Lastly, the normal Christian life, thus conditioned, is a life whose mental energies (_logixesthe_) are fully at work, always gravitating towards purposes and actions true, pure, gracious, virtuous, commendable; "sowing the fruit of righteousness in peace," at the side of "the God of peace." True, the man may have many things to think of which are either perfectly secular in themselves (he may be a servant, he may be a man of business, he may be a physician, he may be a minister of state); or which are evil in themselves (he may be an investigator, or a judge, of crime). Nevertheless, this will not deflect the true current of the mind. These "thinkings" will all find place and direction in the "thought" which remembers that the thinker is the Lord's, and that in his _whole_ life he is to be true to the Lord's glory and the good of man. "The God of peace will be with him" wherever he goes, whatever he does; deep below the surface, but so as to control the whole surface all the while.
Such is the Christian life, where the Christian "stands firm in the Lord." It was thus at Philippi. In the early generations of the Church (let the _Apology of Aristides_ alone be adequate witness) it was thus, to a degree and to an extent most memorable, in at least very many Christian circles. It is thus still, in many an individual life. But is it in any sense whatever thus in the rule and average or even earnest Christian lives? Is it thus in ours?
"Henceforth, let us _live_--not unto ourselves, but unto Him who died for us, and rose again." To Him, in Him, by Him, we are bound to live so (Rom. viii. 12, _opheileta_), we are able to live so. Let us "present ourselves to God" (Rom. vi. 13), watching and praying, and it shall be.
"Two arms I find to hold Thee fast, Submission meek and reverent faith; Held by Thy hand that hold shall last Through life and over death.
"Not me the dark foe fears at all, But hid in Thee I take the field; Now at my feet the mighty fall, For Thou hast bid them yield." [11]
[1] So certainly read, not _Euodias_, which would be a man's name, a contraction of Euodianus. Euodias as a fact is not found in inscriptions. Euodia on the other hand is a known feminine name; and the words just following ("help these women") make it practically certain that the two persons just named were both female converts. (_Euodian_ of course may be the accusative of either _Euodias_ or _Euodia_.)
[2] _Cor Dei in verbis Dei_; Gregory the Great's noble description of the Bible, in a letter to the courtier Theodoras, begging him to study daily "the Letter of the heavenly Emperor."
[3] "I exhort," R.V. A slightly tenderer word seems better to represent _parakalein_ in this personal connexion. "I beseech" (A.V.) is _perhaps_ rather too tender.
[4] "As a curiosity of interpretation, Ellicott (see also Lightfoot, p. 170) mentions the conjecture of Schwegler, that Euodia and Syntyche are really designations of _Church-parties_ [the imagined Petrine and Pauline parties], the names being devised and significant [Euodia='_Good-way_,' Orthodoxy; Syntyche='_Combination_,' of Gentiles and Jews on equal terms]. This theory of course regards our Epistle as a fabrication of a later generation, intended as an _eirenicon_. 'What will not men affirm?'" (Note on ver. 2 in _The Cambridge Bible for Schools_).
[5] We know nothing for certain of this person. Lightfoot suggests that it was Epaphroditus, whom St Paul would thus commission not only orally but in writing, as a sort of credential. One curious and most improbable conjecture is that it was _St Paul's wife_. Renan (_Saint Paul_, p. 148) renders here _ma chere epouse_.
[6] Perhaps the bishop of Rome of a later day. So Origen and Eusebius. But we cannot be certain of the identity.