f
thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink: for in
so doing thou shall heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome
of evil, but overcome evil with good.

(1) It is the idea of corporate life which dominates all this
exhortation. No writing in the New Testament has done more than the
Epistle to the Romans to strengthen the sense of spiritual
individuality, and to rouse the individual spirit to protest, as it
protested in Luther, against spiritual tyranny. But it is a complete
mistake to suppose that the epistle is individualistic in tendency.
The life into which the individual's faith in Jesus admits him is the
life of a community, and its virtues are the virtues of community life.
The strengthened individuality is to go to enrich an organized society.

{108}

This is expressed in the familiar metaphor of the body which had been
employed in non-Christian thought before St. Paul identified it with
himself and Christianity by the vigorous and profound use which he made
of it[8]. The Christian community is a body bound together in a common
life by a common inspiring presence and spirit. The divine grace and
good favour of Christ shows itself in special 'gifts' (in the Greek
this word 'charisma' expresses a particular embodiment of the general
grace, 'charis,' of God); and no individual member is without his
special endowment. It is not a few officers of the community who are
gifted, but all; and all are to co-operate in the common life and work.
Of gifts there are various sorts which we hear of in the New Testament.
There are the official gifts, the result of what we call ordination, as
the gift which was 'in' Timothy 'by the laying on of hands.' And those
among the Christians at Rome, who 'presided' and 'ministered,' would
have been, we should suppose, official presbyters or 'bishops,' and
deacons. But the Roman Christians hardly constituted yet an organized
church, and we cannot tell whence such officers of {109} the community
received their appointment. There is no ground for a positive
assertion of any kind[9]. Again we hear of special gifts, such as
powers of healing, speaking with tongues and prophesying, which
sometimes accompanied the bestowal of the Spirit, through the laying on
of hands which was given to all. And the gift of prophesying among the
Roman Christians may have been a gift of this kind. But St. Paul is
perhaps writing with the circumstances of the Corinthian