of dissonsion. He insists on the paramonnt dnty of pra.yor and thankB- giving, and the watchful government of the thonghts. He acknowledges with thanks their repeated gifts, and pra.ys that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ may be with their spirit. This Epistle has been called "the least dogmatic of the apostle's letters" (Bishop Lightfoot, Preface, p. ix.). It is natlll·al that it should be so; the apostle is writing a letter in acknowledgment of the gift.a of the Philippians, not a theological treatise ; a. letter of Christian love and spiritnal connsel. But, thongh the doctrine is introdnced incidentally, and always employed to enforce Christian practice and holiness of life; nevertheless, the whole Epistle is interpenetrated with Christian doctrine. The great doctrinal passage in the second chapter asserts most of the distinctive articles of the Christian creed. St. Panl insists upon the divinity of Christ, his pre- existence, his equality with God the Father, his incarnation, his perfect hnmanity, his precious death upon the cross, his glorious exaltation. In the third chapter we have his resurrection, his second advent, his Divine power. In that chapter we have also a full statement of the doctrines of justification by faith, of the transitory character of the Mosaic Law, and of the Church as the city of God. Doctrine, then, is here, as elsewhere, the basis of St. Paul's teaching; but here, a.a elsewhere, he enforces doctrine as bearing upon holiness of life. In the practical portion of the Epistle, the graces on which the apostle most insists are, especially and above all others, Christian joy; then unity ; and, as conducive to unity, unselfishness and humility. He also urges the duty of mutual forbearance, thankfulness, constant prayer, contentment, and the due ordering of the thoughts.
v. CORRESPONDENCE or THE EPISTLE WITH THB CIRCUMSTANCES OF TIIE PHILIPPIANS.
We must not omit to notice the correspondence which exists between the language of the Epistle and the circumstances of the Philippians. Philippi was a Roman colony; St. Paul refers once and again to the rights and duties of citizenship. Like other Roman colonies, it had a military charac- ter; it was a garrison against the Thracian barbarians. St. Paul calls Epaphroditu.s his fellow-soldier ; he derives his metaphors from wrestling and the race; he bids the Philippians to stand fast and strive together for the gospel. It was a city in which there were very few Jews; hence there is nothing in the Epistle which presupposes an acquaintance with the Old Testament. There are references to it here and there ( eh. i. 19 ; ii. 10, 11, 15; iv. 18); but no direct appeals to its authority. It was founded by a Macedonian king on Macedonian soil. The official tongue of the colony was of course Latin; but the language, education, customs, religion, of a large proportion of the Philippians were Greek. The apostle not only writes in Greek, as in all his extant Epistles; but usee here and there words xii INTRODUCTION TO
t1~hich remind ns of Greek thonght a.nd Greek philosophy, o.lml.p,mo., «lptn,, lm£i,ma, a,o-9',u,o;, µop</,'1/ : or of Greek rites, µvna-8a,, lvtf.pxro-80.,, urrlvi5£CT8a1, It wn.s not a very populous cit,r, not a great centre of trade ; but it WM i;itnRted on the great Egnatian Way, the m.&.in road between Rome and Asia; it was " the first city of Macedonia. n as one came 'from the East. Hence it had something of a cosmopolitan character, which seems to be reflected in the composition of the ca.rliest Church-the purple-seller from Thyatira., the Greek slave-girl, the Rom.an jailor. Women appear to have had a. mnch higher social position in Macedonia. than in other parts of the heathen world ; St. Pa.nl in this Epistle speaks of the dissensions •-between Enodia. and Syntyche as a. matter of grave importance. The hospitality of Lydia. was the first item in that " account of giving and receiving/' which he mentions in eh. iv. 15, 16. Philippi was the first European city in which· he prea.cbed; in writing to them, therefore, he naturally speaks of " the· beginning of the gospel" (eh. iv. 15). Timothy was with him during that first visit ; he reminds them in eh. ii. 22, " Ye know the proof of him, ·that as a. son with the father, he bath served with me in the gospel.'' He suffered much a.t Philippi-it was the scene of his first impPisonment; he mentions "the conflict which ye saw in m& " ( eh. i. 80). .A.t Philippi he and Silas in the dungeon " sang praises unto God ; "• and afterwards the jailor "rejoiced, believing in God with all his house." It is not without significance that the Epistle to the Philippians is emphatically the Epistle of Christian joy.
VI. GENUINENESS OP THE EPISTLB, .J
Of the genuineness of this Epistle there can be no shadow of doubt. It has been questioned by F. C. Baur, who finds references to Gnosticism in. t,he second chapter, and creates for himself a hiBtorical difficulty by identifying the Clement of eh. iv. 3 with Flaviu.s Clemens, the relation of Domitian, who was put to death bytha.t prince, a.nd was, in all probabili.ty, a. Christian martyr. But the arg11ment.s of Baur have found little acceptance even with the Tiibingen school, and a.re rejected even by such critics as M. Renan; Dean .Alford caJls them " the insanity of hyper-criticism.'' The Epistle is essentially Pa.uline; it reflect.& the character, the heart, the teaching, of St. Paul Its language and style are St. Paul's ; especially it bears a close resemblance, both in teaching and in words, to the Epistle to the Roman~, one of the four Epistles which Baur regards as undoubtedly Pauline. It is simply inconceivable that a forger could have so successfully imitated the apostle's manner, conld have poured forth that warm flood of affection, or c:onld have so exactly adapted his production to the circumstances both of St. Paul and of the Philippi.ans. There is la.rge external testimony to onr Epistle. We meet with words and 1::xpressioTIB from it reproduced in the earliest Christian writings; in Clement of Rome, in Ignatius, in Polyca.rp, in the epistle to Diog1.1etus, THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. xiii
Polycarp, whon himsolf writing to the Philippians, speaks of tho Epistle which they had received from St. Paul. Men who had known St. Pan], who had contributed to his necessities, may well have been living at Philippi whon Polycarp's letter was received, A.D. 107. There is :i. distinct quotation from the Epistle in the letter from the Churches of Lyons and Vienne (A.D. 177), preserved in the 'Ecclesiastical History' of Eusebius (v. 2), where the words of eh. ii. 6 a.re cited. In the same centlll'Y it is quoted by Iren:Bns, by Clement of Alexandria, and by Tertnllian. It is fonnd in Marcion's Canon, in the Mnratorian Fragment, and other ancient lists of the books of tho new Testament. It is contained in the Peshito, the Old Latin, and other ancient versions.