kinsmen. I Tertius, who write the epistle, salute you in
the Lord. Gaius my host, and of the whole church, saluteth you.
Erastus the treasurer of the city saluteth you, and Quartus the brother.

Most of these persons are very probably otherwise known to us. Leaving
aside the well-known Timothy, we find a Lucius of Cyrene among the
prophets in Acts xiii. 1[1]; a Jason at Thessalonica, as St. Paul's
host, in Acts xvii. 5 ff; a Sopater (or Sosipater) of Beroea, Acts xx.
4. Gaius was one of the few whom St. Paul had baptized at Corinth (1
Cor. i. 14), and the Christian church, it appears, met at his house.
Erastus, the treasurer of Corinth, is probably the man mentioned in 2
Tim. iv. 20.

[1] And closely associated with St. Paul.

{201}

DIVISION VI. Sec. 6. CHAPTER XVI. 25-27.

_Final Doxology._

Now to him that is able to stablish you according to my gospel and the
preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery
which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now is
manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the
commandment of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations unto
obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to
whom[1] be the glory for ever. Amen.

There is no idea in this doxology with which this epistle has not made
us familiar in substance. We have been led to think of the gospel, now
proclaimed and entrusted to St. Paul, as the disclosure of a divine
purpose long working secretly: we have been bidden to adore the
unfathomable resourcefulness of the wisdom of God: we have been
constantly referred to the {202} testimony borne by law and prophets to
the gospels: we have been made familiar with the object of the
evangelical preaching, as being to secure 'the obedience of faith among
all the nations.' And a particular phrase in an epistle written about
the same time[2]--'We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the
wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds
unto our glory, which ... unto us God revealed by his Spirit,'--is
strikingly parallel to the beginning of the doxology. At the same time
the elaborate richness of the style, as well as many of the ideas,
reminds us irresistibly of the Epistle to the Ephesians[3]. This,
coupled with the fact that there is considerable authority for placing
the doxology at the end of chap. xiv, has led some scholars to adopt
the id