there is nothing so very strange in this application of the term ἅγιος if we give the word the broad sense which is its proper sense, and which it has indeed in the very same context in the phrase ἐμοὶ τῷ ἐλαχιστοτέρῳ πάντων ἁγίων (ili. 8).
In the fourth place serious objection is taken to the Pauline authorship on the ground of what is held to be the un-Pauline type of thought which appears again and again in the Epistle. It is said, e.g., that the question of the inclusion of Few and Gentile in one Church is presented in a different light from that in which it is seen in other Pauline Epistles. Only here, it is said, is it put before us as the great object or, at least, a primary object of Christ’s work and of the Divine predestination (ii. 13-18, 19-22, iii, 5, etc., iv. 7-16); and what is more, it is introduced simply as a matter of revelation and not as a thing over which there had been sharp controversy. It is certainly a remarkable place that is given in this Epistle to the thought of the unity of the Church and the perfect equality of Jew and Gentile within it. But there is no contradiction between this way of looking at the inclusion of the Gentiles and that which prevails in the other Epistles. The statement is in harmony with the general disposition of the Epistle, which is to carry all things back to the eternal will and purpose of God. The controversy, moreover, was ended, and Paul had no occasion to revive the memory of it in the message needed by those whom he addresses here.
The view , again, which is given of the Law in this Epistle is thought to be singular. The Law is not exhibited, it is said, as having any real moral value or religious use, but as having simply a typical significance and as the cause of enmity and separation be- tween Jew and Gentile. And Circumcision itself, it is added, is presented as a merely formal thing, and contemptuous words are spoken of it (ἡ λεγομένη περιτομή, ii. 11) which would come strangely from Paul, himself a circumcised Jew and one who elsewhere attaches religious value to circumcision and says good things of it, But where he had for his special subject the oneness of Jew and Gentile as effected by Christ and as seen in the Church, it was matter of course that he should speak particularly of the dividing effect of the Law as it was witnessed in the pre-Christian times. And he does not speak elsewhere of the Law only in one way. He has very different things to say of it according to circumstances; and he presents it in aspects which seem even contradictory, speaking of it, as he does, now as holy (Rom. vii. 9) and again as incompetent (Rom, viii. 3); now as a παιδαγωγὸς εἰς Χριστόν (Gal. iii. 25) and again as Carrying a curse (κατάρα) and condemnation with it (Gal.