Cornelius a Lapide

Romans IX

Table of Contents

Synopsis of the Chapter

He teaches that the Jews have been rejected from righteousness and salvation because of their unbelief; but that the Gentiles have been admitted to it because of their faith.

First, then, Paul here shows his love toward the Jews, and his sorrow at their ruin and rejection.

Secondly, in verse 6, he shows that the promises made by God to Abraham and his sons, that is, to the Israelites, are not therefore made void, because they pertain not to the sons of the flesh, namely the Jews, but to the sons of promise and of divine election, namely to Christians, who by believing in Christ imitate the faith of Abraham.

Thirdly, in verse 14, he teaches that this is not unjust, because God, since He is the Lord of all, has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens: hardens, I say, not by sending them hardness, but by sustaining them in much patience, as vessels of wrath fit for destruction, as the Apostle himself says by way of explanation in verse 22.

Fourthly, in verse 24, he teaches that these sons of promise are partly Jews believing in Christ — but few — and partly Gentiles, and these very many.

Finally, in verse 30, he gives the proper, direct, and adequate cause why the Jews have been driven away from righteousness and salvation, while the Gentiles have been admitted to it; namely, that the Jews refused to believe in Christ, while the Gentiles believed in Him. For all our justification and salvation (God so willing and decreeing) must be sought and looked for from Christ alone.

Here the Apostle descends from thesis to hypothesis. For up to this point he has taught that not legal observances, but faith in Christ, is the sole way to righteousness and salvation: now in the three following chapters he teaches that the Gentiles have been chosen unto this righteousness and salvation, because they entered upon this way of faith in Christ; but that the Jews have been rejected from the same not through any defect of calling, as is evident from chapter X, verse 12, nor of grace, since they had it most abundantly — indeed, they had Christ Himself wholly to themselves alone; but because, relying on their carnal father Abraham, on Moses the lawgiver, and on the works of the law, they arrogated to themselves salvation and righteousness; while they despised the faith and grace of Christ as of an abject man. This is plainly evident in chapter XI, verses 20, 30, and following.

This chapter, then, teaches, first, that this is not against the promises, nor even against the justice of God; for the seed of Abraham — that is, the sons to whom the blessing (namely righteousness, friendship, divine protection, and salvation) was promised by God — are not understood to be sons according to the flesh, that is, Jews, but according to the spirit and faith, that is, Christians.

Secondly, he teaches that the cause why God willed to consign this promised blessing to sons not of the flesh but of the spirit, that is, not to Jews but to Christians, is not the demerit of the former or the merit of the latter, but the pure will, election, and mercy of God, who willed to elect and adopt a new posterity — not carnal, but spiritual, namely, that of the Christian faithful — for these promises; though He could, had He willed, have adopted to the same the carnal posterity of Abraham, namely the Jews (just as He adopted them to Himself as sons in the Old Law), or have established another order and way of blessing and justification.

Whence it is evident that the Apostle in this chapter does not properly and directly treat of the calling of the Jews and the Gentiles to the faith, but rather presupposes the calling of both; nor again does he treat of prevenient grace and its disparity, as though he meant to teach that less grace was given to the Jews and more to the Gentiles; ineffective to the Jews, effective to the Gentiles: but he is treating of justifying grace, as is plain from the entire preceding chapter and from all the others up to this point. Look at, and read above all, chapters III and IV, and you will see that it is so. For the question of the whole epistle is this: whence is a man justified? To which the Apostle replies that a man is justified by the faith and grace of Christ, not by ceremonies or works of the law. From which reply he rightly infers and concludes in this and the following chapter that the Gentiles have been justified because they have embraced the faith and grace of Christ, but not the Jews, inasmuch as they refused to embrace it.

Secondly, the same point, namely that the Apostle is here treating not of prevenient but of justifying grace, is clear from this, that this is the blessing promised to Abraham and his seed, namely: "I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed" — that is, to this end, that I may love, protect, and embrace thee and thy posterity according to faith and spirit, as just men, as My sons and friends: therefore this blessing of Abraham is nothing else than the righteousness and friendship of God.

Thirdly, the same point is clear from this, that this blessing already mentioned presupposes and requires that one be already born a son of Abraham, not according to the flesh but according to the spirit — namely, that one be reborn in Christ through faith and baptism: for this man is a son of Abraham and an heir of the blessing, that is, of righteousness and salvation. This blessing, then, promised to Abraham, is not faith, nor calling, nor prevenient grace, since this son and heir is presupposed already to have these: for through this grace one must be born a spiritual son of Abraham in order to become capable of this same blessing, just as in human affairs someone must first be born and become the son of his father before he can become his heir, or acquire any right to the inheritance.

Fourthly, the same point is clearly evident from the conclusion of this whole discussion, which the Apostle gathers in this chapter at verses 30 and following, where he concludes that the Gentiles have obtained righteousness because they believed in Christ, but that the Jews have fallen from it because they sought it not in the faith of Christ but in the law of Moses. From all this it is clear that the Apostle in this and the following chapter is not properly treating of prevenient grace, congruent or incongruent, much less of election and the elect unto glory, and of reprobation and the reprobate unto eternal punishments; but is treating of justifying grace, which the Gentiles obtained through faith in Christ, and from which the Jews have been excluded because of their unbelief. And this point is most especially to be noted here: for upon it depends the genuine application as well as the explanation of the whole chapter, and of all its antitheses, and indeed the whole mind of the Apostle, as I shall declare more fully throughout the course of the chapter itself.

Vulgate Text: Romans 9:1-33

1. I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit: 2. that I have great sadness, and continual sorrow in my heart. 3. For I myself was wishing to be anathema from Christ for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh, 4. who are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption as sons, and the glory, and the covenant, and the law-giving, and the worship, and the promises: 5. whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things God blessed forever. Amen. 6. Not as though the word of God hath miscarried. For all are not Israelites who are of Israel: 7. neither are they all sons because they are the seed of Abraham; but: In Isaac shall thy seed be called: 8. that is to say, not they that are the sons of the flesh are the sons of God; but they that are the sons of the promise are accounted for the seed. 9. For this is the word of promise: According to this time will I come; and Sara shall have a son. 10. And not only she; but when Rebecca also had conceived at once, of Isaac our father. 11. For when the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God according to election might stand), 12. not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said to her: 13. The elder shall serve the younger, as it is written: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. 14. What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? God forbid. 15. For He saith to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy; and I will show mercy to whom I shall show mercy. 16. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. 17. For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh: For to this very purpose have I raised thee up, that I may show My power in thee, and that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth. 18. Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. 19. You will say to me then: Why does He yet find fault? For who resists His will? 20. O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus? 21. Or has not the potter power over the clay, of the same mass to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? 22. What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fit for destruction, 23. that He might show the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He has prepared unto glory? 24. Even us, whom He has also called, not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles, 25. as He says in Hosea: I will call that which was not My people, My people; and her that was not beloved, beloved; and her that had not obtained mercy, one that had obtained mercy. 26. And it shall be: In the place where it was said to them: You are not My people: there they shall be called the sons of the living God. 27. And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. 28. For He shall finish the word and shorten it in equity: because a short word shall the Lord make upon the earth; 29. and as Isaiah foretold: Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been made as Sodom, and we had been like to Gomorrah. 30. What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness: even the righteousness which is of faith. 31. But Israel, by pursuing the law of righteousness, did not arrive at the law of righteousness. 32. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works: for they stumbled at the stumbling stone, 33. as it is written: Behold I lay in Sion a stumbling stone, and a rock of scandal; and whosoever believes in Him shall not be confounded.

Verse 1: I Speak the Truth in Christ

1. I SPEAK THE TRUTH IN CHRIST, I LIE NOT, MY CONSCIENCE BEARING ME WITNESS IN THE HOLY SPIRIT. — Note the "in Christ," as if to say: I speak the truth, as it befits one to do who reverences Christ; or "in Christ," that is, through Christ, whom I invoke as witness, as if to say: I call Christ to witness, I swear by Christ that I speak the truth. For beth — that is, in — among the Hebrews is at times a particle and word of one swearing, as is clear from Genesis XXII, 16; Joshua II, 12. Theophylact and Oecumenius add that Paul here swears by three witnesses, namely by Christ, by his conscience, and by the Holy Spirit. But that phrase "my conscience bearing me witness" does not seem to be an oath, but only an asseveration that he does not lie, since his conscience dictates and attests this to him; conscience, I say, moved, excited, and impelled by the Holy Spirit: for this is what "in the Holy Spirit" signifies, which is equivalent to "through the Holy Spirit."

Verse 2: Great Sadness and Continual Sorrow

2. THAT (because) I HAVE GREAT SADNESS, AND CONTINUAL SORROW IN MY HEART. — Namely, on account of the rejection and reprobation of the Jews from righteousness and salvation. For Paul expresses this cause of his sorrow in what follows; but here at the outset he artfully conceals and covers it, in order first to show his affection toward the Jews, and so to bind them to himself, lest they think he is saying these things out of hatred for the law and for the Jews, and lest right at the start he strike them with so sad a message.

Verse 3: I Was Wishing to be Anathema

3. FOR I MYSELF WAS WISHING TO BE ANATHEMA FROM CHRIST FOR MY BRETHREN. — St. Chrysostom, Origen, and Theophylact translate "I was wishing" as "I would wish" or "I should wish," that is to say, if it were possible, and if the divine ordering allowed it. They understand in the Greek the conditional ἐἄν (if), and seem to have read ηὐχόμην. For ηὐχόμην, as it now reads, I do not see how it can be anything other than the imperfect past, "I was wishing." "I was wishing," then, is the same as if he said: long ago I wished, and I continually wish, and, as Anselm says, I began long ago to wish. Cajetan, however, explains it thus, as if to say: At present I do not wish, but I was wishing, while I was in Judaism, to be anathema, that is, to be separated from Christ.

But not rightly: for no one wishes to be separated from him from whom he is already wholly separated: now Paul, while in Judaism, was plainly separated from Christ, and was a most fierce enemy of Christ. Add to this that Paul does not rightly prove his present love for the Jews from the past. For the Jews would have said: You indeed, while you were a Jew, loved us Jews, but now along with your religion you have changed your affection toward us.

Note: Because Paul was here about to say things which he knew would be very hateful to the Jews — namely, their repudiation by God and from righteousness — he therefore conciliates them at the outset with so many and such weighty words, showing the inmost sorrow and feeling of his soul, and from this his exceeding love for them; whence he wishes to become anathema for them.

TO BE ANATHEMA. — First, some authors cited in Oecumenius explain it thus: I should wish that I were not yet converted to Christ, but were still anathema from Christ, if this would contribute to the faith of the Jews. But this wish is unlawful and impious.

Secondly, St. Thomas and Lyranus explain it thus: I wish to be longer absent from the glory of Christ, that, while living in this life, I may be of profit to the Jews.

Thirdly, Ambrose, Anselm, and Toletus give this sense: When I was a Jew, I was an enemy of Christ, to such a degree that I was willing to be regarded as anathema and as a kind of execration and curse by Christ and by Christians. But this sense is opposed by what I have just brought forward.

Fourthly, Dionysius the Carthusian and Abulensis, on chapter XXXII of Exodus, hold it to be a hyperbole, by which Paul wishes only to signify and attest his exceeding love for the Jews, by which he would wish to suffer anything for them.

Fifthly, Origen and St. Jerome to Algasia, Question IX: "I was wishing," they say, "to be anathema" — that is, to undergo slaying, martyrdom, and bodily death for the Jews. But to this exposition the phrase "from Christ" is opposed. For death separates a man from life, but not from Christ: rather it joins the martyr most closely with Christ.

But all these senses do not fill out the heart and love of Paul, nor do they satisfy his enkindled zeal and spirit, as St. Chrysostom, Oecumenius, and Theodoret have rightly noted.

Whence note: The Syriac translates "anathema" as ארמא, cherma; for the Apostle alludes to the vow of cherem, which the Septuagint translates and calls "anathema" — by which a thing consecrated to God died, either civilly or naturally, and was forever separated from its owner and from profane uses.

For this, observe that the Hebrew cherem signifies slaying, cutting off, hewing down, from the root חרם charam, that is, he killed, cut off, hewed down. Hence the vow of cherem was called the greatest vow, by which a thing vowed to God was so consecrated that it had to be destroyed or killed. Therefore cherem is the same as slaying, killing, consecration, anathema — or a thing so devoted to God and entirely consecrated, that in His honor it must be either killed or consumed. This is clear from Leviticus XXVII, 28: "Everything," he says, "that is consecrated to the Lord (in Hebrew, every cherem, which כי יחרם charom, that is, shall be plainly and fully consecrated to the Lord as cherem), whether man or animal or field, shall not be sold (non vaeniet) nor can it be redeemed. Whatever has once been consecrated (by this vow and this consecration of cherem, that is, of anathema), shall be holy of holies (that is, wholly holy and consecrated) to the Lord. And every consecration (in Hebrew, every cherem, that is, anathema) which is offered by man shall not be redeemed, but shall die the death." Of which there is an example in Numbers XXI, 2: "But Israel," it says, "binding himself to the Lord with the vow of cherem, said: If Thou wilt deliver this (Canaanite) people into my hand, I will destroy (והחרמתי vehachharamti, that is, I will hew down, cut off) their cities. And the Lord heard the prayers of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanite, whom he slew, overthrowing his cities, and he called the name of that place Horma" (or cherem, for the Hebrew chet some pronounce as h, others as ch: whence some say herem and horma, others cherem and chorma), that is, anathema. See what is said on Leviticus XXVII, 28.

Thus cherem or anathema signifies, according to Budaeus, separation, cutting off, eternal and extreme destruction. Paul therefore wishes, by a kind of heroic excess, as it were of a blind charity which is carried away and does not consider whether the thing is possible, or whether or not it is according to God's ordination — or, if he is not so carried away, he wishes under a tacit condition, if God should will it and if it could be done (so St. Chrysostom, Origen, Theophylact, who read "I would wish"); he wishes, I say, for himself cherem and anathema, that is, eternal separation, not from charity, but from the future beatitude and glory with Christ (for that is what the phrase "from Christ" signifies), in order that the Jews may be saved. So Theodoret, Oecumenius, Anselm, Theophylact, Soto, Catharinus; indeed, he wishes, says Chrysostom, to perish eternally; and, as Cassian says, Conference 32, chapter VI, to be condemned to eternal punishments — and that both for the glory of God, as Chrysostom says, namely that God may not be blasphemed by the Jews but praised forever, and for the salvation of the Jews themselves. Paul therefore here wishes the very same thing which, in a like case, Moses wished, Exodus XXXII, 31, saying: "Either forgive them this trespass, or, if Thou do not, blot me out of Thy book which Thou hast written."

Hence it is clear that any holy man may rightly wish the same thing, namely, that he may be blotted out of the book of life and separated from the enjoyment and blessed society of Christ and the Saints in heaven — yet without his own fault — provided that, by this reckoning and on this condition, many others might come to know, love, and be made blessed in God; as Ludovico Molina teaches, among others, in part 1, Question XXIV, at the end. For this is a greater good and glory of God than the beatitude of myself alone; and consequently to wish this does not lessen but increases charity and one's own perfection, to which charity inclines more than to one's own glory and beatitude: especially because charity itself knows and is aware that God, being most liberal, will repay with a most liberal mind one who sets aside and postpones his own advantages and beatitude in favor of the divine glory and the salvation of his brethren — repaying liberally with heaps and increases of charity, graces, and other gifts, and will not suffer Himself to be outdone in liberality by His own creature.

Note here a striking example for the dignity and nobility of souls and their zeal. "What sayest thou, Paul?" says Chrysostom; "hast thou not already said: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Yet thou sayest: Because I love Christ, I desire to be separated from the enjoyment of Christ, that more — nay, that all — may love and praise Him." St. Chrysostom adds: "Because we are far from this love, therefore we cannot understand these sayings of his." Thus Christ willed to be made a curse for us. "And what wonder is it," says Origen, "if, when the Lord (Christ) was made a curse for His servants, the servant (Paul) should become anathema for his brethren?" This wish of Paul, then, was pious, holy, and efficacious on his own side and as regards his will; yet on the side of the object, it was not altogether absolute and efficacious. For he was wishing for a thing impossible and contrary to the divine ordering. For God has ordained that my salvation and beatitude be the means to promote and increase the glory of God and the salvation and beatitude of my neighbors; He has not ordained that the procurement of another's salvation should be the means or end of my own private beatitude — and Paul knew this very well: whence, simply speaking, this act, or this wish and desire in him, could not have been wholly absolute and efficacious.

Verse 4: My Kinsmen According to the Flesh

4. WHO ARE MY KINSMEN ACCORDING TO THE FLESH, WHO ARE ISRAELITES — that is, who are the descendants of Israel, namely of Jacob, that great Patriarch. For all these things which follow here pertain to the praise of the Jews, and by them Paul intimates that he is wonderfully kindled to love them.

WHOSE IS THE ADOPTION OF SONS. — Whom God adopted as His sons, when He bound them over to Himself and to His worship, Exodus IV, 22, saying: "Israel is My firstborn son;" and now through Christ He wills to adopt these same ones to Himself, before all others, as sons and heirs.

AND THE GLORY. — The glory of the Jews, says Chrysostom and Anselm, is this, that they alone, before all the nations, were called, and in fact were the people and Church of God.

Secondly, Theodoret: The glory of the Jews, he says, is this, that God showed and exhibited Himself to the Jews alone — through so many and such glorious miracles and prophecies, and through such singular protection and providence, and through so many and such great benefits — as a most loving Father, and as a glorious God, most powerful and equally most clement.

Thirdly, Toletus: The glory of the Jews, he says, was the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the power and glory of God: for the glorious God sat in the temple of the Jews upon the propitiatory upheld by the Cherubim, so that He had the Ark for His footstool. Whence, when the Ark was captured by the Philistines, the wife of Phinehas, while giving birth to the son she bore, called him Ichabod — that is, "Where is the glory?" — saying: "The glory has departed from Israel, because the Ark of God has been captured," 1 Kings IV, 21, as if to say: "We have been Trojans, Ilium has been, and the great glory of the Teucrians has been," namely of the Israelites. All these senses are fitting; the second, however, is plainer and fuller.

AND THE COVENANT. — As if to say: with whom God often entered into a pact, for in Greek it is διαθῆκαι, that is, "covenants"; or to whom the old covenant was given, and the new was promised. Thirdly, our Latin translator more simply renders "covenant," namely the old one. For the Greek διαθήκη, when it signifies "covenant," is generally used in the plural, says Budaeus.

Note: The Greek διαθήκη signifies both "testament" and "pact." Hence our translator often uses "testament" for any pact whatsoever, as I shall say on Hebrews IX, 15.

THE LAW-GIVING. — As if to say: Who (namely the Jews), beyond all other nations, received the law from God, from heaven, on Sinai, and are now receiving a new one on Zion. For to the same people to whom the old law was given, the new one was promised, and through Christ has been bestowed, and from there propagated to all nations.

THE WORSHIP. — In Greek λατρεία, that is, the worship and religion of God, due and proper to God alone, as if to say: God gave the true worship of Himself and the true religion to the Jews alone.

THE PROMISES. — As if to say: The blessing promised to Abraham, and all the other promises of God which He made to men both in the Old and in the New Testament, pertain first and foremost, before all other nations, to the Jews. And the greatest of these promises is the Messiah Himself, or Christ — namely, the redemption, righteousness, and salvation to be brought about through Christ.

Verse 5: Whose are the Fathers, and of Whom is Christ

5. Whose are the fathers (that is, those renowned and distinguished patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who first brought forth marvelous deeds of virtue) AND (secondly) of whom is Christ. — As if to say: The fathers of the Jews are also the parents of Christ. Secondly, and more aptly: "whose," supply "parents," are the fathers — that is, our celebrated Patriarchs, namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For these by antonomasia are called and are the fathers.

AND OF WHOM (namely, the Israelites) IS CHRIST ACCORDING TO THE FLESH. — For it is a marvelous dignity of the Jews, that Christ was born from them. The Syriac so distinguishes these phrases, that it refers "whose are the fathers" to the preceding verse, but begins the next verse with "and of whom is Christ"; so that when he says "of whom," supply not "of the fathers," but "of the Jews" or "of the Israelites," of whom he has been treating from verse 4 up to here, and the conjunction "and" demands that these be divided and explained in this way.

WHO (Christ) IS OVER ALL THINGS. — Supply: which are outside of God. Therefore Christ is not above the Holy Spirit. So St. Gregory, Homily 8 on Ezekiel, Ambrose, and others. Wrongly therefore did the Macedonians infer from this that the Holy Spirit is less than God and Christ, and is a creature.

WHO IS OVER ALL THINGS GOD BLESSED FOREVER. — From this St. Athanasius, Augustine, Hilary, Tertullian, and others everywhere prove against Arius that the Son is God. Erasmus replies that perhaps the word "God" has been added, for Hilary, on Psalm 122, and St. Cyprian, book II Against the Jews, do not read it. But he is mistaken; for all the Latin, Greek, and Syriac codices read "God." So too the Fathers read it everywhere, and by name Hilary himself, in book VIII On the Trinity, where he cites this testimony in full: there exist also ancient copies of Cyprian, in which at the cited place "God" is read.

Again, Erasmus here, against all others, places a punctuation point after "all things," and tears the following words away from it, as if Paul had said: "Of whom is Christ, who is over all things" — full stop. "May God (the Father) be blessed forever." Who does not see how new, gaping, distorted, and discordant a punctuation this is?

Verse 6: Not as Though the Word of God Hath Miscarried

6. NOT AS THOUGH THE WORD OF GOD HATH MISCARRIED. — "Not as though," in Greek οὐχ οἷον δέ, which Photius translates: "not in such a way" or "not as if the word of God should have miscarried."

Secondly, Toletus translates: "But it is not possible that the word of God should have miscarried," and so explains our version, as if to say: "Not, however," supply, "can it happen that the word of God should have miscarried." But the prior explanation of Photius is plainer, as if Paul were saying: These things which I have just said about the rejection and reprobation of the Jews from righteousness and salvation, I say not as though "it had miscarried" — that is, that the word and promise of God had become void: as if God had promised to some, namely the Jews, righteousness and salvation through Christ, and had given the same to others, namely the Gentiles. So Theophylact. Here Paul meets the objection of the Jews, who took it ill that in the Church and in Christianity the idolatrous Gentiles should be preferred to them, saying repeatedly that this was against the promises of God.

They were therefore objecting to Paul: The promise of the Messiah, of righteousness and salvation, was made by God to Abraham and to his seed; but we Jews are the seed of Abraham, not the Gentiles: therefore if this promise has been transferred from us to the Gentiles (as you, O Paul, assert and preach), it follows that the promise of God has been revoked, annulled, and made void, and that God is unstable and unfaithful in His promises. To this objection and cavil of the Jews the Apostle replies in the following verse, that this promise was made to the descendants of Abraham — not to the carnal, but to the spiritual, namely to Christians, not to Jews.

Note: This word, or this promised blessing, is righteousness, salvation, and eternal life promised to those who believe in Christ and embrace His grace. This is clear, first, from what follows: for only believers are accounted sons of Abraham, namely spiritual sons, and consequently heirs of His blessing. Secondly, the same is clear from chapter III to the Galatians, verse 14, and from this epistle, chapter IV, verses 3 and 24.

Thirdly, the same is shown from this, that the Apostle is not referring to the promise made to Abraham concerning the possession of the land of Canaan and the multiplying of his offspring as the stars of heaven: for both of these even at the time of Christ the Jews had, not the Gentiles — for the latter never possessed the land of Canaan. But the Apostle here teaches that the blessing promised to Abraham was fulfilled not in the Jews, but in the Gentiles, namely in the Christians. He therefore looks not to the temporal promise just mentioned, but to another spiritual one — namely, to that which is contained in Genesis XII, 2, and Genesis XVII, 7, and is as follows: "I will bless thee, and thou shalt be blessed: I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed after thee:" because, namely, as follows in Genesis XII, 3, and Genesis XXII, 18: "In thee, and in thy seed," that is, in Christ, by faith "shall be blessed," that is, shall obtain righteousness, grace, and glory, "all nations."

Where note that, in Genesis, in the places just cited, two blessings were promised to the seed of Abraham: the first carnal, given to the carnal sons of Abraham, namely the Jews, concerning the possession of the land of Canaan and its fertility and abundance of offspring; the second spiritual, promised to spiritual sons, that is, to believers and the faithful, such as those which the Apostle here cites. Again, Scripture mingles both of these blessings already mentioned in Genesis at the cited places, just as the Prophets mingle the future redemption and temporal felicity of the Jews with the spiritual. For the inheritance and possession of the land of Canaan entered upon by the Jews signified the inheritance of heaven, into which believers — regenerated in the faith and baptism of Christ as sons justified and adopted by God — are admitted and acquire a right. The Apostle therefore, leaving aside Abraham's temporal blessing (since there was no contention between Jews and Gentiles about it, as it fell to the Jews alone), urges and pursues only the spiritual one: for it is to this that the Gentiles have been admitted, while the Jews have been excluded.

For not all who are of Israel (that is, who are descended from Jacob the Patriarch), THESE ARE ISRAELITES — namely, true Israelites, according to the mind of Scripture, to whom belongs that divine spiritual promise made to Abraham and Israel, of which I have already spoken. For this promise pertains not to the carnal, but to the spiritual sons of Abraham and Israel, that is, of Jacob — namely, to those who imitate the faith of Abraham and Jacob, whom the Apostle in verse 8 calls "sons of the promise": and he proves this in verses 7 and 9 by two similar examples, namely those of Isaac and Jacob, as we shall see there.

Verse 7: In Isaac Shall Thy Seed be Called

7. NEITHER ARE THEY ALL SONS BECAUSE THEY ARE THE SEED OF ABRAHAM. — "Neither are they who," in Greek οὐδ᾽ ὅτι, "neither because they are the seed of Abraham." So too the Syriac and Ambrose read it, and this reading is more vigorous, as if to say: Not all who are descended carnally from the seed of Abraham are for that very reason accounted sons of Abraham — sons, namely, to whom the blessing and inheritance of Abraham pertain; for, as follows: BUT, supply, it was said in Genesis XXI, 12, to Abraham, that which follows.

IN ISAAC SHALL THY SEED BE CALLED. — This is a Hebraism, as if to say: Isaac shall be and shall be called thy seed, that is, thy true and genuine son, and consequently the heir of thy blessing, but not Ishmael. Thus among the Hebrews, and in Sacred Scripture, for the "seed" or "name of Jacob" to be called upon someone is for that one to be called a son of Jacob or a Jacobite. By a similar Hebraism it is said here in verse 8: "They are accounted in the seed," that is, they are accounted as seed.

Secondly, and more simply, "in Isaac," that is, in the descendants of Isaac, as if to say: Thy posterity, O Abraham, shall be reckoned through Isaac, who was born to thee, an old man, and to a barren Sarah, by God's promise and supernatural power; not through Ishmael, who is a son of the flesh, that is, generated by mere natural power; and consequently Isaac and the descendants of Isaac shall be thy heirs, but not Ishmael, nor the Ishmaelites, nor the other sons whom thou begattest of Keturah, as if Paul were to say: So therefore also now the true spiritual Israelites and sons of Abraham.

Note, the faithful and Christians are sons of the promise, that is, those promised by God: first, because God promised through the Prophets that there would be Christians, or a Christian nation; second, because to them through the same Prophets righteousness and salvation were promised by God, in that they believe in and obey Christ: for this generation of the faithful is not natural, but those whom natural generation does not beget, but whom the grace and power of the spiritual promise has regenerated through faith and grace: and thus it is clear that the blessing promised by God to Abraham has not failed in them, namely the righteousness of God, grace, friendship and salvation: for these are their heirs, that is, a few Jews, and very many from the Gentiles, reborn in Christ through baptism, freely, and it comes about through grace, as it were a father; and through the consent of the will, as it were a mother.

Verse 8: The Children of the Promise are Accounted for the Seed

8. THAT IS, THEY WHO ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FLESH, THESE ARE NOT THE CHILDREN OF GOD. — As if to say: Not Ishmael, nor others carnally begotten from Abraham, are the sons of God, whom namely God adopted and promised to Abraham, that in them He might fulfill His promises, namely the blessings promised to Abraham and his seed.

BUT THEY WHO ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE PROMISE ARE ACCOUNTED FOR THE SEED. — As if to say: But the sons promised by God to Abraham are accounted "in the seed," that is, they are reckoned as seed, or as sons and heirs of Abraham, and consequently of God Himself and of the divine promise made to Abraham. Note: There is a double sense of this passage. For the Apostle speaks of both sonships and promises, namely both of the spiritual and the temporal made to Abraham. For Isaac in a twofold way was a son promised to Abraham: first, temporally, and thus he with his Jewish posterity, but not Ishmael, was heir of the land of Canaan and of the other temporal promises made to Abraham his father; and in this sense Isaac and the Isaacides, or Jews, are called the temporal sons and heirs of God. Second, Isaac was also a spiritual son promised to Abraham, both because Isaac followed the faith and grace of his father Abraham, and because Isaac was heir of the spiritual promises which God had pledged to Abraham, namely that in his seed (that is, in Christ) all the Gentiles should be blessed, that is, justified and saved. For Christ descended from Abraham through Isaac, not through Ishmael. And in this sense all the faithful and Christians are reckoned as sons of Isaac just as of Abraham; and Paul speaks chiefly of these. For these are properly called sons of God, and these are sons not of the flesh, but of the promise, and Isaac and the Isaacides, or Jews temporally born of Isaac, were a type of them. Hence the Apostle here only touches the former sense in passing, and as it were only alludes to it, that from it he may rise to the second and establish it. For his aim is to prove that the spiritual blessings, namely the righteousness and salvation promised to Abraham and his posterity, were not promised to the carnal sons of Abraham, namely the Jews; but to the spiritual ones, namely the Christians.

Verse 9: At This Time I Will Come, and Sarah Shall Have a Son

9. FOR THIS IS THE WORD OF PROMISE — namely what follows, and it is cited from Genesis 17. Here the Apostle proves what he said, namely that Isaac was Abraham's son, not of the flesh, that is, begotten by carnal power; but of the promise, that is, conceived and begotten by divine power promised by God. He proves it, I say, from what is said in Genesis 18.

AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON. — As if to say: Next year, about this time of year, I shall come to you, and then your wife Sarah, though barren and aged, shall have a son. These are the words of the angel to Abraham promising him the son Isaac by his wife Sarah, Genesis 18:10.

Verse 10: And Not Only She, but Also Rebecca

10. AND NOT ONLY SHE (Sarah), BUT ALSO REBECCA — namely she experienced the very same thing, that sons are reckoned by God not as those carnally begotten, but as those who are divinely promised, chosen and adopted. For Jacob her son (Rebecca's), though younger, because promised and chosen by God, was preferred to Esau the elder, and was made successor and heir of Isaac his father.

HAVING CONCEIVED FROM ONE UNION — namely the conception or fetus. Our Interpreter reads in Greek ἐξ ἵνὸς κοίτου, from one bed, or one union. And so reads St. Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Anselm and others everywhere. Now the Greeks read ἐξ ἵνὸς κοίτην ἔχουσα, that is, from one, namely Isaac, "having conception," that is conceiving; whence Beza and Erasmus would have our text here be corrupt. But it is likely that our Interpreter had a more emended Greek exemplar, because the Fathers follow him, and the sense of his version is more compact and ordered, as if to say: Lest you should say that Ishmael was neglected by God and by Abraham because he was born from Hagar the slave, but Isaac chosen because born from Sarah the free woman; behold Rebecca from one and the same union at once produced two sons, of whom however the younger, namely Jacob, was beloved and chosen by God, while Esau the elder was neglected and rejected. So Chrysostom and Theophylact. The sense therefore is, as if Paul said: You boast, O Jew, that you are a son of Abraham; you arrogate to yourself his blessing, righteousness and salvation because you are his son according to the flesh: you are deceived, for sons of the promised flesh were both Ishmael and Esau, yet these were excluded from the family of God and of Abraham: but Isaac and Jacob were chosen and admitted to it, because they were sons not of the flesh, but of the divine promise. Why then do you wonder, if now God repels the Jews who insist on and boast in carnal sonship, but admits believing Christians, as sons of the promise, into the family of Abraham, that they may be heirs of the blessing, that is, of the righteousness and salvation promised to Abraham? Do you not see that in these the promises of God have not failed; granted that in the unbelieving Jews they have failed, since to them they were never promised?

Verse 11: That the Purpose of God According to Election Might Stand

11. WHEN THEY HAD NOT YET BEEN BORN (Jacob and Esau from Rebecca), OR HAD DONE ANYTHING GOOD OR EVIL. — Here Paul proves that Rebecca's younger son, namely Jacob, was preferred to Esau the elder, not from preeminence of age, birth or even of merits, but from divine election and promise, because indeed before their birth and activity it was said by God: The elder, namely Esau, shall serve the younger, namely Jacob.

THAT THE PURPOSE OF GOD ACCORDING TO ELECTION MIGHT STAND. — There is a threefold exposition of this passage. The first, Theodoret's. First, Theodoret thus explains, as if Paul said: Therefore Jacob was preferred to Esau, that the divine election, by which He approves these and reproves those, according to their various foreseen good or evil purposes, might remain firm. But this is against the mind and words of the Apostle; for he himself says: "That the purpose of God, not of men, might stand (firm) according to election," certainly not of men, but equally of God; for the election belongs to Him whose is the purpose.

Second, the saints Chrysostom and Ambrose explain thus: "That the purpose, or decree of God, by which He rejected Esau, loved Jacob, might stand according to election;" which election was made from foreknowledge, by which He foresaw that Esau would be evil, Jacob good. For election, they themselves say, of one over another cannot be unless there be a distinction in the elect themselves; and it is established from Malachi chapter 1 that the Esauites were hated by God on account of their sins. But this sense, in almost the same way as the former, conflicts with the words and still more with the aim of the Apostle, as will soon be clear.

Hence thirdly St. Augustine, in book III to Simplicianus, Question II, indeed understands this election in the same way; but he connects this "that the purpose might stand according to election" with what precedes: "When they had not yet done anything good or evil," as if to explain that, or rather to be drawn out from those words, as if to say: God chose Jacob when he had not yet done anything good; and rejected Esau when he had not yet done anything evil: so namely, that this purpose of God by which He chose Jacob over Esau could not be and remain according to election of works; because namely he is wont to be chosen who is better, holier and worthier. But note that God's election in the following verse is opposed to works, and consequently it deals with equals, and those equally worthy or unworthy. The sense therefore is: God before Jacob's birth and before his good works preferred him to Esau, for this reason, namely that

12 and 13. NOT FROM WORKS (of Jacob and Esau prior and foreseen by God), BUT FROM HIM WHO CALLS (from God's gratuitous call and election) IT WAS SAID TO HER (to Rebecca the mother): That the elder shall serve the younger — namely Esau shall serve Jacob, not in his own person, but in his posterity: for the Jews, the sole posterity of Jacob, as heirs of Abraham, possessed the promised land of Canaan, and were enriched by God's benefits, and the Idumeans, posterity of Esau, served them in the time of David and Solomon (as is clear from 2 Kings chapter 8). Now Paul leaves this to be applied by the Jews to themselves, and the allegory of Jacob and Esau to be adapted, in this manner, as if to say: For the same reason therefore as Jacob and Esau, neither you, O Jews, on account of works of the law or of nature obtained the blessing of Abraham, that you might be preferred in righteousness to the Gentiles; nay rather, as will be said in verse 31, because you proudly relied on works of the law, and rejected the faith and call of Christ, you have been postponed and rejected. On the contrary, the Gentiles, who in the knowledge, worship and Church of God are younger than you, because they trusted not in their own works, but obeyed the grace and call of God, have been preferred to you in the hereditary blessing of salvation and righteousness promised to Abraham, and exhibited through Christ, as Paul himself explains, verse 30. Whence likewise and proportionately to this sense St. Augustine asserts, in book I to Simplicianus, Question II, that Esau was hated and reprobated because he despised God's call.

That what God had by Himself and of His own accord chosen and decreed within Himself might be firm, namely to exalt and honor Jacob over Esau: for from that time God by His decree was preferring Jacob to Esau, as if to say: Just as God preferred Jacob, not because he himself merited it, but because he was a son chosen and promised by God, over Esau the brother, as it were a son according to the flesh older and worthier, and made Jacob alone heir of the blessings of Abraham his grandfather; so allegorically, the same God chose not the carnal descendants of Abraham, but the spiritual ones, who would be sons of Abraham and heirs of his blessing; and that not from their previous merit, but from His own free election and condescension.

If therefore you ask, O Jew, why did God not will our carnal posterity, but chose another which would be according to faith? I answer, because it so pleased God to choose. If you ask, why in the posterity of Abraham, not according to flesh, namely in the Jews; but according to faith, namely in Christians, did He will the promises made to Abraham to be fulfilled? I answer, it was so done, not because the Jews demerited it, or because Christians, before they were Christians, merited it; but because it so pleased God. So Toletus, annotation 21 and following, who first noted the genuine sense of the Apostle here. That this is the true sense of the Apostle will be clear from what follows.

That you may more fully understand these things, note first, that here the sons of promise, whom Jacob signifies, are allegorically Christians reborn by baptism and the grace of Christ: but the sons of the flesh, whom Esau signifies, are the Jews. When therefore Paul says: "The elder shall serve the younger," the literal sense is: Esau shall serve Jacob; but the allegorical sense, which the Apostle here directly intends, is: The Jews shall serve and be postponed to the Christians, just as the old law served the new. So St. Augustine, in book XVI of the City of God, chapter 35.

Note secondly: This promise, as also the call of God, does not exclude, but rather includes free will, which responds and consents to God's call, that the son of promise may be born and adopted. For the works which Paul here denies are not done from faith and grace; nor is it the very act by which the believer accepts faith and grace, believes, hopes, repents, in order to prepare and dispose himself for remission of sins and righteousness; but by the works which Paul here excludes, he means works of law and of nature done without faith and before the faith and grace of Christ: for of these the Jews boasted, as if on their account they should be chosen to righteousness and salvation.

You will say: Jacob, being an infant, was called and chosen without any works; therefore allegorically Christians, who are called by God to be sons and heirs of Abraham, are called without any works and without the consent of free will. I answer: I deny the consequent, for here the likeness is not in everything, but only in this, that neither was called from works, that is from previous merits, but both, that is both Jacob and Christians, are called from God's grace, that they might be sons and heirs of Abraham; yet so that Christians now, being adults, must freely consent to God's call, and so become sons of Abraham, which Jacob, being an infant, could not do, namely freely consent to his own generation and birth from Abraham.

Again when the Apostle says: "Not from works, but from Him who calls," he excludes not only works already done in act, although St. Chrysostom and Theodoret would have it so: for it is clear that such could not have existed then, when they had not yet been born to act; but he also excludes future works, which are foreseen by God. For to all these he opposes the call and election of God: otherwise this election would truly have been made from works, and not from pure calling and grace. Just as, according to the opinion of those Theologians who teach that God chose us to glory from foreseen merits, it would be false to say that this election was made from Him who calls, and not from works: for although it was not made from works actually existing, it was nevertheless made from future and foreseen works, which in God's foreknowledge are as it were present and existing; truly therefore and absolutely it must be said that this election was made from works, and not from God calling alone: in like manner therefore by "works" here, not only those actually existing or done, but also those future, foreseen by God, are to be understood.

Note thirdly, from what has been said, the Apostle here tacitly infers two things. First, that the promises of God made to Abraham are not void, but are fulfilled in Christians, to whom they were promised. For this he aims to prove from verse 6 to here. The second is, that reconciliation with God comes to man not from works of righteousness, but freely, through God's call and grace. For from it God now has chosen and called not the carnal descendants of Abraham, but spiritual sons, who would be sons of Abraham, and consequently heirs of righteousness and blessing: for this election and adoption is from the mere will of God, of neither's merit or demerit; yet it pleased God to give and seal it to Christians and believers, although He could equally have given and sealed it to Jews and the circumcised, and to the carnal descendants of Abraham, if He had willed.

Note fourthly: The Apostle does not speak here, as I said at the beginning of the chapter, of election and call to prevenient grace, but to sonship, righteousness and salvation. For this is the blessing and inheritance of Abraham, which therefore presupposes them to be born as sons, not of the flesh, but of the spirit: but sons of the spirit cannot be born, unless they are reborn as Christians through faith by baptism: these therefore are presupposed to the blessing and inheritance, indeed even to the sonship already instituted and accepted by God. For God has resolved to adopt and accept as His sons only those, not who by circumcision and the law, but who by baptism and faith of Christ are spiritually reborn. First therefore by nature they must be thus reborn, before they can be adopted by God as sons of Abraham. Just as formerly the Jews first had to be born of Abraham, before they could be his sons according to the flesh.

AS IT IS WRITTEN (Malachi 1): JACOB I HAVE LOVED, BUT ESAU I HAVE HATED. — Here the Apostle proves that the promise by which He said: The elder shall serve the younger, namely Esau shall serve Jacob, has actually been fulfilled, from the fact that Malachi, or rather God through Malachi, says: "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated."

JACOB I HAVE LOVED. — First, S. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact thus explain, as if to say: I have loved and chosen Jacob to eternal life and crown: but Esau I have reprobated to eternity, before they had done anything of good or evil in act and in reality; because I foresaw that the works of this one would be most evil, but those of the other most good. But this is against the mind of the Apostle, verses 11 and 12. For it is clear that he excludes here not only works done — which he sufficiently excludes when he says: "When they had not yet been born;" — but all future things foreseen by God: for to all these he opposes the one election of God. So St. Augustine and many others.

Second, others quite to the contrary will have predestination and reprobation, at least as to the first effect, to be before all foresight of work and even of original sin, as if to say: Setting aside all foresight of sin, even of original sin, Jacob, that is the predestined, I have chosen; Esau, that is the reprobate, I have hated, that is, I have permitted to fall into sin and to be damned. So Peter Lombard, in book I of the Sentences, distinction 41, and others.

Third, S. Thomas: "Jacob," he says, "I have loved," that is I have predestined without his merits; but "Esau I have hated," that is I have reprobated and decreed to damn, but on account of his foreseen demerits. Hence some so expound, as if to say: Without merits I have loved and chosen Jacob to glory, and this only, they say, the Apostle wishes to prove here; "but Esau I have hated," after foreseen demerits, that is, Esau after foreseeing his sins I have reprobated and damned. For they themselves posit a twofold reprobation: First, permissive or negative, by which the reprobate are permitted to sin and to die in sin. This is opposed to predestination not contrarily, but contradictorily, just as to have mercy and not to have mercy are opposed. Second, positive, by which God reprobates and damns the one dead in sin. Now they reckon the former to be done before demerits, the latter after demerits.

Fourth, Cajetan and many others: "Jacob I have loved," that is, they say, I have decreed to give to Jacob such and such a congruous grace by which he might be freed from original sin and every other, and attain to eternal life; "but Esau" on account of original sin "I have hated," that is I have decreed to permit him to fall into sins and be damned; and both of these were done before the foreseen merits of either. To this sense St. Augustine seems to favor, epistle 105.

For the genuine sense of this passage, note that neither Paul nor Malachi speaks of Jacob and Esau personally only; but also, and especially, of their descendants. Again, that he does not speak of individual predestined and reprobate, nor of love or election to glory, and reprobation to hell; but according to the letter Malachi speaks directly of the descendants of Jacob and Esau; and he says that they were beloved and elected especially to temporal goods, in preference to the descendants of Esau, as is clear to anyone reading Malachi. For it is likely that Esau himself was saved; and much more Job and his sons, and others descended from Esau (for that Job was descended from Esau is taught by S. Augustine, Origen, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Gregory, Sedulius, Abulensis and others, whom Pineda cites and follows on Job, chapter 1, verse 1, n. 32). The same is clear to anyone reading the Apostle here, especially the preceding verse; the Apostle however from this election of these Jacobites or Jews over the Idumeans to temporal goods, allegorically rises to the predestination of Christians over Jews to spiritual blessing and goods.

The sense therefore is: That I said Jacob was predestined by God who calls, and was preferred to his brother Esau, or that "the elder shall serve the younger," that is clear from the event. For thus, to be silent about other earlier things, Malachi teaches that it had happened in his time, namely that, although both you, O Jews, and the Idumeans on account of your sins I had handed over to be wasted by the Chaldeans, you nevertheless I, loving and preserving My former love, brought back from the Babylonian captivity, and restored to your homeland: but the Idumeans I left in desolation and Babylonian captivity, and gave their land, reduced to wilderness, to be inhabited by dragons, as Malachi says. Behold this is according to the letter: "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." Whence it is clear that these words do not refer to verse 11, "when they had not yet been born," because at that time Malachi had not yet written, "Jacob I have loved;" but to that of the preceding verse, "not from works, but from Him who calls it was said: The elder shall serve the younger." For that this calling and prophecy, which says: "The elder shall serve the younger," was truly fulfilled, he proves from the fact that God in actuality loved Jacob after he was born; but hated Esau, as Malachi testifies.

I have therefore loved Jacob, not from works, but from My calling and condescension, because before all foresight of merits I resolved to choose him and his descendants for My people and My Church, and to adorn them with temporal goods, add also spiritual. For from this My love followed so great a multiplication of the Jacobites, deliverance from Egypt, sustenance by manna in the desert, leadership by the pillar of fire and cloud, legislation, instruction, priesthood, singular protection in a thousand difficulties, so many revelations, that God seemed to dwell continually among them, so many victories, spoils, possessions of so many kingdoms with their strongest inhabitants ejected, so many judges, holy priests, prophets. This love towards you, O Jews, I your God continue, and proceed in it, as I Myself assert through Malachi; when I bring you back from captivity to your homeland, and when I there protect you, and shall hereafter protect you and exalt you through the Maccabees, and at last shall give you Christ the Holy of Holies, with His beloved and chosen Mother, and with the Apostles and other early Christians and saints: for these are sprung from the Jews. In like manner allegorically, before all foresight of merits, "I have loved Jacob," that is the Christians, who are descendants of Abraham and Jacob according to faith and spirit, namely by bestowing on them My righteousness, grace, friendship, and at last, if they persevere in it, eternal life, as I shall presently say more fully.

BUT ESAU I HAVE HATED. — That is, I neglected. So Leah is said by Jacob to have been "hated," that is neglected in preference to Rachel, Genesis 29:31. So Luke 14:26, we are commanded to hate, that is to love less and to put after, father, mother, wife and soul to Christ and the love of Christ, as if to say: I did not choose the Idumeans into My people and Church, and I compelled them to serve the Jews, and gave them barren land, the mountains of Seir, and properly I hated them, when on account of sins I handed them over to the Chaldeans to be wasted and left them in captivity, which is what Malachi properly intends.

You will say: If on account of sins the Idumeans were forsaken and hated, therefore not from Him who calls, but from works they were hated: which the Apostle denies in the preceding verse. I answer: The Idumeans were neglected by God in preference to the Jacobites also before sins, as I said; but after sins they were properly hated and forsaken: but the Jews sinned equally, and perhaps more, than the Idumeans; whence also they were punished with them with the same Babylonian captivity. Not therefore from works, that is from the distinction of works, was it that He loved Jacob and brought him back from captivity; but hated Esau and left him in captivity, since both were unworthy of this mercy. But this distinction and election of the Jacobites was made from the grace and call of God, who loved Jacob and his descendants and continued to love them even after they merited evil from themselves; but neglected Esau, and continued to neglect him.

Hence the Apostle tacitly infers allegorically: So also now Jacob, that is believing Christians, who are sons of the promise, and the spiritual seed of Abraham and Jacob, generated through faith and grace, as sons I have loved, because I have promoted them to righteousness and the way of salvation; but Esau, that is the seed of the flesh, namely the Jews boasting of works and of their father Abraham and despising the faith of Christ, I have repelled and rejected from righteousness and salvation. So St. Augustine, in book XVI of the City of God, chapter 35. And that "not from works," because both Christians before faith, like the Jews, had no merits of works: for both were in sins; but from the grace and call of Christ, which the Christians embraced, and therefore were loved; the Jews rejected, and therefore were hated. For the Apostle here is wholly intent on this, and intends to show only this, namely why the Gentiles obtained righteousness, but the Jews were rejected and reprobated from it, as I proved at the beginning of the chapter.

Again the same is clear from the fact that this verse, like the others preceding and following, depends on and is drawn out from verse 6. For all are directed to this, to demonstrate that the sons not of the flesh, but of faith and spirit, namely the faithful Christians, are sons and heirs of the blessing, that is of the righteousness promised to Abraham; and therefore that the promises of God made to Abraham have not failed, since they were promised and granted by God to the spiritual sons of Abraham, not to the carnal ones. But this blessing promised and made to Abraham and his sons according to faith and spirit, is none other than righteousness and friendship with God, as I showed at the beginning of the chapter: therefore this love of Jacob in preference to Esau is likewise righteousness and friendship with God. For God loved Jacob to this end, that He might make him heir of the blessing of Abraham: "Jacob therefore I have loved," that is, on Jacob and on Jacob's sons according to faith and spirit, namely the Christians, I have bestowed the blessing of Abraham, that is, those who believe in Christ I have justified, sanctified, and adopted as my sons; "but Esau I have hated," that is the Idumeans, Jews and other infidels, who are descendants of Abraham according to the flesh, and whose type was Esau, I have repelled from My righteousness, sanctity and adoption.

The Apostle does not intend here to show, as Toletus rightly teaches, annotation 24, why someone in particular, Peter for example, has been chosen for glory, but Judas has been reprobated to gehenna.

However some accommodate these words of the Apostle to this special predestination and election thus: Before foresight of merits I have loved Peter, that is, to Peter I have given the grace of predestination, namely such a grace with which I foresaw him cooperating, persevering, and consequently being saved: but Judas I have hated, that is, to Judas I have not given such a grace, but another, with which I foresaw him not persevering, but falling and to be damned, although I did not intend this: because I gave him grace seriously and sincerely, just as I gave to Peter, intending that he himself should cooperate and persevere, which he could do as easily as Peter, if he had willed; but I foreknew that he would not do this, and that from his sheer liberty. For this foreknowledge of future or non-future cooperation and effect distinguishes the grace of predestination, which is given to the elect, from the common grace, which is given to the reprobate. But this grace of predestination is not given from works, but from grace and liberal will, purpose and intention of God. But, as I have already said, this sense is accommodated, not properly intended or destined by the Apostle.

Verse 14: Is There Injustice with God?

14. WHAT THEN SHALL WE SAY? IS THERE INJUSTICE (Greek ἀδικία, that is injustice) WITH GOD? — Here the Apostle meets a tacit objection: If God without merit loved Jacob, but hated Esau equal to him; therefore He seems unjust: but to say this is impious. The Apostle answers: GOD FORBID, and giving the reason, and resolving the objection, he adds:

Verse 15: I Will Have Mercy on Whom I Have Mercy

15. FOR HE SAYS TO MOSES (Exodus 33:19): I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY — that is, on whomever I shall have willed to have mercy. This is a general saying of Moses true everywhere; the Apostle however applies it to his own purpose, as if to say: This predestination and election of Jacob in preference to Esau, and allegorically of the sons of faith in Abraham, that is of Christians, in preference to the sons of the flesh, that is the Jews, is not owed to anyone, nor is it a work of justice, but of mercy, and consequently free and gratuitous to Me; never therefore unjust, as if to say: Therefore there is no injustice in the rejection of carnal Jews, and the acceptance of believers to righteousness, grace and salvation, which are the blessing promised to Abraham and his seed, because this acceptance is owed to no one, but is plainly in God's choice, that He may give it freely and graciously, to whom He will; therefore I have done no injury to the Jews, when I have shown mercy to the Gentiles; for I could, as I willed, place the blessing of Abraham in faith: just as I could have placed the same in carnal generation and in circumcision; but I would not: for I willed to make both the Gentiles and the Jews My Church through faith. Wherefore not genuinely, nor to the mind of the Apostle, does Anselm thus explain this, as if to say: On whom I will have mercy by calling, on the same I will have mercy by operation, that is, I will cause such a one to believe and act rightly.

Verse 16: Not of Him Who Wills, but of God Who Shows Mercy

16. THEREFORE IT IS NOT OF HIM WHO WILLS, NOR OF HIM WHO RUNS, BUT OF GOD WHO SHOWS MERCY. — Calvin says: Here cooperation of free will is taken away — interior by "of him who wills," exterior by "of him who runs," — because the whole good work is "of Him who shows mercy," that is of God's grace. I answer: It is true, in this cause and question which the Apostle here treats, free will is taken away, because this cause and question concerns God alone, not man, as I shall presently show: shall therefore that very thing be taken away in human works, merits, counsels, which are of human will and choice?

Second, Origen, Ambrose and Jerome, Question X to Hedibia, will have these to be the words of an objecting Jew. Whence also S. Chrysostom and Theodoret say that Paul by these words increases the question.

Third, Photius and Chrysostom thus explain: It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs only, but also of God who shows mercy. But D. Augustine refutes this, because Paul could likewise have said: It is not of God who shows mercy, namely only, but also of man who wills and runs; therefore St. Augustine understands what Paul here says to be of God alone who shows mercy. But S. Chrysostom could answer S. Augustine that Paul could not say this with equal reason, because the greater part in a good work, conversion and justification, is of grace and of God who has mercy and prevents, not of man who wills; and that Paul wished to signify only this by this Hebrew phrase. For the Hebrews are wont to express their comparison thus, that they affirm what is greater and deny what is less; as "I will mercy, not sacrifice," that is, I will mercy more than sacrifice. See Canon 36.

Fourth, some Scholastic Doctors from St. Augustine, epistle 105, adapt these to the predestination of individuals, which is not from foresight of works, but from God's will alone. For to have mercy, they say, is to give congruous grace, with which God sees that man will cooperate and be saved: but that God may give such grace to us, not another incongruous one with which He foresees we shall not cooperate, this we cannot merit.

Fifth, Ludovicus Molina from St. Augustine, Enchiridion chapter 32, expounds: "It is not of him who wills, namely to will; nor of him who runs, namely to run; but of God, who by His grace and mercy excites us to willing and cooperates with it: for to will is also ours; but the will is prepared to will by the Lord," as if to say: To will what is good, this, I say, is not of the powers of nature, but of grace, which grace and mercy however does not exclude, but includes the free embrace of grace, or free will consenting to grace, and acting through grace: for this free embrace of grace is the effect of prevenient grace; but a concause, or rather concausation, of cooperating and accompanying grace.

But from what has been said it is clear that all these expositions do not directly touch the aim and sense of St. Paul. For he himself does not here dispute about the cause of a good work, nor even about predestination to glory or to congruous grace; but he disputes about justice and justifying grace, and asks whence it comes to us, whether from our good will and effort, or rather from God's grace and mercy?

Sixth, therefore best and most plainly according to the letter, Anastasius, in Question of Sacred Scripture, Question 59, thus explains, as if Paul said: The blessing of Abraham and Isaac was not of Esau willing and running into the field to hunt, that, when the father had eaten of his hunting, he might bless him; but it was of Jacob, of whom God had mercy, that it might fall on him, not on Esau, although he was the elder and the firstborn. Again, as Toletus rightly explains, Jacob obtained the blessing, and from it the sonship and inheritance of Isaac his father, and consequently of Abraham his grandfather, namely that the family of Abraham and Isaac should be reckoned the family of Jacob and the Jacobites, but not the family of Esau and the Idumeans; and Jacob obtained this, not because he himself, at his mother's suggestion, willing and running, more quickly brought the kid than Esau, but because God so willed and had mercy on him, not on Esau.

In like manner allegorically, that the Christian people, whose type was Jacob, gathered from Gentiles and Jews through the faith of Christ, should be received into the posterity of Abraham, namely that it itself should be the Church and people of God, and consequently heir of righteousness and salvation, and thence heir of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, of the friendship and protection of God (which was the blessing promised to Abraham); but the carnal Jews should be rejected from righteousness, and consequently from the people and Church of God, that they might not be among the friends and sons of God; this, I say, did not happen from the will, or prior works of these or those; but from God's sole will, to whom it pleased to place the blessing and sonship of Abraham in the faith of Christ, that the faithful Christians might be the people, sons and Church of God; just as formerly the Jews according to the flesh born of Abraham were so, because then it so pleased God: but now it has seemed otherwise to Him.

The works therefore which the Apostle here excludes, and by which he denies that we have merited this blessing — for these, namely justice, are not works done from faith, but circumcision and other works prescribed by the Mosaic law, from which the Jews thought this filiation and the blessing of Abraham were due to them — but falsely. Hence to these works of theirs the Apostle opposes God's calling, love, mercy, grace, and faith displayed and set forth through Christ, and from this, not from the Mosaic works just mentioned, He teaches, urges, and inculcates that we are justified and saved. For this is the aim of the whole chapter, indeed of the whole epistle, as I said at the beginning.

You will say: In Christians faith is a disposition for justice, and merits justification itself by congruity; for, as St. Augustine says, epist. 105: "Nor is the remission of sins itself without some merit, but faith obtains it." And epist. 106: "If anyone should say that faith merits the grace of acting well, we cannot deny it, indeed we most gratefully confess it." Therefore justification is not of mere grace, nor of God who alone shows mercy.

I reply: I deny the inference, because this merit by congruity is nothing other than disposition; but disposition properly does not give merit, nor the power of justifying, but is only a disposition for justice, because God so willed it, although He could have established otherwise; indeed without disposition He could justify us. Therefore, although someone is faithful and penitent, he nevertheless receives the remission of sins gratuitously and mercifully, and undeservedly, and is justified, because it has so pleased the merciful God. Just as if a king should grant pardon to those guilty of treason and restore them to His grace and former dignity, but only those who came to the royal court and asked pardon: all the guilty who thus obtained pardon would attribute this pardon and restoration not to their own labor or petition, but to the king's mercy: so it stands with us in regard to God.

Add that this "of Him that shows mercy" is opposed to "of him that wills and runs," namely by the powers of nature and his own, but is not opposed to one willing and running by the powers of God's grace and mercy, but rather includes or presupposes it. For God does not show mercy, that is, justify anyone, except him whom He has seen to be born according to the spirit, that is, faithful and penitent. For this one alone is the son of Abraham, to whom this mercy was promised.

Verse 17: For This Very Purpose Have I Raised Thee Up

17. THE SCRIPTURE SAYS (Exodus IX, 16) TO PHARAOH: FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I HAVE RAISED YOU UP, THAT I MIGHT SHOW IN YOU MY POWER. — The Apostle proved in verses 15 and 16 above that it is not unjust that God by gratuitous election and will loved Jacob and had mercy on him, without his works and merits. Here he proves the second part of his antithesis, namely that the fact that He hated Esau and did not wish to have mercy on him did not happen from Esau's demerits compared to Jacob, but from God's will, who did not wish to have mercy on him. For this is free to God, as is evident in Pharaoh, whom, because he was hardened in his sins, He permitted and dismissed to himself and his own sins, and finally punished by drowning him in the Red Sea, although He had mercy on Nebuchadnezzar and others who were equally evil as Pharaoh and merited hardening.

I HAVE RAISED YOU UP — I have established you, O Pharaoh, as king, I have sustained you, as the Chaldean and Septuagint translate, I have preserved you, and I have permitted that you should rise up as a tyrant against My people; so that I in turn might rise up against you, as an enemy, with so many most mighty plagues, and finally drown you in the Red Sea: so that thus all might recognize, fear, and worship My justice and power. So St. Chrysostom and Photius.

Otherwise Anselm: I have stirred up, he says, your malice that had been put to sleep through My signs and plagues, so that you might become harder. Thus also St. Thomas and St. Augustine explain, in book III Contra Julianum, chapter III.

THAT I MIGHT SHOW IN YOU MY POWER. — Note: This was not the first and principal, but one among others and indeed the last cause why God raised up Pharaoh. For the first cause was that Pharaoh might obey God his Creator, and live well and blessedly, which end is appointed by God for every man; but because God foresaw that he would contumaciously resist His warnings and power, He therefore ordered this malice of his to His own glory, so that by chastising him through miraculous plagues He might restrain, correct and convert him. But when He saw him become more hardened by these, He decreed to add plagues upon plagues, and finally to drown him with his men in the Red Sea, to this end: that these plagues and disasters might set before all men's eyes God's power — not His longsuffering, as Œcumenius interprets, but as the Greek has it, δύναμιν, that is, power — and might strike the fear of God into the impious and rebellious.

Note, Pharaoh and the impious are tolerated by God with primary will to this end, that they may correct themselves and be saved. For this Paul teaches, Romans II, 4. Therefore the little word "that" here signifies the outcome or remote cause, as I have already explained. See Canon 24.

Verse 18: He Has Mercy on Whom He Wills, and Whom He Wills He Hardens

18. THEREFORE HE HAS MERCY ON WHOM HE WILLS, AND WHOM HE WILLS HE HARDENS. — From this Calvin deduces his horrible dogma of reprobation and predestination; and he teaches that God after the fall of Adam, as He efficaciously chose and destined individual elect to glory, as to His own end, and consequently destined the same to faith and grace as to means congruous to such an end: so likewise He destined individual reprobates, before any foreknowledge of works and demerits, to eternal punishments, as to His end, and consequently destined the same to evil acts by which they would merit these punishments; and from this predestination, he himself says, flows the efficacious execution of grace and glory in the good and elect, but in the evil and reprobate flows a certain and necessary fall into any sins whatever, and in these sins hardening, blinding, death and eternal damnation, so that man in the business of his eternal salvation or damnation does nothing freely, but performs acts and is driven in all things by God: just as a ball is rolled and driven by one who turns it, an axe by the one who cuts, clay by the potter, against whom it cannot resist — indeed, by whom it does not so much act, than is acted upon and suffers. This is Calvin's fate, far more general, more efficacious, and more violent than the fate of the Stoics. But if we grant this fate — to say nothing of its impiety against God — the reprobate will rightly say with Lucian in Jupiter Confuted: "If Fate is the cause of all things, then if anyone kills his father, Fate is at fault. If Minos wishes to use judgment rightly, far more equitably will he punish Fate for Sisyphus, and Fate for Tantalus. For what did they do unjustly, when they were obediently doing what was commanded?" I often marvel how so atrocious a blasphemy, so horrible an opinion — indeed any others — could have been persuaded to men by Calvin; since from this one alone, as it were from the claw, they can and ought to recognize the lion. For from this it follows, to omit others, that a man necessarily, willingly or unwillingly, sins whenever he sins; necessarily blasphemes and curses God whenever he blasphemes and curses; and consequently that all those who are damned could not have averted this damnation, but are necessarily and inevitably damned, and tormented in eternal fires. For this prior decree of God, which Calvin posits, is inevitable and ineluctable to the reprobate man, and its execution is likewise ineluctable.

Indeed from this principle and fate of his it follows that not man, who only necessarily receives the motion of God, but God alone, who impresses the motion and impels and predetermines to the evil act from His mere and free will — God alone, I say, causes the act of sin, and consequently alone sins. This is a blasphemy not heard for ages, namely that anyone should make God, who is goodness itself by essence and the fount of every good, into the fount of every malice — that is, should make a demon out of God; this in our age Calvin has done. O times! O monsters! Manes and the Manichaeans shrank from this, and lest they be so injurious to the good God, they set up a certain evil God against Him, as it were a fount of every evil. This was far more tolerable.

I pass over the fact that this fate of Calvin drives a man to despair: for if God has assigned to damnation and Gehenna whomever He pleased, without any foreseen demerit on their part, who would not fear, who would not be stricken? Who would not always anxiously look upon this decree of God hanging over his head, and say: What if God has assigned me to damnation? Who knows whether He has placed me among the reprobate? If it is so, it is done with me: I am lost, I shall be eternally wretched and damned — why do I labor for a good life? I must perish, indeed I must sin. To this I am urged by God's fate, to resist which, to withdraw myself from which, is as impossible as to fight against God.

Beautifully and gravely St. Augustine, in chapter XXIII of De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio: "God," he says, "renders evils for evils, because He is just; goods for evils, because He is good; goods for goods, because He is good and just: only He does not render evils for goods, because He is not unjust."

Let us therefore shake off this harm of the words: "He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens." Note: God reprobates, He does not predestine, He does not anticipate, He does not predetermine. As to what pertains to the true and orthodox sense of the Pauline statement, some think that this inference of his — "Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens" — is not inferred from Paul's own mind, but from the mind of the Jews opposing and clamoring against Paul, who gather this opinion, as a vast absurdity, from Paul's statements and object it to him. So Origen and Jerome think, in the letter to Hedibia, Question X.

But it is clear from the texts themselves that not these, but the words immediately following are those of the objecting Jews. For there follows: "You will therefore say to me," etc. I say therefore: The Apostle here from that testimony, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy," namely on Jacob, and allegorically on the faithful or Christian people whom I have loved, infers: "Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills." And from that other, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show in you My power," he infers and gathers: "Therefore He hardens whom He wills," namely Pharaoh; and consequently not from works, but because He wills, He hates Esau, and allegorically the carnal Jews, whom He repels from the blessing of Abraham. For this is what He contends to prove throughout this whole chapter, namely that by God's will believers were adopted, and the Jews repelled from the blessing of Abraham. Therefore all these statements depend on, and are connected and chained to verse 13; for all these antitheses are deduced from that first one in verse 13: "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated," and are its proof and explanation.

Note first: God "hardens," that is, properly hardens, and consequently hates, as Esau, and punishes and has punished, as Pharaoh; for to all those just mentioned, namely Esau, Pharaoh, etc., it extends: He hardens by metalepsis.

Note second: God hardens the sinner because He does not have mercy on him, but leaves him in his hardness and impiety and sins; and He permits this to be increased either by indulging or by scourging; for the Apostle opposes these two — to have mercy and to harden. Therefore to harden is not to have mercy: since therefore to have mercy is to free from sin (for sin is the greatest misery, which most needs mercy) and to justify, it follows that not to have mercy, or to harden, is the same as to leave and neglect the sinner in his injustice and sins and hardness: for so the Apostle explains himself in verse 22. For Isaiah, chapter I, 16, and David, Psalm XCIV, 8, teach that sinners harden themselves properly and directly by their own malice. The same is evident in Pharaoh, who is presented in Scripture as a kind of mirror and exemplar of hardening, of whom the Apostle here properly speaks. For that Pharaoh was hardened not by God but by himself and his own malice, properly and directly, is demonstrated:

First, from this that God, having sent Moses, ten times commanded Pharaoh to release the Jewish people; therefore He willed that he should let the people go; therefore He did not will to harden him. For this is properly to will, to will efficaciously that Pharaoh should not let the people go: but to will that he let them go, and to command this, and again to will efficaciously the contrary and therefore to harden him, are manifestly mutually contradictory. Again, if God's will was to harden Pharaoh, then Pharaoh in conforming himself to it would not be sinning: for God's will is the measure of every good will.

Second, God most gravely punished the resisting Pharaoh; but "God is not the author of those things of which He is the avenger," says St. Fulgentius, in book I to Monimus, chapter III.

Third, Pharaoh himself gradually yielded to God, Moses, and the Hebrews, when first he permitted them to depart without children and herds; second, with children but without herds; third, entirely with their possessions: therefore he himself was bending and hardening; nay rather, Pharaoh himself was not so impious as to vomit forth the cause of his hardness onto God, but attributed it to himself, in Exodus chapter X, verse 16: "I have sinned," he says, "against the Lord." For Calvin, in striving to free God from blame by attributing sin to Pharaoh and hardening to God, does this as impiously as ineptly: for if Pharaoh's hardness is a sin, why is hardening also not a sin, since it is the cause of hardness? For the cause impelling to sin certainly sins, John VIII, 34, Rom. I, 32; and most of all when it efficaciously impels, so that the other cannot resist it. But Calvin urges: to harden in God is not a fault, because this is a just judgment of God not to have mercy on them. But this is a frivolous and empty mask, for if hardness is a fault, with whatever end, with whatever judgment you impel to it, you admit a fault: for what in itself is evil and a fault is permitted by no end, and therefore this is not just but an impious judgment of Calvin: it is as much as to say openly: God is the author of sin, but to this end, that He may exercise His judgment and the vengeance for previous sins.

Fourth, not only Pharaoh himself, but Scripture too attributes the fault and the hardening to him, when it relates that he, now immune and free from punishment, returned spontaneously to his disposition, Exodus VIII, 15: "Seeing," it says, "that respite was granted, Pharaoh hardened his heart." And in chapter IX, verse 34: "Pharaoh seeing that the rain had ceased, increased his sin, and his heart was hardened," that is, as it is in the Hebrew, יכבר לבו iachbed libbo, that is, he himself hardened his heart. The same is evident in chapter VIII, last verse, in the Hebrew. Therefore wherever our translator in Exodus renders "it was hardened," understand, the heart, that is the will of Pharaoh, hardened itself; for thus you should everywhere render the Hebrew. Pharaoh therefore properly and positively hardened himself, but God permissively and negatively: because, since He held his will in His hand, He did not restrain it from evil, but loosened the reins to it, for the oppression of the Hebrews: just as one who holds a hunting dog tied with ropes is said to send it after a hare if he frees it from its bonds and lets it be carried after the hare. Again, God by withdrawing and suspending His scourges, which softened Pharaoh, hardened him, because, when these ceased, he soon returned to his disposition and hardness. For when God inflicted plagues on Pharaoh, Pharaoh promised to release the Hebrews; but when He withdrew the plagues, Pharaoh was again hardened. Whence Exodus VIII, 15, says: "Pharaoh seeing that respite was granted, hardened his heart." So Anastasius of Nicaea in Questions on Sacred Scripture, question XXIX.

Add: As wicked boys are made harder by beatings, so Pharaoh too was made daily harder by God's beatings. Hence as the teacher who scourges a stubborn boy is said to harden him by his scourges and to make him more stubborn: so God by His plagues is said to have hardened and made harder the hard and stubborn heart of Pharaoh, not effectively, but objectively, that is, not by effecting and infusing hardness in him, but by setting forth scourges, by which he himself hardened himself the more, and resisted God more strongly. So all the Fathers and Catholic interpreters explain this passage.

Note third: "To have mercy" here in the Apostle is general; but the Apostle applies it to Jacob, namely that God led him back from the Babylonian captivity; and allegorically to believers, namely that they themselves have been freely freed and justified by God from the slavery of sin, as I have said. For God could, had He willed, not justify believers — indeed even penitents — that is, not have mercy on them.

Note fourth: To gather all that has been said into one, all these antitheses which the Apostle conglomerates from verse 7 to here are to be applied and explained by this: that Christians, who are sons of the spirit, of the promise, of grace, and of faith, by believing in Christ and obeying Him, have obtained the blessing of Abraham, that is, justice; but the Jews, who are sons of the flesh, that is, born carnally from Abraham, and who sought justice from works done by the force of the law and of nature, that is, human and carnal works, and contended to bring forth and produce it, by rejecting faith in Christ, were repelled equally from the blessing and justice and the way of salvation. To demonstrate this more clearly, I will apply each antithesis individually.

The first is, verse 7. Not Ishmael, son of the flesh, but Isaac, son of the promise, is reckoned son of Abraham and heir: so not the Jews, the unbelieving sons of the flesh, but believing Christians, as sons of the promise, are reckoned sons and heirs of the blessing and justice of Abraham.

The second is, verse 13: "The elder shall serve the younger," that is, the Jews will be put after and will serve Christians.

The third is in the same place: "Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated," that is, I have loved believing Christians, I have hated unbelieving Jews.

The fourth is, verse 16: "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy;" that is, justice does not belong to the Jew who wills and runs to it by the powers of nature and by his works, but belongs to the believing Christian, on whom God willed mercifully to bestow and grant justice.

The fifth is, verse 18: "On whom He wills," e.g. Isaac, Jacob, Nebuchadnezzar, "He has mercy; whom He wills," e.g. Ishmael, Esau and their descendants, and Pharaoh, "He hardens." That is, God has mercy on the faithful Christian people by giving them justice; but the Jews who rebel against faith He hardens, that is, He permits and abandons them in their injustice, hardness, and rebellion, and shuts them out and repels them from true justice and salvation.

The sixth is, verses 21, 22, 23, where the Apostle calls the believing Christians "vessels unto honor, and vessels of mercy;" but the unbelieving Jews he calls vessels unto dishonor, vessels of wrath, fit for destruction.

Where note fifth, the Jews must always be taken here as unbelievers, and as rejecting the faith of Christ, and insisting on their own law: just as in Christians the acceptance of faith and grace and obedience toward Christ is involved; for Christians are not chosen for justice except their faith and obedience are first foreseen: nor are the Jews rejected from justice before they are foreseen to reject the faith and grace of Christ. As therefore in Christians faith is presupposed to their love and blessing, that is to justification, so in the Jews their unbelief is always included and presupposed, as the object of hatred. For because of their unbelief they have been rejected by God and held in hatred: so that on the side of fact, their being unbelievers comes before their being held in hatred by God; as conversely, Christians believing and obeying Christ comes before their being loved and justified by God. This therefore is the perpetual antithesis of the Apostle, which he proves with so many examples: namely, "The unbelieving Jews have been repelled from justice, but believing Christians have been given justice." To this all things tend, by this all things are to be resolved; this is the aim, this is the mind of the Apostle.

Note sixth: The Apostle says that both of these are accomplished by the calling and merciful God, not by prior works: because that believers are justified, but others not believing are repelled from justice, is of God's mercy, who has been pleased to establish justice in faith, and to justify believers gratuitously; though He could have justified those not believing in Christ, and established justice in another thing, and prescribed another mode of justification, e.g. circumcision, or natural descent from Abraham, and a thousand other modes, which God Himself has in the treasures of His wisdom and providence.

From what has been said, it is clear that the Apostle is not treating here of congruous or incongruous calling to first grace or glory; nor of efficacious or inefficacious grace: but is treating of the call to justice.

Note seventh: The Apostle here primarily intends to show that Isaac being preferred and chosen over Ishmael, Jacob over his brother Esau, and Christians over Jews, is not from their prior merits; secondarily, however, he shows that the fact that Ishmael, Esau, and the Jews are held in hatred — that is, neglected, set aside, and rejected from the family, blessing, and justice of Abraham — did not happen from their prior demerit; prior, I say, before faith or rejection of faith, as if they had merited in Judaism to be repelled before the Gentiles, but both of these were of God's will and election, who before any merit of either willed Isaac to be reckoned over Ishmael as son and heir of Abraham, and Jacob to be blessed by Isaac over Esau, and to be reckoned his son and heir, and through him Abraham's; and consequently the descendants of both, namely the Isaacids and Jacobids, over the Ishmaelites and Idumeans, to be sons and heirs of Abraham.

If you say that the Idumeans were afterwards held in hatred for their sins, since, as Malachi says, they were captured and overthrown, Paul will reply that the Jacobids also sinned and were captured for their sins. Therefore not from works and demerits, in which they were equal, were these loved and brought back over those; but because God loved and chose these and their parents over those for His people and Church. Similarly, that He hardened Pharaoh over Nebuchadnezzar and others, that is, that God left him in his malice and hardness and oppressed him, was not from Pharaoh's demerit, as if he were harder and worse than Nebuchadnezzar and others similarly hardened: but because He willed to have mercy on Nebuchadnezzar and restore his kingdom to him, but did not will to do so for Pharaoh. So plainly in the allegorical sense (which the Apostle here especially intends to signify, yet so that he only briefly touches on the prior literal sense in passing and presupposes it for his allegory), that the same God repelled and held in hatred the unbelieving Jews compared to believing Christians, was not from prior demerits, as if Jews in Judaism had merited this more than Gentiles in paganism, since both were in sins, and the Gentiles more so; but it was from God's will, who willed to choose believers for justice, to repel unbelievers from it.

If therefore you ask why Christians are chosen for justice, but Jews repelled from it? The Apostle answers, verse 30 and following, because Christians have embraced the faith of Christ, the Jews have rejected it. If you go on to ask why Jews rejecting the faith are rejected, but Christians embracing the faith are chosen? The Apostle has always answered up to this point that the cause is that believing Christians are sons of the promise, whom God chose, and to whom He promised mercy, namely justice: that is, because it pleased God to place the blessing and filiation of Abraham, namely justice itself, in faith in Christ; not however because the Gentiles merited this, or the Jews in Judaism demerited it, or merited to be deprived of it before the Gentiles. Behold, this is what the Apostle so often, through so many sentences here, turns over, revolves, and inculcates.

Verse 19: Why Does He Yet Find Fault?

19. YOU WILL THEREFORE SAY TO ME: WHY DOES HE STILL COMPLAIN? — In Greek μέμφεται, that is, complains, complains bitterly; not "is sought," "is sought out," although St. Thomas reads and so understands it. It is a querulous occupation. For someone will object: If God "has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens," why then does God complain, complain bitterly, and grow angry against Pharaoh and other impious ones through the Prophets, and punish them? For God Himself, as you say, O Paul, hardens them.

FOR WHO RESISTS HIS WILL? — or, as the Greek has it, ἀνθέστηκε, that is, has ever resisted. The Apostle first beats back this objection by alleging God's absolute dominion and majesty, against which no one can or ought to complain; then he answers it directly in verse 22.

Note: Paul could have answered him at once, that God justly complains of the impious because they sin by their own will. But because he is dealing with proud and querulous impious men, who irreverently and arrogantly complain and oppose themselves to God and to God's will and judgments — hence first, he beats back their pride and proud complaint by alleging the reverence and loftiness of God, chiefly because by this very thing, although he does not answer their question and objection itself, he nevertheless answers its origin and cause.

The cause is this, that the impious do not wish to be subject to the divine will and its rule, and would wish to shake it off if they could, since by it they know they are to be punished and damned. They therefore say: If God has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens, what wonder that we are wretched and hardened? for by God's will we are such: but who resists His will? The Apostle takes away and refutes this cause by saying that the reason of the divine will, as most wise, best, and most eminent, is not to be sought from a creature; for no one ought to complain of it or murmur against it, but all ought to venerate it in silence and submit themselves to it with the highest humility and reverence. Therefore he says:

Verse 20: O Man, Who Art Thou That Repliest Against God?

20. O MAN (in Greek μενοῦνγε, "but rather, O man"), WHO ARE YOU, TO ANSWER GOD? — Beautifully St. Gregory, in book IX of the Morals, chapter VIII, says: "He is convicted of being unable to answer God who is called man; who because he was taken from the ground (humus), is not worthy to discuss the heavenly judgments."

Verse 21: The Potter and the Clay

21. DOES THE THING FORMED SAY TO HIM WHO FORMED IT, WHY HAVE YOU MADE ME THUS? OR DOES NOT THE POTTER OF CLAY HAVE POWER, FROM THE SAME LUMP TO MAKE ONE VESSEL UNTO HONOR AND ANOTHER UNTO DISHONOR? — The Apostle goes on to beat back and repress the importunate and arrogant objection of the impious against God, saying that they ought no more to resist or growl against God their maker and creator than clay against the potter.

Note first: The Apostle here compares God to a potter, and men to clay, not as if men, like clay, were destitute of choice and free will; for the contrary the Apostle here signifies, verses 22 and 24, and because otherwise by parallel reasoning men, like clay, would lack soul and reason, says St. Chrysostom; but to signify that men ought no more to murmur against God whether He has mercy or hardens, punishes or rewards, than clay against the potter, as I shall presently show more plainly. For this similitude of potter and clay is brought in only for this purpose; for Paul here alludes to Jeremiah XVIII, 6, where the Lord speaks thus: "Behold, as the clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand," as if to say: As the clay vessel is in the hand of the potter, so that he may break it and from it make another vessel, or first renew it: so I too, O Jews, who have been destined by Me to the Chaldean destruction, if you repent, will reform you, change My sentence, and turn your calamity into happiness: so Theodoret. So that from vessels of dishonor, that is inglorious, you may become vessels unto honor, that is honorable.

Note second: St. Augustine and others judge that the Apostle here speaks of the mass, that is the community of men sprinkled not only with original but also with actual sin (for Paul here speaks of the impious and unbelieving Jews), from which God frees these and chooses them for glory, and leaves others and destines them to eternal punishment. So St. Augustine, in book I to Simplician, Question II, and Fulgentius to Monimus, book I, chapter XXVI.

Where note: from the mass of original sin, God does not positively intend to make anyone a vessel unto dishonor, as I demonstrated at verse 13, but only permissively; nay rather, God intends, so far as is on His part, to rescue and save all from this corrupt and lost mass through Christ. For this reason He gave Christ as mediator to all, willing, so far as is on His part, that all might be saved through Christ. But from the mass and addition of actual sins, which sinners themselves make and add to original sin, God also positively makes vessels unto dishonor; because He destines to eternal punishment and reproach those whom He sees dying in these sins of theirs. From this passage of the Apostle, therefore, even understood according to the mind of St. Augustine, it is not rightly drawn or concluded that God has reprobated anyone, or decreed to exclude him from the kingdom of heaven, only on account of his foreseen original sin, or before his actual sins, in which he was foreseen as dying. Indeed Gregory of Valencia, part I, Question XXIII, point 3, col. 463, teaches that according to the mind of St. Augustine those belong to this mass of perdition, and fall back into it, who after their original sin has been remitted, commit actual sins. For this is what St. Augustine says, Enchiridion XXIX: "The rational creature which was in men had wholly perished by sins and punishments, both original and personal." And epistle 105: "There is," he says, "one mass of sinners and impious from Adam, in which both Jews and Gentiles, with God's grace removed, belong to one mixture." Book I to Simplicianus, Question II: "For this reason," he says, "every sinner is inexcusable, either from the guilt of origin, or also by the addition of his own will." And a little after: "In the vessels," he says, "made unto due dishonor on account of the merit of the mass" (that is, in all those who on account of their sins are destined to Gehenna) God knows how to condemn iniquity, not to make it." And in book LXXXIII Questions, Question LXVIII, he teaches that the reprobate cannot say to God: Why have You made me a vessel unto dishonor? because they are already a mass of clay, that is of sin, after Adam's transgression. And he concludes: "If you wish to be able to say this to God: Why have You made me? do not be clay, but become a son of God through His mercy."

Wherefore weighty theologians, according to the mind of St. Augustine, hold that God has reprobated no one — that is, excluded from heaven and destined to Gehenna — except after foreseeing his final sin, namely that he would die in original or actual sin. Hear Cardinal Bellarmine, book II On Grace and Free Will, chapter XVI: "We say," he says, "that the cause of reprobation is the foreknowledge of original or actual sin; because God does not reprobate all on account of original sin, since it is truly remitted to some reprobates through the grace of baptism; but some on account of original only, as unbaptized infants; others on account of actual only, as baptized adults; others on account of both, as unbelieving adults; on which matter see Augustine, De Correptione et Gratia, chapter XIII, and Prosper, in his Reply to chapter II of the Gauls." But whatever may be the case concerning this mass of sinners, and their election and reprobation, I say that the Apostle is not speaking of it here.

To explain therefore the genuine mind of the Apostle, I assert that God is here compared to the potter only in this respect: that just as the potter can from the same clay make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor, so God from the same mass of men has mercy on whom He wills and hardens whom He wills. On whom therefore He has mercy, that is, whom He frees from sin and justifies, such as believing Christians, these He makes vessels unto honor: but whom He hardens, such as Pharaoh and the unbelieving Jews, these He makes vessels unto dishonor; but as God positively and directly has mercy, so positively and directly He makes vessels unto honor; and as He hardens only permissively and indirectly, so only permissively and indirectly does He make vessels unto dishonor. Therefore the vessel unto honor is not here one elect to glory, nor is the vessel unto dishonor one reprobated to Gehenna; but the vessel unto honor is one justified, the vessel unto dishonor is the impious one who is in sin.

It could secondly be that τὸ misereri be taken temporally for giving temporal goods and rewards, such as God gave to Jacob and the Jews; and to harden, by metalepsis, as I said, for to punish and afflict with evils, as God afflicted Pharaoh with plagues. Hence Toletus thinks that the Apostle by this similitude wishes only to signify that God at His pleasure, with no other cause, by the right of supreme dominion and most eminent power which He has over men, can send whatever goods or evils to anyone, just as the potter at his pleasure makes vessels either lowly or honorable; and thus a vessel unto dishonor is not formally a sinner: for in this sense God does not make a vessel unto dishonor; but it is one on whom God inflicts punishments and evils, as Pharaoh, Esau, the Jews: contrariwise, the vessel unto honor is one on whom God confers goods and benefits, as Jacob and Christians. But the prior sense which I gave is more express, more profound, and more connected with what precedes.

Finally in this antithesis there is in Greek an elegant paronomasia. For it is called σκεῦος εἰς τιμὴν καὶ σκεῦος εἰς ἀτιμίαν, that is, a vessel of honor and a vessel of dishonor.

Tropologically note: Clay is man, because made from mire, that with fear and humility he may subject himself to God, in whose hand are our state, glory, riches, virtue, salvation, and every good of ours; namely that man may learn to depend wholly on God, as his potter, and to restore himself entirely to Him, whose power he cannot escape. So therefore by this phrase God tacitly commands and admonishes us, that with Jeremiah chapter XVIII, already cited, we should often go down to the potter's house, that we may see the origin of our father Adam from clay — in Hebrew, Adam from Adamah, the clayey one from clay — and say to ourselves: Why are you proud, earth and ashes, indeed most vile clay which is trodden under the feet of cattle?

Second: as clay is only clay, but from the hand of the potter receives this or that form: so man from his own ground has nothing but ground and clay; but from God he has that he is a rational man, rich, noble, wise, happy, gracious. For God gives to each his own form, and "divides to each His gifts as He wills," Ecclesiasticus XXXIII, 14; for He made us, not we ourselves.

Third: from this it follows that each ought to be content with his lot; for as clay cannot say to the potter, Why have You made me thus? so neither can we say to God, Why have You made us poor, ignoble, uncultured, weak; but those rich, noble, wise, strong, and brave?

Verses 22 and 23: Vessels of Wrath and Vessels of Mercy

22 and 23. WHAT IF GOD, WILLING TO SHOW WRATH AND TO MAKE KNOWN HIS POWER, ENDURED WITH MUCH PATIENCE VESSELS OF WRATH FITTED FOR DESTRUCTION: THAT HE MIGHT SHOW THE RICHES OF HIS GLORY IN THE VESSELS OF MERCY, WHICH HE HAS PREPARED UNTO GLORY. — The Apostle here perfectly answers the complaint which he proposed in verse 19. If God hardens men, why does He complain and punish those hardened? He answers therefore here in this way, as if to say: The hardened themselves positively made themselves and fitted themselves as vessels of wrath; God therefore did not make them, but "endured," that is, patiently permitted them to sin, long deferring punishment, and thus is said to have hardened them. And this for two reasons: The first is, that He might show His wrath, that is, His just and powerful vengeance upon them, as He did when He drowned Pharaoh in the Red Sea: for Pharaoh thought that God's patience, by which God did not punish him, was impotence. The second is, that from this severity of God toward the hardened, the glorious mercy of God might appear, His opulence and liberality "in the vessels of mercy," that is, in the holy and elect, for whom He has prepared not punishment but glory.

Note first: "What if God endured vessels of wrath."

Note secondly: "Vessels of mercy" here are not called those efficaciously elected to glory, but believers and the just, whom God by His grace directs and ordains to glory, as is clear from what follows; consequently, vessels of wrath are the wicked and hardened, who order and dispose themselves to wrath and eternal punishment.

Note thirdly: "Vessels of mercy" are the same as those which in the preceding verse are called "vessels unto honor;" likewise "vessels of wrath" are called those which are "unto dishonor."

Note fourthly: "Vessels of wrath" God did not fit, but they are fit — in Greek κατηρτισμένα, that is, fitted and prepared, by their own fault, namely, and impenitence (so the Greek Fathers, St. Thomas, and interpreters everywhere) for destruction and condemnation; whence God did not make them, but bore with them in much patience, patiently awaiting their repentance and conversion: which He surely would not have awaited, unless it had been within their own hand and power; because, namely, God was ready to assist them with His grace, if they had been willing to implore it and cooperate with it. On the contrary, God has prepared the vessels of mercy unto glory. For good and predestination are from God, but evil and reprobation are from us; man alone can sin and does sin, but God alone delivers from sin.

Verse 24: Whom He Hath Called, Even Us, Both of the Jews and Gentiles

24. WHOM ALSO HE HATH CALLED, EVEN US, NOT ONLY OF THE JEWS, BUT ALSO OF THE GENTILES. — Note, the word "whom" refers to the "vessels of mercy" which preceded, namely the saints: therefore the word "whom" is the same as if he were saying, these vessels of mercy, not of clay but human, are those whom God has "called" to Himself, His grace, friendship, and adoption, namely us the faithful, both from the Jews and from the Gentiles. The Jews thought that they alone were to be called by the Messiah to His kingdom, Church, and all good things. The Apostle here proves the contrary from the Prophets, namely that the Gentiles also are to be called by Him to the same good things.

Verse 25: I Will Call That Which Was Not My People, My People

25. AS IN OSEE HE SAITH: I WILL CALL THAT WHICH WAS NOT MY PEOPLE, MY PEOPLE. — As if to say: I will call the idolatrous Gentiles, who were not My people, to My faith and worship, so that, when they have been converted to Me, I may call them My people. That St. Paul rightly cites this passage of Hosea and explains it of the Gentiles I have shown on Hosea 1:10.

AND HER THAT HAD NOT OBTAINED MERCY, ONE THAT OBTAINED MERCY. — The Greek copies, Origen, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, Sedulius and others omit this; but the Roman Bibles and other Latin copies read it, and St. Jerome on Hosea 1, and there they have it from the Hebrew. But that phrase "not beloved, beloved," which neither the Syriac nor the Hebrew has, the Septuagint has as to the sense in Hosea, and the Greek and Latin have here. See the Notes of Franciscus Lucas on Holy Scripture. Now the sense here is plain. For the Gentiles, whom a little before he said had been made the people of God from being no people, he here says have been transferred from a state of reprobation into the state of God's mercy and grace, so that the Gentile people, which previously had not obtained mercy, should now be called one that has obtained mercy.

Verse 26: There They Shall be Called the Sons of God

26. AND IT SHALL BE: IN THE PLACE WHERE IT WAS SAID UNTO THEM, YOU ARE NOT MY PEOPLE; THERE THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE SONS OF GOD — as if to say: In the place where formerly My people were not, namely in Italy, Gaul, Germany, India, "there they shall be called," that is, they shall be sons of God. For the word "to be called," by metonymy, often in Scripture means "to be." For that which in reality is such, can in speech be said and called such.

Verse 27: A Remnant Shall be Saved

27. AND ISAIAS CRIETH OUT FOR ISRAEL. — Here Paul proves from Isaiah the former part of verse 24, namely that God by Christ will call to Himself and His grace the Jews to be converted to Christ, but only a few. For most of them, as Paul says in verse 32, stumbled at the stumbling-stone, namely Christ. The latter part of verse 24, concerning the Gentiles to be called and converted to Christ, Paul has already proved in verse 25 from the prophet Hosea. Therefore Isaiah says:

IF THE NUMBER OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL BE AS THE SAND OF THE SEA (innumerable), A REMNANT (that is, a few) SHALL BE SAVED. — Isaiah has, "shall be converted to the Lord." Whence it is clear that all the rest of the Jews have been rejected, as Paul has hitherto taught, and that the Gentiles have been substituted in their place to receive God's promises, and accordingly that those promises have not failed, but have been fulfilled in the Gentiles — which from verse 6 to here the Apostle intends and contends to prove.

Verse 28: He Shall Finish His Word, and Cut It Short in Equity

28. FOR HE SHALL FINISH HIS WORD, AND CUT IT SHORT IN EQUITY — supply: "God is" [the one finishing], as is clear from the Greek, where "finishing" is in the nominative case, but "word" in the accusative. For thus the Greek has λόγον γὰρ συντελῶν καὶ συντέμνων, as if to say: God will consummate and abbreviate the word, that is the matter, namely will make the number of the faithful from Israel brief, that is small, and that "in equity" and justice: both because He has justly so abbreviated, consumed, and crushed the unbelieving and impious Jews (which is properly what Paul considers here); and because, conversely, He has caused the first believing and pious Jews, namely the Apostles, and through them all the nations, to abound in equity, justice, and holiness. For just as God is just toward unbelievers and the impious by punishing and consuming them, so He is just toward the faithful and pious by rewarding them, namely by causing grace and justice to abound in them and through them in other nations. The words of Isaiah signify both senses, but more the latter, who has: "The abbreviated consummation shall overflow with justice."

On which note: here Paul cites Isaiah, chapter X, who speaks literally of the Jews who survived the devastation of Sennacherib, and of whom he says: "An abbreviated consummation shall overflow with justice," as if to say: In the time of Hezekiah that devastation of Sennacherib, which consumed and abbreviated very many of the Jews, that is, made them few, will cause justice to "overflow" — that is, abound like overflowing waters — among the few surviving remnants of the Jews, both punishing impiety and rewarding the pious, whom, struck by this terror and slaughter, He will compel to invoke and worship the true God; as is clear actually happened, 2 Paralip. 30:7. Hence allegorically (which the Holy Spirit chiefly intends here), St. Paul applies this sentence to his own Jews, as if to say: "The abbreviated consummation shall overflow with justice," that is, I will consume and make an end, and indeed a very brief one, of Judaism and the Jews through Titus, yet so that a few of them shall be left and converted to Christ; and then the justice which is by faith shall overflow and be propagated through all nations, and shall overwhelm the world of piety as with another flood. This therefore is "the abbreviated word which the Lord shall make upon the earth," as Isaiah foretold.

Secondly, this "abbreviated word" can be taken as the very brief precept of evangelical faith and election, which has succeeded in place of all the elaborate and winding ceremonies and prophecies of the law. So Origen, Augustine, Anselm, Oecumenius, and other ancients. For the Gospel is a compendium of the law, because on its two precepts: "Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor, hangs the whole law and the prophets."

St. Chrysostom adds that the same word is said to be consummated in justice, because the justice which the old law could not give, the Gospel gives; or, as Ambrose says, because this word of faith and the Gospel brought the consummation of sins; or, as Photius says, because no other Gospel succeeds the Gospel as the Gospel succeeded the law, because the Gospel teaches the full justice and perfection of man.

Thirdly, St. Jerome, to Algasia, Question X, and St. Cyprian, book II Against the Jews, chapter III: "The Incarnate Word, they say, is the Word abbreviated and emptied even to the nature of man, so that what could not be contained by heaven might be contained in a manger," St. Bernard says, who saved the remnants of Israel, and who fulfilled and consummated so many delayed promises, so many headless histories, the beginnings and elements of such great matters scarcely sketched in the Old Testament, and brought the overflow of justice to the world. Haymo adds that the consummation resolved the knot of the dispute and controversy of the Jews and Gentiles.

Haymo adds that the abbreviated consummation is the Passion of Christ, which was consummated in three days, and so abbreviated, through which justice and sanctity flooded the whole world. Again, in His Passion Christ consummated all things, and said: "It is consummated:" He Himself then was also abbreviated in fame and life, and as it were cut down at the head.

Verse 29: Unless the Lord of Sabaoth Had Left Us a Seed

29. AND AS ISAIAS FORETOLD: UNLESS THE LORD OF SABAOTH HAD LEFT US A SEED, WE HAD BEEN MADE AS SODOM, AND WE HAD BEEN LIKE UNTO GOMORRHA. — As if to say: Unless the Lord had left us a seed, that is some survivors, we should have been justly utterly destroyed, like Sodom. Isaiah literally speaks of the Jews who survived the Babylonian captivity. Allegorically, St. Paul here applies this same passage to the few Jews who, amid the general unbelief of the rest, believed in Christ, as if to say: Unless in the time of Christ God had chosen a small remnant — namely the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, and a few elect believers from among the Jews — all Israel would have been reprobated for unbelief, and would have perished like Sodom. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Rupert, Haymo on Isaiah 1, and St. Augustine, book I to Simplician, Question II.

Let the penitent and the soul pleasing to God apply this tropologically to himself and say: Unless God had left in me the seed of grace and of holy inspirations, I would have perished in my sins, like Sodom.

Others, like Origen and Photius in Oecumenius, take this "seed" to mean Christ or the doctrine of Christ.

30 and 31. WHAT THEN SHALL WE SAY? THAT THE GENTILES, WHO FOLLOWED NOT AFTER JUSTICE, HAVE ATTAINED TO JUSTICE, EVEN THE JUSTICE THAT IS OF FAITH. BUT ISRAEL, BY FOLLOWING AFTER THE LAW OF JUSTICE, IS NOT COME UNTO THE LAW OF JUSTICE — as if to say: The Jews, following the "law of justice," that is the law which in their opinion justifies, came indeed "unto the law of justice," that is unto the law which truly justifies — meaning that (through the law as a root) they began to come, but did not arrive. As if to say: Israel is mistaken in thinking it has the law of justice, since the law of justice is not the old law, but the law of grace.

The Greek, instead of "did not arrive," has οὐκ ἔφθασε, that is properly, did not anticipate, did not come before — namely, Israel did not get ahead of the Gentiles in acquiring justice.

Note: here the Apostle, after the long disputation of the whole chapter, resolves the question, and gives the proper cause why the Jews have been rejected from justice and salvation, but the Gentiles have been admitted and chosen to it: namely because the Jews sought it where they ought not, that is in the works of the law, not in the faith of Christ, where God placed it: for this is what the Apostle adds next.

Verse 32: They Sought It Not by Faith, but as It Were by Works

32. WHEREFORE? BECAUSE THEY SOUGHT IT NOT BY FAITH, BUT AS IT WERE BY WORKS — supply: the Jews sought justice; but the Gentiles embraced the faith of Christ, and through this faith sought and found true justice. This verse with the following must be very diligently noted and weighed: for directly Note: When Paul says "as it were by works," the word "as it were" is not one of similitude, nor comparative, but assertive. Add that the word "as it were" suggests presumption or arrogance: for the Jews presumed that justice was owed to them on account of the works of the law, but falsely.

Verse 33: Behold I Lay in Sion a Stumbling-Stone

33. FOR THEY STUMBLED AT THE STUMBLING-STONE (in Christ), AS IT IS WRITTEN: BEHOLD I LAY IN SION A STUMBLING-STONE, AND A ROCK OF SCANDAL. — Paul cites Isaiah 28:16 and 8:14. In chapter 28, Isaiah has it thus: "Behold I will lay in the foundations of Sion," that is, the Church, which began in Sion at Pentecost, "a corner-stone." But in chapter 8 of Isaiah, he has thus: "Fear not his fear (namely of Rasin king of Syria), neither be afraid: sanctify the Lord of hosts (that is, glorify Him, hoping in Him, pleasing and obeying Him, and so reconciling Him to yourselves); let Him (be) your dread, and let Him be your terror (both passively, as one to be reverenced as terrible; and actively, who makes you terrible to the king of Syria and to enemies), and He shall be to you a sanctification," as if to say: The Lord will sanctify those who believe and hope in Him, and will protect them as His holy ones, and will be to them as it were a sanctuary and asylum. For this is what the Hebrew מקדש micdas signifies. "But to the unbelievers from the two houses," that is, from the two kingdoms, namely Judah and Israel, or of the two and the ten tribes of Israel, He shall be "for a stumbling-stone," upon which they shall strike. For they will say: Our God is not so powerful and strong as we thought, He cannot deliver us, and so we shall be crushed by the enemy. It is a metaphor taken from those who, walking along the road, strike with their feet against stones they do not see.

Allegorically the Apostle here explains these words of Isaiah of Christ. For Christ was to the Jews a stumbling-stone; because the Jews, seeing Christ's humility, poverty, and death, refused to recognize Him as Messiah, offended at His abjection; for they expected the Messiah as a wealthy and magnificent son of David and Solomon, who would come with the same royal pomp and enrich and bless the Jews. But that manner, as too carnal, did not please God. Hence He chose another mode of justifying and of salvation, namely, to propose Christ as a poor and crucified mediator, that through Him we should hope for justice and salvation, although He could have chosen a thousand other ways. And so originally and remotely it is by God's election, but proximately and immediately it is by the fault of the Jews that they themselves have been rejected from justice and salvation. Just as, on the contrary, obedience and faith in Christ among the Gentiles is the reason why they have been accepted and chosen for justice and salvation.

Note: "stumbling-stone" and "rock of scandal" are here the same. However Augustine, on Psalm 25, distinguishes these two: Christ, he says, in His life was a stumbling-stone, against which the Jews struck by their unbelief; but after His resurrection He became to them a rock of scandal, when as a heavy stone He fell upon the Jews and crushed them through Titus and Vespasian.

EVERYONE WHO BELIEVETH IN HIM SHALL NOT BE CONFOUNDED. — Paul cites Isaiah 28:16, where instead of "shall not be confounded," our translator renders "let him not make haste," namely the faithful one, who would wish Christ promised by Isaiah and the Prophets to be presented to him at once; but let him wait patiently, because most certainly I, God, will fulfill My promise concerning Christ. But the Septuagint, and from them St. Peter (1 Epist. 2:7) and Paul here, render "shall not be confounded," namely both here and on the day of judgment, as if to say: He who believes in Christ shall not be confounded, shall not be put to shame, shall not be frustrated in his faith and hope; but shall certainly see and obtain those things which he believed and hoped concerning Christ, namely justice and grace in this life, and salvation and glory in the future. For in this sense the Apostle said in chapter 5, that hope in Christ confoundeth not.

And this is the same as what Isaiah signifies when he says: "He that believeth in Him (Christ) let him not make haste," as if to say: Let the faithful one not run hither and thither, seeking and looking for Christ, as anxious men trembling with fear are wont to run about. "Let him not make haste" therefore is the same as if he said, "let him not tremble:" for he shall not be confounded, but shall certainly obtain the thing he has believed and hoped. Therefore in the word "make haste" there is a metalepsis. In a similar way Virgil speaks of bees:

They within, trembling for their affairs, run about through the waxen camps.

For those who tremble run hastily hither and thither, as bees do.