“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,”
I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. — Paul's affective invocation (ἡ ἀλήθεια, hē alētheia, "the truth" in Christ) precedes a painful revelation about Israel's rejection. The ἄλγος (algos, "sorrow") and ὀδύνη (odynē, "anguish") are not intellectual but existential; his conscience (συνείδησις, syneidēsis) bears witness through the πνεῦμα (pneuma, "Holy Spirit"). This is the pastoral cost of theology.
Church Fathers on Romans 9:1
Did I not seem yesterday to you to have spoken some great and exorbitant things of Paul's love toward Christ? And great indeed they were, too great for any words to express. Yet what you have heard today are as far above those things, as those things were above ours. And yet I did not think they could be exceeded, still when I came to what has been read today it did appear far more glorious than the whole of the former. And that he was aware of this himself he shows by his…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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