Father Joseph Rickaby's Commentary on Romans 8:5-11

Joseph John Rickaby, S.J.,  was born in 1845 in Everingham, York. He received his education at Stonyhurst College, and was ordained in 1877, one of the so-called Stonyhurst Philosophers, a significant group for neo-scholasticism in England, along with Richard F. Clarke, Herbert Lucas, and his own brother, John Rickaby. At the time he was at St Beuno's, he was on friendly terms with Gerard Manley Hopkins; they were ordained on the same day (source). 

Rom 8:5. The things that are of the flesh (Gal. 5:17–21), which are not according to the law.

Rom 8:6. The wisdom (or mind, bent and purpose, phronema) of the flesh; and similarly, the mind, bent and purpose of the spirit. The flesh here being man left to his animal and worldly desires, and the spirit man under the guidance of grace.

Rom 8:7. The wisdom (bent and purpose) of the flesh is an enemy to God. The Latin translator has confounded echthra (ἔχθρα), "enmity," the reading of all the Greek MSS. and Fathers, with the adjective echthra (ἐχθρά), "inimica," hostile. The bent and purpose of the flesh is enmity with God.

"Not subject, neither can it be." What means "cannot be"? Not that man cannot be, not that the soul cannot be, not that the flesh itself, as it is the creature of God, cannot be: but the wisdom of the flesh cannot be, vice cannot be, not nature. As if you were to say: Lameness is not subject to right walking, neither can it be. The foot can, but lameness cannot. Take away lameness, and you will see right walking: but so long as lameness is, it cannot be right. So, so long as the wisdom of the flesh is, it cannot be subject: let the wisdom of the flesh be no more, and man can be subject (St. Augustine).

To which we may add that, even in the best Christians, there ever remains the law of the members fighting against the law of the mind, though it does not take them prisoners (Rom. 7:23). Cf. on Gal. 5:16.

Rom 8:8. They who are in the flesh cannot please God. Cf. Rom. 7:5, and note. "In the flesh," that is, in the state described, Rom. 7:8–25, in the corruption of the first Adam, in sin, original and actual; out of the state of grace, and without Christ (Eph. 2:12), and yet within reach of all mere natural gifts, secular education, arts, sciences and literature, laws and politics, commercial prosperity, military glory; yes, and of the mere natural virtues also, legal justice, truthfulness, philanthropy and courage.

St. Paul does not say: They who are in the flesh can do no natural good: but, They cannot please God, in such sort as to surmount sin, and obtain that vision of God for eternity which is promised to the clean of heart (Matt. 5:8).

Rom 8:9. In the spirit, in the grace of God, and corresponding with God's graces, the diametric opposite of being in the flesh.

"If so be that" (ei per, si tamen [Vulg.]), rather, siquidem, "if, as I must suppose." The Spirit of God had been given to them in baptism, and the Apostle says he must suppose they have not already lost the gift by relapsing into their pagan vices.

"He is none of his," is too strong a translation of houtos ouk estin autou (οὗτος οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτοῦ); it should be simply, "he is not his," or better still, "he is not of him." The Christian who has driven the Holy Ghost from his soul by mortal sin, short of loss of faith and actual apostasy (Heb. 6:4–6; 10:25, 26), is still a sheep of Christ, albeit a lost sheep ("my sheep that was lost," Luke 15:6); he is still a member of the Church, the Church has condemned John Wycliffe, who taught the contrary; and being a member of the Church, he is still so far forth a member of Christ (1 Cor. 6:15; 12:27; Eph. 5:30), although a dead member, who if he repent not shall finally be cast forth and wither, and they shall cast him into the fire (John 15:6). Remaining still a member, but dead, he is truly said to be not of Christ, because the life of Jesus (2 Cor. 4:10), which is the supernatural life, does not flow forth from the Sacred Heart unto him; and also because he is no imitator of Jesus, but rather of the devil, as our Lord told the Jews: "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do" (John 8:44).

The Spirit of God (the Father, 1 Cor. 1:3) is also the Spirit of Christ:

1. Because Christ as Man sends Him (John 15:26), i.e., by His merits obtains that He shall be sent (John 14:16, 26).

2. Because as Christ is God, and is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and from Him.

Rom 8a:10. If Christ be in you. Cf. Col. 1:26, 27, "the mystery, which is Christ in you"; Gal. 4:19, "until Christ be formed in you." Christ is where the Spirit of Christ is, by that mystical union spoken of on Rom. 6:3.

"The body indeed . . . but" (men . . . de). The English idiom is, "Though the body, . . . yet." See on Rom. 6:17; 7:25.

The body was mortal ere ever original sin was, but by a special providence it would have been kept from dying. Now it is called dead, since because of sin it is not only mortal, but also certain to die.

"The spirit" (the soul supernaturalised, as in v. 6) "liveth" (certainly the reading is, "is life," i.e., the formal cause of supernatural life).

Rom 8:11. Spirit in this verse means the Holy Ghost. The interchange of these two meanings of the word, seen in vv. 9, 10, is the reason why the Collects in which the word occurs are sometimes terminated in ejusdem Spiritus Sancti, and sometimes the ejusdem is omitted. Cf. v. 13, "by the Spirit," or "by the spirit."

"Because of his Spirit" (dia to pneuma). Authorities are divided between this reading, and dia tou pneumatos (διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος), "by agency of his Spirit."

This verse is an undoubted reference to the resurrection of the body. Cf. Rom. 6:5, 8.