Romans 1:32
Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Qui cum justitiam Dei cognovissent, non intellexerunt quoniam qui talia agunt, digni sunt morte : et non solum qui ea faciunt, sed etiam qui consentiunt facientibus.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- οἵτινες τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιγνόντες, ὅτι οἱ τὰ τοιαῦτα πράσσοντες ἄξιοι θανάτου εἰσίν, οὐ μόνον αὐτὰ ποιοῦσιν ἀλλὰ καὶ συνευδοκοῦσιν τοῖς πράσσουσιν.
Haydock's commentary
This passage in the present Greek versions is rather different from the Vulgate: but the text of the Vulgate is conformable to the most ancient Greek manuscripts, of which some are more than twelve hundred years old. Oitines to dikaioma tou theou epignontes ouk enoesan oti oi ta toiauta prassontes axioi thanatou eisin, ou monon de oi poiountes auta, alla kai oi suneudokountes tois prassousin. See Var. Lect. Mill. in hunc locum et Prolegom. 41. 42.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Clement of Rome First Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter XXXV. Immense is this
How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in perfect confidence, faith in assurance, self-control in holiness! And all these fall under the cognizance of our understandings [now]; what then shall those things be which are prepared for such as wait for Him? The Creator and Father of all worlds, the Most Holy, alone knows their amount and their beauty. Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts. …
St Cyprian The Epistles of Cyprian, Epistle LXVII
9. Wherefore, although there have been found some among our colleagues, dearest brethren, who think that the godly discipline may be neglected, and who rashly hold communion with Basilides and Martialis, such a thing as this ought not to trouble our faith, since the Holy Spirit threatens such in the Psalms, saying, “But thou hatest instruction, and castedst my words behind thee: when thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst unto him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.” He shows that they become sharers and partakers of other men’s sins who are associated with the delinquents. …
St Clement of Rome The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, Chapter XXXV
How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in perfect confidence, faith in assurance, self-control in holiness! And all these fall under the cognizance of our understandings [now]; what then shall those things be which are prepared for such as wait for Him? The Creator and Father of all worlds, the Most Holy, alone knows their amount and their beauty. Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts. …
St Augustine Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist, Chapter 108
Chapter 108. 244. Petilianus said: "By this sentence, again, the apostle places in the same category those who have fellowship in the consciousness of evil. ‘Worthy of death,’ he says, ‘are both those who do such things, and those who consent with those that do them.’"
St John Chrysostom The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch, Homily XII
14. But these things he spake in reference to the early times, before the coming of Christ; and the Gentile he names here is not an idolater, but one who worshipped God only; unfettered by the necessity of Judaical observances, (I mean Sabbaths, and circumcision, and divers purifications,) yet exhibiting all manner of wisdom and piety. And again, discoursing of such a worshipper, he observes, “Wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile.” Again he here calls by the name of Greek one who was free from the observance of Judaic customs. If, then, he had not heard the law, nor conversed with the Jews, how could there be wrath, indignation and tribulation against him for working evil? The reason is, that he possessed a conscience inwardly admonishing him, and teaching him, and instructing him in all things. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily V on Rom. i. 28
Ver. 32 . “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” Having assumed here two objections, he in the first place removes them. For what reason have you to say, he means, that you know not the things which ought to be done? At best, even if you did not know, you are to blame in having left God who instructs you. But as it is by many arguments we have shown that you do know, and transgress willingly. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily XXV on Rom. xiv. 1, 2
This does not apply to one less than the other: wherefore it may well fit with both, both the advanced man that was offended at the observance of meats, and the unadvanced that stumbled at the vehement rebuke given him. But consider, I pray you, the great punishment we shall suffer, if we give offence at all. For if in a case where the thing was against law, yet, as they rebuked unseasonably, he forbade their doing it, in order that a brother might not be made to offend and stumble; when we give an offence without having anything to set right even, what treatment shall we deserve? For if not saving others be a crime (and that it is so, he who buried the talent proves), what will be the effect of giving him offence also? But what if he gives himself the offence, you may say, by being weak? Why this is just why thou oughtest to be patient. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, 2 Timothy 1:1,2
But now, when any one of our relatives dies, there are many who sit by and console us. Nay, we often raise up even an ass that has fallen; but when the souls of our brethren are falling, we overlook them and pass by, as if they were of less value than an ass. And if we see any one entering into a tavern indecently; nay, if we see him drunk, or guilty of any other unseemly action, we do not restrain him, we rather join him in it. Whence Paul has said: “They not only do these things, but have pleasure in them that do them.” ( Rom. i. 32 .) The greater part even form associations for the purposes of drunkenness. But do thou, O man, form associations to restrain the madness of inebriety. Such friendly doings are beneficial to those who are in bonds or in affliction. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John, John 6.1,4
Learn we then, beloved, to despise and not to desire the honor which is from men; for we have been honored with the greatest of honors, compared with which that other is verily insult, ridicule, and mockery. And as the riches of this world compared with the riches of that are poverty, as this life apart from that is deadness, (for “let the dead bury their dead”, Matt. viii. 28 ) so this honor compared with that is shame and ridicule. Let us then not pursue it. If they who confer it are of less account than a shadow or a dream, the honor itself much more so. “The glory of man is as the flower of the grass” ( 1 Pet. i. 24 ); and what is meaner than the flower of the grass? Were this glory everlasting, in what could it profit the soul? In nothing. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).