Etymology and Christian Roots
| This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. |
The term "mortification of the flesh" comes from Saint Paul in this quote: "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.". The same idea is seen in the following verses: "Put to death what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry"; "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires".
According to Christian exegesis, "deeds of the body" and "what is earthly", refer to the "wounded nature" of man or his concupiscence (evil inclinations due to forming part of the Fall of Man); humanity suffers the consequences of the original sin.
Thus, Jesus expected believers to repent from slavery to their flesh's desires: "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes".
Read more about this topic: Mortification Of The Flesh
Famous quotes containing the words etymology, christian and/or roots:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“He says a man may perhaps answer, that the necessity of things held by him, is not a stoical necessity, but a Christian necessity, &c. But this distinction I have not used, nor indeed have ever heard before, nor could I think any man could make stoical and Christian two kinds of necessity, though they may be two kinds of doctrine”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“To the young mind, every thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it finds how to join two things, and see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running underground, whereby contrary and remote things cohere, and flower out from one stem.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)