Charles Gore - St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans - A Practical Exposition. Vol. I

Rom. xv. 19.

1 John iii. 4. The Greek phrase implies exactly that all sin is lawlessness, and all lawlessness is sin.

Rom. v. 13, 14.

Cf. Wisd. xiii. 1-9: 'For verily all men by nature were but vain who had no perception of God, and from the good things that are seen they gained not power to know him that is, neither by giving heed to the works did they recognize the artificer… For from the greatness of the beauty even of created things in like proportion does man form the image of their first maker… But again even they are not to be excused. For if they had power to know so much … how is it that they did not sooner find the Sovereign Lord of these his works?' Apoc. Bar. liv. 17, 18: 'From time to time ye have rejected the understanding of the Most High. For his works have not taught you, nor has the skill of his creation which is at all times persuaded you.'

Isa. xliv. 18-20.

Wisd. xi. 15; xiii, xiv, xv. St. Paul's debt to the Book of Wisdom is apparent (1) in the kinds of idols he mentions; (2) in the way in which the thought of idolatry leads on to that of uncleanness and sexual immorality; and (3) in the idea of retribution by the natural law of results.

1 Thess. ii. 16.

Butler's Analogy , part i. ch. 2.

Pirqé Aboth , iv. 2 (cited by S. and H.).

S. and H. p. 49.

He implies, as Dr. Farrar points out, 1 Cor. v. 9-10, that pure society did not exist in Corinth.

See my Ephesians , pp. 91, 92, 255.

Rom. ii. 13-15.

Rom. ii. 26.

See also app. note E on physical science and the fall.

Cf. F. B. Jevons, Introd. to the Hist. of Religion (Methuen), pp. 394, 395: 'Everywhere it is the many who lapse: the few who hold right on. The progressive peoples of the earth are in a minority.' 'Though evolution is universal, progress is exceptional.'

Cf. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics (Romanes Lecture, 1893, Macmillan), p. 36: 'The theory of evolution encourages no millennial anticipations. If, for millions of years, our globe has taken the upward road, yet, some time, the summit will be reached, and the downward route will be commenced.'

The allusion is to (1) Jevons ( op. cit. cap. xxv), who seems to think some 'amorphous' form of monotheism may very probably lie behind totemism. He strongly repudiates the notion that the lower form is necessarily the older. (2) Andrew Lang, Making of Religion (Longmans, 1898), chaps. ix and xv. Cp. also Orr's Christian view of God and the World (Elliot, 1893), pp. 212 ff., and notes E, F, G.