^{page 337 note 1} Frankfort, Henri, Ancient Egyptian Religion (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1961), pp. 66–8.Google Scholar

^{page 337 note 2} Fragments 7, cited from Loeb Classical Library edition.

^{page 337 note 3} E.g. Waldmann, M., Die Feindesliebe in der antiken Welt und im Christentum (1902), and H. Haas, Idee und Ideal der Feindesliebe in der ausserchristlichen Welt (1927).Google Scholar

^{page 338 note 1} Thus Vincent Taylor, The Epistle to the Romans (London, 1955) says: ‘This phrase is commonly explained as meaning “the burning pangs of shame”’ (p. 84). Sanday and Headlam also conclude: ‘Coals of fire, must, therefore, mean, as most commentators since Augustine have said, “the burning pangs of shame”, which may produce remorse and penitence and contrition’ (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (New York, 1926), p. 365). Perhaps the most uncommon interpretation is that of Joseph Rickaby, who feels that this verse ‘merely means that you will bring your enemy to reason more effectively by kindness than by heaping coals of fire upon his head’ (Notes on St Paul: Corinthians, Galatians, Romans (London, 1926), p. 426).

^{page 338 note 2} See Škrinjar, Albinus, ‘Carbones ignis congeres super caput eius’, Verbum Domini, XVIII (1938), 143–50.Google Scholar

^{page 338 note 3} Weiss, Bernhard, Der Brief an die Römer (Göttingen, 1899), p. 527.Google Scholar

^{page 338 note 4} Clarke, Adam, The New Testament (New York, 1857), II, 142. Albert Sundberg called my attention to this passage.Google Scholar

^{page 339 note 1} ‘Heaping Coals of Fire on the Head’, The Expositor, 3rd ser. II (1885), 158–9.Google Scholar

^{page 339 note 2} Expository Times, XLIV (1932), 141.Google Scholar

^{page 339 note 3} Expository Times, XXXVI (1924–1925), 478.Google Scholar

^{page 339 note 4} The Letter to the Romans (Edinburgh, 1961),Google Scholarad loc., Sanday and Headlam (Ibid.) offer an interesting example of how easily modern interpreters move from literal meanings to derived meanings either on the basis of the context or on the principle that a writer cannot contradict himself. While they say that άνθρακας πυρός ‘clearly means “terrible pangs or pains”’, they spiritualize this forthwith. The Moffatt translation also takes this approach when it reads: ‘in this way you will make him feel a burning sense of shame.’ C. H. Dodd (The Epistle to the Romans (London, 1947), pp. 200 f.) is not sure that it represents the original meaning of Prov. xxv. 22, but it renders Paul's meaning accurately.

^{page 340 note 1} Luther: Lectures on Romans, translated and edited by Wilhelm Pauck, The Library of Christian Classics (Phila. 1961), xv, 355Google Scholar f. (Unfortunately there is no indication where the Augustine quote ends and Luther returns.) According to Sanday and Headlam this interpretation goes back to Origen: ‘…et ex hoc ignis in eo quidem succendatur, qui eum pro commissi conscientia torqueat et adurat: et isti erunt carbones ignis, qui super caput eius ex nostro misericordiae et pietatis opere congregantur’ (Ibid.).

^{page 340 note 2} Ruffenach, F., ‘Prunas congregabis super caput eius’, Verbum Domini, VI (1926), 210–13. Father Robert Kelly, S.J., kindly assisted me with an English abstract of this essay and the one by Škrinjar.Google Scholar

^{page 340 note 3} Ruffenach, op. cit. p. 213. There is some disagreement among modern writers on the precise differences among the Church Fathers on this verse.

^{page 340 note 4} Kraus, H. J., Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament (Neukirchen, Kreis Moers, 1960), xv (Psalmen II), ad loc., questions the reading ‘burning coals’.Google Scholar

^{page 340 note 5} Godet, F., Commentary on St Paul's Epistle to the Romans (New York, 1883), p. 439, attributes this position also to Grotius and Hengstenberg. According to Godet these writers see here an encouragement to heap benefits on the head of the evildoer in order to aggravate the punishment with which God will visit him. Dahood (see below) attributes this view also to Origen. This view finds some support in II Esdras xvi. 53: ‘Let no sinner say that he has not sinned; for God will burn coals of fire on the head of him who says, “I have not sinned before God…”.’Google Scholar

^{page 340 note 6} So Charles Gore when he says: ‘heap burning shame upon his enemy, like coals of fire’ (my italics), St Paul's Epistle to the Romans (London, 1900), II, 106.Google Scholar

^{page 340 note 7} As several of the above-mentioned interpretations do. One could add: C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (London, 1957), where the burning coals ‘are the fire of remorse’ or Stifler who speaks of ‘coals of red-hot love’ (James M. Stifler, The Epistle to the Romans (New York, 1897), p. 227), while rejecting the ‘burning shame’ explanation as ‘overdrawn’. James Denney asserts that the ‘burning shame’ interpretation is ‘hardly open to doubt’ (Expositor's Greek New Testament, II, 694).

^{page 341 note 1} See the article, ‘Ägypten und die Bibel’, RGG³, I, cols. 117–21, by S. Morenz.

^{page 341 note 2} Note also the difficulty A. Cohen has with it in Proverbs (Soncino Press, London, 1945), ad loc.

^{page 341 note 3} Kuhn, G., Beiträge zur Erklärung des salmonischen Spruchbuches (1931), p. 65, cited in Morenz (see next note).Google Scholar

^{page 341 note 4} As observed by Siegfried Morenz, ‘Feurige Kohlen auf em Haupt’, Theologische Literaturzeitung, LXXVIII (1953), cols. 187–92. I owe the impetus for this study to this article to which all subsequent Morenz references refer.Google Scholar

^{page 341 note 5} Dahood, M. J., ‘Two Pauline Quotations from the Old Testament’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, XVII (1955), 29–24.Google Scholar

^{page 341 note 6} Bickell's position is described here on the basis of Dahood's presentation of it who gives as its source ‘Kritische Bearbeitung der Proverbien’, W.Z.K.M. v (1891), 283–4.Google Scholar

^{page 342 note 1} Op. cit.

^{page 342 note 2} According to Gesenius, Hebrew-English Lexicon, this verb is once applied to man (Ps. lii. 7), elsewhere always to fire or burning coals (Isa. xxx. 14: ‘to take fire from the hearth’; Prov. vi. 27: ‘carry fire in his bosom’). Kochler-Baumgartner indicate this root has a different meaning in Ps. lii. 7.

^{page 342 note 3} Dahood, op. cit. Dahood considers it less likely that ‘coals of fire’ here designates the passions, the evil instincts, as is the case in Sirach viii. 10: ‘Do not kindle the coals of a sinner, lest you be burned in his flaming fire.’ Škrinjar (op. cit.) also takes the word here as ‘kindling’.

^{page 343 note 1} Beet, J. A., A Commentary on St Paul's Epistle to the Romans (London, 1881), ad loc.Google Scholar

^{page 343 note 2} Op. cit.

^{page 343 note 3} Die Sprüche (Handkommentar zum Alten Testament, Göttingen, 1898), p. 142. Dahood agrees that this is its meaning in biblical usage (op. cit.).Google Scholar

^{page 343 note 4} Op. cit.

^{page 343 note 5} Apparently the first publication of this material is F. L. Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis (Oxford, 1900), who did not make the connexion with Proverbs, indeed who thinks of punishment ‘by beating and burning’. Perhaps E. von Dobschütz is the first to ask the question whether there may not be a connexion between this and Rom. xii. 20 in a review of Griffith's book in Theologische Literaturzeitung (1901), col. 282 ff. The text Griffith prints is: ‘I will cause him to bring this book hither, a forked stick in his hand and a censer of fire upon his head’ (p. 32). G. Raeder, Altägyptische Erzählungen und Märchen (Jena, 1927), p. 150, cites it as follows: ‘Ich will ihn zwingen, dass er dieses Buch hierher zurückbringt, indem ein gabelförmiger Stock in seiner Hand und ein Feuerbächen auf seinem Kopfe ist.’

^{page 343 note 6} One objection raised to the use of this material is that the Egyptian narrative in its written form is apparently later than the Proverb. It must be observed, however, that the repentance ritual may antedate the literary document.

^{page 344 note 1} Das Neue Testament Deutsch, 2; Der Brief an die Römer, p. 106.

^{page 344 note 2} The above material is taken from Morenz's article, cols. 189 f.

^{page 344 note 3} Dodd, C. H. (op. cit.) differentiates between the meaning of the expression in Proverbs and Paul.Google Scholar

^{page 345 note 1} This Rabbinic material is taken from Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (2nd ed.), III, 301 ff. It is also given in Paul Fiebig, ‘Jesu Worte über die Feindesliebe’, Theologische Studien und Kritiken, XCI (1918), 30–64, who stresses that ‘Die Grösse Jesu besteht…darin, dass er mit prinzipieller Klarheit und Schärfe eine schrankenlose, auch über die Schranken der Nationen hinausgehende, also wirkliche Menschenliebe fordert’ (p. 39). His treatment of ‘coals of fire’ concludes that their purpose is to bring about a ‘bitter, burning shame’ (ibid.).

^{page 345 note 2} Op. cit. p. 201.

^{page 345 note 3} On the Qumran material see Sutcliffe, E. J., ‘Hatred at Qumran’, Revue de Qumran, II (1960), 345–56, especially p. 353. Among the earlier studies S. Bartstra, ‘Kolen vuurs Hoopen op iemands Hoofd’, Nieuw Theologisch Tijdschrift, XXIII (1934), 61–8, stresses the radical break Paul made with Judaism on this point.Google Scholar

^{page 346 note 1} The Qumran material on this theme is competently dealt with also by Victor Hasler, ‘Das. Herzstück der Bergpredigt, Matth. v. 21–48’, Theologische Zeitschrft, xv (1959), 90–106; Kurt Schubert, ‘Bergpredigt und Texte von En Fescha’, Theologische Quartalschrift, cxxxv (1955), 320–37, and most recently by Krister Stendahl, ‘Hate, Non-Retaliation and Love’, Harvard Theological Review, LV (October 1962), 343–55.Google Scholar

^{page 346 note 2} Op. cit. pp. 334 f.

^{page 346 note 3} Op. cit. p. 336.

^{page 347 note 1} The Homilies of St John Chrysostom (Oxford, 1841), pp. 390 f.Google Scholar

^{page 347 note 2} Sutcliffe (op. cit. p. 355) calls attention to a passage in Tacitus which may offer evidence for how widespread the Jewish teaching was that one should hate his enemy: ‘Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu, sed adversus omnes alios hostile odium’ (Hist. v, 5). Paul Althaus has well observed that the reference to vengeance in this connexion does not mean that Christians are to seek solace in God's future punishment. ‘The apparent impotence in refusal to avenge bears within it a powerful force: the force of God's earnest love’ (op. cit. p. 106).

^{page 348 note 1} Is it the premature flight into a ‘paradoxical’ solution which causes Michel to say: ‘Vielleicht gab es in Ägypten eine Sitte, nach der ein Sünder ein Kohlenbecken auf dem Haupt trug, um dem Beleidigten genug zu tun’ (Der Brief an die Romer (Göttingen, 1955), p. 299, our italics)? The evidence would seem to justify more confidence than the timid ‘vielleicht’ and certainly offers little support for the assumption that its purpose was ‘Genugtuung’.

^{page 348 note 2} Epictetus, Discourses III, xxii, 54 ff. (Loeb Classical Library).

^{page 348 note 3} Epictetus, Fragments 5. Waldmann (op. cit. pp. 54 f.) deals ably with this material and notes the difference between love for the enemy and disdain for him as it is stoically expressed.

^{page 348 note 4} Paul Billerbeck, op. cit. I, 341. The criticisms against Billerbeck's collection are to some extent justified. However, in our approach we explicitly note that Paul is indebted to Judaism for his view, but that he could very well have developed a different view also based on Jewish sources. For a collection of noble Rabbinic material one can refer among others to the excellent article, ‘Enemy, Treatment of an’ in The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York, 1903), V, 159–60 by David Philipson and Fiebig (op. cit.).

^{page 349 note 1} In particular one would need to ask to what extent Paul's concept of judgement follows that of the prophets in which judgement is primarily seen as educative. It would seem that his main point in Rom. xii deals with the Christian's attitude and actions towards enemies, and thus his concept of judgement would not bear directly on this issue.

^{page 349 note 2} Yet there have been attempts by scholars to relate the redemptive and punitive interpretations of this image. F. J. Leenhardt says: ‘The practice, which was probably magical in origin, implied either the execution of a punitive measure or the repentance of one who undertook voluntarily to expiate his fault in this way. We may see here then, either the idea already expressed by the suggestion of the “wrath” which executed punishment, or else the idea that the guilty man will repent at the sight of the kindnesss shown to him by his victim’ (The Epistle to the Romans) (London, 1960, ad loc.). F. Lang also notes the paradoxical nature of the call to reconciliation in Proverbs and agrees with Adolf Schlatter that since Paul refers to the wrath (v. 19) the coals of fire have a secondary reference to the final judgement (see Lang's article on πῦρ in Kittel, T.W.N.T. VI, 944).

^{page 349 note 3} According to Billerbeck (op. cit. p. 302) this interpretation is found in the Targum, hence would have been most accessible to Paul.

^{page 349 note 4} So John Knox in Interpreter's Bible, ad loc.

^{page 350 note 1} Cragg, G. R. in Interpreter's Bible, ad loc.Google Scholar

^{page 350 note 2} Kaufmann, Walter, Critique of Religion and Philosophy (New York, 1958), p. 180.Google Scholar