Pelagius

In his own words on Romans

• Romans 1:1

  Do we wonder why he writes Paul, given that he was called Saul before? Doubtless he did this following the habit of the saints. When they advanced in virtue they were addressed with a different name, so that they might be new people even in name, e.g., Abraham, Sarah and Cephas. … Paul earned the office of an apostle by faithful and matchless service. He was set apart in Acts 13:2. Gospel … means "good news", i.e., of Christ's birth, suffering, resurrection and ascension into heaven.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:2

  Paul preaches no other Christ than the Christ whose gospel the prophets promised would go forth from Jerusalem. He declares that they are prophets of God and that the Scriptures which prophesied about Christ are holy. This entire passage contradicts the Manichaeans, for it says that the gospel was promised beforehand through God's prophets and in the Holy Scriptures and that according to the flesh Christ came from the lineage of David, i.e., from the Virgin Mary, just as Isaiah had foretold.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:3

  Many are sons by grace, but Christ is a son by nature.… By adding "according to the flesh" Paul has countered both Photinus and Arius. For if it is true that Christ was made according to the flesh, he most certainly was not made according to the substance of the Word.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:4

  Christ was predestined as to the spirit of sanctification, so that because of his incorruptibility he might rise again before anyone else and open the way of resurrection for the children of God.… The nature of the resurrection (not of all who rise from the dead but of those who belong to Christ) is prefigured by Christ.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:5

  Paul received grace in baptism and apostleship when he was sent by the Holy Spirit, for apostle means "sent" in Greek. The purpose of this was that the Gentiles might submit not to the law but to faith.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:7

  Paul is called to be an apostle to all believers, whom God loves impartially, without showing any preference for Jew or Greek. They are saints because of God's calling, not because of their own holiness. Paul's greeting is designed to recall God's benefits and to pray that they may remain perfect in us, because our sins have been freely forgiven.… Paul also insists that Jews and Gentiles live in peace, since both of them have received the same grace.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:8

  God is the God of all by nature but of some only by their own choice and response.… Paul calls God his in this second sense. He thanks God for them all, not just for the Jews, and praises them prudently, in order to encourage them to improve. Perhaps he did this because the whole world stood amazed that the idolatrous Romans had been converted … but probably he was just praising a faith which was now evident.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:9

  Paul serves God with his whole heart and with a ready zeal.… He also presents a model of unceasing prayer.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:10

  Paul does not find the way propitious unless the will of God, who knows all things, has directed him to a place where he might reap some fruit. For example, we read in Acts that, although he wanted to go to one place, he was directed to another.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:13

  The Romans would have learned of Paul's plans through the brothers who were constantly coming and going. Prevented here means "busy," because he was preaching in other provinces.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:16

  This is subtly intended to censure the pagans who, although they do not hesitate to believe that their god Jupiter turned himself into irrational animals and inanimate gold all for the sake of his monstrous lust, think that we Christians should be ashamed to believe that our Lord was crucified in the flesh he assumed, in order to save his image.… At the same time Paul is also bearing in mind those heretics who think that the crucifixion is something unworthy of God, not realizing that nothing is more fitting for the Creator than to care for the salvation of his creatures, particularly as he could not suffer any loss to his own nature, which is not subject to corruption. There is no power greater than the one which overcame death and restored to man the life he had lost, even if this seems like weakness to an unbeliever.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:19

  What can be known about God, i.e., that God exists and that God is just, is plain to their consciences. For every creature knows that it is not God and that it was made by another.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:20

  God's hidden qualities can be deduced from things which are manifest. For if he made visible things so splendid that some people thought they were gods and tried to maintain that they were eternal, how much more were these people capable of understanding that the one who made these things is everlasting, almighty and boundless?

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:21

  Imagining that they could grasp God with their minds, they fell away from their natural instinct and worshiped creatures instead of the Creator.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:22

  They thought they were wise because they had "discovered" how the invisible God can be honored by means of a visible idol!

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:23

  They did not understand that there is no similarity between the mortal and the immortal, the corruptible and the eternal.… Here Paul addresses the worshipers of Jupiter, who maintain that he was transformed into the likeness of animals and therefore dedicate to him images of the kind in which he satisfied his sexual desire.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:26

  Because of the reasons given above, they were abandoned to their disgraceful behavior. Those who turned against God turned everything on its head. For those who forsook the author of nature could not keep to the order of nature.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:27

  Once lust is unbridled, it knows no limit. In the order of nature, those who forgot God did not understand themselves either.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:28

  Not only did they not know God, they did not want to know him.… So they were given over to a base mind.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:29

  Paul shows that wickedness and evil are the chief causes of the vices. Envy is rightly linked to murder, since it is the chief cause of this crime. Strife exists when something is defended, not by reason but by a proud spirit. Deceit is secret malice covered in flattering speech. Malignity is a wish or a work of malice.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:30

  The Scriptures link slander to idolatry by stipulating the same penalty for it—destruction. The haughty are those who want to be more than they are. The devil was like this, and so destroyed himself. For one who seeks to lord it over others will end up beneath them.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:31

  Paul mentions all these sins, set out one by one, with respect to those who have been abandoned by God because they have abandoned him. Let us therefore take care, lest we also be abandoned for embracing one of these evils.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 1:32

  Even people who did not agree with these doings … nevertheless seem to have accepted them, because they agreed to idolatry, which is the source and cause of them all.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:1

  This concerns those who are in a position to pass judgment. Judges and princes are being put on trial. By a natural process everyone pronounces a sentence which fits the crime and knows that righteousness deserves reward while wickedness should be punished.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:2

  If you, a sinner, pass judgment upon a sinner like yourself, how much more will God, who is just, condemn you as unjust? If he did not do so, it might appear that evil is pleasing to him while good is not. But God has no favorites, and he spared neither his friends (the patriarchs) nor his angels when they sinned! Human judgment on the other hand is imperfect in many ways. The integrity of judges is often compromised by love, hate, fear and greed, and occasionally mercy is allowed to overturn the rule of justice.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:4

  Do you imagine you can act with impunity just because God does not punish immediately.… Listen to the words of Scripture: "The Lord is not slow with his promises … but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance." The Lord is good in as much as he waits and just in as much as he punishes.… People may go far astray because of God's patience, because he does not want to punish sinners immediately. And because he delays, people suppose either that he does not care at all about human affairs or that he overlooks sins.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:5

  Unaware that you are sick, you use the very cure in order to sustain even greater wounds.… Rejected kindness leads in the end to severer judgment, so that the man who refused to be touched by mercy is afflicted with punishment.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:7

  The reward for well-doing is awaited with patience because it is not given in this life. The glory is that with which the saints will shine like the sun. Nothing is greater than the honor of the children of God, on account of which they will judge even the angels.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:9

  The apostle threatens the soul with punishment because of heretics who say that only the flesh does wrong and that the soul cannot sin. Or perhaps "soul" refers to the whole man.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:10

  Glory is opposed to wrath and honor to displeasure. What Paul called "immortality" above he calls "peace" here. The word first is emphatic and means "indeed," because God does not play favorites. Or it may mean first in time but not in honor.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:12

  "Will perish" means the same thing as "will be judged," for the man who perishes perishes by God's judgment, and the man who is judged a sinner perishes. Paul puts Jews and Gentiles on the same level when he says that doers rather than hearers of the law are righteous and then adds that the Gentiles will be judged on the day of the Lord. For does anyone doubt that those under the law will perish just as those who lived without the law, unless they have believed in Christ?

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:14

  Paul is referring either to those who were righteous before the law or to those who even now are doing some good. He shows that the Gentiles are not without any kind of law in order to leave them with no excuse and to take away the glory which the Jews had by their possession of the law.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:15

  Nature produces a law in their hearts through the witness of their conscience. Or it may mean that the conscience testifies to the fact that it has its own law, because even if the sinner is afraid of no one the conscience is worried when he sins and rejoices when that sin is overcome.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:16

  Paul says that there is a mental debate when we decide after long deliberation what we should and should not do. On the day of the Lord we shall be judged by this. This proves that we were not ignorant of good and evil. Or perhaps it means that on the day of judgment our conscience and our thoughts will appear before our eyes like history lessons to be learned; they will either accuse us or excuse us.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:17

  At this point Paul turns to the Jews and says that a man should be a Jew in deed and not merely in name.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:18

  The Jew boasts that he alone understands God and knows his will. He approves what is excellent, because what is beneficial by nature is made much more so by the law.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:19

  The blind are those who have been deprived of the light of knowledge.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:20

  One who continually keeps the law in view does not stumble.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:21

  Paul says to the Jew: If you rely on the law, why do you not obey it? If you glory in God, why do you dishonor him? If you know his will, why do you not do it? If you approve what is excellent, why do you go after what is harmful? Why do you not look for the right way, if you are a guide for the blind? Surely if you saw it you would walk in it! If you are a light for others, why do you not cast off the works of darkness? As an instructor of the foolish, why have you abandoned the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom? As a teacher of children, why are you a child in understanding? If you have the standard of knowledge and truth in the law, why do you not follow it yourself, nor by your evil example allow others to follow it? Why does your life not match your teaching, and why does your behavior make a mockery of your faith? Because you have not kept the law it will happen that not only will the law do you no good, it will condemn you for the greater crime of holding it in contempt.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:22

  There is not just one kind of adultery, for you commit adultery if you give anyone other than God what the soul owes exclusively to him.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:23

  Sacrilege is something committed only against God, because it is a violation of the sacred.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:24

  Paul realized that what he was saying was also to be found in the prophets, which is why he quotes them here.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:25

  Circumcision is of value as a sign if righteousness accompanies it; without righteousness the rest is useless. Or this [verse] may mean that circumcision enabled the Jew to live and escape condemnation in childhood before reaching the age of understanding. Or perhaps, because he set it in the context of the law, it is that … when the circumcision of the flesh ends, the true circumcision of the heart will come. A man breaks the law when he does not follow what is foretold in it.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:26

  The visible needs the invisible but not the other way round, because the visible is an image of the invisible, while the invisible is the reality itself. Thus, the circumcision of the flesh needs the circumcision of the heart but not vice versa, because the reality does not need the image.… If circumcision has no value by itself, why was it instituted? First, in order to distinguish the people of God from among the Gentiles. This is why when they were by themselves in the desert they were not circumcised. Or perhaps so that their bodies might be identified in battle. The reason why they were marked in that part of the body was first so that they would not be disfigured in a part of the body which was open to public view, and second, because the promise of grace would make this part of the body honorable through chastity. Or perhaps it was because it signified that Christ would be born from its seed. He was destined to introduce spiritual circumcision, but until he was born, physical circumcision would continue.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:27

  This either means that as long as the Jews continue their literal circumcision they reject the spiritual circumcision, or that they will be judged because they have not followed what the law said, viz., that by believing in Christ they might receive the true circumcision.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:28

  This is the true Jew, for everything which was previously done externally was but an image of what was meant to happen internally.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 2:29

  This is foretold in the law: "And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God," and again: "Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and remove the foreskin of your heart," not according to the letter of the law but according to the New Testament, which examines the inner secrets which only God can see.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:3

  The faithfulness meant here is that to the promises made to Abraham, to whom it was said that "in your seed all the nations will be blessed."

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:4

  "Every man" means the majority. Paul's opponents had quoted this text as if David had meant: "For this reason have I sinned, that thou might appear just in judging me." But the true meaning is that God promised to punish sinners without showing favoritism and that some thought his delay in doing so amounted to a lie. God prevails when he judges the deeds of those from whom no one thought vengeance would ever be exacted. Or it may also mean that God has shown that he is concerned about mankind … and that he has overthrown those who wrongly suggest that he is not interested in human affairs.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:9

  Paul finds no reason for saying that the Jews are better than others.… Both Jews and Gentiles are under sin—something we not only deduce by reason but also corroborate by the witness of the Jews themselves.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:10

  The psalm from which this quote is taken speaks of the fool. Paul shows that witness to the fool will be fulfilled particularly at the coming of Christ. When he appears, not one righteous person will be found.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:11

  One who does not understand does not seek. Or perhaps it is that one does not understand because one does not seek. One seeks for God by enquiring after his will.… The sinner has not known the will of his master. "Know me, know my will," as the popular saying goes.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:13

  The stench of their teaching and flattery contaminates and kills those who listen. This is why a grave is carefully sealed, so that it does not continue to breed disease among the living by its odor. They express one thing with their mouths but another with their hearts. The venom of asps is mentioned because it is supposed to be the most harmful.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:14

  There is not just one kind of malicious talk. What is said out of malice is without doubt said recklessly.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:19

  In case the Jews might claim that these verses of the psalm were spoken about the Gentiles, Paul indicates that what has been said in the law has been said to those who are under the law. Of course, it is a question as to who is meant by saying that the fool claims that there is no God. The Jews did not say this in words but in deeds, for they claimed to know God but denied it by their behavior. Paul is not talking to the Gentiles here, because he has already made similar statements about them.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:20

  By the works of the law Paul means circumcision, the sabbath and the other ceremonies, which had less to do with righteousness than with carnal pleasure. Through the law comes neither forgiveness nor sin itself but rather recognition of sin. Through the law a man realizes what sin is, either because the natural law had been forgotten or because before the written law was given, the lesser sins [i.e., the sins which were more harmful to oneself than others, like lust, drunkenness, etc.] were not recognized as sins.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:21

  The righteousness which has been given to us freely by God, not acquired by our effort, has been made plain without the written law, and having been hidden in the law has been revealed with greater clarity by the examples of Christ, which are more obvious. The law and the prophets foretold that this righteousness would come in the last times, or perhaps this means that they both bore witness to the recognition of sin.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:22

  This refers to the faith by which one believes in Jesus Christ. In this there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:23

  All sinners need the glory of God because they do not have their own.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

• Romans 3:24

  We have been justified without the works of the law, through baptism. In this way God has freely forgiven our sins even though we are undeserving. Christ has redeemed us with the blood of his death.… For we were all condemned to death, to which Christ handed himself over, though he had no need to, in order to redeem us by his blood.… Note also that Christ did not merely buy us but bought us "back," because we were once his by nature, even though we were separated from him by our sins. If we stop sinning, our redemption will indeed be profitable for us.

  PELAGIUS'S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS