In the light of these considerations we may examine two questions which have bulked large in discussions of the Epistle.
(a) Was St. Paul writing to Jews or to Gentiles ? — Certain passages imply clearly that he has Gentiles in mind; e.g. V''-, 'Among all the nations [i.e. Gentiles, I6veaiv'\ . . . among whom are ye also ' ; v.", 'That I might have some fruit in you also, even as in the rest of the Gentiles ' ; 11", ' I speak to you that are Gentiles.' But the curious thing is that there are other sections in which the writer seems to associate his readers no less de- cisively with himself as fellow- Jews — 4', 'Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh ' ; T", ' We have been discharged from the law'; 9'", 'Our father Isaac' Further, the general argument of the Epistle presupposes acquaintance with Jewish Scriptures and ways of thought, and is addressed to Jewish as much as to Gentile Christians. In Galatians, on the contrary, St. Paul addresses his readers as those who have not been under the Law, though in 1 Co 10', written to a Gentile church, he speaks of ' our fathers.' The obvious conclu.sion is that in Romans he has both Jews and Gentiles in mind, and the combination is made easier when we remember that many of the latter approached Christianity by way of the Synagogue, while some would even have been proselytes. A. Robertson, {HDB iv. 298'') suggests that these predominated and ' gave the tone to the community,' sc. of the Christian Church in Rome. If, however, what has been said above holds good, we shall be cautious about drawing from the Epistle conclusions .as to the composition of the Roman Church. Baur, followed by Mangold and others, argues that it was predominantly Jewish and a stronghold of Judaistic Christianity. In this, however, he has not been generally followed, and a priori con- siderations confirm what we gather from our sources as to the origin of the Roman Church, leading us to suppose that it contained both elements. The Epistle implies that the relation between Jew and tJentile Christians would be likely to arise in that church, but it does not
* Note, however, that it is not ' a circuiar letter * (see § 2 (6)) ; the references to Rome in both ch. 1 and ch. 15 are quite definite so far as they go.
412 KOMAXS, EPISTLE TO THE
ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE
suggest that it was a burning question, as in Giilatia, or that .hulaistic teaching had already obtained a strong footing there.
(6) What teachiiifi is St. Paul combating in chs. 14, 15 ? — In otlicr words, who are ' the weak ' and ' tlie strong'? In these chs. St. Paul discusses questions as to food and the observance of days. ' One man hatli faith to eat all things : but he that is weak eatcth herbs' (14-) ; 'One man esteemeth one dav above another: another esteemeth every day alike ' (v.") ; ' It is good not to eat tle.sh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth ' (v.-') ; ' We that are strong ought to hear the infirmities of the weak' (15'). Here again it has been assumed that the reference is to dehnite parties or sects existing in Rome, and the attempt has been made to identify them on thi.s basis. It is suggested that tlie ascetics were Judaizers (Origen, etc.), but the obvious difficulty arises that the reference is not to scruples about eating things otiered to idols as at Corinth,* but to abstinence from meat and wine altogether, which was in no way characteristic of the Jiarty of the circtimcision. More probable is the view that Essene t practices are referred to (Liddon, Light- foot, Gitlord), or vegetarian ascetics of the type mentioned by Seneca ; Baur suggests Ebionites, who seem, however, to belong to a later period. Any of these ideas may have been in St. Paul's mind, but the point is that it is by no means certain that he was referring to any particular sect in Rome : he mentions abstinence from meat as ' a typical instance of excessive scrupulousness ' (Sanday-Headlam, p. 402). We conclude that the whole passage is probably due not to anything which St. Paul has heard of as going on in Rome, but to tendencies which he has found at work in the churches he knows, and particularly in Corinth, where he is perhaps writing. J The passage is not an answer to a question or a report, but he knows that errors which have arisen in the Church at large are sure to be represented sooner or later in Rome.
In the light of these considerations we may also answer the question as to
(c) How far Romans is a true letter. — Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, p. 225), arguing on the basis of the recently discovered papyri and the light thrown by them on the language and methods of NT writers, has gone very far in the denial of any literary character to the Epistles ; § ' The letters of Paul are not literary ; they are real letters, not epistles ; they were written by Paul not for the public and posterity, but for the persons to whom they are addressed. Almost all the mistakes that have ever been made in the study of St. Paul's life and work have arisen from neglect of the fact that his writings are non-literary and letter-like in character.' He iidmits that Romans is at first .sight least like a letter, but he still persists in including it in his category : ' Here also, therefore, if we would understand its true significance, we must banish all thought of things literary' (p. 231). No doubt the warning is valu- able against exaggerations ; no one of the Epistles, not even Romans, is a theological treatise in which the epistolary form is adopted as a mere literary device ; in their interpretation we must always allow for the personal factor and also for the special circumstances in which they were produced.