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(Gal.ii.10). The details of this collection are found in I Cor. 16: 1-4; II Cor. 8: 4;
9: 1, 12, and while this was the recognition of a debt, it was a moral one, not a legal one.
Paul ends this section of the epistle, and one edition of the epistle ends here. There are
five doxologies, or benedictions, in the A.V. (xv.13; xv.33; xvi.20; xvi.24; xvi.25-27).
In each of these God or Christ is besought to do something for the readers. For those
who want full details we refer them to the works of Prof. F. F. Bruce, Dr. 100: K. Barrett
and other scholars. It is only with the last doxology (16: 25-27) that doctrine is affected.
It is found in various places in the ancient manuscripts. The Alexandrian textual family,
and the Manuscript D from the Western textual family have it at the end of chapter 16:
Some manuscripts place it after 14: 23. A few put it both after 14: 23 and 16: 25-27.
One of them (G) omits it altogether. The papyrus manuscript P46 puts it after 15: 33.
There may be several reasons for this. Origen, in his commentary on Romans, declare
that the heretic, Marcion (138-150A.D.) cut away all of the epistle from 14: 23 to the
end. His followers would produce copies ending at this point. It has been suggested that
other Christians shortened the end of the epistle when it was circulated to other churches.
Whatever the reasons, we can be thankful that we have the complete epistle today.
Chapter 16: consists mainly of personal greetings and a short section of warning and
encouragement. The greetings are addressed to 26 individuals and five households. On
the surface it seems improbable that he knew so many people in a city he had never
visited. Dr. 100: K. Barrett comments:
"The view has often been maintained (on grounds partly textual) that 16:1-23 was not
addressed to the church at Rome. It is said (a) that Paul is unlikely to have known so
many members of the Roman church, which he had never visited and (b) that some of the
names mentioned point rather to Ephesus (which Paul knew well) than to Rome. Neither
of these nor textual arguments are convincing: (a) In writing to a strange church Paul
might very naturally include as many personal greetings as he could in order to establish
as close contact as possible; (b) The possibility of movement on the part of members of
the Pauline churches must be reckoned with" . . . . . as regards Prisca and Aquila, "they
had been expelled from Rome, made their way to Corinth, and thence to Ephesus. There
is no reason why they should not have returned to Rome, specially if Romans was written
after the death of Claudius (13 October 54A.D.). That `all the churches' had reason to be
grateful to them confirm that they had numerous contacts over a wide area" (The Epistle
to the Romans, pp.281-283).