ACC ~ Romans 7 v24

THE REMEDY OF GRACE. AMBROSE: We have a physician—let us follow his remedy! Our remedy is the grace of Christ, and the body of death is our body. Let us therefore be exiled from the body lest we be exiled from Christ. Even if we are in the body let us not follow what is of the body. Let us not neglect the rights of nature, but let us prefer the gifts of grace. ON THE DEATH OF HIS BROTHER SATYRUS 2.41.

WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM! AMBROSIASTER: Paul says that a man born in sin is wretched. For indeed how could man not be wretched when he has succeeded to this inheritance of sin, having this enemy sin with him, through which Satan has access to him? For Adam invented steps by which the despoiler came up to his descendants. Yet the most merciful God, moved by pity, gave us his grace through Christ so that it might be revealed that the human race, once it accepted the forgiveness of sins, might repent and put sin to death. For a man who is pardoned for his sins and cleansed can resist the power of the enemy which is aimed against him, provided that God continues to help him. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

LAW AND CONSCIENCE HAVE FAILED. CHRYSOSTOM: The law has failed, and conscience has proved to be unequal to the task, even though it praised what is good and even fought against evil. … Where then, is salvation going to come from? HOMILIES ON ROMANS 13.

RENEWED UNDER GRACE. AUGUSTINE: Here Paul begins to describe the man renewed under grace, the third of the four states we distinguished above. AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 45-46.

THIS BODY OF DEATH. JEROME: Paul uses the term “the body of death” because the body is subject to vices and sickness, disorders and death until it rises in glory with Christ, and what was once fragile clay is purified in the fire of the Holy Spirit into a very solid rock, changing its glory, not its nature. AGAINST RUFINUS 1.25.

THEODORET OF CYR: Paul calls the body a “body of death” because it has been made subject to death and is therefore mortal. The soul, on the other hand, is immortal. INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

WHO WILL DELIVER ME? PELAGIUS: Who will set me free, says Paul, prisoner that I am, from this fatal habit of the body? PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

SEVERIAN: Having considered the struggle which was taking place in the body against the soul and how man was imprisoned by this, Paul now seeks a way to escape and tries to rescue man, so that the body of death may be transformed into a body of life. … For Paul wants his body to be a body of life and not a body of death or of sin. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

GENNADIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE: Paul did not say “bad” or “evil man” but rather “wretched man” … for having shown that this person contemplated the good with his mind but was drawn toward evil by the passion of the flesh, he presents him as more deserving of mercy than of punishment. PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

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