th's sake, but when health was not in question, he would have all
men ask, not how much liberty in this or that is lawful for them, but
how they can avoid causing offence--how they can do most good. This
principle admits of application in many directions. For instance, it
may be very hard to determine why certain minor forms of gambling are
wrong, or whether they are positively wrong. But St. Paul would have
the other question asked--Can it be denied that the best way to avoid
leading my brother into one of the most common dangers of our time, is
to keep altogether free from a habit which in any case can do no good
to body or mind?

{157}

4. Here, as in x. 7, St. Paul touches upon the descent into Hades, and
indicates the purpose of it. 'For this end Christ died, that He might
be Lord of the dead.' It might have been imagined that the dim realms
of the dead were outside the jurisdiction of Christ--that the dead have
no king--that the kingdom of redemption does not include them. To
obviate such an idea, to show the universality of His realm, Christ
went down among the dead.

5. In many places of the New Testament there is mention of the
thanksgiving before food--the Christian's 'saying grace.' Whether he
eat flesh or vegetables he 'giveth God thanks[34].' And the word used
is the word which, in its substantive form, is 'eucharist.' And indeed
there is meaning in this. The thankful reception by the Christian of
the ordinary bread of his daily life as coming from God, touched his
common meals with something of the glory of divine communion; and the
eucharist in its turn {158} is the common blessing and breaking of the
bread, raised by the Holy Spirit to a higher power and consecrated to
become the vehicle of the bread of life[35].

[1] Possibly his mind passes by a natural reaction from the thought of
sensual licentiousness (xiii. 13) to that of unenlightened asceticism.

[2] It is implied (xiv. 1; xv. 1 and 7) that the strong-minded brethren
were in the ascendant. It is them chiefly to whom St. Paul addresses
himself.

[3] Ecclus. xxxiii. 9.

[4] Mark vii. 19.

[5] Acts x. 28.

[6] The matter of 'eating with the Gentiles' was prominent, cf. ii. 12.

[7] 1 Cor. x. 25.

[8] Acts xv. 23.

[9] 1 Cor. viii, and x. 23-33.

[10] The exact point--abstaining from all flesh meat--is so different
from what had presented itself at Corinth that there must be a
particular reference to Roman circumsta