¹ Cambier, J., ‘Péchés des Hommes et Péch'Adam en Rom. v. 12’, New Testament Studies, xi, 3 (1965). 217–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Cambier credits the causal interpretation ‘because of the one by whom’ to Cerfaux, L. Le Christ dans la théologie de S. Paul² (Paris, 1954), p. 178Google Scholar English translation, Webb, Geoffrey and Walker, Adrian, Christ in the Theology of St Paul (New York, 1959), pp. 232–3Google Scholar. Bauer⁵ (‘deshalb weil, weil’) and Bl.–Deb. 235, 2 (‘darum daß, weil’, but with a question mark for Rom. v. 12) reflect what amounts almost to a consensus. It is not necessary to rehearse here the exegetical history. In addition to Cambier's survey and critique, further catalogue and discussion of ancient and modern views is contained in Zahn, Theodor, Brief des Paulus an die Römer, 1. und 2. Aufl. (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 263–7Google Scholar. See also Kümmel, W. G., Man in the New Testament, tr. Vincent, J.J., rev. ed. (Philadelphia, 1963), p. 64 n. 72.Google Scholar Lyonnet, S. ‘Le Sens de ἐφ’ ᾧ en Rom. 5: 12 et l'exégèse des Pères Grecs’, Biblica, 36 (1955), 436–56Google Scholar, see esp. pp. 436–8; Brandenburger, Egon, Adam und Christus: Exegetisch-Religions-geschichtliche Untersuchung zu Röm. 5: 12–21 (1 Kor. 15) (Neukirchen, 1962), pp. 168–80Google Scholar; and Kuss, Otto, Der Römerbrief², Lief. i (Regensburg, 1963), pp. 228–31Google Scholar. Of these, Brandenburger submits the fullest bibliographical data. Cambier, p. 253 n. I, cites Freundorfer, J., Erbsünde und Erbtod beim Apostel Paulus: Eine Religions geschichtliche und Exegetische Untersuchung über Römerbrief 5, 12–21 (Neutestamentliche Abh. 13, 1–2) (Münster, 1927), pp. 173–214, but the volume was not available to me.Google Scholar

¹ ὰμαρτωλός, ὰποθνῄσκω, δ׀καιος, зωή, θάνατος, κύριος, χάρις.

² The following are found in V. 1–11, but not in vv. 12–21: άγάπη*, αἴμα, ἀσεβής, ὰςθενὴς*, δικαιόω, δόξα, είρὴνη, έλπίς, έχθρός*, θλῖΨις, καιρός, καταλλαγὴ* καταλλὰσσω*, καυχόομαι, όργὴ πὶοτις, πνεṺμα(ὰγιον), προσαγωγή*, σῴЗω*, ὺπομονὴ. Found in v. 12–21 but not in v. I–II: α׀ώνιος, άμαρτάνω, άμαρτ׀α, βασιλεύω*, δικαίωμα, δικαιοσύνη, δικα׀ωσις, δωρεὰ (δωρεὰν, iii. 24), ἐλλογέω*, κατὰκριμα*, κόσμος, κρίμα, νόμος, ὰμοίωμα, παρὰβαςις, παρακρὴ*, παρὰπτωμα, πλεονὰω* ύπακοὴ, ύπερπεσσεύω*, χάρισμα.The words marked with an * do not appear in Romans prior to ch. v.

³ Verse 15 is a transitional statement introducing the solution expressed in vv. 16 ff.

¹ Michel, O., Der Brief an die Römer¹⁰, KEK, IV (Göttingen, 1955), p. 117 n. 1. The phrase τοῖς… ὰγαπητοῖς (Rom. i. 7) precedes Paul's argumentation.Google Scholar

² The fact that the topic of boasting is not picked up again until xi. 18 suggests that the concentration on the topic in chs. ii–v is an integral part of the argument in these chs.

³ Prov. iii. 11; Ps. Sol. iii. 4; viii. 34; x. 1 are attempts to accommodate the faith to reality. Ps. i represents the orthodox view, as do Job's comforters. John ix. 2–3 is a N.T. protest.

¹ If ch. v is a summary of the preceding discussion in chs. i–iv, then it is clear that we are to read the indicative ἒχομεν, not the subjunctive, in v. i; cf. H. Lietzmann, An die Römer ³, HNT (Tübingen, 1928), p. 58.

² Bultmann, R., Theology of the New Testament, transl. Grobel, K., 1 (New York, 1951), 252. Lietzmann, making reference to I Cor. xv. 22 and 45–9, says that Paul could presuppose his readers to understand the analogy, op. cit. p. 63.Google Scholar

¹ See Kuss, op. cit. pp. 252–60. Cambier makes reference to Wisd. ii. 23f. (p. 220) and notes that the principal axis in Rom. v. 12–21 is not θὰνατος–Зωὴ, but ὰμρις–χάρις (p. 230) and points to Paul's replacement of θὰναατος in Wisd. ii. 24 with ὰμαρτ׀α He might have observed that Wisd. i. 15 says δικαιοσύνη This is precisely the point Paul wishes to make. Sin is the opposite of righteousness and spells death (Rom. i. 32; cf. vi. 20–1, 23; vii. 5, 10, 13, 24; viii. 2, 6); hence Paul adjusts Wisd. ii. 24 in order to stress the equivalence. Righteousness spells life, i.e., to use the language of Wisdom, it is ὰθὰνατος, or in Paul's terms, ωὴ (cf. Rom. vi. 13, 16; viii. 2–4, 10; see also vi. 22–3 and Gal. iii. 21–2; v. 25). In other words, both couplets, θὰνατος–Зωὴ and ὰμαρτ׀α–χὰρις, are intertwined in v. 12–21 and the principal axis is not so much ὰμαρτ׀α–χὰρις as in Cambier's analysis, but θὰνατος–ὰμαρτὶα versus χὰρις–Ʒωὴ (δικαιοσύνη). Hence Bultmann's judgement (op. cit. I, 252) that the ‘real theme of Rom. v. 12ff. is not the origin of sin but the origin of death’ (but only as ‘the negative aspect of the positive theme, the origin of life’), is substantially correct (see Cambier, p. 230 n. 1). The fact that θὰνατοςappears prior to ch. v only in i. 32 and ὰποθνὴσκω not at all, points in the same direction. On the formal typological pattern, see H. Müller, “Der rabbinische Qal–Wachomer–Schluß in paulinischer Typologie: Zur Adam-Christus-Typologie in Rm 5’, ZNW LVIII (1/2 1967), 73–92.

² On this phrase, see below.

³ The antecedent for ᾦ is not the more narrowly defined νόμος in v. 13. Rather, the use of νόμος in v. 13 pursues the idea of νόμος implied in the relative ᾦ, see below.

⁴ The Greek text is cited from The Fragments of Attic Comedy, ed. Edmonds, John M. vol. iiiB, Menander (Leiden, 1961), p. 770. The passage is quoted in Plutarch, Moralia 103C–D.Google Scholar

¹ The historians Herodotus and Polybius are especially instructive in the usage since they deal repeatedly with formal treaties and political negotiations; see, e.g., Herodotus I, xxii, 4; III, lxxxiii, 2; V, lxxxii, 3; VI, lxv, 1; VII, cliii, 3; VII, cliv, 3; VII, clviii, 5; VIII, iv, 2. Polybius I, xvi, 9; 1, lix, 7; III, lxii, 6; IV, xxix, 7; V, lxxvi, 9–10; VII, ix, 13; VIII, XXV, 2; IX, xxvii, 11; XI, v, 5; XVIII, xxxix, 6; XXI, xxix, 14; XXII, vii, 3; Schwyzer, Eduard, Griechische Grammatik, II: Syntax und Syntaktische Stilistik, ed. Debrunner, Albert (Munich, 1950), (pp. 468 and 681). Examples from the papyri, mostly commercial, in Edwin Mayser, Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolcmäerzeit, Bd. II, 1: Satzlehre (Berlin and Leipzig, 1926), pp. 214–15.Google Scholar

² The verb συντὶθθμι and the noun συνθὴκη appear in a number of the passages cited in n. 1. See A. Graf von StaufTenberg, König Hieron II. von Syrakus (Stuttgart, 1933), p. 40. In the passage from Menander, the phrase ὣμολόγησέ σοι clearly points to the contractual nature of the antecedent expressed by ᾧ.

³ See Polybius VII, ix for elaborate invocation of the gods as witnesses to the oath which binds the parties to the agreement.

⁴ The difficulty is acknowledged by Cambier but he claims it is not extraordinary in Paul; however, he cites no passages (see also Kuss's critique, p. 229). The possibility of associating the relative with θὰνατος will be discussed below. Other interpretations proposed for έφ’ ᾦ will be considered below in connexion with Pauline parallels for the έφ’ ᾦ constructions and in the terminal summary of interpretations proposed for the passage.

¹ Albert Schweitzer offers a valuable caution against easy assumptions respecting πὰντες, Die Mysiik des Apostels Paulus ² (Tübingen, 1954), p. 218. Πὰντες in the phrase πὰντες ἠμαρτον expresses allness as opposed to distinctions or separateness (iii. 9, 23; xi. 32; xiii. 7; I Cor. ix. 19, 22; x. 33; xv. 22; cf. Gal. iii. 26–9. In a subsequent paper I hope to demonstrate that this is the usage also in II Cor. v. 14, 15). When all humanity, without concern for the question of separateness, is stressed, ἂνθρωποι is added to πὰντες, as in v. 12c, 18; xii. 17, 18; I Cor. vii. 7; xv. 19; II Cor. iii. 2; Phil. iv. 5; I Thess. ii. 15; see also echoes of Paul's usage in I Tim. ii. 1, 4; iv. 10; Titus ii. 11; iii. 2; for addition of the singular ἂνθρωπος to πᾶς, see Rom. iii. 4. Indeed, the data appear to warrant the classification of a Pauline philological doctrine. The allusion to Bias in Bauer⁵, s.v. πᾶς (2 a γ) is instructive; Bauer directs the reader to πολύς(12 a α), but the saying of Bias, cited in Clem, of Alex., Strom. I, lxi, 3, reads πὰντες ἂνθρωποι κακοί ἢο׀ πλεῖστοι τῶν ὰνθρ῎πων κακοί. The allusion contains a thought-parallel, but the philological data require separate scrutiny, and Bauer offers no clarification to the student who sees the equivalent definition ‘everyone’ in both I b and 2 a γ (s.v. πᾶς). The omission of ἂνθρωποι after πὰντες in Rom. v. 12 d would, if referring to ὰνθρώπους in 12 c, be an unparalleled example in Pauline writings of lack of clarity in the use of πὰντες. Note how frequently, for example, Paul clarifies with ‘all who believe’, or ‘all of you’ (see Bauer⁵, ie) where the context might leave the ‘all’ ambiguous. Finally, it should be observed that in v. 12 Paul has only said that sin entered the world, and that death came to all men. He has not yet said in this verse that all men have sinned. This is precisely the question taken up in v. 12 d, and it cannot be begged. Indeed, the pains taken by Paul in the repetition of ἂνθρωποι in v. 18 and xii. 18, to avoid ambiguity, confirm the interpretation advanced for πὰντες and for the έφ’ ᾦ construction in which πὰντες is imbedded in v. 12.

² Cf. i. 16; ii. 10; iii. 12 (in an O.T. citation); iii. 19 (note the word κὰσμος, echoed in v. 12);iii. 20; iii. 23 (preceded by the reminder: ού γὰρ ἐστολὴ see also iv. 16.

³ Cambier, p. 250. The resort to a parenthesis as an explanation itself suggests a cutting rather than untying of the Pauline knot. Kuss's discussion, pp. 232–4, suffers from the same critical deficiency.

⁴ Γάρ in v. 13 is typical of the elliptical usage of this conjunction. Its function is to explain what was implied, but not explicitly expressed in preceding words; cf. Matt, xxvii. 23; I Cor. ix. 10; I Thess. ii. 20; Rom. xv. 26f.; Acts xvi. 37; John ix. 30.

¹ Contra Bultmann, who says that v. 13 ‘is completely unintelligible’, op. cit. I, 252; Cambier: ‘comment concilier la responsabilité des hommes pécheursavecleur impossibilité d'échapper au péché avant la rédemption du Christ? C'est là un mystère…’, p. 222. The weakness of traditional interpretations is again indicated by the suggestion of a qualitative distinction between the guilt of pre-Mosaic man and the Jews (as in W. Sanday–A. C. Headlam, The Epistle to the Romans¹² [New York, 1910], pp. 134–5, and Kuss, op. cit. pp. 233 and 246), in contradiction to Paul's previous argument in chs. i–iv, which affirms a common guilt without distinctions (see p. 430 n. 1, above).

² It may be objected that a shift in the meaning of νὰμος from the Mosaic code to a more general sense is forced interpretation, but it is precisely the relative ᾦ which, in the light of Paul's preceding discussion of law in chs. ii–iv, relieves any ambiguity. For other uses of indeterminate ᾦ, see Matt. vii. 2; Mark iv. 24; Luke vi. 38. In addition to the double usage of νὰμος in reference to the Mosaic and the non-Mosaic law in Rom. ii. 14, see νὰμος used in various senses, and in close association, in iii. 27; vii. 21–2, 23, 25; viii. 2.

³ Note that ἐπ׀ τᾦ corresponds somewhat to the earlier έφ’ ᾦ construction. A few manuscripts read tv, perhaps in the light of έν νόμῳ, Rom. ii. 12. ‘Eν ᾦ, especially in v. 12, would have been ambiguous. Bultmann's verdict (TWNT, III, 15) that v. 14 ‘ist in mindestens formalem Widerspruch mit R. I, 18ff.’) is unnecessary (cf. Cambier, p. 222 n. I).

⁴ Cf. vi. 23; I Cor. xv. 56.

⁵ On sin as a power, see Kuss, op. cit. pp. 227–8.

⁶ Since death in Paul's view is more than mere mortality (see Kuss, pp. 228, 249 ff.) the ambiguity in the term ωὴ as applied to the goal of legal righteousness and to man's mortality, is more apparent than real.

¹ Note that in iii. 24 χὰρισ is contrasted with the situation in which humanity finds itself—all have sinned. Even as the unrighteousness of all mankind is determined without reference of all mankind to the Mosaic code, so God's righteousness is without law; see also i. 5, 7; iv. 4, 16; v. 2.

² It is significant that in v. 15, on which Cambier lays such stress for his interpretation of the έφ’ ᾦ clause, Paul does not say ο׀ πολλοί ἤμαρτον, but, as in I Cor. xv. 22, that the many (= all) died. The datival construction, τᾦ τοῦ ένὰς παρατώματι(v. 15) expresses a loose causal connexion, in harmony with Paul's conclusion that all humanity is comprised in a common guilt, without specific reference hereto a doctrine of hereditary sin. Also in v. 16 the phrase έξένὰς does not say that in Adam all sinned, but that the source of condemnation reaches back to the one with whom all humanity identifies. The parallelism with χὰρισμα (v. 16) in connexion with Christ confirms this interpretation. The δικαίωμα does not extend to all men as an existential reality, but is available to those who receive it (v. 17), namely, by faith, as expressed passim in the preceding chapters and in v. 1. Verse 19 is not in contradiction to this conclusion. καθίστημι sets up a causal relation which telescopes in a summary statement all that has been said before in vv. 12 ff., and does not exclude individual responsibility. Sin is a power that enters the world through Adam. All men are guilty in terms of the law under which they give way to the power of sin. Only through the obedience of Christ does the possibility (note the future κατασταθήσονται) for humanity to secure a verdict of acquittal become reality, and this verdict again is secured through faith. In short, Paul accents the relation of humanity to Adam in terms of a common response to the power of sin in order to underline the solution available to all in the response of faith in the one man, Jesus Christ. Contrasted are what Adam and Christ respectively set in motion. See also Bultmann, op. cit. 1, p. 252. On τό ἒργον τοῦ γραπτό (Rom. ii. 15), see Kuss, pp. 72–6.

³ The interpolation of μέν before τέλος (v. 21) in B D * E F G, so as to balance νυν׀δέ, suggests that ancient copyists understood the text in this manner (so also Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Beza, Grotius, Bengel, Goodspeed, R.S.V.). The internal structure also requires this rendering. In both vv. 21 and 22 καρπὰς is construed with ἔχω; both these phrases are followed by a prepositional construction (έφ’ οῑς νῦν έπαισχύνεσθε—ε׀ς ὰγιασμέν); and these two groups of phrases are followed by independent clauses in which τέλος occurs with the balancing words θὰνατος and Ʒωὴ.

¹ C. F. D. Moule cannot decide whether καταλάβω is used absolutely (cf. I Cor. ix. 24) with έφ’ ᾦ to be rendered ‘inasmuch as’, or whether έφ’ ᾦ implies an object for καταλέβω ‘with a view to which’, An Idiom–Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge, 1953), p. 132. Bl.–Deb. 235, 2, ‘darum daß, weil’.

² Moule, op. cit. p. 132, says that in II Cor. v. 4 and Rom. v. 12 έφ’ ᾦ almost certainly means ‘inasmuch as’. Bl.–Deb. 235, 2, ‘darum daß, weil’. Nigel Turner renders έφ’ ᾦ ‘because’ in both Rom. v. 12 and II Cor. v. 4, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, III (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 272; but in his Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh, 1965) he adopts for έφ’ ᾦ in Rom. v. 12 the interpretation ‘under the power of or ‘within the jurisdiction of’ (Adam), p. 116, and retains the causal interpretation in II Cor. v. 4 (pp. 128–31). Turner's misunderstanding of στενέ in the sense of ‘anxiety’ prompts him to ignore his own admission that έφ’ ᾦ often meant “on condition that” in earlier Greek and in some texts of the Common Greek’, p. 131. In the earlier volume of the grammar (1, 3rd ed., 1957) Moulton had observed that έφ’ ᾦ with the future indicative, ‘on condition that’, does not appear in the N.T., but that the meaning in II Cor. v. 4 and Rom. v. 12 ‘is essentially the same (“in view of the fact that”), allowing for the sense resulting from a jussive future’, p. 107. M. E. Thrall rejects the causal interpretation for έφ’ ᾦ v. 4 and renders ‘on condition that’, Greek Particles in the New Testament, ‘New Testament Tools and Studies’, 111, ed. B. Metzger (Grand Rapids, 1962). However, her failure to note the consolatory topic leads her to the following obscure paraphrase: ‘For indeed, we who exist in the physical body groan with weariness. (But, for the Christian, this is a legitimate attitude to our physical existence only) on condition that we do not want to be divested of somatic existence altogether, but rather to be further incorporated in the Body of Christ’, p. 94.

³ The particle γε emphasizes the condition, cf. Bl.–Deb. 439, 2. κα׀ emphasizes ένδυσὸμενοι, repeating the thought in έπενδύασθαι (v. 2; Thrall, op. cit. p. 90, cites as parallels I Cor. iv. 7; vii. 11; Phil. iii. 12; iv. 10; and in her detailed discussion of the passage, pp. 86–95, concludes that εἲ γε expresses assurance.

¹ Generally overlooked in discussions of this passage is the presence of ὰρραβών in the context of the έφ’ ᾦ construction; cf. P. Magd. 26, 4 (218a) λαβὼν παρ’ ὴμῶν ὰρραβῶνα έκ’ ώι καί τοῦ έκφερομένου τὴν τιμὴν διρθούμεοι ταμιευσέμεθα(cited in Mayser, op. cit. p. 214); see also Paulys Realencyclopädie, IV, A, I (Stuttgart, 1931), s.v. ‘Symbolaion’, col. 1086, on connexion of ἀρραβών with formal agreements.

² See also Sophocles, OC 1689–92; Ajax 473–4.

³ See the parallels in Bl.–Deb. 294, 4; Robertson, A. T., A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research⁴ (New York, 1923), pp. 719–21.Google Scholar

⁴ Moule asks whether έφ’ ᾦ here means ‘inasmuch as’ or ‘with regard to which (i.e. τέ ύπὰρ έμοῦ φρονεῑν)’, op. cit. p. 132. Thrall is more definite: ‘in which respect’, ‘with regard to which’, op. cit. p. 94. I do not understand Turner's temporal classification in the sense of ‘whereon’, op. cit. III, 272. Bl.–Deb. 235, 2 renders ‘denn’, i.e. ‘for’; so also Bauer⁵, but only for this passage.

⁵ Thrall, op. cit. p. 94, has well stated the caution but, in a manner uncharacteristic of the rest of her treatment of έφ’ ᾦ constructions, dismisses Rom. v. 12 with ‘undoubtedly causal use’, p. 94 n, 4; see also p. 93.

⁶ G. B. Winer's criticism of Rothe, who attempted to bring all the passages with έφ’ ᾦ under one semantic roof, is still valid (Grammatik des Neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms ⁶, Leipzig, 1855, p. 351 n. 3).

¹ See Zahn, op. cit. p. 264 n. 33.

² Cf. Cambier, pp. 239–41. Cambier opts correctly for what Bl.–Deb. (318, 1; 332) calls ‘der komplexive’, or summary aorist in ἢμαρτον

³ Stauffer, E., Die Theologie des Neuen Testaments⁴ (Stuttgart, 1948), 248–g n. 176.Google Scholar

⁴ See also Cambier's critique of this view with respect to Paul's use of Wisdom ii. 23–4, pp. 245–6.

¹ Zahn, pp. 266–7.

² Cf. Brandenburger's critique, op. cit. pp. 170–1.

³ See p. 424 n. 2.

⁴ Brandenburger (pp. 171–2), forgetting that the problem is one of translation semantics rather than of Greek grammar, criticizes Lyonnet unjustly for failing to note that έφ’ ᾦ when used in the sense of ‘on condition that’, is ordinarily followed by a verb in the present or future tense; but see Polyb. III, lxii, 6 for the perfect tense, Xen. Hell, n, iii, 11, aorist.

¹ For variations of this view, see Brandenburger, pp. 172–5.

² See the literature cited in Brandenburger, p. 175 n. 3.

³ Kuss, op. tit. pp. 230–1.

⁴ Cf. Brandenburger, p. 173.

⁵ Kuss, pp. 231–4.

⁶ Brandenburger, pp. 175–205.

⁷ Kuss, p. 231.

⁸ Brandenburger, p. 179.

⁹ Kuss, p. 232.