[1390] Chrys. gives no hint of any controversy as to the interpretation of the passage vii. 14-25. In modern times the question has been greatly disputed: Whom does the apostle represent by the "I" who is waging such an unsuccessful combat with sin? Passing by the views that he refers to himself personally (Hofmann) and that he refers to the Jewish people under the old dispensation (Grotius, Reiche), two opinions have prevailed among interpreters (1) that he is representing the regenerate man. (For the arguments by which this view is supported see Hodge on Romans in loco). (2) That he is here personating the unregenerate man who, however, has become awakened under the law to a sense of his sinful condition. This view is preferred on the following grounds. (1) The connection of 14-25 with the argument of 7-13, which shows the power of the law to awaken the consciousness of sin and can therefore apply only to the Jew aroused by the law. (2) The relation of the passage to chap. viii. In vii. 25the apostle mounts to the Christian plane and in ch. viii. exults in the liberation from the conflict just described which Christ brings to the soul. (3) Much of the language of vii. 14-25 is inconsistent with the consciousness of a regenerate man and especially with Paul's joyous and triumphant view of the Christian life. (4) The language throughout is appropriate, not, indeed, to the morally indifferent man, but to the unconverted Jew whom the law has awakened to a knowledge of his sin and need, and this is precisely the subject under consideration in the earlier verses of the Chap. So Tholuck, De Wette, Alford, Olshausen, Lange, Meyer, Weiss, Godet). Chrys. rather takes for granted, than states the same view, in saying that it is "a sketch of man as comporting himself in the law and before the law."--G.B.S.
[1391] The words of the Fathers on this subject become more definite after the Pelagian Controversy. St. Aug. contr. Julianum, i. 2, §32. (Ben. t. 10), speak thus of concupiscence, (not in act, but as an inherited habit). "It is not however called sin in the sense of making one guilty, but in that it is caused by the guilt of the first man, and in that it rebels, and strives to draw us into guilt except grace aid us."
[1392] So Field from most mss. Sav. lawful marriage.
[1393] empodismos tais boulesesi. Arist. Rhet. ii.
[1394] This seems to have been Plato's view of free-will. See Tenneman, Plat. Philos. iv. p. 34, oudeis hekon poneros, etc.
[1395] So the mss. Sav. has tes technes, which seems to have been put in to show that it was not the maker, but the user of the instrument, that was meant.
[1396] Ver. and Sav. Marg. entithesi, which makes much the same sense; his conj. and 2 mss. antitithesi, "sets in opposition."
[1397] It is peculiarly interesting to see how vigorously Chrys. combats the idea that the flesh is essentially evil, as if it were a current notion of his time. This view--derived from heathen sources--exerted a powerful influence in the Church from early times and became the fruitful source of ascetic rigors.--G.B.S.
[1398] patheton, which may also mean liable to passions.
[1399] He is speaking of the actual precepts. Men under the Law were encouraged to higher aims, but it was in looking beyond the letter.
[1400] The typical fitness of this permission is illustrated by the case of Sarah and Hagar; the coincidence of typical with moral fitness is in many cases above our understanding.
[1401] So Field from 1 ms.: others "past sins:" Vulg. "our doings."
[1402] It may be right to consider tes zoes as forming part of the attribute of nomos in conformity with the Hebr. idiom; see Lee's Gram. Art. 224, 8.
[1403] "Thee" most mss., and Edd. before Field.
[1404] te triadi panta ta par hemon logizomenos, or "imputing all things (done) by us to the Trinity."
[1405] The Fathers lay great stress upon this phrase of the Apostles. August. contr. Faust. xiv. 5, argues, that this likeness consisted in our Lord's flesh being mortal; death being the penalty of sin: vid. also de Nuptiis et Concupisc. 1. 12. vid. also Basil, Ep. 261, where writing against the Apollinarians, he interprets this text to mean, that whereas Christ had all affections of human nature, which implied the reality of His assumption of it, He had not those which infringe our nature, i.e. which arise from sin. Athanasius, writing against the same heretics, observes, that Christ's sinlessness was like Adam's before the fall (In Apoll. ii. 6): or as St. Cyril observes, greater than before the fall because He has a physical inability to sin, arising from His personality being Divine, vid. Cyr. Alex. in Esai. l. i. Orat. 4, fin. At the same time He took the flesh, not of Adam unfallen, but fallen, such as ours. Vid. Leont. contra Nest. et Eutych. lib. 2 apud Canis. vol. i. p. 568. Gall. xii. 681. Fulgent. Ep. ad. Regin. Tertull. de Carn. Christi. xvi.
[1406] Aristotle defines dikaioma to be to dikaion hotan prachthe; but rather in the sense of correcting wrong than in the more general meaning: Eth. b. v. c. 7, §7. It may mean here what the Law claims of right.
[1407] St. Chr. evidently used a text which read in v. 1 me kata sarka perip., but omitted alla kata Pneuma. Most mss. of the N.T. and all recent critical editions, omit both clauses there: here there is no doubt of either.
[1408] i.e. as exercised in coming to the font. Field proposes to soften the strong expression by reading, "it was by no natural necessity that He put, etc., but by freedom of choice He placed it."
[1409] to chreston for ton Christon Field, with the Catena and the Version of Musculus.
[1410] eleiphen, v. p. 170, n. Sav. eilephen.
[1411] See Ernesti in v. paragoge.
[1412] The Plutus evidently in his mind.
[1413] This was not uncommon in warmer climates, Euseb. ii. 17.
[1414] engelasetai mss., "he will be laughed at" or rather "she (the supposed spectator) will laugh at him." Field reads egelasate with one or two mss., and alters the punctuation; so that the passage will run "exposing, etc., even if his wife be there....or anybody else. Do you laugh heartily? Then let us bring before you," etc.