Paul's confessions are an assumed voice, not his own
Eusebius opens his commentary on Romans 7 by explaining that the apostle Paul's anguished confessions there are spoken in an assumed persona for the refutation of those who love sin.
The divine apostle became an unblemished image of good works for his disciples, which is why he cried out, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). So what he said is not literally about himself: “I know that nothing good dwells in my flesh” (Romans 7:18), nor “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). Rather, he says these things and others like them playing a part in an inserted persona, to refute those who love sin.
Just as divine Scripture knows how to call people by their actions—fleshly, soulish, spiritual, and countless other names—so too it knows how to call the devil not only Satan, the Adversary, the devil, the serpent, the lion, and Beliar, but also flesh, law, sin, and death. For we were enslaved to these through disobedience, and not to Christ. That is why Paul says, “When we were in the flesh” (Romans 7:5), making clear that they are no longer in the flesh, even though they are in the flesh—so he is not slandering the flesh we wear, but the flesh that bears the same name, from which we have been set free because we died in Christ by being buried with him through baptism.
We have truly been set free from this flesh. For Paul goes on to say, “But now we have been released from the law of sin, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:6). Then he began again the assumed voice by way of hypothesis, starting from “What then shall we say? Is the law sin? By no means!” (Romans 7:7) up to “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). He set down an unshakable foundation in his prologue, making his defense by saying: “What then? Is the law sin? By no means!” and that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12).
Here by “law” he does not mean the law warring against the law of our mind, but the law that admonishes beforehand, the law that punishes those who sin. That is why he voted with it as holy and just and good. Then he began again to explain in sequence what he had said earlier, prefacing it with a word of thanksgiving: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25).
Then, to condemn those who seize on this as a pretext and abuse the flesh we wear, he asks interrogatively: “So then, do I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh the law of sin?” (Romans 7:25). Am I, Paul, divided—serving the law of God in one part and the law of sin in another? Do I hold Christ and Beliar in myself at the same time and in the same place? Am I the one who said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20)—and have I lied, having living sin within me? I who proclaimed to others, “Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” (1 Corinthians 6:19) and “Glorify God in your members” (1 Corinthians 6:20)—do I myself have nothing good in my body? But he is not like that; he is not. By no means! For a child of wrath and a vessel of wrath before, he changed his manner, not his nature, and became a precious vessel of election.
Greek
Fragmenta in epistulam ad Romanos Rom 7 Ἀγαθοεργῶν ὁ θεῖος ἀπόστολος εἰκὼν ἀκηλίδωτος ἐγίνετο τῶν μαθητευομένων, ὅτου χάριν καὶ ἐκέκραξεν· μιμηταί μου γίνεσθε, καθὼς καὶ ἐγὼ Χριστοῦ. τοιγαροῦν οὐκ αὐτοῦ ἐστι κατὰ κυριολεξίαν ὃ ἔφη· οἶδα δὲ ὅτι οὐκ οἰκεῖ ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου τὸ ἀγαθόν, ἀλλ' οὐδὲ τὸ ταλαίπωρος ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος, τίς με ῥύσεται ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου; ἀλλὰ ταῦτα καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα ἐν παρενθέτῳ προσώπῳ ὑποκρινόμενος λέγει πρὸς ἔλεγχον τῶν φιλαμαρτημόνων. ὥσπερ δὲ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἀπὸ τῶν σφῶν πράξεων σαρκικούς, ψυχικούς, πνευματικοὺς καὶ ἑτέροις μυρίοις ὀνόμασι καλεῖν οἶδεν ἡ θεία γραφή, οὕτω δὴ καὶ τὸν διάβολον οὐ μόνον σατανᾶν καὶ ἀντικείμενον καὶ διάβολον καὶ ὄφιν καὶ λέοντα καλεῖν οἶδεν καὶ Βελίαρ, ἀλλὰ γὰρ καὶ σάρκα καὶ νόμον καὶ ἁμαρτίαν καὶ θάνατον· τούτοις γὰρ ἐδουλεύσαμεν διὰ τῆς παρακοῆς καὶ οὐ τῷ Χριστῷ. ὅτου χάριν λέγει· ὅτε ἦμεν ἐν τῇ σαρκί, δηλῶν ὡς νυνὶ οὐκέτι ὄντων αὐτῶν ἐν σαρκί, καίπερ ὄντων ἐν σαρκί, ὡς οὐκ ἄρα τὴν σάρκα ἣν περικείμεθα διαβάλλων, ἀλλὰ τὴν ὁμωνύμως αὐτῇ λεγομένην σάρκα, ἧς καὶ ἀπηλλάγημεν διὰ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν ἡμᾶς ἐν Χριστῷ διὰ τοῦ συνταφῆναι αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος. ὄντως ταύτης ἠλευθερώθημεν τῆς σαρκός· ἐπιφέρει γὰρ λέγων· νυνὶ δὲ κατηργήθημεν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου τῆς ἁμαρτίας, ἀποθανόντες ἐν ᾧ κατειχόμεθα, ὥστε δουλεύειν ἡμᾶς ἐν καινότητι πνεύματος καὶ οὐ παλαιότητι γράμματος. εἰθ' οὕτως ἤρξατο πάλιν τῆς καθ' ὑπόθεσιν προσωποποιΐας, ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τοῦ τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν; ὁ νόμος ἁμαρτία; μὴ γένοιτο· ἕως τοῦ ταλαίπωρος ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος, τίς με ῥύσεται ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ θανάτου τούτου; ἄσειστον θεμέλιον προθέμενος ἐν προλόγῳ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀπολογίαν οὕτω λέγων· τί οὖν; ὁ νόμος ἁμαρτία; μὴ γένοιτο, καὶ ὅτι ὁ μὲν 2 νόμος ἅγιος, καὶ ἡ ἐντολὴ ἁγία καὶ δικαία καὶ ἀγαθή. ἐνταῦθα νόμον λέγει οὐ τὸν ἀντιστρατευόμενον τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ νοὸς ἡμῶν, ἀλλὰ τὸν προπαραινετικόν, τὸν τοὺς ἁμαρτάνοντας κολάζοντα. ὅτου χάριν καὶ συνεψηφίσατο αὐτῷ ὡς ὁσίῳ καὶ δικαίῳ καὶ ἀγαθῷ. εἰθ' οὕτως ἤρξατο πάλιν ἐπιλύειν ἀκολούθως οἷς ἀνωτέρω προεῖπεν, λόγον εὐχάριστον προοιμιασάμενος οὕτως· εὐχαριστῶ τῷ θεῷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν. εἶτα πρὸς κατάκρισιν τῶν τοιάδε ἀφορμαζομένων καὶ κακιζόντων ἃς περικείμεθα σάρκας, λέγει ἐπερωτηματικῶς ἆρα οὖν αὐτὸς ἐγὼ τῷ μὲν νοῒ δουλεύω νόμῳ θεοῦ, τῇ δὲ σαρκὶ νόμῳ ἁμαρτίας; ἆρα κἀγὼ Παῦλος μεμέρισμαι, πῆ μὲν δουλεύων νόμῳ θεοῦ, πῆ δὲ νόμῳ ἁμαρτίας; ἆρα τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ τὸν Βελίαρ ἅμα καὶ κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ ἔχω ἐν ἐμαυτῷ; ἆρα ἐγὼ ὁ λέγων· ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγώ, ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστός, ψευσάμενος τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ζῶσαν ἔχω ἐν ἐμαυτῷ; ὁ ἄλλοις προσφωνήσας· οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι τὰ σώματα ὑμῶν ναὸς τοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν ἁγίου πνεύματός ἐστιν, καὶ δοξάσατε τὸν θεὸν ἐν τοῖς μέλεσιν ὑμῶν, αὐτὸς ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ σώματι οὐδὲν ἔχων ἀγαθόν; ἀλλ' οὐκ ἔστι τοιοῦτος, οὐκ ἔστιν· μὴ γένοιτο· τέκνον γὰρ ὀργῆς καὶ σκεῦος ὀργῆς πρίν, μεταβαλὼν τὸν τρόπον οὐ τὴν φύσιν, ἐγένετο τίμιον ἐκλογῆς σκεῦος.