Chapter Thirty-Four
Objection based on another inconsistency, in saying "The law entered that the offence might abound " (Rom. v. 20).
For see here, look at this clever fellow's record. After countless utterances which he took from the law in order to get support from it, he made void the judgment of his own words by saying, "For the law entered that the offence might abound"; and before these words,1"The goad2 of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor. xv. 56). He practically sharpens his own tongue like a sword, and cuts the law to pieces without mercy limb by limb. And this is the man who in many ways inclines to obey the law, and says it is praiseworthy to live according to it. And by taking hold of this ignorant opinion, which he does as though by habit, he has overthrown his own judgments on all other occasions.
Chapter Forty-One
Answer to the objection based on S. Paul's saying that "The law entered that the offence may abound " (Rom. v. 20).
[There was naturally much wickedness in life, and this could not be corrected unless the law came to reveal it. Good and bad could not be distinguished till standards of right and wrong were set up. From such a life of ignorance and sin the law guided men to the life of light. But its enactments naturally revealed as sin what was not before understood as such, and in this sense it "made the offence to abound."
Sin was a "goad of death" to drive men from true life, and took its "strength" from the law, because the law punished sinners (see 1 Cor. xv. 56). A goad requires some one to wield it in order to make it deadly, and it was thus that the law wielded sin. Paul bids men flee from it, not to the law, but to Christ who is Master of the law. He does not destroy the law, but its work as "schoolmaster" (paidagwgo&j ) is done when it has brought men to Christ (Gal. iii. 23). The law is like the moon, and the prophets like the stars, which fade away at dawn before the Sun and His twelvefold crown of Apostles, and yet remain, though without power.3]
Footnotes:
1This is evidently a slip, as it is unlikely that he placed the Corinthian before the Roman Epistle.
2This correct translation must be given, rather than "sting," as Macarius develops the idea of a goad in his answer.
3The above summary is in a very abbreviated form, but it will be seen that, unlike some of his defence of S. Paul, his line of argument is excellent, and is a sound interpretation of S. Paul's own attitude towards the law.