I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul says that he is under obligation to those whom he names, because he was sent for the purpose of preaching to everyone. For this reason he states that they are all under obligation to believe in God the Creator, from whom and through whom are all things, for obligation and honor form part of the salvation of the believer. He wrote Greeks instead of Gentiles,” but this includes those who are called Romans, whether by birth or by adoption, and barbarians, who are those who are not Romans, whose race is inimical, and who are not Gentiles. He speaks of those who are wise, because they are learned in worldly sciences and are called wise in the world whether they are stargazers, geometers, mathematicians, grammarians, orators or musicians. Paul shows that none of these things is of any advantage, nor are these people truly wise, unless they believe in Christ. He calls them fools, because in their simplicity they lack knowledge of spiritual things. He testifies that he has been sent to pr...
I am a debtor. That is, I am bound to preach the word of God to all. (Witham)
By Greeks, in this place, are understood the Romans also, and by Barbarians, all other people who were neither Greeks nor Romans. The Greeks called all barbarians, who did not speak the Greek language, even the Latins themselves. But after the Romans became masters of the world, they were excepted, through policy, from the number of barbarians, and particularly after they began to cultivate the science of the Greeks. Græcia victa ferum victorem cepit, et artes Intulit agresti Latio.
St. Paul says, that he is a debtor both to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise, the philosophers, those who pass for sages amongst the pagans, and to the simple, ignorant, unlettered class of mankind: not that he had received any thing at their hands, but because it was his duty, in quality of apostle, to address himself to the whole world, and preach to the great and to the small, to the learned and the unlearned. (Calmet)
