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Romans

About this book
Chapter 2

1 Therefore you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge someone else. For on whatever grounds you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment is in accordance with truth against those who practice such things. 3 And do you think, whoever you are, when you judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, and yet do not know that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?⁠ 5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourselves in the day of wrath,⁠ when God’s righteous judgment is revealed!⁠ 6 He will reward each one according to his works:⁠ 7 eternal life to those who by perseverance in good works seek glory and honor and immortality, 8 but wrath and anger to those who live in selfish ambition and do not obey the truth but follow unrighteousness. 9 There will be affliction and distress on everyone who does evil, on the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, for the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.⁠ 12 For all who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous before God, but those who do the law will be declared righteous.⁠ 14 For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves.⁠ 15 They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them,⁠ 16 on the day when God will judge the secrets of human hearts, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus. 17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relationship to God 18 and know his will and approve the superior things because you receive instruction from the law, 19 and if you are convinced that you yourself are a guide to the blind,⁠ a light to those who are in darkness, 20 an educator of the senseless, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the essential features of knowledge and of the truth— 21 therefore you who teach someone else, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who tell others not to commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by transgressing the law!⁠ 24 For just as it is written, “the name of God is being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”⁠ 25 For circumcision has its value if you practice the law,⁠ but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 Therefore if the uncircumcised man obeys the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 And the physically uncircumcised man, by keeping the law, will judge you to be the transgressor of the law, even though you have the letter and circumcision! 28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something that is outward in the flesh, 29 but someone is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart by the Spirit and not by the letter.⁠ This person’s praise is not from people but from God.

Texts in conversation

Compare Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.8 and Romans 2:14

Classical · New Testament

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Summary

Romans describes people who do what is right without knowing the Torah as being “a law to themselves,” a phrase that echoes Aristotle’s description in the Nicomachean Ethics of the refined person who acts properly without following written rules.

Passages

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.8

Classical
One may see this even from the old and the new comedies; to the authors of the former indecency of language was amusing, to those of the latter innuendo is more so; and these differ in no small degree in respect of propriety. Now should we define the man who jokes well by his saying what is not unbecoming to a well-bred man, or by his not giving pain, or even giving delight, to the hearer? Or is the latter definition, at any rate, itself indefinite, since different things are hateful or pleasant to different people? The kind of jokes he will listen to will be the same; for the kind he can put up with are also the kind he seems to make. There are, then, jokes he will not make; for the jest is a sort of abuse, and there are things that lawgivers forbid us to abuse; and they should, perhaps, have forbidden us even to make a jest of such. The refined and well-bred man, therefore, will be as we have described, being as it were a law to himself.
350–325 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Romans 2:14

New Testament
13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous before God, but those who do the law will be declared righteous. 14 For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves. 15 They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend them,
55–58 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Romans

References

"... The three apparent echoes of Aristotle in Romans 2:14–15 are the phrases, they are a law to themselves, the work of the law, and accuse or even excuse. None of these Greek expressions has an analogue in the LXX ... In the course of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the witty man, in contrast to the buffoon; he commends the way that a free man (i.e., a gentleman or civilized man) carries out his jesting. The lawgivers have forbidden certain forms of verbal abuse, and probably some forms of joking should be forbidden as well. In IV.viii.10 (1128a, 31–32) Aristotle sums it up ... The point is that such a person needs no imposed law to make him behave the right way; he has some kind of internal monitor that guides him. This is the force of the expression, being a law to himself ..."
C. John Collins, “Echoes of Aristotle in Romans 2:14–15: Or, Maybe Abimelech Was Not So Bad After All,” Journal of Markets & Morality 13.1 (2010): 123–173.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.8 and Romans 2:14

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