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Rom_7:13. γέγονε ] Lachm. and Tisch. (8), following A B C D E P à , 47, 73, 80, Method. Damasc. read ἐγένετο . Some Latin codd[1506] have est. F G have no verb at all. With the preponderance, thus all the more decisive, of the witnesses which favour ἘΓΈΝΕΤΟ , it is to be preferred.
Rom_7:14. ΣΑΡΚΙΚΌς ] The ΣΆΡΚΙΝΟς adopted by Griesb. Lachm. Scholz, and Tisch. is attested by A B C D E F G à *, min[1507], and several Fathers. For this reason, and because the ending κός was easily suggested by the preceding ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΌς , as in general ΣΑΡΚΙΚΌς was more familiar to the copyists (Rom_15:27; 1Co_9:11; 2Co_10:4; 1Pe_2:11) than ΣΆΡΚΙΝΟς (2Co_3:3), the latter is to be assumed as the original reading.
Rom_7:17. ΟἸΚΟῦΣΑ ] Tisch. (8) reads ἘΝΟΙΚΟῦΣΑ , which would have to be received, if it were attested in more quarters than by B à .
Rom_7:18. ΟὐΧ ΕὙΡΊΣΚΩ ] A B C à , 47, 67**, 80, Copt. Arm. Procl. in Epiph. Method. Cyr. codd[1508] Gr. ap. Aug. have merely οὔ . Approved by Griesb.; adopted by Lachm. and Tisch. But if there had been a gloss, the supplement would have been παράκειται . The omission on the other hand is explained by the copyist’s hurrying on from ΟΥΧ to the ΟΥ at the beginning of Rom_7:19.
Rom_7:20. θέλω ἐγώ ] Since ἐγώ is wanting in B C D E F G, min[1509], Arm. Vulg. It. and several Fathers, but is found in 219, Clem, after τοῦτο , in Chrys. before οὐ ; and since it is, according to the sense and the analogy of Rom_7:15; Rom_7:19, inappropriate, it has rightly been deleted by Lachm. and Fritzsche, and is to be regarded as a mechanical addition from what immediately follows. If ἐγώ were original (and had been omitted in accordance with Rom_7:15; Rom_7:19), it must have had the emphasis of the contrast, which however it has not.
Rom_7:25. εὐχαριστῶ ] Lachm. and Tisch. read χάρις , which Griesb. also approved of, following B and several min[1510], vss[1511] and Fathers. Fritzsche reads χάρις δέ in accordance with C**, à **, min[1512], Copt. Arm. and Fathers. Both are taken from the near, and, in the connection of ideas, analogous Rom_6:17 (not εὐχαρ . from Rom_1:8). The reading ἡ χάρις τ . Θεοῦ (D E and some Fathers), or ἡ χ . τ . κυρίου (F G), is manifestly an alteration, in order to make the answer follow the preceding question.
[1503] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.
[1504] ss. versions. These, when individually referred to, are marked by the usual abridged forms.
[1505] odd. codices or manuscripts. The uncial manuscripts are denoted by the usual letters, the Sinaitic by à .
[1506] odd. codices or manuscripts. The uncial manuscripts are denoted by the usual letters, the Sinaitic by à .
[1507] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.
[1508] odd. codices or manuscripts. The uncial manuscripts are denoted by the usual letters, the Sinaitic by à .
[1509] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.
[1510] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.
[1511] ss. versions. These, when individually referred to, are marked by the usual abridged forms.
[1512] in. codices minusculi, manuscripts in cursive writing. Where these are individually quoted, they are marked by the usual Arabic numerals, as 33, 89.
Paul conducts the refutation, speaking throughout in the first person singular (comp. 1Co_6:12; 1Co_13:11). This mode of expression, differing from the μετασχηματισμός (see on 1Co_4:6), is an ἰδίωσις ; comp. Theodore of Mopsuestia on Rom_7:8 : τὸ ἐν ἐμοὶ ὅτε λέγει , τὸ κοινὸν λέγει τῶν ἀνθρώπων , and Theophylact on Rom_7:9 : ἐν τῷ οἰκείῳ δὲ προσώπῳ τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν λέγει . Thus he declares concerning himself what is meant to apply to every man placed under the Mosaic law generally, in respect of his relation to that law—before the turning-point in his inner life brought about through his connection with that law, and after it. The apostle’s own personal experience, so far from being thereby excluded, everywhere gleams through with peculiarly vivid and deep truth, and represents concretely the universal experience in the matter. The subject presenting itself through the ἐγώ is therefore man in general, in his natural state under the law, to which he is bound, as not yet redeemed through Christ and sanctified through the Spirit (for which see chap. 8); without, however, having been unnaturally hardened by legal righteousness or rendered callous and intractable through despising the law, and so estranged from the moral earnestness of legal Judaism. Into this earlier state, in which Paul himself had been before his conversion, he transports himself back, and realizes it to himself with all the vividness and truth of an experience that had made indelible impression upon him; and thus he becomes the type of the moral relation, in which the as yet unregenerate Israelite stands to the divine law. “He betakes himself once more down to those gloomy depths, and makes all his readers also traverse them with him, only in order at last to conclude with warmer gratitude that he is now indeed redeemed from them, and thereby to show what that better and eternal law of God is which endures even for the redeemed,” Ewald. Augustine (prop. 45 in ep. ad Rom.; ad Simplic. i. 91; Conf. vii. 21), in his earlier days, acknowledged, in harmony with the Greek Fathers since Irenaeus, that the language here is that of the unregenerate man; though later, in opposition to Pelagianism (especially on account of Rom_7:17-18; Rom_7:22; see Retract. i. 23, 26, ii. 3; c. duas ep. Pel. i. 10; c. Faust. xv. 8), he gave currency to the view that the “I” is that of the regenerate. In this he was followed by Jerome, who likewise held a different opinion previously; and later by Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Beza (not by Bucer and Musculus), Chemnitz, Gerhard, Quenstedt and many others, more, however, among Protestant than among Catholic commentators (Erasmus says of him: “dure multa torquens;” and see especially Toletus). On the other hand, the Socinians and Arminians, as also the school of Spener, returned to the view of the Greek Fathers, which gradually became, and has down to the present day continued, the dominant one. See the historical elucidations in Tholuck and Reiche; also Knapp, Scr. var. arg. p. 400 ff. The theory that Paul is speaking simply of himself and exhibiting his own experiences (comp. Hofmann), must be set aside for the simple reason, that in that case the entire disquisition, as a mere individual psychological history (7–13) and delineation (Rom_7:14 ff.), could have no general probative force whatever, which nevertheless, from the connection with what goes before and follows (Rom_8:1), it is intended to have. Others, like Grotius, who correctly referred it to the state anterior to regeneration, and among them recently Reiche in particular, represent Paul as speaking in the person of the Jewish people as a people.1 But, so far as concerns Rom_7:7-13, it is utterly untrue that the Jewish nation previous to the law led a life of innocence unacquainted with sin and evil desire; and as concerns Rom_7:14 ff., the explanation of the double character of the “I,” if we are to carry out the idea of referring it to the nation, entangles us in difficulties which can only force us to strange caprices of exegesis, such as are most glaringly apparent in Reiche. Fritzsche also has not consistently avoided the reference of the “I” to the people as such, and the impossibilities that necessarily accompany it, and, in opposition to the Augustinian interpretation, has excluded, on quite insufficient grounds, the apostle himself and his own experience. Paul, who had himself been a Jew under the law, could not describe at all otherwise than from personal recollection that unhappy state, which indeed, with the lively and strong susceptibility of his entire nature and temperament, he must have experienced very deeply, in order to be able to depict it as he has done. Testimonies regarding himself, such as Php_3:6, cannot be urged in opposition to this, since they do not unveil the inward struggle of impulses, etc. Similarly with Paul, Luther also sighed most deeply just when under the distress of his legal condition, before the light of the gospel dawned upon him, and he afterwards lamented that distress most vividly and truly. Philippi has rightly apprehended the “I” coming in at Rom_7:7 as that of the unregenerate man; but on the other hand, following the older expositors, has discovered from Rom_7:14 onwards the delineation of the regenerate state of the same “I,”—a view inconsistent in itself, opposed to the context (since Paul does not pass on to the regenerate till Rom_8:1), and, when applied to the details, impossible (see the subsequent exposition). Hammond very truly observes: “Nihil potest esse magis contrarium affectioni animi hominis regenerati, quam quae hic in prima persona Ego exprimuntur.” Still Umbreit, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1851, p. 633 ff., has substantially reverted, as regards the entire chapter, to the Augustinian view, for which he especially regards Rom_7:25 ( αὐτὸς ἐγώ ) as decisive; and no less have Delitzsch (see especially his Psychol. p. 387 ff.); Weber, v. Zorne Gottes, p. 86; Thomasius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, I. p. 275 f.; Jatho; Krummacher in the Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 119 ff.; and also Luthardt, v. freien Willen, p. 404 f., adopted this view with reference to Rom_7:14 ff. Hofmann, who in his Schriftbew. I. p. 556 to all appearance, though he is somewhat obscure and at variance with himself (see Philippi, p. 285 f., and Glaubenslehre, III. p. 243), had returned to the pre-Augustinian interpretation, in his N. T., hampers a more clear and candid understanding of the passage by the fact that, while he decidedly rejects the theory that the “I” of Rom_7:7 is that of the unregenerate man, he at the same time justly says that what is related of that “I” (which is that of the apostle) belongs to the time which lay away beyond his state as a Christian; and further, by the fact, that he represents Rom_7:14-24 as spoken from the same present time as Rom_7:25, but at the same time leaves the enigma unsolved how the wretched condition described may comport with that present; and in general, as to the point in question about which expositors differ, he does not give any round and definite answer. For if Paul is to be supposed, according to Hofmann, in Rom_7:14 ff., not to treat of the natural man, and nevertheless to depict himself in the quality of his moral state apart from his life in Christ, we cannot get rid of the contradiction that the “I” is the regenerate man apart from his regeneration, and of the obscuring and muffling up of the meaning thereby occasioned. The view which takes it of the unregenerate is followed by Julius Müller, Neander, Nitzsch, Hahn, Baur, Tholuck, Krehl, Reithmayr, van Hengel, Ewald, Th. Schott, Ernesti, Lipsius, Mangold, Messner (Lehre der Ap. p. 220), and many others, including Schmid, bibl. Theol. II. p. 262; Gess, v. d. Pers. Chr. p. 338; Lechler, apost. u. nachapost. Zeitalt. p. 97; Kahnis, Dogm. I. p. 595; the anonymous writer in the Erlangen Zeitschr. 1863, p. 377 ff.; Weiss, bibl. Theol. § 95; Märcker, p. 23; Grau, Entwickelungsgesch. II. p. 126. The just remark, that the apostle depicts the future present of the state (Th. Schott) does not affect this view, since the future state realized as present was just that of the unregenerate Israelite at the preliminary stage of moral development conditioned by the law. Compare Ritschl, altkath. Kirche, p. 70 f.; Achelis, l.c. p. 678 ff.; Holsten, z. Ev. d. Paul u. Petr. p. 406.