Galatians 5:23Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

At the head of carnal vices Paul placed adultery (Gal 5:19). At the head of spiritual virtues he placed love. Will this not compel anyone who undertakes the study of divine Scripture to consider the rest also?

Adultery is love torn away from lawful marriage and seeking everywhere the satisfaction of its lust. But nothing is joined spiritually so lawfully as the soul with God. The more firmly it is joined, the more pure it becomes. For it is joined in love.

Therefore love is rightly opposed to adultery, for only love preserves purity. All uncleanness consists in impulses born of adultery, and to these is opposed the joy of serenity.

The worship of idols is the extreme adultery of the soul, when a most savage war is waged against the Gospel and against those reconciled to God. The ashes of adultery, though long only smoldering, can still burst into flame.

Opposed to this is peace, by which we are reconciled to God. When the same peace comes to men, we are healed of the vices of sorcery, hostility, contentiousness, zeal, stubbornness, and quarrelsomeness. Then we deal with those among whom we live in a restrained manner.

Longsuffering teaches us to endure such vices, kindness to heal them, and goodness to forgive them. Faith fights against heresy, meekness against envy, and self-control against drunkenness and revelry.

By this we should understand every possible good work. For he says, “against such,” that is, against these and against any like them.

Even if someone, through his own vice, is hostile to the one who loves him and tries to disturb his peace with stormy hatred, the loving man is never troubled. He never judges God’s creature worthy of hatred, for “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet 4:8). This is the same as what the Savior says: “A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can an evil tree bear good fruit” (Mt 7:18). In my judgment, this was said not so much about men as about the fruits of the Spirit and the flesh. The Spirit can never commit those vicious deeds listed among the works of the flesh. Nor can the flesh abound in those fruits which come from the Spirit. Yet through the negligence of the possessor, the spirit dwelling in man may lack its own fruits. Conversely, when its deeds have been put to death, the flesh may cease from sinning. Still, they will never advance so far that the neglected tree of the Spirit bears the fruits of the flesh. Nor will the cultivated tree of the flesh bring forth spiritual fruits. In second place among the spiritual fruits stands joy. The Stoics, who draw finer distinctions between concepts, think joy, gaudium, differs from gladness, laetitia. Joy, they say, is the elevation of the spirit over what is worthy of rejoicing. Gladness is an unchecked uplift of the spirit, which knows no measure and rejoices even in what contains an admixture of vice. Others think that delight, voluptas, flows from joy. They do not mean the delight which excites the body to lust, flatters the senses, and is flattered by pleasant sensory stimulation. They mean another, similar thing, ομώνυμον, to that which bursts out immoderately and unbecomingly in laughter. If this is true, and if such a distinction between the words is right and not misleading, then let us consider why it may have been said: “There is no joy for the wicked, says the Lord” (Isa 57:21). At the same time, we must note that joy follows love in second place. If a man loves someone, he always rejoices in his joy. If he sees him seized by some error and fallen on the slippery path of sin, he will grieve and hasten to snatch him from it. Yet he cannot replace joy with grief, because he knows that no rational creature of God perishes forever before God. The third fruit of the Spirit is peace. From this name Solomon, who was a type of Christ, received his name. Concerning the Church the Psalmist cries: “His place was in peace” (Ps 75:3). Among the eight beatitudes of the Gospel it is written: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Mt 5:9). Likewise, in the first Psalm of Ascents it is sung: “With those who hated peace I was peaceful” (Ps 119:7). We should not think that peace is to be sought only when we are not quarreling with another man. The peace of Christ, that is, our inheritance, is with us when a tranquil mind is disturbed by no passions. After peace comes longsuffering, or patience, because the word μακροθυμία can be understood in either sense. Its opposite is pusillanimity, or timidity, of which it is written: “The fainthearted is very foolish, but he who is truly patient and endures all things is a wise man” (Eccl 7). With intensified meaning he is called “much wise,” as it is also written in Proverbs: “A longsuffering man is great in wisdom” (Prov 14:29). Kindness, or goodness of heart, since the Greek χρηστότης has both meanings, is a mild and gentle virtue. It is ready to share in every virtue, inviting kinship, sweet in conversation, and moderate in conduct. The Stoics also define it thus: “Kindness is a virtue voluntarily disposed toward good action.” Goodness differs little from kindness, because it too seems disposed to beneficence. Yet they differ in this: goodness can be more severe, with a brow wrinkled by strictness of character. It strives to act well and to grant everything requested, without showing pleasant companionship or drawing all to itself by gracious conduct. The followers of Zeno also define it in this way: “Goodness is a virtue which is useful,” or, “a virtue from which benefit comes,” or, “virtue in itself,” or, “a movement of soul which is the source of benefit.” Among the fruits of the Spirit, faith holds the seventh and most sacred place. Elsewhere it is counted among the three: faith, hope, and love. It is not surprising if hope is not named in this list. In faith there is given what forms the content of hope. The Apostle defines it thus in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “Faith is the substance, substantia, ύπόστασις, of things hoped for, and the proof of things not yet seen” (Heb 11:1). What we hope will come, and what is not yet present, we possess by faith. We hope that we already hold what we believe. The question also arises: how is faith contained in love? He who loves never thinks he will suffer harm. He suspects nothing except that he loves and is loved. But when love is removed, faith is removed with it. After faith the Apostle names meekness, which is opposed to anger, quarrels, and dissensions. It is never provoked to actions contrary to its nature, since it bears truly good fruits from the good tree of the Spirit. Through it Moses, the servant of God, was deemed worthy to receive the testimony of Scripture, which says: “Moses was meek above all men on the earth” (Num 12:3). It says, “on the earth.” He could not be above those who beheld God face to face, because we are often moved to do many things by the weakness of the flesh. Likewise, concerning David, the Holy Spirit sings in type of Him Who was to come to earth: “Remember, O Lord, David and all his meekness” (Ps 131:1). Many think, and we do not deny it, that he spoke this about our Lord by the prophetic Spirit. Yet Scripture also clearly showed David’s meekness toward Saul, Absalom, and Shimei (1 Kgs 24:2; 2 Kgs 15). One wished to kill him. Another plotted new things and sought to deprive him of power by deceit. The third threw stones at him, scattered dust over him, and shouted as he drove him away: “Go out, go out, you lawless man” (2 Kgs 16:7). Last among the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. By it we must understand not only chastity, but restraint in food and drink, in anger, in movements of the mind, and in being carried away by fleshly desires. There is this distinction between modesty and self-control. Modesty belongs to those who are perfect and of complete virtue, of whom the Savior says: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Mt 5:5), and of Himself: “Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Mt 11:29). Self-control is on the way to virtue, but has not reached its summit. In the man who is still restraining himself, lusts arise from thoughts and defile the ruling part of the soul. Yet they do not gain victory or draw the one who has the thought into action. Self-control is necessary not only in desires and lust, but also in the other three disturbances of the spirit: grief, joy, and fear. Against fruits of the Spirit of this kind there is no law. “The law is not laid down for the righteous, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners” (1 Tim 1:9). The Law says to me: “Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not bear false witness, do not deceive, do not desire what belongs to another, do not be a perjurer, do not steal” (Ex 20:13-17), and so forth. If I do none of these things, because the fruit of the Spirit, love, reigns in my soul, then the commandments of the Law are superfluous for me. Finally, even the wise men of this world thought the same about philosophy: it persuades men to do willingly what civil laws compel them to do by necessity.

But after receiving it mystically, each person who does not fulfill the commandments comes under the action of sin according to the measure of his neglect. Having received power to act, he is at fault because through carelessness he does not perform the works.

Whether quickly or slowly, if we desire to be perfect, we must believe Christ completely and fulfill all His commandments, having received from Him the power for such a work.

As much as we fulfill God’s commandments in faith, so much does the Holy Spirit produce His fruits in us. According to St. Paul, the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, mercy, faith, meekness, and self-control (Gal 5:22).

There are three noetic places into which the intellect enters as it changes within itself: the natural, the supernatural, and the unnatural.

When it enters its natural place, it finds itself to be the author of evil thoughts and the cause of the passions, and it confesses its sins to God.

When it is in the unnatural place, it forgets the righteousness of God and wars against men, as though they wronged it unjustly.

But when it is raised to the supernatural place, it finds within itself the fruits of the Holy Spirit indicated by the Apostle, “love, joy, peace,” and so forth (Gal 5:22).

It knows that if it prefers bodily cares, it cannot remain there. Having gone out from there, it falls into sin and into the grievous accidents that follow it. This may not happen immediately, but in its own time, as the righteousness of God knows.

To such people, I say, Christ grants self-control. By the self-control through which they now abstain from every sin, they may know from what great evil they have been delivered.

And when the very movement toward evil, that is, sympathy with it, has been taken from them, they may humbly glorify God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who sent Him for the deliverance of His people.

The law did not prescribe or indicate the true and lofty love for God and neighbor that was preached only in the New Testament. Therefore it did not lead to spiritual joy or inward peace.

There, chiefly fear of God was commanded, and hostility toward neighbors was permitted. Nor was there any mention of human longsuffering, kindness, mercy, faith, meekness, or self-control.

There, repayment of evil for evil was commanded, divorce was legalized, and polygamy was permitted. If the virtues listed by the Apostle appeared among the Jews, they appeared apart from the law’s demands, as though confirming the insufficiency of the law.

This is why the Apostle now says that against such people, those having the virtues he indicated, there is no law. Earlier he likewise said that the righteous man shall live by faith, and not by the law.

Since love is indicated first among the works of the spirit, blessed Jerome exclaims: “What virtue should fittingly hold first place among the fruits of the spirit, if not love? Without it the other virtues are not counted as virtues, and from it all good things are born. In both the law and the Gospel, primacy is given to it” (see Deut 6:5; Mt 22:37).

And St. John Chrysostom says: “Who can teach one who has everything within himself, and has love as the most perfect teacher of wisdom?

“As gentle horses, which do everything of themselves, have no need of the whip, so the soul that does good by the action of the Spirit has no need of the prescriptions of the law.

“Thus the Apostle here also rejects the law with marvelous wisdom. He does this not because it is bad, but because it is lower than the wisdom given by the Spirit.”

What do we have that we have not received from the hand of faith? What we believe, that shall be. We believe, and we can move mountains. We do not believe, and not one iota will pass. Lazarus believed and was raised from the dead. Judas did not believe and could not avoid losing his life.

The believer does not need the aids of nature. Without faith, every action of nature is useless. The breadth of faith cannot easily be grasped. It is not confined within the narrow limits of a dead concept of the Godhead and human nature. For such an ark, embracing all the mysteries of God, even the broad minds of the heavenly beings above are not sufficient.

Let us proceed further and further, but only with the eye of God, not by the steps of men. The inward beauty of faith is fair. The highest and most excellent gifts do not always prove that a man is a Christian and pleasing to God. For the Kingdom is not in word (1 Cor 4:20).

To turn a rod, to pass through the sea, to draw water from the rock, and to speak with fiery tongues are acts of God, but not always acts of His good pleasure. They are of God, but the Lord is not in the fire. They are of God, but do not rejoice in this. Remember also that Miriam was a prophetess, Saul was a prophet, and Balaam spoke a parable.

Faith may be likened to a beautiful tree enriched with marvelous fruits. These fruits are so unique that one who has tasted them can say only this: they grew from incorruptible seed in the fields of heavenly Eden, and were prepared by the right hand of the Most High.

"The spiritual fruit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, mercy, faith, meekness, continence" (Gal 5:22-23). Let us consider why these fruits are called spiritual.

Love is a turtledove, a hen, an eagle, the Spirit who hovered above the water. It sighs with those who sigh, like a turtledove. It calls together the little chicks of scant understanding, like a hen. It rises on high to God, like an eagle. It orders all things well in the likeness of God.

Love possesses God and is also mistress of all human things. Everything belongs to it. It rejoices over every happiness as over its own. It grieves over every misfortune as over its own. Behold the first fruit of faith.

Do you think that unbelievers love anyone? They love neither God, nor the world, nor men, nor themselves. They do love the world, but in such a way that through this they hate themselves. They love themselves, but in order to destroy themselves. They love others, but only those who love them.

Innocent love looked down from heaven. The Pre-eternal One, suffering on Golgotha and thirsting for the forgiveness of sins for His crucifiers, is the first and only teacher of the science of love. The spiritual fruit is love.

Joy is the blessed calm of conscience that comes from the appeased, reconciled Godhead. The unbeliever has never felt joy in his heart. 'Cursed is everyone who does not abide in all things written in the Law' (Gal 3:10). What calm can there be for the cursed? What joy for the lost?

Perhaps they do rejoice, but not with their own joy. Smiling fortune, the applause of flatterers, and the blessing of those around them are another's joy. We have seen Romans enraptured by victories. Yet to look indifferently at corpses, and to be enraptured by rivers of blood and by kings drawing chariots, is to surrender to inhuman frenzy, not to joy.

Only those who have seen Jesus, and who rejoice with great joy that none of those entrusted to Him was lost except the son of perdition, learn how one ought to rejoice. The spiritual fruit is joy.

To do nothing, say nothing, and think nothing contrary to the statutes of the God-man is what a peaceful heart means. Is this how the impious live without faith? There is no peace in the impious, and no peace from the impious. It comes from the grace-filled upper room of Zion, where true divine peace was first proclaimed by heavenly lips. The spiritual fruit is peace.

Longsuffering is a uniform abiding in belief in what is worthy of all acceptance, and in love for what most worthily attracts our love. The sons of nature are not so. The favor of fortune puffs up their minds, and slight adversity brings them to despair.

From where could longsuffering come to them? They have not seen the Suffering One on Golgotha. They have not asked about His lineage, rank, and power. They did not know that there were two crosses there. On one, suffering was borne for sinners. On the other, sinners being saved suffered. From Golgotha came forth the law of longsuffering. The spiritual fruit is longsuffering.

A heart that willingly desires to give itself for the true benefit of mankind is a good heart. 'I do not wish to save myself without saving my countrymen,' Moses cries (cf. Ex 32:32), and Paul repeats (cf. Rom 9:3). Such a well-disposed heart belongs only to Moseses and Pauls, because they saw the Good One, listened to what is good, and always abode in Him who does good.

Yet one may say without doubt that among the patriots who build, enrich, and exalt such populous societies of the nations, there has not been and will not be such a creative right hand. Autumn trees, twice dead, are not clothed with leaves and are not adorned with fruits. Waterless clouds do not pour out life-giving rain. In traitors there is no soul that gives good. The spiritual fruit is goodness.

A soul that quietly touches the wounds of the suffering, pouring wine and oil upon stinking sores, is a merciful soul. The Levite who turned away from the sufferer and the Samaritan who poured wine and oil upon his wounds presented two different pictures, compassion and hardness toward man.

Why did the Levite pass by? Because he did not know what to do with the sufferer. He had not seen the Samaritan pouring healing oil. This Samaritan is that very heavenly Physician, who out of His own tender mercy came down to the suffering world, sick and stretched across the whole earth. He healed multitudes of incurable diseases by the anointing of His priceless Blood.

Before His coming, who was there to show mercy? The sons of men were hard of heart (cf. Ps 4:3), without feeling, stiff-necked, and did not look upon the unfortunate one being consumed. All suffer at the same time in one infirmary, and therefore, it seems, they ought to suffer with one another.

Yet everyone, by inhuman forgetfulness of others, wishes to show that he himself has been healed. Hard of heart are the sons of men. The spiritual fruit is mercy.

To uphold all things by the word of His power and to be lifted up on the tree of Golgotha is a wondrous example of inimitable, incomprehensible, and directly divine condescension. But let us draw back from the unapproachable. It is enough for the meek human soul, which sketches within itself Jesus, the sufferer from above, to forget the divinity promised by the ancient serpent, and to remember continually that it is naked, blind, and poor.

The sons of the giants, groaning under the waters of the flood, did not think so. The Most High covers the earth with the sea, while they build hundred-gated Babylon. The Most High takes up arms, and the lower one takes up a shield. The Heavenly One shows wrath, and the earthly one resists.

They do not know meekness, because they had no one from whom to learn it. Their leader, Lucifer, the heavenly exile, arms himself against the Almighty. Their forefather, the firstborn of Adam and disciple of the morning star, raised murderous hands against his brother of the same womb. Their second leader, Nimrod, attempted to renew the ancient warfare of Satan.

I do not wish to speak of foxlike humility, which is harsher and more dangerous than the wildest violence. But to learn humble-minded meekness, forgetful of one's own good qualities, one must go by another road. Go down into Judea. Enter the praetorium. Look upon Him who is questioned there by Pilate. Listen to how He answers the lawless voice. Otherwise, how can we depict its beauty, never having seen it? The spiritual fruit is meekness.

A spirit that reigns as master in its own house, safely ruling the unbridled crowd of its companion's desires, is a continent spirit. This virtue too is a branch from the tree above. Before this tree sprang up, there were no such fruits in the universe.

We remember that the son of Sophroniscus also taught men to forget the body. He taught as a rational man, but not rationally. What master of a house, while caring for the inhabitants, will not care for the dwelling itself? They also report that the pupils of Lycurgus lived in a way almost inhuman toward themselves. But this was in order to become accustomed to inhumanity committed against others.

O continence! Beginning with those who tasted the forbidden fruit, there had not yet been a continent man. Moses did not begin to fast until, with the sharp eyes of grace, he saw several centuries beforehand in the Judean wilderness the Son of Mary not tasting food for forty days (cf. Ex 34). The spiritual fruit is continence.

The fruits of the Spirit are spiritual fruits. Without faith itself there would have been no fruits. These wonderworking fruits were the only, sweetest, and incorruptible food of this struggler of God, Sergius, now triumphing in the garden of paradise and exalted in the earthly dwellings.

He knew that natural food is changed into the flesh of the one who eats, but that divine manna transforms the one who partakes of it into the divine nature. He believed, because faith moves mountains. He loved, because God is love. He rejoiced, because in God there is no darkness at all.

He loved peace, because Christ is our peace. He was longsuffering, because he saw patience upon the head of God. He showed mercy, because he was saved by mercy. He was meek, because he was informed that rivers of grace flow downward, not upward. He was continent, because he was wholly possessed by God.

Behold the path set before the faithful. Behold the path. Let us walk in it. Amen.

Self-control is not only the beginning of chastity. It is also the restraint of desires concerning food, drink, and every other lusting (see blessed Jerome).

There is an initial self-control, when those who have come to love this virtue seek it. Here thoughts and desires arise and often produce sympathy and attraction, but they are rejected by the power of the will, strengthened by the spirit.

The self-control of the perfect is an established virtue, when thoughts that arise no longer shake a man. A strict life in all things then becomes his constant norm.

The object of self-control is the training of the body and its adaptation to spiritual life, through the habit of satisfying its necessary needs at the least cost.

The ascetics say: train the body, and it will be your best helper in life according to the spirit.

Every sweetness from satisfying the body with sleep, food, clothing, and dwelling loses its attractiveness only when spiritual consolations are reborn and increase.

“Against such there is no law.” Κατα τοιουτων means against such things, that is, against these virtues, or against those who have these virtues. The thought remains one and the same.

The law is presented as the persecutor of every sin and the preserver of men from it. But in one who possesses the fruits of the Spirit that have been shown, every sin has been driven not only from the circle of deeds, but every passion from the heart.

Consequently, in such a person the law has nothing to persecute, and it has no need to guard him. It is not for such persons.

Chrysostom says: “Who can teach one who has everything within himself, and has love as the most perfect teacher of wisdom?

“As gentle horses, which do everything of themselves, have no need of the whip, so the soul that does good by the action of the Spirit has no need of the prescriptions of the law.

“Thus the Apostle here also rejects the law with marvelous wisdom. He does this not because it is bad, but because it is lower than the wisdom given by the Spirit.”

This is as above, where he said: “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” He said that those led by the Spirit are not under the law.

Now, after numbering the fruits of the Spirit, that is, after showing who are led by the Spirit and wherein this guidance is revealed, he should have said: such people are not under the law.

But he speaks in other words, though with the same thought: “against such there is no law.” The law does not touch such people and does not have them in view.

In general, where the laws of virtues are discussed, such laws may be said to be unnecessary. Yet this is not because virtues are not obligatory for Christians, but because they already bear them in their heart.

These laws are written in a new way in their hearts, as was promised through the Prophets.