16-Gentile and Jew, how they stand
Gentile and Jew, how they stand
Up till now the writer has been drawing a picture of the sinfulness that prevails in the Gentile world. But the Jew is not to escape his ruthless analysis. His turn is coming. When precisely he appears upon the scene it is a little hard to say. The matter is handled indeed with very great skill and delicacy. Only we feel sure of this, that the Jew is present in thought some time before he appears in unmistakeable black and white. It is not till v. 17 of the second chapter that he is directly addressed. But from the moment when ‘judgment’ is mentioned (human judgment of human conduct), and that is in v. 1, we feel certain that the writer is thinking of his countrymen. For Israel was a very stern critic of heathen morality, and many heathen practices were positively abhorrent to the law-instructed Israelite. We may feel fairly certain that, when the Apostle apostrophises ἄνθρωπε πᾶς ὁ κρίνων (2:1), his thought is in transition from Gentile to Jewish sinfulness. The Gentile’s normal attitude towards human frailty is complacent toleration (συνευδοκεῖν); it is the Jew who ‘judges.’ In 1:20 it was laid down that the Gentile world, in general, is inexcusable. Now we are told that all who ‘judge’ are also inexcusable. For ‘judge’ and ‘judged’ are alike-all partakers in the same ill-doing. In v. 2 it is laid down that God’s judgment is in all cases ‘in accordance with the facts’-κατʼ ἀλήθειαν certainly means “corresponding to reality.” The same teaching is repeated lower down, in v. 6, where it says that “God shall render to each man in accordance with his doings.” In the verses that come between it is assumed that all are wrongdoers; that all presume alike upon God’s patience and forbearance. Or, maybe, we should not say ‘all.’ For in the verses that follow, rather to the reader’s surprise, it is suggested that there are, who will win “eternal life,” because they set themselves to the splendid quest after “glory and honour and immortality” (ἀφθαρσίαν), καθʼ ὑπομονὴν ἔργου ἀγαθοῦ, “by resolute persistence in good doing.” Now this statement would be less surprising, did it apply to Gentiles only. But it is plainly stated, it does not: it covers both Jew and Gentile (vv. 7-10). In this regard all stand upon one footing, “for with God there is no respect for outward circumstance” (v. 11). But it would appear that for the Jew ὑπομονὴ ἔργου ἀγαθοῦ, though conceivable in thought, is incapable of realisation in actual practice. So declare the verses that follow, especially v. 13.
2:12-16. “For all that have sinned without Law, without Law shall also perish. And all that have sinned within Law, by Law shall have their judgment. For not the hearers of Law are ‘right’ in the eyes of God. No! it is the doers of Law that shall be set right with Him.”
“For whenever Gentile folks, that have not Law, do naturally what Law bids; these, though they have no Law, are a Law for themselves. They display the effect of Law engraved upon their hearts. Their conscience bears them witness. Their thoughts, in inner conclave, accuse them or (maybe) defend them … (for so surely it shall be) in the day when God shall judge the world, as I state it in my preaching, by the agency of Christ Jesus.” In perusing this striking passage, the reader cannot but feel that the hope of attaining God’s favour, by ‘resolute well doing,’ is a very shadowy one. For Jews it fades away, all but entirely; for Gentiles it becomes exceedingly faint. ‘Self-condemnation’ (v. 15) is plainly the normal lot, even of the virtuous Gentile. His own ‘self-knowledge’ judges him; for ‘conscience,’ it is well known, in Pauline writings is a narrower faculty than in ordinary modern speech. It judges a man while he lives; and further, when he is passed to his great account, it will judge him-his ‘thoughts’ will judge him (for the λογισμοί are elements in the συνείδησις)-when he stands before Christ’s Tribunal. This teaching of impending ‘judgment’ (compare, once again, the speech at Athens), St Paul says, is a regular feature in the ‘good tidings’ as he tells them. In v. 12 ἀνόμως is curiously used. It must stand for ‘outside Law,’ a phrase meant to cover all Gentiles. The antithesis makes this inevitable. Ἐν νόμῳ (in spite of the absence of any definite article-and that need not at all surprise us, for it is wholly in keeping with well-attested classical usage) equally certainly covers Jews. The statement in v. 13 (“but it is the doers of the Law that shall be righted”) is, for all intents and purposes, a citation of Holy writ. It is plainly equivalent to that saying of (Leviticus 18:5), which is referred to in 10:5, as also in Galatians. What is said in vv. 14 and 15 has often proved a stumbling block to Christian theologians. S. says that in the Talmud is ‘no such liberal teaching.’ Ἑαυτοῖς εἰσι νόμος is curiously hard to render, so as to convey the proper meaning. Perhaps we might venture upon, “these, having not a Law, are their own Law”; that is, they do without one. The figure in v. 15 is, as Pauline figures often are, confused and baffling. The conception of a Law ‘in the heart,’ or ‘written on the heart,’ is, of course, familiar ‘O. T.’ But here it is not the ‘Law’ which is graven upon the heart. It is the ἔργον of the Law, a very different matter. Now ‘the ἔργον of the Law’ would possibly mean, that which the Law bids be done; though it is not beyond the power of grammatical pedantry to vow that should rather be ἔργα. I have ventured to say ‘effect,’ taking ἔργον in the sense of ‘product.’ My own idea would be that the Apostolic writer is saying two things at once. It might be said of these people that ‘they display the Law written on their hearts’; or, again, it might be said of them, that ‘they display the effect of Law in their daily conduct.’ What St Paul does actually say is, I believe, a combination of these two, or of two similar statements. In any case the ‘figuration’ (one has to coin the word) changes in v. 15 with wonderful rapidity. We have barely grasped the idea of the Law which is ‘on the heart,’ before we find ourselves transported to the Court in permanent session within the virtuous man. And even here the figure is not very easy to grasp. For it too shifts and varies with kaleidoscopic swiftness. First the man sits in judgment himself, with ‘self-knowledge’ for friendly witness. Anon the picture is more defined. Conscience becomes the judge; some ‘thoughts’ appear as accusers, and some as defenders. And then, before we can visualise the picture set before us, the whole judgment is transferred to the great Hereafter. Christ it is who sits supreme; the man is standing before Him; and his own ‘conscience’ is pleading for him-or alas! more often condemning him. And thereby a light is thrown on processes of judgment, which is full of instructive significance for any one who reads. This transference of the moral audit, from the man’s own heart to heaven, is so exceedingly abrupt that the translator is almost forced to fill in the details of the sentence. I have done this (with the words in italics) in the course of my paraphrase. And now the Jew is confronted decisively and definitely. He is ‘shown up’ to himself. Yet even here ‘circumcision,’ which the normal Jewish teacher regarded as an absolute sine qua non, is kept well in the background. And, of course, it was on this that the hard-fought controversy, which embittered the Apostle’s life, preeminently turned. However the voice of this strife had not been heard in Rome. Accordingly the writer happily found himself in a position to develope what he had to say in the order which best pleased him.
2:17-20. “And if you, sir, call yourself ‘Jew,’ and rest upon the Law, and glory in God, and can read the (heavenly) will, and pursue the loftiest, thanks to Law’s most plain instructions; and are confident about yourself, that you are a leader of the bind, a light of people in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of the childish, because in the Law you have a power of shaping knowledge and (attaining to) God’s Truth.…”
Here we have the Jewish position-as the Jew thought of himself, contrasted with the unenlightened Gentile-very clearly set before us. Two facts, above all, stand out. God, the supreme Creator of Heaven and Earth, is in a peculiar sense the God of Israel. He is ‘our God and the God of our fathers.’ Moreover the Israelite has a priceless heritage in the possession of the Law of Moses. This gives him an unique standing. All other men, by contrast, are ‘blind,’ are ‘in the dark,’ are ‘fools’ (a Stoical term, from the School of Tarsus), are ‘infants.’ By the study of the Law (and in it he has been very soundly drilled) he can attain to real ‘knowledge’; he can realise God’s ‘Truth.’ And here, by the way, we should notice the exact force of “μόρφωσιν.” It is not the μορφή of knowledge the Law provides. It is not a solid fact, but a potentiality. Those very unhappy backsliders, of whom we read in 2 Timothy, possessed a μόρφωσις of Godliness, but of Godliness they had none.1 [Note: (2 Timothy 3:5)] They failed to actualise it. Here the Israelite apostrophised claims that he has the ‘key of knowledge,’ and does not let it rust unused. But the stern Apostle affirms that his practice is not as his preaching. He teaches other people, but he fails to teach himself. It is as it always has been. The Name of Israel’s God is dishonoured among the nations, through the fault of His own people.1 [Note: (Isaiah 52:5. LXX).]
One phrase in this indictment is perplexing to the reader. It is the latter part of v. 22, “You, who abominate idols, are you a despoiler of temples?” In what sense, the reader asks himself, could a Jew be a ‘robber of temples’? Anything that had even remotely to do with an idol temple was considered ‘abomination.’ To have anything to do with such (and we know, from early Christian experience, what difficulties were involved, in the avoidance of idol-contact) might be classed as ἱεροσυλεῖν. At least, so we may suppose. One finds it hard to believe that a normal, respectable Jew would pilfer from heathen shrines. But then, it might be urged, neither would he steal. And now, for the first time, comes mention of circumcision.
2:25-27. “Circumcision is of service, provided you keep the Law. But if you transgress the Law your circumcision becomes ipso facto uncircumcision. If then an uncircumised person shall zealously observe the requirements of Law, will not his uncircumcision be reckoned as circumcision? and accordingly Uncircumcision, born so, because it achieves the Law, judge you, who transgress the Law with the letter and circumcision?” In these verses there is no difficulty, though there are interesting points of grammar. For instance, one asks oneself, is there any significance in the variation of phrasing, as between νόμον πράσσῃς and παραβάτης νόμου ᾖς? The combination (in v. 26) of ἡ ἀκροβυστία with ἡ ἀκροβυστία αὐτοῦ is also remarkable. One would have expected the abstract, so used, to have stood for a plural noun, instead of for one person. Ἐκ φύσεως (in v. 27) appears to be temporal, and mean “from birth.” The διά, in the closing words, is of the ‘circumstantial’ variety. In translation it needs some expansion, for it represents all this; ‘though you possess the commandments in black and white, and have been circumcised. In v. 26 I have omitted to say that the second definite article in τὰ δικαιώματα τοῦ νόμου need not reappear in English. It may be either “of the Law,” or simply “of Law.” In Greek the article could not have been omitted. In the last two verses of the chapter we have an idea brought forward, which reappears in chap. 9. The sentence is highly elliptical, and it is by no means certain how it ought to be expanded in English reproduction. I should deal with it as follows:
2:28, 29. “For it is not the outward Jew”-‘ostensible’ and ‘palpable’ seem, both of them, impossible-“that is a Jew; nor the outward, material circumcision, that is circumcision. No! it is the inward Jew, that is a Jew; and the heart has a circumcision-a circumcision spiritual, not literal. His praise comes not of men; it comes of God.” In Jeremiah (9:26) and in Deuteronomy (10:16) this conception of the ‘inward’ circumcision may be found. It is worth noting how St Paul almost invariably avoids a perfectly balanced antithesis. As far as the second Ἰουδαῖος; the sentence, though elliptical, maintains a proper balance. Then the order is disturbed. Why πνεύματι has an ἐν, and γράμματι not, it would be difficult to say. Possibly the writer shrank from an unsupported πνεύματι, but did not feel the need of repeating the preposition. What is the antecedent of οὗ? One would have expected the feminine gender. It is just conceivable that the masculine (for it probably is masculine) was called for by the fact that the very name ‘Jew’ (Ἰουδαῖος) has a connexion with the word for “praise.” However, that may be a mere coincidence. At this point comes a digression. The Jew is so convinced of his privileged position, so utterly sure of himself as the favoured son of God, that St Paul feels called upon to meet an inevitable (though unformulated) objection.
3:1, 2. “Where then is the Jew’s superiority? or, where is the advantage which belongs to the Circumcision? There is much, in every way. To begin with, they were entrusted with the oracles of God.…”
Τὸ περισσόν is equivalent, I think, to an abstract noun, literally “the ‘over and above’-ness.” The ‘Circumcision’, in the second question, means the whole of the Jewish people. It might be taken, of course, as signifying, ‘Where is the use of being circumcised?’ But the other seems to me preferable. For, although the question is put twice, it is really only one question. The supposed objector cries, What is the good of being a Jew, if what you say is correct? The answer comes, There is much good! The superiority is palpable; it is also manifold. The writer makes as though he would enumerate various points in which Israel is highly favoured. But he only mentions one. Others he might have mentioned will be found in chap. 9. Then, he suddenly breaks off, in a very perplexing manner. His tendency to fly off, as it were, at a tangent is well known to all commentators. But generally it is more easy to see what diverted his thoughts than it is in the passage before us. Anyhow vv. 3-9 are a digression in a digression-and a digression so far-fetched, that one is almost tempted to wonder whether the section can be misplaced. Yet that is made unlikely by the undoubted fact of the break. The expected enumeration never comes. For the rest, what can we say, unless that the thought of ‘trust,’ contained in ἐπιστεύθησαν, instantaneously calls up the thought of the people’s untrustworthiness? To have been ‘entrusted’ with the Law, and with the Prophets, was indeed a substantial privilege, though it was only one of several. And how did Israel respond? Was he loyal? was he trustworthy? Did his ‘faithfulness’ in any sense answer to the ‘faithfulness’ of his God? Alas! the record of history is all to the contrary. The story of Israel is a story of trust unjustified, of love Divine betrayed. But it is not merely this the Apostle says. If it were we should follow the thought with less of hesitation. He passes, with lightning rapidity, from one consideration to another. He answers thoughts of his own and unexpressed objections of an imagined opponent in controversy. The effect is bewildering to the modern reader. However, let us take it as it stands.
3:3, 4. “Why! Suppose that some were faithless; will their unfaithfulness annul the faith of God?”
(The “faith of God,” obviously, can only mean one thing, His being true to Himself and true to His promises.)
“Of course, of course, it cannot! Nay, let God be proved true, though every man be a liar: as it stands in Holy Writ, That Thou mayst be proved right in Thy pleadings, and prevail when on Thy trial.”1 [Note: Psalms 51:4 (LXX)] In this citation from the Psalm (in which the writer follows the LXX variations from the Hebrew-for Professor Cheyne renders that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, be clear when thou judgest) St Paul regards the Most High as Himself before a tribunal, and amply vindicated. The Hebrew presents us with a very different picture. There man’s sin is so palpable, so undisguised, so freely admitted; that the sentence passed by God, the Great Judge of all, however heavy it be, can only be accepted as altogether justified. The Septuagint translators may have meant to employ a deponent. But if they so intended, St Paul disregards their intention; thus attaching to their words a wider range of meaning, and, for the moment, dissevering them from the context, in which we find them. As here quoted they have the sense: what God says is always right; whenever His acts are questioned they are found beyond all question.
Next it would seem, we must suppose, this unchallenged eternal ‘Rightness’ is disputed on the subtle ground that if our ‘wrongness’ establishes God’s ‘rightness’ it cannot be just and equitable that He should punish us. But this contention receives short shrift and sharp. It is simply inconceivable that the Judge of all the Earth should not do right.1 [Note: Cf. Genesis 18:25.] Yet it crops up once again, in prompt restatement (v. 7) in a form amazingly involved; only to be repudiated in the grim and stern pronouncement “Whose condemnation is just.”
Before the passage is left, let me give a paraphrase of it.
3:5-8. “But if our wickedness establishes God’s righteousness, what are we to say? Can it be-I speak as a man-that God, who inflicts on us His wrath, is dealing unjustly? Never! If that were so, how is He to judge the world? If the truthfulness of God redounded through my lie, why, that being so, am I judged as a sinner? Moreover, why should we not cry; as they malign us, aye, some aver we say; Let us do evil that good may come of it? The condemnation of such talk is just.” The last sentence here in the text is formed very irregularly. A τί must be supplied, but also a λέγωμεν. The latter has been absorbed in the λέγειν dependent on φασί. Furthermore the very thing, which we ask if we are to say, stands as a dependent clause in construction with the φασί. Such irregularities are found in classical writers, but hardly in a form so intricate and complex as this we have before us.
There is nothing more I can say about the section. I have done the best I can to give a definite meaning to a sentence such as fills the most courageous interpreter with a sinking of the heart.