here to designate the Ayos, the eternal Son of God, in other words, if so was used here in reference to the nature of Christ, "the strict monotheism of Paul would certainly require an intimation that the honor due to God alone was not here trenched upon" (beeinträchtigt).* The expression, he maintains, describes "the dignity conferred upon him by God"; the Oso here is essentially equivalent to zúptos. "The predicate @ must be perfectly covered by the subject Xporó, i.se. the Messianic human King of Israel. ̈†

But these concessions of Schultz seem to me fatal to his construction of the passage. If sós used in the metaphysical sense, describing the nature of Christ, would confessedly need explanation, to guard against an apparent infringement of the Divine unity, would not Paul's readers need to be cautioned against taking it in this sense, the sense which it has everywhere else in his writings?-Again, if Paul by θεός here only meant κύριος, why did he not say κύριος, this being his constant designation of the glorified Christ (comp. Phil. ii. 9-11)?

This leads me to notice further the important passage 1 Cor. viii. 6, already quoted (see above, p. 121). It has often been said that the mention here of the Father as the "one God" of Christians no more excludes Christ from being God and from receiving this name, than the designation of Christ as the one Lord" excludes the Father from being Lord and receiving this name. But in making this statement some important considerations are overlooked.

*Schultz, Jahrbücher f. deutsche Theol., 1868, xiii. 484.

In the first

†This view of Schultz appears to be that of Hofmann (Der Schriftbeweis, 2te Aufl., 1857, i. 143) and Weiss (Bibl. Theol. d. N. T., 3te Aufl., 1880, p. 283, note 5), as it was formerly of Ritschl (Die Entstehung der altkath. Kirche, 2te Aufl., 1857, p. 79, f.). This is the way a'so in which the old Socinian commentators understood the passage, as Socinus, Crell, Schlichting, Wolzogen. They did not hesitate to give the name God" to Christ, any more than the ancient Arians did, understanding it in a lower sense, and referring especially in justification of this to John x. 34-36, and various passages of the Old Testament. So it appears to have been taken by some of the Ante-Nicene Fathers who referred the last clause of the verse to Christ, as probably by Novatian, who quotes the passage twice as proof that Christ is Deus (De Regula Fidei or De Trin. cc. 13, 30), but who says "Dominus et Deus constitutus esse reperitur" (c. 20); "hoc ipsum a Patre proprio consecutus, ut omnium et Deus esset et Dominus esset" (c. 22); "omnium Deus, quoniam omnibus illum Deus Pater praeposuit quem genuit" (c. 31). So Hippolytus (Cont. Noët. c. 6) applies the verse to Christ, and justifies the language by quoting Christ's declaration, "All things have been delivered to me by the Father." He cites other passages in the same connection, and says: "If then all things have been subjected unto him with the exception of Him who subjected them, he rules over all, but the Father rules over him."

place, the title "god" is unquestionably of far higher dignity than the title "lord"; and because godship includes lordship with all the titles that belong to it, it by no means follows that lordship includes godship and has a right to its titles; in other words, that one who is properly called a lord (ziptor), as having servants or subjects or possessions, may therefore be properly called a god (0sós). In the second

place, the lordship of Christ is everywhere represented not as belonging to him by nature, but as conferred upon him by the one God and Father of all. This lordship is frequently denoted by the figurative expression, "sitting on the right hand of God."* The expression is borrowed from Ps. cx., so often cited in the New Testament as applicable to Christ, and particularly by Peter in his discourse on the day of Pentecost, who, after quoting the words, "The Lord [Jehovah] said unto my Lord [Adoni], 'Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool,'" goes on to say, "Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly, that God hath MADE him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified" (Acts ii. 35, 36). It is he to whom "all authority was given in heaven and on earth," whom "God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour"; "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the Church"; "gave unto him the name which is above every name that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father." Such being Paul's conception of the relation of Christ to God, is it not the plain meaning of the passage, that while the heathen worship and serve many beings whom they call "gods" and "lords," to Christians there is but one God, the Father, one being to whom they give that name, "from whom are all things," and who is the subject of supreme worship; and one being "through whom are all things," through whom especially flow our spiritual blessings, whom "God hath made both Lord and Christ, and whom Christians therefore habitually call "the Lord." The fact that this appellation of Christ, under such circumstances, does not debar the Supreme Being from receiving the name "Lord," obviously affords no countenance to the notion that Paul would not hesitate to give to Christ the name "God." As a matter of fact the Lord" is the common designation of Christ in the writings of Paul, and is seldom used of God, except in quotations from or references to the

-(

*See Knapp, De Jesu Christo ad dextram Dei sedente, in his Scripta varii Argumenti, ed. 2da (1823), i. 39–76.

language of the Old Testament.* There, in the Septuagint, Koptoz is used of God sometimes as a proper name, taking the place of Jehovah (Yahweh), on account of a Jewish superstition, and sometimes as an appellative.

GLANCING back now, for a moment, over the field we have traversed, we may reasonably say, it seems to me, first, that the use of colorós, elsewhere in the New Testament restricted to God, the Father, in connection with the exceeding rarity, if not absence, of ascriptions of praise and thanksgiving to Christ in the writings of Paul, and their frequency in reference to God,—affords a pretty strong presumption in favor of that construction of this ambiguous passage which makes the last clause a doxology to the Father; secondly, that some additional confirmation is given to this reference by the siç Osòs καὶ πατὴρ πάντων, ὁ ἐπὶ πάντων, in Eph. iv. 6; and thirdly, that the at first view overwhelming presumption in favor of this construction, founded on the uniform restriction of the designation 065, occurring more than five hundred times, to God, the Father, in the writings of Paul, is not weakened, but rather strengthened, by our examination of the language which he elsewhere uses respecting the dignity of Christ and his relation to God. And though our sources of information are imperfect, we have seen that there are very grave reasons for doubting whether the use of 0 as a designation of Christ belonged to the language of Christians anywhere, at so early a period as the date of this Epistle (cir. A. D. 58).

Beyond a doubt, all the writers of the New Testament, and the early preachers of Christianity, believed that God was united with the man Jesus Christ in a way unique and peculiar, distinguishing him from all other beings; that his teaching and works and character were divine; that God had raised him from the dead, and exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour; that he came, as the messenger of God's love and mercy, to redeem men from sin, and make them truly sons of God; that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." But no New Testament writer has defined the mode of this union with God. How much real light has been thrown upon the subject by the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon, and the so-called Athanasian Creed, is a question on which there may be differences of opinion. The authority of councils is another question. But it has been no part of my object in

* "On the meaning of KYPIO in the New Testament, particularly on the manner in which this word is employed by Paul in his Epistles," see the valuable article of Prof. Stuart in the Biblical Repository (Andover) for Oct. 1831, i. 733-776. His view is that the zoptóry which Christ has as the Messiah is a delegated dominion.

discussing the construction of the passage before us, to argue against the doctrine of the Nicene Creed; my point is simply the use of language at the time when this Epistle was written. The questions of doctrine and language are of course closely connected, but are not identical. It seems to me that a believer in the deity of Christ, admitting the fact that we have no clear evidence that the "mediator between God and men" was ever called "God" by any New Testament writer, or any very early preacher of Christianity, may recognize therein a wise providence which saved the nascent Church from controversies and discussions for which it was not then prepared.

III. We will now consider some other constructions of the passage before us. (See above, p. 89 f.)

1. I refrain from discussing in detail the comparative merits of Nos. 1 and 2. The advocates of No. 1 observe, correctly, that it describes Christ as only ἐπὶ πάντων θεός, not ὁ ἐπὶ πάντων θεός, which they say would identify him with the Father. But if the Father is "God over all," and Christ is also "God over all," the question naturally arises, how the Father can be "the God over all," unless the term "God" as applied to Christ is used in a lower sense. The answers to this question would lead us beyond the sphere of exegesis, and I pass it by. Meyer thinks that if we refer the 6 to Christ this

2.

is the most natural construction of the words, and it seems to have been adopted by most of the ancient Fathers who have cited the passage, at least after the Council of Nicæa, and in nearly all the generally received modern translations, from Luther and Tyndale downwards. Construction No. 2 aims to escape the difficulty presented by No. 1, but involves some ambiguities. Does the sentence mean, "who is over all (Jews as well as Gentiles), and who is also God blessed for ever" (so Hofmann, Kahnis, Die luth. Dogm. i. 453 f.)? or does it mean "celui qui est élevé sur toutes choses, comme Dieu béni éternellement"? as Godet translates it (Comm. ii. 256), contending that ἐπὶ πάντων is not to be connected with θεός, but with ὤν, though he had before translated, inconsistently it would seem, "lui qui est Dieu au-dessus de toutes choses béni éternellement" (pp. 248, 254). Lange finds in the last clause "a quotation from the synagogical liturgy," together with a strong Pauline breviloquence," the ellipsis in which he supplies in a manner that must always hold a high place among the curiosities of exegesis. He says, however, that "every exposition is attended with great difficulties." I cannot discover that God blessed for ever" as a kind of compound name of the Supreme Being occurs in Jewish liturgies or anywhere else.

3. Construction No. 3 is defended particularly by Gess, who maintains in opposition to Schultz and others that ɛós here "nicht Christi Machtstellung sondern seine Wesenheit bezeichnet." (Christi Person und Werk, II. i. 207.) But on this supposition he admits that the connecting of θεός with ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων would present a serious difficulty. "The care with which Paul elsewhere chooses his expressions in such a way that the supreme majesty of the Father shines forth would be given up." Meyer thinks that the punctuation adopted by Morus and Gess makes "die Rede" "noch zerstückter, ja kurzathmiger" than construction No. 5. But this is rather a matter of taste and feeling. The objections which seem to me fatal to all the constructions which refer the name 0sós here to Christ have been set forth above, and need not be repeated.

4.

But

If the view of Westcott and Hort is correct, the construction of this passage adopted by Hippolytus (Cont. Noet. c. 6) agrees with that of Gess in finding three distinct affirmations in the clause beginning with ὁ ὤν, in opposition to those who would read it μονοκώλως. the passage in Hippolytus is obscure. See below, under IV. Under No. 4 I have noticed a possible construction, for which, as regards the essential point, I have referred to Wordsworth's note, in his N. T. in Greek, new ed., vol. ii. (1864). He translates, in his note on ver. 5: "He that is existing above all, God Blessed for ever,' and remarks: "There is a special emphasis on & He that is; He Who is the being One; JEHOVAH. See John i. 18; Rev. i. 4, 8; iv. 8; xi. 17; xvi. 5, compared with Exod. iii. 14, è̟yó ɛipt, ó óv. And compare on Gal. iii. 20."... "He Who came of the Jews, according to the flesh, is no other than 6, the BEING ONE, JEHOVAH." We have an assertion of "His Existence from Everlasting, in ." He mistranslates the last part of Athanasius, Orat. cont. Arian. i. § 24, p. 338, thus: "Paul asserts that He is the splendour of His Father's Glory, and is the Being One, over all, God Blessed for ever." In his note on ver. 4, 5, on the other hand, he translates the present passage: "Christ came, Who is over all, God Blessed for ever."

There is some confusion here. The verb si may denote simple existence; it may (in contrasts) denote real in distinction from seeming existence; it may be, and commonly is, used as a mere copula, connecting the subject with the predicate. As applied to the Supreme Being in Exod. iii. 14 (Sept.), Wisd. Sol. xiii. 1, etc., & v, “He who Is," describes him as possessing not only real, but independent and hence eternal existence. This latter use is altogether peculiar. To find it where is used as a copula, or to suppose that the two