We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
The Jews had given the name of sinners to the Gentiles through a certain pride, already inveterate. It is as though they themselves were just, seeing the mote in another’s eye and not the beam in their own.
A Jew by nature is one of Abraham’s stock, who has been circumcised by his parents on the eighth day. One who is a Jew “not by nature” is one of Gentile origin who has been subsequently made so. That I may embrace the whole argument in a brief discourse, the sense of the text is as follows: “We are Jews by nature, doing those things that were precepts of the law. We are not sinners who come from the Gentiles—either in the sense of those who are sinners generically because they worship idols or those whom Jews now regard as unclean. Yet we know that we cannot be saved by the works of the law but rather by faith in Christ. We have believed in Christ that what the law had not given us our faith would guarantee to us. Seceding from the law in which we could not be saved, we have gone over to faith, in which not the circumcision of the flesh but the devotion of a pure heart is demanded. But what if we now belatedly declare by seceding from the Gentiles that whoever is uncircumcised is uncle...
These words are hortatory, but are couched in the form of a reproof, on account of those Jews. So elsewhere, under cover of one meaning he conveys another; as where he says in his Epistle to the Romans, But now I go unto Jerusalem, ministering unto the saints. Romans 15:25 Here his object was not simply to inform them of the motive of his journey to Jerusalem, but to excite them to emulation in the giving of alms. Had he merely wished to explain his motive, it would have sufficed to say, I go to ministering unto the saints; but now observe what he says in addition; For it has been the good pleasure of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints that are at Jerusalem. Yea, it has been their good pleasure and their debtors they are. And again, For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them, also to minister unto them in carnal things. Romans 15:26-27
Observe how he represses the high thoughts of the Jew...
Having worked out from the case of those around Peter that circumcision should not be applied, he now works this out in a more complete way. For if those who were Jews from childhood, and not prostylites, but having been brought up in the Law, having seen the weakness of the Law in justifying man, transpose themselves to the grace through faith, how much more those who were not from the beginning from the Law, but from the nations, and having later come to believe in Christ, are not obliged to incline themselves to the Law which is impotent in making one upright.
