Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Romans 7:8
There are 14 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 459, footnote 2 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
The Five Books Against Marcion. (HTML)
Book V. Wherein Tertullian proves, with respect to St. Paul's epistles, what he had proved in the preceding book with respect to St. Luke's gospel. Far from being at variance, they were in perfect unison with the writings of the Old Testament, and therefore testified that the Creator was the only God, and that the Lord Jesus was his Christ. As in the preceding books, Tertullian supports his argument with profound reasoning, and many happy illustrations of Holy Scripture. (HTML)
The Epistle to the Romans. St. Paul Cannot Help Using Phrases Which Bespeak the Justice of God, Even When He is Eulogizing the Mercies of the Gospel. Marcion Particularly Hard in Mutilation of This Epistle. Yet Our Author Argues on Common Ground. The Judgment at Last Will Be in Accordance with the Gospel. The Justified by Faith Exhorted to Have Peace with God. The Administration of the Old and the New Dispensations in One and the Same Hand. (HTML)
... testimony to the law, and excuses it on the ground of sin: “What shall we say, therefore? Is the law sin? God forbid.” Fie on you, Marcion. “God forbid!” (See how) the apostle recoils from all impeachment of the law. I, however, have no acquaintance with sin except through the law. But how high an encomium of the law (do we obtain) from this fact, that by it there comes to light the latent presence of sin! It was not the law, therefore, which led me astray, but “sin, taking occasion by the commandment.”[Romans 7:8] Why then do you, (O Marcion,) impute to the God of the law what His apostle dares not impute even to the law itself? Nay, he adds a climax: “The law is holy, and its commandment just and good.” Now if he thus reverences the Creator’s law, I am at a ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 371, footnote 3 (Image)
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius the Great, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Methodius, Arnobius
Methodius. (HTML)
From the Discourse on the Resurrection. (HTML)
Part III. (HTML)
A Synopsis of Some Apostolic Words from the Same Discourse. (HTML)
... knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” then they conceived lust, and gathered it. Therefore was it said, I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet;” nor would they have desired to eat, except it had been said, “Thou shalt not eat of it.” For it was thence that sin took occasion to deceive me. For when the law was given, the devil had it in his power to work lust in me; “for without the law, sin was dead;”[Romans 7:8] which means “when the law was not given, sin could not be committed.” But I was alive and blameless before the law, having no commandment in accordance with which it was necessary to live; “but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 7, page 522, footnote 2 (Image)
Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies
The Second Epistle of Clement (HTML)
The Homily (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3969 (In-Text, Margin)
Wherefore, brethren, having received no small occasion[Romans 7:8] for repentance, while we have the opportunity, let us turn unto God that called us, while we still have Him as One that receiveth us. For if we renounce these enjoyments and conquer our soul in not doing these its evil desires, we shall partake of the mercy of Jesus. But ye know that the day of judgment even now “cometh as a burning oven,” and some “of the heavens shall melt,” and all the earth shall be as lead melting on the fire, and then the hidden and open ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 332, footnote 1 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Epistle to Gregory and Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John. (HTML)
Book II. (HTML)
That the Logos Present in Us is Not Responsible for Our Sins. (HTML)
... heart.”[Romans 7:8-9] “Without the law sin was dead,” and adds, “But when the commandment came sin revived,” and so teaches generally about sin that it has no power before the law and the commandment (but the Logos is, in a sense, law and commandment), and there would be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 217, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings
Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)
Reply to Faustus the Manichæan. (HTML)
Faustus rejects the Old Testament because it leaves no room for Christ. Christ the one Bridegroom suffices for His Bride the Church. Augustin answers as well as he can, and reproves the Manichæans with presumption in claiming to be the Bride of Christ. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 562 (In-Text, Margin)
... his meaning, in case any should not understand: "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. For I had not known sin but by the law. For I had not known lust unless the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, wrought death in me by that which is good."[Romans 7:7-13] She at whom thou scoffest knows what this means; for she asks earnestly, and seeks humbly, and knocks meekly. She sees that no fault is found with the law, when it is said, "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," any more than with ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 92, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Law of Works and the Law of Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 797 (In-Text, Margin)
... that that law by which no man is justified, entered in that the offence might abound, and yet in order to save it from the aspersions of the ignorant and the accusations of the impious, he defends this very law in such words as these: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law: for I had not known concupiscence, except the law had said, Thou shall not covet. But sin, taking occasion, wrought, by the commandment, in me all manner of concupiscence.”[Romans 7:7-8] He says also: “The law indeed is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good; but sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me by that which is good.” It is therefore the very letter that kills which says, “Thou shalt not covet,” and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 93, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
How the Decalogue Kills, If Grace Be Not Present. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 810 (In-Text, Margin)
... would any one say that the Christian ought not to keep? Is it possible to contend that it is not the law which was written on those two tables that the apostle describes as “the letter that killeth,” but the law of circumcision and the other sacred rites which are now abolished? But then how can we think so, when in the law occurs this precept, “Thou shall not covet,” by which very commandment, notwithstanding its being holy, just, and good, “sin,” says the apostle, “deceived me, and by it slew me?”[Romans 7:7-12] What else can this be than “the letter” that “killeth”?
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 94, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Passage in Romans. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 819 (In-Text, Margin)
... dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ out Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”[Romans 7:7-25]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 108, footnote 9 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter. (HTML)
The Faith of Those Who are Under the Law Different from the Faith of Others. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1027 (In-Text, Margin)
... believe on His name;” and He advised them to ask, to seek, and to knock, in order to receive, to find, and to have the gate opened to them, adding by way of rebuke, the words : “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” When, therefore, that strength of sin, the law, inflamed the sting of death, even sin, to take occasion and by the commandment work all manner of concupiscence in them,[Romans 7:8] of whom were they to ask for the gift of continence but of Him who knows how to give good gifts to His children? Perhaps, however, a man, in his folly, is unaware that no one can be continent except God give him the gift. To know this, indeed, he ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 192, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Work on the Proceedings of Pelagius. (HTML)
The Same Continued. Pelagius Acknowledges the Doctrine of Grace in Deceptive Terms. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1659 (In-Text, Margin)
... not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Therefore it is not “the letter that killeth, but the life-giving spirit.” For the knowledge of the law, without the grace of the Spirit, produces all kinds of concupiscence in man; for, as the apostle says, “I had not known sin but by the law: I had not known lust, unless the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.”[Romans 7:7-8] By saying this, however, he blames not the law; he rather praises it, for he says afterwards: “The law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” And he goes on to ask: “Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 453, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. (HTML)
Abstract. (HTML)
Who is the Transgressor of the Law? The Oldness of Its Letter. The Newness of Its Spirit. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3080 (In-Text, Margin)
... but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy; and the commandment holy, just, and good. Was, then, that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me by that which is good,—in order that the sinner, or the sin, might by the commandment become beyond measure.”[Romans 7:7-13] And to the Galatians he writes: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, except through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 541, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, John xvi. 24, ‘Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name;’ and on the words of Luke x. 17, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject unto us in thy name.’ (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4287 (In-Text, Margin)
... into captivity. Of that sweetness which to thee is hidden, the holy Angels drink; thou canst not drink and taste that sweetness, captive as thou art. “Thou hadst not known concupiscence, unless the Law had said, Thou shalt not lust.” Thou heardest, fearedst, didst try to fight, couldest not overcome. For “sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought death.” Surely ye recognise them, they are the Apostle’s words. “Sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.”[Romans 7:8] Why didst thou vaunt thyself in thy pride? Lo, with thine own arms hath the enemy conquered thee. Thou verily, didst look for a commandment as a defence: and, lo, by the commandment the enemy hath found an occasion of entering in. “For sin taking ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 369, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3559 (In-Text, Margin)
... names were bestowed upon one man for different reasons; Jacob because of supplanting, for that he grasped the foot of his brother at his birth: but Israel because of the vision of God. So “raised up” is one thing, “set” is another. For, “He hath raised up a testimony,” as far as I can judge, hath been said because by it something has been raised up; “For without the Law,” saith the Apostle, “sin was dead: but I lived sometime without the Law: but at the coming in of the commandment sin revived.”[Romans 7:8-9] Behold that which hath been raised up by the testimony, which is the Law, so that what was lying hidden might appear, as he saith a little afterwards: “But sin, that it might appear sin, through a good thing hath wrought in me death.” But “He hath ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 403, footnote 7 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm LXXXIV (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3898 (In-Text, Margin)
... could easily be righteous as it were by our own strength, before we received the command; “but when the command came, sin revived; but I died,” saith the Apostle. For a law was given to men, not such as could save them at once, but it was to show them in what severe sickness they were lying.…But when sin was made manifest by the law given, sin was but increased, for it is both sin, and against the Law; “Sin,” saith he, “taking occasion by the command, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.”[Romans 7:8] What does he mean by “taking occasion by the law”? Having received the command, men tried as by their own strength to obey it; conquered by lust, they became guilty of transgression of this very command also. But what saith the Apostle? “Where sin ...