that, on the other hand, the measure of honour be given to each which belongs to him according to his gifts and his position in the Church (Rom. xii. 10, xiii. 7; comp. Phil. ii. 3; Eph. v. 21). As the organism of the Church requires the smaller gifts as well as the higher, no one is to despise the value of the gifts given him (1 Cor. xii. 15-18), and no one, moreover, is to despise those who have received smaller gifts. than himself (vv. 21-26). No one is to seek to be more highly gifted than he is, no one is to aim at high things (Rom. xii. 16). Above all things, no one is to over-estimate the value of his own gifts; for without love, which puts them entirely at the service of the Church, and turns them to the best account, they are all worthless (1 Cor. xiii. 1-3); they may even become dangerous, if they puff up the individual (viii. 1: ỷ yvwσis pvoioî). They are all, moreover, transitory (xiii. 8), because they are only imperfect, and therefore cease when the perfect comes (vv. 9-12). Christian modesty, however, grows out of humility, which will not be wise in its own conceits (Rom. xii. 16; comp. xi. 25), which does not imagine itself to be something (Gal. vi. 3), which knows that it has nothing it has not received (1 Cor. iv. 7), and that the entire gracious institution of Christianity is planned to exclude every ground of human boasting (Rom. iii. 27; 1 Cor. i. 29, iii. 21; 2 Cor. x. 17). Thus humility is here, as in the teaching of Jesus and of Peter (§ 25, d; 47, a), one of the two cardinal virtues, only that it is here presented in the form of modesty, as a duty to the Church.

(b) If the gifts are transitory, love in its very nature is, on the other hand, imperishable (1 Cor. xiii. 8). If the gifts may through misuse become dangerous, it is, on the other hand, implied in the very nature of love that it is directed for the advancement of spiritual life in others (viii. 1: ý ȧyáπη οἰκοδομεῖ; comp. xiii. 4: οὐ φυσιοῦται). If gifts without love are worthless, then this love must be the rule for striving after higher gifts (xii. 31, xiv. 1, 39); those gifts are to be considered the highest which contribute most to the advancement of the Church (comp. 1 Cor. xiv., especially vv. 5, 12). In this relation love is, so far, more valuable than faith and hope (xii. 13); for these, so far, have significance for the individual life of the Christian, but the former for the life of

the Church. Love is the source of all the virtues (vv. 4-7), the first-fruits of the Spirit (Gal. v. 22), by which, therefore, faith, which conditions participation in the Spirit, proves itself effectual (ver. 6). Love, and that unfeigned (2 Cor. vi. 6), stands therefore first, Rom. xii. 9, among all the exhortations, and comprehends them all (1 Cor. xvi. 14). By this is meant, in the first place, brotherly love (Rom. xii. 10: pıλadeλpía

ý eis àλλýλous; comp. 1 Thess. iv. 9, 10), i.e. love towards fellow-believers (Gal. vi. 10); for, on account of this love, which binds them to each other, the Christians call themselves brethren (§ 83, a, footnote 2). It is preserved by unity of views (1 Cor. i. 10) and of effort (Rom. xv. 5; 2 Cor. xiii. 11: Tò avтò poveîv), in particular by uniform concern for the best interests of others (Rom. xii. 16); and this establishes the peace of unanimity (1 Cor. xiii. 11), and wards off divisions. (1 Cor. i. 10, xi. 18, xii. 25). It is shown in mutual sympathy (1 Cor. xii. 26; Rom. xii. 15), in active helpfulness (Rom. xii. 13, xvi. 2), and this Paul expressly requires by his collection for Jerusalem (1 Cor. xvi.; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Rom. xv. 25-28), and in intercession (2 Cor. i. 11; Rom. i. 10, xv. 30). But, according to § 62, b, it is to be extended to all men. Hence Paul exhorts to keep peace with all men, so much, and so long, as it is possible for us (Rom. xii. 18); to it, according to § 25, c, 47, a; 56, d, meekness belongs (Gal. v. 23; comp. vi. 1), which does not grow bitter on account of the wrong another has done to us (où πapoğúveraı), but imputes not the evil (1 Cor. xiii. 5); further, it seeks not to revenge itself, but to overcome evil with good (Rom. xii. 19-21), and to bless the persecutor (ver. 14; 1 Cor. iv. 12, 13; comp. Matt. v. 44). Love in its very nature is long-suffering (1 Cor. xiii. 4; 1 Thess. v. 14: μaxрolvμεî; comp. Gal. v. 22; 2 Cor. vi. 6:

1 Thus Paul comes, as in the Epistles to the Thessalonians (§ 62, b), agreeing with the teaching of Jesus and the early apostles, to declare love to be the highest among the Christian graces. But as he here expressly shows the ground of its superiority, he proves that, according to Rom. xiii. 8-10, love is the fulfilling of the law (§ 87, d, footnote 8), in so far as it does no ill to one's neighbour (ver. 10), and therefore the will of God as expressed in the law, which is directed to this end, that no wrong happen to one's neighbour (ver. 9), is fulfilled in this, that one feels bound to mutual love continually, and this duty he believes never to be fully discharged (ver. 8). Just so, according to Gal. v. 13, 14, is love on the positive side the fulfilling of the law, in so far as one is drawn by it to serve another.

μaxрolvμía) and gracious, so that it anticipates all with welldoing (Rom. xii. 17; 1 Cor. xiii. 4: xpnoteúetaι; comp. Gal. v. 22; 2 Cor. vi. 6: XpησTÓTηs), as the divine love does (Rom. ii. 4). The symbolic expression of brotherly love is the holy kiss (píλnμa åyıov: 1 Cor. xvi. 20; 2 Cor. xiii. 12; Rom. xvi. 16; 1 Thess. v. 26; comp. § 47, a).

(c) Special difficulties to the life of the Church arose partly from differences transmitted from pre-Christian times in the opinion about certain questions, which the one held to be matters of indifference, while the other assigned to them a religious significance. One point of this sort was the partaking of meat sacrificed to idols, in which the one saw defilement as from idol-worship, because they could not get quit of the idea, that the gods of the heathens, which were worshipped by idols, were really deities, even though false and subordinate (1 Cor. viii. 7 comp. with vv. 4-6); while the other ate the flesh without scruple. Just so were there some in the Church who, from ascetic grounds, believed they ought to forego the use of all kinds of flesh and wine (Rom. xiv. 2, 21), and who considered themselves bound to keep sacred certain days (apparently fast days) (ver. 5). Paul designates them as weak in faith (ver. 1), because their confidence in the salvation given in Christ was not strong enough for them to acknowledge that the possession of salvation could not be endangered by such things. He started from the fundamental principle that neither the use nor the denying oneself any food, which, like the organ for which it is appointed, is transitory (1 Cor. vi. 13), can determine the worth of a man before God (viii. 8). He knew that the kingdom of God does not consist in eating and drinking (Rom. xiv. 17), and hence

2 The decree of the apostolic council had no doubt forbidden the partaking of flesh offered in sacrifice to idols; but this conclusion partly had no validity in the missionary territory of Paul (§ 87, b), and partly its original intention was not meant for the regulation of conduct in mixed Christian Churches. When the apostle, starting from the idea that the gods of the heathens were daemons, but not real deities (§ 70, c), along with all who had this knowledge (1 Cor. viii. 1, 4, 10), could regard the sidwλólure, not as flesh consecrated to a deity (1 Cor. x. 19; comp. viii. 4), but only as common food (viii. 8), which, like all food, is the gift of God (x. 26), he therefore did not at all come into conflict with the apostolic decree, as it by no means declared the partaking of flesh sacrificed to idols as sinful in principle, but had only enjoined abstinence for the sake of the synagogue (§ 43, c).

he agreed, with those who were confident, to regard everything to eat, and every day, as alike (vv. 2, 5). He is persuaded that in itself no food is unclean (vv. 14, 20), but each is alike good, so soon as it is taken with thanksgiving towards God (1 Cor. x. 30, 31; Rom. xiv. 6); and he hence, in this relation, decisively makes good the fundamental principle that all things are lawful to the Christian (1 Cor. vi. 12, x. 23; comp. iii. 22). But he likewise expressly acknowledges that for those who regarded anything as unclean, it is unclean (Rom. xiv. 14), because he cannot eat it without having his weak conscience (conscientia consequens; comp. § 69, a) stained with the consciousness of guilt (1 Cor. viii. 7). If he now eat, notwithstanding that his conscience takes offence at the indulgence (Rom. xiv. 20), then this act, not proceeding from the assurance of faith, is sin, by which he falls under the divine condemnation (ver. 23); and any such act condemned by conscience must, while it wounds him in the deepest roots of his religious life (1 Cor. viii. 12; comp. ver. 10), tend directly for him to destruction (viii. 11; Rom. xiv. 15, 20). The existing difference of view cannot accordingly be removed, and Paul only desires that each be thoroughly persuaded (Rom. xiv. 5) in his own mind (voûs), which, according to § 86, b, is the seat of those different ideas, so that he wavers not hither and thither doubtfully (ver. 23), and whatever he decides on keeping, he may employ it in the service of Christ. (vv. 6, 7).

(d) If, accordingly, the settled differences of opinion in the Church could not assuredly be removed, then, according to note b, it was required in this connection to make brotherly love the highest law for one's conduct (Rom. xiv. 15: καтà ἀγάπην περιπατεῖν), and to ask how one can best care for the peace of the Church and the advancement of others (ver. 19). It is now connected with this in the first place, that the stronger, i.e. the more liberal-minded, despise not the weaker regarding his scruples; and, again, that the latter do not condemn the former, as one who, by his freer conduct, has forfeited salvation (vv. 3, 10). Both parties are to receive each other in brotherly love (xv. 7), without the stronger subjecting the scruples of the weaker to his criticism (xiv. 1). But the stronger has thus a special duty of love to discharge;

for to him alone is the matter in dispute a matter of indifference; he alone can give up the indulgence which he holds to be permitted without surrendering in any way his conviction (xiv. 22), and without forfeiting anything thereby in the eye of God (1 Cor. viii. 8). But now love requires that he give no offence to the brother (1 Cor. viii. 9, 13, x. 32; Rom. xiv. 13, 21), i.e. does not seduce him to an act contrary to his conscience, which may bring him into condemnation. Were he to mislead him by his freer conduct to similar conduct, without any change on his convictions in their deepest ground, then that is only an apparent advancement of the weak brother (1 Cor. viii. 10), it is in reality his ruin. He will be required, therefore, in certain circumstances, for the sake of another's conscience, to give up an enjoyment in itself lawful (1 Cor. x. 28, 29); in this case the self-denial will be to him morally praiseworthy (Rom. xiv. 21). This has also to do with bearing the infirmities of the weak (Rom. xv. 1; comp. Gal. vi. 2), and not to please oneself, regardlessly maintaining his more free convictions, but to please one's neighbour while he helps him in his Christian life (xv. 2; comp. 1 Cor. x. 33). True love seeks not its own (1 Cor. xiii. 5), but that which is another's (x. 24; comp. Phil. ii. 4).3

§ 94. The Church and the Regulations of the Natural Life.

The apostle declares the existing higher powers, as such, to be of God, and regards only the going before heathen tribunals as unworthy of Christians (a). The Christian, also, in the existing relation of slavery, is to see an ordinance to which he is to submit with real liberty as a servant of Christ, and from which therefore he is not to withdraw himself, even if an opportunity to do so is presented to him (b). Although the husband and the wife, in their religious relation to Christ, stand on a footing of perfect equality, yet, in virtue of God's

3 Paul can, for this, point to his own example, while he became to the Jews a Jew, to the heathen a heathen, to the weak, weak, making himself a servant to all, that he may win all (1 Cor. ix. 19-22; comp. § 87, b). While the apostle bases the demand on the liberal-minded directly on this example, it is very clear that his treatment of this question was influenced by the same spirit as was the conclusion of the apostolic council (§ 43, c), though this last was also in the first place decided by other relations and for other interests.