Texts in Conversation
In James, the author tells believers not to be friends with the world, citing an unidentified scripture about the spirit God made to dwell in believers. The Shepherd of Hermas echoes a similar tradition about the Spirit God made to dwell in the flesh.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
James 4:5
New Testament
1 Where do the conflicts and where do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, from your passions that battle inside you? 2 You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask; 3 you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so you can spend it on your passions. 4 Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy. 5 Or do you think the scripture means nothing when it says, “The spirit that God caused to live within us has an envious yearning”? 6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.”
Shepherd of Hermas 28:1
Early Christian
1 Again he said to me: “Love truth, and let nothing but truth come out of your mouth, so that the Spirit which God made to dwell in this flesh may be found true in the sight of all people; and so the Lord who dwells in you will be glorified; for the Lord is true in every word, and with Him there is no falsehood. 2 So those who lie treat the Lord with contempt, and rob the Lord, for they do not return to Him the deposit they received. For they received from Him a spirit free from lies. If they return a lying spirit, they have defiled the Lord’s command and have become thieves.” 3 When I heard these things, I wept bitterly. But seeing me weep, he said, “Why do you weep?” I said, “Because, Sir, I do not know if I can be saved.” “Why so?” he said. “Because, Sir,” I said, “I have never spoken a true word in my life, but I always lied deceitfully with everyone and dressed up my falsehood as truth before everyone; and no one ever contradicted me, but everyone trusted my word. How then, Sir,” I said, “can I live, since I have done these things?” 4 “You are right to think so,” he said, “for you, as a servant of God, ought to have walked in truth; and no alliance with evil should live with the Spirit of truth, nor grieve the Spirit that is holy and true.” “Sir,” I said, “I have never heard words as plain as these.” 5 “Now then,” he said, “you hear them. Keep them, so that even the lies you told in your past dealings might become believable, now that these are found true; for they too can become trustworthy. If you keep these things, and from now on speak nothing but truth, you will be able to secure life for yourself. And whoever hears this command and abstains from falsehood—that most harmful habit—will live for God.”
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Notes and References
“... Apart from the context, we have only one point of departure for the understanding of the quotation: The expression "the spirit which he has made to dwell within us" [...] is found almost verbatim in Herm. mand. 3.1: "the spirit which God has made to dwell in this flesh" [...], and the concept is also expressed in Herm. mand. 5.2.5; 10.2.6; 10.3.2. Thus, this notion is found precisely in the paraenetic section of Hermas, the section whose kinship in style to the paraenesis in Jas we had to emphasize repeatedly. [...] Rather, it is something which is originally pure yet can still be darkened (Herm. mand. 5.1.2); it is received as a "truthful" [...] spirit yet often is returned as a "lying" [...] spirit (3.2). ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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