grace associated with it was a cleans- ing process. This explains expressions like that in Jer. ix. 26, etc.—ol . . .« λατρεύοντες. The participle has become a noun denoting a class of men, spiritual worshippers. Contrast Heb. viii. 5, xiii. to, and cf. Heb. ix. 14. Most edd. with a number of high authorities read Θεοῦ (see crit. note supr.). This gives a peculiar combination: ‘“‘ who worship by the Spirit of God”. But the occurrence of σαρκί immediately after clearly sug- gests the favourite Pauline antithesis of πνεῦμα and σάρξ. In that case Θεῷ, which is supported by some excellent evidence, would be the natural reading, governed by λατρεύοντες. Aptly parallel is Rom. i. 9, ὁ Θεὸς ᾧ λατρεύω ἐν τῷ πνεύματί pov. Certainly Θεοῦ, as the more difficult reading, must be con- sidered. But as λατρεύω had come to have the technical sense of worshipping God, the word might -be altered at an early date to get rid of a superfluity.— λατρ. In LXX it is used exclusively of the service of God, true or false. But itis distinguished from its synonym λειτουρ- γεῖν as including the worship of the people as well as the ritual of the priests and Levites. See esp. SH. on Rom. i. 9.--καυχώμενοι. One of the Apostle’s most characteristic words. It expresses with great vividness the high level of Christian life at which he is living: “exulting in Christ Jesus’. It belongs to the same triumphant mood which finds utterance so often in this Epistle in χαίρω. This victorious Christian glad- ness ought to sweep them past all earthly formalism and bondage to “ beggarly elements '.---οὐκ ἐν σ. πεποιθ. οὐκ (in- stead of μή) emphasises the actual con- dition of their own Christian life.—év σαρκί. On the phrase see Dsm., N.T. Formel “in Christo,” p. 125, who regards it as following the analogy of the Pauline ἐν Χριστῷ. This is manifestly so in our instance where the expressions stand in juxtaposition. Carnem appellat quicquid est extra Christum (Calvin). Here σάρξ has a double antithesis, both X, Ἰ, and
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