Lessons from the Games

“One who competes in the games is not crowned unless he has competed according to the rules.” One who wants to put out the natural desires of the flesh should first hurry to overcome those vices whose seat is outside our nature. For if we wish to test the force of the apostle’s saying, we ought first to learn the laws and the discipline of the world’s contests, so that by comparison with them we may at last understand what the blessed apostle meant to teach us, who are striving in a spiritual contest, by this illustration. [a]

In these contests, which, as the same apostle says, hold out “a perishable crown” to the winners, this rule is kept. A man who aims at preparing himself for the crown of glory, which carries with it the privilege of exemption, and who is eager to enter the highest struggle of the contest, must first give proof of his ability as a youth, and of his strength in its first beginnings, in the Olympic and Pythian games. For in these the younger men who want to take up this training are tested, by the judgment both of the president of the games and of the whole crowd, as to whether they deserve or ought to be admitted to it. A man is carefully tested. First he must be shown to be stained by no disgrace in his life. Then he must be judged not to be of low standing through the yoke of slavery, which would make him unworthy to be admitted to this training and to the company of those who practice it. Third, he must give sufficient proof of his ability and prowess, and by competing with the younger men and his own equals he must show both his skill and his valor as a youth. Going on from the boys’ contests, he is allowed by the president’s scrutiny to mix with grown men and with those of proven experience. When he has not only shown himself their equal in valor by constant contests with them, but has also many times carried off the prize of victory among them, then at last he is allowed to approach the most illustrious contest of the games, which none may enter but winners and those decked with many crowns and prizes. If we understand this illustration from a bodily contest, we ought by comparison with it to know the system and method of our spiritual conflict as well.