Romans 7:20 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

I would not— I, in the Greek, is very emphatical, and denotes the man in that part, which is chiefly to be countedhimself; and therefore with the like emphasis, Romans 7:15 it is called αυτος εγω, I myself; "I, the man, with all my full resolution of mind." The two words αυτος and εγω might have both of them been spared, if nothing more had been meant here than the nominative case to the verb δουλευω, serve. This verse seems no more than a repetition of Romans 7:17.: but it is a graceful and expressive repetition, andshews how near the affair lay to the heart of the person thus complaining; andin what sad and frequent successions the complaints were renewed. The beautiful passage in the 6th book of Xenophon's Cyropaedia, where Araspas complains of two souls contending within him, (a passage which it is verypossible St. Paul might have read,) contains an agreeable illustration of this portion of Scripture. See Locke, Doddridge, and Wetstein.