'Having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law.' An example, so that those who without the law could not live rightly, thou hast a form, ever looking to which thou canst not err. 'Thou therefore that teachest another.' What he said to the Gentile: 'Wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself.' 'Teachest not thyself.' Why does thy life not agree with thy doctrine, and thy work destroy thy faith, and so it comes about that the law, not kept, not only profits thee nothing, but even holds thee guilty of a greater crime, as its despiser? 'Thou that preachest that men should not steal, stealest.' Some say: Thou stealest Christ, that is, thou hidest Him from men; or the sacred Scriptures, if thou couldst, thou wouldst wish to withdraw. 'Thou that sayest men should not commit adultery, committest adultery.'
There is not one kind of adultery only; for everything which thou owest wholly to God, if thou renderest it to any other than God, thou committest adultery—whether love, or fear, or service, or obedience, or hope; and therefore it is more grievously sinned by him from whom perfection is preached. 'Thou that abhorrest idols, committest sacrilege.' Sacrilege is that which is properly committed against God, as it were a violation of the sacred, or a transgression of the commandments. 'Thou that gloriest in the law.' Saying that thou art blessed because thou hast known the will of God. 'Through the transgression of the law thou dishonourest God.' He has expounded the sacrilege. 'For the name of God through you is blasphemed among the Gentiles, as it is written.' Woe to those by whose evil works the name of the Lord shall have been blasphemed, as it is written:
'They have polluted My holy name among the Gentiles,' while they who are called the people of God tarry as captives among the Gentiles, brought about by their own sins, so that the Gentiles would say that the Lord could not defend His own people, and that they had proved victors through their idols—not understanding that Israel, if it had held to the Lord, would always have ruled over them, and thereby been their defender. 'Circumcision indeed profiteth, if thou keep the law; but if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.' It profits in its time, either because it makes the Jew live and not be exterminated. It can also be understood thus: Circumcision profits, because it makes one understood to be; because, when examined, the true circumcision of the heart is found to be coming when the circumcision of the flesh ceases.
He is a transgressor of the law while he does not follow what was there foretold. A sign profits, if the reality is present; otherwise a sign without the reality will be superfluous. For even the sign which Cain received signified this, that circumcision distinguished the Jews from the rest. And as he, a wanderer and a fugitive, endured with that very sign unto death, so the Jews unto the end, with the now empty sign of circumcision, scattered throughout the world, run about full of zeal and dread, and no one takes their circumcision from them; whether under pagan or under Christian princes, they bear that very sign, the murderers of Christ, as Cain the fratricide bore it. 'If therefore the uncircumcision keep the justices of the law.'
Visible things need invisible things; invisible things do not need visible things, in that visible things are images of invisible things. The circumcision of the flesh needs the circumcision of the heart; but the circumcision of the heart does not need the circumcision of the flesh, because the truth needs not the image, but the image needs the truth. Why then was circumcision given, if by itself it does not profit? First, that the people of God might be recognised among the Gentiles or in war. And that we are marked in such a member—first this is the cause, lest another member should be disfigured, which would be horrid to look upon;
then because of the promise of grace, in which one was to please through chastity; or that Christ might be signified as about to come from the circumcision, up to whom the carnal circumcision was to endure, whose type Jesus the son of Nave (Nun) bore, being commanded to circumcise the sons of Israel a second time. But this was a figure, so much so that it was said: 'In the last days God will circumcise thy heart.' And: 'Circumcise the foreskins of your heart.' And that original sin might be punished, even in the time of the law, in that member wherein it had been implanted. 'Shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? and shall judge that which by nature is.' Because it has the justice whose sign is circumcision. 'The uncircumcision fulfilling the law.' Fulfilling.
'Thee who by the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the law?' While thou followest the circumcision of the letter, thou dost not deserve to receive the spirit. 'For it is not he that is a Jew in the manifest.' All things which formerly were done concerning the outer man bore the figure of the outer man. 'Neither is that circumcision which is in the manifest, in the flesh; but he that is a Jew in secret.' He is the true Jew. 'And the circumcision of the heart in the spirit.' Of which it is written in the law: 'In the last days God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed.' 'In the spirit,' he says, that is, according to the new testament, which seeks the inner things, which God alone may see; and this is the true circumcision. 'Not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God.'
The letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth. The law of the letter was not given for the just, but for the unjust, and therefore it deserved the praise of men. But the law of Christ no longer threatens the sword to sinners, but promises a reward to those who serve freely, and therefore it has praise from God, who alone sees the heart, because it prays out of faith. CHAPTER III. 'What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision?' He gives the reason that the law was not empty, but that the prerogative of carnal circumcision is vain, being supported by no works. He asks, What advantage the Jew has. He answers, whether of himself or in the person of the Jews: 'Much every way.' For if it is his own sense, 'Much every way';
and, 'Every man a liar'—how does it afterward agree when he says: 'But if our iniquity,' and the rest? Finally, how does he deny that the Jews excel much every way? Great will be that profit, if they be zealous to keep the oracles which they merited to receive. 'First indeed, because the oracles of God were committed to them.' Which to the Gentiles were none. 'For what if some of them have not believed? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid.' For the unbelief of transgressors does not prejudice believers, and the promise of God which was made to Abraham, if it is made void concerning the transgressors, is fulfilled concerning the obedient, because truth knows not how to lie, as it is written: 'But God is true, and every man a liar.'
Because no one is without sin, except Him alone who neither had it by being born, nor contracted it by living. Therefore He alone is true, fulfilling what He promised, because in His seed the Gentiles were to be blessed, and they are blessed in Christ and through Christ, because in Him, through His grace, they believed; for even if it was made void in the unbelieving Jews, in those of that very people who by the gift of the Lord believed, it was both fulfilled, and unto the end is daily fulfilled more fully, because He who promised is true, and can in no way deceive. 'But God is true, and every man a liar: as it is written.' 'That thou mayest be justified when thou avengest upon sinners: That thou mayest be justified in thy words, and mayest overcome when thou art judged.'
'Thou overcomest when Thou art judged,' when Thou remittest me my sins, I confessing and condemning them. 'That Thou mayest be justified,' he says, 'in Thy words,' for God is true; for even if the blessing of the apostolate was made void in Judas the traitor, yet in Peter, who kept the faith, it was fulfilled. The promise was made void in the people who perished in the desert because of transgressions; it was fulfilled in those who by the gift of the Lord, faith cooperating, were led into the holy land. He also adds a testimony from Psalm 50 (51): 'That Thou mayest be justified,' he says, 'in Thy words, and mayest overcome when Thou art judged.' In the order of the psalm the utterance of the prophet stands thus:
'O Lord, Thou hast indeed declared, without respect of persons, that Thou wouldst take vengeance upon sinners; and indeed now, while Thou remittest to me, they judge Thy patience to be a lie; but Thou overcomest when Thou art judged, while Thou remittest me my sins, I confessing and condemning them, because Thou dost not judge twice for the same thing.' That is, while the man himself, his own judge, prosecutes his fault in himself with lamentation and contrition, the indulgence of Thy piety is not proved to be unjust. While Thou provest me guilty of a monstrous deed through the prophet, Thou provest that Thou hast care for our works, and Thou overcomest those who judged Thee careless of human deeds.
Therefore concerning this sense of the Apostle I have set down the whole exposition of a certain holy man, that the reader's attention might be more fully imbued; and wherever thou findest full pages thus, I have set this down for instruction. 'That Thou mayest be justified,' he says, 'in Thy words, and mayest overcome when Thou art judged.' Let us see how in this place the Apostle's discourse agrees with the testimony which he took up from the prophet, in order to confirm his own discourse. The Apostle evidently sets down this sentence in that sense in which David of old had uttered it under the voice of penance, saying: 'O Lord, Thou hast promised that the Saviour of the human race should come from my seed:'
'now, while Thy people sees me wounded by a twofold crime, I have caused the sons of Israel to blaspheme, so that, while they behold my guilt in adultery and murder, they may think Thee to have lied; and therefore acknowledge the prayer of satisfaction, and do Thou remit what I myself condemn, so that when Thou hast restored me by granting propitiation, and hast made me worthy of Thy promise, Thou mayest appear just in Thy words, and mayest overcome when Thou art judged by reproachers.' And so now the Apostle follows this line, saying: 'Although the transgressing Jews have caused the name of the Lord to be blasphemed, so that it is said: This was that holy nation and chosen people, who now involves itself in transgression and inexpiable sacrilege and the crime of impiety;'
behold, through the wickedness of the transgressors the promises of God have been made void. But it is not so; for if the transgressors have fallen from grace, the obedience of the faithful obtains the Lord's truthful pledge; and thus, those being confounded who boasted that the divine oracles had been brought to nought, the Lord is justified in His words, and overcomes when He is judged, while He confers upon believers the grace repudiated by unbelievers. But as to what he says: 'God is true, and every man a liar,' and again: 'But if our iniquity commend the justice of God,' let the unbelievers receive both this testimony in a reasonable sense. 'But if our iniquity commend the justice of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust, who executeth wrath?'
'But if our iniquity commend the justice of God,' it is unjust, he says, if He takes vengeance upon those who sinned for this very end, that He might appear more just; for by what justice will He condemn injustice, if, according to thee, He is made more just by human iniquity? In this place, while the teacher of the Gentiles discourses, the case of two persons is turned about, that is, under the ignorance of one interpreting badly, and under the teaching of the Apostle refuting him; and as if to the Apostle a contrary party, imprudently believing, were thus to say:
'O Apostle, thou hast conferred great solace upon our sins, by saying that God is justified in the pardon of our transgressions, and that our lies commend the truth of God, and our sins furnish God with matter for mercy, so that through our iniquities His goodness is exercised and His glory enlarged—unjustly are our sins punished, which avail to manifest the patience and benevolence of God.' At once he brings it forward. Thus far the adverse objection; here the Apostle answers their sense: God is unjust, he says, if He takes vengeance upon those through whose sins He appears benign, and I ought not to be judged, who lie, because by my lie the truth of God, gathered together, is found the more worthy to be preached.
'And therefore the greater the evils we shall have done, the greater the goods we shall receive from Him for whose praise we have sinned.' Perhaps the imprudent thought that it ought to be understood thus, because we read: 'Where sin abounded, grace did more abound,' as though the thing that gives the merit of sin, while it furnishes the increase of God's clemency. But this sentence is to be understood far otherwise. And that the abundance of sins was so consumed by satisfaction and amendment, that the amended deserved not only pardon but even rewards: 'that Thou mayest be justified,' he says, 'in Thy words.' This testimony the adverse party propounded as though David had said: 'For this reason I sinned, that while Thou judgest me, Thou mightest appear just, or merciful while Thou remittest;'
'and therefore Thou oughtest to spare me, because my iniquity commends either Thy mercy or Thy justice.' Hence the Apostle rebuts their error, and by interposed sentences he destroys it, saying: 'If, as some report that we say, our iniquity commend the justice of God, then God is unjust, who executeth wrath'—since our iniquity proclaims His mercy. 'I speak according to man. God forbid.' That is, according to thy carnal sense, or according to thee, who from the sentence above judgest so unskilfully and understandest so imprudently. For by what justice will He condemn injustice, if, according to thy opinion, He is made more just by human iniquity? But it is not so.
For not so much our sins as the deeds of good works glorify our God, and therefore in punishing sins He is acknowledged just, He who delights in holy works. Otherwise how shall God now judge the world, if He does not repay good things to the good and evil things to the evil, so as to render to the just the reward for justice, and to sinners what they deserve? 'For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto His glory'—what? That is, why am I also judged as a doer of evil? and not, as some report that we say, that the greater the evils we shall have done, the more ample the goods we shall receive. 'Yet.' Moreover. 'And I as a sinner'—a man who lies. 'Am judged'—by God in the day of judgment. This is the sense, as though he should say:
'O unbeliever, from my words thou assertest a defence of thy sins, by saying that our iniquity commends the justice of God, and that His truth grows out of our lies, and, compared to our weakness, appears greater and greater. But while thou thus flatterest thy evils with a hostile severity, thou art to be punished with just condemnation by Him who will judge the world according to the works of each and every one.' Whence this passage seems the more difficult, because it is obscured by the questions of the unskilled of the adverse party; just as in another place the Apostle propounds irrational objections and rejects them: 'For what shall we say? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.' And a little after: 'What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?'
By no means. Finally, the Apostle, doing away with the objection by the perception of the truth, speaks thus: 'And not, as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, Let us do evil that good may come.' And this is a foolish objection, which, appending it, he demolishes, saying: 'Whose condemnation is just.' For what is more just than that a man should feel the punishment of his own sin? — which they lyingly said we deny, we who preach nothing more than the just judgment of God. 'What then? are we better than they?' We Jews, that is: I find no cause whereby either side should be superior, since we judge all to be under sin; for reason itself perceives this, that both Jews and Gentiles are under sin, as is also proved by the testimony of the psalm. 'No, in no wise.' He answered his own question.
'For we have charged.' We have reasoned. 'Both Jews and Greeks' — all to be under sin. 'And the Gentiles.' 'As it is written: There is none righteous.' The psalm from which he took this testimony speaks of the foolish man, and he shows that this was fulfilled at the coming of Christ, at which time no righteous one was found. 'No, not one.' Neither Jew nor Greek. 'There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.' Because he does not understand, he does not seek. And God is then sought, when His will is inquired into and fulfilled. 'They are all gone out of the way.' Necessarily he goes astray who has refused to seek the firm foundation. 'They are together become unprofitable.' For the work for which they had been created. 'There is none that doeth good.'
There was therefore none to do good, since the transgression of the commandments condemned the Jews, and the law of nature condemned the Gentiles. When therefore someone from either side has done good, let him know that he owes it to grace, not to nature, as the prophet says, referring to the Lord: 'In whose sight no one is innocent of himself.' And Isaiah says in his canticle: 'Lord our God, thou wilt give us peace: for thou hast wrought all our works in us.' 'There is none, even to one.' Some say, up to Christ. 'Their throat is an open sepulchre.' By the stench of their teaching they heap up the violence of their pestilent odour. Every odour of death proceeds from their mouth: that is, from pestilent and flattering words which slay the hearers.
For this reason sepulchres are closed, lest by the exhalation of their kind they breed a plague among the living. 'With their tongues they have dealt deceitfully.' Uttering one thing with the mouth, meditating another in the heart. 'The poison of asps.' The venom of these serpents is said to be more deadly than that of the rest. 'Is under their lips.' That is, in the heart. 'Whose mouth is full of cursing.' For whatever is spoken with evil intent is without doubt spoken ill. 'And bitterness.' The bitterness of Antichrist is contrary to the sweetness of the word of God. 'Their feet are swift to shed blood.' Not to free souls, but to destroy them, or rather to slay souls, not by announcing to them their sins, but by confirming them in those very sins through flattery. Whence Paul says: 'I am clean from the blood of all.'
'Destruction and unhappiness are in their ways.' Souls are worn down and made wretched in their ways, that is, in their teachings or in the examples of their conduct. 'And the way of peace they have not known.' The doctrine of the Father, whereby God might be reconciled to men, they have not known: for Christ is our peace. He has treated this from the beginning of the epistle, in order to show that all are in need of the mercy of God, and mercy lies in the power of the giver. For no one can say that he ought to have received more. 'There is no fear of God before their eyes.' He has concluded with the fear of God: for if they had always had the fear of God before their eyes, they would surely not have sinned; for neither does a servant dare to sin in the presence of his master.
'Now we know that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.' Lest the Jews should say that this was spoken of the Gentiles. — In what manner did the Jews say, 'There is no God'? Not indeed in word, but in deed. For they confess that they know the Lord, but in their works they deny Him. Therefore he does not here touch the Gentiles, but had already spoken of the Gentiles before, and no one doubted concerning their crimes. Lest they should say this was written of the Gentiles, he shows that everything which is said in the law concerning the Gentiles is said also of the Jews themselves, since theirs is the principal case. 'That every mouth may be stopped.' Not only of the Gentiles, but also of the Jews: since they have nothing whereof they can glory. 'And all the world may be made subject to God.' That each may know he cannot be saved without the grace of God;
or at least, in the confession of his sin, may hope for mercy, knowing himself to be in sins. 'Because by the works of the law.' This he does against the Pelagians, who say that the law justifies. And by the works of the law he means circumcision, and the sabbath, and the rest. 'No flesh shall be justified.' It shall not be justified, because the law brought nothing to perfection. Hence he begins to dispute against them, with a great and long conflict — against those who gloried in the law, and believed themselves to be justified by the law and not by grace; teaching in order that the law could not take away sin but rather increased it, which grace takes away; because the law knows how to command, to which infirmity succumbs, whereas grace knows how to help, by which charity is poured in.
We do not say that those were justified who were obedient to the law, but that unless they had been justified, they would not have been obedient. 'Flesh.' Man. 'In his sight.' Not every righteousness is justified in the Lord's sight, but that which proceeds from the pure will of God, not that whose precept merely soothes human infirmity: as was the case of those to whom the righteousness of God could not then be revealed, but to whom only the knowledge of sin was shown, because, seeking to establish their own, they were not subject to the righteousness of God. 'For by the law is the knowledge of sin.'
Not remission, not consumption, but knowledge — either because the law of nature was in oblivion, or because before the law of the letter the lighter offences were not known to be sins, such as concupiscence, and other things which harmed not another but the man himself. 'But now the righteousness of God without the law.' Which has been freely given to us by God, not obtained by our labour. 'Is made manifest.' Which was hidden. 'Being witnessed by the law and the prophets.' This righteousness was proclaimed by the oracles of the law as about to come in the last times. 'But the righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ.'
This righteousness, which is conferred through faith — faith itself is poured in by the hidden inspiration of God as a gift of grace, not acquired by human labour nor by the work of the Old Testament; because, as has been said, it is His gift that we should believe. 'Unto all that believe.' Not upon the Jews alone. He shows that they received such a law for this reason, because they did not believe, and therefore in the present they referred either the merit of sin or of righteousness. 'For there is no distinction.' 'For all have sinned and need the glory of God.' That is, between Jew and Gentile, since both parties have been shut up in unbelief, and they need the glory of the Redeemer, which is extended unto the salvation of believers.
For the Jews, by transgressing the law of the letter, and the Gentiles by transgressing the law of nature, were alike found sinners, both through original sin and through actual sin. 'Being justified freely.' Without any preceding merits, justified through baptism. Since He freely forgave the sins of all who did not deserve it, hear 'freely,' and be silent about merits. 'By His grace.' Because He paid on our behalf what He did not owe, that He might save us who were freely redeemed. 'Through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.' We have been redeemed from the captivity of sin, not from nature, because by nature we were always His own; for he who redeems teaches that the one he redeems was his own, as the prophet teaches: 'You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.' Christ therefore redeemed us, as Peter says:
'Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation,' and so forth; and Paul: 'For you are bought with a great price.' We have therefore been redeemed from the death to which we had been sold through sin, according to Isaiah who says: 'What is this bill of divorce? For you were sold for your sins.' This death Christ overcame, He who did no sin, because we were all debtors to death through sin. But He delivered Himself over to death, to which He owed nothing, that He might redeem us from death by His own blood. He did not buy us, because we were His by His own nature; but He redeemed us, because we were held captive. 'Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.'
He has set it forth openly, because He gives freely, so that no one should despair, nor be exalted on account of his own merits; because propitiation and the remission of sins has been bestowed through the blood of Christ, in a figure of which, even in the Old Testament, the blood of victims was offered for the sins of the people. 'For the manifestation of His righteousness.' In this He says He manifested His righteousness, in that He held His forbearance unwavering in expectation of our amendment; thus mercy of remission comes to us, while He suffers who committed no sin, because God does all things justly. Justly therefore did the devil lose the debtor, because he unjustly slew the innocent. 'For the remission of former sins.' Why 'former'? — unless of the debts of original sin. 'Through the forbearance of God.'
The forbearance of God had advanced toward greater sins. 'For the manifestation of His righteousness.' That He might reveal the righteousness which is of faith, that is, Christ, in this last time. 'That He Himself might be just, and the justifier.' He who alone was found just, and who justifies those whom He Himself has justified; because He knew no sin, therefore He condemned sins. 'Of him who is of the faith of Jesus.' 'Of faith,' he says, 'of Jesus,' which Jesus Himself gave, and not of the works of the law or of nature. 'Where is then thy glorying? It is excluded.' He speaks to the Jews. Where is your pride, in which you gloried that you were better by carnal circumcision? Your glorying is excluded. 'By what law? of works?' No, but by the law of faith. There follows: 'Is it by works,' that is, by the works of the law?
And he answers: No, but by the law of faith. He calls the grace of faith 'the law of faith,' through which we come to Christ, through which we receive faith. 'For we account that a man is justified by faith.' We define, we are certain, this we judge. 'Without the works of the law.' By adding 'of the law,' he shows that there are also works of faith. How then does James say: 'Faith without works is dead'? But Paul speaks of the works of the law, whereas James speaks of the works which prove a man to be faithful, as he himself sets forth in what follows: 'Show me thy faith by thy works.' Works are those by which faith is recognized. 'Is He the God of the Jews only?' Did not God make all, and does He not equally care for all?
Not to you only, but also to the Gentiles came Christ, promised from the law — nay rather to them the more. 'Only.' As though the Jews should say: But the Gentiles forsook God; and it is answered them: And you too. They sinned, and you too. But we are converted, and they too. To us came the promised Christ, and to them too. Therefore He is not your God only, or as if you did not know that all are born of Adam, and that it was written that the Gentiles would believe in Christ, as He says: 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.' And again: 'Hear the voice of the trumpet, and they said, We will not hear. For this the Gentiles shall hear.' 'Is He not also of the Gentiles?' Of the Gentiles who believe, since the prophets frequently spoke of their calling. 'Yea, of the Gentiles also.'