Preface

Constant reading of the Divine Scriptures leads to knowledge of them, for He is not false Who said: seek and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Matt. 7:7). Therefore we too shall come to know the mysteries of the epistles of the holy apostle Paul, if we read these epistles constantly and carefully. This apostle surpassed all others in the word of teaching. And justly so, for he labored more than all and acquired the most abundant grace of the Spirit: which is evident not only from his epistles, but also from the Acts of the Apostles, where it is said that on account of his excellence in speech the unbelievers regarded him as Hermes (Acts 14:12). The Epistle to the Romans is placed before us first, yet not because it was written before the other epistles. Thus, before the Epistle to the Romans both Epistles to the Corinthians were written, and before the Epistles to the Corinthians the Epistle to the Thessalonians was written, in which the apostle Paul with praise alludes to their almsgiving sent to Jerusalem (1 Thess. 4:9–10; cf. 2 Cor. 9:2). Furthermore, the Epistle to the Galatians was also written before the Epistle to the Romans. In spite of this, I say that the Epistle to the Romans is the first among the other epistles. Why then did it receive first place? Because in Sacred Scripture chronological order is not necessary. So also the twelve prophets, if taken in the order in which they stand in the series of sacred books, do not follow one another in time, but are separated by a great interval. And Paul writes to the Romans, on the one hand, because there lay upon him the obligation to carry out the sacred ministry of Christ, and on the other, because the Romans were, as it were, the leaders of the whole world, for whoever benefits the head benefits the rest of the body as well.