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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
On this text, those who find fault with the flesh, and contend it was no part of God's creation, attack us. What are we to say then? Just what we did before, when discussing the Law: that as there he makes sin answerable for everything so here also. For he does not say, that the flesh worketh it, but just the contrary, "it is not I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." But if he does say that "there dwelleth no good thing in it," still this is no charge against the flesh. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
He did not say that the flesh does this, but "sin," that is, the tyranny of sin that drags me along.
Western Saints
Thomas Aquinas
Then, when he says, now then it is no more I, he proves what he had said about man's condition, namely, that he is carnal and sold under sin. In regard to this he does three things: first, he states his proposition; second, he proves it, at for I know; third, he draws the conclusion, at if then I do that which I will not. That man is carnal and sold under sin, as though somehow a slave of sin, is clear from the fact that he does not act but is led by sin. For a free man acts of himself and is not led by another. …
Bernard of Clairvaux
"When I say 'me,'" he says, "understand that which is more excellent in me, in which I also stand by the grace of God, that is, the mind and reason. When I speak of 'my soul,' take it in the lower sense, that which you see accommodated to animating the flesh, and even joined to it in concupiscence. That I was this, but now am no longer, I acknowledge, because I no longer walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit" (Rom 8:4). "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20). …
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