not have known sin but by the law. The last suits the context better: see ver. 21. On οὐκ ἔγνων without ἄν, see Winer, 383: it is possible, however (Gifford), to render simply, I did not know sin except through the law; and so also with οὐκ ἤδειν. διὰ νόµου: of course he thinks of the Mosaic law, but the absence of the article shows that it is the legal, not the Mosaic, character of it which is in view ; and it is this which enables us to understand the experience in question. τήν τε yap ἐπιθυμίαν κ.τ.λ.: the desire for what is forbidden is the first con- scious form of sin. For the force of τε here see Winer, p. 561. Simcox, Language of the N.T., p. 160. In the very similar construction in 2 Cor. x. 8 Winer suggests an anacoluthon: pos- sibly Paul meant here also to introduce something which would have balanced the re (I should both have been ignorant of lust, unless the law had said, Thou shalt not lust, and ignorant of other forms of sin unless the law had prohibited them). But the one instance, as he works it out, suffices him. It seems impossible to deny the reference to the tenth commandment (Exod. xx. 17) when the words οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις are quoted from ‘the law’; but the special modes of ἐπιθυμία prohibited are of no consequence, and it is beside the mark to argue that Paul’s escape from phari- saism began with the discovery that a feeling, not an outward act only, might be sinful. All he says is that the con- sciousness of sin awoke in him in the shape of a conflict with a prohibitive law, and to illustrate this he quotes the tenth commandment. Its generality made it the most appropriate to quote. Ver. 8. ἀφορμὴν λαβοῦσα means “having received,” not “ having taken” occasion. ἡ ἁμαρτία is sin asa power dwelling in man, of the presence of which he is as yet unaware. Howit “ receives occasion” is not stated; it must be by coming face to face with something which appeals to ἐπιθυμία; but when it has received it, it avails itself of the commandment (viz., the one prohibiting ἐπιθυμία) to work in us ἐπιθυμία of
640 ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ vil, ἐπιθυμίαν" xwpis yap νόµου ἁμαρτία νεκρά" 9. ἐγὼ δὲ ἔζων χωρὶς
d Luke xv. νόµου ποτέ’ ἐλθούσης δὲ τῆς ἐντολῆς, ἡ ἁμαρτία 3 ἀνέξησεν, 10. ἐγὼ * 3% δὲ ἀπέθανον: καὶ εὑρέθη por ἡ ἐντολὴ ἡ εἰς ζωὴν, αὕτη eis θάνατον.
eVer.8& ΙΙ. ἡ γὰρ ἁμαρτία " ἀφορμὴν λαβοῦσα διὰ τῆς ἐντολῆς ἐξηπάτησέ µε, καὶ δι αὐτῆς ἀπέκτεινεν. 12. ὥστε ὁ μὲν νόμος ἅγιος, καὶ ἡ
ἐντολὴ ἁγία καὶ δικαία καὶ ἀγαθή. 13. Τὸ οὖν ἀγαθὸν ἐμοὶ γέγονε !
θάνατος; μὴ γένοιτο: ἀλλὰ ἡ ἁμαρτία, ἵνα hav ἁμαρτία, διὰ τοῦ
τ Cor. xii, ἀγαθοῦ pot κατεργαζοµένη θάνατον, ἵνα γένηται καθ’ ‘ ὑπερβολὴν |
αμα ἁμαρτωλὸς ἡ ἁμαρτία διὰ τῆς ἐντολῆς. 14. Οἴδαμεν yap? ὅτι 6
A, Sa νόμος πνευματικός ἐστιν: ἐγὼ δὲ σαρκικός ὃ εἰμι, πεπραµένος ὑπὸ
1 γεγονε KL; εγενετο NABCD.
2 yap NBCFK; 8 AD (Greek) L. See note? page 604.
3 σαρκικος N°LP; but σαρκινος RABCDF. The two words are constantly con- fused (Alford), but the change may have been made intentionally here with the idea
that an ethical word was wanted.
every sort. It really is the command- ment which it uses, for without law sin is dead. Cf. iv. 15, v. 13: but especially 1 Cor. xv. 56. Apart from the law we have no experience either of its character or of its vitality. 3
Ver. 9. ἐγὼ δὲ ἔζων χωρὶς νόµου ποτέ: this is ideal biography. There is not really a period in life to which one can look back as the happy time when he had no conscience; the lost paradise in the infancy of men or nations only serves as a foil to the moral conflicts and disorder of maturer years, of which we are clearly conscious. ἐλθούσης δὲ τῆς ἐντολῆς κ.τ.λ. In these words, on the other hand, the most intensely real experience is vividly reproduced. When the commandment came, sin ‘‘came to life again”; its dormant energies woke, and ‘‘I died”. ‘‘ There 1s a deep tragic pathos in the brief and simple statement ; it seems to point to some definite period full of painful recollections” (Gifford). To say that “death”? here means the loss of immortality (bodily death without the hope of resurrection), as Lipsius, or that it means only ‘‘ spiritual” death, is to lose touch with the Apostle’s mode of thought. It is an indivisible thing, all doom and despair, too simply felt to be a subject for analysis,