The following study seeks to understand Paul's letter to the Philippians as an ancient letter of consolation (ἐιστoλή παραμυθητική). It requires little by way of introduction, except perhaps to alert the reader (1) to the difference between the ancient and modern notions of consolation and (2) to the working definition of genre that has been assumed.

According to modern usage there is little difference, if any, between consolation and sympathy. To console someone is for all practical purposes to sympathize with them in their loss. But the ancient Greeks and Romans carefully distinguished between these terms. Ancient consolers were by no means unsympathetic to those afflicted with grief; however, they understood their primary task to be not one of sharing in the grief of others, but one of removing that grief by rational argument and frank exhortation. Plutarch expresses the typical sentiment:

In extreme cases ancient consolation even took the form of open rebuke, as when Seneca upbraids Marullus:

We shall discuss the ancient notion of consolation in more detail below in chapter 3. At this point, however, the reader should be aware that this study employs the term consolation throughout in the ancient sense of combating grief through rational means.