[Sidenote: Ver. 10.] =Greet Apelles, that (τὸν) tested man in Christ;= the Lord knows, not we, the tests he stood.
=Greet those who belong to Aristobulus' people.[268]=
[Sidenote: Ver. 11.] =Greet Herodion, my kinsman.=
=Greet those who belong to Narcissus' people, those who are in the Lord.=
[Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =Greet Tryphæna and Tryphosa,= (almost certainly, by the type of their names, female _slaves_,) =who toil= in the Lord, perhaps as "servants of the Church," so far as earthly service would allow them.
=Greet Persis, the beloved woman,= (with faultless delicacy he does not here say "_my_ beloved," as he had said of the Christian _men_ mentioned just above,) =for she (ἥτις) toiled hard in the Lord;= perhaps at some time when St Paul had watched her in a former and more Eastern home.
[Sidenote: Ver. 13.] =Greet Rufus=--just possibly the Rufus of Mar. xv. 21, brother of Alexander, and son of Cross-carrying Simon; the family was evidently known to St Mark, and we have good cause to think that St Mark wrote primarily for _Roman_ readers--Rufus, =the chosen man in the Lord,= a saint of the _élite_; =and his mother--and mine!= This nameless woman had done a mother's part, somehow and somewhere, to the motherless Missionary, and her lovingkindness stands recorded now
"In either Book of Life, here and above."
[Sidenote: Ver. 14.] =Greet Asyncrĭtus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrŏbas, Hermes, and the brethren who are with them;= dwellers perhaps in some isolated and distant quarter of Rome, a little Church by themselves.
[Sidenote: Ver. 15.] =Greet Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and all the saints who are with them,= in their assembly.
[Sidenote: Ver. 16.] =Greet one another with a sacred kiss;= the Oriental pledge of friendship, and of respect. =All= (read πᾶσαι) =the Churches of Christ greet you;= Corinth, Cenchreæ, "with all the saints in the whole of Achaia" (2 Cor. i. 1).
* * * * *
The roll of names is over, with its music, that subtle characteristic of such recitations of human personalities, and with its moving charm for the heart due almost equally to our glimpses of information about one here and one there and to our total ignorance about others; an ignorance of everything about them but that they were at Rome, and that they were in Christ. We seem, by an effort of imagination, to see, as through a bright cloud, the faces of the company, and to catch the far-off voices; but the dream "dissolves in wrecks"; we do not know them, we do not know their distant world. But we do know HIM in whom they were, and are; and that they have been "with Him, which is far better," for now so long a time of rest and glory. Some no doubt by deaths of terror and wonder, by the fire, by the horrible wild-beasts, "departed to be with Him"; some went, perhaps, with a dismissal as gentle as love and stillness could make it. But however, they were the Lord's; they are with the Lord. And we, in Him,
"Are tending upward too, As fast as time can move."
So we watch this unknown yet well-beloved company, with a sense of fellowship and expectation impossible out of Christ. This page is no mere relic of the past; it is a list of friendships to be made hereafter, and to be possessed for ever, in the endless life where personality indeed shall be eternal, but where also the union of personalities, in Christ, shall be beyond our utmost present thought.
* * * * *
But the Apostle cannot close with these messages of love. He remembers another and anxious need, a serious spiritual peril in the Roman community. He has not even alluded to it before, but it must be handled, however briefly, now:
[Sidenote: Ver. 17.] =But I appeal to you, brethren, to watch the persons who make the divisions and the stumbling-blocks= you know of, =alien to the teaching which you learnt= (there is an emphasis on "_you_," as if to difference the true-hearted converts from these troublers);--=and do turn away from them;= go, and keep, out of their way; wise counsel for a peaceable but effectual resistance. [Sidenote: Ver. 18.] =For such people are not bondservants of our Lord Jesus Christ, but they are bondservants of their own belly.= They talk much of a mystic freedom; and free indeed they are from the accepted dominion of the Redeemer--but all the more they are enslaved to themselves; =and by their (τῆς) pious language and their specious pleas they quite beguile (ἐξαπατῶσι) the hearts of the simple,= the unsuspicious. And they may perhaps have special hopes of beguiling _you_, because of your well-known readiness to submit, with the submission of faith, to sublime truths; a noble character, but calling inevitably for the safeguards of intelligent caution: [Sidenote: Ver. 19.] =For your obedience,= "the obedience of faith," shewn when the Gospel reached you, =was carried= by report =to all men,= and so to these beguilers, who hope now to entice your faith astray. =As regards you, therefore,= looking only at your personal condition, =I rejoice. Only I wish you to be wise as to what is good, but uncontaminated= (by defiling knowledge) =as to what is evil.= He would not have their holy readiness to believe distorted into an unhallowed and falsely tolerant curiosity. He would have their faith not only submissive but spiritually intelligent (σαφούς); then they would be alive to the risks of a counterfeited and illusory "Gospel." They would feel, as with an educated Christian instinct, where decisively to hold back, where to refuse attention to unwholesome teaching. [Sidenote: Ver. 20.] =But the God of our (τῆς) peace will crush Satan down beneath your feet speedily.= This spiritual mischief, writhing itself, like the serpent of Paradise, into your happy precincts, is nothing less than a stratagem of the great Enemy's own; a movement of his mysterious personal antagonism to your Lord, and to you His people. But the Enemy's Conqueror, working in you, will make the struggle short and decisive. Meet the inroad in the name of Him who has made peace for you, and works peace in you, and it will soon be over.[269] =The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be= (or may we not render _is?_) =with you.=