Commentary on Romans 2.1–2.5

"But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who do such things." The judgment of God according to truth is to be awaited and believed not only against those who do the things listed above, but against all who have done anything good or evil in any way. But what this passage seems to show is this: that judgment according to truth belongs to God alone. For some things are committed by a deed that is evil but with a mind that is not evil: for example, if someone commits a homicide unintentionally. Other things are done by a deed that is good but with a mind that is not good: for example, if someone performs an act of mercy not because of God's commandment but in order to be praised by men. And there are others in which, whether for good or for evil, the mind agrees with the deed. And since to know the hearts of men belongs to God alone, and to discern the secrets of the mind, he alone is the one who can hold judgment according to truth.

But it is asked whether God seems to keep judgment according to truth toward those whose iniquities have been forgiven through the grace of baptism, or whose sins have been covered through repentance, or to whom sin is not to be imputed because of the glory of martyrdom. For the truth of judgment demands that the evil man receive evil things and the good man good things. And although the gifts and generosity of God by no means admit the curiosity of one who scrutinizes them, let us nevertheless show how great the truth of his judgment is even in this. It is a common conviction that the good ought not to be punished, nor the evil obtain good things. If, then, there is someone, for example, who once did evil things, it is certain that he was evil at the time when he was doing evil. But if he repents of the past and corrects his mind toward good things, and acts well, speaks well, thinks well, and wills well, does not the one who does this seem to you good, and rightly to receive good things? Likewise, if someone turns from good to evil, he will no longer be judged good, which he was and is not, but evil, which he is. For acts, whether good or evil, pass away; but according to their quality they shape and form the mind of the one who does them, and leave it either good or evil, destined either for punishment or for rewards. It would therefore be unjust either for a good mind to be punished for evil deeds or for an evil mind to be rewarded for good acts.

But to make what we are saying still plainer, let us add this as well. Let us suppose there is a soul in which impiety, injustice, folly, licentiousness, and the whole multitude of evils dwell, to which, that is, it has subjected itself as servant and handmaid. If this soul returns to itself and opens the door of its mind again to piety and the virtues, will not piety, once it has entered, at once drive out impiety? Likewise justice will thrust out injustice, wisdom folly, and sobriety will put licentiousness to flight; and so, having driven the barbarian inhabitants out of itself, it will offer the virtues a civilized and lawful hospitality. How then will it be just to accuse a soul now full of virtues for what it did when it was not yet a friend of the virtues, and to condemn the pious soul for impiety, the just soul for injustice, the sober soul for licentiousness? In this way, then, God is to be believed to keep judgment according to truth even toward those whose iniquities have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered.

"Do you suppose, O man, whoever you are who judge those who do such things and do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?" If everything the Law says, it says to those who are under the law, and what the Gospel or the Apostle now says, he says not to the rulers of this age nor to the kings of the world but to the rulers and leaders of the churches, that is, to those who judge those within, namely bishops, or presbyters and deacons: it is to these, then, that he says they should not suppose they will escape the judgment of God if they themselves commit the things for which they judge and condemn others. And therefore it is necessary … those who wish to preside over peoples would consider … [that they are to be judged rather than that they are] to judge. Let no one, then, suppose that he can escape the judgment of God, as the prophet also says: "Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your face?" And because these things are said above all to those who preside over the judgments of peoples, he therefore says elsewhere too that "judgment begins from the house of God." And again elsewhere the Lord says: "I will be sanctified in those who draw near to me," as happened with Nadab and Abihu when they offered strange fire, that is, fire that was not holy, on the divine altars. Judgment therefore begins first with the sons. For God "scourges every one whom he receives" into the number of sons. But, as I think, even if someone could, he ought not to want to escape the judgment of God. For not to come to God's judgment, that is, to correction, is not to come to health and remedy.

"Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is leading you to repentance?" The riches of God's goodness can be recognized by one who considers how many evils men commit on earth every day, and how nearly all, turning aside and together becoming useless, walk the broad and spacious way of perdition, neglecting the narrow road of life; and yet God, for all of them, brings out his sun every day and supplies the rains. And by one who considers how many blaspheme God every day and stretch out their tongues to heaven. What shall I say now of frauds, of violence, of crime, of sacrileges and outrages? Yet of all these, in this passage those seem to be set first in wickedness who, judging others, themselves commit what they punish in the rest. If anyone, then, despises this goodness of God, and his forbearance and patience, he does not know that by these he is being called to repentance.

Forbearance seems to differ from patience in this: those who sin from weakness rather than from settled purpose are said to be borne with; but those who exult in their offenses, as it were, with an obstinate mind are said to be endured patiently. But just as God made all things in measure, weight, and number, so also his patience has a fixed measure; and that measure must be believed to have been filled up either by those who perished in the flood or by those in Sodom who were laid waste by fire from heaven. Hence it is also said of the Amorites: "For the sins of the Amorites are not yet filled up until now." God therefore bears patiently and waits for each one's repentance. But let this not make us slack and slow to conversion, since, again, his patience and forbearance have a fixed measure.

"But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his works." A heart is called hard in the Scriptures, it seems, when the human mind, like wax stiffened by the cold of iniquity, does not receive the seal of the divine image. The same is called elsewhere a thick heart, as when it is said: "The heart of this people has grown thick." The opposite of hard is soft, which in the Scriptures is called a heart of flesh; and the opposite of thick is fine or subtle, which the Apostle calls the spiritual man, the one who examines all things. When, therefore, someone knows what is good and does not do good, he must be believed to hold all good things in contempt through hardness of heart. Thickness of heart, on the other hand, is when the sense of a fine and spiritual understanding is not received. And so the heart, made impenitent, stores up wrath for itself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, while good work is not done because of hardness and good understanding is shut out because of the thickness of the heart.

About the wrath of God we have spoken both above, as far as the subject allowed, and often in other places. But what he says, "You are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath," must be considered. A treasury is the name for where wealth and riches of different kinds are gathered. We read of a threefold significance of this in the Scriptures. For in the Gospel there is said to be a treasury on earth, in which the Lord forbids us to store up treasure; and another treasury in heaven, in which he commands all the faithful to lay up their wealth; and here the Apostle now speaks of treasuries of wrath. All men, then, by what they do in this world, gather treasures into one or other of these three. For either someone is unbelieving and unjust, and through hardness of heart and an impenitent heart lays up his acts in the treasury of wrath; or he is earthly, and thinks of the earth and speaks of the earth, and when his field has brought him abundant crops he pulls down his barns and builds greater, and stores up treasure on earth. The former is called hard, the latter foolish; for it is said to him: "Fool, this night they will demand your soul from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" … all that he does is worthy of the kingdom of heaven; and such a man lays up the treasures of his riches in heaven. Thus the owner and founder of each treasury can be called, the one a carnal man, another a soulish man, and another a spiritual man.

Now let us see what the day of wrath is that the Apostle names here. It will be recognized more easily if we ask what the rest of Scripture also indicates about it. We will therefore adduce the examples that come to mind for the present, and from them it will be shown what the day of wrath is. It is written in the prophet Amos: "Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light; as if a man fled from the face of a lion and a bear met him, and he went into his house and stretched out his hands against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light, and gloom that has no brightness?" Joel also says to the priests and to those who serve the altar: "Cry to the Lord without ceasing: Woe is me, woe is me for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and it will come like misery upon misery." And shortly after: "Sound the trumpet in Zion, proclaim on my holy mountain, and let all who dwell upon the earth be confounded, for the day of the Lord is at hand, for the day of darkness and gloom is near, a day of cloud and mist. Like the dawn a great and strong people will be spread upon the mountains. There has not been one like it from the beginning, and after it there will not be, to the years of the age of ages. Before it a consuming fire, and behind it a kindled flame. Like a paradise of delights will the land be before its face, and behind its back a field of destruction, and there is no one who escapes it. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like horsemen so will they follow. Like the sound of chariots they will leap upon the tops of the mountains." And he writes everything that follows about the same until the place where he says: "And the Lord will give his voice before the face of his host, for very great is the multitude of his camp, and mighty are the works of his words. Therefore the day of the Lord is great, great and very glorious; and who will be able to bear it?" Zephaniah says this: "Fear … a day of bitterness and destruction, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and mist, a day of trumpet and blast against the fortified cities and against the lofty walls. And I will afflict men, and they will walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord; and I will pour out their blood like dust and their flesh like dung. Their gold and their silver will not be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. In the fire of his jealousy all the earth will be consumed, for he will make an end and a speedy one upon all who dwell on the earth." Isaiah likewise recalls: "For behold, the day of the Lord will come, of incurable fury and wrath, to make the world a desert and to destroy the sinners from it." And shortly after: "For heaven will be kindled with fury, and the earth will be shaken from its foundations, because of the fury of the wrath of the Lord of hosts, on the day when his fury comes upon it." Having gathered so many and such testimonies about the day of wrath, I think this passage needs no further exposition. For in all of them the day of wrath is clearly designated as a day of vengeance and of judgment. That is why the Apostle adds to "day of wrath": "and of revelation."

For he says thus: "On the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God." That all things are to be revealed is indicated also in the Gospel, when it is said: "Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor covered that will not be revealed." And the Apostle too says later in this epistle: "Their thoughts accusing or even defending them, on the day when God will judge the secrets of men." By this he shows that the secrets of men are to be revealed only on the day on which God is to judge, as he says still more clearly to the Corinthians: "Do not judge before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of hearts." All these things are understood to be said of this same day, on which darkness and grief and sorrow are said to be coming, because of those who, pierced through with many wounds of sins, will need the remedies of fire. At that time it will be said to the saints: "Go, my people, enter your chambers, shut your door, hide yourself for a little while, until the fury of my wrath passes." How great riches of the goodness of God are hidden in these words it is not necessary to make manifest, because of those who despise his patience and goodness.

Some indeed ask why this day, for which we have stirred up the prophetic libraries above, has been fixed at the end of the world, so that all who have died from the beginning of the age to its end are reserved to be judged on this last day. It is certain that the inner causes of this matter are covered by more secret mysteries; and "it is good to hide the mystery of a king." Yet for the sake of explanation we will speak as far as it is possible to commit words to pages. There are many who, departing from this life, have left behind them certain seeds either of good or of evil, from which the men who remain receive occasions either of salvation or of perdition. I mean, for example, all those among the philosophers who founded perverse schools alien from God; or those who devised magical sacrileges, or the errors and decrees of the stars; or certainly those among us who, by publishing books, became the authors of heretics and perverse doctrines; or also those who brought about schisms in the churches, and scandals and dissensions. On the contrary, the work of the apostolic writings, and the progress of the whole Church through them, is the conversion to God and the amendment of the whole world. The cases of all these will not be closed until the end of the world itself; and therefore the judgment of God would not be just while either progress or hindrances were still hanging on each of them. The Apostle also seems to indicate this when he says: "The sins of some men are manifest, going before them to judgment; but those of some follow after." Now if even the saints who are out of the body and with Christ do something and labor for us, after the likeness of the angels who carry out the ministries of our salvation; or again if sinners too, themselves out of the body, do something according to the purpose of their mind, likewise after the likeness of the angels on the left, with whom Christ says they are to be sent into the eternal fire: let this too be kept among the hidden things of God, mysteries not to be committed to paper. Let this suffice about the day of wrath and of revelation.

Now let us inquire about the just judgment of God, in which he will render to each according to his works. And first, let the heretics be shut out who speak of good and evil natures of souls; and let them hear that God renders to each not according to nature but according to his works. In the second place, let the faithful be built up, so that they do not think that the mere fact that they believe can suffice them; but let them know that the just judgment of God renders to each according to his works. Indeed, since he says that the just judgment of God consists in rendering to each according to his works, the Gentiles will seem by no means to be excluded by this saying, if perhaps they too do something good and act more uprightly.

But what is written in Ezekiel also seems to oppose this statement. For it says: "When the righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity according to all the iniquities that the wicked man has committed, none of his righteous deeds that he has done will be remembered in the fall by which he fell; but in his sins that he has sinned, in them he will die." If, then, nothing of the righteousness of the righteous man will be remembered when he has fallen, how will God render to each according to his works? But let us see whether the divine word may not find its own resolution within itself, if we observe how what it says is written: "When the righteous man has turned away from his righteousness"; and it was not enough for it to say, "When he has turned away from his righteousness," but it added: "and has committed iniquity according to all the iniquities that the wicked man has committed." In this it seems to have inserted covertly an understanding of this kind: that if the righteous man has not committed iniquity according to all the iniquities that the wicked man has committed, not all his righteous deeds are removed from memory; but if he has committed all the iniquities that the wicked man does, then at last all his righteous deeds are withdrawn from memory in his fall. Although the Holy Spirit has hidden this in the Scriptures because of those who despise the riches of his goodness and patience, he has not altogether taken it away; for the treasure hidden in a field is not found by everyone, lest it be easily plundered and lost, but it is found by the prudent, who are able to go and sell all that they have and buy the field … ["to those who by patience in well-doing seek glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life; but to those who are of] contention and who disbelieve the truth but obey iniquity, wrath and indignation; tribulation and distress upon every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no respect of persons with God."

"To those who seek," he says, "glory and honor and incorruption, by patience in good work, life" kept in store "will be given," not only to Jews, to whom the oracles of God seem to have been entrusted, but also to Greeks, because the judgment of God is just, and he is not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles. But to those who through contentiousness of mind and perversity of spirit do not believe the truth but follow iniquity, wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress are rendered, not only to the Gentile but also to the Jew, because there is no respect of persons with God. This is as far as the order of the words is concerned. But now let us inquire into what belongs to the inner sense.

"To those," he says, "who by patience in good work." When he says "patience in good work," he shows that a certain labor and contests await those who wish to do good work. "For our struggle," as the same Apostle says, "is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of this world"; all these oppose good work, and therefore patience is necessary, because it is written: "In your patience you will gain your souls." But let us see what he calls good work. The Lord in the Gospel declares concerning the woman who poured the alabaster flask of precious ointment on his head, "She has done a good work for me," indicating that whoever … the word of God … ["if the ministry of death ... came in glo]ry, so that the sons of Israel could not look upon the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which is being abolished, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be in glory! For if there is glory in the ministry of condemnation, how much more will the ministry of righteousness abound in glory?" And shortly after he adds: "But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." There is, then, according to the Apostle, a certain glory that is not glorified, like that which was on the face of Moses, which is said to be destroyed; this can be understood as the letter of the Law, having a certain glory of precepts, but one that cannot be glorified. And there is another glory, which remains and is glorified in Christ. For when he had gone up the mountain with Peter and James and John, he is written to have been transfigured into glory. "And then," it says, "Moses and Elijah appeared, talking with him." By this it is shown that the glory of the law and the prophets appeared when Christ had been transfigured in glory, so that prophecy and the law, illuminated by his glory, might be understood in the spirit once the veil of the letter is removed.

But since it is also said in Exodus that the glory of God filled the tabernacle of testimony, and again at the dedication of the temple that the glory of God likewise came down and filled the house with smoke, darkness, and cloud, by which the very presence of God is indicated: in these passages that glory must be thought to be meant of which the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says of the Son that he is the radiance of glory and the express image of his substance. By this it is declared that the Father is called the very fountain of glory, from whom the Son, the radiance of glory, is begotten, by participation in whom all creatures are said to have glory; as is written of those who belong to the resurrection: "There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory." Those, then, who seek this glory, which belongs to the resurrection, and honor and incorruption, will without doubt find what is written: "The body is sown in dishonor, it will rise in glory; it is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption." And therefore the seeker of this glory and honor and incorruption, through patience in good work, … life … we have discussed. Let us see also what honor signifies, since those who hasten to eternal life seek not only glory but also honor.

It is written that "man, when he was in honor, did not understand; he was compared to senseless beasts and became like them." He therefore seeks that honor which he had before he was compared to senseless beasts, that is, the honor he had in paradise before he sinned, the honor by which he was found worthy to hear the voice of God, the honor by which he enjoyed the fruits of paradise and the tree of life. And what the Apostle says, "Render to all what is due: honor to whom honor," seems to me to look to this. For I understand that the honor due to God is rendered if what is owed to justice is rendered and nothing of its portion is conceded to injustice; likewise to truth, if what is its own is so rendered that nothing of its portions is left to falsehood; to wisdom also, and innocence, and goodness, if we so render what is theirs that we allow nothing of their goods to folly or cunning or malice. For when, for example, in judging you have respected the person of a powerful man, or suppressed what is true for a friend's favor, you have not rendered the honor due to justice or to truth, but have dishonored justice and done an insult to truth. And since Christ is justice and sanctification and truth, you will be like those who struck Christ with their fists, and spat in his face, and, striking his head with a reed, put a crown of thorns on his head. What honor is owed by man to all these virtues we are taught in the Gospels, where the Lord says: "That all may honor the Son as they honor the Father." He therefore honors the Father and the Son who brings worthy honor and zeal to wisdom and justice and truth, and to all the things that Christ is said to be. In this way, then, those who hasten to eternal life seek glory and honor and incorruption.

But we will soon know what incorruption signifies if we examine its opposite. Incorruption has corruption as its opposite. Corruption is said to happen in two ways: bodily and spiritually. It happens bodily when what is written comes to pass: "If anyone corrupts the temple of God, God will destroy him." Spiritually, when there happens what the Apostle likewise says: "But I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity of faith that is in Christ Jesus." If anyone, then, has remained uncorrupted in body and spirit from the things we have mentioned, he is said to seek incorruption, so that through this incorruption of his conduct he may deserve to obtain the incorruption that belongs to the resurrection. But let us see what is given to those who seek these things. "Eternal life," he says: that of which the Savior teaches when he says: "This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." By this he shows that the substance of eternal life lies in the knowledge of God and of Christ Jesus. How the knowledge of God can be had we are taught in the Psalms, where it is said: "Be still, and know that I am God."