therefore employed to express assent to the prayers offered by one in the name of others.
(26) For for this cause God gave them up to vile affections^ &c. This verse repeats, in a more definite form, the idea of v. 24. The reasons why Paul refers in the first instance to the sins of uncleanness, in illus- tration and proof of the degradation of the heathen, probably are, 1. That these sins are always intimately connected with idolatry, forming often even a part of the worship rendered to the false gods ; 2. That in turning from the pleasures of holiness, or intercourse with God, men naturally turn to the pleasures of sense ; 3. That these sins are pecu- liarly brutalizing, leading sooner to the destruction of all elevated feel- ing, and especially of all sense of divine things, than almost any other ; 4. That they were the most notorious, prevalent, and openly acknowledged and defended of all the crimes of the heathen. As men degraded God, they also degraded themselves below the level of the beasts, by their devotion to worse than brutal passions.*
(27) This corruption of morals was confined to no one class or sex. Paul first refers to the degradation of females among the heathen, be- cause they are always the last to be affected in the decay of morals ; and, therefore, when they are abandoned, the very fountains of purity are corrupted. It is unnecessary to say more than that virtue has lost its hold on the female sex, in any community, to produce the conviction that it has already reached the lowest point of degradation.
Paul again presents the idea that this deep depravity of the heathen was the consequence and punishment of their abandonment of God. Receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. Error means aberration, a wandering from God, or truth, or virtue. Hence the word is used for apostasy^ Ezek. 33 : 10, and perhaps 2 Pet. 2:18; for deceit, and also wickedness generally^ James 5: 20. Jude 11. Here, from the context, the first meaning appears to be the best. It was wandering from God which brought them to such degradation. " Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed," 1 Sam. 2 : 30. According to another interpretation, the error here intended is the commission of the unnatural crimes just spoken of; and the recompense the natural evils consequent upon them. This also gives a good sense, but not so consistent with the drift of the whole pas- sage.
(28) And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, &c. Another repetition of the senti- ment of vs. 24, 26, that those who abandon God, he also abandons. To have in knowledge is a stronger expression than to know. ' They did not deem it worth while to retain the knowledge of God.' The ground form
* How common the crimes mentioned in this and the following verse were, may be inferred from the declaration of Martial, that no one was so timidly modest as to fear being detected in their commission. See Grotius on v. 27.