Chrysostom on Romans 13: Office, not Individuals
"For there is no power, he says, but of God." (Romans 13:1) What say you? It may be said; is every ruler then elected by God? This I do not say, he answers. Nor am I now speaking about individual rulers, but about the thing in itself. For that there should be rulers, and some rule and others be ruled, and that all things should not just be carried on in one confusion, the people swaying like waves in this direction and that; this, I say, is the work of God's wisdom. Hence, he does not say, "for there is no ruler but of God;" but it is the thing he speaks of, and says, "there is no power but of God. And the powers that be, are ordained of God." Thus, when a certain wise man says, "It is by the Lord that a man is matched with a woman" (Proverbs 19:14, Septuagint), he means this, God made marriage, and not that it is He that joins together every man that comes to be with a woman. For we see many that come to be with one another for evil, even by the law of marriage, and this we should not ascribe to God. But as He said Himself, "He which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh." (Matthew 19:4-5; Genesis 2:24) And this is what that wise man meant to explain. For since equality of honor does many times lead to fightings, He has made many governments and forms of subjection; as that, for instance, of man and wife, that of son and father, that of old men and young, that of bond and free, that of ruler and ruled, that of master and disciple. And why are you surprised in the case of mankind, when even in the body He has done the same thing? For even here He has not made all parts of equal honor, but He has made one less and another greater, and some of the limbs has He made to rule and some to be ruled.
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