and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

24 Grace be with all them that

individual salutations. He speaks indefinitely, in the third person, so as to include in his general farewell those whom he had not visited.

24. Grace] In all the earlier Epistles and in the Epistle to the Philippians St Paul specifies whose grace it is that he invokes, viz. that of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the later Epistles the expression has become so familiar that it can be used absolutely without fear of misunderstanding. See Col. iv. 18; 1 Tim. vi. 21; 2 Tim. iv. 22; Tit. iii. 15. Cf. also Heb. xiii. 25.

§ I. OCCASION; GENERAL CHARACTER. THIS Epistle, alone among the extant Epistles of St. Paul to the Churches, appears to have arisen out of a personal occasion. The Philippians have sent a contribution towards his support in his imprisonment. Their messenger, after a delay caused first by his zealous ministrations to the Apostle, and afterwards by a dangerous illness, is about to return to them. The Apostle takes the opportunity of sending by his hand this letter of thanks for their gift.

It bears, accordingly, a peculiarly personal character. It is the letter of a friend to his friends, rather than the Epistle of the Apostle to his disciples. The circumstances which thus led to the writing of it, though the place they occupy in it is small and inconspicuous, make themselves felt throughout it: negatively, in the absence of definite didactic object or methodical arrangement, of all tone of authority or formal teaching; positively, in the glow of personal feeling and tender warmth of expression which pervade the whole. Everywhere, moreover, it is implied that the terms on which the writer stands with those he addresses, are of singular and reciprocal confidence and affection. We learn that, on their part, this recent gift is but the renewal after an interval, to their father in Christ, of their earlier cares for his welfare. We perceive that, on his part, the feelings elsewhere so sensitively averse to the semblance of dependence, vibrate with keen pleasure in response to the offering of his beloved

IV. Contents.

V. Genuineness and Integrity VI. Analysis

Philippians. Written from a heart so moved, the Epistle naturally opens with

words of thankful love, with the acknowledgment of their helpful sympathy, and the assurance of his prayers for them. He proceeds to tell of his personal condition, and of the progress of the Gospel in the City whence he writes,- as to friends of whose concern in his welfare and his work he is fully assured. He debates the question whether of the two to prefer, life or death, as in presence of friends privileged to overhear the secret self-communings of his inmost spirit. Words of exhortation follow,-of admonition, of doctrine; but all uttered in loving solicitude, and out of his fulness of heart, with hardly anywhere a touch of blame as though aught were amiss in their life or faith. He pauses in the middle, to speak of his hope of revisiting them, of sending Timothy, of the return of Epaphroditus. The thought occurs of possible peril to their spiritual wellbeing from such evil influences are rife around him as he writes (see below, § III., B, iii.), and he digresses into a stern denunciation of false teachers and corrupting examples. It is not till he draws near the close, that their bounty, though apparently present to his mind in writing the opening verses, and distinctly referred to where he speaks of Epaphroditus, is directly mentioned and duly acknowledged with thanks.

as

We turn to the narrative of St. Paul's earlier relations with the Philippians, to trace the origin of the mutual attachment, binding him with them more

intimately than with any of his other children in Christ, of which this Epistle is the abiding record.

§ II. PHILIPPI AND ITS CHURCH.

His first visit to Philippi was a memorable one, as marking a starting point of capital importance in his apostolic course. In it he first entered on that work in Europe, which signalized his Second Missionary Journey (A.D. 5051). Divine intimations, restraining or inviting, had shaped his course from central Asia Minor to Macedonia.1 Neapolis,2 by reason of its secure roadstead, was naturally the point where he first touched European soil; but Philippi, of which Neapolis may be called the port, was the place chosen to receive the first opening of his divine commission for Europe.

A. The city was well suited to be the scene of an action so momentous. It recalls the memory of the great king, Philip of Macedon, who, attracted by the commanding position of Crenidæ (then a Thracian town), and the wealth of its gold mines, seized it (B.C. 358), made it a frontier city of his kingdom, and a base for the farseeing plans of conquest afterwards carried out by his greater son,— and called it by his own name. Three centuries later, that position, a pass in the great mountain barrier which guards Macedonia, and behind it Greece, on the north and east, dominating the highway between Asia and Europe,3 marked

1 Acts xvi. 6-10.

66

2 Tb. 11; xx. 6,-and notes. Now Cavallo ; not Eski Cavallo, as Cousinéry thought. (Lewin, 'St. Paul,' I., xi.). "It was the invariable landing-place for travellers bound for the Via Egnatia." (ib.). As a port it still retains something of its old importance. [Bulgaria], which under the treaty [of S.Stefano] extends to the Ægean. requires very material reduction. It is essential that Salonica and Cavalla should be kept at a distance from the jurisdiction of any state likely to fall under the influence of Russia." (Marquis of Salisbury, 'Blue Book,' Turkey, No. 39 (1878), Correspondence relating to the Congress of Berlin, No. 3). It was the birthplace of Mehemet Ali, first hereditary Pasha of Egypt. (Tozer, 'Highlands of Turkey,' III.) 3 τὸ δὲ μέσον τῶν λόφων δίοδος ἦν ἐς τὴν Aolav Te Kal Evρúgy kabátep wúλai. (Appian, B.C.', IV. 650.)

it out to be the field of the decisive battle (B.C. 42), in which Brutus and Cassius, moving westward for the final struggle, encountered the eastward advance of Antony and Octavius; and by their defeat and death left Rome prostrate at the feet of the Triumvirs.

Except, however, in its associations with the beginning of the Macedonian. Empire, and with the fall of the Roman Republic, Philippi was not, when the Apostle first entered it, a great city. It was first," not in rank, but merely in topographical order, to one entering Macedonia from the east. But what it lacked of individual importance was more than compensated by its representative character. It stood on Grecian soil; the language, usages, and religion of its population were Greek; 2 its origin and its rise belong to the history of Greece. Again, it was a Roman Colony,

raised to that rank by Augustus, to be at once an outpost of the Roman province and a monument of the victory that made him lord of the Roman world; planted with a Roman settlement, of the remnant of the Antonian party; 3 strategically, a Roman garrison; in political constitution, a "miniature Rome." Though not itself a centre of commerce or of manufacture, it was a station on the Great Egnatian Way, and through it passed, eastward and westward, traders from all parts of the empire. Combining thus the two main constituents of European life, giving entrance to every element that Europe drew to itself from the wider life without, it was in all points a typical city of Europe, it 1 Acts xvi. 12 ;-see note there.

2 44

See

"The Macedonians certainly appear an essentially Greek people in all material respects, at the epoch of their political ascendency." (Mure, Antient Greece,' I., iii., § 9.) Müller, Dorians,' Introd., 3; Appx. I., 'The Macedonians,' §§ 29-36 (Tufnell and Lewis's Transl.). Cp. Herodot., VIII., 137, 138.

Dion Cassius, 'H. R.,' LI., 4.

offered itself as a fit station for the planting of the Standard,-first raised in the East, but destined to have in the West its greatest and abiding triumphs, -of Him Whose Kingdom was to rise in the ruins of the kingdoms of this world, itself to stand for ever.1

B. 1. The circumstances, however, which attended the event, were, in the commencement, of the simplest. On the first Sabbath 2 of his sojourn the Apostle, with Timothy, Silas, and Luke, "sat down and spake unto the women," -representing the Jewish community of the city,-whom they found congregated at a Proseucha (or place of prayer), outside the gates, by the riverside, too few, it seems, to have a Synagogue. One of these, Lydia, Asian by birth, and no doubt a proselytess, with ready faith believed, was baptized with her family, and opened her house to the bearers of the glad tidings. A space, we are not told how long, of quiet progress ensued; brought to a sudden and violent close by circumstances of singular and supernatural import. By casting out the "spirit of Python" from the soothsaying damsel, who recognized in the apostolic band "the servants of the Most High God," St. Paul drew down on himself and Silas an angry outcry from her owners, enraged at the loss of their slave's gift on which they traded; followed by a burst of popular frenzy, and an illegal and cruel outrage on the part of the Duumvirs of the city, who scourged them and flung them into prison. The same night an

3

Colony, which was more fit than any other in the Empire to be considered the representative of Imperial Rome." (Dean Howson, 'Life, &c., of St. Paul,' IX.)-See also Bp. Lightfoot, Philippians' (Introd., III., pp. 48–52).

Dan. ii. 44.-Concerning Philippi, see the copious details given by Dean Howson, as above. Acts xvi. 13 and sqq.; see notes there.

Acts xvi. 16.-She may have belonged to some local oracle of Apollo [Pythius], whose worship, prevalent in Macedonia from early times, was probably introduced from Pythium on Mt. Olympus. (See Müller, 'Dorians,' II., i., § 2, and Appx. I., § 33.)-Or perhaps (as some suppose) of Dionysus, whose oracle among the Satrae, with its prophets (Bessi), and chief prophetess, appears to have been situated on a hill (ópos Alovúrov) close to Philippi. (Cp. Herodot., VII., III, 112, with Appian, as above.)

earthquake opened the prison doors, and moved their jailor to seek of them the knowledge of salvation, and to receive baptism for himself and all his. Next day, at the request of the alarmed magistrates, they left the city.

The work was thus ended abruptly, yet not in failure. The Church of Philippi, firstborn of the Churches of Europe, has come into being. In the house of Lydia, where the Apostle took his leave of " the brethren,"1 that Church has found a local habitation. Distinct nationalities, widely different ranks and callings, are represented in the first recorded converts; the purple-dealer from Asia, the divining slave-girl, apparently a Greek, the Roman jailor. The soldiers of the Cross have for the first time come into collision with the frenzy of Greek superstition, for the first time encountered the rigour of the persecuting Roman; but have lived to give thanks for victory. Christian hospitality, the Christian household,—the equal rights of woman with man in Christian faith and work,-the reception of the slave into the Christian covenant,

all these characteristics, destined to be developed in the future Church of Christ, and to renew the social state of mankind, show themselves definitely in the brief yet full record of the beginnings of the Philippian Church given by St. Luke. As the city was a representative of European cities, so in the narrative of the foundation of its Church do we seem to discern by anticipation and in germ, the history of the fortunes, the influences, and the achievements, of the after ages of the Universal Church in the Empire which had its centre in Europe, but in its compass included the world.3

2. Several years elapsed before St. Paul returned to Philippi. But our Epistle testifies (iv. 15, 16) that before he was many months, or even weeks, gone from among them, they pursued

him, "once and again," with the tokens of their attachment, while he was yet "in Thessalonica" (the next city he visited),—and yet again "when he departed from Macedonia." And when we compare his assertion in the passage referred to, that from no other Church did he in those early days of the Gospel accept sustenance save only from the Philippians, with the fact stated in another Epistle, that "brethren coming from Macedonia supplied" his wants in Corinth during his first sojourn there, we are led to infer that by these brethren's hands his Philippian friends once more renewed to him, after he had passed from Macedonia to Achaia, the kindness that had followed him to Thessalonica.1

3. When in the course of his Third Missionary Journey the Apostle travelled (57) through the cities of Macedonia,2 we may be sure that he visited Philippi with the rest,-probably, as in his previous journey, before the rest. With the rest, Philippi was then passing through the "affliction," 3-persecution apparently, which at that time lay heavy on the Macedonian Churches, as recorded in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, written during this visit to Macedonia. And with the rest no doubt, -nay, we may well conjecture, beyond the rest, the Philippians, in answer to his appeal on behalf of the poor brethren of Jerusalem, abounded with the same ready bounty as had prompted their gifts to himself.

4. Early in the next year (58), on his return from Achaia to Judea, he passed through Macedonia to Philippi. There, letting his other companions "go before," he spent the Paschal season 5 along with St. Luke-who now reappears as his companion for the first time since he (as it seems) remained behind at the close of the first visit to Philippi; left there,

it may be, in charge of the newly founded, Macedonian Churches. Thus of these two Missionary.Journeys in Europe, the latter ends where the former began-at Philippi.

5. From this point Philippi disappears from the narrative of the Acts, and we know its Church only by the glimpses of its interior disclosed in our Epistle. We see it as an organized community, with a regular Ministry (i. 1). We are informed that the care of its members for its founder, interrupted for a while by lack of means, had been renewed in the mission of Epaphroditus (ii. 25; iv. 10-18). We gather that they were suffering persecution for Christ's sake (i. 27-30). We learn that discord existed between two of their chief women (iv. 2, 3). In the earnest and repeated inculcation of the duty of unity (i. 27; ii. 2, &c.), we seem to have evidence that among them there was a tendency to division. Otherwise, there is no trace of moral fault to be rebuked; nor is there anywhere a hint of doctrinal error. There is nothing in them to mar the thankful joy with which their father in Christ dwells on the contemplation of their faith and love.

6. How or when he again revisited them, according to his purpose declared in this Epistle (i. 25-27; ii. 24), we are not directly informed. But that he fulfilled that purpose, we infer from the mention of his journey "into Macedonia," in the First Epistle to Timothy (i. 3).

C. The subsequent history of Philippi is wellnigh a blank. We know that the Philippians of a later day, early in the second century, extended to St. Ignatius when he passed through their city on his way to his martyrdom at Rome, the same sympathizing care as St. Paul had received from their fathers.1 We gain some little insight into their condition from the Epistle addressed to them soon after by St. Polycarp of Smyrna. Except in the matter of one erring presbyter, all indicates that they were, as those to whom St. Paul writes, full of faith and the fruits of