Romans 1:15

“ So, as much as in me is, I have the lively desire to preach the gospel to you also, to you that are at Rome. ”

Of the three explanations by which it has been sought to account for the grammatical construction of this verse, the simplest seems to me to be that which gives a restricting sense to the words κατ᾿ ἐμέ : for my part, that is to say: “ so far as depends on me, so far as external circumstances shall not thwart my desire,” and which takes τὸ πρόθυμον as a paraphrase of the substantive προθυμία; the meaning is: “So far as I am concerned, the liveliest desire prevails in me to”...Such is the explanation of Fritzsche, Reiche, Philippi. De Wette and Meyer prefer to join τό with κατ᾿ ἐμέ in the same sense as we have just given to κατ᾿ ἐμέ alone, and to take πρόθυμον as the subject: “As far as I am concerned, there is an eagerness to”...Some have made τὸ κατ᾿ ἐμέ a periphrasis for ἐγώ, as the subject of the proposition, and taken πρόθυμον as a predicate: “My personal disposition is eagerness to announce to you”...The meaning is nearly the same whichever of the three explanations be adopted. The οὕτω, so, very obviously stands as a concluding particle. This eagerness to preach at Rome no less than elsewhere is the consequence of that debt to all which he feels lying upon him. The meaning: likewise, would not be so suitable. The word to evangelize, literally, to proclaim good news, seems to be inapplicable to a church already founded. But we have just seen that the apostle has here in view the extension of the church by preaching to the unbelieving population around it. Hence the use of the word. We must therefore take the words: you that are at Rome, in a wider sense. It is not merely the members of the church who are denoted by it, but the whole population of the great city represented in the eyes of Paul by his readers. As Hofmann says: “He is here considering the members of the church as Romans, not as Christians.” The words at Rome are omitted by Codex G, as in Romans 1:7. Volkmar explains their rejection by the fact that some evangelistarium (a collection of the pericopes intended for public reading) suppressed them to preserve the universal character of our Epistle. This explanation comes to the same as that which we have given on Romans 1:7.

Here for the present the letter closes and the treatise begins. The first proposition of Romans 1:16: I am not ashamed of the gospel, is the transition from the one to the other. For the words: I am not ashamed, are intended to remove a suspicion which might be raised against the profession Paul has just made of eagerness to preach at Rome; they thus belong to the letter. And, on the other hand, the word gospel sums up the whole contents of the didactic treatise which immediately opens. It is impossible to see in this first proposition of Romans 1:16 anything else than a transition, or to bring out of it, as Hofmann attempts, the statement of the object of the whole Epistle.