245

VIII. 1-11 Sec. 7 Life in the Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
12-17 Sec. 8 The life of sonship . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
18-30 Sec. 9 The hope of the creation . . . . . . . . . . . 298
31-39 Sec. 10 Christian assurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

{1}

THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS

_Introduction._

i.

St. Paul's great Epistle to the Romans was written, as may be quite
confidently asserted, from Corinth, during the second visit to Greece
recorded in the Acts[1], i.e. in the beginning of the year commonly
reckoned 58, but perhaps more correctly 56 A.D.--the year following the
writing of the Epistles to the Corinthians. The reasons for this
confident statement, and indeed for all that needs to be said about the
circumstances under which St. Paul wrote and the conditions of
Christianity at Rome, become apparent chiefly in connexion with the
later parts of the epistle which are not included in this volume. They
{2} shall therefore be omitted here, and we will content ourselves for
the moment with a very brief statement of the results in which scholars
are now finding, as it would seem, final agreement.

The existence of Christians at Rome was due not to any apostolic
founding, for no apostle appears yet to have visited Rome, but to the
sort of 'quiet and fortuitous filtration[2]' of Christians from various
parts of the empire to its great centre which must naturally have taken
place; for from all quarters there was a tendency to Rome. 'Some from
Palestine, some from Corinth, some from Ephesus and other parts of
Proconsular Asia, possibly some from Tarsus, and more from the Syrian
Antioch, there was in the first instance, as we may believe, nothing
concerted in their going; but when once they arrived in the metropolis,
the freemasonry common among Christians would soon make them known to
each other, and they would form, not exactly an organized Church'--that
may well have been the result of the later presence of St. Paul and St.
Peter--'but such a fortuitous assemblage of Christians as was {3} only
waiting for the advent of an apostle to constitute one[3].' Among this
assemblage of Christians it appears evident from St. Paul's language[4]
that there must have been Jews as well as Gentiles; but the dominant
character of the church was Gentile[5]. It is perhaps only putting
this in another way to say that there would have been among the Roman
Christians e