“That man is very strong and powerful who has no more hopes for himself, who looks not to be loved any more, to be admired any more, to have any more honour or dignity, and who cares not for gratitude; but whose sole thought is for others, and who only lives on for them.”—HELPS.
THE history of St. Paul’s first imprisonment, as well as the thoughts by which he was then occupied, can only be derived from the “Epistles of the captivity.” The extant Epistles of St. Paul fall naturally into four connected groups, “separated from each other alike by chronological intervals and by internal characteristics.” They are respectively the letters of the second missionary journey (1, 2 Thess.); those of the third missionary journey (1, 2 Cor., Gal., Rom.); those of the first imprisonment (Phil., Col., Philem., Eph.); and those of the second imprisonment (1, 2 Tim., Tit.). These groups may be respectively characterised as the Eschatological Epistles (1, 2 Thess.); the Epistles of the anti– Judaic controversy (1, 2 Cor., Gal., Rom.); the letters against incipient Gnosticism (Col., Eph.); and the Pastoral Epistles (1, 2 Tim., Tit.). The Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon stand in most respects separate from the group to which they belong.
1. The two letters to the Thessalonians are the simplest of all in their matter and manner, and deal mainly (as we have seen) with the question of the shortly–expected return of Christ. They were written about A.D. 52.
2. The next great group of letters may be called in one of their aspects the letters of Judaic controversy. This group comprises the two Epistles to the Corinthians—which show St. Paul’s method of dealing with questions of doctrine and discipline in a restless, intellectual, and partly disaffected Church; and those to the Galatians and Romans. They were written during the years A.D. 57 and A.D. 58, a period pre–eminently of storm and stress in the Apostle’s life, of physical suffering and mental anxiety, which leave deep traces on his style.
Of these, the Epistles to the Corinthians are largely occupied with the personal question of Paul’s Apostolate. His Jewish–Christian opponents had found it easier to impugn his position than to refute his arguments. It became a duty and a necessity to prove his claim to be a teacher of co–ordinate authority with the very chiefest of the Twelve.
The Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans contain the defence of his main position as regards the Law; a definition of the relations between Christianity and Judaism; and the statement and demonstration of the Gospel entrusted to him by special revelation. Of these, the latter is calmer, fuller, and more conciliatory in tone, and serves as the best commentary on the former.
The Epistle to the Philippians finds its main motive in an entirely different order of conceptions. In it we only hear the dying echoes of the great controversy, and if his one outburst of strong indignation against his opponents (2:3– 6, 18) reminds us of the heat of the Epistle to the Galatians, on the other hand he here suppresses the natural sense of deep personal injuries, and even utters an expression of rejoicing that these very opponents, whatever may be their motives, are still preachers of the Gospel of Christ (1:14– 20).
3. The next two Epistles, those to the Colossians and Ephesians, mark the rise of a new phase of error. They are the controversy with incipient Gnosticism. Hence also they are the chief Christological and Ecclesiastical Epistles, the Epistles of Christian dogma, the Epistles of Catholicity. The idea and constitution of the Church of Christ was the destined bulwark against the prevalence of heresy, and the doctrine of Christ was the sole preservative against the victory of error. The dominant thought of the Colossians is Christ over all; that of the Ephesians the Universal Church in Christ.
The Epistle to Philemon, a sort of appendix to the Colossians, stands alone as a letter addressed solely to an individual friend, though it involves the statement of an immortal principle.
4. In the last group stand the three Pastoral Epistles, containing, as we should have expected, the proof that there had been a development of the Gnostic tendency on the one hand, and of Church organisation on the other. In the Second Epistle to Timothy we have the last words and thoughts of St. Paul before his martyrdom.1
May we go further, and attempt, in one or two words, a description of each separate Epistle, necessarily imperfect from its very brevity, and yet perhaps expressive of some one main characteristic? If so, we might perhaps say that the First Epistle to the Thessalonians is the Epistle of consolation in the hope of Christ’s return; and the second, of the immediate hindrances to that return, and our duties with regard to it. The First Epistle to the Corinthians is the solution of practical problems in the light of eternal principles; the Second, an impassioned defence of the Apostle’s impugned authority, his Apologiaprovitâsuâ. The Epistle to the Galatians is the Epistle of freedom from the bondage of the Law; that to the Romans of justification by faith. The Epistle to the Philippians is the Epistle of Christian gratitude and Christian joy in sorrow; that to the Colossians the Epistle of Christ the universal Lord; that to the Ephesians, so rich and many–sided, is the Epistle of “the heavenlies,” the Epistle of grace, the Epistle of ascension with the ascended Christ, the Epistle of Christ in His One and Universal Church; that to Philemon, the Magna Charta of emancipation. The First Epistle to Timothy, and that to Titus, are the manuals of the Christian pastor; the Second Epistle to Timothy is the last message of a Christian ere his death.2
He must doubtless have written others besides these, but intense as would have been for us the theologic and psychologic interest of even the most trivial of his writings, we may assume, with absolute certainty, that those which we still possess have been preserved in accordance with God’s special Providence, and were by far the most precious and important of all that he wrote.
That the four letters which we shall now examine were written at Rome, and not, as some critics have imagined, at Cæsarea, may be regarded as absolutely certain. Although Rome is not mentioned in any of them, yet the facts to which they advert, and the allusions in which they abound, are such as exactly suit the ancient and unanimous tradition that they were penned during the Roman imprisonment,3 while they agree far less with the novel and fantastic hypothesis that they were sent from Cæsarea.4 If any confirmation for this certain tradition were required, it would be found, as far as the Epistle to the Philippians is concerned, in the salutation which St. Paul sends from the converts in “Cæsar’s household.” As regards the other three Epistles it is sufficient to say that internal evidence conclusively proves that all three were written at the same time, as they were despatched by the same messengers, and that whereas during his Cæsarean imprisonment St. Paul was looking forward to visit Rome,5 he is, at the time of writing these letters, looking forward to visit, first Macedonia, then Colossæ.6 Further than this, the allusions in these Epistles show that, prisoner though he was, he was enabled to exercise a powerful influence for the spread of the Gospel in a city of the highest importance.7 Meyer, indeed—with that hypercritical ingenuity which, like vaulting ambition, so constantly overleaps itself and falls on the other side—argues that Onesimus is more likely to have fled from Colossæ to Cæsarea than to Rome; an argument of which we can only say that Cæsarea—a mere Procuratorial residence full of Jews—would be about the very last town which any one would naturally have dreamt of suggesting as a likely hiding–place for a runaway Asiatic slave. Meyer might as reasonably argue that a London pick–pocket would be more likely to hide himself at Biarritz than at New York. His other arguments derived from the non–mention of the name of Onesimus in the Epistle to the Ephesians, and the incidental expression “you also” in that letter, are too trivial for serious discussion.
The question next arises, in what order these Epistles were written; and the primâfacieargument that the Epistle to the Philippians seems to have been written before the approaching crisis of his trial has been taken as a sufficient proof that it was written after the other three. On the other hand, there is the same expectation of approaching release in the Epistle to Philemon, so that on this circumstance no conclusion can be built. The notion that this Epistle shows traces of deeper depression than the others, and that this may be accounted for by the change wrought in his affairs through the influence of Tigellinus and Poppæa, is partly unsupported by fact, since a spirit of holy joy is the very keynote of the Epistle; and partly inconsistent with itself, since, if the hostile influences were at work at all appreciably, they were quite as much so within a few months after Paul’s Roman imprisonment began, as they were at its close.8 It is true that the letter could not have been written during the earliest months of the captivity at Rome, because time must be allowed for the news of Paul’s arrival there to have reached the Philippians; for the despatch of Epaphroditus with their contributions; for his illness at Rome; for the arrival of intelligence to that effect at Philippi; and for the return of their expressions of sorrow and sympathy.9 Now a journey from Rome to Philippi—a distance of seven hundred miles—would, under ordinary circumstances, occupy about a month, and as we do not suppose that any of these letters were written during the first year of the imprisonment, ample time is allowed for these journeys, and no objection whatever to the traditional priority of the Epistle to the Philippians can be raised on this score.
Still less can any argument be urged from the absence of greetings from Luke and Aristarchus, or from the allusion to Timothy as the sole exception to the general selfishness which the Apostle was grieved to mark in those around him. The presence of particular names in the greetings of any letter may furnish a probable or even positive argument as to its date, but their absence is an indication of the most uncertain character. It needs no more than the commonest everyday experience to prove the utter fallaciousness of the “argument from silence;” and we know far too little of the incessant missions and movements, from church to church, and continent to continent, of the companions of St. Paul, to be able in any way to build upon the non–occurrence of the name of any one of them. Since, therefore, there are no adequate arguments against regarding the Epistle to the Philippians as the earliest of the four Epistles of the captivity—although it may have been written only a few months before the other three—full weight may be given to the internal evidence, which is in favour of that supposition. That internal evidence consists in the general resemblance of this Epistle to those of the earlier group—especially to the Epistle to the Romans—which enables us to regard it as an intermediate link between the Epistles of the captivity and those of the third Apostolic journey.10 To the Epistle to the Romans it presents many and close parallels in thought and language, while its general tone and spirit, its comparative calmness, the spiritual joy which breathes through its holy resignation, the absence of impassioned appeal and impetuous reasoning, mark its affinity to the three by which it was immediately followed. Although not much more than four years had now elapsed since Paul, a free man and an active Apostle, elaborated at Corinth the great argument which he had addressed to the Gentiles and proselytes, who formed the bulk of the Church of Rome, his controversy with Judaism had to some extent faded into the background. Every Church that he had founded was now fully aware of his sentiments on the questions which were agitated between the advocates of Judaic rigour and Gospel freedom. In writing to the Philippians there was no need to dwell on these debates, for whatever dangers might yet await them—dangers sufficiently real to call forth one energetic outburst, which reminds us of his earlier tone— they had up to this time proved themselves faithful to his teaching, and were as yet unsophisticated by any tampering interference of emissaries from Jerusalem. The Judaisers of the party of James may have heard enough of the devotion of the Philippians for St. Paul to show them that it would be unadvisable to dog his footsteps through the Christian Churches of Macedonia. They might leave their view of the question with better policy in the hands of those unconverted Jews, who would never hesitate to use on its behalf the engines of persecution. Thus St. Paul had no need to enter on the debate which had so recently occupied the maturity of his powers; and in the Epistle to the Philippians we have only “the spent waves of this controversy.” Nevertheless, as we have seen, his was a mind whose sensitive chords continued to quiver long after they had been struck by the plectrum of any particular emotion. He was reminded of past controversies by the coldness and neglect of a community in which some “preached Christ even of contention, supposing to add affliction to his bonds.” If, then, he dwelt on doctrinal considerations at all in a letter of affectionate greetings to the community which was dearest to his heart, they would naturally be those on which he had last most deeply thought. By the time that he sat down to dictate the Epistle to the Colossians a fresh set of experiences had befallen him. His religious musings had been turned in an entirely different direction. The visit of Epaphras of Colossæ had made him aware of new errors, entirely different from those which he had already combated, and the Churches of Proconsular Asia evidently needed that his teaching should be directed to questions which lay far apart from the controversies of the last eight years. On the other hand, I regard it as psychologically certain that, had the Epistle to the Philippians been written, as so many critics believe, after those to the “Ephesians” and Colossians, it could not possibly have failed to bear upon its surface some traces of the controversy with that hybrid philosophy—that Judaic form of incipient Gnosticism—in which he had been so recently engaged. These considerations seem to me to have decided the true order of the Epistles of the Captivity, and to give its only importance to a question on which little would otherwise depend.
The Epistle to the Philippians11 arose directly out of one of the few happy incidents which diversified the dreary uncertainties of St. Paul’s captivity. This was the visit of Epaphroditus, a leading presbyter of the Church of Philippi, with the fourth pecuniary contribution by which that loving and generous Church had ministered to his necessities. At Rome, St. Paul was unable with his fettered hands to work for his livelihood, and it is possible that he found no opening for his special trade. One would have thought that the members of the Roman Church were sufficiently numerous and sufficiently wealthy to render it an easy matter for them to supply his necessities; but the unaccountable indifference which seems to have marked their relations to him, and of which he complains both in this and in his later imprisonment, shows that much could not be hoped from their affection, and strangely belied the zealous respect with which they had come thirty or forty miles to meet and greet him. It is, of course, possible that they may have been willing to help him, but that he declined an assistance respecting which he was sensitively careful. But the Philippians knew and valued the privilege which had been accorded to them—and perhaps to them only—by their father in Christ—the privilege of helping him in his necessities. It was a custom throughout the Empire to alleviate by friendly presents the hard lot of prisoners, and we may be sure that when once the Philippians had heard of his condition, friends like Lydia, and other converts who had means to spare, would seize the earliest opportunity to add to his comforts. Epaphroditus arrived about autumn, and flinging himself heartily into the service of the Gospel— which in a city like Rome must have required the fullest energies of every labourer—had succumbed to the unhealthiness of the season, and been prostrated by a dangerous and all but fatal sickness. The news of this illness had reached Philippi, and caused great solicitude to the Church.12 Whatever gifts of healing were entrusted to the Apostles, they do not seem to have considered themselves at liberty to exercise them in their own immediate circle, or for any ends of personal happiness. No miracle was wrought, except one of those daily miracles which are granted to fervent prayer.13 Paul had many trials to bear, and the death of “his brother, Epaphroditus,” as he tenderly calls him, would have plunged him in yet deeper sadness. We cannot doubt that he pleaded with God for the life of his sick friend, and God had mercy on him. Epaphroditus recovered; and deeply as Paul in his loneliness and discouragement would have rejoiced to keep him by his side, he yielded with his usual unselfishness to the yearning of Epaphroditus for his home, and of the Christians of Philippi for their absent pastor. He therefore sent him back, and with him the letter, in which he expressed his thankfulness for that constant affection which had so greatly cheered his heart.
And thus it is that the Epistle to the Philippians is one of the least systematic, the least special in character, of all St. Paul’s writings. But it is this which raises the genuineness of the letter, not indeed beyond cavil, but far beyond all reasonable dispute. The Tübingen school, in its earlier stages, attacked it with the monotonous arguments of their credulous scepticism. With those critics, if an Epistle touches on points which make it accord with the narrative of the Acts, it was forged to suit them; if it seems to disagree with them, the discrepancy shows that it is spurious. If the diction is Pauline, it stands forth as a proved imitation; if it is un–Pauline, it could not have proceeded from the Apostle. The notion that it was forged to introduce the name of Clement because he was confused with Flavius Clemens, and because Clement was a fellow–worker of St. Peter, and it would look well to place him in connexion with Paul— and the notion that in Phil. 2:6–8 the words formand shape express Gnostic conceptions, and that the verses refer to the Valentinian Æon Sophia, who aimed at an equality with God—are partly founded on total misinterpretations of the text, and are partly the perversity of a criticism which has strained its eyesight to such an extent as to become utterly purblind. This Epistle is genuine beyond the faintest shadow or suspicion of doubt. The Philippian Church was eminently free from errors of doctrine and irregularities of practice. No schism seems to have divided it; no heresies had crept into its faith; no false teachers had perverted its allegiance. One fault, and one alone, seems to have needed correction, and this was of so personal and limited a character that, instead of denouncing it, Paul only needs to hint at it gently and with affectionate entreaty. This was a want of unity between some of its female members, especially Euodia and Syntyche, whom Paul begs to become reconciled to each other, and whose feud, and any partisanship which it may have entailed, he tacitly and considerately rebukes by the constant iteration of the word “all” to those whom he can only regard as one united body. In fact, we may say that disunion and despondency were the main dangers to which they were exposed; hence “all” and “rejoice” are the two leading words and thoughts. But this absence of any special object makes the letter less doctrinally distinctive than those which are more controversial in character. It would, indeed, be colourless if it did not receive a colouring from the rich hues of the writer’s individuality. It is not, like the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, a consolation to the afflicted, by reminding them of the near advent of their Lord;14 or a series of replies to questions, like the greater part of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; nor a trumpet note of defiance to powerful and aggressive opponents, like the Epistle to the Galatians; nor a treatise of theology, like the Epistle to the Romans: but it is the warm, spontaneous outpouring of a loving heart expressing itself with unreserved gratitude and tenderness towards the favourite children of his ministry. If it exhibits to us somewhat less than other Epistles of St. Paul’s peculiar teaching, it has this high source of interest that it shows to us more of his character and feelings. In this respect it somewhat resembles the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, except that in it St. Paul is writing to those who were kindest and most faithful to him, whereas towards the Corinthians he had little cause for gratitude, and much need of forbearance. Amid the trials and suspense of a galling imprisonment it reveals to us, not directly, but as it were unconsciously, the existence of an unquenchable happiness—a peace as of the inmost heart of the ocean under the agitation of its surface storms. It was dictated by a worn and fettered Jew, the victim of gross perjury, and the prey of contending enmities; dictated at a time when he was vexed by hundreds of opponents, and consoled but by few who cared for him; and yet the substance of it all may be summed up in two words—χαίρω, χαίρετε (“I rejoice; rejoice ye”). If any one compare the spirit of the bestknown classic writers in their adversity with that which was habitual to the far deeper wrongs and far deadlier sufferings of St. Paul—if he will compare the Epistle to the Philippians with the “Tristia” of Ovid, the letters of Cicero from exile, or the treatise which Seneca dedicated to Polybius from his banishment in Corsica—he may see, if he will, the difference which Christianity has made in the happiness of man.