PHILIPPIANS, EPISTLE TO THE. Of this part of the apostle Paul's writings the genuineness has been generally admitted. Professing to be written by that distinguished servant of Christ, it bears on every part of it the impress of his peculiar style, manner of thought, and form of doctrine ; and the internal evidence of authenticity arising from the incidental allusions in it to persons and circumstances is very strong (Hone Pauline, c. 7). It is referred to formally and expressly by Poly carp in his Epistle to the Philippians (sec. 3, I I), besides being repeatedly quoted by him. It is quoted by the churches at Vienne and Lyons, in their letter to the churches in Asia and Phrygia, preserved by Eusebius (Kist. Eccles., v. 2); by Irenseus (Cont. Her., iv. 18, sec. 4) ; by Clement of Alexandria (Pcedag. lib. i., p. 1o7 ; Strom. iv., p. 511 ; Admon. ad Gentes, p. 56) ; by Tertullian (De Resur. Carnis, c. 23) ; by Origen (Cont. Cels., lib. iii., p. 122, ed. Spencer, et supiss.) ; by Cyp rian (Lib. Testi m. iii. 39), and by many of the later Fathers.
It is only in very recent times that any doubt has been suggested as to the genuineness of this epistle. Schrader (Der Ap. Paulus, v. 233) first insinu ated that the passage iii. I–iv. 9 is an interpolation ; but he adduces no reason for this but the purely gratuitous one that the connection between ii. 3o and iv. to is disturbed by this intervening section, and that by the excision of this the epistle becomes `more rounded off, and more a genuine occasional letter'—as if any sound critic would reject a pas sage from an ancient author because in his opinion the author's composition would be improved there by ! Baur goes further than this, and would reject the whole epistle as a Gnostic composition of a later age (Paulus, p. 458, ff.) But when he comes to point out `the Gnostic ideas and expressions' by which the epistle is marked, they will be found to exist only in his own imagination, and can only by a perverse ingenuity be forced upon the words of the apostle. Thus, in the statement that Christ le ,LLOpOg 9coii urrcipxwv oUx ra ervac fire 9ecv (ii. 5, 6), Baur finds an allusion to the Gnostic aeon Sophia in which `existed the out going desire with all power to penetrate into the essence of the supreme Father.' But not only is this to give the apostle's words a meaning which they do not bear (for however we translate aFrawtbp it evidently expresses an act in the past, not an aim for the ,future), it is manifest that the entire drift of the passage is not to set forth any speculative doctrine, but to adduce a moral infer ence. This is so manifest, that even Baur himself admits it, and by so doing overturns his own posi tion ; for it is only on the supposition that what the apostle refers to is a fact, and not a mere specu lative fancy, that any moral conclusion can be drawn from it. Equally futile is the attempt to find doketism in the use of the term izopcb';7—a term used by the apostle in reference to the divine nature—or of the terms 612olcoua, and Eb peOcpcu, all of which occur elsewhere in St. Paul's writings, and are here used to denote simply that Jesus Christ presented himself to the view of men actually as one of themselves (Lunemann, Pauli ad Phil. Ep. cent. Baurium defendit, Gott. 1847 ; Briickner, Ep. ad Phil. Paulo auctori vindicate cent. Baur., Lips. 1848).
A question has been raised as to whether the extant epistle to the Philippians is the only one ad dressed by St. Paul to that church. What has given rise to this question is the expression used by the apostle (iii. I), ret aura Nap, ic.r. X., where the writing of the same things to them is supposed to refer to the identity of what he is now writing with what he had written in a previous letter. It has also been supposed that Polycarp knew of more than one epistle addressed by the apostle to the Philippians, from his using the plural Os aarthv timip typalfrcp erto-roXiEs) in reference to what he had written to them. To this, however, much
weight cannot be attached, for there can be no doubt that the Greeks used for a single letter, as the Latins used Nero (see a multitude of examples in Stephans' Thesaurus, s. v.) That Polycarp knew only one epistle of Paul to the Philippians has been supposed by some to be proved by the passage in the rith chapter of his letter, preserved in the Latin version, where he says, ' Ego autem nihil tale • sensi in vobis vel audivi, in quibus laboravit beatus Paulus qui estis in principio epistolm ejus, etc.' But as Meyer points out, epistolze' here is not the genitive singular, but the nominative plural ; and the meaning is not `who are in the beginning of his epistle,' which is hardly sense, but (with allu sion to 2 Cor. iii. i) `who are in the beginning [i e. , from the beginning of his preaching the gospel among you—a common use of dpxi7, which was the expression probably used by Poly carp] his epistle.' It is going too far, however, to say that this passage has no bearing on this ques tion; for if Meyer's construction be correct, it shows that Polycarp did use e7r zo-roXal for a single epistle. Meyer, indeed, translates ' who are his epistles ;' but if the allusion is to 2 Cor. iii. i, we must translate in the singular, the whole church collectively being the epistle, and not each member an epistle. But though the testimony of Polycarp for a plurality of epistles may be set aside, it is less easy to set aside the testimony of the extant epistle itself in the passage cited. To refer Ta aura to the preceding xatpere ep Imply seems altogether improbable, for nowhere in this epistle has the apostle previously enjoined on his readers xecipap ev Kupico, and one does not see what on this hy pothesis is the propriety of such expressions as Stunpvv and &I-Oa/as ; and to lay the stress on the rypaOciv, as Wieseler proposes (Chronologie des Ap. Zeit., p. 45S), so as to make the apostle refer to some verbal message previously sent to the Philip pians, the substance of which he was now about to put into writing, seems no less so ; for not only does the epistle contain no allusion to any oral message, but in this case the writer would have said cal -ypaO€2v. A large number of critics follow Pelagius in the explanation, c eadem repetere quce presens dixeram ;' but it may be doubted if so important a clause may be legitimately dragged in to complete the apostle's meaning, without any authority from the context. The probability seems to be that the apostle alludes to some written com munication previously sent by him to the Philip pians (so Hssnlein, Flatt, Meyer, Bleek, Schenkel, •etc.) From allusions in the epistle itself; it appears that it was written at Rome during the period of the apostle's two years' imprisonment in that city, and in all probability towards the close of that period (i. 13, 14, 23, 26 ; ii. 18, 25). Several, however, would make the place whence it was written. But for this there is no adequate ground. It is true that the rpatrthplov (i. 13) may mean the residence of the procurator at Cwsarea, called (Acts xxiii. 35) rd 7rparrd,pLov 706 'llpthaou, and the ciroNcryia (i. 17) may be that delivered be fore Felix (Acts xxiv. ro, ff.) ; but it is more probable that the former of these refers to the castra protoriana at Rome, and the latter to the defence the apostle expected to deliver before the emperor. The expression olicia Kalcepos (iv. 22), also more probably means the imperial household at Rome, than the servants of the procurator at Cmsarea. What is farther in favour of Rome is, that the apostle, when writing this epistle, felt himself in a crisis between life and death, which would apply only to a trial in the last resort, a trial at the bar of the emperor himself. Creduer's opinion (De temp. et loco epistoler' ad Phil. SCTZPO, 1731), that the epistle was written at Corinth, is a mere whim, for which not the shadow of evidence can be adduced.