g Him, and applying Him.
Such blessing will be exactly

Ver. 20. +according to my eager expectation+ (_apokaradokia_) and
hope, that in no respect shall I be disappointed (_aiochunthesomai_:
with the "shame" of a miscalculation), +but that in all outspokenness+
(_parresia_) of testimony, whether in word or deed, +as always, so also
now, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by means of life or
by means of death+.

The passage is full of various points of interest. It is interesting,
as we saw in our first chapter, in regard of the historical criticism
of the Epistle. It gives a strong suggestion (I follow Lightfoot in
the remark) in favour of dating the Epistle early in the "two years" of
Acts xxviii. For it implies that the fact of the Apostle's
imprisonment was a powerful stimulant to the zeal of the Roman
Christians; and this is much more likely to have been the case when the
imprisonment was still a new fact to them, than later. St Paul's
arrival and first settlement, in the character (totally new in Rome, so
far as we know) of a "prisoner of Jesus Christ," would of itself give a
quickening shock, so to speak, to the believing community, which had
suffered, so we gather, from a certain decadence of zeal. But when he
had been some time amongst them, and the conditions of the "hired
house" had become usual and familiar in their thoughts, it would be
otherwise; whatever else about St Paul might rekindle their ardour, the
mere fact of his imprisoned state would hardly do so.

The passage is further interesting as it indicates one particular
direction of the Apostle's influence upon the pagans around him. It
was felt, primarily, "in all the Praetorium," that is to say, in the
large circle of the Imperial Life-guards.[6] We gather here, with
reasonable certainty, that from the Life-guards were supplied, one by
one, "the soldiers that kept him" (Acts xxviii. 16); mounting guard
over him in turn, and fastened to him by the long chain which clasped
at one end the wrist of the prisoner, at the other that of the
sentinel. It needs only a passing effort of imagination to understand
something of the exquisite trial to every sensibility which such a
custody must have involved, even where the conditions were favourable.
Let the guardian be ever so considerate and civil, it would be a
terrible ordeal to be literally never alone, night or day; and too
often, doubtless, the guardian would be not at all complaisa