ACC ~ Romans 2 v14

LETTER AND SPIRIT. ORIGEN: The Gentiles need not keep the sabbaths or the new moons or the sacrifices which are written down in the law. For this law is not what is written on the hearts of the Gentiles. Rather it is that which can be discerned naturally, e.g., that they should not kill or commit adultery, that they should not steal nor bear false witness, that they should honor father and mother, etc. It may well be that since God is the one Creator of all, these things are written on the hearts of the Gentiles. … For the natural law may agree with the law of Moses in the spirit, if not in the letter. For how would anyone understand by nature that a child should be circumcised on the eighth day?… But we who feel that such things must be understood in a spiritual sense believe that we are not merely hearers of the law but doers of it also, being justified not according to the letter of the law, which in any case is so difficult that nobody could ever do it correctly, but according to the Spirit, which is the only way the law can ever be kept. This then is the work of the law which the apostle says even the Gentiles can fulfill. So when they do what the law says, it seems that they have the law written on their hearts by God, “not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.” COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

THE NATURAL LAW. AMBROSE: The Gentiles show the work of the law written in their hearts. There is therefore something like the law of God which exists in the hearts of men. PARADISE 8.39.

KEEPING THE NATURAL LAW. AMBROSE: If men had been able to keep the natural law which God the Creator planted in the breast of each one, there would have been no need of that law which, written on stone tablets, enmeshed and entangled the weakness of human nature rather than freed and liberated it.LETTER 83.

NATURE ACKNOWLEDGING ITS OWN CREATOR. AMBROSIASTER: Paul calls the Gentiles Christians because he is the teacher of the Gentiles, as he says elsewhere: “For I speak to you Gentiles.” These people are uncircumcised and do not keep new moons or the sabbath or the law of foods, yet under the guidance of nature they believe in God and in Christ, i.e., in the Father and the Son. To keep the law is to acknowledge the God who gives the law. This is the first part of wisdom: to stand in awe of God the Father, from whom all things come, and the Lord Jesus his Son, through whom all things come. Therefore nature itself acknowledges its Creator by its own judgment, not by the law but by reason, for the creature recognizes its Maker in itself. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

THE REASONING OF NATURE. CHRYSOSTOM: When Paul is challenging the pride of Judaism, he is careful not to appear to be condemning the law as such. On the contrary, by extolling the law and showing its greatness he makes good his whole position. When he says “by nature” he means “by the reasoning of nature.” He shows that the Gentiles are on better footing than the Jews. They have not received the law and therefore do not have what seems to give the Jews an advantage over them. For this reason Paul says the Gentiles are to be admired, because they did not need a law, but did all the things which were written in the law, having its works but not its letters engraved on their minds. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 5.

NOT WITHOUT ANY LAW. PELAGIUS: 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.

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