light[6]. But the words 'full of goodness,' 'filled with all
knowledge,' 'able to admonish,' are no idle compliments. It is not too
much to suggest that St. Paul, as he sees the high part which the
church of the capital must play in the world, perceives also, in what
he hears of the Roman Christians, evidences of the spirit which will
enable them to fulfil it. And history verifies the apostle's
anticipation. The letter of the Roman church to the Corinthians, which
passes under Clement's name, and was written some forty years after
{176} this letter of St. Paul's, is the very embodiment of the spirit
of goodness, knowledge, and power to admonish. The princely generosity
of the Roman church in all directions was proverbial in the second
century[7]. If it did not become as distinguished as Alexandria in
theological science, it did become a chief centre of theological
orthodoxy and government. And the repeated evidences we gain that
rigorists, from Hippolytus to Novatian, were so dissatisfied with the
policy of the Roman bishops as to separate themselves from their
communion, give us good reason to believe that the internal policy of
this church was, within just limits, liberal and tolerant.
2. St. Paul here describes his apostolic commission in priestly
language. 'The sacrificial terminology is far more marked in the
original than it can be in a translation[8].' The word for 'minister
of Christ Jesus' is a technical word for priest in the Greek Old
Testament[9]. The word translated 'ministering' means 'offering
sacrifice.' (That which St. Paul describes {177} himself as offering
in sacrifice is not the gospel, as our translation might imply: the
gospel assigns the sphere of the sacrifice[10], but the sacrifice he
has to offer is that of the Gentile world, in Christ, consecrated to be
a fit sacrifice by the Spirit.) The phrase also, 'in things pertaining
to God' (cf. Hebr. ii. 17), is appropriate to the priest as he stands
before God. 'But this is all symbolical language,' it is said. That
depends on what we take as the standard of reality in the sacrificing
priesthood. If Christ is the standard of priesthood, and His method of
making sacrifice the standard method, then St. Paul's account of his
priestliness is not appreciably metaphorical, except so far as metaphor
belongs to all earthly expressions of heavenly realities; it is rather
true to say that the Jewish or heathen priest, with his material
victims, was but the dim shadow of a true priest.
The point is that the true Christian idea of sacrifice makes the
substance of it to be always persons returning to God the life He gave
them. If we must offer sacrifices of money and fruits of the earth,
that is because we cannot offer ourselves without our bodies[11], or
our bodies {178} without the material supplies on which they depend.
'All things come of God, and of His own do we give Him.' And all our
labour and prayer for others must be an offering of them, or a
preparation to offer them[12], to God; which again is only our
assisting them to offer themselves. And all this offering in sacrifice
of ourselves and others is rendered possible by the one effectual
sacrifice, through which alone we and all men have access to the
Father. It takes place 'in Christ Jesus,' who, 'through eternal Spirit
offered _himself_ without spot to God.' There, at the head of all, is
the sacrifice of the person, and that person the Son of Man, who can
take up into His very life and sacrifice even all mankind. Throughout
it is a sacrifice of persons, or of things only as appertaining to
persons. This is the fundamental Christian idea, and this at the
bottom necessarily forbids us to separate the thing offered from the
person offering, the victim from the priest. The priest is the victim,
for what he offers is himself.
It is this idea of sacrifice which is realized in the eucharist. The
eucharist is the central sacrifice of the Christian body. It is to
start {179} with a presentation of material things, bread and wine of
the fruits of the earth, with alms and other offerings it may be: and
these oblations are accompanied with prayers and symbolic rites. But
all is done that both by word and act the One Sacrifice may be
commemorated and pleaded. The outward rite but finds its meaning and
justification in that--the sacrifice of the Person. Again we can only
take part in it with any spiritual reality by becoming ourselves
sharers of His sacrifice--ourselves the sacrifice we offer. 'And
here,' we cry, 'we offer and present unto Thee ourselves.' We men, St.
Augustine does not scruple to say, are the body of Christ, which is
offered in that sacrifice[13]. And a quite new light is shed on
intercessory prayer, in the eucharist and in the rest of life, when we
view it as St. Paul would have us view it, as a presenting in sacrifice
before God those for whom we pray, according to the true idea of them
which the sanctification of the Spirit would make possible and actual.
And a quite new light is shed upon all work for others, when we regard
it as the preparing of such a sacrifice for the Holy Spirit to
consecrate.
From a different point of view St. Paul's {180} conception of his
mission as the priest of the Gentile world, might well suggest
reflections to the Church of England. If a Christian nation in the
providence of God is to overrun the world and possess the nations not
yet Christian, it goes with a mission entrusted to it by God. Its
mission may be expressed, according to St. Paul's idea, as that of
evangelizing the world, but also as that of preparing the heathen
nations to be offered to God. It is the return of all humanity to
Himself that God desires, and we are to be the ministers of this
perfected offering. It strikes us with profound humiliation to realize
how 'far fetched' St. Paul's idea would appear to-day to the mass of
our nation, which, more than any other, is called by circumstances to
an apostolate of the world.
3. St. Paul speaks, here and in many places elsewhere, of his grounds
for 'glorying,' or rather 'boasting[14],' in what Christ has wrought
through him, and of his 'being ambitious' to preach only where no one
had been before him[15]. And in reading such passages the question
{181} sometimes arises in Christian minds--was there, after all, a
strain of egotism unsubdued in St. Paul's character? Now no doubt,
unlike other apostles whose writings remain in the New Testament, St.
Paul had that sort of passionately personal and individual nature which
easily passes into spiritual egotism. This at least is discernible in
his epistles. It is also true that the necessity which lay so long
upon him of vindicating his own apostolic authority, makes it necessary
for him at times to talk about himself and his experiences and his
personal methods in a way that to some minds suggests egotism; and
there is no obligation upon us to maintain that St. Paul was perfect.
But we only understand these passages aright when we remember that
there runs through them all a conscious irony. The basis of St. Paul's
whole theology was the denial of any possible ground for a man to boast
in himself. 'Where is boasting? it is excluded.' 'He that boasteth,
let him boast in the Lord.' It is Christ who 'leads St. Paul in' His
'triumph.' What he boasts of is not his own, but Christ's. Of course,
this sort of language very easily admits of self-deception. St. Paul
shows himself conscious of its danger[16]. But there can {182} be no
question of the vehement sincerity of St. Paul in repudiating any
homage to himself which seemed to put him in the place of Christ, or to
substitute the teacher for his message[17]. And where his personal
gifts of intellect might most easily have shone, he had determined to
abjure all 'the wisdom of men' in the method of his preaching[18]. It
is remarkable again that as soon as ever the real peril from Judaism
was over in the Church, St. Paul drops his anti-Judaistic polemic, and
all that brings the personal element into prominence. He is absolutely
free from the charge of pursuing his advantage so as to magnify a
personal victory. The more thoroughly we grow to know St. Paul, the
more, I think, we feel that his profession is true that he will 'boast'
only 'in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ'; and that truly the world,
with all its personal ambitions, had been for him nailed to the cross
and killed[19].
But what exactly was it that St. Paul had to 'boast' that Christ had
wrought through him?
He had, he says, accomplished the preaching of the gospel in an
irregular circuit from Jerusalem to Illyria. After he had made a
beginning of Christian preaching at Damascus, he {183} had, in fact,
shared the apostolic preaching at Jerusalem (Acts ix. 29), but his own
special work began at Tarsus, or rather at Antioch. After that he had
'fulfilled the proclamation of the gospel,' so far, that is to say, as
it belonged to the apostolic office, by founding churches in a
gradually enlarging circuit, especially in the chief centres, as the
narrative of the Acts shows us, till travelling by the Egnatian way he
would have come within sight of the Illyrian mountains at
Thessalonica[20]. He may even have entered Illyria when the Acts
vaguely describes him as going to Macedonia and then 'passing through
those parts[21]'; but the expression in this epistle does not require
this. It is sufficient that the border of Illyria, through which the
Egnatian way led to Rome, had been so far his nearest point to the
capital.
St. Paul certainly implies that Rome was included in his province of
work, and that he owed them a yet unpaid debt[22]. This must surely
mean, according to St. Paul's principle, that no other of the greater
apostles had yet evangelized them or founded the church there[23].
{184} Rome was no other man's foundation. But none the less, the
elements of a church had collected there. The gospel was being
preached there by 'apostles' from among his own circle. And St. Paul,
for this reason, does not contemplate any permanent stay with the
Romans, but regards Rome only as a place where he can rest and refresh
himself, as well as supply deficiencies in the spiritual equipment of
the church there, before he passes further west to the untouched region
of Spain. St. Paul, we see plainly enough, had no power to foresee the
future. But after the long residence at Rome during his first
captivity, which he did not the least anticipate, did he, we ask,
actually get to Spain? There is certainly no good reason to say he did
not, for his movements are, in the main, unknown to us in the last
period of his life; and on the other hand in Clement's letter to the
Corinthians, written within the first century, he is said to have
passed before his martyrdom to 'the limits of the west'--the extreme
west--which is certainly most naturally interpreted of Spain[24].
4. St. Paul speaks of having wrought 'signs and wonders.' The two
words are habitually {185} combined in the New Testament. The word
'wonders' describes the miraculous and astonishing character of the
events, while 'signs' indicates that moral witness and significance
which distinguishes Christian miracles from vulgar portents. We read
of St. Paul working miracles in the Acts. What he says here, and
elsewhere[25], implies that they were frequently worked, and especially
at Corinth, where no such events are recorded in the history. What it
is important for us to recognize is, that St. Paul so plainly and
repeatedly appeals, in the face of those who could bear witness, to the
fact that he himself had power given to him to work miracles, as if it
were indisputable.
5. St. Paul tells us that he had it specially laid upon him by the
apostles of the circumcision that he was to 'remember the poor,' i.e.
the poor Christians at Jerusalem; where poverty was specially rife,
because, as we should gather, the wealthier Jews had held aloof from
Christianity[26]. And this, he adds, was the very thing he himself was
zealous to do[27]. How much it was in his mind, both the Acts and his
own epistles bear witness. We hear much in {186} the epistles to the
Corinthians[28] of the collection made in the churches of Macedonia and
Achaia. Not only was this expression of Gentile good will intended to
conciliate the half-alienated and suspicious Jewish Christians of
Jerusalem, but the acceptance of the gift at St. Paul's hands, as the
fruit of his own labour, was to diminish their suspicion of himself.
St. Paul was at pains to prevent any suspicion attaching to his
administration of this bounty, and at every point we perceive how much
trouble he took about the matter. But, hopeful and zealous as he was
about this work of charity, he did not underrate its dangers. His
urgent request for the Roman Christians' prayers in this passage, and
his readiness to meet his death, if need be, at Jerusalem, as expressed
in the narrative of the Acts, show us that he knew the danger he was
incurring from the fierce hostility of the Jerusalem Jews.
6. This passage about the collection[29], coupled with the allusion to
Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, at the beginning of the next chapter,
and the allusion to the Corinthian Gaius as St. Paul's host[30], enable
us to fix the occasion of {187} the writing of this epistle exactly at
the moment recorded in Acts xx. 3--the end of his three months'
residence in Greece. We also gather from the Acts[31], as well as from
this epistle, that it was his intention at that period, when he had
paid his visit to Jerusalem, to go to Rome. Once more we know from the
Acts[32] that Sosipater and Timothy were with him at this point, and
they join in the greetings of the epistle[33]. So that all the
indications taken together fix with wonderful accuracy the exact point
when the epistle was written[34].
7. We do well to note the word used by St. Paul in asking the Roman
Christians' prayers. He begs them to 'strive together' with him in
their prayers. This word is a derivative of that which describes our
Lord's 'agony' in prayer; and Origen's comment upon it is this: 'Hardly
any one can pray without some idle and alien thought coming into his
mind, and leading off and interrupting the intended direction of his
mind to God.... And, therefore, prayer is a great striving (_agon_,
wrestling), so that the fixed direction of the soul towards God may
{188} be maintained, in spite of the enemies which interfere and seek
to scatter the sense of prayer; so that one who prays may justly say,
with St. Paul, "I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course."'
[1] lii. 15, according to the Greek.
[2] 'Round about,' literally 'in a circle,' as opposed to a straight
course; cf. Mark vi. 6, 'round about the villages.'
[3] Cf. i. 13-16.
[4] i. 11.
[5] '_Ministering in sacrifice_' marg.
[6] Cf. the opening of 1 Cor., a letter which contains on the whole so
much blame.
[7] Euseb. _H. E._ iv. 23.
[8] Sanday, _Conception of Priesthood_ (Longmans), p. 89.
[9] Like 'agape' (see above, p. 131, n. 2) so this word 'liturgus'
appears to have been adopted in its priestly sense by the Greek
translators of the Bible from the current Greek of Alexandria, cf.
Deissmann, _Bibelstudien_, pp. 137 f.
[10] Cf. _S. and H. in loc._ 'Making sacrifice as a priest under the
Gospel.'
[11] Cf. xii. x.
[12] Col. i. 28: 'Teaching every man ... that we may present every
man,' i.e. present him in sacrifice.
[13] For his repeated statements see app. note I. p. 240.
[14] Cf. 1 Cor. ix. 15; xv. 31; 2 Cor. i. 14; vii. 4, 14; viii. 24; ix.
3; x. 8, 13; xi. 10, 16-xii. 9; Phil. ii. 16; 1 Thess. ii. 19. These
passages are worth examining in connexion.
[15] Cf. 2 Cor. x. 15, 16.
[16] See 2 Cor. xi. 17; xii. 1.
[17] 1 Cor. i. 13 ff.
[18] 1 Cor. ii. 1-5.
[19] Gal. vi. 14.
[20] See _S. and H. in loc._
[21] Acts xx. 2.
[22] i. 14, 15.
[23] Not Peter therefore, though he was doubtless afterwards at Rome.
[24] _Ad Cor._ 5, see Lightfoot _in loc._
[25] 2 Cor. xii. 13.
[26] Cf. Jas. ii. 5, 6.
[27] Gal. ii. 10.
[28] 1 Cor. xvi. 1-4; 2 Cor. viii, ix.
[29] Cf. Acts xxiv. 17.
[30] Rom. xvi. 23. Cf. 1 Cor. i. 14, which shows us a Gaius at
Corinth. Cf. the allusion to Erastus in the same verse, coupled with 2
Tim. iv. 20.
[31] Acts xix. 21.
[32] Acts xx. 4.
[33] Rom. xvi. 21.
[34] See further, on the purpose of the epistle, vol. i. pp. 4 ff.
{189}
DIVISION VI. Sec. 2. CHAPTER XVI. 1-2.
_A commendation._
One strong link among Christians of different towns, constraining them
to remember that their brotherhood did not depend on physical nearness
or personal acquaintance, lay in the 'letters of commendation' from one
local church to another, which the Christian traveller carried with
him. And here we have an example of such a letter given by St. Paul to
the Corinthian deaconess, Phoebe, who was probably the bearer of his
letter to the Roman Christians.
I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant[1] of the church
that is at Cenchreae: that ye receive her in the Lord, worthily of the
saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever matter she may have need
of you: for she herself also hath been a succourer of many, and of mine
own self.
The necessity of instructing women inquirers or catechumens, visiting
them at their homes, preparing them for baptism, attending to their
{190} unclothing and reclothing at the font, and looking after them
afterwards, forced upon the Church the institution of an order of
deaconesses, side by side with the deacons and for similar purposes.
Pliny found these female officers among the Christians in Bithynia in
the beginning of the second century, and there is no reason why already
at this date the female order should not have existed[2]. 'Here we
learn,' says Origen on this passage, 'that female ministers are
recognized in the Church.'
Phoebe is also called a succourer or 'patroness' of Christians,
including St. Paul, which suggests a woman of wealth and influence. If
so, we have here an example of wealth, not asserting itself but
devoting itself to service, according to our Lord's teaching: 'He that
is greatest among you shall be your servant (deacon)'; 'I am in the
midst of you as he that serveth (the deacon)[3].' Such an one is to be
received in a manner 'worthy of the saints,' the consecrated family of
God, and to be allowed to lack nothing which the Roman Christians can
supply her with.
[1] Or _deaconess_, as margin.
[2] See on this subject Deaconess Cecilia Robinson, _The Ministry of
Deaconesses_ (Methuen, 1898), and Bernard, _Pastoral Epistles_, p. 59.
With Lightfoot, he interprets 1 Tim. iii. 11 of deaconesses rather than
of the wives of the deacons.
[3] Matt, xxiii. 11; Luke xxii. 37.
{191}
DIVISION VI. Sec. 3. CHAPTER XVI. 3-16.
_Personal greetings._
Then St. Paul, according to his custom, winds up his epistle with
personal greetings. In this case they are sent to the individual
Christians, among those who from various parts of the empire had
collected at Rome, whose names his memory--so retentive of personal
relationships--enabled him to recall.
Salute Prisca and Aquila my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who for my
life laid down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but
also all the churches of the Gentiles: and _salute_ the church that is
in their house. Salute Epaenetus my beloved, who is the firstfruits of
Asia unto Christ. Salute Mary, who bestowed much labour on you.
Salute Andronicus and Junias[1], my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners,
who are of note among the apostles, who also have been in Christ before
me. Salute Ampliatus my beloved in the Lord. Salute Urbanus our
fellow-worker in Christ, and Stachys my beloved. Salute Apelles the
approved in Christ. Salute them which are {192} of the _household_ of
Aristobulus. Salute Herodion my kinsman. Salute them of the
_household_ of Narcissus, which are in the Lord. Salute Tryphaena and
Tryphosa, who labour in the Lord. Salute Persis the beloved, which
laboured much in the Lord. Salute Rufus the chosen in the Lord, and
his mother and mine. Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas,
Hermas, and the brethren that are with them. Salute Philologus and
Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints that are
with them. Salute one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of
Christ salute you.
1. Aquila, a Pontic Jew, had resided in Rome, doubtless in pursuit of
his business as a tent-maker; but the edict of Claudius had compelled
him to quit the capital in common with his brethren, and he had taken
refuge at Corinth with his wife Prisca (as St. Paul calls her), or
Priscilla (according to St. Luke[2]); and there, shortly after their
arrival, St. Paul had found them, made their acquaintance, and combined
with them in a common trade. To this was possibly due their conversion
to Christianity. When St. Paul left Corinth, they accompanied him to
Ephesus, and remained there when he left for Jerusalem; their
influential position in the Christian community being indicated to us
by their dealings with so important a teacher as {193} Apollos. When
St. Paul had returned to Ephesus, and was writing his First Epistle to
the Corinthians, their house was the centre for a Christian
congregation[3]. It was possibly during the Ephesian disturbances that
they risked their lives, or 'laid down their own necks' for St. Paul.
Whether on account of this peril incurred, or for whatever reason, they
returned, as they were now free to do, to Rome. The Epistle to the
Romans follows the First Epistle to the Corinthians by not more than a
year, and it finds Prisca and Aquila established at Rome, with a church
meeting at their house. Probably they had been St. Paul's informants
as to affairs among the Roman Christians. A good many years
afterwards, when St. Paul was writing his Second Epistle to Timothy[4],
we hear of them again at Ephesus. So much travelling as we find in
their life was not unusual in the Roman empire, and perhaps least of
all among the Jews.
The fact that Priscilla is generally mentioned before her husband, both
by St. Paul and St. Luke[5], as if she were more important, combined
with (1) a tradition which connects her with the {194} _titulus_ (or
parish-church) _Priscae_ at Rome, (2) evidence connecting the
_Coemeterium Priscillae_ with the Acilian gens,--has led some scholars
to believe that Priscilla was a noble Roman lady married to a Jewish
husband. But the evidence is not cogent, and it is more likely that
both she and her husband owed their Roman names to being freedmen[6].
It was probably her prominence among the Christians which led to her
name preceding that of her husband. We need only think of Phoebe and
Priscilla to understand how influential women were in the earliest
Christian churches.
'The church (which met) at their house' is a significant phrase[7].
The wealthier Christians, or those whose houses were commodious, turned
them into churches, where the neighbouring Christians met for worship,
love feast and eucharist. Several of the oldest churches {195} in Rome
grew in this manner out of private houses.
2. St. Paul's brief characterizations of individuals are full of
personal memory and tenderness--'my beloved, who is the firstfruits of
Asia unto Christ[8],' 'who bestowed much labour on you,' 'my kinsmen
(i.e. Jews) and fellow prisoners (on some occasion which we cannot fix,
but which St. Paul remembers), who also were in Christ before me,' 'our
fellow worker,' 'the man approved in Christ,' who has been tried and
found not wanting, 'his mother and mine.' St. Paul, notwithstanding
his wide ecclesiastical plans and theological labours, as he thought no
pains too much to bestow on the details of his scheme for collecting
Gentile money for the needs of poor Jews, so also never lets great
designs obscure the memory of persons and their intricate relations to
himself.
3. Andronicus and Junias (or junianus) are 'of note among the
apostles.' There are other indications that the term 'apostle' was not
confined to the twelve. Not St. Paul only, but Barnabas also, and the
Lord's brother, were included in it. Later, in the _Didache_, we find
it used in a wide but somewhat dim sense, for the {196} chief teachers
of the Church who were not settled in particular churches[9].
Nevertheless, this passage describing two men of unknown names as
'conspicuous among the apostles' is surprising. Probably the real
requirement for sharing the title of apostle was to have received
commission from the Lord (as 'other seventy' did besides the Twelve),
and to have seen Him after His resurrection. These two--'early
disciples' as St. Paul tells us--may have fulfilled these requirements.
They were Jews like himself, who with him had laboured and suffered.
They would be centres of authority among the Christians at Rome[10]:
and possibly to the laying on of their hands other brethren at Rome who
'ruled' or 'taught' or 'ministered' owed their qualifying gift.