49. [57.] When he says: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution? and the rest, it depends on the earlier statement, where he says: If indeed we suffer together, that we may also be glorified together; for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that shall be revealed in us . For the whole intent of this passage is directed to this exhortation: that those to whom he speaks might not be broken by persecutions, if they were to live according to the prudence of the flesh, by which temporal goods are desired and temporal evils feared.
50. [58.] When he says: For I am certain —and he did not say: For I think—he held with full faith that neither any death , nor temporal life promised, nor the rest that follows, can turn the believer away from the love of God. No one, therefore, separates us: neither he who threatens death, because he who believes in Christ, though he die, shall live; nor he who promises life, because that One gives eternal life. For the promise of temporal life is to be despised in comparison with the eternal. Nor does an angel separate us, because, though an angel , he says, should come down from heaven and announce to you anything beyond what you have received, let him be anathema . Nor principality —that is, an adverse one—because he himself stripped off these principalities and powers, triumphing over them in himself. Nor things present nor things to come —that is, temporal things, whether those that delight, or those that oppress, or those that give hope, or those that strike fear. Nor power (and here an adverse power must be understood, according to which he says: No one shall plunder the goods of the strong man unless he first binds the strong man ), nor height, nor depth . For very often an empty curiosity about those things which cannot be found, or are even found in vain, whether in heaven or in the abyss, separates one from God, unless love conquers, which invites us to sure spiritual things, not by the vanity of the things that are outside, but by the inner man. Nor any other creature . This can be understood in two ways: either the visible creature—since we too, that is, the soul, are a creature, but an invisible one—so that he meant this: that no other creature separates us, that is, the love of bodies; or else that no other creature separates us from the love of God, from the fact that there is no other creature between us and God which might set itself against us and exclude us from his embrace. For above human minds, which are rational, there is no longer any creature, but God.
51. [59.] When he says: Whose are the fathers, from whom is Christ according to the flesh , and adds: Who is over all, God blessed forever , he commends the fullest faith, because we confess our Lord both, according to the assumption of the flesh, the Son of Man, and, according to eternity, the Word in the beginning, God blessed over all forever. But because the Jews held only part of this confession, they are refuted by the Lord. For when he had asked them whose son they said the Christ was, they answered: David's . But this is according to the flesh. Concerning his divinity, however—that he is God—they answered nothing. Therefore the Lord said to them: How then does David in the spirit call him Lord? That they might understand that they had confessed only this, that Christ is the son of David, but had passed over in silence that Christ is the Lord of David himself. For the former is according to the assumption of the flesh, the latter according to the eternity of the divinity.
52. [60.] When he says: For when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him who calls, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger; as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated —this moves some to think that the apostle Paul has taken away free will, by which we earn God's favor through the good of godliness or offend him through the evil of ungodliness. For they say that before any works, whether good or evil, of two not yet born, God loved the one and hated the other. But we reply that this came about by the foreknowledge of God, by which he knows even of the not-yet-born what each one will be. But lest anyone say: God, then, chose the works in the one whom he loved, although they did not yet exist, because he foreknew they would be—and if he chose works, how does the Apostle say the election was made not of works?—therefore it must be understood that good works are done through love, but that love is in us through the gift of the Holy Spirit, as the same Apostle says: The love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us . Therefore no one ought to glory in works as his own, which he has through the gift of God, since love itself works the good in him. What, then, did God choose? For if he grants the Holy Spirit, through whom love works the good, to whom he wills, how did he choose to whom he should grant it? For if there is no merit, there is no election; for all are equal before merit, and among things wholly equal, election cannot be spoken of. But since the Holy Spirit is not given except to believers, God did not indeed choose the works which he himself bestows when he gives the Holy Spirit, that through love we may do good works—yet he did choose faith. For unless a person believes in him and remains in the will to receive, he does not receive the gift of God, that is, the Holy Spirit, through whom, love being poured out, he may be able to do good. God, therefore, did not choose anyone's works in foreknowledge, which he himself was going to give, but he chose faith in foreknowledge, so that the one whom he foreknew would believe in him, him he chose, to whom he would give the Holy Spirit, so that by doing good he might also attain eternal life. For the same Apostle says: It is the same God who works all things in all , but nowhere is it said: God believes all things in all. Therefore that we believe is our own, but that we do good belongs to him who gives the Holy Spirit to those who believe in him. This example was set against certain Jews who had believed in Christ and gloried in works before grace, and said that they had merited the very grace of the Gospel by their preceding good works—whereas good works can exist in no one except one who has received grace. But it is grace that the calling is proffered to the sinner, when his merits, none of them, have gone before except unto damnation. But if the called follows him who calls—which is now in free will—he will merit also the Holy Spirit, through whom he may be able to do good; and remaining in this (which is likewise in free will), he will merit also eternal life, which can be corrupted by no taint.
53. [61.] When he says: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I will be merciful , it is shown from this that there is no injustice with God—which some can allege when they hear: Before they were born, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated . For I will have mercy , he says, on whom I will have mercy . For God first had mercy on us, when we were sinners, so as to call us. Therefore on whom I will have mercy , he says, so as to call him, I will have mercy on him still further, when he has believed. But how still further , except that he gives the Holy Spirit to the one who believes and asks? And when this is given, he will show mercy to him to whom he will be merciful, that is, so as to make him merciful, whereby he may be able to do good through love. Let no one, therefore, dare to attribute to himself that he acts mercifully, because God has given him love through the Holy Spirit, without which no one can be merciful. God, therefore, did not choose those who work well, but rather those who believe, so that he himself may make them work well. For it is ours to believe and to will, but his to give to those who believe and will the ability to work well through the Holy Spirit, through whom the love of God is poured out in our hearts, that he may make us merciful.
54. [62.] When he says: It is therefore not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy , he does not take away free will, but says that our willing is not sufficient unless God helps us, by making us merciful for working well, through the gift of the Holy Spirit—referring this to what he said above: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I will be merciful. Because we can neither will unless we are called; and when, after the calling, we have willed, our will and our running are not sufficient, unless God both supplies strength to those who run and leads them where he calls. It is clear, therefore, that our working well is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy—although our will is there too, which by itself could do nothing. Hence there follows also the testimony concerning Pharaoh's punishment, when Scripture says of Pharaoh: For this I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth ; for, as we read in Exodus , the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, so that he was not moved by such evident signs. That Pharaoh at that time did not obey the commands of God already came from his punishment. But no one can say that that hardening of heart befell Pharaoh undeservedly, but by the judgment of God repaying his unbelief with the deserved penalty. Therefore this is not imputed to him—that he then did not obey, since with a hardened heart he could not obey—but that he showed himself deserving of having his heart hardened, by his prior unfaithfulness. For just as in those whom God chooses, not works but faith begins the merit, so that by the gift of God they may work well, so in those whom he condemns, unfaithfulness and ungodliness begin the merit of punishment, so that through the punishment itself they may even work evil, as the same Apostle says above: And because they did not approve of having God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do the things that are not fitting . Wherefore the Apostle concludes thus: Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. For on whom he has mercy, he makes him work well; and whom he hardens, he abandons him, so that he works evil. But that mercy is granted to the preceding merit of faith, and that hardening to preceding ungodliness, so that we both do good through the gift of God and evil through punishment—while yet free will is not taken away from man, whether unto believing God, that mercy may follow us, or unto ungodliness, that punishment may follow. This conclusion having been drawn, he introduces a question as if from an objector. For he says: You will say to me then: Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will? To which inquiry he replies in such a way that we may understand that to spiritual men, and to those who no longer live according to the earthly man, the first merits of faith and of ungodliness can lie open—how God, foreknowing, chooses those who will believe and condemns the unbelieving, neither choosing the former for their works nor condemning the latter for their works, but granting to the faith of the former that they may work well, and hardening the ungodliness of the latter by abandoning them, so that they may work evil. And because this understanding, as I said, lies open to the spiritual, but is far removed from carnal prudence, he thus refutes the inquirer, so that he may understand that he must first put off the man of clay, in order to be worthy to investigate these things through the spirit. And so he says: O man, who are you who answer back to God? Does the thing formed say to him who formed it: Why have you made me thus? Or does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? As long as you are a thing formed, he says, and belong to the lump of clay, not yet brought to spiritual things, so as to be a spiritual man judging all things and judged by no one, you ought to restrain yourself from an inquiry of this kind and not answer back to God. For whoever desires to know his counsel must first be received into his friendship—which cannot happen except to the spiritual, who now bear the image of the heavenly man. For he now says: I will not call you servants but friends, for all the things which I have heard from my Father I have made known to you . And so, as long as you are an earthen vessel, this very thing in you must first be broken by that iron rod, of which it is said: You shall rule them with an iron rod, and you shall break them in pieces like a potter's vessel , so that, with the outer man destroyed and the inner renewed, you may be able, rooted and grounded in love, to comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth, and to know also the surpassing knowledge of the love of God. Now, therefore, when out of the same lump God makes some vessels unto honor and others unto dishonor, it is not yours to examine this, whoever you are who still live according to this lump, that is, who are wise with an earthly and carnal sense.
55. [63.] When he says: He bore with much patience the vessels of wrath, which were fitted for destruction , he sufficiently indicated by this that the hardening of heart which took place in Pharaoh came from the merits of a prior hidden ungodliness, which nevertheless God patiently endured, until Pharaoh should be brought to that time at which vengeance might opportunely proceed against him—for the correction of those whom he had determined to free from error, and to lead them, by recalling them to his own worship and godliness, granting help to their prayers and groanings.
56. [64.] When he says: Whom he also called, namely us, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles, as he says also in Hosea: I will call that which was not my people, my people , and the rest, he brings the purpose of this whole discussion to this: that since he has taught that our working well is of God's mercy, the Jews should not glory as if from works—who, when they had received the Gospel, thinking it was to be attributed to their own merits, did not want it given to the Gentiles; from which pride they must now desist, understanding that if we are called, not from works but by the mercy of God, that we may believe, and it is granted to believers that they may work well, then this mercy is not to be begrudged the Gentiles, as though the merit of the Jews—which is nothing—were preferred.
57. [65.] When he says: But Isaiah cries out for Israel: If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved , he shows how God is the cornerstone, joining both walls in himself. For the testimony of the prophet Hosea was spoken for the Gentiles: I will call that which was not my people, my people, and her that was not beloved, beloved ; and the testimony of Isaiah was spoken for Israel, that a remnant shall be saved , so that those may be counted in the seed of Abraham who have believed in Christ. Thus he makes both peoples in concord, according also to the testimony of the Lord, who says in the Gospel concerning the Gentiles: I have other sheep, which are not of this fold, whom I must bring, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd .
58. [66.] When he says: Brethren, the good will of my heart and my prayer to God is made for them, unto salvation , from here he now begins to speak of the hope of the Jews, lest the Gentiles too should dare to be proud against them. For just as the pride of the Jews, who gloried as if from works, had to be refuted, so too the Gentiles must be met, lest they be proud as though preferred to the Jews.
59. [67.] When he says: The word is near, in your mouth and in your heart; this is the word of faith which we preach: that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation —this whole passage refers to what he said above: For the Lord will make a word consummating and abridging upon the earth . For, the innumerable and manifold sacraments by which the Jewish people were burdened being removed, it came about, through the mercy of God, that by the brevity of the confession of faith we might attain to salvation.
60. [68.] When he says, according to the testimony of Moses: I will lead you to jealousy by that which is not a nation; by a foolish nation I will provoke you —by saying a foolish nation , he explained what he had said, that which is not a nation , as though that which is foolish should not even be called a nation. Yet by the faith of this nation he says the Jewish people is to be provoked, because they laid hold of what the others rejected. Or else, that which is not a nation, a foolish nation , means that, since it was a foolish nation—every people worshiping idols—it nevertheless laid aside its heathenism by believing. Hence too is that saying: If, then, the uncircumcised keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? So that this is the sense: I will lead you to jealousy by that which has become no nation, laying aside its heathenism through faith in Christ, though it had been a foolish nation in worshiping idols.
61. [69.] When he says: Has God then rejected his people? God forbid! For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin , this refers to what he said above: But the word of God cannot fail. For not all who are of Israel are Israelites, nor because they are the seed of Abraham are all sons, but: In Isaac shall your seed be called —so that from the very people of the Jews those may be counted in the seed who believed the Lord. Of this too he says above: A remnant shall be saved .
62. [70.] When he says: I say then, Did they so stumble that they should fall? God forbid! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles , he does not say this because they did not fall, but because their fall was not empty, since it profited unto the salvation of the Gentiles. They did not, then, so stumble as to fall—that is, only to fall, as if solely for their own punishment—but so that this very fact, that they fell, might profit the Gentiles unto salvation. Then from this passage he begins to commend the people of the Jews, even on account of their very fall of unbelief, so that the Gentiles may not be proud, because even the fall of the Jews proved so precious for the salvation of the Gentiles; rather the Gentiles ought all the more to take care lest, while they are proud, they likewise fall.
63. [71.] When he says: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink; for in doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head , it can seem to many to contradict that saying by which the Lord commanded that we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, or even this which the same Apostle said above: Bless those who persecute you; bless, and do not curse , and again: Rendering to no one evil for evil . For how does anyone love him to whom he gives food and drink for the purpose of heaping coals of fire upon his head, if coals of fire in this place signify some grievous punishment? Wherefore it must be understood that this was said so that we might provoke him who has injured us to repentance for his deed, when we do good to him. For these coals of fire avail for the burning, that is, the contrition of the spirit, which is as it were the head of the soul, in which all malice is burned away, when a man is changed for the better through repentance—like those coals of fire of which it is said in the Psalms: What shall be given you, or what shall be added to you, against a deceitful tongue? The sharp arrows of the mighty, with devastating coals .
64. [72.] When he says: Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; for there is no power except from God , he most rightly admonishes, lest anyone, because he has been called to freedom by his Lord and made a Christian, be lifted up into pride and not think that on the journey of this life he must keep his own order, and suppose that he need not be subject to the higher powers, to whom, for the time being, the government of temporal affairs has been handed over. For since we consist of soul and body, and, as long as we are in this temporal life, use also temporal things for the support of leading that life, we ought, in that part which pertains to this life, to be subject to the powers, that is, to men who administer human affairs with some honor. But in that part by which we believe God and are called into his kingdom, we ought not to be subject to any man who desires to overturn in us that very thing which God has deigned to grant unto eternal life. If anyone, therefore, thinks that, because he is a Christian, he need not pay toll or tribute, or need not render the honor owed to those powers who attend to these matters, he is caught in a great error. Likewise, if anyone thinks he must be subject in such a way as to judge that he who excels by some eminence in administering temporal affairs has power even over his faith, he falls into a greater error. But this measure must be kept, which the Lord himself prescribes: that we render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. For although we are called to that kingdom where there will be no power of this world, yet while we journey on this road, until we arrive at that age where every principality and power is done away, let us bear our condition for the sake of the very order of human affairs, doing nothing in pretense, and in this very thing obeying not so much men as God, who commands these things.
65. [73.] When he says: Do you wish not to fear the power? Do good, and you shall have praise from it , this can trouble some, when they consider that Christians have often suffered persecution from these powers. Did they, then, not do good, since they were not only not praised by these powers, but were even subjected to punishments and killed? The words of the Apostle, therefore, must be considered. For he does not say: Do good, and the power will praise you; but he says: Do good, and you shall have praise from it. For whether it approves your good deed or persecutes it, you shall have praise from it —either when you gain it into the service of God, or when by its persecution you merit a crown. This too is understood in what follows, when he says: For it is God's minister to you for good —even if to itself for evil.
66. [74.] When he says: Be subject of necessity , this avails so that we may understand that it is necessary, on account of this life, that we ought to be subject, not resisting if they wish to take away anything of temporal things over which power has been given them; and because these things pass away, therefore this subjection too must be established not in goods that are to endure, but in things necessary to this time. Yet because he said, Be subject of necessity , lest anyone should become subject to powers of this kind with less than a whole heart and pure love, he added, saying: Not only on account of wrath but also on account of conscience —that is, not only to avert wrath, which can be done even in pretense, but so that in your conscience you may be certain that you do it out of love for him to whom you are subject, by the command of your Lord, who wishes all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth . For when the Apostle said this, he was dealing with those very powers. This is what he urges upon servants in another place: Not serving to the eye, as though pleasing men , so that, in the very fact that they are subject to their masters, they may not hate them or desire to win their favor by deceits.
67. [75.] When he says: For he who loves another has fulfilled the law , he shows that the consummation of the law is placed in love, that is, in charity; hence the Lord too says that on those two commandments the whole Law hangs, and all the Prophets, that is, on the love of God and of neighbor. Hence too he himself, who came to fulfill the law, bestowed love through the Holy Spirit, so that what before fear could not fulfill, love might afterward fulfill. Hence is that saying of the same Apostle: But love is the fullness of the law ; and that: But the end of the commandment is love, from a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith .
68. [76.] When he says: And this, knowing the time, that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep , this looks to what was said: Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation . For the time of the Gospel is signified, and that opportune season of saving those who believe in God.
69. [77.] When he says: And make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences , he shows that provision for the flesh is not to be blamed, when those things are provided which avail for the necessity of bodily health. But if it is for superfluous delights and luxuries, so that one may rejoice in the things that the flesh desires, he is rightly reproved, because he makes provision for the flesh in its concupiscences, since he who sows in his flesh shall reap corruption from the flesh , that is, he who rejoices in carnal delights.
70. [78.] When he says: Receive him who is weak in faith, not in disputes over thoughts , he says this so that we may receive the one who is weak in faith, and by our own firmness bear with his weakness, and not pass judgment on his thoughts—that is, that we should not dare to pass sentence on another's heart, which we do not see. Therefore it follows and he says: One indeed believes he may eat all things; but he who is weak, let him eat vegetables. For at that time many, now firm in faith and knowing, according to the teaching of the Lord, that the things which enter into the mouth do not defile, but the things which come out, took food indifferently with a clear conscience. But certain weaker ones abstained from meats and from wine, lest even unknowingly they should fall upon the things that were sacrificed to idols. For at that time all sacrificial meat was sold in the market, and the Gentiles poured out libations of the firstfruits of the wine to their idols, and made certain sacrifices at the very winepresses. The Apostle therefore commands both those who used such foods with a clear conscience not to despise the weakness of those who abstained from such food and drink, and those weak ones not to judge, as though defiled, those who did not abstain from meats and drank wine. To this pertains what he says consequently: Let him who eats not judge —that is, despise— him who does not eat; and let him who does not eat not judge him who eats. For the strong were contemptuously despising the weaker, and the weak were rashly judging the strong.
71. [79.] When he says: Who are you to judge another's servant? he says this so that, in those matters which can be done with either a good or a bad intention, we may leave the judgment to God, and not dare to pass sentence on another's heart, which we do not see. But in those matters which are so grasped that it is clear they cannot be done with a good and chaste intention, one is not disapproved if we judge. And so, in what he says about foods—since it is not known with what intention it is done—he does not want us to be judges, but God; but concerning that abominable defilement, where a certain man had taken his father's wife, he judged that it must be judged by the precepts. For that man could not say that he had committed so monstrous a shameful deed with a good intention. Therefore whatever deeds are so manifest that it cannot be said, "I did it with a good intention," are to be judged by us; but whatever things are so done that it is uncertain with what intention they are done, are not to be judged but reserved for the judgment of God, as it is written: The things that are hidden belong to God, but the things that are manifest, to you and to your children .
72. [80.] When he says: One indeed judges between day and day, but another judges every day , setting aside for the moment a better consideration, it seems to me to be said not of two men, but of man and God. For he who judges between day and day is man, for he can judge one thing today and another tomorrow—that is, whomever he has today condemned as a proven or confessed evildoer, he may find good tomorrow, when he has corrected himself; or, on the contrary, when he has today praised someone as righteous, he may find him tomorrow depraved. But he who judges every day is God, because he knows not only what each one is, but also what he will be on every day. Therefore: Let each one abound in his own understanding , he says—that is, let him dare to judge only so far as is granted to human understanding, or to each man. He who is wise as to the day , he says, is wise to the Lord —that is, because this very thing, that he judges the present day well, is wise to the Lord. And this is to judge well as to the day: that you know his correction in the future is not to be despaired of, concerning whose manifest fault you have judged in the present.
73. [81.] When he says: Blessed is he who does not judge himself in that which he approves , this is best referred to what he said above: Let not our good, then, be blasphemed . For this is also what he now says before that statement: The faith which you have, keep to yourself before God —so that, since this faith is good, by which we believe that all things are clean to the clean , and in that faith we approve ourselves, we may use our good well; lest perhaps, when we have abused that good to the stumbling of weak brethren, we sin against the brethren and judge ourselves in that very good, when we scandalize the weak, in which good we approve ourselves, when that faith pleases us.