The life and work of St. Paul

594 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
The Epistle to the Philippians l 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
but the
wealthy to render it an easy matter for them to supply his necessities ;
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 Phillippians 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
had heard of
prisoners, 2 and we may be sure that when once the Philippians
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 oi
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. 3 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. 4 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 can-
1 The notion that the Epistle is really two and not one seems to have originated in
Phil. iii. 1, and in a mistaken supposition that Polycarp, in his letter to the Philippians,
mentions more than one letter of St. Paul to them (5r ical auriw vii.lv iypatyev r7ro\as, ad
Philipp. c. 3). That 'EirrroXa, however, may only differ from e7rrro\r) in being a more
important term, is conclusively proved by Thuc. viii. 51 ; Jos. Antt. xii. 4, 10. That
St. Paul wrote other letters to the Philippians during the ten years which had elapsed
since he visited them, and that he may have written other letters after this, is not only
possible, but probable ; but if any such letters had survived till the time of Polycarp, it
is wholly improbable that they should not have been subsequently preserved.
2 Thus, the friends of Agrippa had helped him by providing him with better fare and
accommodation when he was imprisoned by Tiberius ;
and Lucian relates the warmth
and open-handedness with which the Christians diminished the hardships, and even
shared night after night the confinement of Peregrinus.
3 Phil. ii. 26.
* Compare what Luther said of Melancthon's sickness and recover;.