Philip'pian ($i\nn7i]moc,'), the patrial title of an inhabitant of Philippi (Phil, iv, 15).
PHILIPPIANS, Epistle to the, the sixth in order of the Pauline letters in the N. T. (The following ar- ticle is chiefly based upon that in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.) '
I. The canonical authority, Pauline authorship, and integrity of this epistle were unanimously acknowledged up to the end of the 18th century. Marcion (A.D. 140). in the earliest known canon, held common ground with the Church touching the authority of this epistle (Ter- tullian, A dv. Marcion, iv, 5 ; v, 20) : it appears in the Muratorian Fragment (Kouth. 1,'eliquia Sacra, i, 395); among the "acknowledged" books in Eusebius (//. E. iii, 25); in the lists of the Council of Laodicea, A.D. 365, and the Synod of Hippo, 393 ; and in all subse- quent lists, as well as in the Peshito and later versions. Even contemporary evidence may be claimed for it. Philippian Christians who had contributed to the col- lections for Paul's support at Pome, who had been eye and ear witnesses of the return of Epaphroditus and the first reading of Paul's epistle, may have been still alive at Philippi when Polycarp wrote (A.D. 107) his letter to them, in which (ch. ii, iii) he refers to Paul's epistle as a well-known distinction belonging to the Philippian Church. It is quoted as Paul's by several of the early Church fathers (Irena?us, iv, 18, § 4; Clem. Alex. Pa- dag. i, 6, § 52, and elsewhere; Tertullian. Adv. Mar. v, 2<(. J/, Res. Cam. ch. xxiii). A quotation from it (Phil. ii, 6) is found in (he Epistle of the Churches of Lvons and Vienne, A.D. 177 (Eusebius, //. K. v, 2). The" tes- timonies of later writers are innumerable. See Caxon.
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 insinuated that the passage iii, 1-iv, 9 is an interpolation; but he ad- duces no reason for this but the purely gratuitous one that i he connection between ii, 30 and iv, 10 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 passage from an ancient author because in his opinion the author's composition would be improved thereby! Baur goes farther than this, and would re- ject the whole epistle as a Gnostic composition of a later age (Paulus, p. 458 sq.). 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 in- genuity be forced upon the words of the apostle. Thus, in the statement that Christ iv pop<py Sriov iiirdpx^v ov% apTraypiv iiyijcraro to ilvai 'iau Scqi (ii, 5, 6),
Baur rinds an allusion to the Gnostic ason Sophia, in which "existed the outgoing 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 ap- rraypov >)y('j<Trtro, it evidently expresses an act in the past, not an aim for the future), but it is manifest that the entire drift of the passage is not to set forth any specu- lative doctrine, but to adduce a moral inference. This is so manifest that even Baur himself admits it, and by so doing overturns his own position ; for it is only on the supposition that what the apostle refers to is a fact, and not a mere speculative fancy, that any moral con- clusion can be drawn from it. Equally futile is the at- tempt to find Docetism in the use of the term pop(pij — a term used by the apostle in reference to the divine nature — or of the terms opoiiopa, ax>~ipa, and evp&rj- vai, all of which occur elsewhere in Paul's writings, and are here used to denote simply that Jesus Christ pre- sented himself to the view of men actually as one of themselves (Liinemann, Pauli ad Phil. Ep. cant. Bau- rium defensa, Gott. 1847 ; Bruckner, Ep. ad Phil. Paulo auctori rindicata cont. Baur. Lips. 1848). Baur was followed by Schwegler (1846), who argued from the phraseology of the epistle and other internal marks that it is the work not of Paul, but of some Gnostic forger in the 2d century. He too has been answered by Liinemann (1847), Bruckner (1848), and Resch (1850). "Even if his inference were a fair consequence from Baur's premises, it would still be neutralized by the strong evidence in favor of Pauline authorship, which Paley (flora Pau- lina, ch. vii) has drawn from the epistle as it stands. The arguments of the Tubingen school are briefly stated in Keuss (Gesch. d. A'. T. § 130-133), and at greater length in Wiesinger's Commentary. Most persons who read them will be disposed to concur in the opinion of dean Alford (X. T. iii, 27, ed. 1856), who regards them as an instance of the insanity of hypercriticism. The ca- nonical authority and the authorship of the epistle may be considered as unshaken.
A question has been raised as to whether the extant Epistle to the Philippians is the only one addressed by Paid to that Church. What has given rise to this question is the expression used by the apostle (iii. 1), to. ai)Tu ypatynv ifilv, k.t.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 Poly- carp knew of more than one epistle addressed by the apostle to the Philippians, from his using the plural (oe, airiav i<pii' typa^iv tTriaroXc'ic) 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 i— inToXai for a single letter, as the Lat- ins used litera (see a multitude of examples in Ste- phans's Thesaurus, s. v.). That Polycarp knew of only one epistle of Paul to the Philippians has been supposed by some to be proved by the passage in the 11th chap- ter of his letter, preserved in the Latin version, where he says. " Ego autem nihil tale sensi in vobis vel au- divi. in quibus laboravit beatus Paulus qui estis in prin- cipio epistolae ejus," etc. But, as Meyer points out, "epistote" here is not the genitive singular, but the nominative plural; and the meaning is not "who arc in the beginning of his epistle," which is hardly sense, but (with allusion to 2 Cor. iii, 1) "who are in the be- ginning [i. e. from the beginning of his preaching the Gospel among you — a common use of iv ap\>~/, which was the expression probably used by Polycarp] his epistle." It is going too far, however, to say that this passage has no bearing on this question ; for if Meyer's construction be correct, it shows that Polycarp did use i~ larvXai for a single epistle. Meyer, indeed, trans- lates "who are his epistles;" but if the allusion is to 2 Cor. iii, 1, we must translate in the singular, the whole Church collectively being the epistle, and not each member an epistle. But though the testimony of Ioly-