Commentary on Romans 8.5–8.6

“How then will they call upon one in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe in one whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without someone preaching? And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” … plainly in these words, by saying, “How then will they call upon one in whom they have not believed?”, that what he set down above from the prophet … doubtless they were calling upon Christ Jesus the Lord. And if to call upon the name of the Lord and to pray to the Lord are one and the same, then as God is called upon, Christ is to be called upon; and as God is prayed to, so Christ too is to be prayed to; and as we offer prayers first of all to God the Father, so also to the Lord Jesus Christ; and as we offer petitions to the Father, so we offer petitions also to the Son; and as we offer thanksgivings to God, so we offer thanks also to the Savior. For the divine word teaches that one honor is to be paid to both, that is, to the Father and to the Son, when it says, “That all may honor the Son as they honor the Father.” But as for what we set out a little earlier about the letter to the Corinthians, where the Apostle first says, “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints,” and after this, as if they were of another rank and another order, he adds certain others, of whom he says, “With all who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, theirs and ours”: it will perhaps seem to contain some difference, in that he names the former the church of God, and sanctified, and called saints, but the latter only people who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And see whether perhaps this diversity shows something such as the present section also seems to have, in which he teaches that the name of the Lord cannot be called upon unless one first believes in Christ. But when someone has believed in Christ, even if he is not yet sanctified and joined to the body of the church, yet he must now call upon the one in whom he has believed. For Christ came to reconcile the world to God and to offer to the Father those who believe in him. And those whom he offers to the Father the Holy Spirit … men, they call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; but after the Spirit of God is in their heart crying “Abba, Father,” the Spirit himself teaches them to call upon the name of the Father as well. Therefore, then, he says, “How will they call upon one in whom they have not believed?” And in this he binds them with a very tight conclusion. There is no salvation, he says, except for one who calls upon him; but no one calls upon him who does not believe. Therefore, because you do not believe, you do not call upon him; and because you do not call upon him, you are not saved.

“But how,” he says, “will they believe in one whom they have not heard?” That they have not heard we can understand thus: that they refused to hear either him when he was in the flesh or his apostles preaching about him. For so the Lord himself says, “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me.” But it can also be understood thus: that even now and always Christ, as Word and Reason, speaks in the heart of each person, teaches about piety, urges righteousness, and bears witness concerning chastity, modesty and all the virtues together, as he himself says, “My sheep hear my voice.” So, indeed, he was speaking in Paul’s heart too, so that Paul said, “Or do you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me?” There follows: “And how will they hear without someone preaching?” In this he shows rather that Christ is heard through the word of preachers, in whom, according to what we said above, Christ is shown to speak and teach. “And how will they preach unless they are sent?” A certain difficulty seems to me to arise in this saying. For if we understand it to mean that they do not preach because they are not sent, and, with no one preaching, they will not hear, and not hearing they will not believe, and not believing they will not call upon him, and not calling upon him they will not be saved, the conclusion from this is that the cause of their not being saved goes back to a fault of the Author, who did not send preachers. But let us rather turn aside to that path of understanding which is more correct, and take what he said, “How will they preach unless they are sent?” as if the Apostle were saying: We, the heralds and preachers of Christ, could not preach, nor would any power of proclaiming remain in us, unless he himself who sent us were present with us. But if you are unwilling to hear us when we preach, the fault is now yours, if hearing you do not believe, and not believing you do not call upon him, and not calling upon him you cannot be saved.

Because, then, they were sent to preach, therefore it is written of those sent by him, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” That he calls these beautiful feet not bodily but spiritual, I think no one can deny, however much a friend of the letter he may be. For he will not reduce the apostolic meaning to such absurdity as to think that the feet of the evangelists that can be seen with bodily eyes are called graceful and beautiful by him; rather, those feet are graceful and beautiful which walk through the way of life. For according to him who said, “I am the way,” understand those to be the graceful and beautiful feet of those who bring good news, who are worthy to walk along such a way. These are the feet with which Paul too said he had run the race, and was so running as to lay hold of the prize: that is, the vigor of the soul by which one strains and hastens toward heaven. And you will readily confirm that these are the feet which Jesus washes for the disciples and wipes with the towel with which he was girded. And although it was fulfilled then in bodily form, yet when Peter understood only what he saw being done and, as if for honor’s sake, protested that the Lord should not wash the feet of his servant, hear what a word of profound mystery is disclosed: “If I do not wash you,” he says, “you will have no part with me.” And again he brings out another saying like this, as from the secret treasures of knowledge, and says, “What I have done you do not know now, but you will know afterwards”; and he adds that, as I the Lord … living water, and if someone receives drink from Jesus and that water becomes in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life, he can wash the disciples’ feet with this water of spiritual teaching and rinse away all the uncleanness and filth from their soul; and doing this he will fulfill the example given by the Master. Beautiful, therefore, are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. Of these feet, I think, the Bride too says to the Word of God in the Song of Songs, “I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them?” And of them no less it is said, “Your legs are like marble columns on silver bases.” And perhaps, because this beauty is in the feet of the evangelists, the Lord Jesus does not want them to cover them with shoes and hide their beautiful form, but commands them not even to have shoes on the way.

But let us see what the good things are which they bring as good news, that is, which they announce. Although this very word he uses, “to bring good news,” is interpreted “to announce good things,” let us nevertheless ask what the good things are that he has added to the good. The one and true good is God, whose Son is the image of his goodness, and his Spirit, who is called good. This one good, then, because it is in God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, he has named “good things.” For this is what the evangelists announce, according to the command of our Lord and Savior, who says, “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” These, then, are the good things of those who bring good news. But since the messenger himself is called good, and announces good things, let the reason be this: that they not only announce good things but announce good things well. For there are some who announce and preach about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but not soundly, not wholly; such are all the heretics, who announce the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but do not announce them well or faithfully. For either they wrongly separate the Son from the Father, so as to say that the Father is of one nature and the Son of another; or they wrongly confuse them, so as to think either that God is composed of three, or that in him there is only the word of a threefold title. But one who announces the good things well will give to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit each his own properties, but will confess that there is no diversity in substance or nature. Those who announce the gospel thus not only announce good things, but announce good things well and wholly.

The example seems to be taken from Isaiah; but there the prophet referred the office of bringing good news to the Lord himself. For he says thus: “Since I myself who spoke am present, like a breeze upon the mountains, as the feet of one bringing the tidings of peace, as one bringing good news of good things.” But it seems to me that, because the prophet had said, “as the feet of one bringing the tidings of peace, as one bringing good news of good things,” Paul recalled this as a comparison with another, as if he were saying: I will be present as a man who brings good news of peace and brings good news of good things. But this the apostles do; therefore he seems to have taken this as said of themselves, that is, of the apostles, by comparison with whom Christ had said through the prophets that he would be present and bring good news of good things.

“But not all obey the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I say, Have they not heard? Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. But I say, Did Israel not know? First Moses says, I will provoke you to jealousy with a no-nation; with a foolish nation I will provoke you to anger. And Isaiah is bold and says, I was found by those who did not seek me; I appeared openly among those who did not ask for me. But to Israel what does he say? All day long I have stretched out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting.” Not all from the Gentiles have believed the gospel, nor all from Israel; yet more, and many more, from the Gentiles than from Israel. As for what the Apostle sets down, then, that Isaiah said, “Lord, who has believed our report?”, “who” is said for “few.” And we ought to observe that this word in the Scriptures is sometimes put for “few,” sometimes for “none at all”; for example, when it says, “Who is wise, and will understand these things?” and, “Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord?” and, “Who is the man who desires life?”, in all these “who” signifies “few.” But where he says, “Who has ascended into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down; or who has descended into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ back from the dead,” here “who” is understood as “no one.” For there is no one who ascends into heaven to bring Christ down from there. Now, then, in “Lord, who has believed our report?”, which Isaiah says, “who” signifies “few.” We should know, however, that in “Lord, who has believed our report?” the Hebrew copies do not have “Lord,” but it is in the translation of the Seventy Elders; and the Apostle, approving what is in theirs, set down “Lord.” Yet Isaiah seems to prophesy these words in the person of the apostles, to whom the office of preaching had been entrusted; and they, seeing the fewness of believers, especially from the people of Israel, say to the Lord, “Lord, who has believed our report?” — as this too is said in their person, “We announced, as a child before him, as a root in thirsty ground.” And they likewise are the ones who say, as if placed with him and seeing him in human form, “We saw him, and he had no form or comeliness,” and the rest. But if these words are referred to the person of the prophets themselves, as if they complained before the Lord that no one, or very few, of that people believed what they had prophesied about Christ, it will not seem out of place. Or must we not suppose that Moses says to the Lord: Lord, no one has believed my report? For if they had believed my writings, they would surely have believed Christ too; for I wrote of him.

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Here “the word of Christ” signifies the preaching about Christ. For not only those believed who heard the word from Christ Jesus the Lord himself speaking; but many more are those who heard him as others preached him, as the Lord himself had foretold when he said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me,” he says, “you have believed; blessed are those who do not see and believe.” Every word, then, which the apostles, and any others who received grace from him, preached about Christ, he declares to be the word of Christ. And in the church too, if anyone speaks the Wisdom which is from God and the truth of God, if anyone teaches the way of God, which is Christ, and expounds his righteousness, without doubt what he speaks is the word of Christ.

“But I say, Have they not heard? Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” This is taken from the eighteenth Psalm, where it says, “There are no speeches nor words in which their voices are not heard. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” In this, because of the variety of languages and speeches, the nations are without doubt understood; and it is said that the sound of the apostles of Christ went out into all the earth, but that to the ends of the world not the sound but the words reached. This can be understood thus: that he calls “the earth” all the unskilled and unteachable people, to whom there reached not the words, in which the reasoning of faith and the explanation of wisdom are contained, but the sound of faith, by a common and simple preaching; while he called “the ends of the world” all the more learned and prudent. For “end” indicates the perfection of things. To such as these, then, he declares that not the sound of the voice but the words and the reasoning reached; they, of course, on hearing the word of faith can also examine and search the divine Scriptures, so as to know the truth of the words announced to them by the apostles. And the Apostle, knowing that there is this difference between these, that is, between sound and words, says thus in a certain place: “And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” to show that the word is that by which, through the power of the Spirit, the wisdom of God is explained more clearly, but that the preaching is that of which the prophet says, “Their sound has gone out into all the earth,” in which, namely, there is a simple announcement of the faith, sufficient for all the simpler sort. And elsewhere too he says of himself that he is a preacher and apostle and teacher of the Gentiles. In this “apostle” indicates the general name of the office, as one who not only preaches but also teaches: he preaches the simple faith, as to those to whom he says, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified,” but he teaches those to whom he said, “Yet we speak wisdom among the perfect.” In these it is shown that to the former he brought the sound of preaching, but to the latter he set out the wisdom of God in words.

“But I say, Did Israel not know? First Moses says, I will provoke you …” What he said above … having spoken about the Gentiles; but now, as is his custom, he wishes to add something about Israel as well, and to prove by suitable witnesses that Israel is without excuse. Moses himself, he says, says in the person of God, “I will provoke you to jealousy with a no-nation,” speaking without doubt of the Christians, who were taken up by God to provoke the jealousy of the former people, unbelieving and contemptuous. But perhaps Moses may seem to have addressed rather insultingly the nation chosen by God for the merit of its faith and devotion, when he says, “with a no-nation,” and to have counted it as nothing, so as not even to deign to call it a nation, or, if he does call it so, to name it foolish. But Moses, as the friend of God, is not insulting toward his elect, nor will there seem to be an insult in the saying if the reason of the saying is made clear. Each nation, for example of the Egyptians or the Syrians or the Moabites, is called this or that nation because it is distinguished by its own borders and language and dress and customs and institutions; and neither are Syrians ever called Egyptians, nor Moabites called Idumeans, nor Arabs Scythians. But the Christians are not one nation, but one people out of all nations; and therefore Moses, as the highest honor, named it a no-nation, because it was not one nation but, if one may so speak, the nation of all nations. But we shall seem to be excluded by what follows, where he says, “with a foolish nation I will provoke you to anger,” in that he named it both a nation and foolish. But not even in this does Moses, the servant of God, insult the people of God; rather, he foresaw in the Spirit that if anyone wishes to be wise in this world he must become foolish, that he may be wise with God; and that, since the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe; and that through the preaching of the cross of Christ, which is foolishness to the Gentiles, a people would be gathered that becomes foolish in this world, that it may be wise with God. The Jews, then, are angry that, while they made excuses and refused, the Gentiles were invited to the king’s banquet, not looking to what Isaiah long ago boldly says about this mystery: “I was found by those who did not seek me; I appeared openly among those who did not ask for me. But to Israel what does he say? All day long I have stretched out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting.”

As we have often shown above that the apostle Paul speaks now of the Gentiles, now of Israel, yet without plainly and openly declaring the change of person, so Isaiah too does in these words which the Apostle has brought forward as an example. The first parts, that is, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I appeared openly among those who did not ask for me,” he says without doubt of the Gentiles; and where Isaiah changes the person covertly, the Apostle has given his words a plain distinction by adding, “But to Israel what does he say?”, and he explains that the earlier words are to be referred to the Gentiles and the following ones to Israel, in which he says, “All day long I have stretched out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting.” But first of all, as to his saying, “Isaiah is bold and says,” let us see what he dares, or with what boldness the prophet is here shown. If we attend to the words of blessed Stephen, who says, “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute, who announced the coming of the Just One?”, then we understand the boldness of Isaiah, who, though persecution and death were set before him, yet dared to preach the coming of the Just One, and for the good man even dares to die. In this at the same time it is shown that the prophets did not, as some think, not know what they were saying and prophesy as if out of their minds. For what the Apostle says of Isaiah, that he is bold and says, indicates this: that, despising death and the persecutions inflicted, though he knew danger hung over him, yet he dares and preaches the word of God, as Paul himself also said, “I know that chains and prisons await me in Jerusalem; but I do not count my life dearer to myself.” So Isaiah too knew that he was to be sawn apart and killed by the ungodly; yet he dares, and says in the person of Christ, “I was found by those who did not seek me.” Now it is certain that the Gentiles were those who neither knew how to seek Christ nor had learned to ask about him. Yet they found the one they did not seek, because he first sought them. For he is the good shepherd, and sought the sheep that had been lost; and he is the wisdom that sought the lost drachma, and seeking found it. But the Jews still seek about Christ and question the Scriptures about him, and do not find, because his cross is a stumbling block to the Jews; and therefore he says to them, “All day long I have stretched out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting”: that is, when he hung on the cross, they not only did not find him, but in addition said, “If you are the Son of God, come down now from the cross, and we will believe you.” But hear also what is said in the Wisdom of Solomon, that he will not be found by those who put him to the test, but will appear to those who are not unbelieving toward him. And this too we should not be ignorant of, that in the copies of the Hebrews “and contradicting” is not found; but the Apostle in his writings followed the truth of the Seventy Translators, and sets it down as they translated it.