i Der erste Brief des Paulxis an die Korinther, Leipzig, 1905, p. 480.
and vital force. The verse prays for a holy fellowship in the Divine life mediated bj^ the Spirit, and it is a fitting conclusion to an Epistle agitated by strife. This triple benediction is well called by Bengel a ' striking testimony ' to the Holy Trinity. ' It offers,' says J. H. Bernard, ' a devotional parallel to the Baptismal Formula of Mt 28'* ; and the order of its clauses receives its ex- planation in the later words of St. Paul in Eph 2^^. It is the Grace of Christ which leads us towards the Love of God, antl tlie Love of God when realised through tlie Spirit's power, promotes the love of man (1 Jn 4'^), the holy fellowship fostered by the indwelling Spirit.'* The passage is one of the many evidences of how thoroughlj- part of the consciousness of the first Church were those ideas out of wiiich grew the completely developed doc- trine of tiie Trinity. That doctrine was thus not a deposit of Greek speculation on Jewish ground, but was the expression of the innermost life and thought of Christians from the beginning. At least it was of St. Paul, and in this respect he never had to defend his views. His view of the Son and Spirit as having their roots in the eternal life of the Godhead was taken as a matter of course by both Jewish and Gentile Christians. He never had to support the words of 2 Co 13" against the charge of blasphemy. Their relegation of Christ and the Spirit to a substantial equality with God apparently oti'ended no Christian sentiment.
J. Weiss recognizes this fact, and acknowledges that a growth in the estimate ot Christ by the early Christians is hardly to be traced. It started at the full. He says: 'There is hardly a trace of gradual development ; almost at once the scheme of the Christolog3' was completed ; already in the New Testament the principal conceptions of the later dogma are essentially present, though to some extent only in germ ; and there one detects already all the difficulties, which tlie later church had to face. . . . This regarding of God and Christ side by side, which exactly corresponds to the enthronement of the two together, is characteristic of primitive Christian piety. . . . The historian is bound to sa.v that Christianity from its earliest beginnings, side by side with faith in God as Father, has also proved the veneration of Christ to be to it a perfectly natural form of religion. . . . The early Christians . . . believed that Ihey were acting in complete accordance with Christ's mind, when they adored him and sang hymns to him quasi Deo.' t
(6) ' The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you ' (Ro 162"). (7) ' Grace be with you' (Col 4'«). Notice the brevity. Von Soden speaks of the ' Lapidarstil ' of the Epistle. (8) ' The grace of our [some authorities, ' the '] Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen ' [best authorities omit ' Amen '] (Philem -'). (9) ' Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness ' (Eph 6-^--*). St. Paul's benedictions are usually ad- dressed directly to the reader, but here the third l>erson is used, as is appropriate in a circular letter. Wieseler thinks that ' brethren ' refers to the Jewish Christians and 'all' to the Gentiles, but this idea is fanciful. 'Peace' here is not simply a salutation of well-wishing, but has the Christian connotation of tliat peace which comes from reconciliation with God. Both peace and love go with faith, which is always presupposed in making the Christian. The ' love ' is not Divine love but brotherly love, which shows itself where faith is, and through which faith works (Gal 5^). The primal cause and fountain is God the Father, the mediate and secondary is Jesus. This is always the order with St. Paul, and must be in Christi- anity if it is a monotheistic religion. ' Grace' : it is the grace, besides which there is no other — the loving favour of our God. J The ' incorruptness '
* EGT, '2 Cor.,' 1903, p. 119.
t Christ: The Begin7iings of Dogma, Eng. tr., 1911, pp. 12, 47, 48.
{ Sse excursus on X"P'f ^nd x^P'^oiJi' in J. A. Bobinson, Ephesians, 1903, pp. 221-22S.
148
be:n"edictio:n"
BERCEA
{dipOapcrla) does not at all mean ' sincerity ' as in AV, but imperishableness (cf. Ro 2^, 1 Co 15'*-- ^ etc, 2 Ti 1^"), and refers to the quality of their love. They have taken hold already of that end- less and unbroken life in which love has triumphed over death and dissolution.* The true Christian's love is like God's, eternal, and it is directed to- wards, not simply God tiie Father (that is a matter of course), but towards Jesus, who with the Father is the object of his faith, hope and love, that is, of his worship. (10) ' The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit ' (some MSS, but not the best, 'with you all') (Ph 4-^). The chrono- logical order of the rest of the Epistles is not so certain. We follow that of Zahn. (11) ' Peace be unto you all that are in Christ '(IP o''^). * Peace' : the simple Hebrew salutation proper in St. Peter's autograph. (12) 'Grace be with you' (1 Ti 6-^). The same as in Col. ; some MSS read 'with thee.' The plural in itself is not sufficient to show that the Epistle was intended for the Church as a whole. * The study of papyrus letters,' says J. H. Moulton, t 'will show that singular and plural alternated in the same document with apparently no distinction of meaning.' (13) 'The Lord be M'ith thy spirit. Grace be with you ' (2 Ti 4^). ' Lord ' here means Christ, as generally in the Epistles. See Grimm- Thayer with references. Close personal associa- tion between Jesus and Timothy is prayed for. (14) ' Grace be with you all ' (Tit 3'S), (15) ' Grace be with you all. Amen' (He IS'^'). (16) 'Peace unto thee' (3 Jn ^^). This is a Jewish greeting; cf. Jn 6-3 19-". (17) ' The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with the saints' (Rev 22'''). On the true reading see textual note in EGT smd the references there given. Moflatt thinks this sentence was used at the close of the reading in worship, and from that custom slid into the text here. ' Apoca- lypses were sometimes cast in epistolary form, used in worship, and circulated by means of public reading.'^: It will be seen from the above that in apostolic times there was no stereotyped form of benediction, just as there was not either then or later any stereotyped form of public wor- ship.