And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not proper;
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Because of the error of idolatry they were handed over to doing evil things with each other, as has already been said. And because they thought they could get away with it and that God would look the other way, and were therefore prone to neglect what they were doing, Paul adds here that they were more and more reduced to idiocy and became ever readier to tolerate all kinds of evils, to the point that they imagined that God would never avenge things which no one doubted were offensive to humanity as well. He now lists all the evils that were added to these, so that if they should be converted to normal reason, they might recognize that these evils befell them because of God’s wrath. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Paul does not say that God destroyed them because of their loathsome outrages. For God is not responsible for destroying anyone…. Paul says rather that God went away from them and left them to their own devices, so that their false understanding of God might appear to be the cause of their evil life. .
And again, in that to the Romans: "And as they did not think fit to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things that are not convenient."
Here too Paul shows that the heathen were responsible for their own sins, and he deprives them of all excuse. For he says that their evil deeds did not come from ignorance but from willful practice. This is why he did not say “because they did not know God,” but rather “they did not see fit to acknowledge God.” In other words, their sin was one of a perverted determination of obstinacy more than of a sudden ravishment, and it was not in the flesh (as some heretics say) but in the mind, to whose wicked lust the sins belonged and from which the fount of evils flowed. For if the mind becomes undiscerning, everything else is dragged off course and overturned.
Lest he should seem to be hinting at them by delaying in his discourse so long over the unnatural sin, he next passes on to other kinds of sins also, and for this cause he carries on the whole of his discourse as of other persons. And as he always does when discoursing with believers about sins, and wishing to show that they are to be avoided, he brings the Gentiles in, and says, Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the other Gentiles which know not God. 1 Thessalonians 4:5 And again: sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 And so here too he shows that it was to them the sins belonged, and deprives them of all excuse. For he says, that their daring deeds came not of ignorance, but of practice. And this is why he did not say, and as they knew not God; but as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge; as much as to say, that the sin was one of a perverted determination of obstinacy, more than of a sudden ravishment, and shows that it was not the...
But if all nations are blessed in Christ, and we of all nations believe in Him, then He is indeed the Christ, and we are those blessed by Him. God formerly gave the sun as an object of worship,
But what the learned among the Greeks have said concerning our polity and the history of our laws, and how many and what kind of men have written of these things, will be shown in the treatise against those who have discoursed of divine things.
These things, O Greeks, I Tatian, a disciple of the barbarian philosophy,
This custom is a piece of Judaic corruption, and on that account was forbidden; and if He exhorts the faithful that their yea be yea, and their nay, nay, and says that "what is more than these is of the evil one "how much more blameable are those who appeal to deities falsely so called as the objects of an oath, and who glorify imaginary beings instead of those that are real, whom God for their perverseness "delivered over to foolishness, to do those things that are not convenient!"
