Commentary on Romans 8:5–11 by Noël (Natalis) Alexandre
Note: Noël Alexandre (1639–1724), also known as Natalis Alexander, was a French Dominican theologian, church historian, and biblical scholar. His Commentarium in Novum Testamentum (1702) was widely used in Catholic seminaries. This text presents both a literal and moral commentary on Romans 8:5–11, reflecting Alexandre's characteristic synthesis of patristic authority, scholastic precision, and moral exhortation. The moral commentary actually begins with verse 6. This excerpt was translated by Qwen.
I. LITERAL COMMENTARY
Rom 8:5 "For those who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but those who are according to the spirit sense the things of the spirit."
For carnal men, who in mind and affection obey the law of the flesh, love and taste the temporal goods which the world offers, toward which the carnal appetite inclines; they are wholly absorbed in the works of the flesh (Gal. 5:19).
But spiritual men, who have committed themselves not to the law of the flesh but to the Holy Spirit to be ruled, embrace with utmost zeal those things which the Holy Spirit suggests; they are wholly absorbed in works consistent with Him, which are called the fruits of the Spirit.
Rom 8:6 "For the prudence of the flesh is death; but the prudence of the spirit is life and peace."
For to think carnally, to love carnally, to savor carnally, brings death to the soul. On the contrary, to think spiritually, to love spiritually, and to savor spiritually, begets life and interior peace, and the tranquil and perpetual possession of all goods.
Rom 8:7 "Because the wisdom of the flesh is enemy to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be."
Moreover, this love of carnal things is hostile to God—or, as is the force of the Greek text, it is enmity toward God, constituting us enemies of God (cf. James 4:4). For it does not obey the law of God; indeed, it resists it, nor can it be subject to it, since its strivings tend toward contrary ends.
Rom 8:8-9 "Moreover, those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
Therefore, those who serve the affections of the flesh cannot please God as long as they so live; just as rebellious subjects cannot please their king.
"But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit."
You, reborn in Christ through baptism, are not subject to the flesh but to the spirit; you do not live according to the law and desires of the flesh, but according to the Gospel and according to the law of the Holy Spirit.
"If indeed (si tamen) the Spirit of God dwells in you."
If indeed you have so imbibed the faith and been cleansed in soul, or if you have so persevered in the grace of baptism, that the Spirit of God dwells and remains in you as in His temples.
"But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this one is not His."
If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in himself through sanctifying grace and charity, this one truly does not pertain to Christ as a living member of Him.
The Apostle calls the same Spirit both "Spirit of God" and "Spirit of Christ," by which manner of speaking He confirms both that Christ is true God, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds equally from the Father and the Son, as being of the same substance with both.
St. Chrysostom interprets these words, "if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you," not as words of one doubting, but of one believing and confident, and they signify the same as: "Since indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you." In which sense the Apostle employs those words "if indeed" in 2 Thessalonians 1:6: "If indeed it is just with God to repay tribulation to those who trouble you"; and in Galatians 3:4: "Have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed in vain."
Rom 8:10 "But if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit lives because of justification."
But if Christ is in you through His Spirit, from whom He is indivisible on account of the reciprocal immeation or inexistence of the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity: the body indeed is obnoxious to death because of sin; but the soul lives the life of grace because of the justice with which Christ has clothed it, who was made for us by God justice and sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30)—that is, the author of justice and holiness.
Rom 8:11 "But if the Spirit of Him"—namely of God the Father—"who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you through justifying grace and charity, and that perseveringly: He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit dwelling in you."
The same Eternal Father who raised Christ, your head and the exemplar of the resurrection of the saints, the Firstborn from the dead, from the dead, will also someday recall your mortal bodies from death to immortal, blessed, glorious life; because His Spirit, whom He gave as a pledge and earnest of blessed resurrection, dwells in you—not only in your souls, but in your bodies as in His temples.
Certain interpreters translate: "Through the indwelling of His Spirit in you," according to the Complutensian Edition and certain Greek Manuscripts. But the reading of our Vulgate, "because of the indwelling of His Spirit in you," agrees with Greek manuscripts of better note, with the Greek Edition of Robert Estienne, with the Syriac Version, to which St. Irenaeus (Book 5, Chapter 10), Tertullian (Book On the Resurrection of the Flesh), St. Chrysostom (Homily 13), Theodoret, etc., give support.
St. Augustine, in his Exposition of Propositions from the Epistle to the Romans, Proposition 51, reads: "Through the indwelling of His Spirit in you"; and likewise in Sermon 362 (otherwise On Divers Things 121), and Book 4 On the Trinity, Chapter 3.
II. MORAL COMMENTARY
Rom 8:6 "For the prudence of the flesh is death; but the prudence of the Spirit is life and peace."
To love the things of the flesh—namely, the pleasures, riches, honors of the world—and to wish to enjoy them, is a mortal state. This truth of faith, handed down and preached by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle: It is the utmost perversity to use what we should enjoy, and to enjoy what we should use. God alone is to be enjoyed; creatures are to be used, "as though we used them not" (1 Cor. 7:31).
To enjoy is to cling to something with love for its own sake, to place in it the end of one's joy. Therefore, whoever loves creatures for their own sake loves them perversely. Whoever seeks in them the end of his joy is ruled by the prudence of the flesh, which is the death of the soul. But whoever uses creatures for necessity alone, taking heed with attentive mind not to overstep their limits, and who refers their necessary use to God, is ruled by the prudence of the Spirit, which is life and peace.
Perturbation and death are the fruits of noxious love; life and peace are the fruits of good and holy love. Eternal peace belongs to him who perseveringly loves God and His law.
"Therefore, be not vain, O my soul, and deafen not the ear of your heart with the tumult of your vanity. Hear, and you too: the Word Himself cries out that you may return. And there is the place of imperturbable quiet, where love is not deserted if it does not itself desert. Why, perverse soul, do you follow your flesh? Let it follow you, converted. If bodies please you, praise God from them, and turn your love upon their Artificer, lest in those things which please you, you displease Him. If souls please you, let them be loved in God, because even they are mutable, and fixed in Him they are established; otherwise they would go and perish. Therefore, in Him let them be loved, and snatch to Him with you whom you can, and say: 'Him let us love, Him let us love; He made these things, and He is not far off.' For He did not make them and depart; from Him, in Him they are. Behold where He is, where truth has flavor. He is intimate to the heart, but the heart has erred from Him. 'Return, ye transgressors, to the heart' (Isaiah 46:8), and cling to Him who made you. Stand with Him, and you shall stand; rest in Him, and you shall be at rest."
This is the prudence of the Spirit, which is life and peace.
Rom 8:7 "Because the wisdom of the flesh is enemy to God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be."
Does he love God who fosters in his heart an enemy of God? Self-love, by which we cling to things that flatter the senses of the flesh or the innate pride of the old man, is enemy to God. Love of the world is enemy to God: "Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15). Love of the age is adultery, by which the faith given to Christ, the spouse of our souls, in baptism is violated, and our soul is defiled. "Adulterers, do you not know that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whoever therefore wishes to be a friend of this world is constituted an enemy of God" (James 4:4).
The prudence of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be, since it is the inordinate love of earthly and temporal things. "For the prudence of the flesh," says St. Augustine, "is spoken of when the soul desires temporal goods in place of great goods. But as long as such an appetite inheres in the soul, it cannot be subject to the law of God"—that is, it cannot fulfill what the law commands. But when it begins to desire spiritual goods and to despise temporal things, it will cease to be the prudence of the flesh and will not resist.
Rom 8:8 "Moreover, those who are in the flesh cannot please God."
Whatever formulas of prayer you recite, whatever alms you are accustomed to distribute, to whatever confraternities of the Scapular, Rosary, etc., you have given, even if you profess a Religious Order, even if you are a priest and celebrate Mass daily: you do not please God if you obey the affections and desires of corrupt nature and do not follow the precepts and spirit of the Gospel. It is life according to the flesh, which cannot please God, because God is Spirit, and no one is His true worshipper unless he be spiritual—that is, unless he master the desires of the flesh and wicked affections.
The sum of religion is to imitate Him whom you worship. The character of the true Christian, by which he is distinguished from carnal Gentiles and Jews, is to live according to the Spirit—that is, not to acquiesce in the pleasures of the flesh, but in faith, hope, and charity to pursue spiritual things.
Rom 8:9 "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you."
But he who does not have the Spirit of Christ is delivered over to the spirit of error and darkness. He who is not Christ's—whose is he, if not the prince of this world? "But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this one is not His."
But how is each one proved to have in himself the Spirit of Christ?
Christ is wisdom: if one is wise according to Christ and savors the things that are Christ's, he has in himself through wisdom the Spirit of Christ.
Christ is justice: if anyone has in himself justice, through the justice of Christ he has in himself the Spirit of Christ.
Christ is peace: if anyone has in himself the peace of Christ, through the Spirit of peace he has in himself the Spirit of Christ.
So also charity, and sanctification, and each thing whatever that Christ is said to be: he who has the Spirit of Christ is to be believed and hoped to have these in himself, and that his mortal body will be vivified because of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him.
But he who does not take up his cross and follow Christ; who does not destroy, as much as in him lies, the kingdom of sin in himself and in others; who is not prepared to devote his life for the defense of truth and justice: this one does not have the Spirit of Christ. He is indeed His creature, just as the beasts of the forests and the cattle on the mountains are, but he is not His disciple.
The Christian ought to leave nothing undone to preserve the Spirit of Christ. He withdraws from carnal men: "My Spirit shall not remain in man forever, because he is flesh" (Gen. 6:3). By whatever mortal sin the Spirit is put to flight, extinguished in us; by penance He is recalled; by innocence of life He is preserved; to each one, according to the progress of faith, both grace and the Spirit are increased; and the purer the soul is rendered, the more abundantly is the Spirit poured into it.
The Spirit of Christ does not vivify except the members of Christ. Moreover, the living members of Christ are not those which have been separated from His body by mortal sin. Therefore, let us love unity, let us fear separation. Nothing ought the Christian to fear so much as to be separated from the body of Christ. For if he is separated from the body of Christ, he is not His member; if he is not His member, he is not vivified by His Spirit. "But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ, this one is not His."
Rom 8:10 "But if Christ is in you, the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit lives because of justification."
Who can reflect without horror on the cruelty of that tyrant who joined dead bodies to the living? Far greater horror ought the sin to strike in us, by which it came to pass that the soul, resuscitated and renewed by the grace of Christ, is joined to a body dead because of sin—that is, because of concupiscence dwelling in it.
This wages continual war, the more dangerous because domestic, against the spirit or soul of the just, and strives to inflict death upon it. We in turn ought to fight against it, and never to yield, never to consent to its desires. For if even once we consent, it is done with the life of our soul; we perish. If we have once escaped as victors, let us not therefore be secure. The contest must be renewed; the enemy does not rest; the flesh always lusts against the spirit; the spirit ought always to resist and fight, and to weaken the enemy; let him fight as long as he lives.
But he lives so long until this mortal body puts on immortality, and death being swallowed up in victory, indwelling sin has been utterly extinguished. But when our mortal bodies have been vivified, not only will there be no consent to sinning, but not even that concupiscence of the flesh to which one might not consent will remain.
Not to have in mortal flesh this concupiscence resisting the Spirit: that man alone was able to have, who did not come to men through it.
Let us rejoice and give glory to God, who has bestowed on us the life of the spirit through grace and charity. Let us fear, because in our body we carry about the death of sin—that is, that accursed propensity to sin, by which, as by a goad, we are always urged toward the death of the soul, which is separation from God, the fountain of all justice.
Rom 8:11 "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit dwelling in you."
The resurrection of bodies to immortal life, which is the second regeneration, is the fruit of the first regeneration which is in baptism; it is the right of our adoption; it is the effect of the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ in us as in members of this heavenly Head and of that adorable Spirit.
For our bodies through that Laver which is unto incorruption have received unity in Christ; but our souls through the Spirit. Whence both are necessary, since both advance unto the life of God, our Lord Jesus Christ mercifully granting.
Therefore, to say that the temple of God, in which the Spirit of the Father dwells, and the members of Christ, do not partake of salvation but are reduced to perdition: how is this not of the greatest blasphemy?
But now we receive a certain part of His Spirit unto perfection and preparation for incorruption, gradually accustoming ourselves to receive and to bear God—which the Apostle also called a pledge, that is, a part of that honor which has been promised to us by God.
Few grasp the amplitude and power of grace. It is the germ of eternal life and of all graces leading thereto. Woe to those who have suffocated that divine germ and do not take care to raise it up again through Penance.
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