Pelagius — Commentary on Scripture

We “were” slaves to sin, but we “are” no longer.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

This is according to the teaching and example of Christ, who has taught us to get rid not only of sins but also of opportunities to sin.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 6:19

Paul is saying, in effect: “Although you ought to serve righteousness much more than you previously served sin, I nevertheless make allowance for your weakness so that you might serve righteousness just as much as you once served sin.” Or perhaps it is this: Whatever the soul does in a carnal fashion is held against the flesh, but if the flesh performs a spiritual deed the whole person becomes spiritual.… We offered our members to serve sin; it is not the case, as the Manichaeans say, that it was the nature of the body to have sin ingrained in it.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 6:20

As you are in no way slaves to sin inwardly, you should become free of every sin.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 6:22

Doubtless there is no blessing in something for which one feels shame when repenting of it. Everyone who comes to know goodness is ashamed of his former actions, but anyone who is ashamed of righteousness is not aware of its fruit. Therefore, those who sin get nothing out of it in the present, and in the future they will reap eternal death. But those who serve God have the gift of the Holy Spirit in the present and eternal life in the future. Or perhaps it should be read like this: what have you got out of doing things which make you feel ashamed whenever you think of them? The return you have already received is that, having been sanctified by baptism, you are alive.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 6:23

One who does military service for sin receives death as his wages. Paul does not use the term “wages of righteousness” because there was no righteousness in us before our baptism which God could repay. Righteousness is not obtained by our effort but is a gift of God.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:1

Now Paul begins to point out problems with the law in order to encourage his readers to move over to grace without the fear which belongs to the law.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:2

By analogy, Paul calls the commandment of the law a “husband” in order to demonstrate that, without the power to punish, the law (being already dead, as it were) cannot stop us (who have already been put to death) from going over completely to Christ, who has risen from the dead. For the law would quite rightly go on living in us if it could find something in us to punish.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:3

As long as her husband is alive, a woman must live according to his will alone, but once he is dead and she is married to another man, she should no longer live in the manner of her former husband.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:4

Paul was reluctant to tell the Jews that the law was dead, but what he dared not say out loud he leaves to be understood.… A man bears fruit for God when his works of righteousness like fruit break out in blossom, then grow into fruit, and finally become fully ripe, for no fruit is forever in blossom.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:5

When we were still living carnally the passion of lust worked in our eyes, and the other passions worked in the rest of our bodies. It was the law which showed us that these passions were sinful, and the severity of the law killed us.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:6

We have died to the sin for which we were held by the law, and now we serve according to the demands of spiritual grace, not according to the written law.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:7

From here on Paul speaks as one who accepts the law, i.e., of one who first comes to know God’s commandants while he is still in the habit of breaking them. Paul does not say that without the law he would not have been in the habit of coveting, nor does he say that he would not have done it; rather, he says that he would not have known that coveting was a sin.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:9

Paul means either that he once imagined that he lived as a righteous and free person or that he was alive, at least for the present life. But when the commandment arrived to put an end to forgetfulness, sin was once again recognized, so that everyone who commits it knows that he is dead. Because sin had lived by natural knowledge and died through forgetfulness, it is said to have come back to life through the law.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:10

Paul says that he died because then he transgressed knowingly. The commandment which would have led to life had it been kept in fact led to death, because it was disregarded.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:12

Contrary to those who attack the law and those who separate justice from goodness, the law is called a good and holy grace as well as a just grace. God is regularly called “good” in the Old Testament and “just” in the New. This contradicts the Marcionites.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:13

The law does not become for me the actual cause of death, but I do when I encounter death by sinning. Sin was revealed through the law, which is itself good, and was also punished by it. Before the law came sin was limited because of ignorance, but when it is committed knowingly these limitations are taken away.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:14

Paul says he was carnal because, although he accepted the law, he was in the habit of living carnally.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:15

Paul says that he subjected himself to sin of his own accord and then, as if drunk, he did not know what he was doing. Or perhaps he meant that he did not understand that what he accepted against his will was evil.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

Romans 7:16

Paul says that if he does not want to do the particular evil which he does, at least he agrees with the law, which does not desire evil and prohibits it. But it can also be understood thus: if a man sins, he subjects himself to the severity of the law.

PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS