Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Romans 7:14
There are 26 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 411, footnote 4 (Image)
Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (HTML)
The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)
Book IV. (HTML)
Chapter III.—The True Excellence of Man. (HTML)
... it is comprehended in the word, Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself.” So also is it said, “Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” And “if he that loveth his neighbour worketh no evil,” and if “every commandment is comprehended in this, the loving our neighbour,” the commandments, by menacing with fear, work love, not hatred. Wherefore the law is productive of the emotion of fear. “So that the law is holy,” and in truth “spiritual,”[Romans 7:14] according to the apostle. We must, then, as is fit, in investigating the nature of the body and the essence of the soul, apprehend the end of each, and not regard death as an evil. “For when ye were the servants of sin,” says the apostle, “ye were ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 459, footnote 4 (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)
... 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 loss to know how he can destroy the Creator Himself. Who can draw a distinction, and say that there are two gods, one just and the other good, when He ought to be believed to be both one and the other, whose commandment is both “ just and good?” Then, again, when affirming the law to be “spiritual”[Romans 7:14] he thereby implies that it is prophetic, and that it is figurative. Now from even this circumstance I am bound to conclude that Christ was predicted by the law but figuratively, so that indeed He could not be recognised by all the Jews.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 620, footnote 5 (Image)
Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen
Origen. (HTML)
Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)
Book VII (HTML)
Chapter XX (HTML)
... ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away; how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious?” But when in another place he wishes to praise and recommend the law, he calls it “spiritual,” and says, “We know that the law is spiritual;” and, “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”[Romans 7:14]
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 645, footnote 8 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Novatian. (HTML)
On the Jewish Meats. (HTML)
He First of All Asserts that the Law is Spiritual; And Thence, Man's First Food Was Only the Fruit Trees, and the Use of Flesh Was Added, that the Law that Followed Subsequently Was to Be Understood Spiritually. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5311 (In-Text, Margin)
Therefore, first of all, we must avail ourselves of that passage, “that the law is spiritual;”[Romans 7:14] and if they deny it to be spiritual, they assuredly blaspheme; if, avoiding blasphemy, they confess it to be spiritual, let them read it spiritually. For divine things must be divinely received, and must assuredly be maintained as holy. But a grave fault is branded on those who attach earthly and human doctrine to sacred and spiritual words; and this we must beware of doing. Moreover, we may beware, if any things enjoined by God be so treated as if ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 371, footnote 8 (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)
... useless or hurtful. What then? “Was then that which is good made death unto me?” namely, that which was given as a law, that it might be the cause of the greatest good? “God forbid.” For it was not the law of God that became the cause of my being brought into subjection to corruption, but the devil; that he might be made manifested who, through that which is good, wrought evil; that the inventor of evil might become and be proved the greatest of all sinners. “For we know that the law is spiritual;”[Romans 7:14] and therefore it can in no respect be injurious to any one; for spiritual things are far removed from irrational lust and sin. “But I am carnal, sold under sin;” which means: But I being carnal, and being placed between good and evil as a voluntary ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 6, page 371, footnote 9 (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)
... good? “God forbid.” For it was not the law of God that became the cause of my being brought into subjection to corruption, but the devil; that he might be made manifested who, through that which is good, wrought evil; that the inventor of evil might become and be proved the greatest of all sinners. “For we know that the law is spiritual;” and therefore it can in no respect be injurious to any one; for spiritual things are far removed from irrational lust and sin. “But I am carnal, sold under sin;”[Romans 7:14] which means: But I being carnal, and being placed between good and evil as a voluntary agent, am so that I may have it in my power to choose what I will. For “behold I set before thee life and death;” meaning that death would result from ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 384, footnote 2 (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 X. (HTML)
Paul Also Makes Contradictory Statements About Himself, and Acts in Opposite Ways at Different Times. (HTML)
On the same passage one may also make use of such an example as that of Paul, who at one place[Romans 7:14] says that he is carnal, sold under sin, and thus was not able to judge anything, while in another place he is the spiritual man who is able to judge all things and himself to be judged by no man. Of the carnal one are the words, “Not what I would that do I practise, but what I hate that do I.” And he too who was caught up to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words is a different Paul from him who says, Of such an one I will glory, but of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 9, page 443, footnote 3 (Image)
Gospel of Peter, Diatessaron, Apocalypses, Visio Pauli, Testament of Abraham, Acts of X/P, Zosimus, Aristides, Clement, Origen
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. (HTML)
Origen's Commentary on Matthew. (HTML)
Book XI. (HTML)
Why the Pharisees Were Not a Plant of God. Teaching of Origen on the “Bread of the Lord.” (HTML)
... they appeared to believe, that the Pharisees were not a plant of the Father of Jesus, but in respect of their perverse interpretation of the law and the things written in it. For since there are two things to be understood in regard to the law, the ministration of death which was engraven in letters and which had no kinship with the spirit, and the ministration of life which is understood in the spiritual law, those who were able with a sincere heart to say, “We know that the law is spiritual,”[Romans 7:14] and therefore “the law is holy, and the commandment holy and righteous and good,” were the plant which the heavenly Father planted; but those who were not such, but guarded with care the letter which killeth only, were not a plant of God but of him ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 3, page 18, footnote 12 (Image)
Augustine: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises
Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin (HTML)
On the Holy Trinity. (HTML)
The unity and equality of the Trinity are demonstrated out of the Scriptures; and the true interpretation is given of those texts which are wrongly alleged against the equality of the Son. (HTML)
This Work is Written Against Those Who Sophistically Assail the Faith of the Trinity, Through Misuse of Reason. They Who Dispute Concerning God Err from a Threefold Cause. Holy Scripture, Removing What is False, Leads Us on by Degrees to Things Divine. What True Immortality is. We are Nourished by Faith, that We May Be Enabled to Apprehend Things Divine. (HTML)
... although already born again by His grace, yet are still carnal and psychical, not by that divine virtue wherein He is equal to the Father, but by that human infirmity whereby He was crucified. For he says, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified;” and then he continues, “And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.” And a little after he says to them, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal,[Romans 7:14] even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.” There are some who are angry at language of this kind, and think it is used in slight to themselves, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 32, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
From the Epistle to the Romans. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 355 (In-Text, Margin)
... not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that 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 our Lord.”[Romans 7:14-25] Let them, who can, say that men are not born in the body of this death, that so they may be able to affirm that they have no need of God’s grace through Jesus Christ in order to be delivered from the body of this death. Therefore he adds, a few ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 67, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Turn to Neither Hand. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 645 (In-Text, Margin)
... are twenty. Such a people (as I have already said), instructed in the kingdom of heaven by the two Testaments—the Old and the New—turning neither to the right hand, in a proud assumption of righteousness, nor to the left hand, in a reckless delight in sin, shall enter into the land of promise, where we shall have no longer either to pray that sins may be forgiven to us, or to fear that they may be punished in us, having been freed from them all by that Redeemer, who, not being “sold under sin,”[Romans 7:14] “hath redeemed Israel out of all his iniquities,” whether committed in the actual life, or derived from the original transgression.
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 192, footnote 8 (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 1662 (In-Text, Margin)
... 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. But sin, that it might appear sin, wrought death in me by that which is good.” And, again, he praises the law by saying: “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I know not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.”[Romans 7:14-16] Observe, then, he knows the law, praises it, and consents to it; for what it commands, that he also wishes; and what it forbids, and condemns, that he also hates: but for all that, what he hates, that he actually does. There is in his mind, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 245, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin. (HTML)
On Original Sin. (HTML)
The Heresy of Pelagius and Cœlestius Aims at the Very Foundations of Our Faith. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1958 (In-Text, Margin)
This is, however, in the matter of the two men by one of whom we are sold under sin,[Romans 7:14] by the other redeemed from sins—by the one have been precipitated into death, by the other are liberated unto life; the former of whom has ruined us in himself, by doing his own will instead of His who created him; the latter has saved us in Himself, by not doing His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him: and it is in what concerns these two men that the Christian faith properly consists. For “there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 383, footnote 3 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
'The Law is Spiritual, But I Am Carnal,' To Be Understood of Paul. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2568 (In-Text, Margin)
But it is not so clear how what follows can be understood concerning Paul. “For we know,” says he, “that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal.”[Romans 7:14] He does not say, “I was,” but, “I am.” Was, then, the apostle, when he wrote this, carnal? or does he say this with respect to his body? For he was still in the body of this death, not yet made what he speaks of elsewhere: “It is sown a natural body, it shall be raised a spiritual body.” For then, of the whole of himself, that is, of both parts of which he consists, he shall be a spiritual man, when even the body shall be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 383, footnote 5 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
'The Law is Spiritual, But I Am Carnal,' To Be Understood of Paul. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2570 (In-Text, Margin)
... spiritual. For it is not absurd that in that life even the flesh should be spiritual, if in this life in those who still mind earthly things even the spirit itself may be carnal. Thus, then, he said, “But I am carnal,” because the apostle had not yet a spiritual body, as he might say, “But I am mortal,” which assuredly he could not be understood to have said except in respect of his body, which had not yet been clothed with immortality. Moreover, in reference to what he added, “sold under sin,”[Romans 7:14] lest any one think that he was not yet redeemed by the blood of Christ, this also may be understood in respect of that which he says: “And we ourselves, having the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 5, page 502, footnote 2 (Image)
Augustine: Anti-Pelagian Writings
A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
What Augustin Wrote to Simplicianus, the Successor of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3443 (In-Text, Margin)
... who succeeded the most blessed Ambrose, concerning divers questions, two of which I gathered into the first book from the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans. The former of them is about what is written: ‘What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? By no means;’ as far as the passage where he says, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ And therein I have expounded those words of the apostle: ‘The law is spiritual; but I am carnal,’[Romans 7:14] and others in which the flesh is declared to be in conflict against the Spirit in such a way as if a man were there described as still under law, and not yet established under grace. For, long afterwards, I perceived that those words might even be ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 603, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm CXXVI (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 5493 (In-Text, Margin)
1. …How man had come into captivity, let us ask the Apostle Paul.…For he saith: “For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.”[Romans 7:14] Behold whence we became captives; because we were sold under sin. Who sold us? We ourselves, who consented to the seducer. We could sell ourselves; we could not redeem ourselves. We sold ourselves by consent of sin, we are redeemed in the faith of righteousness. For innocent blood was given for us, that we might be redeemed. Whatsoever blood he shed in persecuting the righteous, what kind of blood did he shed? ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 3, page 549, footnote 6 (Image)
Theodoret, Jerome and Gennadius, Rufinus and Jerome
Life and Works of Rufinus with Jerome's Apology Against Rufinus. (HTML)
A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed. (HTML)
Section 15 (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3288 (In-Text, Margin)
... the nations, He appointed the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.” But some of these, as he who is called the Prince of this world, did not exercise the power which God had committed to them according to the laws by which they had received it, nor did they teach mankind to obey God’s commandments, but taught them rather to follow their own perverse guidance. Thus we were brought under the bonds of sin, because, as the Prophet saith, “We were sold under our sins.”[Romans 7:14] For every man, when he yields to lust, is receiving the purchase-money of his soul. Under that bond then every man was held by those most wicked rulers, which same bond Christ, when He came, tore down and stripped them of this their power. This Paul ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 5, page 104, footnote 2 (Image)
Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises; Select Writings and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises. (HTML)
Against Eunomius. (HTML)
Book II (HTML)
Gregory proceeds to discuss the relative force of the unnameable name of the Holy Trinity and the mutual relation of the Persons, and moreover the unknowable character of the essence, and the condescension on His part towards us, His generation of the Virgin, and His second coming, the resurrection from the dead and future retribution. (HTML)
... even as we were taught by the voice of the Lord, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, acknowledging together with this faith also the dispensation that has been set on foot on behalf of men by the Lord of the creation. For He “being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant,” and being incarnate in the Holy Virgin redeemed us from death “in which we were held,” “sold under sin[Romans 7:14],” giving as the ransom for the deliverance of our souls His precious blood which He poured out by His Cross, and having through Himself made clear for us the path of the resurrection from the dead, shall come in His own time in the glory of the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 94, footnote 14 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Nepotian. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1374 (In-Text, Margin)
... he bear a scar and be disfigured. Let bodily leprosy be counted worse than spots upon the soul. Let us be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, but let us slay no lamb and celebrate no mystic passover, for where there is no temple, the law forbids these acts. Let us pitch tents in the seventh month and noise abroad a solemn fast with the sound of a horn. But if we compare all these things as spiritual with things which are spiritual; and if we allow with Paul that “the Law is spiritual”[Romans 7:14] and call to mind David’s words: “open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law;” and if on these grounds we interpret it as our Lord interprets it—He has explained the Sabbath in this way: then, rejecting the superstitions of ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 98, footnote 14 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Paulinus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1435 (In-Text, Margin)
... knowledge. He also who was hidden in a mystery is the same that was foreordained before the world. Now it was in the Law and in the Prophets that he was foreordained and prefigured. For this reason too the prophets were called seers, because they saw Him whom others did not see. Abraham saw His day and was glad. The heavens which were sealed to a rebellious people were opened to Ezekiel. “Open thou mine eyes,” saith David, “that I may behold wonderful things out of thy Law.” For “the law is spiritual”[Romans 7:14] and a revelation is needed to enable us to comprehend it and, when God uncovers His face, to behold His glory.
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 277, footnote 11 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)
To Ctesiphon. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3853 (In-Text, Margin)
... that do I not, but what I hate that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it: but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me: but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”[Romans 7:14-20]
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 374, footnote 9 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Jovinianus. (HTML)
Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4519 (In-Text, Margin)
... the law, having died to that wherein we were holden; so that we serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.” “When,” he says, “we were in the flesh, and not in the newness of the Spirit but in the oldness of the letter,” we did those things which pertained to the flesh, and bore fruit unto death. But now because we are dead to the law, through the body of Christ, let us bear fruit to God, that we may belong to Him who rose from the dead. And elsewhere, having previously said,[Romans 7:14] “I know that the law is spiritual,” and having discussed at some length the violence of the flesh which frequently drives us to do what we would not, he at last continues: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 192, footnote 3 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus. (HTML)
Book II. On the Belief in the Resurrection. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1624 (In-Text, Margin)
108. What then? shall we esteem festival days by eating and drinking? But let no man judge us in respect of eating; “for we know that the Law is spiritual.”[Romans 7:14] “Let no man therefore judge us in any meats or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or new moons, or a sabbath day, which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body is of Christ.” Let us, then, seek the body of Christ which the voice of the Father, from heaven, as it were the last trumpet, has shown to you at the time when the Jews said that it thundered; the body of Christ, which again the last trump shall ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, page 526, footnote 1 (Image)
Sulpitius Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian
The Works of John Cassian. (HTML)
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV. (HTML)
Conference XXIII. The Third Conference of Abbot Theonas. On Sinlessness. (HTML)
Chapter XII. Of this also: “But we know that the law is spiritual,” etc. (HTML)
And this law the Apostle also calls spiritual saying: “But we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.”[Romans 7:14] For this law is spiritual which bids us eat in the sweat of our brow that “true bread which cometh down from heaven” but that sale under sin makes us carnal. What, I ask, or whose is that sin? Doubtless Adam’s, by whose fall and, if I may so say, ruinous transaction and fraudulent bargain we were sold. For when he was led astray by the persuasion of the serpent he brought all his descendants under the yoke of perpetual ...