Romans 4:12
And might be the father of circumcision; not to them only, that are of the circumcision, but to them also that follow the steps of the faithful, that is in the uncircumcision of our father Abraham.
Open Romans 4:12 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- et sit pater circumcisionis non iis tantum, qui sunt ex circumcisione, sed et iis qui sectantur vestigia fidei, quæ est in præputio patris nostri Abrahæ.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- καὶ πατέρα περιτομῆς τοῖς οὐκ ἐκ περιτομῆς μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς στοιχοῦσιν τοῖς ἴχνεσιν τῆς ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ πίστεως τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἀβραάμ.
Haydock's commentary
And might be the father of circumcision. The apostle here tells them that Abraham is the father of all true believers, uncircumcised as well as circumcised, and all that believe in Christ, his seed, in whom God promised to bless all nations, are the spiritual sons of Abraham, and partake of the blessings promised to him in his posterity: nor can the circumcised be his true and spiritual children, unless they follow the footsteps of his faith, by which he was justified, when he believed the promises which God made to him before that circumcision was instituted; to wit, that he and Sara should have a son, when they were naturally past the age of having children, and that in his posterity all the world should be blessed, that is, in Christ. (Witham)
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 Irenaeus Against Heresies: Book IV, Chapter VII. Recapitulation of the
2. For not alone upon Abraham’s account did He say these things, but also that He might point out how all who have known God from the beginning, and have foretold the advent of Christ, have received the revelation from the Son Himself; who also in the last times was made visible and passible, and spake with the human race, that He might from the stones raise up children unto Abraham, and fulfil the promise which God had given him, and that He might make his seed as the stars of heaven, as John the Baptist says: “For God is able from these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” Now, this Jesus did by drawing us off from the religion of stones, and bringing us over from hard and fruitless cogitations, and establishing in us a faith like to Abraham. As Paul does also testify, saying that we are children of Abraham because of the similarity of our faith, and the promise of inheritance.
Tertullian On Monogamy, Chapter VI
But let us proceed with our inquiry into some eminent chief fathers of our origin: for there are some to whom our monogamist parents Adam and Noah are not pleasing, nor perhaps Christ either. To Abraham, in fine, they appeal; prohibited though they are to acknowledge any other father than God. Grant, now, that Abraham is our father; grant, too, that Paul is. “In the Gospel,” says he, “I have begotten you.” Show yourself a son even of Abraham. For your origin in him, you must know, is not referable to every period of his life: there is a definite time at which he is your father. …
St Augustine Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, Faustus denies that the prophets predicted Christ. Augustin proves such prediction from the New Testament, and expounds at length the principal types of Christ in the Old Testament
47. But, it is said, if the prophets foretold Christ, they did not live in a way becoming their office. How can you tell whether they did or not? You are bad judges of what it is to live well or ill, whose justice consists in giving relief to an inanimate melon by eating it, instead of giving food to the starving beggar. It is enough for the babes in the Catholic Church, who do not yet know the perfect justice of the human soul, and the difference between the justice aimed at and that actually attained, to think of those men according to the wholesome doctrine of the apostles, that the just lives by faith. "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. For the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thy seed shall all nations be blessed." These are the words of the apostle. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily VIII on Rom. iv. 1, 2
Ver. 12 . “Which he had being yet uncircumcised.”