17-Jew and Gentile alike guilty
Jew and Gentile alike guilty The digression into which we plunged at the end of v. 2, and the train of speculation that it brought, are now a thing of the past. We return to the main argument, leading on to the conclusion that all the world alike is hopelessly involved in sin. In the case of the Gentiles, the fact is beyond dispute. Israel too, in spite of his privileged position, is really in no better case. So we now proceed to show. Verse 9 (as it happens) contains a curious problem of vocabulary. What is the meaning of προεχόμεθα? Looking at the sentence in general one notes that excellent sense would be made if προεχόμεθα should mean either ‘are we better off than they,’ or ‘are they better off than we’; either ‘have they the advantage of us,’ or, ‘have we the advantage of them.’ Whichever the question may be, the answer is ‘not at all.’ I think that stands out clearly. But how shall we decide? All classical students know that certain compounds of ἔχω are used in the active voice with a neuter sense. This is the case with κατέχειν, ἀνέχειν and προέχειν. Our own ‘hold’ supplies in English an obvious illustration. Προέχειν in the active means to ‘jut out’ (of headlands), and then generally to ‘be in advance,’ to ‘be superior.’ Can the middle have a similar meaning? There is no evidence whatever to show it. Προέχεσθαι (passive) exists in Plutarch (only I cannot trace the reference) with the meaning ‘be exalted.’ The Greek O.T. affords us no aid. The word, in any case, occurs only once and then it would appear that προσέχειν, rather than προέχειν, is the reading to be followed (Job 27:6). The fact is, we must wait till some fortunate exhumed sherd, or strip of papyrus, from the ransacked dustheaps of Egypt comes to throw new light upon it. Harking back to vv. 1 and 2, I feel certain that the sense required is, “are we in better case?” That is, to be sure, precisely what the ordinary Jew believed with fervency of devotion; precisely what St Paul was minded to contest. Therefore (even in the absence of all evidence for such a meaning) I make bold to believe it is right. It is, no doubt, a term of common speech, invoking some metaphor not easy to discern. There are plenty of such usages to be found in every language. It is on the racecourse, or the drillground, or the rialto, one has to look for their primal origin.
3:9. “How then? Are we in better case than they? Not one whit! We have already charged both Jews and Gentiles, all of them, with being under sin; as Holy Scripture says …” In 1:21, we were told that the heathen are ‘without excuse’; and that was followed up by the long and familiar catalogue of definite iniquities. At the opening of chap. 2. the same epithet (ἀναπολόγητος) was apparently applied to the Israelite in his proud consciousness of moral superiority. To this, as I conceive, is reference in προῃτιασάμεθα. It is ‘charge’ rather than ‘demonstration’; though the Gentile, in all probability, would have let judgment go ‘by default.’ His attitude towards sin, as we have already seen, is an attitude of cheerful acquiescence. ‘They all do it’ would be his plea. Why should he wish to be either better than his neighbours, or better than his gods? The Jew would be less prepared to ‘give himself away,’ by admitting his sinfulness. The ‘conflate’ quotation that follows, I assume, is addressed to him. Indeed, in v. 19, the writer distinctly says so. The string of ‘texts’ (in the vulgar sense of the word) runs something as follows:
3:10-12. “There is not a single one righteous; there is not who has understanding; there is not who searches after God. All have swerved from the way; all alike have become corrupted; there is not who follows goodness, no, not even one.”1 [Note: Psalms 14:1-3.] So far the writer has drawn upon the opening of Psalm 14, the complaint of a servant of God in an age of infidelity. The words quoted give us a picture of ‘the fool’ and of his fellows; that is, of the reckless unbeliever. The next four ‘texts’ are taken from various places, Psalm 5, Psalm 140, Psalm 10, Isaiah 59. Save the passage from Isaiah, which is a national indictment, the rest all come from pictures of the professedly unrighteous, of the enemies of God and of His servants.
Says the first (Psalms 5:10 (LXX)), 3:13. A grave wide open is their gullet; with their tongues they have wrought deceitfully.
(Here ἐδολιοῦσαν is ‘imperfect’ in form-a very awkward tense; we need ἐδολίωσαν.) The second says (Psalms 140:3 (LXX)), The poison of asps is under their lips: the third (a very free citation of Psalms 10:7), whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: the fourth is from Isaiah 59:7-8 (in a form both abridged and free),
Swift are their feet to pour out blood … destruction and misery is in their ways, and the Way of Peace have they not known: last of all come part of the opening words of Psalm 36.
… there is no fear of God before his eyes.
These last five sayings have made their way from ‘Romans’ into the common Christian version of Psalm 14-they are found In our ‘LXX’ manuscripts-and so into the Prayer Book version of our Church.
Roughly speaking, the whole citation, which is after Rabbinic models, describes the ‘wickedness’ of the ‘wicked.’ St Paul however makes bold to apply it universally.
3:19. “Now we know that all the Law says, it says to those in the Law; so that every mouth may be stopped and (thus) all the world be proved liable to God’s vengeance.” The ‘Law’ means, of course, all the Scriptures: in this case, the Psalms and Isaiah. Their message is to God’s people, to those who own His allegiance and accept His holy commandments. Accordingly their indictment brings condemnation on Israel. The result is-for the ἵνα cannot be taken as strictly ‘telic’; save in so far as all that is, corresponds with a hidden ‘purpose’-the result is, that all opposition is silenced, and none can dispute God’s justice. “Every mouth,” both of Jew and Gentile, is “stopped”; “all the world,” whether heathen or other, is liable to such penalty as the Almighty shall choose to inflict. This conclusion is finally clinched by the citation we have already met in Galatians 2:16. The form of it and the use of it are just the same as there. Only here we have an addition, a very pithy statement of the purpose served by Law in the Divine economy.
3:20. “Because by works of Law ‘no living creature shall be righted in His Presence.’ By Law, you know, there comes the recognition of sin.” The actual quotation (from Psalms 143:2) is enclosed in single commas. The idea of the function of Law as stimulating conscience by definition of wrongdoing is repeated, in another form, in chap. 7 below.