THE
PULPIT EDITED BY THE
VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., DEAN 011' GLOUOl!:l!TEB;
AND BY THE
REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A.
PHILIPPIANS. 0xposition anlJ 1!1omflrtics BY REV. B. C. C.A.FFIN, M.A.., VIOAB OF NOBTHALLERTON, AND BURAL DEAN; LATE FELLOW AND TUTOB 011' WOBOESTEB COLLEGE, OXJ'OBD.
1!1omilirs b!} J-Jarious fautf)ors. REV D. THOMAS, D.D. REV. R. M. EDGAR, l\r.A. REV. PROF. T. CROSKERY, D.D. REV. R. FINLAYSON, ll.A. REV. W. F. ADENEY, M.A. REV. CANON VERNON HUTTON.
NEW EDITION.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON AND NEW YORK 1907 l'HE EPISTLE OF
PAUL TO THE PHILIPPIANS. INTRODUCTION.
I. PHILIPPI: ITS INHABITANTS; FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH. THE Epistle to the Philippians was written about thirty years after the Ascension, about ten years after the first preaching of the gospel by St. Paul at Philippi. Christianity was still young, in all the freshness of its first youth. It had come suddenly into the world. The world seemed growing old:' the old religions had lost whatever power they once possessed; the old philosophies were worn out ; the energies of political life had been weakened or suppressed by the all-pervading despotism of Rome. Avarice, u.Iicleanness, cruelty, were rampant in the earth. There was little faith in' God, in goodness, in immortality. " What is truth ? " was the despairing question of the age. The gospel flashed upon this scene of moral confusion like, what it is in truth, a revelation from heaven. It brought before the eyes of men a life and a Person. The world saw for the first time a per- fect life; not a mere ideal, but a real life that had been really lived upon the earth; a life that stands alone, separate from all other lives ; unique in its solitary majesty, in its unearthly loveliness, in its absolute purity, in its entire unselfishness. The world saw for the first time the beauty of complete self-sacrifice. And this life was not merely a thing past and gone. It was still living, it is still living in the Church. The life of Christ lived in his saints. They felt it: "Not I, but Christ liveth in me." They could tell others the blessed realities of their own spiritual experience. They were in earnest; that was plain: they had nothing to gain in the world. St. Paul especially had renounced a. career most tempting to Hebrew ambition, for a life of unceasing labour-a life full of hardships, persecutions, dangers, and evidently destined to end in a violent death. He was in earnest, certainly; he was consumed with an untiring zeal; in spite of many personal disadvantages, much natural timidity, the constrain- ing lovll of Christ urged_him to spend and to be spent in his S:wiour's work. ii INTRODUCTION '1'0
And in that work, a.mid all its difficulties, anxieties, and dangers, he found a deep and living joy, joy among tears; "sorrowing," he said of himself, "rC't alway rejoicing." Joy, he felt and taught, was the privilege and the duty of a Christian, who knew that he was redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, that the Holy Spirit was sanctifying him, that God the Father had chosen him to be his own. No wonder that those early years were years of fruitfulness. Earnest, truthful natures soon ranged themselves with the preachers of the new religion; a chord was struck that vibrated in all true hearts; all who waited for salvation, who were longing after God, were gathered round the cross. St. Paul had first come \o Philippi about the year 52. It was his first visit to Europe. He had seen in Asia a vision, a man of Macedonia, who said, " Come over and help us; " and he came. Philippi was the first Macedonian city which he reached; for N eapolis, tlie port of Philippi, was generally (not always) reckoned as belonging to Thrace. The place had been called Crenides, or Fountains, a prophetic name, for it became the fountain of European Christianity. The city was founded by the well- known Macedonian king from whom it derived its name, the d.Y1Jp MaKt"• &:.v of Demosthenes. The soil was exceptionally fertile ; there were gold and silver mines in the neighbourhood, which produced a large revenue. But the importance of Philippi was ma.inly owing to its situation : it com- manded one of the principal routes between Europe and Asia ; the mountain range which separates the East and the West sinks into a pass near to Philippi. It was this circumstance, not only the mineral riches of the neighbourhood, which attracted the attention of Philip; it was this, as well as the wish to commemorate his decisive victory, which led Augustus to plant a Roman colony at Philippi. It was a Roman city that St. Paul found when he came hither in his second missionary journey: ":i. Roman colony in Greece," says Bishop Wordsworth, "an epitome of the Gentile world." The settlers brought by Augustns were mainly Italians, discharged Antonia.n. soldiers. Along with these there existed a large Greek element in the population; we may say Greek, for the Macedonians possessed, from the period when they first assumed prominence in Grecian history, many of the distinctive character- istics of a Hellenic people ( comp. Mure's 'Literature of Ancient Greece,' I. iii. 9). The official langn.age was Latin, but Greek was the tongue commonly spoken. Inscriptions in both languages have been fonnd among the ruins of Philippi; the Latin, it is said, outnumber the Greek. The colouists were Roman citizens; the ensigns of Roman rule, the S.P.Q.R., were everywhere to be seen. The colony was a miniature of the imperial city. Its magistrates, properly called dnumviri, were addressed by the more ambitious name of prretors ( ,nparrryo0 ; they were attended by lictors (j,a./30ovxoL). The inhabitants claimed the great name of Romans (Acts xvi. 21;, the name which Paul and Silas vindicated to themselves in the house THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. iii