It is not the Body that Sins
Do not believe anyone who maintains that our bodies have nothing to do with God. I might say in passing that people who regard the body as corrupt most often defile it with impure actions.
But what can possibly be wrong about this marvelous body of ours? Look at the beauty, the harmony of it.
The eyes are shining, the ears are placed in the most convenient position for catching sounds. The nose is capable of distinguishing smells and the tongue is useful both for tasting and for speaking. Internally the lungs breathe in the air the heart beats without intermission, the blood flows through countless veins and arteries, the bones are all connected with one another.
Never say the body is responsible for sin.
It is not the body that sins, but the soul. The body is only an instrument; it is like the outward clothing of the soul. It becomes impure if it is used for fornication, but it becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit if it is united to his sanctity.
These are not my words. The Apostle Paul says them: ‘Do you not know that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you?’
Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, 4, 22ff. (PG33, 484)
When Grace takes Possession of the Pastures of the Heart
Grace carves the laws of the Spirit in the hearts of the children of light. They have no need, as a result, to look for a safe guide only in the Bible, written in ink. The grace of God carves the laws of the Spirit, and the divine mysteries too, on the tablets of the heart.
Then from the heart grace takes charge of the whole body. Indeed, when grace has taken possession of the pastures of the heart, it is supreme over all the limbs and all the imagination. It overflows onto them from the heart.
If someone loves God, God’s love is united with that person. If someone believes in God, God instils faith into him. So there is a two-way movement. You offer your limbs to God and God enters into communion with you by offering you what we can call his limbs, supposing he had any.
From that moment onwards you can do everything in sincerity and purity.
The dignity of the human person is therefore beyond imagining. Look at the sky and the earth, the sun and the moon, and admire their grandeur. Yet the Lord condescended to rest, not in them, but only in the human heart.
Pseudo-Macarius, Homilies, 15, 20ff. (PG34, 589)
~Thomas Spidlik, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary, Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World
