Commentary on Romans 3.10–3.11

Hence too he fittingly sets down next: "Or is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also. Since indeed there is one God who justifies the circumcision from faith and the uncircumcision through faith." To those who want the God of the Jews to be one and the God of the Gentiles another, that is, one God of the Law and another of the Gospels, this will be a tight and narrow answer on the point, since the apostle Paul gives his own view quite abundantly when he not only says that the God of the Jews and of the Gentiles is one, but also adds that it is one and the same who justifies the circumcision from faith and the uncircumcision through faith. And if they wish to take circumcision by allegory, so as to say that the saints and the spiritual are called circumcision by him, they will at once find an obstacle in what follows. For if he called the saints, or, as they name them, the spiritual, circumcision, it follows that he called the sinners, whom they call soulish, uncircumcision. And how will it be consistent that the good God justifies the spiritual and the soulish alike? For them, then, there will be an inextricable knot in these words of the Apostle. But according to us, who say that the circumcision means those who have believed from the Jews, and the uncircumcision likewise those who have been called to the faith from the Gentiles, the exposition will be plain and easy. For one and the same God justifies believers from both peoples not by the privilege of circumcision or uncircumcision but in view of faith alone.

There remains also the difference of one syllable in which the Apostle seems to have varied. Let it not pass us by idly that he says God justifies the circumcision "from faith" and not "through faith," but the uncircumcision "through faith" and not "from faith." For this change of prepositions does not seem to me superfluous in him, because we find these too set down by him in other places, not at random but with care, and the difference of this distinction necessarily kept: as when, speaking of God, he says: "For from him and through him and in him are all things." And again elsewhere he says: "For as the woman is from the man, so too the man is through the woman; but all things are from God." Such too is what he writes to the Corinthians: "To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit." And not only the apostle Paul keeps the observance of these distinctions, but John too, who, when he says of the Word of God that "all things were made through him," testifies that life was made not through him but in him, saying: "What was made, in him was life." And since it would be a long task to explain the things we have now brought forward as examples, let us briefly gather their sense according to our capacity.

When "from him" is said, something principal seems to be shown by the sign of this preposition. But when "through him" is said, the understanding of a following cause, that is, of one that comes after the principal, is designated. For example, in his saying, "From him and through him and in him are all things": "from him" gave the significance of the first creation of all things, and of this very fact that the things that exist began to exist from God; "through him," that the things which had first been made are ruled and ordered through him from whom they had the beginning of their existence; "in him," that those who have now been corrected and amended stand firm in his perfection. So these distinctions are drawn out as holding the fullest reason: that we may be said to have from God the fact that we subsist; that our being ordered and ruled may be designated as coming about through him; but that our standing firm in the perfection of all things may be declared to be "in him." In the present place too a difference of this kind can be observed: that the circumcision, which is justified as in the first place and order, is recorded as being justified "from faith" and not "through faith"; but the uncircumcision, which is drawn to justification in the second place, is said to be justified not "from faith" but "through faith."

I think that these things are designated more fully also in that difference which we mentioned above: "For as the woman is from the man, so too the man is through the woman." For in the first place is the man, from whom the woman is said to descend, and not through the man. But in the second place the man is through the woman, because the woman seems in a way to serve the man as author; and therefore the man is said to be through the woman, and not from the woman. But perhaps someone may meet this exposition of ours about the woman and the man, and object what the Apostle said of Christ: "made from a woman, made under the law"; and he did not say "made through a woman." To him I think the answer should be given thus. Of every man it will fit to be said that he was made through a woman, since, though he is born through a woman, he took his beginning from a man; but Christ, who is not from the seed of a man … For to her, that is, to the woman, the very principal origin of his flesh is ascribed, and rightly he is recorded by the Apostle as made not "through a woman" but "from a woman."

One and the same God, then, justifies the circumcision from faith and the uncircumcision through faith. And if someone asks more curiously through whom those who are justified from faith are justified, and again from what those who are justified through faith are justified: although there may perhaps seem to be much curiosity in this, yet we can fittingly say that those who are justified from faith, having made their beginning from faith, are brought to completion by the fulfillment of good works; and those who are justified through faith, having begun from good works, receive the summit of perfection through faith. So each, clinging to the other, is brought to completion by the other.

And for this reason, I think, the Apostle immediately set down next: "Do we then destroy the law through faith? Far from it; rather we establish the law." Since above he seemed to call everything back to faith, he puts forward to himself what could be proposed by another, and says: "If a man is justified through faith and not by the works of the law, and if God justifies the circumcision from faith and the uncircumcision through faith, do you then, Paul, destroy the law of Moses through faith?" But answering this himself he says: "Far from it; rather we establish the law," that is, we confirm it. But it is worth the trouble to see how he declares that he confirms the law, who said above that a man is not justified by the works of the law. The Savior says in the Gospels that Moses wrote of him. One, then, who does not believe in Christ, of whom Moses wrote in the law, destroys the law; but one who believes in Christ, of whom Moses wrote, confirms the law through faith, because he believes in Christ. And we speak of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, whole, full, and perfect, which professes nothing different, nothing discordant or foreign in the Trinity. For Marcion, who says that the God of the law is one and the Father of Christ another, does not establish nor confirm the law by his faith, but destroys it. Ebion does this too; so do all who insert anything of corruption into the catholic faith. I will also fittingly add this: that everyone who, believing in Christ, does good and keeps himself from every stain of sin, confirms the law of God by living rightly; but one who is driven headlong by the vices of sins and is stained by the habit of crimes without any check of repentance, even if he seems to believe in Christ, does not establish the law by his faith but destroys it.

But that objection too seems by no means to be passed over by us which someone can bring forward, saying that the Apostle seems to write things contrary to himself, since in the present place he says that the law is not destroyed but confirmed, while in the second letter to the Corinthians he writes thus: "But if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stones, came in glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look upon the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which is being destroyed, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more in glory?" And shortly after: "For if what is being destroyed was through glory, much more is what remains in glory." It can be said, then, that "the glory of Moses' face, which is being destroyed," and what he says, "For if what is being destroyed was through glory," seem contrary to this sentence in which he declares, "We do not destroy the law through faith, but establish and confirm it."

But see whether we can resolve what is objected in this way. It is not the same thing that he said, "we destroy the law," and "the law is being destroyed." In the present place, then, Paul declares this: that he himself does not destroy the law. For even if the law is destroyed by that glory which surpasses it, it is destroyed neither by Paul nor by any other of the saints. Hence the Lord himself too said: "I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it." None of the saints, then, nor the Lord himself, destroys the law; but its temporal and passing glory is destroyed and surpassed by the eternal and abiding glory. See, then, how cautiously and perceptively the apostolic letters are to be read. He did not say, "For what was glorious has not been glorified," and fall silent; otherwise it would seem false (for how would what is glorious not have been glorified?); but he added: "because of the glory that surpasses it"; to show that the glory of Moses, that is, of the law, is not destroyed by just anyone, but, as we said, that the glory which is in the law is covered and obscured by comparison with the greater glory which is in Christ. And therefore he says: "For if what is being destroyed was through glory, much more is what remains in glory." He says that the things of Christ remain and the things of Moses are destroyed; but destroyed not by man but, as we said, by comparison with the glory that came after; since indeed the law was our pedagogue in Christ until the fullness of the times came. And just as we say that the work of a pedagogue is necessary while the one who is under the pedagogue is a child, but that the office of the pedagogue is destroyed and no longer necessary when the one who was under the pedagogue has come to maturity, so we say that the work of the law is now destroyed when the fullness of time has come, and the son, who once differed in nothing from a slave, has become heir of the father's substance.

That the things which the Apostle calls to be destroyed should be understood thus, learn his custom with this word in other places too, where he says: "We know in part and we prophesy in part; but when what is perfect has come, the things that are in part will be destroyed." In this place too Paul's knowledge or prophecy is said to be destroyed without injury to the apostolic grace: that is, so that we may understand that in comparison with perfect things the imperfect are idle and of no use. So, then, in the present word too Paul does not destroy the law but confirms it. But when the glory of Christ has been revealed, that glory which appeared in Moses, and by which he had been glorified, it confutes and convicts by the very comparison with itself, in which it surpasses it, and shows that it is not even to be counted glory. Such too is what is said elsewhere: "He must increase, but I must decrease"; and what Paul himself says: "But when I became a man, I destroyed the things that were a child's." The comparison with the pedagogue shows this too, whose work is destroyed and ceases when the child has come to mature age. That is why the Apostle said most cautiously: "Do we then destroy the law through faith? Far from it!" And he did not say, "Is the law then destroyed through faith?" but, "Do we then destroy the law?" And again in what follows: "No, but we establish the law." For even if the law is destroyed, it is destroyed not through faith but through the surpassing glory. But through faith the law is not only not destroyed, but is established and confirmed through the apostles: because they preach that Christ, whom the law and the prophets foretold as coming, has now come; and it is certainly a confirmation of prophecy or of the law when what had been foretold is shown to be fulfilled.