ACC ~ Romans 5 v18

ONE MAN’S TRESPASS. ACACIUS OF CAESAREA: Paul does not mean by this that because one man sinned everybody else had to pay the price for it even though they had not committed the sin, for that would be unjust. Rather he says that from its beginning in Adam humanity derived both its existence and its sinfulness. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

OBEDIENCE OVERCAME DISOBEDIENCE. DIODORE: What was Adam’s sin? Disobedience.What was Christ’s righteousness? Obedience, by which he obeyed the Father in his incarnation and in his suffering for mankind, as the apostle says: “Being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” Thus obedience overcame disobedience and the worse was condemned by the better. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

NO UNIVERSAL ACQUITTAL. AMBROSIASTER: Some people think that because the condemnation was universal, the acquittal will also be universal. But this is not so, because not everyone believes. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

AUGUSTINE: Here Paul returns to his original argument, interrupted [from verse 12]. AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 29.

NO REBIRTH WITHOUT SPIRITUAL GRACE. AUGUSTINE: No one is born without the intervention of carnal concupiscence, which is inherited from the first man, who is Adam, and no one is reborn without the intervention of spiritual grace, which is given by the second man, who is Christ. LETTER 187.31.

AUGUSTINE: God wants all those to whom grace comes through the righteousness of the One unto justification of life to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. AGAINST JULIAN 4.8.42.

WHETHER ALL ARE PUNISHED WHEN NOT ALL ARE JUSTIFIED. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: How is it possible for God to condemn all men by the sin of the one Adam when not all men are justified by the righteousness of Christ? But when Paul says “all” he is not speaking generally but means only a large number of each kind. In other words, everyone who is justified is justified in Christ, just as everyone who is condemned is condemned in Adam, and nobody beyond that will be punished. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

PELAGIUS: Death reigned, but so also grace reigned through justification. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

CONTRACTING THE DISEASE OF SIN. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: What has Adam’s guilt got to do with us? Why are we held responsible for his sin when we were not even born when he committed it? Did not God say: “The parents will not die for the children, nor the children for the parents, but the soul which has sinned, it shall die.” How then shall we defend this doctrine? The soul, I say, which has sinned, it shall die. We have become sinners because of Adam’s disobedience in the following manner. … After he fell into sin and surrendered to corruption, impure lusts invaded the nature of his flesh, and at the same time the evil law of our members was born. For our nature contracted the disease of sin because of the disobedience of one man, that is, Adam, and thus many became sinners. This was not because they sinned along with Adam, because they did not then exist, but because they had the same nature as Adam, which fell under the law of sin. Thus, just as human nature acquired the weakness of corruption in Adam because of disobedience, and evil desires invaded it, so the same nature was later set free by Christ, who was obedient to God the Father and did not commit sin. EXPLANATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

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