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14.For when the Gentiles, etc. He now states what proves the former clause; for he did not think it enough to condemn us by mere assertion, and only to pronounce on us the just judgment of God; but he proceeds to prove this by reasons, in order to excite us to a greater desire for Christ, and to a greater love towards him. He indeed shows that ignorance is in vain pretended as an excuse by the Gentiles, since they prove by their own deeds that they have some rule of righteousness: for there is no nation so lost to every thing human, that it does not keep within the limits of some laws. Since then all nations, of themselves and without a monitor, are disposed to make laws for themselves, it is beyond all question evident that they have some notions of justice and rectitude, which the Greeks call preconceptions προληψεις, and which are implanted by nature in the hearts of men. They have then a law, though they are without law: for though they have not a written law, they are yet by no means wholly destitute of the knowledge of what is right and just; as they could not otherwise distinguish between vice and virtue; the first of which they restrain by punishment, and the latter they commend, and manifest their approbation of it by honoring it with rewards. He sets nature in opposition to a written law, meaning that the Gentiles had the natural light of righteousness, which supplied the place of that law by which the Jews were instructed, so that they were a law to themselves. (72)
(72) As to the phrase, “ are a law unto themselves,” [Venema ] adduces classical examples — πᾶν τὸ βέλτιστον φαινόμενον ἔστω σοι νόμος ἀπαράβατος “ seems best, let it be to thee a perpetual law.” — Epict. in Ench. , c. 75 . “τὸ μὲν ορθὸν νόμος ἐστὶ βασιληκός What is indeed right, is a royal law.” — [Plato ] in Min., page 317.
The heathens themselves acknowledged a law of nature. [Turrettin ] quotes a passage from a lost work of [Cicero ], retained by [Lactantius ] which remarkably coincides with the language of Paul here — Ed.