ACC ~ Romans 11 v24

THE TWO TREES. AMBROSIASTER: The olive tree represents faith, whereas the wild olive refers to wickedness. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

WHAT FAITH CAN ACCOMPLISH. CHRYSOSTOM: If faith could do what was contrary to nature, how much more will it be able to accomplish that which is according to nature. For if the Gentile, who was cut off from his natural fathers and came, contrary to nature, to Abraham, how much more will God be able to recover his own! HOMILIES ON ROMANS 19.

FOLLOW THE GOODNESS OF THE ROOT. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: In this passage Paul says that the Gentiles have been grafted against nature onto the root, that is, onto the faith of the patriarchs, and that being grafted on in this way they do not bear fruit of their own kind, according to the nature of the tree, but they follow the goodness of the root onto which they have been grafted. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

GRAFTED AGAINST NATURE. PELAGIUS: Their fathers had fallen away from nature because they had forgotten the law of nature, and when their habits had become fixed through repeated sinning, they came to be bitter and unproductive, as it were, by nature.

“And grafted, contrary to nature.” … It is against nature to graft a wild olive tree into a cultivated olive tree, because the branch usually alters the effectiveness of the root. The root does not change the effectiveness of the branches to conform to its character. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.