06. Chapter 6. THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
CHAPTER VI THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS THE problems concerned with the Epistle to the Romans may conveniently be divided into three main groups: (1) the critical questions relating to the integrity and destination of the Epistle; (2) the foundation and character of the Church at Rome; (3) the doctrinal and other controversies which called forth the Epistle. The questions of a purely historical and critical character connected with this Epistle seem at first sight to be few in comparison with those raised by the Galatians and Corinthians. Indeed, if we could take the text of the Epistle as it stands, the question of date, and of the place to which it was sent—points which are so complicated in connection with Galatians—would be so plain as hardly to admit of discussion. In Romans 16:1 St. Paul refers to Phoebe as the “servant” (διάκονος) of the Church at Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth on the Saronic gulf, and commends her to his readers. This is in itself almost enough to justify us in saying that St. Paul was writing from Corinth. Moreover, in Romans 15:25-27 there is a clear reference to the “collection” for Jerusalem which St. Paul had made in Achaia and Macedonia.
“But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily; and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things.” From this it is plain that St. Paul has finished the collection and is just starting for Jerusalem. This can scarcely refer to any place except Corinth, and as this agrees so exactly with the inference derived from the mention of Phoebe, there is no reason for the slightest hesitation in saying that the evidence decisively indicates Corinth as the place, and the last visit to Corinth as the time of the writing of the Epistle to the Romans.
Unfortunately, at this point it is necessary to face two problems which disturb this apparently clear indication. In the first place, it is alleged that Romans 16:1-27—the commendatory letter for Phoebe—was really intended for Ephesus, not for Rome. In the second place, there is clear evidence of the existence of a shorter form of the Epistle, which omitted Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 and made no mention of Rome in Romans 1:1-32. If this cannot be shown to be a later recension, the argument based on Romans 15:1-33 only holds good for the longer text, and the possibility that the short form is the original has to be considered.
Thus,two distinct problems have to be investigated. (1) The destination of Romans 16:1-23; (2) the short recension of Romans. THE ORIGINAL DESTINATION OF Romans 16:1-23
There is no trace of any external evidence for doubting that this section has always belonged to the Epistle. But on internal grounds the double objection has often been made that it is quite unsuitable as a communication to the Church of Rome, and that it bears signs of having really been intended for Ephesus. The negative argument—that it is unsuitable for Rome—is primarily concerned with the large number of personal greetings which it contains, far larger than in any other Epistle. Is it probable that St. Paul had in a Church which he had never visited more friends than in any other place? Or, if it be thought that this is an unwarrantable inference from the greetings, is it probable that he would have known so many persons in Rome? It must be admitted that there is some force in this argument, even though it is hardly conclusive.
Besides this it must be noted as a secondary argument of a negative kind that Romans 16:17-18 seems out of place in an Epistle to the Romans. St. Paul says, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark those who cause divisions and offences contrary to the teaching which ye have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.” By the “teaching which ye have received” does not St. Paul naturally mean his own teaching? And does not the description given of the false teachers fit much more the unethical teaching of “advanced” Christians, such as obtained in Greece and Asia, than the narrow, but certainly ethical teaching of Judaizing Christians against whom Romans is directed? Again, it cannot be denied that there is some force in this argument, though it is not so strong as the other, because there are some other places in the Epistle which are at least capable of bearing the meaning that there was a tendency to an imperfect appreciation of the ethical obligations of Christianity among some of the Gentile Christians (see pp.
Epaenetus is described as the firstfruits of Asia, just as Stephanas in 1 Corinthians 16:15 is called the firstfruits of Achaia. It is possible that Epaenetus had left Asia; but there is much more force in the description if he was still in Asia, and St. Paul was writing to the Church of which he was the earliest member. At the same time, not much emphasis can be put on this argument, because we know nothing of the history of Epaenetus.
Far more important is the question of Prisca and Aquila. The point is that, although they originally came from Rome, all our information points to the probability that their settled abode at this time was in Ephesus, and that, therefore, when St. Paul sends greetings to them, and to the Church in their house, it is far more probable that he is writing to Ephesus than to Rome. In connection with this question it will perhaps be best to collect shortly all that we know from the New Testament as to Prisca and Aquila. They are first mentioned in Acts 18:2, when we read that after St. Paul’s arrival in Corinth he “found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, and his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them. And because he was of the same trade, he abode with them, and they carried on a business: for by trade they were tent-makers.” The question may be raised whether they were already Christians, or were converted by St. Paul. As St. Luke makes no statement on the subject, certainty is not attainable, but the probability is somewhat in favour of the view that they were already Christians when they came to Corinth, as Stephanas, not Aquila or his wife, is quoted as the ἀπαρχὴ Ἀχαίας, and from 1 Corinthians 1:16 it would seem that Stephanas was a Corinthian. It is true that Aquila is referred to as a Jew, but it is by no means clear that “Jew” was to St. Luke the contradictory of “Christian.” In Corinth they remained until St. Paul’s departure, when they went with him to Ephesus (Acts 18:18), and they were still in Ephesus when St. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, as he refers (1 Corinthians 16:19) to the Church in their house; indeed, if the tradition preserved in the text of the group of Graeco-Latin MSS. (DEFG), in 1 Corinthians 16:19 could be trusted, he lodged in their house at Ephesus (see p.
Thus, apart from Romans 16:3, all the evidence suggests that Aquila and his wife settled permanently in Ephesus, and this gives real support to the theory that Romans 16:1-27 is actually a short letter of commendation given to Phoebe for her use in Ephesus, not in Rome. It is not very probable that Aquila and Prisca left their settled home in Ephesus soon after St. Paul had written 1 Corinthians, that a year later their house in Rome was the centre of a Church, and that they later on returned to Ephesus, and once more took up the same position in the Christian community. This argument is not lightly to be set aside, and if Romans 16:1-23 were a loose fragment, with no context, I do not doubt that it would have been regarded as quite certainly a letter sent to Ephesus to commend Phoebe. The difficulty is in explaining how in this case a commendatory note (for it is really nothing more) to Ephesus, ever got into the Epistle to the Romans. This difficulty has led to many attempts at a fresh analysis of the greetings, intended to show that they really point to Rome, and to more or less ingenious efforts to find traces of Prisca and others in the early history of the Church of Rome. The general analysis of the greetings has drawn attention to the fact that there is more evidence for the various names in inscriptions from Rome than in those from other places, and considerable weight has been attached to this point by those who support the Roman hypothesis. I doubt, however, whether they are quite justified in their conclusions. Our knowledge of Roman inscriptions has been, until recently, much greater than that of those in other places, and as our information has grown, the number of names which really are peculiar has decreased. It is true, as Lightfoot pointed out, that many of the names in the salutations can be paralleled in Roman inscriptions referring to the household of Caesar, but these inscriptions are not contemporary, and most of the names are found in other places as well as Rome. For instance, without any full research into the Corpus Inscriptionum, a glance at Thieme’s Inschriften von Magnesia am Mäander und das Neue Testament shows that Stachys and Philologus, both of which Lightfoot regarded as rare, and therefore adding weight to his argument, are found in inscriptions in Magnesia and in the island of Thera. The mere fact that many of the names in the greetings in Romans 16:1-27 are found in Roman inscriptions connected with the imperial household is of very little weight unless it can be shown either that the names in question are, as a whole, so rare that their combination in the greetings, and again in the imperial household can only be explained by their reference to the same persons, or that there is some reason for making this identification on other grounds. The former can certainly not be maintained; there is perhaps more ground for supporting the latter view. This support is found in connection with the “household of Aristobulus,” and the “household of Narcissus.” is suggested that the phrase translated “the household of Aristobulus”—οἱ Ἀριστοβούλου—means the slaves in the Imperial household whom the Emperor inherited from Aristobulus, the grandson of Herod the Great. This Aristobulus is known to have lived in Rome, and to have been a friend of the Emperor Claudius. The suggestion is that if, as is probable, he was dead by the middle of the first century, he had bequeathed his slaves to the Emperor, and that they were known as Aristobuliani—οἱ τοῦ Ἀριστοβούλου—in the Imperial household. This is possible, for it was not uncommon for slaves to pass in this way into the Imperial household, and to have a distinctive name. But, of course, it is pure assumption. There is no proof either that such Aristobuliani existed, or that Aristobulus left his slaves to the Emperor. A stronger case, of the same kind, can be made out for an identification of the “house-hold of Narcissus.” There was a well-known freedman named Narcissus who was put to death by Agrippina at the beginning of Nero’s reign. It is suggested, with much probability, that after his death his slaves were confiscated by the Emperor. This is quite likely, and, if so, these slaves would be called Narcissiani. There are, however, two objections to this theory, though neither is fatal. In the first place, Narcissus is quite a common name; in the second, there is no proof that Narcissiani must be translated into Greek as οἱ Ναρκίσσου. Words like Herodiani were transliterated directly. Would not St. Paul have said οἱ Ναρκισσιανοί if he had meant Narcissiani? It seems to me more probable that οἱ Ναρκίσσου means “the family of Narcissus,” and that it refers to some living person named Narcissus. At the same time, there is undoubtedly force in the contention that it is remarkable that in the Imperial household, among which we know that there were Christians (Php 4:22), it should be possible to show that there may probably have been at this time two sub-groups connected with the names of Aristobulus and Narcissus. My own feeling is that if it were certain that Romans 16:1-23 really was sent to Rome, I should regard it as probable that οἱ Ἀριστοβούλου and οἱ Ναρκίσσου should be explained in this way. But I feel less prepared to accept this exegesis as a decisive argument in favour of the Roman hypothesis, when this is in dispute. The attempt to find definite traces of Prisca and others in the early tradition of the Roman Church, is chiefly the work of de Rossi, the famous investigator of the catacombs in Rome. He maintained in the first place that the Church of St. Prisca, on the Aventine hill, was founded on the site of the house of Prisca and Aquila. De Rossi was a very great man, but here it cannot be said that his arguments are impressive. It is sufficient to say that there is no real evidence at all for proving that the site of St. Prisca’s was that of the house of Prisca and Aquila, and no evidence for thinking that the church was called SS. Aquila et Prisca before the eighth century. A far more serious argument was based by de Rossi on the coemeterium Priscillae in the catacombs. It is apparently probable that this cemetery was originally that of the Acilia gens, and Priscilla was a common name among the women of this gens. Thus it is suggested that the cemetery of this family was called after their distinguished member, Prisca the wife of Aquila. Dr. Hort goes further and thinks that as Prisca is usually mentioned before her husband she may have been of more distinguished birth than her husband. Why not go further still, and suggest that Aquila was a freedman of the gens Pontia, in which Aquila was a common name? Is it not possible that ποντικὸν τῷ γένει is a misunderstanding of this fact? It seems to me that such suggestions are dangerously fanciful, and that there is not really any sufficient evidence for connecting the coemeterium Priscillae with Prisca the wife of Aquila.
Similar use has been made of the presence of the name of Ampliatus in inscriptions in the cemetery of Domitilla. The name is found twice: but it is not uncommon, and though these inscriptions show that in the second century there were Christians of that name in Rome, there is not much reason for thinking that the Ampliatus mentioned by St. Paul must necessarily have lived there. The same can also be said of Nereus. This name is celebrated through the Acts of Nereus and Achilleus, who according to the legend were eunuchs in the household of Domitilla. The name is quite common, and the Acts seem to contain much legend and little or no history.
Apart from the tradition of the Epistle there is thus a comparatively weak case for the Roman hypothesis. Still, the fact always remains that Romans 16:1-23 is an integral part of all MSS. of the Epistle which we now possess. Thus the earliest tradition which we have connects it with Rome, not with Ephesus. This is not everything, but it is a great deal. Probably it is enough to prevent the Ephesian hypothesis from ever being unanimously accepted, and rightly so, for it can never be proved fully. Still there seems to me to be a distinct balance of argument in favour of Ephesus, though I must admit to vacillation on the question, and I should not like to say that I shall never come back to the Roman hypothesis. To some extent I have been influenced by the growing conviction that the text of the Corpus Paulinum is not always the same as the text which St. Paul wrote. If, as seems to me certain, 2 Corinthians is a combination of parts of two letters, whose union has left no trace in the textual tradition, clearly there was an important interval in the history of the text of the individual letters, and of the small collections of Pauline material made by individual communities, before the Corpus Paulinum was defined and its text established.
If the Ephesian hypothesis be adopted, it is clear that Romans 16:1-23 must be regarded as a letter of introduction sent by St. Paul to Ephesus for Phoebe, a servant of the Church at Cenchreae, the eastern port of Corinth. Whether it was sent by St. Paul on the eve of his departure to Jerusalem must remain doubtful. There is nothing in its contents to help us, but it is at least the most probable moment, unless we assume that St. Paul visited Corinth again after he was set free in Rome. The importance of the question in relation to the history of the Epistle as a whole can naturally only be discussed after the more serious problem of the existence of a short recension has been dealt with. THE SHORT RECENSION The proof of the existence of a short recension of the Epistle resolves itself into the treatment of the textual evidence for the reference to Rome in the first chapter, and of that for the two last chapters. It is probably best to begin by showing why there is reason to believe that there was once a text which omitted the two last chapters, and then to go on to give the reasons for thinking that this shorter form contained no reference to Rome. The most widespread evidence for the omission of the two chapters can be found in the ordinary Latin chapter headings (or breves) given in the Codex Amiatinus of the Vulgate and in many others (Berger, Histoire de la Vulgate, p. 357, mentions at least 48). This system gives Romans as divided into 51 chapters: the last but one (No. 50) is entitled, De periculo contristante fratrem suum esca sua, et quod non sit regnum dei esca et potus sed justitia et pax et gaudium in spiritu sancto. This clearly covers
Moreover, corroboration is not wanting that this conclusion is just. There is found in some MSS. a sort of concordance or harmony of the Pauline Epistles, which arranges under reference to the chapter numbers the parallel passages which deal with the same questions. The references to Romans are usually missing; but it is possible that the full text is preserved in a MS. at Murbach (Codex Morbacensis) which gives 43 headings from Romans. These are given according to the Amiatine chapter divisions, and the two last are Quod regnum dei non sit esca et potus, ad Rom. L., ad Cor. pr. XI., and De abscondito sacramento a saeculo, ad Rom. LI., ad Eph. IX, ad Coloss. III, ad Tit. I., ad Hebr. II. This can scarcely be explained except on the hypothesis that a short recension was used. There is, it is true, some ground for thinking that possibly Corssen is wrong, and that the Murbach MS. is not the original form of the capitulatio, but a later edition of it. The reason for this is that whereas the other MSS. omit all reference both to Romans and Hebrews, the Murbach MS. contains both. The references to Hebrews are probably an accretion, and it is open to argument that the same is true of Romans. It is not, however, necessary to discuss this point here, for in any case, whether the Murbach MS. represent original capitulatio or an interpolated version of it, it is based on a short text of Romans. For myself I cannot see any possible answer to this argument, and the attempts of Zahn and Riggenbach to maintain that the Amiatine system of breves is defective have little or no strength. It is not as though the Amiatine system was only found in a few MSS.; those mentioned by Berger are probably not a twentieth of the whole number, and there seems to be no reason to doubt the obvious conclusion drawn from the facts by a whole series of scholars, who have agreed in thinking that the Amiatine system of breves points to a short recension, though they have differed widely enough in their explanation of the fact.
It is obvious that the Latin version implied by the Amiatine Breves is not the Vulgate, but is ante-Hieronymian. Further traces of the existence of the short text can be found in Latin in Cyprian, and in Tertullian. In the case of Cyprian, the evidence is merely the dangerous argumentum e silentio, but is a strong example of its kind. In his Testimonia he gives a collection of texts from every possible source, arranged according to their community of meaning, so as to serve as an arsenal of proof texts for various dogmas. It is certainly a fact that he does not clearly quote anything from Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 of Romans, and each must judge for himself whether this can be accidental. The main point is, that in Test. III. 68, 78, 95, Cyprian musters the passages enjoining the duty of avoiding heretics, under the three headings; 68.Recedendum ab eo qui inordinate et contra disciplinam vivat, 2 Thessalonians 3:6. 78.Cum hereticis non loquendum, Titus 3:10 f., 1 John 2:19, 2 Timothy 2:17. 95.Bonis convivendum malos autem vitandos, 1 Corinthians 15:33. Why does he not quote Romans 16:17 : “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which ye learned,” etc.? It is instructive to note that in the spurious De Singularitate Clericorum (Cyprian, ed. Hartel, appendix, p. 212), 2 Thessalonians 3:6 is quoted, and a few lines further down Romans 16:17, which shows how naturally any one who knew Romans 16:1-27 would have used it in this connection. It seems to me exceedingly probable that Cyprian had the same short text as the Amiatine Breves, and that this text must be provisionally regarded as having obtained in Africa in the third century.
Going still further back, the evidence of Tertullian is, if anything, stronger; for not only is there the same argumentum e silentio in the fact that he nowhere quotes Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 but in Adv. Marcionem, 5, 13, he quotes Romans 14:10, and says that this verse comes in clausula, i.e. in the closing section of the Epistle. It is true that he is contrasting the end with the beginning, and Hort (cf. Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, p. 335) argued that this need not imply the absence of the two last chapters. This might be admitted if it were not for the other evidence for a short recension; as it is, the natural interpretation of the facts is that Tertullian, like Cyprian, used a short text of Romans. Moreover, though it be true that the argumentum e silentio is much less strong in the case of Tertullian than in that of Cyprian, because he quotes so much less, it is noteworthy that Rom. 15 and 16 are so full of passages opposed to the doctrine of Marcion, that it is suggested (by Sanday and Headlam, and by Corssen) that the short recension is a Marcionite production; yet Tertullian never alludes to these passages, either to throw at Marcion or to comment on his excision of them—and he was by no means disposed to pass over Marcion’s emendations (real or supposed) in silence, even though he endeavoured to answer the heretic out of his own text.
Thus there is good reason for believing that, in Africa, in the second as well as in the third century, the Epistle to the Romans was used in a short text which omitted Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27. The Amiatine Breves were made for a similar text, and suggest that this recension was closed by the doxology which we usually read in Romans 16:25-27.
It is, however, improbable that the Amiatine Breves represent an originally African text. Riggenbach has shown that in the summaries given the text of the Epistles is sufficiently closely followed to enable us to identify its character. It is not African, and it is not Vulgate; but represents the European type which was current in Italy before the days of Jerome. Thus we have European as well as African evidence for the short recension. It is at present impossible to say whether there was originally one or more Latin versions; so that we do not know whether this agreement between African and European Latin ought to be taken as representing one or two Greek originals. It is, however, in any case certain that the evidence takes us back to the second century.
Another witness, but a suspected one, to the same short text, is Marcion. For our knowledge of this fact we are indebted to Rufinus’ translation of Origen’s Commentary on Romans 16:25-27. He says, Caput hoc Marcion, a quo scripturae evangelicae atque apostolicae interpolatae sunt, de hac epistola penitus abstulit; et non solum hoc, sed et ab eo loco ubi scriptum est omne autem quod non est ex fide, peccatum est (Romans 14:23) usque ad finem cuncta dissecuit. The meaning of this passage is one of two. Clearly it implies that Marcion removed the doxology altogether (abstulit), but there is room for doubt as to what he did with the rest of the Epistle. What is the meaning of dissecuit? The obvious meaning, which is nearly always adopted, seems to be “cut away,” but the objection, first made, I think, by Hort, is that this is not the true meaning either of dissecuit, or of the Greek (which it may be supposed to represent) διέτεμεν; it ought rather to be translated “separated off.” This argument gains strength if we try to distinguish between abstulit and dissecuit. It is, perhaps, impossible to decide the point; if dissecuit be used loosely it means that Marcion cut away not only the doxology, but also Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27; if it be taken strictly it means that Marcion separated Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 from the rest of the Epistle, and cut out the doxology which came at the end of Romans 16:1-27. Probably the former view is right, and the difference between abstulit and dissecuit is to be explained as merely due to a desire for variation. No MSS. in any language preserves the short recension. Corssen, it is true, thinks that in a certain limited sense this may be claimed for the group DEFG or rather for their ancestor Z (see
Apart, however, from direct MS. evidence, the traces of the textual influence of the short recension are tolerably plain. In the Epistle to the Romans as it stands at present in critical editions the arrangement of the contents of the last three chapters is as follows: (1) Romans 14:1-23 is devoted to the question of the propriety of observing a distinction between lawful and unlawful food; (2) Romans 15:1-13 continues the argument on more general lines; (3) Romans 15:14-33 is chiefly concerned with St. Paul’s plans for the future; (4) Romans 16:1-20a is a list of greetings to members of the Church to which he writes, and a commendation of Phoebe of Cenchreae; (5) Romans 16:20b is a benediction; (6) Romans 16:20-23 is a postscript of greetings from companions of St. Paul; and (7) Romans 16:25-27 is a closing benediction. It is clear that there is no serious break in thought between Romans 14:23 and Romans 15:1, and that the doxology is in its correct place at the end of everything. Yet in the Antiochene text, represented by the great majority of Greek MSS., the doxology comes not at the end, but between Romans 14:23 and Romans 15:1 Moreover, it is certain that this represents an early text, which was adopted, to use Westcott and Hort’s expression, by the “Syrian Revisers,” because we have the distinct evidence of Origen that this reading was that of some of the texts which had not been corrupted by Marcion: In nonnullis etenim codicibus post eum locum quem supra diximus, hoc est Omne autem quod non est ex fide peccatum est, statim cohaerens habetur Ei autem qui potens est, etc., though he was also acquainted with others which put the doxology at the end of the Epistle, and, like modern critical editors, believed that this was the right place for it. The same text was used by Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius and Theophylact, so that, leaving out the Latin version for the moment, it would seem as though the Eastern text originally had the doxology after Romans 14:1-23 and that in Alexandria it was moved to the end of Romans 16:1-27 though in the time of Origen the MSS. known to him still differed on the question. The history of the Latin text on this point is not easy to follow, owing to our almost complete ignorance of the Old Latin text of the Epistle. The known facts, however, seem to be these; there were in the Latin versions before Jerome three types of reading: (1) with the doxology at the end of the Epistle, found in D and used by Pelagius and Ambrosiaster, possibly owing to Alexandrian influence; (2) with the doxology after Romans 14:23, found in Codex Guelferbytanus and a fragment at Monza (cod. 1-2/9), and (3) without any doxology, used by Priscillian and found in FG and Cod. Ambrosianus E 26. It is also probable that Z, the archetype of the Graeco-Latin MSS. DEFG, ought to be added either to the second or third of these categories. The most probable solution of these facts seems to me to be that the earliest type of Old Latin had the doxology after Romans 14:23 and that the texts of Priscillian and Ambrosiaster represent Spanish and Italian attempts to emend an obviously difficult reading. It is, I think, an illustration of the fact that, with the exception of the Alexandrians, the Greeks were less apt to be struck by textual difficulties than the Latins.
It is now possible to sum up the probabilities of the case with regard to the doxology. It is very unlikely that this was originally anywhere else than at the end of the Epistle, wherever that was therefore all the MSS. which insert it after Romans 14:23 are really evidence for the existence of the short recension, and confirm the witness of Tertullian, Cyprian, and the Latin Breves and Capitulatio.
Moreover, it is not probable that the doxology belongs to the long recension, or rather to Romans 16:1-27 of the long recension. For, if we assume that it did so, we have to imagine that its presence in the short recension is due to the fact that some scribe, who knew both the short and the long recensions, took the doxology—and the doxology only—from the long recension in order to add it on to the short recension. This is exceedingly improbable; and even more improbable is it that, if the doxology had been found at the end of the long recension, it would ever have been taken out of its place and put in the middle of the connected argument of Romans 14:1-23 and and Romans 15:1-33. Thus the assumption that the doxology belonged originally to Romans 16:1-27 in the long recension renders it impossible to explain either (1) the short recension plus the doxology, or (2) the long recension plus the doxology after Romans 14:23. On the other hand, if we assume that the doxology really belonged originally to the short recension, or to one form of the short recension, and the long recension had no doxology at all, but ended with the “Grace” (or with a postscript after the “Grace,” according to the view taken of the textual question of the “Grace”), the textual history seems to admit of a reasonable reconstruction, as the result of attempts of scribes to combine these two forms. The simplest method was simply to add on to the complete short recension the added matter of the long recension, i.e.Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27. This was the method that the Antiochene text adopted. It had the disadvantage that it made the doxology appear to be intrusive and in an impossible position. An attempt to remedy this was the method of passing from one text to the other before the doxology: this would give a text indistinguishable from the original long recension, and is found in Priscillian and probably in Z, the archetype of DEFG. A third course taken in Alexandria, or at least in circles known to Origen, consisted in moving the doxology to the end of Romans 16:1-27 and this was also adopted by Pelagius, Ambrosiaster, and Jerome. The most important conclusion from these results is that there are no longer extant any pure MSS. either of the short or of the long recension. It is of course obvious that the short recension does not exist now, as no extant MSS. omit Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27. Similarly, the existence of the doxology is the proof that the long recension has been, at least so far, contaminated with the short recension. The only possible witnesses which we have to the pure long recension are the MSS. known to Jerome which had not the doxology, and possibly also those used by Priscillian. In any case, though many of the details are uncertain, and the history of the text is obscure, there is, I think, sufficient evidence to justify the statement that in the second century there was a short recension of Romans, and that traces of the process of its gradual abandonment in favour of the long recension can be found in the third and fourth centuries.
It is now necessary to go on to show that the short recension probably omitted the reference to Rome in Romans 1:7 and Romans 1:15. For these omissions there are three direct witnesses: Origen, Ambrosiaster, and Cod. G—here probably representing the archetype Z. The evidence of Origen is given directly in Cod. Athous Laurae 184, a MS. which E. von der Goltz discovered in 1897 to contain a text of the Epistle to the Romans made from the lost Greek of the commentary of Origen. This MS. gives, it is true, the words ἐν Ῥώμῃ in Romans 1:7 and Romans 1:15, but the scribe has been honest enough to add a note to the effect that this was not in his original, τοῦ ἐν Ῥώμῃ οὔτε ἐν τῇ ἐξηγήσει οὔτε ἐν τῷ ῥητῷ (i.e. the section of text at the head of the comment) μνημονεύει. The unexpressed subject of this sentence is of course Origen. Von der Goltz is, however, probably mistaken in thinking that this reading is not confirmed by the Latin text of Origen made by Rufinus. It is true that the words in dispute come in the text, but as Lightfoot pointed out long ago in Biblical Essays, p. 287, the comment does not imply them.
It is possible that Origen knew MSS. containing the words ἐν Ρώμῃ, but it is at least certain that he preferred to follow others which omitted them. The evidence of Ambrosiaster is contained in his commentary. He says, according to the existing MSS., “‘omnibus qui sunt Romae in caritate (v.l. dilectis) Dei vocatis sanctis,’ quamvis Romanis scribat illis tamen se scribere significat qui in caritate dei sunt.” It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the comment here implies a different text from that printed, and that Ambrosiaster’s Bible omitted ἐν Ῥώμῃ and read ἐν ἀγάπῃ (or in caritate) instead of ἀγαπήτοις. This view is taken not only by Zahn but also by Lightfoot and the fact is notorious that in patristic commentaries the Biblical text has often been regularized by scribes who are betrayed by the comments which they did not understand and therefore copied faithfully. The evidence of G agrees exactly with that of the commentary of Ambrosiaster, that is to say, it reads τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν ἀγάπῃ Θεοῦ. It is probable (see
Thus we have early evidence in Europe and in Alexandria for the omission of the words ἐν Ῥώμῃ. African evidence, on either side. I have been unable to find. This is, however, quite sufficient to prove the early existence of a recension which did not mention Rome. But was this recension the long or the short recension? I believe that it must have been the short recension, because the Latin version used by Ambrosiaster is textually closely related to the version used in the Latin Brevés which are one of the primary witnesses to the short recension. Moreover, Z appears in the evidence both for the short recension and for the omission of ἐν Ῥώμῃ. Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Marcion remain. As to Tertullian and Cyprian, it is unknown whether they did or did not read ἐν Ῥώμῃ. Marcion’s reading is also unknown. Origen used a text omitting ἐν Ῥώμῃ, yet possessing Rom. 15 and 16.; but the evidence which he gives as to the doxology shows his text was not that of the pure long recension, but a contaminated form, so that the omission of ἐν Ῥώμῃ may be an eclectic reading from the short recension quite as probably as one from the long recension. Thus there seems to be a great preponderance of evidence in favour of connecting the omission of ἐν Ῥώμῃ with the short recension. The result of the preceding rather long and tedious inquiry seems to establish the fact that in the second century there was in existence a short recension omitting Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 and the mention of Rome, and probably ending with the doxology. Indeed, there is, strictly speaking, earlier evidence for the short recension than for the long. I do not know of any quotations from Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 in writers of the second century, whereas Marcion and Tertullian both seem to have used the short recension. It would, however, be wrong to base any serious argument on this fact, because the chapters in question were not likely to be quoted. Moreover, there is no reason to doubt the Pauline authorship of Romans 15:1-33, which is closely connected with Romans 14:1-23. Thus there is no justification for any theory that Romans 15:1-33 is a later, non-Pauline, addition to the original short recension. Nor is it easy to think that Romans 15:1-33 was written by St. Paul for some other purpose: the connection of thought between Romans 14:1-23 and Romans 15:1-33 is far too clear. Otherwise, the most attractive theory would be that just as 2 Corinthians represents two or more fragments of Pauline letters, which were pieced together and thus formed one letter in the Corpus Paulinum, so also Romans consists of one main document with a few fragments of Pauline letters, found in the Roman archives perhaps, pieced on at the end. This theory seems to me to be rendered improbable so far as Romans 15:1-33 is concerned by the clear connection in thought between it and Romans 14:1-23. It would perhaps be too much to call it impossible, but it does not seem to do justice to all the facts. Thus we have to face the existence of the long recension as genuinely Pauline, in the sense that St. Paul is responsible not only for the words, but also for the arrangement of the contents, and that he meant Romans 15:1-33 to be the continuation of Romans 14:1-23.
How, then, is the existence of the short form to be explained? Two main theories are possible: (1) St. Paul wrote the long recension, and some one else issued the short recension later on. (2) St. Paul himself wrote both, issuing the letter in two forms, either simultaneously or successively. At the present time the former of these theories is the more popular, and it is widely held that the short recension was made for dogmatic reasons by Marcion. THE MARCION HYPOTHESIS This hypothesis, that the short recension was made by Marcion, has been best defended by Sanday and Headlam, Corssen, and von Soden.
Sanday and Headlam argue that Marcion excised Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 because they, or rather Romans 15:1-33, contained passages contrary to his teaching. “To begin with,” they say (p. 97.), “five of these verses (i.e.Romans 15:1-13) contain quotations from the Old Testament; but further, Romans 15:8 contains an expression—λέγω γὰρ Χριστὸν διάκονον γεγενῆσθαι περιτομῆς ὑπὲρ ἀληθείας Θεοῦ—which he most certainly could not have used. Still more is this the case with regard to Romans 15:4 (ὅσα γὰρ προεγράφη εἰς τὴν ἡμετέραν διδασκαλίαν ἐγράφη), which directly contradicts the whole of his special teaching.” The point is that Marcion rejected the general Christian view that the Old Testament was a special revelation from the supreme God, whom he distinguished from the God of Creation worshipped by the Jews, and did not recognize that Christianity was in any sense the legitimate outcome or fulfilment of Judaism. In order to support this theory he altered the text of the Gospel of St. Luke and the Pauline Epistles, which constituted his Scriptures, accommodating them to his teaching.
Corssen uses a somewhat different argument. In the first place, he argues that the doxology cannot be regarded as Pauline, and is tainted with Marcionism. Therefore, even if it be true that it did not figure in the text of Marcion’s edition, it must be regarded as the product of the Marcionite Church, and thus the short recension, which contained the doxology, must be regarded as the work of Marcion. Probably this reasoning, in spite of its ingenuity, will make few converts; but much more importance belongs to another argument which Corssen also set forward, not knowing that he had, in the main points, been anticipated by Dom de Bruyne.This is the fact that the Latin prologues to the Epistles, which are found in many Vulgate MSS. including many of those which have the Latin Breves, are undoubtedly of Marcionite origin. Thus it is impossible to argue that it is incredible that Marcion should have so much influence on the canonical text; for, although there is no sufficient ground for connecting the Prologues and the Breves, it is nevertheless a suspicious fact that they should be found, at least partially, in the same MSS.
Von Soden’s dvocacy of the Marcionite hypothesis is bound up with his general position, and it is probably desirable to state this in outline, as, owing to a variety of reasons, his book on the text is not yet widely read (at all events in England), even by those who are interested in textual criticism.
He thinks that in the fourth century there were in existence three main types of the text of the Epistles, to which he assigns the symbols Κ(οινή), Η(σύχιος), and Ι(ερουσαλήμ). The K type corresponds more or less to Westcott and Hort’s Syrian text and is subdivided into Kc and Kt. It is found in the mass of MSS., and Kt is the Greek text of the Middle Ages. The H type covers both the Neutral and the Alexandrian texts of Westcott and Hort’s system. It is best represented by אΒΑCΗ ψ 17; of these manuscripts אΒ are the most important, both being descended from a common archetype (not much older, but better than either), called by von Soden δ1–2. The I type is subdivided into the three families, Ia, Ib, and Ic; of these, Ia is best represented by the Graeco-Latin MSS. DEFG, Ib by the “Origen” MS. found by von der Goltz on Mt. Athos (von Soden’s a 78, not known to Tischendorf), and Ic by various MSS. which had never hitherto attracted special attention. Of these three families, Ia is no doubt the best, though Ib has often valuable readings. It seems natural to think that, just as K is Westcott and Hort’s Syrian text, and H the Neutral and Alexandrian texts, so I is Westcott and Hort’s Western text; but this is only quite partially true, for von Soden rejects many readings in DEFG as due to the influence of the Old Latin, which he regards as earlier than I, whereas Westcott and Hort think that the Old Latin and DEFG belonged to the same type.
Turning from MSS. to patristic evidence, the H text was used in Alexandria by Athanasius and Cyril, the I text in Palestine by Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and, with less accuracy, by Epiphanius, and the K text in Syria by Theodoret and Chrysostom. In the same way the Bohairic version represents the H text and the Syriac Peshitta the K text. This only takes us back to the fourth century, and so far it is probable that von Soden’s results will prove in the main to be sound. His view does not seriously differ from Westcott and Hort’s: both he and they recognize the existence of three great types of text, and von Soden has enriched our knowledge of the various MSS. of a later date to an enormous extent without impugning this classification. The difference begins when we try to go further. Neither Westcott and Hort nor von Soden can find evidence for the K text earlier than the fourth century, and both agree in thinking that it is connected with the recension of Lucian, but whereas Westcott and Hort think that Lucian made use of two older texts, the Neutral and Western, roughly corresponding to von Soden’s H and I, von Soden thinks that the two types H and I are co-ordinate recensions, made in Alexandria and Palestine respectively, and that the three, H, I, and K, are all based on the same text, to which the symbol is given of I-H-K. So far as the Epistles are concerned, von Soden thinks that this I-H-K text can be traced in the quotations of Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen, and in the European and African Latin versions. At the same time, there are many places in which I-H-K (as reconstructed by a comparison of the three separate texts, I, H, K) is deserted by these authorities. He thinks that this is generally due to the influence of Marcion’s text. His method is to take Zahn’s reconstruction of Marcion’s text, and to compare it with the texts of the separate authorities for the I-H-K text. He then arrives at the conclusion that in many of the places where the separate authorities desert the true I-H-K type they agree with Marcion. Especially is this the case with the Old Latin, with the special readings of Ii.e. the archetype of DEFG) and with K. In view of these considerations it is not wonderful that the Marcion hypothesis with regard to the short recension is exceedingly popular, and I should hesitate to say that it is an improbable view. At the same time, there are certain objections which are perhaps too little noticed. In the first place, if it be conceded that the “short recension” omitted ἐν ʼΡώμῃ it is necessary to show that Marcion cut these words out of his text. It is, therefore, argued that Marcion desired to convert the Epistle into a general treatise on Christian doctrine, and in pursuance of this plan omitted all local references. Unfortunately, the recently discovered Marcionite Prologues overthrew this theory. From these it is plain that he described the Epistle as “to the Romans” in the usual way. This is of course no proof that Marcion read ἐν Ῥώμῃ in Romans 1:7, but it at least shows that he did not try to treat the Epistle as a general treatise. Therefore, supposing that Marcion used the short recension, it is, so far as the omission of ἐν Ῥώμῃ is concerned, more probable that he used it because he found it already existing, than that he manufactured it.
Moreover, in the Marcionite Prologues there is a difference of reading between the various manuscripts as to the place from which Romans was sent. The majority say from Corinth, as is the usual tradition, but some say from Athens. Corssen is inclined to regard the latter reading as original, and I believe that he is right, for it is easy to understand how Athens came to be altered to Corinth, but the reverse process is unintelligible. The tradition naming Corinth is generally recognized to be an obvious and correct deduction from Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27; if this be so, is it not probable that the tradition mentioning Athens is based on a text, known as it is to have existed, which omitted these chapters? In this case it would seem more likely that Marcion, the author of the Athens tradition, used the short recension because he found it already in existence, than that he fashioned it for the first time. If he had known—even though he rejected—Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 he would surely have chosen Corinth rather than Athens.
More important, however, than the question of ἐν Ῥώμῃ is that of Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27. An answer has to be given to Sanday and Headlam’s theory of Marcion’s omission on doctrinal grounds, to von Soden’s textual theory, and to Corssen’s argument about the doxology.
Sanday and Headlam. In one sense this argument is unanswerable. It cannot be denied that Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 contain statements to which Marcion would have objected. But this truth is beside the point if it be possible to show that the short recension existed so widely at such an early period that it cannot be due to the doctrinal excisions of Marcion. If it be true that the short recension was used by Tertullian, can it be purely Marcionite? This view is only tenable if we accept the theory, which has many advocates, that the existence of a Pauline canon is altogether due to Marcion. But this seems to me inacceptable because I believe in the genuineness of the Ignatian Epistles, and it seems on the whole probable that the authority of the Pauline Epistles is recognized in them. Moreover, the recognition of the scriptural character of the Epistles is found in 2 Peter, and is one of the most important reasons for rejecting its Petrine authorship; but can 2 Peter be later than Marcion? Thus, while admitting that Marcion might have produced the short recension for doctrinal reasons, it seems to me possible to go behind this argument, and claim probability for the view that the short recension existed, before or at the same time as Marcion, in Catholic circles.
Von Soden. With regard to von Soden’s position it is necessary to state a theory of the history of the text which may be taken as an alternative to his view. The starting-point is the same as his, the existence in the fourth century of three recensions, but it is plain that three recensions may represent three attempts at standardizing a great variety of local texts, and that the suggested I-H-K text may never have existed. It is well to remember that we have to deal with two separate questions; the original text of each individual Epistle, and the original text of the canonical collection of Pauline Epistles. Of course, the former is what we desire, but it is quite certain that it is not what we possess, and we can only reach it by establishing, as a preliminary, the text of the canonical collection or collections of Epistles. The first question, therefore, is whether we possess traces of one or more collections of Epistles. Our main guide here must be the order of Epistles, though any indirect information which can be gathered as to the text has, of course, an important bearing on the point. The earliest collection of which we can establish both the order and contents, is that of Marcion—
(1) Galatians | (5) Laodiceans (= Ephesians) |
(2) Corinthians | (6) Colossians |
(3) Romans | (7) Philippians |
(4) Thessalonians | (8) Philemon |
Little if at all later in origin is the list in the Canon of Muratori—
(1) Corinthians | (6) Thessalonians |
(2) Ephesians | (7) Romans |
(3) Philippians | (8) Philemon |
(4) Colossians | (9) Titus |
(5) Galatians | (10) Timothy |
It also appears probable that this list, though it contains the Pastoral Epistles, draws a distinction between them and the Epistles to the Churches, not in the sense that their authenticity was doubted, but as though the Epistles were divided into two groups according as they were intended for Churches or persons. According to the generally received opinion, this represents the canon of the Church in Rome before the end of the second century.
Going on a little later, and passing from Rome to Africa, Tertullian probably supplies us with a similar, but still distinctly different, list, so far as the following Epistles (of which alone we can speak with certainty) are concerned—
(1) Corinthians | (4) Thessalonians |
(2) Galatians | (5) Ephesians |
(3) Philippians | (6) Romans |
The position of Colossians and the Pastorals cannot be determined, though there is no reason to doubt that Tertullian knew them. Probably this ought to be taken as the African canon, and though the order of Cyprian’s Bible cannot be accurately determined, it at least appears from the order of the quotations in the Testimonia that Corinthians was probably the first and Romans the last of the “Epistles to Churches.”
Moving from Africa to Alexandria, the nearest approach which we can find to a list of the Pauline Epistles before the end of the third century is in Origen, who seems to give the order
(1) Corinthians | (4) Thessalonians |
(2) Ephesians | (5) Philippians |
(3) Colossians | (6) Romans |
Finally, in the fourth century in Alexandria, we find Athanasius insisting, with an emphasis which suggests opposition, on the order which is found in the great uncials, and was made familiar by its adoption in the ecclesiastical texts of the fifth and following centuries. The small variations, some of which are probably due to the influence of earlier orders, are not important for the present purpose.
Moreover, we find that this variety of order in the list of the Epistles is accompanied by variations in the text, and the most natural conclusion is that we have to deal with various collections of the Pauline Epistles, so that if we confine ourselves to the reconstruction of the text of the Corpus Paulinum, as distinct from that of the separate Epistles, we have to recognize that there never was any single “original” text, but that various Churches had their own collections, each with its own text. No doubt from the beginning there was an interchange of documents, and thus each text influenced the others in turn. The reconstruction of these local texts is probably impossible, except in a few details. Marcion’s text is sometimes recoverable, and so is Tertullian’s, but we cannot claim to know anything about the second century text of Rome or of Alexandria. When, however, we find Marcion and Tertullian apparently agreeing in using the short recension of Romans, it seems more natural to accept this as evidence that the Corpus Paulinum in Carthage and that used by Marcion agreed on this point, than to suggest that Tertullian, whose Corpus was, as the order shows, quite independent, borrowed on this point from Marcion. The order of the Epistles shows that the Catholic Corpus or Corpora were from the beginning distinct from that of Marcion.
Corssen. The main point of Corssen’s theory, apart from the Marcionite prologues, which have already been discussed, is the doxology. He presents two propositions: (1) that it is not genuine; (2) that it is a Marcionite addition. That it is not genuine I am inclined to accept. It is true that there are various doxological passages in the Epistles, but none of such length, and none at the end, after the salutations. Moreover, Corssen’s arguments seem to me very powerful. St. Paul, no doubt, preached that the “mystery” of Christianity had been unrecognized in past ages; but he nowhere else says that it was never announced. There was “a veil on the faces” of the Jews when they read the Scriptures, and their meaning was hidden from them, but the writings of the prophets were a revelation spoken by God. The Israelites had not understood, but God had not kept silence. Thus it is scarcely true to argue, as Sanday and Headlam do, that the doxology can only be rejected by those who reject the Epistles of the captivity and the Pastoral Epistles. The doxology goes beyond and even is contrary to anything in any Epistle. But to admit that the doxology is probably not Pauline does not take us all the way to regarding it as Marcionite. In the first place, we have the definite evidence of Origen that Marcion did not have the doxology, and presumably he was speaking of the Marcionite text of the third century. In the second place, the facts concerning the order of the Epistles suggest an alternative theory.
It is generally recognized as a characteristic of scribes that they were inclined to add doxologies at the end of the books or collection of books which they copied. If, therefore, the doxology is not genuine, it is possibly to be attributed to this cause, and if so it is most probable that it arose in some collection of Epistles in which Romans was the last. Now, it is remarkable that the Muratorian Canon suggests that the Epistles were divided into two groups, letters to Churches and letters to persons, and that both in this list and in those of Tertullian and Origen, the last Epistle in the group of letters to Churches is Romans. This is not the case in Marcion’s collection, and the suggestion is obvious that the doxology was the close of the Catholic collection of letters to Churches. If Marcion knew it he left it out because he recognized it as not part of the letter, but it is quite probable that he really had, from the beginning, a different collection. It is surely a striking combination of facts that (1) the doxology belongs to the short recension; (2) Doxologies generally come at the end of books; (3) Tertullian probably had the short recension; (4) the canon of Muratori shows that a distinction was made between letters to Churches and letters to persons; and (5) in Tertullian’s Bible, as well as in the canon of Muratori and in Origen’s Bible, Romans is the last of the letters to Churches. To say that these facts afford a proof would be ridiculous: we are on the very borders of the history of the canon, and certainty is unattainable. All that can be said is that evidence points in the direction of one hypothesis rather than another, and I submit that, on the whole, and with our present knowledge, it points away from the Marcionite hypothesis and in favour of the primitive existence of a short recension, which originally belonged to a Catholic Corpus, closed by a doxology, in which it was the last of the Epistles to Churches.
ALTERNATIVES TO THE MARCIONITE HYPOTHESIS Of these there have been many, but for the most part their days have been few and evil, and they now are interred with but short epitaphs in the pages of Zahn’s Einleitung.
One of the simplest which deserves attention was supported by Bishop Lightfoot. He thought that St. Paul may have made the short recension himself in order to give a general account of his position in the controversy between Jewish and Gentile Christians. To this theory the decisive objection is the improbability that any one who was not animated by dogmatic prepossessions, as Marcion is supposed to have been, would ever have split the Epistle at Romans 14:23. The natural divisions are after Romans 11:36, Romans 13:14; or Romans 15:13. Moreover, it is doubtful whether it is on general grounds so likely that an originally local letter was turned into a general treatise, as that the reverse took place.
Perhaps more attention ought to be paid to the possibility that the short recension is the original form of the text which was afterwards expanded. This view was suggested, in a complicated and somewhat fantastic form, by E. Renan in the introduction to his L’apôtre Paul, and was decisively criticized by Lightfoot in the essay just mentioned. Yet, after all, Lightfoot only answered Renan’s form of the hypothesis, and a hearing may be asked for a simpler one, as an alternative to the popular Marcionite hypothesis. The main features of the problem which must be taken into account are two: (1) there was, from as early a time as evidence on textual points reaches, an Epistle to the Romans which stopped at Romans 14:23, with or without the doxology, and without any reference to Rome in Romans 1:1-21; (2) nevertheless, Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27 are clearly genuinely Pauline, and are never found except as a continuation of the other chapters. I suggest that it is not impossible that the short recension represents a letter written by St. Paul at the same time as Galatians, in connection with the question of Jewish and Gentile Christians, for the general instruction of mixed Churches which he had not visited. It had originally nothing to do with Rome. Later on he sent a copy to Rome, with the addition of the other chapters to serve, as we should say, as a covering letter. The arguments in favour of this hypothesis may be formulated somewhat as follows. Assuming that St. Paul first wrote an Epistle which in Romans 1:7 read, τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν … ἀγαπήτοις θεοῦ, κλήτοις ἁγίοις (or possibly ἐν ἀγάπῃ, κ.τ.λ.), and ended with Romans 14:23, what are the probabilities as to its date, the place from which it was written, and the community to which it was addressed? Dealing with the last point first, it is clear that there is nothing whatever to justify us in singling out any one community, though the general indications point to those hitherto unvisited by St. Paul, in which Jewish and Gentile Christians came into contact with each other. We have to deal with a general Epistle, devoid of address or of greetings. Those are exactly the same phenomena as are found in the best text of Ephesians. In that Epistle there are no greetings, and the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ are omitted by the critical editors, and the generally received explanation is that it (which we call Ephesians, and Marcion called Laodiceans) was originally designed exclusively for neither of these Churches, but was a circular Epistle, in which the name could be filled in according to circumstances. As companion letters to Ephesians we have Colossians and Philemon, and it would seem that Ephesians is the general Epistle to the Christians in Asia, Colossians an Epistle to a special Church in that province, and Philemon a private note to an individual Christian either in Colossae or a neighbouring town. The connection in thought between Ephesians and Colossians is scarcely plainer than that between Romans and Galatians, and if we take the short recension the parallel is almost perfect. Why should it not be, then, that “Romans” was originally a general Epistle written by St. Paul, at the same time as Galatians, to the mixed Churches which had sprung up round Antioch and further on in Asia Minor? In that case we should have another instance of St. Paul’s custom of writing a general Epistle, and supporting it by a series of letters to the separate Churches, or groups of Churches, in the district for which it was intended. The strength of this position can be best seen if we suppose that all copies of the long recension had been lost, and that we only possessed the shorter form. It cannot be doubted that in this case we should have been unanimous in saying that the Epistle belonged to the same period as Galatians. No one would have suggested that it was written after 2 Corinthians and sent to Rome. Even if the superscription “to the Romans” had existed, we should have said, as is, mutatis mutandis, so commonly said in connection with Ephesians, that this only means that the archetype of existing MSS. comes from Rome; and it would have been popularly argued that “Romans” means “Roman citizens,” not necessarily inhabitants of Rome, and that it was probably used by courtesy of many who were not actually citizens.
Thus if we were justified in assuming that the short recension was the original form of the Epistle, the theory that the Epistle is a general letter contemporary with Galatians, and directed to the Gentile Christians in general, would have very strong arguments in its favour.
Unfortunately this is just the point which we cannot assume without argument. As Sanday and Headlam pointed out long ago, no theory is satisfactory which does not recognize the organic connection between Romans 14:1-23 and Romans 15:1-33; there is a definite line of argument which runs on from one to the other, and this continuity, which justifies the argument that texts inserting the doxology between the two chapters really point to the existence of the short recension, also proves that no hypothesis is satisfactory which fails to do justice to its existence. Sanday and Headlam argued that this must mean that the long recension is prior in origin to the short recension, and up to the present this view has held the field. If, therefore, the priority of the short recension is to be rendered even a subject for discussion, it is necessary to produce some theory which will nevertheless account for Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27, and their organic connection with Acts 15:1-33.
Such a theory would be that St. Paul had sent a copy of the short recension to Rome from Corinth, and added the last chapters as an expansion of the practical exhortations, and as greetings to the individual members of the Church. A more or less imaginative reconstruction of the circumstances would be the following: St. Paul was in Corinth, on the point of departure for Jerusalem, and, influenced by the information of Aquila and Priscilla, sent a copy of his “Anti-Judaistic Letter” to the Roman Christians, adding at the end a few more paragraphs continuing the thoughts of his original writing, probably because Aquila had told him that this was desirable. The only objection that I can see to this hypothesis is that St. Paul ought to have described in his covering letter the contents of his enclosure. It is true that this would have been more natural, especially if he had been using modern paper and envelopes. But I take it that what happened was that St. Paul told a copyist to make a copy of the “short recension,” and then dictated the remainder. If the Romans wished to know any more about the form of the document, they must ask the bearers. The history of the Epistle after it reached Rome is, in any case, a problem which can never be solved with certainty, yet on the theory of the priority of the short recension, we can form quite as possible a reconstruction as the Marcionite hypothesis. The growth of the Corpus Paulinum is practically unknown to us. All that we know is that in the second century the process of collecting Pauline Epistles was going on in more than one place, so that in one locality there was one order, in another something different. That is to say, at an early period Churches began to exchange copies of St. Paul’s Epistles, not because of their intrinsic value as letters, but because they were Pauline. It was for that reason that the Epistle to Philemon came into the canon. Considerably earlier than this must have been the time when the letters were copied, not simply because they were Pauline, but because they dealt with important subjects. During this time no Epistles are more likely to have been copied than Romans—in the short form—and Ephesians, and as a matter of fact there is no Epistle, except, perhaps, 1 Corinthians, which is so well attested in the sub-Apostolic period as these two. During this period the short recension of Romans would be more likely to attract attention than the longer form, though in Rome the latter would naturally be perpetuated. Probably to this period must be assigned the genesis of the collection of “Epistles to Churches,” ending with Romans, and the addition of the doxology. As soon, however, as the emphasis of interest came to fall not on the contents, but on the authorship of the Epistles, the tendency was to copy and circulate everything which was Pauline, and so the longer texts made in Rome with the addition of the “covering letter” would be more popular, and the original form of the “long recension” would come into circulation, copies of the short recension would be amplified by the addition of the fresh material, and the complicated textual process described on p. 345 would begin. A parallel to this process may probably be found in 2 Corinthians. The internal evidence is here much stronger than it is in Romans, but, on the other hand, there is no trace of any textual evidence. It is perhaps interesting to ask why the textual tradition should be less strong in the case of 2 Corinthians, than in that of Romans. Probably the answer is to be found in the independent circulation of the short form of Romans, and in the fact that 2 Corinthians seems to come into general use much later than 1 Corinthians. Dr. Kennedy suggests that it did so only after the Epistle of Clement drove the Corinthians to look at their archives and find various fragments of an almost forgotten correspondence. That the theory which is here suggested, as to the history of the Epistle to the Romans, can never become more than a possible hypothesis, is of course obvious, nor would I venture to claim that it has any self-evident probability. But the fact that a “short form” did exist in the second and third centuries is certain, and has to be dealt with somehow. The Marcionite hypothesis is of course a simpler view, and in so far deserves the preference which it enjoys at present, but the alternative will demand serious consideration from those who do not think that so general a depravation of the text by Marcionite influence is entirely probable. This, then, is the point which at the moment ought to be studied by those who desire to carry research further; is it reasonable to suppose that the text used by the anonymous maker of the Latin Breves, by the text behind the Antiochene recension, and by Tertullian, was influenced by Marcion? In other words, a serious attempt must be made to deal with the facts and theories presented by von Soden. To do this will require much fresh research, and I must rest content with saying that if he prove to be right, the correctness of the Marcionite hypothesis as to the short recension will become overwhelmingly probable. But if it be shown that the influence of Marcion on the text of the Epistles was not so great, the Marcionite hypothesis becomes improbable, for the evidence for the short recension is too wide and too early. In this case the hypothesis of a short form, written by St. Paul, earlier than the long recension, contemporary with Galatians, and not intended for Rome, must be seriously considered; and such an hypothesis has of course the advantage of, to some extent, freeing the Epistle from the objections that it is improbable that St. Paul, at the end of the quite different controversy at Corinth, should have worked over on a larger scale the arguments used in Galatians, and sent them to a Church which he had never seen. If St. Paul really heard from Aquila that the Judaizing Christianity was making progress in Rome, he is quite likely to have used over again an Epistle which had formerly been of use in Syria, but he is not so likely to have re-modelled in a new and more elaborate form arguments which he had once used in Galatians in the course of a controversy of which there is no trace in Corinth.
It is now necessary to return once more to the question of Romans 16:1-23, and ask what its relation is to the problem of the short recension. It was seen above that this section is probably Ephesian, and this fact adds to the complication of the situation. Of course, if this conclusion be wrong, there is no difficulty: the section is part of the long recension, and helps to explain why St. Paul wrote to Rome. But if the conclusion reached be right, how did the section in question find its way into the long recension? To this question no answer seems possible. Anything—in itself improbable—may actually have happened to bring together the Ephesian letter and the long recension, but it is idle to guess on a point as to which we have no evidence. All that we know is that the evidence points to Ephesus for Romans 16:1-23 and to Rome for the rest of the long recension. Whether the junction was made in Rome or in Ephesus or somewhere else will always remain uncertain. The result of the foregoing discussion has been to show that the original destination and date of the Epistle is not so certain as it at first seems, and it may fairly be charged with belonging to that unsatisfactory though necessary class of investigations which raise problems which cannot be solved. What remains clear is that the long recension, probably without Romans 16:1-23, was sent by St. Paul from Corinth to Rome, and that it belongs in the main to the same controversy as Galatians,—that with Judaizing Christians, though it also contains some allusions to the struggle with the “spiritual” Gentile Christianity which is the background of the Corinthian Epistles.
It is, therefore, necessary to ask in more detail what was this Judaizing Christianity, and what was the history of the foundation of the Church at Rome.
THE CHURCH AT ROME
There was throughout the nineteenth century much controversy as to the nature of the Roman Church. Was it originally Jewish or Gentile? The traditional view was that it was Gentile. Baur, however, attacked this view, and maintained that it was primarily Jewish. This contention was taken up and elaborately defended by Mangold,a nd remained the prevalent view in critical circles until Weizsacker returned more or less to the older view, and was only ready to recognize a Jewish element in the form of proselytes. The points in which a Gentile origin is implied for the readers of the Epistle are the following: (1) In Romans 1:5-6 St. Paul says that he is an Apostle “to all the Gentiles … among whom ye are also,” etc.; and in Romans 1:13 he expresses the hope that he may “have some fruit in you also, even as in the rest of the Gentiles.” (2) In Romans 11:13 St. Paul says, “But I speak to you who are Gentiles.”
These two passages are definite proof of the existence of Gentiles in the Church, and as they are mentioned with such emphasis in the opening salutations, they must have been an important party. A Jewish origin, on the other hand, is implied in passages in which St. Paul, by using the first person plural, seems to assume a Jewish nationality for his readers as well as for himself. The chief of such passages are: Romans 4:1, “What shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, hath found?” Romans 7:6, “But now we have been discharged from the Law, having died to that wherein we were holden”; Romans 9:10, “Isaac, our father.”
There is no sufficient answer to the arguments based on these texts. The existence of both elements in Rome must be recognized, and therefore it is now generally conceded there was a measure of truth in both the earlier contentions. The reason for this rapprochement is not merely the consideration of definite allusions in the Epistle. It is on general grounds so probable that all early Christian communities were based on converts from the synagogue, and from the God-fearers, who were more or less loosely connected with the synagogue, that any other suggestion would need strong evidence before it would deserve consideration.
Especially is this true of a city like Rome, in which both elements were numerous. The Jews in Rome had already a long and interesting history by the time that St. Paul wrote. There was probably a settlement of Jews early in the first century before Christ, but it first attained really large dimensions when Pompey in 63 b.c. brought an enormous number of Jews to Rome as prisoners of war, who were sold into slavery.Many of them, however, were set free, as they proved unsatisfactory as slaves, owing to their inflexible adherence to the Law. They then settled on the other bank of the Tiber, where a colony of Jews existed until 1556, when they were brought across the river to the spot which is still known as the Ghetto, though it was abolished as such after the incorporation of Rome into the Italian kingdom. There were also originally other colonies in Rome, in the Subura, and the Campus Martius. The numbers of these settlements must have been very great, for though Tiberius appears to have tried to abolish them, in consequence of frauds committed on a certain rich proselyte lady named Fulvia,he seems to have failed, even though he drafted four thousand into the Sardinian police in order to put down the brigands, “et, si,” says Tacitus, “ob gravitatem coeli interiisent, vile damnum.” Later, after the fall of Sejanus, Tiberius became more friendly to the Jews, and the colony was firmly established in the time of Caligula, when Philo came to Rome on behalf of the Alexandrian Jews. Claudius began by being tolerant, but later on the riots of the Jews (see p.
Thus there were probably few Gentile cities in which Jews were so numerous as in Rome, and no doubt they would be some of the first to hear of Christianity. A mixed community is therefore the type which would naturally be expected, and as this type is also indicated by the definite allusions in the Epistle, we have no reason for doubting its accuracy. We have, however, but little information as to the foundation of this Church.
All that we know with certainty is that it was in existence before St. Paul wrote. It is therefore clear that one or more Christians had already made their way to Rome, and had met with some success in propagating their faith. If Romans 16:1-23 be really an Epistle to Rome, and if the suggestion be right that “those of Narcissus” and “those of Aristobulus” can be identified with the slaves of the freedman Narcissus and of Aristobulus, the member of the Herod family, we can go a step further, and say that the circle of Christians in Rome included some of the Imperial slaves, and that St. Paul is referring to them when he speaks in Php 4:22 of “Caesar’s household.” If, as seems to me more probable, this section of Romans was intended for Ephesus, this argument cannot be used. It remains true, on the authority of Philippians, that when St. Paul was in Rome there were Christians in the Imperial household; but it becomes open to doubt whether these converts to Christianity had been made by St. Paul or existed before his arrival.
There are only two other pieces of evidence in really early writers which throw light on the question. The first of these is the evidence of Aquila and Priscilla. If they were Christians when St. Paul first met them, they must have been converted before they came to Corinth. The point is, of course, open to question, but St. Luke says nothing about their conversion, and as a rule (though not always) he mentions the conversion of important people by St. Paul. The narrative in Acts seems to imply that Aquila and Priscilla were already Christians when St. Paul went to stay in their house. The second point is the curious evidence of Suetonius as to the causes which led to the banishment of the Jews from Rome. He says of Claudius, “Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.” This is no doubt the decree referred to in Acts, in consequence of which Aquila and Priscilla left Rome. There are two difficulties in connection with this narrative. In the first place, some doubt has been thrown on the statement that Claudius actually banished the Jews, because Dio Cassius simply says that Claudius prohibited their meetings and societies. This point is, however, not really of great importance for the present purpose, as it is clear that in any case some change of regulation was made adversely affecting the Jews. Much more important is the question of the meaning of “Chresto” in Suetonius. The most probable view must surely be that there is some connection between it and the word “Christ” in the sense of Messiah. The spelling “Chrestus” instead of “Christus” is quite common, and is without any importance.
If this be so it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the “constant tumults” among the Jews were due to Messianic controversy, and there is no reason for thinking that this cannot have been due to Christian propaganda. Against this it is argued that Chrestus is a common slave name, and that he was probably the actual leader of some political trouble. The point cannot be settled; but personally I think that it is extremely probable that we have here a reference to the first introduction of Christianity into Rome and the opposition of the Jews. If so, the evidence of Suetonius, of the Acts (with the suggestion that Aquila and Priscilla were Christians before they reached Corinth), and of the Epistle to the Romans, all points in the same direction, and indicates that there was a Christian community in Rome during the reign of Claudius (41–54 a.d.) and probably at least as early as the year 50.
Probably it is quite impossible to go any further or to identify the Christians who first brought Christianity to Rome. The later tradition is of course well known. According to this St. Peter was Bishop of Rome for twenty-five years, and was martyred in 67 a.d. He therefore reached Rome in 42. This tradition is found in Eusebius’ Chronicon in which (in Jerome’s version) the arrival of St. Peter in Rome is attributed to the year 42 a.d., and his death to 67. Probably the tradition is derived from Hippolytus. The line of argument by which “radical” critics dispose of this tradition of St. Peter’s presence in Rome is unsatisfactory. In the first place, they argue that the evidence is insufficient; and the statements in 1 Peter, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Hippolytus, Eusebius, and others are explained away or dismissed as not authentic. Of course, the evidence is not demonstrative—if it were a hanging matter I should not claim a verdict—but for the question in hand it seems to me to raise a real presumption in favour of St. Peter’s presence in Rome, and because the evidence is, as every one admits, insufficient to give certainty, to claim that, therefore, the opposite conclusion ought to be accepted, is to ignore the limitations and the method of historical research. Mathematicians and jurists may look for the attainment of demonstration; historians can only hope for the establishment of probability. In the second place, they argue that the whole tradition of St. Peter’s presence in Rome was invented in order to account for the Roman teaching as to St. Peter’s primacy in the Church. This is, of course, not in itself impossible. Tradition is as often the child as it is the parent of doctrine. But neither tradition nor doctrine come quite spontaneously into existence, and a theory is scarcely probable which leaves both hanging, as it were, in the air without any means of support, which is in reality the net result of “radical” criticism with regard to St. Peter in Rome. For what is the basis of the Roman doctrine of the primacy of St. Peter? “Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I found My Church,” is the obvious answer. To those who accept this text as authentic it is a sufficient answer, and they are entitled to argue that we have here the doctrinal source, combined with the metropolitan rank of the city of Rome, which produced the tradition of St. Peter. But the irony of the situation is that “radical” critics, as a rule (and here I believe that they are probably right), regard this text as one of the late Mathaean additions to the original Marcan text. But, if so, why was it added? To support, they say, the Roman tradition of the episcopate of St. Peter, i.e. his presence in Rome. But it has been argued that the tradition of St. Peter’s presence in Rome is the result of the Roman doctrine of St. Peter’s primacy. This is perilously near a reductio ad absurdum of the whole argument, and is clearly an illegitimate reasoning in a circle. It is permissible to explain the tradition as due to the doctrine, or the doctrine as due to the tradition, but it is not permissible to argue in both ways at once, and it is this logical crime of which “radical” criticism seems sometimes to be guilty. The truth is that with the rejection of the authenticity of “Thou art Peter,” the last reason has also been rejected for doubting the tradition that St. Peter was in Rome. If “Thou art Peter” is a Roman invention, it was invented because St. Peter was already recognized as historically connected with Rome.
It is, therefore, very difficult to doubt that St. Peter was in Rome, and that he played a prominent part in the early history of the Christian Church. But it is quite a different thing to say that he was actually the first to preach in that city, or that he reached it as early as 42 A.D. Against this two facts must be set. In the first place, the release of St. Peter from prison in Jerusalem seems to be synchronized by St. Luke with the death of Herod, which was not earlier than 44 a.d.; in the second place, if it be the case, as I believe, that St. Peter visited Corinth soon after St. Paul left it, the suggestion certainly is that c. 52 a.d. he had not yet reached so far West as Rome. Nevertheless, these arguments are not conclusive, and personally I am not at all convinced that St. Peter was not the founder of the Roman Church—perhaps he came to Corinth from the West—but the evidence is insufficient in either direction. In any case, it seems to me much more doubtful than is generally admitted, whether any great importance ought to be attached to St. Paul’s silence as to St. Peter in Epistles which were presumably written to or from Rome. An adverse argument has sometimes been found in Romans 15:20. Here St. Paul says that he has made it his aim “so to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build on another man’s foundation.” From this it has been argued that St. Paul would not have gone to Rome if it had been St. Peter’s foundation, and that in some way the Roman Church must have been his own foundation, probably because it had been established by his own converts. This exegesis is incorrect. St. Paul clearly implies that the Roman Church was another man’s foundation, and that he had hitherto refused to preach in such places where others had made a beginning; this was the reason why he had never yet been to Rome. “Wherefore,” he says, “I was greatly hindered (ἐνεκοπτόμην τὰ πολλά) from coming to you.” The “you” implies that the Church was some one’s else foundation, and the “wherefore” explains that this was his reason for not coming. He then goes on to explain why he now proposes to depart from his principle: there is now “no place left for him in these districts,” i.e. from Jerusalem to Illyria. Thus with a proper exegesis the meaning of this passage is that the Church of Rome was founded by some one else, and the question will always remain, why not St. Peter? THE CONTROVERSIAL MOTIVES OF THE EPISTLE In some ways the Epistle to the Romans stands midway between Corinthians and Galatians. Corinthians is concerned almost exclusively with the problems which arose in a Gentile city in which a Greek-thinking population accepted Christianity. Even though there was a Jewish element in Corinth, it belonged to a Judaism which turned its face to Greece rather than to Palestine. Galatians, on the other hand, is almost exclusively concerned with the controversy between the more liberal Christianity supported by St. Paul and the stiff Judaistic Christianity of Jerusalem. But Romans, as compared with the other Epistles, has more of the Greek element than Galatians, and more of the Judaic element than Corinthians. There is, however, a further distinction: the specially Greek elements are clearer and more important in Corinthians, and their treatment in connection with those Epistles leaves it here only necessary to add a few details. On the other hand, the Judaizing element controverted by St. Paul is much more exhaustively discussed than in Galatians, and the full treatment of the general point of view which it implies falls naturally into place at this point. These considerations justify a division of the present section under the two heads of (1) Gentile problems, and (2) Judaic problems.
(1) Gentile Problems.—So far as these are concerned, the general situation at Rome, as manifested by the practical problems which arose, was apparently much like that in Corinth, except that there was not the same controversial and partisan tension; the result is that we can see the details much less clearly, for St. Paul is not forced to define and distinguish with the same careful exactitude. But three points stand out, in which there is a marked resemblance to the situation in Corinth.
α) A Tendency to dispute as to the Relative Value of “Gifts”.—This is the background of Romans 12:3-21. It strikingly resembles the more detailed exposition in 1 Corinthians, both in the actual statements and in the manner in which it passes into a general discussion of virtues whichought to be found in a Christian community. The most important verses for the present purpose are 3–8: “For I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophecy according to the proportion of faith: or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching: or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity: he that ruleth, with diligence: he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.” It is plain that this passage is a short and general description of the problems dealt with at length in 1 Corinthians 12:1-31, 1Co 13-13, 1 Corinthians 14:1-40.
(β) A Difference of Opinion as to Food.—This question is discussed by St. Paul in Romans 14:1-23, and is continued in a more general manner in Romans 15:1-33. What is clear is that that there was a strict party which limited the food lawful for Christians, and a more liberal party which imposed no restrictions. Between these: parties there was some ill feeling. “One man,” says St. Paul, “hath faith to eat all things: but he that is weak is a vegetarian.” Obviously the liberal argument was that all things were indifferent in themselves. This is implied by St. Paul’s admissions. “I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself,” and “All things indeed are clean.” He recognizes that the liberal view is, in itself, correct, though he argues (1) that it does not justify those who have any scruples (Romans 14:14, Romans 14:20, Romans 14:23), (2) that it is not justifiable in practice to offend the prejudices of the weaker brethren (Romans 14:13, Romans 15:21) It is clear that this implies very much the same type of thought and practice as is found in 1 Corinthians, and the liberal party must have had the same standpoint as the “spiritual” party in Corinth.
It is more difficult to identify the stricter party. The points which are clear are that they (or some of them) abstained from meat and wine, and that they observed “days” (Romans 14:2; Romans 14:5 ff), which in this context can scarcely mean anything except “fast and feast days.” Whether however they were Jews or Gentiles, and what was their doctrine, is impossible to settle finally. The oldest view is that the strict party were Judaizers. The serious objection to this view is that the Jewish Law objected to various forms of food, but was neither teetotal nor vegetarian. A popular view among later critics has been that the strict party was Essene. Here, again, the objection is that there is no evidence that there were Essenes in Rome, and that though Jerome ascribes vegetarianism to them, this is not supported by the evidence of Philo and Josephus. A different solution is sought by others in a reference to the vegetarian ascetics mentioned by Seneca. This is, of course, not impossible, but there is no evidence that these ascetics observed special fast days. The truth appears to be that the question is insoluble. We know that there were both Jews and Gentiles in the Roman Churches, and we know also there were “strict” and “liberal” Christians: but whether these divisions coincided or crossed each other, we do not know. Only on general grounds can we support one or the other view, and on these grounds it is more probable that they crossed each other.
It remains to notice that there is no trace that the question of food was connected with the belief in demons, and the consequent danger of things offered to idols, as it was in Corinth. It does not, however, follow that this element was absent. The argumentum a silentio from St. Paul would be here peculiarly dangerous.
(γ) A Low Standard of Morality.—A tendency to moral and ethical laxness is probably indicated by Romans 3:7. “If the truth of God abounded to His glory by my lie, why am I still judged as a sinner, and not, (as we are traduced, and some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come?” but it is most clearly part of the implication of the sixth and twelfth chapters. For instance, the question at the beginning of Romans 6:1-23, “Shall we remain in sin, that grace may abound?” and the warning in Romans 6:12, “Let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body,” are not only the reply to a Jewish propaganda which regarded Gentile Christianity as ethically insufficient, but are directed against Gentiles who were really inclined to adopt an unethical view of Sacramental Christianity. It is clear that just as some Corinthians had argued that, because they had been baptized, and partook of spiritual food and drink, they were safe, and might do anything they liked, so also some of the Gentiles to whom St. Paul sent Romans, seem to have argued that Baptism carried with it the privilege of salvation, without the responsibility of morality. The same implication is clearly made in Romans 12:1-2 : “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,—your spiritual (λογικὴν) service. And be not conformed to this world, but change your nature (μεταμορφουσθε) with the renewal of your mind (τοῦ νοός), to prove what is the will of God—that which is good, and acceptable and perfect.” The suggestion here is clearly made that the Gentile Christians were in danger of insufficiently recognizing the moral and ethical requirements of the new spirit which they had received. From Romans 6:1-23 it is obvious that this unethical view of Christianity, with its accompanying evils, was connected with Baptism, in so much as St. Paul argues that its obligations have been misunderstood. At the same time, this—the question of the ethical obligations of the Sacraments —is the only point which he treats as in any way controversial. For the rest Baptism and its significance was common ground to him and all other Christians, and he only refers to it as the basis—not as the subject—of controversy. For this reason the direct references to Baptism in the Epistles, essentially controversial as they are, are few and short; but they are for that very reason extremely important, and it has seemed best to bring them together and to discuss them at this point. The most simple and primitive conception of Baptism is that of a cleansing from sin. This is clearly referred to by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:11, “Ye were washed, ye were sanctified, ye were justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.” But it appears that the “cleansing” is here not regarded as in any way purely negative or preparatory; it is closely connected with the more positive conception of the gift of being “made holy,” and of receiving the Spirit, and it is important to notice that it is directly bound up with “the Name” of the Lord.
Still more clearly is the idea of the gift of the Spirit through Baptism to be found in 1 Corinthians 12:12 : “For as the body is one and has many limbs, and all the limbs of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body.” The whole argument in this chapter is that the Christians, whatever may be their obviously differing gifts, are united by the fact that they are all the separate channels by which the one Spirit, who for St. Paul and his hearers is scarcely, if at all, distinguishable from the risen Christ, manifests Himself in the Church. St. Paul says that the relation between Christians and the Spirit is actually parallel to the relation between “limbs” and “body,” and by this he does not mean anything merely symbolic or allegorical. The unity of the Spirit did not mean to the first Christians an intellectual unanimity in matters of controversy, or ecclesiastical organization, but a common inspiration by the same Divine Spirit, which was different from anything to be obtained by natural means. The same kind of idea, though here expressed in terms of “the Lord” instead of in those of “the Spirit,” is found in Romans 6:3. “Are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried with Him through baptism, into death, that like as the Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.” In the same way in Galatians 3:27 he says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ.” Baptism is here clearly indicated as effecting the union with Christ, and there is no reason for trying to minimize the force of this fact. Baptism is, for St. Paul and his readers, universally and unquestioningly accepted as a “mystery” or sacrament which works ex opere operato; and from the unhesitating manner in which St. Paul uses this fact as a basis for argument, as if it were a point on which Christian opinion did not vary, it would seem as though this sacramental teaching is central in the primitive Christianity to which the Roman Empire began to be converted.
There were apparently three factors which were regarded as essential. The Water, the Name, and the Spirit, though the last gives rise to some difficulty. The water was the actual “efficacious sign” used in the mystery; the Name was the power which enabled the water to be used in this way; and the Spirit was the Divine life (or living being?) which made a “new creature” of the initiate. The importance of the water to the mind of a Gentile of the first four centuries was by no means a simple conception, and may have varied in different circles. The idea of washing corresponds to the idea of removing sin and any other impediment to initiation; but the idea of “life” was also frequently bound up with the idea of water, especially flowing or “living” water,and Tertullian regards it as a commonplace that there was an affinity between water and spirits, for just as evil spirits haunt springs, and thus make men “nympholept,” so also the Holy Spirit (as was the case at the Creation) is especially connected with water. The idea is not the modern one of symbolism, which was almost unknown to the ancients, but rather that the water was really the instrument by which the act of initiation was performed. The same thing, mutatis mutandis, could be shown of other initiatory rites in which blood or oil was used instead of water. The water, however, was insufficient in itself. It was necessary to use it in the power of the “Name.”The underlying conception is one common to almost every early religion. Certain beings are supposed to have supernatural power over the forces of nature, and over the spirit-world which in the ancient view of the universe was sometimes identified with, sometimes distinguished from, natural phenomena. Now, not only these beings themselves could use this power, but also all those who knew how to make use of their name, with which their authority was bound up. This is the origin of all magical formulae of exorcism, and it seems to me impossible to deny that the formula of Baptism belongs to the same category.
Psychologically, the use of names in magical formulae is extremely interesting, and shows why the doctrine was so universal. One of the most frequent uses of exorcism was the cure of what we now should unhesitatingly diagnose as nervous trouble. In these cases nothing is so likely to succeed as treatment in which the patient believes. “Suggestion” and “faith” are the most important therapeutic agents known; it is comparatively immaterial whether the patient’s belief is reasonable; what is important is that he should believe it unhesitatingly. This condition was admirably fulfilled by the old “magical” exorcism: the patient believed in the power of the “name,” and recovered. It seemed strong evidence that the cure was really effected objectively by the “name.” The reason why we are justified in rejecting this view is the fact that no formula and no name can claim an exclusive or consistent record of success, and that whereas cases are frequent in which a cure has been effected by “faith” or “suggestion” without a magical formula, there is no sufficient evidence of cure by a magical formula without “faith” or “suggestion.” The “Spirit” was the result of Baptism. Such, at least, seems to have been the normal view, shared by St. Paul. It is, of course, true that St. Paul says a great deal about “faith” and very little about Baptism. But it is equally true that he speaks so much about the one, and so little about the other, because the one was disputed and the other was not. “Faith” was, no doubt, the necessary preliminary to Baptism, and was the condition of salvation. I imagine that this conception was probably common to the Hellenist mysteries, and was probably not really disputed by Jewish Christians: the reason why it was controversial was that the latter thought that faith ought to include the acceptance of the Jewish Law, and the Gentile Christians, with St. Paul, believed that the acceptance of Jesus as the Redeemer was sufficient to justify initiation into the Christian mysteries. At the same time, it is probable that there were from the beginning exceptional instances in which the signs of possession by the Spirit preceded the act of Baptism. In this case logic would have suggested omitting Baptism as unnecessary, but human nature loves regularity, and probably Baptism was nevertheless administered. Moreover, it is doubtful whether the gift of the Spirit was connected with the act of Baptism in the strict sense of the word, or with the “laying on of hands,” of which St. Paul does not speak except (and it is very doubtful if the reference is to Baptism) in the Pastoral Epistles. The evidence of Acts points to the connection of the Spirit with the act of “laying on of hands,” and we have not really sufficient evidence to be certain of St. Paul’s position. Without anything further one would say that he connects the Spirit directly with Baptism; yet he says nothing at all comparable to the clear statements in which Tertullian connects the Spirit with the water, and nevertheless, when it becomes necessary to be precise, Tertullian is quite positive that the gift of the Spirit comes from the laying on of hands immediately after the catechumen rises up out of the water, not from the water itself. Thus there is here a difficulty; but, if we take Baptism in the wider sense as possibly covering also a rite of laying on of hands, there is no reasonable doubt but that the primitive Churches to whom the Epistles were sent regarded the Spirit as the gift received in Baptism. So far, I do not feel that there is real room for doubt; even though it is impossible to ignore that many critics of the highest standing among Protestant theologians would deny the soundness of the views enunciated, and maintain that primitive Christianity was not centrally sacramental. Such theologians believe that a purely symbolical and subjective doctrine of Baptism and other sacraments is not only desirable for the present day, but also true to primitive thought. I incline to the view that this position has received its death-blow from the modern study of the history of religions; and the theologian of the present and future will be obliged to distinguish more clearly than his predecessors between the primitive origin and the permanent validity of the various factors of thought and practice which constitute historic Christianity. To return to the historical question: it is, as has been said, extremely probable that the world of Christianity to which the Epistles were sent held strongly sacramental views of Baptism. It is easy to understand that such a presentment of Christian Baptism offered no obstacle but rather a great attraction to Gentile converts: it was precisely parallel to the teaching and practice to be found in the Hellenistic Mysteries in general. In them in exactly the same way the initiate was washed with water (sometimes also with blood); in exactly the same way use was made of the magic power of a name or some other formula; and in exactly the same way the result was regarded as salvation, or new birth, and was explained as due to the union of the initiate with the god. Moreover, it is equally easy to understand the danger, which was the starting-point of this discussion, of an unethical conception of sacramental grace, and the constant efforts of the Church from the beginning to deal with this evil can be clearly traced in the later Christian literature.
Strictly speaking, the establishment of these facts is all that lies within the province of this book; but a serious problem is just over the border. It is quite plain that a sacramental or even magical view of Baptism would be an attraction to Gentiles: it was exactly what they expected to find in religion. But did the same view obtain among the Jewish Christians, and in what relation does it stand to the teaching of Jesus?
It is quite possible that these problems are insoluble, but it is permissible to indicate in outline the kind of theory which seems to be the most probable. In the first place, it is very doubtful whether we can lay down any fixed rules about Jewish Christians. But reducing the question to the stricter type of Jew, it seems, on the whole, probable that they regarded Baptism primarily as a part of the eschatological preparation for the coming of the Kingdom. Whether they can be said to have regarded it sacramentally or not is difficult to say; certainly there was some difference between the Jewish and the Greek view, but it is often over-stated. The relation of Baptism to the teaching of Jesus is still more obscure. There is very little on the subject in the Gospels, and nothing which is not open to grave doubt. Personally, I believe that St. John the Baptist preached a Baptism for the remission of sins, and that the custom was kept up perhaps by Jesus, and certainly by His followers, who added the Christian formula. At the same time, the apparent confusion in the earliest documents as to the relation between Christian Baptism, the Baptism of John (which seems to have been connected with the Messiah), and the gift of the Spirit may possibly (it is far from certain) point to an original conflation of two things. The point is very obscure, and any one who can clear it up a little more will do good work, but we can see enough, if we trust our documents, to show that Baptism is probably a primitive Christian rite, practised by the immediate hearers of Jesus in Palestine, and that even if it were not a “mystery” or “sacrament” to them in quite the Greek sense, it was sufficiently nearly so to render inevitable and natural its adoption as a “Mystery” in the earliest Gentile circles, and among the more “Greek-minded” Jews in the Diaspora.
(2)Judaic Problems.—The main problem for Jewish Christians was, of course, that which is conveniently summed up as the Judaistic controversy, but before discussing this, it is desirable to notice another small question which seems to have affected the Jewish rather than the Gentile Christians. This concerns the relation of Christians to the civil powers, and, though there is room for some hesitation, it seems to be best explicable in connection with Jewish thought. This point is without parallel in the Epistles to Corinth. In Corinth, so far as we can see, there was no tendency to disregard the magistrates of the Empire, and St. Paul rather protests against a tendency to make use of the Roman courts in case of quarrels among Christians. But the implication of Romans 13:1-14 is that there was a disposition to disregard the magistrates—the “powers that be”—and to resist their decrees. The whole chapter is clearly directed against this tendency.
It is easier to see that this is the case than to know what conclusions ought to be drawn from it. If it is regarded as certain that Romans was originally written to Rome, it is possible that purely local circumstances may sufficiently account for the facts. There was undoubtedly a lawless disposition among the Jews at this time, who, for whatever reason, had been “assidue tumultuantes.” It is not impossible that St. Paul was afraid that the same spirit would spread to the Christians. But there is another possibility which deserves attention, and is especially important if it be thought that “Romans” was originally written for Syrian or Cilician Christians. This is the belief in a “Messianic war.”
It is impossible to discuss at length this intricate question, but certain main points are important and tolerably certain. There was a general belief among the Jews that the Messianic Kingdom would be inaugurated by means of a war. As to the nature of this war opinions differed. There was one party which maintained that it would be carried out by the miraculous and unaided efforts of the Messiah. Another party thought it would be the work of Jahveh Himself. Still another placed all the emphasis on a supernatural conflict with evil spirits. But politically the most important was the view that the Kingdom must be prepared for by the victorious effort of the pious in a rebellion against the enemies of Israel, and it was held that in this rebellion supernatural assistance would be given at the proper moment. It was not a warfare under the leadership of the Messiah, but a warfare in preparation for the Messiah. As Windisch has pointed out, this is the real difference between the rising of Judas and the earlier propaganda of the Zealots on the one hand, and the rebellions of Theudas and of Bar Kochba on the other. But obviously the distinction between a Messianic war under the leadership of a Messiah, and a Messianic war in preparation for a Messiah, though historically important, is politically negligible, and the repressive methods of the Romans differ in degree rather than in kind from those which any conquering nation of our own time would adopt.
What was the relation of Christianity to this movement? There seems to me little doubt but that the teaching of Jesus was directly opposed to that of the Zealots, and with but slightly less certainty I should feel inclined to argue that the Zealot teaching is the background against which we ought to place such sayings as “Resist not evil,” “Love your enemies,” etc. No doubt they were intended to have a wider application, but they were spoken with a special meaning. The Zealots said, “The Kingdom will not come unless you prepare the way by waging war on the enemies of Israel.” Jesus said, “Not so: the ‘Anavim,’”—the “poor” of the Psalms—“are the true guide; in your suffering, not in your victory, do you gain your lives, and final salvation is with him who suffers to the end.” Like all one-sided generalizations, the statement that the preaching of Jesus was anti-Zealotic would be an exaggeration and a distortion. Yet it contains an important element of truth. There is, however, another side to the question. Neither Jesus nor His disciples contemplated taking up arms, but they probably did believe that the existing kingdom, that of Rome, would be destroyed in the final catastrophe which would inaugurate the Kingdom of God. In this sense Jesus, as the Messiah, really was the rival of the Emperors, and it is easy to see how hard it would be to persuade a Roman, especially a magistrate, that Christians were nevertheless not meditating a violent revolution. They could not deny that they expected the annihilation of the Roman power, and the sovereignty of their own Master, in consequence of a Messianic war. Who would believe them when they said that they only meant a supernatural war, and that they themselves did not propose to take part in it? When we realize this it is easy to understand that there was a double reason for St. Paul’s advice that Christians should obey the “powers that be.” On the one hand, there was the necessity of proving by the evidence of deeds that the Christians, though believing in the speedy Parousia of the Messiah, did not intend to hasten his coming by a rebellion, such as the Zealots advocated. On the other hand, there was probably (though this cannot be proved) the danger that Christians might be infected with the Zealot spirit, and think that they could combine the belief that their Master was the Messiah with the Zealot view that His Kingdom could only be established by the self-sacrificing and warlike enterprise of His followers.
It is now time to consider the main controversy between St. Paul and Jewish Christians of the strict Jerusalem school—the so-called Judaistic controversy—and the clearest method is to begin by considering what was in all probability the point of view of the ordinary Palestinian Christian in the middle of the first century. In the first place, such a Christian accepted the “good news” which Jesus had preached, so far as he understood it. What this “good news” was we can find in the Marcan narrative and in those passages of Matthew and Luke which belong to Q; it is summed up in Mark 1:15 : “The Time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the good news.” The εὐαγγέλιον here is clearly the announcement which has just been made—“the Kingdom is at hand.” This was the message of Jesus with regard to the immediate future; His message with regard to the present was equally definite: “Repent, otherwise the Kingdom is not for you, and believe what I tell you.” This message was accepted by His followers; they did believe that the Kingdom was at hand, and they did repent. They also went a step further, and they identified the Jesus who announced the coming of the Kingdom with the Anointed King who should judge, reign, and rule in the Kingdom when it came. I do not doubt but that in doing this they had the authority of Jesus. It seems to me certain that Jesus did regard Himself as the future Messiah, or, to put it somewhat differently, as the Messiah in personality though not yet in function. Nevertheless, this was not part of His general message which He proclaimed publicly, it was the secret which He shared with disciples. However much it be true that the centre of the gospel of the first Christians was “the Messiah is Jesus,” it is equally true that the centre of the gospel of Jesus was not this, but “the Kingdom of God is at hand, believe it, and repent.” He went through the villages of Galilee, He preached on the hillside and by the shore of the lake, and He went up to die in Jerusalem, not to convince men that He was the Christ, but to call them to repent, to amend their evil lives, lest when the Kingdom came they should be left in outward darkness. His gospel was eschatological and ethical—all the more ethical because it was eschatological— but it was not Christological in the sense that it did not, as Christian preachers did from the beginning, make the identification of the Messiah with Jesus the central point of teaching.
Why, in the mind of a Jew, was repentance so necessary if the Kingdom was coming? Because the Kingdom was to be the inheritance of the righteous: sinners would be excluded. In the Kingdom there would indeed be no more sin, for the condition of nature lost by man at the beginning of history would be restored, and this belief can be amply illustrated from Jewish literature. In Enoch there is no exception to the view that righteousness will be a characteristic of the members of the Kingdom. “And I will transform the earth and make it a blessing, and cause My elect ones to dwell upon it, but the sinners and evil-doers will not set foot thereon.” Or, in an earlier passage, “And all the children of men shall become righteous, and all nations shall offer Me adoration and praise, and all will worship Me, and the earth will be cleansed from all corruption, and from all sin, and from all punishment and torment,” etc. So also in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in the great prophecy of Levi of a priestly Messiah: “In his priesthood sin shall disappear, and the lawless (ἄνομοι) shall fall into evil, but the righteous shall rest in him.”
Still more clearly in the Psalms of Solomon: “And he shall purify Jerusalem in sanctification, as at the beginning, … and in the midst of them there is no unrighteousness in his days, for all are holy (ἅγιοι), the Lord Messiah is their King.
It is unnecessary to multiply references: probably no one will ever dispute the fact that the Jewish conception of the Kingdom was that the righteous would enjoy it, and that it would be free from sin. But who were the righteous? And how could a sinner become righteous? To these questions also Jews had quite definite answers. The righteous were those who kept the Law of God. No doubt there were differences of attitude towards the Law. At the one extreme there was the purely formal legalism against which Jesus so constantly protested, but at the other there was the truly spiritual appreciation which speaks through the Psalms and Prophets, and as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and many of the Sayings of the Fathers show, was still a force in Judaism. We are too apt to forget that the Pharisees and lawyers who are held up to reprobation in the New Testament were only one side of Judaism. The question, therefore, which the Jewish Christian was obliged to put to himself was whether the teaching of Jesus abrogated the Law, or called on him to be “righteous” in his careful observance of it. Obviously he decided that the latter was the right answer. It is difficult for us to reconstruct his position fully, because the Gospels are either the product of Gentile, not Jewish, Christianity, or at least of Jews who had adopted Gentile thought, and the position of Liberal Judaism in the Diaspora. Nevertheless, we can see even now that the Jewish position was not wholly unjustified. Jesus had inveighed against the/ Pharisees: but had He not claimed that the “righteousness” of those who would enter the Kingdom must be greater than theirs? Had He not said, “Till heaven and earth pass away, no jot or tittle shall pass from the Law”? Had He not said, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: do therefore and observe whatsoever they say unto you, but do not according to their deeds; for they say, and do not perform”? What was the meaning of His advice to the rich young man, “Thou knowest the commandments,” if He did not mean that the righteousness which leads to life is to be found in the Law? It is easy enough for us to say that such questions imply a narrow and unintelligent attitude; but the question of the attitude of Jesus to the Law has never yet been satisfactorily discussed in the light of modern researches into the Synoptic Gospels. It is, however, tolerably plain that such a discussion, when it takes place, will lead to the recognition of the fact that the Judaizing Christians had something to say for themselves when they claimed to be the interpreters of the mind of Jesus.
Thus “the righteous” meant for the Jewish Christian those who observed the divinely given Law, and were opposed to sinners who neglected it. But the problem which had especially to be faced was how a sinner who had neglected the Law was to be set free from sin. Here also the Jew naturally thought along the lines of his inherited theology. More than one factor can be distinguished. In the first place, there was the doctrine, which finds an especial emphasis in Ezekiel, that by repentance, that is to say, turning back and observing the Law, righteousness can be obtained. This view is common to all Jewish thought, but it does not stand alone. Alongside of it is the doctrine that former sin must be cleansed away. Sometimes, as in some parts of Ezekiel, there is the view that present righteousness cancels and abolishes past sin, but more frequently a doctrine of purification was added. This purification was by sacrifice and lustration, or ceremonial washing, and it was thought that part of the preparation for the Messianic Kingdom would be a general purification. This idea is expressed clearly in such passages as Ezekiel 36:25 : “And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean, from all your foulness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you.” And in Enoch 10:20 the duty is given to Michael of cleansing the earth from sin. The preaching of St. John the Baptist is obviously connected with this doctrine. He announced the coming of the Kingdom, and offered a baptism of purification from sin in combination with his message of repentance, of turning back to the paths of righteousness. This view was taken over by the Christians, and in Jewish Christian circles Baptism was probably regarded as the “Messianic” purification necessary for entering into the coming Kingdom. The incident in Acts 19:1-6 when St. Paul met Christians who had been baptized with the Baptism of St. John, seems to be the proof that in some circles, which must have been Jewish in origin, there was no Christian Baptism as distinct from that of St. John the Baptist.
It is now necessary to consider another element in the situation, partly connected with the Jewish doctrine of sin, partly with that of the Messianic expectation. Alongside of the view that sin consists in disobedience, and righteousness in obedience to the Divine Law, there was the parallel doctrine that sin was due to evil spirits, and righteousness to a holy spirit. The former view found its historical justification in the story of the Fall, and the latter in that of the intercourse between women and angels (Genesis 6:1-22); and is the more usual in the Apocryphal literature. The complement of this view of sin was the belief that part of the work of the Messiah would be the destruction of the evil spirits and the inspiration of the members of the Kingdom by the Holy Spirit. This view is found in some passages in the Old Testament in connection with the last days, and it was, apart from this eschatological view, developed in the Diaspora, as may be seen in Philo. According to him, purification from sin is accomplished by the Spirit. So far as man is really under the control of the Spirit he is sinless, and Philo explains the sins of the “perfect” by the curious theory that the Spirit is, as it were, occasionally absent. In Philo this “spiritual” view is associated with a strongly ethical theory of repentance, not essentially different from the usual Jewish one, but it is easy to see that in circles which went further than he did, the “spiritual” view might become quite unethical in practice, and might explain the existence of Jews in the party of the πνευματικοὶ described in the last chapter (pp.
There can be no question but that Christians, certainly not excluding Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, regarded themselves as having received the Spirit, and were inclined to give an eschatological significance to this fact. It is not less certain that they also regarded themselves as, for this reason, holy and righteous. The question of the position which they assigned to Baptism in this connection is more doubtful (see pp. 384 ff.). The evidence of the Acts suggests that there may have been a difference of opinion from the beginning as to whether the gift of the Spirit was directly given in Baptism or separately. But in some circles the doctrine certainly obtained that the Spirit was given in Baptism, and Christian Baptism was regarded as differentiated by this from the Baptism of St. John. The really important point in this complex of facts is that there was in this way a double series. (1) Looking at the facts of life from the point of view of Law, sin was regarded as the transgression of the Law, righteousness as the observance of the Law, and repentance as the change of conduct from transgression to observance. (2) Looking at the facts from the point of view of spiritual experience, interpreted in the language which explained it as due to the influence of spirits and demons, sin was regarded as the power of an evil spirit, righteousness as the power of a holy spirit, and repentance as the passage from the control of one to that of the other.
Probably no school of Judaism thought exclusively from either point of view; but the Palestinian Jew was more inclined to take that of Law. Thus to such a mind a belief that Jesus was right in His message, “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand, Repent!” and that He was right in His belief that He would be the King in the Kingdom, made him all the more anxious to “repent”—to turn round—and to observe the Law, and in this way to secure the righteousness which was essential for members of the Kingdom. But a Jew of the Diaspora, and still more a Gentile convert to Christianity, took the other line. To him his “righteousness” was secured by the possession of the Spirit, not bythe works of the Law. When he was contradicted on this point he began to go still further, to ask pertinent questions concerning the history of the Law, and to react against its claims. To do this successfully he had to explain more fully what faith and righteousnesswere, and what the Law was, and this is the task which St. Paul attempts in Romans 1:1-32, Romans 2:1-29, Romans 3:1-31, Romans 4:1-25, Romans 5:1-21, Romans 6:1-23, Romans 7:1-25, Romans 8:1-39 and in the dogmatic parts of Galatians. The minute exegesis of these passages is extremely difficult, but in the main the meaning of St. Paul is tolerably clear. He is arguing that the Law did not and could not give righteousness, that this contention can be proved alike by the history of Israel and by individual experience; that, on the other hand, the Christian who has the Spirit has obtained righteousness, and that the true interpretation of the prophetic history of Abraham shows this to have been always the intention of God.
Moreover, if we look a little more closely, we can reconstruct, even though only in dim outlines, some of the objections which the strict Jewish Christian, in his turn, alleged against the positive side of this “spiritual” conception of righteousness, and cognate questions. These objections lie behind some of the questions which St. Paul puts, half rhetorically, in the course of his argument in the earlier chapters of Romans, and they can be reduced to three main propositions. (1) The “spiritual” conception of righteousness was unethical. It encouraged men to sin by the promise of an abundance of pardoning grace. (2) It ignored the special position of the Jews as the people of promise. (3) It failed to recognize the Law as Divine. The former of these propositions is clearly adumbrated in such passages as Romans 6:15 : “What then? shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” or still more plainly in Romans 3:8 : “Why not, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil that good may come?” Obviously the background of these questions is the contention by Jewish Christians that their opponents were preaching an unethical and even immoral gospel. We have seen already that the history of the Thessalonian and Corinthian communities shows that the Jewish Christians were so far right that in purely Gentile circles there was a danger of Christianity being regarded as a means of obtaining eternal life by sacramental means, devoid of ethical obligations. The second proposition of the Jewish Christians, that the position of the Jews was not recognized, and their privileges set aside, is the background of some “asides” in the earlier chapters of Romans; for instance, Romans 3:1, “What advantage then hath the Jew?” but is especially treated in Romans 9:1-33, Romans 10:1-21, Romans 11:1-361. To a Jew this was of course a matter of really vital importance. It was held that to the family of Abraham special blessings had been given and promised, and the Christian Universalism seemed to deprive these promises of all real meaning.
One must admit that, from his point of view, the Jewish Christian was perfectly correct. Neither by St. Paul nor by later Christians was the Jewish position answered in any manner which could possibly shake a Jew’s conviction. The Jew was right when he maintained that the Old Testament in many places made promises to the Jews and excluded the Gentiles, and that the writers of the Old Testament meant this. Exegesis was on the side of the Jew: but exegesis is a poor thing when it conflicts with the facts of experience, and these facts were on the side of the Gentile. He had received the Spirit; and therefore a doctrine which excluded Gentiles was condemned by experience. The really logical attitude for Christians to have adopted would have been to deny the validity of the argument from the Old Testament, but instead of doing this they impugned the Jewish exegesis. Probably it was just as well that they did so: Christianity had need of the Jewish ethical element to balance the dangers of the Gentile movement, and too radical a break with the Jewish view of the Old Testament might have been disastrous. The third objection of the Jewish Christian dealt with the question of the Law. Was it not true, he said in effect, that the Law had been given to the Jews as a Divine instruction in the way of righteousness? It ought to be observed. If not, what was the Law? Here, again, there was probably a difference of opinion between Jews in Palestine and those in the Diaspora as to the binding character of the Law on all nations. It is easy to understand the position which argued that the Law was eternal —as Jesus Himself seems to have said—and that it was universal. Against this was the narrower view which regarded the Law as purely preparative for the Kingdom, and only valid for the Jews, and until the coming of the Messiah. According to the one party, the Law and the Promise were identical: the Kingdom would be the rule of God, under whom the Law would be perfectly obeyed. According to the other, the Law was later than the Promise, and was only ad interim until the Kingdom should come. Moreover, although in one sense the Kingdom was still future, Christians were already—even though proleptically—members of it, and lived under its conditions as ἅγιοι, holy. They had passed beyond the sphere of the Law.
St. Paul appears in Romans to have definitely accepted this narrower view of the Law. The greater part of the opening chapters are devoted to supporting it, and controverting the stricter Jewish position. He did not deny the Divine origin or purpose of the Law, as his Judaizing opponents accused him of doing, but he asserted that they mistook the nature and scope of this Divine purpose.
These are the main elements of the dispute about the Law and Righteousness, which was the most important, or at least the most obvious element of the controversy between the stricter Jewish Christians and the more liberal Jewish and Gentile Christians of the Diaspora. But there seems to have been another important element which demands attention. It is quite plain that St. Paul is arguing in many places in Romans that the death of Jesus was important for the salvation of the individual Christian. It is unnecessary here to ask precisely what this importance was, for such an inquiry belongs rather to the exegesis of the Epistle; but from the controversial emphasis laid upon it is clear that St. Paul was contending for the truth of teaching which was disputed by his immediate opponents, the Judaistic Christians, and it is desirable to find out, so far as possible, what was the attitude of those who—to speak somewhat loosely—saw no “atoning” work in the death of Jesus. The Jewish doctrine of the Kingdom of God did not include that of a suffering Messiah. The doctrine of a Messiah was a complex of originally separate factors. Probably the original idea of Messiah was merely that of the anointed King who reigned over Jahveh’s people. Perhaps in monarchical periods there was no further development. Later, probably under Babylonian influence, prominence was given to the belief in a heavenly “Man” who would ultimately appear to inaugurate the kingdom, and this figure was conflated with that of the original royal Messiah. This process appears to be complete in the Book of Enoch, and it is very doubtful whether Jewish thought in the first century or later ever added new elements.
Nevertheless, the material for a new element already existed in the Old Testament, in the figure of the Ebed Jahveh or the Suffering Servant, who appears in Isaiah 53:1-12 and cognate passages. Here there is undoubtedly the idea of vicarious suffering; but whatever the origin of the figure may be, there is a complete lack of proof that Palestinian Jews ever connected it with the figure of the Messiah.
Under these circumstances what is likely to have been the meaning attached by Jewish Christians to the death and resurrection of Jesus? On general principles one would expect to find that the Resurrection was regarded either merely as the proof that the Christian view of Jesus was correct, and the Divine confirmation of His message, or as the means whereby He had attained (or, possibly, resumed) the heavenly nature of the “man” who was to appear at the coming of the Kingdom as the divinely appointed King. There would be no suggestion that the Resurrection had a personal importance for individual Christians, for it was not expected that the individual Christian would die before the coming of the Kingdom. This is exactly what is implied by the speeches in the early chapters of Acts. The Resurrection is always referred to as evidence for the truth of the message of Jesus, and the correctness of the Christian view of His Messianic nature. In the same way it is on general principles probable that the Crucifixion was in such circles regarded merely as one of the long list of crimes against the Messengers of God, of which the Jewish nation was guilty. This, again, is exactly what we find in the discourses in the early chapters of Acts. “Him,” says St. Peter on the Day of Pentecost, “being delivered up by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay, whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible that He should be holden of it. … Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God hath made Him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom ye crucified.” (Acts 2:23-24, cf. Acts 3:14 ff; Acts 4:10, Acts 4:28 ff; Acts 10:39)
Quite in the same spirit St. Stephen says at the end of his speech, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed them which shewed before the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers ye are now become.” (Acts 7:51-53) Clearly St. Stephen did not regard the death of Jesus as differing in quality from that of the prophets whom previous generations of Jews had murdered.
It is true that the matter is not so simple as the fore going statement would make it appear: the question remains how far the Jews of the first century may have seen the power of an atoning sacrifice in the death of the prophets and of the righteous in general. This question really belongs largely to the province of Old Testament exegesis, and I hesitate to speak on a subject so far outside the limits of my own knowledge, and apparently so far from having been settled by expert study, but my impression is that it is quite probable that some such teaching did exist, and that it was especially connected with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53:1-12 and cognate passages. If so, this would provide a natural bridge for the development of Christian teaching as to the death of Jesus. It appears to me quite likely that in limiting the atoning efficacy of a martyr’s death to the one case of the Christ, and in enhancing its importance, Christianity was narrowing, even though heightening, a doctrine of which the Jews had already learned the rudiments. At the same time, however much importance may ultimately be attributed to this side of Jewish teaching, it is quite clear that all the evidence which we possess shows that some Jewish Christians were not in the least inclined to see in the death of Jesus a unique atoning sacrifice, just as it is equally clear that St. Paul did assign this value to it.
It is for this reason that in Romans, devoted as it is to dealing with the views of Jewish Christians, St. Paul is at such pains to explain the real meaning of the death of Jesus. If there had been no difference of opinion on the subject St. Paul would not have been at such pains to argue it out, any more than he argues out the fact of the Resurrection, or of Baptism. The Epistles are not academic treatises, and we may be sure that when St. Paul is at pains to discuss a point at length it is because he knew that it was disputed.
It remains to ask why Gentile Christians were more ready to find a special significance in the death of Jesus. That this was the case is sufficiently proved by the fact that St. Paul never discusses the point in writing to them. It is inconceivable that he did not preach this doctrine, and it must have been accepted by them without any demur or surprise. Why did they believe easily what Jewish Christians hesitated to accept? Because such teaching agreed exactly with what they expected to find in any form of religion. The death of the god, and its intimate connection with the Mysteries by which the initiate shared in his risen life, is as central in Hellenistic religion as it is peripheral or outside the periphery in Jewish religion. This does not mean that there was any “borrowing” from one of the Mystery Religions, but that this conception was in the air of Hellenistic thought, and a Greek, when he became a Christian, naturally continued to think along the lines already familiar to him. The spiritual experience of Christianity was no doubt the same among Jews and Greeks, but when it was a question of translating this experience into the language of the intellect, and stating its connection with the historical fact of Jesus, His life and death, each thought in the manner familiar to him.
Such seem to be the main outlines of the general picture of Christian life revealed by the Epistle to the Romans. Perhaps the really surprising point is, that it should appear that the Judaic problems were, on the whole, more important than the Gentile problems. To some extent this fact is modified if the hypothesis (see p.
It is desirable to note precisely what is the import of this fact. It does not imply that there was a majority of Jewish Christians in Rome, but that there were Jewish Christians who preached strongly the position of the Jerusalem school of thought, and did not accept the teaching of the liberal Antiochene movement. This propaganda was clearly in existence in Galatia, but there is no trace of it in Macedonia (in the Epistles to the Thessalonians) in which St. Paul’s enemies were Jews, not Jewish Christians, or in Corinth, in which, though his opponents may have been of Jewish nationality, they belonged not to the Jerusalem school,but to an exaggeration of the Antiochene movement. It is probable that in Philippians we can see signs of the presence of the Judaizing school in Macedonia at a later date. The importance of these facts is that they suggest that whereas the Antiochene movement was the first to establish itself in Macedonia and Achaia, the Jerusalem propaganda passed over these districts and went first to Italy. No doubt “Antiochene” Christians were soon met with in Rome, but the important point is that if we regard Christianity as making its way across Europe in two waves, the Antiochene wave seems to have been highest in Achaia, while the Jerusalem wave reached its height in Syria and Italy, and passed by, at least relatively, the intervening districts of Macedonia and Achaia.
Literature.—General information will be found in the introductory sections of the commentaries of Meyer, Holtzmann, Leitzmann, Zahn, and Sanday and Headlam. For the problem of the short recension the most important contributions are the articles of Corssen and de Bruyne quoted on p. 336. For the question of Baptism indispensable books are W. Heitmuller’s Taufe und Abendmahl bei Paulus and Im Namen Jesu.
1 According to the testimony of the Epistles to the Corinthians, the Epistles of the Captivity, and the Pastoral Epistles.
1 The reading “firstfruits of Achaia” in the A.V. is condemned decisively by the facts (1) that it is not found in any of the best MSS.; (2) that it contradicts 1 Corinthians 16:15, where the text is undisputed.
2 It is curious, though probably unimportant, that St. Luke seems always to have written Priscilla, and St. Paul Prisca. It is also remarkable that St. Luke, according to the text of the best MSS., seems always to have written Priscilla and Aquila—putting the wife in the first place. St. Paul does the same in Romans 16:3 and 2 Timothy 4:19, but not in 1 Corinthians 16:19. From this fact the conclusion has been drawn that Prisca was the more important person, either from social standing or from influence in the Church. The supposition has been made that Prisca was a Roman lady who had married a Jew; and Harnack has given much notoriety to the suggestion that she was the authoress of the Epistle to the Hebrews. All these hypotheses are more ingenious than probable, though no doubt there must have been some reason (now irrevocably lost) why Prisca was so often mentioned before her husband.
1 There are many variants in the text of this passage, though they do not seriously alter the sense. Cf. Harnack’s Über die beiden Recensionen der Geschichte der Prisca und des Aquila in Acts 18:1-27 in the Sitzungsberichte des königl. preuss. Akademic zu Berlin, 1900, pp. 2–13.
2 Zahn, however, thinks that he must have been converted in Athens, which was also in Achaia, since he was the “firstfruits,” and St. Paul’s preaching in Athens was not wholly unsuccessful; still, Athens plays so small a part in the early history of Christian Achaia that I think St. Paul probably meant Corinth.
1Epistle to the Philippians, pp. 171–178.
1 Romans 16:10 f.
2 Josephus, Bell. Jude 1:2Jude 1:11, Jude 1:6; Antiq. 18 5, 4; Antiq. 20 1, 2.
3 Cf. Tacitus, Ann. 21 29–38; 12 1; 13 1; Suetonius, Claudius, 28.
1 So Ambrosiaster thought. He describes Narcissus as a “Presbyter” (see Souter’s Ambrosiaster, p. 199). This at least shows that if the Narcissus in Romans was the freedman, no tradition survived in Rome.
2 Php 4:22.
3 Aquila e Priscilla et gli Acillii Glabrioni in the Bull. di Archeologia Cristiana, 1888, pp. 129 ff. See also Sanday and Headlam’s Romans, p. 418.
1 Romans and Ephesians, pp. 12–14.
2 De Rossi, Bull. di Archeologia Cristiana, 1881, pp. 57–74.
3 See Acta SS. Nerei et Achillei by H. Achelis in Texte und Unter-suchungen, XI. 2.
1 Those who find the point important should read not only Corssen’s articles, Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte des Römerbriefes in the Zeitschrift für die N.T.-liche. Wiss., 1909, 1 and 2, but also Dom Donatien de Bruyne’s Une concordance biblique d’origine pélagienne in the Revue Biblique, 1908, pp. 75–83.
1 Zahn, Einleitung in das neue Testament, 1 280f. (3rd ed.), and Riggenbach in the Neue Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, 1892, pp. 526 ff., on Die Text-geschichte der DoxologieRomans 16:25-27. The Murbach text of the “concordance” can be found in Vezzosi’s edition of the works of J. M. Thomasius, 1:489, the Amiatine breves in Tischendorf’s edition of the Codex Amiatinus, pp. 240 ff., and the shorter form of the concordance or Capitulatio on pp. 237 ff.
2This was first pointed out by Lightfoot (Biblical Essays, p. 362), who drew attention to the fact that section 42, de tempore serviendo, implies a reading (τῷ καιρῷ instead of τῷ κυρίῳ in Romans 12:11) which Jerome expressly condemns. See also further in Riggenbach, op. cit. pp. 531 ff.
1 I can hardly think that the short recension was used in Rome itself: can we regard this as suggesting that the “European version” is, in origin, not Roman? Or shall we perhaps find that the “European” Latin ought to be divided into two, a Roman and a non-Roman, and that the Breves belong to the non-Roman type? There is a real difficulty here, and I do not see a satisfactory solution on any hypothesis yet known to me. To regard the Breves as Marcionite is the simplest suggestion, but the other objections to this view seem to me to be too great.
1 Zahn (Einleitung, i. p. 280) thinks that cuncta dissecuit means that Marcion “hat alles … zerschnitten, durch Ausmerzungen zerstümmelt.” But this does not seem to me to be at all a natural interpretation of the Latin, and still less of the presumable Greek, πάντα διέτεμεν.
1 Romans 16:24 is omitted by the R.V. and all critical editors.
1 For the fullest statement of the facts about this MS. see Dom Bruyne, Des deux derniers chapitres de la lettre aux Romains, in Revue Bénédictine, 1908, p. 423 ff.
2 See
3 The agreement between Priscillian and FG suggests that Y, the archetype of FG, may have had Spanish elements, and possibly this may even be true of Z, and would account for the agreement with Spec. to which Corssen has drawn attention. D is, I fancy, more like the text of Lucifer and of Ambrosiaster than was that of Z, but the question requires investigation.
4 Zahn, it is true, in his commentary (see esp. pp. 620 ff) argues that the doxology is really best in place between Romans 14:1-23 and Romans 15:1-33 But I cannot see that he succeeds in explaining away the break which it then makes in the text. I agree that, on transcriptional grounds, Romans 14:23 is the most probable place for the doxology, but I regard this as only possible if we assume that it belonged originally to the shorter recension. Zahn is perhaps right in believing that the “Grace” originally came in Romans 16:24 only. It has been displaced in the long recension when the doxology was moved from Romans 14:23, Romans 15:1-33, Romans 16:1-25. It is curious to note that Dom Bruyne is rather inclined to think that the “Grace” originally preceded the doxology in the short recension. It appears to have done so in the Monza MSS. The matter is complicated, but not sufficiently important for the present purpose to warrant the rather long discussion of details which would be necessary to deal with it fully.
1 It is, however, quite possible that Priscillian’s text is really the short recension without the doxology, but with the addition of Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27. The same thing is true of Z, and in this case is certain if it be true as Corssen thinks—I believe rightly—that there is sufficient textual difference between the text of Romans 1:1-32, Romans 2:1-29, Romans 3:1-31, Romans 4:1-25, Romans 5:1-21, Romans 6:1-23, Romans 7:1-25, Romans 8:1-39, Romans 9:1-33, Romans 10:1-21Romans 11:1-36, Romans 12:1-21, Romans 13:1-14, Romans 14:1-23 and Romans 15:1-33, Romans 16:1-27 in Z to show that a different archetype was used for Romans 15:1-33 and Romans 16:1-27. (see above, p. 341).
1 E. von der Goltz, Eine textkritische Arbeit des zehnten bezw. sechsten Fahrhundert, in Gebhardt and Harnack’s Texte und Untersuchungen neue Folge, 2. 4, 1898.
2 The same note, but without any explanation, is found in MS. Bodl. Roe 16 (Cod. Paul. 47).
1 According to the information supplied to Prof. Zahn by Dr. Brewer, who is editing the text of Ambrosiaster for the Vienna Corpus, there are in existence three recensions of this commentary (cf. the parallel features in the text of the Quaestiones, mentioned by Souter in his edition in the same Corpus). These are apparently all the work of “Ambrosiaster” himself; but in the passage quoted, the only difference is that 1 and 2 read dilectis Dei, 3 in caritate Dei. All three read in caritate in the comment, and dilectis is probably merely textual corruption (see Zahn, Comm. p. 616.) 2 Biblical Essays, p. 288.
1 The question of chap. 16 is of course separate.
1 In the Revue Bénédictine for January, 1907, pp. 1 ff., Prologues Bibliques d’origine Marcionite.
2 Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt, 1. 3, pp. 2028 ff.
1 See
1 Here again it is necessary to add that of course there is no suggestion that Origen was unacquainted with the other Epistles, but merely that we cannot say in what order they came in his Bible.
2 It is hard to realize at first that there seems to be no evidence for this order, with which we are so familiar, before the fourth century. Probably it was part of the textual and critical revision which the New Testament under-went, chiefly, but not exclusively, at the hand of Alexandrian scholars, in the fourth century.
3 All the facts given above are discussed fully in Zahn’s Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, 2 pp. 344 ff., but I cannot think that he is successful in reducing all the early lists to one original collection.
1 See Corssen in the Zeitschr. für N.- Tliche Wissenschaft, 1909, p. 32 ff.
1Journal of Philology, 1869–71. Reprinted in Biblical Essays, pp. 287 ff.
1 If, after all, Romans 16:1-23 was really sent to Rome, the desire to give an introductory letter to Phoebe no doubt also played a part, inducing him to write to a Church which he had not yet visited; but I doubt if this section really belongs to Romans, and therefore must make no use of this argument.
1 That is, of course, if it be conceded that Tertullian used the short recension. Opinion is likely to differ on this point. Personally, I believe that the balance of evidence inclines in that direction, but it is not decisively clear, and others take a different view.
1 I wish I could honestly have reached the result that it is wrong. The whole question of the short recension is much more easy—on my hypothesis—if Romans 16:1-23 was really always part of the longer recension and a truly Roman Epistle. Therefore, I should be delighted to be convinced that the Ephesian destination of Romans 16:1-23 is a mistake, but at present I am unable to put aside the force of the arguments in its favour.
2 In 1866 in Der Römerbrief und die Anfänge der römischen Gemeindes, and in 1884, in Der Römerbrief und seine geschichtliche Voraussetzungen.
3Apostolische Zeitalter, Ed. 2, pp. 407 f.
4 The word here and in Romans 1:5 is τοῖς ἔθνεσι, which regularly means “Gentiles.” In Jewish Greek the Jews are ὁ λαός, and the Gentiles are τὰ ἔθνη. It is curious that the R. V. translates the first passage as “nations.”
1 A list of other arguments with the objections to them, on either side, is given in a concise manner in H. Holtzmann’s Einleitung in das neue Testament, pp. 235 ff. Those given above are only those which seem decisive.
2 For more detailed information and references to special books, see Schürer, Geschichte des judischen Volkes, Ed. 4, 3 pp. 57–67.
1 It seems to me probable that this treatment, so reminiscent of Nebuchadnezzar, is at least partly the origin of the half-apocalyptic custom of calling Rome Babylon.
2 She was induced to subscribe largely towards the Temple, and her subscriptions were never forwarded to Jerusalem. See Josephus, Ant. 18. 3, 5.
1 Juvenal, Sat. 4. 117, “Dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes,” and the scholiast (quoted by Schürer) says, “qui ad portam Aricinam rite ad clivum mendicaret inter Judaeos, qui ad Ariciam transierant ex Urbe missi.”
2 To some extent this statement must be modified if the view be adopted that the short recension, which contains all these allusions, was originally sent, not to Rome, but to some other Gentile Church in the neighbourhood of Antioch. But the modification necessary is slight and unimportant. Probably all early Gentile communities were mixed with a strong Jewish-Christian element. All that the “short recension” theory necessitates is the theory that St. Paul recognized that the situation in Rome resembled that in Antioch.
2 Acts 18:2.
3 Dio Cassius, 60.6: τοὺς δὲ Ἰουδαίους πλεονάσαντες αὗθις ὥστε χαλεπῶς ἄν ἄνευ ταραχῆς ὑπὸ τοῦ ὀχλοῦ σφῶν τῆς πόλεως εἰρχθῆναι, οὐκ ἐξήλασε μεν, τῷ δὲ δὴ
1 The whole question is mixed up with that of the early lists of bishops, from which the idea of a twenty-five years’ episcopate for St. Peter is probably derived. See the discussion, which is the basis of all modern investigation, in Harnack’s Chronologic der altchristlichen litteratur bis Eusebius, 1.70–230 and 703–7.
1 According to traditional exegesis the ἕτερον τόπον to which St. Peter went, after his release, was Rome. This is not justified by the text, and is clearly an after-thought. See p.
1 Romans 14:14, Romans 14:20, Romans 14:23.
2 Romans 14:13, Romans 14:15, Romans 14:21.
3 Rom. Romans 14:2, Romans 14:21, and Romans 14:5 ff.
4 It is obviously impossible to say whether these were the weekly fast days, which the Jews in some circles observed on Mondays and Thursdays, and the early Christians (cf. the Didache) transposed to Wednesdays and Fridays.
1 This is, I take it, the meaning of the ἀνάκαίνισις τοῦν ́οός. It is another variant of the καινὴ κτίσις of Galatians and 2 Corinthians.
1 In early Christian literature (e.g. the Didache) ζῶν is the technical name for running water, and its use was enjoined, if possible, in Baptism.
2 De Baptismo, especially chapters 3–6.
3 There is a dispute as to the original Christian formula. At a very early time the formula of Baptism was “in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” but the evidence of Acts, supported by other subordinate arguments, suggests that the most primitive formula was “in the name of Jesus,” or “in the name of the Lord.” See further Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 2,. pp. 380 ff.
4 Cf. also 1 Corinthians 1:13, “Were ye baptized in the name of Paul?”
1 Cf. especially Acts 8:12 ff. and Acts 10:37 ff.; the point is discussed at greater length in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 2 pp. 282 ff.
1 “Unethical” and “magical” are not synonyms: in the scientific sense of the word much Christian sacramental doctrine was and is magical, but it is not necessarily unethical.
2 The beginnings of an attempt to follow out this line of thought will be found in an article on the Shepherd of Hermas in the Harvard Theological Review for 1911, and in the article on Early Christian Baptism in Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
1 On one occasion Jesus almost (but perhaps not quite) implies that the Baptism of John was from heaven. How far does that take us?
1 The best monograph on the question is the very interesting treatise of Dr. H. Windisch, Der Messianische Krieg und das Ur-Christentum.
1 And for that reason the presence of a Zealot among His followers was deserving of mention.
1 Some aspects of the Crusades are a curious and belated example of a fervid Christianity with Zealot principles.
1 Enoch 45:5 1 Enoch 10.21 ff.
2 Test. Leviticus 18:9. I have followed the text of e in reading καταπέσουσιν rather than καταπαύσουσιν. It seems to give the right meaning, and the evidence of e is always important. Whether, as Charles thinks, the following words ought to be omitted (also with e) seems to me doubtful. I cannot see that the parallelism is clearly against them. See Charles’ Greek Text of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, p. 63.
3 Note that this is St. Paul’s favourite designation for Christians.
1 It is not without importance that the word for “repentance” in the Old Testament is usually שרב, which means a change of conduct. It is generally translated in the 70 by ἐπιστρέφειν, but in Sir 48:11 it is apparently represented by μετενόησεν, and in the later translations the ἐπιστρέφειν (or ἀποστρέφειν) of the 70 is usually replaced by μετανοεῖν. See Windisch, Taufe und Sünde im ältesten Christentum, p. 8 ff.
2 Cf. Ezekiel 18:21 ff.; Isaiah 1:16; Psalms 15:1-5; Sir 17:25; Test. 12 Patr., Reub. 4, etc.; cf. Windisch, op. cit. pp. 8–34.
1 An interesting problem is raised by this passage in connection with the place of Michael in this passage by the strange confusion which obtains in the Shepherd of Hermas between Michael and the Messiah. The last word has by no means been said on the history of the figure of Michael: the best introduction to the subject is W. Lueken’s Michael, eine Darstellung und Vergleichung der jüdischen und der morgenlandisch-christlichen Tradition vom Erzengel Michael.It should be noted that Charles assigns this function to Gabriel, as he regards the reference to Michael as an interpolation. I cannot see that there is sufficient reason for this emendation.
2 To Gentile Christians Baptism had from the beginning a somewhat different aspect. It was the entry into the Kingdom, in the same sense in which the Mysteries gave entry into eternal life. It was a “regeneration to eternity.” It is even probable that some Jewish circles had similar views, for parallel phrases were used of the Proselytes; but, on the whole, it is probably true that to the Jewish mind the emphasis was on the concept of cleansing, and to the Gentile on that of “regeneration.” There is a real difference between the two, even though in practice they no doubt always had a tendency to coalesce, and when we distinguish them clearly we introduce a sharpness of contrast which is not historically justifiable.
1 See especially Windisch, Taufe und Sünde, pp. 61–70.
1 The question has sometimes been raised whether this section is the genesis of the whole Epistle, or, on the other hand, whether it is not really independent of the rest. Personally, I cannot see the justification for either question. The Epistle is often difficult to interpret, but each part of it seems to correspond to some tendency among the Jewish Christians, and as a whole it is perfectly intelligible as a contribution to the controversy described above; indeed, I would add that only as such is it intelligible at all.
1 Later on Marcion did so; but his heretical opinions tended to confirm opinion against him.
2 It is impossible to read the Epistle of St. Barnabas or the Dialogue of Justin Martyr with Trypho without feeling that, regarded from the point of view of actual historical correctness, the early Christians are at their worst when they are dealing with the Old Testament, and, though it is a shock to our feelings to have to admit it, it cannot be denied that the arguments from the Old Testament in St. Paul’s Epistles are not essentially different.
1 It is, of course, obvious that this sort of argument led directly to the identification of the Kingdom and the Church, and to the view that the life of Jesus was a preliminary parousia, the “first coming” of the Messiah, an idea originally quite foreign to Jewish thought.
2 It is doubtful whether there were any Christians who really did reject the Law, as distinct from limiting the scope of the Law, until Marcion: but it is possible that he had predecessors of whom we know nothing, and that St. Paul was in this respect not the extremist which he is sometimes painted.
1 Indeed, it seems sometimes not to have included a Messiah at all.
2 Modern researches have thrown a curious light on this question. It is not clear what was, according to ancient conceptions, the relation between kingship and divinity, but certainly they were closely connected. In some places probably the king was the god, and the god was the king (cf. J. G. Frazer, The Origin of Kingship). Clearly this is of great importance for the history of the early stages of the Messianic belief among the Jews, but it has not yet been fully worked out.
1 Cf. H. Gressman, Der Ursprung der Israelitisch-jüdischen Eschatologie, pp. 301–333.
1 Acts 2:23-24. Cf. with this passage Acts 3:14 ff.; Acts 4:10, Acts 5:26 ff.; Acts 10:39.
2 Acts 7:51-53.
1 If they really did so; here, again, there is, I fancy, real need for a fresh investigation into the history of the Catholic doctrine of martyrs.
1 I would deprecate attempts too nicely to distinguish between the value of Greek and Jewish thought; neither are the same as our own, which is partly the offspring of both, partly something really new. The important point is that human religious experience, and human intellectual thought are both imperfect and both progressive; each generation is constantly engaged in a process of re-adjustment. One of the first duties of the theologian is not to confuse separate things. Religious experience is valuable in proportion to its spiritual elevation. Theological expression must, above all, be true to logic; historical research demands fidelity to fact, and—πρὸς ταῦτα τίς ἱκανός;
1 I do not think that St. Peter, even if he was in Corinth, can be regarded as belonging to the Jerusalem school. He was, according to the evidence which we possess, if we treat it fairly, much more in real sympathy with St. Paul. A scarcely justifiable use has been made in this connection of the phrase in Galatians that St. Paul “withstood him to the face because he was κατεγνωσμένος.” That only means “clearly wrong,” for though κατεγνωσμένος may no doubt be translated by a stronger expression, this would be untrue to English idiom. Languages have different methods of contradiction: writing in English I have begun this criticism of a view which I reject by calling it “scarcely justifiable”; had I been using Dutch, I should probably have said, “zeer ten onrecht,” or in German “ganz falsch.” I would ask those who build much on Galatians, whether they have never described any one as “clearly wrong,” who in the main, or afterwards, belonged to their own party?