He speaks always both universally and particularly; but this is from earnestness.
Ver. 8, 9. "Anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth. Lie not one to another."
"Shameful speaking," he says, "out of your mouth," clearly intimating that it pollutes it.
Ver. 9, 10. "Seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him."
It is worth enquiring here, what can be the reason why he calls the corrupt life, "members," and "man," and "body," and again the virtuous life, the same. And if "the man" means "sins," how is it that he says, "with his doings"? For once he said, "the old man," showing that this is not man, but the other. The moral choice does rather determine one than the substance, and is rather "man" than the other. For his substance casts him not into hell, nor leads him into the kingdom, but men themselves: and we neither love nor hate any one so far as he is man, but so far as he is such or such a man. If then the substance be the body, and in either sort cannot be accountable, how does he say that it is evil? But what is that he says, "with his doings"? He means the choice, with the acts. And he calls him "old," on purpose to show his deformity, and hideousness, and imbecility; and "new," as if to say, Do not expect that it will be with this one even as with the other, but the reverse: for ever as he farther advances, he hastens not on to old age, but to a youthfulness greater than the preceding. For when he has received a fuller knowledge, he is both counted worthy of greater things, and is in more perfect maturity, in higher vigor; and this, not from youthfulness alone, but from that "likeness" also, "after" which he is. Lo! The best life is styled a creation, after the image of Christ: for this is the meaning of, "after the image of Him that created him," for Christ too came not finally to old age, but was so beautiful as it is not even possible to tell.
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Colossians 3:8-10
He speaks always both universally and particularly; but this is from earnestness.
Ver. 8, 9. "Anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth. Lie not one to another."
"Shameful speaking," he says, "out of your mouth," clearly intimating that it pollutes it.
Ver. 9, 10. "Seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him."
It is worth enquiring here, what can be the reason why he calls the corrupt life, "members," and "man," and "body," and again the virtuous life, the same. And if "the man" means "sins," how is it that he says, "with his doings"? For once he said, "the old man," showing that this is not man, but the other. The moral choice does rather determine one than the substance, and is rather "man" than the other. For his substance casts him not into hell, nor leads him into the kingdom, but men themselves: and we neither love nor hate any one so far as he is man, but so far as he is such or such a man. If then the substance be the body, and in either sort cannot be accountable, how does he say that it is evil? But what is that he says, "with his doings"? He means the choice, with the acts. And he calls him "old," on purpose to show his deformity, and hideousness, and imbecility; and "new," as if to say, Do not expect that it will be with this one even as with the other, but the reverse: for ever as he farther advances, he hastens not on to old age, but to a youthfulness greater than the preceding. For when he has received a fuller knowledge, he is both counted worthy of greater things, and is in more perfect maturity, in higher vigor; and this, not from youthfulness alone, but from that "likeness" also, "after" which he is. Lo! The best life is styled a creation, after the image of Christ: for this is the meaning of, "after the image of Him that created him," for Christ too came not finally to old age, but was so beautiful as it is not even possible to tell.