consisting of the wicked Jew, the Samaritan Simon, and some Egyptian priests, employed less hostile, but more dangerous means, to answer this end. In opposition to the man Jesus, they preached a Christ from heaven, invested with powers and principalities, and accompanied with angels. They affected, moreover, to reveal an unknown god superior to the Creator, the God of Israel, whom they called Hypsoma, Bathos or Bythos*. By such impious fictions, those enemies of the truth sought to undermine the christian cause. The apostle next directs his attention to the deceivers, as in fact uniting with the

n

* See Irenæus, p. 7. where they give their supreme God the name of Bythos. In the Excerpta of Clemens Alexandrinus, he is styled Bathos, ή σιγη μητηρ ουσα των παντων προβληθεν των ύπο του Βαθους. This Bathos they represented as higher than the Creator,ύψηλοτερον τι και μείζον του τον ουρα νον και γην και παντα τα εν αυτοις πεποιηκοτος Θεου. Conformably to this notion, the apostle in the text denominates this fancied divinity wμa. The same author, 1 Tim. i. 3. calls their fictions, fables of endless genealogies; and the primary links in the chain were Βυθος, Νους, Λογος, Φρόνησις, Σοφία, Δύναμις, Αρχαι, Αγγελοι. See Epiphan. p. 69. That the apostle used these abstract ideas, conformably to the gnostics, in an allegorical sense, is evident from his adding, "Nor any other being." It follows then that the things going before were either beings, or supposed to be beings; and the impostors represent them as such.

advocates of despotism and persecution, in their endeavours to separate the true believers from Christ. "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor Hypsoma, nor Bathos, nor any other being, will be able to separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The chief pretence which the gnostics had for attempting to alienate the affections of his people from the benevolent Creator of the universe, was the malevolence imputed to him, and the sufferings of his worshippers. These sufferings they alleged, not without plausibility, as a proof of his cruelty. On this occasion, and indeed in all other places where St. Paul notices the persecution of the christians, he impresses his hearers in the strongest terms with the benevolence of their maligned father. "He who spared not his own son, but gave him up for us all; how will he not also with him freely give us all things.In all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us-For I am persuaded that neither death nor life will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The calamities, which their profession entailed on the new converts, and the ignominy attached to the name of Jesus, were the chief circum

1

stances that deterred the Jewish nation, more generally, from embracing him as the Messiah. Our apostle having his ideas now fixed on these causes, passes over to the effect; and, in a language highly characteristic of the goodness and tenderness of his heart, expresses his deep felt sorrow for the perverseness of his countrymen in rejecting their Saviour. "I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me testimony in the holy spirit, that I have great grief, and continual sorrow of heart; for I too would have gloried in being separated by Christ, for my brethren*, my kinsmen, according to the

* The passage stands thus in the original, Huxony gag αυτος εγω αναθεμα απο του χρισου ύπερ των αδελφων μου X. T. λ. which is thus preposterously rendered in the common version, "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren." Wakefield has given another very different translation of the passage, "I have great grief and continual sorrow of heart (for I also was once an alien from Christ) on account of my brethren." In his notes the translator briefly adds, "I see no method of solving the difficulty in this verse, which has so exercised the learning and ingenuity of commentators, but by the Euxoμa siva of Homer. I profess myself to be. This solution makes the passage rational and plain." This, however, appears to me a solution erroneous and absurd; first, because the sense here ascribed to Uxua, though it well suits a heathen general, is by no means suitable to the apostle Paul; nor has the word such

flesh, who are Israelites, whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the religious service, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh; whose is the God that is over all, to be blessed for ever." ix. 1–6. It was known in Rome, as well as in other

a sense in any other place of the christian, or of the Jewish scriptures; because, secondly, such is the usage of the Greek language, that a verb occurring in the imperfect tense is understood to extend its meaning to the present, unless it be limited by another past verb. Thus nuxoμn implies not only that the apostle once wished, but still continued to wish, to be an alien from Christ, a wish at once absurd and impious. In this respect the genius of our tongue exactly accords with that of the Greek; and so sensible was Wakefield of this circumstance, that in his version he limits the verb by the numeral once, which has nothing corresponding to it in the original.

The term avalua originally meant a holy offering, or a thing separated from profane use, and appropriated to God. This signification it often bears in the Septuagint, where St. Paul was far more likely to learn its use than in Homer. Thus in Jos. vi. 18, 19, avattua is described to be aylov to xupiw, and in Leviticus, xxvi. 29, we meet with the word in a similar acceptation. After this it is of little consequence to add, that Philo, and the Greek fathers some times have used the word in this sense, see Suicerus. The apostle, by this term, intimates his apprehension that, sooner or later, he was to be offered a sacrifice for the cause in which he was engaged; and that he would have been glad to fall a victim for the Jews as well as for the Gentiles.

be

places, that while the other apostles were appointed to convert the circumcised, Paul was separated by Christ to be the apostle of the Gentiles. In the former part of this epistle, he had been maintaining the privileges of the pagan lievers, against the encroachments of the judaizing zealots. It was therefore natural for such of the Gentiles as had united with the Roman church, to conclude, that their apostle, as the advocate of the heathen, was become indifferent, if not averse to his kinsmen, the Jews. This inference St. Paul was most anxious to preclude; and he expresses the most tender solicitudes for those whom he appeared to have abandoned, and whose exclusive claims he resists. "Think not that, because I am your apostle, and defend your cause, I am indifferent to my countrymen. No, I still feel the most affectionate zeal for their salvation. I should have gloried to have been set apart by our divine Master, as is the case with others of the apostles, to convert them: and in the execution of this trust, I should be equally zealous and faithful, as I now am in converting the world. I shall, I know, sacrifice my life in the service of the Gentiles; and the same sacrifice I should cheerfully make in behalf of the Jews. They have every claim on my regard: they are united to me by the ties of country and of blood, and to them naturally belong all