19—23.
7ο7
σου προσκόπτει ἢ σκανδαλίζεται ἢ ἀσθενεῖ.ὶ 22. σὺ πίστιν Σ Exes;
κατὰ σεαυτὸν ἔχε ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ: µακάριος ὁ μὴ κρίνων ἑαυτὸν
ἐν ᾧ ° δοκιμάζει.
23. 6 δὲ διακρινόµενος, ἐὰν φάγῃ, κατακέκριται, ο: Cor. Xvi.
ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως" way δὲ ὃ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως, ἁμαρτία éoriv.®
1 η σκανδαλιζεται η ασθενει om. NAC, Syr., Copt., Aeth.; ins. ΝΒΡΕΙ.Ρ, vulg., Sah. S. and H. call this a very clear instance of a Western reading in B, and therefore justify the omission with W. and H. and Tischdf.; but Weiss, who thinks η ασθενει is too difficult to be explained as a gloss, retains the words.
3 After πιστιν ins. ny ABC; so most edd., omitting the mark of interrogation
after εχεις.
For σαυτον read σεαυτον with SABCDKLP, etc.
5 After αµαρτια εστιν the great doxology of chap. xvi. 25-27 is inserted by ALP and most other MSS., though some, including AP, have it in both places; om, here
NBCDI, vulg., Syr.
and he who has this felicity should ask no more. In particular, he should not run the risk of injuring a brother’s.con- science, merely for the sake of exercising in a special way the spiritual freedom which he has the happiness to possess —whether he exercises it in that way or not.
Ver. 23. 6 δὲ διακρινόµενος ἐὰν φάγῃ κατακέκριται: such, on the other hand, is the unhappy situation of the weak—a new motive for charity. For διακριν. Cha αν. 269, α5.1. 6 Marke κ. ο... Lhe weak Christian cannot be clear in his own mind that it is permissible to do as the strong does; it may be, he thinks one moment, and the next, it may not be; and if he follows the strong and eats in this state of mind, κατακέκριται he is condemned, The condemnation is ab- solute: it is not only that his own con- science pronounces clearly against him after the act, but that such action incurs the condemnation of God. It is in- consistent with that conscientiousness through which alone man can be trained in goodness ; the moral life would become chaotic and irredeemable if conscience were always to be treated so. ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως, sc., ἔφαγεν. The man is condemned because he did not eat ἐκ πίστεως: and this is generalised in the last clause wav δὲ ὃ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως ἁμαρτία ἐστίν. All that is not of faith is sin; and therefore this eating, as not of faith, is sin. It is impossible to give rlorts here a narrower sense than Christianity : see ver. 1. Everything a Christian man does that cannot justify itself to him on the ground of his relation to Christ is sin. It is too indefinite to render omne guod non est ex fide as Thomas Aquinas does by omne quod est contra consci- entiam: it would need to be contra
Christianam conscientiam. All a man cannot do remembering that he is Christ’s —all he cannot do with the judgment- seat (ver. το) and the Cross (ver. 15) and all their restraints and _ inspirations present to his mind—is sin. Of course this is addressed to Christians, and there is no rule in it for judging the character or conduct of those who do not know Christ. To argue from it that works done before justification are sin, or that the virtues of the heathen are glittering vices, is to misapply it altogether.
CHAPTER XV.—Vv. 1-13. The four- teenth chapter has a certain completeness in itself, and we can understand that if the Epistle to the Romans was sent as a circular letter to different churches, some copies of it might have ended with xiv, 23: to which the doxology, xvi. 25-27, might be loosely appended, as it is in A. L. and many other MSS. But it is manifestly the same subject which is continued in xv. 1-13. The Apostle still treats of the relations of the weak and the strong, though with a less precise reference to the problems of the Roman Church at the time than in chap. xiv. His argument widens into a plea for patience and forbearance (enforced by the example of Christ) and for the union of all Christians, Jew and Gentile, in common praise. It seems natural to in- fer from this that the distinction between weak and strong had some relation to that between Jew and Gentile; the pre- judices and scruples of the weak were probably of Jewish origin,