It is clear that the Philippians were inclined to take a pessimistic view of the effect of St. Paul's imprisonment and situation in general on the cause of the gospel. The statement in I'-''- is a correction of this, and we may well explain the repeated in- junctions to joy as proof that they were apt to be dispirited owing to the seeming failure of the Apostle's missionary activity.
Perhaps also they needed to be told that their gifts were thoroughly appreciated by the Apostle, and that there was no feeling of disa])pointment in his mind in regard to the tardiness or smallness of their liberality. ' The Philippians must recently have expressed their dissatisfaction with what they had done to support I'aul and his work, and their doubt as to whether Paul had been satisfied with the same. The tone in which Paiil speaks of the matter throughout the letter (ii. 17,
25, 30, iv. 10-20) is natural only on the supposition that this feeling had been very strongly expressed, and the Church had lamented and apologised for the smallness and tardiness of their last remit- tance ' (Zahn, op. eit. i. 527).
St. Paul also is anxious to tell of his intention to visit them (2**, TriiroiSa. Si iv Kvpltp Sri xai ai'T-i? to^^ws iXevao/iai) and to assure tliem that their prayers help to this end. It is possible that they spoke of him in their letter as their Kavxvf^"- (1°" ; cf. Kendel Harris, Exp, 5th ser., viii. 178). The sharp change of tone in 3- may also be due to a fear expressed by the Philippians of a possible Judaistlc jiropaganda among them. It may, however, be quite well ex- plained out of St. Paul's own experience.
Besides all this, there are the ditferences of opinion in the Church itself and the consequent reiterated charges to present a united front to the enemy, and as in all his letters there are the Christian moral injunctions based on the great Christian verities. It is not difficult thus to get a pretty clear conception of the purposes and aims of the writer in this Epistle, nor can it be held that there is anything in this incompatible with the Pauline authorship. What one has to fear in interpretation is over-subtlety and the tendency to forget that the canons of criticism that apply to a modern theological treatise are not applicalile to an informal letter which its author never intended as a KTTjfjLa is dfi.
i. Genuineness. — (a) External evidence. — So much attention is given by recent critics to in- ternal evidence that the external is apt to be undervalued or overlooked, although it is as strong as one can reasonably expect. The first unmistak- able reference of a direct kind to St. Paul's Epistle is found in Polycarp's letter to the same church (ad Phil. iii. 2) :
* For neither I nor anyone else like me can attain to the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who while he waa among you taught those then living the words of truth accu- rately and vigorously, who also in his absence wrote letters to you ' (os Kal diru>f viJ.lv iypa.'iliV effiffTOAds).
That our letter is referred to here seems clear. Indeed, it is evident that Polycarp knew it well, as there are distinct echoes of it in his short epistle (cf. ad Phil. i. l = Ph 2" 4'» ; ii. l = 2'<i 3=' : ix. 2 = 2'«[or Gal 2=]; x. l=22-»; xii. 3 = 3"). The diffi- culty is to account for the plural 'letters.' It is sometimes explained as if it were simply equivalent to the singular (cf. examples in Lightfoot, Philip- pians, p. 14011'.). Others, however, point out that Polycarp appreciates the difference between the singular and the plural in this epistle (cf. xiii. 2), and that we must here understand a real plural. Zahn [op. cit. i. 536) and others accord- ingly explain it on the supposition that 1 and 2 Thess. and Philippians formed a Macedonian group, and Zahn shows that Tertullian so regarded them (Scorp. 13), and probably Polycarp himself (xi. 3) ; cf. also Harnack, TV, new ser., v. 3 [1900] 86 f. It may be said, however, that a later tradition supports the theory of more letters than one (cf. Georgius Syncellus, who qiiotes Ph 4' as occurring in St. Paul's first letter \_Chronocjraphia, i. 651] ; cf. aXio Studia Sinaitica,edi. A. S. Lewis, i. [Cambridge, 1894] 11 ff., for the mention of a Second Epistle in the Syrian Canon, c. A. D. 400). As we shall see later on, this is used freely to support modern theories of fusion in our extant Epistle, but it remains to be proved on its own merits that the present Epistle contains two or more letters joined together ; for there is every likelihood that many letters written by St. Paul are now lost, and possibly among them one or more to Philippi. It is, however, problem- atical if lost letters are here referred to, as it is quite possible to explain the plural otherwise, and it is not likely that if more letters than one existed
220 PHILIPPIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
PHILIPPIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE
in Polycarp's time they would have been lost af ter- wiiriis.
The statement in ad Phil. xi. 3 — ' qm estis in printipio epistola; eius' — is iliflicult. Some supply ' laudiiti ' (' you wlio are praised ') in the beginning of his letter. Others, however, say the text is meaningless (sinnlo.i) (cf. E. Henneeke, Hmulhurh zu den neutest. Apokrjiphen, Tiibingun, 1"J()4, p. 103), and translate ' in the beginning of liis gospel [cf. Ph 4"] or his mission,' d7ro<rTo\^s (E. Nestle ace. to Zahn, op. cit. i. 536). Others again, referring to 2 Co 3--', make 'epistolaj' plural, 'You who are his epistles.' The latter is not likely. There can be no doubt, however, tliat Polycarp(c. 125-130) knew our letter, although it is doubtful if he knew of more than one. It is also quoted in his Marti/rdom, i. 2 ( = Ph 2*).