Letter 145

To the same person. It is easy to grasp that the Apostle [Paul] is employing characterization [ethopoiia, speaking in an assumed persona] when he says, "But I was once alive apart from the law" [Romans 7:9]. And yet he was never able even to draw breath apart from the Mosaic law; for from his youth he had been precisely schooled in the law under Gamaliel [the renowned Pharisaic teacher under whom Paul studied, Acts 22:3]. He therefore takes on the persona of those who lived outside the Mosaic law.

Ῥᾴδιον καταλαβεῖν ἠθοποιῷ χρώμενον τὸν Ἀπόστολον, ἐκ τοῦ λέγειν· «Ἐγὼ δὲ ἔζων ποτὲ χωρὶς νόμου». Καὶ τοι οὐδέποτε ἀναπνεῦσαι δεδύνηται ἄνευ τοῦ Μωσαϊκοῦ νόμου· ἐκ γὰρ νέας ἡλικίας παρὰ τῷ Γαμαλιὴλ τὸν νόμον ἀκριβῶς ἐξεπεπαίδευτο. Τῶν ἔξω τοίνυν ζησάντων τοῦ Μωσαϊκοῦ νόμου λαμβάνει τὸ πρόσωπον.