I have been rightly displeased, too, with the praise with which I extolled Plato or the Platonists or the Academic philosophers beyond what was proper for such irreligious men, especially those against whose great errors Christian teaching must be defended.
Saint Augustine, The Retractations, trans. Sister Mary Inez Bogan (The Fathers of the Church Series, vol. 60, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Press, 1968), 10; Retr. 1.1.4.
(1) While I was still a priest, we were in Carthage at the same time happened to read the Epistle of the Apostle to the Romans and I, after I, to the best of my ability, replied to certain questions asked me by some of my brethren, they wanted my reply put into writing rather than merely spoken. When I yielded to them, another book was added to my previous works.
In this book I said: “However, what he says, ‘We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am carnal,’ (Rom. 7:14) adequately shows that the Law can be fulfilled only by spiritual men, the kind that the grace of God transforms” (cf. An Explanation of Certain Passages from the Epistle of the Apostle to the Romans 41; cf. Rom. 1:11), I certainly did not want this applied personally to the Apostle who was already spiritual, but to the man living “under the Law” but not yet “under grace” (Rom. 6:14). For prior to this time, in this way I understood these words which, at a later date, after I had read certain commentators on the Sacred Scriptures whose authority moved me (cf. Cyprian, De dominica oratione 16; Ambrose, De paenitentia 1.3), I reflected upon this more deeply and I saw that his own words can also be understood about the Apostle himself: “We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am carnal.” To the best of my ability, I have carefully showed this in those books which I recently wrote about the Pelagians (cf. On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin 43 [Retr. 2.76]; Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.17–25 [Retr. 2.87]; Against Julian 2.3, 6.23, 6.70 [Retr. 2.88]; An Unfinished Work Against Julian 1.99; Sermon 154. Cf. also To Simplician 1.1 [Retr. 1.23]; On the City of God 22.21 [Retr. 2.69]). In that book, then, and in the words, “but I am carnal,” and then in what follows up to the place where he said: “Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:24–25), I said that this describes the man still under the Law, not yet living under grace who wishes to do good, but, overcome by the lust of the flesh (1 John 2:16), does evil. Only the “grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:25) by the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38) frees from the dominion of this lust, and the “charity . . . poured forth in our hearts” (Rom. 5:5) through Him conquers the lusts of the flesh lest we yield to them to do evil but rather that we may do good. Hence, then, the Pelagian heresy is now overthrown (cf. On Heresies 88), which maintains that the charity whereby we live righteously we live righteously and devoutly is not [poured forth] from God in us, but from ourselves. But in those books which we have published against them, we have also showed that these words are more correctly understood also of the spiritual man already living under grace, because of the body of the flesh which is not yet spiritual, but will be at the resurrection of the dead; and because of the very lust of the flesh with which saintly persons are in conflict in such a way that, though they do not yield to it and do evil, yet in this life, they are not free from those movements which they resist by fighting against them (cf. Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.10; 1.17 [Retr. 2.87]; On the Perfection of the Justice of Man 11.28 [this work is not reviewed in the Retractations]; On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin 39; 43 [Retr. 2.76]). They will not have them, however, in that life where “death” will be swallowed up “in victory” (cf. 1 Cor. 15:54–55). Therefore, because of this lust and its movements which we resist in such a way that, nevertheless, they are in us, every saintly person already living “under grace” can say all those things which I have said are the words of the man not yet living “under grace,” but “under the Law.” It would take too long to explain this here and I have mentioned where I have explained it.
Saint Augustine, The Retractations, trans. Sister Mary Inez Bogan (The Fathers of the Church Series, vol. 60, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Press, 1968), 96–98; Retr. 1.22.1.
The first two books which I wrote as a bishop are addressed to Simplician, bishop of the Church in Milan who succeeded the most blessed Ambrose. They deal with various questions. I put into the first book the two on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans. The first of these is on the passage: “What shall we say, then? Is the Law sin? By no means!” (Rom. 7:7) up to the place where he says: “Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:24–25). In this question, the words of the Apostle: “The Law is spiritual, but I am carnal” (Rom. 7:14), and other words where he shows that the flesh wars against the spirit, I have explained as though he were describing a man “under the law” and not yet living “under grace” (Rom. 6:14). Long afterwards, to be sure, I thought—and this is more probable—that these words could also refer to the spiritual man (cf. Retr. 1.22.1).
Saint Augustine, The Retractations,
trans. Sister Mary Inez Bogan (The Fathers of the Church Series, vol.
60, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
Press, 1968), 119; Retr. 2.27.
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Thus Romans 7:7–25 is not specifically either Paul’s or mankind’s preconversion state or postconversion experience. Nor is it the cry of only “the man under the law” or “the Christian who slips back into a legalistic attitude to God.” It is Paul uttering mankind’s great cry of its own inability. It is Paul’s and humanity’s realization that in our history and experience we have become so bound up by sin that there can be deliverance and victory only through God. This is not the recognition of the legalist. Rather, it is the abiding realization of the sensitive and is felt most by those who are the closest to God.
Richard N. Longnecker, Paul Apostle of Liberty: The Origin and Nature of Paul’s Christianity (Twin Book Series; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1977), 114.
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