Miscellanies 7.13.82

They say in the Traditions that Matthias the apostle said on every occasion: “If the neighbor of an elect man sins, the elect man has sinned; for if he had conducted himself as the Word dictates, his neighbor too would have so respected his life as not to sin.” What, then, should we say about the one who knows himself? “Or do you not know,” says the apostle, “that you are a temple of God?” The one who knows, then, is divine and already holy, bearing God and borne by God. Indeed, Scripture, presenting sin as something alien, sells those who have fallen away into the hands of foreigners; and when it says, “Do not look with desire at another man's wife,” it plainly declares sin to be alien and contrary to the nature of the temple of God. One temple is great, the church; another is small, the human being who preserves the seed of Abraham. He, then, who has God resting in him will not desire anything else. Indeed, leaving behind every hindrance and disdaining all the matter that distracts him, he cuts through heaven by understanding, and passing through the spiritual beings and every rule and authority, he touches the highest thrones, hastening toward that alone which alone he has known. Having mixed, then, the serpent with the dove, he lives perfectly and with a good conscience, blending faith with hope in expectation of what is to come. For he is aware of the gift he has received, having become worthy to obtain it; and having been transferred from slavery to adoption, he acts in keeping with his understanding (“having known God and been known by him”), showing works worthy of the grace. For works follow knowledge as the shadow follows the body.