"Be ye therefore perfect"....

Another precept of Jesus which remains as "a hard saying" to his followers is: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect". [S. Matt., v, 48. ] The ordinary Christian knows that he cannot possibly obey this command; full of ordinary human frailties and weaknesses, how can he become perfect as God is perfect ? Seeing the impossibility of the achievement set before him, he quietly puts it aside, and thinks no more about it. But seen as the crowning effort of many lives of steady improvement, as the triumph of the God within us over the lower nature, it comes within calculable distance, and we recall the words of Porphyry, how the man who achieves " the paradigmatic virtues is the Father of the Gods",and that in the Mysteries these virtues were acquired.S. Paul follows in the footsteps of his Master, and speaks in exactly the same sense, but, as might be expected from his organising work in the Church, with greater explicitness and clearness. The student should read with attention chapters ii. and iii. and verse 1 of chapter iv. of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, remembering, as he reads, that the words are addressed to baptised and communicant members of the Church, full members from the modern standpoint, although described as babes and carnal by the Apostle. They were not catechumens or neophytes, but men and women who were in complete possession of all the privileges and responsibilities of Church membership, recognised by the Apostle as being separate from the world, and expected not to behave as men of the world. They were, in fact, in possession of all that the modern Church gives to its members. Let us summarise the Apostle's words:"I came to you bearing the divine testimony, not alluring you with human wisdom but with the power of the Spirit. Truly ' we speak wisdom among them that are perfect but it is no human wisdom. ' We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world' began, and which none even of the princes of this world know. The things of that wisdom are beyond men's thinking, 'but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit . . the deep things of God'. 'which the Holy Ghost teacheth'.[Note how this chimes in with the promise of Jesus in S. John, xvi, 12 — 14: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth . . . He will show you things to come . . . He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you". ] These are spiritual things, to be discerned only by the spiritual man, in whom is the mind of Christ. ' And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. . . Ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal'. As a wise master-builder [Another technical name in the Mysteries.] I have laid the foundation' and 'ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you'. 'Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the Mysteries of God'.