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?Greek Testament Critical Exegetical Commentary - Romans?(Henry Alford) Commentator
Henry Alford (7 October 1810 - 12 January 1871) was an English churchman,
theologian, textual critic, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer.
Alford was born in London, of a Somerset family, which had given five
consecutive generations of clergymen to the Anglican church. Alford's early
years were passed with his widowed father, who was curate of Steeple Ashton
in Wiltshire. He was a precocious boy, and before he was ten had written
several Latin odes, a history of the Jews and a series of homiletic
outlines. After a peripatetic school course he went up to Trinity College,
Cambridge, in 1827 as a scholar. In 1832 he was 34th wrangler and 8th
classic, and in 1834 was made fellow of Trinity.
He had already taken orders, and in 1835 began his eighteen-year tenure of
the vicarage of Wymeswold in Leicestershire, from which seclusion the twice-
repeated offer of a colonial bishopric failed to draw him. He was Hulsean
lecturer at Cambridge in 1841-1842, and steadily built up a reputation as
scholar and preacher, which might have been greater if not for his
excursions into minor poetry and magazine editing.
In 1844, he joined the Cambridge Camden Society (CCS) which published a
list of do's and don'ts for church layout which they promoted as a science.
He commissioned A.W.N. Pugin to restore St Mary's church. He also was a
member of the Metaphysical Society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles.
In September 1853 Alford moved to Quebec Chapel, Marylebone, London, where
he had a large congregation. In March 1857 Lord Palmerston advanced him to
the deanery of Canterbury, where, till his death, he lived the same
energetic and diverse lifestyle as ever. He had been the friend of most of
his eminent contemporaries, and was much beloved for his amiable character.
The inscription on his tomb, chosen by himself, is Diversorium Viatoris
Hierosolymam Proficiscentis ("the inn of a traveler on his way to
Jerusalem").
Alford was a talented artist, as his picture-book, The Riviera (1870),
shows, and he had abundant musical and mechanical talent. Besides editing
the works of John Donne, he published several volumes of his own verse, The
School of the Heart (1835), The Abbot of Muchelnaye (1841), The Greek
Testament. The Four Gospels (1849), and a number of hymns, the best-known
of which are "Forward! be our watchword," "Come, ye thankful people, come",
and "Ten thousand times ten thousand." He translated the Odyssey, wrote a
well-known manual of idiom, A Plea for the Queen's English (1863), and was
the first editor of the Contemporary Review (1866 - 1870).
His chief fame rests on his monumental edition of the New Testament in
Greek (4 vols.), which occupied him from 1841 to 1861. In this work he
first produced a careful collation of the readings of the chief manuscripts
and the researches of the ripest continental scholarship of his day.
Philological rather than theological in character, it marked an epochal
change from the old homiletic commentary, and though more recent research,
patristic and papyral, has largely changed the method of New Testament
exegesis, Alford's work is still a quarry where the student can dig with a
good deal of profit.
His Life, written by his widow, appeared in 1873 (Rivington). Introduction CHAPTER II
OF THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS
SECTION I
ITS AUTHORSHIP AND INTEGRITY
1. THIS Epistle has been universally believed to be the genuine production
of the Apostle Paul. Neither the Judaizing sects of old, who rejected the
Pauline Epistles, nor the sceptical critics of modern Germany, have doubted
this. Some of the earliest testimonies are:
( ?) Irenæus, adv. Hær. iii. 16. 3, p. 205: Hoc ipsum interpretatus est
Paulus scribens ad Romanos: "Paulus apostolus Jesu Christi, &c." (Romans
1:1):-et iterum ad Romanos scribens de Israel dicit, "Quorum patres, et ex
quibus Christus, &c." Romans 9:5(34).
( ?) Clem(35) Alex., Pædag. i. 8 (70), p. 140 P.:- ?? ???, ????? ? ??????,
?????????? ?. ????????? ????. ?. ?. ?. (Romans 11:22.) See also ib. 5 (19),
p. 109 P. And the same, Strom, iii. 11 (75), p. 544: ?????? ?? ??? ? ??????
?? ?? ???? ??????v? ??. ??????· ??????? ?????????? ?? ???????, ?. ?. ?.
(Romans 6:2.) See also ib. (76), p. 545, and al. freq.
( ?) Tertullian, adv. Praxeam, § xiii. vol. ii. p. 170: Deos omnino nec
dicam nec dominos, sed apostolum sequar, ut, si pariter nominandi fuerint
Pater et Filius Deum Patrem appellem, et Jesum Christum Dominum nominem
(Romans 1:7). Solum autem Christum potero deum dicere, sicut idem
apostolus: ex quibus Christus, qui est, inquit, Deus super omnia benedictus
in ævum omne (Romans 9:5).
More instances need not be given: the stream of evidence is continuous and
unanimous.
2. But critics have not been so well agreed as to the INTEGRITY of the
present Epistle. The last two chapters have been rejected by some: by
others, parts of these chapters. Marcion rejected them, but on doctrinal,
not on critical grounds. Heumann imagined ch. 12-15 to be a later written
Epistle, and ch. 16 to be a conclusion to ch. 11. Semler views ch. 15 as a
private memorandum, not addressed to the Romans, but written to be
communicated by the bearers of the Epistle to those whom they visited on
the way,-and ch. 16, as a register of persons to be saluted, also on the
way. Schulz imagines that ch. 16 was written from Rome to the Ephesians,
and Schott fancied it to be fragments of a smaller Epistle written by Paul
in Corinth to some Asiatic church. But these notions, as Tholuck remarks
(from whom these particulars are for the most part taken), remain the
exclusive property of their originators. He himself recognizes the
genuineness of the portion, as also Neander, Credner, De Wette, and
Olshausen. The more recent objections of Baur are mentioned and refuted, in
part by De Wette, Comm. juxta finem,-Tholuck, Comm. pp. 2, 3,-Olsh. Comm.
iii. 34, 35, and fully, by Kling, theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1837, p. 308 ff.
3. Still more discrepancy of opinion has existed respecting the doxology at
the end of the Epistle. I have summarily stated and discussed the evidence,
external and internal, in the var. readings and notes in loc.: and a fuller
statement may be found in Dr. Davidson's Introd. ii. 188 ff.: Tholuck,
Einleitung, pp. 4-6; De Wette in loc.
SECTION II
FOR WHAT READERS IT WAS WRITTEN
1. The Epistle itself plainly declares (ch. Romans 1:7) that it was
addressed to the saints who were at Rome. The omission of the words ?? ????
by some MSS. is to be traced to a desire to catholicize the Epistles of
Paul;-see Wieseler, Chron. des Apostol. Zeitalters, p. 438.
With regard to the Church at Rome, some interesting questions present
themselves.
2. BY WHOM WAS IT FOUNDED? Here our enquiries are enwrapped in uncertainty.
But some few landmarks stand forth to guide us, and may at least prevent us
from adopting a wrong conclusion, however unable we may still be to find
the right one.
( ?) It was certainly not founded by an Apostle. For in that case, the fact
of St. Paul addressing it by letter, and expressing his intention of
visiting it personally, would be inconsistent with his own declared
resolution in ch. Romans 15:20, of not working where another had previously
laid the foundation.
( ?) This same resolution may guide us to an approximation at least to the
object of our search. Had the Roman church been founded by the individual
exertions of any preacher of the word, or had it owed its existence to the
confluence of the converts of any other preacher than Paul, he would hardly
have expressed himself as he has done in this Epistle. We may fairly infer
from ch. Romans 15:20, that he had, proximately, laid the foundation of the
Roman church: that is to say, it was originated by those to whom he had
preached, who had been attracted to the metropolis of the world by various
causes,-who had there laboured in the ministry with success, and gathered
round them an important Christian community.
Of this community, though not his own immediate offspring in the faith,
Paul takes charge as being the Apostle of the Gentiles. He longs to impart
to them some ??????? (ch. Romans 1:11): he excuses his having written to
them ???????????? ??? ????v?, by the dignity of that office, in which, as a
priest, he was to offer the Gentiles, an acceptable and sanctified offering
to God.
( ?) The character given in ch. Romans 1:8 of the Roman Christians, that
their faith was spoken of in all the world, has been taken as pointing to a
far earlier origin than the preaching of Paul. But, even granting that some
among the Roman Jews may have carried the faith of Christ thither soon
after the Ascension (see Acts 2:10; and Romans 16:7, where Andronicus and
Junias are stated to have been in Christ before the Apostle),-such a
concession is not necessary to explain Romans 1:8. Whatever happened at
Rome is likely to have been very soon announced in the provinces, and to
have had more reporters, wherever the journeys of the Apostle led him, than
events occurring elsewhere. He could hardly fail to meet, in every
considerable city which he had visited for the second time, in Judæa, Asia,
Macedonia, and Greece (see Acts 18:22-23; Acts 19:1; Acts 20:1-2),
believers who had received tidings of the increase and flourishing state of
the Roman church. This occurrence of good news respecting them in all the
cities might well suggest the expression, ? ?????? ???? ????????????? ??
??? ?? ?????.
3. The above considerations lead me to the conclusion, that