ture) The Scripture, not God, is said to have concluded all under sin ; although a * concluding' of that sort is elsewhere ascribed to God, Kom. xi. 32. Moreover, it is worthy of notice, that he says, the Scripture, not the law. Scripture began to be written, not at the time when the promise was made, but at the time wrhen the law was given ; for God stands to His promises even without writing : but it was necessary, that the perfidy [faithlessness to God's commands] of the sinner should be re buked by the written letter. Furthermore, in the subsequent clause also, that, etc., Paul touches upon something, wrhich goes beyond the sphere of the law, not beyond that of Scripture.1— ra favra, all) Not only all men, but also all the things, which they are and have in their possession.
23. Trtv vrfffriv, the faith of Jesus Christ) So the following verses. — sppovpovfttQa GvyKw^ticptvoi, we were kept shut up) These two words elegantly disjoin the law and faith. The being ' kept' in custody is the consequence of the shutting up. Wisd. xvii. 16 : s(ppovpe?ro s/c rqv dffidripov sipxrrjV xaraxXiitidstg, he was kept shut up in a prison without iron bars. — ffwyxsxteiff/Asvoi tig) So the LXX., tfyyxXg/g/v s/s Qdvarov, Ps. Ixxviii. (Ixxvii.) 50, xxxi. 9 ; Amos i. 6, 9. But it is an abbreviated phrase : shut up, and therefore reserved and forced to the faith, etc. \_so that there remained to us no refuge but faith. — V. g.] Polybius says, sis avrdc GvvtxXziffQrj rag sv ibioig o//tsraig nai (pi'koig £AT/<5a£, a he was shut up to those very hopes which were among [which depended on] his own domestics and friends ;" and so it often occurs in the same writer. — See Raphelius. Irenaeus has, the sons of God are shut up to the belief of His coming : 1. iii. c. 25.
24. naidaycd'ybs, a schoolmaster) who has kept us under disci pline, lest we should slip from his hands. — ^cr/o/, infants [_' chil dren'], need such discipline, iv. 3. There is again a personifica tion of the law.
26. T/o/) Sons, emancipated, the keeper being removed.
27. Xpiffrbv evdbffaoOt, ye have put on Christ) Christ is to you the toga virilis.2 You are no longer estimated by what you were, you are all alike in Christ and of Christ ; see the follow-
1 And for this reason also, Y, ypxtpvj is here said, not o vopog. — ED.
2 Among the Romans, when a youth arrived at manhood, he assumed the dress of a full-grown man, which was called toga virilis. — TJB.