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1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. 7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. 13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
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[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:1
Add to this the fact that the apostle, with regard to widows and the unmarried, advises them to remain permanently in that state, when he says, "But I desire all to persevere in (imitation of) my example: " but touching marrying "in the Lord," he no longer advises, but plainly bids. Therefore in this case especially, if we do not obey, we run a risk, because one may with more impunity neglect an "advice" than an "order; "in that the former springs from counsel, and is proposed to the will (for acceptance or rejection): the other descends from authority, and is bound to necessity. In the former case, to disregard appears liberty, in the latter, contumacy.

Source: To His Wife Book II
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:1
Accordingly, it will be without cause that you will say that God wills not a divorced woman to be joined to another man "while her husband liveth," as if He do will it "when he is dead; " whereas if she is not bound to him when dead, no more is she when living.

Source: On Monogamy
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:1
This is similar to what Paul says later on [in verse 14]: “We know that the law is spiritual.” It was not only Paul who knew that the law was spiritual but these people too, who had been taught by it and who were spiritual themselves.… Before the coming of Christ there were many Jews who grew in spiritual knowledge and saw God’s glory, e.g., Isaiah, of whom John testifies when he says: “Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke of him.”

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:1
In order to strengthen their minds in the divine teaching, Paul uses an example drawn from human law, in order once again to argue for heavenly things on the basis of earthly ones, just as God also is known by the creation of the world.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:1
Since then he had said, we are "dead to sin," he here shows that not sin only, but also the Law, has no dominion over them. But if the Law has none, much less has sin: and to render his language palatable, he uses a human example to make this plain by. And he seems to be stating one point, but he sets down at once two arguments for his proposition. One, that when a husband is dead, the woman is no longer subject to her husband, and there is nothing to prevent her becoming the wife of another man: and the other, that in the present case it is not the husband only that is dead but the wife also. So that one may enjoy liberty in two ways. Now if when the husband is dead, she is freed from his power, when the woman is shown to be dead also, she is much more at liberty. For if the one event frees her from his power, much more does the concurrence of both. As he is about to proceed then to a proof of these points, he starts with an encomium of the hearers, in these words, "Do you not know, brethren, for I speak to them that know the Law," that is, I am saying a thing that is quite agreed upon, and clear, and to men too that know all these things accurately,

"How that the Law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?"

He does not say, husband or wife, but "man," which name is common to either creature; "For he that is dead," he says, "is freed (Gr. justified) from sin." The Law then is given for the living, but to the dead it ceases to be ordained (or to give commands). Do you observe how he sets forth a twofold freedom? Next, after hinting this at the commencement, he carries on what he has to say by way of proof, in the woman's case, in the following way.

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:1
Now Paul begins to point out problems with the law in order to encourage his readers to move over to grace without the fear which belongs to the law.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 1274] Thomas Aquinas on Romans 7:1
After showing that we are set free from sin through the grace of Christ, the Apostle now shows that through the same grace we are freed from slavery to the Law. In regard to this he does two things: first, he states his proposition; secondly, he excludes an objection [v. 7; n. 532]. In regard to the first he does two things: 263 first, he shows that through the grace of Christ we are freed from the slavery of the Law; secondly, that this liberation is useful [v. 4c; n. 529]. In regard to the first he does three things: first, he makes a statement from which he argues to his proposition; secondly, he clarifies it [v. 2; n. 521]; thirdly, he concludes [v. 4; n. 527]. 519. The statement he makes is presented as something known to them. Hence he says: Do you not know, brethren? As if to say: You should not be ignorant of this. The reason they should not be ignorant of it is shown when he says: I am speaking to those who know the law. 520. But since the Romans were Gentiles and ignorant of the Law of Moses, it seems that what is said here does not apply to them. Therefore, some explained this as referring to the natural law, of which the Gentiles were not ignorant, as he said earlier: "When the Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves" (Rom 2:14). Hence it is added: that the law is binding on a person, i.e., the natural law, as long as it lives, i.e., the law in man. And it lives as long as natural reason functions efficaciously in a person; but it dies, as long as natural reason succumbs to the passions: "They have broken the everlasting covenant" (Is 24:5), i.e., of the natural law. 264 But this interpretation does not seem to agree with the intention of the Apostle who always has in mind the Law of Moses, when he speaks of the Law with no modifying qualifications. Therefore, it is better to say that the Roman believers were not only Gentiles; there were many Jews among them. Hence it says in Acts 18 that Paul found at Corinth a certain Jew named Aquila, who bad recently arrived from Italy, and Priscilla his wife, because Claudius had expelled all the Jews from Rome. Therefore, the Law is binding on a person as long as he lives. For the Law was given to direct man in the way of this life, as it says in Ps 25 (v.12): "He will instruct him in the way that he should choose." Therefore, the obligation of the Law is dissolved by death. 521. Then (v.2) he clarifies what he had said with an example from the law of marriage: first, he gives the example; secondly, he clarifies it by a sign [v. 3; n. 525]. 522. In regard to the first he does two things [n. 523]. First, in the example he states how the obligation endures during life, saying: Thus a married woman is by divine law bound to her husband as long as he lives: "Your husband shall rule over you" (Gen 3:16); "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder" (Mt 19:6). And this indissolubility of marriage is especially considered, inasmuch as it is the sacrament of the indissoluble union of Christ and the Church, or of the Word and human 265 nature in the person of Christ: "This is a great mystery, and I take it to mean Christ and the Church" (Eph 5:32). 523. Secondly, he shows in the example how the obligation of the law is dissolved by death, saying: But if her husband dies, the woman, after the death of the husband, is discharged from the law concerning the husband, i.e., from the law of marriage by which she is obliged to the husband. For since, as Augustine says in his book On Marriage and Concupiscence, marriage is a good of mortal man, its obligation does not extend beyond mortal life. For this reason "in the resurrection," when life will be immortal, "they neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Mt 22:30). From this it is plain that if a person were to die and be restored to life, as Lazarus was, the one who had been his wife is no longer so, unless he marries her again. 524. But against this one might bring what is stated in Heb (11:35): "Women received their dead by resurrection!" But one should realize that the women received not their husbands but their sons, as the woman in 1 Kg 17 through Elijah, and another in 2 Kg 4 through Elisha. The case is different with sacraments which imprint a character, which is a consecration of an immortal soul. Now every consecration endures as long as the consecrated thing lasts, as is plain in the consecration of a church or altar. Therefore, if a baptized or confirmed or ordained person were to die and rise again, he would not have to repeat these sacraments. 525. Then (v. 3) he clarifies what he had said by a sign. 266 And first, in regard to the obligation of marriage, which continues for the wife as long as the husband is alive. The sign of this is that she will be called an adulteress, if she lives with another man, i.e., as wife and husband, while her husband is alive: "If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man’s wife, would not she be polluted and contaminated?" (Jer 3:1). Secondly, he adduces a sign of the fact that the obligation of the law of marriage is dissolved by death, saying: But if her husband dies, she is free from that law by which she is bound to the husband, so that she is not an adulteress, if she is carnally united to another man, particularly if she has married him: "If the husband dies," namely, the woman’s, "she is free to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord" (1 Cor 7:39). 526. This shows that second, third or fourth marriages are lawful of themselves, and not only by dispensation as Chrysostom seems to say, when he says that just as Moses permitted a bill of divorce, so the Apostle permitted second marriages. For there is no reason, if the marriage law is dissolved by death, why the survivor may not marry again. It is not because second marriages are illicit that the Apostle says: "A bishop should be married only once" (1 Tim 3:2), but on account of the sacramental sign: for he would not be one of one, as Christ is the spouse of one Church. 527. Then (v. 4) he concludes to his main proposition, saying: Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, i.e., in becoming members of the body of Christ, dying and being buried with him, as stated above; you have died to the law in the sense that the obligation of the Law ceases in you, so that you may belong to another, namely, Christ, in whom through rising with him you have received a new 267 life. Hence you are held obliged not by the law of the former life but by the law of the new life. But this application seems awkward, because in the preceding example the man, died and the woman remarried without obligation of the law. But here the one released from obligation is said to die. However, if we consider it another way, there is a parallel, because since marriage is between two, it makes no difference which one dies. In either case the law is taken away by death. Hence the obligation of the Old Law ceases in virtue of the death by which we die with Christ. 529. Then (v. 4b) he shows the utility of this liberation. In regard to this he does three things: first, he mentions the utility, saying: that we may bear fruit to God. For if we have been made members of Christ and abide in Christ, we can bear fruit, i.e., good works, for the honor of God: "As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine" (Jn 15:4). 530. The second is there at While we were living. He shows that this fruit was impeded when we were under the slavery of the Law, saying: while we were living in the flesh, i.e., subject to the concupiscence of the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members, i.e., moved our members: "What causes wars and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions?" (Jas 4:1). And this to bear fruit for death: "Sin when it is full-grown brings forth death (Jas 1:15). The third is there at But now we are discharged. 268 He shows that this usefulness is acquired by those freed from the slavery of the Law, saying: But we are now discharged by the grace of Christ from the law of death, i.e., from the slavery of the Law of Moses, which is called the law of death, because it killed violators without mercy: "A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy" (Heb 10:28). Or better, it is called the law of death because if offered the occasion for spiritual death, as it says in 2 Cor (3:6): "For the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life." Dead to that which held us captive as slaves under the law: "Before faith came we were confined under the law" (Gal 3:23). We have been freed in such a way that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit, i.e., renewed in the spirit through the grace of Christ: "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you" Ez (36:26); not in the old written code, i.e., not according to the old law. Or not in the old written code of sin which the letter of the law could not remove: "I have grown weak in the midst of all my foes (Ps 6:7).
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:2
If, however, the husband shall have died, she has been freed from (his) law, (so) that she is not an adulteress if made (wife) to another husband." But read the sequel as well in order that this sense, which flatters you, may evade (your grasp).

Source: On Monogamy
[AD 223] Callistus I of Rome on Romans 7:2
Wherefore the apostle says: "The wife is bound by the law so long as her husband liveth; but if he be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband."
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:2
The law of the letter must die so that, free at last, the soul may marry the spirit and receive the marriage of the New Testament.

Source: HOMILIES ON GENESIS 6.3
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:2
This law comes from the gospel, not from Moses or from human justice. For those who learned something from the guidance of nature and those who learned something from the law of Moses have both been made perfect by the gospel of Christ.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:2-3
He keeps continually upon this point, and that with great exactness, since he feels quite sure of the proof grounded on it: and in the husband's place he puts the Law, but in the woman's, all believers. Then he adds the conclusion in such way, that it does not tally with the premiss; for what the context would require would be, "and so, my brethren, the Law does not rule over you, for it is dead." But he does not say so, but only in the premiss hinted it, and in the inference, afterwards, to prevent what he says being distasteful, he brings the woman in as dead by saying,

"Wherefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the Law."

As then the one or the other event gives rise to the same freedom, what is there to prevent his showing favor to the Law without any harm being done to the cause? "For the woman which has an husband is bound by the Law to her husband as long as he lives." What has become now (3 manuscripts then) of those that speak evil of the Law? Let them hear, how even when forced upon it, he does not bereave it of its dignity, but speaks great things of its power; if while it is alive the Jew is bound, and they are to be called adulterers who transgress it, and leave it whiles it is alive. But if they let go of it after it has died, this is not to be wondered at. For in human affairs no one is found fault with for doing this: "but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband." You see how in the example he points out the Law as dead, but in the inference he does not do so. So then if it be while her husband lives, the woman is called an adulteress. See how he dwells upon the accusations of those who transgress the Law, while it is yet living. But since he had put an end to it, he afterwards favors it with perfect security, without doing any harm hereby to the faith. "For if while her husband lives, she be married to another man, she is called an adulteress." Thus it would have been natural to say next, you also, my brethren, now the Law is dead, will not be judged guilty of adultery, if you become married to another husband. Yet he does not use these words, but what? "You have become dead to the Law;" if you have been made dead, you are no longer under the Law. For if, when the husband is dead, the woman is no longer liable to it, much more when herself is dead also she is freed from the former. Do you note the wisdom of Paul, how he points out that the Law itself designs that we should be divorced from it, and married to another? For there is nothing, he means, against your living with another husband, now the former is dead; for how should there be, since when the husband was alive it allowed this to her who had a writing of divorcement? But this he does not set down, as it was rather a charge against the woman; for although this had been granted, still it was not cleared of blame. [Matthew 19:7-8] For in cases where he has gained the victory by requisite and accredited proofs, he does not go into questions beyond the purpose; not being captious. The marvel then is this, that it is the Law itself that acquits us who are divorced from it of any charge, and so the mind of it was that we should become Christ's. For it is dead itself, and we are dead; and the grounds of its power over us are removed in a twofold way. But he is not content with this alone, but also adds the reason of it. For he has not set down death without special purpose, but brings the cross in again, which had wrought these things, and in this way too he puts us under an engagement. For you have not been freed merely, he means, but it was through the Lord's death. For he says,

"You have become dead to the Law by the Body of Christ."

Now it is not on this only he grounds his exhortation, but also on the superiority of this second husband. And so he proceeds: "that you should be married to another, even to Him Who is raised from the dead."

Then to prevent their saying, If we do not choose to live with another husband, what then? For the Law does not indeed make an adulteress of the widow who lives in a second marriage, but for all that it does not force her to live in it. Now that they may not say this, he shows that from benefits already conferred, it is binding on us to choose it: and this he lays down more clearly in other passages, where he says, "You are not your own;" and, "You are bought with a price;" and, "Be not ye the servants of men" [1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 7:23]; and again, "One died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them." [2 Corinthians 5:15] This is then what he here alludes to in the words, "By the Body." And next he exhorts to better hopes, saying, "That we should bring forth fruit unto God." For then, he means, you brought forth fruit unto death, but now unto God.

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:2
By analogy, Paul calls the commandment of the law a “husband” in order to demonstrate that, without the power to punish, the law (being already dead, as it were) cannot stop us (who have already been put to death) from going over completely to Christ, who has risen from the dead. For the law would quite rightly go on living in us if it could find something in us to punish.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:2
Note how this analogy is different from the subject it refers to. Paul says that the husband dies, so that the woman, freed from the law of her husband, can marry whomever she likes. Paul compares the soul to the woman and thinks of the husband as the passions of sin which work in our members to produce the fruits of death, which are the offspring worthy of such a marriage. The law is given not to take away sin nor to deliver us from it but to reveal what sin is before grace comes. The result is that those who are placed under the law are seized by an even stronger desire to sin and sin even more because of the trespass. But in making this triple analogy—the soul as the woman, the passions of sin as the man and the law as the law of the husband—Paul does not conclude that the soul is set free when its sins are put to death in the way that the woman is set free when her husband is dead. Rather, he says that the soul itself dies to sin and is set free from the law in order that it might belong to another husband, who is Christ. The soul has died to sin, but in a sense sin is still alive. Thus it happens that although desires and certain encouragements to sin remain in us, we do not obey or give in to them because we have died to sin and now serve the law of God.

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 36
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:2
The apostle says that as long as a man lives in sin he lives under the law, just as the woman lives under her husband’s law as long as he is alive.

Source: QUESTIONS 66.1
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:3
Did not the law itself contain a foreshadowing of something like this when it commanded that a widow who was childless (for her husband had been impotent) should marry his brother? For the law of the Spirit is the brother of the law of the letter, and the woman will be better able to bear fruit from him.

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:3
For just as a woman is freed by the death of her husband from the law of her husband but not from the law of nature, so also they will be set free by the grace of God from the law by which they were held captive, so that it will be dead for them and they will not be adulterers by being joined to Christianity. For if the law lives in them they are adulterers and have no right to be called Christians, since they will be subject to punishment. Nor will he who is joined to the gospel after the death of the law and later returns to the law be an adulterer to the law but to the gospel. For when the law’s authority ceases, it is said to be dead.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:3
As long as her husband is alive, a woman must live according to his will alone, but once he is dead and she is married to another man, she should no longer live in the manner of her former husband.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Romans 7:4
Vivit enim lex, cum sit spiritalis, et gnostice intelligatur: nos autem "mortui "sumus "legi per corpus Christi, ut gigneremur alteri, qui resurrrexit ex mortuis "qui praedictus fuit a lege, "ut Deo fructificaremus.".
"Et vos ergo mortui estis legi per corpus Christi, ut vos gigneremini alteri, qui surrexit a mortuis."

Source: Clement of Alexandria Stromata Book III
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:4
Whose grace, if not of that God from whom also came the law? Unless it be, forsooth, that the Creator intercalated His law for the mere purpose of producing some employment for the grace of a rival god, an enemy to Himself (I had almost said, a god unknown to Him), "that as sin had" in His own dispensation "reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto (eternal) life by Jesus Christ," His own antagonist! For this (I suppose it was, that) the law of the Creator had "concluded all under sin," and had brought in "all the world as guilty (before God)," and had "stopped every mouth," so that none could glory through it, in order that grace might be maintained to the glory of the Christ, not of the Creator, but of Marcion! I may here anticipate a remark about the substance of Christ, in the prospect of a question which will now turn up. For he says that "we are dead to the law." It may be contended that Christ's body is indeed a body, but not exactly flesh.

Source: Against Marcion Book V
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:4
Now, whatever may be the substance, since he mentions "the body of Christ," whom he immediately after states to have been "raised from the dead," none other body can be understood than that of the flesh, in respect of which the law was called (the law) of death.

Source: Against Marcion Book V
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:4
When we were in the flesh and living according to it, we were unable to serve the newness of the Spirit on account of those sins which the law itself, which was in our members, nourished in order that they might bear fruit to death.… But when Christ died for us and we died to sin along with him, we were set free by him from the law of sin in which we were held, and now we can serve the law of God in newness of Spirit and not in the dead form of the law.

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:4
Since the Savior allowed the devil to crucify his body knowing that this was for us and against him, Paul says that we have been saved by the body of Christ. For to die to the law is to live to God, since the law rules over sinners. Therefore the one whose sins are forgiven dies to the law; this is what it means to be set free from the law. We receive this blessing through the body of Christ, for by giving up his body the Savior conquered death and condemned sin. The devil sinned against him when it killed him even though he was innocent and entirely without sin. For when the devil claims a man for himself because of sin, he is found to be guilty of the thing he accuses him of. Thus it happens that all who believe in Christ are delivered from the law, because sin has been condemned. For sin, which is of the devil, has been conquered by the body of Christ. Now he has no authority over those who belong to Christ, by whom he has been conquered. For because Christ was sinless yet was killed as if he were guilty, he conquered sin by sin—that is to say, he defeated the devil by his own sin. And what he allowed to get into the devil he condemned, thereby destroying the penalty which had been decreed because of the sin of Adam. When he rose again from the dead an image of new life was stamped upon those who believe in him, so that they cannot be bound by the second death. For this reason we have died to the law by the body of Christ. Thus whoever has not died to the law is still guilty, and whoever is guilty cannot escape the second death.… Whoever perseveres in the grace of Christ belongs to God and is worthy of the promised resurrection.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:4
Paul’s conclusion does not tally with his premise, for what the context would require is: “so the law does not rule over you, for it is dead.” Instead of saying this openly, Paul only hints at it by expressing himself the other way round.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:4
Paul was reluctant to tell the Jews that the law was dead, but what he dared not say out loud he leaves to be understood.… A man bears fruit for God when his works of righteousness like fruit break out in blossom, then grow into fruit, and finally become fully ripe, for no fruit is forever in blossom.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 428] Theodore of Mopsuestia on Romans 7:4
The phrase “in order that we” should be read as: “and so we shall”.… For Paul wants to say that once we have been established in this life we shall bear the fruits of righteousness for God, since we have been changed from our behavior under the law.It is most remarkable that Paul says that we have died not through baptism but through the body of Christ. For Adam was the beginning of this life, and Christ is the beginning of the life to come. So, just as in this life we have everything in common with Adam, so also in the next life we shall have everything in common with Christ, beginning with his resurrection. We are said to be a part of the Lord’s body because we share this with him. So just as we have been metaphorically born again by baptism, Paul says that we have become a part of Christ’s body by sharing in the resurrection which is typified by baptism.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:4
In order not to offend the Jews or to give those heretics who reject the Old Testament any encouragement, Paul did not say that the law had come to an end but rather that we have died to the law by the saving grace of baptism.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:5
Although he is in the flesh Paul denies that he is “living in the flesh,” even though he is in the body. In this passage “living in the flesh” means following something which is forbidden by the law. Therefore “living in the flesh” can be understood in many different ways. For every unbeliever is in the flesh, i.e., is carnal. A Christian living under the law is in the flesh. Anyone who puts his trust in men is in the flesh. Anyone who does not properly understand Christ is in the flesh. If a Christian leads an extravagant life he is in the flesh. Nevertheless, in this passage we should understand “being in the flesh” as meaning that before we believed we were under the power of the flesh. For then we lived under the flesh, i.e., following our carnal desires we were subject to wickedness and sin. For the mind of the flesh is not to understand spiritual things, e.g., that a virgin might conceive without intercourse with a man, that a man may be born again of water and the Spirit, and that a soul delivered from the bondage of the flesh may rise again in it. Anyone who doubts these things is in the flesh.It is clear that whoever does not believe acts under sin and is led by his captivity to indulge in wickedness and to bear fruit worthy of the second death. When such a person sins, death makes a profit.
This discussion concerns the Jews and all those who say they are Christians yet still want to live under the law. Its purpose is to teach them that they are carnal so that they will abandon the law. Nevertheless, Paul says that the sins which rule over those who commit them in the flesh are revealed by the law; they are not caused by the law. For the law is the yardstick of sin, not its cause, and it makes sinners guilty.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:5
You see then the gain to be got from the former husband! And he does not say when we were in the Law, so in every passage shrinking from giving a handle to heretics; but "when we were in the flesh," that is, in evil deeds, in a carnal life. What he says then is, not that they were in the flesh before, but now they went about without any bodies; but by saying what he does, he neither says that the Law is the cause of sins, nor yet frees it from odium. For it held the rank of a bitter accuser, by making their sins bare: since that, which enjoins more to him who is not minded to obey at all, makes the offense greater. And this is why he does not say, the "motions of sins" which were produced by the Law, but which "were through the Law" [Romans 2:27], without adding any "produced," but simply "through the Law," that is to say, which through the Law were made apparent, were made known. Next that he might not accuse the flesh either; he does not say which the members wrought, but "which did work (or were wrought) in our members," to show that the origin of the mischief was elsewhere, from the thoughts which wrought in us, not from the members which had them working in them. For the soul ranks as a performer, and the fabric of the flesh as a lyre, sounding as the performer obliges it. So the discordant tune is to be ascribed not to the latter, but to the former sooner than to the latter.

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:5
You see what we had to gain from our former husband! Paul does not say: “when we were in the law,” because that would merely lend a hand to heretics [who wanted to deny the oracles of the Old Testament] but “when we were in the flesh,” that is, when we were living a sinful and carnal life.… In order to not accuse the flesh Paul does not say that our members were at work but that sinful passions were at work in our members. This was to show that the origin of the trouble was not in our members but in the thoughts which made use of them.… The soul ranks as a performer and the flesh as a harp which produces sound according to the performer’s direction. If the tune is discordant, the fault is with the performer, not with the instrument.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:5
When we were still living carnally the passion of lust worked in our eyes, and the other passions worked in the rest of our bodies. It was the law which showed us that these passions were sinful, and the severity of the law killed us.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 428] Theodore of Mopsuestia on Romans 7:5
Holy Scripture sometimes calls our human nature “flesh,” and sometimes it goes beyond this and includes the concept of mortality as well.… In any case, the flesh is never said to inherit or to be capable of inheriting eternal life in the age to come.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:5
“In the flesh” means “under the law.” Paul calls those laws regarding food, drink, leprosy and so on “flesh.” … Paul teaches us that before grace came, while we were still under the law, we suffered ever more serious attacks of sin because, although the law showed us what it was we should be doing, it did not give us any help in doing it.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Romans 7:6
Yet "without the law sin was dead"
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:6
For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sin, which (passions) used to be efficiently caused through the law, (wrought) in our members unto the bearing of fruit to death; but now we have been emancipated from the law, being dead (to that) in which we used to be held, unto the serving of God in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter.

Source: On Monogamy
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:6
Some people have wrongly interpreted “the new life of the Spirit” as if it meant that the Spirit himself was new and did not previously exist or teach the prophets of old. Such people do not realize how greatly they are blaspheming! For the same Spirit is in the law as in the gospel. He dwells eternally with the Father and the Son and is eternal just as they are. It is not that he is new but that he makes believers new when he leads them out of their former sins to a new life and a new obedience to the religion of Christ, turning carnal people into spiritual ones.

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:6
The law is called the “law of death” because it punishes the guilty and puts sinners to death. It is therefore not evil but righteous. For although evil is inflicted on its victims by the law, the law itself is not evil, because it executes wrath justly. Therefore it is not evil to sinners but just. But to good people it is spiritual. For who would doubt that it is spiritual to forbid sin? But because the law could not save men by forgiving sin the law of faith was given, in order to deliver believers from the power of sin and bring those whom the law had held in death back to life. For to them it is a law of death and it works wrath in them because of sin.Although Paul regards the law as inferior to the law of faith, he does not condemn it.… The law of Moses is not called old because it is evil but because it is out of date and has ceased to function.… The old law was written on tablets of stone, but the law of the Spirit is written spiritually on the tables of the heart that it might be eternal, whereas the letter of the old law is consumed with age. There is another way of understanding the law of the Spirit, which is that, where the former law restrained evil deeds, this law which says that we ought not to sin even in our hearts is called “the law of the Spirit,” because it makes the whole person spiritual.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:6
See how he again in this place spares the flesh and the Law. For he does not say that the Law was made of no effect, or that the flesh was made of no effect, but that we were made of no effect (i.e., were delivered). And how were we delivered? Why by the old man, who was held down by sin, being dead and buried. For this is what he sets forth in the words, "being dead to that, wherein we were held." As if he had said, the chain by which we were held down was deadened and broken through, so that that which held down, namely sin, held down no more. But do not fall back or grow listless. For you have been freed with a view to being servants again, though not in the same way, but "in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." Now what does he mean here? For it is necessary to disclose it here, that when we come upon the passage, we may not be perplexed with it. When then Adam sinned (he means), and his body became liable to death and sufferings, it received also many physical losses, and the horse became less active and less obedient. But Christ, when He came, made it more nimble for us through baptism, rousing it with the wing of the Spirit. And for this reason the marks for the race, which they of old time had to run, are not the same as ours. Since then the race was not so easy as it is now. For this reason, He desires them to be clear not from murder only, as He did them of old time, but from anger also; nor is it adultery only that He bids them keep clear of, but even the unchaste look; and to be exempt not from false swearing only, but even from true. [Matthew 5:21-33] And with their friends He orders them to love their enemies also. And in all other duties, He gives us a longer ground to run over, and if we do but obey, threatens us with hell, so showing that the things in question are not matters of free-will offering for the combatants, as celibacy and poverty are, but are binding upon us absolutely to fulfil. For they belong to necessary and urgent requisites, and the man who does not do them is to be punished to the utmost. This is why He said, "Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." [Matthew 5:20] But he that does not see the kingdom, shall certainly fall into hell. For this cause Paul too says, "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are not under the Law, but under grace." And here again, "that you should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." For it is not the letter that condemns, that is the old Law, but the Spirit that helps. And for this reason among the ancients, if any were found practising virginity, it was quite astonishing. But now the thing is scattered over every part of the world. And death in those times some few men did with difficulty despise, but now in villages and cities there are hosts of martyrs without number, consisting not of men only, but even of women. And next having done with this, he again meets an objection which is rising, and as he meets it, gives confirmation to his own object. And so he does not introduce the solution of it as main argument, but by way of opposing this; that by the exigency of meeting it, he may get a plea for saying what he wishes, and make his accusation not so unpalatable. Having then said, "in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter," he proceeds.

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:6
Once again Paul spares the flesh and the law. He does not say that the law was discharged or that sin was discharged but that we were discharged. How did this happen? It happened because the old man, who had been held down by sin, died and was buried.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:6
We have died to the sin for which we were held by the law, and now we serve according to the demands of spiritual grace, not according to the written law.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 428] Theodore of Mopsuestia on Romans 7:6
Now everything has changed, Paul says. We have died to this life and are no longer under any obligation to keep the law. Our life no longer has anything in common with that, because we have been renewed by the power of the Spirit and have become different people. We have crossed over from this present life to life eternal and cannot tolerate any captivity of the flesh.… What is more, we who follow Christ are much better off than those who are governed by the law.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:6
The law is only a written code to those who do not fulfill it in the spirit of charity to which the New Testament belongs.

Source: TO SIMPLICIAN ON VARIOUS QUESTIONS 1.17
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:6
Paul continues in his cautious manner, for he does not say that the law is abolished but rather that we have been set free from it.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 471] Gennadius of Constantinople on Romans 7:6
Paul sets “Spirit” against “letter,” “newness” against “oldness,” and by these names shows us how different the two things are.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Romans 7:7
Sed peccatum non cognovi, nisi per legem. Concupiscent am enim non cognovissem, nisi lex diceret: Non concupisces."
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:7
The apostle refrains from any criticism of the law.… What high praise of the law we get from the fact that by it the latent presence of sin becomes manifest! It was not the law which led me astray but sin.

Source: AGAINST MARCION 5.13
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:7
But, behold, he bears testimony to the law, and excuses it on the ground of sin: "What shall we say, therefore? Is the law sin? God forbid." Fie on you, Marcion.

Source: Against Marcion Book V
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:7
"God forbid!" (See how) the apostle recoils from all impeachment of the law. I, however, have no acquaintance with sin except through the law. But how high an encomium of the law (do we obtain) from this fact, that by it there comes to light the latent presence of sin! It was not the law, therefore, which led me astray, but "sin, taking occasion by the commandment.

Source: Against Marcion Book V
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:7
What Paul is really saying here is this: “Understand what law this is which I am talking about, which if it did not exist, no one would recognize sin.” Was it by the law of Moses that Adam recognized his sin and hid himself from the face of God? Was it by the law of Moses that Cain recognized his sin … or Pharaoh?… This is the law of which we have often spoken, which is written in men’s hearts not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, and which teaches everyone what he should and should not do. This is the law by which a man recognizes his sin. Here Paul says openly that the natural law was unknown to us until we were old enough to know the difference between good and evil and to hear our conscience tell us what it was.It is not that we did not have sin in us before this, but we did not know what it was. But when natural law and reason implanted itself in us as we were growing up, it began to teach us what was good and forbid us to do what was bad. Thus when it said: “You shall not covet,” we learned what we did not previously know, viz., that covetousness is wrong.

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:7
For how should one care for a thing which is neither forbidden nor necessary to him? And for this reason it is said, "I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet."

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:7
Paul shows that the law is not sin but the yardstick of sin. For Paul demonstrated that sins lie dormant in us and that they will not go unpunished by God. When a man finds this out he becomes guilty and thus does not thank the law. For who would be grateful to someone who tells him that he is running the risk of punishment? But he gives thanks to the law of faith, because the man who was made guilty by the law of Moses has been reconciled to God by the law of faith, even though the law of Moses is just and good in itself (because it is good to show that danger is near).…Paul takes on a particular role in order to expound a general principle. For the law forbids covetousness, but because it is a matter of desire it was not previously thought to be sin. For nothing could be easier than to covet something which belongs to a neighbor; it is the law which called it sin. For to men of the world nothing seems more harmless and innocent than desire.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 390] Diodorus of Tarsus on Romans 7:7
It is clear from Romans [2:14] that even without the law the Gentiles knew what was required of them. It must therefore be accepted that they knew, though they did not know everything. For there are things which some Gentiles regard as good and proper while others reject them as bad and unlawful. Therefore the giving of the law was necessary to define for us what should and should not be done, outlining for us and showing us what the behavior of a righteous person is.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:7
Even before this he had been saying, that "the motions of sins, which were by the Law did work in our members" [Romans 7:5]: and, "sin shall have no dominion over you, for you are not under the Law." [Romans 6:14] And that "where no law is, there is no transgression." [Romans 4:15] And, "but the Law came in, that the offense might abound" [Romans 5:20]; and, "the Law works wrath." [Romans 4:15] Now as all these things seem to bring the Law into disrepute, in order to correct the suspicion arising from them, he supposes also an objection, and says, "What then, is the Law sin? God forbid." Before the proof he uses this adjuration to conciliate the hearer, and by way of soothing any who was troubled at it. For so, when he had heard this, and felt assured of the speaker's disposition, he would join with him in investigating the seeming perplexity, and feel no suspicions of him. Wherefore he has put the objection, associating the other with him. Hence, he does not say, What am I to say? But "What shall we say then?" As though a deliberation and a judgment were before them, and a general meeting called together, and the objection came forward not of himself, but in the course of discussion, and from real circumstances of the case. For that the letter kills, he means, no one will deny, or that the Spirit gives life [2 Corinthians 3:6]; this is plain too, and nobody will dispute it. If then these are confessedly truths, what are we to say about the Law? That "it is sin? God forbid." Explain the difficulty then. Do you see how he supposes the opponent to be present, and having assumed the dignity of the teacher, he comes to the explaining of it. Now what is this? Sin, he says, the Law is not. "Nay, I had not known sin, but by the Law." Notice the reach of his wisdom! What the Law is not, he has set down by way of objection, so that by removing this, and thereby doing the Jew a pleasure, he may persuade him to accept the less alternative. And what is this? Why that "I had not known sin, but by the Law. For I had not known lust, except the Law had said, You shall not covet."

Do you observe, how by degrees he shows it to be not an accuser of sin only, but in a measure its producer? Yet not from any fault of its own, but from that of the froward Jews, he proves it was, that this happened. For he has taken good heed to stop the mouths of the Manichees, that accuse the Law; and so after saying, "Nay, I had not known sin, but by the Law;" and, "I had not known lust, except the Law had said, You shall not covet;" he adds, (Romans 7:8)

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:7
Note how Paul gradually shows how the law was not merely an accuser of sin but to some extent its producer as well. This was not from any fault in it but from the disobedience of the Jews … for he has taken care to guard against the attacks of the Manichaeans, who accuse the law of being evil in itself.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:7
From here on Paul speaks as one who accepts the law, i.e., of one who first comes to know God’s commandants while he is still in the habit of breaking them. Paul does not say that without the law he would not have been in the habit of coveting, nor does he say that he would not have done it; rather, he says that he would not have known that coveting was a sin.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 428] Theodore of Mopsuestia on Romans 7:7
We often covet the things of this life, not merely food and drink and sex but fame and fortune as well. We have these desires inside us and would never know there was anything wrong with them unless the law told us so.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:7
In this passage [to v. 25], it seems to me that the apostle is portraying himself as a man set under the law and that he speaks in that role.The law was given not to introduce sin nor to extirpate it but simply to make it known; by the demonstration of sin to give the human soul a sense of its guilt in place of the assurance of its innocence. Sin cannot be overcome without the grace of God, so the law was given to convert the soul by anxiety about its guilt, so that it might be ready to receive grace.… Desire was not implanted in him by the law but was made known to him.

Source: TO SIMPLICIAN ON VARIOUS QUESTIONS 1.1
[AD 444] Cyril of Alexandria on Romans 7:7
Paul did not say that he had no sin apart from the law but rather that he was unaware of it. Therefore the law is not the cause of sin but rather the instrument which points it out, making it clear to those who did not know what it was. It did not do this in order that, once sin was made known, those who committed it should continue in what they were doing.… On the contrary, its intention was to convert people to better things by making their sins known to them.

Source: EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 1274] Thomas Aquinas on Romans 7:7
After showing that through Christ’s grace we are freed from the slavery of the Law [n. 518], and that this liberation is useful, the Apostle now answers an objection which arises from the foregoing, namely, that the Old Law seems not to be good. In regard to this he does two things. First, he solves the objection through which it seems that the Old Law is not good; secondly, he shows that the Law is good, there [v.14; n. 556] at For we know. In regard to the first he does two things. First, he sets out the objection with regard to the Law; secondly, he solves it, there [v.12; n. 551] at Wherefore the Law indeed. 533. First, therefore, he says: I have said that sinful passions existed by means of the Law and that it is a Law of death. What then shall we say follows from such statements? Shall we say that the law is sin? 270 This can be taken in two ways. In one way, that the Law teaches sin, as is said in Jer 10(:3), "The laws of the people are vain," namely because they teach vanity. In another way, that the Law is called sin, because the one who gave the Law sinned by decreeing such a law. These two follow one from the other, because if the Law teaches sin, the lawgiver sins by decreeing the law: "Woe to them that make wicked laws" (Is 10:1). Now it seems that the Law does teach sin, if the sinful passions come through the Law, and if the Law leads to death. 534. Then when he says Let it not be, he solves the aforesaid objection. Concerning this it should be noted that if the Law per se and directly caused sinful passions or death, it would follow that the Law is sin in either of the two ways mentioned; but not if the Law were the occasion of sinful passions and death. In regard to this he does two things. First, he shows what the Law does per se; secondly, what follows from it as from an occasion, there [v. 8; n. 540] at But taking the occasion. 535. Concerning the first he does three things. First, he answers the question, saying: Let it not be, namely that the Law be sin. For it does not teach sin: "The law of the Lord is perfect" (Ps 19:7). Nor has the lawgiver sinned as though decreeing an unjust law: "By me kings reign and lawgivers decree just things" (Pr 8:15). 536. Secondly, there at But I would not have known, he indicates what pertains per se to the Law, namely, to make sin known and not to remove it. 271 And that is what he says: But I would not have known sin except through the law: "Through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom 3:20). This is clear if it is understood of the natural law, because man distinguishes between good and evil through the natural law: "He filled their heart with wisdom and showed them both good and evil" (Sir 17:6). But here the Apostle seems to be speaking of the Old Law, which he signified above when he said the oldness of the letter. One should say therefore that without the Law sin could be known insofar as it has the character of ignobility, i.e., as something contrary to reason, but not inasmuch as it is an offense against God, because through the Laws divinely decreed, man learns that human sins displease God, since he forbids them and commands that they be punished. 537. Thirdly, there at For I would not have known concupiscence, he proves what he had said, saying: For I would not have known concupiscence, if the law had not said: You shall not covet [non concupisces]. In regard to this it should be noted that his statement, I would not have known sin except through the law, could be interpreted as referring to the sinful act which the Law brings to man’s attention, when it forbids it. This, of course, is true in some cases, for it says in Leviticus 18(:23), "A woman shall not lie down with a beast." But that this is not the Apostle’s meaning is clear from what he says here. For no one is unaware of the act of concupiscence, since all experiences it. Therefore, it must be interpreted as saying that, as was stated above, it is only through the Law that sin is recognized as something subject to punishment and an offense against God. He uses concupiscence to prove this, because corrupt concupiscence is common to all sins. Hence a gloss says, with Augustine, "Here the Apostle chose a 272 general sin, i.e., concupiscence." Therefore the law is good, because when it forbids concupiscence, it forbids all evils. 538. It might be supposed that concupiscence is a general sin according as it is taken for the desire for something illicit, which is of the essence of any sin. This is not the way Augustine called concupiscence a general sin, but because the root and cause of every sin is some special concupiscence. Hence a Gloss says that concupiscence is a general sin from which all sins come. For the Apostle quotes a precept from Ex 20(:17), "You shall not covet [non concupisces] your neighbor’s property." This is the concupiscence involved in avarice, about which it says in 1 Tim (6:10): "The love of money is the root of all evils," because "all things obey money (Ecc 10:19). Therefore, the concupiscence about which he is now speaking is a general evil, not with the commonness of a genus or species but with the commonness of causality. Nor is this contrary to what is stated in Sir (l0:15) that "pride is the beginning of all sin." For pride is the beginning of sin on the side of turning away [from God]; but covetousness is the beginning of sins on the side of turning toward a changeable good. 539. But it can be said that the Apostle takes covetousness to clarify his proposition, because he wants to show that without the Law sin was not known, i.e., its aspect as offense against God. This is particularly clear from the fact that the Law forbids covetousness, which is not forbidden by man. For God alone considers man guilty for coveting with the heart, as it says in 1 Sam (16:7): "Man sees those things that appear, but the Lord beholds the heart." But the reason God’s law forbade coveting another’s property, which is taken by stealing, and another’s wife, who is violated by 273 adultery, and not the coveting involved in other sins is that the former sins involve a p1easure in the very coveting, which does not happen in other sins. 540. Then (v.8) he shows what follows from the Law by way of opportunity. First, he states his intention; secondly, he clarifies it [v. 8b; n. 544]. 541. First, therefore, he says that sin, finding opportunity in the commandment of the Law forbidding sin, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. By sin can be understood the devil, because he is the beginning of sin; and according to this he works all kinds of covetousness in man: "He who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning" (1 Jn 3:8). But because the Apostle had not mentioned the devil here, it can be said that each actual sin, as apprehended in thought, works in man a desire for it, as it says in Jas (1:14): "Each one is tempted by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin." 542. But it is better to say that this refers to the sin he described above (c.5) as entering this world through one man, namely, original sin, which before the grace of Christ is in men according to guilt and punishment. But with the coming of grace its liability to punishment passes, although it abides with respect to inclination or habitual covetousness, which works in man every act of covetousness, whether it be the kinds of covetousness involved in various sins (for the covetousness involved in stealing is not the same as that in adultery) or the various degrees of covetousness as found in thought, pleasure, consent and deed. 274 But to work this effect in man sin finds opportunity in the Law. And that is what he says: finding opportunity. Or because with the coming of the precept the aspect of transgression is added, for "where there is no law there is no transgression" (Rom 4:15); or because desire for the forbidden sin increases, for the reasons given above. 543. It should be noted that he does not say that the Law gave the opportunity for sin, but that sin itself found opportunity by reason of the Law. For one who gives an opportunity scandalizes and, as a consequence, sins. This happens when someone commits an unrighteous act by which his neighbor is offended or takes scandal; for example, if someone frequents places of evil even with no evil intention. Hence he says below (14:13): "But decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother." But if someone does a righteous act, for example, if he gives alms, by which someone else is scandalized, he is not giving an opportunity for scandal; hence he neither gives scandal nor sins, but the one scandalized finds the act an opportunity for taking scandal and sins. Thus, therefore, the Law did what is right, because it forbade sin; hence it gave no opportunity for sinning, but man takes opportunity from the Law. For this reason it follows that the Law is not sin, but rather that sin is on the part of man. Consequently, sinful passions, which pertain to the covetousness involved in sin, do not exist in virtue of the Law as though the Law wrought them, but sin causes them, taking occasion from the law. And for the same reason it is called a law of death, not because the Law begets death, but because sin begets death by finding opportunity in the Law. 275 Now in the same sense the words can be arranged another way to say that sin worked all concupiscence through the command of the law, and this by taking occasion from the command; but the first exposition is simpler and better. 544. Then (v.8b) he clarifies what he had said; and this through experience of the effect: first, he mentions the effect; secondly, he repeats the cause [v. 11; n. 550]. In regard to the first he does three things: first, he describes conditions before the Law; secondly, under the Law [v. 9b; n. 547]; thirdly, from a comparison of the two conditions he concludes to the outcome of the Law [v. 10b; n. 549]. 545. First, therefore, he says: But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. This is obvious from the fact that apart from the law sin lay dead, not as though sin did not exist, because through one man sin entered this world before the Law (Rom 5:12), but in the sense that it was dead either with respect to man’s knowledge, which did not know that certain things forbidden by the Law were sins, for example, covetousness; or because it was dead as compared to what it was later. For it did not have as much power to lead men to death as it had later, when it took opportunity from the Law. For that is considered dead whose strength is weakened: "Mortify your members which are on earth" (Col 3:5). This, therefore, was the condition before the Law as far as sin was concerned. 276 546. But the condition so far as man was concerned is indicated when he says: I was once alive apart from the law. This can also be understood in two ways; in one way with respect to the fact that it seemed to man that he was alive, so long as he did not know that sin was that by reason of which he was dead: "You have the name of being alive, but you are dead" (Rev 3:1). Or this is said in comparison to the death which followed by occasion of the Law. For those who sin less are said to be alive in comparison to those who sin more. 547. Then (v. 9b) he describes conditions under the Law. First in regard to sin when he says: But when the commandment came, i.e., after the law was decreed, sin revived. This can be understood in two ways: in one way with respect to the knowledge of man, who began to know that sin existed in him, which he did not know before: "After I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh; I was ashamed and I was confounded" (Jer 31:19). He says, revived, because in paradise man had full knowledge of sin, although he did not have it through experience. Or sin revived as to its power, because after the Law was given, the opportunity was given for the power of sin to increase: "The power of sin is the law" (1 Cor 15:56). 548. Secondly, with respect to man himself; hence he says: and I died. This can also be understood in two ways: in one way as referring to man’s knowledge, so that "I died" means that I knew myself dead. In another way in comparison to the previous state, so that the sense is: I died, i.e., I was more bound to death than before. Hence what was said to Moses and Aaron is somewhat true: "You have killed the Lord’s people" (Num 16:13). 277 549. Then (v.10) he concludes from the comparison between the two states the outcome of the Law, saying that the very commandment which promised life according to the intention of the lawgiver: "I gave them my statutes and showed them my ordinances by whose observance man shall live" (Ez 20:11) proved to be an occasion of death for me, i.e., through sin which existed in man: "His food is turned in his stomach, it is the gall of asps within him" (Jb 20:14). 550. Then (v.11) he repeats the cause as though intending to clarify it by the outcome of the Law, saying: This happened, namely, that the commandment which promised life proved to be death, because sin, finding opportunity in the commandment deceived me through the covetousness it wrought in me. "Beauty hath deceived thee and lust hath perverted thy heart" (Dan 13:56) and by it, namely, the commandment, sin took occasion to kill me: "The written code kills" (2 Cor 3:6). 551. Then (v.12) he reaches the main conclusion, namely, that the Law is not only not sin but furthermore is good, making sin to be known and forbidding it. First he concludes with respect to the whole law, saying: As is clear from the foregoing, the law is holy: "The law of the Lord is without blemish" (Ps 19:7); "We know that the law is good" (2 Tim 1:8). Secondly, with respect to the particular commandments of the Law, saying: and the commandment is holy in regard to the ceremonial precepts by which men are directed in the worship of God: "Be holy because I am holy" (Lev 20:7) and just, in regard to the judicial precepts by which man is ordained to his neighbor in the proper way: "The ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether" (Ps 19:9); and good, in regard to the moral precepts: "The law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and 278 silver pieces" (Ps 119:72). Yet, because all the commandments ordain us to God, he called the whole law holy. 552. Then (v.13b) he raises a question in regard to the effect of the Law. First the question, saying: Did that which is good, namely, in itself, bring death to me, i.e., act as a per se cause of death? For someone could falsely gather this from what he stated above, namely, that the commandment which promised life proved to be death to me. 553. Secondly, he answers negatively, saying: Let it not be. For that which in itself is good and life-giving cannot be the cause of evil and death, because "a good tree cannot bear evil fruit" (Mt 7:18). 554. Thirdly, he shows that what he is now saying is in agreement with what he had said above. For the commandment itself does not bring death; but sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, brings death. And that is what he says: But sin, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, worked death in me through what is good, because the Law is good by the very fact that it brings knowledge of sin. 555. This does not mean that sin worked death through the law, as though there was no death without the Law. For it was stated above that death reigned from Adam to Moses, i.e., before the Law was given. What it means is that sin worked death through the Law, because the damnation of death was increased when the Law came. And this is what he says: that sin might become sinful beyond the previous measure, either because the liability for transgression grew or because the inclination to sin increased with the coming of the Law’s prohibitions. 279 As stated above [n. 541ff.] "sin" here means the devil, or rather the inclination to sin.
[AD 140] Pseudo-Clement on Romans 7:8
So, then, brethren, having received no small occasion to repent, while we have opportunity, let us turn to God who called us, while yet we have One to receive us. For if we renounce these indulgences and conquer the soul by not fulfilling its wicked desires, we shall be partakers of the mercy of Jesus.

Source: Second Epistle To The Corinthians (Pseudo-Clement)
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:8
But how high an encomium of the law (do we obtain) from this fact, that by it there comes to light the latent presence of sin! It was not the law, therefore, which led me astray, but "sin, taking occasion by the commandment." Why then do you, (O Marcion, ) impute to the God of the law what His apostle dares not impute even to the law itself? Nay, he adds a climax: "The law is holy, and its commandment just and good.

Source: Against Marcion Book V
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:8
I do not know why it is, but things which are forbidden are desired all the more. Thus it happened that although the commandment is holy and just and good, since because it forbids evil it must be good, yet in forbidding covetousness it provoked and inflamed it all the more, with the result that something good wrought death in me.

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:8
For when the law was given, the devil had it in his power to work lust in me; "for without the law, sin was dead; "

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:8
By “all kinds of covetousness” Paul means every sin. [In the last verse] he mentioned covetousness according to the law, and now by adding other sins he shows that all covetousness works in man by the impulse of the devil, whom he calls “sin,” so that the law was given to man to promote the opposite. For when the devil saw the help provided by the law for man, whom he was delighted to have snared as much by his own sin as by the sin of Adam, he realized that this was done against him. For when he saw man placed under the law he knew that he would escape from his control, for now man knew how to escape the punishment of hell. For this reason his wrath was kindled against man, in order to turn him away from the law and get him to do what was forbidden, so that he would again offend God and fall back into the devil’s power.“Apart from the law sin lies dead.” This is to be understood in two ways. First, you should realize that the devil is meant when the word sin is used and that it also refers here to sin itself. The devil is said to have died because before the law came he did not conspire to deceive man and was quiet, as if unable to possess him. But, second, “sin was also dead,” because it was thought that it would not be reckoned by God. For that reason it was dead as far as natural man was concerned, as if he could sin without being punished. In fact sin was not absent, as I have already indicated, but this was not realized until it became clear by the giving of the law, i.e., that sin would revive. But how could it revive unless it had previously been alive and after the fall of man was thought to be dead when in fact it was still living? People thought that sin was not being reckoned to them, when in fact it was. Thus something which was alive was assumed to be dead.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 390] Diodorus of Tarsus on Romans 7:8
By “sin,” Paul presumably means the devil. For just as Scripture sometimes calls the Savior “life” and “righteousness” because he is the source of life and righteousness, so it calls the opposing power by what it causes—sometimes “sin,” sometimes “lie,” sometimes “death.”

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:8
Do you see how he has cleared it of all blame? For "sin," he says, "taking occasion by the commandment," it was, and not the Law, that increased the concupiscence, and the reverse of the Law's intent was brought about. This came of weakness, and not of any badness. For when we desire a thing, and then are hindered of it, the flame of the desire is but increased. Now this came not of the Law; for it hindered us (3 manuscripts endeavored) of itself to keep us off from it; but sin, that is, your own listlessness and bad disposition, used what was good for the reverse. But this is no fault in the physician, but in the patient who applies the medicine wrongly. For the reason of the Law being given was, not to inflame concupiscence, but to extinguish it, though the reverse came of it. Yet the blame attaches not to it, but to us. Since if a person had a fever, and wanted to take cold drink when it was not good for him, and one were not to let him take his fill of it, and so increase his lust after this ruinous pleasure, one could not deservedly be found fault with. For the physician's business is simply prohibiting it, but the restraining himself is the patient's. And what if sin did take occasion from it? Surely there are many bad men who by good precepts grow in their own wickedness. For this was the way in which the devil ruined Judas, by plunging him into avarice, and making him steal what belonged to the poor. However it was not the being entrusted with the bag that brought this to pass, but the wickedness of his own spirit. And Eve, by bringing Adam to eat from the tree, threw him out of Paradise. But neither in that case was the tree the cause, even if it was through it that the occasion took place. But if he treats the discussion about the Law with somewhat of vehemence, do not feel surprise. For Paul is making a stand against the present exigency, and suffers not his language to give a handle even to those that suspected otherwise, but takes great pains to make the present statement correct. Do not then sift what he is now going on to say (4 manuscripts "here saying") by itself, but put beside it the purpose by which he is led on to speak of these things, and reckon for the madness of the Jews, and their vigorous spirit of contention, which as he desires earnestly to do away with, he seems to bear violently (πολὺς πνεἵν]) against the Law, not to find fault with it, but to unnerve their vigor. For if it is any reproach to the Law that sin takes occasion by it, this will be found to be the case in the New Testament also. For in the New Testament there are thousands of laws, and about many more ("far more," Field) important matters. And one may see the same come to pass there also, not with regard to covetousness [lust, as Romans 7:7] only, but to all wickedness generally. For He says, "if I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin," [John 15:22] Here then sin finds a footing in this fact, and so the greater punishment. And again when Paul discourses about grace, he says, "Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be counted worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God." [Hebrews 10:29] Has not then the worse punishment its origin from hence, from the greater benefit? And the reason why he says the Greeks were without excuse was, because being honored with the gift of reason, and having gotten a knowledge of the beauty of the creation, and having been placed in a fair way for being led by it to the Creator, they did not so use the wisdom of God, as it was their duty. Do you see that to the wicked in all cases occasions of greater punishment result from good things? But we shall not in this accuse the benefits of God, but rather upon this even admire them the more: but we shall throw the blame on the spirit of those who abuse the blessings to contrary purpose. Let this then be our line with regard to the Law also. But this is easy and feasible — the other is what is a difficulty. How is it that he says "I had not known lust except the Law had said, You shall not covet?" Now if man had not known lust, before he received the Law, what was the reason for the flood, or the burning of Sodom? What does he mean then? He means vehement lust: and this is why he did not say, lust, but "all manner of concupiscence," intimating, in that, its vehemency. And what, it will be said, is the good of the Law, if it adds to the disorder? None; but much mischief even. Yet the charge is not against the Law, but the listlessness of those who received it. For sin wrought it, though by the Law. But this was not the purpose of the Law, nay, the very opposite, Sin then became stronger, he says, and violent. But this again is no charge against the Law but against their obstinacy. "For without the Law sin is dead." That is, was not so ascertainable. For even those before the Law knew that they had sinned, but they came to a more exact knowledge of it after the giving of the Law. And for this reason they were liable to a greater accusation: since it was not the same thing to have nature to accuse them, and besides nature the Law, which told them distinctly every charge.

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:8
Note how Paul clears the law of all blame. It was sin which took advantage of the commandment and not the law, which increased the covetousness and brought about the opposite of what the law intended. This was caused by weakness rather than by wickedness. For when we desire something but are prevented from obtaining it, all that happens is that the flame of our desire is increased. It was not the law’s fault, because the law hindered us and did what it could to keep us away from desire. It was sin, i.e., our own laziness and bad disposition, which used what was good for the opposite. It was not the fault of the physician but rather of the patient who used the medicine wrongly.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 425] Severian of Gabala on Romans 7:8
It is not reasonable to condemn completely someone who has sinned in ignorance. But when the law was given and revealed sin, it gave sin power. This was not a condemnation of the law but a punishment of the contempt shown by those who did not keep it. For if it is true that without the law sin lies dead, it is also true that sin is dead when the law is kept.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 428] Theodore of Mopsuestia on Romans 7:8
Paul says that without the law to define it sin would not be effective. Why? Because it is not the deed by itself which is sin but rather doing something when you know that it is wrong.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:8
Not every sort of lust existed before the prohibition increased it. For since the prohibition increases lust when the Deliverer’s grace is missing, it is clear that not all lust existed beforehand. But when, in the absence of grace, lust was forbidden, it grew so much that it reached its own kind of completeness, to the point that it appeared in opposition to the law and added criminal offense to the transgression. When Paul says: “Apart from the law sin lies dead,” he does not mean that it does not exist but rather that it lies hidden. He makes this clear [in verse 13]. The law is therefore good, but without grace it only reveals sins; it does not take them away.

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 37
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:8
By “sin lies dead,” Paul means that it is “latent” in us.

Source: TO SIMPLICIAN ON VARIOUS QUESTIONS 1.4
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:8
By “sin is dead” the apostle means that it is not “imputed” to us.

Source: QUESTIONS 66.4
[AD 444] Cyril of Alexandria on Romans 7:8
I think that what Paul means here is something like this: Even though the person who sins in ignorance is guilty, there will be a harsher punishment for the one who sins knowingly.

Source: EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:9
Let us see, then, what it is that we have endeavoured to say respecting the apostle. For this saying of his, "I was alive without the law once".
"But I was alive and blameless before the law, having no commandment in accordance with which it was necessary to live; "but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death."

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 379] Basil of Caesarea on Romans 7:9
When the commandment, i.e., the power of the discernment of the good, came, the mind did not prevail over the baser thoughts but permitted its reason to be enslaved by the passions. Then sin revived but the mind died, suffering death because of its transgressions.

Source: EXEGETIC HOMILIES 10.5
[AD 390] Diodorus of Tarsus on Romans 7:9
If sin “revived” it is clear that it must have been alive at some earlier point and then died. When was that? It was when the devil deceived and defeated Adam, who had received the commandment and knew what transgression meant. Cain too knew that he was sinning, having been commanded not to murder his brother. It was after that that there was no commandment and no law, and so sin was knocked out by the ignorance of those who committed it.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 400] Pseudo-Clement on Romans 7:9
For this cause justly does the Scripture say regarding such a generation as this: "My Spirit shall not dwell in men for ever, because they are flesh." "Whosoever, therefore, has not the Spirit of God in him, is none of His:" as it is written, "The Spirit of God departed from Saul, and an evil spirit troubled him, which was sent upon him from God." [1 Samuel 16:14]

Source: Two Epistles on Virginity
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:9
When, pray, was that? Before Moses. See how he sets himself to show that it, both by the things it did, and the things it did not do, weighed down human nature. For when "I was alive without the Law," he means, I was not so much condemned.

"But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died."

This seems indeed to be an accusing of theLaw. But if any one will look closely at it, it will be seen to be even an encomium of it. For it did not give existence to sin that before was not, but only pointed out what had escaped notice. And this is even a praise of the Law, if at least before it they had been sinning without perceiving it. But when this came, if they gained nothing besides from it, at all events this they were distinctly made acquainted with, the fact that they had been sinning. And this is no small point, with a view to getting free from wickedness. Now if they did not get free, this has nothing to do with the Law; which framed everything with a view to this end, but the accusation lies wholly against their spirit, which was perverse beyond all supposition. For what took place was not the natural thing — their being injured by things profitable. And this is why he says "And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death." He does not say, "it was made," or "it brought forth" death, but "was found," so explaining the novel and unusual kind of discrepancy, and making the whole fall upon their own pate. For if, he says, you would know the aim of it, it led to life, and was given with this view. But if death was the issue of this, the fault is with them that received the commandment, and not of this, which was leading them to life. And this is a point on which he has thrown fresh light by what follows.

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:9
This looks like a condemnation of the law, but when you look more closely at it you will find that really it is an encomium in praise of the law. For the law did not give existence to a sin which was not there before; rather, it pointed out what had previously escaped notice. This is why Paul is speaking in praise of the law, since before it came people were sinning without realizing it. If they gained nothing else from the law, at least they became aware that they had been sinning. This is no small point if you want to be delivered from wickedness. If they were not in fact set free, this had nothing to do with the law, which framed everything with that end in view. The accusation lies wholly against their spirit, which was perverse beyond all imagining.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:9
Paul means either that he once imagined that he lived as a righteous and free person or that he was alive, at least for the present life. But when the commandment arrived to put an end to forgetfulness, sin was once again recognized, so that everyone who commits it knows that he is dead. Because sin had lived by natural knowledge and died through forgetfulness, it is said to have come back to life through the law.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:9
Nothing can be said to revive if it had not been previously alive.

Source: TO SIMPLICIAN ON VARIOUS QUESTIONS 1.4
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:9
When he says “I died,” Paul means that he realized that he was already dead, because one who sees through the law what he should do but does not do it sins with transgression.

Source: QUESTIONS 66.5
[AD 444] Cyril of Alexandria on Romans 7:9
We were not righteous before the law came, but given that sin was dead as long as there was no law to condemn it, we lived having the excuse that we did not know what it was that we ought to be doing.

Source: EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:9
Adam had no fear of death before he sinned.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:10
Man died when he realized that he was guilty before God when he had previously thought that he would not be held accountable for the sins which he committed. It is true that the law was given for life, but because it made man guilty, not only for the sins which he committed before the coming of the law but also for those which he committed afterward, the law which was given for life turned out to bring death instead. But as I have said, this was for the sinner, because for those who obeyed, it led to eternal life.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:10
If death was the result, the fault lies with those who received the commandment and not with the law, which was leading them to life.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:10
Paul says that he died because then he transgressed knowingly. The commandment which would have led to life had it been kept in fact led to death, because it was disregarded.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:10
As soon as God gave Adam and Eve the commandment concerning the trees, the devil came to Eve in the form of a serpent and lied to her. When she saw the beauty of the fruit she ate of it, being overcome by desire, and broke the commandment. Both she and Adam were immediately placed under sentence of death, for Adam too ate the fruit along with her.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:11
“Sin” in this verse is to be understood as the devil, who is the author of sin. He found an opportunity through the law to satisfy his cruelty by the murder of man, so that as the law threatened sinners, man by instinct always did what was forbidden. By offending God he incurred the penalty of the law, so that he was condemned by that which had been given to him for his own good. For as the law was given to man without his asking for it, it inflamed desires to man’s disadvantage in order to stain him even more with sinful lusts, and he could not escape its hands.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 398] Didymus the Blind on Romans 7:11
The word sin does not refer to a particular substance but to the manner and life of one who has sinned.… Paul calls nothing sin except the one who is the source and begetter of sin, viz., the devil.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:11
You observe how he everywhere keeps to sin, and entirely clears the Law of accusation. And so he proceeds as follows.

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:11
Notice yet again how Paul blames sin and clears the law of any accusation.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 420] Jerome on Romans 7:11
What does the Apostle mean when he writes to the Romans: "For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me" (Rom 7:11)? Let us examine the whole passage and, with the help of Christ, try to understand its meaning. We do not wish to impose upon you our interpretation, but only to explain briefly what seems to us to be the true sense of the words. So what shall we say? Is the Law sin? Certainly not! Yet, I would not have known sin except through the Law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the Law had said, "You shall not covet." But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But in order for sin to appear sin, it worked death to me through what is good, so that sin by the commandment might become utterly sinful. For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So I find the law, that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! How can medicine not be a cause of death, if it reveals deadly poisons, although evil people abuse them for death, either by killing themselves or lying in wait for their enemies: thus the Law was given, to show the poisons of sins; and to hold back the man who abuses his freedom, who before was thoughtless and stumbled dangerously, with the reins of the law, and to teach him to walk by rules so that we may serve in the newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter, that is, we live by the command which we previously called in the manner of brute animals; Let's eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (1 Cor. 15:32). But if, under the influence of the Law (which teaches us what we ought to do and prohibits what we ought not to do), we are carried away by our fault and incontinence against legal precepts, it seems that the Law causes sin: since while prohibiting desire, it is known to kindle it in a certain manner. The secular opinion among the Greeks is: Whatever is allowed is desired less. Therefore, on the contrary, whatever is not allowed receives the fuel of desire. Hence, Tullius also denies having written about the punishments of the parricides in Athens by Solon, so that he may not seem to prohibit so much as to admonish. Therefore, the law, disregarded by lawbreakers and those trampling on its precepts, seems to be the occasion for offenses: by forbidding what they do not wish to be done, it binds them with the chains of commandments; whereas, prior to sinning without law, they were not held guilty. We have said these things, understanding the Law which was given through Moses. But because it is written in the subsequent writings: the Law of God and the law of the flesh and members, which fights against the Law of our mind and leads us captive in the Law of sin, and that four laws, contending against each other, are known to be written in one place, I consider it not irrelevant if I inquire how many kinds of law are remembered in the Holy Scriptures. It is said that the Law, which was given through Moses, is cursed according to what is written to the Galatians: For all who are of the works of the Law are under a curse. For it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the Law, to perform them" (Gal. 3:10). And again in the same epistle: The Law was established for transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise was made, having been arranged through angels by the hand of a mediator (Galatians 3:19). And again: Therefore the Law was our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith which is in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:24, etc.). Also, the history which does not contain orders, but reports what has been done, is called the Law by the Apostle. "Tell me," he said, "you who want to be under the Law, have you not read the Law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, but the son of the free woman was born by promise (Ibid. 4.22-23). And the Psalms are also called Law: May the word written in their Law be fulfilled: They hated me without reason (Ps. 68.5). Isaiah's prophecy, the Apostle calls the Law: In the Law it is written: "With other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; and they will not even hear me, saith the Lord." (Isai. 21). This is the same passage which I find written in Hebrew in the book of Isaiah; and the Law also is styled the mystical intelligence of the Scriptures: "For we know that the Law is spiritual." (Rom. 7. 14). Besides all this, the Apostle tells us that the natural law is written on our hearts: For when the Gentiles that have not the Law do by nature the things that are of the Law, they are a Law to themselves, who show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them. (Rom. 2. 14 et 15). This law which is written in the heart contains all nations: and there is no human who does not know this law. Therefore, the just judgment of God is upon the human race; "What you do not want to happen to yourself, do not do to others." For who is unaware that murder, adultery, theft, and every form of desire are evil, because he would not want them to be done to himself? For if he were unaware that they were evil, he would not be pained by them being inflicted upon himself. Through this natural law, Cain also knew his sin, saying: "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Adam and Eve also knew their sin, and therefore they hid under the tree of life. Pharaoh before the law was given through Moses, confessed his sins, and said: The Lord is just, but I and my people are wicked. This law is unknown in childhood, ignored in infancy, and sinning without command, one is not held by the law of sin. He curses his father and mother, and beats his parents, and because he has not yet received the law of wisdom, sin is dead within him. But when the command comes, that is, the time when one seeks good and avoids evil, then sin begins to revive, and he dies, guilty of sin. And so it happens, that the time of understanding, in which we know the commandments of God, that we might attain to life, works death in us: if we act more negligently, and occasion seduces and supplants us with wisdom, and leads us to death. Not that understanding is sin (for the Law of Understanding is holy and just and good), but through understanding of sins and virtues, sin is born in me, which before I understood, I did not know it was sin. And thus it has become, that what was given to me for good, is changed through my fault into evil; and that I may use a new word to explain my meaning: sin, which before I had understanding, was without sin, by the transgression of the commandment, becomes more sinful to me. Before, let us ask what this desire is, of which the Law says: Thou shalt not covet. Some think that the command in the Decalogue "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods" (Deut. 5:21) means. But we consider all disturbances of the soul, by which we grieve and rejoice, fear and desire, to be covetousness. And this Apostle, vessel of election, whose body was the temple of the Holy Spirit, and who said, " Do you seek proof of the Christ who speaks in me?" (1 Cor. 13:3)? And in another place: "Christ redeemed us" (Gal. 3:13). And again: "But I now live, not I, but Christ lives in me" (Ibid. 2:20), he speaks not of himself but of Him who wills to do penance after sins, and, under his own person, describes the frailty of the human condition, which perpetuates the wars between two men, who are internal and external, and fighting with each other. The inner man agrees with both written and natural law, that it is good, and holy, and just, and spiritual. The outer [man], I say, is carnal, sold under sin. For I do not know what I am working, and I do not do what I will, but what I hate (Rom. 7. 14). But if the outer [man] does what he does not want, and works what he hates, he shows that the commandment is good, and that he does not do what is evil; but sin dwells in his flesh: this is the vices of the body, and the desire for pleasure, which is implanted in human bodies for descendants and offspring; and if it goes beyond its limits, it turns into sin. Let every person consider and accuse themselves, and manage the incentives to their vices: how often they speak, think, and suffer in the heat of the body what they do not want; I do not want to say that they should do it, lest I seem to accuse holy men, of whom it is written: "This man was true and unblemished, a worshipper of God, shunning every evil work" (Job 1.1). And of Zacharias and Elizabeth: "They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless" (Luke 1.6). And it was commanded to the Apostles: Be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:46). But He never would have commanded it unless He knew man was capable of being perfect. Unless perhaps we should say that departing from all evil means improvement and transition from the errors of childhood and the vices of a licentious age to correction and virtues; and that righteousness, as preached in Zacharias and Elizabeth, is external; and that the concupiscence that is said to dwell in our members now abides within us. But it is not only to boys, but already to those of robust age, that the apostles are commanded to take on the perfection which we ourselves confess to be in perfect age. Nor saying this, do we flatter vices; but we follow the authority of the scriptures, which says no man is without sin, but that God has included all under sin; that He may have mercy on all. (Gal. 3.22): except Him alone, who has not sinned, nor has deceit been found in His mouth. (Isaiah 53). From there, it is also said by Solomon, 'that the tracks of the serpents are not found in the rock.' (Prov. 30) And the Lord further said of himself, "Behold, the ruler of this world is coming, and there is nothing in me that he can use (John 14:30)," that is, of his own work and his own trace. For this reason, we are commanded not to reproach those who turn away from their sins and not to despise the Egyptians for they themselves were once in Egypt, and we built cities out of mud and bricks for the Pharaoh (Deut. 23). And we were taken captive to Babylon because of the law of sin that resided in our bodies. And when it seemed that there was extreme despair, indeed an open confession, that every man was ensnared by the snares of the devil, the Apostle, rather the man under whose person the Apostle speaks, turns to give thanks to the Savior, that he was redeemed by his blood, and that he has shed the filth in baptism, and that he has taken up the new garment of Christ, and having put to death the old man, a new man was born who says: Miserable man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom. 7. 24) I give thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, who has freed me from this body of death. If anyone does not see that the Apostle is speaking about others in his own person, let him explain how Daniel, whom we know to have been just, speaks as if of himself when he pleads for others: We have sinned, we have acted unjustly, we have done wickedly, we have departed and have gone away from thy commandments and thy judgments; and we have not listened to thy servants the prophets, who spoke in thy name to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To thee, O Lord, belongs justice, but to us confusion (Dan. 3:29 et seqq.). Also, what is said in the thirty-first Psalm: I have made known to you my sin, and I have not hidden my iniquity. I said: I will confess my injustice to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my sin. For this let every holy one pray to you in an opportune time (Psalm 31:5) - not David, or a just man, or (to speak plainly) a Prophet, whose words are narrated, but it fits with the sinner. And when the righteous man, under the guise of a penitent, has uttered such utterances, he deserves to hear from God: I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. (Ibid. 8) In the thirty-seventh Psalm also, the title of which is In Remembrance, that we may be taught to be always mindful of our sins, and to repent of them, we read as follows: There is no peace for my bones, because of my sins. "Since my iniquities have risen above my head, like a heavy burden they weigh upon me. My wounds have become corrupt and have festered because of my foolishness. I am troubled and bowed down to the end." (Psalms 38:5-6 in the Vulgate) This whole passage of the Apostle, both in the preceding and in the following, nay, his whole Epistle to the Romans, is wrapped in too many obscurities, and if I wished to discuss everything, it would not be one book for me, but large, and there would be many volumes to be written.

Source: Letter 121, Chapter 8
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:11
Paul means by this that the fruit of a forbidden desire is sweeter. For this reason, sins committed in secret are sweeter, even if this sweetness is deadly.… It deceives us and turns into very great bitterness.

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 39
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:11
Paul means either that pleasure’s persuasion to sin is more powerful when something is forbidden or else that, even if a man did do something in accordance with the law’s requirements, if there is as yet no faith resting in grace, then he endeavors to attribute this to himself and not to God, and he sins all the more because of pride.

Source: QUESTIONS 66.5
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Romans 7:12
"And that he knows that what is just is good, appears by his saying, "So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good".
Quare "lex quid era est sancta, et man datum sanctum, et just urn, et bonum.".
Wherefore the law is productive of the emotion of fear. "So that the law is holy "and in truth "spiritual".
Jesus, accordingly, does not charge him with not having fulfilled all things out of the law, but loves him, and fondly welcomes his obedience in what he had learned; but says that he is not perfect as respects eternal life, in as much as he had not fulfilled what is perfect, and that he is a doer indeed of the law, but idle at the true life. Those things, indeed, are good. Who denies it? For "the commandment is holy"

Source: Clement of Alexandria Stromata Book IV
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Romans 7:12
This is true as far as a sort of training with fear and preparatory discipline goes, leading as it did to the culmination of legislation and finally to grace.

Source: WHO IS THE RICH MAN THAT SHALL BE SAVED? 9
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:12
About that (law) the same David (says) again: "The law of the Lord (is) unblameable converting souls; the statutes of the Lord (are) direct, delighting hearts; the precept of the Lord far-shining, enlightening eyes." Thus, too, the apostle: "And so the law indeed is holy, and the precept holy and most good" -"Thou shalt not commit adultery," of course.

Source: On Modesty
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:12
If the law is found to be good, undoubtedly we shall believe that he who gave it is a good God. If, however, it is just rather than good, we shall think of God as a just lawgiver. But Paul the apostle says in no roundabout terms: “The commandment is holy and just and good.” It is plain from this that Paul has not learned the doctrines of those [Gnostics] who separate the just from the good. Rather, he had been instructed by that God and illuminated by the Spirit of that God, who is holy and good and just at the same time.

Source: ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 2.5.4
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:12
"Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good; "

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:12
Paul commends the law in this way so that no doubts about it might remain.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:12
But, if you be so minded, we will bring before you the language of those who wrest these declarations. For this will make our own statements clearer. For there are some that say, that he is not here saying what he does of the Law of Moses, but some take it of the law of nature; some, of the commandment given in Paradise. Yet surely Paul's object everywhere is to annul this Law, but he has not any question with those. And with much reason; for it was through a fear and a horror of this that the Jews obstinately opposed grace. But it does not appear that he has ever called the commandment in Paradise "Law" at all; no, nor yet any other writer. Now to make this plainer from what he has really said, let us follow out his words, retracing the argument a little. Having then spoken to them about strictness of conversation, he goes on to say, "Do you not know, brethren, how that the Law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? Wherefore you have become dead to the Law." Therefore if these things are said about the natural law, we are found to be without the natural law. And if this be true, we are more senseless than the creatures which are without reason. Yet this is not so, certainly. For with regard to the law in Paradise, there is no need to be contentious, lest we should be taking up a superfluous trouble, by entering the lists against things men have made up their minds upon. In what sense then does he say, "I should not have known sin but by the Law?" He is speaking, not of absolute want of knowledge, but of the more accurate knowledge. For if this were said of the law of nature, how would what follows suit? "For I was alive," he says, "without the Law once." Now neither Adam, nor any body else, can be shown ever to have lived without the law of nature. For as soon as God formed him, He put into him that law of nature, making it to dwell by him as a security to the whole kind (Gr. Nature, see p. 365). And besides this, it does not appear that he has anywhere called the law of nature a commandment. But this he calls as well a commandment, and that "just and holy," as a "spiritual law." But the law of nature was not given to us by the Spirit. For barbarians, as well as Greeks and other men, have this law. Hence it is plain, that it is the Mosaic Law that he is speaking of above, as well as afterwards, and in all the passages. For this cause also he calls it holy, saying, "Wherefore the Law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good." For even though the Jews have been unclean since the Law, and unjust and covetous, this does not destroy the virtue of the Law, even as their unbelief does not make the faith of God of none effect. So from all these things it is plain, that it is of the Law of Moses that he here speaks.

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:12
Some people say that here Paul is not talking about the law of Moses but rather about the law of nature or of the commandment given in paradise. But surely Paul’s aim is to reach beyond the authority of the law of Moses; he has no quarrel with the other two. And rightly so, for it was because the Jews feared the abolition of their law that they so obstinately opposed the working of grace. Moreover, it does not appear that Paul ever called the commandment given in paradise a law, nor has any other writer. Following Paul’s logic, let us pursue the argument a little further. Having spoken to the Romans about proper standards of behavior, Paul goes on to say: “Do you not know, brethren—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during his life? But you are discharged from the law.” … Now if these things had been said about the natural law, we would now be without it. And if that were true, we would be more senseless than the irrational creatures are. But surely this is not so.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:12
Contrary to those who attack the law and those who separate justice from goodness, the law is called a good and holy grace as well as a just grace. God is regularly called “good” in the Old Testament and “just” in the New. This contradicts the Marcionites.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 428] Theodore of Mopsuestia on Romans 7:12
Paul calls the law “holy” because it gives us the principles on which to tell the difference between good and evil, … “just” because after showing us what is good it necessarily points out the punishment for the transgressor, but also “good” because it is the source of good things, showing us what they are and persuading us that they are desirable.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:12
Man needed to be shown the foulness of his malady. Against his wickedness not even a holy and good commandment could avail; by it the wickedness was increased rather than diminished.

Source: THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER 9.6
[AD 444] Cyril of Alexandria on Romans 7:12
The law was holy because it testified that those who kept it were holy, righteous and good and were not guilty of sin in any way whatsoever.

Source: EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:12
The law is what was given to Moses; the commandment, what was given to Adam. What Paul praises so highly the average person condemns. For those who have given themselves over to idleness and run away from the works of righteousness blame God for having given a commandment in the first place. They say that, if God did not know what was going to happen, how can he be God? And if he did know that men would sin but nevertheless gave the commandment, then he is himself the cause of sin. But these people ought to realize that the knowledge of good and evil belongs to all who have the gift of reason. Only those without reason lack the ability to distinguish one from the other. The wolf is vicious, the lion devours, and bears and leopards do the same sort of thing but they have no sense of sin, nor do they have a conscience which is offended by their actions. But men are ashamed even if nobody else sees what they do and are afraid to admit what they have done. For their conscience accuses them. How could this be if they lived without any law? But God gave them a commandment so that they would recognize their own rational nature and fear the lawgiver. Yet they knew that the lawgiver was merciful and that the law was not difficult to keep.The commandment is “holy” because it teaches what is right. It is “just” because it pronounces the correct sentence on those who break it. But it is also “good” because it prepares eternal life for those who keep it.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 471] Gennadius of Constantinople on Romans 7:12
“Law” and “commandment” are synonymous in this case. The commandment is called “holy” because it takes us away from sin and sets us apart from evil; “just” because with its righteousness it honors those who obey it and punishes those who transgress it; “good” because it leads us to the good, and this because of the goodness given by God. The law is not sin just because it shows me what is evil but the opposite.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:13
Why then do you, (O Marcion, ) impute to the God of the law what His apostle dares not impute even to the law itself? Nay, he adds a climax: "The law is holy, and its commandment just and good." Now if he thus reverences the Creator's law, I am at a loss to know how he can destroy the Creator Himself.

Source: Against Marcion Book V
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:13
Because it was given, not for injury, but for safety; for let us not suppose that God makes anything useless or hurtful. What thou? "Was then that which is good made death unto me? "
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:13
Although even before the law came, the devil obtained death for man because of the first sin of Adam, nevertheless, after the law came he found still greater punishments for him in hell, where death followed him. For to have sinned before the coming of the law was a lesser crime than to have sinned after it.The wording here suggests that a limit was imposed on transgressors when they were forbidden to sin.… What the apostle means is that sinning after the law came was much more serious than sinning before it. He means that after the law came the attacks and tricks of Satan grew worse.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 398] Didymus the Blind on Romans 7:13
Here Paul is expounding the person of Adam. For although he had the image of God dwelling in him, he turned away from true life and chose death instead. Moreover, this death was not just the common death of our bodily members but the spiritual death of disobedience as well.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:13
That is, that it might be shown what great evil sin is, namely, a listless will, an inclinableness to the worse side, the actual doing (3 manuscripts om. this clause), and the perverted judgment. For this is the cause of all the evils; but he amplifies it by pointing out the exceeding grace of Christ, and teaching them what an evil He freed the human race from, which, by the medicines used to cure it, had become worse, and was increased by the preventives. Wherefore he goes on to say: "That sin, by the commandment, might become exceeding sinful." Do you see how these things are woven together everywhere? By the very means he uses to accuse sin, he again shows the excellency of the Law. Neither is it a small point which he has gained by showing what an evil sin is, and unfolding the whole of its poison, and bringing it to view. For this is what he shows, by saying, "that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." That is, that it may be made clear what an evil sin is, what a ruinous thing. And this is what was shown by the commandment. Hereby he also shows the preëminence of grace above the Law, the preëminence above, not the conflict with, the Law. For do not look to this fact, that those who received it were the worse for it; but consider the other, that the Law had not only no design of drawing wickedness out to greater lengths, but even seriously aimed at hewing down what already existed. But if it had no strength, give to it indeed a crown for its intention, but adore more highly the power of Christ, which abolished, cut away: and plucked up the very roots an evil so manifold and so hard to be overthrown. But when you hear me speak of sin, do not think of it as a substantial power, but evil doing, as it comes upon men and goes from them continually, and which, before it takes place, has no being, and when it has taken place, vanishes again. This then was why the Law was given. Now no law is ever given to put an end to things natural, but in order to correct a way of acting purposely wicked. And this the lawgivers that are without too are aware of, and all mankind in general. For it is the evils from viciousness alone that they are for setting right, and they do not undertake to extirpate those allotted us along with our nature; since this they cannot do. For things natural remain unalterable (Arist. Eth. b. 2, c. 1), as we have told you frequently in other discourses also.

And so let us leave these contests, and again practise ourselves in exhortation. Or rather, this last part belongs to those contests. For if we cast out wickedness, we should bring virtue in also: and by these means we shall clearly teach that wickedness is no natural evil, and shall be able easily to stop the mouths of them that enquire for the origin of evil, not by means of words only, but of actions also, since we share the same nature with them, but are freed from their wickedness. For let us not be looking at the laboriousness of virtue, but at the possibility of succeeding in it. But if we be in earnest, it will be at once light and palatable to us. But if you tell me of the pleasure of vice, tell out its end too. For it issues in death, even as virtue leads us to life. Or if you think fit let us rather scrutinize them both even before their end; for we shall see that vice has a great deal of pain attached to it, and virtue great pleasure. For what pray is so painful as a bad conscience? Or what more pleasing than a good hope? For there is nothing, assuredly there is nothing, which is used to cut us so deep, and press so hard on us, as the expectation of evil: nothing that so keeps us up, and all but gives us wings, as a good conscience. And this we may get a knowledge of even by what takes place before our eyes. For they that dwell in a prison, and are in expectation of sentence against them, let them have the enjoyment of luxury repeated beyond count, live a more afflicting life than those that go a begging by the by-roads, yet with nothing upon their consciences to trouble them. For the expectation of a dreadful end will not let them perceive those pleasures which they have in their hands. And why do I speak of prisoners? Why, as for those that are living out of prison, and have a good fortune, yet have a bad conscience about them, handicraftsmen that work for their bread, and spend the whole day amid their labor, are in a far better plight than they. And for this reason too we say, How miserable the gladiators are (though seeing them as we do in taverns, drunken, luxurious, gormandizing), and call them the most miserable of men, because the calamity of the end which they must expect is too great to admit of comparison with that pleasure. Now if to them a life of this sort seems to be pleasing, remember what I am continually telling you, that it is no such marvel that a man who lives in vice should not flee from the misery and pain of vice. For see how a thing so detestable as that, yet seems to be delectable to those who practice it. Yet we do not on this account say, how happy they are, for this is just the very reason why we think them pitiable, because they have no notion of the evils they are among. And what would you say of adulterers, who for a little pleasure undergo at once a disgraceful slavery, and a loss of money, and a perpetual fear (Hor. Sat. II. vii. 58-67), and in fact the very life of a Cain, or rather one that is even much worse than his; filled with fears for the present, and trembling for the future, and suspecting alike friend and foe, and those that know about it, and those that know nothing? Neither when they go to sleep are they quit of this struggle, their bad conscience shaping out for them dreams that abound with sundry terrors, and in this way horrifying them. Far otherwise is the chaste man, seeing he passes the present life unshackled and at full liberty. Weigh then against the little pleasure, the sundry fluctuations of these terrors, and with the short labor of continency, the calm of an entire life; and you will find the latter has more of pleasantness than the former. But as for the man that is set upon plundering and laying hands upon other men's goods, tell me if he has not to undergo countless pains in the way of running about, fawning upon slaves, freemen, doorkeepers; alarming and threatening, acting shamelessly, watching, trembling, in agony, suspecting everything. Far otherwise is the man that holds riches in contempt, for he too enjoys pleasure in abundance, and lives with no fear, and in perfect security. And if any one were to go through the other instances of vice, he would find much trouble, and many rocks. But what is of greater importance is, that in the case of virtue the difficulties come first, and the pleasant part afterwards, so the trouble is even thus alleviated. But in the case of vice, the reverse. After the pleasure, the pains and the punishments, so that by these besides the pleasure is done away. For as he who waits for the crown, perceives nothing of present annoyance, so he that has to expect the punishments after the pleasures has no power of gathering in a gladness that is unalloyed, since the fear puts everything in confusion. Or rather if any one were to scrutinize the thing with care, even before the punishment which follows upon these things, he would find that even at the very moment when vice is boldly entered upon, a great deal of pain is felt. And, if you think fit, let us just examine this in the case of those who plunder other men's goods. Or those who in any way get together money, and setting aside the fears, and dangers, and trembling, and agony, and care, and all these things, let us suppose the case of a man, who has got rich without any annoyance, and feels sure about maintaining his present fortune (which he has no means of doing, still for all that let it be assumed for argument's sake). What sort of pleasure then is he to gather in from having so much about him? On the contrary, it is just this very thing that will not let him be glad-hearted. For as long as ever he desires other things besides, he is still upon the rack. Because desire gives pleasure at the time it has come to a stand. If thirsty, for instance, we feel refreshed, when we have drunk as much as we wish; but so long as we keep thirsty, even if we were to have exhausted all the fountains in the world, our torment were but growing greater; even if we were to drink up ten thousand rivers, our state of punishment were more distressing. And thou also, if you were to receive the goods of the whole world, and still to covet, would make your punishment the greater, the more things you had tasted of. Fancy not then, that from having gathered a great sum together you shall have anything of pleasure, but rather by declining to be rich. But if you covet to be rich you will be always under the scourge. For this is a kind of love that does not reach its aim; and the longer journey you have gone, the further off you keep from the end.

Is not this a paradox then, a derangement, a madness in the extreme? Let us then forsake this first of evils, or rather let us not even touch this covetousness at all. Yet, if we have touched it, let us spring away from its first motions (προοιμίων]). For this is the advice the writer of the Proverbs gives us, when he speaks about the harlot: "Spring away," he says, "tarry not, neither go thou near to the door of her house" [Proverbs 5:8]: this same thing I would say to you about the love of money. For if by entering gradually you fall into this ocean of madness, you will not be able to get up out of it with ease, and as if you were in whirlpools, struggle as often as ever you may, it will not be easy for you to get clear; so after falling into this far worse abyss of covetousness, you will destroy your own self, with all that belongs to you. [Acts 8:20] And so my advice is that we be on our watch against the beginning, and avoid little evils, for the great ones are gendered by these. For he who gets into a way of saying at every sin, This matters nothing! will little by little ruin himself entirely. At all events it is this which has introduced vice; which has opened the doors to the robber (5 manuscripts devil), which has thrown down the walls of cities, this saying at each sin, "This matters nothing!" Thus in the case of the body too, the greatest of diseases grow up, when trifling ones are made light of. If Esau had not first been a traitor to his birthright, he would not have become unworthy of the blessings. If he had not rendered himself unworthy of the blessings, he would not have had the desire of going on to fratricide. If Cain had not fallen in love with the first place, but had left that to God, he would not have had the second place. Again, when he had the second place, if he had listened to the advice, he would not have travailed with the murder. Again, if after doing the murder he had come to repentance, when God called him, and had not answered in an irreverent way, he would not have had to suffer the subsequent evils. But if those before the Law did owing to this listlessness come to the very bottom of misery, only consider what is to become of us, who are called to a greater contest, unless we take strict heed unto ourselves, and make speed to quench the sparks of evil deeds before the whole pile is kindled. Take an instance of my meaning. Are you in the habit of false swearing? Do not stop at this only, but away with all swearing, and you will have no further need of trouble. For it is far harder for a man that swears to keep from false swearing, than to abstain from swearing altogether. Are you an insulting and abusive person? A striker too? Lay down as a law for yourself not to be angry or brawl in the least, and with the root the fruit also will be gotten rid of. Are you lustful and dissipated? Make it your rule again not even to look at a woman [Job 31:1], or to go up into the theatre, or to trouble yourself with the beauty of other people whom you see about. For it is far easier not even to look at a woman of good figure, than after looking and taking in the lust, to thrust out the perturbation that comes thereof, the struggle being easier in the preliminaries (προοιμίοις). Or rather we have no need of a struggle at all if we do not throw the gates open to the enemy, or take in the seeds of mischief (κακίας). And this is why Christ chastised the man who looks unchastely upon a woman [Matthew 5:28], that He might free us from greater labor, before the adversary became strong, bidding us cast him out of the house while he may be cast out even with ease. For what need to have superfluous trouble, and to get entangled with the enemies, when without entanglement we may erect the trophy, and before the wrestling seize upon the prize? For it is not so great a trouble not to look upon beautiful women, as it is while looking to restrain one's self. Or rather the first would be no trouble at all, but immense toil and labor comes on after looking. Since then this trouble is less (most manuscripts add, "to the incontinent"), or rather there is no labor at all, nor trouble, but the greater gain, why do we take pains to plunge into an ocean of countless evils? And farther, he who does not look upon a woman, will overcome such lust not only with greater ease, but with a higher purity, as he on the other hand who does look, gets free with more trouble, and not without a kind of stain, that is, if he does get free at all. For he that does not take a view of the beautiful figure, is pure also from the lust that might result. But he who lusts to look, after first laying his reason low, and polluting it in countless ways, has then to cast out the stain that came of the lust, that is, if he do cast it out. This then is why Christ, to prevent our suffering in this way, did not prohibit murder only, but wrath; not adultery only, but an unchaste look even: not perjury only, but all swearing whatsoever. Nor does he make the measure of virtue stop here, but after having given these laws, He proceeds to a still greater degree. For after keeping us far away from murder, and bidding us to be clear of wrath, He bids us be ready even to suffer ill, and not to be prepared to suffer no more than what he who attacks us pleases, but even to go further, and to get the better of his utmost madness by the overflowingness of our own Christian spirit (τἥς οἱκείας φιγοσοφίας). For what He says is not, "If a man smite you on your right cheek, bear it nobly and hold your peace;" but He adds to this the yielding to him the other too. For He says, "Turn to him the other also." [Matthew 5:39] This then is the brilliant victory, to yield him even more than what he wishes, and to go beyond the bounds of his evil desire by the profuseness of one's own patient endurance. For in this way you will put a stop to his madness, and also receive from the second act again the reward of the first, besides putting a stop to wrath against him. See you, how in all cases it is we that have it in our power not to suffer ill, and not they that inflict it? Or rather it is not the not suffering ill alone, but even the having benefits (Sav. conj. παθεἵν εὖ, so 2 manuscripts) done us that we have in our own power. And this is the truest wonder, that we are so far from being injured, if we be right-minded, that we are even benefited, and that too by the very things that we suffer unjustly at the hands of others. Reflect then; has such an one done you an affront? You have the power of making this affront redound to your honor. For if you do an affront in return, you only increase the disgrace. But if you bless him that did you the affront, you will see that all men give you victory, and proclaim your praise. Do you see how by the things wherein we are wronged, we get good done unto us if we be so minded? This one may see happening in the case of money matters, of blows, and the same in everything else. For if we requite them with the opposite, we are but twining a double crown about us, one for the ills we have suffered, as well as one for the good we are doing. Whenever then a person comes and tells you that "such an one has done you an affront, and keeps continually speaking ill of you to everybody," praise the man to those who tell you of him. For thus even if you wish to avenge yourself, you will have the power of inflicting punishment. For those who hear you, be they ever so foolish, will praise you, and hate him as fiercer than any brute beast, because he, without being at all wronged, caused you pain, but you, even when suffering wrong, requited him with the opposite. And so you will have it in your power to prove that all that he said was to no purpose. For he who feels the tooth of slander, gives by his vexation a proof that he is conscious of the truth of what is said. But he who smiles at it, by this very thing acquits himself of all suspicion with those who are present. Consider then how many good things you cull together from the affair. First, you rid yourself of all vexation and trouble. Secondly (rather this should come first), even if you have sins, you put them off, as the Publican did by bearing the Pharisee's accusation meekly. Besides, you will by this practice make your soul heroic (Gr. philosophic), and will enjoy endless praises from all men, and will divest yourself of any suspicion arising from what is said. But even if you are desirous of taking revenge upon the man, this too will follow in full measure, both by God's punishing him for what he has said, and before that punishment by your heroic conduct standing to him in the place of a mortal blow. For there is nothing that cuts those who affront us so much to the heart, as for us who are affronted to smile at the affront. As then from behaving with Christian heroism so many honors will accrue to us, so from being little-minded just the opposite will befall us in everything. For we disgrace ourselves, and also seem to those present to be guilty of the things mentioned, and fill our soul with perturbation, and give our enemy pleasure, and provoke God, and add to our former sins. Taking then all this into consideration, let us flee from the abyss of a little mind (μικροψυχίας), and take refuge in the port of patient endurance (μακροθυμίας), that here we may at once "find rest unto our souls" [Matthew 11:29], as Christ also set forth, and may attain to the good things to come, by the grace and love toward man, etc.

Source: Homily 12 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:13
By the very way he accuses sin, Paul shows how excellent the law is.… It was the commandment which showed us just how evil sin is. At the same time, Paul also shows how grace is so much greater than the law. Grace is not in conflict with the law; it is superior to it.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 12
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:13
The law does not become for me the actual cause of death, but I do when I encounter death by sinning. Sin was revealed through the law, which is itself good, and was also punished by it. Before the law came sin was limited because of ignorance, but when it is committed knowingly these limitations are taken away.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:13
Here Paul elaborates on what he said [in verse 8]. It is not that a good thing (i.e., the law) had become death for him but rather that sin worked death through the law’s goodness, i.e., that it became apparent whereas without the law it had lain hidden. For everyone recognizes that he is dead if he cannot fulfill a precept which he recognizes as just, and because of the criminal offense of the trespass he sins even more than he would have if it had not been forbidden. Before the coming of the law the offense was less, because without the law there is no transgression.

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 40
[AD 444] Cyril of Alexandria on Romans 7:13
Even those who do not know God’s will deserve God’s punishment because they sin, even if it is in ignorance. Nevertheless, they have some excuse, for when the law is explained to them they will probably excuse themselves in front of those who are under the law, on account of their ignorance. But those who have chosen to sin and do so not out of ignorance have committed a crime of madness and have completely rejected God. Such people are said to be “sinful beyond measure.” Someone who sins in ignorance is still sinful, but he is not, nor is he said to be, “sinful beyond measure.”

Source: EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:14
Who can draw a distinction, and say that there are two gods, one just and the other good, when He ought to be believed to be both one and the other, whose commandment is both "just and good? "Then, again, when affirming the law to be "spiritual" he thereby implies that it is prophetic, and that it is figurative.

Source: Against Marcion Book V
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:14
Someone who is carnal and sold under sin does not know that the law is spiritual, so how can Paul say this of himself? In fact, when he says that he is carnal and sold under sin he is playing the part of a teacher of the church by taking on the role of the weak, as he said elsewhere: “I became weak to the weak, so that I might win the weak.”We are taught by the Psalms that it was the custom in Holy Scripture for holy men to take on the role of sinners and for teachers to assume the weaknesses of their pupils: “I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning. For my loins are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am utterly spent and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.”

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:14
"For it was not the law of God that became the cause of my being brought into subjection to corruption, but the devil; that he might be made manifested who, through that which is good, wrought evil; that the inventor of evil might become and be proved the greatest of all sinners. "For we know that the law is spiritual; ".
and therefore it can in no respect be injurious to any one; for spiritual things are far removed from irrational lust and sin. "But I am carnal, sold under sin; "

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:14
Paul is speaking here to those who were under the law. For they would not have submitted to it if they did not know that it was spiritual.… Paul calls man carnal, because he sins.To be sold under sin means to trace one’s origin to Adam, who was the first to sin, and to subject oneself to sin by one’s own transgression.… For Adam sold himself first, and because of this all his descendants are subjected to sin.
The law is firm and just and without fault, but man is weak and bound either by his own or by his inherited fault, so that he cannot obey the law in his own strength.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 390] Diodorus of Tarsus on Romans 7:14
The law is spiritual and makes the person who keeps it spiritual as well. It was given by the Holy Spirit so that those who obeyed it might receive the Spirit and be cleansed by the law’s teaching. Paul was not sold under sin by anyone else but by his own breaking of the law.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:14
"For we know that the Law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin."

After having said that great evils had taken place, and that sin, taking occasion by the commandment, had grown stronger, and the opposite of what the Law mainly aimed at had been the result, and after having thrown the hearer into a great deal of perplexity, he goes on next to give the rationale of these events, after first clearing the Law of any ill suspicion. For lest — upon hearing that it was through the commandment that sin took that occasion, and that it was when it came that sin revived, and through it deceived and killed — any one should suppose the Law to be the source of these evils, he first sets forth its defense with considerable advantage, not clearing it from accusation only, but encircling it also with the utmost praise. And this he lays down, not as granting it for his own part, but as declaring a universal judgment. "For we know," he says, "that the Law is spiritual." As if he had said, This is an allowed thing, and self-evident, that it "is spiritual," so far is it from being the cause of sin, or to blame for the evils that have happened. And observe, that he not only clears it of accusation, but bestows exceeding great praise upon it. For by calling it spiritual, he shows it to be a teacher of virtue and hostile to vice; for this is what being spiritual means, leading off from sin of every kind. And this the Law did do, by frightening, admonishing, chastening, correcting, recommending every kind of virtue. Whence then, was sin produced, if the teacher was so admirable? It was from the listlessness of its disciples. Wherefore he went on to say, "but I am carnal;" giving us a sketch now of man, as comporting himself in the Law, and before the Law. "Sold under sin." Because with death (he means) the throng of passions also came in. For when the body had become mortal, it was henceforth a necessary thing for it to receive concupiscence, and anger, and pain, and all the other passions, which required a great deal of wisdom (φιλοσοφίας]) to prevent their flooding us, and sinking reason in the depth of sin. For in themselves they were not sin, but, when their extravagancy was unbridled, it wrought this effect. Thus (that I may take one of them and examine it as a specimen) desire is not sin: but when it has run into extravagance, being not minded to keep within the laws of marriage, but springing even upon other men's wives; then the thing henceforward becomes adultery, yet not by reason of the desire, but by reason of its exorbitancy. And observe the wisdom of Paul. For after praising the Law, he hastens immediately to the earlier period, that he may show the state of our race, both then and at the time it received the Law, and make it plain how necessary the presence of grace was, a thing he labored on every occasion to prove. For when he says, "sold under sin," he means it not of those who were under the Law only, but of those who had lived before the Law also, and of men from the very first. Next he mentions the way in which they were sold and made over.

Source: Homily 13 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:14
Not only does Paul clear the law of all blame; he bestows very great praise on it as well. For by calling it spiritual he shows that it is a teacher of virtue and hostile to vice, for this is what being spiritual means—taking people away from any kind of sin. This is what the law did by frightening, admonishing, chastening, correcting and recommending every kind of virtue. How then was sin produced, if the teacher was so admirable? It was from the laziness of the pupils. This is why Paul went on to say that he was carnal, giving us here the portrait of a man as he was under and before the coming of the law.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 13
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:14
Paul says he was carnal because, although he accepted the law, he was in the habit of living carnally.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:14
The law can only be fulfilled by spiritual men, and these only the grace of God can produce. For the man who has been made spiritual like the law will easily do what it commands. He will not be under the law but at one with it. He will also be someone who is not ensnared by temporal goods or frightened by temporal evils.

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 41
[AD 444] Cyril of Alexandria on Romans 7:14
The will of the Spirit is one thing, that of the flesh is another. These two wills fight against each other and can never reach agreement. Man is carnal, but the law is spiritual. How then can the law ever become tolerable to those who struggle so hard against the sickness of sin? There is wisdom here, for if a man is carnal he is in some sense captive and reduced to the condition of slavery.

Source: EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:14
Once again, Paul covers the law with praise. For what could be nobler than what he says about it here? He says in effect that the law was written by the Holy Spirit. Moses was given a share in his grace and thus wrote the law.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 1274] Thomas Aquinas on Romans 7:14
After showing that the Law is neither evil nor productive of an evil effect [n. 532], the Apostle now proves that the Law is good. In regard to this he does two things: first, he proves its goodness from the very repugnance to good found in man, a repugnance the Law cannot take away; secondly, he shows what can take away this repugnance [v. 24; n. 589]. In regard to the first he does three things: first, he states his proposition; 280 secondly, he proves it [v. 15; n. 562]; thirdly, he draws the conclusion [v. 21; n. 583]. In regard to the first he does two things: first, he asserts the goodness of the Law; secondly, man’s condition [v. 14b; n. 558]. 557. First, therefore he says: We have stated that the Law is holy. We said this because we, who are wise in divine matters, know that the law, i.e., the old, is spiritual, i.e., in harmony with man’s spirit: "The law of the Lord is stainless Ps 19 (v.7). Or it is spiritual, i.e., given by the Holy Spirit who is called the finger of God: "If by the finger of God I cast out demons" (Lk 11:20). Hence it says in Ex (31:18): "He gave Moses two tables of stone, written with the finger of God." Yet the New Law is not only called spiritual but "the Law of the Spirit" (Rom 8:2), because it is not only given by the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit imprints it on the heart in which he dwells. 558. Then (v. 14b) he indicates man’s condition. This passage can be interpreted in two ways: in one way so that the Apostle is speaking in the person of a man existing in sin. This is the way Augustine explained it. But later in a book against Julian he explained it as though the Apostle is speaking in his own person, i.e., of a man in the state of grace. Let us continue, therefore, by showing how these words and those that follow can be explained under both interpretations, although the second explanation is better. 559. The first statement, therefore, but I am carnal, is so interpreted that the word "I" stands for man’s reason, which is the chief thing in man; hence each man seems to be 281 his own reason or intellect, as a city seems to be the ruler of the city, so that whatever he does the city seems to do. 560. But man is called carnal, because his reason is carnal. It is called carnal in two ways: in one way from the fact that it is submissive to the flesh and consents to things to which the flesh urges it: "For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh?" (1 Cor 3:3). In this way it is understood of man not yet healed by grace. In another way reason is said to be carnal, because it is under attack from the flesh: "The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit" (Gal 5:17). In this way, even the reason of a man in the state of grace is said to be carnal. In both cases it is carnal on account of sin; hence he adds, sold under sin. 561. But it should be noted that the carnality, which implies rebellion of the flesh against the spirit, arises from the sin of the first parent, because this pertains to the inclination to sin derived from that sin. But the carnality which implies submission of reason to the flesh arises not only from original sin but actual, through which a man by obeying the desires of the flesh makes himself a slave of the flesh; hence he adds: sold under sin, namely, of the first parent or of the self. He says, sold, because the sinner sells himself into the slavery of sin as payment for fulfilling his own will: "For your iniquities you were sold" (Is 50:1). 562. Then (v.15) he clarifies what he had stated: first, that the Law is spiritual; secondly, that man is carnal, sold under sin [v. 17; n. 568]. In regard to the first he does two things: first, he presents a proof; 282 secondly, he draws the conclusion [v. 16; n. 567]. The proof is based on man’s infirmity, which he first asserts; secondly, he gives the proof [v. 15b; n. 564]. 563. The proof is based on man’s infirmity, revealed by the fact that he does what he knows should not be done; hence he says: For what I do, I do not understand, i.e., do not know that it should be done. This can be taken in two ways: in one way of a person subject to sin, who understands in general that sin should not be committed, but overcome by the suggestion of the devil or by passion or by the inclination of a perverse habit, he commits it. Therefore, he said to do what he understands is not to be done, acting against conscience, just as "the servant who knew his master’s will but did not act according to his will" (Lk 12:47). In another way it can be understood of one in the state of grace. He does evil not by performing the deed or consenting with the mind, but only by desiring through a passion in the sensitive appetite; and that desire escapes the reason or intellect, because it exists before the intellect’s judgment. When the judgment is made, the desire is impeded. Therefore, it is significant that he does not say: "I understand it is not to be done" but "I do not understand"; namely, because such a desire arises before the intellect has deliberated or has perceived it: "The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh" (Gal 5:17). 564. Then (v.15b) he proves what he had said by division and by effect. 283 First, he distinguishes under the division between "not doing the good" and "doing evil," because even a person who does not do the good is said to commit sin, i.e., the sin of omission. 565. In regard to he omission of the good therefore, he says: For I do not do the good I want [will]. In one way this can be understood of a man in the state of sin; then I do refers to a complete action performed outwardly with the consent of reason, whereas I will refers not to a complete act of will commanding the deed, but to an incomplete willing by which men want the good in general, just as they have a correct judgment about the good in general; yet this judgment is perverted by a bad habit or a perverse passion with the result that the will goes wrong, when it gets down to the particular case, and does not do what it knows in a general way should be done and would want to do. In another way it is understood of a man healed by grace; then, conversely, I will refers to a complete act of willing which lasts through the act of choosing a particular deed, whereas I do refers to an incomplete action which has gone no further than the sense appetite and has not reached the stage of consent. For a man in the state of grace wants to preserve his mind from wicked desires, but he fails to accomplish this good on account of disorderly movements of desire that arise in the sensitive appetite. This is similar to what he says in Gal (5:17): "So that you do not do all that you will." 566. Secondly, in regard to perpetrating evil he says: But the evil I hate, I do. If this is understood of the sinner, I hate means an imperfect hatred in virtue of which every man naturally hates evil; I do means an action completely performed in keeping with 284 reason’s consent. For that general hatred of evil is frustrated in a particular choice by the inclination of a habit or passion. But if it is understood of a person in the state of grace, I do means an incomplete action which has gone no further than existing as a desire in the sensitive appetite; I hate refers to complete hatred, by which one continues hating evil until its final reprobation: "I hate them with a perfect hatred" (Ps 139:22), namely, evil men, inasmuch as they are sinners: "While the laws were very well observed because of the piety of the high priest Onias and his hatred of wickedness" (2 Macc 3:1). 567. Then (v.16) he concludes from the aforementioned condition of man that the Law is good, saying: But if I do what I do not want. No matter which of the aforementioned ways is taken, by the very fact that I hate evil I agree that the law is good in forbidding evil which I naturally do not want. For it is clear that man’s inclination in keeping with reason to will the good and flee evil is in accord with nature or grace; and each is good. Hence, the Law also, which agrees with this inclination by commanding what is good and forbidding what is evil, is good for the same reason: "I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching" (Ps 4:2). 568. Then (v.17) he proves what he had said about man’s condition, namely, that he is carnal and sold under sin. In regard to this he does three things: first, he states his proposition; secondly, he proves it [v. 18; n. 572]; thirdly, he draws the conclusion [v. 20; n. 582]. 285 569. That man is carnal and sold under sin as though somehow a slave of sin, is clear from the fact that he does not act but is led by sin. For a free man acts of himself and is not led by another. Therefore, he says: I have said that I agree with the Law so far as my intellect and will are concerned, but when I act against the Law, it is no longer I that do it, i.e., do what is against the Law, but sin which dwells within me. So it is evident that I am a slave of sin, inasmuch as sin by exercising its dominion over me does it. 570. It is easy to understand this of a man in the state of grace; for the fact that he desires something evil, so far as the sensitive appetite pertaining to the flesh is concerned, does not proceed from the work of reason but from the inclination to sin. But a person is said to do what his reason does, because man is what he is according to reason; hence the movements of concupiscible desire, which are not from reason but from the inclination to sin, the man does not do but the inc1intion to sin, which is here called sin "Whence wars and fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members?" (Jas 4:1). But this cannot properly be understood of a man in sin, because his reason consents to sin; therefore, he commits it. Hence Augustine and a Gloss say: Greatly deceived is the man who consents to the desires of the flesh and decides to do what they desire and then thinks he can say of himself: I am not doing this. 571. However, there is a way, although forced, to understand this even of a sinner. For an action is mainly attributed to the principal agent acting in virtue of its proper characteristic, not to the agent acting in virtue of a characteristic proper to some other thing by which it is moved. But it is clear that man’s reason, considered in the light 286 of what is proper to it, is not inclined to evil, but insofar as it is moved by concupiscible desire. Therefore, the doing of evil, which reason does, inasmuch as it has been overcome by desire, is not attributed principally to reason, which is understood here to be man, but rather to the desire or habit in virtue of which reason is inclined to evil. It should be noted that sin is said to dwell in man, not as though sin were some reality, since it is a privation of good, but to indicate the permanence of this kind of defect in man. 572. Then (v.18) he proves that sin dwelling in man does the evil which man commits: first, he presents the medium proving the proposition; secondly, he explains the medium [v. 18b; n. 577]. 573. First, therefore, he proves that sin dwelling in man does the evil which man commits. This proof is clear when the words are referred to a man in the state of grace, who has been freed from sin by the grace of Christ. Therefore, as to a person in whom Christ’s grace does not dwell, he has not yet been freed from sin. But the grace of Christ does not dwell in the flesh but in the mind; hence it is stated below (8:10) that "if Christ is in us, the body is indeed dead because of sin, but the spirit lives because of righteousness.’’ Therefore, sin, which the desire of the flesh works, still rules in the flesh. For he takes "flesh" here to include the sensitive powers. For the flesh is thus distinguished against the spirit and fights it, inasmuch as the sensitive appetite tends to the contrary of what reason seeks, as it says in Gal (5:17): "The desires of the flesh are against the spirit." 287 574. He says, therefore: We have said that in me, even though healed by grace, sin acts; but this must be understood of me according to the flesh along with the sensitive appetite. For I know through reason and experience that the good, namely, of grace by which I have been reformed, does not dwell in me. But lest this be understood to include reason according to the manner explained above, he adds: that is, in my flesh. For in me, i.e., in my heart, this good does dwell, for it says in Eph (3:17): "That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." 575. This makes it clear that this passage does not favor the Manicheans who want the flesh not to be good according to its nature and, consequently, not a good creature of God, whereas it is written: "Everything created by God is good" (1 Tim 4:4). For the Apostle is not discussing a good of nature but the good of grace, by which we are freed from sin. 576. If this passage referred to man existing under sin, it would be superfluous to add, "that is, in my flesh," because in a sinner the good of grace does not dwell either in regard to the flesh or the mind. A forced interpretation would explain this passage by saying that sin, which is the privation of grace, is somehow derived from the flesh to the mind. 577. Then (v.18b) he clarifies what he had said: first, from man’s capabilities; secondly, from his action which proves his capability [v. 19; n. 581]. 578. Man’s capability is described first in regard to willing, which seems to be in man’s power; hence he says, I can will. For nothing is so much within man’s power as his will. 288 Secondly, he describes man’s capability, or rather his difficulty in achieving an effect, when he says: But I cannot do the good, i.e., I do not find it within my power, as it says in Pr (1:9); "The heart of a man disposes his way, but the Lord directs his steps." 579. This passage of Paul seems to favor the Pelagians who said that the start of a good work is from us, inasmuch as we will the good. And this is what the Apostle seems to say: But I cannot do the good. However, he rejects this interpretation in Phil (2:13): "But God is at work in you both to will and to do." 580. Therefore, the fact that I can will, once I have been healed by grace, is due to the work of divine grace, through which I not only will the good but also do some good, because I resist concupiscence and, led by the Spirit, act against it; but I do not find it within my power to accomplish that good so as to exclude concupiscence entirely. This indicates that the good of grace does not reside in the flesh, because if it did, then just as I have the faculty of willing the good because of grace dwelling in the mind, so I would have the faculty of accomplishing the good in virtue of grace residing in the flesh. 581. But if be referred to man existing under sin, then it could be explained so that to will is taken for an incomplete act of willing, which from the impulse of nature is good in some who sin. Then when he says, I do not do the good I want, he manifests what he had said by citing man’s action, which is a sign and effect of human capability. For man does not have the strength to accomplish good, because he does not do the good he wants but does the evil he does not want. This has been explained earlier [n. 564ff]. 582. Then (v.20) he concludes to what he had previously proposed, saying: Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it but sin which dwells within me. This, too, has been explained earlier. 289 But it should be noted that in virtue of the same medium the Apostle concludes to the two things he had proposed above, namely, the goodness of the law, when he said: "If I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good" (v.16), and the dominion of sin in man, when he says here: "If I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells in me." The first of these conclusions pertains to his statement that the Law is spiritual; the second to the statement: "But I am carnal, sold under sin." But he draws the first conclusion, which is about the goodness of the law, from that medium by reason of "I do not want," because his mind does not want what the law forbids, which shows that the Law is good. But in virtue of the phrase, "I do" he conc1udes that sin, which functions against reason’s will, holds sway over man.
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:15
Paul does not say that the weak man does not know what he is doing but rather that he does not understand why he is doing it.Here Paul shows that even the man who is carnal and sold under sin may try, by the instinct of natural law as it were, to resist evil, but he is overcome by sin and is subdued unwillingly. This often happens, for example, when someone decides not to react to provocation, but in the end his anger gets the better of him and he gives in to it against his will. In other words, he gets angry when he does not want to get angry.… Someone who is not yet spiritual will be defeated in instances like these, even against his own will, because that will is not yet strong or resilient enough to retain control of him even to the point of death in his struggle for truth.

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:15
Wherefore even the sainted Paul says "For what I would, that do I not, but what I would not, that I do; ".
Hence evil, as though besieging me, cleaves to me and dwells in me, justice giving me up to be sold to the Evil One, in consequence of having violated the law. Therefore also the expressions: "That which I do, I allow not "and "what I hate, that do I".
Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me-that is, in my flesh-dwelleth no good thing."

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 325] Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius on Romans 7:15
And hold out his hand to one who is about to follow? But how can one practise what he teaches, unless he is like him whom he teaches? For if he be subject to no passion, a man may thus answer him who is the teacher: It is my wish not to sin, but I am overpowered; for I am clothed with frail and weak flesh: it is this which covets, which is angry, which fears pain and death. And thus I am led on against my will;
[AD 390] Diodorus of Tarsus on Romans 7:15
Paul is not condemning himself here but describing the common lot of mankind, which he sees in himself.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:15
What does the "I know not" mean?— I am ignorant. And when could this ever happen? For nobody ever sinned in ignorance. Do you see, that if we do not receive his words with the proper caution, and keep looking to the object of the Apostle, countless incongruities will follow? For if they sinned through ignorance, then they did not deserve to be punished. As then he said above, "for without the Law sin is dead," not meaning that they did not know they were sinning, but that they knew indeed, but not so distinctly; wherefore they were punished, but not so severely: and again; "I should not have known lust;" not meaning an entire ignorance of it, but referring to the most distinct knowledge of it; and said, that it also "wrought in me all manner of concupiscence," not meaning to say that the commandment made the concupiscence, but that sin through the commandment introduces an intense degree of concupiscence; so here it is not absolute ignorance that he means by saying, "For what I do, I know not;" since how then would he have pleasure in the law of God in his inner man? What then is this, "I know not?" I get dizzy, he means, I feel carried away, I find a violence done to me, I get tripped up without knowing how. Just as we often say, Such an one came and carried me away with him, without my knowing how; when it is not ignorance we mean as an excuse, but to show a sort of deceit, and circumvention, and plot. "For what I would, that I do not: but what I hate, that I do." How then can you be said not to know what you are doing? For if you will the good, and hate the evil, this requires a perfect knowledge. Whence it appears that he says, "that I would not," not as denying free will, or as adducing any constrained necessity. For if it was not willingly, but by compulsion, that we sinned, then the punishments that took place before would not be justifiable. But as in saying "I know not," it was not ignorance he set before us, but what we have said; so in adding the "that I would not," it is no necessity he signifies, but the disapproval he felt of what was done. Since if this was not his meaning in saying, "That which I would not, that I do:" he would else have gone on, "But I do what I am compelled and enforced to." For this is what is opposed to willing and power (ἐ ξουσί& 139·]). But now he does not say this, but in the place of it he has put the word, "that I hate," that you might learn how when he says, "that I would not," he does not deny the power. Now, what does the "that I would not" mean? It means, what I praise not, what I do not approve, what I love not. And in contradistinction to this, he adds what follows; "But what I hate, that I do."

Source: Homily 13 on Romans
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:15
Paul says that he subjected himself to sin of his own accord and then, as if drunk, he did not know what he was doing. Or perhaps he meant that he did not understand that what he accepted against his will was evil.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:15
This may appear to the less discerning to contradict [verse 13]. How can sin be made manifest if it is not understood? But here “I do not understand” means “I do not approve.” For instance, darkness cannot be seen, but it is perceived in contrast to light; in other words, to perceive darkness is not to see it. Likewise sin, because it is not made clear by the light of righteousness, is discerned by not understanding in the way that darkness is perceived by not seeing. “Who understands his own transgressions?

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 43.”
[AD 444] Cyril of Alexandria on Romans 7:15
It appears that this refers to the ignorant Gentiles, whose thoughts Paul is reproducing. For having consigned their destiny and future to their own lusts even to the point of regarding vain idols as having some power over our lives, they deprive man of his glory, which is the ability to live freely, and to have full and complete control over his own will to do whatever he wishes.… It may be that someone who is forced to act against his will cannot be blamed for it, but at the same time no rational person will praise him for his godliness and righteousness either. For why should somebody be praised for doing things against his own will, even if he is forced to do so by a power over which he has no control?

Source: EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:15
We do not sin from necessity or by compulsion; rather we are overcome by desire and do things which in principle we detest.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:16
You see here, that the understanding is not yet perverted, but keeps up its own noble character even during the action. For even if it does pursue vice, still it hates it the while, which would be great commendation, whether of the natural or the written Law. For that the Law is good, is (he says) plain, from the fact of my accusing myself, when I disobey the Law, and hate what has been done. And yet if the Law was to blame for the sin, how comes it that he felt a delight in it, yet hated what it orders to be done? For, "I consent," he says, "unto the Law, that it is good."

Ver 17, 18. "Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing."

On this text, those who find fault with the flesh, and contend it was no part of God's creation, attack us. What are we to say then? Just what we did before, when discusssing the Law: that as there he makes sin answerable for everything so here also. For he does not say, that the flesh works it, but just the contrary, "it is not I that do it, but sin that dwells in me." But if he does say that "there dwells no good thing in it," still this is no charge against the flesh. For the fact that "no good thing dwells in it," does not show that it is evil itself. Now we admit, that the flesh is not so great as the soul, and is inferior to it, yet not contrary, or opposed to it, or evil; but that it is beneath the soul, as a harp beneath a harper, and as a ship under the pilot. And these are not contrary to those who guide and use them, but go with them entirely, yet are not of the same honor with the artist. As then a person who says, that the art resides not in the harp or the ship, but in the pilot or harper, is not finding fault with the instruments, but pointing out the great difference between them and the artist; so Paul in saying, that "in my flesh dwells no good thing," is not finding fault with the body, but pointing out the soul's superiority. For this it is that has the whole duty or pilotage put into its hands, and that of playing. And this Paul here points out, giving the governing power to the soul, and after dividing man into these two things, the soul and the body, he says, that the flesh has less of reason, and is destitute of discretion, and ranks among things to be led, not among things that lead. But the soul has more wisdom, and can see what is to be done and what not, yet is not equal to pulling in the horse as it wishes. And this would be a charge not against the flesh only, but against the soul also, which knows indeed what it ought to do, but still does not carry out in practice what seems best to it. "For to will," he says, "is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not." Here again in the words, "I find not," he does not speak of any ignorance or perplexity, but a kind of thwarting and crafty assault made by sin, which he therefore points more clearly out in the next words.

Source: Homily 13 on Romans
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:16
Paul says that if he does not want to do the particular evil which he does, at least he agrees with the law, which does not desire evil and prohibits it. But it can also be understood thus: if a man sins, he subjects himself to the severity of the law.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:16
The law is defended against every accusation, but we must be careful not to think that these words deny our free will, which is not true. The man being described here is under the law, before the coming of grace. Sin overpowers him when he attempts to live righteously in his own strength, without the help of God’s liberating grace. For by his free will a man is able to believe in the Deliverer and to receive grace. Thus with the deliverance and help of him who gives it, he will not sin and will cease to be under the law. Instead, being at one with the law or in the law, he will fulfill it by the love of God which he could not have done through fear.

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 44
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:16
Paul says that he learned to hate what he does from the law, and therefore he defends the law and says that it was right.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Romans 7:17
Prius enim dixit: "Sed inhabitarts in me peccatum; "propter quod consentaneum erat dicere illud: "Non habitat in came mea bonum."

Source: Clement of Alexandria Stromata Book III
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:17
"For the law," says he, "of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death," -that, surely, which he previously mentioned as dwelling in our members. Our members, therefore, will no longer be subject to the law of death, because they cease to serve that of sin, from both which they have been set free.

Source: On the Resurrection of the Flesh
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:17
The law of nature is introduced as being in agreement with the law of God … For if we assent to the law of God according to our will, the evil which we do is no longer ours; rather, it is sin which is at work within us, i.e., the law and will of the flesh, which makes us captive to the law of sin which is in our members.The kind of person Paul is talking about here is not one in whom Christ does not dwell and who is a stranger to good works but rather someone who has started on the path of wanting to do what is right but has not yet been able to achieve his desires. This kind of weakness exists in those who have accepted the first stages of conversion, but although they want to do everything which is good this desire has not yet prevailed. For instance, someone might decide in himself that it is wrong to get angry and determine not to do it, but since by long custom and daily habit the vice of anger has controlled him, it resists his will and breaks out in the usual way.

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:17
Paul means that he did it willingly before it became a habit. Sin then lived in him as a guest or as one thing inside another … in other words, as an accidental quality, not as a natural one.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 471] Gennadius of Constantinople on Romans 7:17
All this is reminiscent of what was said by the Lord in the Gospels: “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 202] Irenaeus on Romans 7:18
Is the sign of our salvation, since it was the Lord Himself who saved them, because they could not be saved by their own instrumentality; and, therefore, when Paul sets forth human infirmity, he says: "For I know that there dwelleth in my flesh no good thing".
"to will is present with him, but he finds not means to perform"

Source: Against Heresies Book IV
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Romans 7:18
Quod si ii, qui sunt diversae sententiae, repugnantes, existiment Paulum verba sua dirigentem ad versus Creatorem, dixisse ea, quae deinceps sequuntur: "Novi enim, quod non habitat in me, hoc est, in came mea, bonum; "

Source: Clement of Alexandria Stromata Book III
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:18
I Fully confess unto the Lord God that it has been rash enough, if not even impudent, in me to have dared compose a treatise on Patience, for practising which I am all unfit, being a man of no goodness; whereas it were becoming that such as have addressed themselves to the demonstration and commendation of some particular thing, should themselves first be conspicuous in the practice of that thing, and should regulate the constancy of their commonishing by the authority of their personal conduct, for fear their words blush at the deficiency of their deeds.

Source: Of Patience
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:18
"For as ye have tendered your members to servile impurity and iniquity, so too now tender them servants to righteousness unto holiness." For even if he has affirmed that "good dwelleth not in his flesh," yet (he means) according to "the law of the letter," in which he "was: "but according to "the law of the Spirit," to which he annexes us, he frees us from the "infirmity of the flesh.

Source: On Modesty
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:18
Paul does not say that the flesh is evil, as some think, but that what dwells in the flesh is not good, i.e., sin. How does sin dwell in the flesh when it is not a substance but the perversion of what is good? Since the body of the first man was corrupted by sin and became dissolvable, this same corruption of sin remains in the body because of the state of transgression, retaining the strength of the divine judgment given in Adam, which is the sign of the devil, at whose prompting Adam sinned. Because of this sin is said to dwell in the flesh, to which the devil comes as if to his own kingdom. For the flesh is sinful and sin remains in it in order to deceive man by evil temptations, so that man will not do what the law commands.Man can agree that what the law commands is good; he can say that it naturally pleases him and that he wants to do it. But in spite of all that, the power and the strength to carry out his wishes is lacking because he is so oppressed by the power of sin that he cannot go where he wants nor can he make contrary decisions, because another power is in control of him. For man is burdened by his habit of sinning and succumbs to sin more readily than to the law, which he knows teaches what is good. For if he wants to do what is good, habit backed by the enemy prevents him.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:18
Paul is not attacking the flesh when he says this. The fact that nothing good dwells in it does not mean that it is evil.… Paul is not finding fault with the body but pointing out that the soul is superior to it. It is the soul which governs the body and is responsible for sin, not the flesh.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 13
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:18
Paul does not say that his flesh is not good. The will is there but not the action, because carnal habit opposes the will.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:18
It is possible for a good to be performed when there is no yielding to evil lust, but the good is completed or perfected only when evil lust itself no longer exists.

Source: On Continence 3.6
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:18
Paul says that the evil of the flesh is not good but that when this evil has ceased to exist the flesh will still be there, but … then it will not be defective or corrupt.

Source: On Continence 8.19
[AD 455] Prosper of Aquitaine on Romans 7:18
Although Paul has received the knowledge of right willing, he cannot find in himself the power to do what he wills. It is not until he receives a good will as a gift that he finds the power for the virtues which he seeks.

Source: GRACE AND FREE WILL 4.2
[AD 1973] JRR Tolkien on Romans 7:18-19
For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more – remembering my own sins and follies; and realize that men's hearts are not often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words. (Especially in our age, which is one of sneer and cynicism. We are freer from hypocrisy, since it does not 'do' to profess holiness or utter high sentiments; but it is one of inverted hypocrisy like the widely current inverted snobbery: men profess to be worse than they are.).

Source: Letter #250, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, To Michael Tolkien 1963
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:19
Therefore it is in our power to will not to think these things; but not to bring it about that they shall pass away, so as not to come into the mind again; for this does not lie in our power, as I said; which is the meaning of that statement, "The good that I would, I do not; ".
But if any one should venture to oppose this statement, and reply, that the apostle teaches that we hate not only the evil which is in thought, but that we do that which we will not, and we hate it even in the very act of doing it, for he says "The good which I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do; "

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:19
Paul repeats this often in order to make it clear.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 397] Ambrose of Milan on Romans 7:19
Do you think that anyone with a knowledge of sin can avoid it?

Source: PARADISE 12.60
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:19-20
Do you see, how he acquits the essence of the soul, as well as the essence of the flesh, from accusation, and removes it entirely to sinful actions? For if the soul wills not the evil, it is cleared: and if he does not work it himself, the body too is set free, and the whole may be charged upon the evil moral choice. Now the essence of the soul and body and of that choice are not the same, for the two first are God's works, and the other is a motion from ourselves towards whatever we please to direct it. For willing is indeed natural (ἕ μφυτον]), and is from God: but willing on this wise is our own, and from our own mind.

Source: Homily 13 on Romans
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:19
Think of someone who has sworn so much for such a long time that now he does it even when he does not want to.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Romans 7:20
Consequenter subjunxit: "Si autem quod nolo, hoc ego facio, non utique ego id operor, sed quod inhabitat in me peccatum: "quod "repugnans "inquit, "legi "Dei et "mentis meae, captivat me in lege peccati, quae est in membris meis. Miser ego homo, quis me liberabit de corpore morris hujus? "

Source: Clement of Alexandria Stromata Book III
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:20
"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and through sin condemned sin in the flesh " -not the flesh in sin, for the house is not to be condemned with its inhabitant. He said, indeed, that "sin dwelleth in our body." But the condemnation of sin is the acquittal of the flesh, just as its non-condemnation subjugates it to the law of sin and death.

Source: On the Resurrection of the Flesh
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:20
Is the sinner compelled to sin by a power outside himself? Not at all. For it was by his own fault that these evil things began, for whoever binds himself to sin voluntarily is ruled by its law. Sin persuades him first, and when it has conquered him it takes control.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:20
Here Paul clears both the flesh and the soul from responsibility for sin, putting all the blame on the actions themselves. For if the soul does not want to sin it is cleared of guilt, and if it does not perform the action itself the body too is let off the hook. Everything may thus be blamed on the evil moral choice. The essence of the soul and body and that of choice are not the same, for the first two are God’s works and the third is a motion from within ourselves which may go in whatever direction we choose to let it. Of course, willing is natural and God-given, but willing in this way is from us and depends on our own mind.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 13
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:20
What was once an act of will has become so habitual that now it is involuntary.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:21
Paul says that the law of Moses agrees with his will against sin, which dwells in his flesh and forces him to do something other than what he and the law want to do.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:21
What he says is not very clear. What then is it that is said? I praise the law, he says, in my conscience, and I find it pleads on my side so far as I am desirous of doing what is right, and that it invigorates this wish. For as I feel a pleasure in it, so does it yield praise to my decision. Do you see how he shows, that the knowledge of what is good and what is not such is an original and fundamental part of our nature, and that the Law of Moses praises it, and gets praise from it? For above he did not say so much as I get taught by the Law, but "I consent to the Law;" nor further on that I get instructed by it, but "I delight in" it. Now what is "I delight?" It is, I agree with it as right, as it does with me when wishing to do what is good. And so the willing what is good and the not willing what is evil was made a fundamental part of us from the first. But the Law, when it came, was made at once a stronger accuser in what was bad, and a greater praiser in what was good. Do you observe that in every place he bears witness to its having a kind of intensitiveness and additional advantage, yet nothing further? For though it praises and I delight in it, and wish what is good the "evil is" still "present with me," and the agency of it has not been abolished. And thus the Law, with a man who determines upon doing anything good, only acts so far as auxiliary to him, as that it has the same wish as himself. Then since he had stated it indistinctly, as he goes on he gives a yet more distinct interpretation, by showing how the evil is present, how too the Law is a law to such a person only who has a mind to do what is good.

Source: Homily 13 on Romans
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:21
Paul means that he has a law which will help him do good, even though “evil lies close at hand.”

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 444] Cyril of Alexandria on Romans 7:21
If sin inheres in my flesh and corrupts it, it may well be that the law offers help and gives advice, but even so it does not set me free from sin. Yet for those who are bound by the weakness of sin, it is hardly enough to know that they should be doing better; what they need is the strength to do what is right and in accordance with the law.

Source: EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:21
Paul says that “evil lies close at hand” because our body is mortal and passible, and our soul is sluggish and weak.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 1274] Thomas Aquinas on Romans 7:21
After showing that the Law is good because it concords with reason [n. 556], the Apostle now draws two conclusions based on the two things he had posited; 290 the second conclusion is there [v. 23; n. 586] at But I see. In regard to the first he does two things: first, he draws a conclusion from what he had said; secondly, he offers a sign to clarify it [v. 22; n. 585]. 584. Now he had posited two things: the first was that the Law is spiritual, from which he concludes: So I find, namely, by experience, it to be a law consistent with that of Moses, when I will to do the good, i.e., there is agreement between the Law of Moses and my reason, by which I approve the good and detest evil, just as that Law commands the good and forbids evil: "The word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that you mayst do it" (Dt 30:14). And in this way it was necessary that evil, i.e., sin or the inclination of sin, lie at hand, i.e., lie next to my reason, as though dwelling in my flesh: "Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom," i.e., from the flesh (Mic 7:5). 585. Then (v.22) he presents a sign to show that the Law agrees with reason. For no one delights except in that which agrees with him. But man according to his reason delights in the Law of God; therefore, the Law of God agrees with reason. And that is what he says: I delight in the law of God in my inner man, i.e., according to reason or mind, which is called the inner man, not that the soul is fashioned according to man’s figure, as Tertullian supposed, or that it alone is man, as Plato said that man is a soul using a body; but because that which is more important in man is called man, as was explained above [n. 570]. But in man that which is more important, so far as appearance is concerned, is outward, namely, the body so fashioned that it is called the outward man. But so far as 291 the truth is concerned, the more important is within, namely, the mind or reason, which is here called the inner man: "How sweet to my taste are your words" (Ps 119:103). 586. Then (v.23) he presents the other conclusion which corresponds to his previous statement that "I am carnal." The conclusion is this: But I see another law in my members, which is the inclination to sin and can be called a law for two reasons: first, by reason of the effect. For just as the Law induces to do good, so the inclination induces to sin. Secondly, by reason of their cause. 587. But since the inclination to sin is a punishment for sin, it has a twofold cause: one cause is sin, which has taken mastery over the sinner and imposed its law on him, i.e., the inclination to sin, just as a master imposes his law on a vanquished slave. The other cause of the inclination is God, who imposed this punishment on sinful man, i.e., that his lower powers do not obey reason. And in this sense the very disobedience of the lower powers constitutes the inclination to sin and is called a law, inasmuch it was introduced by the law of divine justice, just as the sentence of a just judge has the force of law: "And this has been done from that day forward, and was since made a statute, and an ordinance, and as a law in Israel" (1 Sam 30:25). 588. This law is found in the sensitive appetite as in its source, but it is found spread over all the members which play a role for concupiscent desire in sinning: "Just as you once yielded your members to serve impurity and every iniquity, so now yield your members to serve righteousness" (Rom 6:19). Hence he says "in my members." Now this law has two effects in man: first, it resists reason; hence he says: at war with the law of my mind, i.e., with the Law of Moses, which is called the law of the mind, 292 inasmuch as it agrees with the mind or with the natural law, which is called the law of the mind, because it is present by nature in the mind: "They show that what the law requires is written in their hearts" (Rom 2:15). Concerning this resistance it says in Gal (5:17): "The desires of the flesh are against the spirit." The second effect is that it makes man a slave; hence he says: and making me captive, or leading me captive, according to another text, to the law of sin which is in my members, i.e., in myself, following the Hebrew custom of speech whereby a noun is used in place of a pronoun. But the law of sin makes man captive in two ways: the sinner it makes captive through consent and action; the man in grace through the movement of concupiscent desire. Psalm 126 says of this captivity: "When the Lord led back the captives of Zion." 589. Then (v.24) he deals with liberation from the law of sin and does three things: first, he poses a question; secondly, he answers [v. 25; n. 592]; thirdly, he draws a conclusion [v. 25b; n. 594]. In regard to the first he does two things. 590. First, he declares his misery when he says: Wretched man that I am. This wretchedness is the result of sin which dwells in man: either in the flesh only, as in the just man, or also in the mind, as in the sinner: "Sin makes nations miserable" (Pr 14:34). 591. Secondly he asks: Who will deliver me from this body of death? This question seems to express the desire voiced in Ps 142 (v.7): "Bring my soul out of prison." 293 Yet it should be remembered that in man’s body one can consider the very nature of the body which agrees with the soul. It is not from this that he desires to be separated: "We do not wish to be unclothed, but to be clothed over" (2 Cor 5:4). One can also consider the corruptible body which is a load upon the soul, as it says in Wis (9:15). Hence it is significant that he says: from this body of death. 592. Then (v.25) he responds to the question. For man by his own power cannot be freed from the corruption of the body, nor even of the soul, although he agrees with reason against sin, but only by the grace of Christ, as it says in Jn (8:36): "So if the Son makes you free, you are free indeed." Therefore, he says: the grace of God will free me and it is given through Jesus Christ: "Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (Jn 1:17). 593. This grace liberates from the body of this death in two ways: in one way so that the corruption of the body does not dominate the soul and draw it to sinning; in another way so that the corruption of the body is taken away entirely. In regard to the first, it is fitting for the sinner to say: Grace has freed me from the body of this death, i.e., from sin into which the soul is led by the corruption of the body. But the just man has already been freed to that point; hence, it befits him to say in regard to the second: The grace of God has freed me from the body of this death, so that in my body is neither the corruption of sin nor of death: which will happen at the resurrection. 594. Then (v.25b) he draws the conclusion which follows in different ways from the foregoing words, depending on how they are explained. For if they are explained in the person of a sinner, the conclusion is inferred in the following manner: It has been said that the grace of God has freed me from the body of 294 this death, so that I am not led into sin by it; therefore, when I have been freed, I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin, which law remains in my flesh in regard to the inclination to sin, in virtue of which the desires of the flesh are against the spirit. But if the words are understood as spoken in the person of a just man, the conclusion is inferred in this manner: The grace of God through Jesus Christ has freed me from the body of this death, so that the corruption of sin and death is not in me. So then I, one and the same before being freed, serve the law of God with my mind by consenting to it; but with my flesh I serve the law of sin, inasmuch as my flesh is moved to concupiscent desire according to the law of the flesh.
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:22
And the same is denoted by the words, "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? "

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:22
Paul says that the mind delights in the things which are taught by the law. This is “our inmost self,” because sin does not dwell in the mind but in the flesh.… It is prevented from dwelling in the mind by free will. Therefore sin dwells in the flesh, at the door of the soul as it were, so as to prevent the soul from doing what it wants to do. If it dwelt in the mind it would derange it, so that man would not know himself. As it is, he does know himself and takes delight in the law of God.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 390] Diodorus of Tarsus on Romans 7:22
Here Paul is describing the common lot of man. For the ordinary person can see in his mind what ought to be done but cannot achieve it. But the man who has believed in Christ with his mind can achieve it with the help of the Holy Spirit. Such a person is therefore called “spiritual.”

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:22
He means, for I knew even before this what was good, but when I find it set down in writing, I praise it.

Source: Homily 13 on Romans
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:22
Paul’s “inmost self” is the rational and intelligent soul which agrees with the law of God, for its law is to live rationally and not to be led about by the passions of irrational animals.The outer self, on the other hand, is the body. Its law is the wisdom of the flesh, which instructs one to eat and drink and enjoy the other sensual pleasures. These war against reason, and if they gain the upper hand, subject it to the law of sin. For if it is true that we do what we do not want to do, Paul would not have said that he sees another law in his members, fighting against the law of his mind. He agrees to the law with his mind.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:22
See wherein we are free, wherein we are delighted with the law of God. Freedom delights. For as long as you do what is just out of fear, God does not delight you. As long as you do it still a slave, he does not delight you. Let him delight you and you are free.

Source: TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 41.10.3
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:22
The “inmost self” is the mind.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:23
For he in a previous verse ascribed sin to the flesh, and made it out to be "the law of sin dwelling in his members," and "warring against the law of the mind." On this account, therefore, (does he mean to say that) the Son was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, that He might redeem this sinful flesh by a like substance, even a fleshly one, which bare a resemblance to sinful flesh, although it was itself free from sin.

Source: Against Marcion Book V
[AD 220] Tertullian on Romans 7:23
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin "-here is the corruption; "and the strength of sin is the law" -that other law, no doubt, which he has described "in his members as warring against the law of his mind," -meaning, of course, the actual power of sinning against his will.

Source: On the Resurrection of the Flesh
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:23
One the law which arises from the assault of evil, and which often draws on the soul to lustful fancies, which, he says "wars against the law of the mind.".
And the third, which is in accordance with sin, settled in the flesh from lust, which he calls the "law of sin which dwells in our members; "

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:23
Paul mentions two laws here. One of these he sees in his members, i.e., in the outer self, which is the flesh or the body. This law is hostile to us. It wars with his mind, leading him captive in a state of sin and preventing him from getting out of it and finding help. The other law is the law of the mind, which is either the law of Moses or the law of nature which is innate in the mind. This law is attacked by the violence of sin and by its own negligence, for in that it loves evil it subjects itself to sin and is held captive by the habit of sinning. For man is a creature of habit.For Paul, there are here four kinds of law. The first is spiritual. This is the law of nature, which was reworked by Moses and made authoritative; it is God’s law. Then there is the law of the mind, which agrees with God’s law. Third, there is the law of sin, which is said to dwell in man’s members because of the transgression of the first man. The fourth appears in our members and tempts us to sin, before retreating. But these four laws can be reduced to two—the law of good and the law of evil. For the law of the mind is the same as the spiritual law or the law of Moses, which is called the law of God. But the law of sin is the same as the law which appears in our members, which contradicts the law of our mind.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:23
Here again he calls sin a law warring against the other, not in respect of good order, but from the strict obedience yielded to it by those who comply with it. As then it gives the name of master κύριον] [Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13] to Mammon, and of god [Philippians 3:19] to the belly, not because of their intrinsically deserving it, but because of the extreme obsequiousness of their subjects; so here he calls sin a law, owing to those who are so obsequious to it, and are afraid to leave it, just as those who have received the Law dread leaving the Law. This then, he means, is opposed to the law of nature; for this is what is meant by "the law of my mind." And he next represents an array and battle, and refers the whole struggle to the law of nature. For that of Moses was subsequently added over and above: yet still both the one and the other, the one as teaching, the other as praising what was right, wrought no great effects in this battle; so great was the thraldom of sin, overcoming and getting the upper hand as it did. And this Paul setting forth, and showing the decided (κατὰ κράτος) victory it had, says, "I see another law warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity." He does not use the word conquering only, but "bringing me into captivity to the law of sin." He does not say the bent of the flesh, or the nature of the flesh, but "the law of sin." That is, the thrall, the power. In what sense then does he say, "Which is in my members?" Now what is this? Surely it does not make the members to be sin, but makes them as distinct from sin as possible. For that which is in a thing is diverse from that wherein it is. As then the commandment also is not evil, because by it sin took occasion, so neither is the nature of the flesh, even if sin subdues us by means of it. For in this way the soul will be evil, and much more so too, since it has authority in matters of action. But these things are not so, certainly they are not. Since neither if a tyrant and a robber were to take possession of a splendid mansion and a king's court, would the circumstance be any discredit to the house, inasmuch as the entire blame would come on those who contrived such an act. But the enemies of the truth, along with their impiety, fall unawares also into great unreasonableness. For they do not accuse the flesh only, but they also disparage the Law. And yet if the flesh were evil, the Law would be good. For it wars against the Law, and opposes it. If, however, the Law be not good, then the flesh is good. For it wars and fights against it even by their own account. How come they then to assert that both belong to the devil, putting things opposed to each other before us? Do you see, along with their impiety, how great is their unreasonableness also? But such doctrines as these are not the Church's, for it is the sin only that she condemns; and both the Laws which God has given, both that of nature and that of Moses, she says are hostile to this, and not to the flesh; for the flesh she denies to be sin, for it is a work of God's, and one very useful too in order to virtue, if we live soberly.

Source: Homily 13 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:23
Paul calls sin a law not because it establishes good order but because those who are under it obey it completely.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 13
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:23
The law of natural conscience, or the divine law which resides in the mind, fights against habitual desires.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 420] Jerome on Romans 7:23
If Paul feared the lusts of the flesh, are we safe?

Source: HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 41
[AD 428] Theodore of Mopsuestia on Romans 7:23
Paul was right to refer to his members here, because sin takes many forms according to the nature of our members. There are sins of the eyes, sins of the tongue, sins of other parts of the body as well.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:23
Everyone is bound by carnal habit to the law of sin. Paul says that this law wars against his mind and captures him under the law of sin, by which it may be understood that the man being described here is not yet under grace. For if carnal habit were merely to wage war but not to triumph, there would be no condemnation. Condemnation lies in the fact that we freely submit to and serve depraved carnal lusts. But if such lusts exist and we do not give in to them, then we are not ensnared by them, and are under grace instead. Paul speaks of this grace when he calls upon the Deliverer and pleads for his help, that love might accomplish by grace what fear could not achieve through the law.

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 45-46
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:23
In this life it cannot happen to anyone that a law warring against the law of the mind should be entirely absent from his members, because that law would still be waging war even if man’s spirit were offering it such resistance as not to fall into line with it.

Source: THE RETRACTIONS 1.19.1
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:23
Paul sees another law in his members fighting against the law of his mind. He sees it is there, not remembers that it was there. He is pressed by what is present, not recalling what is past. And he not only sees this law warring against him but even taking him captive to the law of sin, which is (not was) in his members.

Source: ON NATURE AND GRACE 55.65
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:23
Paul perceives imprisonment where righteousness has not been fulfilled; for when he is delighted with the law of God he is not a prisoner but a friend of the law and thus free, because he is a friend.

Source: TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 41.11.1
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:23
Look what damage has been done to human nature by the disobedience of the will!

Source: ON NATURE AND GRACE 53.62
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:23
See what a fight we have with our dead sins, as that active soldier of Christ and faithful teacher of the church shows. For how is sin dead when it works many things in us while we struggle against it? What are these many things except foolish and harmful desires which plunge those who consent to them into death and destruction? And to bear them patiently and not give into them is a struggle, a conflict, a battle. And between what parties is this battle if not between good and evil, not of nature against nature but of nature against fault, which is already dead but still to be buried, that is, entirely healed?

Source: AGAINST JULIAN 2.9.32
[AD 542] Caesarius of Arles on Romans 7:23
This law in me was born when the former law was transgressed; it was born, I repeat, when the former law was despised.

Source: SERMON 177.1
[AD 202] Irenaeus on Romans 7:24
Showing that the "good thing "of our salvation is not from us, but from God. And again: "Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? "
[AD 215] Clement of Alexandria on Romans 7:24
"Nun quid autem consentit cum divino Apostolo, qui dicit: "Infelix ego homo, quis me liberabit a corpore mortis hujus? ".
"For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."

Source: Clement of Alexandria Stromata Book IV
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:24
Paul says that a man born in sin is wretched. For indeed how could man not be wretched when he has succeeded to this inheritance of sin, having this enemy sin with him, through which Satan has access to him? For Adam invented steps by which the despoiler came up to his descendants. Yet the most merciful God, moved by pity, gave us his grace through Christ so that it might be revealed that the human race, once it accepted the forgiveness of sins, might repent and put sin to death. For a man who is pardoned for his sins and cleansed can resist the power of the enemy which is aimed against him, provided that God continues to help him.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 397] Ambrose of Milan on Romans 7:24
We have a physician—let us follow his remedy! Our remedy is the grace of Christ, and the body of death is our body. Let us therefore be exiled from the body lest we be exiled from Christ. Even if we are in the body let us not follow what is of the body. Let us not neglect the rights of nature, but let us prefer the gifts of grace.

Source: On the Death of Satyrus 2.41
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:24
Do you notice what a great thraldom that of vice is, in that it overcomes even a mind that delighted in the Law? For no one can rejoin, he means, that I hate the Law and abhor it, and so sin overcomes me. For "I delight in it, and consent to it," and flee for refuge to it, yet still it had not the power of saving one who had fled to it. But Christ saved even one that fled from Him. See what a vast advantage grace has! Yet the Apostle has not stated it thus; but with a sigh only, and a great lamentation, as if devoid of any to help him, he points out by his perplexity the might of Christ, and says, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The Law has not been able: conscience has proved unequal to it, though it praised what was good, and did not praise it only, but even fought against the contrary of it. For by the very words "wars against" he shows that he was marshalled against it for his part. From what quarter then is one to hope for salvation?

Source: Homily 13 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:24
The law has failed, and conscience has proved to be unequal to the task, even though it praised what is good and even fought against evil.… Where then, is salvation going to come from?

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 13
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:24
Who will set me free, says Paul, prisoner that I am, from this fatal habit of the body?

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 420] Jerome on Romans 7:24
Paul uses the term “the body of death” because the body is subject to vices and sickness, disorders and death until it rises in glory with Christ, and what was once fragile clay is purified in the fire of the Holy Spirit into a very solid rock, changing its glory, not its nature.

Source: Against Rufinus 1.25
[AD 425] Severian of Gabala on Romans 7:24
Having considered the struggle which was taking place in the body against the soul and how man was imprisoned by this, Paul now seeks a way to escape and tries to rescue man, so that the body of death may be transformed into a body of life.… For Paul wants his body to be a body of life and not a body of death or of sin.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:24
Here Paul begins to describe the man renewed under grace, the third of the four states we distinguished above.

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 45-46
[AD 458] Theodoret of Cyrus on Romans 7:24
Paul calls the body a “body of death” because it has been made subject to death and is therefore mortal. The soul, on the other hand, is immortal.

Source: INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS
[AD 471] Gennadius of Constantinople on Romans 7:24
Paul did not say “bad” or “evil man” but rather “wretched man” … for having shown that this person contemplated the good with his mind but was drawn toward evil by the passion of the flesh, he presents him as more deserving of mercy than of punishment.

Source: PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH
[AD 253] Origen of Alexandria on Romans 7:25
Perhaps someone will say that here the apostle Paul abandons the role of the weak man, which he assumed in the preceding [verses], and talks directly about himself. For he says that he serves the law of God with his mind but the law of sin with his flesh, as if to imply that the power of sin is so great that even an apostle cannot escape it. Moreover, he also said elsewhere: “I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” But someone who takes this interpretation seems to me to be inflicting every soul with despair, because then there would be nobody who did not sin in the flesh. In other words, everyone would be serving the law of sin in the flesh. Rather, it seems to me that here Paul maintains the role he has adopted and plays the part of the weak man, whom we have already described.It appears that in this passage Paul is teaching us that the mortification of the flesh, of which he has already spoken, is not something which happens overnight but rather is a gradual process, because the force of habit is such and the attraction of sin is so great that, even though our mind may want to do what is right and has decided to serve the law of God, yet the lusts of the flesh continue to urge him to serve sin and obey its laws instead.

Source: COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
[AD 311] Methodius of Olympus on Romans 7:25
And he immediately adds, clearly showing from what kind of death he desired to be delivered, and who he was who delivered him, "I thank God, through Jesus Christ."

Source: Methodius From the Discourse on the Resurrection
[AD 384] Ambrosiaster on Romans 7:25
“The law of God” means both the law of Moses and the law of Christ.… A free mind which has been called back to good habits by the help of the Holy Spirit can repulse evil temptations. For it has recovered its power to resist the enemy. If it is no longer subject then Satan cannot appear uninvited. Flesh, though, has no judgment, nor is it able to discern anything, because it is brute nature. It cannot close the door to the enemy, nor can it come in and persuade the mind to do the opposite to what the mind intends.Because man consists of both soul and flesh, the part which knows serves God and the part which is mute serves the law of sin. But if man perseveres in the form in which he was created, the enemy would have no power to reach the flesh and persuade it to act against the will of the soul. But because the whole man was not restored to his pristine state by the grace of Christ the sentence pronounced on Adam remains in force, for it would be unjust to abolish a sentence which was rightly pronounced. So although the sentence remains in force, a cure has been found by the providence of God, so that the salvation which man had lost by his own fault might be given back to him.

Source: COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES
[AD 400] Book of Steps on Romans 7:25
We should be eager to try to become without any sins, asking our Lord to deliver us from sin.

Source: LIBER GRADUUM 2.2
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:25
Observe how he shows the necessity of having grace present with us, and that the well-doings herein belong alike to the Father and the Son. For if it is the Father Whom he thanks, still the Son is the cause of this thanksgiving. But when you hear him say, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" do not suppose him to be accusing the flesh. For he does not say "body of sin," but "body of death:" that is, the mortal body — that which has been overcome by death, not that which gendered death. And this is no proof of the evil of the flesh, but of the marring (ἐ πηρείας], thwarting) it has undergone. As if any one who was take captive by the savages were to be said to belong to the savages, not as being a savage, but as being detained by them: so the body is said to be of death, as being held down thereby, not as producing it. Wherefore also it is not the body that he himself wishes to be delivered from, but the mortal body, hinting, as I have often said, that from its becoming subject to suffering, it also became an easy prey to sin. Why then, it may be said, the thraldom of sin being so great before the times of grace, were men punished for sinning? Because they had such commands given them as might even under sin's dominion be accomplished. For he did not draw them to the highest kind of conversation, but allowed them to enjoy wealth, and did not forbid having several wives, and to gratify anger in a just cause, and to make use of luxury within bounds. [Matthew 5:38] And so great was this condescension, that the written Law even required less than the law of nature. For the law of nature ordered one man to associate with one woman throughout. And this Christ shows in the words, "He which made them at the beginning, made them male and female." [Matthew 19:4] But the Law of Moses neither forbade the putting away of one and the taking in of another, nor prohibited the having of two at once! [Matthew 5:31] And besides this there are also many other ordinances of the Law, that one might see those who were before its day fully performing, being instructed by the law of nature. They therefore who lived under the old dispensation had no hardship done them by so moderate a system of laws being imposed upon them. But if they were not, on these terms, able to get the upper hand, the charge is against their own listlessness. Wherefore Paul gives thanks, because Christ, without any rigorousness about these things, not only demanded no account of this moderate amount, but even made us able to have a greater race set before us. And therefore he says, "I thank my God through Jesus Christ." And letting the salvation which all agreed about pass, he goes from the points he had already made good, to another further point, in which he states that it was not our former sins only that we were freed from, but we were also made invincible for the future. For "there is," he says, "now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh." Yet he did not say it before he had first recalled to mind our former condition again in the words, "So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin."

Source: Homily 13 on Romans
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Romans 7:25
Christ not only set us free without demanding any payment for his services; he also equipped us for greater struggles in the future.

Source: HOMILIES ON ROMANS 13
[AD 418] Pelagius on Romans 7:25
Grace sets free the man whom the law could not free. Was Paul at this time not yet set free by the grace of God? Of course! This shows that here he is speaking of somebody else. He then reviews the main points in order to conclude his argument. In a sense the carnal person is made up of two people and is divided within himself.

Source: PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:25
Though his carnal desires still exist, the man who is renewed by grace by not giving in to sin does not serve them. With his mind he serves the law of God, even though with his flesh he serves the law of sin. Paul calls the law of sin the mortal condition which stems from the transgression of Adam, because of which we are born mortal. It is because the flesh has fallen that the lusts of the flesh entice us.

Source: AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 45-46
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Romans 7:25
These are the words of one who is now under grace but still battling against his own lust, not so that he consents and sins but so that he experiences desires which he resists.

Source: AGAINST JULIAN 6.23.73
[AD 542] Caesarius of Arles on Romans 7:25
The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord will free you from the body of this death; it will deliver you from the law of death. But … this is going to take place at the resurrection, when you will possess a body in which no evil inclination remains.

Source: SERMON 177.4