to take so much interest in the Temple-worship or be so concerned’ about its observance as this Epistle requires; but, as Principal Pair- bairn long ago pointed out, colonists idealise the institutions of their mother-country more than its resident population, and it is an ideal- ised, not an actual worship that is here described. It is also to be considered that it was in Rome both in the time of Paul and in the second century that in many subtle ways Judaism sought to assert itself and to absorb or expunge Christianity. The fact too that it is in Rome we find the first traces of the use of the Epistle (by Clement) has some weight.
Zahn still further narrows the destination and identifies the re- cipients of the letter as a small circle of Christians in a large city, a house-church alongside of which there was another or several other such churches in the same city. They have an assembly of their own (x. 25), perhaps also rulers of their own (xiii. 17), although the rulers of the whole Church of the city are also their rulers, and there- fore greetings are sent to all the rulers and to all the Saints (xiii. 24). He is not aware of any place which so well answers to these re- quirements as one of the house-churches in Rome mentioned in the Epistle of Paul to that Church (chap. xvi). To one of these, possibly to that mentioned in Romans xvi. 14, this Epistle was probably addressed.
The Roman destination may seem to carry with it the authorship of Aquila, for this Jew who was himself so well instructed that he was able to instruct Apollos was intimately associated with Rome and with one of the house-churches there (Romans xvi. 3-5). And indeed all that we know of Aquila seems to fit the conditions as well as any other name that has been suggested.
It is impossible then to dogmatise regarding the authorship of this Epistle, and at present it is best frankly to confess our ignor- ance. But we may adopt the language of Prof. Rhys Roberts in dealing with the similar case of Longinus on the Sublime and say that “while it is good science to refuse to hazard any conjecture which our information does not warrant, it is good science also to decline to follow some critics in abandoning all hope of ever seeing a solution of this knotty problem. Let us rather recognise that we are confronted with one of those stimulating and fruitful uncer- tainties which classical research so often presents to its votaries— uncertainties which are stimulating because there is some possibility of removing them, and fruitful because in any case they lead to the more thorough investigation of the obscurer bye-ways of history and literature.” Or we may adopt the words of Dr. Davidson in dealing.