Philippians and Philemon - MR Vincent - 1906.pdf

XXVI INTRODUCTION
epistles of Paul to the Philippian church (c. iii. See note on
Phil. iii. i). A few passages which have the appearance of
reminiscences of the Philippian letter occur in Clement {Ad
Cor. xvi., xlvii.) ; Ignatius {Rom. ii. ; Philad. viii.) ; The Epistle
to Diognetus, 5, and Theophilus of Antioch {Ad Autolycum).
The Muratorian Canon places it among the letters of Paul. It is
included in the Syriac (Peshitto) and Old- Latin versions. At the
close of the second century it is in use by Irenseus, TertuUian, and
Clement of Alexandria.
See Iren. iv. 18, 4; Clem. Alex. Paedag. i. 524; Strom, iv. 12, 19, 94;
Tert. De Resur. 23; Cont. Marc. v. 20; De Praescr. 26,
It is cited in the letter from the churches of Lyons and Vienna
to the brethren in Asia and Phrygia (a.d. 177, Euseb. H. E. v. i,
2). Origen and Eusebius admit and use it as a work of Paul.
From the time of Irenseus and Clement of Alexandria its authen-
ticity and genuineness were generally recognised.
The epistle was first assailed by Baur {Paulus, 1845; Th. J.^
1849, 1852), followed by several representatives of the Tubingen
school, — Schwegler {Nachap. Zeital., 1846), Planck {Th.J., 1847),
Kostlin {Th.J., 1850), Volkmar {Th.J., 1856, 1857), Bruno Bauer
{Christus und die Cdsaren, 1877). The grounds of attack were :
lack of originality and imitation of other epistles ; traces of gnostic
ideas ; the antedating of the offices of Bishop and Deacon ; and
the disagreement of the statements concerning justification by
faith with Paul's statements elsewhere. The epistle was a product
of the second century, intended to reconcile the two parties then
struggling in the church. These parties were symbolically repre-
sented by Euodia and Syntyche (iv. 2). Clement of Rome was a
myth, founded upon the conversion of Flavius Clemens, the kinsman
of Domitian. The writer of the Clementine Homihes, in
order to represent Clement as the disciple of Peter, represents
him as the kinsman of Tiberius. The Pauline writer of Philip-
pians, accepting this fiction, and anxious to conciliate the Petrine
faction, represents this fictitious disciple of Peter as the fellow-
laborer of Paul (iv. 3).
These objections are mainly imaginary. On the antedating of
the episcopate see Excursus on i. i. The identification of Cle-
ment with Flavius Clemens is absurd. The assumed imitation