What does the apostle mean when he says, “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:10)?

St. John Chrysostom comments saying, “You have not yet submitted to death; your loss has extended to money, to reputation, to being driven from place to place. Christ however shed His blood for you, while you have not [done it] for yourselves. He contended for the Truth even unto death fighting for you; while you have not yet entered upon dangers that threaten death,”⁴⁹⁷ and, “As he bids one become, as it were, dead unto the world;—and this deadness harms not at all, but rather profits, being made a cause of life:—so also he bids him become foolish unto this world, introducing to us hereby the true wisdom. Now he becomes a fool unto the world, who slights the wisdom from without, and is persuaded that it contributes nothing towards his comprehension of the faith.”⁴⁹⁸

St. Cyprian of Carthage says, “But for the rest, what else in the world than a battle against the devil that is daily carried on, than a struggle against his darts and weapons in constant conflicts? Our warfare is with avarice, with immodesty, with anger, with pride; our diligent and toilsome wrestle with carnal lusts, and with the enticements of the world. The mind of man besieged and in every quarter invested with the onsets of the devil, and scarcely

494 St. Augustine of Hippo, Letters, Volume II (83–130) 108 (FOTC 18:222).

495 St. Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine 4.7.12 (NPNF I/2:578).

496 St. John Chrysostom, In Praise of St. Paul (Saint Paul Brotherhood Press, 2014) 1: pp. 24.

497 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Hebrews 29.1 (NPNF I/14:499).

498

St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 10.2 (NPNF I/12:54).

in each point the mind is able to defend the attack or resist it. If he overcomes the love of money, lust springs up. If lust is overcome, pride takes its place. If pride is despised, anger exasperates, pride puffs up, wine-bibbing entices, envy breaks concord, and jealousy cuts friendship … So many persecutions the soul suffers daily, with so many risks is the heart wearied, and yet it delights to abide here long among the devil’s weapons, although it should rather be our craving and wish to hasten to Christ by the aid of a quicker death; as He Himself instructs us, and says, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, That you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy’ (John 16:20). Who would not desire to be without sadness? who would not hasten to attain to joy? But when our sadness shall be turned into joy, the Lord Himself again declares, when He says, ‘I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you’ (John 16:22). Since, therefore, to see Christ is to rejoice, and we cannot have joy unless when we shall see Christ, what blindness of mind or what folly is it to love the world’s afflictions, and punishments, and tears, and not rather to hasten to the joy which can never be taken away!”⁴⁹⁹

St. Ambrose says, “What indeed is death but the burial of vices and the awakening of virtues? For this reason ‘may my soul depart among the souls of the righteous,’ that is, ‘may it be buried together with them’ (Num. 23:10 LXX; cf. Col. 2.12), that it may lay down its sins and take up the grace of the just, who ‘bear about the dying of Christ in their body’ (2 Cor. 4:10) and soul.”⁵⁰⁰

The scholar Origen says, “He came down into our deadness in order that, He having died to sin, we (2 Cor. 4:10), bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus. might then receive that life of His which is for evermore. For those who always carry about in their body the dying of Jesus shall obtain the life of Jesus also, manifested in their bodies.”⁵⁰¹ He also says, “If any one who is a man mortifies the lusts of manhood, putting to death by the spirit the deeds of the body, and ‘always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus’ (2 Cor. 4:10), to such a degree that he has the condition of the little child who has not tasted sensual pleasures, and has had no conception of the impulses of manhood, then such an one is converted, and has become as the little children.”⁵⁰²

St. Augustine says, “Now it is placed on a candlestick by him who subordinates his body to the service of God, so that the preaching of the truth is the higher, and the serving of the body the lower; yet by means even of the service of the body the doctrine shines more conspicuously, inasmuch as it is insinuated into those who learn by means of bodily functions, i.e. by means of the voice and tongue, and the other movements of the body in good works. The apostle therefore puts his candle on a candlestick, when he says, ‘So fight I, not as one that beats the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest

499 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 7: On the Mortality 4–5 (ANF 5:470) amended.

500 St. Ambrose of Milan, Death as Good 4.15 (FOTC 65:81–82).

501 Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on John 1.35 (ANF 9:316).

502 Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on Matthew 13.16 (ANF 9:484).

that by any means, when I preach to others, I myself should be found a castaway’ (1 Cor. 9:26–27).”⁵⁰³

St. Cyril of Alexandria says:

“For those who have really become true followers of Christ our Savior, crucify their flesh, and put it to death, by being constantly engaged in labors and struggles unto piety, and by mortifying its natural desire.”⁵⁰⁴

“For in Him we all have our being, inasmuch as He manifested Himself as Man. In order that He might mortify the members, which are upon the earth (Col. 3:5), that is, the affections of the flesh, and might quench the law of sin (Rom. 7:23) that holds sway in our members, and also that He might sanctify our nature, and prove Himself our Pattern and Guide in the path to piety, and that the revelation of the truth according to knowledge, and of a way of life beyond possibility of error might be complete—all this Christ, when He became Man, accomplished.”⁵⁰⁵

“[They] have mortified their members, which are upon the earth (Col. 3:5), and regarded only those things which are not displeasing to the Divine law; rather He uses the word name instead of glory , for they who reign with Christ will be enviable and worthy all admiration.”⁵⁰⁶