pensation of the Gospel, and that dispen- sation as fulfilling itself in the whole period from the first advent of Christ to the second. In this last respect the present passage differs from that in Gal. iv. 4. In the latter “the fulness of the time” appears to refer definitely to the mission of Christ into the world and His work there. Here the context (especially the idea expressed by the next clause) extends the reference to the final com- pletion of the work—and the close of the dispensation at the Second Coming.— ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι: {ο sum up. Or, having regard to the Middle Voice, “τὸ sum up for Himself’. The sentence thus introduced is one of the select class of passages which refer to the cosmical relations of Christ’s Person or Work. It is one of great doctrinal importance, Its exact import, however, is very differently understood by different interpreters. Every word in it requires attention. There is fixst the question of its precise relation to the paragraph of which it forms part. The inf. is taken by most (Mey., Ell., etc.) to be the epexegetic inf., conveying something complementary to, or explanatory of, the preceding state- ment, and so = ‘namely (or to wit), tosum up". It is that inf., however, in the particular aspect of consequence or con- templated result = "80 as to sum up”’ (so Light.; cf. Win.-Moult., pp. 399; 400). But with what part of the paragraph is this complementary sentence immediately connected? The doctrinal significance of the sentence depends to a considerable extent on the answer to the question, and the answer takes different forms. Some understand the thing which is explained or complemented to be the whole. idea contained in the statement from yv
onwards, ‘at once the content of the μυστήριον, the object of the εὐδοκία, and the object reserved for the olx." Abb.). Others limit it to the p τον Bez., Harl., ΚΙ.) or to the πρ το (Flatt, Hofm.). Others understand it to refer to the εὐδοκίαν in particular, the fv... καιρῶν clause being regarded as a parenthesis (Alf., Haupt); and others regard it as unfolding the meaning of the immediately preceding clause—the οἰκονομίαν τ. π. τ. κ. (Mey., etc.). The last seems to be the simplest view, the others involving more or less remoteness of the explanatory sentence from the sen- tence to be explained. So the point would be that the @conomy, the new order of things which God in the purpose of His grace had in view for the fulness of the seasons, was one which had for
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