7. We do well to note the word used by St. Paul in asking the Roman Christians' prayers. He begs them to 'strive together' with him in their prayers. This word is a derivative of that which describes our Lord's 'agony' in prayer; and Origen's comment upon it is this: 'Hardly any one can pray without some idle and alien thought coming into his mind, and leading off and interrupting the intended direction of his mind to God.... And, therefore, prayer is a great striving (_agon_, wrestling), so that the fixed direction of the soul towards God may { 188} be maintained, in spite of the enemies which interfere and seek to scatter the sense of prayer; so that one who prays may justly say, with St. Paul, "I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course."'
[2] 'Round about,' literally 'in a circle,' as opposed to a straight course; cf. Mark vi. 6, 'round about the villages.'
[6] Cf. the opening of 1 Cor., a letter which contains on the whole so much blame.
[8] Sanday, _Conception of Priesthood_ (Longmans), p. 89.
[9] Like 'agape' (see above, p. 131, n. 2) so this word 'liturgus' appears to have been adopted in its priestly sense by the Greek translators of the Bible from the current Greek of Alexandria, cf. Deissmann, _Bibelstudien_, pp. 137 f.
[10] Cf. _S. and H. in loc._ 'Making sacrifice as a priest under the Gospel.'
[12] Col. i. 28: 'Teaching every man ... that we may present every man,' i.e. present him in sacrifice.
[13] For his repeated statements see app. note I. p. 240.
[14] Cf. 1 Cor. ix. 15; xv. 31; 2 Cor. i. 14; vii. 4, 14; viii. 24; ix. 3; x. 8, 13; xi. 10, 16-xii. 9; Phil. ii. 16; 1 Thess. ii. 19. These passages are worth examining in connexion.
[23] Not Peter therefore, though he was doubtless afterwards at Rome.
[24] _Ad Cor._ 5, see Lightfoot _in loc._
[30] Rom. xvi. 23. Cf. 1 Cor. i. 14, which shows us a Gaius at Corinth. Cf. the allusion to Erastus in the same verse, coupled with 2 Tim. iv. 20.
[34] See further, on the purpose of the epistle, vol. i. pp. 4 ff.
One strong link among Christians of different towns, constraining them to remember that their brotherhood did not depend on physical nearness or personal acquaintance, lay in the 'letters of commendation' from one local church to another, which the Christian traveller carried with him. And here we have an example of such a letter given by St. Paul to the Corinthian deaconess, Phoebe, who was probably the bearer of his letter to the Roman Christians.