Romans, epistle to the (Hastings' Dictionary)

i. I'lace of tlie Epistle in tradition. Genuineness, ii. Tinie and Place of writing. Iii. Occ;ision and Purpose : (1) Jews in Rome ; (2)Christian« tn Rome : (3) Apostolic foundation ; (4) Jewish or Gentile readers? (5) Letter or Treatise? (li) Relation to other letters of the (jiruup. Iv. SkeU-h of main arguments, and Analytical Table. T. Importance of the Epistle.

tL Theology and characteristic ideas : (1) God, Attributes and Will— Law, Christ; {'2) Man under sin; (3) Jlaii under law and under grace, the Spirit ; (4) Man's admission to grace, faith, justification ; ^5) Grace and the moral life ; (6) The Christian community and its Institutions. viL Materials for personal history of St. Paul, viii. Transmission of the Text. Integrity. Literature. i. Place of the Epistle in Tradition.

— What has been remarked of 1 Corinthians applies equally to tliis Epistle. But definite traces of its language occur already in 1 Peter, fainter l>ut still distinct traces in Hebrews, and juobahlo distinct traces in James, though here the case is less clear, and M.ayor, in his edition oiJnmcs, con- tends for the priority of the latter (see for details, and traces in Jude, Sanday-IIeadlam, Ixxill'.j. The Epistle was well known to (^'lem. Uom.

(nine passages are distinctlj' traceable), Ignatius (twelve), Polycarp (six), Justin Martyr (seven), and appar- ently to Gnostic writers (Na.assenes, Valentinian.s, and Rasilides) quoted by Hijipolytus. Kor details, see Sanday-Headlam, who add some very instruc- tive quotations (thirteen, of which seven seem indisputable) from Test, of xii. Patriarclt.'s.

The lirst reference to our I'^iistle by name is that bj' Marcion, who included Konians in his collection of Pauline Epistles (see below, § viii. ). We may safely repeat here what was said on 1 Corinthians (which see), that the Epistle to the Romans has been recognized in the Christian Church as long as any collection of St. Paul's Epistles h.as been extant. In the Muratorian and other early lists our Epistle stands seventh among the Pauline Epistles, i.e. last among the Epi.

stles addressed to Churches as distinct from individuals. Its present position ut the head of the list appears first in the 4th cent, (see on 1 Cor., is 1, and Sanday-Hcacilam, Ixxxiv 11'.) Another im])ortant direct quotation is in Irena-us, Hier. III. xvi. 3, and in IV. xxvii. 3, an 'elder,' the pupil of men who had seen the apostles, is repre- sented as quoting Ro H"'" (' Paulum dixisso') and 3^. ^Iarcion, it is true, omitted chs. 15.

16, and certain other passages ; but neither he nor any other heretic impugned the authority of the Ejjistle, which is included in all the ancient versions. But no weight of external attesfAtion could be more eloquent than the style and char- acter of the Ejiistle itself. Its very diflicultT is of a nature which raises it above the plane of arti- 296 ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE ficiality.

For this difficulty springs from no clumsiness of expression or confusion of thought, but from the depth of the questions liiuulled and the originality of their treatment. It is the most • Pauline' of all the A\Titings which bear St. Paul's name. Accordingly, critics who have set down almost every other writing of the NT as anonymous, have allowed that this Epistle, along with those to the Corinthians and Galatians, is really from the hand of St. Paul.

The somewhat reckless criticism of Bruno Bauer produced little or no efl'ect upon the body of critical opinion in Germany. In more recent times the hypercriticism of the Dutch school of Loman and others, and the extreme theories of Steck (on these see 1 Corinthians, § 4 ; also Sanday-Headlam, pp. Ixxxvi-lxxxviii), have failed to shake the main body of representa- tive critics in their estimate of our Epistle. ii. Time and Place of Writing. — The ministry of St.

Paul as recorded in Acts falls into three periods : (a) The Antiochene (Ac 13-18^), when Antioch was his headquarters. Towards the end of this period (Ac 16-18) he founds the great Churches of the Mgean region. (6) The yEgean or Ephesian period (Ac 18-''-21'°), when he transfers his residence to Ephesus ; at the end come his second visit to Corinth and his last voyage to Jerusalem, (c) The period of captivity (Ac '21"-28) at CiEsarea and Rome.

To the first period belong the Epistles to the Thessalonians, written from Corinth ; to the second, the four Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans. The third period is that of the ' captivity group,' Philipjiians, Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon. Our Epistle was in all probability the last of its group, — cer- tainly it is later than 1 and 2 Corinthians. It B-as wjitten from Corinth, where (assuming that 16^ belongs to our Epistle, see below, § viii.) St.

Paul was the guest of the Gains of 1 Co 1". Phoebe, possibly the bearer of the letter, was a •deaconess' of Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth. Moreover, St. Paul was on the eve of departure from Corintli with the alms collected by him in Macedonia and Achaia (15^- -*) for the ' poor saints' of Jerusalem. From the latter place he was hoping to visit Rome, and afterwards Spain (15=» ; cf. 2 Co 8'- », Ac 24" 20" 19-'). It was after the winter, which St.

Paul had probably spent in Corinth (1 Co 16'), for he proposed to sail to Syria (Ac 20*) and to reach Jerusalem before Pentecost (Ac 20"). But Ro 15 contains no allusion to the {dot of the Jews which at the last moment forced lim to change his route (Ac 20'). The exact year in which the Epistle was written depends upon the dates to be assigned to I and 2 Cor. (see 1 COR- INTHIANS, § 6 and reff., and Chronology of NT).

If, as the present writer inclines to believe, the clironology of Lightfoot, etc., is not definitely superseded, the Epistle dates from just before the Passover of the year 58. If the whole scheme has to be shifted back two years, then the correspond- ing date in 56 must be adopted. The point may, for the purpose of this article, be left in suspense. The relative date, i.e. with reference to the other Ejiistles, is the point of real importance for the his- tori<-.al explanation of our Epistle.

On this point the limits of doubt are narrow. There is no ques- tion but that Romans belongs, with 1 and 2 Cor., to the .'Ivgean period (see above), in contrast to 1 and 2 Thess., which belong to the Antiochene period, and to Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians, Phile- mon, which come after St. Paul's captivities had begun. There is, moreover, no doubt that Romans was written on the eve of St. Paul's departure from the .

^"gean re^on, and therefore was preceded in time by both Epistles to the Corinthians. The point which is less absolutely certain is the relation of Romans to Galatians. It is not so very im- portant to subdivide the alternative hypothesoi which agree in supposing Romans to follow Galatians.

If Lightfoot's view of the close psycho- logical relation between 2 Corinthians and Gala- tians remains unshaken in itself, and is not outweiglied by general chronological considera- tions, we have a very intelligible historical situa- tion for the origin of llomans (see below, §§ iii. v.) Even if Galatians has to be placed at the beginning of the Ephesian period (Weiss, etc.) or at tlie close of the Antiochene period (Ramsay, Rendall, etc.)

, we lose, no doubt, something of the dramatic unity of situation, but we may still regard Romans as the mature expression and expansion of the thoughts struck out at white-heat in Galatians. But the relation is wholly reversed if (with Clemen, Chronol. der Paul. Brie/e) we regard Galatians a." presupposing Romans. This view is part of a general rearrangement of Pauline chronology dis- cussed in the art. 1 Corinthian.?, vol. i. p. 485.

Its direct proof is drawn from the relation of the treatment of circumcision, the law, etc., in our Epistle to that in Galatians, which is supposed to represent an exacerbation of the apostle's attitude. The view to be maintained below (§§ iii.-vi.) seems quite as legitimate an inference from the facts, and in itself more in accord with our general know- ledge of St. Paul's thought and temper.

If the reader finds it unsatisfactory, he may remember tliat he has the hypothesis of Clemen to fall back upon. iii. Occasion and Pitrpose.— In order to esti- mate the occasion and purpose of our Epistle, we must first ask. For what readers was it meant! and, secondly. What was the apostle probably de- sirous to say to such readers at this particular time? This necessitates a glance at the ante- cedents of Roman Christianity.

Tlie Christian body to which our Epistle is ad- dressed was clearly not, like that of Thess. or even of Gal., of recent origin (l*-'' 15^ 16'). In view of features of the Epistle, to whicli attention will presently be drawn, its origin is to be sought in connexion with the existence of a Jewish com- munity in Rome. 1. Je^vs in Rome. — The first known connexion of the Jews and Romans was in the 2nd cent. B.C., under the Maccabees ( 1 Mac 8'"'- 12'»- U''- « 15""').

Jewish embassies had gone to Rome, and had obtained treaties of alliance (B.C. 161, 144, 141, 129). Probably their earliest settlements in Rome date from this period, — tliough there is no need to seek a special occasion at Rome at a period when Jews were beginning to lind their way all over the civilized world. Cicero (pro Flarco, 59) tells us of a large Jewish community in Rome, which sent annual subsidies to Jeru- salem. The captives brought by Porapey from the East (B.C.

61) swelled their numbers. Many of these gained enfranchisement (Philo, Lc(j. ail Gaium, 2.3), and these are probably tlie Libertini who supiiorted a synagogue of their own at Jeru- salem (Ac 6'). Their worship was expressly toler- ated by Julius, Augustus, and Tiberius. They occupied, according to Philo, a quarter of tlieir own beyond the Tiber. But there is evidence of synagogues, and therefore of Jewish residents, in other parts of the city also.

Josenhus tells us how 8000 Jews in Rome supported the complaints against the rule of Archelaus in Judiea (A.D. 2-4 ; Ant. X\ai. xi. 1; BJ II. vi. 1). The satires of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius show that the Jews were far from popular in Rome ; while yet, partly from the attraction which foreign rites had for the superstitious, partly, no doubt (Schiirer. HJP § 31, v.)

, from the more serious attraction of the fusion of a higher morality and a purer theism than were to be found elsewhere, they did not ROJIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE EOMA^"S, EPISTLE TO THE 297 lack very numerous adherents (' Unus multonim,' Hor. H'li. I. ix. 71). A temporary expulsion, A.D. 19, by Tiberius, did not long check tlieir growing numbers and imiKjrtance in the city (see, for de- tails, Scliiirer, Geinfindeverfassunr;, and HJP § 31, i. ii. ; Berliner, GiX'h.

dcr Jwlin in Rom, 1893 ; Sanday-HeaiUam, liunians, Introd. § 2, and autho- ritie' cited by them). 2. Origin of Christianity in Rome. — A move- ment which so profoundly stirred Judaism at its religious centre could not fail to find an early response in the Jewish community at the centre of the world's intercourse. At everj' great festival ftt Jerusalem, Roman Jews would be present (^t- iriftovvrtt, Ac 2'", i.e. if iravriyvfKi, as Demosth. e. Mid. p. 584).

This was the case at the first Christian Pentecost. We may see in the mention of the Konian Jews of Ac S'" a significant hint of what may possibly have happened. 'Some who had gone forth from Rome as Jews may well have returned there as Christians' (\V. H. Simcox). But we must look rather to the constant stream of movement to and fro than to the result of so momentary an impression as that of this one festival.

' It would take more than they brought away from the Day of Pentecost to lay the founda- tions of a church.' The origin of the Roman Church is to be looked for in the steady though obscure circulation, kept up among the Jews as among other cla.sses, between Rome and the pro- vinces. Aquila and Pii.scilla may have been Christians before their exjiatriation from Rome, A.D. 51, 52.

It was, at any rate, in the class to which they belongeil that the seed of the vast tree of Roman Christianity was lirst sown and grew (see ul.so Sanday-Ueadlam, p. xxvii, for details from Ro 16). 3. Aposlulic fijundatiun of the Roman Church. — There is no need to assume that any apostle first planted the gospel in Rome, nor do the facts per- mit the supjiosition. St. Paul is not, in writing to the Romans (15^), building upon the foundation laid by another.

He is, on the contrary, dischari;- ing an unfullilled portion of his mission as Apostle to the Uentil.- (11'" l"- "). The Roman Church, then, had hitherto lacked apostolic leadership and, 80 far as our Epistle informs us, organization on any permanent basis (see below, § vi. 5, and art. 1 Corinthians, vol. i. jj. 490). It is true that early tradition ascribes the foundation of the Roman (jliurch to St. Peter, and a le.

ss ancient but still somewhat early tradition ascribes to that apostle a twenty -five years' episcopate of the Koman Church. The liighly contentious char- acter of the questions here at issue, their extra- ordinary comjilexity, and their secondary bearing uiKjn our main subject, forbid anything but the Bknderest di.scu.ssion of them in this article.

But it may be said, with reference to the first-named tradition, that the earliest testimony on the sub- ject ascribes the foundation of the Roman Church to St. Peter and St. Paul jointly ; it is ' Petro- Pauline.' i.e. ascribes nothing to St. Peter which it does not equally luscribe to St. Paul. Moreover, it hinges primarily on the nvirtyrdoin of the two a|K)»tles at Rome. Clement, writing soon after 95 (.

V), couples the death of the two apostles in a context suggestive of martyrdom ; he does not expressly locate their death at Rome, but speaks of it as if it were within the direct knowledge of those on whose behalf he is writing. Ignatius (ad Rom. iv. 3) is less explicit ; he suggests that the two apostles had given instructions to the Roman Christians. His language exemplilies the habitual association of the two names. This is stronger BtiH in DionyB. Cor. (in Eus. IIE II. xxv.

8) ; he makes the two plant the Church of Corinth as well as that of iiome. Iremeus {and perhaps Hegesippus, ap. Eus. IIE XV. xxii.) knows that the Roman Church claims the two apostles as iti founders. Tertullian (Pne-inr. 3(5) speaks of tnn two apostles as having ' poured into that Church all their doctrine along with tlieir blood.' His Roman contemporary, Caius, knows the rpiirata of the two apostles on the Vatican and by the Appian Way.

We must notice, lastly, the inter- esting statement in the Prcedicalio Pauli, quoted by pseudo.Cyprian (De rcbnpt., Hartel, vol. iii. p. 90), that after long separation the two apostles met and suH'ered together in Rome.

It is a very improbable suggestion of Lijisius, that this stream of tradition owes its origin to the attenii)t to harmonize the relations of the two apostles, and that it presupposes the Clementine tradition in which the anti, Pauline tradition of Simon' Magus at Rome was incorporated. This latter tradition is closely connected with the tradition which ascribes to St. Peter a special connexion with the Roman Church, i.e. as distinct from St. Paul.

Whether it is possible to separate them, so as to exhibit the storv of St. Peter's twenty- five years' episcopate, witliout any dependence on the legend which brings Simon Magus to Rome (which in turn seems wholly due to a well-known mistake of Justin, see Diet. Chr. Biog. art. 'Simon Magus'), is a most intricate question. An inade. quale discu-ssion of it would be worthless, an ade- quate discussion would transgress the proportions of this article.

Suffice it, then, to say that the question of importance for our purpose is whether St. Peter can be credibly held to have come to Rome as early as the reign of Claudius (41-54). There are two possible sources for this supposition. The one is the statement of Justin, that Simon came to Rome in this reign. Hut, apart from tlie mistake upon which Justin founded this state- ment, neither Justin, nor Irenieus, nor Tertullian after him, know anything of the Roman conflict of Simon with St. Peter.

The other source is the ide.a that St. Peter, on leaving Jerusalem (Ac 12"), came to Rome shortly before the death of Herod Agrippa I. (i.e. about A.D. 42); the Lord having (as inferred from that text) commanded the apostles to remain twelve years in Jeru.salein. Neither of these alternatives proves any founda- tion in fact for so early a visit of St. Peter to Rome. On the whole, we conclude that the Petro-Pauline tradition is the only one which goes back to the 1st cent.

, that it is presupposed by the tradition of the Roman conllict between St. Peter and Simon, and liy the tradition of St. Peter's twenty- five years' episcopate, and that its foundation in fact IS the martyrdom of both apostles at Rome. This was the ' foundation 'of the Roman Church in the sense in which the 'foundation-stone' of a building is often laid after the actual foundations have been long in progress. The two apostles 'consolidated the Church with their blood.'

There is therefore no primitive tradition which brings St. Peter to Rome before St. Paul, or any long time before the usually accepted date of his martyrdom. (See Lipsias, Apolcr. Apostdqesrh. vol. ii. , and Quellen di'r riiin. Pi'trussafjc; Erbes, 'Todestagc der Apostel Paul, und Pet.' in Texteund Untersiirh. xix. 1 ; Lightfoot, St. Clement, vol. ii. p. 49011'. ; the very careful and fair discussion in Sanday- Headlam, Intr. § 3 ; and Chase in art. Petkk in vol. iii. of the present work). 4.

Compo.titiun of the liodii addrcised by St. Paul. — We must a-ssume as the basis of discussion th.'it St. Paul was not wholly ignorant of the composi- tion and general state of the Church to wliicli ho was writing. The names and data of ch. 16, which we believe to be an original part of the Epistle (see below, § viii. ), and the sureness of touch which 298 ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE marks all St.

Paul's references to the readers of this Epistle, are enough to carry us thus far. The Epistle, then, is certainly meant for readers of Gentile oriyin. St. Paul counts the Romans, as such, as Gentiles ; see !"■ iv oU iare Kal ufius, v." if Tois XoiTTois Idfeaif, cf. IS'^"'. The readers are expressly described as Gentiles 11'""^^, especially viiif \iyu Toif IBviaw, while he speaks of the Jews in the third person U'"- ir^^-as-si.

These passages are quite conclusive, and would justify a verdict if taken alone. But there are other passages which show with equal clearness that St. Paul is contemplating reade-i Jewish in their religiovs education and ideas. (1) The general ar''ument of tlie Epistle, levelling down the Jew, both uniler law and under grace, to the footing of the Gentile, is more intel- ligible as addressed to Christians of Jewish habits of thought.

The careful discussion of Abraham's righteousness suggests a similar origin. Nor, be it observed, is there any suggestion of anti-Pauline agitators in the Roman Church to account for this line of argument (as in Galatians). Add to this the assumption of knowledge (o'"^-) as to Adam and his heritage of death, the pains taken {3" 6') to rebut the imputation of antinomianism, and to show (ch. 11) that the rejection of Israel may be but the necessary step to their eventual accep- tance.

(2) The dialectical form in which Jewish difticulties are carefully faced, and parado.xes espe- cially abhorrent to the Jewish mind repelled with /XT) -yivoiTo (3'- ' 4' V- " 9''- »• 11'- ", cf. Gal 2") ; the Trpoexl>f-(Sa of 3' (cf. 4', and 7°- ' in conjunction with the expansion, w.'-^, also 9'").

(3) Here we must emphasize the express statement 7''" that the readers had lived under the Law, and in ' old- ness of letter,' and that by the deatli of Christ they had been discharged from their allcL'iance to the Law. This passage was regarded by Alangold (dcr B.Brief u. s. gesch. Voraussetzungen, 1884) as the immovable corner-stone of the Jewisli-Christian cliaracter of the Roman Churcli. It seems to ex- plain St.

Paul's readiness throughout to make use of Jeivish concessions (2="- 3-'- "»• -'"• 4'"- 6'™-) and his regard for objections natural to a Jewish mind. In any case, there is not the smallest evidence in the Epistle that St. Paul apprehended hostility on the part of his readers (see 6" 16"). He writes as a Jew to Jewish, but not to inveterately prejudiced readers. The Judaism of the Dispersion was, in many places {e.g. Beroea), milder and less prati- quant tnan that of Palestine.

The Jewish Chri<i- tianity of the Diaspora may well have stood, in many cases, in an analogous relation to that of tlie TTTuxol &.yLoi (Ac 21='"). Evidently, the Jewish in- fluence which had moulded the religious temper of the Roman Church was not, as in Galatia and Corinth, of a recently imported or aggressive type. How, then, are we to combine the two classes of evidence? Partly we might explain their diverg- ence by St.

Paul's habit of treating one portion of a Church as if it represented the whole ; e.g. at Thessalonica, Corinth, and Ephesus there were numerous Jewish Christians, but St. Paul addresses the Churches, especially the first and last named, as wholly Gentile. But the mere a.ssumption of a mixed composition does not quite account for the phenomena. The readers are treated by St. Paul as a homogeneous body. Even in ch.

14 the distinction between the strong and the weak is not to be simply identified with that between Gentile and Jew. The Roman community as a whole is treated as Gentile in its elements, but Jewish in its ideas and feeling.

Now, a class of men corresponding to this description existed all over the Hellenistic Jewish world in the Proselytes, the o-e/SiMfoi of Acts, who, without as a rule accepting circumcision, frequented the synagogues, observed the moral law, worshipped the God of Israel, and were instructed in the Scriptures. It was among these, according to Acts, that the gospel tverywliere made its first heathen conquests. Probably the Roman Church was no exception.

If so, there would of coarse be, as at Corinth, etc., a nucleus of Christian .Jews, and, by the time when our Epistle was written, numberf of heathen mi^ht well have become proselyte." directly to the Christian body without previously passing through the intermediate stage of Jewisu j)roselytism. Still it was the proselytes who gave tlie tone to the community, and they owed tlieii all, as Christians, to the influence and training of Christian Jews.

We are compelled to form hypo- theses in this matter, and it is this hypothesis ^^•llich best satisfies the conditions of our problem. The old Tiibingen alternative of anti, Pauline Jewish, or anti-Jewish Pauline Christianity, is not imposed upon us either by the facts of history or by the internal evidence of the letter itself. (Oo this subject see also Hort, Roinan.'s and Ephesians, pp. 19-33 ; Beyschlag in SK, 1867 ; Schiirer'a art. on 'Romans' in Encijc. Brit.") 5.

Letter or Treatise f — This being assumed, we may approach the question of the writer's purpose. St. Paul would not fail to see that the future ol Gentile Christianitj' in the Roman world depended to no small extent upon the future of the Christian body in the imperial city. \\"e accept the sugges- tion of Ramsay, that St. Paul had early grasped the importance of the Roman empire as a vehicle for the dissemination of the gospel.

To commend his own gospel — the gospel of the Gentiles — to a community like that at Rome, was no hopeless task. To this end a personal visit to Rome was the obWous means, and this he had long resolved to pay (P'). But a letter such as this would pave the way for a successful visit, and ineanwhile it would accomplish much. Hence its reasoning con- ciliatory tone (12' IS"- etc.)

, specially characteristic of a period of reaction from a critical contest, when the apostle's own desire for peace was, more- over, finding concrete expression in the great "Koryla (15^- *•"•)• It was, then, no mere arbitrary choice which led St. Paul to address this, his greatest letter, to Rome. The Epistle is not a systematic treatise which might with equal appropriateness have been addressed to any Church.

It has, primarily at least, in view the idiosyncrasy of the Christian community at Rome (see below, § v.) 6. Relation to other Epistles of the group. — Our Epistle comes at the close of a period of deep agi- tation, reflected in the Epp. to the Corinthians and Galatians, and summed up in 2 Co 1" iiuiBev fidxak, laaBiv (pb^oL.

Referring for details to the articles on those Epistles, it will suffice to say that many of ' the circumcision ' had never in their hearts acquiesced in the recognition (Ac 15, Gal 2') of a Christianity emancipated from the Law, or frankly recognized the apostleship of St. Paul. At Corinth the Tatter question had been brought into promi- nence, in Galatia the former and deeper question.

The Epistle to the Galatians stands in the closest relation to our Epistle, and its main ideas must be grasped as a preliminary to the understanding of Romans (see below, § v.) 'To the Galatians, the apostle flashes out in indignant remonstrance tlit first eager thoughts kindled by his zeal for tha gospel, striking suddenly agains* a stubborn rem- nant of Judaism.

To the Romans he writes at leisure, under no pressure of circumstances, in the face of no direct antagonism, explaining, complet- ing, extending the teachin" of the earlier Epistle, by giving it a double edge directed against Jew and Gentile alike' (Lightfoot). The agitators of Gal- atia had insisted upon the Law as a necessary and permanent scheme of righteousness and salvatiow ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE EO.MANS, EPISTLE TO THE 29f for mankind.

Laid dovm by God as the condition of man's coiiiniunion witli Himself, it could not be set uside by any subsequent covenant. Man could only appear before God a.s a faithful doer of the Law. St. Paul in reply had addressed himself to two main points: (1) to prove that the Law could not, and tiiat faith alone could, make man right- eous in God's siylit ; (2) to show the true position of the Law in the history of God's dealinj^s with man.

llighteousness, he argues, is a free gift from God to man, and as such was accorded to Abraham on the sole condition of faith in an unconditional promise. The inheritance of this promise passes not by any earthly law of succession, but to those who resemble Abraham in his faith. The Law, bein" of long subsequent dat« to the Promise, could not be meant to atl'ect its fulfilment.

It was given for a temporary purpose, pending the fulfil- ment of the Promise, namely, to prepare men for the fulfilment by bringing out and making men feel their essential sinfulness and helpless inabilitj- to approach God with any claim to righteousness of their own. The righteousness which they could not earn is accorded as the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham's faith in Christ. Like the promise itself, it is unconditional, demanding nothing on our part but faith.

To go back to circumcision is to abandon the attitude of faith, and to refuse to see that in Christ the Law has fulfilled its pur- pose, and has an end. ' Behold, I Paul say unto j'ou, that if ve accept circumcision, Christ shall profit you notliin"' (Gal 5^ cf. the whole of ch. 3).

This is the central thought worked out in Romans, but fortified and enlarged by a wider outlook upon history, a iirofound api>licatioii to the principles of the moral life, and a coniprelieusive piiilosophy of the history of revelation. In this latter part of our Kpislle (chs. 9-11) the school of Uaur saw its principal purpose. This is a mistake. But it is essential to St.

Paul's argument to show that the righteousness of faith, by excluding the Jewish ' boast,' does not involve a reversal of God's ' gifts and calling.' iv. Ar.GUMENT OF THE EPI.STLE, AND ANALYSIS. — The theological part of the Kpistle extends from 1'° to the end of ch. 11. It treats successively the Theology of (1) Redemption (l"-5), (2) of the Christian life (6-8), and (3) of history (9-11). The Theologj' of Redeiiii)tion comprises two themes, summed up and contrasted in 5'-'''", viz.

the ' wrath ot Cod' (l"'-3-") and the rji^'hteousness of God (3^'-5"). The wrath of God is the correlative of man's need of redeiMjjtion. ' first comes the state- ment that the world uji to that moment had been, morally speaking, a failure' (Mozley, Mirmles, Lect. vii., a remarkable passage on our Epistle). A moral creed w.os there, but not a corresponding life. Among Jews and Gentiles alike the facts are the same : ' knowledge without action.'

The utmost the knowledge of right could do for man was to confound him with a sense of utter self- condeniiiatiun. And this self-condemnation was but the perception of an awfully real fact — the wrath of God revealed in all its fearful intensity, not caly upon the careless Gentile, but upon the iirivileged Jew, whose privilege (none the less real lecause of his apostasy, 3'"") only heightened his personal guilt.

But God's dealings with men, His Belf-revealed character, had not only led men to fear His holiness, but had also from the first led men to look upon Him as a Saviour. His long series of mercies to His people had led them to look forward to something in the future, some deliverance more final, more complete, more mar- vellous, than His mighty works of old. God was ^lLdged to redeem, and God was righteous (see jclow, § vi. (I)).

The OT revelation had led men to hold to the righteousness of God as containing r,: the promise of salvation ; the "ospel declares it as an accomplished tact. And the universality of the wrath ot God before Christ only brings out that redemption, when it came, was the .sole out- come of the righteousness of God, and not in any degree the achievement of man. God's righteous- ness has as its correlative the/ac< of Redemption.

The redeeming work of Christ, then, wherein God appears as ' righteous and making righteous ' (3^), humbles man even more completely than did the antecedent revelation of wrath — their boast is shut out, not (only) by a law of works, but (even more completely) by a law of faith. The privilege of the Israelite has no place in the sight ot God. And this strange result, so far from revoking the word of God in the OT, is really its fullilment.

This gospel of faith, this levelling of privilege, was preached before the Law, before any characteristic institute of Judaism was ordained. The whole story of Abraham — the boasted father of Jewish privilege — makes this clear (ch. 4). 'Well, then, my readers,' the apostle concludes, ' let us all make this gift of God our own' (see Beet on Ixoi/J-^y, 5').

Peace with God is ours, founded on the certainty of God's love for us— a certainty created in our hearts by the Spirit of God Himself, but no mere subjective certainty ; for actual recorded fact speaks plainly to us of that love — a love transcend- ing all probable limits of human devotion. We can trust God to complete what He has begun, and live in joyful hope, however the appearances of life are against us.

True, the experience of history, so far, has been that of a world-wide heritage of death and sin. But the act of weakness m liich bequeathed that heritage to man has now been superseded by an act of Divine power fraught with the promise of Righteousness and Life to all who receive the abundance of its grace (.i"'"). In this great twofold division of human history, how subordinate a part was played by Law !

It forms the last episode of tlie heritage of death, aggravating the disease in order to intensify man's want of the Remedy (5-"). St. Paul has done half his work, and what he has done is ' more than half of the whole.' He has shown that the wall of sin no longer shuts out the soul from (!od, that access to God is ours, that the Christian Life is made possible. But it remains for liiin to place the Christian Life itself before our eyes, and this he does in the second great section.

And, first of all, he takes it in the concrete (ch. 6). The twofold question, 'Shall we sin?' (vv.'"'") at first sight answers itself— no one would say that the Christian is to sin. But the weight of the question re.ally turns on the reason why ? These cliapters (6-8) give us the fundamental principles of Christian ethics. And, first of all, he shows us that ' I he grace wherein we stand,' which he has hitlierto viewed negatively as Justification, i.e. forgiven e.

ss of sin, is on its positive side union with Christ. If we were united to Him by Baptism, the rite resembling His Death, we shall further be united with Him by something corresponding to His Resurrection, viz. a new vital energy — Kaivl>Ti)Ti i'uijt ; only, we must realize this — allow the new life of Christ to wield our limbs. For we are no longer under an external compulsion, but instinctwith an indwelling I'orce— 'not under law, but under grace.'

Our obedience to the will of God will be not less complete for this rea.son, — hut far vmrc. ' If,' he continues, 'you seem to take what I have said as a paradox, I will make my mcanin" plain by an unworthy metaphor. You hnve to choose between slavery and slavery — nay, >oii have made your choice — you have renounced slavery to sin.

WelL then, you are slaves of righteousness, slaves oi 300 ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE KOMANS, EPISTLE TO THE God: you cannot, if you look back on the past, repent your choice. You are dead in Christ, and Avhen a person dies, lie passes out of the control of law. You then, in dying with Christ, died to the law, and are alive to Christ alone ' (G''^-;-'). St. Paul passes from the concrete picture of the Christian life to the consideration of the forces which are at work in it (T'-S).

He employs the method of difference, comparing the pre-Christian life at its very best, i.e. as lived under Divine law, ^vith the Christian life ; the old life under the letter with the new life in the Spirit. This contrast is tersely stated in 7=-«, then life under law is characterized in 7'"^, and life in the Spirit in ch. 8. In S'-''- the question asked in 6', so far as it needs an explicit answer, is formally answered.

The connexion of 9-11 with the general argument of the Epistle may be best seen if we consider how thev are anticipated in 3>-8. That this is so can bo readily proved. The Rejection of Israel, then, was a fact which apparently collided mth the main thou-ht of the first section— the Righteousness of God The Righteousness of God was apparently, to St Paul, above all God's consistency with, or truth to. His revealed character and j>urpose.

And the absolute levelling of Jew and Gentile— especially the levelling doion of the Jew to the position of the Gentile as the object of God 9 wTath —had the look of a revocation of express promise, the going back upon God's own covenant. \V as, then, God a ' covenant- breaker ' l—iJ-v yivoiTo. Yet to St. Paul the difficulty was a very real one, and had to be explained. His fundamental explana- tion is found in 9', and Ip-^"— viz.

that the proper party to the Divine covenant, the true heir to the Promises, is not Israel after the flesh, but the believing few— or, rather, all who by their faith i.rove themselves true sons and heirs of Abrahsim see ch. 4), and tluit this has been made plain by (Jod all along.

But there is the equally iniportant thought that the calling in of all nations- without which the Divine promises from Abraham down- wards would not be satisfied, nor the Truth of God really maintained — would have been impossible but for the rejection of the Jews. ' By their fall, salvation liad come to the Gentiles,' their un- ri-htcousness had established the Righteousness of God (3°) This is the great paradox of the third section. Still, even with St. Paul, rb <rv,-r€>'{t to.

Sfixiv, V e' 6^una, blood is thicker than water, and he will not .surrender tlie hope of the ultimate conversion of the apostate people, con.secrated as they are by the root whence they had sprung (11""^-). Tlie argument therefore falls into tlie following tabular scheme : — I. EpiSTOLART ISTRODrCTIOS, 1"». _ . , , A. THK SAl.rTATI".\ <}').— . The writer, his (rospel and apostlcship (i-6); ^. the readers C)l y- ">« B TllF. KoVaXS. AXD TBE apostles DE^illtJl TO VRKACU TO rnsu (*!'> U. Doctbisai.

Part(1'«-11). A TIIEOLOi:roFSil.VATIO.v(lt»-8). a. r/ieoioTOo/Acrfemp(i(m(U«-l!) Preamble (1101'). n) The Wrath of Uod (li&-3a>). All, Gentiles (li»32) and Jew» (8I-8»), alike (3>''«) under the wrath o( Ood against sin, and in need of redemp- tion ; ('ill" lay do«Ti a ceneral priii- ciple, preparing for the direct attack (17 2y) tipon Jewish self-esteem). (nThe Rightwiiinnesa of Ood (bringing re- demption to all) (Sa-621). ^ • The fa.;t of Redemption (S^l ») (vv.avM.

Sianificance qf the Death 0/ ChriM). a. All men on an equality In view of this fact (S"«>). ,^ ,^ » The Righteousness of Faith older than that of Uw (3S1-1»). >. The Kighteousucss of Faith the basil of Certitude and Hope (Bl"X 1. Conilnsion. The work of Christ il contrast with the failure of Adiim (o''"'). bb Theolnni/ i<f the Christian Life (61-S3'). (1) Synthetic treatment. The Christian and the pre-Christian life contrasted as— ». Life and death (61 1-"). a.

Sin and righteousness (eis-i^X^ „ , ,., y. Law and grace (or letter and Spirit] (fill 7i-«). P) Analytic treatment ("•'►»*); the factors (01 psychology) of the Christian life. i. Under Law : flesh, wiU, intellect (70. 7-25), ^. Under Grace : spirit, and the Spirit 0« God (76 H). The SnuiT of Sonship in Christ creates ( Obedieme to Cod's Will (8i-">. in us \ Certitude and Hope (Sis"). B. THEOLOOYOF i/ /.STOW r (SHI ; of. 31"). (The character of God as shown in the history of tn« People of God).

The problem of the rejection ot Israel (a'-") con- sidered in relation to ..aoox ft. The Past (the promise of God) (QSra). (l)The promise to Israel was never, from the first, tied to fleshly descent (713), but freedom was expressly reserved to God (!■"»). ,. (2) This freedom vindicated— «. a priori (1U.21) aiid,3. apos(iTi«ri(22-*'); what has happened is the fulfilment of God's word in prophecy (■•»-2»). ^ . bk The Frenent (9'«-10'ii), the responsibihty 01 the rejected.

(l)The actual error of Israel (^^'-It^;, „.,- CD Their error analyzed and defined (10!>-"). (3) Its inexcusable nature shown (lui.''-ii). e. The Future (U"'^). The Rejection of IsraeL (1) Only partial (lll-l»). (2) Onlv temporary (1111-32). DoQcolotjy. closing part II. B. and the doctrinal portion of the Kpistle (1133-36). nL Practical Pari. „ «« ,«, A. GEXEKAL SOCIAL AND MORAL DVTrESO-i. IS). a. /'radical Chrintian Conduct (121-21). b. The Christian and the Ciml Power (\»t}. c.

The L,iw 0/ Love (.IS'^^O). d. The A,,proaeh of the Day (13"-"). „„„„^„ B. MUTCAL DUTIES OP SECTIO.VS l.V TBE CBUSCB (141-1513). , ^^ a. The Strong and the Weak (I'-™). b. Gentiles ami Jens (151-l;'). IV. EP18T01.ART CO.SCU-SION (l.ll-l ll".'^. &. The Aptislleand hisreaders(\i'-^). _ b. The A.j-.«. and the .-i/mstU's appioadiing meit toJemsalcin(i:i-^') , , .. a /n(rn(f«cfi'-.i> ../ ri,ui,e (101- «), and salulalwnt to indiriduals (3 ■'*). d. Final warnings (i'-'-"') and benediction. e.

Salutations from i lulivuluaU landbmedictum inmani/ MSS]C^''»). t. Final Doxukujy pa ■-JT). V Importance of the Epistle.— It is evident that we have here, not exactly a systematic treatise on Christian doctrine, but a letter, held to-rether in all its parts by a central idea, the working out of which in its presuppositions and aiiplications is the essential purpose of the whole. This central idea is to be sought for in connexion with what the apostle calls (S" 16") 'my gospel (cf. I'"').

This expression, understood in the li^'lit of Gal V, points to more than a mere subdivision of labour between the apostles. Not merely the well-being, but the very existence of non-Jewish Christianity depended upon the gospel s^«<;i-illy entrusted to St. Paul (compare Ph S^" with Gal 2-'=). The "ospel of the uncircumcision, St.

Paul s gospel (Ro fe Eph 3' '''), meant the levelling of Jewish privilege and selfrigliteousness (Ro 10 3*-), and this rested upon the principle of faith as the sole ground of righteousness in the sight of God (J- • read7<ip, 4i»et<;.) , . r n If this view is correct,- and it seems to follow directly from St.

Paul's own language,- it at once places Romans in a fundamental position anion" our materials for a Pauline theology, and marks the earlier chapters as fundamental in comparison with the rest of the Epistle. To take the latter point first : it was a too external new of the Epistle which led Baur to see its primary purpose in the subject of chs. 9-11.

Near to the ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE 301 Apostle's heart (0") as that subject was, it belongs to the historical application of the fundamental idea of the Epistle rather than to the libre and substance of that idea itself. Tlie ideal relation between God and man holds good prior to any particular course which in God's piovidence the religious history of the world may have followed.

Had the Jews never enjoyed the position of a chosen people, the fumlamental facts of human nature in relation to God would have been the same. The Law came in as a secondary factor (.3^), and the historical relations of Jew and Gentile, the apostiy^y of the Jews, belong to the sphere not of eternal realities, but of the contin- gent. Therefore the tirst eight chapters accomplish St.

Paul's primary purpose ; the next three round ott' his fundamental thought by vindicating it in the light of religious history. And of the lirst eight chapters, clearly those (6-8) which deal with the principles of the Christian life presuppose and are governed by those which treat of man s funda- mental relation to God (1-5).

These chapters, then, which are directed to convincing all Chris- tians, especially those of Jewish habits of thought, that man cannot become righteous by means of law, but only by faith, are the central portion of the Epistle, and it is there that its main purpose is to be found. St. Paul's main purpose was, then, to commend ' his gospel,' the prmciple of the righteousness of faith, to the Christians of Rome. But if so, it is a letter, not a treatise in the full sense of the word.

So far from being meant as a compendium of Christian doctrine, it is not written with special reference to what was common to St. Paul and the older apostles (1 Co 15")- This the Romans already know, and it is taken for granted (16" 6"). The apostle writes not to controvert, nor even to reconstruct rfe novo, but to complete (1"). St. Paul's gospel was but the exiilicit for- mulation of what was implied in the go:-pel as preached by all, and from the first.

If Christ, as all taught and all believed, had died not in vain, then righteousness did not come tlirough Law (cf. Gal 2-'). It need not, thi-n, surprise us that the enunciation ex professo of the specihcally Pauline doctrines is almost conlined to the Epistles of this group. In the earlier Epistles to the Thessa- lonians, St. Paul is at a simpler stage of his teaching. To the recent converts of Macedonia, temper.'ince, righteousness, and the judgment that wa.

s to come (Ac 24'-^) supi)ly the natural heads of instruction. In Philippians we catch the last echoes of the great controversy ; in Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and still more in Timothy and Titus, new circumstances call forth dill'erent categories of doctrine. But throughout, the prin- ciples of Romans and Galatians are presupi)Oscd and are fundamental. Lastly, as compared with Galatians itself, our Epistle is primary. Galatians (see al)Ove, § iii.

6) is addressed at a special jisycho- logical moment. Its argument from the priority in tnne of the covenant of faith reappears, identical in substance, tmt in more extended elaboration, in Ho 4. But the eternal [jrinciple which underlies this historical argument is worked out in Romans with a wider outlook and a deeper foundaticm in human nature. The Gentile world is included in the arraignment of human helplessness before God.

The history is carried back from Abraham to Adam ; the justihcation of man is put into relation with the righteousness of God, the inability (8') of the Law to save is grounded upon a searching psychological analysis of its exact elVect (Ro 7°", cf. Gal 3"), and the contrasted moral renovation ellected by the Spirit (Gal .')""'•) is described at length and put into relation with a comprehensive and sublime view of the meaning and destiny of creation.

No doubt, the root-ideas of Romans are those of Galatians ; but in the latter Epistle St Paul is dealing with the controversy of the hour, in Romans he is dealing with human nature itself, and with the fundamental and universal relation? of man as man to God as (;o<l, as conditioned by the central fact of history — the Person and work of Christ. Our Epistle, then, is the ripe fruit of St. Paul's distinctive mission as a master-builder (1 Co S'") in the formation of the Church. In chs.

1-5, where he speaks as a Jew to Jews, we see .Judaism led out of itself by the gospel, but by its own methods and from its own premises. This is a re-statement, but on a broader basis, of the position of Galatians. Then in chs. 6-8, speak- ing as a Christian to Christians, he brings out the contrast between law (and (Icsh) and grace (and spirit) as the respective sjilieies of the old and the new life.

Here the Jewish point of view, its legalism and nationalism, are left far behind, and tile ethical categories of the OT (even in theii truest signihcance) have given place to those of the New (comp.are the deepened sense of the terms 'spirit' and 'flesh,' below, § vi.)

, the obedience of slaves to that of sons, the natural man to the spiritual ; propitiation for sin issues in the destruc- tion of its power (8'°^-), the satisfaction of Law by Christ in its supersession as a factor in the spiritual life. \-i. Theology and charactkristic Ideas. — An article like the present neither requires nor permits a full discussion of these ; but it would be incomplete without a brief enumeration of the principal characteristic conceptions of the Epistle. 1.

Kor his riincrption of God, St. Paul is depen- dent on the Old Testament. In other words, he does not so much analyze the idea of God as the absolute or perfect Being, as insist upon the char- acter of Gocl as it has entered into human experi- ence in the course of God's dealings with men. This has been the case in two main waj's. On the one hand, God has revealed Himself to man througii nature (l'-"^-) and conscience (ii"'-).

'His eternal power and divineness' and the doom due to sin are made known to man apart from direct revelation, and moral apostasy is therefore without excuse. On the other hand, the will (2'") and character of God have been specially revealed, and Divine promises have been given, to a particular nation entrusted with His 'oracles' (9'"^- 3'). Both Jew and Gentile, in their several ways, have the terrible knowledge, antecedent to Christ, of the wrath of God (!'*). This conception is with St.

Paul pri- marily esrfiatolofjicnl (see Sanday-Headlam, in lor., and on 5"), hut the certainty of its unveiling in the ' day of wrath ' (2') is a, present certainty. The wrath of God in our E])istle is the category which includes the sternly retributive attitude of God towards sin. His dtKaioKpurla (2'). It stands in the closest relation to the OT conception of the Divine Holiness (see Expositor, March 1899, p. 193).

If the Divine wrath is an experience common to Jew and Gentile alike, the Divine Riohtkousnkss (see the two artt. on this subject) is one specilically related to revealed religion. This is, of course, tnie on the view very commonly taken of the phrase Sikmoitvi'-ij 0eo!) in 1" and other passages of the Epistle, viz. that it denotes, not an attribute of God Himself, l)ut a righteousness which man derives from God as its source.

This view, which has influenced the RV of 1", supplies an idea so obviously necessary to St. Paul's contrast between the false righteousness and the true (10' etc.), and is in such clo.se correspondence with his language in 2 Co 5", Ph 3" etc., that it must, in some way or other, be included in any satisfactory explana- tion of the phrase in 1" and cognate passages.

But there is a marked tendency in many quarters to go hack to the sense suggested by the parallelism 302 ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE EOMANS, EPISTLE TO THE of Sivafus $eoO and SiK. Seov in l'"'" as the primary one, and to reoojjnize the antithesis between the wratli of God as the ' revelation ' antecedent to the gospel, and the ' righteousness of God ' as the specific revelation of the gospel itself.

The main objection to this is the presupposition that by God's ' righteousness ' must be meant His stern retribu- tive justice, i.e. His anger against sin. The result of an examination of the use of the conception of God's righteousness in the Old Testament is, how- ever, adverse to this presupposition. The subject is siih judice, and it is beyond the province of this article to attempt to decide it (see above, § iv. ; Sanday-Headlam, p. 24 fl"; Expos., March 189.3, p. 187 fl'. ; Haring, StK.

6. bei Paulus, Tiibingen, 1896 ; Beck in Nate Jahrb.f. deutsche T/ceol. 1895, p. 249 ft".; Kblbing in SK, 1S95, p. 7ff. Haring, p. 14 fl'., tabulates the i)rincipal alternative views). There is, at any rate in this Epistle, the closest correlation between the righteousness of God and the justification of the believer in Christ (3^). A similar correlation exists between the final Balvation of man and the Glory of God. By this expression St.

Paul sometimes means the honour due to God from His creatures (1 Co 10", Ro IG^') ; but there is a sense, specially characteristic of our Epistle, in which it denotes the supreme destiny of^ man, realized in the ultimate salvation of the redeemed (3'^ 9^, cf. 8'»- »'•*'). The idea of the word 5(5|a here seems to be the positive counter- part of the more negative airoK6.\v\j/is.

The latter suggests the removal of something which hides, the former the shining forth of the thing previ- ously hidden in all its sublime reality. Relativelj-, this is seen in any signal display of Divine power, e.g. in the resurrection of Christ (6*). Absolutely, it is reserved for the consummation of all things, when the kingdom of God shall appear in its per- fection, and the righteous shall shine forth in it as the sun.

In this connexion the Divine PRK- DESTINATION must be taken into account. In 9^, though the general context relates more especially to the Divine predestination of men to funHion, i.e. to the several parts they play in the providen- tially ordered course of history, there is in the immediate context unquestioned reference to those whom God has prepared for glory (see above), in contrast to those who are ' made ready' (it is not said 'by God Himself ') for destruction.

There is neither here nor elsewhere in the Epistle any- thing said of the 'double predestination.' But the predestination of the saints is clearly laid down in S-'"". Only, in the latter passage /ore/;>?ojo- ledge precedes predestination. On the whole, whUe frankly recognizing the predestinarian language used, we must also recognize its limitations. The apostle does not appear to be giving expression to a systematized scheme of thought on the subject.

The will of God/or mffl»'« cemrf«c< enters into man's experience in the form of Law. In the generic sense, the term is applicable to any authoritative principle of action normally issuing in human obedience (8^, cf. 3^, 1 Co 92>). Such obedience may, however, be the response either to an en- abhng principle working from within (see passages just quoted, and S'*"-)! or to a summons confront- ing man from without.

In this, the characteristic sense of »6//os in our Epistle, law is a factor in the moral life fitted to acquaint the intellect with the Divine standard of conduct (7*° and previous context), but incapable (dSwaroi', 8') of bringing the life of man into harmony with its precepts. This result, due to the conaitions of human nature (below, 2) is the more apparent the mon' fixed and definite the form in which law is promulgated. This appears to be the meaning of ' the letter ' [ypiiifui.)

, in which the full moral rifect of law is seen (7^ cf. 2 Co 3«, 1 Co 15", Ro S" 4" S=» 7', Gal 3""). This was above all true of the one law which had conveyed to man in inexorable fixity and dellniteness the Divine standard of action, the Jewish law, o vbixo^. The denotative force of the definite art. depends upon its context.

In most cases, 'the law' in question is the Jewish law ; on the other hand, the anarthrous viiio^ may well be used of the Jewish law, either as a law or as representing the principle of law, or as a quasi- proper name (probably 7', possibly 3^' etc.) See, further, art. Law (in NT). The Christian is ideally free from 'law' as an external principle (6^*), but to be imb x^P^^ ^^ to be ^vvofios Xptorou { 1 Co 9-', cf. Ro 8^, see below, 2 ; on the whole sub- ject, cf. Gittbrd, p. 41 ft.)

In connexion with the doctrine of God, we must, lastlj', note the bearing of the Epistle on the theo- logy of t/>^ Person and Work of Christ. Neither are treated of ex profcsso. But in 1*- ' and 9° we have the contrast between what Christ was, kotA ffdpKa, and His higher nature as Son of God (P) and as actuaUy God (9'). The diliiculty of the former passage is in the exact interpretation of Kara irv^vfia ayi<tjff6injs (see Gifiord and Sanday- Headlam, in loe.)

In the latter there is a still more difficult question of punctuation (see the Commentaries, also Ezra Abbot, Critical Essays, and Hort's critical note, in loc). On the whole, the punctuation assumed just above appears distinctly the more probable. The principle, moreover, of T^Xos vd/iov Xpio-ris (10^), and Christ as an object of Faith (1' SoCXos 'Ii/o-. Xp., contrast 1 Co 7^), and 10" which identifies Christ (by the context) with mn', make decisively in the same doctrinal direction.

(On 8^ see below, 2). On the Atonement, 3^- ''* is a classical passage, but it leaves open most of the ditticult questions which attend the theology of that mysterious subject. The reader must consult the admirable excursus of Sanday, Headlam on the subject, Lightfoot's notes, and the discussion of the passage in R. W. Dale, The Atonement. The key to the meaning is to be found in the words IXoffriJpiov . .

iv t<} atfian avTov, rather than in the (vdetin t^s SiitaiocrwTjs aiVoO, which, taken by itself, would hardly compel us to go beyond the thought of punishment as a vindication of God's moral government, which by no means exhausts the significance of the Atone- ment. The doctrine is emphasized, but not ex- plained, in 5^"'". 2. St.

Paul's doctrine of man is formulated in OT categories, but enlarged and deepened by his out- look upon life and history, and by his personal experience as a Jew and as a ' slave of Christ ' (Ro 1'). His comprehensive formula for human nature is 'flesh' — 'all flesh' (cf. 1 Co 3' df0puTroi = (ripKivoi). From the time of Theodore of Mopsues- tia to our own day the moral colour of St. Paul's conception of adp^ bas been matter of keen debate.

The close relation between flesh and sin in his theology is obvious. But to make the connexion essential, is to mistake the entire meaning of the apostle. In Ro 8' we have the crucial passage. What the law could not do — namely, liberate man from the law of sin — God did by sending His iwn Son, and in Him condemning sin ' in the flesh.' That is, sin was, by the mere fact (ir^/i^as) of the coming of Christ, shown to be a usurper in human nature.

This was ellected by the Son of God coming ' in the likeness of sinful flesh ' — iv iiioiw/Mn ffapKit aimprlat. ' Sinful flesh ' is the universal condition in which our common humanity drawt its first breath (5'*). Christ did not enter into this condition, but into its ' likeness.' The «n- likeness certainly did not consist in 'the fle.sh' (1» 9») which Christ took in reality, not in mere likeness. St. Paul could not have written iv ifwiii- liari aapK&s.

But neither did he write iv <rapd ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE ROMAN'S, EPISTLE TO THE 303 itrnprias, which he should have done had sin been to him part of the very meaning of ' flesh ' (see Gill'ord's admirable discussion, Iiitrud. p. 52, and in loc). His language expresses with consum- mate accuracy the thought that Christ ' by taking our flesh ma<le it sinless' (TertuU.), and so broke the empire over human natvire usurped by sin. Flesh, in fact, has with St.

Paul a phj'sical (adpKiyo^) and a moral {<rapKiK6i) sense. In the former sense, as long as this life lasts we are iy aapKl (Gal 2*), in the ' mortal body ' (Ro 6'= 8"). But ideally the Christian has left the flesh a.s the sphere of his moral life behind (Ro 7' 8"). But in the pre-Chris- tian, and even in the imperfectly Christian life, the ffdpKtvot is inevitably cro/)/«ic6s (Ko 7', 1 Co 3'"-).

This is carried back by him to a historic beginning in the one sin of one man (5"- "■"), which left human nature under the reign of death and sin. Unque.stionably, actual disobedience is to St. Paul far graver than passive or congenital sin. Before sin becomes a fact of experience, the individual is, comparatively speaking, 'alive' (7*).

But guilt in some sense is there already (5"), and rebellion is there, thougli latent and ' dead ' (7''), and it needs hut the first shock of prohibition to 'revive' (v.') Under the most favourable conditions of enlighten- ment, with the law of God to guide it, and with complete mental assent to and enthusiasm for (7*, cf. 2") that law, human nature experiences helpless failure and disaster.

But, where the higher guidance is absent or lost, man becomes more and more lost to self-respect and moral con- viction (I"-'-). In a sense the heathen is, like the Jew, under law : apart from the ideal sense in which 'the Jewish law was a law for aU men' ;Hort, liomans and Ephexians, p. 25), his reason •ind conscience (2'*), if normal and healthy, tell him what is right. The ' natural virtue ' of Aris- totle is fully recognized by St.

Paul, and it is, in fact, this inward moral law that is restored in Christ. But, in fact, the law of conscience con- demned the Gentile as completely as the written law condemned the Jew (3), and not less so when its voice had ceased to be heard (l^-''). 3. Sinful man does not, according to St. Paul, lack a higher nature. "The inward self (7^^) is capable of renewal (12'), though in sore need of it. For the higher self St.

Paul has the term vftv/ia (1 Co 5', 2 Co 7')> though in this sense he employs it spariuglj', and not in our Epistle. More char- acteristic of Romans is the term voDs, which plays 80 prominent a part in the analysis (7'"''). NoDs is an inalienable endowment of human nature, i.e. it belongs to the flesh (cf. Col 2'), and may be in- volved in its bondage to sin (1*, cf.

Tit 1">) ; but it is the highest endowment of the flesh, and is cap- able of conveying to the will the commandment of God (7°) ; but triere its power ceases — St. Paul would have accepted, so far as it goes, Aristotle's dictum that 'understanding alone moves nothing.'

The understanding, the higher self, can indeed 'wisli' what is right (7""), but its wish has no power in the face of the flesh wielded by sin — ' to wish and to effect' (Ph 2") requires a vital energy (Ro 6) which human nature cannot originate. This vital energy is the Spirit (see Kaii/6nit in 6 7', cf. 2 Co 5") which inhabits the body of Christ, and dwells in those who are in vital union with Him.

The word rffO/ia in this Epistle is nsed, now for the Spirit of God, now for the inward man (see above) as renewed and energized by union with Christ (see Expositor, May 1899, p. 3,50 ff.; Sanday, Headlam, pp. 162 ff., 199 f.) It is this living union with the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ that distinguishes the new self from the old self (xaXaiA?

ivSpwiros, 6'), the pre-Christian life ty vapKl, ir raXaiirrrn ypimiaTot, from the regenerate life iv rreiiuiTi, tv Xpi<rr(f, iv Kaivlrrrfri ^loijs, the obedience of sons from the obedience of slaves — slaves in mind jiossibly to a law of God, but practically to a law of sin (7-' gi6ir.) To make quite clear the perfection of the obedience implied in the new state, St. Paul em- ploys, in 6'^-, with an apology for doing so (v.'"), the term 'slavery' to describe it (cf.

1'); but he proceeds to throw it aside (8") in completing his theology of the Christian life. The son and the slave differ above all in this, that the son's interest is centred on his fathers will, that of the slave is elsewhere. This is expressed in the famous anti- thesis of the two (pporqixara (8*, cf. Ph 2' 3'", Col 3'), by which St. Paul sums up his fundamental distinction of human char."ieter. It must be noted here that the language of ch.

8 postulates the dis- tinct Personality of the Spirit (v.-^"-) not less cleaily than that of 1 Co 2""'- implies His di^'inity. The Spirit dwells in the children of God in this life as an instalment (aircLpxi, 8^, cf. ippa^uv else- where) of the life which is theirs already (v.'"), but to be unveiled in its glory only with the consum- mation of God's kingdom over all His creatures 4. St.

Paul's conviction of the profound degrada- tion of human nature is thus at once deepened and relieved by his belief in its lofty capacities and destiny. The latter, tliough to be fully realized only in the life to come, are to be entered upon in this life. We have now to notice St. Paul's doctrine of the transition from the helpless, hope- less old life to the 'life and peace' of the new. Obviously, man cannot by himself cross so vast a chasm.

But the ' good-news of Christ ' comes to him as ' the power of God to his salvation ' (P^), if he believes it. Faith, then, presupposes that the Divine power to save has already been directed towards the believer ; and it has as its immediate accompaniment the opening of a life in fellowsliip with God from which the sinner as such is ex- cluded. In other words, by believing, the sinner is in God's sight as though his sin had not been, — he is 'justified by faith.' By justification, then, St.

Paul primarily means the non, imputation — the forgiveness — of sin (he equates the two ideas, 4''' etc.) Justification renders possible, for the first time, active righteousness (6'* 8'^-) in God's sight, but it is not pos9il)le to confuse the two in one idea without destruction of St. Paul's most characteristic thought. If once it is grasped that justification means to St.

Paul the removal of the impassable barrier set up between God and the soul by sin, and not the progressive assimilation of character to the filial type which springs from reconciliation as its root, and that faith is to the apostle not merely assent to doctrine as divinely revealed, but personal trust in God through Christ, it becomes easy to see how central a place the doctrine of justification by faith holds in St.

Paul's system, how unreal is its supposed conflict with tne severest standard of Christian obligation, or the most thankful use of divinely provided means of ^ace, and how profoundly it appeals to the most legitimate and elementary need of human nature, the longing for a gracious God (see Jn 6"). The doctrine, taken by itself, does not ofl'er an account of all that grace does for a man, but of how a man is admitted to grace. The two things are clearly distinguishable in St.

Paul, though, of course, in practice they can never be fic])arated (compare carefully Ro 8' with context before and after). Faith, tlien, is to St. Paul the attitude of soul which never regards it.self as righteous before God, but refers all to God's free gift.

Its trust in God is absolute ; but it has as its objective foundation certain definite facts (5, ""■) whicii become material for faith under the influence of the Spirit, wiiu interprets to the soul the Death of Christ as th» 304 ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE outcome of God's love (5°). Hence it is ' through faith' (3-') that the Deatli of Christ reaches its eU'ect in the justilication of the sinner.

It is this fact — even more than the inchision of all alike under sin— that reduces all men to one level in God's sight (3-''). (On this subject see the articles on Faith and Justification in the present work, and a most careful discussion in Sanday-Headlam, pp. 2S-3'J ; also Expositor, March 1899, p. 2U0 tt'. ; Kit.schl, Lckre d. Ucclitfcrtigung, vol. ii. ch. 4, S 36, and all important commentaries on Romans). Justifying faith, then, is not purely 'dogmatic,' be- cause it is trust in a Person.

Neither is it purely ' undogmatic,' because it rests upon, and includes the knowledge of, something which that Person has done (1 Co 15^, the germ of an 'Apostles' Creed '). Lastly, justification, to St. Paul, is doubtless one act, the entrance once for all into the state of grace (o"-). But it remains as a root of character ; its connexion with vital holiness is not that of mere succession in time, but as its organic begin- ning.

Faith is the abiding sphere of all Christian life (Gal 2^, 2 Co 13"), not a passing emotion, evoked by a single great crisis and subsiding with it. 5. Grace and the moral life. — The act of faith is not meritorious in its character, for this would be open, equally with righteousness by works, to the objection of 4-*-. It must come, that is, from God as its source ; it not only receives God's free gift, but it is God's free gift.

In other words, by excluding merit, we seem to deprive man of his responsibility. It may be questioned whether St. Paul had ever formulated in his own mind the problem of ' responsibility without merit,' which is the age-long crux of the doctrine of grace. Both from the consideration of justifying faith, and again from that of Divine predestination to glory (above, 1), the moral responsibility of man seems threatened, if St. Paul's principles are lo^cally developed.

But he neither develops them in this way himself, nor does he seem conscious of the need for a reconciliation of the opposed truths. That all human history is in God's hands, and that the sin of man, e.g. the apostasy of Israel in rejecting Christ, is used by God as a step to the fullilment of His will for man, is insisted upon. But the fact is wholly disallowed as an extenua- tion of the sinner's responsibility ; St.

Paul re- pudiates with intense indignation (S"") the charge that his teaching encouraged a^y such view. ' Ch. 9 implies arguments which take away free will, ch. 10 is meaningless without the presup- losition of free wUl' (Sanday-Headlam, p. 348). t is to be noted that St. Paul s entire case for the need of redemption (1-3-°) is an indictment of human sin, which loses all force if human responsi- bility is lost sight of.

Although by ' works of law no flesh shall be justiiiea, yet God ' will render to each man according to his works' (2*, cf. 14'^). The stress laid by St. Paul upon personal faith and individual renewal as the heart and mainspring of the moral life, gives to his theology of conduct a strongly individualistic character. But no one could be further from individualism in the sense in which tliat term is often used.

The personal life of the Christian is one of fellow- ship with the saints through Christ. All the manifestations of the Christian life are condi- tioned by membership of a body (Vl'"-). And in critical questions of moral alternative (ch. 14) the sense of brotherhood is a safe guide. We are to ask not merely 'what does my liberty permit?' but ' how will my conduct help or liinder my brotlier?

' We are to respect the liberty of others (W""), but to be ready to subordinate our own (for the whole chapter, cf. 1 Co 8-10. 13). An interesting application of St. Paul's general I theory of conduct is the attitude inculcated by him towards the civil power ( 13'"'). In a word, hfe spirit is that of good citizenship, idealizing the inaj;istrate as ' tlie minister of God.'

This position, natural to a born ' Roman ' (Ac 22^), is very much in advance of the general spirit of the apostle's compatriots, and decidedly in contrast with that of the Apocal3'pse. This is partly to be explained by the circumstances. When St. Paul wrote. Imperial Rome was not yet 'drunk with the blood of the saints' ; on the contrary, the imperial otiicials had more than once protected him against Jewish fanaticism. 6. The Church and its institution.^.

— The Roman community does not seem as yet to possess a per- manent organization of 'bishops' and deacons (see Sanday, Hea<llam, Introd. § 3 (3)). The list of ministries (12''^-) must be compared with others of the same kind (see the table in art. 1 Cokinthians, vol. i. p. 490). The irpoiffTaiievos can hardly be a permanent oHicer ; he comes too low on the list, and is apparently on a line with the itu^epniffeis of 1 Cor.

There is evidence (16') that the houses of diflerent members of the community formed scat- tered centres for the worshippers of the household or neighbourhood (see Sanday-Headlam, in loc.) Of the sacraments, the Eucharist is not mentioned ; but upon Baptism great stress is laid (6''°). To St. Paul's readers, to believe and to be baptized were, probably in all cases, coincident in time. Faith issued in baptism as its concrete expression and correlative.

Baptism was the external means of union with Christ, the closing of the door upon the old and lower self, the openin" of the new life of grace. It does not occur to St. Paul to put faith and baptism in any sort of rivalry. Faith in Christ would involve the desire to join His body by His appointed means. In all probability, the reference to faith and its confession in lO"- is associated with the thought of baptism. vii. Materials for pf,rsonal History op St. Paul.

— The Epistle is far less rich than those to the Corinthians and Galatians in details as to St. Paul's personal history. His long-standing desire to see Rome is mentioned in ch. 1 and in 15^; the puzzling reference to his having preached liixpi Tov 'IWvpiKoO in 15'" (see art. 2 Cokinthians, vol. i. p. 495), if the words do not compel us to suppose that he had actually entered Illyricum, would be satisfied by his visit to Beroea, the last important place in Macedonia (Ac 17'°).

His further intention to visit Spain (IS-**) is a fact of great interest, as also is his apprehension as to hig coming visit to Jerusalem with the Xo7lo (w. '""''). The names in ch. 16 contain those of many friends of the apostle otherwise unknown to us, including his kinsmen Andronicus and Junias, Jason and Sosipatcr. In Tertius we have the only certain name of an amanuensis employed by the apostle. His reference to miracles worked by himself (15") should not be overlooked (cf. 2 Co 12"^).

Of deeper interest, though ojien to more doubt, is the personal bearing of the i)assage ' Itie impossible to regard the pa.ssage as a mere iiera(rxn- tia.naij.6i, describin" the phenomena in the first per.son merely for the sake of vividness. The iyiii is too emphatic, too repeated, the feeling too deep, for a purely impersonal statement. On the other hand, the passage is universal in its reference, and supplies the argument with an indispensable piece of analysis. We may regard it as St.

Paul's account, based upon reflexion as well as on experi- ence, of the utmost that law can do for human nature. And if so, we may use it in order to understand how St. Paul may well have come to realize, even before his conversion, that if the preaching of the apostles (cf. 1 Co 15"- ') was true, t/ Christ had died ' not in vain ' (Gal 2'-'), then ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE 305 righteousness did not come by the law.

It enables US to realize something of the ' kicking against the goads,' wliich, as we know, had preceded the scene on the road to Damascus. viii. Transmission of the Text. Integrity. — Tlie text of our Epistle comes to us through much the same lines of transmission as that of 1 Cor. (which see). It is contained in the Peshitta, Old Lat., Copt., and other oldest versions of the NT, as well as in the principal Gr. MSS. Of the latter it is complete in nAHLS (the last uncoUated).

C lacks •2^-3=', 9«-10'», ll^-lS'". Di»°i lacks l""', jn-au j^rp supplied by a somewhat later hand (also l»4i7 jn ti,g Lat.) ; £>""' (copy of D) has these pas- sages, but lacks S^'-i^, 11 ">•=». F''", a copy of G, is lacking in I'-S". G"""" lacks 1' d(pu>pia n.-Tl<rrtat 1», also 2'«-=». K contains the Epistle only to 10". P lacks 2">-3», 8»-9", 11'-12>. 3 contains only I3-15. (On the cursives, and on tlie authorities for the Old Lat., what was said on 1 Cor.

may be repeated, with a further reference to Sanday- Headlam, p. l.xv). Of textual phenomena we must notice the omis- sion in G g, supported by a note in the Bodleian cursive 47, of the words iv 'PufiTj, V- ". The omission tempts a comparison with the omission, by im- portant authorities, of the analogous words in the address of EphesiaNS. But in tliis case there can be no question that the words iy 'Pu/iri are original.

The omission may, however, be due, as may also be the case with Ephesians, to the early circulation of our Epistle among other Churches with the omisijion of the delinite references to Ilome. This might be connected with the omission, in some early authorities, of ch.s. 15. 16 (see below). But this connexion would be much more certain if the authorities for the omission of dv 'Pii/ij) and of chs. 15. 16 were identical. This is not the case.

A more difficult question is that of the place of the doxology (16"""). L and many cursives, with some other ancient authorities, place it at the end of ch. 14 ; AP and a few authorities repeat it at tlie end of 16 ; FG g Marcion omit it wholly, but G leaves a blank S|)aee at the end of ch. 14. (On D see Sanday-Headlam, p. Ixxxix). But xHCDE, some cursives, and most Western authorities, place it aft«r 16 only.

Tliis is probably the earliest positiim ; its omission by Marcion may be the source of all the variations, although, if there were good grounds for thinking that St. Paul himself issued two recensions of the Epistle, the resemblance of the language of the doxology to that of the cap- tivity group of Ejip. (on which, however, see Hort in Lighlf. BiU. Essays, p. 327) might warrant us in BBcriliiiig the doxology to his second recension.

Bat here, again, the hypothesis in question is in- adequately founded. It should be noted that G g, which omit ir 'Pwfty, should, on this supposition, irut!rl the doxology, which they, on the contrary, omit. A far more complex question is raised by the omission, in some indirect but ancient witnesses to the text, of chs. 15. 16. These witnesses consist of (1) Marcion, a.s quoted by Orig.!*' supported by the language of Tertull. ado. Marc. v. 14. (2) The ahseiice of quotations in Tert., Iren.

, Cyorian. (3) The capitulation in certain MSS of the Vulgate. (4) The fact that ALP, etc. (see above), place tlie doxology at the end of 14. Of these, number (2) is inconclusive as a mere argument from silence. The others require explanation. A further argu- ment from the repeated benediction 1G»-" (TU) is shown hy Sanday-Headlani to rest on no solid foundation. How, then, are we to explain the facts? Thesupposition that chs. 15.

16 are spurious (Baur) cannot stand in face of the close connexion between chs. 14 and 15'-", a governing fact in the whole question. The chapters are omitted by no vou IV.— 20 known MS, nor does the theory of their partial spuriousness (Lucht), i.e. of interpolations, find any support in the textual material.

The supposi- tion that our chapters are a combination of the endings of recensions of the Epistle addressed to several different Churches, 1-14 (or l-ll) being the part common to all recensions (Renan), otl'ends against the governing fact mentioned above, and depends, moreover, upon an erroneous view (see above) of 16*- ".

A plau-sible, but in reality equally untenable, modification of this view is that 16'""', or 16^""', or '""', originally formed part of a letter addressed to Ephesus, and became after- wards incorporatad in our Epistle (first suggested in 1767 by Ke^^ermann, substantially adopted by Ewald, Mangold, Reu.ss, Lucht, Holsten, Lipsius, Weiss, Weizsiicker, Farrar, etc.)

Aquila and Priscilla, it is true, were last heard of in Ephesus (1 Co 16i»), and are there later (2 Ti 4") ; Epienetus is the 'first-fruits of Asia' (KV); and St. Paul must have had many friends in Ephesus, while he had never seen Koine. But the hypothesis dees not account for the facts ; on the contrary, it leaves ch. 15 wholly untouched. Again, considering the constant going and coming between Home and the provinces, it would be very surprising that St.

Paul should not have many acquaintances in Home. Moreover, there is good inscriptional and other evidence connecting many of the names with Rome, and indeed with Roman Christians. (See Sanday- Heaiilam, notes on ch. 16). This is specially true of the householdsof AniSTOBULUS and Narci.SSUS, of Amim.iatus and of Nereus (see the articles on these names).

On the whole, with all deference to the distinguished scholars who have represented it, our conclusion must be that the case for trans- ferrinj; this section, without any textual ground, from its actual connexion to a lost Epistle to Ephesus, is not made out. To return, then, to the general question of chs. 15. 16, and to the heads of evidence (1), (3), and (4), the questions to be considered are, Jirstlij, What were Marcion's grounds for omitting the chapters ?

and, secondly, Does the fact that he did so sulKcienlly explain (3) and (4)? If Marcion omitted the chapters on grounds of tradition, the second question need not be asked, for a tradition older than Marcion would doubtless leave other traces ; but if his oini.ssion was purely arbitrary, the question of his probable inllueiice becomes important. That Marcion's text had considerable circulation and some inlluence in the West may be allowed.

But this is hardly adequate as a hypothesis by itself to account for the facts ; it does not inarch without a stick. The extra support required is furnished by the assumption that the text was adapted for Church use in certain localities by omitting the personal and less edify- ing conclusion. The existence of a known text— Marcion's — which lacked ch.s. 15.

16, sugijrsted the adoption of 14^ as the close of the shortened Epistle, and accordingly the doxology, which it was desired to retain, was added at that point. The answer to our second question, then, may be put thus : Given a demand for an edition of our Epistle with the closing section, exceptin",' the dox- ology, omitted, the influence of Marcion's text was likely to suggest the exact point where the omission should begin.

In other words, the heads of evidence (3) and (4) — we may perhaps add (2) — may be exi)lained by (1). Thajir.it question, then, becomes one of probability. ^\ as Marcion likely to omit the chapters on doctrinal grounds, or was he, on the other hand, unlikely to excise any matter with- out documentary authority? On this question the reader is as entitled to decide as the present WTiter. The connexion between the question of ihs. 15.

16 and the omission of tv 'Pii/ijj in 1'" is very 306 ROJIE ROME obscure. Sanday-Headlani conjecture thatMareion is responsil)le for tlie latter omission also ; Imt there is no evidence tliat lie omitted tiiese words. But f,'iven tlie demand (see aliove) for an 'imiiersonar edition, the words may have been strucK out in some cojiies of such an edition either with or with- out the support of Marcion's text. That Marcion was Interested in the addresses of St. Paul's Epp.

we know from the case of Epiiesians (which see, and of. Smith's DB^ p. 947). Literature. — On the ancient commentaries, Origeo, Chry- so^^toni, Theodoret, John Damasc, (Ecunienius, Theophylact, Eiitheniius, Arabrosiaster, Pelagnus, llii^h of St. Victor, Abe- lard, and Aquinas, see the excellent characterizations in Sanday- Headlam. Au-^justine tlioui,dit prufoundly over the Epistle to the Rouians ; his anti-I'ela^nan writinj^a are in effect a commen- tary upon its most characteristic ideas.

He bei^n a formal commentary, hut only reached the salutation (Retract, i. 26). Of more interest is the Expositio quainimlam qinvst. in Ep. ad Horn. (Mi^ne, Pat. Lat. xxxv. 2087), which is the result of his study of the Epistle as a presbyter (about a.d. 396) with some friends. We have here the transition from his earlier views of grace and free will, etc., to his more developed and characteristic conviction, fonned under the influence of his studies of St. Paul (see Reuter, August, Studien, p.

7ff.) The Biblical Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide (S. J., 11637) gathers up usefully much exegetical material from ancient and mediffl^al Latin writers, including' Aug-ustine. On the com- mentaries of Colet (ed. Lupton, 1873), Luther (Preface to Mel- anchthon's comm.

1523), Calvin (1539, 'by far the best of the commentators of the Reformation'), Beza (1594), Estius(1614- 6), Hammond (1653), Locke (1705-7), Beng-el (1742), Wetstein (1751-2), see Sanday-Headlam, who also g;ive a useful list of modern commentaries. Among the more important of these are those of Fritzsche (1830-43), Mever (indispensable; the later German cd. bv Weiss), de Wctte (1830 and foil.)

, Olshausen, Philippi (21850 and 41886), Jowett (21809, 31894, suggestive and inexact), Vaughan (^1880, scholarly and admirable in illustra- tion, less satisfactory on connexion of thought), Bisping, Maier (Roman Cathohc, as also) Klofutar (Laibach, 1880, terse and sensible), Godet (1879, 21883, admirable in general exposition and in bibUcal theologv; among the best general commentaries), Ultramare (Geneva, 1881-2), J. A. Beet (,HSSb, able, and always worth consulting).

Otto (Glauchau, 1880), Lipsius (in BandkommerUar, 1881, able and useful), Barmby (1890, in Pulpit Commentary), Moule (in Expositor's Bible, excellent pouular exegesis, and a distinct advance on that in his Camb. Bihlefor Schools), Liddon (1803, Explnnatory Analysis). Light- foot'a posthumous Notes on Epistles of ^t. Paul contain a precious fragment on Ro 1-7. The two volumes of Gore (1893-9) are popular, but based ui)on thoroughly scientillc criticism and exegesis. At the he.

id of all English commen- taries, and pre-eminent among those in any language, are those of Giiford (1886, reprinted from the Speaker's Commentary, unrivalled for accuracy, both in scholarship and theology) and Sanday-Headlam (1895). The last named is one of the most complete and satisfactorv commentaries extant on any of the books of the Bible. The present article owes more to it than to any one work on this E-^istle.

After it, the writer would wish to acknowledge special mdebtedness to Gifford, Godet, Meyer- Weiss, and Lipsius. The standard works on Biblical Theology should be consulted on the leading ideas of the Epistle. With specific reference to St. Paul, Baur's Paulus (part 2, ch. iii., which incorporates the substance of his earlier essays on the subject) should still be read, also Usteri's /'. Lehrheg'riff C^lSSi), ana Pfleiderers highly suggestive Pattlinism.

Essaj-s and studies on the theology of the Epistle are numerous. Among the more recent may be mentioned Ileadlum in Expos. Times, 1894, 1895; Beet in Expos. 1898 ; and some studies by the present writer, begim in Expos. 1899, but not as yet completed. On chs. 9-11, Bey- Bchhig, die Paul. Theodicre ; Morison (1849, on ch. 9. In 1866 he published an exposition of ch. 3). The integrity of the Epistle is discussed (in atldition to works cited, above, § viii.)

in the earlier part of Mangold's /i^wn^rfrnV/.u.s.w., and by Lightfoot and Hort m articles reprinted in Lightfoot's Biblical Essays. Hurt's Lectures on liomans and Ephesians also deal with tliis and other introductory matters. 'The Eng. tr. of Meyer's com- mentary, that of Godet's Introd. to St. Paul's Epistles {^Mn\>. 1S91) antl the end of the Introduction on his commentary, may be referred to for additions to the above brief list.

Works re- ferred to in the body of the above article are not in all cases enumerated here. A. UOBERTSON.