most important perhaps is found in the points of contact on the one hand between Philippians and the earlier Pauline Epistles, especially Romans, and on the other hand between Philippians and the other three Epistles of the Captivity. These have been worked out with care by Lightfoot among others, at once with regard to particular expressions and to parallels in thought. They have led him and others to the conclusion that the Epistle to the Philippians is the middle link between the great letter to the Romans and those to the Ephesians, the Colossians, and Philemon, The majority of scholars, therefore, take our Epistle to have been written at Rome. If so, its date may be about a.p. 62 or 63.
The question has also been considerably discussed whether our Epistle is prior to that to the Colossians or posterior to it. That it is prior is argued from its more general aim; from the more abstract character of its contents; and from the consideration that, as it is an Epistle which would be much more difficult to draw up than that to the Colossians, the resemblances between the two are best accounted for by supposing that some of the ideas thought out in the former were transferred to the latter. On the other hand, it is held that, as Coloss2 was nearer Caesarea and would be reached by Tychicus before he got to Ephesus, it is more natural to think that the Epistle to that Church would be written before the other, as it would be delivered before it. But this presupposes that the place of composition was Caesarea. And the same is the case with the contention that the καὶ ὑμεῖς of Eph. vi. 21 refers to the Colossians (cf. Col. iv. 7), and presupposes that Paul had already communicated with Colosse. These are all very precarious arguments, and the question must be regarded as undecided.
8. THe Doctrine or THE Epistite. The teaching of the Epistle is at once so lofty and so profound as to more than justify all that has been said of the grandeur of the composition by discerning minds in ancient and in modern times. Chrysostom speaks of the Epistle as “ overflowing with lofty thoughts and doctrines '’—one in which Paul expounds things ‘“ which he scarcely anywhere else utters”. (ὑψηλῶν σφόδρα γέμει τῶν νοημάτων καὶ ὑπερόγκων - ἃ γὰρ μηδαμοῦ σχέδον ἐφθέγξατο, ταῦτα ἐνταῦθα δηλοῖ) Theophylact, Grotius, Witsius and others speak of it in similar terms. Adolphe Monod, in his Ε xplica- tion, describes it as ‘‘ embracing in its brevity the whole field of the Christian religion,” as expounding “ now its doctrines, now its morals with such conciseness and such fulness combined that it would be difficult to name any great doctrine or any essential duty which has not its place marked in it”. And Coleridge wrote of it as “ one of