Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
What he had said in the preceding chapter, that we are not under sin because we are not under the law but under grace, he proves here more fully by the example of a wife who is freed from the law of her husband if he dies. For in like manner he teaches that the law is dead to us and we to the law.
Then, in verse 7, he teaches that the law, although in itself holy, has nevertheless by occasion, namely by pointing out and forbidding sin, increased it the more in man inclined to vices.
Thirdly, on this occasion, in verse 14, he passes to concupiscence, which remains from sin and the law, and teaches that even just men, although unwillingly, suffer the same and constantly struggle against it.
Vulgate Text: Romans 7:1-25
1. Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2. For the woman who is under a husband is bound by the law to her husband while he lives: but if her husband dies, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3. Therefore, while her husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she be with another man: but if her husband dies, she is freed from the law of her husband, so that she is not an adulteress if she be with another man. 4. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ: that you may be of another, who has risen from the dead, that we may bring forth fruit unto God. 5. For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins, which were through the law, were at work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death. 6. But now we are loosed from the law of death wherein we were detained, so that we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. 7. What then shall we say? Is the law sin? God forbid. But I would not have known sin, except through the law: for I would not have known concupiscence unless the law said: Thou shalt not covet. 8. But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, wrought in me all concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9. And I lived without the law once. But when the commandment came, sin revived. 10. And I died: and the commandment which was unto life, was found to me to be unto death. 11. For sin, taking occasion through the commandment, seduced me, and through it slew me. 12. So then the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. 13. Was that then which is good made death to me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, by that which is good, wrought death in me: that sin by the commandment might become sinful above measure. 14. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15. For that which I do, I understand not; for I do not the good which I will: but the evil which I hate, that I do. 16. If then I do that which I will not, I consent to the law, that it is good. 17. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18. For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to will is present with me: but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. 19. For the good which I will, I do not: but the evil which I will not, that I do. 20. Now if I do that which I will not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21. I find then a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me. 22. For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man: 23. but I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin that is in my members. 24. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25. The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore I myself, with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of sin.
In this chapter the Apostle repeatedly says and urges that we Christians are not under the law, which St. Chrysostom understands of the ceremonial law: "Because, says Chrysostom, we are not under the ceremonies of the law, therefore we are not under the law." But this exposition is not according to the mind of the Apostle in this passage: for, as is clear from v. 7 and following, the Apostle is speaking also of the natural law and of the Decalogue. Hence note, it is one thing to be held by the law, another to be under the law. For we are held by the old moral law, that is, the Decalogue, but we are not under it, that is, under its state and dominion, which is to obligate a man, and yet not give grace to fulfill it, so that he is held by it as a slave, and possessed as a captive, and condemned by it as a defendant. From this state of the law the grace of Christ liberates us, which gives the spirit of charity, so that we do what the law commands willingly, gladly, from love of virtue, not from fear of punishment.
Verse 1: Or Do You Not Know That the Law Has Dominion Over a Man as Long as He Lives?
Verse 1. OR DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT THE LAW HAS DOMINION OVER A MAN AS LONG AS HE LIVES? — "Has dominion" by commanding, by terrifying, by making him guilty, by accusing, by condemning: for this is the dominion of the law. "As long as he lives," namely the law itself, say Origen and Ambrose. Secondly, "as long as he lives," namely the man himself: thus St. Chrysostom, Theodoret, St. Augustine in book LXXXIII of Questions, Q. LXVI; St. Thomas, Theophylact and Oecumenius. But both senses come to the same here. Toletus restricts this from what follows to the law of matrimony: but there is nothing that compels us to restrict the general statement of the Apostle to the one law of matrimony: for what the Apostle adds about it, he adds not by way of a full and adequate explanation, but by way of example.
Verse 2. FOR THE WOMAN WHO IS UNDER A HUSBAND IS BOUND BY THE LAW TO HER HUSBAND WHILE HE LIVES. — From the single law of matrimony, fittingly, as I shall presently show, the Apostle proves what he had said in general about the law. Note first: "who is under a husband" — in Greek it is a single word, υπανδρος, as it were "under-the-man." Note secondly, "is bound by the law," namely the matrimonial law commanding fidelity and obedience to the husband. St. Ambrose reads: "while the husband lives, she is bound by the law;" others translate, "she is bound by law to the living husband." So the Greek, the Syriac, and Erasmus. Tertullian, in his book On Monogamy, ch. XIII, reads: "she is bound by the living husband." But all these come to the same thing: for the wife is by this very fact bound to the matrimonial law and also to the husband, as long as he lives.
In this chapter the Apostle uses a beautiful metaphor or rather allegory: namely sin, death, and the law (which occasionally fosters sin and death) is the husband; our soul is the wife; the offspring are evil works; with this husband dead, the soul has passed to a second husband, and married God, and brought forth offspring of good works. Thus St. Augustine, in Question LXVI already cited, and in book XV Against Faustus, ch. VIII. Theophylact teaches the same, and that this is the Apostle's mind and manner of speaking is clear from v. 4 and following.
IF HER HUSBAND DIES, SHE IS LOOSED FROM THE LAW OF HER HUSBAND, — namely from the law of matrimony, by which the woman was held under the husband's power. In Greek it is ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου τοῦ ἀνδρός: which can also be translated "from the law to the husband," because the matrimonial law is, as it were, the legal husband of the wife, just as conversely the husband is to the wife, as it were, a living moral law.
Verse 4. THEREFORE, MY BRETHREN, YOU ALSO HAVE BECOME DEAD TO THE LAW THROUGH THE BODY OF CHRIST. — The word "therefore" indicates that this is the conclusion which the Apostle deduces from the example of the wife already adduced. For this is the Apostle's argument: A wife, with her husband dead, is loosed from the bond and law of the husband; but the law, which was as it were our husband, is now dead, and has ceased to be through Christ: therefore we likewise are freed and loosed from the law, and live not under the law, but under grace.
Note: when the Apostle says "You have become dead," it is a hypallage, as if to say: The law, which was as it were your husband, has now through Christ been mortified and is dead, because, namely, in you that command of the law has died and ceased to be — by which the law threatens, accuses, terrifies, condemns, and punishes — of which I spoke at v. 1. For on this account the law makes vicious men worse, because it gives them an occasion of transgression and contempt; grace does the contrary, against which the Apostle here contrasts the law.
Hence secondly, the law — that is, the guilt and transgression of the law, which the law through its letter, lacking grace, was producing occasionally and objectively — has died, says St. Augustine, in book XV Against Faustus, ch. VIII. But the Apostle, prudently and cautiously, lest he offend the Jews if he says that the law is dead, and in order to show the marriage dissolved by both spouses being dead (for through Christ, just as the law is dead to us, so we are dead to the law), for this reason does not say: "The law is dead;" but says: "You as wives have been mortified and have died, and have been loosed from the law as from a husband already dead, because you now live to Christ and serve Him in evangelical grace": thus Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Ambrose, Anselm.
Otherwise Toletus: Man, he says, with respect to nature is the wife; this wife's husband was the old man, whose law was the old law: when this one died, another husband succeeded for this wife, namely the new man, whose law is the law of faith and of Christ. But this is more obscure and farfetched: for the Apostle makes the husband of this wife not the new or old man, but the law itself.
Note: when the Apostle says: "We are dead to the law through the body of Christ," understand that body immolated on the cross, through Christ's bodily passion and death. For through this death the old law is dead to us, and we to the law.
Others say: "through the body of Christ," that is, because you have been incorporated into Christ through baptism. But the former sense is plainer and simpler. This then is the discourse of the Apostle: The law has no dominion over a man, except as a living thing over a living thing; but you do not live, but are dead to the law, and the law is dead to you through Christ's cross and death: therefore you are not under the law, that is, under the dominion of the law.
THAT YOU MAY BE OF ANOTHER, WHO HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD. — Here it is clearly evident that the Apostle, as I said, distinguishes two marriages of one man and soul, as it were of a wife. The first with the old man, as Toletus would have it, or rather with the law dominating the old man. This first husband of the man (namely the law) has died and been mortified in the passion of Christ's body. Hence the same man and soul entered into a second marriage with the new man, that is, with Christ rising again, because he is incorporated into Him through baptism, and has been made as it were one flesh with Him. From this marriage he has conceived new offspring: whence follows:
THAT WE MAY BRING FORTH FRUIT UNTO GOD, — that is, that we may bear to God living offspring from this marriage with Christ, namely works of faith, hope, charity, and the other virtues; which we have conceived from the seed, that is, the grace of Christ and God, that we may offer them to Christ and God as if to their parent.
Verse 5: When We Were in the Flesh, the Passions of Sins Worked in Our Members
5. When we were in the flesh, — namely when we were held bound by carnal desires, says Anselm. The passions of sins, — that is, passions inciting to sins, namely vicious affections. WHICH WERE THROUGH THE LAW, — that is, which were sharpened and stirred up on the occasion of the law. WERE AT WORK IN OUR MEMBERS, TO BRING FORTH FRUIT UNTO DEATH, — namely so that they might bring forth the fruits of sins, which would lead us to eternal death.
Verse 6: But Now We Are Loosed from the Law of Death, Wherein We Were Detained
6. Now however (through Christ's cross and death) WE ARE LOOSED FROM THE LAW (which was the occasion of sin, and consequently) OF DEATH, WHEREIN WE WERE DETAINED. — "We are loosed," in Greek κατηργήθημεν, that is, we are enervated: which the Apostle opposes to ἐνεργεῖσθαι, that is, the intimate and most effective working of the passions in the preceding verse. It is a hypallage, "we are enervated," that is, the law is enervated in us, because the law has lost its strength and nerves, namely the dominion and quasi-marital right which it had over us. In a similar manner in Gal. v, 4, he says: "You are evacuated from Christ," that is, Christ and Christ's redemption have been made vain, void, and useless to you through Judaism.
Note: for "of death," our Interpreter [the Vulgate] in the Greek reads θανάτου; some now read ἀποθανόντες, that is, "we have died," namely to the law in which we were detained. Others read ἀποθανόντος, namely νόμου, that is, "the law having died," in which we were detained.
SO THAT WE MAY SERVE (God and Christ) IN NEWNESS OF SPIRIT, AND NOT IN THE OLDNESS OF THE LETTER, — not in the old manner of living, animal and carnal, whose mistress is the letter of the law, not grace. Thus Anselm. For the law indeed pointed out to man his oldness and forbade it, but it did not so far take it away that it did not also increase the same by occasion: for it rather rubbed up, irritated, and incited the old affections of concupiscence.
Verse 7. WHAT THEN SHALL WE SAY? IS THE LAW SIN? GOD FORBID. — The Apostle here frequently inserts anticipations of objections, and delights in them. Such is this one: for someone could from the fact that Paul, in vv. 5 and 6, had called the law the law of death, and had said that the passions of sins are by the law and stirred up by it, object: Therefore the law itself is sin. For what is the cause of sin and death, this is sin. The Apostle responds: "God forbid." For the law in itself is not sin.
BUT I WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN SIN, EXCEPT THROUGH THE LAW: FOR I WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN CONCUPISCENCE (to be sin), UNLESS THE LAW SAID: THOU SHALT NOT COVET. — Note: Concupiscence in the Decalogue is forbidden by a special commandment, namely the ninth and tenth, because most thought that by the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," and the seventh, "Thou shalt not steal," only the external act was forbidden, and the internal was not forbidden or to be guarded against. Indeed, even after the law was given, Josephus, in book XII of the Antiquities, ch. XIII, and other Jews, whom Christ corrects in Matt. v, 12 and 28, seem to have thought the same: hence they explained the commandment "Thou shalt not covet" as if by it merely internal concupiscence were not forbidden, but only the external effort and machination to fulfill it, and to perpetrate the deed and work. But this effort and this machination is itself a beginning and a kind of part of the work; hence it is forbidden by the same commandment as the work itself, namely the sixth and seventh.
Add that, granting that those things are separately forbidden by the ninth and tenth commandments, nevertheless it is certain and clear that they are not so much forbidden because they show themselves outwardly, as because they proceed from an evil will. For the will, evil in itself and forbidden, instills the poison of its malice into the external act, and these words properly signify and prohibit it, when it is said: "Thou shalt not covet." Hence you may infer that every other motion of the will adverse to the other commandments is forbidden equally by them. For if here concupiscence — to which we are naturally most inclined — is forbidden as evil and unlawful, therefore much more is the act of the will by which we will what is forbidden by the law itself forbidden by the law.
The heretics, Luther and Calvin, are at the other extreme. For they think that concupiscence remaining from original sin — that is, the disordered motions of the sensitive appetite and of the will, which precede reason and the free assent of the will — is here prohibited. "It is commanded," says Calvin on Exod. ch. XX, "by the precept, Thou shalt not covet, that no impure appetite stir up our souls. Hence it is plain by what tricks Satan has bewitched all the Papal schools, in which that axiom resounds, that concupiscence in the baptized is not sin because it is a stimulus to virtue." And on Lev. ch. VI: "Although, he says, we be neither adulterers nor thieves nor murderers, yet there is no one whom the last commandment of the law, Thou shalt not covet, does not bind with guilt."
But that these things are false, and that by the commandment "Thou shalt not covet" not deliberate and involuntary, but only voluntary and free concupiscence — that is, the consent of the will to what is unlawful — is forbidden, is clear first, because for "Thou shalt not covet," in the Hebrew is the verb חמד chamad, which does not signify "to be concupiscent" or to have concupiscence, which is a vice of our nature; but it nakedly signifies only "to seek after" and "to desire"; whence it is also attributed to heavenly things. Concupiscence, however, which is a vice and disease of nature, is properly signified by the noun תשוקה teschuka, and by the noun בצע betsa. When therefore it is said "Thou shalt not covet," as is plain from the Hebrew chamad, only the free appetition of the will to claim for oneself another's or an unlawful thing is signified and prohibited.
Secondly, the same is clear from this, that this commandment, like the others, is not given to brute animals, not to children, but to the rational creature using reason and free will, which alone is capable of the law, and which alone can fulfill or transgress the law. But these motions of concupiscence precede reason and freedom, nor are they human acts, or in the power, reason, and choice of man, any more than they are in the power of a horse, dog, lion, or other brute. Just as it cannot be commanded to a lion not to grow angry; nor to a dog not to snarl; nor to a horse not to neigh: so neither can it be commanded to a man not to feel the first similar motions of concupiscence; and one who would punish them would be a tyrant. "For sin (says St. Augustine, in book I of Retractations, ch. XV — and this is here the common sense of men and of nature) so includes the voluntary in its essence, that if this is lacking, it ceases to be sin." Hence the Apostle, in v. 17 and following: "Now," he says, "it is no more I that do it," as if to say: "To covet" is not my act, because it is not human and free: hence it cannot be imputed to me, turned into a vice, or punished: but rather, because, as the same Apostle says in vv. 16, 22, 25, "I delight together with, I consent to, with the mind I serve the law;" hence this act of mine, as being of a rational and free mind, ought to be considered as that, namely, by mentally detesting the motions of concupiscence contrary to the law, I cleave to and obey the law itself.
Thirdly, this is clear from the fact that Paul in the preceding chapter, v. 12, and Holy Scripture elsewhere expresses itself thus: as Eccl. XVIII, 30: "Go not after thy concupiscences;" and St. James, ch. I, v. 15, expressly asserts that concupiscence and temptation are not sin, but bring forth sin, namely if the father of sin — the consent of the will — is added.
Fourthly, all the Fathers explain this commandment in this way. See Chrysostom, hom. 12 on Matthew; Cyril, book III Against Julian, near the middle; Basil, On the Constitution of Monasteries, ch. II; Nyssen, book On the Eight Beatitudes; Ambrose, book I of Offices, ch. XXI; Jerome, to Eustochium, on the keeping of virginity; Prosper, book II On the Contemplative Life, ch. III, and book III, ch. IV; Gregory, book XXI of Morals, ch. III; Augustine, book I Against the Two Epistles of the Pelagians, ch. X and XIII, and book VI Against Julian, ch. XI, and book II On the Merits of Sins, ch. IV, XXXIII and XXXIV: so finally the Council of Trent, session V, explains and defines.
You will say: Augustine, in epistle 200 to Asellicus, says that this commandment, "Thou shalt not covet," is not fulfilled in this life, but that in it we only tend and strive toward the place in which we may fulfill it, namely toward heaven. He teaches the same in book I On Marriages and Concupiscence, ch. XXIII and XXIX, and in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, last chapter.
I respond: St. Augustine in the explanation of this commandment joins the literal and the anagogical sense: for in the literal sense it is here commanded that we not follow concupiscences and depraved desires, but resist them, and gradually try to wholly pluck out and eradicate them, and we can and ought to so strive in this life; in the anagogical sense it is commanded that no such desires at all be in us: in which way this commandment, like every other anagoge of Scripture, pertains not to the present life, but to the future life in heaven. So therefore it is not commanded here that it be fulfilled in this life; but it will be the reward of the present struggle, and it will come about then when God will command His power, and on every side cast down sin and death into hell. So St. Augustine wishes to say, by the commandment "Thou shalt not covet," that it is commanded to us that, by a manly and constant struggle against concupiscence in this life, we tend and strive toward this — namely, that we may merit to be wholly freed from it in heaven, and that there may be most fully fulfilled in us the "Thou shalt not covet": namely that we neither consent to, nor feel the motions of concupiscence. In a similar manner St. Augustine explains the commandment of the love of God, in the book On the Spirit and the Letter, last chapter.
Verse 8. BUT SIN, TAKING OCCASION THROUGH THE COMMANDMENT, WROUGHT IN ME ALL CONCUPISCENCE. — You will ask, what here is called and is sin? Oecumenius, Ambrose, and Methodius (in Epiphanius, heresy 64) respond first that sin here is the devil.
Secondly, St. Chrysostom would have it to be sluggishness: for the sluggard takes from the law occasion to increase concupiscence.
Thirdly, Anselm thinks that sin here is concupiscence, or the tinder of sin: for this, as if soothed and like a sleeping dog, stirred up and irritated by the occasion of the law adverse to it, has burst forth into all kinds of depraved motions, namely of anger, pride, gluttony, and the other vices.
Fourthly, Jerome, to Algasia, Q. VIII, judges sin here to be the object of the law, or that which is prohibited by the law.
Fifthly and best, Toletus says that sin is here taken properly. For so the Apostle just before took it, and the sense is, as if to say: Man in the state of sin has by occasion of the law increased sin itself. For sin, unless it is blotted out, drags a man on into new sins, because it either takes away or diminishes in the man the strengths of grace and good habits, by which we resist sin, and instills delight in itself into the soul, and this all the more once the law is given, through which sin — as a sleeping dog, as I said — being stirred up burst forth into all concupiscence: and therefore the law was the cause, or rather the occasion, of sin and death: which the Apostle here intends to teach and to prove.
FOR WITHOUT THE LAW SIN WAS DEAD. — First, Theodoret and Cajetan explain thus, as if Paul were saying: Before the law, namely in the state of innocence, "sin was dead," that is, was not. But what does this contribute to the matter and to the point?
Secondly, Ambrose: "Sin," he says, that is, the devil was dead; because, as if asleep — being secure about the sinful man whom he possessed — he cared little to further solicit him and draw him to sin: but this is far more remote.
Thirdly and best, "without the law sin was dead," that is, was lulled to sleep: for through the law, being stirred up, it revived, as I said in the preceding verse.
Verse 9: And I Lived Without the Law Once
9. AND I LIVED WITHOUT THE LAW ONCE. — As if to say: I once did not know the law, namely when I could not yet have the use of reason, and yet I felt the motions of concupiscence, which however were not sins because of the defect of reason. Thus St. Augustine, in book VI Against Julian, ch. XI, and St. Jerome to Algasia, Q. VIII. Or rather, "I lived without the law," namely then when I began to grow up and to sin, and yet had not been taught the law of Moses: for then I lived as it were lawless, and consequently I did not care for, did not recognize, did not weigh sin; hence I was not much stirred up to it.
Secondly, St. Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Toletus here, and St. Augustine in book I Against the Two Epistles of the Pelagians, ch. IX; St. Ambrose in book I On Jacob and the Blessed Life, judge that the Apostle speaks in the person of those who lived before Moses and the law. But the former sense is plainer, and more apt to the words of the Apostle.
Verse 10: When the Commandment Came, Sin Revived
10. BUT WHEN THE COMMANDMENT CAME (into my knowledge, hence) SIN (as if by antiperistasis of the law intensified itself, and) REVIVED, (and through it) I DIED: (and so) THE COMMANDMENT WHICH (was given and) WAS UNTO LIFE (to be shown and procured for me), WAS FOUND (turning out for me) TO BE UNTO DEATH.
Verse 11: Sin, Taking Occasion Through the Commandment, Seduced Me
11. SIN, TAKING OCCASION, THROUGH THE COMMANDMENT SEDUCED ME (drew me deceitfully to its side) AND THROUGH IT SLEW ME, — fixing in the soul the wound of mortal guilt, through concupiscence inflamed by the occasion of the law, as I said at v. 8. In the word "seduced" he alludes to the seduction of our first parents, which was made on the occasion of the commandment, when the serpent tempted and said: "Why did the Lord command you?" Gen. III, 2.
SO THEN THE LAW INDEED IS HOLY, AND THE COMMANDMENT HOLY, AND JUST, AND GOOD. — That is, the commandments of the law are holy, just, and good: "holy," because they prescribe how God ought to be holily worshiped; "just," because they prescribe that you should not harm your neighbor, but render to him what is his; "good," because they prescribe those things by which each one is good in himself, and endowed with good morals and virtue. And because these three are aptly accomplished through the threefold precepts of the old law, namely through the ceremonial, by which holy worship and religion toward God; through the judicial, by which justice toward the neighbor; through the moral, by which goodness and continence toward oneself are prescribed.
Hence St. Thomas, I-II, Q. XCIX, art. IV, thinks that here the commandment of the law is called "holy" because of the ceremonial precepts; "just" because of the judicial; "good" because of the moral; and perhaps the Apostle also had this in view; properly, however, he seems to be treating of any particular commandment of the law: for this is what the Greek ἐντολή signifies, so as to distinguish the commandment from the law, as a part from the whole. For he is referring to the commandment "Thou shalt not covet," which he cited a little earlier, as if to say: This commandment, "Thou shalt not covet," and any other, is in itself holy, because it makes the man pure, chaste, holy; and it is just, because it restrains the man from unjustly coveting another's wife or property; and it is good, because it makes the man good and orders and composes well and rightly all the powers and motions of the soul.
Verse 13. WAS THAT THEN WHICH IS GOOD MADE DEATH TO ME? — As if to say: You will object: Therefore was the commandment, which was good in itself, changed, and made death to me, that is, the cause and occasion of sin, and consequently of death? He responds: God forbid: this change was not the fault and guilt of the commandment itself, but of sin and of man abusing the commandment.
SIN, THAT IT MIGHT APPEAR SIN (that the strength and forces of sin might be made manifest), through that which is good (through the commandment, by occasion) WROUGHT DEATH IN ME (present and eternal death of the soul): THAT SIN BY THE COMMANDMENT MIGHT BECOME SINFUL ABOVE MEASURE. — St. Jerome to Algasia, Q. VIII, reads "that the sin might become more sinful." St. Augustine, in book I to Simplicianus, Q. I, reads "that the sin might become a sinner above measure." For in Greek it is ἁμαρτωλὸς ἡ ἁμαρτία, as if you should say "criminal crime" or "a sinful sinning," that is, the immense and exuberant malice of sin — as if to say: From this appears the immense force and malice of sin, that through a good thing, namely through the law, its malice has all the more increased, and that through the same it has all the more invaded and slain man. It is a prosopopoeia: for sin is here brought in as a person, who has the art of sinning and of contriving, suggesting, plotting sins, and exercises it, as panderers and procuresses do. Beware here of the commentary ascribed to St. Jerome, which denies the transmission of original sin.
THAT SIN MIGHT APPEAR. — Maldonatus, in his Notes, [comments]; to its disposition and purpose, and the force of fury bursts forth again into its accustomed paths. So also in virtues he wishes to act well, but the effect does not immediately follow the will: just as one who wishes to be wise is not immediately made wise as soon as he wishes; but first labor, study, care, vigils, the instruction of doctrine must be applied, and scarcely at length by long practice and continual meditation does he become wise.
Verse 14: For We Know That the Law Is Spiritual; but I Am Carnal, Sold Under Sin
14. FOR WE KNOW THAT THE LAW IS SPIRITUAL; BUT I AM CARNAL, SOLD UNDER SIN. — Here the Apostle proves what he said, namely that the law is holy, and that the law is not the cause of death, but sin declared and prohibited by the law, and man subjected to sin, who follows the depraved desires of the flesh and of sin. He proves this from this: "Because the law," he says, "is spiritual," that is, it commands spiritual things, not carnal ones; "but I am carnal," that is, I follow those things which please the flesh and concupiscence, inasmuch as I am "sold under sin;" therefore I, living under the dominion of sin, am to myself the cause of a carnal life and of sin, and consequently of death, not however the law.
Note: The law is called spiritual, first, as St. Chrysostom explains, because it prescribes those things which are of the spirit and of the spiritual man: namely, to follow virtues, to flee from vices; second, because the law directs men to the worship of one God, who is most pure spirit, by whom also it was given: so Ambrose; third, because the law cannot be fulfilled except through the spirit and grace by spiritual men: so St. Augustine, here in the exposition of certain propositions of this epistle, no. 41; fourth, as St. Thomas says, because the law agrees with the spirit of man, and, as Cajetan says, directs and regulates the spirit of man, both concerning God and concerning himself and his neighbor; fifth, because the law spiritually understood leads and prepares men for the Evangelical law, which is the law of the spirit and of life.
BUT I AM CARNAL. — The Greeks note that Paul here, up to verse 25, introduces the person of a sinful man placed under the law, who has not yet been freed by the grace of Christ from the slavery of sin. So Origen, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Basil in his Shorter Rules, in the response to the 16th question; the Commentary of Ambrose, Jerome to Algasia, Question VIII; indeed St. Augustine here, and to Simplicianus book I, Question I, which books he himself wrote while he was younger. And they prove it from what the Apostle says: first, "I am carnal;" second, "sold under sin;" third, "I see another law captivating me in the law of sin:" for these things do not seem to belong to a holy and perfect man, such as Paul was, but to a sinner or at least one recently converted, as Origen wills: "in whom," he says, "there remains infirmity and proneness to former vices, so that although he wishes to conquer them and to do every good, yet the effect does not immediately follow his will, but he often falls and is conquered by his accustomed vices, e.g., someone resolves and wishes to restrain anger, but because by long custom anger has dominated him, it resists his will and purpose."
Second however, the same St. Augustine later, having become older and more learned, while writing against the Pelagians, teaches that this passage is to be explained entirely about holy men, and Paul himself; and that here the struggle between concupiscence and the spirit is graphically depicted by him. So he himself in book I of Retractations, ch. XXIII; book VI Against Julian, ch. XI, where he says this is the exposition of St. Hilary, of Nazianzen, of Ambrose (whence it is gathered that the commentaries on these epistles and on this passage ascribed to St. Ambrose, are in reality not St. Ambrose's, for they have the contrary in this place) and of the rest of the Holy Doctors of the Church and the well-known ones. Thus also St. Gregory explains it, book XIX of Morals, ch. VI; St. Jerome, book II Against the Pelagians; Anselm, Primasius, St. Thomas, Pererius, Adamus and others.
Therefore this exposition seems to be truer and more genuine. And this is proved first, because the Apostle does not say: I was, or I was living, as he said in verse 9, but he says: I am, I consent, I delight together, in the present. Therefore in this verse he passes from the past state of law and sin to the state of grace, but struggling with concupiscence, as if to say: The force of the law, or rather of sin abusing the law, which I have spoken of, appears from this, that even now though placed under grace, yet I feel still such great effects of it and incitements of concupiscence, that I seem to be carnal.
Second, the same is clear from this, that he says: "Now it is no longer I who do it;" for these words indicate that the Apostle is not speaking of a sinner: for a sinner does work sin. Therefore he is speaking of a just and holy man.
Third, he indicates the same, when he says: "I delight in the law according to the inner man;" and: "I myself serve the law of God with my mind," and when he says in the next chapter: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus," all of which do not apply except to a just and holy man.
The third explanation of this passage is Cassian's, who in Conference 23, wills that here is described the struggle of Martha and Magdalene, namely of the active and contemplative life. But this is not literal, but mystical, or rather accommodative.
SOLD UNDER SIN. — Note first, sin here is the same as before, but only materially, or objectively, that is, taken for the object of sin, or for the tinder and concupiscence. Whence in verse 23 he calls this the law in the members fighting against the law of the mind. So St. Jerome and Anselm above. Nor is it new for the Apostle to pass from sin formally taken to sin materially taken. For he himself often plays on words, as I said canon 31.
Whence note second, concupiscence here is called sin, not formally and properly, as Calvin wills; but first, because it itself is material sin: for concupiscence is against God's law, and to it nothing is lacking from the formal nature of sin except the consent of the will; second, because it itself incites to sin; third, because it itself is the effect of sin: so the Council of Trent, session V; fourth, because it itself is the punishment of sin; fifth, because it itself is the instrument by which, through the act of generation, original sin is transmitted to Adam's posterity. Hence St. Augustine, book V Against Julian, ch. III, teaches that concupiscence is both sin, and the punishment of sin, and the cause of sin. "Just as," he says, "the blindness of heart, which only the illuminating God removes, is both sin, by which God is not believed, and the punishment of sin, by which the proud heart is punished with worthy chastisement, and the cause of sin, when something evil is committed through the error of a blind heart: so the concupiscence of the flesh, against which the good spirit lusts, is both sin, because in it there is disobedience against the rule of the mind; and is the punishment of sin, because it is rendered to the merits of the disobedient one; and is the cause of sin, by the defection of one consenting or by the contagion of one being born."
Where note, that concupiscence is called sin by Augustine in the same sense in which I have explained that it is here called sin by the Apostle: for Augustine wishes to teach that concupiscence is not the natural condition, property, and perfection flowing from the nature of man, as Julian wished; but is sin, that is, is a vice born and propagated from original sin, which Julian denied, being a Pelagian. Whence in the next chapter, St. Augustine teaches that concupiscence is the perpetual material of struggle, of virtue, and of victory, and consequently is not sin formally and properly, unless free will succumbs to it and consents.
Note third, the Apostle says of himself, that he is sold, namely by Adam, at the price of the apple, and handed over (for the Hebrew מכר machar means both to sell and to hand over; for what is sold is handed over to the buyer, as to a master) under sin, as the Greek has it, that is, into the slavery of original sin; and consequently, that he himself, even now, although justified, is yet liable to concupiscence (which has succeeded as it were to the place of original sin, so that it remains in the just) as a purchased slave, so that he feels its movements everywhere, whether he wills or not. Whence the Syriac translates מזבן לחטיתא mezabban lachatita, that is, I have been sold to sin, that is, I have been handed over to concupiscence.
Thus Ahab, in 3 Kings, ch. XXI, is said to be sold, that he might do evil, that is, by his own evil will he addicted himself as a slave to sin, as if he had sold himself, or hired himself out and his labors, for nothing other than to sin. For Scripture by this phrase alludes to the slaves of the Hebrews, who sold themselves to perform servile works for masters, as if to say: Ahab handed over and devoted his whole self to idols, as if their bondsman, as if he had been addicted to idolatry by his idol-masters as a slave, not as if he were the king of the Israelites, free and of noble condition. Thus St. Augustine, in the Exposition of propositions of this epistle, no. 42: "Each one," he says, "by sinning sells his soul to the devil, having received as the price the sweetness of temporal pleasure." We have therefore been handed over to concupiscence as to a tyrant, even the just; not however properly to sin: for concupiscence does not compel us to sin, because to feel its movements is not sin, but to consent to them freely is sin, says St. Bernard.
Verse 15: For What I Do, I Understand Not
15. FOR WHAT I DO, I UNDERSTAND NOT. — First, S. Chrysostom explains these words thus, as if to say: The sinner does not know in what ways he has been deceived, so that he commits sin.
Second, Theodoret explains it thus, as if to say: The sinner does not know perfectly the malice of sin.
Third, Toletus: The sinner, he says, does not understand what he does, because contrary to the judgment of the intellect, by which he speculatively judges that this is not to be done, he acts and sins.
Fourth, Anselm explains it thus, as if to say: In the rules of God's precepts I do not find those things which my concupiscence desires.
Fifth, Methodius, in Epiphanius, heresy 62, thus, as if to say: He who does good often suffers distractions and evil thoughts, so that he does not understand his passions and his works.
Sixth and best, St. Augustine, book I Against the two Epistles of the Pelagians, ch. XI, gives this sense: "What I do, I understand not," that is, by reason and will I do not approve the works and movements of my concupiscence. That this is the sense is clear from what follows. So Psalm 1 says: "The Lord knows (that is, loves and approves) the way of the just." And Matthew VII: "I know you not," that is, I do not love you, I do not approve: for this is practical knowledge. Again, the same movements of concupiscence I "do not understand," because these movements forestall reason and intellect.
Here the Apostle proves himself to be sold under sin, that is, to be a slave of concupiscence, from this that he does not those things which seem to him ought to be done, but those things which his master, namely concupiscence, commands him, namely to lust: he then proves this by the following words.
FOR WHAT I WILL, THE GOOD, THIS I DO NOT: BUT WHAT I HATE, THE EVIL, THAT I DO. — So read the Roman Bibles, and other more correct ones (although the Greek does not have τὸ good, yet they have it in verse 19). Now as to the sense, first, St. Chrysostom explains thus, as if to say: In sinners there is a certain velleity of good, and a certain imperfect hatred of evil, even while they sin.
Second and better, St. Augustine and Anselm, who expound these things, not of a sinner, but of a just man, such as Paul was, as I said: Evil, they say, which the just man hates, and yet does, is concupiscence, which the just man works naturally, but involuntarily, or rather suffers and feels against his will; but the good which the just man does not do, although he wills, is to do a good work eagerly, and with all his strength, without concupiscence resisting. Or more briefly, not to lust is the good, which the just man wills and desires; but the evil which he hates is to lust, as if Paul were saying: I would wish not to lust, and I would not wish to lust, and yet I lust.
Note: "I do" here signifies an imperfect action of man, that is, the act of the desiring appetite, without the assent of reason, and this is clear from the Hebrew idiom, of which I spoke in canon 32. Especially because the movements of concupiscence are not only in the sensitive appetite, but also in the will, which naturally, from its origin vitiated in Adam, inclines toward delightful, honorable and curious goods. Whence the Apostle adds in explanation: "Now it is no longer I who do it, but the sin which dwells in me." This act of lusting is not mine, not human, because it is not free and deliberate, but is the act of the sin dwelling in me, that is, of concupiscence. Hence St. Augustine in Sentences, sentence 383: "To approve," he says, "false things for true, so that you err unwillingly, and with the resistance of the carnal bond fighting back, not to be able to refrain from illicit works, is not of the nature of man as constituted, but the punishment of one condemned."
Verse 16: If What I Will Not, That I Do, I Consent to the Law, That It Is Good
16. BUT IF WHAT I WILL NOT, THAT I DO (that is, if I lust, which however I do not will and do unwillingly, or rather suffer), I CONSENT TO THE LAW (that is, by reason and will I approve), THAT (because the law in itself) IS GOOD. — Whence the Syriac translates, I cast my vote for the law, that it is good, as if to say: If I lust unwilling and against my will, my mind and will is intact and untouched, because it cleaves to the law and consents with it.
Verse 17: Now It Is No Longer I Who Work That, but the Sin Which Dwells in Me
17. NOW HOWEVER (now therefore) IT IS NO LONGER I WHO WORK THAT (namely humanly, that is, deliberately), BUT THE SIN WHICH DWELLS IN ME. — That is, concupiscence, as I said in verse 14, for this dwells in my flesh, but not virtue itself and the good, that is, goodness. For this is what the Apostle adds.
Verse 18: I Know That There Dwells Not in Me, That Is, in My Flesh, Good
18. I KNOW THAT THERE DWELLS NOT IN ME, THAT IS, IN MY FLESH, GOOD. FOR TO WILL IS PRESENT WITH ME: BUT TO PERFORM THAT WHICH IS GOOD, I FIND NOT. — As if to say: The faculty and good will of willing what is good is in me when justified; but scarcely, and only with difficulty can I perform it: For the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak, indeed reluctant to the spirit. So St. Augustine, Anselm, St. Thomas, Primasius and the Syriac. The Apostle explains, repeats, and inculcates the same, verse 21. Truly St. Bernard, sermon 84 on Canticles: "The will lies prostrate," he says, "where the faculty is not at hand." And St. Augustine, book X of Confessions, ch. XL, groaning on the earth and sighing to heaven: "I fall back," he says, "into these things by burdensome weights, and I am sucked back into accustomed things, and I am held, and I weep much, but I am much held. So much does the burden of habit weigh me down. Here I am able to be, but I do not will; there I will, but am not able: wretched in both places."
Rightly does St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his Poem to Virgins, call the flesh "echeneis," or the remora fish. For as the remora stops a ship, so the flesh of man inhibits and stops his course toward heaven. He therefore teaches that this remora must be removed, when he sings:
Do not let into your life the echeneis itself, the flesh,
Which as if cast as a fetter on the hastening ship
Holds it back, and forces such a mass to stand still.
See also Abbot Theonas in Cassian, Conference 23, where he treats at length this teaching of the Apostle.
Verse 21: I Find Therefore a Law, That When I Will to Do Good, Evil Is Present with Me
21. I FIND THEREFORE (in myself) A LAW (which follows, namely), THAT (because) WHEN I WILL TO DO GOOD, EVIL IS PRESENT TO ME, — and is within, evil, I say, of concupiscence innate to me, which fights against the good and the law of God. Note here, and experience in yourself, that when you wish to undertake some good, especially something heroic, you will most of all feel concupiscence rising and opposing itself.
Note here the Hebrew trajection: for the word "that," which Paul postpones saying: "I find, while willing to do good, that evil is present with me," is to be placed first thus, "I find that, while I will to do good, evil is present." Others explain these things differently; see them, if it pleases, in Toletus.
Verse 22: I Am Delighted with the Law of God According to the Inner Man
22. I AM DELIGHTED WITH THE LAW OF GOD ACCORDING TO THE INNER MAN. — You will ask, who is called the inner, who the outer man? First, the Manicheans from this passage taught that there are two souls in man, one good, from which virtues come; the second evil, from which vices flow; and consequently that in man himself there are as it were two men, one inner, the other outer.
Second, Illyricus the rigid Lutheran: "The inner man," he says, "is the soul and the spirit of God; the outer man is original sin, which affects the soul as if it were a substantial form." For he himself thinks that sin is not an accident, but a form and a certain dark and horrible substance, such as we commonly imagine the devil.
Third, Calvin: "The inner man," he says, "is the superior part of the soul, or the mind consenting to the law of God; the outer is the same mind insofar as it lusts after evil things." For Calvin thinks that in the entirely same portion and faculty of the soul this struggle is, and therefore that even the just man is simply as much a sinner as just; which implies a contradiction. Furthermore, this doctrine of his follows from his other principle, by which to man in reality truly and properly takes away the superior part, that is, reason and free will: for then it necessarily follows that in the inferior part concupiscence dominates as much as virtue; and that this inferior part is divided into superior and inferior, not in reality, but only in name. But all these things are impossible, erroneous, and heretical.
Fourth, Photius and Toletus explain thus: The inner man is reason, which even in sinners struggles against the outer, that is, against sense and appetite.
But note: In man there is only one soul, which is at once rational and sensitive; and after the privation of original justice contracted by sin, this fights against that, namely the sensitive against the rational, especially when imbued with grace, and so the soul itself fights with itself with contrary appetites, even in the justified man: so that from its operations there seem to be in him a twofold soul and a twofold man. The cause of this is the eminence of the rational soul, which contains in itself by virtue the sensitive and vegetative soul, and brings about in man with one soul what in three, namely in a plant, in a horse, in man, three souls bring about, namely the vegetative, sensitive, and rational.
I say therefore, one and the same is the man, but by reason of different states, affections, and operations, he is called outer or inner. The inner the Apostle now calls new, now renewed, namely by Christ, now spiritual, now mind: the outer he calls animal, or old, which we drew from old Adam; the same he calls the flesh, or members, by synecdoche and metonymy: because, namely, it displays its force most in the members, in the flesh, and in the sensitive appetite. For this corruption derived from carnal Adam most spreads itself and exerts itself in the flesh and in carnal desires; indeed through them it solicits and moves the soul, although properly it resides in the soul. Hence the Apostle, Galatians 5, calls pride, envy, quarrels, works of the flesh, that is, of concupiscence and of the old man.
The inner man is the mind, as Cajetan rightly says; or more aptly, the man himself imbued with and living by the grace, charity, and Spirit of God: his soul is grace and charity: his law is the divine law and its dictate, such as, Be chaste, sober, humble, obedient, fear and love God: his vital operation is to love, worship, and obey God.
The outer, or old man, is concupiscence, or viciousness, residing in all the powers of the soul, and even in the mind and will itself; or it is the mind, or rather it is the man himself vitiated and corrupted in all his powers: his soul is concupiscence: his law is the vicious inclination, or some concupiscible dictate, contrary to God's law, e.g.: Get drunk, fornicate, be proud: his vital operation is to lust after wine, riches, delights, mistresses. Concupiscence therefore and the outer man is in the soul, will, and mind, but in that part by which they naturally act and are borne to their objects by natural movement; but virtue and the inner man is in the same soul, will, and mind, but in that part which uses reason and freedom, and dominates its acts and even concupiscence itself, especially when the grace of God flourishes.
This is a moral passage on the struggle of concupiscence and spirit, which St. Augustine graphically depicts in himself, in book VIII of Confessions, ch. XI, and in sermon 45 On the Times, vol. X. I shall here transcribe St. Augustine's words, because they place this matter plainly before the eyes, so that those who feel this struggle in themselves with Paul and St. Augustine, but cannot explain it, may see it expressed and explained in Augustine, and may learn by what reason they can obtain the victory, especially when they are striving to change their life and pass from the state of sin to the state of grace. "I was saying," he says, "within myself: Behold, let it be done now, let it be done now. And with the word I was already going into what pleased me, I was almost doing it, and I was not doing it; nor however was I sliding back into former things, but I stood close by and breathed; and again I tried, and I was a little less there, and a little less I was now and now reaching and holding; and I was not there, nor reaching, nor holding, hesitating to die to death and to live to life; and the worse, ingrained in me, prevailed more than the better, unaccustomed: and the very point of time, in which I was about to be otherwise, the closer it was brought, the greater the horror it struck; but it did not strike me back, nor did it turn me away, but suspended me." Thus far we have heard the first assault of concupiscence in Augustine.
There follows the second. "There held me back the trifles of trifles, and the vanities of vanities, my old loves, and they shook my fleshly garment, and murmured: Are you sending us away? and from this moment shall we not be with you any more forever? and from this moment shall this and that not be lawful for you, any more forever? And what they suggested in that which I said, This and that! what they suggested, my God, may Your mercy avert from the soul of Your servant: what filth they suggested, what dishonors! And I heard them now far less than half, not as if openly contradicting by going against me, but as if muttering from behind, and as if furtively pinching me, departing, that I might look back; yet they delayed me, hesitating to tear myself away and shake them off, and leap across to where I was being called, when violent custom said to me: Do you think you can be without these?"
Behold the third assault of concupiscence, but more remitted, with the grace and constancy of St. Augustine prevailing. "But now it spoke this most tepidly. For there was opened, on the side toward which I had directed my face, and to which I trembled to cross, the chaste dignity of continence, serene, and not dissolutely cheerful, honestly enticing, that I might come and not doubt, and extending pious hands to receive and embrace me, full of flocks of good examples. There were so many boys and girls, there were many youth, and every age, and grave widows, and aged virgins, and in all of them continence herself, by no means barren, but a fruitful mother of children of joys from her husband You, O Lord. And she mocked me with an exhortatory mockery, as if she said: Will you not be able to do what these men and these women can? Or can these men and these women do this in themselves, and not in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me to them. Why do you stand on yourself and not stand? Cast yourself on Him, do not fear; He will not draw Himself away, that you may fall. Cast yourself secure, He will receive you, He will heal you. And I blushed exceedingly, because I still heard the murmur of those trifles, and I hung back hesitating. And again, as if she said: Be deaf to those unclean members of yours upon the earth, that they may be mortified. They tell you of delights, but not as the law of the Lord your God. This dispute in my heart was nothing but myself against myself." Thus Augustine.
Second, S. Gregory teaches the utility of this struggle, book XIX of Morals, VI: "The best," he says, "guardian of virtue is weakness, either of pressures or of temptations: and it happens by a certain moderation, that, while each one of the Saints is now indeed inwardly snatched up to the highest things, but is still tempted outwardly, he may not run into the lapse of despair nor into elation; and so we know in our progress what we have received; in our defect, what we are; and so by the most subtle moderation of internal judgment, the soul is balanced below the highest and above the lowest, in a certain middle place." And S. Bernard, sermon on the Lord's Supper, On Baptism and the Sacrament of the altar: "In order to humble us, He still allows it (concupiscence) to live in us, and to afflict us heavily, that we may feel what grace offers us, and always have recourse to its help: so also with these lesser sins it is dealt with us by a pious dispensation, that they are not entirely taken away, but in them God instructs us, so that, when we cannot guard against the smallest, we may be sure that we cannot overcome the greater by our own strength, and may always be fearful and entirely careful how we may not lose His grace, which we feel to be in so many ways necessary for us."
Verse 23: I See Another Law in My Members, Fighting Against the Law of My Mind
23. I SEE ANOTHER LAW IN MY MEMBERS, FIGHTING AGAINST THE LAW OF MY MIND, AND CAPTIVATING ME IN THE LAW OF SIN. — "Fighting against," in Greek ἀντιστρατευομένην, that is, warring against, rebelling. It is a metaphor from struggle and fighting.
Again, "captivating me," not by the consent of the will, as Chrysostom wills (for he thinks all these things are said about the state of sin and of a sinner), but by commotion, says S. Augustine, that is, that I be made a captive and subjected to the law of sin, that is, of concupiscence; so that, even unwilling and resisting, I am compelled to feel its vicious inclinations, dictates, impulses, and I cannot escape its snares and movements.
Some from S. Augustine explain thus: "Captivating," that is, attempting to captivate; but the Greek is αἰχμαλωτίζοντά με, that is, taking me captive; and the Syriac likewise has the sense of taking me captive. For in fact all of us, not under sin, but under concupiscence are held as it were captive.
Note here the Hebraism, "in the law of sin," that is, to itself. For the law of sin and of the members is the same, namely concupiscence, as I said. So it is said in Genesis 19:24: "The Lord rained from the Lord," that is, from Himself. Concupiscence is called the law of sin, because it is the tinder soliciting to sin, dictating and suggesting sin.
Verse 24: Unhappy Man That I Am, Who Shall Deliver Me from the Body of This Death?
24. UNHAPPY (in Greek ταλαίπωρος, that is, wretched, afflicted) MAN THAT I AM, WHO WILL DELIVER ME FROM THE BODY OF THIS DEATH? — that is, from the heap of all sins, says Calvin; or, as the Commentary of Ambrose, from the totality of vices. But this exposition is improper, remote, and foreign. Hence I say, "from the body of death," that is, from the dying body, and from the affections of sinning, and consequently subject to death and corruption; and which, as S. Jerome says, sometimes brings on bodily death, sometimes, as Photius says, often the spiritual death of the soul. So S. Augustine, book I Against the two Epistles of the Pelagians, XI. It is a metalepsis. "To be freed from the body of death," says S. Augustine, "is, when every languor of the concupiscence of the flesh has been healed, to receive the body not for punishment, but for glory. For from the body of death the wicked will never be freed, to whom in the resurrection the same bodies will be returned for eternal torments."
Note, death for the Hebrews by metonymy and catachresis often signifies disease, plague, pestilence, and any heavy affliction. So Pharaoh, Exodus 10:17: "Beseech the Lord," he says, "that He may take this death from me:" death, that is, the plague of the locusts devouring herbs and shoots. So in 4 Kings 4:40 it is said: Death, that is, the bitterness of the colocynths, is in the pot. In a like manner, here the body of death can be taken as the body subject to many diseases, afflictions, and miseries. This is the burning sigh of the Apostle longing from this wretched and mortal body for the blessed and heavenly life.
Hear in like manner the author sighing (Hugh of St. Victor, if we believe Trithemius) in the book On Spirit and Soul, which is in volume III of the works of S. Augustine, ch. LXII: "Hear," he says, "O soul, what kind you are: you are loaded with sins, ensnared by vices, captured by allurements, fixed to members, pierced by cares, distended by businesses, contracted by fears, afflicted by sorrows, wandering in errors, restless with suspicions, anxious with cares, a stranger in the land of enemies, defiled with the dead, counted with those who are in hell." And ch. LX: "When shall I come and appear before the face of the Lord, to see Him in the goodness of His elect, to rejoice in the joy of His people, that He may be praised with His inheritance? When shall I see that city, of which it is said: Your streets, O Jerusalem, will be paved with pure gold, and in you will be sung the canticle of joy, and through all your neighborhoods by all will be said Alleluia? O holy city, beautiful city, from afar I salute you, to you I cry, you I seek; for I shall desire to see you, and to rest in you: but I am not allowed, being held back by the flesh. O desirable city! the stone of your wall is one, your guardian is God Himself, your citizens always joyful; for they always rejoice in the vision of God," etc.
Verse 25: The Grace of God, Through Jesus Christ Our Lord
25. THE GRACE OF GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST. — Supply: will free me at some time from the body of this death, namely in the future resurrection, by giving me an immortal and glorious body.
Note, for "grace of God," our Interpreter reads in the Greek χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ. So also read S. Ambrose, Origen, Jerome, S. Augustine, and others. But S. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Jerome to Algasia, and the Greek codices now read εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ, I give thanks to God, who namely will free me from the body of death, through Jesus Christ.
But our reading is more fitting, and therefore truer; for not the giving of thanks, but grace, regards the future. For thanks are not properly given for a future benefit and one to be received, but for a past benefit and one already received: but τὸ "will free" here is future, not past.
Add, τὸ "grace of God" tacitly includes τὸ "I give thanks to God." For to say: the grace of God through Christ will free me, and to confess and celebrate this grace, is in fact to give thanks to God.
THEREFORE I MYSELF WITH THE MIND SERVE THE LAW OF GOD; BUT WITH THE FLESH, THE LAW OF SIN, — in that sense which I have already given in verses 22 and 23. This whole passage of the Apostle on the struggle of flesh and spirit, or of concupiscence and continence, is admirably treated by S. Augustine, book On Continence, vol. IV; for that this book is not by Hugh of S. Victor, as Erasmus suspects, but by Augustine himself, the Doctors of Louvain, who edited all the works of S. Augustine accurately and most correctly, teach from Bede, Possidonius, and others.
In that book therefore Augustine teaches, first, near the end of ch. II, that in this life this struggle is perpetual, and that it suffices us if we do not consent to the evils of concupiscence, and so it will be that in the other blessed life we shall not feel it. "Now as long as," he says, "the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, it is enough for us not to consent to the evils which we feel in ourselves. For continence itself, when it bridles and restrains lusts, also at the same time desires the good, to whose immortality we tend, and rejects the evil, with which in this mortality we contend."
Then he teaches that only those feel this struggle who resist concupiscence, but not those who yield and consent to it. "This battle," he says, "they do not experience in themselves except those who war for the virtues, and conquer the vices. The good of continence does not conquer the evil of concupiscence. There are however those who, entirely ignorant of God's law, do not even count evil concupiscences among enemies, and serving them with miserable blindness, moreover think themselves blessed by satisfying them, rather than by mastering them."
Third, he teaches that Christians as soldiers of Christ are kindled by the Apostle to this battle, so that they may not allow concupiscence to reign in them, which happens when they obey it; but that they should resist it, and by resisting tame and diminish it, although they cannot extinguish it; for thus he says: "The Apostolic trumpet kindles Christian soldiers into battle with this sound: Let not sin reign in your mortal body, to obey its desires. But it is shown to reign, if its desires are obeyed, which are not to be obeyed, lest by obedience it reign. When the Apostle exhorts that we mortify by the spirit the deeds of the flesh, the trumpet certainly sounds; he shows the war in which we are engaged, and kindles us to fight sharply and to mortify our enemies, lest we be mortified by them."
Fourth, he describes our enemies, and reviews the soldiers of this battle on each side: namely on this side bringing the works of the flesh into line of battle, on the other the fruits of the spirit. "Our enemies," he says, "are the works of the flesh, which are fornication, uncleanness, luxury, servitude to idols, sorceries, enmities, contentions, emulations, etc. In this battle against the carnal army, as if producing another spiritual line of battle: The fruit of the spirit, he says, is charity, joy, peace, longanimity, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, continence. This is the action of continence, if the works of the flesh are mortified."
Fifth, ch. VII, he teaches that there are not two natures in man arising from contrary principles among themselves, and continually fighting among themselves, one of good, the other of evil, as the Manicheans wished. But that this war arises from the languor of concupiscence, which sin introduced into the nature of man, good and founded by a good God. "But this languor," he says, "fault deserved, nature did not have; which fault indeed through the laver of regeneration the grace of God has now remitted to the faithful, but under the hands of the same physician nature still struggles with its languor. In such a battle health will be the whole victory, when the just man will say: Bless, O my soul, the Lord, who heals all your languors."
Sixth, he shows that it is good for the flesh itself that its depraved desires be resisted, so that the flesh itself may be purged of its vices. "Hear," he says, "the Apostle saying: I know that there dwells not in me (which to explain he adds), that is, in my flesh, good. So he said that he himself is his flesh. Therefore she herself is not our enemy; and when her vices are resisted, she herself is loved, because she herself is healed: for no one ever hated his own flesh, as the Apostle himself says. And he himself in another place says: With the mind I serve the law of God; with the flesh, the law of sin. How with the flesh, the law of sin? surely not by consenting to carnal concupiscence? Far from it: but by having there the movements of desires, which he did not wish to have, and yet had; but by not consenting to them; with the mind he was serving the law of God, and held back his members, lest they become weapons of sin."
Seventh, he shows in what sense the Apostle says that he, on account of concupiscence, wills indeed the good, but does not however accomplish it. "Therefore evil concupiscences arise in us," he says, "when that which is not lawful pleases; but they are not brought to completion, when, with the mind serving the law of God, the lusts are restrained, and good is done when that which evilly pleases does not occur because the good delight overcomes it: but the perfection of the good is not fulfilled, so long as, with the flesh serving the law of sin, lust there, although restrained, is nevertheless stirred; for there would be no need that it be restrained, unless it were stirred. Therefore the perfection of the good shall be when there shall be the consumption of evil; the former shall be supreme, the latter shall be nothing. But if we think this is to be hoped for in this mortal life, we are deceived; for it shall be then, when death shall be no more, but the supreme good shall be," etc.
Eighthly, in chapter XIII, he teaches that continence struggles not only against lust, but also against any other movements of concupiscence whatsoever, and that it bridles and restrains them. "Continence," he says, "keeps watch absolutely over all delights of concupiscence which oppose the love of wisdom, in order to restrain and heal them, so that a man, no longer living according to man, may now be able to say: 'Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ liveth in me'; for where I am not, there I am more blessed, so that when, according to the man, any reprobate motion arises, to which he does not consent, who in mind serves the law of God, he may also say that other word: 'Now it is no longer I that work it.'"
Ninthly and finally, he shows that the motions of concupiscence must be mortified through continence, both that they may not break forth into action, and that the will may not cling to them and consent in mind and thought, so that, being dead to them, we may live to Christ and to righteousness. "Mortify," says the Apostle, "your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, etc. And how are these mortified by the work of continence, except when the mind does not consent to them, nor are the members of the body offered as weapons to them? And what is to be watched over with greater vigilance of continence is even our own thought, which, although it be touched by some suggestion and as it were whispering of them, is yet turned away from them, lest it be delighted."
Moreover, the most present antidote of concupiscence is the thought and contemplation of death, and of the dying, and of the dead.
Abbot Elias, in Sophronius, in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter X, relates concerning himself that, having been visited by a religious woman, after her departure he felt a grievous temptation of lust, by which, being overcome, he went out to fulfill it with her. "But when," he says, "I was still about one stadium distant from her cave, burning grievously with the heat of lust, suddenly being put into an ecstasy, I saw the earth opened, and myself swallowed up by the gaping of the earth. And I behold there putrid corpses lying and dissolved, and full of incredible stench, and a certain man of reverent appearance showing them to me, and saying: 'Behold, this is of a woman, this of a man, this of a boy; enjoy now as thou wilt, and as much as it pleases, thy concupiscence: yet for the sake of this pleasure, see how many labors thou hast wished to lose: see for what sin you wish to deprive yourselves of the kingdom of heaven. Woe to human misery! for the pleasure of one hour you are cheated of the reward of so great labor.' But I, on account of the excessive stench, fell upon the ground. Then that venerable man, who had appeared to me, drawing near, raised me up. And giving thanks to God, I returned to my own place." See more at Numbers xi, 20 and 34.