The life and work of St. Paul

FRUITS or FAITH. 503
restraint, the steady lore of God, the steady loathing of evil, the deliberate
victory of virtue over vice. It is clear that the dangers which he most
apprehended among the Roman Christians were those exacerbations which
spring from an unloving and over-bearing self-confidence ; but he gives
a general form to all his precepts, and the chapter stands unrivalled as a
spontaneous sketch of the fairest graces
life. 1
which can adorn the Christian
The first part of the thirteenth chapter has a more obviously special bear-
ing. It is occupied by a very earnest exhortation to obedience towards the
civil power, based on the repeated statements that it is ordained of God ;
that
its aim is the necessary suppression of evil; that it was not, under ordinary
and that it should be
circumstances, any source of terror to a blameless life ;
obeyed and respected, not of unwilling compulsion, but as a matter of right
and conscience. 8 This was, indeed, the reason why they paid taxes, 3 and why
the payment of them should be regarded as a duty to God.4
, The warmth with which St. Paul speaks thus of the functions of civil
governors may, at first sight, seem surprising, when we remember that a
Helius was in the Praefecture, a Tigellinus in the Praetorium, a Gessius Floras
in the provinces, and a Nero on the throne. On the other hand, it must be
borne in mind that the Neronian persecution had not yet broken out ; and that
the iniquities of individual emperors and individual governors, while it had
free rein in every question which affected their greed, their ambition, or their
lust, had not as yet by any means destroyed the magnificent ideal of Roman
Law. If there were bad rulers, there were also good ones. A Cicero as well
1 xii. 1 2L As regards special expressions in this chapter, we may notice ver. 9,
es "loathing;" icoAAw/wvoi, "bridal intimacy with. Ver. 10, rjj tAo5eAi*
"
, love your brethren in the faith as though they were brethren in blood ;
i, Vulg. invicem praevenientee," " anticipating one another, and going before
one another as guides in giving honour " (ver. 11). The evidence between the
" readings,
Koipcp, serving the opportunity," and Kvpi'y, the Lord," is very nicely balanced, but
probably rose from the abbreviation Kfxa. The other clause is, "In zealous work not
"
slothful ; boiling in spirit (cf. the NU3, " a
"
prophet ). In
"
ver. 13, pvtiax, memories,"
can hardly be the true reading. In ver. 14, the
"
IWKOVTJ, pursuing hospitality," may
have suggested the thought of
"
SUOKOVTO.S, "persecutors; ver. 16, TOI? ron-eivms ovvairayoju.eyot
is either " modestissimorum exempla sectantes" (Grot.), "letting the lowly lead you
with them by the hand" (masc.), or "humilibus rebus
pbsecundantes," "going along
with lowly things" (neut.). Ver. 19, Sore TOWOV if opyjj, either (1) "Give place for the
divine wrath to work" (Chrys., Aug., &c.) ; or (2), "Give room to your own anger"
i.e., defer its outbreak this, however, would be a Latinism, "irae spatium dare (cf.
Virg. jEn.
iy. 433); or (3) "Give place to, yield before, the wrath of your enemy."
The first is right. Ver. 20, "coals of fire " (Prov. xxv. 21, 22) to melt him to penitence
and beneficent shame. The chapter is full of beautiful trilogies of expression.
3
xiii. 5, ocayKD(7, 8, Aug.) in-ordero-eotf. (D, E, F, G, Vulg., Luther), "Yield to
necessity." "Pray for the established Government," said Rabbi Chaneena, " for without
it men would eat one another " (AbMda Za.ro., f. 4, 1). Josephus calls Judas the
Gaulonite " the author of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy," who have " an inviolable
attachment to liberty," and say that God is to be the only Ruler (Antt. xxiii. 1, 6).
3
xiii. 6, reXetrt is the indicative ; not, as in the A.V., an imperative (Matt. xvii. 21).
In ver. 4 the ^axatpa refers to the jus gladii. A provincial governor on starting was
presented with a dagger by the Emperor. Trajan, in giving it, used the words Pro
me ; si merear, in me."
xiii. 17.