Thomas Aquinas, on Rom 9:2

“That I have great sadness, and continual sorrow in my heart.”

“Then he shows his affection for the Jews by the pain he suffered from their fall, when he says, that I have great sadness. First, he describes this pain; second, he mentions a sign of it, when he says, for I wished myself. He emphasizes how much pain he has suffered in three ways. First by its magnitude: that I have great sadness, because it concerns a great evil, namely, the exclusion of such a great people: vast as the sea is your ruin (Lam 2:13). But this seems to conflict with Sirach where it says, give not up your soul to sadness (Sir 30:22), which seems to agree with the opinion of the Stoics, who admitted no sadness at all in the soul of a wise man. For since sadness is a reaction to a present evil, it cannot exist in a wise man to whom no evil is present. For they supposed that virtue was the only good and sin the only evil. But this opinion is refuted in two ways. First, because bodily defects, although they are not such evils as make men evil, are nevertheless among the evils which nature abhors. Hence, even the Lord is described as saddened by them: my soul is sorrowful, even to death (Matt 26:38). Second, since charity requires that a person love his neighbor as himself, it is laudable for a wise man to grieve over a son of his neighbor as over his own. Hence the Apostle says: I fear that I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned (1 Cor 12:2). Thus, worldly sadness, which works death, springing from love of the world, is rejected, but sadness which is godly and springs from divine love works salvation (2 Cor 7:10). Such was Paul's sadness. Second, he emphasizes his grief by its duration, when he says, and continual sorrow; not that he never ceased to grieve actually, but habitually: that I might weep day and night for the slain of my people (Jer 9:1). Third, he emphasizes how real it was when he says, in my heart; for it was not superficial but rooted in the heart: my eyes are spent in weeping and my heart is poured out in grief (Lam 2:11).”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.