Saturday, March 28, 2020

Is Romans 5:7 Making An Overarching Point About the Good?

I am inclined to say that Paul is not trying to demonstrate a larger point about "the Good." Even if he were attempting to demonstrate an overarching ethical or metaphysical point about some concept of the ultimate Good, I believe that it would be difficult to ascertain this point from the grammar alone: that is my initial feeling about the Greek of this passage.

Looking at some of my resources, however, I find that Henry Alford (The Greek Testament, vol. II:358) treats the articular expression τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ this way: "on behalf of the good man," thereby working in the definite article and understanding it of the person. He writes (on the same page) that the article in Romans 5:7 refers to the good man "generally" similar to the way that expressions like "the fool" or "the wise man" reference these kinds of persons.

Daniel B. Wallace construes the grammar similarly in his work Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, p. 233. He understands the article in τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ at Romans 5:7 generically. See Matthew 5:5; 2 Peter 3:16.

Chrysostom understands the passage as follows:

"Now what he [Paul] is saying is somewhat of this kind. For if for a virtuous man, no one would hastily choose to die, consider thy Master's love, when it is not for virtuous men, but for sinners and enemies that He is seen to have been crucified—which he says too after this, 'In that, if when we were sinners Christ died for us . . . '"

See his homilies on Acts and Romans.

On the other hand (sed contra), it seems that Saint Jerome understood the construction in Romans 5:7 as a reference to the good itself. See http://books.google.com/books?id=Nnmzhz0B27AC&pg=PA135&dq=romans+5:7+and+saint+jerome&hl=en&ei=oIQhTIrWJ8Gclgeys8yHCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false at google books.

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