11 In every place your faith to Godwn.rd is spread abroad.'' It is a Christian hyperbole, the language of joy and thankfulness, not to be pressed to a literal interpretation. Again, it is urged that Aristarchus and Luke, who accompanied St. Paul to Rome, are mentioned in the Epistles to Philemon and the Colossians, but not in the Epistle to the Philippians. It is inferred that they mast have left Rome before this last Epistle was written, which, therefore, wonld seem to be of later date. This argument is too precarious to be of much weight. They may have been absent for a time; or accidental circumstances, unknown to us, may have caused the omission. They are not mentioned in the Epistle to the Ephesians; nor is Timothy, though that Epistle was certainly written at the same time as those to Philemon and the Colossians. Again, the various communications between Rome and Philippi are thought to imply a late date for our Epistle. The Philippians had heard of St. Paul's arrival at Rome. They had sent Epaphroditus with contri- butions for the relief of his wants. Epaphroditus had a dangerous illness, the result of over-exertion. News of his illness had reached Philippi. And lastly, Epaphroditus had heard that the report of his danger had greatly distressed the Philippians. But the time required for these communications is not very long. The distance from Rome to Philippi is about seven hundred miles. Each journey would occupy about a month (see Bishop Lightfoot's note, 'Philip- piane,' p. 38). And no one supposes that St; Paul could have written the Epistle till he had resided several months in Rome. Again, it is thought that St. Luke's words in the Acts of the Apostles and also St. Paul's in the Epistle to the Ephesians (vi. 19, 20) imply a greater degree of liberty than the Epistle before us. When St. Paul writes to the Philippiane, he does not seem to be actively engaged in preaching ; others preach (eh. i. 15, 16), hie work is almost limited to the silent eloquence of his bonds. Thie more rigorous imprisonment, and the possi- bilities of martyrdom hinted at in the Epistle, are thought by some to point to the time when Tigellinus became Prmfect of the Prmtorian Guard, after the death of the upright Burrus, the captain of the guard to whom St. Paul with other prisoners was at first delivered (Acts xxviii. 16). Burrus died in the year 62, scarcely a year after St. Paul's arrival. It is also thought that the Jewish tendencies of Poppma, who was married to Nero about the same time, may have led to the aggravation of the apostle's sufferings. But it does not seem very likely that such a prisoner as St. Paul, though to us Christians an object of the very deepest interest, would have attracted the notice of Tigellinus or Poppma; and indeed, if such were the case, the result in all probability would have been, not closer confinement, but immediate death. Not muoh stress can be laid on the other evidence furnished by the Epistle. St. Paul trnats to come to the Philippians shortly (eh ii 24); but, viii INTHODUCTION 'l'O
on the other hand, he ex.presses much uncertainty as to the result of his trial; be knows not whether it will end in acquittal or tho death of mo.rtyr- dom : he is prepared for either issue. He seems to speak with more hope of a speedy release in his Epistle to Philemon (ver. 22), which must havo bceu written about the same time as that to t4e Colossians. But these rn.riations of eA{lression may be due to accidental circumstances, or to those changes of feeling which must have taken place in the course of a long imprisonment, a.nd therefore seem scarcely sufficient to furnish reliable arguments in either direction. Bishop Lightfoot, who thinks that the Epistle to the Philippians m1:1st be placed a.s ea.rly a.s possible in St. Paul's first Roman imprisonment, insists strongly on its undoubted resemblance to the Epistle to the Romans. He points out many close parallels o.nd a considerable number of verbal coincidences (' Philippians,' pp. 43, 44). These, he. thinks, furnish a. strong argument for the earlier date of this Epistle as compared with those to the Ephesians and Colossians, which are connected. rather with the pastoral Epistles than with those of the third missionary journey. In the Epistle to the Philippians we have "the spent wave of the controv.ersy" .with J ndaism. In those to the Ephesians a.nd Colossia.ns we meet .with new forms of error, made known to the apostle, it may be, by the visit of Epaphras of Colossre, the shadows of the coi;ning heresies of Gnosticism, which at the time of the pastoral Epistles had assumed something more of distinctness. There is considerable weight in these arguments. On the other hand, we most remember that the Epistles to the Romans and Philippians can- not be separated by a.n interval of less than three years; while the last Epistle, on the hypothesis of its priority, cannot have been written more than two years before those to the Ephesians and Colossia.ns. The . close resemblance, therefore, between the Epistles to the Romans and_Philippians can scarcely be due exclusively to nearJiess of date.' It ma.y result in large measure from the fact that both Epistles are the spontaneous utterances of the apostle's heart. They were not elicited, ·like the Epistles to the Corin- thians or the Galatians, by the special circumstances, errors, or backslidings of the Churches addressed. The one is a. treatise, the other a letter ; but both represent the apostle's general teaching when not modified by the needs of particular Churches. At EphesnB or Laodicwa and Colossm the tendencies which afterwards took the form of Gnosticism may have shown themselves early; while at Philippi, a. European city, there was no appearance of those Eastern heresies. We mnst not omit to notice that, if this Epistle UaB ma.r,y points of contact with the Epistle to the Romans, it exhibits in two or three places (eh. i. 23, 30; ii. 17) a remarkable resemblanco to a 8:Ii.king passage in the Second Epistle to Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 6-8), the last Epistle written by St. Paul. (Jri tl1e whole, the balance of argument seems slightly in favour of the er,.rfar date of our Epistle. It may have been written in 61 or G2. But TlIE EPI8TLE 'ro Till'; PllILil'PIANS. ix
the evidence, it seems to us, is not decisive; nor would the decision be of much importance, wero it not for the various points of interest which it brings to our notice.