his astonishment at finding a woman thought worthy of the title of an
apostle.
4. 'Them that are of the household of Aristobulus.' This Aristobulus
was very probably the {197} grandson of Herod the Great, who lived and
died at Rome in a private station, and whose 'household' would
naturally include many Jews and orientals. The following name of a Jew
suggests connexion with the Herods.
5. 'Rufus' may very likely be the son of Simon of Cyrene, whom St.
Mark, writing probably at Rome, refers to as well known[11].
6. 'A holy kiss.' 'It was from this and similar words,' says Origen,
'that it has been handed down as a custom in the Church that after the
prayer the brethren should welcome one another with a kiss.' He goes
on to urge that this ritual kiss should be neither unchaste nor without
real feeling.
7. 'All the churches of Christ salute you.' This unique phrase is
probably used, as Dr. Hort suggests, to express how 'the church of Rome
was an object of love and respect to Jewish and Gentile churches alike.'
[1] Or _Junia_ (a woman's name), as margin.
[2] See the readings of Rom. xvi. 3; 1 Cor. xvi. 19; 2 Tim. iv. 19 (in
R. V. which is probably right); and of Acts xviii. 2, 18, 26.
[3] 1 Cor. xvi. 19.
[4] 2 Tim. iv. 19.
[5] Twice out of three mentions in each case.
[6] Perhaps both freedmen of the same member of the Acilian gens. For
Priscus or Prisca (or Priscilla) was a favourite cognomen in the gens,
and the nomen itself was commonly written Aquilius. This nomen a male
slave, when freed, would have borne (besides his own name and his
master's praenomen); and a female could have borne the cognomen Prisca
or Priscilla. '[Greek] _Akulios_ could be corrupted into {Greek]
_Akulas_, the Greek form of a different name Aquila.
[7] Cf. Acts xii. 12; Col. iv. 15; Philem. 2. See _S. and H. in loc._
[8] Cf. 1 Cor. xvi. 15.
[9] The term 'apostle' is also used in 2 Cor. viii. 23, Phil. ii. 25,
apparently in the sense of messenger.
[10] Others, including Liddon, would translate 'highly esteemed among,
i.e. _by_, the apostles' but this is not probable.
[11] Mark xv. 21.
{198}
DIVISION VI. Sec. 4. CHAPTER XVI. 17-20.
_Final warning._
Something occurred before the letter to the Romans was concluded and
dispatched to make St. Paul insert a final warning against false
teachers, who were causing divisions and perverting the gospel as all
Christians had at first received it, in the interests of their personal
aggrandizement. St. Paul makes a brief but vigorous appeal to the
Romans to be true to their first obedience, and maintain their
reputation unsullied.
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which are causing the divisions
and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which ye learned:
and turn away from them. For they that are such serve not our Lord
Christ, but their own belly; and by their smooth and fair speech they
beguile the hearts of the innocent. For your obedience is come abroad
unto all men. I rejoice therefore over you: but I would have you wise
unto that which is good, and simple unto that which is evil. And the
God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
{199}
This abrupt insertion strongly reminds us of the Epistle to the
Galatians (see i. 7-9, vi. 13), and of the similar outburst in the
Epistle to the Philippians (iii. 1-3). St. Paul believed that such
Judaizing teaching was inconsistent with the fundamental Christian
'tradition.' He does not imply that Rome was already corrupted, but he
scents danger.
{200}
DIVISION VI. Sec. 5. CHAPTER XVI. 21-23.
_Salutations from St. Paul's companions._
Timothy my fellow-worker saluteth you; and Lucius and Jason and
Sosipater, my kinsmen. I Tertius, who write the epistle, salute you in
the Lord. Gaius my host, and of the whole church, saluteth you.
Erastus the treasurer of the city saluteth you, and Quartus the brother.
Most of these persons are very probably otherwise known to us. Leaving
aside the well-known Timothy, we find a Lucius of Cyrene among the
prophets in Acts xiii. 1[1]; a Jason at Thessalonica, as St. Paul's
host, in Acts xvii. 5 ff; a Sopater (or Sosipater) of Beroea, Acts xx.
4. Gaius was one of the few whom St. Paul had baptized at Corinth (1
Cor. i. 14), and the Christian church, it appears, met at his house.
Erastus, the treasurer of Corinth, is probably the man mentioned in 2
Tim. iv. 20.
[1] And closely associated with St. Paul.
{201}
DIVISION VI. Sec. 6. CHAPTER XVI. 25-27.
_Final Doxology._
Now to him that is able to stablish you according to my gospel and the
preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery
which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now is
manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the
commandment of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations unto
obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to
whom[1] be the glory for ever. Amen.
There is no idea in this doxology with which this epistle has not made
us familiar in substance. We have been led to think of the gospel, now
proclaimed and entrusted to St. Paul, as the disclosure of a divine
purpose long working secretly: we have been bidden to adore the
unfathomable resourcefulness of the wisdom of God: we have been
constantly referred to the {202} testimony borne by law and prophets to
the gospels: we have been made familiar with the object of the
evangelical preaching, as being to secure 'the obedience of faith among
all the nations.' And a particular phrase in an epistle written about
the same time[2]--'We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the
wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds
unto our glory, which ... unto us God revealed by his Spirit,'--is
strikingly parallel to the beginning of the doxology. At the same time
the elaborate richness of the style, as well as many of the ideas,
reminds us irresistibly of the Epistle to the Ephesians[3]. This,
coupled with the fact that there is considerable authority for placing
the doxology at the end of chap. xiv, has led some scholars to adopt
the idea--accepted and elaborated by Dr. Lightfoot--that St. Paul first
wrote the epistle down to xvi. 23, as his Epistle to the Romans, and
subsequently, perhaps during one of his sojourns at Rome, turned it
into a circular letter, omitting for this purpose the last two
chapters, with their personal matter, and adding the doxology in {203}
the rich manner of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Subsequently the
doxology would have been added also to the complete epistle. There are
many difficulties in such a theory. Especially why should the
beginning of chap. xv be cut off from the end of chap. xiv, when there
is no break in thought? But I do not pursue the subject here[4], for
it would be out of place, and alien to our practical purpose. There is
no ground for doubting that the whole of what we receive as the epistle
was written by St. Paul; and no ground for thinking that any part of
the whole, down to xvi. 23, was not found in the letter as originally
carried by Phoebe; but it cannot be denied that some mystery, not
easily solved, hangs about the manifold and interrupted conclusions of
the epistle; and that the rich style of the doxology is somewhat unlike
both the rest of the epistle, and the other epistles of this period.
However, whether or no it was written at a later date, at least it
forms a splendid summing up of what is probably the greatest and most
influential letter ever written.
And there is no teaching which we more {204} urgently need to-day than
the teaching of this epistle. Whether the need be to expand our
personal religion into social service, and also to reinvigorate our
social service with the power of personal religion; or so to reassert
the divine authority of the Church as never to forget that it depends
for its vitality upon personally converted hearts; or to teach men to
remember the inexorable severity of divine judgement, as well as the
depth of the divine compassion; or to rebuke the shallowness which
attempts to separate Christian character from Christian doctrine; or to
harmonize individual freedom with the social claim; or to impart to
self-sacrifice the spirit of humility and gladness and indomitable
hope; or at once to exalt and restrict the function of the State; or to
emphasize the true grounds and limits of toleration in a catholic
church--whatever, one may almost say, be the need to which the special
deficiencies and perils of our church and age give rise, or of which at
the moment we are most conscious, the teaching of St. Paul in this
epistle is found to meet it full face.
Truly we may thank God with a continually growing gratitude for the
gift to us of a letter so inexhaustibly full of spiritual wealth, and
so complete in its provision for the whole of life.
[1] If we retain the words 'to whom' the grammar of the sentence breaks
down, but the object to whom praise is ascribed is probably the Father.
[2] 1 Cor. ii. 7, 10.
[3] See especially Eph. iii. 1-13. Cf. also 2 Tim. i. 9-11; Titus i.
2, 3.
[4] It is fully treated in Lightfoot's _Biblical Essays_ (Macmillan,
1894), pp. 287 ff, by Lightfoot himself and Hort from different points
of view, and by S. and H., pp. lxxxv. ff.
{205}
APPENDED NOTES
NOTE A. See vol. i. p. 59.
THE MEANINGS OF THE WORD 'FAITH.'
The history of the original Hebrew and Greek words for believing or
faith, is very interesting. The Hebrew verb ('aman') means 'to prop'
or 'support'[1]. Now (1) a form of this verb means 'to be supported,'
hence 'to be firm,' hence '_to be trustworthy_'; (2) another form of
the verb means 'to support oneself on,' and hence '_to trust_,' '_to
believe_.' From (1) comes the Hebrew substantive ('emunah') meaning
'faithfulness,' 'trustworthiness,' which is used, as elsewhere, so also
in Habakkuk ii. 4. In that passage it is revealed to the prophet,
that, while the apparently overwhelming wave of Chaldaean barbarism
rolls over him and passes away, 'the just man shall live (or save his
life) by his faithfulness.' But this faithfulness of the righteous
Israelite means a faithful holding on through the dark days to the word
of God as to a secure ground of confidence; and thus the substantive
used in this place in the Greek Bible ('pistis') tends to pass into the
meaning which it mostly, though not always[2], has in the New
Testament--a meaning derived {206} not from form (1) but from form (2)
of the Hebrew verb mentioned above (which however had no corresponding
substantive)--trust or faith in the word and promise of another,
especially God or Christ; or, still more characteristically, trust in
_the person_ of Christ and so of God.
Even under this heading of belief or trust the range of the word's
meaning is considerable. In one passage of St. James' Epistle it is a
bare intellectual recognition of the truth of things, without any moral
value ('the devils also believe' that God is one, James ii. 19). More
often it is that confidence in the divine word or promise, by which the
good man, in lack of present evidence, sustains his courage or his
prayer and wins his victory over the world: so especially in Hebr. xi,
Luke xviii. 8, James ii. 23, 2 Cor. v. 7, 1 John v. 4. But its most
characteristic use, as said above, is what first appears in the
Gospels. The person of Jesus is there represented as eliciting from
men a supreme trust in His power to heal diseases, and also to satisfy
that deeper human need of which the disease is an outward symbol. And
this power of Jesus to heal men in body and soul is seen in the Gospels
to depend upon the extent of their faith: 'Thy faith hath saved thee;'
'According to thy faith be it unto thee.' Thus Jesus Christ appears
constantly as inspiring, requiring, and rewarding faith in Himself, and
that as the manifested Son of God, e.g. John xiv. 1. This is 'the
faith which is through Him,' i.e. which He produces; and which as
'faith in His name' remains the characteristic Christian quality when
He is gone from sight (Acts iii. 16). 'The faith' in the Acts (vi. 7,
xiii. 8, xiv. 22, &c.) means this Christian attitude towards the unseen
but living and energizing Christ.
Thus when St. Paul came to believe in Jesus Christ, 'faith in
Jesus,'--as meaning not merely acceptance of His claim or of His word
or of His grace, but {207} whole-hearted devotion to His person, entire
self-surrender or self-committal to Christ or God in Christ--became the
dominant note of his new state: 'I know him whom I have believed, and I
am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto
him against that day' (2 Tim. i. 12[3]). And this same devotion to
Christ becomes, in St. Paul's theology, in its various stages, the only
ground of man's acceptance with God. And though he uses 'faith' in a
morally lower sense, as distinct from love--the faith which qualifies
for miracles (1 Cor. xiii. 2)--yet in his characteristic sense of the
term it involves the deepest love towards its divine object[4].
Naturally, as faith is thus _the_ characteristic of Christianity, and
this faith in a person involves a belief about Him--His divine sonship,
His resurrection, His mission of the Spirit--so 'the faith' comes to
mean (objectively) that which the Christian believes, or his creed; and
this sense of the word appears almost in the Acts, in Gal. i. 23, and
in Eph. iv. 5, and certainly in the Pastoral Epistles frequently (see
Dr. Bernard in _Camb. Gr. Test._ on 1 Tim. i. 19) and St. Jude's
Epistle, verse 2.
[1] We are familiar with the derived adverb of confirmation, 'Amen.'
[2] In Rom. iii. 3, Matt, xxiii. 23, it is still used for
'faithfulness.'
[3] In spite of Ellicott, Holtzmann, and Bernard, I believe this to be
the true rendering, and not that of the R.V. margin.
[4] On the development of the principle of faith in the soul, see vol.
i. pp. 29, 30; and on its naturalness, in the highest sense, for man,
see pp. 21, 22.
NOTE B. See vol. i. p. 103.
THE USE OF THE WORD 'CONSCIENCE.'
There is no word for conscience in the Old Testament. 'The
conception,' says Delitzsch (_Bibl. Psychology_, Clark's {208} trans.,
p. 160), 'is not yet impressed upon it.' And he accounts for this by
quoting, 'The positive law took away its significance from the natural
moral consciousness.' The Jews, that is--like other nations at certain
stages of their history--lived so constantly under the detailed
guidance of a law believed to be divine, that there was not much room
for reflection as to the right and wrong of things. For the idea of
conscience to develop, the will of God must be less clearly and
decisively pronounced as to the details of conduct. There was,
however, of course among the Jews, in proportion to their belief in a
clear divine law, the consciousness of having done wrong; and on this
account a man's 'heart' is described as 'privy to' an offence, and as
'reproaching' or 'smiting' him: see 1 Kings ii. 44, Job xxvii. 6[1], 1
Sam. xxiv. 5, xxv. 31, 2 Sam. xxiv. 10. Here is the root of the idea
of conscience, i.e. of something in the man behind his surface self,
reflecting upon what he has done, a self behind himself acquitting or
condemning him, and so anticipating the divine judgement. For, as
stated above[2], this was in the main the Stoic doctrine of conscience,
and it was among them that the idea was first developed. Conscience
was conceived of as that in man which lay behind his working self and
reflected on his actions _after they were done_, bringing them into the
light of the 'law of nature' or universal divine law for man. There is
thus, as it were, in each man a double self, or double consciousness
(_conscientia_), so that one can reflect upon himself, and pass
judgement on his own actions.
It is in this sense of a self-judging faculty in all men reflecting on
what they have done, anticipating a divine {209} judgement, that the
idea of conscience was acclimatized among the Jews. Thus, in Wisdom
xvii. 11, we read, 'For wickedness, condemned by a witness within, is a
coward thing, and being pressed hard by conscience, always forecasteth
the worst lot.' In St. John viii. 9, according to one reading, the
Jews are 'convicted by their own conscience.' So St. Paul, in the
passage discussed above (ii. 15), seems to distinguish the subsequent
reflective 'conscience' from the previous informing reason, 'the effect
(equivalent) of the law written in their hearts.' And in most of the
passages of the New Testament, this meaning of conscience--the faculty
by which we sit in judgement on what we have already done--is
sufficient. But sometimes, as also among the Stoics[3], the word
passes into meaning the positive directing faculty, as when (1 Cor.
viii. 10) a man's 'conscience' is said to be 'emboldened' to adopt a
new practice, or (Hebr. ix. 14) to be cleansed for positive service.
Moreover, though it is an individual faculty (see Rom. ii. 15), and
exists primarily to pass judgement on one's own actions only, yet
perforce it must also look without and condemn or approve the actions
of others (2 Cor. iv. 2, v. 11).
St. Paul also brings into notice that our conscience is a faculty for
the condition of which we are responsible. It is not the voice of God,
but a faculty capable of reflecting His voice, if it be well guarded.
Thus you may have a 'weak' or a 'strong,' i.e. a more or less
enlightened, conscience (1 Cor. viii). And a man may 'defile' his
'mind and conscience,' i.e. he may corrupt his moral reason and powers
of moral self-judgement (Tit. i. 15). {210} Then the 'conscience' may
become hardened and 'seared' (1 Tim. iv. 2), so that 'the light that is
in' men becomes itself 'darkness' according to our Lord's warning (St.
Matt. vi. 23). And there is nothing which is more necessary at the
present day than to remind men that they are not 'safe' because they
are not acting against their conscience, unless they are also
constantly at pains to enlighten their conscience and keep it in the
light, by the help of the best moral thought of their time, the
guidance of the Church and the word of God. Our conscience, if it is
rightly to reassure us by its witness, must, like St. Paul's
conscience, bear its witness 'in the Holy Ghost' (Rom. ix. 1).
With us moderns 'conscience' has generally the wider meaning of the
whole practical moral consciousness. It enjoins as well as judges, and
is occupied with the present and the future, as well as with the past.
[1] In LXX [Greek] _ou gar sunoida emauto atopa praxas_.
[2] Vol. i. p. 103, n. 2.
[3] e.g. when conscience was described by Epictetus as the grown man's
inward tutor [pedagogue], which must obviously mean that it is to
instruct as well as reprove.
NOTE C. See vol. i. p. 129.
RECENT REACTIONS FROM THE TEACHING ABOUT HELL.
There is no doubt that there has been within the last forty years a
great, and in large measure legitimate, reaction from the
old--mediaeval and Calvinist--teaching about hell. But one who reads
the early chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, or the Gospels, or
other parts of the New Testament, in view of this reaction, will
probably feel an uncomfortable sense that it has gone too far. It is
worth while then to try and discriminate.
To put the matter in as brief a summary as befits a note, I should hold
that the reaction has been legitimate so far as it has involved a
repudiation of--
{211}
(1) the Calvinist doctrine that God has created some men, no matter
whether many or few, inevitably doomed to everlasting misery. This
doctrine is flat contrary to some particular statements of the New
Testament (as to its general spirit) and is only a misunderstanding of
others (see above, pp. 8, 29).
(2) any such crude idea of the divine judgement as that God condemns
men for merely _external_ reasons, e.g. because in fact, apart from any
question of will, they were not baptized, or remained pagans or
heretics. Such a conception is quite inadequate, for the divine
judgement penetrates to the heart. God is a father: He is absolutely
equitable: He judges men in the light of their opportunities. He will
reject none whose will is not set to evil. 'This is the judgement that
... men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were
evil' (John iii. 19).
(3) the tendency to exaggerate what is revealed to us, and what,
therefore, we can say we _know_ about the state of man after death.
Thus (_a_) there is nothing really revealed to us as to the relative
proportions of saved and lost. (_b_) It is certain that we only _know_
of a probation for man here and now--'Now is the accepted time--now is
the day of salvation.' And the absolutely equitable Father may see the
conditions of an adequate probation equally in every man's earthly lot.
It is therefore foolish to entertain, or encourage any one else to
entertain, an expectation of any other state of probation except that
which we certainly have here in this world. 'It is appointed unto men
once to die, and after that the judgement.' But if St. Peter could
speak (as of a familiar subject) of the 'gospel' as having been
'preached' by our Lord's human spirit in Hades 'to the dead,' i.e. to
those who had perished in their wickedness under the divine judgement
of the flood: and preached with the intention {212} that _the judgement
might be turned into a blessing and means of spiritual life_--and he
certainly does speak thus (1 Peter iv. 6, cf. iii. 19): I do not see
how we can deny the possibility at any period, or in the case of any
person, of an unfulfilled probation being accomplished beyond death.
(_c_) Careful attention to the origin of the doctrine of the necessary
immortality or indestructibility of each human soul, as stated for
instance by Augustine and Aquinas[1], will probably convince us that it
was no part of the original Christian message, or of really catholic
doctrine[2]. It was rather a speculation of Platonism taking
possession of the Church. And this consideration leaves open
possibilities of the ultimate extinction of personal consciousness in
the lost, which Augustinianism somewhat rudely, closed.
But to have convicted our forefathers of going, in certain parts of
their teaching, beyond what was certainly revealed, affords no
justification for doing the same ourselves in an opposite extreme; by
asserting for example positively (_a_) that almost all men will be
'saved'; or (_b_) that there is probation to be looked for beyond
death; or (_c_) that the souls of 'the lost' will be at the last
extinguished. These positive positions are no more justified than
those of our forefathers which we have deprecated. We must recognize
the limits of positive knowledge.
And when we have come to the end of what a legitimate reaction from the
teaching of our forefathers restores to us, in the direction of a
'larger hope,' we are still face to {213} face with the fact of
'eternal judgement.' Men, as far as their individual destinies are
concerned, are passing towards one of two ends, not towards one only--a
divine judgement of approval _or_ of condemnation; and both judgements
are represented as final and irreversible; and they are the inevitable
outcome of the moral law by which our probation is realized--that
voluntary acts form habits, and habits stereotype into a fixed
character. It is foolish to look to the process or moment of death for
redemption from sin; for death, as far as we know, only transplants us
with the character we have made for ourselves, and with continuous
consciousness, into the unknown world; so that if in this life we have
unfitted ourselves for God, we must find it out beyond death, and know
there the full meaning of our awful miscalculation here. And the
awakening of the 'lost' to what they have cast away--to the meaning of
irreversible self-exclusion from the presence of God--is imaged as
unspeakably awful; and their state is pictured in metaphors and phrases
descriptive both of torment and finality--'outer darkness,' 'gnawing
worm,' 'unquenchable fire,' 'eternal punishment,' 'eternal sin,' 'sin
which shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, nor in that which
is to come,' eternal 'death,' or exclusion from eternal life, 'eternal
ruin,' 'wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish.'