Romans 16:17-20

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle, after a passage of salutations, Romans 16:19-21, stops all at once to address to the church, as in the form of a postscript, a solemn warning (Romans 16:22). It is as if the salutation which he had just written awoke in him once more before closing the feeling of the danger which lies in the way of his readers. It is the same here, with this difference, that at Corinth the danger was present and pressing, as is shown by the whole Epistle, whereas at Rome it is still remote, though inevitable. The tone also of the warning is distinctly different in the two cases; for Corinth a threatening, for Rome a simple putting on their guard in the most affectionate and fatherly tone.

Renan, Weizsäcker, Schultz, agree in thinking that this passage can only have been addressed by Paul to a church which he had himself founded that of Ephesus, for example. We shall examine their reasons as we study this passage. In the eyes of Baur, Lucht, Volkmar, it is not even St. Paul's; it falls under the judgment of condemnation which, according to these critics, is due to the two chaps. 15 and 16 mostly or totally.

Critical conclusion regarding the passage, Romans 16:17-20.

The objections of Baur and Lucht to the composition of this passage by the Apostle Paul are of no weight. The only serious question is, whether the warning forms part of the Epistle to the Romans, or whether it was addressed, as is thought by so large a number of our modern critics, to the church of Ephesus. First of all, we have a right to ask how it could have happened that a warning addressed to Ephesus, and which had no force except in relation to those whom it personally concerned, made the journey from Ephesus to Rome, and was incorporated into the Epistle to the Romans? For ourselves, we know no probable explanation of such a phenomenon, nor any example of such a migration. But it is still more the intrinsic reasons which prevent us from holding this supposition. This passage applies more naturally to a church which was not instructed by the apostle personally, than to a church founded by him. He rejoices in its docile attitude to the gospel, as in a thing which he has learned, and the news of which will spread to many other ears than his (Romans 16:19). This is not how one writes to his own disciples. Besides, is it conceivable that he would address to the church of Ephesus, that church within which he had recently passed three whole years, and where he had composed the Epistle to the Galatians and the First to the Corinthians, a passage in which the readers are reckoned as still strangers to the manoeuvres of the Judaizing adversaries, and ignorant of their character? What! Paul pass all this time in this church, between Galatia on the one side and Corinth on the other, and speak to them of those parties as persons against whom they still require to be put on their guard! No, such a warning can only concern a church situated at a distance from the theatre of conflict. This church is therefore quite naturally that of Rome.

If it is so, Weizsäcker's opinion as to the state of this church and the object of our letter is at once set aside. This critic thinks that the Epistle to the Romans was called forth by the necessity of combating a Judaizing movement which at that very time showed itself in the church. But our passage evidently points to the danger as yet to come. The letter may not have been written without the intention of forearming the church; but it cannot have had the intention of combating the enemy as already present.