Chapter 11

Theophylact of Ohrid, Exposition of the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans — Chapter Eleven

¹ Chapter Eleven. I say then, Has God cast away his people whom he foreknew? God forbid! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Having called them a disobedient people, he is now in perplexity, that, Surely, then, since they became a disobedient people, the promises have not fallen away? And he says, God forbid! For he has not cast away his people whom he foreknew; that is, whom he foreknew to be fit toward receiving the faith. For I also am an Israelite. Then, lest they should say to him, And what are you? he adds further, He has not cast away his people; as if to say, There are others too, those three thousand, and the five thousand, and the ten thousands, who of the people believed, as the Acts of the Apostles make plain.

² And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. Out of abundance he shows those of the Hebrews who disbelieved to be without excuse. For you cannot say, he says, that God demands works and toils, but the whole is of grace. Why, then, will you not be saved, when the good thing lies so toil-free before you? Know that those who were willing were saved, who also are the people of God. God, then, has not cast away his people, the people worthy of salvation. But if we please him of works, then grace no longer has any passage; since, if grace has passage, the work thereupon is gone, and is no longer a work. For where grace is, work is not sought; and where work is, grace is not.

³ What then? That which Israel seeks after, this it obtained not; but the election obtained it. Having shown what grace is, that it is the gift of God apart from works, he says further that the Israelites, seeking to be justified, obtained it not, as seeking it badly, and of works, which is impossible. But the election, that is, the elect, obtained it. And by this word he makes manifest the greatness of the good things, and that the whole is of the grace of God. For we too in common speech say, So-and-so obtained it, meaning, He found an unlooked-for find.

⁴ And the rest were hardened (as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear) unto this present day. He brings forward Isaiah as a witness of the hardening, that he may not seem to speak things of his own. And the words, God gave, stand for, He left them to have a spirit of stupor, he permitted, he let them be. And by stupor he means the abiding and unalterable disposition of the soul toward evils. For to be stupefied is to be fixed somewhere and nailed fast. The incurable, then, and unalterable quality of their mind he named stupor. For though they had eyes, so as to see the wonders, and ears, to hear the teaching of the Lord, they used none of these toward what they ought. And not only in the time of Christ, but also in the time of the apostles; For unto this present day, he says.

⁵ And David says, Let their table become a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompense unto them. Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back always. Being unalterable, he says, in their wickedness, they shall be chastised with the uttermost things. For their table, that is, all their good things and their luxury, shall be changed into the contrary; and let them be ensnared, and taken, becoming an easy prey to all, and ever having stumbling-blocks and offenses in their life. And showing that they suffer these things on account of sins, he said the words, Unto a recompense. But their eyes also were darkened, both the spiritual altogether, and the bodily too, from their calamities. And their back was bent down; for they serve the Romans an unending servitude; for this is the word, Bow down, as those who shall unceasingly receive this servitude.

⁶ I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid. Having sufficiently laid hold of them, now he contrives for them a consolation, and asks, Have they stumbled that they should fall? that is, Have they then sinned incurably? God forbid! For they have indeed stumbled, that is, struck against, but not that they should fall utterly, never able to be set upright; for they shall also be saved at the time of the consummation, as he will say further on.

⁷ But rather through their fall salvation is come unto the nations, to provoke them to jealousy. Two things he wishes to set right by what he now says: both to console the Jews, and to put down the conceit of the nations; and he says that salvation came to the nations, these having struck against and disbelieved. For the sequence indeed required that these should be saved first, then those of the nations; but since these were disobedient, those were called; and in the Gospels this is in many places made plain. And those of the nations were saved to provoke them to jealousy, that is, that the honor of the nations, stinging these, might at least persuade them out of contentiousness to draw near.

⁸ But if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the nations, how much more their fullness? If, when they struck against, he says, they became the occasion of salvation to so many, and in their being cast away those were taken in, and their failure became the riches of the nations, How much more their fullness, that is, when they shall all be saved, having turned again? And these things he says, showing them favor, and consoling them. For not because the Israelites stumbled, on this account would the nations have been saved, had they not had faith.

⁹ And they also, if they abide not in unbelief, shall be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? If you, the man of the nations, he says, being evil by nature, and having fathers like to a wild olive, were cut off from them through faith, and were grafted contrary to nature into the good olive, namely into the patriarchs, how much more shall the Jew, having by nature the good, by being taken up again into his own olive, that is, the fathers? And when you hear Paul saying, According to nature, understand the likely and the consistent; as, for instance, it was likely that the child of holy Abraham should be holy; just as again, Contrary to nature, stands for, the unlikely and the inconsistent, that the child of the abominable Greek should become holy.

¹⁰ For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery (lest you should be wise in your own conceits), that hardness in part is come upon Israel, until the fullness of the nations be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved. By mystery he here means the unknown and unspeakable thing. And what is this? That the unbelief of the Hebrews is not entire, but the hardening is in part. For many believed, whom God foreknew, as has been said above, and again are to believe. For the Israelites were hardened, until all the foreknown of the nations be saved; and then all Israel shall be saved, having believed, plainly.

¹¹ As it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. Again he brings in Isaiah, crying aloud that There shall come out of Zion he who is able to save, and shall cleanse the sins of the Israelites. And when shall these things be? When I shall take away their sins; that is, When I shall count them worthy of the remission that is through baptism; so that, since they have not yet obtained this (for they are hardened), this is to come to pass at a later time.

¹² O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Having reckoned up the dispensations of God, those from the time the world was framed, how through contraries he dispenses contraries, and through some who are disobedient sets forth others who are obedient, he was struck with amazement; being assured that he who thus dispenses our affairs will assuredly dispense also concerning the coming salvation of the Jews. By riches, then, he names the goodness, at whose depth he alone is amazed, being ignorant of how great it is; for it belongs to riches thus to make the unworthy so well provided. And not only at the goodness, but together with the goodness he is amazed also at the wisdom, through which he interweaves our affairs, and made wise the unlearned nations; and at the knowledge, through which he knows what is profitable for each. And he did not say that his judgments are incomprehensible, but, Unsearchable, that is, in no way admitting search. And his ways, that is, his dispensations, not only cannot be found out, but cannot even be searched out at all, nor can a trace of them appear.

¹³ For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his counselor? or who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? He alone, he says, knows his own things, and no other. And being wise, he was not made wise by another counselor, but he himself became, and is, sufficient to himself. But he is also the fountain of all good things, and whatever he gives, he gives not as owing a recompense, but on account of his own goodness. For who has first given to him, that is, to God, that it should be recompensed to him? that is, that the benefaction from God should be reckoned as a recompense made to him?

¹⁴ For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. To him be the glory unto the ages. Amen. He himself is the fountain of all things; for this is, Of him; and the maker of all things; for this is, Through him; and the upholder of all things; for this is, Unto him. For all things have their beginning of him, and were made through him, and unto him, as upon some firm-set foundation, they stand and are held together, being turned toward him. It is the custom of Paul, whenever he says some great thing, to close the discourse in thanksgiving; which indeed he does now also. For since he was struck with amazement at the goodness, and the wisdom, and the knowledge, and the dispensations of God, he thereupon glorifies him; teaching us also this, to give thanks for the great good things, and to glorify him both by words and by manner of life.