To these criticisms we may add others which are no less damaging. What evidence is there of any serious manipulation of the Epistles in order to fit them for ecclesiastical use? There is, e.g., no trace of the omission of 1 Co 16, which is equally local and personal. And if this was done in the case of Romans, how came the doxology to be re-inserted ? It can have come only from a MS which had the complete ending, and in that case surely 15'"'^, which is in every way suited for public reading, would have been restored at the same time.
Lake himself has a fresh theory. He suggests that the original Epistle consisted of chs. 1-14, with or without the doxology, and without the mention of Rome ; this was sent as a circular letter, dealing with the Judaistic propaganda, to churches St. Paul had never visited, and belongs to the same period as Galatians. The latter Lake regards as the earliest of the Pauline Epistles, written before the Council of Ac 15. Later on St. Paul sent a copy of the letter to Rome, adding ch. 15, and ch. 16, if it really belongs to the Epistle. It is obvious to compare the relation of Ephesians, also regarded as a circular letter, to Colossians, written at the same time and closely resembling it. The theory has the advantage of accounting for the partial identity of the witnesses for the omis- sion of the last two chs. and of the reference to Rome, and it is also attractive to those who, like the present writer, agree that Galatians is the earliest Pauline Epistle, since it accounts for the similarity of style and language between it and Romans, but it still seems to fail at the crucial point. It does not explain the break after 14^, since it is very difficult to believe that the Epistle ever ended there, whether with or without the doxology, which Lake indeed is inclined to regard
* Sandav-Headlam, p. xcvii. t Earlier Epistles, p. 350 ff.
as unauthentic. The close is too abrupt, and 15'"" does not read as an afterthought. I'urther, ch. I, even without the reference to Rome, gives the impression of being addressed to a particular church ; it is more definite in tone than Lphesians.
Tlie present writer is inclined to suggest a fresh theory, based on a hint given by Lake himself. He calls attention to the fact that in the Mura- torian Canon Romans stood last of the Epistles to the Churches, and that it was also last in Tertnl- lian's, Cyprian's, and Origen's collections. We may remark that, being the longest and most im- portant of the Epistles, it might equally well stand first, as in our own canon, or last, as in these, there being no attempt at chronological order in either. There is also good grountl for regarding the do.xology as not genuine. Its length and its position at the close of the Epistle are without parallel in the letters of St. Paul, and the language is to some extent unPauline (see Mollatt, p. 13.1). No doubt this would not be sufficient to justify our rejecting it if there were no other grounds for suspicion. But the fact of a passage being found in difierent places in our MSS always suggests the possibility that it is a later addition (cf. the ' Peri- cope ' in Jn T'^"')) so the internal and the external lines of evidence here confirm one another. As Lake points out, it is a habit of scribes to add doxologies at the close of books or collections of books (cf. the doxology at the end of each book of the Pss. ) ; this doxology may therefore have been inserted to mark the close of the Pauline corpus. We may, however, go further, and find here the key to the whole problem. (1) The Epistle may have originally ended with 15*^ ; the short prayer is quite in keeping with St. Paul's practice. (2) The last page of the MS or roll was lost, leaving only chs. 1-14 (cf. the lost ending of Mk.). (3) To this, standing at the end of a collection of Pauline letters, the doxology was added. (4) The lost conclusion was then copied in from some other source, and ch. 16, a genuine fragment of the Pauline correspondence, was also added as a sort of postscript to the corpus. (5) It was realized that the doxology was out of place, and it was trans- fened to the end, whether regarded by now as an integral part of the Epistle or not. If the process seems complicated, it will be seen that each step, with the exception of (1) and the first part of (4), is in fact represented by some part of our evidence ; the variations are themselves so many that any theory which is to account for them must be some- what complex. It may be added that the theory can in fact be presented in a simpler form if we regard ch. 16 as an integral part of the Epistle. We need only suppose, then, that the last two chs. were lost, the doxology added after ch. 14, and then transferred to the end of ch. 16 when the missing chs. had been replaced.
It is true that this hypothesis ofters no explana- tion of the omission of the words ' in Rome.' But, as we have seen, the attempts of Sandaj'-Headlam and Lake to bring them into connexion with the short recension are not very successful ; it only remains, therefore, to regard this as a primitive textual error, or perhaps as a deliberate omission made in order to 'catholicize' the Epistle.