
It is difficult, or rather impossible, when we are swimming in luxury or pleasure, not to think of what we are doing. And it is an idle pretense which some put forward that they can take their fill of pleasure with their faith and purity and mental uprightness unimpaired. It is a violation of nature to revel in pleasure, and the apostle gives a caution against this very thing when he says, “She that gives herself to pleasure is dead while she lives.” The bodily senses are like horses madly racing, but the soul like a charioteer holds the reins. And as the horses without a driver go at breakneck speed, so the body, if it be not governed by the reasonable soul, rushes to its own destruction.
No one—not even though he call himself a Christian or a monk a thousand times over—confesses God while he is sinning. No one remembers God while he allows what the Lord hates. It is like pretending he is a faithful servant while he takes no notice of his master’s commands. St. Paul says of a widow, “She that gives herself to pleasure is dead while she lives.” This is the kind of death he means. Many whose bodies are alive are dead and in hell and cannot praise God. And many whose bodies are dead bless and praise God together in the spirit…. In the Apocalypse the souls of the martyrs are described as praying to God as well as praising him. , .
It is not possible, not possible at all, for those who enjoy an easy life and freedom from want in this world, who continually indulge themselves in every way, who live randomly and foolishly, to enjoy honor in the other world. For if poverty does not trouble them, still desire troubles them and they are afflicted because of this, which brings more than a little pain. If disease does not threaten them, still their temper grows hot, and it requires more than an ordinary struggle to overcome anger. If trials do not come to test them, still evil thoughts continually attack. It is no common task to bridle foolish desire, to stop vain glory, to restrain presumption, to refrain from luxury, to persevere in austerity. A person who does not do these things and others like them cannot be saved. As testimony that those who live luxuriously cannot be saved, hear what Paul says about the widow: “she who is selfindulgent is dead even while she lives.”
Moral. She that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives. Hear this, you women, that pass your time in revels and intemperance, and who neglect the poor, pining and perishing with hunger, while you are destroying yourself with continual luxury. Thus you are the causes of two deaths, of those who are dying of want, and of your own, both through ill measure. But if out of your fullness you tempered their want, you would save two lives. Why do you thus gorge your own body with excess, and waste that of the poor with want; why pamper this above measure, and stint that too beyond measure? Consider what comes of food, into what it is changed. Are you not disgusted at its being named? Why then be eager for such accumulations? The increase of luxury is but the multiplication of dung! For nature has her limits, and what is beyond these is not nourishment, but injury, and the increase of ordure. Nourish the body, but do not destroy it. Food is called nourishment, to show that its design is not ...
To live in luxury does not seem in itself to be a manifest and admitted crime. But then it brings forth in us great evils—drunkenness, violence, extortion and plunder. For the prodigal and sumptuous liver, bestowing extravagant service on the belly, is often compelled to steal, and to seize the property of others and to use extortion and violence. If, then, you avoid luxurious living, you remove the foundation of extortion, and plunder, and drunkenness, and a thousand other evils, cutting away the root of iniquity from its extremity. Hence Paul says that “she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.”
Behold, to what does the wisdom of this world urge a man? To live in pleasures. Whence it is said: A widow that liveth in pleasure, is dead while she liveth.
