AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT by A H McNeile. Copyright A H McNeile - first published at the University Press, Oxford 1927. 2nd Edition revised by C S C Williams 1953. - This Edition prepared for Katapi in Arial Unicode MS by Paul Ingram 2003.

Chapter VI - Part 2

THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL

B. SECOND GROUP OF EPISTLES

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3. I CORINTHIANS

Circumstances | Unity of 1 Corinthians | Top

circumstances.

The First Epistle was written from Ephesus.
This is shown in xvi.8, 9.
After saying that he would visit his readers when he had passed through Macedonia, and hoped to stay some time with them, the Apostle adds, 'But I am staying on at Ephesus till Pentecost, for a great and effectual door is open to me'.
In keeping with this he sends salutations {v.19) from 'the Churches of Asia', and from Aquila and Priscilla, who, according to Acts xviii.18 f., had travelled with him to Ephesus.
He had left them there, and had travelled to Jerusalem and then to Antioch.
After some time he retraversed the route which he had taken in his second tour, through Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch, and arrived at Ephesus.

The time of writing is doubtful, but his own words show that he wrote shortly before a Pentecost, say early in May; and he implies, in xvi.1, 2, that the Corinthian collections for the poor of Jerusalem had not yet been begun.
But in 2 Cor.viii.10; ix.2, he speaks of the Corinthians as having begun the collection 'last year' (ἀπὸ πέρυσι - (apo perusi)).
The relation between the dates of the two epistles depends upon this phrase.
2 Corinthians was written from Macedonia after he had left Ephesus (see below), and after that he was three months at Corinth (Acts xx.3) before leaving Philippi for Jerusalem 'after the days of Unleavened Bread' (v.6).
This would be at about the end of March, so that 2 Corinthians must have been written in the previous November or perhaps earlier.
Now when St. Paul says 'last year' he may have reckoned the year either, as a Roman, from January, or as a Jew, from September-October.
In the former case 'last year' for one writing in November would mean the previous December at latest.
But in the latter it might mean any time up to the autumn New Year, just over a month before he wrote, though the context renders this improbable.
If, however, he arrived in Macedonia and wrote 2 Corinthians in September, just before the autumn New Year, then 'a year ago' would mean that the collection was begun in the previous September at the latest.
Thus if 2 Corinthians was written in September-November, 1 Corinthians was written in the spring either of the same, or of the previous, Roman year, i.e. five or six months before, or a year and five or six months before.
[M. Goguel discusses the date more fully (op. cit. iv. a, pp. 144-6) but he regards the two letters as composite (ibid., p. 86).]

After dealing with the first matter that required attention, party factions at Corinth, he states that he has already dispatched Timothy to Corinth, and announces his intention of visiting them himself (iv.18 f., 21; xi.34).
Meanwhile he wanted to stay on at Ephesus till Pentecost, and was sending them this letter, which would evidently reach them before Timothy.
He asks them to receive him well and not despise him, and to forward him in peace on his journey back to him with the brethren, who were probably the bearers of the letter (xvi.10, 11).
This seems to be the same mission of Timothy as that mentioned in Acts xix.22, where it is said that Timothy and Erastus were sent to Macedonia.
This would explain why the lettersent straight across the seawould reach Corinth first.
But St. Paul does not mention Erastus, and Acts does not relate Timothy's arrival at Corinth.
It is not certain, therefore, that he arrived there; something may have occurred to prevent him from doing what he was sent to do. St. Luke was not in possession of all the facts of this troubled period.
We know only that Timothy was in Macedonia when 2 Corinthians was written, for he joins in the opening salutation.
But whether from Timothy or from other sources St. Paul heard news that made him pay the visit to Corinth that he had intended, of which Acts says nothing.
But the report was evidently so bad that he felt it imperative to go to them as soon as possible.
So, on the hypothesis that 2 Corinthians is a unity as it stands now in our Canon, he made up his mind to visit them twice, once immediately, crossing direct by sea from Ephesus, and then again after going from them to Macedonia (2 Cor.i.15, 16).
The former of these was paid; but the visit was so painful that he could not bring himself to go a second time.
There was thus a double change of plan: he did not stay in Ephesus till Pentecost, and he did not visit Corinth twice.
For this he was accused of vacillation, against which he defends himself in 2 Cor.i.17-ii.1.
His reason for refraining from the second visit is given in i.23: 'But I call God as a witness upon my soul that to spare you I came no more ['I forbare to come' (RV), and 'I came not as yet' (AV) are incorrect renderings, which seem to have been occasioned by the desire to avoid the admission that St. Paul paid a visit to Corinth unrecorded by St. Luke.] (οὐκέτι λθον - (ouketi helthon)) to Corinth', and ii.1: 'I determined this for myself that I would not come again to you with sorrow.'
The painful visit, not recorded in the Acts, was the second that he had actually paid them; he went to them for the first time on his second tour (Acts xviii.1-17), when he wrote to the Thessalonians.
Hence he says, 'This is the third time I am ready to come to you' (2 Cor..14); 'This is the third time I am coming to you ... I say beforehand as [I said] when I was present the second time' (i. 1,2).
The visit was the more painful because it proved a sad failure.
St. Paul returned, as we have seen, to Ephesus instead of going to Macedonia, and in the depths of depression wrote a sorrowful letter (2 Cor.ii.4), which he even feared might have been too stern (vii.8).
Titus took it.
Then St. Paul went up via Troas to Macedonia, and at last, to his infinite relief, Titus came with the good news that the letter had done its work and produced in them a repentant sorrow (vii.6-16).
This made him write what we know as 2 Corinthians.
The reason for the painful visit and this sorrowful letter is not clear.
It is perhaps something quite unknown to us; but if it is one of the subjects with which 1 Corinthians deals, it may be either the factions, or the crime of incest, or the litigation in heathen courts.
Possibly the last two were connected; some have thought that it was the injured father who brought the son before a heathen court. [SeeJ. H. Bernard, Studio Sacra, 1917, ch. ix.]
Many have thought that part of the sorrowful letter is preserved in 2 Cor.x-i.10; others that it is lost, and that 2 Corinthians is a unity (see below).
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The unity of 1 Corinthians.

One exception, at least, to its unity is widely recognized, 1 Corinthians is not the first letter that the apostle wrote to the Church of Corinth.
In 1 Cor.v.9 he says, 'I wrote to you in my letter not to be mixed up with fornicators'; and there is nothing in the opening chapters of the epistle to which the words could refer.
He seems to have heard that some of them were behaving in an unworthy manner with regard to the immorality with which Corinth was saturated.
But when he wrote to protest, they had misunderstood him, and he was obliged to explain that he did not mean that they must separate themselves entirely from all fornicators, otherwise they would have to leave the world altogether, but that they must keep clear of any brother, i.e. Christian, who was guilty of the sin.
It is very probable that a fragment of this letter has been preserved in 2 Cor.vi.14-vii.1, a passage which might have been so misunderstood, and which breaks the close connexion of thought between vi.13, 'be ye also enlarged' (i.e. enlarge your hearts towards me), and vii.2, 'make room for us' (sc. in your hearts).

Furthermore, J. Weiss [The History of Primitive Christianity (Eng. trans., 1937), i. 340 f.) drew attention to 'different points of view or attitudes' in 1 Corinthians which led him to split this letter into three parts:

A.

 

The rigorous demands concerning idolatry and fornication, the discussion about the unveiling of women and the common meals.

x.1-23, vi.12-20, xi.2-34, xvi.7?, 8 f., 20 f.?

B.

1.

The vigorous expositions on marriage, eating idol meat, Paul's renunciation, spiritual gifts, resurrection.

vii, viii, ix, x.24-xi.1, -xv, xvi.1-6 (7?), 16-19?

 

2.

The expositions on parties, the incestuous person, the lawsuits before heathen magistrates.

i.1-9, i.l0-vi.n, xvi. 10-14, 22-24

Similarly J. Hering [La premiere epitre de S. Paul aux Corinthiens, 1948, p. 11.]  contrasts iv.19 with xvi.5 f., the references to arrival, and x.1-22, the rigorist attitude to pagan sacrifice, with viii, x.23-xi.1, the liberal attitude to 'weak' or scrupulous brethren; and he notes that ix picks up abruptly the problem of the apostolate already discussed in i-iv.
He splits the letter into two:

A

i-viii, x.23-xi.1, xvi.1-4, 10-14 and 

B

ix, x.1-22, xi.2-xv, and the rest of xvi (i 'etant d'ailleurs de toute maniere un hors-d'oeuvre'!).

M. Goguel (see below on 2 Cor.) divides 1 Corinthians rather differently.

There is no textual evidence at all in favour of these partition views.
The oldest papyrus of Paul's letters, the third-century Chester Beatty codex P46 treats each of the two letters as a unity in the order familiar to us.
However, it is possible that the first collector of St. Paul's Corinthian correspondence found his material on different pieces of papyrus and put together two letters as best he could and that all our textual evidence is derived from his arrangement.
It is equally possible that St. Paul was great enough to be inconsistent at some points and that he did not have the thoroughness of the German or the lucidity of the French mind.

contents.

Taken as it stands, 1 Corinthians is the most intensely practical of all St. Paul's letters.
It was written to meet immediate needs of his converts, of which he heard from, apparently, three sources,

1.    He was informed by 'them of Chloe' (i.e. probably Christian slaves of a Corinthian lady who had come with her, or had been sent by her, to Ephesus) that the Corinthian Church was rent by party factions.
He deals with this in i.l0-iv.21. He learnt, probably from the same source, that a Christian in Corinth had committed incest with his stepmother (ch.v), that Christians were bringing lawsuits against Christians before heathen, Roman, courts (vi.1-11), and that with an abuse of Christian 'liberty' some were yielding to the prevalent pagan vice of fornication (vi.12-20).

2.    But after dealing, with passionate eagerness, with these four matters which had reached him by report, he had to discuss some points apparently raised by the Corinthians themselves in a letter brought by Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaieus.
He refers to each point in turn with the same formula:

'Now concerning what you wrote' - with regard to

  marriage

vii.1-24

 
 

  virgins1

vii. 25-40

 
 

  idol-foods'

viii.1-xi.1

 
 

  Spirit-filled persons'

.1-xiv.40

 
 

  the collection'

xvi.1-11

(combined with some personal matters]

 

  Apollos'

xvi.12.

 

3.    In addition to these the apostle treats of three other matters on which he learnt, probably from the bearers of their letter to him, that rebuke and counsel were needed:
Irregularity, of which some women were guilty, with regard to dress at public worship (xi.2-16);
Unworthy behaviour on the part of some of the richer Christians in the eating of the food at the Eucharistic feasts (xi.17-34);
Denial by some Christians, probably Gentiles only, that there would be a Resurrection of the dead, which St. Paul meets first by arguing from the Resurrection of Christ, as he had received it in tradition, and which he takes for granted (xv.1-28), and on other grounds (vv.29-34), and then by discussing the nature of the Resurrection body, granting, of course, the contention of his opponents that the material body could not inherit the divine kingdom (vv.35-58).
He concludes with some personal matters and salutations (xvi.19-24).
No other writing in the New Testament reveals more vividly the meaning of the words, 'that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the Churches'.

1[In vii. 36-40 'daughter' has been added to the RV translation on the assumption that the problem was, should a father allow his unmarried daughter to marry before the Parousia? but the reference may be to the practice in pre-monastic days of men and women, dedicated to celibacy, living under the same roof, cf. Hermas, Sim. ix. n ; Eusebius, H.E. vii. 30. 12 and Canon 3 of the Council of Nicaea; cf. M. Maude, 'Who were the B'nai Q'yama ?', J.T.S. xxxvi, 1935, pp. 13-21. [Contrast Allo, i Corinthians, Excursus, vii, and E. Alzas, Revue de theologie et de philosophic, xxxviii, 1950, pp. 226-32.]If so, the problem was, should a virgin dedicated to Christ marry a Christian man living perhaps under the same roof?]

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4. 2 CORINTHIANS

The sorrowful letter | Top

The above sketch of the Circumstances shows that this epistle was written at a moment of intense revulsion of feeling.
St. Paul's temperament was such that he felt things more acutely than most people.
His converts from paganism, who included 'not many wise, not many powerful, not many of noble family', but probably many slaves, and others who belonged, for the most part, to the humblest and uneducated classes, were in greater need than those of any other Church of being supported and controlled by the strong hand of authority.
He had been racked with fear that they might defy his authority by refusing to listen to the pleadings and to follow the directions in his sorrowful letter.
His relief was unbounded when he heard from Titus that they had accepted his letter in the right spirit, and had shown their penitence by dealing strongly almost too stronglywith the offender.
And he at once wrote this letter.
It was not a moment for dealing with Christian doctrine or Church practice; the letter is simply a pouring out of the man himself.
We learn from it more of his personal character and temperament than from all his other writings put together.

After the opening salutation (i.1, 2) and thanksgiving (vv.3-14), the latter of which, owing to the circumstances, is much more than an epistolary convention, the epistle falls into three main parts:

A.

   

He dwells on

 
 

(a)

 

his relations with the Corinthians.

i.15-ii.13, and

 

(b)

 

his apostolic authority

ii. i4-vii. 4.

     

In the latter section he describes:

 
   

(i)

his office: the nature of his worka sacrificial odour rising to God,

vv. 14-16

     

the sincerity of his teaching ,

v. 17

     

his independence of human commendation, since his converts themselves are his living and visible commendation,

iii. 1-3

     

the divine dignity of his ministry, as that of the New Covenant,

vv. 4-18

     

and its high character in keeping with this;

iv. 1-6

   

(ii)

His sufferings;

iv.7-v.10

   

(iii)

His life,

(v.11-vi.10)

     

its motive,

v.11-15

     

its nature,

v.16-vi.2)

     

and the earthly marks which show its nature,

 
     

i.e. sufferings,

vi.3-5

     

Character.

vv.6, 7

     

and a spiritual independence of circumstances;

vv.8-10

   

(iv)

His personal feelings for the Corinthians.

vi.11-13 and vii. 2-4

     

(The intervening passage, vi.14-vii.1, as said above, is probably a fragment of an earlier letter.)

 

B.

   

 The Collection. He presses upon them the duty of almsgiving, and tries to spur them to liberality by pointing to the example of the Macedonians.

viii, ix

C.

   

 But the submission of the majority of the Corinthians did not mean that he had no opponents left. And to these he turns in the remainder of the letter. He reasserts his authority, and utters stern rebukes and warnings, sharpening the edge of them with touches of mordant irony.

x-i.

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The sorrowful letter.

Many have thought that this is not wholly lost, but is partly preserved in Section C (x.1-i.10), so that 2 Corinthians consisted originally of only Sections A and B, with the conclusion (i.11-13).
But A. H. McNeile was inclined to the opposite view, that the sorrowful letter is lost to us, and that the epistle as we have it [Apart from the fragment vi.14-vii.1.] is a unity.

The principal arguments for the former view [This view is best stated by J. H. Kennedy, The Second and Third Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians; cf. R. H. Strachan, s Corinthians, pp. xiv-x ;J. Weiss, op. cit., pp. 347-57.] are as follows, the corresponding arguments for the latter view being given where necessary.

  1. In chs. i-ix the apostle's language expresses relief that the trouble is over, and he writes in a friendly tone of satisfaction;
    but chs. x-i are written in remonstrance, anger, satire, and self-defence.
    The difference, however, cannot be so sharply defined. In the former part he shows that there was a minority in serious opposition to his authority and teaching.
    They charged him with fickleness (i.17-22).
    They are evidently included in 'the many who insincerely made profit out of the word of God' (ii.17);
    some still handled the word of God deceitfully, their own hearts being in obscurity;
    and they preached themselves, not Christ Jesus, as Lord (iv.2-5).
    They gloried in appearance, not in heart (v.12), and scoffed at St. Paul as being 'beside himself (v.13).
    These and other passages show that while he was pleased with the majority, the minority still gave great trouble;
    and the rebuke and satire of chs.x-i are not absent from chs.i-ix.
  2. If chs. x-i were the sorrowful letter, written before the happier letter, chs. i-ix, an explanation is needed of the references to a coming visit in 14-i. 3: 'this is the third time I am ready to come to you'; 'I fear lest when I come to you I shall not find you such as I wish'; 'lest when I come again God may humble me before you'; 'this is the third time I am coming to you'; 'as I said before when I was present with you the second time'; 'if I come again I will not spare'.
    The words are explained to mean, 'I may be obliged to come to you if this sorrowful letter and the exhortations of Titus prove unsuccessful'. [Cf. R. H. Strachan, op. cit., pp. 62 ff.]
    But if the epistle is a unity the words can be understood in their natural sense.
    St. Paul was about to come to Corinth from Macedonia.
  3. It has been ingeniously suggested that three passages in chs.x-i point forward to the possibility of this visit, while three passages written later, in chs. i-ix, point backward to the fact that he had not been obliged to pay it.
    [Cf. K. Lake, An Introduction to the New Testament, 1938, pp. 121-3.]

    'Being in readiness to avenge all disobedience when your obedience shall be fulfilled.' 2 Cor. x. 6.

    'For to this end also did I write that I might know the proof of you, whether ye are obedient in all things.'2 Cor. ii.9.

    'If I come again I will not spare.'2 Cor. i. 2.

    'To spare you I came no more to Corinth.'2 Cor. i. 23.

    'For this cause I write these things from a distance, that I may not when I come deal sharply.'2 Cor.i.10.

    'And I wrote this same thing that when I came I might not have sorrow.'2 Cor.ii.3.

    According to K. Lake, 'These three pairs of passages are very striking and lose nothing if read in their context.
    It seems impossible to deny that in each pair the same thing is referred to twice; in 2 Cor.x-i in the present or future tense and in 2 Cor.i-ix in the past.'
    However, according to McNeile, the two sets of passages do not necessarily refer to the same visit.
    Those in the second column look back to the fact that the apostle substituted the sorrowful letter for a visit from which he shrank.
    Those in the first look forward to the visit that he did in fact pay, according to Acts xx.2, 3, when he went from Macedonia into Greece.
    His disciplinary measures upon the minority would be much easier to enforce, now that he had the support of the majority.

  1. The following passage (.7, 18) occurs, ex hypothesi, in the sorrowful letter that was taken by Titus:
    'Did I take advantage of you by any one of them whom I have sent unto you [sc. in the past]?
    I asked Titus [to go], and I sent the brother with him.
    Did Titus take any advantage of you?
    Walked we not by the same spirit, in the same steps?'
    Since these words cannot refer to the conduct of Titus on the occasion on which he took the letter, the sentence 'I asked Titus, &c.' causes great difficulty.
    'I asked' and 'I sent' are explained as epistolary aorists, i.e. 'I am asking Titus to go with this letter, and I am sending the brother with him'.
    But it is impossible to see any reason for St. Paul's insertion of this parenthetical remark about the sending of Titus.
    Lake's paraphrase, [The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, p. 166.] 'Titus, who is now coming to you, has never made any profit', only serves to show how difficult the parenthesis is which needs to be so blurred.
    Whether παρακάλεσα - (parekalesa) is to be rendered 'exhorted' (RV) or simply 'asked', 'desired' (AV), it must refer to the same time as the following clause; and the only natural explanation is that the apostle is referring to the conduct of Titus when he went, at his desire, with the sorrowful letter. [See, however, R. H. Strachan, op. cit., pp. 34 f.]
  2. 'Are we beginning again to commend ourselves?' (iii.1). 'We do not again commend ourselves to you' (v.12).
    These are thought to be references to his energetic self-commendation in the sorrowful letter, i.e. chs.x-i.
    But the reference is really to some of his opponents who armed themselves with commendatory letters, whom he attacks in both parts of the epistle (iii.1; x.12, 18). iii.2 explains his meaning: he ought to require no commendation other than the work that he had done among them; they were themselves his letter of recommendation.

For the theory that chs.x-i are the sorrowful letter it is unfortunate that the occasion which called it forth, the wrongdoing of an individual offender, and the attitude that St. Paul desired the Corinthians to take towards him (see ii.5-10), are not so much as mentioned in the chapters.
And the supporters of the theory are obliged to suppose that chs.x-i are only a fragment, the portion dealing with the offender having been lost or suppressed.
But this, of course, is not impossible.
The portion that was not lost or suppressed may have been added to the Pauline corpus when all the available fragments from his pen were collected. J. Weiss [Op. cit., pp. 347-57.] accepts the view that chs. x-i originally preceded i-ix but he put together with x-i both ii.14-vi.13 and vii.2 ff., and then the rest of i-ix. Goguel1 splits 2 Corinthians into three parts (not counting vi.14-vii.1), x.1-i.10; i.1-vi.13 and vii.2-viii.24; ix.1-15, leaving i.11-13 as an indeterminable element.
In a footnote he lists other divisions of this letter.

1[Op. cit., pp. 72-86. Goguel's resume of the classification of the elements in both letters is:

A.

II, vi.14-vii.1. I, vi.12-20, x.1-22.

B.

I, v.1-vi.11; vii.1-viii.13; x.23-xiv.40. xv.l-58(?). xvi.1-9, 12.

C.

I, i.10-iv.21; ix.1-27; xvi.10 f.

D.

II, x.1-i.10.

E.

II, i.1-vi.13; vii.2-viii.24.

F.

II, ix.1-15.

B or C.

I, xvi.15-18.

Indeterminable elements: I. i.1-9; xvi.13-14, 19-24; II, i.11-13.]

It is probable that all four theories will continue to find supporters; and it may be that final agreement will never be reached.

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5. GALATIANS

Destination | Date & place of writing | Causes of writing | Contents | Top

Destination.

This has been the subject of much dispute. In the course of his first missionary tour St. Paul with Barnabas visited Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts i.14, 51; xiv.6, 20), which lay in the Roman province of Galatia.
In this narrative, however, the name of the province is not mentioned.
In the second tour he traversed, with Silas, the same route in the converse direction, revisiting Derbe and Lystra (xvi.1).
It is then added that as they passed through the cities they delivered to them the decrees of the Council, and that 'panel' of the history (see p. 97) is closed with the usual summary {v.5).
The next panel contains their arrival in Europe via Troas, the beginning of the journey thither being described in v. 6: 'And they passed through τὴν Φρυγίαν καὶ Γαλατικὴν χώραν - (ten Phrygian kai Galatiken Choran) having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.'
The one article τήν  - (ten), according to the most probable interpretation, makes Φρυγίαν - (Phrygian) to be an adjective as well as Γαλατικήν - (Galatiken), both qualifying χώραν - (choran).
[Moffatt (Intr. Lit. N. T., p. 93) adduces to the contrary διελθὼν τὴν Μακεδονίαν καὶ χαίαν - (dielthon ten Makedonian kai Achaian) (xix.21), and κατὰ τὴν Κιλικίαν καὶ Παμφυλίαν - (kata ten Kilikian kai Pamphylian) (xxvii.5).
But the absence of
χώραν - (choran) prevents them from being true parallels.
A nearer one is
τῆς τουπαίας καὶ Γραχωνίτιδος χώρας - (tes Itouraias kai Trachonitidos choras) (Lk.iii.1).
How is it that
Γαλ. χώραν - (Gal. Choran) without the article can be used as equivalent to a proper name in Acts xvi.6 and yet needs the article in xviii.23?
On the other hand it must be admitted that there is no inscriptional evidence for 'Phrygia Galatica' as there is for 'Pontus Galaticus'; and if St. Luke had wanted to say the former, would he not have used the phrase ἡ
Γαλατικὴ Φρυγία? - (he Galatike Phrygia?) Cf. K. Lake, Beginnings of Christianity, v, note xviii, pp. 234-9.]

There is thus produced the compound term 'the Phrygian-and-Galatic regions', i.e. Galatic Phrygia.
[Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 104, 210, and Hastings's D.B; art. 'Galatia'.]

This distinguishes it from the larger portion of Phrygia, which lay in the province of Asia Asian Phrygiaand also from Galatic Lycaonia through which St. Paul had just passed.
[See A. H. McNeile's St. Paul, p. 37.]
The question arises whether the Galatia to which St. Paul wrote was this southern portion of the Roman province, Galatic Phrygia and Galatic Lycaonia, as an increasing number of scholars now think, or whether it was the northern portion of it stretching up beyond Phrygia to Bithynia and Pontus, with Pessinus, Ancyra, and Tavium among its principal towns, once the kingdom of the Galatae from which the Roman province took its name.
Whether the name is more naturally used by St. Luke, and by St. Paul a Roman citizen, of the Roman province or in the popular sense of the northern district is hotly disputed by the supporters of the south and the north Galatian theories respectively.
Ramsay and others, who hold the southern theory, caused unnecessary difficulty by interpreting v.6 as a resume of the movements concluded by v.5.
But St. Luke's 'panel' system, if that, despite Goguel, was his system, makes this very improbable; and the grammar of κωλυθέντες - (koluthentes) is extremely awkward, unless it can be taken to mean that they made the journey with the prohibition already laid upon them from the start.
But this is obviously not what St. Luke means. Nor is there the least warrant for accepting the late [Attested only by the late Alexandrian evidence ψ and 104, and by the groups listed in Merk as 5ss, 920-1311, 383s.] reading διελθόντες - (dielthontes) to the neglect of all the best manuscripts.
St. Luke's quite intelligible narrative is in no way opposed to the southern theory.
After visiting Derbe and Lystra in Galatic Lycaonia St. Paul and his party might have moved westward, straight into Asia.
But ' receiving a divine intimation that they were not to do so, they moved northwest into Galatic Phrygia, where they no doubt revisited Iconium and Pisidian Antioch.
Travelling on northwards they could not preach in Mysia, since that was in Asia, so they went κατὰ τὴν Μυσίαν - (kata ten Mysian), i.e. 'along the [eastern] length of Mysia', 'up as far as the northern border of Mysia', till, forbidden to enter Bithynia, they turned westward, avoiding Mysia all the time, and reached Troas.
[For an alternative route cf. Lake, op. cit., p. 236.]

As we do not know the exact point where they turned westward, we do not know whether any part of this route lay through the western edge of north Galatia or not. It is, of course, possible.
And thus Moffatt, following P. W. Schmiedel [Encycl. Bibl. 1606. 7. A very able modern defence of the north Galatian theory is given by M. Goguel, op. cit. iv. 2, pp. 147-66.] and others, feeling the great difficulty of Lightfoot's view that St. Paul carried his mission throughout all parts of north Galatia, places the converts to which St. Paul wrote in a few towns in the west of the district, such as Pessinus and Germa.

 In xviii. 23 St. Luke again refers to Galatia.
St. Paul, starting from Syrian Antioch is spoken of as 'passing successively through the Galatian region and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples'; and 'having passed through the upper parts came to Ephesus' (xix.1).
That is to say he revisited his converts along a route from Antioch to Ephesus.
This does not suggest a journey deliberately undertaken across country to the north Galatian towns and then southwest through Asian Phrygia to Ephesus.
Moffatt's paraphrase, 'he went off on a tour through', suggests a more extended area than ἐξῆλθεν διερχόμενος καθεξῆς - (exelthen dierchomenos kathexes).
St. Luke's geographical expression is less explicit than in xvi.6.
He was obliged to alter it, because St. Paul passed through not only districts in the province of Galatia but also parts of Asian Phrygia to reach Ephesus.

Apart from these geographical terms, there are other considerations that point to south Galatia.
(a) Even if the Acts implies a journey along the western border of north Galatia, it contains no trace of any mission work there. St. Luke, of course, omits many of St. Paul's activities, but he does take the trouble to relate in some detail his work in the south of the province.
And it would be surprising if the apostle wrote to converts in the north of whom the Acts relates nothing, and made not the slightest reference in his epistles [With the exception of 2 Tim.iii.11, the Pauline authorship of which is doubtful.]to his work and sufferings nearer home in the region of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, which figure prominently in St. Luke's narrative,
(b) In Gal.ii.1, 9, 13 Barnabas is named as though known to the Galatians; and the Acts contains no suggestion as to how his name could have meant anything to Galatians in the north.
He is named, indeed, in 1 Cor.ix.6 also, and we have no evidence that he ever visited Corinth.
But in Gal.ii.13 the words 'even Barnabas was carried away with them in their dissimulation' imply that the readers knew him personally well enough to understand that it was surprising that he should be carried away.
(c) In 1 Cor.xvi.1-4 St. Paul speaks of directions, which he gave to 'the Churches of Galatia' regarding the collection for the poor in Jerusalem.
Each Church was to appoint its own representatives to take it; and if St. Paul went himself, they could accompany him.
He did go himself; and in Acts xx.4 the names are given of representatives who accompanied him.
Two are south Galatians, Gaius and Timothy from Derbe and Lystra, and no north Galatians are mentioned.
[Unless, as is almost certain, we should read 'Gaius the Do(u)berian' following D and g. A. C.
Dark showed that the
Δόβηρες - (Doberes) existed in Greece and not in Asia (The Acts of the Apostles, pp. xlix f. and 374 ff.), cf. C. S. C. Williams, Alterations to the Text of the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, p. 70.]
That they intended to go with him to Jerusalem seems obvious.
For what other purpose would a Beroean, two Thessalonians, two south Galatians (or one at least), and two Asians gather to his side when he was just about to sail for Syria?
Indeed it is not impossible that the knowledge that the party was carrying money was one of the reasons for the plot hatched by the Jews, which caused the change of route.
Schmiedel (Encycl. Bibl. 1612.] objects that 'it would have been quite irrational to convey monies from south Galatia to Jerusalem by way of Macedonia, and run all the risks (2 Cor.xi.26) of such a journey'.
But they had had no such intention.
If they crossed from Ephesus to Corinth to get a boat which would take them all the way to Syria by sea; that was at least as safe as any other route they could have taken.
But when St. Paul was forced to go via Macedonia, they would not leave him in the lurch.
St. Paul stated at this very time to the Romans (xv. 25) that his object in going to Jerusalem was to take the money, and in his speech before Felix he is reported to have said the same (Acts xxiv. 17).

The north Galatian theory in one form was upheld by Lightfoot [Galatians, pp. 18 ff.], and in another less improbable form is vigorously defended by Moffatt [Op. cit., pp. 90-101.] and Goguel [Op. cit., pp. 147-66.], who give many names on either side and exercise much ingenuity in controverting south Galatian arguments.
The final settlement of the problem is still in the future; but the trend of opinion in recent years has been setting towards south Galatia.

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DATE AND PLACE OF WRITING.

Numerous dates have been assigned, some of them possible only on the south Galatian theory.
Several writers date it after St. Paul's first tour, before he went with Barnabas to Jerusalem for the Council as related in Acts xv.2, 3.
This makes it the earliest of his epistles that we possess.
It has the advantage of explaining some of the knotty difficulties (see p. 121) raised by a comparison of St. Paul's account of a visit to Jerusalem (Gal.ii.1-10) with the accounts in the Acts of two visits, one to take help in the famine (xi.30) the other for the Council (xv.1-29).
That St. Paul does not mention the Council or its decrees would be explained if the epistle was written before it took place.
Some think that he wrote it from Antioch before he started, others en route for Jerusalem; in the latter case 'all the brethren who are with me' (Gal.i.2) are his travelling companions.
This date is not necessarily forbidden by the words 'Ye know that on account of infirmity of the flesh I evangelized you τὸ πρότερον ᾽ - (to proteron) (iv.13).
In classical Greek this would mean 'the former of two times', and would imply that St. Paul had preached to the Galatians twice before he wrote to them.
'This', says Moffatt, 'must be maintained resolutely against all attempts, especially in the interests of a theory, to make τὸ πρότερον  - (to proteron) = πάλαι - (palai) or jam-pridem.'
But in the interests of accuracy it must be noted that in Hellenistic Greek it could have that meaning, 'formerly', 'originally', 'in the past', and clearly has in Jn.vi.62; ix.8; l Tim.i.13; it is like πρότερον  - (proteron) without the article in 2 Cor.i.15; Heb.iv.6; and nowhere else in the New Testament does it bear the classical meaning here claimed for it.
If it does not refer to two visits, it does not forbid the view that St. Paul is referring to his work in south Galatia during his first tour, and has, in fact, no bearing on the date.

If we date the epistle before the second tour we have to face the fact that in the course of that tour St. Paul circumcized Timothy.
On the theory of a date after the tour it may have been that action which led to the charges lying behind Gal.i.10; v.11.
But to do it after writing Gal.v.2 was a defiance of logical consistency for practical purposes which cannot be pronounced impossible for St. Paul.

The strict force of τὸ πρότερον - (to proteron) is maintained by some upholders both of the south and of the north Galatian theories.
For the former, the two visits to Galatia are those of the first tour (Acts i, xiv) and the beginning of the second (xvi.1-6).
But the places and dates assigned to it between the latter and the next visit (xviii.23) are various.
Macedonia, Athens, and Corinth have all been suggested, the last having the strong support of Zahn, Bacon, and J. Weiss. Volkmar and Renan bring it later still, to Antioch before the third tour.

But many supporters of both theories agree, independently of τὸ πρότερον   - (to proteron), in choosing dates in the course of the third tour, mainly on the ground that the style and thoughts of the epistle stand in close affinity with those of i, 2 Corinthians and Romans.
Two alternatives have some probability:
(a) during the stay at Ephesus (xix.1, 8-10), or
(b) during the journey thence via Macedonia to Corinth, or at Corinth itself (xx.1-3).

(a) Lightfoot [Galatians, p. 41.] rightly argues that the period of the stay at Ephesus cannot be deduced from the expression in Gal.i.6, 'I marvel that ye are οἵτως ταχέως - (outos tacheos) changing from Him that called you, unto another Gospel', as though it could mean 'so soon after I left you'.
They had received the true Gospel on his first visit some time before, and had now 'rashly', 'precipitately', abandoned it owing to Judaistic pressure.
If Ephesus was the place,
[As stated in the Latin prologue to the Epistle. See Harnack (Zeitschr. f. d. neutest. Wiss., 1925, pp. 204-18), who is the ablest defender of the widely accepted view that the prologues to the Pauline epistles which are preserved in some Vulgate MSS. are Marcionite in origin.
Contrast M. J. Lagrange, Revue bibliqw, xxxv, 1926, pp. 161-73.]

it was probably written just before he left. In iv.20 he says, 'I wish I could be present with you now.'
Both north and south Galatia were accessible from Ephesus.
We do not know enough of the events there to know whether he could have paid them a flying visit as he did to Corinth (p. 134), but he was either leaving the city immediately, or had already left it, for some urgent cause,

(b) The epistle is placed at some moment between his resolve to go to Macedonia to get news of the Corinthians from Titus and the writing of Romans at Corinth.
On the ground of language and thought, Lightfoot places it between 2 Corinthians and Romans, but the criterion must not be applied too rigidly; 1, 2 Corinthians are both written to meet particular pressing needs, and might both have stood between two epistles chiefly dealing with the Jewish controversy.
If Romans was originally written in its present form, our epistle is perhaps most easily understood if it is placed at some moment between the writing of the sorrowful letter to Corinth and the meeting with Titus in Macedonia, i.e. immediately before (or, of course, it may have been immediately after) 2 Corinthians.
But if the original Romans was a shorter, general epistle (see pp. 157 f.), then the argument from style is equally valid if that shorter form and Galatians were both written before the Council.

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Causes of writing.

The Galatians, whether northern or southern, were mostly Gentiles.
At the Council he had won his victory over the Judaizers who had tried to persuade the Gentile Christians in Antioch that their salvation was impossible unless they became members of the Jewish Church by circumcision.
But opponents went farther afield. At some time shortly before he wrote the epistle he must have heard that they had visited Galatia and tried to pervert his converts.
He wanted to go to them himself, but being unable to do that (iv. 20) he wrote in sorrow and indignation with an intense longing to keep them true to the principles of his universal Gospel.
The Judaizers appear to have used two arguments:
Firstly, they tried to undermine his influence and authority by telling the Galatians that St. Paul was an unauthorized upstart, whose position in the Church was greatly inferior to that of the original apostles who had lived with our Lord; and that his teaching of freedom from Jewish ordinances was his way of making his religion of salvation easier and more acceptable; he tried to 'please men' (i.10).
Secondly, they told them, as they had told the Christians at Antioch, that to become Christians they must first be joined to Judaism by circumcision.
They had used the arts of flattery and fair speech (iv.17), and had so 'bewitched' them (iii.1) that some of them had actually begun to observe Jewish festivals (iv.9 f.), and some wanted to be 'under the Law' altogether (iv.21).

According to the theory of Liitgert [Geseti und Geist, 1919.], however, which J. H. Ropes ['The Singular Problem of Galatians', Harvard Texts and Studies, xiv, 1928.] accepted with some modifications, one must not assume that the hostile personal attacks on St. Paul came from the Judaizers.
This would be to overlook the existence of a radical party in the Galatian churches opposed both to the Judaizers and to St. Paul.
The latter was fighting on two different fronts.
Ropes suggests that the Galatian churches included some ex-Gentiles who insisted that the Jewish law was necessary even for Gentiles who believed.
They were confronted by a party of spiritual radicals or 'pneumatics' who rejected the rite of circumcision and claimed in reliance on the Spirit to be able to neglect moral discipline, in many ways resembling St. Paul's opponents in 2 Corinthians and anticipating the Marcionites.
There may even have been a pro-Pauline party adopting the via media between the Judaizers and the 'pneumatics', cf. v.9 f., vi.6. Ropes claims that the arguments of Galatians are directed against both parties more or less alternately and that on this theory the Epistle can be dated comparatively late.
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Contents.

St. Paul shapes his epistle to meet two lines of attack,
(a) The attempt to undermine his authority he deals with in i-ii.14, explaining that the original apostles were in no way superior to him in authority or spiritual knowledge, for he had received his Gospel direct from Christ Himself.
The apostles did not teach it to him, and when they heard his account of what he preached they added nothing to it.
To prove this he enumerates the occasions on which he was in contact with them up to the time when they formally recognized his apostleship to the Gentiles.
And at the end of the epistle (vi.11-17) he attacks the Judaistic opposition again.

(b) He tries with all his might to draw back the readers from the peril into which they had allowed themselves to be led.
This he does in three ways:
(1) By controversial argument.
He explains the nature of the Law as shown in the Law itself, and its purpose in the divine economy in relation to the promise made to Abraham (ii.15-iv.7).
Again he explains its inferiority to the Christian dispensation as shown in a figure by a narrative in the Law itself the story of Hagar the slave and Sarah the free woman and their sons (iv.21-31).
(2) By teaching as to the real meaning of life in the Spirit and of the freedom which it involves (v.13-vi.10).
(3) These are interspersed by impassioned personal appeals (iv. 8-20; v. 1-12).

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6. ROMANS

Contents | Destination & place of writing | Integrity | Top

Contents.

This epistle and Galatians are the chief sources of a peculiar and distinctive contribution made by St. Paul to Christian thought, in that they represent his fight with Judaism.
Romans, no less than Galatians, is a general doctrinal treatise. Its first object was to frame 'a comprehensive apologia for the principle of a universal religion as set over against Jewish nationalism'.
Since he is writing to a Church of which he does not intimately know the members, the epistle does not vibrate with the passion of personal appeal that marks Galatians; but it is not the less alive.
The argument is framed on the lines of a disputation with opponents, questions being rhetorically asked in order to be answered.
It was impossible for St. Paul to put pen to paper on any subject without revealing himself.
A Jew, and an ardent lover of his nation, he set himself the task of explaining why the Jewish religion was no longer the religion, but was superseded by one that was not national but universal.
Two main problems presented themselves:

1. Seeing that Israel were the chosen race, and their religion was the religion, wherein did their failure consist?
This forms the basis of i.16-viii.39.
They failed because their system was essentially inadequate to the achievement of the end desired, i.e. the acquiring of 'righteousness'.
Therefore God has now provided a new system which is completely successful in the case of all Jew and Gentile alike who adopt it and throw themselves into it.

2. The second problem is wrestled with in chs.ix-xi. Seeing that God chose Israel and made promises to them, how could He reject them without unfaithfulness and injustice?
The following headings of this doctrinal portion of the epistle are taken from A. H. McNeile's manual St. Paul, pp. 191 f.:

A.

 

i.16-v.21.

Justification.1

   

i.16, 17.

Thesis.

   

i,18-iii.20.

Universal failure of Gentile and Jew to attain to Righteousness.

 

(a]

i.18-ii.29.

Statement of their failure.

 

(b]

iii. 1-8.

Three objections answered.

 

(c]

iii. 9-20.

The failure proved from Scripture.

   

iii. 21-31.

The New System of attaining to Righteousness is explained.

   

iv. 1-25.

The New System corroborated by the case of Abraham.

   

v. 1-21.

The glorious effects of the New System.

 

(a]

vv.14.

The effects enumerated.

 

(b]

vv.511.

The consideration of God's love gives confidence of final salvation.

 

(c)

vv.12-21.

Adam and Christ.

   

vv.12-17.

Their similarities and difference,

   

vv. 18-21.

Summary.

B.

 

vi-viii.

Sanctification.

   

vi, vii.

Four objections answered.

 

(a]

vi.1-14.

If more sin on man's part means more grace on God's, why not go on sinning?

 

(b]

vi.15-vii.6.

If we are released from Law, are we not free to sin if we like?

 

(c]

vii.7-12.

If release from Law means release from sin, are not Law and sin identical?

 

(d]

vii.13-25.

Did the good Law, then, cause death?

   

viii.

The working out of the Christian's salvation by the indwelling of the Spirit.

C.

 

 ix-xi.

The Rejection of Israel.

   

ix.1-5.

Introduction.

   

ix.6-29.

The Justice of the Rejection.

 

(a]

vv.6-13.

It is not inconsistent with God's promises.

 

(b)

vv.14-29.

It is not inconsistent with God's justice.

   

ix. 30-x.13.

Causes of the Rejection.

   

x.14-21.

The Jews had no excuse from want of warning.

   

xi.

Facts that lessen the difficulty.

 

(a]

vv.1-10.

The Rejection is not that of all Israel.

 

(b)

vv.11-24.

The Rejection is not final.

 

(c]

vv. 25-36.

God's ultimate purpose is mercy to all.

1[It is impossible to translate δικαίωσις - (dikaiosis) and δικαιοῦν - (dikaioun) by one word in English (cf. O. C. Quick, The Gospel of the New World, 1944, pp. 54 f.).
It means being reprieved, forgiven, and incorporated into Christ as part of His New Creation, The distinction from 'Sanctification' is not too hard and fast.]

After working out his thesis the apostle adds practical exhortations based upon it, i.e. the right attitude of Christians towards God (.1, 2), towards the Body of which they are members (.3-21), towards the civil rulers2 (i.1-7), and towards men in general by love (i.8-10), all this being enforced by a reminder of the nearness of the Last Day (i.11-14).
2[O. Cullmann takes a rather unusual view when he says: 'The executive power of the state is the administrative organ for the "rulers of this world" (1 Cor.ii.28).
In the light of this fact we should also understand that the "authorities" of Rom.i.1, in keeping with the meaning which this plural always has for Paul, are the powers that stand behind the actual executive power of the state.' (Christ and Time, Eng. trans., F. V. Filson, 1951, p. 37, n. i.]

The exhortation ends with a warning against the misuse of the Christian 'liberty' which his universal Gospel involves (xiv. i-xv. 7).
Finally the duty of Jews and Gentiles to 'receive another', &c., both in the matter of foods and in other respects, is enforced by reminding the Gentiles on the one hand that their salvation was wrought to fulfil promises made to Israel, and the Jews on the other that the promises made to Israel did in fact include the saving of the Gentiles (xv. 8, 9a), four Old Testament passages being adduced as instances (xv.14-21).
A closing prayer (xv.13) forms a suitable ending to the main body of the letter.
An epistolary conclusion follows in which St. Paul refers to his work in the past (xv. 14-21), and his proposed movements in the future (xv. 22-32), ending with a final prayer (xv.33).
After this a new beginning in ch.xvi is unexpected (see below): Commendation of Phoebe (vv.1, 2).
Salutations to individuals and to groups of Christians (vv.3-16).
A doctrinal warning (vv.17-20). Names of Corinthian Christians who send greetings (vv.21-23). Doxology (vv.25-27).
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DESTINATION AND PLACE OF WRITING.

The Epistle as it stands indicates these clearly enough.
The apostle greets 'all those who are in Rome beloved of God, called as saints' (i.7); and he speaks of his eagerness 'to preach the Gospel to you also who are at Rome' (v.15), which he had frequently purposed to visit, but had hitherto been prevented (v.13).
He had been prevented many times from coming to them, though he had longed for years to do so (xv.22 f.).
He wanted to stay with them for a passing visit on his way to Spain (v. 24).
At the present moment he was about to start for Jerusalem, carrying the alms contributed by the churches in Macedonia and Achaia (vv.25 f.), but as soon as he had accomplished that he would come to them en route for Spain (v. 29).

This fixes the place of writing of chs.i-xv as either Corinth during the visit of Acts xx, just before he started for Jerusalem, or some point on the journey to Jerusalem.
In ch.xvi, of those who send greetings Gaius (v.23) was the name of one whom St. Paul had baptized at Corinth (1 Cor.i.14), Erastus (v.23) was that of one who 'stayed on at Corinth' (2 Tim.iv.20), and Timothy and Sosipater (Sopater) (v.21) were among the apostle's companions when he departed from Corinth (Acts xx.4). Ch. xvi, therefore, was probably written from Corinth.
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integrity.

But the destination of the epistle involves the question of its integrity.
There are indications, which strongly suggest that ch.xvi was not originally part of the epistle, but was a separate letter, or portion of a letter.
If so, it was probably a short personal communication, a brief πιἐστολὴ σθστακτική - (epistole sustatike), to commend Phoebe, but written to Ephesus, not to Rome.
The reasons for this, the cumulative effect of which is strong [Though Harnack, Die Briefsammlung desApostels Paulus, pp. 13 f., thinks it a 'badly supported hypothesis'.], are as follows:

(1) The numerous salutations suggest that St. Paul knew personally a large number of Christians in the place to which he wrote.
This is surprising at Rome which he had never visited before he wrote, but natural at Ephesus where he had worked for more than two years.
And in the letters that he afterwards wrote from Rome not one of those who are saluted in ch.xvi are mentioned.
[Bp. Lightfoot's arguments that many names in ch.xvi are paralleled in Roman, sepulchral inscriptions (The Epistle to the Philippians, 1903, pp. 171-8) have been met by K. Lake who has shown that the same names occur in inscriptions in the provinces (The Earlier Epistles of Paul, 1911, pp. 324-35).
Lake answered de Rossi's argument that the Church of St. Prisca on the Aventine Hill was founded on the site of Prisca and Aquila's house by saying that evidence for this is lacking as is evidence for thinking that the church was called SS. Aquila and Prisca before the eighth century; cf. P. Styger, Die RBmischen Katakomben, 1933, and Visscher, Analects Bollandiana, Ixix, 1951, pp. 39-54.]

(2) A salutation is sent to Prisca and Aquila (v.3).
They had gone with the apostle from Corinth to Ephesus (Acts xviii.18), where they had stayed (v.19), not only till Apollos went thither (v.26) but till St. Paul returned for his two-year visit, during which he wrote 1 Corinthians, in which he sent greeting from them 'with the Church that is in their house' (xvi.19).
But in Rom. xvi.5 he greets them 'and the Church that is in their house'.
This points strongly to the same church and house at Ephesus, for it is very improbable that in the short interval between the writing of 1 Corinthians and Romanswithin two years, possibly within one they had returned to Rome and made their house a Christian centre.

(3)  A salutation is sent to Epaenetus, 'the first fruits of Asia unto Christ' (v.5), i.e. the first convert in the province of Asia.
This description of him would be suitable if he were then in Ephesus, but would have little point if he were in Rome.

(4) The commendation of Phoebe to a church whose members the apostle knew, and with whom his words would have their full weight, would be more natural than to a church which he had never visited.

(5) The antinomianism denounced in vv.17, 18 [These verses bear a striking similarity to Phil. iii.17-19, a passage occurring in a section which seems, like the present one, to be a fragment of another letter (see pp. 167 f.), perhaps addressed to a church in Asia.] seems to have been more hostile and pronounced than anything that is implied in the rest of the epistle, and would find congenial soil in the Asian capital.

(6) The words of xv.33, 'Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen', have the appearance of being the conclusion of a letter.
It is quite likely that this commendatory letter has lost nothing but an epistolary formula at the opening and at the conclusion. But in its present form it ends with a rhetorical Doxology, which would be quite out of place in such a letter, and the style and language of which differ from those of the rest of Romans, approximating rather to those of Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles.
And the expression, 'the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now is manifested, &c.', is not in keeping with St. Paul's usual thought that the mystery was proclaimed in the Old Testament but not understood (cf. Col. i.26) till it found its explanation in Christianity.
[This argument of Corssen is dismissed as hypercritical by N. P. Williams. 'St. Paul was not a pedant, and it is unreasonable to expect minute and unvarying verbal consistency from him' (Gore, Goudge, and Guillaume, A Neu. Commentary, iii, p. 448).
Goguel (op. cit. iv. 2, pp. 250-3), however, argues that the Doxology, though not the work of Marcion himself, since his text stopped at xiv.23, came from a Marcionite milieu.
J. Weiss (op. cit. ii. 284) suggests that it was added by the collector of the Pauline corpus, perhaps the author of the Epistle to the Ephesians.]

If the Doxology was not from St. Paul's pen the question arises why it was added.
Some have thought that it may have been the work of Marcion, or of a Marcionite after him.
Lake holds that since Romans stands last of the epistles to churches (distinguished in the Muratorian Canon from epistles to persons) in the Bible of Tertullian as well as in the Muratorian Canon and in Origen's Bible, and since doxologies generally come at the end of books, and this Doxology belongs to the shorter recension of the epistle (see below), it is probable that it was added in some collection in which the epistle, in its short form, came last.
The manuscript evidence with regard to the last two chapters is complicated.
Some of the best manuscripts have the Doxology at the end of the epistle.
In a few it stands there, and also at the end of ch.xiv; some have it only at the end of ch.xiv; the third-century Chester Beatty papyrus codex P46 alone has the Doxology at the end of xv; others, omit it altogether.
[G3 g leaves a space large enough for it at xiv. 23, showing that the scribe had reason to think that that was the place where it should occur, but it was lacking in his manuscript. Corssen (Zeitschr.f. d. mutest. Wiss. x, 1909, pp. 5 f.) thinks that the manuscript from which D was copied also lacked it, since the colometric arrangement in D suddenly ceases at xvi.23, and the Doxology is written stichometrically, which points to the use of a different manuscript.]
Further, some Vulgate manuscripts seem to show clear traces of an Old Latin system of fifty-one breves, or chapter-divisions for the epistle, of which the fiftieth begins at xiv.15, and the fifty-first corresponds with the Doxology.
And Origen (according to the Latin translation by Rufinus) states that the heretic Marcion removed (abstulit) the Doxology, and dissecuit chs.xv, xvi; the latter may mean either the same as abstulit, or 'separated off', i.e. treated as not belonging to the epistle.
It is not clear, therefore, whether Origen charges him with shortening the epistle or implies that he had received it in its already shortened form, and hence treated the last two chapters as unauthentic.
It is noticeable also that Tertullian (adv.Marc.v.14) makes no comment on Marcion's treatment of anything in the epistle after xiv.10, and refers to that verse as occurring 'in clausula', i.e. at the close of the epistle.
It is even more significant that Tertullian and also Irenaeus and Cyprian make no citations from chs. xv, xvi.
Lastly, Origen [A codex (1739) at the Laura on Mt. Athos contains a text of the Epistle made from Origen's commentary.], 'Ambrosiaster', and G3 g omitted the words 'in Rome' in i.7, and 'who are in Rome' in i.15.
Was the omission due to a Marcionite scribe's anti-Roman bias (Manson)?

There have been different explanations for this condition of things.
The existence of a shortened form of the epistle at some stage of its history is certain. Lightfoot [Biblical Essays, pp. 287 ff.] thought that St. Paul shortened it himself, delocalizing it for general use; Moffatt [Introd. Lit. of N.T., p. 142.], that the Church shortened it for the same purpose; Sanday-Headlam [Romans, pp. xcvii f.] and Corssen [Op. cit., pp. i, 97.], that Marcion shortened it for doctrinal reasons.
These views are summarized in A. H. McNeile's St. Paul: his Life, Letters, and Christian Doctrine, pp. 185-8.
A different solution was suggested by K. Lake b, and accepted by Burkitt [Christian Beginnings, p. 126.], that the short form of the letter was the original, 'Written by St. Paul at the same time as Galatians, in connexion with the question of Jewish and Gentile Christians, for the general instruction of mixed churches which he had not visited.'
'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.'
He explains xv.1-13 as an addition 'continuing the thoughts of his original writing, probably because Aquila had told him that this would be desirable'.
But no reason can be discerned why the general remarks of xv.1-13 (especially of vv.1-7) should have been desirable after the particular injunctions on the same subject in ch.xiv.
F. C. Burkitt thought that the verses are a mere suture, leading on to the additional chapters that St. Paul was writing.
But even so, the personal details in i.8-15 need to be explained if they occurred in an epistle for general use.
It is impossible that to each of the mixed churches that he had not visited, St. Paul wrote that he was always praying that he might do so, but had been prevented.
The contents of those verses point to a particular church, and yet there is not the least evidence that they were absent when chs.xv, xvi were absent.
If, on the other hand, St. Paul shortened the original epistle he would have omitted the personal matter that they contained together with those chapters.
Any solution must take account of this personal matter.
Dr. T. W. Manson [Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, xxxi, 1948, pp. 224-40.] has put forward a theory covering most of the facts.
He suggests that St. Paul wrote both chs. i-xv.33, which he sent to Rome, and, later, i-xvi, which he sent to Ephesus.
From the earlier letter Marcion took i-xiv and his short edition influenced the textual tradition in the West, as may be seen from D F G.
From the longer edition to Ephesus is derived the Alexandrian tradition seen in B אC.
He suggests too that P46 is derived from the earlier letter to Rome, with the (Marcionite) Doxology at the end of xv therefore. P46 shows also the influence of Alexandrian texts in including xvi after the doxology.
This theory also accounts for the high proportion of Western readings in chs.i-xv in P46 but not in xvi.
It is probable indeed that non-Western readings have also infiltrated into chs.i-xv in this codex.
[C. S. C. Williams, Ex. T., Ixi, 1950, pp. 125-7.]

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