character, but plain bread and a seasoning of salt, which the more luxurious of them do further season with hyssop: and their drink is water from the spring."

In another passage (ib. ix.) he says, in describing their feasts, "wine is not introduced, but only the clearest water; cold water for the generality, and hot water for those old men who are accustomed to a luxurious life. And the table too bears nothing which has blood, but there is placed upon it bread for food and salt for seasoning, to which also hyssop is sometimes added as an extra sauce for the sake of those who are delicate in their eating."

These Therapeutae were numerous in Egypt, but were also met with in various places, in Greece and in the country of the Barbarians (ib. iii.).

It is thus quite clear from contemporary evidence that ascetic practices, such as St. Paul describes, were in his time common among the religious Jews, and not unlikely to be adopted by Jewish Christians while from the tone in which St. Paul speaks of these brethren weak in faith, we may safely infer that they, i. e. the Jewish Christians, were a minority both in numbers and influence, whose conscientious scruples should be treated with kindness and forbearance. They did not put themselves forward "in an aggressive anti-Pauline attitude: they were men not of hostile, but only of prejudiced minds, whose moral consciousness lacked the vigour to regard a peculiar asceticism as unessential" (Meyer).

In the desire to abate the dissension between these two classes, we see a sufficient motive for one portion of the Epistle (xiv.-xv. 13), but no sufficient ground for the great doctrinal argument which precedes (i. 18-xi.). In other words the main purpose of the Epistle is neither a polemic against Jewish Christians nor an attempt to reconcile Jewish and Gentile believers, occasioned by the local circumstances and special tendencies of the Christian Community at Rome.

(b.) Another important point in reference to the motive of the Epistle is St. Paul's own position at this time with

regard to Rome and other Gentile Churches.

His earnest desire to visit Rome (i. 10-15, XV. 22-24) formed part of a great plan of carrying the Gospel into the distant regions of the West. It is acknowledged even by those who doubt the authenticity of Rom. xv. that the design here mentioned may well have been entertained by the Apostle, and that the mention of it is in fact an argument for the genuineness of the passage. There is no historical evidence (unless it be the much disputed and doubtful phrase, ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως

ov in the Epistle of Clement of Rome, 'Cor.' v.) that St. Paul ever visited Spain: and though it is not at all improbable that he may have entertained a purpose which he was never able to accomplish, it is in the highest degree incredible that a forger should think of inventing for him a design which did not correspond with any known event in his life. Compare Baur (Paulus,' p. 180), Lucht (p. 192) Hilgenfeld (p. 486).

In this design then we find one chief cause of the Apostle's earnest desire to visit Rome. His work in the East, so far as it required his personal presence, was accomplished: he had preached the Gospel "from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum." Jerusalem itself, Damascus, Caesarea, Tarsus, "the regions of Syria and Cilicia" (Acts ix. 19–30; Gal. i. 21; ii. 1, 2) are all naturally included in the general phrase which describes the extent of his early labours in the East, "Jerusalem and round about.". Quite recently he had paid a second visit to Macedonia and "had gone over those parts" (Acts xx. 2), passing so far to the West as to reach Illyricum, which borders upon Macedonia (Paley's '] 'Horae Paulinae,' Ch. ii. No. 4).

Never before had he been so near to Rome, and now that his mind was full of the great design of carrying the Gospel beyond Rome itself into those far regions of Western Europe, where Christ was not yet named (xv. 20; 2 Cor. x. 15, 16), he had the strongest motives for forming more intimate relations with the Christians at Rome,

motives quite independent of the internal condition of their Community. His keen eye could not but discern the vast importance of securing a base of operations in the Capital of the Western World. Hence in part his fervent desire to visit Rome, hence also a motive for writing this Epistle in order to secure at once the sympathy and help of his brethren there. We may admit with Bleek (p. 445) that St. Paul "discerned the great importance of the Church in such a centre, and of the tendencies which it adopted, as influencing the Church of Christ at large, and how desirable it was that the Christians there should not be disturbed and rent asunder by internal disputes and party strifes." It was natural that the Apostle, being unable at once to visit Rome, should gladly take an opportunity of sending by Phoebe "a letter containing his Apostolic instructions and exhortations' (Bleek). The reality of this motive cannot be doubted, though its importance may be exaggerated: it accounts for St. Paul's writing to Rome, though not for his writing so remarkable an Epistle: we cannot, with Schott, find here the key to unlock the whole meaning and purpose of the Epistle.

(c) Another historical circumstance mentioned in the Epistle is St. Paul's intended journey to Jerusalem: when this intention is first announced at Ephesus (Acts xix. 21) it is connected with the desire to visit Rome. What then was the motive which urged the Apostle, in spite of warnings and prophecies and his own forebodings of danger (Acts xXX. 22, 23, 28; xxi. 4, 11-14), to persist in his resolution to go up to Jerusalem? It was evidently the desire to vindicate himself against the calumnies of the Judaizing adversaries who had so maliciously assailed his character, denied his Apostolic authority, and hindered his work in the Churches of Corinth and Galatia. These adversaries were not Jewish Christians of the ordinary type, much less were they the authorised agents of the original Apostles: they were the same bigoted and uncompromising partisans of the circumcision, of whom we read at an earlier period

(Acts xi. 2, 3) that they contended with Peter," saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them." And was there not cause for St. Paul to fear that these bitter enemies would stir up strife in Rome and try to frustrate his labour in the West, as they had already in the East? This fear would be most naturally suggested by the Apostle's very recent experience at Corinth. There he had won a hard victory over those "overgreat Apostles" (2 Cor. xi. 5; xii. 11) who were nothing else than "false Apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into (the) Apostles of Christ" (2 Cor. xi. 13): their slanders had reached the ears of the many thousands of Jewish believers in Jerusalem: they might even raise a prejudice against him in the minds of the true Apostles, and of James and the elders of the Church. His personal presence and report of what "God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry," supported by the testimony of the faithful brethren who accompanied him, and by the substantial proof which they carried with them of the goodwill of the Gentile Churches towards the poor Saints at Jerusalem, would remove the unjust suspicions of Jewish converts assembled from all parts for the feast at Jerusalem, and win fresh confidence and sympathy for the Apostle himself in entering upon his new sphere of missionary work in Western Europe. If such were the Apostle's motives for undertaking the perilous journey to Jerusalem, it can hardly be doubted that this Epistle, written at the same time, was due, in part at least, to the same desire to repel the false accusations of Judaizing opponents, to conciliate the goodwill of Jewish Christians in general, and to promote in Rome and elsewhere a closer union between Jewish and Gentile believers.

(d.) But when we examine the record of St. Paul's life at this period, we find that his most dangerous and deadly enemies were not Jewish Christians, nor even Judaizing teachers, but unbelieving Jews.

In the terrible catalogue of sufferings written a few months before his Epistle

to the Romans, he tells of perils by his own countrymen, as well as by Heathen and false brethren; he tells also how of the Jews five times he had received forty stripes save one (2 Cor. xi.). If we turn to St. Luke's narrative we find the Apostle in Ephesus sparing no effort, shrinking from no danger, in preaching to his brethren according to the flesh and "persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God." Driven after three months from the Synagogue in which, as Dr. Farrar ingeniously conjectures, some of those five Scourgings had been patiently endured, he still continued by the space of two years preaching both to Jews and Greeks the word of the Lord Jesus (Acts xix. 8-10).

Again, within a few weeks after writing to the Romans, he reminds the Ephesian elders at Miletus of temptations which, as they knew, had befallen him "by the lying in wait of the Jews." In Jerusalem itself the "bonds and afflictions" which awaited him (xx. 23) came, as had been foreseen, not from Judaizing Christians but from fanatic "Jews which were of Asia" (xxi. 11, 27).

It is evident that dissensions within the Churches between Jewish and Gentile Christians were but a faint reflection of the bitter and unceasing enmity with which St. Paul was pursued by the unbelieving Jews: and thus it is in the great conflict between "the Jews' religion" and the Gospel of Christ, that we find the true cause and purpose of that great doctrinal treatise (i. 18—xi.), which forms the main subject of the Epistle, well described by Baur as "the relation of Judaism and Heathenism to each other, and of both to Christianity."

If then we remember the distinction formerly noticed between the occasion of writing, and the main purpose of the Epistle, the former may be referred to the personal circumstances of the Apostle, and his relation to the Christian Community at Rome; while in the local circumstances and special tendencies of that community we may discover both the occasion and purpose of certain subordinate portions of the letter

(i. 1–16, xii.— -xv ;) but as the main purpose of the whole Epistle we can acknowledge nothing less comprehensive than the desire of the Apostle, at a momentous crisis in his own life's work and in the history of the whole Church of Christ, to set forth a full and systematic statement of those fundamental principles of the Gospel, which render it the one true religion for all the nations of the earth, and meet especially those deepest wants of human nature, which Judaism could not satisfy, righteousness in the sight of God, and deliverance from the power of sin and death.

In chapters ix. xi. we have no mere historical appendix or corollary, but an intensely earnest and practical application of the principles previously discussed to the great religious difficulty of the time, the rejection of the Gospel by the mass of the Jewish nation, and the acceptance of the Gentiles in their place as the chosen people of God.

§ 8. INTEGRITY OF THE EPISTLE.

Under this head we have to consider two questions which depend in part on the same evidence: Is the doxology (xvi. 25-27) genuine? Do chapters xv. and xvi. belong wholly, or in part, or not at all to this Epistle?

The origin and nature of these questions will be best explained, if we begin with the testimony of the early fathers.

I. TERTULLIAN, writing A.D. 207-210 against Marcion's "Antitheses," or Contradictions between the Old and New Testaments, says (adv. Marc. v. 13): "What great gaps Marcion made especially in this Epistle (to the Romans) by expunging whatever he would, will be clear from the unmutilated text of our own copy. Some passages however, which ought according to his plan to have been expunged, he overlooked: and it is enough for my purpose to accept these as instances of his negligence and blindness."

In his subsequent argument Tertullian quotes no passage from chapters xv.-xvi., and refers to xiv. 10-13 as being at the close of the Epistle ("in

clausulâ "): but as he uses only such passages as Marcion had retained, this only tends to prove that the last chapters were wanting, not in his own copy, but in Marcion's.

In the treatise on Baptism, ch. xvii., Tertullian refers to the Acts of Paul and Thecla': now in that fiction there is frequent mention of a certain Tryphaena, who though living at Antioch in Syria is evidently connected with Rome, being called the kinswoman of Cæsar. There can be little doubt that this name Tryphaena has been taken, like other names in the same work, Onesiphorus, Demas, and Hermogenes, from St. Paul's Epistles. Hence it follows that Rom. xvi. was known, if not to Tertullian himself, at least to an earlier writer whom he quotes.

It must however be admitted that in Tertullian's other works no clear reference to these chapters has been found, though all the other chapters are frequently quoted.

The case is the same with IRENEUS and CYPRIAN, except that Cyprian fails also to quote from Rom. iv.

But this argument from silence is worthless, as may be easily shown from the parallel case of 1 Cor. xvi.

Cyprian quotes from every other chapter, about 101 times in all; Irenæus quotes every other chapter except xiv., about seventy-seven times in all: yet neither Irenæus nor Cyprian appears to have ever quoted 1 Cor. xvi. Tertullian, in his work against Marcion, quotes every other chapter of 1 Cor., 129 times in all, yet never refers to ch. xvi. in his other works there are more than 300 quotations from the Epistle, including every chapter except xvi., from which there is possibly one quotation, though we have failed to verify Tischendorf's reference 'Pudicitia,' 14.

When therefore Lucht concludes from this silence that it is possible that Tertullian, Cyprian, and Irenæus had no knowledge of Rom. xv., xvi., we may reply, It is equally possible and neither more nor less probable, as far as this silence is concerned, that the same fathers had no knowledge of 1 Cor. xvi. A more probable explanation is that

Irenæus and Cyprian, using only such passages as suited their own immediate purpose, like Tertullian in his treatise against Marcion, found no occasion to refer to Rom. xv., xvi. In fact these chapters, like I Cor. xvi., are in great measure made up of personal matters interesting chiefly to the Apostle and his immediate correspondents at Rome.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA quotes passages from both chapters frequently, and describes them as belonging to the Epistle to the Romans, without the least apparent consciousness that this could possibly be doubted.

ORIGEN. A most important though much disputed testimony to the genuineness of these chapters is found in Origen's Commentary upon the Epistle ('Opera,' tom. vii. p. 453, Lommatzsch; tom. iv. p. 687, ed. Ben.). After quoting the Doxology (xvi. 25-27) in its usual place at the end of the Epistle, Origen proceeds:

"Marcion, who tampered with the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles, entirely took away this paragraph; and not this only, but also from that place where it is written, Whatsoever is not of faith is sin (xiv. 23), right on to the end, he cut all away (cuncta dissecuit). But in other copies, that is, in those which have not been corrupted by Marcion, we find this very paragraph differently placed. For in some manuscripts after the passage above mentioned, Whatsoever is not of faith is sin, there follows in immediate connexion (statim cohærens), Now unto him that is of power to stablish you: but other manuscripts have it at the end, as it is now placed."

This passage from Origen does not prove, as some have inferred, that Marcion regarded the Doxology in particular as spurious, nor that he appealed to earlier MSS. as omitting it, nor that Origen found it omitted in any other MSS. besides those which had been mutilated by Marcion.

It does prove that Origen knew of copies corrupted by Marcion, which omitted all after the last verse of ch. xiv.

It implies that, as far as Origen knew, (Lucht, p. 39) no other MSS. omitted the

Doxology, but some placed it between xiv. and xv.

Thus we have evidence of a diversity of position before Origen's time, and regarded by him as independent of Marcion's mutilated copies. But we have no evidence of omission before Marcion, who was at Rome propagating his views about A.D. 138-140. He probably disliked St. Paul's statements concerning the use of the Old Testament in xv. 4, 8, and possibly may have found an existing diversity of position to afford a pretext for his omission of xv., xvi.

We may further observe that when Marcion is said to have expunged and cut away ('abstulit,' 'dissecuit') the two chapters and the Doxology, it is clearly implied that these were genuine portions of St. Paul's Epistle omitted first by Marcion.

That this was the opinion of Origen himself, not merely of his translator Rufinus, is admitted and proved by Lucht himself (p. 36): and Origen's judgment may well be preferred to Lucht's baseless conjecture (adopted from Baur, 'Paulus,' p. 350) that Marcion may have omitted the two chapters because they were not written by St. Paul, but added by a forger (Lucht, p. 41).

II. From the testimony of the early fathers we pass to that of the existing MSS.

(a) Chapters xv., xvi. are not omitted in any known MS.

(b) The Doxology (xvi. 25-27) is variously placed, repeated, or omitted.

(1) It is placed at the end of xvi., and only there, in, B, C, D, E, f, Vulg., Syriac (Schaaf), Memph., Aeth., and the Latin fathers. The cursive MS. 66 after the unv of v. 24 puts réλos, to mark the end of the Epistle, but then adds the Doxology, and has in the margin this note: "In the ancient copies the end of the Epistle is here (i. e. after the Apostolic benediction, v. 24), but the rest (ie. the Doxology) is found at the end of the 14th chapter."

(2) It is found at the end of xiv., and there only, in L, most cursives, the Greek lectionaries, Syr. (Harclean), and Greek Commentators, except Origen.

(3) It is found in both places in A, P, 17, Arm.

(4) It is omitted in both places in F, G; but in F a blank space is left in the Greek after xvi. 24, and the corresponding space in the Latin (f) is occupied by the Doxology; while in G a blank space is left in the Greek, and consequently in the interlinear Latin, between xiv. and xv.

(c) In many manuscripts of the Latin Bible, especially codex Amiatinus, and Fuldensis, both of the 6th century, there is a division into sections (capitulatio) marked by numbers in the text, and a prefixed table of contents with corresponding numbers, in which the subject of each section is briefly described.

The 50th section in the Codex Amiatinus "On the peril of one who grieves his brother by his meat," corresponds with xiv. 15-23: But the next and last section, "On the mystery of the Lord kept secret before His passion, but after His passion revealed," answers to nothing else in the remainder of the Epistle except the Doxology. It is therefore a natural conclusion that this capitulation was first adapted to a Latin MS. in which the Doxology was placed immediately after xiv. 23 and xv., xvi. omitted. On these capitulations see Bp. Lightfoot, 'Journal of Philology,' 1871, No. 6, pp. 196–203.

(d) In one MS. (G) all mention of Rome in the Epistle is wanting.

In i. η for τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Ρώμῃ ἀγαπη Toîs coû, we find in G, Toîs ovom év áɣány cov, the Latin (g) corresponding.

In i. 15 the words τοῖς ἐν Ρώμη are omitted in G and g.

One cursive manuscript (47) has a marginal note that some one, apparently an ancient commentator, 66 makes no mention of the words ev 'Póun either in the interpretation or in the text."

In this evidence "the statement of Origen respecting Marcion (confirmed by the incidental expression of Tertullian), the absence of quotations in several early fathers, and the capitulation (or capitulations) of the Latin Bibles," Bp. Lightfoot writes, "we have testimony various, cumulative, and (as it seems to me) irresistible, to the existence