The Literal Meaning of Genesis (continued)
BOOK TEN LEACH
desire unmixed with carnal pleasure or any craving for carnal things, when it longs and faints for the courts of the Lord.42 The spirit alone experiences also that desire about which it is said to it, You have desired wisdom; keep the commandment, and the Lord will give it to you.*3 For when the spirit commands the members of the body to be at the service of this desire with which the spirit alone is enkindled—for example, when one takes up a book, or when one writes, reads, discusses, listens, or when one feeds the hungry, and when other good deeds are done out of human kindness and pity—the flesh obeys, and it does not stir up concupiscence. When these and similar good desires, which the soul alone seeks, are opposed by something which delights the same soul according to the flesh, then it is said that The desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and those of the spirit against the flesh.
21. In this connection "the flesh" is spoken of when the soul acts according to it, for example, when one says, "The flesh desires." In the same way we say, "The ear hears" and "The eye sees," but everyone knows that it is the soul that hears by means of the ear and sees by means of the eye.** By the same usage we say that your hand helps a man when you put forth your hand and give something to help another. And it is with reference to the eye of faith, to which it belongs to believe what is not seen through the flesh, that Scripture says, A// flesh will see the salvation of God.*> But it is surely with reference to the soul alone, by which the flesh lives, that this was said; for even to look piously through the eyes of the flesh upon Christ, that is, upon the form which He assumed for our sake, does not belong to concupiscence (and one should guard against understanding the text, All flesh will see the salvation of God, in this sense) but to the ministry of the flesh.*°
It is more properly said that the flesh desires when the soul not only gives animal life to the flesh but also desires something according to the flesh. It is not in the soul's power to be rid of these desires so long as there is sin in the members, that is, a strong allurement of the flesh in this body of death,*' resulting from the punishment for the sin in which we are born, by which before grace all are sons of wrath.*®
Against this sin those who are placed under grace carry on a