ACC ~ Romans 10 v3

WHETHER THEIR IGNORANCE WAS DUE TO MALICE. AMBROSIASTER: Paul says that the Jews did not accept Christ because they were mistaken, not because there was any malice on their part. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

CHRYSOSTOM: Once again, ignorance would seem to be an excuse for pardoning them. But it turns out to lead only to a stronger accusation. … It was from small-mindedness and a desire for power that they erred rather than from ignorance, and even their own righteousness was not based on keeping the law. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 17.

SEEKING TO ESTABLISH THEIR OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS. AUGUSTINE: Paul said this about the Jews who because of their self-confidence rejected grace and as a result did not believe in Christ. The Jews, he says, seek to establish a righteousness of their own that comes from the law, not that the law was established by them but rather that they had placed their righteousness in the law which comes from God by supposing that they were able to fulfill this law by themselves. For they were ignorant of the righteousness of God, not that righteousness whereby God is righteous but the one which comes to man from God. GRACE AND FREE WILL 12.24.

[PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: By “their own righteousness” Paul means the law of the Pharisees. For the sacrifices of the law and the other things which were a shadow of the truth, which were to be fulfilled in Christ, ceased to operate once he had come. But this they did not want to believe. The apostle was right to talk of their own righteousness, because it was not of God but of themselves. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

THEY DID NOT SUBMIT. PELAGIUS: Because the Jews did not know that God justifies by faith alone and because they thought they were righteous by the works of a law they did not keep, they refused to submit themselves to the forgiveness of sins, to prevent the appearance of having been sinners, as it is written: “But the Pharisees, rejecting God’s purpose for themselves, refused to be baptized with John’s baptism.” PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

THEODORET OF CYR: When Paul talks about the Jews’ own righteousness he means their inappropriate way of keeping the law. For they were trying to keep something which was already out of date. INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

Rom