Ver. 11. +Wherefore remember, that ye, etc.+--All that follows in the verse serves to define the "ye," the verb following in ver. 12 after the repeated "ye"--"ye were without Christ." "Called Uncircumcision . . . called the Circumcision." As much rancour lies in these words as generally is carried by terms of arrogance on the part of those only nominally religious, and the scornful epithets flung in return. They can be matched by our modern use of "The world" and "Other-worldliness." Ver. 12. +Without Christ.+--Not so much "not in possession of Christ" as "outside Christ," or, as in R.V., "separate from Christ." The true commentary is John xv. 4, 5. The branch "severed from" the trunk by knife or storm bears no fruit thenceforth; disciples "apart from Christ can do nothing." +Being aliens from the commonwealth.+--What memories might start at this word! Did St. Paul think of the separation from the Jewish synagogue in Ephesus or of the fanatical outburst created in Jerusalem when "the Jews from Asia" saw Trophimus the Ephesian in company with the apostle? To such Jews the Gentiles were nothing but _massa perditionis._ Like vers. 2, 3, this is a reminder of the dark past, the misery of which did not consist in a Jewish taunt so much as in a life of heathenish vices. +Having no hope, and without God in the world.+--To be godless--not sure that there is any God--this is to take the "master-light of all our seeing" from us; to live regardless of Him, or wishing there were no God--"that way madness lies." To be "God-forsaken" with a house full of idols--that is the irony of idolatrous heathenism. Ver. 13. +Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh.+--The Gentile may sing his hymn in Jewish words: "Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; from everlasting is Thy name." _"Lo-ammi"_ ("not My people") is no longer their name (Hos. ii. 23; Rom. ix. 24, 25). Ver. 14. +For He is our peace, who hath made both one.+--"Not the Peacemaker merely, for indeed at His own great cost He procured peace, and is Himself the bond of union of both" (Jew and Gentile). +The middle wall of partition.+--M. Ganneau, the discoverer of the Moabite Stone, found built into the wall of a ruined Moslem convent a stone, believed to be from the Temple, with this inscription: "No stranger-born (non-Jew) may enter within the circuit of the barrier and enclosure that is around the sacred court; and whoever shall be caught [intruding] there, upon himself be the blame of the death that will consequently follow." Josephus describes this fence and its warning inscription (_Wars of the Jews,_ Bk. V., ch. v., § 2). It is rather the spirit of exclusiveness which Christ threw down. The stone wall Titus threw down and made all a common field, afterwards.