Meekness, self-control: against such there is no law.
Read Chapter 5
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul did not mention more than ten excellent behaviors because he is referring to the fruits of the Spirit. These fruits embrace everything in the tablets of God’s covenant, in which no more than ten words of command are succinctly handed down. .
He has added “against such there is no law” so that we understand that those on whom the law must be imposed are those in whom these excellent behaviors do not already reign. For those in whom they reign are the ones who apply the law legitimately, since the law is not imposed on them with coercive intent, seeing that righteousness is already their overwhelming preference…. These spiritual fruits reign in one in whom sins do not reign. These good things reign if they are so delightful that they themselves uphold the mind in its trials from falling into consent to sin. For whatever gives us more delight, this we necessarily perform.
He did not say “against these,” so that they would not be thought the only ones— though in fact even if he had said this we ought to understand all the goods of this kind that can be imagined. No, he says “against such things,” namely, both these and whatever is like them.
