CHAPTER XXXVIII. Answer to the objection based on S. Paul's claim to be both a Jew and a Roman.

[Here again Paul showed the strategic powers of a general. If a general is driven out by his own countrymen, he no longer considers himself one of them, and overcomes them by joining some one else. Just so Paul was driven by the Jews into the hands of the Romans, and so he could say he was not a Jew but a Roman.

He was not wrong in calling himself a Roman, for by the Romé ( r9w&mh = might) of the Spirit he was to teach among the Roman nation.

Just as one of the Galatian race is called an Asian by living in Asia, so might Paul become a Roman, and yet remain a Jew. When he calls himself a Jew, he honours his countrymen; when he calls himself a Roman, he proclaims his nobility.²⁰²]