apparently spontaneous letter, a document so complicated as that which Volter discovers. C. Clemen, in the work above cited and also in his Chronologie d. paulin. Briefe, 1893, attempts to prove that two genuine letters have been combined in one Epistle. The first, composed of ch. ii. 19-24; iii.; iv. 8-9, he holds to be the earliest of the Captivity Epistles, the second, embracing ch. i. 1-ii. 18, 25-30; iv. 1-7, 10-23, to be the latest (see Table in Chronol., p. 292). While laying stress upon the presence of numerous repetitions and paragraphs which have no connexion with their context, he bases his position mainly on what he conceives to be inexplicable contradictions between ch. ii. 20 and ch. i. 14, 16, and also between ch. iii. 2, 18 and ch. i. 18, 28. The theory, at first sight, is certainly plausible. There is noa priori reason (cf. the case of Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians) why two letters or fragments of letters to the Philippians should not, by some accidental circumstances of which we know nothing, have been combined. Only there must be some strong basis for such an hypothesis, derivable from the Epistle itself. We cannot feel that such a basis is presented by the arguments briefly alluded to above. In the groups of passages brought forward the contradiction appears to us imaginary. An exegesis which takes careful account of the historical background of the Epistle and re- cognises that the Apostle, like other men, had his moods of strong feeling, leaves no ground for maintaining that his statements in the one group are irreconcilable with those in the other! (see, for the details, the notes on these passages, and a most interesting parallel drawn from the criticism of Cicero’s Letters in Deissmann, Bibel- studien, pp. 220-222, 250).
SpeciaAL CHARACTERISTICS. The perusal of the Epistle cannot fail to produce the impression of artlessness. That is another way of saying that it precisely fulfils the conditions of a letter. Had this most prominent characteristic been always kept in view, much futile theorising both int the exegesis and in the criticism of the Epistle would have been avoided. The only plausible objections that have been brought against its genuineness or integrity would have been recognised as the natural consequences of its epistolary character (Brieflichkeit, a more convenient expression than English affords). For here, as in all his letters, the Apostle speaks for the occasion. He pictures his Christian brethren at Philippi as listening to his conversation. All is spontaneous and free. He draws up no fixed scheme which has to be followed, although, perhaps, the letter (or
1Clemen has recently withdrawn his objections to the unity of Philippians (see Th. LZ., 1got, col. 293).