Ver. 14. There is, indeed, when we look closely, no such thing as a man absolutely without the knowledge of God’s will, and therefore such a judg- ment as the Apostle has described is legitimate. Gentiles, ‘‘such as have not law ”’ in any special shape, when they do by nature “' (πε things of the law ’—.e., the things required by the law given to Israel, the only one known to the Apostle —are in spite of not having law (as is the supposition here) a law to them- selves. ἔθνη is not “the Gentiles,” but ‘*Gentiles as such’’—persons whe can be characterised as ‘without law”. The supposition made in τὰ μὴ νόµον ἔχοντα is that of the Jews; and the Apostle’s argument is designed to show that though formally, it is not sub- stantially true.
Ver. 15. οἵτινες ἐνδείκνυνται: the relative is qualitative: ‘inasmuch as
598
τῶν λογισμῶν κατηγορούντων ἢ καὶ ἀπολογουμένων,) 16. ἐν ἡμέρᾳ “Ch. xvi 25; Ste} κρινεῖ 6 Θεὸς τὰ κρυπτὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν " µου,
Tim.ii.8, RN je {1 διὰ "Iyootd Χριστοῦ.
lev ηµερᾳ οτε ΝΡΑΚΙ,, vulg., Syr. εν ῃ ηµερᾳ B (this is one of the cases in which W. and H. suppose that B unsupported has preserved the true reading, though they give a place in their margin both to εν ημερᾳ οτε and to εν ηµερᾳ ῃ which is found in A and the Memph. (Egyptian) version). é
they shew”. τὸ ἔργον τοῦ νόµου is the work which the law prescribes, collec- tively. ‘* Written on their hearts,” when contrasted with the law written on the tables of stone, is equal to ‘‘ unwritten ”’ ; tHe Apostle refers to what the Greeks called ἄγραφος vépos. To the Greeks, however, this was something greater and more sacred than any statute, or civil constitution ; to the Apostle it was less than the great revelation of God’s will, which had been made and inter- preted to Israel, but nevertheless a true moral authority. There is a triple proof that Gentiles, who are regarded as not having law, are a law to themselves. (1) The appeal to their conduct: as interpreted by the Apostle, their conduct evinces, at least in some, the possession of a law written on the heart; (2) the action of conscience: it joins its testi- mony, though it be only an inward one, to the outward testimony borne by their conduct; and (3) their thoughts. Their thoughts bear witness to the existence of a law in them, inasmuch as in their mutual intercourse (μεταξὺ ἀλλήλων) these thoughts are busy bringing accusa- tions, or in rarer cases (ἢ καί) putting forward defences, 1.ε., in any case, exer- cising moral functions which imply the recognition ofa law. This seems to me the only simple and natural explanation of arather perplexed phrase. We need not ask for what Paul does not give, the object to κατηγορούντων or ἄπολο- γουµένων: it may be any person, act or situation, which calls into exercise that power of moral judgment which shows that the Gentiles, though without the ανν of Moses, are not in a condition which makes it impossible to judge them according to their works. The con- struction in ix. 1 suggests that the ovv views the witness of conscience, reflect- ing on conduct, as something added to the first instinctive consciousness of the nature of an action. συνείδησις does not occur in the Gospels except in John vill. 9; twice only in Acts, xxiii. 1, xxiv. 16, both times in speeches of St. Paul; twenty times in the Pauline epistles. It
occurs in the O.T. only in Ecc. x. 20 (curse not the King, ἐν συνειδήσει σον =ne in cogitatione quidem tua): the ordinary sense is found, for the first time in Biblical Greek, in Sap. xvii. 11. It is a quasi-philosophical word, much used by the Stoics, and belonging rather to the Greek than the Hebrew inheritance of Paul.