PROVENANCE
PROVENANCE
When Paul wrote this letter, he was a prisoner (Phil. 1:7, 13, 17), but he does not say where his prison was located. He recognizes that death might be the outcome of his predicament (1:20; 2:17), but on the whole he anticipates a speedy release and looks forward to rejoining his Philippian friends (1:25-26; 2:23-24). These facts are interesting, but they tell us nothing of the location of the prison.
We read of Paul’s being held at Caesarea for two years (Acts 23:33; 24:27), as well as at Rome (Acts 28:16). The apostle himself says that he had been in prison "more frequently” than others (2 Cor. 11:23), which makes it clear that he had undergone more imprisonments than those mentioned in Acts (Clement of Rome says that Paul was in jail seven times [1 Clem. 5:6]). There are thus three possibilities: the imprisonment at Caesarea, that at Rome, and an incarceration on one of the other occasions, of which no record has survived.
Traditionally it has been held that this imprisonment was at Rome. There is a reference to "the Praetorium” (Phil. 1:13, JB), which is naturally understood to refer to the praetorian guard, which was centered at Rome. There Paul lived in his rented house with a soldier to guard him (Acts 28:16, 30-31). This would fit the situation in Philippians, as would the reference to "those who belong to Caesar’s household” who send greetings through Paul (Phil. 4:22). From the letter we gather that Paul was in a position to organize his coworkers; he could send Timothy and Epaphroditus to Philippi (2:19, 25), and this accords with the situation at Rome. So does the fact that a good number of "the brothers in the Lord” had been encouraged by Paul’s chains to preach the gospel (1:14), which seems to mean that there was a well-established church there. The Marcionite prologue is usually cited as early evidence that Rome was the place of origin of the letter. Another line of argument is that in Philippians the apostle is faced with death or release (1:20), but elsewhere than in the capital city he could appeal to Caesar against an adverse verdict.
All this makes for a strong case, and it is not surprising that Rome has very often been judged to be the place from which the letter was written. But a difficulty is the problem posed by the journeys mentioned or implied in the letter. One journey is necessary for whoever brought the Philippians the news of Paul’s imprisonment, a second for Epaphroditus as he brought their gift to Paul (Phil. 2:25), a third for the news of Epaphroditus’s illness to get to Philippi, and a fourth for the concern of the Philippians to have been reported to the sufferer (2:26). Paul envisages three more journeys, apparently all to be accomplished in the near future: those of Timothy to Philippi and back with news (2:19) and that of Epaphroditus (2:25). Philippi is a long way from Rome (about 1,200 miles), and it is urged that such journeys would take months, so that it is likely that the place of imprisonment was much closer to Philippi than was Rome. The list may possibly be shortened a little by contending that we need not assume that the Philippians had heard that Paul was in prison: they may have heard of Paul’s appeal to Caesar and dispatched Epaphroditus to Rome to await him. There was plenty of time, for Paul was delayed by being shipwrecked and spending the winter in Malta. This possibility may be conceded, but it is conjecture, and the argument from the journeys is still a weighty one.3
A further objection arises from Paul’s stated intention of going to Philippi if he is released (Phil. 2:24). When he wrote to the Roman church, he said that he intended going on to Spain after he had been with them (Rom. 15:24, 28). He may have changed his mind, but if so, we would expect some reference to a change of plan. We should also notice the comment that the Philippians had had no opportunity of sending a gift to him until the one for which he gives them thanks (Phil. 4:10). If Paul is writing from Rome toward the end of his life, this is very curious. 4 The objections to Rome as the place of origin are weighty enough to cause a number of recent scholars to look at the evidence for some other place, and two candidates have been put forward: Caesarea and Ephesus. Caesarea is favored by the fact that we know that Paul was imprisoned there for two years (Acts 24:27). 5 The praetorium may well have been Herod’s praetorium (see Acts 23:35), where Paul was placed when he was taken to that city. It is further urged that the polemic against false teachers is similar to that against Judaizers 6 in earlier letters and that Philippians must accordingly be seen as early. (There is no such polemic in Romans, and it is likely that the Judaizers were not active by the time Paul got to Rome.) Against Caesarea is its distance from Philippi; we are up against much the same problem in fitting in the journeys as in the Roman hypothesis. The argument that the church in the center from which Paul wrote must have been of some size is a difficulty, for we have no reason for thinking of a strong church at Caesarea. Moreover, the contention about the Judaizers loses force when we reflect that the imprisonment at Caesarea immediately preceded that in Rome; there was no considerable interval for a change in the false teachers being opposed. There seems no convincing reason for holding that Caesarea was the place of origin. 7 There have been strong advocates of Ephesus. We have no explicit statement that Paul was ever imprisoned in that city, but there are the apostle’s words about his many imprisonments (2 Cor. 11:23) and the fact that he was at one time in very serious trouble there (1 Cor. 15:32; see also 2 Cor. 1:8-11), which may well have meant time in prison, among other hardships. Ephesus was not far from Philippi (about one hundred miles), and the journeys mentioned in the letter would not have been difficult; indeed, one of them may be mentioned in Acts, for Paul sent Timothy to Macedonia from Ephesus (Acts 19:22; as far as we know, Timothy was not with Paul in Rome). He himself went to Macedonia from Ephesus (Acts 20:1—which might well be the fulfillment of his confident hope, mentioned in Phil. 2:24). The literary affinities of Philippians are usually held to be with Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans rather than with the later letters, Ephesians and Colossians, though this may not mean much. A similar comment could be made about the suggestion that the Judaizing controversy is behind this letter and that this suits the earlier period better than the time Paul was in Rome, for we actually know little about what the Judaizers were doing at that later time. Attention is drawn to inscriptions showing that a section of the praetorian guard was stationed at Ephesus, which means that the reference to the praetorium would suit that city. Representatives of the emperor at Ephesus might well be who Paul has in mind when he refers to the saints of Caesar’s household (4:22). Some scholars hold that certain parts of Philippians show that Paul had not been back to that city since he founded the church there (1:30; 4:15-16; see also 1:26; 2:12, 22), which would not be true at the time of the Roman imprisonment (cf. Acts 20:1-6). Others, probably correctly, do not think that Philippians proves so much. Another factor that is variously evaluated is the failure of Philippians to mention Luke, who certainly spent time with Paul in Rome (2 Tim. 4:11). The silence may be linked with the fact that Paul’s Ephesian ministry is not in one of the "we” sections in Acts. 8 This represents a strong but not conclusive case for Ephesus as the place of Paul’s imprisonment. It is objected that at the time Paul was in Ephesus he was giving a good deal of emphasis to the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem. He mentions it in every letter known to have been written during that period, but there is no reference to it in Philippians. Furthermore, Paul speaks of the church in the city from which he wrote as divided, some supporting him and some being very opposed to him (Phil. 1:15-17), but the church at Ephesus, a church of Paul’s own founding, seems to have strongly supported him (see Acts 20:36-38). Most of the evidence can be interpreted in more than one way, and there seems no decisive reason for holding that this or any other city is proven. The traditional view has many supporters, but this is also the case for Ephesus. Perhaps there is a little more to be said for Ephesus than for Rome, but we can say no more than this (and many would hold that we are not entitled to say even this). 9