THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

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THE APOSTOLIC SALUTATION

1:1, 7.* Paul, a divinely chosen and accredited Apostle, gives Christian greeting to the Roman Church, itself also divinely called.

1Paul, a devoted servant of Jesus Christ, an Apostle called by divine summons as much as any member of the original Twelve, solemnly set apart for the work of delivering God’s message of salvation; 7Paul, so authorized and commissioned, gives greeting to the whole body of Roman Christians (whether Jewish or Gentile), who as Christians are special objects of the Divine love, called out of the mass of mankind into the inner society of the Church, consecrated to God, like Israel of old, as His own peculiar people. May the free unmerited favour of God and the peace which comes from reconciliation with Him be yours! May God Himself, the heavenly Father, and the Lord Jesus Messiah, grant them to you!

1:2-6. I preach, in accordance with our Jewish Scriptures, Jesus the Son of David and Son of God, whose commission I bear.

2The message which I am commissioned to proclaim is no startling novelty, launched upon the world without preparation, but rather the direct fulfilment of promises which God had inspired the prophets of Israel to set down in Holy Writ. 3It relates to none other than His Son, whom it presents in a twofold aspect; on the one hand by physical descent tracing His lineage to David, as the Messiah was to do, 4and on the other hand, in virtue of the Holiness inherent in His spirit, visibly designated or declared to be Son of God by the miracle of the Resurrection. He, I say, is the sum and substance of my message, Jesus, the Jew’s Messiah, and the Christian’s Lord. 5And it was through Him that I, like the rest of the Apostles, received both the general tokens of God’s favour in that I was called to be a Christian and also the special gifts of an Apostle. 6My duty as an Apostle is among all Gentile peoples, and therefore among you too at Rome, to win men over to the willing service of loyalty to Him; and the end to which all my labours are directed is the honour of His Holy Name.

1-7. In writing to the Church of the imperial city, which he had not yet visited, St. Paul delivers his credentials with some solemnity, and with a full sense of the magnitude of the issues in which they and he alike are concerned. He takes occasion at once to define (i) his own position, (ii) the position of his readers, (iii) the central truth in that common Christianity which unites them.

The leading points in the section may be summarized thus: (i) I, Paul, am an Apostle by no act of my own, but by the deliberate call and in pursuance of the long-foreseen plan of God (vv. 1, 7). (ii) You, Roman Christians, are also special objects of the Divine care. You inherit under the New Dispensation the same position which Israel occupied under the Old (vv. 6, 7). (iii) The Gospel which I am commissioned to preach, though new in the sense that it puts forward a new name, the Name of Jesus Christ, is yet indissolubly linked to the older dispensation which it fulfils and supersedes (vv. 2, 7; see note on κλητοῖς ἁγίοις). (iv) Its subject is Jesus, Who is at once the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God (vv. 3, 4). (v) From Him, the Son, and from the Father, may the blessedness of Christians descend upon you (ver. 7).

This opening section of the Epistle affords a good opportunity to watch the growth of a Christian Theology, in the sense of reflection upon the significance of the Life and Death of Christ and the relation of the newly inaugurated order of things to the old. We have to remember (1) that the Epistle was written about the year 58 a.d., or within thirty years of the Ascension; (2) that in the interval the doctrinal language of Christianity has had to be built up from the foundations. We shall do well to note which of the terms used are old and which new, and how far old terms have had a new face put upon them. We will return to this point at the end of the paragraph.

1. δοῦλος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ: δοῦλος Θεοῦ or Κυρίου is an Old Testament phrase, applied to the prophets in a body from Amos onwards (Amos 3:7; Jeremiah 7:25 and repeatedly; Daniel 9:6; Ezra 9:11); also with slight variations to Moses (θεράπων Joshua 1:2), Joshua (Joshua 24:29; Judges 1:2:8), David (title of Psa_36. [35]; Psa_78. [77], 70; 89. [88], 4, 21; also παῖς κυρίου, title of Psa_18. [17]), Isaiah (παῖς Isaiah 20:3); but applied also to worshippers generally (Psa_34. [33], 23; 113. [112], 1 παῖδες; 136. [135], 22 of Israel, &c.).

This is the first instance of a similar use in the New Testament; it is found also in the greetings of Phil., Tit., Jas., Jude, 2 Pet., showing that as the Apostolic age progressed the assumption of the title became established on a broad basis. But it is noticeable how quietly St. Paul steps into the place of the prophets and leaders of the Old Covenant, and how quietly he substitutes the name of His own Master in a connexion hitherto reserved for that of Jehovah.

Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. A small question of reading arises here, which is perhaps of somewhat more importance than may appear at first sight. In the opening verses of most of St. Paul’s Epistles the MSS. vary between Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ and Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ. There is also evidently a certain method in the variation. The evidence stands thus (where that on one side only is given it may be assumed that all remaining authorities are on the other):—

1 Thessalonians 1:1 Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ unquestioned.

2 Thessalonians 1:1 Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ Edd.; Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ D E Fgr G, Ambrstr. (sic ed. Ballerini).

Galatians 1:1 Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ unquestioned.

1 Corinthians 1:1 Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ B D E F G 17 al. pauc., Vulg. codd., Chrys. Ambrstr. Aug. semel, Tisch., WH. marg.

2 Corinthians 1:1 Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ א B M P 17 marg., Harcl., Euthal. cod. Theodrt. Tisch. WH. RV.

Romans 1:1 Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ B, Vulg. codd., Orig. bis (contra Orig.-lat. bis) Aug. semel Amb. Ambrstr. al. Lat., Tisch. WH. marg.

Php 1:1 Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ א B D E, Boh., Tisch. WH. RV.

Ephesians 1:1 Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ B D E P 17, Vulg. codd. Boh. Goth. Harcl., Orig. (ex Caten.) Jo.-Damasc. Ambrstr., Tisch. WH. RV.

Colossians 1:1 Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ א A B F G L P 17, Vulg. codd. Boh. Harcl., Euthal. cod. Jo.-Damasc. Ambrstr. Hieron. al., Tisch. WH. RV.

Philemon 1:1 Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ א A Dc F G K P (def. B), &c., Boh., Hieron. (ut vid.) Ambrstr. al., Tisch. WH. RV.

1 Timothy 1:1 Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ א D F G P (def. B), Vulg. codd. Boh. Harcl., Jo.-Damasc. Ambrstr., Tisch. WH. RV.

2 Timothy 1:1 Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ א D E F G K P (def. B) 17 al., Vulg. codd. Boh. Sah. Harcl., Euthal. cod. Jo.-Damasc. Ambrstr. al., Tisch. WH. RV.

Titus 1:1 Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ א Dc E F G &c., Vulg. codd. Goth. Pesh. Arm. Aeth., Chrys. Euthal. cod. Ambrstr. (ed. Ballerin.) al., Tisch. WH. (sed Χριστοῦ [Ἰησοῦ] marg.) RV.; Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ A minusc. tres, Vulg. codd. Boh. Harcl., Cassiod.; Χριστοῦ tantum Dg2.

It will be observed that the Epistles being placed in a roughly chronological order, those at the head of the list read indubitably Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (or Χριστῷ), while those in the latter part (with the single exception of Tit., which is judiciously treated by WH.) as indubitably read Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ. Just about the group 1 and 2 Cor. Rom. there is a certain amount of doubt.

Remembering the Western element which enters into B in Epp. Paul., it looks as if the evidence for χυ ιυ in Cor. Rom. might be entirely Western; but that is not quite clear, and the reading may possibly be right. In any case it would seem that just about this time St. Paul fell into the habit of writing Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς. The interest of this would lie in the fact that in Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς the first word would seem to be rather more distinctly a proper name than in Ἰησοῦς Χριστός. No doubt the latter phrase is rapidly passing into a proper name, but Χριστός would seem to have a little of its sense as a title still clinging to it: the phrase would be in fact transitional between Χριστός or ὁ Χριστός of the Gospels and the later Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς or Χριστός simply as a proper name (see Sanday, Bampton Lectures, p. 289 f., and an article by the Rev. F. Herbert Stead in Expos. 1888, i. 386 ff.). The subject would repay working out on a wider scale of induction.

κλητὸς ἀπόστολος. κλῆσις is another idea which has its roots in the Old Testament. Eminent servants of God become so by an express Divine summons. The typical examples would be Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3), Moses (Exodus 3:10), the prophets (Isaiah 6:8, Isaiah 6:9; Jeremiah 1:4, Jeremiah 1:5, &c.). The verb καλεῖν occurs in a highly typical passage, Hosea 11:1 ἐξ Αἰγύπτου μετεκάλεσα τὰ τέκνα μου. For the particular form κλητός we cannot come nearer than the ‘guests’ (κλητοί) of Adonijah (1 Kings 1:41, 1 Kings 1:49). By his use of the term St. Paul places himself on a level at once with the great Old Testament saints and with the Twelve who had been ‘called’ expressly by Christ (Mark 1:17; Mark 2:14 ""). The same combination κλητὸς ἀπόστ. occurs in 1 Corinthians 1:1, but is not used elsewhere by St. Paul or any of the other Apostles. In these two Epistles St. Paul has to vindicate the parity of his own call (on the way to Damascus, cf. also Acts 26:17) with that of the elder Apostles.

On the relation of κλητός to ἐκλεκτός see Lft. on Colossians 3:12. There is a difference between the usage of the Gospels and Epistles. In the Gospels κλητοί are all who are invited to enter Christ’s kingdom, whether or not they accept the invitation; the ἐκλεκτοί are a smaller group, selected to special honour (Matthew 22:14). In St. Paul both words are applied to the same persons; κλητός implies that the call has been not only given but obeyed.

ἀπόστολος. It is well known that this word is used in two senses; a narrower sense in which it was applied by our Lord Himself to the Twelve (Luke 6:13; Mark 3:14 v. l.), and a wider in which it includes certainly Barnabas (Acts 14:4,Acts 14:14) and probably James, the Lord’s brother (Galatians 1:19), Andronicus and Junias (Romans 16:7), and many others (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11; Didaché 11, 12, &c.; also esp. Lightfoot, Gal. p. 92 ff.; Harnack in Texte u. Untersuch. ii. 111 ff.). Strictly speaking St. Paul could only claim to be an Apostle in the wider acceptation of the term; he lays stress, however, justly on the fact that he is κλητὸς ἀπόστολος, i.e. not merely an Apostle by virtue of possessing such qualifications as are described in Acts 1:21, Acts 1:22, but through a direct intervention of Christ. At the same time it should be remembered that St. Paul lays stress on this fact not with a view to personal aggrandizement, but only with a view to commend his Gospel with the weight which he knows that it deserves.

ἀφωρισμένος: in a double sense, by God (as in Galatians 1:15) and by man (Acts 13:2). The first sense is most prominent here; or rather it includes the second, which marks the historic fulfilment of the Divine purpose. The free acceptance of the human commission may enable us to understand how there is room for free will even in the working out of that which has been pre-ordained by God (see below on ch. 11). And yet the three terms, δοῦλος, κλητός, ἀφωρισμένος, all serve to emphasize the essentially Scriptural doctrine that human ministers, even Apostles, are but instruments in the hand of God, with no initiative or merit of their own.

This conception is not confined to the Canonical Books: it is found also in Assump. Moys. i. 14 itaque excogitavit et invenit me, qui ab initio orbis terrarum praeparatus sum, ut sim arbiter testamenti illius.

εἰς εὐαγγέλιον Θεοῦ. The particular function for which St. Paul is ‘set apart’ is to preach the Gospel of God. The Gospel is sometimes described as ‘of God’ and sometimes ‘of Christ’ (e. g. Mark 1:1). Here, where the thought is of the gradual unfolding in time of a plan conceived in eternity, ‘of God’ is the more appropriate. It is probably a mistake in these cases to restrict the force of the gen. to one particular aspect (‘the Gospel of which God is the author,’ or ‘of which Christ is the subject’): all aspects are included in which the Gospel is in any way related to God and Christ.

εὐαγγέλιον. The fundamental passage for the use of this word appears to be Mark 1:14, Mark 1:15 (cf. Matthew 4:23). We cannot doubt that our Lord Himself described by this term (or its Aramaic equivalent) His announcement of the arrival of the Messianic Time. It does not appear to be borrowed directly from the LXX (where the word occurs in all only two [or three] times, and once for ‘the reward of good tidings’; the more common form is εὐαγγελία). It would seem, however, that there was some influence from the rather frequent use (twenty times) of εὐαγγελίζειν, εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, especially in Second Isaiah and the Psalms in connexion with the news of the Great Deliverance or Restoration from the Captivity. A conspicuous passage is Isaiah 61:1, which is quoted or taken as a text in Luke 4:18. The group of words is well established in Synoptic usage (εὐαγγέλιον, Matthew four times, Mark eight, Acts two; εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, Matthew one, Luke ten, Acts fifteen). It evidently took a strong hold on the imagination of St. Paul in connexion with his own call to missionary labours (εὐαγγέλιον sixty times in Epp. Paul, besides in Epp. and Apoc. only twice; εὐαγγελίζεσθαι twenty times in Epp. Paul., besides once mid. seven times pass.). The disparity between St. Paul and the other N. T. writers outside Evv. Synopt. Acts is striking. The use of εὐαγγέλιον for a Book lies beyond our limits (Sanday, Bamp. Lect. p. 317 n.); the way is prepared for it by places like Mark 1:1; Revelation 14:6.

2. προεπηγγείλατο. The words ἐπαγγελία, ἐπαγγέλλεσθαι occur several times in LXX, but not in the technical sense of the great ‘promises’ made by God to His people. The first instance of this use is Ps. Sol. 12:8 καὶ ὅσιοι κυρίου κληρονομήσαιεν ἐπαγγελίας κυρίου: cf. 7:9 τοῦ ἐλεῆσαι τὸν οἶκον Ἰακὼβ εἰς ἡμέραν ἐν ᾗ ἐπηγγείλω αὐτοῖς, and 17:6 οἷς οὐκ ἐπηγγείλω, μετὰ βίας ἀφείλοντο: a group of passages which is characteristic of the attitude of wistful expectation in the Jewish people during the century before the Birth of Christ. No wonder that the idea was eagerly seized upon by the primitive Church as it began to turn the pages of the O. T. and to find one feature after another of the history of its Founder and of its own history foretold there.

We notice that in strict accordance with what we may believe to have been the historical sequence, neither ἐπαγγελία nor ἐπαγγέλλεσθαι (in the technical sense) occur in the Gospels until we come to Luke 24:49, where ἐπαγγελία is used of the promised gift of the Holy Spirit; but we no sooner cross over to the Acts than the use becomes frequent. The words cover (i) the promises made by Christ, in particular the promise of the Holy Spirit (which is referred to the Father in Acts 1:4); so ἐπαγγελία three times in the Acts, Galatians 3:14, and Ephesians 1:13; (ii) the promises of the O. T. fulfilled in Christianity; so ἐπαγγελία four times in Acts (note esp. Acts 13:32, Acts 26:6), some eight times each in Rom. and Gal., both ἐπαγγελία and ἐπαγγέλλεσθα. repeatedly in Heb., &c.; (iii) in a yet wider sense of promises, whether as yet fulfilled or unfulfilled, e.g. 2 Corinthians 1:20 ὅσαι γὰρ ἐπαγγελίαι Θεοῦ (cf. v. 1:1); 1 Timothy 4:8; 2 Timothy 1:1; 2 Peter 3:4 ἡ ἐπαγγελία τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ.

ἐν γραφαῖς ἁγίαις: perhaps the earliest extant instance of the use of this phrase (Philo prefers ἱεραὶ γραφαί, ἱεραὶ βίβλοι, ὁ ἱερὸς λόγος: cf. Sanday, Bamp. Lect. p. 72); but the use is evidently well established, and the idea of a collection of authoritative books goes back to the prologue to Ecclus. In γραφαῖς ἁγίαις the absence of the art. throws the stress on ἁγίαις; the books are ‘holy’ as containing the promises of God Himself, written down by inspired men (διὰ τῶν προφητῶν αὐτοῦ).

3. γενομένου. This is contrasted with ὁρισθέντος, γενομένου denoting, as usually, ‘transition from one state or mode of subsistence to another’ (Sp. Comm. on 1 Corinthians 1:30); it is rightly paraphrased ‘[Who] was born,’ and is practically equivalent to the Johannean ἐλθόντος εἰς τὸν κόσμον.

ἐκ σπέρματος Δαβίδ. For proof that the belief in the descent of the Messiah from David was a living belief see Mark 12:35 ff. πῶς λέγουσιν οἱ γραμματεῖς ὅτι ὁ Χριστὸς υἱός ἐστι Δαβίδ; (cf. Mark 11:10 and 10:47 f.): also Ps. Sol. 17:23 ff. ἴδε, κύριε, καὶ ἀνάστησος αὐτοῖς τὸν βασιλέα αὐτῶν υἱὸν Δαυὶδ εἰς τὸν καιρὸν ὅν οἰδας σύ, ὁ Θεός, τοῦ βασιλεῦσαι ἐπὶ Ἰσραὴλ παῖδά σου κ.τ.λ.; 4 Ezra 12:32 (in three of the extant versions, Syr. Arab. Armen.); and the Talmud and Targums (passages in Weber, Altsyn. Theol. p. 341). Our Lord Himself appears to have made little use of this title: he raises a difficulty about it (Mark 12:35-37 ""). But this verse of Ep. to Romans shows that Christians early pointed to His descent as fulfilling one of the conditions of Messiahship; similarly 2 Timothy 2:8 (where the assertion is made a part of St. Paul’s ‘Gospel’); Acts 2:30; Hebrews 7:14 ‘it is evident that our Lord hath sprung out of Judah’ (see also Eus. H. E. I. vii. 17, Joseph and Mary from the same tribe). Neither St. Paul nor the Acts nor Epistle to Hebrews defines more nearly how the descent is traced. For this we have to go to the First and Third Gospels, the early chapters of which embody wholly distinct traditions, but both converging on this point. There is good reason to think that St. Luke 1:2 had assumed substantially its present shape before a.d. 70 (cf. Swete, Apost. Creed, p. 49).

In Test. XII. Patriarch. we find the theory of a double descent from Levi and from Judah (Sym. 7 ἀναστήσει γὰρ Κύριος ἐκ τοῦ Λευεὶ ὡς ἀρχιερέα καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Ἰούδα ὡς βασιλέα, Θεὸν καὶ ἄνθρωπον: Gad. 8 ὅπως τιμήσωσιν Ἰούδαν καὶ Λευεί· ὅτι ἐξ αὐτῶν ἀνατελεῖ Κύριος, σωτὴρ τῷ Ἰσραήλ, &c.; cf. Harnack’s note, Patr. Apost. i. 52). This is no doubt an inference from the relationship of the Mother of our Lord to Elizabeth (Luke 1:36).

κατὰ σάρκα ̣ ̣ ̣ κατὰ πνεῦμα are opposed to each other, not as human` to ‘divine,’ but as ‘body’ to ‘spirit,’ both of which in Christ are human, though the Holiness which is the abiding property of His Spirit is something more than human. See on κατὰ πνεῦμ. ἁγιως. below.

4. ὁρισθέντος: ‘designated.’ It is usual to propose for this word an alternative between (i) ‘proved to be,’ ‘marked out as being’ (δειχθέντος, ἀποφανθέντος Chrys.), and (ii) ‘appointed,’ ‘instituted,’ ‘installed,’ in fact and not merely in idea. For this latter sense (which is that adopted by most modern commentators) the parallels are quoted, Acts 10:42 οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ὡρισμένος ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ κριτὴς ζώντων καὶ νεκρῶν, and 17:31 μέλλει κρίνειν ̣ ̣ ̣ ἐν ἀνδρὶ ᾦ ὥρισε. The word itself does not determine the meaning either way: it must be determined by the context. But here the particular context is also neutral; so that we must look to the wider context of St. Paul’s teaching generally. Now it is certain that St. Paul did not hold that the Son of God became Son by the Resurrection. The undoubted Epistles are clear on this point (esp. 2 Corinthians 4:4; 2 Corinthians 8:9; cf. Colossians 1:15-19). At the same time he did regard the Resurrection as making a difference—if not in the transcendental relations of the Father to the Son (which lie beyond our cognisance), yet in the visible manifestation of Sonship as addressed to the understanding of men (cf. esp. Php 2:9 διὸ καὶ ὁ Θεὸς αὐτὸν ὑπερύψωσε, καὶ ἐχαρίσατο αὐτῷ τὸ ὅνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα). This is sufficiently expressed by our word ‘designated,’ which might perhaps with advantage also be used in the two places in the Acts. It is true that Christ becomes Judge in a sense in which He does not become Son; but He is Judge too not wholly by an external creation but by an inherent right. The Divine declaration, as it were, endorses and proclaims that right.

The Latin versions are not very helpful. The common rendering was praedestinatus (so expressly Rufinus [Orig.-lat.] ad loc.; cf. Introd. § 7). Hilary of Poitiers has destinatus, which Rufinus also prefers. Tertullian reads definitus.

υἱοῦ Θεοῦ. ‘Son of God,’ like ‘Son of Man,’ was a recognized title of the Messiah (cf. Enoch cv. 2; 4 Ezra 7:28, 29; 13:32, 37, 52; 14:9, in all which places the Almighty speaks of the Messiah as ‘My Son,’ though the exact phrase ‘Son of God’ does not occur). It is remarkable that in the Gospels we very rarely find it used by our Lord Himself, though in face of Matthew 27:43, John 10:36, cf. Matthew 21:37 f. al., it cannot be said that He did not use it. It is more often used to describe the impression made upon others (e.g. the demonized, Mark 3:11, Mark 5:7 ""; the centurion, Mark 15:39 ""), and it is implied by the words of the Tempter (Matthew 4:3, Matthew 4:6 "") and the voice from heaven (Mark 1:11 "", 9:7 ""). The crowning instance is the confession of St. Peter in the version which is probably derived from the Logia, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ Matthew 16:16. It is consistent with the whole of our Lord’s method that He should have been thus reticent in putting forward his own claims, and that He should have left them to be inferred by the free and spontaneous working of the minds of His disciples. Nor is it surprising that the title should have been chosen by the Early Church to express its sense of that which was transcendent in the Person of Christ: see esp. the common text of the Gospel of St. Mark 1:1 (where the words, if not certainly genuine, in any case are an extremely early addition), and this passage, the teaching of which is very direct and explicit. The further history of the term, with its strengthening addition μονογενής, may be followed in Swete, Apost. Creed, p. 24 ff., where recent attempts to restrict the Sonship of Christ to His earthly manifestation are duly weighed and discussed. In this passage we have seen that the declaration of Sonship dates from the Resurrection: but we have also seen that St. Paul regarded the Incarnate Christ as existing before His Incarnation; and it is as certain that when he speaks of Him as ὁ ἴδιος υἱός (Romans 8:32), ὁ έαυτοῦ υἱός (8:3), he intends to cover the period of pre-existence, as that St. John identifies the μονογενής with the pre-existent Logos. There is no sufficient reason to think that the Early Church, so far as it reflected upon these terms, understood them differently.

There are three moments to each of which are applied with variations the words of Psalm 2:7 ‘Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.’ They are (i) the Baptism (Mark 1:11 ""); (ii) the Transfiguration (Mark 9:7 ""); (iii) the Resurrection (Acts 13:33). We can see here the origin of the Ebionite idea of progressive exaltation, which is however held in check by the doctrine of the Logos in both its forms, Pauline (2 Corinthians 4:4, &c., ut sup.) and Johannean (John 1:1 ff.). The moments in question are so many steps in the passage through an earthly life of One who came forth from God and returned to God, not stages in the gradual deification of one who began his career as ψιλὸς ἄνθρωπος.

ἐν δυνάμει: not with υἱοῦ Θεοῦ, as Weiss, Lips. and others, ‘Son of God in power,’opposed to the present state of humiliation, but rather adverbially, qualifying ὁρισθέντος, ‘declared with might to be Son of God.’ The Resurrection is regarded as a ‘miracle’ or ‘signal manifestation of Divine Power.’ Comp. esp. 2 Corinthians 13:4 ἐσταυρώθη ἐξ ἀσθενείας, ἀλλὰ ζῇ ἐκ δυνάμεως Θεοῦ. This parallel determines the connexion of ἐν δυν.

κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης: not (i) = Πνεῦμα Ἅγιον, the Third Person in the Trinity (as the Patristic writers generally and some moderns), because the antithesis of σάρξ and πνεῦμα requires that they shall be in the same person; nor (ii), with Beng. and other moderns (even Lid.) = the Divine Nature in Christ as if the Human Nature were coextensive with the σάρξ and the Divine Nature were coextensive with the πνεῦμα, which would be very like the error of Apollinaris; but (iii) the human πνεῦμα, like the human σάρξ, distinguished however from that of ordinary humanity by an exceptional and transcendent Holiness (cf. Hebrews 2:17; Hebrews 4:15 ‘it behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren.. yet without sin’).

ἁγιωσύνη, not found in profane literature, occurs three times in LXX of the Psalms, not always in agreement with Heb. (Psalm 95:6 [96:6 ‘strength’]; 96:12 [97:12 ‘holy name,’ lit. ‘memorial’]; 144:5 [145:5 ‘honour’]). In all three places it is used of the Divine attribute; but in 2 Macc. 3:12 we have ἡ τοῦ τόπου ἁγιωσύνη. In Test. XII. Patr. Lev_18 the identical phrase πνεῦμ. ἁγιως. occurs of the saints in Paradise. The passage is Christian in its character, but may belong to the original work and is in any case probably early. If so, the use of the phrase is so different from that in the text, that the presumption would be that it was not coined for the first time by St. Paul. The same instance would show that the phrase does not of itself and alone necessarily imply divinity. The πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, though not the Divine nature, is that in which the Divinity or Divine Personality resided. The clear definition of this point was one of the last results of the Christological controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries (Loofs, Dogmengesch. § 39, 3). For ἁγιως. see on ἅγιοι ver. 7.

ἑξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν: a remarkable phrase as applied to Christ. His was not a ‘resurrection of dead persons’ (‘azenrisynge of dead men’ Wic.) but of a single dead person. We might expect rather νεκροῦ or ἐκ νεκρῶν (as in 1 Peter 1:3); and it is probable that this form is only avoided because of ἐξ ἀναστάσεως coming just before. But νεκρῶν coalesces closely in meaning with ἀναστ., so as to give it very much the force of a compound word, ‘by a dead-rising’ (Todtenauferstehung), ‘a resurrection such as that when dead persons rise.’ Christ is ‘the first-born from the dead’ (Colossians 1:18).

τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν. Although in O. T. regularly applied to God as equivalent of Adonai, Jahveh, this word does not in itself necessarily involve Divinity. The Jews applied it to their Messiah (Mark 12:36, Mark 12:37 ""; Ps. Sol. 17:36 βασιλεὺς αὐτῶν χριστὸς κύριος) without thereby pronouncing Him to be ‘God’; they expressly distinguished between the Messiah and the Memra or ‘Word’ of Jehovah (Weber, Altsyn. Theol. p. 178). On the lips of Christians Κροιος denotes the idea of ‘Sovereignty,’ primarily over themselves as the society of believers (Colossians 1:18, &c.), but also over all creation (Php 2:10, Php 2:11; Colossians 1:16, Colossians 1:17). The title was given to our Lord even in His lifetime (John 13:13 ‘Ye call me, Master (ὁ διδάσκαλος), and, Lord (ὁ Κύριος): and ye say well; for so I am’), but without a full consciousness of its significance: it was only after the Resurrection that the Apostles took it to express their central belief (Php 2:9 ff., &c.).

5. ἐλάβομεν. The best explanation of the plur. seems to be that St. Paul associates himself with the other Apostles.

χάρις is an important word with a distinctively theological use and great variety of meaning: (1) objectively, ‘sweetness,’ ‘attractiveness,’ a sense going back to Homer (Od. viii. 175); Psa_45. (44.), 3 ἐξεχύθη χάρις ἐν χείλεσί σου: Ecclesiastes 10:12 λόγοι στόματος σοφοῦ χάρις: Luke 4:22 λόγοι χάριτος: (2) subjectively ‘favour,’ ‘kindly feeling,’ ‘good will,’ especially as shown by a superior towards an inferior. In Eastern despotisms this personal feeling on the part of the king or chieftain is most important: hence εὑρεῖν χάριν is the commonest form of phrase in the O. T. (Genesis 6:8; Genesis 18:3, &c.); in many of these passages (esp. in anthropomorphic scenes where God is represented as holding colloquy with man) it is used of ‘finding favour’ in the sight of God. Thus the word comes to be used (3) of the ‘favour’ or ‘good will’ of God; and that (α) generally, as in Zechariah 12:10 ἐκχεῶ ̣ ̣ πνεῦμα χάριτος καὶ οἰκτιρμοῦ, but far more commonly in N. T. (Luke 2:40; John 1:14, John 1:16, &c.); (β) by a usage which is specially characteristic of St. Paul (though not confined to him), with opposition to ὀφείλημα, ‘debt’ (Romans 4:4), and to ἔργα, ‘works’ (implying merit, Romans 11:6), ‘unearned favour’—with stress upon the fact that it is unearned, and therefore as bestowed not upon the righteous but on sinners (cf. esp. Romans 5:6 with 5:2). In this sense the word takes a prominent place in the vocabulary of Justification. (4) The cause being put for the effect χάρις denotes (α) ‘the state of grace or favour’ which the Christian enjoys (Romans 5:2), or (β), like χάρισμα, any particular gift or gifts of grace (πλήρης χάριτος Acts 6:8). We note however that the later technical use, esp. of the Latin gratia, for the Divine prompting and help which precedes and accompanies right action does not correspond exactly to the usage of N. T. (5) As χάρις or ‘kindly feeling’ in the donor evokes a corresponding χάρις or ‘gratitude’ in the recipient, it comes to mean simply ‘thanks’ (1 Corinthians 10:30).

χάριν here = that general favour which the Ap. shares with all Christians and by virtue of which he is one; ἀποστολήν =the more peculiar gifts of an Apostle.

We observe that St. Paul regards this spiritual endowment as conferred upon him by Christ (διʼ οὖ)—we may add, acting through His Spirit, as the like gifts are described elsewhere as proceeding from the Spirit (1Co_12, &c.).

εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως: may be rendered with Vulg. ad obediendum fidei provided that πίστ. is not hardened too much into the sense which it afterwards acquired of a ‘body of doctrine’ (with art. τῇ πίστει Judges 1:3). At this early date a body of formulated doctrine, though it is rapidly coming to exist, does not still exist: πίστις is still, what it is predominantly to St. Paul, the lively act or impulse of adhesion to Christ. In confessing Christ the lips ‘obey’ this impulse of the heart (Romans 10:10). From another point of view, going a step further back, we may speak of ‘obeying the Gospel’ (Romans 10:16). Faith is the act of assent by which the Gospel is appropriated. See below on ver. 17.

ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσιν. Gif. argues for the rendering ‘among all nations’ on the ground that a comprehensive address is best suited to the opening of the Epistle, and to the proper meaning of the phrase πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (cf. Genesis 18:18, &c.). But St. Paul’s commission as an Apostle was specially to the Gentiles (Galatians 2:8), and it is more pointed to tell the Roman Christians that they thus belong to his special province (ver. 6), than to regard them merely as one among the mass of nations. This is also clearly the sense in which the word is used in ver. 13. Cf. Hort, Rom. and Eph. p. 21 f.

ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ. This is rather more than simply ‘for His glory.’ The idea goes back to the O. T. (Psa_106. [105], 8; Ezekiel 20:14; Malachi 1:11). The Name of God is intimately connected with the revelation of God. Israel is the instrument or minister of that revelation; so that by the fidelity of Israel the revelation itself is made more impressive and commended in the eyes of other nations. But the Christian Church is the new Israel: and hence the gaining of fresh converts and their fidelity when gained serves in like manner to commend the further revelation made of God in Christ (αὐτοῦ, cf. Acts 5:41; Php 2:9).

6. ἐν οἷς: not merely in a geographical sense of a Jewish community among Gentiles, but clearly numbering the Roman Church among Gentile communities.

κλητοὶ Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ: ‘called ones of Jesus Christ’: gen. of possession.

7. ἐν ʼΡώμῃ: om. G g, schol. cod. 47 (τὸ ἐν ʼΡώμῃ οὔτε ἐν τῇ ἐξηγήσει οὔτε ἐν τῷ ῥητῷ μνημονεύει, i. e. some commentator whom the Scholiast had before him). G reads πᾶσι τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν ἀγάπῃ Θεοῦ (similarly d* Vulg. codd. and the commentary of Ambrstr. seem to imply πᾶσι τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Ῥώμῃ ἐν ἀγάπῃ Θεοῦ). The same MS. omits τοῖς ἐν Ῥώμῃ in ver. 15. These facts, taken together with the fluctuating position of the final doxology, 16:25-27, would seem to give some ground for the inference that there were in circulation in ancient times a few copies of the Epistle from which all local references had been removed. It is however important to notice that the authorities which place the doxology at the end of ch. 14 are quite different from those which omit ἐν Ῥώμῃ here and in ver. 15. For a full discussion of the question see the Introduction, § 9.

κλητοῖς ἁγίοις. Κλητὴ ἁγία represents consistently in LXX the phrase which is translated in AV. and RV. ‘an holy convocation’ (so eleven times in Lev_23 and Exodus 12:16). The rendering appears to be due to a misunderstanding, the Heb. word used being one with which the LXX translators were not familiar. Whereas in Heb. the phrase usually runs, ‘on such a day there shall be a holy convocation,’ the LXX treat the word translated convocation as an adj. and make ‘day’ the subject of the sentence, ‘such a day (or feast) shall be κλητὴ ἁγία, i. e. specially appointed, chosen, distinguished, holy (day).’ This is a striking instance of the way in which St. Paul takes a phrase which was clearly in the first instance a creation of the LXX and current wholly through it, appropriating it to Christian use, and recasts its meaning, substituting a theological sense for a liturgical. Obviously κλητοῖς has the same sense as κλητός in ver. 1: as he himself was ‘called’ to be an Apostle, so all Christians were ‘called’ to be Christians; and they personally receive the consecration which under the Old Covenant was attached to ‘times and seasons.’

For the following detailed statement of the evidence respecting κλητὴ ἁγία we are indebted to Dr. Driver:—

κλητή corresponds to מִקְרָא, from קָרָאִ to call, a technical term almost wholly confined to the Priests’ Code, denoting apparently a special religious meeting, or ‘convocation,’ held on certain sacred days.

It is represented by κλητή, Exodus 12:16 b; Leviticus 23:7, Leviticus 23:8, Leviticus 23:27, Leviticus 23:35, Leviticus 23:36; Numbers 28:25. Now in all these passages, where the Heb. has ‘on such a day there shall be a holy convocation.’ the LXX have ‘such a day shall be κλητὴ ἁγία, ’ i. e. they alter the form of the sentence, make day subject, and use κλητή with its proper force as an adj. ‘shall be a called (i.e. a specially appointed, chosen, distinguished* ), holy(day)’; cf. κλ. in Il. ix. 165 and Romans 1:1. They read analogously with מִקְרָא in Leviticus 23:2 αἱ ἑορταὶ κυρίου, ἂς καλέσετε αὐτὰς κλητὰς ἁγίας (cf. 5:37), 21 καὶ καλέσετε ταύτην τὴν ἡμέραν κλητήν· ἁγία ἔσται ὑμῖν. In Leviticus 23:3 (cf. 5:24), κλητὴ ἁγία seems to be in apposition with ἀνάπαυσις. The usage of κλητή in Lev_23 is, however, such as to suggest that it was probably felt to have the form of a subst. (sc. ἡμέρα); cf. ἐπίκλητος.

This view of κλ. is supported by their rendering of מִקְרָא elsewhere. In Exodus 12:16a, Leviticus 23:4 they also alter the form of the sentence, and render it by a verb, κληθήσεται ἁγία, and ἁγίας καλέσετε respectively.

In Numbers 28:18, Numbers 28:26 (καὶ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῶν νέων. … ἐπίκλητος ἁγία ἔσται ὑμῖν: similarly 29:1, 7, 12), they express it by ἐπίκλητος (the same word used (ἡ ἡμέρα ἡ πρώτη ἐπίκλητος ἁγία ἔσται ὑμῖν) ib. 1:16; 26:9, for the ordinary partic. called, summoned), i.e. I suppose in the same sense of specially appointed (cf. Joshua 20:9 αἱ πόλεις αἱ ἐπίκλητοι τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ).

Isaiah 1:13 ‘the calling of a convocation’ is represented in LXX by ἡμέραν μεγάλην, and 4:5 ‘all her convocations’ by τἁ περικύκλῳ αὐτῆς.

From all this, it occurs to me that the LXX were not familiar with the term מקרא, and did not know what it meant. I think it probable that they pronounced it not as a subst. מִקְרָא, but as a participle מְקֹרָא (‘called’).

ἁγίοις. The history of this word would seem to be very parallel to that of κλητοῖς. It is more probable that its meaning developed by a process of deepening from without inwards than by extension from within outwards. Its connotation would seem to have been at first physical and ceremonial, and to have become gradually more and more ethical and spiritual. (1) The fundamental idea appears to be that of ‘separation.’ So the word ‘holy’ came to be applied in all the Semitic languages, (2) to that which was ‘set apart’ for the service of God, whether things (e. g. 1 Kings 7:51 [37]) or persons (e.g. Exodus 22:31 [29]). But (3) inasmuch as that which was so ‘set apart’ or ‘consecrated’ to God was required to be free from blemish, the word would come to denote ‘freedom from blemish, spot, or stain’—in the first instance physical, but by degrees, as moral ideas ripened, also moral. (4) At first the idea of ‘holiness,’ whether physical or moral, would be directly associated with the service of God, but it would gradually become detached from this connexion and denote ‘freedom from blemish, spot, or stain,’ in itself and apart from any particular destination. In this sense it might be applied even to God Himself, and we find it so applied even in the earliest Hebrew literature (e. g. 1 Samuel 6:20). And in proportion as the conception of God itself became elevated and purified, the word which expressed this central attribute of His Being would contract a meaning of more severe and awful purity, till at last it becomes the culminating and supreme expression for the very essence of the Divine Nature. When once this height had been reached the sense so acquired would be reflected back over all the lower uses, and the tendency would be more and more to assimilate the idea of holiness in the creature to that of holiness in the Creator. This tendency is formulated in the exhortation, ‘Ye shall be holy; for I, the Lord your God, am holy’ (Leviticus 19:2, &c.).

Such would appear to have been the history of the word up to the time when St. Paul made use of it. He would find a series of meanings ready to his hand, some lower and some higher; and he chooses on this occasion not that which is highest but one rather midway in the scale. When he describes the Roman Christians as ἅγιοι, he does not mean that they reflect in their persons the attributes of the All-Holy, but only that they are ‘set apart’ or ‘consecrated’ to His service. At the same time he is not content to rest in this lower sense, but after his manner he takes it as a basis or starting-point for the higher. Because Christians are ‘holy’ in the sense of ‘consecrated,’ they are to become daily more fit for the service to which they are committed (Romans 6:17, Romans 6:18, Romans 6:22), they are to be ‘transformed by the renewing’ of their mind (Romans 12:2). He teaches in fact implicitly if not explicitly the same lesson as St. Peter, ‘As He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living (AV. conversation); because it is written, Ye shall be holy, for I am holy’ (1 Peter 1:15, 1 Peter 1:16).

We note that Ps. Sol. had already described the Messianic people as λαὸς ἅγιος (καὶ συνάξει λαὸν ἅγιον, οὗ ἀφηγήσεται ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ 17:28; cf. Daniel 7:18-27; Daniel 8:24). Similarly Enoch ciii. 2; cviii. 3, where ‘books of the holy ones = the roll of the members of the Kingdom’ (Charles). The same phrase had been a designation for Israel in O. T., but only in Deut. (7:6; 14:2, 21; 26:19; 28:9, varied from Exodus 19:6 ἔθνος ἅγιον). We have thus another instance in which St. Paul transfers to Christians a title hitherto appropriated to the Chosen People. But in this case the Jewish Messianic expectation had been beforehand with him.

There is a certain element of conjecture in the above sketch, which is inevitable from the fact that the earlier stages in the history of the word had been already gone through when the Hebrew literature begins. The instances above given will show this. The main problem is how to account for the application of the same word at once to the Creator and to His creatures, both things and persons. The common view (accepted also by Delitzsch) is that in the latter case it means ‘separated’ or ‘set apart’ for God, and in the former case that it means ‘separate from evil’ (sejunctus ab omni vitio, labis expers). But the link between these two meanings is little more than verbal; and it seems more probable that the idea of holiness in God, whether in the sense of exaltedness (Baudissin) or of purity (Delitzsch), is derivative rather than primary. There are a number of monographs on the subject, of which perhaps the best and the most accessible is that by Fr. Delitzsch in Herzog’s Real-Encyklopädie, Exo_2, s. v. ‘Heiligkeit Gottes.’ Instructive discussions will be found in Davidson, Ezekiel, p. xxxix. f.; Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 132 ff., 140 (140 ff., 150 Exo_2); Schultz, Theology of the Old Testament, ii. 131, 167 ff. A treatise by Dr. J. Agar Beet is on a good method, but is somewhat affected by critical questions as to the sequence of the documents.

There is an interesting progression in the addresses of St. Paul’s Epp.: 1, 2 Thess. Gal. τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ (ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις); 1, 2 Cor. τῇ ἐκκλ. + τοῖς ἁγίοις; 1 Cor. Rom. κλητοῖς ἁγίοις; Rom. Phil. πᾶσι τοῖς ἁγίοις; Eph. Col. τοῖς ἁγίοις καὶ πιστοῖς.

The idea of the local Church, as a unit in itself, is more prominent in the earlier Epp.; that of individual Christians forming part of the great body of believers (the Church Catholic) is more prominent in the later. And it would be natural that there should be some such progression of thought, as the number of local churches multiplied, and as the Apostle himself came to see them in a larger perspective. It would however be a mistake to argue at once from this that the use of ἐκκλησία for the local Church necessarily came first in order of time. On the other side may be urged the usage of the O. T., and more particularly of the Pentateuch, where ἐκκλησία constantly stands for the religious assembly of the whole people, as well as the saying of our Lord Himself in Matthew 16:13. But the question is too large to be argued as a side issue.

Rudolf Sohm’s elaborate Kirchenrecht (Leipzig, 1892) starts from the assumption that the prior idea is that of the Church as a whole. But just this part of his learned work has by no means met with general acceptance.

χάρις καὶ εἰρήνη. Observe the combination and deepened religious significance of the common Greek salutation χαίρειν, and the common Heb. salutation Shalom, ‘Peace.’ χάρις and εἰρήνη are both used in the full theological sense: χάρις = the favour of God εἰρήνη = the cessation of hostility to him and the peace of mind which follows upon it.

There are four formulae of greeting in N. T.: the simple χαίρειν in St. James; χάρις καὶ εἰρήνη in Epp. Paul. (except 1, 2 Tim.) and in 1, 2 St. Peter; χάρις, ἔλεος, εἰρήνη in the Epistles to Timothy and 2 St. John; ἔλεος καὶ εἰρήνη καὶ ἀγάπη in St. Jude.

εἰρήνη. We have seen how χάρις had acquired a deeper sense in N. T. as compared with O. T.; with εἰρήνη this process had taken place earlier. It too begins as a phrase of social intercourse, marking that stage in the advance of civilization at which the assumption that every stranger encountered was an enemy gave place to overtures of friendship (Εἰρήνη σοι Judges 1:19:20, &c.). But the word soon began to be used in a religious sense of the cessation of the Divine anger and the restoration of harmony between God and man (Psa_29. [28], 11 Κύριος εὐλογήσει τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν εῖρήνῃ: 85. [84], 8 λαλήσει εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ: ibid. 10 δικαιοσύνη καὶ εἰρήνη κατεφίλησαν: 119. [118], 165 εἰρήνη πολλὴ τοῖς ἀγαπῶσι τὸν νόμον: Isaiah 53:5 παιδεία εἰρήνης ήμῶν ἐπʼ αὐτόν: Jeremiah 14:13 ἀλήθειαν καὶ εἰρήνην δώσω ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς: Ezekiel 34:25 διαθήσομαι τῷ Δαυὶδ διαθήκην εἰρήνης [cf. 37:26]. Nor is this use confined to the Canonical Scriptures: cf. Enoch v. 4 (other reff. in Charles, ad loc.); Jubilees i. 15, 29; xxii. 9; xxxiii. 12, 30, &c.; it was one of the functions of the Messiah to bring ‘peace’ (Weber, Altsyn. Theol. p. 362 f.).

The nearest parallel for the use of the word in a salutation as here is Dan. 3:98 [31]; 4:34 (LXX); 3:98 [31]; 6:25 (Theodot.) εἰρήνη ὑμῖν πληθυνθείη.

ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ. The juxtaposition of God as Father and Christ as Lord may be added to the proofs already supplied by vv. 1, 4, that St. Paul, if not formally enunciating a doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, held a view which cannot really be distinguished from it. The assignment of the respective titles of ‘Father’ and ‘Lord’ represents the first beginning of Christological speculation. It is stated in precise terms and with a corresponding assignment of appropriate prepositions in 1 Corinthians 8:6 ἀλλʼ ἡμῖν εἷς Θεὸς ὁ πατήρ, ἐξ οὗ τὰ πάντα, καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς αὐτόν, καὶ εἷς Κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, διʼ οὗ τὰ πάντα, καὶ ἡμεῖς διʼ αὐτοῦ. The opposition in that passage between the gods of the heathen and the Christians’ God seems to show that ἡμῶν = at least primarily, ‘us Christians’ rather than ‘us men.’

Not only does the juxtaposition of ‘Father’ and ‘Lord’ mark a stage in the doctrine of the Person of Christ; it also marks an important stage in the history of the doctrine of the Trinity. It is found already some six years before the composition of Ep. to Romans at the time when St. Paul wrote his earliest extant Epistle (1 Thessalonians 1:1; cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:2). This shows that even at that date (a.d. 52) the definition of the doctrine had begun. It is well also to remember that although in this particular verse of Ep. to Romans the form in which it appears is incomplete, the triple formula concludes an Epistle written a few months earlier (2 Corinthians 13:14). There is nothing more wonderful in the history of human thought than the silent and imperceptible way in which this doctrine, to us so difficult, took its place without struggle and without controversy among accepted Christian truths.

πατρὸς ἡμῶν. The singling out of this title must be an echo of its constant and distinctive use by our Lord Himself. The doctrine of the Fatherhood of God was taught in the Old Testament (Psalm 68:5; Psalm 89:26; Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16; Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 31:9; Malachi 1:6; Malachi 2:10); but there is usually some restriction of qualification—God is the Father of Israel, of the Messianic King, of a particular class such as the weak and friendless. It may also be said that the doctrine of Divine Fatherhood is implicitly contained in the stress which is laid on the ‘loving-kindness’ of God (e.g. in such fundamental passages as Exodus 34:6, Exodus 34:7 compared with Psalm 103:13). But this idea which lies as a partially developed germ in the Old Testament breaks into full bloom in the New. It is placed by our Lord Himself in the fore-front of the conception of God. It takes however a two-fold ramification: ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν [ἡμῶν, σου, αὐτῶν] (e. g. twenty times in St. Matt.), and ὁ πατήρ μου [ὁ πατήρ] (e. g. twenty-three times in St. Matt.). In particular this second phrase marks the distinction between the Son and the Father; so that when the two are placed in juxtaposition, as in the greeting of this and other Epistles, ὁ Πατήρ is the natural term to use. The mere fact of juxtaposition sufficiently suggests the πατὴρ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (which is expressed in full in 2 Corinthians 1:3; Ephesians 1:3; Colossians 1:3; cf. Romans 15:6; 2 Corinthians 11:31, but not Ephesians 3:14; Colossians 2:2); so that the Apostle widens the reference by throwing in ἡμῶν, to bring out the connexion between the source of ‘grace and peace’ and its recipients.

It is no doubt true that πατήρ is occasionally used in N. T. in the more general sense of ‘Creator’ (Jam 1:17 ‘Father of lights,’ i. e. in the first instance, Creator of the heavenly bodies; Hebrews 12:9 ‘Father of spirits’; cf. Acts 17:28, but perhaps not Ephesians 4:6 πατὴρ πάντων, where πάντων may be masc.). It is true also that ὁ πατὴρ τῶν ὅλων in this sense is common in Philo, and that similar phrases occur in the early post-apostolic writers (e. g. Clem. Rom. ad Cor. xix. 2; Justin, Apol. i. 36, 61; Tatian, Or. c. Graec. 4). But when Harnack prefers to give this interpretation to Pater in the earliest creeds (Das Apost. Glaubensbekenntniss, p. 20), the immense preponderance of N. T. usage, and the certainty that the Creed is based upon that usage (e. g. in 1 Corinthians 8:6) seem to be decisive against him. On the early history of the term see esp. Swete, Apost. Creed, p. 20 ff.

The Theological Terminology of Romans 1:1-7In looking back over these opening verses it is impossible not to be struck by the definiteness and maturity of the theological teaching contained in them. It is remarkable enough, and characteristic of this primitive Christian literature, especially of the Epistles of St. Paul, that a mere salutation should contain so much weighty teaching of any kind; but it is still more remarkable when we think what that teaching is and the early date at which it was penned. There are no less than five distinct groups of ideas all expressed with deliberate emphasis and precision: (1) A complete set of ideas as to the commission and authority of an Apostle; (2) A complete set of ideas as to the status in the sight of God of a Christian community; (3) A clear apprehension of the relation of the new order of things to the old; (4) A clear assertion of what we should call summarily the Divinity of Christ, which St. Paul regarded both in the light of its relation to the expectations of his countrymen, and also in its transcendental reality, as revealed by or inferred from the words and acts of Christ Himself; (5) A somewhat advanced stage in the discrimination of distinct Persons in the Godhead. We observe too how St. Paul connects together these groups of ideas, and sees in them so many parts of a vast Divine plan which covers the whole of human history, and indeed stretches back beyond its beginning. The Apostle has to the full that sense which is so impressive in the Hebrew prophets that he himself is only an instrument, the place and function of which are clearly foreseen, for the accomplishment of God’s gracious purposes (compare e. g. Jeremiah 1:5 and Galatians 1:15). These purposes are working themselves out, and the Roman Christians come within their range.

When we come to examine particular expressions we find that a large proportion of them are drawn from the O. T. In some cases an idea which has been hitherto fluid is sharply formulated (κλητός, ἀφωρισμένος); in other cases an old phrase has been adopted with comparatively little modification (ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ, and perhaps εἰρήνη); in others the transference involves a larger modification (δοῦλος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, χάρις, κλητοὶ ἅγιοι, Κύριος, Θεὸς πατήρ); in others again we have a term which has acquired a significance since the close of the O. T. which Christianity appropriates (ἐπαγγελία [προεπηγγείλατο], γραφαὶ ἅγιαι, ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν, ἅγιοι); in yet others we have a new coinage (ἀπόστολος, εὐαγγέλιον), which however in these instances is due, not to St. Paul or the other Apostles, but to Christ Himself.

ST. PAUL AND THE ROMAN CHURCH

1:8-15. God knows how long I have desired to see you —a hope which I trust may at last be accomplished—and to deliver to you, as to the rest of the Gentile world, my message of salvation.

8 In writing to you I must first offer my humble thanks to God, through Him Who as High Priest presents all our prayers and praises, for the world-wide fame which as a united Church you bear for your earnest Christianity. 9 If witness were needed to show how deep is my interest in you, I might appeal to God Himself Who hears that constant ritual of prayer which my spirit addresses to Him in my work of preaching the glad tidings of His Son. 10 He knows how unceasingly your Church is upon my lips, and how every time I kneel in prayer it is my petition, that at some near day I may at last, in the course which God’s Will marks out for me, really have my way made clear to visit you. 11 For I have a great desire to see you and to impart to you some of those many gifts (of instruction, comfort, edification and the like) which the Holy Spirit has been pleased to bestow upon me, and so to strengthen your Christian character. 12 I do not mean that I am above receiving or that you have nothing to bestow,—far from it,—but that I myself may be cheered by my intercourse with you (ἐν ὑμῖν), or that we may be mutually cheered by each other’s faith, I by yours and you by mine. 13 I should be sorry for you to suppose that this is a new resolve on my part. The fact is that I often intended to visit you—an intention until now as often frustrated —in the hope of reaping some spiritual harvest from my labours among you, as in the rest of the Gentile world. 14 There is no limit to this duty of mine to preach the Gospel. To all without distinction whether of language or of culture, I must discharge the debt which Christ has laid upon me. 15 Hence, so far as the decision rests with me, I am bent on delivering the message of salvation to you too at Rome.

8. διά. Agere autem Deo gratias, hoc est sacrificium laudis offerre: et ideo addit per Jesum Christum; velut per Pontificen magnum Orig.

ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν. For a further discussion of this word see below on ver. 17. Here it is practically equivalent to ‘your Christianity,’ the distinctive act which makes a man a Christian carrying with it the direct consequences of that act upon the character. Much confusion of thought would be saved if wherever ‘faith’ was mentioned the question were always consciously asked, Who or what is its object? It is extremely rare for faith to be used in the N. T. as a mere abstraction without a determinate object. In this Epistle ‘faith’ is nearly always ‘faith in Christ.’ The object is expressed in 3:22, 26 but is left to be understood elsewhere. In the case of Abraham ‘faith’ is not so much ‘faith in God’ as ‘faith in the promises of God,’ which promises are precisely those which are fulfilled in Christianity. Or it would perhaps be more strictly true to say that the immediate object of faith is in most cases Christ or the promises which pointed to Christ. At the same time there is always in the background the Supreme Author of that whole ‘economy’ of which the Incarnation of Christ formed a part. Thus it is God Who justifies though the moving cause of justification is usually defined as ‘faith in Christ.’ And inasmuch as it is He Who both promised that Christ should come and also Himself brought about the fulfilment of the promise, even justifying faith may be described as ‘faith in God.’ The most conspicuous example of this is ch. 4:5 τῷ δὲ μὴ ἐργαζομένῳ, πιστεύοντι δὲ ἐπὶ τὸν δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἀσεβῆ, λογίζεται ἡ πίστις αὐτοῦ εἰς δικαιοσύνην.

9. λατρεύω connected with λάτρις, ‘hired servant,’ and λάτρον, ‘hire’: (i) already in classical Gk. applied to the service of a higher power (διὰ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ λατρείαν Plato, Apol. 23 B); (ii) in LXX always of the service either of the true God or of heathen divinities. Hence Augustine: Λατρεία … aut semper aut tam frequenter ut fere semper, ea dicitur servitus quae pertinet ad colendum Deum (Trench, Syn. p. 120 f.).

Λατρεύειν is at once somewhat wider and somewhat narrower in meaning than λειτουργεῖν: (i) it is used only (or almost wholly) of the service of God where λειτουργεῖν (λειτουργός) is used also of the service of men (Joshua 1:1 v. l; 1 Kings 1:4, 1 Kings 1:19:21; 2 Kings 4:43, 2 Kings 4:6:15, &c.); (ii) but on the other hand it is used of the service both of priest and people, esp. of the service rendered to Jahveh by the whole race of Israel (Acts 26:7 τὸ δωδεκάφυλον ἐν ἐκτενείᾳ λατρεῦον, cf. Romans 9:4); λειτουργεῖν is appropriated to the ministrations of priests and Levites (Hebrews 10:11, &c.). Where λειτουργεῖν (λειτουργός) is not strictly in this sense, there is yet more or less conscious reference to it (e. g. in Romans 13:6 and esp. 15:16).

ἐν τῷ πνεύματί μου. The πνεῦμα is the organ of service; the εὐαγγέλιον ( = τὸ κήρυγμα τοῦ εὐαγγελίου) the sphere in which the service is rendered.

ἐπὶ τῶν προσευχῶν μου: ‘at my prayers,’ at all my times of prayer (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:2; Ephesians 1:16; Philemon 1:4).

10. εἴπως. On the construction see Burton, Moods and Tenses, § 276.

ἤδη ποτέ: a difficult expression to render in English; ‘now at length’ (AV. and RV.) omits ποτέ, just as ‘in ony maner sumtyme’ (Wic.) omits ἤδη; ‘sometime at the length’ (Rhem.) is more accurate, ‘some near day at last.’ In contrast with νῦν (which denotes present time simply) ἤδη denotes the present or near future in relation to the process by which it has been reached, and with a certain suggestion of surprise or relief that it has been reached so soon as it has. So here ἤδη = ‘now, after all this waiting’: ποτέ makes the moment more indefinite. On ἤδη see Bäumlein, Griech. Partikeln, p. 138 ff.

εὐοδωθήσομαι. The word has usually dropped the idea of ὁδός and means ‘to be prospered’ in any way (e. g. 1 Corinthians 16:2 ὅ τι ἂν εὐοδῶται, where it is used of profits gained in trade; similarly in LXX and Test. XII. Patr. Judges 1:1, Gad 7); and so here Mey. Gif. RV., &c. It does not, however, follow that because a metaphor is often dropped, it may not be recalled where it is directly suggested by the context. We are thus tempted to render with the earlier English Versions and Vulg. prosperum iter habeam (‘I have a spedi wey’ Wic.).

ἐν τῷ θελήματι τοῦ Θεοῦ. St. Paul has a special reason for laying stress on the fact that all his movements are in the hands of God. He has a strong sense of the risks which he incurs in going up to Jerusalem (Romans 15:30 f.), and he is very doubtful whether anything that he intends will be accomplished (Hort, Rom. and Eph. p. 42 ff.).

ἐλθεῖν: probably for ὥστε ἐλθεῖν (Burton, § 371 c).

11. ἐπιποθῶ: ἐπι- marks the direction of the desire, ‘to you-ward’; thus by laying stress on the personal object of the verb it rather strengthens its emotional character.

χάρισμα πνευματικόν. St. Paul has in his mind the kind of gifts —partly what we should call natural and partly transcending the ordinary workings of nature—described in 1 Cor. 12-14; Romans 12:6 ff. Some, probably most, of these gifts he possessed in an eminent degree himself (1 Corinthians 14:18), and he was assured that when he came to Rome he would be able to give the Christians there the fullest benefit of them (Romans 15:29 οἶδα δὲ ὅτι ἐρχόμενος πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐν πληρώματι εὐλογίας Χριστοῦ ἐλεύσομαι). His was conspicuously a case which came under the description of John 7:38 ‘He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,’ i. e. the believer in Christ should himself become a centre and abounding source of spiritual influence and blessing to others.

εἰς τὸ στηριχθῆναι: εἰς τό with Infin. expressing purpose ‘is employed with special frequency by Paul, but occurs also in Heb_1 Pet. and Jas.’ (Burton, § 409).

12. συμπαρακληθῆναι: the subject is ἐμέ, which, from the συν- in συμπαρακλ. and ἐν ὑμῖν, is treated in the latter part of the sentence as equivalent to ἡμεῖς. We note of course the delicacy with which the Apostle suddenly checks himself in the expression of his desire to impart from his own fulness to the Roman Christians: he will not assume any airs of superiority, but meets them frankly upon their own level: if he has anything to confer upon them they in turn will confer an equivalent upon him.

13. οὐ θέλω: οὐκ οἴομαι (D*) G, non arbitror d e g Ambrstr.; an instance of Western paraphrase.

σχῶ, ‘I may get.’

14. Ἕλλησί τε καὶ βαρβάροις: a resolution into its parts of πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, according to (i) divisions of language, (ii) degrees of culture.

15. τὸ κατʼ ἐμέ. It is perhaps best, with Gif. Va. Mou., to take τὸ κατʼ ἐμέ as subject, πρόθυμον as predicate: so g Vulg. quod in me promtum est. In that case τὸ κατʼ ἐμέ will = ‘I, so far as it rests with me,’ i.e. ‘under God’—L’homme propose, Dieu dispose; cf. ἐν τῷ θελήματι τοῦ Θεοῦ above. Differently Orig.-lat. (Rufinus) who makes τὸ κατʼ ἐμέ adverbial, quod in me est promtus sum: so toc d e Ambrstr. The objection to this is that St. Paul would have written πρόθυμός εἰμι. Mey. Lips. and others take τὸ κατʼ ἐμὲ πρόθυμον together as subject of [ἐστιν] εὐαγγελίσασθαι, ‘hence the eagerness on my part (is) to preach.’ In Ephesians 6:21; Php 1:12; Colossians 4:7 τὰ κατʼ ἐμέ = ‘my affairs.’

THESIS OF THE EPISTLE: THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD BY FAITH

1:16, 17. That message, humble as it may seem, casts a new light on the righteousness of God: for it tells how His righteousness flows forth and embraces man, when it is met by Faith, or loyal adhesion to Christ.

16Even there, in the imperial city itself, I am not ashamed of my message, repellent and humiliating as some of its features may seem. For it is a mighty agency, set in motion by God Himself, and sweeping on with it towards the haven of Messianic security every believer—first in order of precedence the Jew, and after him the Gentile. 17Do you ask how this agency works and in what it consists? It is a revelation of the righteousness of God, manifested in a new method by which righteousness is acquired by man,— a method, the secret of which is Faith, or ardent loyalty to Jesus as Messiah and Lord; which Faith is every day both widening its circles and deepening its hold. It was such an attitude as this which the prophet Habakkuk meant when, in view of the desolating Chaldaean invasion, he wrote: ‘The righteous man shall save his life by his faith, or loyalty to Jehovah, while his proud oppressors perish.’

16. ἐπαισχύνομαι. St. Paul was well aware that his Gospel was ‘unto Jews a stumbling-block and unto Gentiles foolishness’ (1 Corinthians 1:23). How could it be otherwise, as Chrysostom says, he was about to preach of One who ‘passed for the son of a carpenter, brought up in Judaea, in the house of a poor woman … and who died like a criminal in the company of robbers?’ It hardly needed the contrast of imperial Rome to emphasize this. On the attraction which Rome had for St. Paul see the Introduction, § 1; also Hicks in Studia Biblica, iv. 11.

We have an instance here of a corruption coming into the Greek text through the Latin: ἐπαισχ. ἐπὶ εὐαγγέλιου G, erubesco super evangelium g, confundor de evangelio Aug. The Latin renderings need not imply any various reading. The barbarism in G, which it will be remembered has an interlinear version, arose from the attempt to find a Greek equivalent for every word in the Latin. This is only mentioned as a clear case of a kind of corruption which doubtless operated elsewhere, as notably in Cod. Bezae. It is to be observed, however, that readings of this kind are necessarily quite late.

δύναμις is the word properly used of the manifestations of Divine power. Strictly indeed δύναμις is the inherent attribute or faculty, ἐνέργεια is the attribute or faculty in operation. But the two words are closely allied to each other and δύναμις is so often used for exerted power, especially Divine superhuman power, that it practically covers ἐνέργεια. St. Paul might quite well have written ἐνέργεια here, but the choice of δύναμις throws the stress rather more on the source than on the process. The word δύναμις in a context like this is one of those to which modern associations seem to give a greater fulness and vividness of meaning. We shall not do wrong if we think of the Gospel as a ‘force’ in the same kind of sense as that in which science has revealed to us the great ‘forces’ of nature. It is a principle operating on a vast and continually enlarging scale, and taking effect in a countless number of individuals. This conception only differs from the scientific conception of a force like ‘heat’ or ‘electricity’ in that whereas the man of science is too apt to abstract his conception of force from its origin, St. Paul conceives of it as essentially a mode of personal activity; the Gospel has all God’s Omnipotence behind it. As such it is before all things a real force, not a sham force like so many which the Apostle saw around him; its true nature might be misunderstood, but that did not make it any less powerful: ὁ λόγος γὰρ ὁ τοῦ σταυροῦ τοῖς μὲν ἀπολλυμένοις μωρία ἐστί, τοῖς δὲ σωζομένοις ἡμῖν δύναμις Θεοῦ ἐστί 1 Corinthians 1:18; cf. 1 Corinthians 2:4, 1 Corinthians 2:4:20; 1 Thessalonians 1:5.

εἰς σωτηρίαν. The fundamental idea contained in σωτηρία is the removal of dangers menacing to life and the consequent placing of life in conditions favourable to free and healthy expansion. Hence, as we might expect, there is a natural progression corresponding to the growth in the conception of life and of the dangers by which it is threatened. (i) In the earlier books of the O. T. σωτ. is simply deliverance from physical peril (Judges 1:15:18; 1 Samuel 11:9, 1 Samuel 11:13, &c.). (ii) But the word has more and more a tendency to be appropriated to the great deliverances of the nation (e. g. Exodus 14:13, Exodus 15:2, the Passage of the Red Sea; Isaiah 45:17, 46:13, 52:10, &c., the Return from Exile). (iii) Thus by a natural transition it is associated with the Messianic deliverance; and that both (α) in the lower forms of the Jewish Messianic expectation (Ps. Sol. 10:9; 12:7; cf. Test. XII.Patr. Sym. 7; Judges 1:22; Benj. 9, 10 [the form used in all these passages is σωτήριον]; Luke 1:69, Luke 1:71, Luke 1:77), and (β) in the higher form of the Christian hope (Acts 4:12; Acts 13:26, &c.). In this latter sense σωτηρία covers the whole range of the Messianic deliverance, both in its negative aspect as a rescuing from the Wrath under which the whole world is lying (ver. 18 ff.) and in its positive aspect as the imparting of ‘eternal life’ (Mark 10:30 ""; John 3:15, John 3:16, &c.). Both these sides are already combined in the earliest extant Epistle (ὅτι οὐκ ἔθετο ἡμᾶς ὁ Θεὸς εἰς ὀργήν, ἀλλʼ εἰς περιποίησιν σωτηρίας διὰ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τοῦ ἀποθανόντος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, ἵνα εἴτε γρηγορῶμεν εἴτε καθεύδωμεν ἅμα σὺν αὐτῷ ζήσωμεν 1 Thessalonians 5:9, 1 Thessalonians 5:10).

πρῶτον: om. B G g, Tert. adv. Marc. Lachmann Treg. WH. bracket, because of the combination of B with Western authorities, but they do no more than bracket because in Epp. Paul. B has a slight Western element, to which this particular reading may belong. In that case it would rest entirely upon Western authority. Marcion appears to have omitted πρῶτον as well as the quotation from Habakkuk, and it is possible that the omission in this small group of Western MSS. may be due to his influence.

For the precedence assigned to the Jew comp. Romans 3:1, Romans 3:9:1 ff., Romans 3:11:16 ff., Romans 3:15:9; also Matthew 15:24; John 4:22; Acts 13:46. The point is important in view of Baur and his followers who exaggerate the opposition of St. Paul to the Jews. He defends himself and his converts from their attacks; but he fully concedes the priority of their claim and he is most anxious to conciliate them (Romans 15:31; cf. 9:1 ff, 10:1 ff.; 15:8, &c.: see also Introduction § 4).

17. δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ. For some time past it has seemed to be almost an accepted exegetical tradition that the ‘righteousness of God’ means here ‘a righteousness of which God is the author and man the recipient,’ a righteousness not so much ‘of God’ as ‘from God,’ i. e. a state or condition of righteousness bestowed by God upon man. But quite recently two protests have been raised against this view, both English and both, as it happens, associated with the University of Durham, one by Dr. Barmby in the Pulpit Commentary on Romans, and the other by Dr. A. Robertson in The Thinker for Nov. 1893* ; comp. also a concise note by Dr. T. K. Abbott ad loc. There can be little doubt that the protest is justified; not so much that the current view is wrong as that it is partial and incomplete.

The ‘righteousness of God’ is a great and comprehensive idea which embraces in its range both God and man; and in this fundamental passage of the Epistle neither side must be lost sight of. (1) In proof that the righteousness intended here is primarily ‘the righteousness of God Himself’ it may be urged: (i) that this is consistently the sense of the righteousness of God in the Old Testament and more particularly in passages closely resembling the present, such as Psa_98. [97], 2, ‘The Lord hath made known His salvation: His righteousness hath He revealed (ἀπεκάλυψεν) in the sight of the nations,’ which contains the three key-words of the verse before us; (ii) that elsewhere in the Epistle δικ. Θεοῦ = ‘the righteousness of God Himself’ (several of the passages, e. g. 3:21, 22, 10:3, have the same ambiguity as the text, but 3:5, 25, 26 are quite clear); (iii) that the marked antithesis ἀποκαλύπτεται γὰρ ὀργὴ Θεοῦ in ver. 18 compared with δικαιοσύνη γὰρ Θεοῦ ἀποκαλύπτεται in ver. 17 requires that the gen. Θεοῦ shall be taken in the same sense in both places. These are arguments too strong to be resisted.

(2) But at the same time those which go to prove that δικ. Θεοῦ is a gift of righteousness bestowed upon man are hardly less convincing. (i) The righteousness in question is described as being revealed ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν; and in the parallel passage 3:22 it is qualified as δικ. Θεοῦ διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας, where its relation to the human recipient is quite unmistakable. (ii) This relation is further confirmed by the quotation from Habakkuk where the epithet δίκαιος is applied not to God but to man. Observe the logical connexion of the two clauses, δικαιοσύνη γὰρ Θεοῦ ἀποκαλύπτεται ̣ ̣ ̣ καθὼς γέγραπται, Ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζησεται. (iii) Lastly, in the parallel Php 3:9 the thought of the Apostle is made quite explicit: μὴ ἔχων ἐμὴν δικαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ νόμου, ἀλλὰ τὴν διὰ πίστεως Χριστοῦ, τὴν ἐκ Θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει. The insertion of the preposition ἐκ transfers the righteousness from God to man, or we may say traces the process of extension by which it passes from its source to its object.

For (3) the very cogency of the arguments on both sides is enough to show that the two views which we have set over against each other are not mutually exclusive but rather inclusive. The righteousness of which the Apostle is speaking not only proceeds from God but is the righteousness of God Himself: it is this, however, not as inherent in the Divine Essence but as going forth and embracing the personalities of men. It is righteousness active and energizing; the righteousness of the Divine Will as it were projected and enclosing and gathering into itself human wills. St. Paul fixes this sense upon it in another of the great key-verses of the Epistle, ch. 3:26 εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ. The second half of this clause is in no way opposed to the first, but follows from it by natural and inevitable sequence: God attributes righteousness to the believer because He is Himself righteous. The whole scheme of things by which He gathers to Himself a righteous people is the direct and spontaneous expression of His own inherent righteousness: a necessity of His own Nature impels Him to make them like Himself. The story how He has done so is the burden of the ‘Gospel.’ For a fuller development of the idea contained in ‘the righteousness of God’ see below.

ἐκ πίστεως. This root-conception with St. Paul means in the first instance simply the acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah and Son of God; the affirmation of that primitive Christian Creed which we have already had sketched in vv. 3, 4. It is the ‘Yes’ of the soul when the central proposition of Christianity is presented to it. We hardly need more than this one fact, thus barely stated, to explain why it was that St. Paul attached such immense importance to it. It is so characteristic of his habits of mind to go to the root of things, that we cannot be surprised at his taking for the centre of his system a principle which is only less prominent in other writers because they are content, if we may say so, to take their section of doctrine lower down the line and to rest in secondary causes instead of tracing them up to primary. Two influences in particular seem to have impelled the eager mind of St. Paul to his more penetrative view. One was his own experience. He dated all his own spiritual triumphs from the single moment of his vision on the road to Damascus. Not that they were all actually won there, but they were all potentially won. That was the moment at which he was as a brand plucked from the burning: anything else that came to him later followed in due sequence as the direct and inevitable outcome of the change that was then wrought in him. It was then that there flashed upon him the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth, whom he had persecuted as a pretender and blasphemer, was really exalted to the right hand of God, and really charged with infinite gifts and blessings for men. The conviction then decisively won sank into his soul, and became the master-key which he applied to the solution of all problems and all struggles ever afterwards.

But St. Paul was a Jew, an ardent Jew, a Pharisee, who had spent his whole life before his conversion in the study of the Old Testament. And it was therefore natural to him, as soon as he began to reflect on this experience of his that he should go back to his Bible, and seek there for the interpretation of it. When he did so two passages seemed to him to stand out above all others. The words πίστις, πιστεύω are not very common in the LXX, but they occurred in connexion with two events which were as much turning-points in the history of Israel as the embracing of Christianity had been a turning-point for himself. The Jews were in the habit of speculating about Abraham’s faith, which was his response to the promise made to him. The leading text which dealt with this was Genesis 15:6: and there it was distinctly laid down that this faith of Abraham’s had consequences beyond itself: another primary term was connected with it: ‘Abraham believed God and it (his belief) was reckoned unto him for righteousness.’ Again just before the beginning of the great Chaldaean or Babylonian invasion, which was to take away their ‘place and nation’ from the Jews but which was at the same time to purify them in the furnace of affliction, the Prophet Habakkuk had announced that one class of persons should be exempted on the ground of this very quality, ‘faith.’ ‘The just or righteous man shall live by faith.’ Here once more faith was brought into direct connexion with righteousness. When therefore St. Paul began to interrogate his own experience and to ask why it was that since his conversion, i. e. since his acceptance of Jesus as Messiah and Lord, it had become so much easier for him to do right than it had been before; and when he also brought into the account the conclusion, to which the same conversion had led him, as to the significance of the Life and Death of Jesus for the whole Church or body of believers; what could lie nearer at hand than that he should associate faith and righteousness together, and associate them in the way of referring all that made the condition of righteousness so much more possible under Christianity than it had been under Judaism, objectively to the work of the Messiah, and subjectively to the appropriation of that work by the believer in the assent which he gave to the one proposition which expressed its value?

It will be seen that there is more than one element in this conception which has to be kept distinct. As we advance further in the Epistle, and more particularly when we come to the great passage 3:21-26, we shall become aware that St. Paul attached to the Death of Christ what we may call a sacrificial efficacy. He regarded it as summing up under the New Covenant all the functions that the Mosaic Sacrifices had discharged under the Old. As they had the effect, as far as anything outward could have the effect, of placing the worshipper in a position of fitness for approach to God; so once for all the sacrifice of Christ had placed the Christian worshipper in this position. That was a fact objective and external to himself of which the Christian had the benefit simply by being a Christian; in other words by the sole act of faith. If besides this he also found by experience that in following with his eye in loyal obedience (like the author of Psa_123) his Master Christ the restraint of selfishness and passion became far easier for him than it had been, that was indeed a different matter; but that too was ultimately referable to the same cause; it too dated from the same moment, the moment of the acceptance of Christ. And although in this case more might be said to be done by the man himself, yet even there Christ was the true source of strength and inspiration; and the more reliance was placed on this strength and inspiration the more effective it became; so much so that St. Paul glories in his infirmities because they threw him back upon Christ, so that when he was weak, then he became strong.

On this side the influence of Christ upon the Christian life was a continuous influence extending as long as life itself. But even here the critical moment was the first, because it established the relation. It was like magnetism which begins to act as soon as the connexion is complete. Accordingly we find that stress is constantly laid upon this first moment—the moment of being ‘baptized into Christ’ or ‘putting on Christ,’ although it is by no means implied that the relation ceases where it began, and on the contrary it is rather a relation which should go on strengthening. Here too the beginning is an act of faith, but the kind of faith which proceeds ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν. We shall have the process described more fully when we come to chapters 6-8.

ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν. The analogy of Psalm 83:8 (84:7) ἐκ δυνάμεως εἰς δύναμιν, and of 2 Corinthians 2:16 ἐκ θανάτου εἰς θάνατον … ἐκ ζωῆς εἰς ζωήν, seems to show that this phrase should be taken as widely as possible. It is a mistake to limit it either to the deepening of faith in the individual or to its spread in the world at large (ex fide predicantium in fidem credentium Sedulius): both are included: the phrase means ‘starting from a smaller quantity of faith to produce a larger quantity,’ at once intensively and extensively, in the individual and in society.

ὁ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως. Some take the whole of this phrase together. ‘The man whose righteousness is based on faith,’ as if the contrast (not expressed but implied) were between the man whose righteousness is based on faith and one whose righteousness is based on works. It is true that this is quite in harmony with St. Paul’s teaching as expressed more fully in Romans 3:22, Romans 3:25; Galatians 2:16: but it was certainly not the meaning of Habakkuk, and if St. Paul had intended to emphasize the point here it lay very near at hand to write ὁ δὲ ἐκ πίστεως δίκαιος, and so remove all ambiguity. It is merely a question of emphasis, because in the ordinary way of taking the verse it is implied that the ruling motive of the man, the motive which gives value to his righteousness and gains for him the Divine protection, is his faith.

A few authorities (C*, Vulg. codd. non opt. Harcl., Orig.-lat. Hieron) insert μου (ὁ δὲ δίκ. μου ἐκ πίστεως, or ὁ δὲ δίκ. ἐκ πίστεως μου ζήσεται) from the LXX. Marcion, as we should expect, seems to have omitted not only πρῶτον but the quotation from Habakkuk; this would naturally follow from his antipathy to everything Jewish, though he was not quite consistent in cutting out all quotations from the O. T. He retains the same quotation (not, however, as a quotation) in Galatians 3:4, the context of which he is able to turn against the Jews. For the best examination of Marcion’s text see Zahn, Gesch. d. Neutest. Kanons, ii. 515 ff.

The word δίκαιος and its cognates

δίκαιος, δικαιοσύνη. In considering the meaning and application of these terms it is important to place ourselves at the right point of view—at the point of view, that is, of St. Paul himself, a Jew of the Jews, and not either Greek or mediaeval or modern. Two main facts have to be borne in mind in regard to the history of the words δίκαιος and δικαιοσύνη. The first is that although there was a sense in which the Greek words covered the whole range of right action (Eth. Nic. V. i. 15 δικαιοσύνη = τελεία ἀρετή with the single qualification that it is πρὸς ἕτερον, the duty to one’s neighbour* ), yet in practice it was far more commonly used in the narrower sense of Justice (distributive or corrective ibid.2 ff.). The Platonic designation of δικαιοσύνη as one of the four cardinal virtues (Wisdom, Temperance, and Courage or Fortitude, being the others) had a decisive and lasting influence on the whole subsequent history of the word in the usage of Greek philosophy, and of all those moral systems which have their roots in that fertile soil. In giving a more limited scope to the word Plato was only following the genius of his people. The real standard of Greek morals was rather τὸ καλόν—that which was morally noble, impressive, admirable—than τὸ δίκαιον. And if there was this tendency to throw the larger sense of δικαιοσύνη into the background in Greek morals, that tendency was still more intensified when the scene was changed from Greece to Rome. The Latin language had no equivalent at all for the wider meaning of δικαιοσύνη. It had to fall back upon justitia, which in Christian circles indeed could not help being affected by the dominant use in the Bible, but which could never wholly throw off the limiting conditions of its origin. This is the second fact of great and outstanding significance. We have to remember that the Middle Ages derived one half of its list of virtues through Cicero from the Stoics and Plato, and that the four Pagan virtues were still further thrown into the shade by the Christian triad.

Happily for ourselves we have in English two distinct words for the two distinct conceptions, ‘justice’ and ‘righteousness.’ And so especially from the time of the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, the conception ‘righteousness’ has gone far to recover its central importance. The same may perhaps be said of the Teutonic nations generally, though the strength of the Biblical influence, though the German branch has but the single word Gerechtigkeit to express the two ideas. With them it is probably true that the wider sense takes precedence of the narrower. But at the time when St. Paul wrote the Jew stood alone in maintaining the larger sense of the word full and undiminished.

It is a subordinate question what was the origin of the fundamental idea. A recent writer (Smend, Alttest. Religionsgesch. p. 410 ff.) puts forward the view that this was the ‘being in the right,’ as a party to a suit in a court of law. It may well be true that as δίκη meant in the first instance ‘usage,’ and then came to mean ‘right’ because usage was the earliest standard of right, in like manner the larger idea of ‘righteousness’ may have grown up out of the practice of primitive justice. It may have been first applied to the litigant who was adjudged to be ‘in the right,’ and to the judge, who awarded ‘the right’ carefully and impartially.

This is matter, more or less, of speculation. In any case the Jew of St. Paul’s day, whatever his faults, assigned no inadequate place to Righteousness. It was with him really the highest moral ideal, the principle of all action, the goal of all effort.

If the Jew had a fault it was not that righteousness occupied an inadequate place in his thoughts; it was rather that he went a wrong way to attain to it. Ἰσραὴλ δὲ διώκων νόμον δικαιοσύνης εἰς νόμον οὐκ ἔφθασε, is St. Paul’s mournful verdict (Romans 9:31). For a Jew the whole sphere of righteousness was taken up by the Mosaic Law. His one idea of righteousness was that of conformity to this Law. Righteousness was for him essentially obedience to the law. No doubt it was this in the first instance out of regard to the law as the expressed Will of God. But the danger lay in resting too much in the code as a code and losing sight of the personal Will of a holy and good God behind it. The Jew made this mistake; and the consequence was that his view of obedience to the law became formal and mechanical. It is impossible for an impartial mind not to be deeply touched by the spectacle of the religious leaders of a nation devoting themselves with so much earnestness and zeal to the study of a law which they believed to come, and which in a certain sense and measure really did come, from God, and yet failing so disastrously as their best friends allow that they did fail in grasping the law’s true spirit. No one felt more keenly than St. Paul himself the full pathos of the situation. His heart bleeds for them (Romans 9:2); he cannot withhold his testimony to their zeal, though unhappily it is not a zeal according to knowledge (Romans 10:2).

Hence it was that all this mass—we must allow of honest though ill-directed effort—needed reforming. The more radical the reformation the better. There came One Who laid His finger upon the weak place and pointed out the remedy—at first as it would seem only in words in which the Scripture-loving Rabbis had been before Him: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind … and … Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (Matthew 22:37, Matthew 22:39 ""), and then more searchingly and with greater fulness of illustration and application, ‘There is nothing from without the man that going into him can defile him: but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man’ (Mark 7:15 ""); and then yet again more searchingly still, ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden … Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me … For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light’ (Matthew 11:28-30).

So the Master; and then came the disciple. And he too seized the heart of the secret. He too saw what the Master had refrained from putting with a degree of emphasis which might have been misunderstood (at least the majority of His reporters might leave the impression that this had been the case, though one, the Fourth Evangelist, makes Him speak more plainly). The later disciple saw that, if there was to be a real reformation, the first thing to be done was to give it a personal ground, to base it on a personal relationship. And therefore he lays down that the righteousness of the Christian is to be a ‘righteousness of faith.’ Enough will have been said in the next note and in those on ἐκ πίστεως and δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ as to the nature of this righteousness. It is sharply contrasted with the Jewish conception of righteousness as obedience to law, and of course goes far deeper than any Pagan conception as to the motive of righteousness. The specially Pauline feature in the conception expressed in this passage is that the ‘declaration of righteousness’ on the part of God, the Divine verdict of acquittal, runs in advance of the actual practice of righteousness, and comes forth at once on the sincere embracing of Christianity.

δικαιοῦν, δικαιοῦσθαι. The verb δικαιοῦν means properly ‘to pronounce righteous.’ It has relation to a verdict pronounced by a judge. In so far as the person ‘pronounced righteous’ is not really righteous it has the sense of ‘amnesty’ or ‘forgiveness.’ But it cannot mean to ‘make righteous.’ There may be other influences which go to make a person righteous, but they are not contained, or even hinted at, in the word δικαιοῦν. That word means ‘to declare righteous,’ ‘to treat as righteous’; it may even mean ‘to prove righteous’; but whether the person so declared, treated as, or proved to be righteous is really so, the word itself neither affirms nor denies.

This rather sweeping proposition is made good by the following considerations:—

(i) By the nature of verbs in -όω: comp. Sp. Comm. on 1 Corinthians 6:11 ‘How can δικαιοῦν possibly signify “to make righteous ?” Verbs indeed of this ending from adjectives of physical meaning may have this use, e.g. τυφλοῦν, “to make blind.” But when such words are derived from adjectives of moral meaning, as ἀξιοῦν, ὁσιοῦν, δικαιοῦν, they do by usage and must from the nature of things signify to deem, to account, to prove, or to treat as worthy, holy, righteous.’

(ii) By the regular use of the word. Godet (p. 199) makes a bold assertion, which he is hardly likely to have verified, but yet which is probably right, that there is no example in the whole of classical literature where the word = ‘to make righteous.’ The word however is not of frequent occurrence.

(iii) From the constant usage of the LXX (O. T. and Apocr.), where the word occurs some forty-five times, always or almost always with the forensic or judicial sense.

In the great majority of cases this sense is unmistakable. The nearest approach to an exception is Psalm 73:13 [72:13] ἄρα ματαίως ἐδικαίωσα τὴν καρδίαν μου, where, however, the word seems to = ‘pronounced righteous,’ in other words, ‘I called my conscience clear.’ In Jeremiah 3:11; Ezekiel 16:51, Ezekiel 16:52 δικ. = ‘prove righteous.’

(iv) From a like usage in the Pseudepigraphic Books: e. g. Ps. Song of Solomon 2:16; Song of Solomon 3:5; Song of Solomon 4:9; Song of Solomon 8:7, 27, 31; 9:3 (in these passages the word is used consistently of ‘vindicating’ the character of God); justifico 4 Ezra 4:18; Ezra 10:16; 12:7; 5 Ezra 2:20 (Libb. Apocr. ed. O. F. Fritzsche, p. 643)—all these passages are forensic; Apoc. Baruch. (in Ceriani’s translation from the Syriac) xxi. 9, 11; xxiv. 1—where the word is applied to those who are ‘declared innocent’ as opposed to ‘sinners.’

(v) From the no less predominant and unmistakable usage of the N. T.; Matthew 11:19; Matthew 12:37; Luke 7:29, Luke 7:35; Luke 10:29; Luke 16:15; Luke 18:14; Romans 2:13; Romans 3:4; 1 Corinthians 4:4; 1 Timothy 3:16—to quote only passages which are absolutely unambiguous.

(vi) The meaning is brought out in full in ch. 4:5 τῷ δὲ μὴ ἐργαζομένῳ, πιστεύοντι δὲ ἐπὶ τὸν δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἀσεβῆ, λογίζεται ἡ πίστις αὐτοῦ εἰς δικαιοσύνην. Here it is expressly stated that the person justified has nothing to show in the way of meritorious acts; his one asset (so to speak) is faith, and this faith is taken as an ‘equivalent for righteousness.’

We content ourselves for the present with stating this result as a philological fact. What further consequences it has, and how it fits into the teaching of St. Paul, will appear later: see the notes on δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ above and below.

δικαίωμα. For the force of the termination -μα reference should be made to a note by the late T. S. Evans in Sp. Comm. on 1 Corinthians 5:6, part of which is quoted in this commentary on Romans 4:2. δικαίωμα is the definite concrete expression of the act of δικαίωσις: we might define it as ‘a declaration that a thing is δίκαιον, or that a person is δίκαιος.’ From the first use we get the common sense of ‘ordinance,’ ‘statute,’ as in Luke 1:6; Romans 1:32, Romans 2:26, and practically 8:4; from the second we get the more characteristically Pauline use in Romans 5:16, Romans 5:18. For the special shades of meaning in these passages see the notes upon them.

δικαίωσις. This word occurs only twice in this Epistle (4:25, 5:18), and not at all besides in the N. T. Its place is taken by the verb δικαιοῦν, just as in the Gospel of St. John the verb πιστεύειν occurs no less than ninety-eight times, while the substantive πίστις is entirely absent. In meaning δικαίωσις preserves the proper force of the termination -σις: it denotes the ‘process or act of pronouncing righteous,’ in the case of sinners, ‘the act of acquittal.’

The Meaning of Faith in the New Testament and in some Jewish Writings

The word πίστις has two leading senses, (1) fidelity and (2) belief. The second sense, as we have said, has its more exact significance determined by its object: it may mean, (i) belief in God; (ii) belief in the promises of God; (iii) belief in Christ; (iv) belief in some particular utterance, claim, of promise of God or Christ.

The last of these senses is the one most common in the Synoptic Gospels. ‘Faith’ is there usually ‘belief in the miracle-working power of Christ or of God through Christ.’ It is (α) the response of the applicant for relief— whether for himself or another—to the offer expressed or implied of that relief by means of miracles (Mark 5:34 ""; 10:52 ""). The effect of the miracle is usually proportioned to the strength of this response (Matthew 9:29 κατὰ τὴν πίστιν ὑμῶν γενηθήτω ὑμῖν: for degrees of faith see Matthew 8:10, Matthew 8:26; Luke 17:5, &c.). In Acts 3:16 the faith which has just before been described as ‘faith in the Name’ (of Christ) is spoken of as ‘faith brought into being by Christ’ (ἡ πίστις ἡ διʼ αὐτοῦ). Faith is also (β) the confidence of the disciple that he can exercise the like miracle-working power when expressly conferred upon him (Mark 11:22-24 ""). This kind of faith our Lord in one place calls ‘faith in God’ (Mark 11:22). There is one instance of ‘faith’ used in a more general sense. When the Son of Man asks whether when He comes He shall find faith on the earth (Luke 18:8) He means ‘faith in Himself.’

Faith in the performance of miracles is a sense which naturally passes over into the Acts (Acts 3:16; Acts 14:9). We find in that book also ‘the faith’ (ἡ πίστις Acts 6:7; Acts 13:8; Acts 14:22; Acts 16:5; Acts 24:24), i.e. ‘the faith distinctive of Christians,’ belief that Jesus is the Son of God. ‘A door of faith’ (Acts 14:27) means ‘an opening for the spread of this belief.’ When πίστις is used as an attribute of individuals (πλήρης πίστεως Acts 6:5 of Stephen; 11:24 of Barnabas) it has the Pauline sense of the enthusiasm and force of character which come from this belief in Jesus.

In the Epistle of St. James πίστις is twice applied to prayer (Jam 1:6; Jam 5:15), where it means the faith that God will grant what is prayed for. Twice it means ‘Christian faith’ (Jam 1:3; Jam 2:1). In the controversial passage, Jam 2:14-26, where Faith is contrasted with Works, the faith intended is ‘faith in God.’ One example of it is the ‘belief that God is One’ (Jam 2:19); another is the trust in God which led Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Jam 2:21), and to believe in the promise of his birth (Jam 2:23). Faith with St. James is more often the faith which is common to Jew and Christian; even where it is Christian faith, it stops short of the Christian enthusiasm.

In St. Jude, whose Epistle must on that account be placed late in the Apostolic age, faith has got the concrete sense of a ‘body of belief’—not necessarily a large or complete body, but, as we should say, ‘the essentials of Christianity.’ As the particular point against which the saints are to contend is the denial of Christ, so the faith for which they are to contend would be the (full) confession of Christ (Judges 1:3 f., Judges 1:20).

In the two Epistles of St. Peter faith is always Christian faith (1 Peter 1:5, 1 Peter 1:7-9; 1 Peter 2:6; 2 Peter 1:1, 2 Peter 1:5), and usually faith as the foundation of character. When St. Peter speaks of Christians as ‘guarded through faith unto salvation’ (1 Peter 1:5) his use approaches that of St. Paul; faith is treated as the ‘one thing needful.’

St. John, as we have seen, very rarely uses the word πίστις (1 John 5:4), though he makes up by his fondness for πιστεύω. With him too faith is a very fundamental thing; it is the ‘victory which overcometh the world.’ It is defined to be the belief ‘that Jesus is the Son of God’ (1 John 5:5). Compared with St. Paul’s conception we may say that faith with St. John is rather contemplative and philosophic, where with St. Paul it is active and enthusiastic. In the Apocalypse faith comes nearer to fidelity; it is belief steadfastly held (Revelation 2:13, Revelation 2:19; Revelation 13:10; Revelation 14:12; cf. also πιστός 1:5; 2:10, &c.).

The distinctive use of ‘faith’ in the Epistle to the Hebrews is for faith in the fulfilment of God’s promises, a firm belief of that which is still future and unseen (ἐλπιζομένων ὑπόστασις, πραγμάτων ἔλεξσγχος οὐ βλεπομένων Hebrews 11:1). This use not only runs through ch. 11, but is predominant in all the places where the word occurs (Hebrews 4:2; Hebrews 6:1; Hebrews 10:22 f.; Hebrews 12:2; Hebrews 13:7): it is not found in St. Paul of promises the fulfilment of which is still future (for this he prefers ἐλπίς: cf. Romans 8:25 εἰ δὲ ὃ οὐ βλέπομεν ἐλπίζομεν, διʼ ὑπομονῆς ἀπεκδεχόμεθα). St. Paul does however use ‘faith’ for the confidence of O.T. saints in the fulfilment of particular promises made to them (so of Abraham in Rom_4).

Going outside the N. T. it is natural that the use of ‘faith’ should be neither so high nor so definite. Still the word is found, and frequently enough to show that the idea ‘was in the air’ and waiting only for an object worthy of it. ‘Faith’ enters rather largely into the eschatological teaching respecting the Messianic time. Here it appears to have the sense of ‘fidelity to the O. T. religion.’ In the Psalms of Solomon it is characteristic of the Messiah Himself: Ps. Sol. 17:45 ποιμαίνων τὸ ποίμνιον Κυρίου ἐν πίστει καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ. In the other Books it is characteristic of His subjects. Thus 4 Ezr. 6:28 florebit autem fides et vincetur corruptela; 7:34 veritas stabit et fides convalescet; 44 (114) soluta est intemperantia, abscissa est incredulitas (= ἀπιστία). In Apoc. Baruch. and Assump. Moys. the word has this sense, but not quite in the same connexion: Apoc. Bar. liv. 5 revelas abscondita immaculatis qui in fide subiecerunt se tibi et legi tuae; 21 glorificabis fideles iuxta fidem corum; lix. 2 incredulis tormentum ignis reservatum; Ass. Moys. iv. 8 duae autem tribus permanebunt in praeposita fide. In Apoc. Bar Lev_2 we have it in the sense of faith in the prophecy of coming judgement: fides iudicii futuri tunc gignebatur. Several times, in opposition to the use in St. Paul, we find opera et fides combined, still in connexion with the ‘last things’ but retrospectively with reference to the life on earth. So 4 Ezra 9:7, Ezra 9:8 et erit, omnis qui salvus factus fuerit et qui poterit effugere per opera sua vel per fidem in qua credidit, is relinquetur de praedictis periculis et videbit salutare meum in terra mea et in finibus meis; xiii. 23 ipse custodibit qui in periculo inciderint, hi sunt qui habent opera et fidem ad Fortissimum. We might well believe that both these passages were suggested, though perhaps somewhat remotely, by the verse of Habakkuk which St. Paul quotes. The same may be said of 5 Ezr. 15:3, 4 nec turbent te incredulitates dicentium, quoniam omnis incredulus in incredulitate sua morietur (Libb. Apocr. p. 645, ed. O. F. Fritzsche).

Among all these various usages, in Canonical Books as well as Extracanonical, the usage of St. Paul stands out markedly. It forms a climax to them all with the single exception of St. John. There is hardly one of the ordinary uses which is not represented in the Pauline Epistles. To confine ourselves to Ep. to Romans; we have the word (i) clearly used in the sense of ‘fidelity’ or ‘faithfulness’ (the faithfulness of God in performing His promises), Romans 3:3; also (ii) in the sense of a faith which is practically that of the miracle-worker, faith as the foundation for the exercise of spiritual gifts, Romans 12:3, Romans 12:6. We have it (iii) for a faith like that of Abraham in the fulfilment of the promises of which he was the chosen recipient, Rom_4. passim. The faith of Abraham however becomes something more than a particular attitude in regard to particular promises; it is (iv) a standing attitude, deliberate faith in God, the key-note of his character; in ch. 4. the last sense is constantly gliding into this. A faith like Abraham’s is typical of the Christian’s faith, which has however both a lower sense and a higher: sometimes (v) it is in a general sense the acceptance of Christianity, Romans 1:5; Romans 10:8, Romans 10:17; Romans 16:26; but it is also (vi) that specially strong and confident acceptance, that firm planting of the character upon the service of Christ, which enables a man to disregard small scruples, Romans 14:1, Romans 14:22 f.; cf. 1:17. The centre and mainspring of this higher form of faith is (vii) defined more exactly as ‘faith in Jesus Christ,’ Romans 3:22 q. v., 26. This is the crowning and characteristic sense with St. Paul; and it is really this which he has in view wherever he ascribes to faith the decisive significance which he does ascribe to it, even though the object is not expressed (as in 1:17; 3:27 ff. ; v. 1, 2). We have seen that it is not merely assent or adhesion but enthusiastic adhesion, personal adhesion; the highest and most effective motive-power of which human character is capable. It is well to remember that St. Paul has all these meanings before him; and he glances from one to another as the hand of a violin-player runs over the strings of his violin.

The Righteousness of God

The idea of the righteousness of God, imposing as it is in the development given to it in this Epistle, is by no means essentially a new one. It is one of those fundamental Biblical ideas which run through both Testaments alike and appear in a great variety of application. The Hebrew prophets were as far as possible from conceiving of the Godhead as a metaphysical abstraction. The I AM THAT I AM of the Book of Exodus is very different from the ὄντως ὄν, the Pure Being, without attributes because removed from all contact with matter, of the Platonizing philosophers. The essential properties of Righteousness and Holiness which characterized the Lord of all spirits contained within themselves the springs of an infinite expansiveness. Having brought into existence a Being endowed with the faculty of choice and capable of right and wrong action they could not rest until they had imparted to that Being something of themselves. The Prophets and Psalmists of the Old Testament seized on this idea and gave it grand and far-reaching expression. We are apt not to realize until we come to look to what an extent the leading terms in this main proposition of the Epistle had been already combined in the Old Testament. Reference has been made to the triple combination of ‘righteousness,’ ‘salvation’ and ‘revelation’ in Psa_98. [2]: similarly Isaiah 56:1 ‘My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed.’ The double combination of ‘righteousness’ and ‘salvation’ is more common. In Psa_24. [23:5.] it is slightly obscured in the LXX: ‘He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and righteousness (ἐλεημοσύνην) from the God of his salvation (παρὰ Θεοῦ σωτῆρος αὐτοῦ).’ In the Second Part of Isaiah it occurs frequently: Isaiah 45:21-25 ‘There is no God beside Me; a just God and a Saviour (δίκαιος καὶ σωτήρ). Look unto Me and be ye saved … the word is gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and shall not return (or righteousness is gone forth from My mouth, a word which shall not return R. V. marg.)… Only in the Lord shall one say unto Me is righteousness and strength.… In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified (ἀπὸ Κυρίου δικαιωθήσονται), and shall glory’: Isaiah 46:13 ‘I bring near My righteousness; it shall not be far off, and My salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel My glory’: Isaiah 51:5, Isaiah 51:6 ‘My righteousness is near, My salvation is gone forth … My salvation shall be for ever, and My righteousness shall not be abolished.’

In all these passages the righteousness of God is conceived as ‘going forth,’ as projected from the Divine essence and realizing itself among men. In Isaiah 54:17 it is expressly said, ‘Their righteousness [which] is of Me’; and in Isaiah 45:25 the process is described as one of justification (‘in the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified’: see above). In close attendance on the righteousness of God is His salvation; where the one is the other immediately follows.

These passages seem to have made a deep impression upon St. Paul. To him too it seems a necessity that the righteousness of God should be not only inherent but energizing, that it should impress and diffuse itself as an active force in the world.

According to St. Paul the manifestation of the Divine righteousness takes a number of different forms. Four of these may be specified. (1) It is seen in the fidelity with which God fulfils His promises (Romans 3:3, Romans 3:4). (2) It is seen in the punishment which God metes out upon sin, especially the great final punishment, the ἡμέρα ὀργῆς καὶ ἀποκαλύψεως δικαιοκρισίας τοῦ Θεοῦ (Romans 2:5). Wrath is only the reaction of the Divine righteousness when it comes into collision with sin. (3) There is one signal manifestation of righteousness, the nature of which it is difficult for us wholly to grasp, in the Death of Christ. We are going further than we have warrant for if we set the Love of God in opposition to His Justice; but we have the express warrant of Romans 3:25, Romans 3:26 for regarding the Death on Calvary as a culminating exhibition of the Divine righteousness, an exhibition which in some mysterious way explains and justifies the apparent slumbering of Divine resentment against sin. The inadequate punishment hitherto inflicted upon sin, the long reprieve which had been allowed mankind to induce them to repent, all looked forward as it were to that culminating event. Without it they could not have been; but the shadow of it was cast before, and the prospect of it made them possible. (4) There is a further link of connexion between what is said as to the Death of Christ on Calvary and the leading proposition laid down in these verses (1:16, 17) as to a righteousness of God apprehended by faith. The Death of Christ is of the nature of a sacrifice (ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι) and acts as an ίλαστήριον (3:25 q. v.) by virtue of which the Righteousness of God which reaches its culminating expression in it becomes capable of wide diffusion amongst men. This is the great ‘going forth’ of the Divine Righteousness, and it embraces in its scope all believers. The essence of it, however, is—at least at first, whatever it may be ultimately—that it consists not in making men actually righteous but in ‘justifying’ or treating them as if they were righteous.

Here we reach a fundamental conception with St. Paul, and one which dominates all this part of the Epistle to the Romans, so that it may be well to dwell upon it in some detail.

We have seen that a process of transference or conversion takes place; that the righteousness of which St. Paul speaks, though it issues forth from God, ends in a state or condition of man. How could this be? The name which St. Paul gives to the process is δικαίωσις (4:25, 5:18). More often he uses in respect to it the verb δικαιοῦσθαι (3:24, 28, 5:1, 9, 8:30, 33). The full phrase is δικαιοῦσθαι ἐκ πίστεως: which means that the believer, by virtue of his faith, is ‘accounted or treated as if he were righteous’ in the sight of God. More even than this: the person so ‘accounted righteous’ may be, and indeed is assumed to be, not actually righteous, but ἀσεβής (Romans 4:5), an offender against God.

There is something sufficiently startling in this. The Christian life is made to have its beginning in a fiction. No wonder that the fact is questioned, and that another sense is given to the words —that δικαιοῦσθαι is taken to imply not the attribution of righteousness in idea but an imparting of actual righteousness. The facts of language, however, are inexorable: we have seen that δικαιοῦν, δικαιοῦσθαι have the first sense and not the second; that they are rightly said to be ‘forensic’; that they have reference to a judicial verdict, and to nothing beyond. To this conclusion we feel bound to adhere, even though it should follow that the state described is (if we are pressed) a fiction, that God is regarded as dealing with men rather by the ideal standard of what they may be than by the actual standard of what they are. What this means is that when a man makes a great change such as that which the first Christians made when they embraced Christianity, he is allowed to start on his career with a clean record; his sin-stained past is not reckoned against him. The change is the great thing; it is that at which God looks. As with the Prodigal Son in the parable the breakdown of his pride and rebellion in the one cry, ‘Father, I have sinned’ is enough. The father does not wait to be gracious. He does not put him upon a long term of probation, but reinstates him at once in the full privilege of sonship. The justifying verdict is nothing more than the ‘best robe’ and the ‘ring’ and the ‘fatted calf’ of the parable (Luke 15:22 f.).

When the process of Justification is thus reduced to its simplest elements we see that there is after all nothing so very strange about it. It is simply Forgiveness, Free Forgiveness. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a picture of it which is complete on two of its sides, as an expression of the attitude of mind required in the sinner, and of the reception accorded to him by God. To insist that it must also be complete in a negative sense, and that it excludes any further conditions of acceptance, because no such conditions are mentioned, is to forget the nature of a parable. It would be as reasonable to argue that the father would be indifferent to the future conduct of the son whom he has recovered because the curtain falls upon the scene of his recovery and is not again lifted. By pressing the argument from silence in this way we should only make the Gospels inconsistent with themselves, because elsewhere they too (as we shall see) speak of further conditions besides the attitude and temper of the sinner.

We see then that at bottom and when we come to the essence of things the teaching of the Gospels is not really different from the teaching of St. Paul. It may be said that the one is tenderly and pathetically human where the other is a system of Jewish Scholasticism. But even if we allow the name it is an encouragement to us to seek for the simpler meaning of much that we may be inclined to call ‘scholastic.’ And we may also by a little inspection discover that in following out lines of thought which might come under this description St. Paul is really taking up the threads of grand and far-reaching ideas which had fallen from the Prophets of Israel and had never yet been carried forwards to their legitimate issues. The Son of Man goes straight, as none other, to the heart of our common humanity; but that does not exclude the right of philosophizing or theologizing on the facts of religion, and that is surely not a valueless theology which has such facts as its foundation.

What has been thus far urged may serve to mitigate the apparent strangeness of St. Paul’s doctrine of Justification. But there is much more to be said when we come to take that doctrine with its context and to put it in its proper place in relation to the whole system.

In the first place it must be remembered that the doctrine belongs strictly speaking only to the beginning of the Christian’s career. It marks the initial stage, the entrance upon the way of life. It was pointed out a moment ago that in the Parable of the Prodigal Son the curtain drops at the readmission of the prodigal to his home. We have no further glimpse of his home life. To isolate the doctrine of Justification is to drop the curtain at the same place, as if the justified believer had no after-career to be recorded.

But St. Paul does not so isolate it. He takes it up and follows every step in that after-career till it ends in the final glory (οὓς δὲ ἐδικαίωσε, τούτους καὶ ἐδόξασε 8:30). We may say roughly that the first five chapters of the Epistle are concerned with the doctrine of Justification, in itself (1:16-3:30), in its relation to leading features of the Old Covenant (3:31-4:25) and in the consequences which flowed from it (5:1-21). But with ch. 6 another factor is introduced, the Mystical Union of the Christian with the Risen Christ. This subject is prosecuted through three chapters, 6-8, which really cover (except perhaps the one section 7:7-25)—and that with great fulness of detail—the whole career of the Christian subsequent to Justification. We shall speak of the teaching of those chapters when we come to them.

It is no doubt an arguable question how far these later chapters can rightly be included under the same category as the earlier. Dr. Liddon for instance summarizes their contents as ‘Justification considered subjectively and in its effects upon life and conduct. Moral consequences of Justification. (A) The Life of Justification and sin (6:1-14). (B) The Life of Justification and the Mosaic Law (6:15-7:25). (C) The Life of Justification and the work of the Holy Spirit (8.).’ The question as to the legitimacy of this description hangs together with the question as to the meaning of the term Justification. If Justification = Justitia infusa as well as imputata, then we need not dispute the bringing of chaps. 6-8 under that category. But we have given the reasons which compel us to dissent from this view. The older Protestant theologians distinguished between Justification and Sanctification; and we think that they were right both in drawing this distinction and in referring chaps. 6-8 to the second head rather than to the first. On the whole St. Paul does keep the two subjects separate from each other; and it seems to us to conduce to clearness of thought to keep them separate.

At the same time we quite admit that the point at issue is rather one of clearness of thought and convenience of thinking than anything more material. Although separate the two subjects run up into each other and are connected by real links. There is an organic unity in the Christian life. Its different parts and functions are no more really separable than the different parts and functions of the human body. And in this respect there is a true analogy between body and soul. When Dr. Liddon concludes his note (p. 18) by saying, ‘Justification and sanctification may be distinguished by the student, as are the arterial and nervous systems in the human body; but in the living soul they are coincident and inseparable,’ we may cordially agree. The distinction between Justification and Sanctification or between the subjects of chaps. 1:16-5, and chaps. 6-8 is analogous to that between the arterial and nervous systems; it holds good as much and no more—no more, but as much.

A further question may be raised which the advocates of the view we have just been discussing would certainly answer in the affirmative, viz. whether we might not regard the whole working out of the influences brought to bear upon the Christian in chaps. 6-8, as yet a fifth great expression of the Righteousness of God as energizing amongst men. We too think that it might be so regarded. It stands quite on a like footing with other manifestations of that Righteousness. All that can be said to the contrary is that St. Paul himself does not explicitly give it this name.

THE UNIVERSAL NEED: FAILURE OF THE GENTILES

1:18-32. This revelation of Righteousness, issuing forth from God and embracing man, has a dark background in that other revelation of Divine Wrath at the gross wickedness of men (ver. 18).

There are three stages: (1) the knowledge of God which all might have from the character imprinted upon Creation (vv. 19-20); (2) the deliberate ignoring of this knowledge and idle speculation ending in idolatry (vv. 21-23); (3) the judicial surrender of those who provoke God by idolatry to every kind of moral degradation (vv. 24-32).

18This message of mine is the one ray of hope for a doomed world. The only other revelation, which we can see all around us, is a revelation not of the Righteousness but of the Wrath of God breaking forth—or on the point of breaking forth—from heaven, like the lightning from a thundercloud, upon all the countless offences at once against morals and religion of which mankind are guilty. They stifle and suppress the Truth within them, while they go on still in their wrong-doing (ἐν ἀδικ.). 19It is not merely ignorance. All that may be known of God He has revealed in their hearts and consciences. 20For since the world has been created His attributes, though invisible in themselves, are traced upon the fabric of the visible creation. I mean, His Power to which there is no beginning and those other attributes which we sum up under the common name of Divinity.

So plain is all this as to make it impossible to escape the responsibility of ignoring it. 21The guilt of men lay not in their ignorance; for they had a knowledge of God. But in spite of that knowledge, they did not pay the homage due to Him as God: they gave Him no thanks; but they gave the rein to futile speculations; they lost all intelligence of truth, and their moral sense was obscured. 22While they boasted of their wisdom, they were turned to folly. 23In place of the majesty of the Eternal God, they worshipped some fictitious representation of weak and perishable man, of bird, of quadruped or reptile.

24Such were the beginnings of idolatry. And as a punishment for it God gave them up to moral corruption, leaving them to follow their own depraved desires wherever they might lead, even to the polluting of their bodies by shameful intercourse. 25Reprobates, who could abandon the living and true God for a sham divinity, and render divine honours and ritual observance to the creature, neglecting the Creator (Blessed be His name for ever!).

26Because of this idolatry, I repeat, God gave them up to the vilest passions. Women behaved like monsters who had forgotten their sex. 27And men, forsaking the natural use, wrought shame with their own kind, and received in their physical degradation a punishment such as they deserved.

28They refused to make God their study: and as they rejected Him, so He rejected them, giving them over to that abandoned mind which led them into acts disgraceful to them as men: 29replete as they were with every species of wrong-doing; with active wickedness, with selfish greed, with thorough inward depravity: their hearts brimming over with envy, murderous thoughts, quarrelsomeness, treacherous deceit, rank ill-nature; backbiters, 30slanderers; in open defiance of God, insolent in act, arrogant in thought, braggarts in word towards man; skilful plotters of evil, bad sons, 31dull of moral apprehension, untrue to their word, void of natural duty and of humanity: 32Reprobates, who, knowing full well the righteous sentence by which God denounces death upon all who act thus, are not content with doing the things which He condemns themselves but abet and applaud those who practise them.

18. There is general agreement as to the structure of this part of the Epistle. St. Paul has just stated what the Gospel is; he now goes on to show the necessity for such a Gospel. The world is lost without it. Following what was for a Jew the obvious division, proof is given of a complete break-down in regard to righteousness (i) on the part of the Gentiles, (ii) on the part of the Jews. The summary conclusion of the whole section 1:18-3:20 is given in the two verses 3:19, 20: it is that the whole world, Gentile and Jew alike, stands guilty before God. Thus the way is prepared for a further statement of the means of removing that state of guilt offered in the Gospel.

Marcion retained ver. 18, omitting Θεοῦ, perhaps through some accident on his own part or in the MS. which he copied (Zahn, ut sup. p. 516; the rather important cursive 47 has the same omission). The rest of the chapter with 2:1 he seems to have excised. He may have been jealous of this trenchant attack upon the Gentiles.

Ἀποκαλύπτεται. How is this revelation made? Is the reference to the Final Judgement, or to the actual condition, as St. Paul saw it, of the heathen world? Probably not to either exclusively, but to both in close combination. The condition of the world seems to the Apostle ripe for judgement; he sees around him on all hands signs of the approaching end. In the latter half of this chapter St. Paul lays stress on these signs: he develops the ἀποκαλύπτεται, present. In the first half of the next chapter he brings out the final doom to which the signs are pointing. Observe the links which connect the two sections: ἀποκαλύπτεται 1:18 = ἀποκάλυψις 2:5; ὀργή 1:18, 2:5, 8; ἀναπολόγητος 1:20, 2:1.

ὀργὴ Θεοῦ. (1) In the O. T. the conception of the Wrath of God has special reference to the Covenant-relation. It is inflicted either (α) upon Israelites for gross breach of the Covenant (Leviticus 10:1, Leviticus 10:2 Nadab and Abihu; Numbers 16:33, Numbers 16:46 ff. Korah; xxv. 3 Baal-peor), or (β) upon non-Israelites for oppression of the Chosen People (Jeremiah 50:11-17; Ezekiel 36:5). (2) In the prophetic writings this infliction of ‘wrath’ is gradually concentrated upon a great Day of Judgement, the Day of the Lord (Isaiah 2:10-22, &c.; Jeremiah 30:7, Jeremiah 30:8; Joel 3:12 ff.; Obadiah 1:8 ff.; Zephaniah 3:8 ff.). (3) Hence the N. T. use seems to be mainly, if not altogether, eschatological: cf. Matthew 3:7; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; Romans 2:5, Romans 2:5:9; Revelation 6:16, Revelation 6:17. Even 1 Thessalonians 2:16 does not seem to be an exception: the state of the Jews seems to St. Paul to be only a foretaste of the final woes. See on this subject esp. Ritschl, Rechtfertigung u. Versöhnung, ii. 124 ff. Exo_2.

Similarly Euthym.-Zig. Ἀποκαλύπτεται κ.τ.λ. ἐν ἡμέρᾳ δηλονότι κρίσεως. We must remember however that St. Paul regarded the Day of Judgement as near at hand.

ἐν ἀδικίᾳ, ‘living in unrighteousness the while’ Moule.

κατεχόντων. κατέχειν = (i) ‘to hold fast’ Luke 8:15; 1 Corinthians 11:2, 1 Corinthians 11:15:2, &c.; (ii) ‘to hold down,’ ‘hold in check’ 2 Thessalonians 2:6, 2 Thessalonians 2:7, where τὸ κατέχον, ὁ κατέχων=the force of [Roman] Law and Order by which Antichrist is restrained: similarly here but in a bad sense; it is the truth which is ‘held down,’ hindered, thwarted, checked in its free and expansive operation.

19. διότι: always in Gk. Test. = ‘because.’ There are three uses: (i) for διʼ ὅ τι = propter quod, quamobrem, ‘wherefore,’ introducing a consequence; (ii) for διὰ τοῦτο ὅτι = propterea quod, or quia, ‘because,’ giving a reason for what has gone before; (iii) from Herod. downwards, but esp. in later Gk. = ὅτι, ‘that.’

τὸ γνωστόν. This is a similar case to that of εὐοδωθήσομαι above: γνωστός in Scripture generally (both LXX and N. T.) means as a rule ‘known’ (e. g. Acts 1:19, Acts 1:2:14, Acts 1:15:18, &c.); but it does not follow that it may not be used in the stricter sense of ‘knowable,’ ‘what may be known’ (‘the intelligible nature’ T. H. Green, The Witness of God, p. 4) where the context favours that sense: so Orig. Theoph. Weiss. Gif., against Chrys. Mey. De W. Va. There is the more room for this stricter use here as the word does not occur elsewhere in St. Paul and the induction does not cover his writings.

ἐν αὐτοῖς, ‘within them.’ St. Paul repeatedly uses this preposition where we might expect a different one (cf. Galatians 1:16; Romans 2:15): any revelation must pass through the human consciousness: so Mey. Go. Oltr. Lips., not exactly as Gif. (‘in their very nature and constitution as men’) or Moule (‘among them).’

Compare also Luther, Table Talk, Aph. dxlix: ‘Melanchthon discoursing with Luther touching the prophets, who continually boast thus: “Thus saith the Lord,” asked whether God in person spoke with them or no. Luther replied: “They were very holy, spiritual people, who seriously contemplated upon holy and divine things: therefore God spake with them in their consciences, which the prophets held as sure and certain revelations.”’

It is however possible that allowance should be made for the wider Hebraistic use of ἐν, as in the phrase λαλεῖν ἔν τινι (Habakkuk 2:1 ἀποσκοπεύσω τοῦ ἰδεῖν τί λαλήσει ἐν ἐμοί: cf. Zechariah 1:9, Zechariah 1:13, Zechariah 1:14, Zechariah 1:19; Zechariah 2:3; Zechariah 4:4, Zechariah 4:5; Zechariah 5:5, Zechariah 5:10; Zechariah 6:4; also 4 Ezra 5:15 angelus qui loquebatur in me. In that case too much stress must not be laid on the preposition as describing an internal process. At the same time the analogy of λαλεῖν ἐν does not cover the very explicit φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς: and we must remember that St. Paul is writing as one who had himself an ‘abundance of revelations’ (2 Corinthians 12:7), and uses the language which corresponded to his own experience.

20. ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου. Gif. is inclined to translate this ‘from the created universe,’ ‘creation’ (in the sense of ‘things created’) being regarded as the source of knowledge: he alleges Vulg. a creatura mundi. But it is not clear that Vulg. was intended to have this sense; and the parallel phrases ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς κόσμου (Matthew 24:21), ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου (Matthew 25:34; Luke 11:50; Revelation 13:8; Revelation 17:8), ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως (Mark 10:6; Mark 13:19; 2 Peter 3:4), seem to show that the force of the prep. is rather temporal, ‘since the creation of the universe’ (ἀφʼ οὗ χρόνου ὁ ὁρατὸς ἐκτίσθη κόσμος Euthym.-Zig.). The idea of knowledge being derived from the fabric of the created world is in any case contained in the context.

κτίσεως: see Lft. Col. p. 214. κτίσις has three senses: (i) the act of creating (as here); (ii) the result of that act, whether (alpha) the aggregate of created things (Wisd. 5:18; 16:24; Colossians 1:15 and probably Romans 8:19 ff.); or (beta) a creature, a single created thing (Hebrews 4:13, and perhaps Romans 8:39, q. v.).

καθορᾶται: commonly explained to mean ‘are clearly seen’ (κατά with intensive force, as in καταμανθάνειν, κατανοεῖν); so Fri. Grm.-Thay.. Gif. &c. It may however relate rather to the direction of sight, ‘are surveyed,’ ‘contemplated’ (‘are under observation’ Moule). Both senses are represented in the two places in which the word occurs in LXX: (i) in Job 10:4 ἢ ὥσπερ βροτὸς ὁρᾷ καθορᾷσ; (ii) in Numbers 24:2 Βαλαὰμ … καθορᾷ τὸν Ἰσραὴλ ἐστρατοπεδευκότα κατὰ φυλάς.

ἀΐδιος: ἀϊδιότης is a Divine attribute in Wisd. 2:23 (v. l., see below); cf. also Wisd. 7:26 φωτὸς ἀϊδίου, Judges 1:6.

The argument from the nature of the created world to the character of its Author is as old as the Psalter, Job and Isaiah: Psalm 19:1; Psalm 94:9; Psalm 143:5; Isaiah 42:5; Isaiah 45:18; Job 12:9; Job 26:14; Job 36:24 ff.; Wisd. 2:23; 13:1, 5, &c. It is common to Greek thought as well as Jewish: Arist. De Mundo 6 ἀθεώρητος ἀπʼ αὐτῶν τῶν ἔργων θεωρεῖται [ὁ Θεός] (Lid.). This argument is very fully set forth by Philo, De Praem. et Poen. 7 (Mang. ii. 415). After describing the order and beauty of Nature he goes on: ‘Admiring and being struck with amazement at these things, they arrived at a conception consistent with what they had seen, that all these beauties so admirable in their arrangement have not come into being spontaneously (οὐκ ἀπαυτοματισθέντα γέγονεν), but are the work of some Maker, the Creator of the world, and that there must needs be a Providence (πρόνοιαν); because it is a law of nature that the Creative Power (τὸ πεποιηκός) must take care of that which has come into being. But these admirable men superior as they are to all others, as I said, advanced from below upwards as if by a kind of celestial ladder guessing at the Creator from His works by probable inference (οἷα διά τινος οὐρανίου κλίμακος ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων εἰκότι λογισμῷ στοχασάμενοι τὸν δημιουργόν).

θειότης: θεότης = Divine Personality, θειότης = Divine nature and properties: δύναμις is a single attribute, θειότης is a summary term for those other attributes which constitute Divinity: the word appears in Biblical Gk. first in Wisd. 18:9 τὸν τῆς θειότητος νόμον ἐν ὁμονοίᾳ διέθεντο.

Didymus (Trin. ii. 11; Migne, P. G. xxxix. 664) accuses the heretics of reading θεότης here, and it is found in one MS., P.

It is certainly somewhat strange that so general a term as θειότης should be combined with a term denoting a particular attribute like δύναμις. To meet this difficulty the attempt has been made to narrow down θειότης to the signification of δόξα, the divine glory or splendour. It is suggested that this word was not used because it seemed inadequate to describe the uniqueness of the Divine Nature (Rogge, Die Anschauungen d. Ap. Paulus von d. religiös-sittl. Charakt. d. Heidentums, Leipzig, 1888, p. 10 f.)

εἰς τὸ εἶναι: εἰς τό denotes here not direct and primary purpose but indirect, secondary or conditional purpose. God did not design that man should sin; but He did design that if they sinned they should be without excuse: on His part all was done to give them a sufficient knowledge of Himself. Burton however (Moods and Tenses, § 411) takes εἰς τό here as expressing not purpose but result, because of the causal clause which follows. ‘This clause could be forced to an expression of purpose only by supposing an ellipsis of some such expression as καὶ οὕτως εἰσίν, and seems therefore to require that εἰς τὸ εἶναι be interpreted as expressing result.’ There is force in this reasoning, though the use of εἰς τό for mere result is not we believe generally recognized.

21. ἐδόξασαν. δοξάζω is one of the words which show a deepened significance in their religious and Biblical use. In classical Greek in accordance with the slighter sense of δόξα it merely = ‘to form an opinion about’ (δοξαζόμενος ἄδικος, ‘held to be unrighteous,’ Plato, Rep. 588 B); then later with a gradual rise of signification ‘to do honour to’ or ‘praise’ (ἐπʼ ἀρετῇ δεδοξασμένοι ἄνδρες Polyb. VI. liii. 10). And so in LXX and N. T. with a varying sense according to the subject to whom it is applied: (i) Of the honour done by man to man (Esther 3:1 ἐδόξασεν ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἀρταξέρξης Ἀμάν); (ii) Of that which is done by man to God (Leviticus 10:3 ἐν πάσῃ τῇ συναγωγῇ δοξασθήσομαι); (iii) Of the glory bestowed on man by God (Romans 8:30 οὓς δὲ ἐδικαίωσε, τούτους καὶ ἐδόξασε); (iv) In a sense specially characteristic of the Gospel of St. John, of the visible manifestation of the glory, whether of the Father by His own act (John 12:28), or of the Son by His own act (Job 11:4), or of the Son by the act of the Father (John 7:39; Job 12:16, Job 12:23, &c.), or of the Father by the Incarnate Son (John 13:31; Job 14:13; Job 17:1, Job 17:4, &c.).

ἐματαιώθησαν, ‘were frustrated,’ ‘rendered futile.’ In LXX τὰ μάταια = ‘idols’ as ‘things of nought.’ The two words occur together in 2 Kings 17:15 καὶ ἐπορεύθησαν ὀπίσω τῶν ματαίων καὶ ἐματαιώθησαν.

διαλογισμοῖς: as usually in LXX and N. T. in a bad sense of ‘perverse, self-willed, reasonings or speculations’ (cf. Hatch, Ess. in Bibl. Gk. p. 8).

Comp. Enoch xcix. 8, 9 ‘And they will become godless by reason of the foolishness of their hearts, and their eyes will be blinded through the fear of their hearts and through visions in their dreams. Through these they will become godless and fearful, because they work all their works in a lie and they worship a stone.’

καρδία: the most comprehensive term for the human faculties, the seat of feeling (Romans 9:2; Romans 10:1); will (1 Corinthians 4:5; 1 Corinthians 7:37; cf. Romans 16:18); thoughts (Romans 10:6, Romans 10:8). Physically καρδία belongs to the σπλάγχνα (2 Corinthians 6:11, 2 Corinthians 6:12); the conception of its functions being connected with the Jewish idea that life resided in the blood: morally it is neutral in its character, so that it may be either the home of lustful desires (Romans 1:24), or of the Spirit (Romans 5:5).

23. ἤλλαξαν ἐν: an imitation of a Heb. construction: cf. Psa_106(105):20; also for the expression Jeremiah 2:2 (Del. ad loc.) &c.

δόξαν = ‘manifested perfection.’ See on 3:23.

Comp. with this verse Philo, Vit. Mos. iii. 20 (Mang. ii. 161) οἳ τον ἀληθῆ θεὸν καταλιπόντες τοὺς ψευδωνύμους ἐδημιούργησαν, φθαρταῖς καὶ γενηταῖς οὐσίαις τὴν τοῦ ἀγενήτου καὶ ἀφθάρτου πρόσρησιν ἐπιφημίσαντες: also De Ebriet. 28 (Mang. i. 374) παρʼ ὃ καὶ θεοπλαστεῖν ἀρξάμενος ἀγαλμάτων καὶ ξοάνων καὶ ἄλλων μυρίων ἀφιδρυμάτων ὑλαῖς διαφόροις τετεχνιτευμένων κατέπλησε τὴν οἰκουμένην … κατειργάσατο τὸ ἐναντίον οὗ προσεδόκησεν, ἀντὶ ὁσιότητος ἀσέβειαν—τὸ γὰρ πολύθεον ἐν ταῖς τῶν ἀφρόνων ψυχαῖς ἀθεότης, καὶ θεοῦ τιμῆς ἀλογοῦσιν οἱ τὰ θνητὰ θειώσαντες—οἷς οὐκ ἐξήρκεσεν ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης … εἰκόνας διαπλάσασθαι, ἀλλʼ ἤδη καὶ ἀλόγοις ζώοις καὶ φυτοῖς τῆς τῶν ἀφθάρτων τιμῆς μετέδοσαν.

24. παρέδωκεν: three times repeated, here, in ver. 26 and in ver. 28. These however do not mark so many distinct stages in the punishment of the heathen; it is all one stage. Idolatry leads to moral corruption which may take different forms, but in all is a proof of God’s displeasure. Gif. has proved that the force of παρέδωκεν is not merely permissive (Chrys. Theodrt; Euthym.-Zig.* ), through God permitting men to have their way; or privative, through His withdrawing His gracious aid; but judicial, the appropriate punishment of their defection: it works automatically, one evil leading to another by natural sequence.

This is a Jewish doctrine: Pirqê Aboth, 4:2 ‘Every fulfilment of duty is rewarded by another, and every transgression is punished by another’; Shabbath 104a ‘Whosoever strives to keep himself pure receives the power to do so, and whosoever will be impure to him is it [the door of vice] thrown open’; Jerus. Talmud, ‘He who erects a fence round himself is fenced, and he who gives himself over is given over’ (from Delitzsch, Notes on Heb. Version of Ep. to Rom.). The Jews held that the heathen because of their rejection of the Law were wholly abandoned by God: the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from them (Weber, Altsyn. Theol. p. 66).

ἐν αὐτοῖς א A B C D*, several cursives; ἐν ἑαυτοῖς Dc E F G K L P, &c., printed editions of Fathers, Orig. Chrys. Theodrt;, Vulg. (ut contumeliis adficiant corpora sua in ipsis). The balance is strongly in favour of αὐτοῖς. With this reading ἀτιμάζεσθαι is pass., and ἐν αὐτοῖς = ‘among them’: with ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, ἀτιμ. is mid. (as Vulg.).

On the forms, αὐτοῦ, αὑτοῦ and ἑαυτοῦ see Buttmann, Gr. of N. T. Gk. (tr. Thayer) p. 111; Hort, Introd., Notes on Orthography. p. 144.

In N. T. Greek there is a tendency to the disuse of strong reflexive forms. Simple possession is most commonly expressed by αὐτοῦ, αὐτῆς, &c.: only where the reflexive character is emphasized (not merely suum, but suum ipsius) is ἑαυτοῦ used (hence the importance of such phrases as τὸν ἑαυτοῦ υἱὸν πέμψας Romans 8:3). Some critics have denied the existence in the N. T. of the aspirated αὑτοῦ: and it is true that there is no certain proof of aspiration (such as the occurrence before it of οὐχ or an elided preposition; in early MSS. breathings are rare), but in a few strong cases, where the omission of the aspirate would be against all Greek usage, it is retained by WH. (e.g. in John 2:24; Luke 23:12).

25. οἵτινες: ὅστις, often called ‘rel. of quality,’ (i) denotes a single object with reference to its kind, its nature, its capacities, its character (‘one who,’ ‘being of such a kind as that’); and thus (ii) it frequently makes the adjectival sentence assign a cause for the main sentence: it is used like qui, or quippe qui, with subj.

τὴν ἀλήθειαν … τῷ ψεύδει: abstr. for concrete, for τὸν ἀληθινὸν Θεόν … τοῖς ψεύδεσι θεοῖς, cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:9.

ἐσεβάσθησαν. This use of σεβάζεσθαι is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον; the common form is σέβεσθαι (see Va.).

παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα = not merely ‘more than the Creator’ (a force which the preposition might bear), but ‘passing by the Creator altogether,’ ‘to the neglect of the Creator.’

Cf. Philo, De Mund. Opif. 2 (Mangey, i. 2) τινὲς γὰρ τὸν κόσμον μᾶλλον ἢ τὸν κοσμοποιὸν θαυμάσαντες (Loesner).

ὅς ἐστιν εὐλογητός. Doxologies like this are of constant occurrence in the Talmud, and are a spontaneous expression of devout feeling called forth either by the thought of God’s adorable perfections or sometimes (as here) by the forced mention of that which reverence would rather hide.

27. ἀπολαμβάνοντες: ἀπολ. = (i) ‘to receive back’ (as in Luke 6:34); (ii) ‘to receive one’s due’ (as in Luke 23:41); and so here.

28. ἐδοκίμασαν: δοκιμάζω = (i) ‘to test’ (1 Corinthians 3:13, &c.); (ii) ‘to approve after testing’ (so here; and 2:18; 14:22, &c.); similarly ἀδόκιμον = ‘rejected after testing,’ ‘reprobate.’

ἐν ἐπιγνώσει: ἐπίγνωσις = ‘after knowledge’: hence (i) recognition (vb. = ‘to recognize,’ Matthew 7:16; Matthew 17:12, &c.); (ii) ‘advanced’ or ‘further knowledge,’ ‘full knowledge.’ See esp. Sp. Comm. on 1 Corinthians 13:12; Lft. on Php 1:9.

νοῦν = the reasoning faculty, esp. as concerned with moral action, the intellectual part of conscience: νοῦς and συνείδησις are combined in Titus 1:15: νοῦς may be either bad or good; for the good sense see Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:23.

τὰ καθήκοντα: a technical term with the Stoics, ‘what is morally fitting’; cf. also 2 Macc. 6:4.

29. We must beware of attempting to force the catalogue which follows into a logical order, though here and there a certain amount of grouping is noticeable. The first four are general terms for wickedness; then follows a group headed by the alliterative φθόνου, φόνου, with other kindred vices; then two forms of backbiting; then a group in descending climax of sins of arrogance; then a somewhat miscellaneous assortment, in which again alliteration plays a part.

ἀδικίᾳ: a comprehensive term, including all that follows.

πορνείᾳ: om. א A B K; probably suggested by similarity in sound to πονηρίᾳ.

πονηρίᾳ: contains the idea of ‘active mischief’ (Hatch, Bibl. Gk. p. 77 f.; Trench, Syn. p. 303). Dr. T. K. Abbott (Essays, p. 97) rather contests the assignment of this specific meaning to πονηρία; and no doubt the use of the word is extremely wide: but where definition is needed it is in this direction that it must be sought.

κακίᾳ: as compared with πονηρία denotes rather inward viciousness of disposition (Trench, Syn. p. 36 f.).

The MSS. vary as to the order of the three words πονηρίᾳ, πλεονεξίᾳ, κακίᾳ, WH. text RV. retain this order with BL, &c., Harcl. Arm., Bas. Greg.-Nyss. al.: Tisch. WH. marg. read πονηρ. κακ. πλεον. with א A, Pesh. al.: WH. marg. also recognizes κακ. πονηρ. πλεον. with C, Boh. al.

πλεονεξίᾳ. On the attempt which is sometimes made to give to this word the sense of ‘impurity’ see Lft. on Col. iii.5. The word itself means only ‘selfish greed,’ which may however be exhibited under circumstances where impurity lies near at hand: e.g. in 1 Thessalonians 4:6 πλεονεκτεῖ is used of adultery, but rather as a wrong done to another than as a vice.

κακοηθείας: the tendency to put the worst construction upon everything (Arist. Rhet. ii.13; cf. Trench, Syn. p. 38). The word occurs several times in 3 and 4 Maccabees.

30. ψιθυριστάς, καταλάλους. The idea of secresy is contained in the first of these words, not in the second: ψιθ. susurratores Cypr. Lucif. Ambrstr. susurrones Aug. Vulg.; καταλ. detractores Cypr. Aug. Vulg., detrectatores (detract-) Lucif. Ambrstr. al.

θεοστυγεῖς: may be either (i) passive, Deo odibiles Vulg.; so Mey. Weiss. Fri. Oltr. Lips. Lid. on the ground that this is the constant meaning in class. Gk., where the word is not uncommon; or (ii) active, Dei osores = abhorrentes Deo Cypr.: so Euthym.-Zig. (τοὺς τὸν Θεὸν μισοῦντας), Tyn. and other English versions not derived from Vulg., also Gif. Go. Va., with some support from Clem.-Rom.. ad Cor. xxxv. 5, who in paraphrasing this passage uses θεοστυγία clearly with an active signification, though he follows it by στυγητοὶ τῷ Θεῷ. As one among a catalogue of vices this would give the more pointed sense, unless we might suppose that θεοστυγεῖς had come to have a meaning like our ‘desperadoes.’ The three terms which follow remind us of the bullies and braggarts of the Elizabethan stage. For the distinction between them see Trench, Syn. p. 95 ff.

It is well preserved in the Cyprianic Latin, iniuriosi, superbi, iactantes sui. For the last phrase Lucif. has gloriantes; either would be better than the common rendering elatos (Cod. Clarom. Cod. Boern. Ambrstr. Aug. Vulg.).

ὑπερήφανος. Mayor (on Jas. iv. 6) derives this word from the adjectival form ὕπερος (rather than ὑπέρ Trench) and φαίνω, comparing ἐλαφηβόλος from ἔλαφος and βάλλω: he explains it as meaning ‘conspicuous beyond others,’ ‘outshining them,’ and so ‘proud,’ ‘haughty’: see his note, and the exx. there quoted from Ecclus. and Pss. Sol.

31. ἀσυνέτους: ἀσυνειδήτους (‘without conscience’) Euthym.-Zig. How closely the two words σύνεσις and συνείδησις are related will appear from Polyb. XVIII. xxvi. 13 οὐδεὶς οὔτως οὔτε μάρτυς ἐστὶ φοβερὸς οὔτε κατήγορος δεινὸς ὡς ἡ σύνεσις ἡ ἐγκατοικοῦσα ταῖς ἑκάστων ψυχαῖς. [But is not this a gloss. on the text of Polyb.? It is found in the margin of Cod. Urbin.]

ἀσυνθέτους, ‘false to their engagements’ (συνθῆκαι); cf. Jeremiah 3:7, LXX.

ἀσπόνδους after ἀστόργους (Trench, Syn. p. 95 ff.) is added from 2 Timothy 3:3 [C K L P].

32. οἵτινες: see on ver. 25 above.

τὸ δικαίωμα: prob. in the first instance (i) a declaration that a thing is δίκαιον [τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου = ‘that which the Law lays down as right,’ Romans 8:4]; hence, ‘an ordinance’ (Luke 1:6; Romans 2:26; Hebrews 9:1, Hebrews 9:10); or (ii) ‘a declaration that a person is δίκαιος,’ ‘a verdict of not guilty,’ ‘an acquittal’: so esp. in St. Paul (e. g. Romans 5:16). But see also note on p. 31.

ἐπιγνόντες: ἐπιγινώσκοντες (B) 80, WH. marg.

ποιοῦσιν … συνευδοκοῦσι. There has been some disturbance of the text here: B, and apparently Clem.-Rom., have ποιοῦντες … συνευδοκοῦντες; and so too D E Vulg. (am. fuld.) Orig.-lat. Lucif. and other Latin Fathers, but inserting, non intellexerunt (οὐκ ἐνόησαν D). WH. obelize the common text as prob. corrupt: they think that it involves an anticlimax, because to applaud an action in others is not so bad as to do it oneself; but from another point of view to set up a public opinion in favour of vice is worse than to yield for the moment to temptation (see the quotation from Apollinaris below). If the participles are wrong they have probably been assimilated mechanically to πράσσοντες. Note that ποιεῖν = facere, to produce a certain result; πράσσειν = agere, to act as moral agent: there may be also some idea of repeated action.

συνευδοκοῦσι denotes ‘hearty approval’ (Rendall on Acts 22:20, in Expos. 1888, ii. 209); cf. 1 Macc. 1:57 συνευδοκεῖ τῷ νόμῳ: the word occurs four times besides in N. T. (Luke, Epp. Paul.).

ἀμφότεροι δὲ πονηροί, καὶ ὁ κατάρξας, καὶ ὁ συνδραμών. τοῦ δὲ ποιεῖν πὸ συνευδοκεῖν χεῖρον τίθησι κατὰ τὸ λεγόμενον, εἰ ἐθεώρεις κλέπτην, συνέτρεχες αὐτῷ. ὁ μὲν γὰρ ποιῶν, μεθύων τῷ πάθει, ἡττᾶται τῆς πράξεως· ὁ δὲ συνευδοκῶν, ἐκτὸς ὤν τοῦ πάθους, πονηρίᾳ χρώμενος, συντρέχει τῷ κακῷ (Apollinaris in Cramer’s Catena).

St. Paul’s Description of the Condition of the Heathen World

It would be wrong to expect from St. Paul an investigation of the origin of different forms of idolatry or a comparison of the morality of heathen religions, such as is now being instituted in the Comparative Science of Religion. For this it was necessary to wait for a large and comprehensive collection of data which has only become possible within the present century and is still far from complete. St. Paul looks at things with the insight of a religious teacher; he describes facts which he sees around him; and he connects these facts with permanent tendencies of human nature and with principles which are apparent in the Providential government of the world.

The Jew of the Dispersion, with the Law of Moses in his hand, could not but revolt at the vices which he found prevailing among the heathen. He turned with disgust from the circus and the theatre (Weber, Alisyn. Theol. pp. 58, 68). He looked upon the heathen as given over especially to sins of the flesh, such as those which St. Paul recounts in this chapter. So far have they gone as to lose their humanity altogether and become like brute beasts (ibid. p. 67 f.). The Jews were like a patient who was sick but with hope of recovery. Therefore they had a law given to them to be a check upon their actions. The Heathen were like a patient who was sick unto death and beyond all hope, on whom therefore the physician put no restrictions (ibid. p. 69).

The Christian teacher brought with him no lower standard, and his verdict was not less sweeping. ‘The whole world,’ said St. John, ‘lieth in wickedness,’ rather perhaps, ‘in [the power of] the Wicked One’ (1 John 5:19). And St. Paul on his travels must have come across much to justify the denunciations of this chapter. He saw that idolatry and licence went together. He knew that the heathen myths about their gods ascribed to them all manner of immoralities. The lax and easy-going anthropomorphism of Hellenic religion and the still more degraded representations, with at times still more degraded worship, of the gods of Egypt and the East, were thrown into dark relief by his own severe conception of the Divine Holiness. It was natural that he should give the account he does of this degeneracy. The lawless fancies of men invented their own divinities. Such gods as these left them free to follow their own unbridled passions. And the Majesty on High, angered at their wilful disloyalty, did not interfere to check their downward career.

It is all literally true. The human imagination, following its own devices, projects even into the Pantheon the streak of evil by which it is itself disfigured. And so the mischief is made worse, because the worshipper is not likely to rise above the objects of his worship. It was in the strict sense due to supernatural influence that the religion of the Jew and of the Christian was kept clear of these corrupt and corrupting features. The state of the Pagan world betokened the absence, the suspension or with-holding, of such supernatural influence; and there was reason enough for the belief that it was judicially inflicted.

At the same time, though in this passage, where St. Paul is measuring the religious forces in the world, he speaks without limitation or qualification, it is clear from other contexts that condemnation of the insufficiency of Pagan creeds did not make him shut his eyes to the good that there might be in Pagan characters. In the next chapter he distinctly contemplates the case of Gentiles who being without law are a law unto themselves, and who find in their consciences a substitute for external law (2:14, 15). He frankly allows that the ‘uncircumcision which is by nature’ put to shame the Jew with all his greater advantages (2:26-29). We therefore cannot say that a priori reasoning or prejudice makes him untrue to facts. The Pagan world was not wholly bad. It had its scattered and broken lights, which the Apostle recognizes with the warmth of genuine sympathy. But there can be equally little doubt that the moral condition of Pagan civilization was such as abundantly to prove his main proposition, that Paganism was unequal to the task of reforming and regenerating mankind.

There is a monograph on the subject, which however does not add much beyond what lies fairly upon the surface: Rogge, Die Anschauungen d. Ap. Paulus von d. religiös-sittlichen Charakter d. Heidentums, Leipzig, 1888.

If the statements of St. Paul cannot be taken at once as supplying the place of scientific inquiry from the side of the Comparative History of Religion, so neither can they be held to furnish data which can be utilized just as they stand by the historian. The standard which St. Paul applies is not that of the historian but of the preacher. He does not judge by the average level of moral attainment at different epochs but by the ideal standard of that which ought to be attained. A calm and dispassionate weighing of the facts, with due allowance for the nature of the authorities, will be found in Friedländer, Sittengeschichte Roms, Leipzig, 1869-1871.

Use of the Book of Wisdom in Chapter 1

1:18-32. In two places in Epist. to Romans, ch. 1 and ch. 9, there are clear indications of the use by the Apostle of the Book of Wisdom. Such indications are not wanting elsewhere, but we have thought it best to call attention to them especially at the points where they are most continuous and most striking. We begin by placing side by side the language of St. Paul and that of the earlier work by which it is illustrated.

Romans. Wisdom.

1:20. τὰ γὰρ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ κτι-́σεως κόσμου τοῖς ποιήμασι νοούμενα αθορᾶται, 13:1. καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὁρωμένων ἀγαθῶν οὐκ ἴσχυσαν εἰδέναι τὸν ὄντα οὔτε τοῖς ἔργοις προσέχοντες ἐπέγνωσαν τὸν τεχνίτην.

13:5. ἐκ γὰρ μεγέθους καὶ καλλονῆς κτισμάτων ἀναλόγως ὁ γενεσιουργὸς αὐτῶν θεωρεῖται.

ἥ τε ἀΐδιος αὐτοῦ δύναμις καὶ θειότης· 2:23. [ὁ Θεὸς ἔκτισε … τὸν ἄνθρωπον … εἰκόνα τῆς ἰδίας ἀϊδιότητος* (Cod. 248 al., Method. Athan. Epiph.; ἰδιότητος א AB, Clem.-Alex. &c.) ἐποίησεν.]

18:9. τὸν τῆς θειότητος νόμον.

εἰς τὸ εἴναι αὐτοὺς ἀναπολογήτους· 13:8. πάλιν δὲ οὐδʼ αὐτοὶ συνγνωστοί.

21. ἐματαιώθησαν ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ἡ ἀσύνετος αὐτῶν καρδία. 13:1. μάταιοι γὰρ πάντες ἄνθρωποι φύσει, οἷς παρῆν θεοῦ ἀγνωσία†.

22. φάσκοντες εἶναι σοφοὶ ἐμωράνδησαν· 12:24. καὶ γὰρ τῶν πλάνης ὁδῶν μακρότερον ἐπλανήθησαν θεοὺς ὑπολαμβάνοντες τὰ καὶ ἐν ζῴοις τῶν ἐχθρῶν ἄτιμα, νηπίων δίκην ἀφρόνων ψευσθέντες.

23. καὶ ἤλλαξαν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ ἀφθάρτου Θεοῦ ἐν ὁμοιώματι εἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ ἀνθρώπου καὶ πετεινῶν καὶ τετραπόδων καὶ ἑρπετῶν. 12:1. τὸ ἄφθαρτόν σου πνεῦμα.

14:8. τὸ δὲ φθαρτὸν Θεὸς ὠνομάσθη.

13:10. ταλαίπωροι δὲ καὶ ἐν νεκροῖς αἱ ἐλπίδες αὐτῶν, οἵτινες ἐκαλεσαν θεοὺς ἔργα χειρῶν ἀνθρώπων.

25. οἵτινες μετήλλαξαν τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν τῷ ψεύδει, καὶ ἐσεβάσθησαν καὶ ἐλάτρευσαν τῇ κτίσει παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα. 13:17 sqq. οὐκ αἰσχύνεται τῷ ἀψύχῳ προσλαλῶν· καὶ περὶ μὲν ὑγιείας τὸ ἀσθενὲς ἐπικαλεῖται, περὶ δὲ ζωῆς τὸ νεκρον ἀξιοῖ κ. τ. λ.

14:11. διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἐν εἰδώλοις ἐθνῶν ἐπισκοπὴ ἔσται, ὅτι ἐν κτίσματι Θεοῦ εἰς βδέλυγμα ἐγενήθησαν.

14:21. τὸ ἀκοινώνητον ὄνομα λίθοις καὶ ξύλοις περιέθεσαν.

24. διὸ παρέδωκεν κ. τ. λ. 14:12. ἀρχὴ γὰρ πορνείας‡ ἐπίνοια εἰδώλων, εὑρέσεις δὲ αὐτῶν φθορὰ ζωῆς.

26. διὰ τοῦτο παρέδωκεν κ. τ. λ. 14:16. εἶτα ἐν χρόνῳ κρατυνθὲν τὸ ἀσεβὲς ἔθος ὡς νόμος ἐφυλάχθη.

14:22. εἶτʼ οὐκ ἤρκεσε τὸ πλανᾶσθαι περὶ τὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ γνῶσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν μεγάλῳ ζῶντες ἀγνοίας πολέμῳ τὰ τοσαῦτα κακὰ εἰρήνην προσαγορεύουσιν, 23. ἤ γὰρ τεκνοφόνους τελετὰς ἤ κρύφια μυστήρια ἤ ἐμμανεῖς ἐξάλλων θεσμῶν κώμους ἄγοντες, 24. οὔτε βίους οὔτε γάμους καθαροὺς ἔτι φυλάσσουσιν, ἔτερος δʼ ἕτερον ἤ λοχῶν ἀναιρεῖ ἢ νοθεύωι ὀδυνᾷ.

29. πεπληρωμένους πάσῃ ἀδικίᾳ, πονηρίᾳ, πλεονεξίᾳ, κακίᾳ, μεστοὺς φθόνου, φόνου, ἔριδος, δόλου, κακοηθείας, ψιθυριστάς, καταλάλους, θεοστυγεῖς, ὑβριστάς, ὑπερηφάνους, ἀλαζόνας, ἐφευρετὰς κακῶν, γονεῦσιν ἀπειθεῖς, ἀσυνέτους, ἀσυνθέτους, ἀστόργους, ἀνελεήμονας. 25. πάντα δὲ ἐπιμὶξ ἔχει αἷμα καὶ φόνος κλοπὴ καὶ δόλος, φθορά, ἀπιστία, τάραχος, ἐπιορκία, θόρυβος ἀγαθῶν, 26. χάριτος ἀμνησία, ψυχῶν μιασμός, γενέσεως (sex) ἐναλλαγή, γάμων ἀταξία, μοιχεία καὶ ἀσέλγεια.

27. ἡ γὰρ τῶν ἀνωνύμων εἰδώλων θρησκεία παντὸς ἀρχὴ κακοῦ καὶ αἰτία καὶ πέρας ἐστίν.

It will be seen that while on the one hand there can be no question of direct quotation, on the other hand the resemblance is so strong both as to the main lines of the argument (i. Natural religion discarded, ii. idolatry, iii. catalogue of immorality) and in the details of thought and to some extent of expression as to make it clear that at some time in his life St. Paul must have bestowed upon the Book of Wisdom a considerable amount of study.

[Compare the note on 9:19-29 below, also an essay by E. Grafe in Theol. Abhandlungen C. von Weizsäcker gewidmet. Freiburg, i. B. 1892, p. 251 ff. In this essay will be found a summary of previous discussions of the question and an estimate of the extent of St. Paul’s indebtedness which agrees substantially with that expressed above. It did not extend to any of the leading ideas of Christianity, and affected the form rather than the matter of the arguments to which it did extend. Romans 1:18-32, Romans 9:19-23 are the most conspicuous examples.]

* In this one instance we have ventured to break up the long and heavily-weighted sentence in the Greek, and to treat its two main divisions separately. But the second of these is not in the strict sense a parenthesis: the construction of the whole paragraph is continuous.

&c. always qualify the word which precedes, not that which follows:

D Cod. Claromontanus

E Cod. Sangermanensis

G Cod. Boernerianus

Ambrstr. Ambrosiaster.

B Cod. Vaticanus

F Cod. Augiensis

al. alii, alibi.

pauc. pauci.

Vulg. Vulgate.

codd. codices.

Chrys. Chrysostom.

Aug. Augustine.

Tisch. Tischendorf.

WH. Westcott and Hort.

אԠCod. Sinaiticus

P Cod. Porphyrianus

Harcl. Harclean.

Theodrt. Theodoret.

RV. Revised Version.

Orig. Origen.

Orig.-lat. Latin Version of Origen

Amb. Ambrose.

Boh. Bohairic.

Goth. Gothic.

A Cod. Alexandrinus

L Cod. Angelicus

Hieron. Jerome.

K Cod. Mosquensis

Sah. Sahidic.

Pesh. Peshitto.

Arm. Armenian.

Aeth. Ethiopic.

Lft. Lightfoot.

Eus. Eusebius.

Lips. Lipsius.

Beng. Bengel.

Lid. Liddon.

Wic. Wiclif.

Gif. Gifford.

om. omittit, omittunt, &c.

g Latin version of G

AV. Authorized Version.

* Biel (Lex. in LXX.) cites from Phavorinus the gloss, κλ., ἡ καλεστὴ καὶ ἡ ἐξοχωτάτη.

Rhem. Rheims (or Douay).

Mey. Meyer.

d Latin version of D

e Latin version of E

Va. Vaughan.

Tert. Tertullian.

Treg. Tregelles.

* The point is, however, beginning to attract some attention in Germany.

* Aristotle quotes the proverb ἐν δὲ δικαιοσύνῃ συλλήβδην πᾶσʼ ἀρετὴ ἔνι.

C Cod. Ephraemi Rescriptus

Euthym.-Zig. Euthymius Zigabenus.

Theoph. Theophylact.

De W. De Wette.

Go. Godet.

Oltr. Oltramare.

Fri. Fritzsche (C. F. A.).

Grm.-Thay. Grimm-Thayer’s Lexicon.

&c. always qualify the word which precedes, not that which follows:

Gif. Gifford.

Chrys. Chrysostom.

Euthym.-Zig. Euthymius Zigabenus.

* Similarly Adrian, an Antiochene writer (c. 440 a.d.) in his Εἰσαγωγὴ εἰς τὰς θείας γραφάς, a classified collection of figures and modes of speech employed in Holy Scripture, refers this verse to the head Τὴν ἐπὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων κακῶν συγχώρησιν τοῦ Θεοῦ ὡς πρᾶξιν αὐτοῦ λέγει· ἐπειδὴ κωλῦσαι δυναμενος, τοῦτο οὐ ποιεῖ.

אԠCod. Sinaiticus

A Cod. Alexandrinus

B Cod. Vaticanus

C Cod. Ephraemi Rescriptus

D Cod. Claromontanus

c Cod. Sinaiticus, corrector c

E Cod. Sangermanensis

F Cod. Augiensis

G Cod. Boernerianus

K Cod. Mosquensis

L Cod. Angelicus

P Cod. Porphyrianus

Orig. Origen.

Vulg. Vulgate.

WH. Westcott and Hort.

Va. Vaughan.

Lft. Lightfoot.

RV. Revised Version.

Harcl. Harclean.

Arm. Armenian.

Bas. Basil.

al. alii, alibi.

Tisch. Tischendorf.

Pesh. Peshitto.

Boh. Bohairic.

Cypr. Cyprian.

Ambrstr. Ambrosiaster.

Aug. Augustine.

Mey. Meyer.

Fri. Fritzsche (C. F. A.).

Oltr. Oltramare.

Lips. Lipsius.

Lid. Liddon.

Tyn. Tyndale.

Go. Godet.

Clem.-Rom. Clement of Rome.

am Cod. Amiatinus (Vulgate)

fuld Cod. Fuldensis (Vulgate)

Orig.-lat. Latin Version of Origen

* The more recent editors as a rule read ἰδιότητοςwith the uncials and Genesis 1:26 f.; but it is by no means clear that they are right: Cod. 248 embodies very ancient elements and the context generally favours ἀϊδιότητος. It still would not be certain that St. Paul had this passage in his mind.

Method. Methodius.

Epiph. Epiphanius.

Clem.-Alex. Clement of Alexandria.

† The parallel here is not quite exact. St. Paul says, ‘They did know but relinquished their knowledge,’ Wisd. ‘They ought to have known but did not.’

‡ A. V. expands this as ‘[spiritual] fornication’; and so most moderns. But even so the phrase might have had something to do in suggesting the thought of St. Paul.