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The Place and Purpose of Philippians III

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

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Short Studies
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

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References

page 80 note 1 ‘Die Irrlehrer des Philipperbriefes’, Z.Th.K. LIV (1957), especially pp. 299–309.

page 80 note 2 Commentary on Philippians(London and New York, 1959).

page 80 note 3 ‘The Three Letters of Paul to the Philippians’, N.T.S. vi (1960), 167–73. Helmut Koester (‘The Purpose of the Polemic of a Pauline Fragment’, N.T.S. VIII (1962), 317–32), referring to Schmithals, Beare, Rahtjen, and also Muller-Bardoff and G. Friedrich, begins by pre-supposing that the case for regarding Philippians iii as an interpolation is proved. Unfortunately, Koester's article appeared only after the present study was completed.

page 80 note 4 Schmithals puts the three letters in this chronological sequence: (a) iv. 10–23; (b) i. 1–iii. 1; iv. 4–7; (c) iii. 2–iv. 3, Beare is unwilling to conclude anything about the date or destination of one of the letters (iii. 2–iv. 1), but believes the sections definitely written to Philippi belong in the order (a) iv. 10–20; (b) i. 1–iii. I; iv. 2–9, 21–3. Rahtjen's three letters, in order, are (a) iv. 10–20; (b) i. 1–ii. 30; iv. 21–3; (c) iii. I–iv. 9.

page 80 note 5 E.g. Haupt, Dibelius, Kennedy, Vincent, Lohmeyer, Michaelis, Heinzelmann, Bonnard, Scott.

page 80 note 6 Rahtjen uses the appearance of χαιρετε in iii. I and iv. 4 as evidence of a ‘contrast’ between i. 1–ii. 30 and iii. 1–iv. 9, wondering why Paul would say ‘farewell’ if he looked forward to visiting Philippi soon (ii. 24) (op. Cit. p. 171). The answer is, of course, that unless we agree with Lohmeyer that Paul wrote with a controlling sense of impending martyrdom, there is no reason in the world to read more into the χαιρετε of iii. 1 than a simple epistolary farewell.

page 81 note 1 So Haupt, Die Gefangenschaftsbriefe (Göttingen, 1902), pp. 96–7; B. S. Mackay, ‘Further Thoughts on Philippians’, N. T.S. vii (1961), 163–4.

page 81 note 2 Lohmeyer, Der Brief an die Philipper (Göttingen, 1930), p. 4.Google Scholar

page 81 note 3 Vincent, The Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon(New York, 1911), p. xxxii.Google Scholar

page 81 note 4 Kennedy in Expositor's Greek Testament (New York and London, n.d.), III, 410.

page 81 note 5 Heinzelmann in Die kleineren Briefe des Apostels Paulus (Göttingen, 1949), p. 96.Google Scholar

page 81 note 6 Lightfoot, J. B., St Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (London, 1913), p. 69.Google Scholar

page 81 note 7 Cf. Beare, op. cit. p. 3.

page 81 note 8 Schmithals, for example, rejects these psychological arguments out of hand.

page 82 note 1 Theologisch Tijdschrift (1882), pp. 1044, 117–46. This article was not available to me, and for a knowledge of its contents I am dependent primarily upon Kennedy and Haupt.Google Scholar

page 82 note 2 Now The New English Bible also divides the verse, attaching iii. I a to ii. 30 and iii. I b to iii. 2.

page 82 note 3 Rahtjen objects to it on the grounds that ‘the use of χαιρετε in iii. i aties the verse to iv. 4, and bears out the hypothesis that this letter was written as Paul's farewell to the Philippians’ (op. cit. p. 172). But this argument clearly has force only if, with Rahtjen, we assume iii. I–iv. 9 to be (from) a separate letter. Thus Dibelius, who in fact emphasized the parallelism of iii. i and iv. 4, also insisted that all of iii. i must be taken as the conclusion of chapter ii.

page 82 note 4 F. C. Baur's citation of this remark as an indication that the forger of Philippians was himself conscious of the artificiality and tiresome redundancy of his work is of course patently absurd. And there are no objective data to support the conjecture that the original reading of τά αúτά was ταῦτα (‘these things’). Even if there were, the designation of the referrent of the pronoun would still be a problem.

page 83 note 1 Op. cit. p. 126. Beare views Paul's remark as a reference to the way in which the entreaty of iv.2–9 (which, he holds, iii. I b introduces) repeats the exhortations of i. 27 and ii. 2–4.

page 83 note 2 However, Bonnard thinks Paul is referring to the repeated warnings about the ‘dogs, etc.’ in v. 2. Against this we may note that the repetition there is entirely rhetorical and certainly requires no ‘apology’. Such rhetorical repetition is very common throughout Paul's exhortations. See, e.g. I Cor. xvi. 13; II Cor. xiii. 5, II b; Gal. v. 26; Phil. ii. 2; iv. 4; and for a verse parallel with ours in other ways as well, II Cor. xi. 13.

page 83 note 3 Lightfoot, op. cit. p. 125; Kennedy, op. cit. p. 448.

page 84 note 1 Moulton and Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, p. 88.

page 84 note 2 Cf. Schmidt, K. L., Th.W.B. I, 503, n. 2.Google Scholar

page 85 note 1 The same phrase appears in Diognetus xii. 4, where it probably refers to knowledge of the ‘mysteries of God’, namely, his sending of the incarnate Word (xi. 2–3).

page 86 note 1 E.g. Vincent: ‘Without specifying and pressing some such definite points, the earlier exhortations might have appeared abstract and vague’ (op. cit. p. xxxii).

page 87 note 1 There is an interesting occurrence of the expression τά αúτά in the ‘letter’ Luke represents the Jerusalem leaders as having sent to the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia (Acts xv. 23–9). To accompany Barnabas and Paul, says the letter, the assembly has chosen Judas and Silas, και αúτοúς δıά λóγου άπαγγέλλοντας τά αúτά (v.27). It may be that τά αúτά are those things to be spoken by Barnabas and Paul and then repeated by Judas and Silas. Or, as Haenchen maintains, the τά αúτά may be a telltale evidence of the Lukan composition of this ‘letter’: ‘the reader already knows what the decree will include’ (Die Apostelgeschichte, Göttingen,1957, p. 399). Or, in the third place, the τά αúτά may refer to the oral repetition (δıά λóγου, v. 27) of the information about the decree also conveyed in writing in the letter itself (vv. 28–9, noting the γάρ which links vv. 27–8 closely together). Should this latter be the case, the use of τά αúτά in Acts xv. 27 would be the same as that we are suggesting in Phil. iii. I: to refer to written directives which the letter-writer knows will also be delivered orally.