Dying And Living

Itaque, fratres mei, et vos mortificati estis legi per corpus Christi. Id est umbrae per rem, litterae per spiritum, legi per gratiam, ita jam non sitis uxor vel sponsa ejus qui mortuus est, sed ejus qui ex mortuis resurrexit, ut jam non fructificetis in operibus mortuis mortuo; sed in fructibus vitae Deo. Nam et lex tale quid adumbrabat, praecipiens ut mulier primo viro mortuo, de quo semen non susceperit transeat, in torum ejus, qui frater fuerit defuncti, et suscitet semen fratri suo, quod ille suscitate non potuit. Frater enim videtur litterae fecundior spiritualis intellectus. Guillelmus S Theodorici Abbas, Expositio In Epistolam Ad Romanos, Lib IV, Cap VII Source: Migne PG 180.614a

Therefore, my brothers, even you are dead to the Law through the body of Christ. 1 That is, to the shadow by the thing, to the letter by the spirit, to the Law by grace. Thus now you are not a wife or a bride of him who is dead, but of him who rose from the dead, so that now you do not put forth your fruit in works of death for death, but in fruits of life for God. For such was the Law that foreshadowed, commanding that a woman whose first man had died, whose seed she did not receive, should pass into the bed of the brother of the man who had died, that she receive the brother’s seed, which the former was not able to give. And the brother appears as the spiritual understanding, more fertile than the letter. William of St Thierry, Commentary on Romans, Book 4 Chap 7 1 Rom 7.4