Tit. i. 15.FLESH, is understood different ways; for example, for the Flesh which is the matter of bodies, whether of Men or Animals. The Hebrews did not use the Flesh of particular animals, because they believed it to be unclean. St. Paul informs us, that many of the faithful made a scruple of eating the Flesh of animals consecrated to idols; but he informs us too, that to the clean all things are clean; and that the kingdom of God does not consist in Rom. xiv. 17.food, or in the choice of meats and drinks. 1 Cor. vii. 8.
Flesh is also made use of to signify living men, and even all animals in general. The Gen. vi. 13.end of all Flesh is come before me. I am resolved to destroy every thing that hath life. Gen. vii. 15, 16. Gen. vi. 12.And they went in two and two of all Flesh, animals of all species. And again, All Flesh hath corrupted his way upon the earth, &c. And, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is Flesh.
Ibid. 19, 20. Gal. v. 16, 17.The Flesh is understood as opposite to the Spirit. The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the Flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other … Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the Flesh. And elsewhere, The works of the Flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations … but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, &c. To crucify the Flesh with its lusts; not to fulfil the desires of the Flesh. Jews in the Flesh, and Jews in the Spirit; the wisdom of the Flesh, the prudence of the Flesh, &c. are expressions very well known in Scripture, and require no particular explanations.
Oh that we had of his Flesh! This was the discourse of Job’s enemies, or even of his domesticks, in his affliction. They would have eat him up alive, so much were they animated against him: thus they repaid with ingratitude the services he had performed Ps. xxvii. 2.for them. The Psalmist says almost the same. The wicked, even mine enemies, came upon me to eat up my Flesh. This expression intimates the utmost hatred, the most excessive cruelty. It is a tacit acknowledgment, that the custom of eating the Flesh of living men, at least of feeding upon human Flesh, was not unknown in these countries. The author of the book of Wisdom reproaches the Canaanites with devouring man’s Flesh; Comestores viscerum hominum, Wisd. xii. 5. We have some examples of this barbarity in the sacred History, and in that of Josephus. Jeremiah threatens the inhabitants of Jerem. xix. 9.Jerusalem with reducing them to such an extremity, that they should be constrained to eat the Flesh of their friends and children. And in his Lamentations we are informed, Lament. ii. 20. iv. 10.that accordingly it so happened. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children, they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people. We see the same thing in Ezekiel v. 10. Josephus relates a famous example of the like inhumanity, exercised by a certain mother upon her own son, during the last siege of Jerusalem by the Romans. Joseph. de Bell. l. vi. c. 21.
Gen. xxix. 14. xxxviii. 27. &The custom of eating human Flesh is still common in many places. The Chinese eat all those who are killed1, so as even to sell human Flesh in their markets. They eat their enemies who are slain in war, and criminals condemned to death. The same barbarity is to be observed in many islands of the eastern seas2: there are some who eat their very fathers when they are old; others spare none of the Europeans whom they can lay hold of: the Pegnans had the same custom, and sold human Flesh publickly. The Cafres, on the coast of Barbary, to the number of fourscore thousand, invaded the inmost parts of Africk, eating all whom they found, and made havock of the country in this manner for above three hundred leagues. The same thing is related of the people of Siam and the Celebes.
We are thy Flesh and thy Bone; familiar expressions in the Scripture to denote relation, and the ties of Flesh and Blood.
2 Sam. v. 1. & 1 Chron. xi. 1. d Josh. xxiii. 14. Ezek. xvi. 26. xxiii. 20. Jude ver. 7. Prov. v. 11. Ecclus. xxv. 26.The way of all Flesh d. I am going the way of all Flesh; I am upon the point of suffering the law of death, which all men are condemned to.
The Flesh of the lascivious is compared to that of horses and asses. The wise man says, that the Flesh of the intemperate is consumed by infamous diseases. The author of Ecclesiasticus requires a prudent man to separate his Flesh from a prostitute and libertine woman. These expressions shew, in a decent and covered manner, what modesty does not permit any one to name in man. St. Jude, speaking of the irregularities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or of those committed by the evil Angels, who, as the ancients imagined, had corrupted themselves with the daughters of men, says, that they followed strange Flesh, Abeuntes post carnem alteram, because they dishonoured nature by their abominable lasciviousness.
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