"
[Theophylact.] Or to this?--"Christ was carried in his own hands,
when he said 'this is my body.'" [Austin,] Or to this?--"We are
taught, that when this nourishing food is consecrated, it becomes
the body and blood of our Saviour." [Justin Martyr.] Or, lastly, to
this? [from Ambrose]--" It is bread before consecration, but after
that ceremony, it becomes the flesh of Christ."

Another doctrine which Paul derived from the Oriental Philosophy,
and Which makes a great figure in his writings, is the notion, that
moral corruption originates in the influxes of the body upon the
mind.

"It was one of the principal tenets of the Oriental Philosophy, that
all evil resulted from matter, and its first founder appears to have
argued in the following manner:--"There are many evils in the
world, and men seem impelled of a natural instinct to the practice
of those things which reason condemns. But that eternal mind,
from which all spirits derive their existence, must be inaccessible
to all kinds of evil, and also of a most perfect and beneficent
nature; therefore, the origin of these evils with which the world
abounds, must be sought somewhere else, than in the Deity. It
cannot abide in him who is all perfection, and, therefore, it must be
without him. Now, there is nothing without or beyond the Deity but
matter; therefore, matter is the centre and source of all evil, of all
vice."

One of the consequences they drew from this hypothesis was, that
since All evil resulted from matter, the depravity of mankind arose
from the pollution derived to the human soul, from its connexion
with the material body which it inhabits; and, therefore, the only
means by which the mind could purify itself from the defilement,
and liberate itself from the bondage imposed upon it by the body,
was to emaciate and humble the body by frequent fasting, and to
invigorate the mind to overcome and subdue it by retirement and
contemplation.

The New Testament, though it does not recognise this principle of
the Oriental Philosophy, "that evil originates from matter," yet
coincides with it in strenuously asserting that the corruption of the
human mind is derived from its connexion with the human body.

To prove this proposition, I shall show that Paul calls all crimes the
works of the flesh." "Now, the works of the flesh are manifest,
(says he, Gal. v. 19,) which are these: adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, cont