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Who art thou to judge Another's servant?
To his own Lord he stands or falls :
And he shall be made to stand,

For the Lord has power to make him stand.
This man1 rates one day above another,

That man rates every day alike.

Let each be fully convinced in his own mind:
He who values the day, values it to the Lord.
Also, he who eats, eats to the Lord,

For he gives thanks to God:

And he who refrains from eating, to the Lord he refrains,
And he gives thanks to God.

For none of us lives to himself,

And none of us dies to himself:

If we live, it is for the Lord we live,

And if we die, it is for the Lord we die.

Whether we live then or die,

We are the Lord's.

For this was why Christ died and came to life,

That he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother?

Or thou again, why dost thou despise thy brother?

Why, we are to stand, all of us, before the tribunal of God;

11 For it is written,

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As I live, saith the Lord, to me shall every knee bow,

And every tongue shall offer praise to God.

Each one of us then is to give account of himself to God.

No more then let us judge one another;

Rather let this be your judgment, not to put 2 any hindrance in a
brother's way.

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing in itself
is unclean :

Only, anything is unclean to the man who reckons it unclean.
If thy brother is being injured for a matter of mere food,

Thou art no longer walking by love;

Destroy not with thy food him for whom Christ died,
Your fair fame is not to be maligned.

For the reign of God is not eating and drinking,

But uprightness and peace and joy in the holy Spirit:
He who serves Christ therein

Is well-pleasing to God and approved of by men.

Well then, our aim 3 is what makes for peace and the upbuilding

of one another :

Do not overthrow the work of God for the sake of mere food.
Anything indeed is clean:

Still, it is evil for a man by his eating to make another stumble.
It is an excellent plan to abstain from flesh and wine or anything
at which thy brother stumbles.

The faith thou hast, keep it to thyself before God.

Happy the man who condemns not himself in what he approves of:
But he who feels any hesitation is condemned if he eats, because
he does not eat from faith-

For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

1 Omitting [[p]]. 2 Omitting spórжμμa... 5.

3

* Reading διώκομεν.

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15 1 Now we who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, 2 instead of pleasing ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbour, to do 3 him good, to upbuild him. For Christ also did not please himself; nay, as it is written, The reproaches of those who denounced thee fell upon me. 4 For whatever things were written beforehand were written for our instruction, that through the patience and the comfort of the scriptures 5 we may possess hope. May the God of patience and comfort grant you 6 the same mind one toward another according to Christ Jesus, so that you may unite with one mouth in magnifying the God and Father of our 7 Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore receive one another, as Christ also 8 received us,1 so as to honour God. For Christ, I affirm, became a minister of the Circumcision that he might make good the promises given to 9 the fathers, and thus show the honesty of God; also that the Gentiles might magnify God for his mercy: even as it is written,

Therefore will I offer praise to thee among the Gentiles

And sing to thy name.

10 And again it is said,

Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.

11 And again,

Extol the Lord, all ye Gentiles,
And let all the people praise him.

12 And again Isaiah says,

There shall be the scion of Jesse,

And he who rises to rule over the Gentiles:
On him shall the Gentiles set their hope.

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, by the power of the holy Spirit!

14 Personally I also am persuaded about you, my brothers, that you are yourselves full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to ad15 monish one another. Still, by way of refreshing your memory I write you with somewhat greater boldness owing to the grace granted me from 16 God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the sacred service of the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles may prove an 17 acceptable offering, consecrated by the holy Spirit. My exultation then 18 is in Christ Jesus, so far as God is concerned. For I will not dare to speak

of anything except what Christ has effected through me in furthering the 19 obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the holy Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and the surrounding country as far as to Illyricum I have fully preached the 20 gospel of Christ-making this my ambition, however, not to preach the gospel where Christ's name was known (that I might not build on 21 another man's foundation), but even as it is written,

22

Those who had no news of him shall see:

And those who have not learned shall understand.

Therefore it is that I have been hindered (these many times) from 23 coming to you. And just now, as I have no longer any chance in these 24 regions, and as I have had for many years a longing to visit you whenever

I go to Spain-for I hope to see you on my journey and to be sped by you 25 after being somewhat satisfied with your companionship-now, I say, I go 26 to Jerusalem on a ministry to the saints. For out of their own goodwill, Macedonia and Achaia have made a contribution for the poor among the 27 saints at Jerusalem. Certainly it is done from goodwill on their part, 1 Reading μäs.

yet it is also a debt. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their 28 spiritual good, they owe them a debt of service in material good. When

I have finished this, then, and have securely delivered this fruit to them, 29 I will depart for Spain by way of you. And I know that when I come to 30 you, I shall come with the fulness of the blessing of Christ.

Now

by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit I appeal to you, 31 brothers, strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be rescued from the disobedient in Judea, and that my ministry of 32 aid for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints, so that through the will of God I may come to you in joy and be refreshed along with you. The God of peace be with you all: Amen.

33 16 21

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Timotheus my fellow-worker salutes you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipatros, my kinsmen.

I Tertius, who write the letter, salute you in the Lord. Gaius, my host and the host of the Community at large, salutes you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, salutes you; so does brother Quartus. [Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and preaching of Jesus Christ, in virtue of the revelation of the secret which 26 has been kept silent throughout times eternal but is now disclosed and, by the prophetic scriptures in virtue of the command of the eternal God, 27 displayed to all the nations to secure obedience to the faith-to the only wise God through Jesus Christ, to him be the honour for ever: Amen.]

A NOTE TO EPHESUS

THAT a note addressed to Ephesus (Schulz) lies embedded in the 16th chapter of Romans, is a hypothesis which is practically accepted upon all sides. "In almost every verse there are such overwhelming reasons... that I cannot quite understand how anyone can adhere to the traditional view" (Weiss). The points really in question are its exact contents and date. Most probably the letter begins with ver. 1 (not ver. 3; Ritschl, Ewald, Schürer, Laurent, Renan, Pfleiderer, and Mangold). Weizsäcker and McGiffert go on to ver. 23, but most (Renan, Reuss, Weiss, Lipsius, Jülicher, etc.) prefer to break off at ver. 20, and indeed Hausrath (like Pfleiderer) stops at ver. 16. In this case vers. 21, 22 are (in spite of Holsten) to be taken as the original ending of the Roman letter (cp. Clemen, Einheit. pp. 95-99).2 In writing to an unknown church, Paul evidently sent greetings from such friends as were at his side; Colossians 410-17 is another example of this practice.3

Although the letter is not expressly addressed to Ephesus, the internal evidence points unmistakably to that city as its destination. When all is said, it remains inconceivable that Paul could have intimately known so many individuals and been acquainted with their local circumstances and histories, in a church like Rome, to which he was personally a stranger. The whole tone of Romans forbids such a hypothesis. Hitherto Paul has been writing as a stranger to strangers without betraying-even at points where such a reference would have been telling and appropriate any trace of personal friendship with the members or knowledge of their peculiar and local circumstances. The wealth of

1 Though it is only fair to add that several critics, including Harnack, Zahn, Denney, and Dr. Drummond, are still unconvinced.

This note to Ephesus, it has been often argued (recently by J. Weiss, ThLz (1893), p. 395, ThSt. pp. 182-184), made up, along with some other fragments, a larger Ephesian letter. See below, Appendix, ad loc. As the greater part of chap. 15 is probably genuine, the real Roman letter appropriately ends as it began (18-15) with the apostle's hope and project of reaching the capital on his missionary travels. There nothing decisive to show that this Ephesian note originally was a part of a larger epistle. It is self-contained and intelligible by itself.

3 On the other hand, "comme il y avait peu de relations entre Corinth et la Macédoine, d'une part, Ephèse, de l'autre, l'apôtre ne parle pas aux Éphésiens du monde qui l'entoure" (Renan, S. Paul, p. 481). The value of Ro 161-20 as a witness to the history and character of the Ephesian church is thoroughly appreciated by Renan (S. Paul, pp. 421-437), and Weizsäcker (AA, i. pp. 379-401, a masterpiece of delicate reconstruction, which no subsequent researches have seriously disturbed).

4 Occasionally, it is true (e.g. chaps. 14, 15) Paul seems to possess some acquaintance with the general course of things in the Roman community, but such knowledge is never more than what would percolate to him through the ordinary channels of report and hearsay. It is rather illogical to conclude, as Zahn insists, that Paul must therefore have had friends who gave him exact information about the church. Did Paul's acquaintance with a church's needs involve the presence of some of his friends in that church? The case of Colossê rather contradicts this idea. And Rome was far more widely known than Colossê.

individual detail and colour in 161-20 presupposes, on the contrary, a sphere where Paul had for long resided and worked. As he wrote from Corinth, the only other city which answers this description is Ephesus. There Paul's experience had been prolonged and varied, and indeed several of the names here are directly linked to Asia Minor (Epænetus, ver. 5, ȧnaрxǹ rns 'Aσías, especially, and Prisca and Aquila, ver. 3, who were at Ephesus immediately before "Romans" was written,-Ac 1818. 26, 1 Co 1619,-and apparently were there not long afterwards, 2 Ti 419). Also, if genuine, the keen warning against schismatics and errorists (17-20) suits Rome1 less well than Ephesus (1 Co 168. 9, ȧVTIKEίμEVOL TOMλoí, Ac 20 291, Apoc 22). Most inapplicable of all to a church like Rome is the tone of Paul's remark in ver. 19 ("your obedience," "I will," etc.). The distant tone even of a passage like 15201 shows that he was not on close enough terms with the Roman Christians to speak thus pointedly, although as addressed to Ephesus the words would be perfectly legitimate; and "it cannot be" proved "that many of those with whom in the course of his twenty years ministry he had established such relations as are referred to here, had for one cause or another found their way to the great city." Paul had been a prisoner (167) long before his confinement at Caesarea or Rome (2 Co 18 1128), perhaps even at Ephesus, so that this letter need not have been written necessarily from the later imprisonment (Col 410, Philem 23). It was composed in all likelihood at the same time and place as Romans. But while Paul could send only general counsels to the Western church, his connection with the Eastern enabled him to write a very different note full of concrete and affectionate detail.2

This is corroborated by the further fact that Ro 161-20 forms a

This

1 No evidence, least of all any from the epistle to the Romans itself, has been forthcoming to prove the existence of διχοστασίας and σκάνδαλα among the Roman Christians of that age. The only defence of 17-20 as Pauline, is to refer it to some community elsewhere. Dr. Drummond prefers to think of Greek adventurers rather than of Jewish Christian antagonists. At any rate, controversy against false teachers is conspicuously lacking in Romans; and it is hard to see how such an outburst can be reconciled with the general phenomena of the preceding chapters. When the Ephesian destination is accepted, the words are luminous and apt. When the Roman destination is advocated, interpreters are reduced to the strait of conjecturing that Paul was here vaguely warning the Romans against teachers who existed in other churches and might at some future date trouble themselves! implies a most un Pauline airiness. Besides, the whole sense of vers. 17-20 is lost unless the readers know the facts and persons to whom the writer alluded. How else could they mark and turn away from them? The remark that Paul "definitely states that he is only warning them that they may be wise if occasion arise (ICC, "Romans," p. xciv) is quite misleading and emasculates the apostle's language. Had he feared the advent of Judaising emissaries to Rome, he could and would have made this clear to his readers. Instances of similar warning, such as Gal 19 53, Ph 31,-(adduced by Zahn)--are not genuine prophylactic counsels. In the former of these the mischief had already begun, which, as even Zahn admits, was not the case in Rome when the apostle wrote; while the remarkably intimate relations between Paul and Philippi differentiate Philippians entirely from an epistle like Romans.

2 An attempt is sometimes made to evade the force of these arguments by urging, (a) that these people mentioned here may well have come to Rome through their migratory (Ja 413) habits, especially as there was constant communication between Rome and the provinces. But the point is that when Paul wrote Romans, such a migration had not occurred. Whatever evidence we possess tells against it. How incredible that an exodus of Paul's friends and their relatives should have taken place to the capital at that time! What turned twenty-four and more of them suddenly into nomads? Afterwards, it is quite possible that such a migration gradually followed

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