98 Saint Paid and Saint James CHAP. 



chosen to be not only holy and blessed themselves, 

 but a blessing to all the nations of the earth. This 

 interpretation is suggested by the mention, in the 

 previous verse, of the world at large being blessed 

 through Israel : "If the casting away of them be 

 the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving 

 of them be but life from the dead?" And this is 

 consistent with Saint Paul's use of the same meta- 

 phor elsewhere: "Christ the firstfruits; afterward 

 they that are Christ's at His coming." * Moreover, 

 the same metaphor is used with the same meaning 

 by Saint James, who had much in common with 

 Saint Paul, and was the author of that circular 

 letter which was the charter of Christian freedom 

 and equality to the Gentile Churches. 2 He says : 

 "Of His own will begat He us by the word of 

 truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of 

 His creatures." 3 If this is the right interpretation 

 of Saint Paul's allusion to the firstfruit in the 

 passage which we are considering, the entire verse 

 means: "Mankind is holy for the sake of the elect 

 Church, even as Israel is holy and beloved (see 

 verse 28) for the sake of the fathers." 4 But whether 

 or not this interpretation is admitted for this pass- 

 age, there appears no danger of error in uniting 

 the verse quoted from Saint James with that from 



1 1 Cor. xv. 23. 2 Acts xv. 13 et seq. 3 James i. 18. 



4 Since the above was written I have noticed, with much 

 pleasure, that the same interpretation is offered by the Rev. 

 Andrew Jukes, in The Restitution of all Things, p. 102. See 

 Note A at end of chapter. 



