Additional Notes §26
§26 Fresh Plea for Unity (Phil. 4:2–3)
Two members of the church are begged by name to reach a common mind as fellow Christians, and another of Paul’s co-workers is urged to help them in this regard.
4:2 / Euodia and Syntyche were evidently two very active members of the Philippian church, probably foundation members. From the fact that (in a letter meant to be read to the church) Paul begs each of them by name to agree with each other in the Lord, it may be inferred that the disagreement between them, whatever its nature, was a threat to the unity of the church as a whole (especially in view of their prominence and influence). But from the fact that only two members are thus singled out by name, it may also be inferred that such personal dissension was exceptional in that particular fellowship.
4:3 / Who is singled out as Paul’s loyal or “true” yokefellow? Plainly it was someone whom it was not necessary to name: everyone, including the person so addressed, would know who was intended.
One very attractive suggestion is that Luke was the person so addressed. If Luke was the author of Acts, or at any rate of the “we” narrative, it can be inferred that he was in Philippi for part or most of the time between the first evangelization of the city and Paul’s brief visit to it before setting out on his last journey to Jerusalem (cf. Acts 16:17 with 20:5). If, then, this part of the letter falls within that period (as its affinities with 2 Corinthians might suggest), Luke might well be the loyal yokefellow. Otherwise, the partner’s identity must be a matter of even more random speculation.
The loyal yokefellow is urged to lend a helping hand to Euodia and Syntyche, so that their valuable contribution to the life and witness of the community may not be impaired by their failure to agree. Paul pays the two women a striking tribute when he says that they contended at my side in the cause of the gospel. This is a forceful athletic term (the same verb, synathlein, has appeared in 1:27, “contending as one man for the faith of the gospel”). This does not suggest that Paul’s female co-workers played a minor part as compared with their male counterparts.
As Paul remembers them, he thinks of other co-workers who contributed nobly to the common endeavor. Clement, who is mentioned by name, is otherwise unknown: since his name is Latin, he may conceivably have been a citizen of Philippi. Of all these fellow workers Paul remarks that their names are in the book of life—the burgess roll of the heavenly commonwealth. The book of life is an expression found in the OT for those who survive a disaster and enjoy a renewed spell of life on earth, as in Isaiah 4:3, “all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem.” (Cf. also Exod. 32:32; Ps. 69:28; Ezek. 13:9.) In Daniel 12:1 and the NT the figure is used rather for those who are admitted to eternal life, whose “names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20; cf. Heb. 12:23). The malediction of Psalm 69:28 (“May they be blotted out of the book of life”) is reversed in Revelation 3:5 for fearless confessors who win the spiritual victory: “I will never blot out his name from the book of life.” At the last assize in Revelation 20:11–15 the “book of life” (cf. Rev. 13:8; 17:8) is opened, and “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
But Paul may denote here something more than the possession of eternal life (which is the heritage of every believer); the implication may be that the gospel service rendered by his co-workers is recorded, along with their names, in the book of life.
4:2 / Paul says, I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche; his repetition of the verb I plead with (Gk. parakaleō) with each of their names, as though he were personally addressing first one and then the other (“Please, Euodia; please, Syntyche …”), is noteworthy.
To agree: Gk. to auto phronein, rendered “being like-minded” in 2:2a. There is nothing to suggest that the disagreement had anything to do with Gnostic agitation, as though the two women endangered the unity of the church “by opening their assemblies—perhaps as leaders of house churches—to the Gnostics” (W. Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics, pp. 112–14).
It is fruitless to try to identify either of them with Lydia of Acts 16:14, 40, as though Lydia were not a personal name but meant “the Lydian woman” (cf. the mention of Thyatira in Acts 16:14).
4:3 / The loyal yokefellow is identified with Luke by M. Hájek (Communio Viatorum 7 [1964], p. 261–62) and T. W. Manson. The adjective loyal (Gk. gnēsios) has suggested Timothy to some, such as J.-F. Collange and G. Friedrich (cf. the adverb gnēsiōs in 2:20, with additional note ad loc.). Timothy could have been given his instructions by word of mouth, before he set out for Philippi, but their inclusion in the letter would ensure that when it was read publicly in church his authority to take action in this matter would be recognized. This latter consideration would apply to Epaphroditus, who is favored by Marius Victorinus and J. B. Lightfoot. Many commentators take Syzygos to be a personal name, and not the common noun meaning yokefellow: so K. Barth, P. Benoit, P. Ewald, J. Gnilka, E. Haupt, J. J. Müller, K. Staab. But G. Delling points out (TDNT vol. 7, pp. 748–50) that Syzygos is unattested as a personal name; his own preference is for Silas (Silvanus), Paul’s colleague in the evangelization of Philippi.
The fact that Gk. syzygos (like Eng. yokefellow) sometimes bears the meaning “spouse” has prompted some to see this meaning here—as though Paul had a wife resident in Philippi (who but Lydia?) and begged her to help settle the disagreement between Euodia and Syntyche. This interpretation was apparently approved by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 3.6.53.1) and defended by Erasmus; cf. also E. Renan, St. Paul, p. 76; S. Baring Gould, A Study of St. Paul (London: Isbister, 1897), pp. 213–16. But the adjective loyal or “genuine” gnēsie, vocative) that qualifies syzygos here is certainly masculine. The idea belongs to romantic fiction rather than to historical exegesis.
W. Schmithals suggests that the prescript (now lost) of the letter to which this section originally belonged was addressed to an individual by name (e. g., a community leader or one of the Philippian “firstfruits”); this individual would then be the loyal yokefellow (Paul and the Gnostics, pp. 76, 77). It is best to recognize that the identity of the loyal yokefellow was perfectly well known to the Philippian church but can only be guessed at by us.