Jerome, on Gal 2:15

“We by nature are Jews, and not of the Gentiles sinners.”

“(Verse 15) We are by nature Jews, and not sinners from the Gentiles. At this point, heretics sneak in, who, inventing ridiculous and foolish things, say that the spiritual nature cannot sin, nor can the earthly nature do anything just. Let us ask them why branches of the good olive tree were broken off and why branches from a wild olive tree were grafted onto the root of the good olive tree, if nothing can fall from good or rise from evil. Or how was Paul persecuting the Church before he became an Apostle if he was of a spiritual nature? Or how did he become an Apostle afterwards if he was generated from earthly sediment? But if they contend that He was not of earthly origin, let us set down His own words: 'We were by nature children of wrath, like the others' (Ephesians II, 3). The Jew by nature is one who is of the race of Abraham and was circumcised by his parents on the eighth day. Not the Jew by nature, who later became one from the Gentiles. But to sum up the whole argument in a few words, this is the sense that is being expressed: 'We', that is, 'I and you, Peter' (for He mixed in His own person, lest it might seem that He was doing injury to them), when we were, He says, Jews by nature, doing the things that were commanded by the Law, and not sinners from among the Gentiles, who either generally, because they serve idols, are sinners, or those whom we now consider unclean, knowing that we cannot be saved by the work of the Law, but by faith in Christ, we believed in Christ, so that what the Law did not give us, faith bestowed on us in Christ.' But if, departing from the Law in which we could not be saved, we turn to faith, in which circumcision of the flesh is not sought but rather devotion of a pure heart, and now by turning away from the Gentiles we do this, so that whoever is not circumcised may be unclean; therefore, faith in Christ, in which we thought we were saved before, is more a minister of sin than of justice, which removes circumcision, and whoever does not have it is unclean. But far be it from me to seek revenge, now that I know that what I once destroyed and considered as useless to me. Once I departed from the Law, I died to the Law in order to live in Christ, and I was crucified with Him, and I was reborn as a new man, relying more on faith than on flesh, and with Christ I departed from the world. What I once embraced, I hold fast. Christ did not die for me in vain: in Him I believed in vain, if I could be saved without faith in Him in the old Law.”

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