Tertullian — Commentary on Scripture

Romans 8:17

For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." And therefore he afterward says: "Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (As it is written: For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we have been counted as sheep for the slaughter, ) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him who loved us.

Scorpiace

Romans 8:18

Even the apostle ought not to be known for any one statement in which he is wont to reproach the flesh. For although he says that "in his flesh dwelleth no good thing; " although he affirms that "they who are in the flesh cannot please God," because "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit; " yet in these and similar assertions which he makes, it is not the substance of the flesh, but its actions, which are censured.

On the Resurrection of the Flesh

Romans 8:19

But if, on the other hand, there is to be an end of evil, when the chief thereof, the devil, shall "go away into the fire which God hath prepared for him and his angels" -having been first "cast into the bottomless pit; " when likewise "the manifestation of the children of God" shall have "delivered the creature" from evil, which had been "made subject to vanity; " when the cattle restored in the innocence and integrity of their nature shall be at peace with the beasts of the field, when also little children shall play with serpents; when the Father shall have put beneath the feet of His Son His enemies, as being the workers of evil,-if in this way an end is compatible with evil, it must follow of necessary that a beginning is also compatible with it; and Matter will turn out to have a beginning, by virtue of its having also an end.

Against Hermogenes

Romans 8:20

But if, on the other hand, there is to be an end of evil, when the chief thereof, the devil, shall "go away into the fire which God hath prepared for him and his angels" -having been first "cast into the bottomless pit; " when likewise "the manifestation of the children of God" shall have "delivered the creature" from evil, which had been "made subject to vanity; " when the cattle restored in the innocence and integrity of their nature shall be at peace with the beasts of the field, when also little children shall play with serpents; when the Father shall have put beneath the feet of His Son His enemies, as being the workers of evil,-if in this way an end is compatible with evil, it must follow of necessary that a beginning is also compatible with it; and Matter will turn out to have a beginning, by virtue of its having also an end.

Against Hermogenes

Romans 8:21

But if, on the other hand, there is to be an end of evil, when the chief thereof, the devil, shall "go away into the fire which God hath prepared for him and his angels" -having been first "cast into the bottomless pit; " when likewise "the manifestation of the children of God" shall have "delivered the creature" from evil, which had been "made subject to vanity; " when the cattle restored in the innocence and integrity of their nature shall be at peace with the beasts of the field, when also little children shall play with serpents; when the Father shall have put beneath the feet of His Son His enemies, as being the workers of evil,-if in this way an end is compatible with evil, it must follow of necessary that a beginning is also compatible with it; and Matter will turn out to have a beginning, by virtue of its having also an end.

Against Hermogenes

Romans 8:26

Herein also you ought to recognise the Paraclete in His character of Comforter, in that He excuses your infirmity from (the stringency of) an absolute continence.

On Monogamy

Romans 8:32

This verity the apostle also perceived, when he writes to this effect: "If the Father spa. red not His own Son." This did Isaiah before him likewise perceive, when he declared: "And the Lord hath delivered Him up for our offences.

Against Praxeas

Romans 8:32

Why, in this very standing of yours there was a fleeing from persecution, in the release from persecution which you bought; but that you should ransom with money a man whom Christ has ransomed with His blood, how unworthy is it of God and His ways of acting, who spared not His own Son for you, that He might be made a curse for us, because cursed is he that hangeth on a tree, -Him who was led as a sheep to be a sacrifice, and just as a lamb before its shearer, so opened He not His mouth; but gave His back to the scourges, nay, His cheeks to the hands of the smiter, and turned not away His face from spitting, and, being numbered with the transgressors, was delivered up to death, nay, the death of the cross.

On Flight in Persecution

Romans 8:32

The apostle also knows what kind of God he has ascribed to us, when he writes: "If God spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us, how did He not with Him also give us all things? " You see how divine Wisdom has murdered even her own proper, first-born and only Son, who is certainly about to live, nay, to bring back the others also into life.

Scorpiace

Romans 8:35

For we are persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." But further, in recounting his own sufferings to the Corinthians, he certainly decided that suffering must be borne: "In labours, (he says, ) more abundant, in prisons very frequent, in deaths oft.

Scorpiace

Romans 9:4

For although the Jew withal be called "a son," and an "elder one," inasmuch as he had priority in adoption; although, too, he envy the Christian the reconciliation of God the Father,-a point which the opposite side most eagerly catches at,-still it will be no speech of a Jew to the Father: "Behold, in how many years do I serve Thee, and Thy precept have I never transgressed.

On Modesty

Romans 9:5

But when Christ alone (is mentioned), I shall be able to call Him "God," as the same apostle says: "Of whom is Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever." For I should give the name of" sun" even to a sunbeam, considered in itself; but if I were mentioning the sun from which the ray emanates, I certainly should at once withdraw the name of sun from the mere beam.

Against Praxeas

Romans 9:5

Joseph, again, himself was made a figure of Christ in this point alone (to name no more, not to delay my own course), that he suffered persecution at the hands of his brethren, and was sold into Egypt, on account of the favour of God; just as Christ was sold by Israel-(and therefore, ) "according to the flesh," by His "brethren" -when He is betrayed by Judas.

An Answer to the Jews

Romans 9:10

Much more aptly would they have matched the Christian with the elder, and the Jew with the younger son, "according to the analogy of faith," if the order of each people as intimated from Rebecca's womb permitted the inversion: only that (in that case) the concluding paragraph would oppose them; for it will he fitting for the Christian to rejoice, and not to grieve, at the restoration of Israel, if it he true, (as it is), that the whole of our hope is intimately united with the remaining expectation of Israel.

On Modesty

Romans 9:10

For thus unto Rebecca did God speak: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided from thy bowels; and people shall overcome people, and the greater shall serve the less." Accordingly, since the people or nation of the Jews is anterior in time, and "greater" through the grace of primary favour in the Law, whereas ours is understood to be "less" in the age of times, as having in the last era of the world attained the knowledge of divine mercy: beyond doubt, through the edict of the divine utterance, the prior and "greater" people-that is, the Jewish-must necessarily serve the "less; "and the "less" people-that is, the Christian-overcome the "greater.

An Answer to the Jews

Romans 9:20

In the same way the potter, too, has it in his power, by tempering the blast of his fire, to modify his clayey material into a stiffer one, and to mould one form after another more beautiful than the original substance, and now possessing both a kind and name of its own. For although the Scripture says, "Shall the clay say to the potter? " that is, Shall man contend with God? although the apostle speaks of "earthen vessels" he refers to man, who was originally clay.

On the Resurrection of the Flesh

Romans 9:21

The vessel is the flesh, because it was made of clay by the breath of God, and only afterward was it clothed with the coat of skin.

ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH 8

Romans 9:28

Accordingly, when He uttered such denunciations as, "Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness," He taught me to refrain from doing to others what I should be unwilling to have done to myself; and therefore the precept developed in the Gospel will belong to Him alone, who anciently drew it up, and gave it distinctive point, and arranged it after the decision of His own teaching, and has now reduced it, suitably to its importance, to a compendious formula, because (as it was predicted in another passage) the Lord-that is, Christ" was to make (or utter) a concise word on earth."

Against Marcion Book IV

Romans 9:32

And we saw Him, and He had not attractiveness or grace; but His mien was unhonoured, deficient in comparison of the sons of men," "a man set in the plague, and knowing how to bear infirmity: "to wit as having been set by the Father "for a stone of offence," and "made a little lower" by Him "than angels," He pronounces Himself "a worm, and not a man, an ignominy of man, and the refuse of the People.

An Answer to the Jews

Romans 9:32

And, of course, it had been meet that the mystery of the passion itself should be figuratively set forth in predictions; and the more incredible (that mystery), the more likely to be "a stumbling-stone," if it had been nakedly predicted; and the more magnificent, the more to be adumbrated, that the difficulty of its intelligence might seek (help from) the grace of God.

An Answer to the Jews