Sweat was beading up on his bald head and thick eyebrows. His pointed beard wagged as he paced the stone floor speaking rapidly. His dark eyes flashed, his hands gesticulated in rhythm with his rapid utterance. His quick mind was obviously way ahead of the words that rushed from his mouth. Tertius struggled to keep up, his quill scratching rapidly across the parchment. After hours of dictation and careful refinement, the letter was finally rolled up and given into the hands of Phoebe, who boarded a wooden merchant vessel heading for the hub of the Empire. The words were Greek, written from the Greek city of Corinth, dictated by a Jew quoting Hebrew texts and sent to Latin Rome. Twenty-eight years had elapsed since a seemingly obscure event in Palestine: the crucifixion of a Jewish rabbi named Jesus. At His execution, the Roman governor had placed over His head a sign that read “King of the Jews,” written in Greek, Hebrew and Latin. Almost three decades had passed; yet this one crucifixion out of thousands — even tens of thousands — which would normally have been long forgotten was now being explained in such a way that the world would never be the same. The bald man was St. Paul — formerly Saul the Pharisee — and the scroll on its way across the Mediterranean Sea was the Epistle to the Romans. He was no mere theorist or dry academic, but an immensely practical man as well as a profound theologian. The Apostle was a man writing with an experiential passion formed by his profound conversion, study, suffering, and preaching of the Gospel across the Roman Empire. Few, if any, documents have so changed the course of human history and thought as has the book of Romans. It brought about the conversion of the great St. Augustine. And a misunderstanding of it — by the Augustinian monk Martin Luther —brought about the unfortunate Protestant Reformation. The year was a.d. 58. St. Paul was in the city of Corinth in Greece and was planning a trip to Spain by way of Rome (see Rom. 15:22-24). He had many enemies whose slander and false teaching had preceded him. By way of introduction and a desire to instruct in the true religion, St. Paul was writing ahead to the Romans. History indicates that St. Peter had already been to Rome and founded the Church there. According to early tradition passed down by the ancient church historian Eusebius, St. Peter was in Rome during the second year of Emperor Claudius (a.d. 42). Historical documents are replete with other references to St. Peter as the bishop of Rome and its founder. In this epistle, St. Paul said: “I have fully preached the gospel of Christ, thus making it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another man’s foundation” (Rom. 15:19-20). This remark suggests that he had avoided preaching at Rome because St. Peter had already established the Church there. Romans holds the honor of first and longest of the epistles in the New Testament canon. It is the most theologically developed of all the epistles, more of a treatise and less personal in nature. The theme is stated early on: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16). The justification and salvation of Jew and Gentile (the church at Rome contained both) is carefully detailed as St. Paul draws from natural law and the Old Covenant to explain the Gospel. In Romans, the Apostle quotes from the Old Testament more that any other book and uses it so skillfully that it still amazes scholars and general readers alike. By the time the book was written, many Jews (including St. Paul himself) had converted to the Christian faith, which was seen by these converts simply as the fulfillment of Judaism. Yet the Messiah had come not for the Jews only, but for the Gentiles as well. Many of these Jews insisted that all the Gentiles who were brought into this new faith must be circumcised, perform the Jewish ceremonies, and follow all 613 of the Mosaic laws. Nevertheless, the Apostles and the elders had gathered in a.d. 49 (the first Church Council) and determined that the Gentiles could be justified before God, not by following the details of “the works of the Law” — the Mosaic code — but by faith in Christ (see Acts 15). In Romans, St. Paul asks many poignant questions of his imaginary interlocutors. How was Abraham justified before God? Was it through circumcision, or because he believed and obeyed God? Was he justified as a Jew or when he was virtually an uncircumcised Gentile from Mesopotamia? Of course, St. Paul explains, Abraham was justified by faith and as an uncircumcised Gentile. Much of the Apostle’s argument revolves around this very point. Too bad that many have misunderstand St. Paul by divorcing the text from its historical context and asserting that good works or obedience play no part in the process of justification before God. “Most eagerly then did I seize that venerable writing of Your Spirit, and chiefly the Apostle Paul. Whereupon those difficulties vanished away, wherein he once seemed to me to contradict himself, and the text of his discourse not to agree with the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets. And the face of that pure word appeared to me one and the same; and I learned to rejoice with trembling.” St. Augustine, Confessions, 7, 20 Martin Luther unhappily wanted St. Paul to proclaim that justification came not by “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26), or by “faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6), but by “faith alone.” To force this heretical interpretation upon the Apostle’s writing, Luther was forced to add the word alone into the text, which skewed St. Paul’s meaning and helped bring about the Protestant Reformation. In fact, the only place the words “faith” and “alone” appear together in Scripture is in the book of St. James, who also speaking about Abraham said, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? . . . You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:21, 24). Faith with subsequent obedience to Christ, the obedience of faith, is the path to salvation and final justification. Christ stands as the singular pinnacle in space and time, and by His incarnation, death, and resurrection He has made atonement for the sins of the world. This merit of Christ is offered freely to all men regardless of ethnic origin or whether they are circumcised or uncircumcised. No one is required to obey the laws of Moses to earn or inherit this salvation. Rather, this gift of God was offered to us while we were yet sinners (see Rom. 5:8). This is the theological battle St. Paul is waging; Romans explains it systematically and deeply. And of course, the one who believes in the Messiah and is baptized into his new Israel — the Church — is required to follow the law of Christ. The Old Covenant is not abolished; rather, it is fulfilled in Christ, and St. Paul now commands believers to present their bodies as “a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God,” which is their “spiritual service of worship” (Rom 12:1). After his theological explanation and defense of the Gospel of grace in the first half of his epistle, in chapter eight St. Paul embarks on the second and most practical section of Romans. He now exhorts the believers to a life of following Christ and living, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. In chapters 9 through 11 his amazing ability to reason and use the Old Testament scriptures are demonstrated when he argues that God has not abandoned the Jews now that the Gentiles have come into the Church. Rather, “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29). The Apostle argues that God will not abandon the Jews but will keep His promises to them, and they will some day recognize and receive Him as their Messiah. Christians must not be proud of their place in Christ, for it is a gift. Nor should they be arrogant with the Jew. They have been “grafted” into the tree, and the tree is a Jewish tree of a Jewish root. St. Paul displays his adept scholarship and use of the Old Testament by quoting from the Old Testament more in Romans than in all his other epistles combined. (We find at least seventy direct quotations from at least fourteen Old Testament books, predominantly the Psalms and Isaiah.) St. Paul thus acts as a bridge between the Old and New Covenants, preparing the way for Gentiles around the world and through the ages to come to Christ as Lord and Savior, freely and by faith. This indefatigable and self-sacrificing apostle eventually did arrive in Rome. After imprisonment in the Mamertine Prison, St. Paul shed more than perspiration — he shed his blood. In a.d. 67, the Apostle was beheaded for the faith and together with St. Peter is buried in Rome, trophies of the kingdom of God. The book of Romans stands as a monument: immemorial, profound, passionate, the very breath of God penned by a Jewish scholar in a Greek city to the Romans in the year a.d. 58. Paul did not sweat nor shed his blood in vain. You can contact Steve Ray via his website at www.catholic-convert.com