Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, impurity, licentiousness,
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
These and others like them are the members of sin, which the apostle calls “the works of the flesh” because these errors come from the world, from which also the flesh comes. For all these sins arise from the side of the flesh, not from that of the Spirit.
The works of the flesh are manifest. The works that spring from the flesh, i.e, from concupiscence, as I said in the note to ver17.
Fornication. On the works of the flesh in detail, see Jerome, Anselm, and S. Thomas.
Uncleanness. Effeminacy. The effeminate are guilty of mutual pollution, contrary to the instincts of nature.
Lasciviousness. Any wanton, and, according to Jerome, extraordinary form of lust. He adds: "The works of the married even, if not done with delicacy and modesty, as in the sight of God, and if merely for the procreation of children, come under the Apostle"s description of uncleanness and lasciviousness." This, of course, must be understood of mortal sin; cf, e.g, the act of matrimony is performed otherwise than nature dictates, or if its consummation is purposely prevented; for then both are guilty of mortal sin, excluding them from the Kingdom of heaven. Otherwise lust in the married is only venial.
Therefore, whatsoever things all heretics and schismatics do are carnal, as the apostle says: "For the works of the flesh are manifest, which are, fornications, uncleannesses, incest, idolatries, witchcrafts, hatreds, contentions, jealousy, anger, divisions, heresies, and the like to these; concerning which have told you before, as I also foretell you now, that whoever do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
Hatreds, contentions jealousies, wraths, emulations, animosities, irritable speeches, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and such like; of which I warn you, as also I have warned you, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
By saying that “the works of the flesh are plain,” he means that they are known to all because they are so selfevidently bad and abhorrent, so much so that even those who do them desire to hide their deeds. Or else it may mean that they are plain only to believers in Christ. –.
Answer me now, you that accusest your own flesh, and supposest that this is said of it as of an enemy and adversary. Let it be allowed that adultery and fornication proceed, as you assert, from the flesh; yet hatred, variance, emulations, strife, heresies, and witchcraft, these arise merely from a depraved moral choice. And so it is with the others also, for how can they belong to the flesh? You observe that he is not here speaking of the flesh, but of earthly thoughts, which trail upon the ground. Wherefore also he alarms them by saying, that they which practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If these things belonged to nature and not to a bad moral choice, his expression, they practice, is inappropriate, it should be, they suffer. And why should they be cast out of the kingdom, for rewards and punishments relate not to what proceeds from nature but from choice?
He means the works of the flesh and blood, which, in his Epistle to the Galatians, deprive men of the kingdom of God.
It is not indeed the flesh which he bids us to put off, but the works which he in another passage shows to be "works of the flesh.".
"What are these? Among the first he has set "fornication, impurity, lasciviousness: " "(concerning) which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that whoever do such acts are not to attain by inheritance the kingdom of God.".
for the other (works) of the flesh even an apostle would have named.
