Pelagius

Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500

465 passages across 8 books of the Bible · Who was this?

Commentary

20 of 465
  1. Romans 1:5
    Paul received grace in baptism and apostleship when he was sent by the Holy Spirit, for apostle means “sent” in Greek. The purpose of this was that the Gentiles might submit not to the law but to faith.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  2. Romans 1:7
    Paul is called to be an apostle to all believers, whom God loves impartially, without showing any preference for Jew or Greek. They are saints because of God’s calling, not because of their own holiness. Paul’s greeting is designed to recall God’s benefits and to pray that they may remain perfect in us, because our sins have been freely forgiven.… Paul also insists that Jews and Gentiles live in peace, since both of them have received the same grace.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  3. Romans 1:8
    God is the God of all by nature but of some only by their own choice and response.… Paul calls God his in this second sense. He thanks God for them all, not just for the Jews, and praises them prudently, in order to encourage them to improve. Perhaps he did this because the whole world stood amazed that the idolatrous Romans had been converted … but probably he was just praising a faith which was now evident.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  4. Romans 1:9
    Paul serves God with his whole heart and with a ready zeal.… He also presents a model of unceasing prayer.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  5. Romans 1:10
    Paul does not find the way propitious unless the will of God, who knows all things, has directed him to a place where he might reap some fruit. For example, we read in Acts that, although he wanted to go to one place, he was directed to another.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  6. Romans 1:13
    The Romans would have learned of Paul’s plans through the brothers who were constantly coming and going. Prevented here means “busy,” because he was preaching in other provinces.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  7. Romans 1:16
    This is subtly intended to censure the pagans who, although they do not hesitate to believe that their god Jupiter turned himself into irrational animals and inanimate gold all for the sake of his monstrous lust, think that we Christians should be ashamed to believe that our Lord was crucified in the flesh he assumed, in order to save his image.… At the same time Paul is also bearing in mind those heretics who think that the crucifixion is something unworthy of God, not realizing that nothing is more fitting for the Creator than to care for the salvation of his creatures, particularly as he could not suffer any loss to his own nature, which is not subject to corruption. There is no power greater than the one which overcame death and restored to man the life he had lost, even if this seems like weakness to an unbeliever.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  8. Romans 1:19
    What can be known about God, i.e., that God exists and that God is just, is plain to their consciences. For every creature knows that it is not God and that it was made by another.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  9. Romans 1:20
    God’s hidden qualities can be deduced from things which are manifest. For if he made visible things so splendid that some people thought they were gods and tried to maintain that they were eternal, how much more were these people capable of understanding that the one who made these things is everlasting, almighty and boundless?

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  10. Romans 1:21
    Imagining that they could grasp God with their minds, they fell away from their natural instinct and worshiped creatures instead of the Creator.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  11. Romans 1:22
    They thought they were wise because they had “discovered” how the invisible God can be honored by means of a visible idol!

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  12. Romans 1:23
    They did not understand that there is no similarity between the mortal and the immortal, the corruptible and the eternal.… Here Paul addresses the worshipers of Jupiter, who maintain that he was transformed into the likeness of animals and therefore dedicate to him images of the kind in which he satisfied his sexual desire.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  13. Romans 1:26
    Because of the reasons given above, they were abandoned to their disgraceful behavior. Those who turned against God turned everything on its head. For those who forsook the author of nature could not keep to the order of nature.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  14. Romans 1:27
    Once lust is unbridled, it knows no limit. In the order of nature, those who forgot God did not understand themselves either.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  15. Romans 1:28
    Not only did they not know God, they did not want to know him.… So they were given over to a base mind.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  16. Romans 1:29
    Paul shows that wickedness and evil are the chief causes of the vices. Envy is rightly linked to murder, since it is the chief cause of this crime. Strife exists when something is defended, not by reason but by a proud spirit. Deceit is secret malice covered in flattering speech. Malignity is a wish or a work of malice.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  17. Romans 1:30
    The Scriptures link slander to idolatry by stipulating the same penalty for it—destruction. The haughty are those who want to be more than they are. The devil was like this, and so destroyed himself. For one who seeks to lord it over others will end up beneath them.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  18. Romans 1:31
    Paul mentions all these sins, set out one by one, with respect to those who have been abandoned by God because they have abandoned him. Let us therefore take care, lest we also be abandoned for embracing one of these evils.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  19. Romans 1:32
    Even people who did not agree with these doings … nevertheless seem to have accepted them, because they agreed to idolatry, which is the source and cause of them all.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

  20. Romans 2:1
    This concerns those who are in a position to pass judgment. Judges and princes are being put on trial. By a natural process everyone pronounces a sentence which fits the crime and knows that righteousness deserves reward while wickedness should be punished.

    PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS

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