D.R.- thanks for your impressive research. It’s an interesting syntactical study, but the meaning of Romans 2 does not rest on the study of one word alone. The sense of the whole passage, and that in relation to the rest of Romans, casts some doubt on your hypothesis.

Paul is being somewhat ‘cryptic’ here, in a very condensed, allusive, and abbreviated argument. I’m not insistent on Wright’s being the only possible interpretation - but I’ve yet to see any way of resolving the wider issues, such as justification, which are thrown up; or the supporting evidence of clear references to the new covenant in relation to the pious Gentiles, or an alternative coherent logic to the entire passage (not just one part of it).

Nevertheless, I’m keeping a record of your findings - if that’s OK with you.

I bludgeoned myself, in spite of nursing a cold, into making a few more comments and hopefully finish the job off that I promised before everybody forgets about it. First, to tidy things up in response to Andrew’s particular comments. (PS. I had to remove the links to get past the spam filter.)

“Yes, physei comes between the two clauses, but since the verb comes at the end of each phrase, it seems much more natural to me to take physei with the second clause.”

It is quite natural in Greek to place the adverb after the verb or at the end of the relevant clause. I know you quoted Josephus with the adverb before the clause but that has a very specific context.

“The Aristotle example has physei after the verb, but that’s difficult to evaluate without the context; and desiring knowledge by nature makes more sense than having the Law by nature.”

I don’t see why that is so. The Jews had the law by nature. They were born to it. They were the chosen people of God. The context speaks for itself, a simple phrase with the adverb in last position.

“In Gal. 2:15 physei is brought forward in the clause; and again there is a difference between being Jews by nature and having the Law by nature.”

But it is not at the start of the clause. Also, if you take the full context of Gal 2:15 the reference is clearly to having the law: the gentiles were naturally sinners because they did not have the law to keep them in check which the Jews had and whose purpose was to teach them righteousness. In many ways, Gal.2:15 is a repetition of the same thought as 2:14 here in Romans.

“Gal. 4:8 also offers little support to the argument that in Romans 2:14 physei describes the Gentiles not having the Law. The word is closely integrated into the clause not appended at the end; and it quite appropriately modfies the being of these not-gods. I presume that in Eph. 2:3 Paul is saying that his readers, both Jews and Gentiles, were once subject to wrath like the rest of humanity because they are by nature sinful. Again physei is integrated into the clause, so the example does not help us to resolve the ambiguity of its position in Romans 2:14.”

My point is that in both cases, it does not occur at the very start of the phrase. It seems unnatural in Greek for that to happen.

“James 3:7 seems to me too remote from the context of Romans 2:14 to be of any assistance. ”

Ditto.

“There is some force to your observation that physei in the New Testament does not occur at the start of a clause or sentence, but none of the examples listed matches the grammatical structure of Romans 2:14;”

No, but other examples of adverbs terminating a phrase abound.

“and there is reason to think that Paul placed the word at the beginning of the second clause for emphasis: Gentiles don’t have the Law but by nature they do the work of the Law. There are also a few instances in Josephus where physei occurs at the beginning of the sentence, again probably for emphasis; for example: physei de megas ō ho Agrippas, ‘By nature Agrippa was generous…’ (Jos. Ant. 18:144; cf. 13.319; 15.89).”

See below on further comments about structure and logic.

“In Romans 1:4 en dynamei does not come at the end of the clause; it is actually the first of three qualifying prepositional expressions attached to horisthentos: en… kata… ex….”

Possibly. But each prepositional phrase functions as an adverb. The ‘according to the spirit of holiness’ balances ‘according to the flesh’ in the previous verse. So clearly the three adverbial phrases are not equal componenents in a list. It seems more natural to take “in power” on its own as following its verb ‘demonstrated’.

“I accept that none of this is conclusive. I still think the main issue is whether it makes sense to say that Jews did and Gentiles did not have the Law by nature. The Law was given to the Jews by God or by angels (cf. Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19); it was not a natural property.”

I think that is picking hairs a bit. And in any case, if this werre correct, it would be even less of a reason to suggest that it refers to being indwelt by the Spirit, which would be far from natural in this sense. Physei has several different connotations, as a quick foray into BAG will confirm. But anyway… I got in touch with Andrew Wilson, not the A.N. Wilson referred elsewhere here recently but the one who runs the classics website.

This is what he said about 2:14

” There is a balance/antithesis in the Greek between τα μη νομον εχοντα φυσει and οταν … τα του νομου ποιη, which to my mind means that φυσει has to be taken with the first phrase. It’s in an emphatic position there , and makes the contrast quite clear between “people not having law by nature”, and “[the same] people doing things partaking of the law.” The genitive of του νομου is important.”

In the light of that I would like to make some further comments.

If physei is to be taken with what follows it in the sense of referring to Christians, the same issue arises as when you take it to mean non-Christians. What would be the point in juxtaposing those who do not have with the law with those who by nature carry it out? If Paul was writing to Christians, then they all, both Jews and gentiles, would have the same Spirit. And if ‘by nature’ does not refer to those who do not have the law, then there must be some imaginable circumstances wherein gentiles do have the law. (I.e. some gentiles have the law written on their hearts and some don’t.) If this refers to those who have become Christians and hence have the law written on their hearts, then there is nothing to juxtapose! This means that your suggestion

“Gentiles don’t have the Law but by nature they do the work of the Law.” doesn’t have a meaning at all within Paul’s context because the only reason why they would keep the law was because they had already become Christians and once Christians, the issue of whether they have the law or not by nature has become totally irrelevant because of the cross.

Similarly, considering your suggestion that “These Gentiles do not need to have consciously or unconsciously acquired the Law in order to do the sort of good works that the Law prescribes: they behave in this way instinctively or, as Paul says, ‘by nature’.” I really don’t think that anyone keeps Sabbath by nature or leaves the corners of their fields unharvested or wears clothes with just one type of material in them, etc. If you are talking about simply being a good person, then, sure, everybody can be a good person and some even can be very good. But I hardly think Paul would have agreed that the law amounted to just being a good person. As I said on the first thread, I think, no one really keeps the law by instinct. They either keep it because they are forced to because it is the law of the land where they live or because they agree that it is worthwhile to keep. But in no case can you keep law if you don’t know what that law is.

Even Cranfield opts for physei qualifying τα μη νομον εχοντα (though he takes it to mean gentile Christians, which I don’t). Although he recognises that the outcome is uncertain, he thinks the evidence is well weighted in that favour. He says rather disparagingly of the opposite viewpoint “Paul’s meaning has commonly been taken to be that it is as a result of their possession of natural law that some gentiles do the things required by God’s law (whatever sense is given to this statement)”, as if those senses were not worthy of further comment. He goes on “But a comparison of the other occurrences of physis in the Pauline corpus suggests rather the connexion of φυσει with the preceding words…”

In the overall context of Romans, my interpretation makes good sense: Paul’s aim is to show that faith is universal and not limited to Jewish religion; that there is no inherent superiority of Jewish over gentile believers. Having the law doesn’t make you righteous in God’s sight but it is doing the law that is important and anybody can keep the law as is witnessed by the fact that many gentiles have taken it on board, even though it is not part of the culture they were brought up with. Therefore being Jewish does not make you any more righteous before God than anyone else.

Now, whether those gentiles who adopted the law of Moses were or became Christians or not is irrelevant to Paul’s argument. Cranfield, who thinks it does refer to gentile Christians, suggests “there is a further point in favour of taking φυσει with what precedes - it would not be strictly accurate to describe the gentile Christians as μη νομον εχοντα, since as Christians they would have some knowledge of the law, but to describe them as μη νομον εχοντα φυσει would be thoroughly appropriate.” So, one way or another, it seems to me that τα μη νομον εχοντα φυσει must be taken together.