Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary: Romans
Chapter 11
Ver. 1. &c. St. Paul in this chapter endeavours to comfort the Jews, though the greatest part of them were rejected for their blindness; and to admonish the Gentiles, not to boast for being called and converted, but to persevere with humility, and the fear of God. --- God hath not cast away his people. That is, not all of them, nor hath he cast off those whom he foreknew, and decreed to save. --- The Scripture saith of Elias. He brings the example of Elias living among the ten tribes of Israel, when all the people were forbidden to go and adore in the temple of Jerusalem, when the altars of the true God were destroyed, and almost all in these tribes were fallen into idolatry, and worshipped Baal: he complains as if he were left alone in the worship of the true God. But the divine answer shewed him his mistake. I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, &c. Some take notice that seven is divers times put for a great number, as three and a half for a small number: however, besides these seven thousand, all in the kingdom of Juda remained firm in the worship of the true God. In like manner, a remnant is now saved by the election of grace, by God's free and liberal gift of divine grace. Some pretended reformers of the faith of the Church bring this as an argument, that the Church of God may fail, and fall into errors. It is sufficient to answer, that there is a wide difference betwixt the Jewish synagogue, which brought nothing to perfection, and the Church of Christ, which he built upon a rock, with which he has promised to be to the end of the world, and guide them by the Spirit of Truth. (Witham) --- This is very ill alleged by some against the perpetual visibility of the Church of Christ: the more, because however the number of the faithful might be abridged by the persecution of Jezebel in the kingdom of the ten tribes; the Church was at the same time in a most flourishing condition (under Asa and Josaphat) in the kingdom of Juda. (Challoner) --- Our separated brethren add to this text, as in Acts xix. 35. the word image. They also cite it in proof of an invisible Church; but with no just grounds: for in Jerusalem the faith and worship were public to the whole world. Besides, the Christian Church rests on better promises than the synagogue. (Bristow) --- The Jews obtain not the justice they sought after, because they did not seek it as they ought;
they expected to obtain it by their works, whereas it can only be had from grace. (Estius)
Ver. 6. It is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace. The election of God, and the first grace at least, are always without any merits on our part; but if we speak of works done in a state of grace, and by the assistance of God's grace, we co-operate with the graces given, and by thus co-operating, we deserve and merit a reward in heaven. (Witham) --- If salvation were to come by works, done by nature, without faith and grace, salvation would not be a grace or favour, but a debt; but such dead works are indeed of no value in the sight of God towards salvation. It is not the same with regard to works done with and by God's grace; for to such works as these he has promised eternal salvation. (Challoner)
Ver. 8. God hath given them, &c. Not by his working, or acting in them; but by his permission, and by withdrawing his grace in punishment of their obstinacy. (Challoner) --- Permitted them (says St. Chrysostom) to fall into the spirit of insensibility. Literally, the spirit of [1] compunction. Compunction is not here taken, as in some spiritual writers, for a great sorrow for sins. In the Latin Vulgate (Isaias vi. 9.) it is called the spirit of slumber, as in the Protestant translation. We cannot have a better judge of the sense of the word than St. Chrysostom, who tells us, that it signifies a habit of the soul, firmly fixed in evil, and an insensible disposition: as, saith he, persons under a pious compunction are not to be removed from their good resolutions; so the wicked, under a hardened compunction, are nailed, as it were, to vice. And that here this is the true sense, appears by the following words out of Isaias: he hath given them eyes that they should not see, &c. And also out of David, (Psalm lxviii. 23.) let their table be made a snare, &c. We may understand the spiritual food of the word of God, and of the Scriptures; which by the blindness of this people, have served to their great condemnation. --- And a recompense, that is, for a just punishment of their obstinacy. --- And bow down their back always, a metaphor to represent the condition of such, as are under heavy oppressions. (Witham) --- Although by bending their back is literally understood the yoke of servitude and captivity, with which the Jews were oppressed at the destruction of Jerusalem; yet it seems more conformable to the apostle's meaning, when considered in a spiritual sense, and then it will signify the insensibility of the Jews, as to heavenly things, and their anxious solicitude for the things of the earth. This their avaricious and carnal disposition was so manifest, that the poet said of them---
O curvæ in terram animæ et cœlestium inanes.--- (Estius)
Ver. 11-15. Have they so stumbled, that they should fall? God forbid. That is, their fall is not irreparable, or so as never to rise again: but by their offending, salvation (through the liberal mercy of God) is come to the Gentiles, that they, the Jews, may be emulous of the Gentiles, and of their happiness, and so may be converted. (Witham) --- The nation of the Jews is not absolutely and without remedy cast off for ever; but in part only (many thousands of them having been at first converted) and for a time: which fall of theirs God has been pleased to turn to the good of the Gentiles. (Challoner) --- How much more the fulness of them? As if he should say, if the obstinacy of so many Jews seem to be an occasion upon which God, whose mercy calls whom he pleaseth, hath bestowed the riches of his grace on other nations; and while the glory of the Jews, the elect people of God, has been diminished, the Gentiles have been made happy: how much more glorious will be the fulness of them? that is, according to the common interpretation, will be the re-establishment and conversion of the Jews hereafter, before the end of the world? See St. Chrysostom, om. ith. p. 164; St. Hilary, in Ps. lviii; St. Jerome, in chap. iii. Osee. Habacuc iii.; St. Augustine, lib. xx. de Civ. Dei. chap. xxix. --- Then (ver. 15.) the receiving of them into the Church, and their conversion to Christ, shall be like life from the dead, when the Jewish nation in general, shall rise from the death of sin, and their hardened infidelity, to the life of faith and grace. These things I speak to you, Gentiles, to honour and comply with my ministry of being your apostle: yet endeavouring at the same time, if by a pious emulation, or by any other way, I may be able to bring any of my flesh, or of my brethren, the Jews, to be saved by the faith of Christ. (Witham)
Ver. 16. &c. If the first-fruit (see the Greek word) be holy, so also is the mass; so also the rest, the product that follows. He alludes to the offering made by the law of the first-fruit, which was to acknowledge that all good things were from God, and to bring a blessing upon the rest. --- If the root be holy, so are the branches. By the root, says St. Chrysostom, he understands Abraham, and the patriarchs, from whom all the Jewish nation proceeded, as branches from that root: and these branches are to be esteemed holy, not only because of the root they proceeded from, but also because they worshipped the true God. And if some, or a great part of these branches, have been broken, they may, as it is said, (ver. 23.) be ingrafted again. And you, Gentiles, ought to remember that, you were of yourselves a wild olive-tree: and it is only by the merciful call of God, that you have the happiness to be ingrafted upon the same root of the patriarchs; and so, by imitating the faith of Abraham, are become his spiritual children, and heirs of the promises, and by that means have been made partakers of the root, and of the sap, and fatness of the sweet olive-tree. Remember that you bear not the root, nor were you the root that was holy; but the root beareth you; and that being branches of a wild olive, you ought naturally still to bear bad fruit, though ingrafted on the root of a sweet olive. It is only by the mercies of God, if you bring forth good fruit. Do not then be high-minded, nor boast, but fear, and endeavour to continue in goodness; lest God also spare not you, but cut you off, as unprofitable branches. And let me tell you, as to the Jews, if they abide not still in unbelief, God is able to ingraft them again into their own olive-tree; and it seems more easy, that they, who are naturally branches of the sweet olive-tree, should bring forth good fruit, when they shall be ingrafted in their own olive-tree, being of the race of Abraham, to whom the promises were made. (Witham) --- We see here, that he who standeth by faith, may fall from it; and therefore must live in fear, and not in the vain presumption and security of modern sectaries. (Challoner) --- The apostle here exhorts the converted Gentiles, to fear lest they fall, and bring upon themselves a punishment similar to that of the Jews. The Jews were his chosen people, the children of the alliance; they have now been stripped of all;