Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/753

EPISTLE.] ROMANS 729 in such a case they must have been born Jews is neverthe- less a rash one. Not the Jews only, who possess the written law, but the whole of pre-Christian mankind are in Paul's conception ideally under the law, under its bondage and curse. For all alike redemption is a redemp- tion from the law's penalty and dominion. Hence Paul can say even to born Gentiles, lOavarcJjOrjTe TM vo/tw. But according to Baur and Mangold the decisive evidence for the Jewish Christian character of the Roman Christians is the whole substance of the present epistle. All its arguments have for their aim to establish and vindicate the free gospel of Paul as against the objections of the Judaizers. They therefore conclude that it can have been designed only for Judaistically-disposed readers whom Paul seeks by these representations to win for his gospel. This line of argument is at bottom sound, and Baur has rendered a real service by showing that the epistle is by no means an outline of the Pauline dogmatic as a whole, but is simply an elucidation of such points in it as were offensive to the Judaically-minded. A brief review of its contents will make this clear. The epistle falls into two unequal parts, a theoretical (i.-xi.) and a hortatory (xii.-xvi.). The latter is almost of the nature of a mere appendix. The proper kernel of the epistle, that for the sake of which it came to be written, is found in the theoretical exposition of the first eleven chap- ters. These again fall into two sections, chaps, i.- v. laying the positive foundations of the Pauline gospel as freed from the law, and chaps, vi.-xi. containing the vindication of that gospel against objectors. Having shown directly in chaps, i.-v. that we can attain righteousness and so salvation not along the path of legal observance but only along the path of faith, that is to say, believing apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, he goes on in chap. vi. to refute point by point the positions of the Judaizers. He shows that in the freedom from the law the freedom to sin is by no means involved ; on the contrary, it is with the believer an inherent necessity that he should live a new life in his fellowship with Christ (chap, vi.), and precisely by that fellowship is he for the first time truly enabled so to live (chap. viii.). The law cannot give him this power ; it only commands, and does not at the same time give strength to obey. Hence, although good in itself, it has for men only a pernicious effect, inasmuch as by its injunctions sinful desire is excited (chap. vii.). A special objection of the Judaizers against the activity of Paul was also this, that he should have turned to the heathen while still the greater part of Israel remained unconverted. His answer to this is contained in chaps, ix.-xi. On the one hand, it is Israel's own fault to have rejected its salvation ; on the other hand, such has been God's will. Israel is at present rejected in order that the heathen may step into the gap thus made. Yet the rejection of Israel is only for a time. By the ad- mission of the heathen Israel is to be stirred to jealousy and thus at last to be also converted. Precisely in such intricate paths as these is the wonderful depth of the divine wisdom made manifest. Thus all the theoretical disquisitions of the epistle are in reality neither more nor less than a vindication and a polemic against the Jewish Christian point of view. But are we to conclude from this that the readers were them- selves Jewish Christians 1 Such an inference has against it the fact that Paul, both at the beginning and at the close of his epistle, clearly designates them as Gentile Christians. In i. 5, 6, and i. 13-15, as well as in xv. 15, 16, he appeals to his office as apostle of the Gentiles as justifying him in now writing to the church at Home and in proposing further labours there. In xi. 13, also, the readers are spoken to as of Gentile birth. The arguments by which Baur and Mangold seek to weaken the force of this passage are very far-fetched. If, then, the Roman Christians were Gentiles by blood, the theory of Beyschlag, that they were Gentile Christians in origin but Jewish Christians by conviction, appears to have most to commend it in view of the contents of the epistle. If the epistle stopped short at the end of chap, xiii., we should indeed be compelled to adopt that theory. But the remaining chapters (xiv., xv.) suggest much rather that the majority were by conviction also Gentile Christians and emancipated from the law. For in the chapters specified Paul deals with a division that has arisen within the community. One section still remained in the bonds of the strictest legal scrupulosity : they regarded a vegetable diet (Aa^ava) as alone permissible, rejecting the use of animal food (xiv. 2), and they also observed certain days (xiv. 5), by which, there can be no doubt, the Jewish sabbaths and festivals must be under- stood. In fact they were legal Jewish Christians, but Jewish Christians who in their asceticism went beyond the precepts of Mosaism, which indeed prohibits the use of the flesh of unclean animals, but not animal food in general. Over against these Jewish Christian ascetics, called by Paul " the weak in the faith," stood another section, whom he describes as " the strong." They rejected these legal observances, taking their stand on the gospel as freed from the law. But the latter must have been in the majority, for they are exhorted by the apostle to have a tender regard for the weakness of their brethren, and not by any harsh terrorism to force them into any courses which might offend their consciences. Such an exhortation, as Weizsacker remarks, would have no meaning if the representatives of the freer view were not in the majority. The majority, then, of the church at Rome was Gentile Christian not only by origin but by conviction. Here two problems arise, neither of which received sufficient attention from critics before Baur : (1) How are we to explain the origin, outside the limits of Paul's activity, of a Christian community thus free from the fetters of the law 1 and (2) How came it about that Paul should have addressed to such a community a letter like this, adapted, as it appears to be, for Jewishly-inclined readers ? As regards the first question, in the absence of adequate materials for a conclusive solution, our answer can only be conjectural. The problem is a difficult one, because, following Gal. ii., we must start with the assump- tion that the communities founded under the more direct influence of the original apostles did not reject the Jewish law. In seeking, then, to account for the existence of a community which had so done, we must carry with us the fact that within the wide limits of the Jewish Dispersion very various degrees of strictness in observance of the law were to be found. Even those who were in the truest sense members of the communities of the Dis- persion can hardly have observed the law as strictly as did the Pharisees in Palestine. But the demands made on those " God-fearing " Gentiles who were wont to attach themselves, more or less ' closely, to the Jewish communi- ties must of course have been still more accommodating. If only they accepted the monotheistic religion and its worship without the use of images, the ceremonial pre- cepts laid upon them were reduced to a bare minimum, the observance of Sabbaths, and also of some laws regard- ing meat. Now the community at Rome seems to have chiefly arisen out of the circles of such " God-fearing " Gentiles. As Paul himself gained access for the preach- ing of the gospel, at Thessalonica, for example, principally among the " God-fearing Greeks " (Acts xvii. 4), so also in Rome do these seem to have been the main element in the church. On this assumption we can understand how XX. 92