We are indebted to T.H.L. Parker’s Commentaries on Romans 1532-1542
(T&T Clark, 1986) in which he deals painstakingly with 11 commentaries
proper written between 1532 and 1542. Parker was prepared to state his
opinions: Melanchthon was a giant, Calvin is to be praised for his
single-minded objectivity (Intro, x). There is admiration for Bucer even though
he is unreadable. Bullinger is great on theory, less so in practice. Yet,
Sadoleto (pace Roussel) is quite mediocre; indeed, as a group, the Catholics
seemed to find Romans hard going. They did not use rhetorical tools to explain
texts. Perhaps they were looking over their shoulders; after all, Sorbonne and
Catharinus censured CaietanÂ’s attempts for being interested in ErasmusÂ’ NT and
the OT Hebrew.
There are three matters in which there is room for complementing
ParkerÂ’s work.
First, there seems in Parker a tip-toeing
around controversial and polemical theology and no real account of the
awareness of other opposed views. A large part of the interesting and
particular nature of many of these commentaries comes from their being engaged
in theological struggles. That is what very often drives them and can be seen
jutting up from under the surface of their discourse.
 Second,
in giving us what 11 commentators had to say on Rom 1.18-23; 2.13; 3.20-28,
Parker does not centre on the passage which must have given rise to some of the
sharpest differences of opinion and goes
on being a crux for ecumenists: Romans 7:14-8:4. Since most early modern commentators treat
the book chapter by chapter I shall look at what they make of Romans Chapter 7.
Third, in limiting himself to one decade the
story of Romans in the Reformation lacks its beginning as well as its
resolution, even if this resolution is far from tidy. Does it really make sense
to prefer polemical use of Romans by Calvin in the early 1540s to his maturer
and considered treatment from the 1550s? ParkerÂ’s work is invaluable, but is a
spur to further research. It may be of course that to try to consider a
centuryÂ’s worth of commentaries is over-ambitious and ends up supplying a
surfeit of information. In this paper, a review of treatments of Rom 7 in commentaries, Â twenty in all, will aim to show more clearly
what was at issue between the interpreters. This will be achieved, first by
summaries of their comments with paraphrasing and some citation, with some
emphasis on the particular Tendenz of the respective interpretations,
and second by a section (much shorter, to follow) which will draw comparisons,
contrasts with some analysis and even synthesis. I have used a translation of
Colet and of Calvin (http://www.ccel.org/c/calvin/comment3/comm_vol38/htm/_fnf3).
The translations and paraphrases of the rest are my own.
One may note in passing that whatever the weakness of the Catholic
commentary between 1532 and 1542Â (and in
any case Parker seems somewhat unfair to Cajetan and Sadoleto), by the second
half of the Sixteenth Century it had matured to offer a high level of
sophistication. Also, Bucer seems to
arouse mixed opinions. On the one hand, Parker tells us that even Bucer was
embarrassed about his ‘rushed’ Romans Commentary, yet M. Greschat (in his Martin
Bucer, ein Reformator und seine Zeit,
München, 1990) states that it is his exegetical ‘Hauptwerk’
and was praised by his contemporaries, while Bucer thought of it as a help to
pastors to communicate the Philosophia Christi to the people (He felt
confident enough to dedicate the work to Thomas Cranmer.) It was an ecumenical
venture in dialogue with Church Fathers and the ‘better scholastics’ like
Aquinas, with an eye on ethical implications of PaulÂ’s doctrine.
I first set out the names of the selected commentators and commentaries
in roughly chronological order.
1. John Colet, 1467-1519
An Exposiion of
 translated by J.H. Lupton(London:
Bell & Daldy, 1873)
2. Erasmus, Desiderius, 1466-1536
Annotations on the NT
Acts-Romans-I and II Corinthians
facsimile of the final Latin text with all earlier variants A. Reeve and
M.A. Screech ( Leiden: Brill, 1990.)
3. Martin Luther
1483-1546
D. Martin
Luthers Werke Kritische Gesamtausgabe 56. Band. Der Brief an die Römer
(1515-16)
(Weimar: Herman Böhlhaus
Nachfolger, 1938.)
4. Oecolampadius, Iohannes, 1482-1531 In epistolam B. Pauli apost.
ad Rhomanos adnotationes Ă Ioanne Oecolampadio Basileae praelectae. Cum indice.
 Basileae : (apud
Andream Cratandrum, 1525.)
5. Melanchthon, Philipp., 1497-1560
Dispositio orationis, in Epistola Pauli ad Romanos.
Autore Philippo Melanchthone
 (VVitebergae:
Impressum per Iosephum Clug, [15]30.)
6. Vio, Tommaso de, called Gaetano, Cardinal,
1469-1534
Epistolae Pauli et aliorum apostolorum ad Gr[a]ecam
veritatem castigate, & per... Dominum Thomam de Vio... iuxta sensum
literalem enarratae. Recens in lucem edit[a]e [by J. Danielis].
(Paris : Apud Iod. Badium Ascensium. & Ioan. Paruum. & Ioannem Roigny, Sub prelo Ascensiano,
1532.)
Â
7. Bullinger, Heinrich, 1504-1575
In sanctissimam Pauli ad Romanos Epistolam Heinrychi
Bullingeri commentarius : hac epistola exhibemus tibi lector compendium
philosophiae Christianae, illamq[ue] spiritus sancti actionem, qua Pauli
selectissimi Apostoli ministerio mundum arguit de Peccato, Iusticia, &
Iudicio: ut hic iam nullum aliu[m] expectes rerum potissimarum catalogum, nisi
hunc : tot in hac tractari mysteria, quot habet epistola uerba : igitur si
pietatem amas, eme, uiue & uale [microform].
(Tiguri : Apud Christoph. Frosch., mense Febr. anno 1533.)
8. Sadoleto, Jacopo, 1477-1547.
Iacobi Sadoleti Episcopi Carpentoractis in Pauli episolam
[sic] ad Romanos commentariorum libri tres.
(Venetijs : per Ioan. Anto. de Nicolinis de Sabio, sumptu
uero & requisitione Melchionis [sic] Sessae, 1536.)
9. Bucer, Martin, 1491-1551.
Martini Buceri Metaphrasis et enarratio in Epistolam D.
Pauli apostoli ad Romanos ...
 (Basileae, 1562.)
Â
 10. Alesius, Alexander, 1500-1565.
Omnes disputationes D. Alexandri Alesij de tota epistola
ad Romanos diuersis temporibus propositae ab ipso in celebri academia Lipsensi,
et a multis doctis viris expetitae, iam tandem collectae per Georgium Hantsch,
et editae in gratiam studiosorum. Cum praefatione Philippi Melanchthonis.
 (Lipsiae:
G. Hantzsch, 1553.)
11. Musculus, Wolfgang, 1497-1563.
In
epistolam Apostoli Pauli ad Romanos: commentarij, per VVolfgangum Musculum
Dusanum. Cum indice rerum
& uerborum locupletissimo.
(Basileae : per Ioannes Heruagios, 1555.)
Series et
dispositio orationis in Epistola Pauli ad Romanos. Autore D. Georgio Maiore...
(VVittembergae : Ex officina Iohannis
Lufft, 1556.)
Â
13. Calvin John, 1509-1564
Commentarius in
Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos
Edidit T.H.L. Parker (Leiden:
Brill, 1981) (originally published posthumously in 1579)
 Â
14. Vermigli, Pietro Martire,
1499-1562.
In Epistolam S. Pauli Apostoli ad Romanos, D. Petri
Martyris Vermilii Florentini, Professoris divinarum literarum in schola
Tigurina, Commentarii doctissimi : cum tractatione perutili rerum &
locorum, qui ad eam Epistolam pertinent. Cum duobus locupletibus, locorum
scilicet, vtriusq[ue] Testamenti, & rerum & verborum indicibus.
(Tiguri :
apud A. Gesnerum, 1559.)
15. Viguerius, Joannes, fl. 1558.
Ad naturalem et Christianam philosophiam, maxime vero
ad scholasticam... theologiam, institutiones... M. Ioan. Viguerij... cum
triplici indice, recognitione, emendatione, ac plurimis additionibus proxima
pagina visendis, vt iam nouum opus appareat. His annecti curauimus eiusdem
Viguerij commentaria... in D. Pauli epistolam ad Romanos...
(Parisiis : Vaeneunt apud Claudium Fremy, 1560.)
16. Théodore de Bèze,
1519-1605
 Cours
sur les épitres aux Romains et aux Hébreux 1564-66, d’après les notes de Marcus
Widler: Thèses disputes à l’Académie de Genève, 15674-67.
Edités par Pierre Frankel
et Luc Perrotet, (Genève: Libraire Droz, 1988.)
17. Hemmingsen, Niels, 1513-1600.
Commentarius in epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, scriptus a
Nicolao Hemmingio.
 (Lipsiae: in
officina Voegeliana [i.e. E. Voegelin, 1563?])
18. Aretius, Benedictus,
1505-1574.
Commentarii in epistolam D. Pauli ad Romanos / facili et
perspicua methodo conscripti, a D. Benedicto Aretio Bernensi Theologo. Cum Indice rerum memorabilium quae in hisce continentur.
(Lausannae : excudebat Franciscus le Preux Illustriss. D.
Bernensium Typographus, 1579.)
19. Rollock, Robert, ca.
1555-1599.
In epistolam S. Pauli Apostoli ad Romanos, Roberti
Rolloci Scoti, Edinburgensis Ecclesiæ ministri, commentarius, analytica methode
conscriptus.
(Geneuæ : apud Franc. le Preux, 1596.)
Â
20. R. P. Cornelii a Lapide,
1567-1637
E Societate Iesu, in Academia
Louaniensi S. Scripturæ professoris, in omnes Divi Pauli Epistolas commentaria.
 (Parisijs : apud Ioannem Iost, 1638. )
1. With ColetÂ’s sermon, there is something of a feel of the spiritual
non-technical homiletical style of the devotio
moderna. There is a very simple structure with a division of the Chapter
into two sections, concerning plight and solution respectively. The latter
contains an emphasis on loving God, of imitation of Christ and then waiting in
turn for divine love which drives out fear. Law contributes to sinÂ’s sinfulness
by making it a conscious matter and thus more culpable. It is clear that
ColetÂ’s approach is homiletical and moral.
2. By way of contrast, ErasmusÂ’ remarks are very much of a technical,
above all a text-critical and grammatical nature. He is half-way through Romans
7Â before he launches his opinions on the
theology of the chapter. Origen has said that up to this point of exclamation
of thanks (v.25) Paul was speaking of his pre-Christian experience under the
law. The joyful exclamation Ambrose thought was of one rejoicing that he had
been freed from the law, not that that freedom was yet to come (‘liberatum’
not ‘liberandum’). As Paul says, and it would be unworthy to think
otherwise of such a great saint, Christ has
liberated him from sin and death. In a later edition, marked by ‘[ ]’
Erasmus considers that to answer the question ‘who will liberate me from this
body of death?’ with ‘the grace of God’ would suggest that Paul is not yet
liberated, while to answer ‘thanks be to God’ which he takes to be the
authentic reading at v. implies that this liberation has happened. He concedes
that even if we take ‘the body of death’ to be that which is prone to sin, this
need not make the passage inappropriate to Paul, since Augustine thinks it includes
all human experience from Paul as a boy, as a carnal person under the law, and
as under grace: so it is not the case that he gave his assent to these carnal
emotions, and it is better to se this as not about Paul himself but as
representative of all states of human spirituality, all of which stand in need
of liberation. However, Augustine is shown to be the exception, even an
innovation among the fathers, and the correctness of his view is left hanging
in doubt by Erasmus.
3. Luther (WA 56, 349) took delight in the Pauline phrase (v.17): ‘Now
it is not I who produces this but the sin which dwells in meÂ’ (Nunc autem
non ego operorÂ…Sed quod habitat in me peccatum. ) Not surprisingly his view
is at variance with that of Erasmus, although this was a decade before their
famous disagreement. He asks:
‘Has the fallacious metaphysics of Aristotle and the philosophy in
accordance with human traditions not deceived our theologians? As they do not
know how to remove sin in baptism or penitence they think that it is absurd
that the Apostle says: “But what dwelled in me was sin.” So this phrase offends
them most severely, so that they rush into the false opinion that the Apostle
cannot have been speaking in his own person but in that of the carnal person.
That he had no sin at all they contend at length in the face of many quite clear statements in many
Epistles.Â’ Of course Luther was elsewhere aware (WA 57, 184) that Augustine in 1
Retractiones 23 had said that these words can be understood as about the
Apostle himself.
For Luther, the law brought about wrath. He follows Augustine at 7:4 in
holding that it is not sin which must die but the soul must die from sin for
there to be liberation from the law. L. Grane has shown how the Augustinian
emphasis on an ongoing battle is radicalised in Luther. We do not have infirmity
but we are infirmity. Sin is not
something like a hole that we can work on to repair by grace and ascesis.
Sin is left in the spiritual person for the exercise of grace, for the
humbling of pride, for the repression of presumption. Sin is something which lies deep and is
present even when there is no actual sinning.
‘For whoever does not diligently endeavour to
drive it out without doubt still has it even if he has not sinned and on its
account he might be condemned. For we are not called to ease but to work
against the passions. These are not without blame (for they are indeed sins and
certainly damnable) unless the grace of God will not reckon them to usÂ…
It is however to be observed that the Apostle
did not wish that spirit and flesh be understood as two things but as one
altogether just as wound and flesh are oneÂ…But flesh is its weakness or wound
and in as much as he loves the law of God there (he?) is Spirit; in as much as
he lusts (concupiscit) there is the weakness of the spirit and the wound
of sin which begins to be healed.
A slightly confusing metaphor! Luther drew heavily on Bk 2 of
AugustineÂ’s Contra Iulianum (5,12 and also III,20,29 and 26,62.) The
division of the soul into parts which Luther opposed is found in Ockham
(Quodlibet II q10&11), who had already been criticised on this matter by
Gregory of Rimini and Biel. But Luther believed that the nominalist theologians
were still prevalent in the Church, so he concludes by attacking them:
‘The metaphysical theologians who ignore
Scriptural warrant with their fine terminology forget that the flesh is its own
weakness; it is just like a wound of the whole person who through grace has
begun to be healed in reason or spirit.Â’
4. Oecolampadius was famous for being one of the first to combine
Lutheranism with a respect for the law, spiritually understood.
‘The first husband is the old man and the
tinder for sin, a man clearly base and who begets the foulest progeny, the
works of the law. And through it we are said next to be impregnated with death.
But the second husband is Christ. ‘
He then takes the opportunity to lay out the gospel, showing how law by
opening our eyes to sin, where before we were ignorant.
‘The law is given that when he saw that he
could not fulfil it he then recognisedÂ
that he was weak and clearly ungodly and how that emotion fought the
spirit; and so despairing of his own powers he sought help from the most
excellent God, and with the spirit of divinity received he did what the
weakness of the flesh denied.Â’
This sounds as if law plays an important part of the process of becoming
a Christian. Oecolampadius is confessing that he owes it to the law that he
knows this and can confess his sin. Now whatever Paul thought about the
goodness of the law, did he not suggest that it did a bit more than just reveal
sin: for Paul, the law seems to provoke sin, not just to make us aware.
Oecolampadius like others of the Swiss Reformation who had a high regard for
the spiritual nature of the Old Testament seems to play this down. But it is
not as if the lawÂ’s role is a salvific one in its actions. There is a middle
position between law as provoking and law as remedying: the law in its
reporting of GodÂ’s standards made things worse because it led to a hatred of
the law-giver.
Siquidem sine lege peccatum
mortuum erat: ‘Indeed without the
law sin is dead’: this ‘to be dead’ is not the same as not to be,
or not to be reckoned as sin.Â’ In other words, Paul is not arguing that sin
never existed without law, but ‘that the sinful nature would not have been
stirred up or thus territam by the law. Paul writes that he did not know
himself, and in that was like the Pharisees who felt secure and self-justifying
because they did not know the power of the law due to own filthiness. Ego autem—this refers to Paul’s time as
a Pharisee when he did not know the power of the law, which is ironic since the
Pharisees made it their business to know the law. The law is good because it
shows us what is owed to God. Sin increased in making me know I was a
sinner—and thatÂ’s a worse position to be in!Â
And yet there is some spiritual progress in gaining awareness of oneÂ’s
plight. The law is called spiritual because it demands the spirit to be
fulfilled, not that it needs spiritual understanding as per Origen or other
allegorisers. Whn Paul says that the law ‘delights’ him he is speaking in his
own person although he was justified, for only the justified like the law. Paul
was used to glorying in his affliction, but he is quick to mourn his sins.
What we have in Oecolampadius is the view that Paul is describing the
change of his attitude towards the law from his life as a Pharisee, when he did
not know his sins to his present situtation when he is only too aware of its demands.
5. Melanchthon does not dwell long on the issue and makes it seem like a
very simple matter unworthy of controversy.Â
‘In the rest of the account Paul describes how even now he battles with
sin. For he wants to show that sin inheres in carnal nature so that the
regenerate do not once put off all of sin.Â’ (41v)
In other words it is a lifelong struggle for believers.
When we look at the Catholic commentators, it is of some significance
that Cajetan, Lapide and Viguerius are all contained in folio volumes. Only
Sadoleto is published in a compact quarto, as are most of the Protestant
contributions. There seems something very academic about the character of the
Catholic commentaries, or at least they appear not to have been for popular
consumption (ct. Bucer.)
6. Cajetan first establishes from 7,1 that those to whom Paul is writing
are no longer under the law, although the fact that they have been once would
have meant that PaulÂ’s employment of a legal metaphor was helpful to them.
Cajetan takes delight in sketching the drama with the four actors-- law, the
baptised, Christ and death. Death had already inseminated the baptised [!] who
were married to the law and death duly sprouted. In other words, there is some
kind of nascent death at work even in the baptised. But to say ‘you have been
made dead to the lawÂ’ is the conclusion Paul is trying to get to: the point is
that Christians are exempt from the law. This takes place not through works
[understand, of mortification] but through the body of Christ, that is through
the death which the body of Christ sustains. This seems a clear reference to
the Eucharist in which the receipt of the body of Christ works mortification in
the sense of exemption from the law. Salvation requires that the baptised take
hold of this means of grace. Where v 5 holds that ‘we were in the flesh’, this
means not that we were substantially in the flesh, which of course even the
baptised are, but of the state of being in the flesh, that is without a trace (adminiculo) of grace. V6 speaks of the
new state of being in Christ.
The law is not just good but spiritual and of spiritual use. V14 speaks
of sin not being something of our foundation, of GodÂ’s good creation, but of
something into which we are sold: ‘venundatus’.
‘That we might understand that he is here
talking about that part of himself which is under the law. That is in as much
as he is a slave of sin. The meaning is therefore: “I too am carnal according
to the lower part of the mind, I tend towards the things that are carnal.” For
anyone who wills or does not will according to this part of the mind is a slave
of sin: in the case of a justified man to will according to it is said to be
the fomes of sinÂ… For divine goodness
dwells in the higher part of man through baptism.Â’
In other words Cajetan thinks there is an area unaffected and
unreachable by grace which simply needs to be kept in check by the higher part
of the mind which can be renewed by that grace.
‘Paul says he is a lover of the law according
to the inner man, that is according to the mind, according to hope. And he
called the higher part of the soul the inner man, by which it completes its
workings inside. In him it is apart from the physical organs for the intellect
and the will are raised above and separate from the whole body. And by contrast
the man according to the sensory parts whether internal or external is called
the external man in that they are sunk in carnal dutiesÂ’.
 Cajetan ends on a high note.
‘It is truly a great benefit in that a
justified man not only recognises but estimates what of the flesh he sees in
himself as to be misery and so burns with the desire of an impossible thing,
not just in theory but in this life. A will fired up in this way that wants
that the whole man might serve God is meritorious and useful for the
ever-increasing withdrawal from the slavery of the flesh by the gift of the
grace of Jesus Christ reforming my mindÂ… that this gift of peace be extended to
the liberation from the law of peace, it is extended through the wiling use of
the law of the spirit. Therefore where this far he declared that the gift of
Christ did not liberate those justified out of the flesh, without our will
there is a power working outside our understanding, this way he aims to teach
what the gift of Christ in the justified works in the flesh by the free-willed
use of that very gift intervening.Â’
One can see Cajetan trying to preserve the balance between a grace that
is prevenient and is at work outside our understanding and a grace which
requests our free will to engage it.
‘In me as justified there are two principles
inclining to the contrary, that is the mind and the flesh. And by this I am
justified in my mind I incline to the willing service of the law of God, in the
flesh though I incline to willing service of the law of sin.Â’
7. Bullinger uses the authority of no less a pagan than Cicero to show
that law came about to check the wildness of human behaviour. The same happened
in the case of the Israelites who had become depraved through Egyptian slavery
to the point that they did not know the difference between righteousness and
sin and at this point the Lord acted. Since their laziness and blindness led to
ignorance of the law of nature written on the heart, he wrote the law on stone
tablets, wishing to assert and renew what was written on the heart. By the law
sin is recognised. Sin took its chance through the precept. Bullinger explains
that some for ‘operatum est in me’ (‘worked in me’) translate ‘genuit in me’
(‘bore/begat in meÂ’), others ‘excitavit in meÂ’. To translate the GreekÂ
ď©ďłď«ďˇď´ďĄď˛ď§ďˇďłďˇď´ďŻÂ in verse 8, Zwingli chose ‘showed the measureÂ’
(of concupiscence in me) Bullinger himself goes further and ends his remarks on
v8 by saying that Paul thinks of human beings as personifications of
concupiscence, ‘That is by the law it became clear that the whole of a human
being is not only liable to (obnoxiam)
concupiscence but is in fact concupiscence itself. For it has power to effect
what he says: ‘measured in me every concupiscence’. This concupiscence is serious
sin (cf. Luther), although for a time Paul did not know it. ‘Without law sin is
deadÂ’: this does not mean that sin did not exist but that it did and he just
did not know it. Paul himself is the example here, who thought that, as a
Pharisee he was innocent. In other words coming to know the law and his
spiritual state was a step towards salvation. The law which points out GodÂ’s
good will is spiritual, not because it has allegories in it but because it
demands a spiritual fulfilment, not just one of appearance, and because it
requires righteousness and sanctity in the heart, not hypocrisy and mere
external works. Paul as carnal even in his believing state is one who shrinks
from spiritual things. Bullinger repeatedly insists on the absolute opposition between
spirit and flesh in Paul, with reference to Galatians. The Flesh ignores the
call of the Spirit. By ‘flesh’ is meant the whole man which is prone to evil
and the soul is included in this. After all anima (soul) is
animal-like!. Even the good world of the saints are vitiated and there is no
such thing as free will, as Jeremiah had to insist against the ‘free-willers’
of his day! All the saints groan with Paul in this spiritual struggle. The only
way out is to bypass the flesh and walk in the Spirit.
8. Sadoleto sees Paul as giving an account of the history of salvation
in Romans 7. Paul depicts the original Jewish experience which was one of a
time of childhood in which there was little awareness of GodÂ’s law and its
demands, so that there was no power of sin in the people and no malicious
intent to sin. But after the law, David is a good example of how aware they
became of sin, writing that the law delivered him to death, and that weapons
intended for salvation and life brought death itself. Perhaps unhappy with that
metaphor, Sadoleto turns to a medical one: as happens in the use of poultice (cataplasmatis) which put on the body for
the breaking out of pus; when they do not manage to take away all of the pus
but try to repress its force in one part of the body they give cause and motion
to the pus that it erupts even more sharply and violently (96v). This is the
effect of the law on sinful humanity.
 ‘The
Apostle is speaking for every person in his own person, as if each were
speaking and one minute on behalf of the flesh and the next on behalf of the
SpiritÂ…The sin which dwells, he says, whose fomes
is placed in us by nature, is a seed-bed of lusts and of all rebelliousness,
which it is not in our power to remove from us and the frequency and the repetition
which by the practice of persuasion is turned into a habit of behaviour is
opposed to the law and prevails against the reason of the mind.Â’
Sadoleto is starkly pessimistic about the human condition.
9. Martin Bucer, as was his reputation, is prolix and exhausting, yet
there is much of interest amid all the repetition and at times lack of clarity.
Bucer from his paraphrase of v6 (‘we are now set free from the law that we
might live in dedication to righteousnessÂ’: nunc vero soluti lege sumus ut
addicti iustitiae vivamus’) concludes that the law is useful for godliness and that the one who studies it is
blessed, but that since the law does not by itself promote godliness it
actually more blessed to be dead to the
law. Indeed although those such as Timothy were advised by Paul to grasp the
law that has ‘incubated’ in him since his youth, for others in whom the Spirit
of Christ does not run alongside, the
Mosaic sacrifices get in the way of simple faith in Christ and ruins the
majesty of the law. Therefore Paul encouraged Timothy to study the Law, for the
law of God stirred up the sin that was still in him ‘ad Christum’: the
believer is driven to penitence and to find Christ. The restitution by faith in
Christ is not yet complete. The wound is deep. ‘The law compels us the more
keenly to Christ in that it the more stirs up the depraved things in us and
directs us towards the judgement of GodÂ’, but this only works when the Spirit
is present, otherwise there would be nothing but condemnation. The law also
works by terrifying us of GodÂ’s judgement. The people of the old covenant were
like children in the household of God, in that they knew nothing of the
maturity that comes with the Spirit of Christ. ‘With the repressed evil
affections stirred up by the law we find that we are dead to the law and we
rejoice that we are carried by the most liberating spirit of ChristÂ’ (351). The
law is necessary for the Christian until the old Adam is totally remade and we
are released from the law which is all the while correcting us and driving us
towards Christ, as we now no longer live ourselves but Christ lives in us. Thus
the verses can be reconciled in which we are proclaimed to be dead to the law
and yet are ordered to address ourselves to the law: the law is confirmed both
to be harmful and to be of highest salvific import. This is not a
contradiction; rather it just corresponds to the contradiction of grace and sin
or Christ and Adam in a believer. The law in itself is good, but per
accidens provokes sin in us. Our sinfulness is severe: we oppose God with the
whole mind of our nature (toto ingenio nostrae naturae) ; all our
appetite is against him.(352) Before the law came we felt secure and out
sinfulness and rebelling lay dormant. Law is properly that which is written—by
Moses or others for other civilisations: all law which forbids evil and
promotes the good is divine law. Any trace of natural law inside the human soul
has been obliterated by sin, so that something external like law is needed to
tell us our plight: for the law of the mind of our nature is depravity ! (ingens
naturae nostrae depravatio) (355) Here there is a definite preference for
Augustine’s anthroplogy over that of the Eastern fathers. To become ‘dead’ is
to be conscious of wrongdoing, not unconscious of it, as Chrysostom thought.
Only then do we sense the horror of GodÂ’s wrath and hell, the despair of Cain
and Judas.. When sin was dead we were alive, when it revived we died—through the law. The law
of course is holy. Ps 19 and other passages attest that in the law resides
utmost equity, utility and fittingness. (358)
He then breaks off to give a summary: the only
difference between Paul and Moses on the tenth commandment is that Moses
commands we should not covet certain things, Paul simply that we should not
covet. He then gives a summary of what each of the commandments were for and
how love is needed to fulfil them. The tenth commandment tells us that it is
not just about doing or abstaining from doing but having the right mind(359).
The Apostle is deepening and simplifying MosesÂ’ teaching; we should not as
Origen and the Jews did, making it seem as if there were two distinct commands,
one of coveting a neighbourÂ’s wife and the other of coveting his property:
coveting is what matters. The ten commandments are really ten words, and as
such not ‘legalistic’, while from the Gospel we learn that we cannot please him from the heart unless we are first
of all persuaded that he is propitious towards us. So it is important to take
the first words of Exodus 20 as part of the whole ‘I am the Lord your God who
brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ And if ‘no there gods before me’ and
‘not make for yourself an idol’ are taken together, and there is only one
coveting commandment at the end, then we still get 10 commandments. We read the
bible therefore to become still more aware of our thoroughgoing sinfulness and
become more humble. At the end of the section he appends the thought that the
Spirit is of the few since to the few is it given to truly believe in Christ.
(361) Sin made what was good to be death to us, and the law is good because our
mind acknowledges it to be so, even while the flesh in PaulÂ’s own experience
acts otherwise (362). We become aware of the increase of sin through law and
that is not just an increase in our knowledge of it but an increase in the
actual power of sin that it becomes beyond measure, like a force of Satanic
character(363). The law is spiritual in that the law comes from the Spirit and
the Lord told his disciples that if they wanted to grow into life they should
obey his commandments; the law has the force of the spirit that it has within
it and therefore brings with it life; but the problem is with ‘me’ who held by
the power of death is unable to see life. The spiritual lesson that the law
teaches is to have a living faith in God, and to be a sure lover of oneÂ’s
neighbour and all such things, and it shows the means by the Sprit who writes
on the heart so that even the one who is not yet renewed by the Spirit of
Christ can perceive it. Scripture offers wisdom restored and illuminates and
goes beyond the good in condemning evils. The metaphor of being a slave to sin,
thinks Bucer, might be slightly exaggerated in its imagery (364) While we are
not totally renewed by Christ we are driven to evil, in a way that is on the
way to being like the demon-possession Christ warns us about. We can this speak
of two causes of our sin, the emptiness of our human nature and the strong
power of sin in all things. (365) The Apostle in this chapter represents the
person who loves the law, in other words, a believer. But because the normal
Christian life is one in which the will is split (or rather ‘duplex’)
such that the will as the controlling faculty as loved by humanists does not
really do such a good job of integrating the person. David in his adultery with
Bathsheba is one example, where, although he loved the law and was taught in
it, yet the violence of his desire carried him away. Bucer here (367) seems
almost to excuse David as he does when he mentions that Peter was not even
given time to consider that his fear of men should be outweighed by his fear of
God since blind fear took over. It is the force of the evil thought which is
often too strong for Christians in their ‘middle state’ of perfection. When he
comes to the verse: ‘But I am carnal’(v.14) Paul is representative of ‘us’ who
have such perversity of nature that we need to come running to Christ for his
liberation. And whereas many ancient commentators thought ‘I find this law in me’
to mean the Torah, for Bucer it is clear it means the wicked law of his
members. In fact, Bucer reckons, there are five laws which Paul mentions: the
law of the spirit, the law of God, the law of the mind, the law of sin and the
law of rebellion which is the law of Satan. The ‘inner man’ means not the
inward part of a human being(mind, soul) but the renewed whole person. Right at
the very end Paul seems to suggest that there is a better state of existence
for mature Christians (373) , that this state of losing a hard battle is for
those who ‘are not yet in the full freedom of the Spirit’. That possible state
of Christian existence will be treated more fully in Ch 8. But in this seventh
chapter he describes and explains the state of the man of God in his own
example, one in whom the law is now knownÂ’ (eam conditionem homininis dei in
suo exemplo hic profert & exponit, quae est mediae aetatis sanctorum, in
qua lex iam cognita quidem est.) Does this mean that for Bucer Romans 7 is
about the pre-conversion Paul after all, in a state of being led to full belief
in Christ and reception of his Spirit and thus one who is like a saint of the
OT or like pre-Pentecost Peter? It would seem so.
10. AlesiusÂ’s commentary has a preface by Melanchthon in which the
famous Reformer declares ‘the Gospel of our churches’ to be a most simple one,
but manages a side-swipe at Osiander for basing salvation on ChristÂ’s divinity
rather than the merits of the human Christ. With this in mind perhaps it is not
so surprising that Alesius insists that Romans 7 is about true penance as
penitence of the heart. You are dead to the law if you are converted by the
true mortification of sin in penitence (per
veram mortificationem peccati in poenitentia) and believers are to obey
their new husband, Christ. Alesius then suggests that there are three types of
people. There are those who are the smug
Pharisee or Epicurean whose consciences seem clear, second those oppressed by
their consciences and third and best, those whose conviction comes from the
voice of the gospel (pavoribus
conscientiae eriguntur voce Evangelii.) that leads them to peace. There
need be no worry about whether the ascribing sin to himself is a problem for
the saintliness of Paul: for he is doing just what the prophets in whose tradition
he stands used to do, speaking of the sin of his people just as if it were his
own. This counters the contention of those sophists who on account of PaulÂ’s
saintliness hold that he was not writing about himself, or only of his
pre-conversion state, or maintain that the law is just too hard to keep. Paul
was not without sin, only hypocrites think that such a state is possible.
Melanchthon had already been clear about this, back in 1529. But AlesiusÂ’
argument seems to be that Paul is maybe exaggerating his sin in order to
represent his (Christian) people.
11. Musculus observes that it is indwelling sin, not the law or ‘the
opinion of my mindÂ’ that is responsible for captivity to sin which leads to
death. He then adds that there are three types of saints: 1. those who in the
manner of drunkards are sopitus and
live in sins and in whom the law of God is not at work. 2. Those who whenever
they stop to consider the illumination by judgement of reason and the unshaken
disposition, they then desire to do what is good and thus agree with and
delight in the law of God and hate evil but are still with the tyranny of sin
which is too strong for them, so that they are driven unwillingly to evil and
the good which they approve desire and wish they do not do, but the evil which
they hate and shun, that they do. To this category should be referred those
things which Paul here discusses from his own example. In him the struggle of
flesh and spirit went on. ‘The flesh has not yet beaten the Lord and the spirit
is fighting back but not yet winningÂ…And what I say here about the lustful
sense of the flesh, the same can be maintained about the sense of fear, of
which examples are DavidÂ’s adultery and PeterÂ’s denial.Â’ These Anabaptist
pretenders are to be dismissed who excusing their sins say, ‘Not I but my flesh
did it’, while all the time are judges of everyone, looking down on them. 3. The third type are those in whom the force
and wickedness of sin are controlled and overcome through the Holy Spirit and
who are placed into the freedom of righteousness that they do not obey the law
of sin but rather the law of the Spirit reigning in their members, and who have
the faculty of willing and also the faculty of accomplishing -- this category
we find treated in the next chapter in which the power and grace of Christ will
be set forth along with the action and work of the Holy Spirit in believers,
about which the prophets looking forward to the New Testament foretold many
things.
So Musculus thinks that there is a Christian perfection which lies
ahead.
12. In MajorÂ’s commentary however, there is insistence that carnal
people are not aware of their plight but live in self-deceit about their
righteousness, like men in a dream. When the law comes then people receive
judgement.
 ‘The law
is judgement, by which God shows us his wrath against sin in us, about which
action carnal men felt secure and the Pharisees and the Hypocrites were
ignorant, as they imagined that the law was a political wisdom and so fulfilled
it with outward deeds and works and thought themselves by this outer discipline
to be righteous and not to do harm even if their hearts were uncleanÂ…But we know that the law is spiritual,
that is it is not a political or external judgment but is judgment by which the
Holy Spirit opposes and condemns sin and the whole depravity of our nature and
by this judgment the Holy Spirit so moves and enflames hearts that they can
feel GodÂ’s wrath against sin which is to be shivered at, and that we are carnal
ones, that is, not regenerate, and without the movement of the Holy Spirit the
sinful flesh seizes us and leads us as though we were the bound slaves of sin.
Those terrors come by the Holy Spirit through the voice of the law in the
hearts of those doing penance and from the voice of the Gospel through faith in
he Son of God handed over for us and resurrected once they have accepted
reconciliation, the remission of sin and righteousness to a new light and life
we are regenerated. Although in the pure this new light and life is now kindled,
still much remainder of depraved lusts, much of filthinesses and weakness yet
remains.Â’
The saintsÂ’ life is an ongoing one of struggle, and the SpiritÂ’s role is
really a ‘negative’ one in showing them where they have gone wrong!
13. Calvin likes the metaphor of the law putting
pressure on sin, so that it erupts more violently. The important point for
Reformed theology is that the Pharisees failed to live by the law in that they
could not keep a commandment like ‚do not covet,’ since they kept it only in an
external way.
 ‘Thus the eyes
of hypocrites are covered with a veil, that they see not how much that command
requires, in which we are forbidden to lust or covet.Â’ (on v9.) It was pardoned
not only by philosophers, but at this day the Papists fiercely contend, that it
is no sin in the regenerate. But Paul says, that he had found out his guilt
from this hidden disease: it hence follows, that all those who labor under it,
are by no means free from guilt, except God pardons their sin. We ought, at the
same time, to remember the difference between evil lustings or covetings which
gain consent, and the lusting which tempts and moves our hearts, but stops in
the midst of its course.Â’
Calvin
having made this distinction does not seem to consider that ‘the Papists’ only
mean that it is the latter (lusting which tempts) which is no sin. However the
Calvinist position is that sin as evil consent is present in the regenerate.
V9
requires careful treatment:
That the sentence may be
more clear, state it thus, “When I was formerly without the law, I was
alive." But I have said that this expression is emphatic; for by imagining
himself great, he also laid claim to life. The meaning then is this, "When
I sinned, having not the knowledge of the law, the sin, which I did not
observe, was so laid to sleep, that it seemed to be dead; on the other hand, as
I seemed not to myself to be a sinner, I was satisfied with myself, thinking
that I had a life of mine own.”’
Again he returns to the law exerting pressure on sin
in humanity so that it erupts.
On v 14 .
‘He then sets before us
an example in a regenerate man, in whom the remnants of the flesh are wholly
contrary to the law of the Lord, while the spirit would gladly obey it. But
first, as we have said, he makes only a comparison between nature and the law.
Since in human things there is no greater discord than between spirit and
flesh, the law being spiritual and man carnal, what agreement can there be
between the natural man and the law? Even the same as between darkness and
lightÂ’
He adds that unlike some * (cf Parker) who think that ‘the law is
spiritualÂ’ means that the law has to do with inward religion, Calvin prefers to
see it as being to do with its being antipathetic to the flesh.
He manages to show how human bondage is a chosen unfreedom:
‘We are so entirely
controlled by the power of sin, that the whole mind, the whole heart, and all
our actions are under its influence. Compulsion I always except, for we sin
spontaneously, as it would be no sin, were it not voluntary. But we are so
given up to sin, that we can do willingly nothing but sin; for the corruption
which bears rule within us thus drives us onward. Hence this comparison does
not import, as they say, a forced service, but a voluntary obedience, which an
inbred bondage inclines us to render.Â’
The ungodly consent to and approve of sin, even while
troubled by it at times.
‘Hence the case of a
regenerated man is the most suitable; for by this you may know how much is the
contrariety between our nature and the righteousness of the law.Â’
Calvin is thus happy to say that the believer is
divided in the way an unbeliever is not and the struggle leads him to rely more
on the Spirit. Augustine was right to change his mind and in the letter to
Boniface apply this to the regenerate
The flesh is totally opposed to the Spirit, but PaulÂ’
soul does have room for the former: on v 17 he writes:
‘But Paul here denies that he is wholly
possessed by sin; nay, he declares himself to be exempt from its bondage, as
though he had said, that sin only dwelt in some part of his soul, while with an
earnest feeling of heart he strove for and aspired after the righteousness of
God, and clearly proved that he had the law of God engraved within him.Â’
It seems that Calvin is clear that he wants to show
that it is not all ‘doom and gloom’ in the state of a believer, through
attention being paid to two little wordsÂ
from v.18 which probably had little such significance for Paul:
‘Then in me,
means the same as though he had said, “So far as it regards myself.” In the
first part he indeed arraigns himself as being wholly depraved, for he
confesses that no good dwelt in him; and then he subjoins a modification, lest
he should slight the grace of God which also dwelt in him, but was no part of
his flesh. And here again he confirms the fact, that he did not speak of men in
general, but of the faithful, who are divided into two parts -- the relics of
the flesh, and grace. For why was the modification made, except some part was
exempt from depravity, and therefore not flesh? Under the term flesh, he
ever includes all that human nature is, everything in man, except the
sanctification of the Spirit. In the same manner, by the term spirit,
which is commonly opposed to the flesh, he means that part of the soul which
the Spirit of God has so re-formed, and purified from corruption, that God's
image shines forth in it.Â’
On
v22 the anthropological statement is clearly made.
‘But we ought to notice
carefully the meaning of the inner
man and of the members; which many have not rightly
understood, and have therefore stumbled at this stone. The inner man then is
not simply the soul, but that spiritual part which has been regenerated by God;
and the members signify the other remaining part; for as the soul is the superior,
and the body the inferior part of man, so the spirit is superior to the flesh.
Then as the spirit takes the place of the soul in man, and the flesh, which is
the corrupt and polluted soul, that of the body, the former has the name of the
inner man, and the latter has the name of members. The inner man has indeed a
different meaning in 2 Cor 4:16 ; but the circumstances of this passage require
the interpretation which I have given.Â’
14 Vermigli is clear about the indwelling of sin in believers, even while
they despise it:
And the law of God has the power that it will
kill through sin unless it is not known rightly. And these things are said
about Paul while he was still involved with Judaism. In what way these things
should apply to him after he had recognised Christ, it will be said below. In
the meantime these ought to move us that we detest the sin which is all through
us.
The law by nature was good and intended to bring life, as Moses in
Deuteronomy 30 said. Christ also taught that one should keep the commandments
in order to enter life. The point is however that Christ is the only one who
has ever been free form sin. The Apostle does indeed say that ‘we have been
liberated from sin through Christ: however not fully but only with an inchoate
liberty.Â’
‘ The “Pelagians” say that Paul called himself
carnal because since he lived here he had not yet put on the spiritual flesh
which we will have in the Resurrection. But he carries this around still which
with many troubles in the meantime is a harmful thing. They add besides that he
says this, that he has been sold to sin that he is subject to that death which
crept into the world by AdamÂ’s sin.Â’
In other words they say he is just lamenting his mortal state: no, he is
lamenting his inner corruption. And the devil gets even into our thoughts.
Ambrose says this but the ‘Scholastici’ don’t like to admit this, just like
they do not like to admit there is no place in Paul for free will. Such people
like to think that ‘I do not do what I want but what I hate’ is to be referred
only to the first motions (i.e. temptation). But, as Scripture clearly says,
the righteous also fall and we all offend in many ways, so I do not see why the
opinion of the Apostle has to be twisted so. He says that he did not do it in
that he as a whole did not do it. For the regenerate part of him abhorred it.
‘Since he exclaimed ‘Wretched man that I am,
who will free me from this harmful body of death?Â’, he introduces the action of
grace because he know that he too will have this through Christ. These things
cannot be experienced by those who are distant from Christ and are godless and
without a share in the Holy Spirit. Those who deny this are led very much by a
logic that persuades them that sin has no place in saintly people.Â’
So this passage is not just about the non-regenerate but believers. Paul
to the Galatians does not say ‘walk in the Spirit and you will not have desires
of the fleshÂ’, but only that you will not carry out these desires. David
laments his sin, Isaiah speaks of our filthy rags, 1 John says not to pretend
we have no sin and James that we offend in many ways. There is also the witness
of Augustine Against Julian, Book 6.
15. Viguerius first treats the question of whether it is the natural law
that Christians are no free from: ‘some’ think that given the mixed
Gentile-Jewish congregation this would make sense. Others think it is the
Jewish law of Moses which he means. Scientibus
legem loquoris key here: for not all of them would have known the law of
Moses, so it must be the Jews he is addressing. It is those converted from
Judaism who were asserting that the law of Moses needed to be kept along with
the Gospel since it was given by God and so he is not addressing those
converted from the Gentile world: Chrysostom thought that the law reigns as
long a person lives, but here, Viguerius
insists, Origen is truer to the intention of Paul. The law lives and dies in a
person according to his state: as long as a person stays in the state to which
the law is given, just so long does the law live in him, that is, it binds
him. And just as military law no longer
holds when man leaves the service—so the law dies for those in Christ. After a
long digression on marriage, resurrection and the lasting power of the
sacraments, he then reasserts that the law ‘in you’ is dead as not having the
power of obligation. The text is Ita
& vos fratres mei mortificati estis legi per corpus Christi: ut sitis
alterius qui ex mortuis resurrexit, ut fructificetis Deo.
In the midst of representing PaulÂ’s pessimistic outlook, Viguerius
enjoys speaking brightly about bearing fruit for the glory of God. There is an
assertion that the law can be kept through the help of the Spirit who writes
the new law on the heart. The apostle despises those who blame the law, just as
Ps 18 (19) praises the lawÂ’s goodness. The law does a good job in that without
it, one would not have known that sin was offensive to God and punishable. The
mention of concupiscence in Nam
concupiscentiam nesciebam means the root of all actual sins ‘generale
peccatumÂ’ (with a note in the margin; Aug 9!!) It is not the law for Paul
says the opportunity was taken, not that the opportunity was given: Occasione autem accepta.
Perhaps to be clear it is better to say that sin came in to add to the
already existing fomes of original
sin which in turn is nothing other than the sensory appetite deprived of
original justice. Paul then speaks not
in his own person but in the person of the destitute humanity. What then
happened is that sin grew out of the fomes
and was something done wilfully and consciously after the law came and there is
a change epistemologically in the awareness of sin and even if not aware of
guilt is aware of sin and under deathÂ’s sway. Viguerius answers the question of
the lawÂ’s goodness by referring the mention of the law is spiritual to the new
law of the spiritual gospel. He eventually does address another hard question:
is this humanity without grace or with it? With it, because only one under
grace would be able to admit he was carnal; this is when the mind is under
attack from rather than subject to sin, a sin which has its base in the lower
part and so when Paul speaks of regenerate person he can say he is sold under
sin in the sense that there is original sin out of which fleshly activity
arises in the lower part. It is an area hard to take control over for even the
will is divided.
‘These words (“But the evil I hate I do”) can
be explained as concerning the just man who can say I have been justified
through the grace of God but do not do the good I would do; since I wish to
serve God always with quiescent
peacefulness of mind but do not do it, since the distractions and passions
rising up from the fomes or concupiscence of original sin get in the wayÂ….If
this is to be understood about the sinner man, it ought to be explained about a
hatred in general and of actions in particular, as in the sense of this
sentence: “I hate the evil of adultery and do not want to be an adulterer in
general, that is, yet passions swell up and in particular I do and carry such a
thing out.” If this is to be understood about the just man, it should be taken
to be about incomplete action, which consists in no more than concupiscence
getting in the way of the judgement of reason and about a hate which is
complete: such as in the Psalmist, I hated them with a perfect hate.Â’
In other words as a believer one still has the passion of the sin, but
it does not become sin through action because his hatred of sin is more
comprehensive.
‘And since the Lutherans and the innovating
heretics have a crooked understanding of this phrase, they deny human free
will, especially in the sinful human, saying that he is lame and is not even
able to limp and do wrong.Â’
Viguerius then insists that ‘free’ is that which is not determined, like
fire is fixed to ascend and stones to fall: no! it depends which way we choose
to fall, and then we will be confirmed in our choice of good or evil (‘firmatus
in bonum/malumÂ’.) That we have free will can be seen from experience, reason and
scripture as interpreted by the Ecclesia Catholica. Paul here is the natural
man who wants to do good universally-i.e. ‘secundum naturam vel gratiam’.
‘It now remains to explain and clarify this
verse which the Lutheran hold tenaciously as a foundational principalem
although it contributes almost nothing to their meaning. For,as we said, if the
Apostle is understood to be speaking about man as sinner, it is clear that he
does not speak about a will and a hatred that is completed in particular
action, but rather about will and hatred which is no completed and is general.Â’
The fomes peccati which
Apostle calls peccatum (!! Viguerius
seem unaware that PaulÂ’s use of peccatum is an argument for the
continuing indwelling of sin in believers; he tries to gloss peccatum so
as to say ‘when Paul writes ‘peccatum’
he really means ‘fomes peccati’)
drives our reason to evil. But this here cannot be man as sinner which Paul is
speaking of, for such would consent to particular evil.
Just as with Cajetan Viguerius
concludes that the grace of God does not dwell in the flesh but in the mind or
heart (Ephesians 3:17) The struggle is indeed the Christian one—this is not an
unbeliever but of the goodness of grace. At this point there is a disagreement
with St ThomasÂ’s teaching that virtues can be infused into the lower part of
the soul and their counterbalance and sooth the ravings of vices. For the
Apostle denies this, meaning to exclude good alone which would totally prevent
the dominion of sin, or what totally subjects the sensory appetite to the
reason so as in no way able to lust against the spirit and in no way to incline
to evil as it was in Adam and will be in the blessed (in heaven). VigueriusÂ’
strong Augustinian interpretation of Paul is confirmed by the attack on the
Pelagians which follows, denying the ability of ours to start any good work
without God working on our will in the first place.
16. Beza establishes that Paul though full of the Holy Spirit is however for all that also a man. Yet he
speaks in his Apostolic authority not as a man but as the organon and
instrument of God. And if a regenerate person is lacking how much more the
unregenerate?! Of course the Apostle
approved of much that he did: 1 Cor 11,1-‘be imitators of me as I of Christ.’
And of course he sins only unwillingly. Against the Catholic line of argument,
Beza asserts: ‘When we say that we are regenerate and that yet the Spirit
fights with the flesh, do no imagine that the higher part is regenerate and the
lower not. That is diabolical.’ The intellect will and the active faculties—all
of these have regenerate and unregenerate parts. The fact is that the
regenerating power is far more efficacious within than outwards; there is more
will than act—the latter has yet to strengthen ; just as when an arrow is fired
it slows down as it reaches its target. Sin remains intrinsic, however in the
future it will be driven away.
‘If the sophists wish to infer that our nature is harmed, I concede that
we do not do well as mutilated, since our will is not strong enough to do
well.Â’ It seems harsh to say that there was nothing good in Paul, but it is in
his flesh that we mean; he did not say that he didnÂ’t have the power to do good
but to perfect the good. David was
regenerate at the time he committed adultery and the killing that went with it.
Of course drunk men have no sense of reason yet all the same the soul remains
in them without consenting. The vapours get in the way of the organs so that
reason cannot work; so too it happens in the case of regenerate men: the Spirit
is quenched (suffocatur). The law
works in the unregenerate to beget (gignere)
a sense of sin and that sin become more focused. But in the regenerate, it
works so that that we know our weakness and to lead us in the right way. It
does not justify anything except the regenerate.
 Interiorem hominem is what Paul calls the regenerate part. But one
should not think that it denotes the intellect alone (as Catholics like Cajetan
would have it).For if interior meant
intellect then membra would be the
body, which does not fit. The soul is meant to rule the whole person and so
being within the person (homo) it is called interior
homo.
17. Nicholas Hemming is keen to show the total newness of the Christian
existence when he argues that the law which gets put aside in the coming of
Christ is not just the ceremonial but the moral law too. It is the
pre-Christian who does not see law or sin as a problem, with a conscience that
all too easily acquits her, as with Paul as he described himself in Philippians
3. In this case the sinfulness of Christians is explained as to do not with
deliberate sins, but stirrings and forces or ‘hidden motions’ and the
insistence of indwelling sin not altogether within the control of the believer.
The early verses make it seem quite unfair on the law which is seen to
have died with the coming of Christ. Hemming notes that this seems a violent
end; the metaphor of the paidagogos
in Galatians seems a bit softer.
18. Aretius is quick to show not only how good the law is, and tries to
make a distinction between law (nomos) and commandment (entole)
and reinforces the positive appreciation of the law ( Itaque lex ipsa quidem sancta) with verses such as 1Tim1,8 and Ps19 which tell us how
good the law is. Moreover he is clear that the apostle even removes blame from
himself and perhaps even from humankind itself: ‘for the Apostle removed the
blame from himself and transferred it to Sin which has deceitfully tricked the
human being.’ (nam Apostolus culpam etiam a se removit & in peccatum transtulit, quod
fraudulenter hominem deceperit) , which to a casual reader might seem like
a Manichean interpretation. Sin has almost personal status carried through from
the metaphorical language. ‘Which deceitfully drives its own cause for irritated
by the lawÂ’s prohibitions it began to seethe and deceived me and with its power
killed me: for it did not want to yield to the law but won me over with
flattery.Â’
19. Rollock writes that by ‘sin’ he understands indwelling and original
sin which Paul has earlier in v5 called ‘flesh’ .
‘For the words if carefully weighed mean both
this to be a cause through itself and law to be a cause per accidens. For the verse says that sin took the opportunity. For
the opportunity is taken but not given [a common refrain by now!]. Sin is
called dead when it was; but it has not been dead or rather has exerted its
force afterwards. I was alive. For he
was alive for the same reason, which is because sin is said to be dead that is
that sin apart from the law had no power to exert, for without sin exerting its
own powers there was not the death which comes in its wake. Since sin is not
felt and from sin, death; then man seems to be alive, as one without sense and
awareness of sin and death. Sin revived.
Sin is said to revive due to the contrary cause to that just mentioned namely
that it exerts its force when the law comes close. Sold Moreover it should be noticed that the Apostle speaks this way
about himself in as much as he is in part not regenerate. So in this example of
Paul to the extent that he is regenerate (for as regenerate he says these
things about himself) we see that the regenerate is often made the bond-slave
of sin and led away captive by it.
When he speaks of will Paul means the regenerate part which is meant here
by the word that means the whole of the will. Whereas verse 18 speaks of the
unregenerate part. As for what Paul calls ‘the interior part’ this means the
person renewed in the mind: this stands for that holy quality not of the mind
alone but of the whole person and the ‘law of the mind’ is that holy quality to
which by the holy Spirit the mind of a person is renewed.
20. According to Lapide, in this chapter it is crucial to realise that
Christians are not under the law: non
simus sub lege. Chrysostom takes this to be only the ceremonial law: but
thatÂ’s wrong for the Apostle is talking about both the natural law and the
Decalogue. It seems quite common for Catholic exegetes to equate the natural
law with the Mosaic, to the extent that ‘the law’ is universal. So Lapide
affirms right away that Christians can be held by the law without
being under its dominion without any help to fulfil it as was the case
before Christ. The Decalogue forbade concupiscence with a number of its
commands relating to external behaviour. But the 9th and 10th
relate to internal dispositions.
‘The heretics Luther and Calvin go to the other
extreme. ‘For they think that concupiscence is a remnant from original sin,
that is the unordered motions of the sensory appetite which obstruct the reason
and the free assent of the will.Â’
He then quotes Calvin on Exod 20 and Lev 6 before attempting to outgun
his Protestant protagonist with Hebrew. The commandment ‘non concupisces’
is aimed at only deliberate and free consent in illicit things. For chamad does not mean to be
concupiscent or have concupiscence (which is a vice of our nature) but merely
means to reach after and to desire and can be used in connection with good,
even heavenly things. Concupiscence is something quite different and is
signified by other words : proprie
significatur nomine tescuka, et nomine betas. Against Calvin, the commandment is given to
rational creatures with free will; these motions are prior to human reason and
will as they are in animals. Concupiscence is not the act of the person which
has to be a free thing for the person to be held accountable and there has to
be consent of the will for there to be sin.
But we should not be embarrassed about acknowledging this struggle as
part of the experience of a saint like Paul. Here Lapide is as Augustinian as
Luther. For when Augustine became ‘senior & doctior’ (1 Retract 23. Lib 6 contra Iulianum II—with the backing of Hilary,
Gregory Nazianzen and Ambrose [although
this is probably not Ambrose but Ambrosiaster since Ambrose says quite the
opposite]) he proposed a better solution. For the Apostle does not say that he
was or was living as he said in v.9 but that he now says in vv14ff: ‘I am , I
consent I delight’—all in the present tense. In these verses he moves to describe
the present state of grace, which however is one of struggle with
concupiscence. And further he does say that it is the sin not himself that
works all this and makes him seem carnal. Paul did not assent. Concupiscence
may take over the will, yet it is not ‘mine’.
He feels he has Augustine on his side against Calvin: ‘concupiscence’ can means sin, yet not formally and
properly but only in the sense that it is material for sin. Calvin of course
could not see this distinction. On the other side Julian of Eclanum was wrong
to think that lust was natural: no, it is punishment for sin.
Yet Lapide is not willing to cede the mind as so affected, as Calvin
would. For Lapide the interior homo
is the higher part of the soul or the mind consenting to the law of God; the exterior homo is the same mind to the
extent that it lusts after evil things. Calvin thought this battle goes on in
every faculty and that a just man is just as much sinner as righteous: but
since in CalvinÂ’s account he has lost the free will, it follows that
concupiscence dominates the lower part: so a man is divided. This will not do.
The interior homo is the mind as
Cajetan rightly thought, or more accurately the man imbued with grace, charity
and the spirit of God, and so living. Thus there is only one man: ‘unus idemque est homo’, but he can be
called ‘exterior’ by reason of his various states, affections and operations.