[Sidenote: Character and Contents.] St. Paul writes as the apostle of the Gentiles to the Christians of the greatest of all Gentile cities. He does so with a solemn sense of special responsibility. Profoundly impressed with the grandeur of the Roman name, the position of this promiscuous little body of converts is to him enormously significant. They are the representatives of the faith of Jesus in the capital of the world; they are the first members of a Church to which God seems to give the most magnificent of all opportunities. And the thought is scarcely absent from his mind that this may be the last Epistle he will ever send. He is going to Jerusalem, and has a sad foreboding of what may await him there (xv. 31). The manner and style which give the Epistle a unique place among the works of St. Paul are caused by these considerations. He wishes to tell the Roman Christians his very best ideas in the very best way: this may be his last chance of doing so. He puts aside, then, all clamour of personal debate, and sets {163} himself to produce an ordered theological treatise. Never elsewhere does the apostle write with so careful method, so powerful concentration, so effective marshalling of arguments, so stirring yet measured eloquence. The Epistle opens with a brief introduction. Paul, the apostle of Christ, wishes to preach the gospel to those in Rome whom Christ has called. Then he begins at once to describe the set of circumstances which the gospel is intended to meet. The Gentiles have not been true to such knowledge as they had of God, and by an inevitable process they have passed on to unnatural and vicious excess (i. 18-32). And when St. Paul turns to the Jews, he finds they are in no better case. With fuller knowledge they have sinned scarcely less. Strict justice will be meted out by God to all, the Jew coming first and then the Gentile. The Gentile will not escape, for the Gentiles, whom we conceive of as having no law, have a law in that moral sense which makes them instinctively put in practice the precepts of the Law, and their inward thoughts accuse or defend them (ii. 1-16). The Jew may boast of his Law and his knowledge of revelation, but he is no better in practice than a Gentile. And as for his circumcision, it is worthless unless he is also spiritually circumcised in the heart (ii. 17-29). After a parenthetical discussion of difficulties suggested by a possible Jewish opponent (iii. 1-8), St. Paul shows that the Jews are not in a worse case than the Gentiles. Both are under the dominion of sin, and Scripture says so. The whole system of Law is a failure. Law does nothing but give a clear knowledge of sin (iii. 9-20).